Taped!

 

Chapter 1: The Taping

Ryan's head lolled against the couch cushions, a thin line of drool sliding down his chin. The empty beer bottles around his feet told the story of another night where twenty-one had gotten the better of him. His white undershirt was already damp with sweat, clinging to his chest as he breathed heavily in his stupor.

"Look at this asshole," Marcus muttered, nudging Ryan's limp arm with his foot. "Third time this month he's made us look like idiots."

Jake was already tearing strips of duct tape, the silver roll glinting under the dim fraternity house lights. "He needs to learn. We've talked to him, we've warned him. Time for action."

They worked methodically. Marcus lifted Ryan's torso while Jake began wrapping the tape around his sweaty undershirt, pulling it tight across his chest. The adhesive caught on the damp fabric, creating an unforgiving second skin. Ryan didn't stir.

"Cross his arms behind his back," Jake instructed, already anticipating the next step. They pulled Ryan's hairy forearms together, the coarse hair matting as more tape wound around and around, binding him from wrist to elbow.

"Jesus, look how much hair this guy has," Marcus laughed nervously as he pressed the tape down, watching it grip the dark hair on Ryan's forearms. "This is gonna hurt like hell when he tries to move."

The gag came next—thick strips across his mouth, then around his head. Finally, his ankles, tape wound over his jeans from his waist down to his sneakers, creating an immobilizing sheath.

"Get the van," Jake said, stepping back to admire their work. Ryan looked like a silver cocoon, only his head and feet visible. "Old Miller's barn. He'll have plenty of time to think about his attitude problem out there."

They carried him like a rolled carpet, his body dead weight between them. In the van, Ryan's head bumped against the metal floor with each pothole, but he remained unconscious, unaware that his fraternity brothers had just made the worst decision of their lives.

Chapter 2: Hour 1 - The Awakening

The first thing Ryan noticed was the smell—hay, dust, and something metallic that made his nose twitch. His mouth felt like sandpaper, the familiar cotton-dry aftermath of too many beers. He tried to swallow and felt resistance, something tight across his lips.

His eyes opened to darkness.

Ryan tried to sit up and immediately understood something was wrong. His arms wouldn't move. His chest felt compressed, like someone was sitting on him. Panic shot through his system, burning away the last fog of alcohol.

He pulled against whatever held his arms and felt a sharp, tearing pain across his forearms. The sound that tried to escape his throat came out as a muffled grunt against the tape covering his mouth.

What the fuck?

Ryan tested his bonds systematically now, his engineering mind kicking in despite the fear. Arms: completely immobilized behind his back, something wrapped tight from his wrists to his elbows. Legs: bound together, the tape so tight over his jeans he couldn't even flex his knees. Chest: constricted, his damp undershirt fused to whatever was wrapped around his torso.

The barn slowly came into focus in the dim moonlight filtering through broken boards. He was lying on his side in old hay, alone, trussed up like an animal.

And that's when Ryan realized this wasn't a prank.

His fraternity brothers had left him here to suffer.

Chapter 3: Hour 8 - The Breaking Point

Ryan's forearms were on fire.

Every attempt to work his hands free had cost him. The tape gripped his arm hair like tiny claws, and each twist sent fresh waves of tearing pain up to his shoulders. Dark patches of blood spotted the silver tape where he'd pulled too hard, too desperately.

His fingers had gone numb an hour ago.

The circulation cut off gradually, a creeping cold that started at his fingertips and worked its way up. Now his hands felt like foreign objects attached to his wrists, useless and heavy. He couldn't wiggle his fingers to keep the blood flowing.

They're not coming back.

The thought had been creeping in for hours, but now it settled into his chest with the weight of certainty. Jake and Marcus weren't passed out somewhere planning to retrieve him in the morning. They'd dumped him here and forgotten about him, probably sleeping off their own drunk while he slowly lost feeling in his extremities.

Ryan tried to roll onto his back to relieve the pressure on his arms, but the tape around his chest had tightened as his undershirt dried, creating a rigid shell. Each breath was work now. The barn felt smaller, the air thinner.

For the first time since waking up, Ryan stopped struggling.

In the silence, he could hear his own heartbeat thundering against the duct tape prison. And underneath that rhythm, something else was growing.

Rage.

Chapter 4: Hour 15 - The Fury

The pain had become background noise.

Ryan's forearms were raw meat now, strips of skin hanging where the tape had ripped away hair and flesh. But somewhere in the endless cycle of struggle and agony, something had clicked into place. Cold. Calculating.

They did this on purpose.

Not the abandonment—that was drunken stupidity. But the methodical way Jake had wrapped the tape, how Marcus had pressed it down into his arm hair, how they'd both laughed about how much it would hurt. They'd known. They'd wanted him to suffer.

Ryan's jaw clenched against the gag as he remembered Marcus's nervous laugh: "This is gonna hurt like hell when he tries to move." Not if. When. They'd planned for his pain.

The tape around his chest creaked as his breathing steadied. No more panicked gasps, no more desperate thrashing. His body had found a rhythm, conserving energy while his mind sharpened to a razor's edge.

Brothers.

The word tasted bitter even in his thoughts. Real brothers didn't leave you bleeding in a barn. Real brothers didn't tape you up like a piece of furniture and drive away laughing.

But they would come back eventually. And when they did, when they cut him free and expected forgiveness, expected him to laugh it off like some hazing ritual gone wrong—that's when they'd learn what Ryan had discovered in the darkness.

That he was done being their victim.

His phone was in his jeans pocket, pressed against his hip. They'd been too drunk, too focused on the taping to think about it. When this was over, when he could move his hands again, he had choices to make.

And Jake and Marcus weren't going to like any of them.

Chapter 5: Hour 24 - Partial Freedom

The tape around his ankles finally gave way with a wet tearing sound.

Ryan's legs flopped apart like dead fish, pins and needles shooting through muscles that hadn't moved in nearly a day. He lay still for a moment, hardly believing it was real. His feet. He could move his feet.

It had taken everything he had—rolling, twisting, using the rough barn floor like sandpaper against the tape. His jeans were shredded at the ankles where he'd worked the adhesive loose, thread by thread. But his legs were free.

Ryan struggled to his knees, his vision swimming. The barn spun around him as blood rushed back into his lower extremities. His chest still felt crushed in its silver prison, his arms still screamed behind his back, but he could stand.

He stumbled to the barn door and pushed it open with his shoulder.

Dawn was breaking over endless fields. Corn stretched to the horizon in every direction, not a house or road in sight. The silence was absolute except for the whisper of wind through the stalks.

Middle of fucking nowhere.

Ryan's reflection caught in a broken piece of glass leaning against the barn. His hair was matted with sweat and hay, his face streaked with dirt and dried drool. The silver tape still encased his torso like armor, his arms twisted behind him at an unnatural angle. Dark stains had seeped through the tape where his forearms had bled.

He looked like something that had crawled out of a horror movie.

But he was mobile now. And somewhere out there, beyond the corn, was help. People who would see what had been done to him. People who would ask questions Jake and Marcus wouldn't want to answer.

Ryan began walking, each step a small victory, each breath a promise of revenge.

Chapter 6: Hour 36 - The Second Night

Ryan collapsed against a rusted fence post as darkness fell again.

He'd walked for hours through the corn rows, following what looked like tractor paths that led nowhere. His legs shook with exhaustion, his bare feet cut and bleeding from stones he couldn't see. The tape around his chest had loosened slightly from his movement, but his arms remained locked behind him, the raw wounds on his forearms now crusted with dirt and dried blood.

No farmhouse. No road. No help.

The realization settled over him like the growing cold: he was going to spend another night like this. Alone, half-bound, abandoned.

Ryan slumped to the ground, his back against the post. Above him, stars appeared in a sky too clear, too beautiful for what was happening to him. His stomach cramped with hunger, his throat burned with thirst, but those discomforts felt distant now.

What consumed him was the image of Jake and Marcus, probably passed out drunk again, maybe not even remembering where they'd left him. Maybe joking about it. Maybe worried, but not worried enough to actually drive out here in the dark to look.

Fuck them.

The words formed clearly in his mind, sharp and final. Not the angry curse of a frustrated drunk, but a decision. A line crossed.

When this ended—and it would end, one way or another—he would remember this moment. The taste of his own blood, the sound of corn rustling in the wind, the feeling of being completely expendable to people who called him brother.

Ryan closed his eyes and let the cold settle into his bones. He had all night to plan exactly how Jake and Marcus were going to pay for what they'd done.

And he was going to enjoy every second of it.

Chapter 7: Hour 40 - The Reckoning

The headlights cut through the corn like knives, casting wild shadows as Jake's truck bounced down the dirt path. Ryan heard them coming long before he saw them—the engine whining, voices shouting his name with panic that hadn't been there two days ago.

"Ryan! RYAN! Jesus Christ, where is he?"

"The barn's empty! Fuck, fuck, FUCK!"

Ryan stayed perfectly still against the fence post, watching the lights sweep back and forth. Let them search. Let them taste a fraction of what he'd felt.

"There! Over there!"

Marcus reached him first, stumbling through the corn stalks. In the harsh LED light, Ryan could see his face—pale, sobered, horrified. Jake appeared a second later, a pocket knife already open in his shaking hands.

"Oh God, Ryan, we're so sorry, we were drunk, we didn't think—"

"Shut up," Ryan said through the gag, the words muffled but clear enough.

Jake's knife worked frantically at the tape around his chest, then his arms. The adhesive peeled away with wet, tearing sounds, taking the last bits of skin and hair with it. Ryan's arms flopped forward, useless, purple with trapped blood.

"We came as soon as we remembered," Marcus babbled, tears streaming down his face. "We were so fucked up, we passed out, we didn't wake up until this afternoon—"

Ryan's fingers found his phone in his pocket. Still there. Still working.

"Ryan, please, we're brothers, we made a mistake—"

The 911 operator answered on the second ring.

"911, what's your emergency?"

Ryan looked directly at Jake and Marcus as he spoke, his voice steady despite everything. "I need police and an ambulance. I've been kidnapped and tortured by my fraternity brothers. I'm injured and need medical attention."

"No, no, NO!" Marcus lunged for the phone but Ryan twisted away. "Ryan, please! We'll be expelled! We'll go to prison!"

"You should have thought of that," Ryan said calmly, "when you left me to die."

"Sir, I'm tracking your GPS location now," the operator said. "Units are en route. Stay on the line."

Ryan kept the phone pressed to his ear, still staring at his former brothers as they realized their lives were over.

Three months later, Delta Tau Pi was permanently disbanded. Jake received eighteen months for kidnapping and assault. Marcus got sixteen. The university settled Ryan's lawsuit for an undisclosed amount.

And Ryan never again called anyone "brother" who hadn't earned it through something harder than hazing rituals and drunken loyalty.

Some lessons, he learned, were written in scars.