I don't own White Collar or its characters. If only.

CHAPTER 1

"Why are you following me? Who are you?"

"I'm about to become the last person on earth who knows where you are."

Neal Caffrey barely had time to process this before his arms were grabbed from behind, and a black hood slammed over his head. Thrashing, Neal tried to free himself, but he was caught off guard and pulled along the waterfront. They stopped and he was thrown into what he assumed was the back of a truck.

His wrists were cinched together with a zip-tie- too tight for him to slip out of. At least I have on the anklet, thought Neal. But he felt a hand grab his leg, and the snip of his anklet being cut. That scared him a little. He didn't know his captors, but they clearly knew him well enough to know that he wore a tracking anklet and that he could slip out of any handcuffs.

Lying on his stomach in a moving vehicle, unable to see anything, Neal thought it couldn't get much worse. But then he was hit hard on the back of the head, and he lost consciousness.

"Hey hon."

"Hey hon. How's DC?" Peter asked his wife, Elizabeth, speaking to her through his desk phone in his office.

"It's gorgeous!" Elizabeth gushed. "The weather's great, and the national gallery is fantastic. I got a tour today, and I'll start learning the details about the pieces tomorrow."

"That's great!" To anyone else, Peter would've sounded genuinely pleased. But Elizabeth knew him better than anyone.

"Aww, honey, I'll see you soon. You're coming to visit and help me set up this weekend, remember?"

"Of course," Peter responded. "I've got to go," he said, seeing an alert pop up on his computer. "I love you."

"Love you too, honey."

Peter pressed a button on the phone to end the call, and then turned his attention to the blinking message on the computer. "Diana!"

Diana came up the stairs in an instant. "Yes boss?"

"Neal ran." Peter looked at the alert on his screen, not quite believing it himself.

"What?" exclaimed Diana. "When?"

"I just got the alert," said Peter.

"Why would he do that?" Diana asked.

"I think I might know," Peter said, grimly. "He asked for an early release, and it was declined."

"So?" Diana said. "It's just a little longer on the anklet. He'll serve out his time, and then he'll get the anklet off."

"Bruce said they denied it because they didn't want to lose him as a CI. Neal makes us better. Bruce said they were seriously considering never taking him off the anklet."

"But that's not the deal," Diana said, annoyed. "No wonder he ran. I'd be pretty mad, too."

"Still, it's not like Neal to make those kinds of rash decisions." Peter frowned. "Round up the crew and meet in the conference room. We have to find him again." Diana left.

Peter took a moment to compose himself. Neal couldn't be his friend right now, he had to be his target. When he walked into the conference room, everyone was already there.

"There's a new case?" asked Jones.

"Yeah," Peter said, and pressed a button on the remote control Diana handed him when he walked in. "Capturing Neal Caffrey." Peter looked at the screen, and a large picture of Neal smiling looked down at him. All Peter could think of was, here we go again.

When Neal awoke, the first thing he was aware of was that he had a throbbing headache. Wincing, he reached to feel the top of his head. In doing so, he realized he could move his arms again. He opened his eyes and found that he had no blindfold. Still, he couldn't see anything- the room he was in was pitch black. And cold.

Neal shivered, and hugged his arms around himself. He wasn't wearing his clothes anymore, but just his undershirt. His legs were bare too, as he only had on boxers. He didn't have his cell phone, or his lock pick set that he kept in him at all times. Whoever kidnapped him must've known who they were dealing with. Neal shivered again, but this time it had nothing to do with the cold.

Neal commanded himself to stand up, in an effort to try to feel his way around where he was and possibly gain an advantage. But as he stood, he felt his head rush and he fell to the floor, feeling sick. After a few deep breaths, he resolved to crawl instead of walk.

Squinting around, Neal tried to see anything at all, but he couldn't even see his hands when he put them right in front of his face. But as he looked up, he noticed two small red dots far above him. Cameras. No doubt equipped with night-vision capabilities. Someone could see everything he was doing.

Reaching a hand as high as he could on the wall, Neal started crawling around, trying to gage the size of the room. After turning two corners, he stopped suddenly. His fingers had passed over a small crack in the wall. A door frame. He immediately started moving his hand up and down, searching for a door knob. He even stood, dizzy though it made him, in an effort to reach higher. But no luck. He spent another minute pushing the door, hoping against hope that someone forgot to lock it. But as he had expected, nothing happened.

Just as Neal gave up and took a couple steps away from it, the door banged open and a light turned on.

Doubled over with his hands over his eyes to try to protect himself from the blinding light, he heard a woman's voice, with an English accent:

"Hello again, Neal Caffrey."