Murdoch felt vibrations beneath him and he suddenly became very aware of his surroundings. His mind was groggy, but eventually his detective senses finally starting to work again.
His head was pounding and the rattling carriage only hurt his battered frame, intensifying the pain. He couldn't see, so his eyes were covered, and he couldn't breathe very well, suggesting a cloth covered his face.
He couldn't hear the rhythmic sound of horse's hooves, so they probably weren't on any of the Toronto roads. They were most likely far away on one of the dirt roads that made up outskirt of the city.
He tried to focus on getting his memory to work. He searched out anything which could tell him the time and then he'd be able to estimate where he was. There was nothing, and it scared him. At least they were still moving, he reminded himself. They won't hurt you while they're moving.
With a rush of adrenaline, he felt the carriage begin to slow to a stop. He couldn't hear anything except his own breathing- no birds, no people, and most importantly, no footsteps. He didn't know how long he was left lying there, straining his ears to begin working again.
After what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, he heard footfalls coming from outside the carriage. Heavy footsteps approached the door and Murdoch could only sit and wait.
The carriage door creaked open and the hostage waited- for death, for unconsciousness, something, anything. It never came.
He felt someone attempt to pick him up from underneath his arms, but he was too heavy. If this was to happen seven months ago he would have been much harder to carry. Since Ogden left he had lost a lot of weight, not so much that anyone noticed, but enough to be concerned about none the less.
It wasn't his fault, not really. He just didn't feel up to it. The urge to live was still there, but it had degraded into a mere will to survive. There was no grand attempt to die (he still believed suicide was a sin), but he began to care less and less about keeping his happy façade.
At first, he had tried to keep smiling, maintaining a mask he hadn't known he had. He'd wave off his friends' concerns, using excuses like mantras until they were engrained in his speech. He didn't know if it fooled anybody, but he had to try.
Soon, however, his shell began to crack. The pressure got to be too much and a few teacups had taken the brunt of his anger. He saw pity in the eyes of his colleagues and he knew he had let himself down, he had let Julia down. The strength was gone, and he had no leads for where to search.
At one point, faith may have been enough. When Liza had passed away, it became his crutch. Now, he realized, he'd lost that too. He couldn't decide if his life was better now or then, and frankly, he didn't care.
The suspect eventually gave up; carrying Murdoch seemed too much hassle especially when William had working legs. Being forced to stand, William felt the pressure of a gun again at the small of his back. Any possibility of him running away just flew out the metaphorical window.
Without a fight, Murdoch allowed himself to be half pushed, half walking to wherever they were going. He didn't know where he was walking too, he couldn't hear any birds and apart from the gun there were no signs of life.
He didn't know how long they had been walking, but his legs had begun to hurt and his feet were numb. Not the kind of numb he felt because Julia left, but that numb that made your muscles hurt- the kind of numb that would eventually fade.
Finally the footsteps behind him stopped. He heard shuffling and the creaking of an opening door. Than just a quickly as the suspect had left, he was back. The pressure of the gun weighed on Murdoch now more than ever.
He could have run, but that would most likely result in a bullet to the spine, and to be honest, paralysis didn't sound too pleasant.
He was shoved roughly into an extremely uncomfortable chair and a thick rope was quickly tied around his wrists. The same was done to his ankles which were then bounded to the legs of the chair.
He couldn't move- he had tried for about five minutes with no results except rope burn on the exposed skin of his wrists. That would hurt tomorrow, he thought to himself.
Heavy footsteps dragged behind him and next thing he knew the back of a gun was colliding with the back of his head.
He found himself praying, that someone would find him. Then the world went black.
