Author's Note: Let the turmoil begin… ;-)
WARNING: COARSE LANGUAGE. REFERENCES TO MATURE/DISTURBING SUBJECT MATTER (nothing too graphic or explicit, I don't think)
Big hands on his lower back, an immense weight pressing him down, an agonizing heat filling him. A voice like the growl of a bear, low and rumbling. You like it. Let me hear you say it. Beg for it. You like being fucked.
You like being fucked.
Chris woke with a shuddering gasp, his heart beating like it wanted to tear its way out of his chest. It was disturbing and disheartening that he'd had yet another nightmare when he thought maybe he'd finally shaken them. He reached for his solace.
"Merri?"
Her side of the bed was empty. Something constricted in his chest. A panic attack. He tried to get ahead of it, slipping out of the bed and turning on the bedside lamp. The woman, his woman, his comfort, his soul... She wasn't in the bedroom. Just her work clothes lying in a pile on the floor. Along with her nightie?
Curiosity quickly pushed the night terror away, and Chris pulled on a pair of sweats to pad out of his bedroom in bare feet and search the rest of his house for his Pseudo-Girlfriend (whom he could no longer deny he loved and needed more than any actual girlfriend he'd ever had). He wandered through his living room and kitchen, softly calling her name, but there was no sign of her.
Okay, that was an untrue statement. There were signs of her everywhere. A cardigan tossed over the back of a chair, wineglass beside the sink, a stack of newspapers folded to the same page, crosswords in various stages of completion. One of her lacy pairs of panties was peaking out from under a couch cushion. Her shoes were by the door; her black boots she wore to work, her strappy little red heels she'd worn when they went out three nights ago... But her favorite casual ones (an old, slightly ratty pair of converse) were missing.
Had she gone out for something?
Her sweatshirt, a heather gray NAVY hoodie wasn't on its hook. Her keys and wallet weren't in the place she usually put them on the table beside the door. Why would she go out and not tell him? Leave him a note, at least?
Had she gotten sick? He checked the bathroom again. Her toothbrush looked damp, like she'd recently used it. Maybe she had gotten sick, and decided to go to the store for some ginger ale or something. Some fake boyfriend he was, sleeping through her throwing up her dinner. He grimaced. It wouldn't be a pleasant dinner to throw up either, spicy and acidic.
She had seemed off that evening. Maybe she was getting the flu. Alarm struck him briefly, but it was easy enough to rationalize away. She couldn't be pregnant. Not only was she on birth control, but they always, always used protection. For her safety as much as contraception. Just in case he'd…
Chris plopped down on the sofa, turned the tv on. It was tuned to an infomercial for some bizarre and unnecessary gadget that supposedly would miraculously make your like easier. He wondered if the miracle item could make his night terrors go away. There was no use climbing back into bed to wait for Merri. If he even did fall asleep, it wouldn't end well. Not alone in bed. He'd spent too many days and nights strapped down on a mattress, alone and dreading the next round of abuse, whether it was rape or torture. Oddly, he'd begun to hope for the rape. At least the variety when his tormentor had been tender. It hadn't hurt so much then. Just the shame of his own sexual arousal and climax.
He reached down, tugged at the scrap of lace he knew was hanging out from the cushion, pulling the pair of panties free. They hadn't been there long. Just a few days. They were red lace, had matched her entire outfit, which was such a Merri Brody thing. She'd clad herself entirely in red, from her ruby-stained lips to her slinky dress to her strappy high-heeled shoes, to her matching bra and underwear. It had amused him, made him laugh, made him hard.
Like a pervert, he brought the pair of panties to his face and breathed in deeply, inhaling the scent of his Merri. If she'd seen him do it, she might've raised an eyebrow at him, but he doubted she would berate him for it. The scent of her comforted him. And he needed it, the memories were stalking him, prowling about the edges of his mind, waiting for the right moment to pounce and tear his throat out. Her presence was like an impenetrable barrier that kept them out.
He needed her.
Despite never telling her, he figured she must know how much he needed her. He wondered if she'd figured out that he only slept in a bed when with her. Otherwise, the phantom restraints, hands, monster, manifested, making his chest constrict and his stomach twist. On their nights apart (one a week), he wound up on the sofa or the bedroom floor, using an item of her clothing as a pillow. He didn't want to admit he couldn't bear being apart from her a single night. Because like her, he feared the bizarre codependency that had formed between them. He knew he needed her more than she needed him, but it was plain to tell she'd grown addicted to their relationship, and not just the sex.
Coming home to someone was a particularly wonderful high.
Maybe this was all a strange form of self-medicating. He'd turned to alcohol and sex to ease his pain when Savannah had been murdered. Now he'd turned to love and affection (and deeply emotional sex). Was it any different?
Well, it might end in a broken heart or two, but it wouldn't put him in a psychopath's den, being raped and tortured in an endless cycle for what felt an eternity.
So, yeah. This was different. And he liked it. He loved it. Loved her.
Where was she?
"Whoa. Calm down, Christopher." The older man's hand fell on his shoulder, solid and reassuring. "Take a breath, and start over."
"Merri's gone, King!" It was hard enough to breathe, let alone speak. He had a bad feeling. An extremely, gut-wrenching, soul-murdering sort feeling. It was hollow and yet was burning him up inside. "I woke up an' she wa'n't there."
"I take it, she was spendin' the night at your place?" Pride's look was all concern, but Chris couldn't help but feel a little patronized by his close friend. If you'd have asked him a year ago who his best friend was, he would've said 'Dwayne Pride' without a second's hesitation. And the man still was an extremely good friend to him. It was just... Merri was the center of his goddang world now. She was not as much a best friend, as the other half of his soul. And being without her, it was a physical ache in his chest.
"Uh... Yeah," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, suddenly self-conscious. He and Merri, they were never openly affectionate. He'd avoided the whole issue with Pride, too afraid that the man who personified Chris' wisdom would disapprove. If Dwayne Pride said it was a bad idea, well... He couldn't face that, letting Merri go. She'd been the only comfort he'd had. The rock that kept him from getting swept away in the dark tumultuous tide.
"So, what happened?" Pride's gentle tone encouraged him to focus, to not dwell on what his life would be like if he lost the only thing that kept his head above water.
"We went ta bed round nine..." Crap. Maybe that was a bad way to put it. But Pride needed to know the details. Well, some of the details. Maybe he could see something Chris wasn't in his blind panic. "An' uh... fell asleep by midnight."
A smile twitched in the corner of the older man's mouth as Chris felt his face turn pink and hot.
"I sleep dang solid..." ...When Merri's cuddled up wi' me... "So I ain't sure when she woke up. God, somethin' mighta happened an I was jus' lyin there, dead ta the world, King. What if-"
"You would've woken up if something happened in your house Chris, if she needed your help." Pride seemed so certain of this. It provided some measure of relief. But she was still missing.
"I had a nightmare an' when I woke up, she wa'n' there. It was 3:47am."
Pride nodded, contemplative look on his face.
"She wa'n' anywhere, but a set a her clothes an' shoes were missin, an' her toothbrush was wet, so I figured mebbe-"
"She'd gotten sick, went to a pharmacy to get something," Pride said, getting that look Chris knew so well as 'King's decision-making' face. He wasn't shocked in the least that his mentor was arriving at the same conclusions that Chris himself had. The man had helped train him up, after all.
"So I decided ta jus' set an' wait fer her but it was takin' too long an' so I tried callin' her cell but she didn' answer an' then I heard it ringin' an'-"
Chris took a choking breath, breaking the stream of words that had been spilling with ever-increasing rapidity and incoherency. Whereas his friend had been thoughtful and a little concerned but calm before, the color had drained from his face slightly. They both knew Merri was always within arm's reach of her phone. Not because she was a social media addict, but because she was committed to her job.
"Where'd ya find it?" Pride's voice was still calm. Unsettlingly calm. Because Chris knew the nuanced variations in his friend's demeanor. And this was 'business calm', meant to outwardly display a sentiment that the man did not feel inside.
"Outside my bedroom window." Chris squeezed his eyes closed, shaking his head in disbelief, as if it might all be a horrible dream when he opened them again. "What do ya think-"
"We'll find her, Chris." The older man had his arm draped across Chris' shoulders, guiding him out of the senrior agent's room, and through the office, towards his truck. "Have ya checked her place?"
Panic had such a tight grip on his insides again, Chris found himself unable to speak, instead just nodded mutely.
"And she wasn't there."
He shook his head, pulling his keys out of his pocket, which Pride gently relieved him of.
"I'll drive." It wasn't offer. It was a command. One Chris was actually more than a little happy to submit to. It was a comfort having Pride 'on the case' as it were. There never was a more compassionate yet level-headed man. Chris could trust him to do everything that needed to be done, to make the right decisions.
Only sometimes, that wasn't enough was it?
He tried to ignore that nagging, sickening thought. It had been larger, darker at one time, even though he'd always tried to ignore it. Because they'd done everything they could to find him, to save him. He knew they had. And yet, some part of him had blamed them for failing. Not nearly as much as he blamed himself. It was like a drop in an ocean of loathing, primarily for his own stupidity and poor choices.
But his team, his friends, his family had tried to find him and failed. Had tried everything they could think of, everything they could possibly do... Just, sometimes, it wasn't enough.
No. It might not be anything. He might just be freaking out because he'd had another night terror and Merri wasn't there to assuage the anxiety. Maybe he'd only transferred it, projected it onto her absence. His first thought, Pride's first thought had been right. She'd merely gone to the store or something.
But her phone...
"This is where you found it?" Pride asked when Chris took him outside after giving him a tour of the house, too worried to be ashamed about the tossed bedding and clothing items strewn about, Merri's red lace panties now sitting in plain view on the coffee table.
"Yeah." Chris pointed to the ground beneath the bedroom window. "It was sittin' right there. I looked 'round but there wa'n't any sign a her."
"Where'd she park, do ya know?"
Her car wasn't where she'd left it. Why hadn't he thought of that before? Damn. He knew there was a reason he'd woken Pride up well before dawn even without substantial evidence that something was seriously wrong. He was already seeing things Chris was too close to see, asking the right sort of questions.
"An' it wasn't at her place, either?"
LaSalle shook his head.
"Good."
How was that good? There was no way she'd dropped her phone and left it by accident, hopping in her car and headed someplace without noticing it was gone. That just wasn't Merri Brody.
"She got a GPS locator in her car?" Pride asked in his Socratic Teaching Method tone.. He just couldn't ever stop being a mentor, could he? Chris didn't care. They'd have a location on Merri as soon as they woke Patton Plame up and dragged him into the office.
"This have somethin' to do with the creep sending her texts?" Patton asked as he brought up the tracking software and hacked the manufacturer database to get the serial number on the vehicle's built-in GPS.
"What?" Pride asked in unison with Chris.
The computer tech shifted in his chair.
"She made me promise not to tell y'all." He put up his hands in a placating gesture. "Believe me, I woulda told ya, man, if I knew it was this serious."
Patton went back to typing as Pride sighed. Chris was already fumbling the phone out of his pocket. Maybe they should've put it in an evidence bag, taken it to Sebastian to lift prints off, but both of the agents had been clinging to the optimistic theory that she'd just unwittingly dropped her phone (out of her hoodie pocket maybe) and had simply gone to run some mysterious errand at 3:30 in the morning. It wasn't likely. And maybe they should've assumed foul play from the beginning... But... Chris just wouldn't have been able to hold it together if Pride started talking... abduction.
He woke up the phone's screen. She kept it locked because of the work-related material she stored in its memory, but Chris knew the password. He went to her recent texts. They were mostly from him. Pride, Percy, Loretta... Her mom... But right near the top, an unsaved contact. Just a string of numbers. He tapped it to open the one-sided conversation that seized his heart for a beat or two.
And then there was that panicky, drowning feeling pressing on his chest like a boulder, like a mountain. There wasn't enough air in the tiny, cluttered and cramped office. He felt something touch his back, making him jump, and then there was a crashing sound as various computer parts fell off the shelf he'd just backed into. He bolted for the courtyard. He needed air. He couldn't breathe.
He didn't make it to the patio furniture, his legs giving out on him halfway there and making him collapse into a pathetic heap on the paving stones, Merri's phone clutched in his hand in a death grip.
This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.
He'd never escaped Hell. The lull…That brief amount of happiness he'd had with Merri, it was all a trick. Eventually, a soul became so worn down it grew inured to the torments of Hades. He must've needed a brief reminder of what joy felt like, so his suffering wouldn't dull into a bland sort of irritation. It had to be sharp, a little jagged when it was plunged into his gut and twisted to cause the maximum amount of agony.
"Christopher."
Pride's voice as infuriatingly and relievedly calm as ever drew his attention. The man was crouching down beside him. Not touching him. He knew better than to try to touch him when he got like this. Another thing that had been stripped from him. Chris used to interact with such ease with other people, the physical contact as welcome as the verbal. A nudge of an elbow to his side, a pat on the shoulder or back, shaking hands, accidentally bumping into someone because you were in a packed bar but it was all okay.
It wasn't okay.
Nothing was okay.
Would she ever touch him again? Would he ever have the chance to touch her smooth, warm skin, kiss her soft, sweet lips, hold her so tight against him he could feel her heart beating one more time?
"Can I see the phone?"
He absently handed it to his friend. He couldn't find the self-consciousness to care about the photos the man would see on it. Fuck. In some of them, Chris knew he looked like he was enjoying being raped and tortured. He couldn't deny the memory of uninvited agonizing pleasure his traitorous body had experienced. He couldn't deny the one photo where he was clinging to his captor, their two bodies entangled, intimately wrapped up in one another. He'd been so desperate for the warmth of a human body, even one that was just a person suit for a monster... He hadn't cared. He'd thought he would die in the dark, cold place, he thought he had died... And then there were big hands touching him tenderly, warm flesh, light and sound and sensation. God, it had hurt his soul. Hating the bastard and himself in equal measure. Wanting to die, thinking he might already be dead, and still the desire to live, the wanting... To feel something anything. To be loved again.
Merri...
He wanted her there with him, to wrap her arms around him, so that he could bury his face in her neck and breathe in the heavenly scent of her. Which was entirely selfish he knew. But he also wanted her to be okay for her own sake. He would do anything just for her to be unharmed.
"He was stalking her, both of you." Pride's voice finally cut through the terrible thoughts and memories that threatened to overwhelm Chris, turn him catatonic if he gave them the chance.
Chris nodded in mute agreement. He'd only hastily taken in the atrocious messages Gabriel had sent her, the photos had sent him back to that Hell too quickly for him to think about anything else. But the last photo... It was of Merri making love to him the previous night, both of them naked in Chris' bed, her straddling his hips, leaning over him to kiss his mouth, her fingers intertwined with his, pinning his hands beside his head. With the painful memories so freshly dredged up from the dark recesses of his mind, Chris sickeningly saw why it appealed to Gabriel, who'd fucked him in the same position... several times. But the experiences were entirely different. Merri was making love to him.
She loved him.
Chris had been able to see it in her eyes. He never said anything. He was too afraid to give it voice. He liked letting the knowledge live pure in his heart, untainted by the feeble attempt words made at defining it.
"You think that this is him?" Pride asked, shocking Chris for a moment. Who the hell else could it fucking be?! But he was right to ask. He had to be logical about this when Chris was entirely incapable of thinking straight at all.
He took the phone back, looked more closely at the messages. Could practically hear that deep, bear-growl voice as he read the words. It was definitely him.
"Yes," he said, feeling a sort of numbness seeping into that hollowed out place in his chest.
"Just because he was sending her texts, doesn't mean that-" Pride began the obvious attempt at comforting the abducted woman's loved one, but was interrupted when Patton came wheeling out into the courtyard at top speed.
"Got a location on her car," he said, breathless, before he read out the address. "Sent it to your phone, Pride."
"C'mon, Christopher." He didn't feel much like pulling himself off the cold, hard ground. Merri wouldn't be there. He knew she wouldn't. And if she was... It wouldn't be... She wouldn't be alive. He supposed he should be thankful though that killing her wasn't Gabriel's style. Or maybe not. Because what the monster did was worse. He'd made Chris want to die, over and over and over... And again right this moment.
Pride hauled him to his feet and he numbly followed his friend out to his truck. The older man still had the keys. He wasn't sure why he opted for the vehicle instead of one of the SUVs, but Chris figured that maybe he was trying to place him more at ease. He'd practically lived out of the truck for a couple of months after Savannah's death, after all. But all Chris couldn't think about was how they wouldn't need the roomier SUV. Because Merri wouldn't be coming back with them. She wouldn't be there.
And she wasn't.
A/N: All signs seem to be that Gabriel's gotten his hands on Merri…? Is that what really happened? And what does that mean for Merri? And for Chris?
