CHAPTER ONE
When Sasuke Uchiha finally came to, it was to the horrid realization that he had been blindfolded and gagged. Instantly alert, he jerked his hands but understood he had been bound as well when his movement was restricted by what felt like the cold, hard pinch of a pair of metal handcuffs around his wrists. Twisting his hands in his cuffs, he stretched his fingers out and ran them up and down the chipped paint of what appeared to be long, hard spindles of a …a metal headboard? The case had been the same with his legs, too, when he shifted them and experienced the same feeling of a pair of handcuffs biting into the flesh of each of his ankles.
And he was naked. He could feel the scratchy fabric of the polyester bedding on his skin beneath him that was now damp with his perspiration.
What the hell?!
Sasuke'snext instinct was to scream out, but the sound had been a strangled grunt that hadn't made it past his throat due to the filthy rag that had been shoved into his mouth. A wide, thick piece of what felt like duct tape was stretched over his mouth and extended to his ears on both sides. He jerked his head about despite being unable to see due to the coarse feel of some material tied too tightly around his head and over his eyes that rendered his lids sore.
Surprisingly, Sasuke's first reaction was to become angry, not afraid. He didn't do fear well, if not at all. As a seasoned detective on the Konoha police squad, he had been trained to overcome fear. It had become a most valuable asset out in the field, of how to remain calm and rational during even the most intense and dangerous of altercations, and he didn't see why he shouldn't conduct himself likewise now as well. Besides, fear would only cause him to lose his cool and react irrationally, and he needed his wits about him now.
He first decided to mentally deduce the obvious, which was he didn't know where he was, or how he had gotten there. He also didn't know who had brought him here, but knew that it had to be someone else's doing as there was no way in hell he would wind up in such a predicament as this of his own volition. So who the fuck had been responsible for bringing him here, to… to… well, to wherever the hell he was! And how stupid had that son-of-a-bitch been to kidnap him? Because that's what this was. A kidnapping. And whoever it was would have hell to pay when he got free!
In his mind, he quickly tried to replay the last of his events that led up to this point. Where had he been? What had he been doing? He then gave up when his head began to throb. Ah, shit! He must have a hangover, which meant he'd been drinking, so trying to remember was about as futile right now as getting up and ambulating.
Okay, he decided silently, on to plan two. Though he couldn't make use of his eyes, tongue, or limbs, he still had use of his other senses to try to get some semblance of where he was. So he silenced his thoughts and slowly moved his head about again, trying to glean what clues he could that would aid him in figuring out some detail as to his current whereabouts. But nothing. It was as that saying went, of it being so silent that you could hear a pin drop. His nostrils slightly flared as he sniffed the air. It was stale and stank of disuse, so wherever he was, it was somewhere not given to open air, not easily accessible from the outside. Perhaps there were windows that had been shut? Oh, but wait! He'd forgotten to take note of the fact that he was lying on a bed; an old bed, he concluded, by the feel of the springs that poked into his back through what felt like a worn mattress. So wherever he was, he was cuffed to some bed. So where was he? Some shitty and seedy hotel room? A warehouse, even? Who the hell knew! The possibilities really were endless, and it fueled his anger even more that he was no closer to figuring anything out.
In an act of frustration, Sasuke grunted angrily around the mouthful of filthy rag and absently began to jerk his body upon the bed. His body bounced and caused the squeaky springs to noisily assail his ears. And suddenly his memory was triggered, granting him a small hint as to where he'd been prior to now, how he'd ended up like this. And like a slowly dissipating fog, his memory began to gradually float back to him in small, unsettling chunks…
