Chapter Two – Awakening
Skye woke slowly, blinking her eyes open. Staring up at the ceiling in confusion. It was rough wooden planks, not the plain white paint of her room at the Playground, nor the smooth grey panels of the Bus.
Where the fuck am I?
Her arms were flung up beside her head and a little numb; she tried to bring them down and to her horror heard a clink of chain. She thrashed, twisting, and screamed when she realised that she was chained to a bed, heavy shackles around both wrists and ankles.
"No! Ward, you bastard, NO!" Only one man would have done this to her. She didn't remember – she didn't remember a damned thing about how she'd got here, wherever here was.
Did he already rape me? How long have I been here? She craned her neck to look down. Black leggings, bright purple socks, a white vest top and her favourite denim shirt over it. Minus her boots, that was the outfit she remembered putting on that morning before going to work in her office.
Was it this morning?
Skye screamed again, furious this time. "Ward! You bastard, get in here!" Wherever here is. She looked around as best she could. It was a small room, a single door – rough timber as well. The windowless walls were whitewashed. There was no furniture that she could see besides the bed – which was a comfortable queen size with wrought-iron head and foot, to which she was chained. All the better to rape me on. She shuddered. I'll kill him first. All she'd need was to get one hand on his skin and she could quake him until his black heart stopped.
Heavy boots sounded outside the door and she tensed, preparing herself to face the man she once thought she'd loved, and now hated with everything that was in her. The door opened, and she opened her mouth to spit vitriol – and stared.
Because the man who entered was tall, dark and handsome, but he wasn't Grant Ward.
"Who the fuck are you?" Skye said in complete astonishment.
A slight smile cracked his stubbled face. "The name's Brock Rumlow, princess." He paused, as though that should mean something to her. Raised a black eyebrow over one oddly coloured yellow-gold eye when she looked blank. "Thought you were SHIELD?"
"I am."
"And yet you've never heard my name. Curious." He leaned negligently against the wall, folding thickly muscled arms over a broad chest.
Skye just blinked in complete bemusement. "If you're over your little ego disappointment that I don't know who you are," she said acidly at last, "would you care to tell me what the fuck's going on?"
Rumlow actually had to laugh. Damn, she was a feisty little thing, even chained to a bed. Pretty, too, he couldn't deny Ward had good taste. Her dark eyes snapped with rage as he chuckled softly.
"Sorry, princess. Just finding the attitude amusing, given your predicament."
Skye was silenced, temporarily. And then he produced a key, holding it up.
"If I let you out, are you going to be trouble?"
"Yes. I'm going to kill your ass and then I'm going to kill anyone else I find around here, shake this place to the ground and leave," she snapped in complete honesty.
He smiled again, showing even white teeth. "All highly unwise courses of action. Addressing your last point first – if you shake this place to the ground, you'll be without shelter in a very unforgiving part of the world. The second point is moot as there's no one else around but you and I. And if you kill me, well, you'll be stranded in said unforgiving part of the world."
"Which is where?" Skye asked.
He only smiled maddeningly. Dangled the key. "Still going to be trouble?"
"Would you really trust me if I said I wasn't?"
Rumlow tilted his head. She's intriguing. Smart as a whip with a tongue like a blade. "I trust that you're smart enough not to kill me before you've checked whether or not I've told you the truth."
She glared at him, but the logic was inarguable. She could, after all, kill him any time she could get a hand on him. Which apparently he knew.
"I won't make trouble until I've seen if you're telling the truth."
And after that, all bets are off.
Rumlow only nodded, and Skye had the unnerving feeling he'd read her mind. "Right you are, princess." And he stepped forward and bent to unlock the shackles on her ankles.
"And stop calling me that," she said grumpily. He leaned across her to unfasten her wrists.
"Sorry. Daisy."
"Definitely don't call me that!" her rage spiked and the bed shook slightly. Rumlow stepped back before unfastening the shackles, looked down at her with that black eyebrow raised again. "So you are working with Cal." Skye concentrated on breathing deeply, finding her centre.
"That's a reasonable assumption. I'm sorry, I understood that was your name."
"It's not. My name is Skye."
He had really unnerving eyes, Skye decided as he only watched her for a minute or two. She'd never seen eyes that colour on another person. They were yellow-gold, almost metallic, not whisky-brown or even amber. And then he stepped in and reached to unlock her shackles again, moving back with unhurried grace.
She brought her wrists down slowly, rubbed at them, eyeing him warily. Sat up when he merely leant back against the wall again.
"So since I'm assuming you're not a serial killer rapist – dangerous assumption though that may be – what am I doing here?"
A slight smile quirked his mouth again. "Waiting." He gestured towards the door. "Be my guest. Take a look around."
"Oh, you first." He might not have hurt her yet, but she really didn't trust him at her back. He shrugged his shoulders and opened the door, walked out. Skye scrambled off the bed and followed.
Another room, larger but no less rustic than the bedroom. It was a cabin, Skye realised, probably entirely timber-built, despite the whitewashed walls. There was a wood stove, a thick wool rug on the timber floor in front of it, and a two-seater couch. A small wooden table with a single chair. An open door stood opposite, through which she could see a small kitchen. There were two more doors, and with a glance at Rumlow who was standing passively in the middle of the room, Skye went to look. A simple bathroom was through the first and closest. The second led outside.
"Holy shit."
I'm not going to attempt to photoshop them into my Frank Grillo pictures (he's too yummy to mess with). But this is how I imagine Brock's eyes look in this story…
