Author's Note: Enjoy…?
Exposed
Part 7: The Turning Point
Chapter 1: In which Nell becomes undesirably familiar with a wooden chair, cheroots, and a sociopath…
"Who or what is 'Callen'?"
Nell blinked to clear her eyes of the tears, sending them flowing down her cheeks and stinging her skin. Focusing on the face of her 'interrogator', she tried to figure out the meaning behind the words he'd just spoken. The intricate web of nerves just beneath the skin of her inner thigh were still screaming.
"Wh-what?" Her breathing was in overdrive, trying to compensate for the air being forced out of her by the blinding pain.
"You cried out for someone or something called 'Callen'," the dark man said. His voice was the deadly calm of a sociopath, rendered all the more terrifying by the slightly accented yet smooth British speech pattern.
"I-I don't know wh-what your talking about, " Nell said.
The sociopath took a long, slow drag on his cheroot. Rather than closing with enjoyment of the toxic vapor, the eerie pale green-grey eyes bored into Nell the entire time. She bit the inside of her cheek against the whimpering burbling up in her throat and met the bastard's gaze with as much steel as her trembling self could muster.
When he removed the cigarette from his lips and exhaled slowly, his eyes played over the entirety of her body where it sat strapped to the wooden chair. There were no arms on this particular shaker style piece of furniture, so her arms had been bound at the wrist to the spindles at her lower back and she could feel the rough grain of wood against her bare skin. Being as petite as she was, this position also had the unfortunate side affect of forcing her to contort to the shape of the chair so as not to further wrench her shoulder. In doing so, her back was obliged to arch, displaying more prominently to the world what wares she had. The writhing around in agony against her taut bonds had -of course- shifted the fabric of her stupid goddamn dress to expose her right breast. Under any other circumstances, Nell would've been absolutely mortified by shame over such an occurrence. But at the moment, she was too filled with loathing, pain and fear to be concerned.
The sociopath leaned in, and Nell's knee spasmed reflexively. Had her ankles not been secured rather well to the chair legs, she would have just kicked the bastard square in the balls. But her ankles were tied quite securely to the chair legs.
Mr. Sociopath took another drag on his cheroot, blowing smoke straight in her face as he reached out towards her exposed breast. Nell turned her face away, as much because she didn't want to see him touch her (feeling it would be bad enough, but unavoidable given her present circumstances) as she found the toxic smoke choking and needed to cough. She squeezed her eyes shut, anticipating being groped and tried to focus on something else, like the burning sensation on her inner thigh. But those powerful, long fingers did not caress or grab the supple flesh of her round, pert breast. Rather, they brushed against her exposed nipple inadvertently as they tugged her dress back into place.
"American whore," Mr. Sociopath said softly. It was a phrase common to fanatical middle eastern extremists, but Mr. Sociopath uttered it with a hint of affection in his otherwise unrevealing tone. She looked at him, but there was no change in his expression. It was the same superior, bored look. It said, 'This is business to me and the sooner it's done, the better.'
He tapped the ash off the end of the cheroot, and then took another short puff. The end glowed red hot and panic struck Nell like a bolt of lightening at the sight of it. Or, more accurately, like a bolt of shear agony caused by the glowing end of a cheroot being applied to the vulnerable flesh of her inner right thigh.
Nell wasn't proud enough to deny (even to herself) that she screamed. It was an instinctual, inevitable reaction to being in pain. And she wasn't about to bite through her lip in a vain attempt to stifle the outcry. She couldn't say precisely why, but when the instrument of her torture was removed from its grisly task and returned to the lips of the goddamn bastard who'd made it his mission to hurt her, Nell looked down at her lap. Up until this point, she couldn't stomach looking at the sickening sight, the results of being burned in such a manner. Great, angry blisters had formed on the tender flesh of her inner thigh, red circles with black charred centers. Not quite bleeding, but definitely oozing some bodily fluids that had boiled up to the surface. Mr. Sociopath had been rather methodically working his way up. Three so far, the first being located a few inches above her knee. Each progressive burn had been about an inch higher. Which meant there was a good amount of inner thigh remaining for the crazy asshole to apply his cheroot to. This was most apparently his interrogation method of choice, for he was expert at getting the cigarette just the right blazing temperature to sear flesh, and did not even flinch when applying it to her naked skin. Even as she thrashed against the pain (and her bindings), he was able to maintain a steady degree of pressure, destroying dermis and nerves alike down through several layers. The skin had bubbled, turned white, then black. Or maybe that was simply ash embedded in her thigh?
"There," Mr. Sociopath said, lighting a new cheroot after discarding the one that had spent its last fraction of an inch eating through Nell's flesh. "You did it once more. 'Callen. Callen, help me.' Who is this Callen? And does this person have my merchandise?"
So, she had cried out for Callen. Probably because he was the only one close enough to save her. Well, at least, Nell hoped they hadn't left the country club grounds and that Callen was tracking her down that very moment. Trying to not get her hopes up too high, Nell did note with some pleasure that they appeared to be in an out-of-use stable, smelling only vaguely of horse and their associated scents of hay, leather and manure. And thus they were likely still at the country club. She knew from the little map she'd studied while waiting to check in at reception that the stables were located on the far end, past the golf course and horse tracks, a couple of miles from the hotel. But shouldn't there be staff or groundskeepers about? Well, the hour was late. And money could turn many a blind eye and plug many an ear (even to a woman's agonized screams).
"Earlier in the coat check, there was this guy with the little piece."
Nell had nearly forgotten the Chicago bear. What was his name? Anyway, she'd basically forgotten the mobster, being preoccupied by Mr. Sociopath's oh-so-excellent hospitality. Not that D'Arcangelis (oh, that was the name, hardly fitting though it was) was any less dangerous or cruel. She had the bruises on her arms (from where his goons -'associates'- grabbed her) and the swelling, throbbing place on her cheekbone (where he'd backhanded her when she refused to talk) to remind her.
"And why didn't you invite him to join our little soiree as well as the young lady?" Mr. Sociopath asked. For the first time, he showed something beyond the mildest emotion. A slight Middle-Eastern accent, maybe Saudi or Egyptian, slanted his words as he became agitated, which confirmed her team's assumption that D'Arcangelis was using the wedding as a cover to sell weapons or intelligence to terrorist groups. Although, Mr. Sociopath seemed more the middle man type, rather than one prone to fanaticism.
"The bitch was alone in her hotel room. There wasn't no sign of 'im."
"Idiot," Mr. Sociopath said.
"Probably she can tell us where he's at, though," D'Arcangelis said. "Or she mighten have taken the briefcase herself."
Mr. Sociopath seemed to fume for a moment before regaining his stoic facade.
"All right," he said, placing a genial hand upon D'Arcangelis' meaty shoulder. "It's all right. You are probably correct, my friend. The woman will tell us what we wish to know."
Mr. Sociopath returned his attention to Nell, and she involuntarily took a sharp breath in. She might scream, but she wasn't going to beg. Again the cheroot kissed her skin in a searing embrace that had her writhing against her bonds, throwing her head back and screaming. Maybe Callen wasn't close enough to hear her, but perhaps there was someone, anyone nearby, a person they'd bribed to let them into the stable, whose conscience could only be bought so far. Surely, the sound of a woman in such agony would at some point outweigh the roll of bills in their pocket?
The concentrated fire had been removed from her skin, but she was only vaguely aware after a few minutes, when the pounding of blood in her ears had subsided, that there was some sort of conference going on several yards away from her. She blinked the tears from her eyes, taking hissing inhalations of air in through gritted teeth as she fought the urge to moan pathetically. Her sight was still a little too blurry to see the details of the men, the thrumming in her ears still too loud to hear separate words in their conversation. But she had no need to strain her senses, for Mr. Sociopath was approaching her once more. And the mere sight of his smile turned her stomach into a lump of lead in her guts. She had the sudden panicky knowledge that he would do something far, far worse to her than burn her skin with his fragrant and still smoldering cheroot.
But When he held out the object in his hand for her to examine, she saw only... her cell phone?!/
Now she had to fight not grin even more impishly back at the idiot. If they had kept her cell phone, then Eric would've already tracked the GPS chip and Callen and any other amount of back up were already on their way to her. It would only be a matter minutes. But when she saw Mr. Sociopath hold up the battery in his other hand, her heart fell. She really needed to find a work around, install some sort of micro-battery to run the GPS chip in cases like this.
The (in another situation, she would've thought) attractive, dark haired, olive skinned, psychotic, terrorist-associated, middleman inserted the battery back in her phone and fiddled with it a moment, obviously perusing its memory. Smiling wickedly as he looked her in the eyes with his steely green-grey gaze, he tapped the screen of the little phone and held it to his ear.
"Is this Callen?"
Nell's heart skipped a beat, despite the fact that it could be no one else they'd call. They thought she was simply a guest at the wedding who had stumbled upon their deal. And Callen could only be her friend, boyfriend, lover... companion of some sort.
"You do not need to know my name. Only that I have Nell Jones.
"Why, I want me merchandise, of course. And don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about."
So Callen was playing it dumb, giving her the benefit of the doubt, that she had continued to maintain cover.
"A briefcase. I will exchange the girl for it."
Mr. Sociopath looked irritated by whatever Callen was saying.
"Fine." He turned to Nell. "You will tell him where the briefcase is and nothing else."
The man didn't bother with a threat, for he knew that she already knew what he was capable of, and willing to do to retrieve his 'merchandise.' He held the phone up to her ear.
Crap. Nell chewed her lip momentarily. The horrible part was that she had actually remembered where the briefcase had gone, where she had moved it. And here she had held through the years to the belief that torture wasn't effective. Okay, well, it had somehow in all the firings of her neurons jogged her memory. But it hadn't provided that information for her interrogators, for she had resolutely adhered to the premise that she was just an ignorant young woman who'd done nothing to interfere with their business.
/Nell, are you okay?/ Callen asked.
"I'm fine. They want me to tell you where to find this... briefcase?"
There, that should be vague enough if he wanted her to continue to play ignorant. He didn't.
/Can they hear me?/
"No."
/Good. Can they hear you?/
"Yes."
Mr. Sociopath narrowed his eyes at Nell for the possibly off-topic conversation, but said nothing. The warning was clear. Get to it.
/Okay. If you can, I need you to give me some clue to find it. We'll swap out the contents and pretend to go through with the trade. Otherwise we'll wing it. But we'll get you out. I promise./
Callen's word had sent a wave of relief through him. But how could she tell him without giving too clear a location? If the bad guys could just go retrieve the item themselves, they had no use for her.
"Remember where you found me earlier today?"
/The ladies' room on the first floor, near the Lobby./
"Yes. Rosie's keeping it there for me."
She wasn't sure what part of her mind's ramblings he'd been privy to, but maybe he'd figure it out. And it might keep Mr. Sociopath occupied longer, searching her phone for someone called 'Rosie', enough time to trace the location.
But in the end, She discovered that would not be necessary. Mr. Sociopath told Callen exactly where to go, where they were, assuming he was just another run-of-the-mill rich, incapable American.
Oh, to see the look on the bastard's face when he eventually realized how sadly mistaken he'd been...
A/N: Not sure if you've noticed this, but the more I love a character, the more likely I am to abuse them. Guess it sucks to be Nell and Callen in my fics (but nothing too horrible in this one, I don't think… it's meant to be somewhat lighter, at least.)