Sorry that this chapter took a bit longer than expected. I know, I promised some of you that it would be online Sunday at the latest, but I got caught up by the White Collar project campaigning for a Season 6. Anyway... Better late than never.
WARNINGS: Nothing major...
Since Mozzie had long ago decided that he was getting out of the storage room, it was time to figure out how to pick the lock – or breaking down the door in silence. Maybe it was the adrenaline that had kicked in, when one of his captors spoke to him through the door, but Mozzie suddenly felt full of energy. For a while he carefully investigated every corner and shelf, the floor, the broken chair and everything else in the tiny room, and he realized that he actually had a lot of things to work with.
He grabbed a piece of the broken chair and started cutting into it with the use of the hook. He was glad that his hands were now free so he could reach up, because he really couldn't imagine himself having to pour out his own pee to be able to use the bucket as a stool. Actually, now that he came to think about it, the smell of pee had slowly started spreading in the room. Okay, he definitely needed to get out soon. The first piece of the chair, he tried shaping as the needed tool, appeared to be too fragile when the hook suddenly went all the way through.
Back to the mess of the half broken chair and various pieces of duct tape, Mozzie shuffled through it all and found a new piece and started all over.
He kept scratching the wooden chair leg and slowly he carved a small hole, not too deep, but still big enough for the head of the nail to fit in. After a few attempts going back and forth between the nail and the hook measuring his progress, Mozzie almost cheered out loud when the nail finally got stuck in the piece of wood, he had come to think of as homemade pincers. And he was quite proud the moment the nail finally started moving. Mozzie slowly pulled and wiggled, and twice in 5 minutes he had to bite his tongue to avoid breaking into a loud victory cheer when he pulled out the nail.
In the pile of splinters from the chair Mozzie found one long enough to be his second pick. You damn door, I'm gonna get you know, Mozzie thought. Then he turned around ready to start working on the lock, when he heard a sound from the hallway. Shit! Mozzie had been so focused on finding and creating his tools that he hadn't paid attention to any sounds, and he froze completely. However, he quickly recognized the sound of the other door being unlocked and he sent a few appreciative thoughts at Neal for being the one attracting all the attention. He wondered how long time he had actually spent on carving his tool and pulling out the nail. Mozzie stuck his tools in his pockets and silently grabbed hold of the broom again – ready to attack if whoever was on the other side of the door decided to pay him a visit, too.
Neal was half asleep with his chin resting on his chest when he heard the lock on the door again. He had no idea how long time had passed, but it didn't really feel like much more than 5 minutes, though he suspected it had in fact been a lot more.
When the door opened Neal kept the posture, pretending to be sleeping. It really wasn't hard, because he felt rather drained. The light wasn't turned on, but Neal heard the person approaching him from behind.
"Yo, sleeping beauty, wake up! No rest for the wicked", the guy from earlier said in a gruff voice and slapped Neal in the back of the head. Not hard, though, just enough to make sure that if Neal really had been sleeping, he would definitely be awake now.
"What?", Neal said annoyed, lifting his head and looking up at the guy in the dim light shining through the open door.
"I get no sleep, because I have to keep an eye on you, so you get no sleep either", the man smirked and bend down to check the bindings on Neal's legs.
He stood up and walked behind Neal, pulled at the ties on the elbows and then more roughly at the hands. Neal winced a bit. He hadn't really had the opportunity to look for any bruises on his wrists, but he felt sore when the ties cut into his skin. They might have tied him a little looser this time, which meant no numbness, but apparently it also meant feeling the traces of being tightly bound for hours.
"You're not going anywhere. See you in a little while!", the man behind him said ruffling Neal's hair and then heading towards the door.
"Don't fall asleep now! Oh! And by all appearances your little friend is still alive", he added, but before Neal had the chance of asking for more information, the door was shut and locked.
Across the hallway Mozzie was listening intently and breathing a sigh of relief when he heard the door being locked and nothing more happened. Still he waited a few more minutes before he got back to his project.
He grabbed his tools from his pocket and set to work on the lock. At first he failed, though. The end of the sliver broke off, but he kept going even though the piece was now a bit smaller than he had wanted. Mozzie was carefully getting the feeling of the lock, while he felt drops of sweat run down his forehead. Stay focused. Concentrate... Click! Mozzie slowly led out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and took hold of the handle. He listened for any sounds from the hallway. There was nothing. No voices. No steps. He turned off the light in the storage room, and silently he pushed down the handle and opened the door just half an inch to take a peek into the hallway. Nothing to see at all. Mozzie strained his ears even more, almost not daring to breath when he opened the door wider.
He thanked his clever self for the choice of shoes and the soft rubber soles when he stepped out of the room and across the hallway to the door behind which he expected to find Neal. He put his ear close to it and listened, still hardly breathing. But again he heard nothing.
Mozzie glanced down the hallway. He was seriously exposed out here in the light, but first of all he needed the light to see what he was doing, and second of all he didn't dare turn it off afraid of someone noticing.
He got down on one knee and started working on the lock with his – by now – almost useless wooden pick from the chair. It had to last! Mozzie carefully wiggled his tools, let them become extensions of his fingers, and after a few minutes he heard the long awaited click. He stood and wiped away a few beads of sweat from his forehead before he silently pushed down the handle. The door didn't budge. For a second Mozzie was seriously confused and thought he maybe imagined the click from the lock, but then he looked up and saw the lock bolt. He had been too focused on the key lock to notice it earlier. He eased the lock back as silent as possible and opened the door. The room was all dark except from the light streaming in from the hallway.
At first Neal thought he would be left alone at least long enough to take a nap, but then he heard some rustling at the door. He sighed and readied himself for another annoying visit from the guy who – Neal thought about it – was a strange mixture of a bad ass criminal and a softhearted man. Neal didn't feel comfortable about not being able to label the man foe by all means or possible to-be-convinced-friend.
Nobody entered, though, and Neal wondered if he his mind had played tricks on him, but then he definitely heard the door being unlocked. A few seconds passed and the light from the hallway was streaming into the room. Neal turned his head around, still a bit puzzled about who was entering. It didn't sound like any of his and Mozzie's kidnappers. They had never been this silent. What he saw, made him smile big. He'd recognize that silhouette anywhere, anytime.
"Mozz", he whispered.
"Neal? Where are you?", Mozzie asked and opened the door a little more.
The light caught Neal on the chair in the middle of the room, and Mozzie hurried to his friend, catching a last glimpse down the hallway, before he entered the room completely.
"Mozz, are you okay?", Neal asked.
Mozzie put a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder before he started pulling at Neal's bonds. He hadn't calculated on Neal being tied with zip ties. They would be hard to cut through only with the use of the nail.
"I'm fine. They left me alone all the time", Mozzie said and continued, "but we need to get out of here. Are YOU okay, Neal? I heard James earlier, and... Are you hurt?"
Mozzie started checking Neal over for injuries in the dim light, but Neal pulled away.
"Mozz! Mozzie! I'm fine. Listen to me, I'm fine", Neal said in his most calm voice and continued. "You need to get away, get out of here, get help!"
"What do you mean, I need to get away. WE need to get away", Mozzie said and started sticking the nail into one of the zip ties around Neal's right leg, pulling at it at the same time, trying to free him as quickly as possible.
"They check on me all the time, Mozz", Neal explained.
"If you actually manage to get me out of these ties without scissors or a knife, they'll know in a few minutes that we're gone. We won't get much of a head start, and we need that. We don't know where we are. Get out of the house, get away, hot-wire a car or something. Just..." Neal took a deep breath. "Leave me and go!"
Mozzie stopped working on Neal's bonds.
"Do you know what they want from..." Mozzie didn't finish the sentence. Instead he shook his head and continued working on the ties. "I'm not leaving you, Neal."
"Mozz!", Neal said, almost forgetting to keep his voice down. "We won't make it!"
Mozzie looked at his friend who was staring down at him. He very well knew the expression on Neal's face. He was determined. And Mozzie knew he was right. He had heard all the times their captors had been in the room with Neal. But he had also heard Neal's yells and screams, and his heart told him to save his friend. Mozzie was about to say something, but Neal stopped him.
"Don't, Mozz... Just go. I'll manage. But hurry. James has ordered new ID papers, and I'm the payment. That's all I know! Pet.. The FBI needs to know of this, before James gets away. You need to get word out to Peter that James is here. Convince him that I didn't run. Now, Mozzie!".
"Are you sure about this, Neal?", Mozzie said and threw a glance towards the door before he looked back and locked gaze with Neal.
"I'm sure!", Neal stated convincingly.
Mozzie got up and then he reached behind Neal's back, pushed the nail into his palm and folded Neal's hand around it.
"Keep this! Just in case... It's all I've got", Mozzie sighed. "The door has a bolt lock on the outside. If I lock that, we can hope that they will simply think they forgot to lock the other one with the key last time they were in here."
He squeezed Neal's shoulder.
"Be careful, Neal!", he whispered, almost inaudible.
"I will! And you, too", Neal nodded and turned his head away. "Go!"
Mozzie hurried out of the room, closed the door behind him and turned around looking at the locks. He honestly hoped that their kidnappers would think that they had forgotten to lock. His fingers hovered over the bolt lock. He didn't like leaving his friend this way, tied to a chair and not least in a room with a lock he couldn't pick from inside.
Mozzie took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his mouth, before he pulled the lock in place.
Now to get out of here, he thought! Before going anywhere, though, he decided to go back to the storage room and take either a part of the chair or the broom with him as a weapon.
He decided on the chair leg that was almost broken off, but still seemed fairly solid. Mozzie silently closed the door to the storage room, before he put one foot down on the chair and with both hands broke off the leg. Mozzie stiffened for a moment. The cracking sound had surprised him. Damn, that was loud! He listened for any sounds from the hallway, but again he praised his luck when he heard nothing.
Mozzie left the room, carefully closing the door, and crept along the wall. He listened at each door he passed, and at one door he sensed the sound of snoring. He didn't dare check any of the closed doors, and the closer he got to the end of the hallway and the rooms they had walked through when they were first brought inside, he heard more sounds. Like a TV or a radio turned down low, but mixed with a more or less constant buzzing or crackling.
He slowly kept going and reached the second to last door. It was partly open and Mozzie sneaked a peek inside. It seemed like it had once been a kitchen – one that was no longer in use. Cupboards along one wall, a table along another, and a sink. Above the sink was a window – a very regular one of its kind! Mozzie pondered... They were most likely far away from other people or anything at all, and so he would definitely need to either steal a car – which would be at the risk of being heard, when the engine started – or go a long way by foot. The alternative would be to find a phone, call for help and then hide somewhere outside.
He walked closer to the window to figure out if he could get out that way easily, when he heard someone yawning loudly. He paused, held his breath. Clearly sounds of someone stretching, some indistinct mumbling, and then he heard footsteps.
TBC...