Alex Rider stepped onto the pavement, the door of the school reception swinging closed behind him and the afternoon sun shining languidly on his face. The street was empty save for a lone car disappearing round the corner in the distance, and a fat grey cat perched on one of the residential walls opposite the school gates. He smiled at it as he set off towards the high street where he was meeting Jack before heading to his doctor's appointment. The almost healed bullet wound on his chest twinged slightly and he rubbed at it absently with blunt fingers.
A hand clamped around his upper arm, harsh and unforgiving. Instincts kicking in, Alex thrust his elbow back as hard as he could, relishing in the pained groan it received, but the hand around his arm didn't loosen and a cloth was forced over his nose and mouth even as he struggled to break free.
He clung to the last threads of his consciousness as he was forcibly lifted and dragged to a nearby vehicle. A distant part of his mind could still hear voices, harsh whispers and heavy curses and above it all a woman's voice, cool and calm and completely at odds with everyone else. Alex desperately tried to work out what she was saying but his head felt heavy and his mind was slowing down. Somewhere a car door slammed.
And then everything went black.
The first thing Alex noticed as he drifted back into consciousness was the pain lacing his body. His neck was sore and his back was aching, and there was a relentless pounding in his head. His mind was still fuzzy, a jumble of thoughts and feeling cascading together forming an odd collage of memory he couldn't quite understand. He ran a hand across his eyes, trying to clear the mess into something more coherent.
He froze as someone cleared their throat.
Eyes slipping open he quickly took note of his surroundings, cold and grey and entirely uninviting. There were bars across one wall, leading out onto a corridor but the rest of the walls were stone. There was nothing else in the room, no furniture, no windows, nothing but a girl sat propped up against the opposite wall gazing worriedly at him. He pushed himself up onto his elbows.
She was a pretty enough girl, average looking with her brown hair pulled back into a pony tail and her cheeks slightly flushed, but some of her hair had fallen loose from its tie and there was a purpling bruise forming around her eye from where she's obviously been struck. She raised her hand to touch it as she noticed him staring and he glanced away apologetically, a loaded silence settling between them.
"I'm glad you're finally awake" he glanced over as she finally broke the silence, fingers fidgeting with the hem sleeve of her jacket, "I was beginning to worry you might not, that you were dying or something."
Slowly he propped himself up against the stone wall behind him, his body protesting every movement. He took a moment to consider her words, waiting until she looked up at him, curious brown eyes shining even through the darkening bruise.
"Nope," he grimaced as a jolt of pain lanced through his body, "not dead yet."