Fill in for "Hunt." Alexis in the cage.
TW for mention of the threat of assault; nothing actually happens or is threatened.
Her prison is four feet by four feet, as near as she can tell. She gauged it by her footsteps. Alexis isn't sure how long she's been here. Time has lost all meaning: she thinks it was early morning when she stood under a gray Paris sky—Paris, how the hell did she end up in Paris?—trying to process what was happening. At first she rebuked herself for wasting those precious few seconds, thinking she could have used the time to escape, but now she knows it would not have mattered.
They'd caught her on the roof and manhandled her back into the building, down the stairs, and into a small, bare room—not the room where she and Sara had been confined. For a moment she expected terrible things to happen, but they only pushed her inside and locked her in, alone. There was no point in trying to break out; she'd left the improvised lock pick behind, and there was always someone guarding this new room. From time to time she heard conversations on the other side of the door, but they were all in a language she couldn't understand.
After what might have been minutes or hours, the door opened. The men who'd caught her on the roof entered, and one roughly shoved her into her jacket and then put a black sack over her head. Two others flanked her, one on either side, each gripping an arm, not painfully but firmly enough to let her know there was no chance to run. She saw nothing and smelled the acrid, musty scent of the cloth over her head, felt carpeted hallway under her feet and then there was a descent in a rattling elevator. A brief gust of cold winter wind and fresh air with its taste of freedom, and then she was pushed into what felt like a van, sitting unsteadily as it wove through too many streets for her to keep track of, distracted as she was by the presence of a guard sitting next to her and nudging her in the side every so often with the barrel of his gun, reminding her of his presence.
The vehicle reached its destination. There was another gust of wind and then she was inside again—a larger, airier place than she'd been before, it seemed. The bag was whipped from her head, and before she could do much to get her bearings, a newspaper was thrust into her hands. At first she thought they wanted her to look at it, but then one guard, a man she hadn't seen before, barked, "No!" and demonstrated by gesture how he wanted her to hold it. Someone took a photograph and then the paper was taken away as the new guard caught hold of her elbow and ushered her to this new prison.
Alexis thinks that was yesterday or maybe the day before, but she's lost track of time. She has no watch or phone. No clocks are visible, nor are any windows to give her hints of daylight or nightfall. Lights are always on, and there are always people around. At what feels like regular intervals, a stone-faced man brings her food: usually a cheese sandwich, an apple, a cup of chicken broth, some water. It's bland fare, but she's grateful for it and eats every bit, wanting the strength it gives her. Slightly more often, a guard unlocks her cage and takes her down a short hallway to a bathroom. The first time, once she'd gotten over the sheer relief of being able to empty her bladder and thanked God she didn't have her period to deal with during this ordeal, she'd looked for any clue to her surroundings, way to escape, or anything she could fashion into a weapon. Nothing. One window, too high and small for an escape route, and covered so she could see nothing of the outside. The bathroom itself was stripped of everything but the essentials. And she had only a few minutes in the room before her escort banged on the door, sending her already strained nerves a notch tighter.
Her guards come and go. Alexis knows none of their names, so she's given them her own monikers: Big Guy, Perfect Teeth, The One With The Limp, Crater Face, Heisenberg, Chain Smoker, B.O. They seem to be a mix of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. She can understand very little of what they say; once in a while she catches a nyet—all the Russian she knows—and sometimes French is spoken but the accents make it barely comprehensible to her, and the few words she does understand make no sense. She hears grand-père more than once, but why is anyone's guess. Alexis hasn't seen her mother's father in over a decade, and he's out in California and hopelessly senile.
Why is she here? She's asked several times and has never gotten an answer. When she's fed and taken to the bathroom, she's been as friendly as she can be and asked: Why is she here? What is going on? When can she go home? What happened to Sara?
She worries about Sara. Did she escape? Was she able to let anyone know where they are? If she didn't escape, was she punished for trying to escape—Alexis cringes with guilt at the thought, for the attempt was her idea—or is she caged as well?
Alexis sits on the floor of her cage, back resting against the bars. She's so tired. She wishes she could sleep, but she's afraid to let her guard down. The most she's been able to manage is a quick cat nap here and there, curled up on the floor because the cage is so small, using her coat for a pillow and shielding her eyes from the lights that never go out. Her eyelids are gritty and her mouth tastes disgusting and she can smell her clothes, stale with old sweat and spent adrenaline.
She wants to go home.
She wants her father.
She both clings to and tries not to think about the Skype message. The relief on his face when he saw her, the grim sound in his voice when he told her to run. He knows she's alive and he'll pay the ransom and do whatever it takes to get her home. She's certain of that.
But does he even know where she is? Were he and Beckett able to trace the Skype? Have the kidnappers even contacted him? If she was only grabbed because they wanted Sara, they may not have.
Like a rat in a maze, her mind comes back to the question she can't stop asking. Why?
On her next bathroom break, she asks again. The guard is Big Guy, who's been her escort a couple times. The size of him is terrifying—his hands look like they could crush a skull as easily as she could crack an egg—but he's not quite so dead-eyed as the rest of them, who seem to regard her no more than they would a piece of furniture. As they're heading back to the cage, she speaks to her for the first time: "It will not help."
"What do you mean?" she asks, her voice rusty with nerves and disuse.
He has an accent that makes him sound like Boris from the Bullwinkle cartoons (she'll have to remember to tell her Dad this if—no, when—she gets home). "You seem like nice girl. Brave, too. But it will not help."
There's no more time to ask him anything else before she's back in her cage. She's standing there at the bars, looking after Big Guy, when another man steps into her field of view.
It's the leader. She's been able to discern that much about him, from the way he orders the others and from their demeanor. She hasn't given him a nickname, thinking of the man only as him. Unlike Big Guy, he doesn't have a hint of pity in his eyes; unlike the others, his eyes don't go right past her. No, there's pure malice when he regards her, and now dread seeps through her, for if she's just an accidental hostage, why is he looking at her like that? As if he would at a moment's notice order these men to beat her, torture her, rape her, kill her—and would look on with pleasure. Why her?
He walks away, and it isn't until he's gone that she realizes she's been holding her breath. Alexis slumps down onto the cage floor. Tears sting her eyes and she wipes them away fiercely, bites hard on the inside of her cheek to get hold of her emotions. She has to stay alert and strong. She can't give in to fear and weariness, not now. Later she will—when she's back with her Dad and her Gram, when she's back home and safe. And she will get there. She knows her Dad; whatever it takes to get her back, he'll do it. He'll call on Beckett and anyone else he knows who can help. He will get her out of this. He will.
She waits, buoying her spirits with vows. When she gets out of this, she'll do something with her life—something that matters, something that helps people. And she'll do something silly and stupid just because it's life and she wants to live it—something that she won't be able to tell her own kid in detail because it's highly inappropriate. Most of all, she'll let her family know how much she loves them: her mother, her grandmother, and her father. Him most of all.
Some unknown time later, she sits up, startled. Something is different. There's a commotion in the room, men snatching up guns and a small group rushing off to one end of the building. Minutes pass, and then two guards are escorting a tall man—his face is hidden by a black hood but she recognizes him instantly.
He's here. How he got here or knew where she was, she has no idea. It doesn't matter.
He's here.
Hope you enjoyed it!