A/N: Here is chapter 4, my dears! Please, please, let me know what you think on this one. I know Neal didn't have much to say this time around, but this chapter is very important set up for upcoming chapters. Love to all.
Chapter 4
Elizabeth hasn't moved in what feels like ten minutes, but is probably around thirty seconds. Either way, it has Peter in a mild panic, as he studies her eyes after delivering the horrible news. Elizabeth can feel Peter's hands shaking as he grips her own. She just sits there, unmoving. Just blinking. After ten minutes, or thirty seconds…whichever…she blinks one more time, and a tear rolls down her cheek. She glances up at Peter. "They're sure?"
He leans back lightly against the couch, exhaling sharply, then nodding as he looks down. This simple act is hard for him because he still can't believe it himself. They turned over every location they had suspected him of being in during the almost 4 months he had been gone, but found nothing. Nothing, except the ashen remains and Neal's suit crumpled in the corner, covered in his own blood, at the very first warehouse they had originally searched when he first went missing.
Peter has the teddy bear on his desk at the Bureau. Neal's anklet is still clasped around its neck.
"We need to get him inside before we're seen."
"You think I don't know that?"
Neal's eyelids barely crack open before he squeezes them shut again, listening to the men speak. It feels like they're in slow motion. He's not worried. The Girl is all he needs. He's floating in a drug-induced fog. It's his own version of Elysium.
They're carrying him. They're dragging him out of the town-car. He doesn't care. He couldn't walk right now, even if he wanted to. The vision of the scene he had witnessed only a few hours earlier is demanding a stronger dose of his preferred poison just to keep him under control. To control the violent shakes that wrack his whole being. To forget the thoughts, the images in his head, that bring him to his knees, retching miserably as he remembers. To soothe his exhausted muscles, worn sick from constantly cramping and contracting. To let him sleep. Just to let him fucking sleep.
He sighs in relief when it begins to knock him out as he floats in and out of awareness.
Seeing what he saw back there, it's scarred him. After he shook out of the daze in the car, surrounded by the very men who did this to him, he found himself desperately loading up on each provided dose. He's able to wait less and less time between each hit, now. This thought crosses his mind for a moment, just a flash of a second, before it washes away with the wave of the next dose, and he sinks further in the seat. It wasn't long before Neal drifted off into complete unconsciousness, his heart slowing as his head began to nod forward. He quietly mumbled himself to sleep.
When he awakens, curled up on the cold cement of the cellar, the air is stale, his eyes are shrouded in darkness, and he has trouble swallowing. There's bruising all over his ribs, legs, and arms, and every movement aches.
There's a pounding in his skull that reminds him that he's conscious, and he just wants to drown it out. His fingers tangle in his hair as he rocks back and forth to ease the pain searing through his limbs. It's getting bad, really bad, and he would guess he's probably been locked in here just over a day without Her, based on the physical symptoms. Waves of nausea ripple through him and it takes all the physical strength he has to keep himself from audibly moaning in pain.
By the time the second day rolls around, Neal is barely hanging on to the last remaining threads of consciousness, heart pounding in his chest as his muscles all turn on him, wringing and twisting themselves into knots. He's beyond sick, maintaining curled up as much as possible to ease the churning in his stomach. His brain slams against his skull, and he lets his eyes flutter shut when he rests his head back against the wall after being sick again.
Halfway through the third day, Neal is praying for death to come, when the light at the top of the stairs begins to spill in and a silhouette appears in the doorway. Neal barely manages to lift his head enough when he glances up, and his breath comes out in a shaky exhale when he sees who his visitor is.
Karl, the most recently acquired thug, brings him the lock-box. Neal immediately fishes for his key, hands shaking uncontrollably as he unlocks the box and begins preparing his Escape. His obvious desperation turns to shame burning in his heart, but it can't break through his toughened, scarred skin. He just lets it bubble up inside.
Right as he's getting ready to tie the tourniquet, his hands begin to tremor; violently, almost spastically. He keeps trying, but his hand keeps slipping, and he finally drops the tourniquet with a frustrated growl, fisting his fingers around his hair as his whole body shakes. He squeezes his eyes shut, but carefully cracks them open again when he hears keys jingle. Karl is bending down by Neal's shaking figure, reaching for Neal's arm and carefully tying the tourniquet around it. Karl then positions his fingers over the needle, lightly pressing a thumb on the inner bend of Neal's elbow, searching for a point of entry. When Karl finds what he's looking for, he shrugs his shoulders and his sleeves crawl back up his arms slightly. Neal's breath hitches in his throat when he sees them: the small pockmarks, pinpoints from needles that trail Karl's arm. The sharp pinch of his own needle now snaps Neal back to reality, and as soon as the drug enters his veins, he slumps down against the wall slightly, his eyes drifting shut as a soft sigh escapes his lips. "Thanks..." he manages to murmur, his voice slipping away towards the end of the word.
The murky brown liquid turns to gold as soon as it enters his veins. Neal can't help himself; his skin is crawling with delicate tingles that could have been light kisses from an angel, and he carefully pulls his knees up, hugging himself tight as he rests his head against the wall, chin tilting up towards the ceiling, and he sighs in this faux bliss that he's well aware isn't real, but it's all he has. Karl sits back and studies the broken young man for a moment, then glances down as he cleans up the evidence. A small noise catches his attention, and he glances over to see Neal very softly muttering something as he struggles to keep his eyes open. Karl strains to hear it, but catches the important parts. "L've… s'many….sp'ndored thing. S- S'the April rose…. th'only grows… e- early Spring…"
Even in Neal's near-unconscious state he's still able to carry the tune, despite the barely whispering voice and the occasional cracks that break through it.
"Love…s'nature… f'giving, a reason… to… t'be living…"
Karl leans back a bit, tilting his head as he studies the man.
"Hey," Karl offers, searching Neal's face. The younger man keeps his head down. Karl shakes his head. He's not sure what compels him to do it, but he does it: he reaches forward and places his hand on Neal's forehead, tilting his head back to see the kid's eyes. "Hey, kid. You okay?"
Neal's struggling to keep his eyes open, let alone focus on Karl. Everything's crossing together, he's not sure which way is up, but he just can't bring himself to care. He's with Her, and She's all that matters.
Karl snaps his fingers in front of Neal's face, and Neal lightly jolts in reflexive response to the noise, but other than that, doesn't react. Karl leans back, letting his arm drop, and Neal's head falls forward again.
"We gotta get you outta here, kid," Karl mutters, shaking his head, and pushing himself up, swearing when he whirls around to find Valentino standing there, studying his eyes.
"Planning to break him out already? Oh, but it was just starting to get fun," Valentino chides, nodding to the small folded figure in the corner of the room. Karl inhales sharply, maintaining himself and puffing out his chest.
"You've gotten what you need out of him. He's not a threat." He's not sure what compels him to rush to the kid's aid, but he does. It's certainly not that he sees himself in Neal. Perhaps that's just it. He sees none of himself in the broken young man curled in the corner, humming softly to himself as he loses himself in the drug. They're nothing alike, and yet they're in the same situation. This kid has potential, that much he knows. He doesn't want to be responsible for ruining this life, but the emptiness he sees in Neal's eyes whenever he opens them tells Karl it may already be too late.
V nods. "Well. Well, you did get half of that right. He's certainly not a threat, now." V glances past Karl at Neal for a moment, sighing, before focusing his gaze back on Karl. "But I'm not done with him yet."
Karl sighs again, glancing behind him to the young man, studying him as he speaks over his shoulder to Valentino. "He's done enough. And he won't go anywhere. He can't run the way he is now. I've seen kids this far gone before. He's not coming back from this, Boss. Just let him go."
Valentino shrugs, studying the broken young man, still muttering to himself in his peaceful oblivion. "I intend to. Burke's team is closing in on this location, we've got to clear out. I want the whole place emptied and wiped by midnight tonight. We leave then. I want nothing left to trail back to me. This place never existed. We never knew about it." He hesitates, clearly deep in thought as he considers the fate of his pet. "As for Caffrey… I want him under my thumb. But I never want to see him again. I keep him around much longer and he'll blow the whole goddamn thing. I don't need his trail leading right back to me. Get him out of here. You know where to take him."
Karl nods, keeping his eyes down. He just wants to get the kid out of this hell-hole.
"Boss." Peter snaps out of his daze, glancing up. He had been staring down at his desk. No papers. No files. No books. Just the desk. "Warrant came through for the office building. It's owned by various known 'partners' in Valentino's cover business."
Peter glances over the warrant as he speaks. "Which is…?"
Diana stands up a little straighter. "Pharmaceutical technologies."
Peter nods, straightening his lapel and pushes himself up from the chair, glancing up at her. "Let's get this son of a bitch."
Neal sleepily blinks into the glass Karl is holding out to him. He attempts to focus, but his vision keeps blurring as he studies the clear liquid. After a few moments of this, just a moment too long, just long enough to start making Karl uncomfortable (there was clearly still a trace of the former Neal Caffrey, somewhere deep inside), he blinks up at the thug. "What is it?"
"Sedative. We're going on a trip."
Neal nods slightly, staring down. So he can't figure out the location of this dark and rancid cellar. "I don't want it. Give me the needle," he murmurs after a time, with a slight bitterness in his voice that wasn't there before. He keeps his head down when he speaks. He needs to hide the shame written all over his face.
Karl shakes his head once. "Absolutely not."
"Why the hell not?"
Karl kneels next to the younger man. "Because last time I gave you the needle to take you out, we had to wait, because you stayed awake for four hours, stumbling around the cellar spouting some mumbled conspiracy theory shit about vulture eyes, and… and murders without motives, and psychotropic drugs making people hear hearts beating under floorboards."
Neal just stares at him for a second. "Karl, that is not conspiracy theory, that is The Tell-Tale Heart. Seriously."
Karl chuckles, then it dies out, and he sighs, holding out the glass again for Neal.
The younger man sighs, studying the glass for a moment, then looking up at Karl, searching the man for reassurance that this is going to be okay. Karl nods once, holding the glass out further, and Neal takes a deep breath, reaching for the glass and slugging it back.
"I'm face down on the tracks. The train is coming fast, and it's not derailing. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last, that my heart is failing."
-"Heart Failure", Sixx A.M.