"Don't touch her!" Alison snapped as soon as she saw Carl bend down to wipe her mother's hair from her face. Alison struggled against her restraints as she watched him. He was knelt by her side and Alison couldn't begin to comprehend what had just happened.
But the more she watched, the more she understood. He had killed her mother. He had killed her with such ease that it disgusted Alison. She looked down at her mother's body and thought of the sound that had echoed through the basement.
Maria had managed to loosen the ropes around her wrist whilst Carl was upstairs and hidden away, making sure he had secured the premise. Maria had rushed to her daughter, helping Alison out of her bonds before she grabbed her hand.
Her mother had ran her hands down Alison's cheeks, telling her how sorry she was, telling her how much she loved her and regretted so much in life. Alison had done her best to silence her mother and urge her to move up the stairs.
She had listened, grabbing Alison's hand and moving to the steps. It was then when the door opened. The hidden door in the cupboard under the stairs. The light streamed down and Carl's shadow blocked the rest of it from hitting them. Maria had stood in front of her daughter and backed into the corner.
She had been the one to charge at Carl, doing her best to create a distraction for Alison to leave. But Carl was stronger and quicker than they were. The cracking sound caused Alison to stop in her tracks. She watched her mother's body slump down the wall, blood trickling from her head. Carl had moved then, grabbing Alison and hauling her back to her seat. He had hit her mother against the wall with such force that he had killed her.
"Your mother defied me, Alison," Carl reminded her. "I told her to be good. I didn't mean to kill her. Believe me; I am not happy about this. She was a...well...not a lovely woman...but she had her uses..."
"No," Alison snapped. "Just stay away from her. Leave her alone."
"She is dead, Alison," Carl responded. "It doesn't matter anymore."
He stood up tall and looked back to the twenty year old with his hands on his hips. A small smile escaped him along with a sigh. "Let us just hope that your beloved quartermaster delivers the message to Bond. He keeps trying to track me. It is cute to watch."
Alison tried to push Q from her mind after she had heard the mention of him. She needed to focus and not think of what would happen if she never saw Q again.
"This was all part of your plan, wasn't it?" Alison checked with Carl. "You never loved my mum...you...you wanted the keys..."
"And what better way to get them than by kidnapping the daughter of 007," Carl said. "I admit, Alison, you did come without a fight. I had expected a bit more from you. MI6 has been plotting this interception for as long as we have been planning the exchange. I need it to stop."
"Why?" Alison wondered.
"Because I get to keep my life and receive a lovely pay cheque for doing my job," Carl told her, crouching down in front of her. He rested his hands on her thighs, looking at her laddered tights before he slowly ripped them down her thigh. Alison squirmed and did her best not to allow a strangled sob to leave her mouth.
She didn't know what he was planning, but she knew it wasn't going to be pleasant.
He slowly undid the bandage which had been wrapped around her scarred thigh. Alison whimpered as she felt his cold fingers against her flushed skin. He finally dropped the bandage to the floor and ran his hand over her skin. She couldn't feel it due to having no nerves in the burnt area, but just the thought of him touching her made her feel sick.
"It's horrible, isn't it?" Carl whispered to her. "The feeling of being defenceless. Is that how it felt when you saw your leg? To know that your father did that to you...him..."
"He did not do this to me," Alison replied. "Silva did that to me. He was the one who took me to Scotland. I trust you know about that."
"I know," Carl promised her. "I know that it was no accident. Yet it was your father who placed you in that position."
"What are you trying to do?" Alison wondered. "Do you want to turn me against my dad? It won't work. I know who he is and I know what he does. He will kill you for this. You know that, don't you? You know that he won't let you get away with this."
A dark chuckle elicited through his lips as he moved his hand to her cheek and ran his thumb over the bruise forming there. She did her best to move away from him, but failed miserably.
"He won't," Carl promised. "He's James Bond, I know that...but...you...you're his daughter. You're his only family, and he's now your only family. How very sad for you. He won't risk your life, especially when Q tells him how broken you look."
"I'm not," Alison replied, her voice trembling. "Do you think that I can't handle this? Do you think that I will give in? That I will let my dad give in?"
"So much faith in daddy dearest," Carl rolled his eyes before he dug into his pocket.
He dug out a switchblade and Alison gulped. She didn't quiver, nor did she show how scared she was. She couldn't. She wouldn't let him see her in fear. She wanted nothing more than to run away from that basement.
"Shall we test that faith, Ali?" he wondered, the glowing edge of the blade catching the light.
Alison kept silent and closed her eyes, waiting for the pain to come to her.
...
"We cannot jeopardise this mission, Bond."
M's stern voice rang through Q Branch. James had returned as soon as Q had told him what he had seen. Bond's hands had clenched into balls by his sides and his glare was enough to burn through anything. Anything except M, so it would seem.
"She is my daughter," James snarled back. "Can you not give me a decoy? I need to get her back. I have to save her. Why can you not understand that?"
"This mission has been planned for months. I have 005 over there seeing to it," M responded and Q pushed his glasses further onto the bridge of his nose. He pulled even more at his mussed up hair before he looked to the screen of his laptop.
He was having no luck whatsoever in this case. But this wasn't just a case to Q. This was Alison's life at stake.
"And he has the codes to all of the NATO nuclear weapons," Q snapped back, rubbing a hand over his eyes as he pushed his glasses upwards. "Do you think that he won't use them? We have no other option but to do as he says. We need to send a decoy. He'll see straight through it, of course...unless..."
"Unless what?" M wondered and Q shook his head.
It was preposterous. It was highly technical. It was everything that Q could do.
"We clone the keys," Q said. "All I need is the method used to make them. I can find it on the database. We pretend that the original keys have been stolen, but we keep them on track to Germany."
"Can you clone them?" M wondered from Q.
"I assume there are a certain few who can," nodded Q. "Thankfully I should be one of them. I can make them accurate...from the weight of them...to the exact electronics inside of them..."
"Can this work?" Bond asked M.
They had to try, Bond knew that. M's opinion didn't matter, but it would make matters easier if he did consent to what was being asked.
"Is there another option?" M wondered. "We keep a track of Bond and we apprehend this man as soon as we can. Do we know anything about him?"
"He didn't show his face on the screen," Q replied. "I couldn't track anything about him either. I have no idea who he is and Alison said nothing about him. You can try to track Bond, but I doubt it will work. He is rerouting any attempt I make to track Alison's iPhone. He's good."
"Then we send agents to cover," M responded. "He has the codes to start nuclear war. I want his brought in as soon as possible."
"He'll know if there are agents," Bond replied with a shake of his head. "He'll be able to track their movements. If he knows then what do you think he will do to my daughter?"
"You want to go into this alone? Do you think that he will be alone?" M snapped back. "This is madness, Bond. We have no idea who he is or who he is working for."
"I am doing this for my daughter," Bond quickly repeated. "I can cope alone. I always have done, and I always will do."
M shook his head and arched his brow. There was no use in arguing with Bond. There never was any point. The man was as stubborn as a bull.
"How long will it take to make the key?" wondered M and Q began to search for the design on his laptop.
"Four or five hours if I call in R and have all of the equipment I need," Q responded. "That gives us a minimum of eighteen hours to save Alison."
"Get on it," M said. "I need to go to speak with the PM. He wants to know how the codes fell into this man's hands. What do you suggest I tell him?"
"Tell him what you want," Bond responded. "I do not know what happened. No one knows what has happened, including the PM."
M shook his head and turned on his heel, moving away from the scene and towards what he couldn't help but think was his own execution.
...
Alison didn't know how long she had been on the floor. She had closed her eyes and urged for the searing pain to leave her. Occasionally she would look down her body and vaguely see the blood that seeped out from her upper thighs. She couldn't feel the pain in her burnt leg, but she could feel it from her other leg. She was struggling to believe that his knife had pierced so much of her skin.
He had left her downstairs and all alone in the dark. The lights had been turned off and all that Alison could hear was the sound of her erratic breathing. She felt as though she was in some form of horror film. She had managed to shrug her jacket from her shoulders and she pressed it against the open wound, trying to stop it from bleeding too much.
It wasn't until much later when Carl came back and began to stitch the wound back up. Alison leant against the wall, her hands bound and her ankles tied together as she watched him sew the wound.
"Why did you do it?" Alison wondered from him.
He looked at her flushed face and her messy hair as she glared at him. He shrugged and Alison groaned at the pain of the stitches moving into her pale skin. She winced as he finished and she looked down at the unsightly job he had done.
"I don't want to break you too much, Alison. Leaving you to bleed to death would be no fun. Your dad wouldn't have any reason to deal with my request then...but...well...he needs to see how broken you are for when we call him. It will most certainly make him do my bidding."
Alison remained silent then, focusing past the pain she was feeling at that moment in time.
...
Q was left alone to make the decoy keys. He had called R to come in and she had said that she would be there as soon as possible. Bond had gone off on a wander, unable to concentrate on what Q was doing. He had taken his earpiece out of his ear and so had no means of communication to the quartermaster.
It wasn't until Q was alone when he saw another email pop up. He opened it with haste and saw the link. The webcam turned on again and Q saw Alison one more time. He looked on with horror as he saw her upper thighs. He struggled to believe the sight, almost feeling sick at the dried blood that had stained her dress and legs.
"Is Bond still not with you?" the voice on the other end asked.
"No," Q snapped. "What have you done to her?"
"Nothing that is unfixable," he promised, walking behind Alison, only his legs on show. Alison glowered back across to him before she looked to the laptop screen. Q's face was scrunched up and his eyes looked as though they were forming bags. "I had to make Bond see that this is not a joking matter."
"It isn't," Q said. "You kidnapped his daughter. Is that not enough?"
"No," Carl responded. "I don't think it is. She's fine. You don't need to worry. She's very quiet at the moment in time."
"You're torturing her," Q whispered, his tone almost breaking.
Alison thought of what he had said to her. If she dared to yell out where she was then he'd see to it that she lost the feeling in her other leg. She gulped and took a moment to think. None of it mattered to her anymore.
She had lost her mother. Carl could hurt her father. He could hurt Q if he wanted to. The feeling of her other leg didn't matter. She had to stop him from doing the wrong thing. She had to do the right thing, even if it meant sacrificing herself. He could torture her as much as he wanted to. He could drag her to another safe house and slowly kill her there.
At least she had tried.
"Q," Alison called his name as Carl strode to the other side of the room. She did her best to remember the address Carl had told her. "I'm at 38 Mapleton Road! He killed my mum...it's Carl, Q! He's the one-"
Alison was cut off as Carl bent down and placed his hand over her mouth. Q began to alert the services, hoping that they could get to her in time. The line went dead and Q was left alone in his Division.
Carl dropped the laptop to the floor, crushing it before he began to unbind Alison from the chair.
"Stupid move, Alison," Carl hissed at her. "Do you think they will get here in time? Do you think that he can save you?"
"You cannot do this," Alison replied. "I had to try...I had to stop..."
"Oh no, Alison," Carl shook his head, throwing the girl over his shoulder before he began to move from the basement. "You've been a bad girl, Alison. Do you know what happens to bad girls, Ali?"
She thrashed around on his shoulder as he moved down the hall and took a door to the left. Alison looked up, seeing the familiar sight of a garage. A bleeping noise came from in front of her and the sound of a trunk opening rang in her ears. She felt a cold breeze on her skin, sensing that she had lost her shoes and her tights had gone, leaving her in a simple dress.
"They're punished, Alison." Carl told her, dropping her body into the trunk.
She began to scream before she felt his hand over her mouth and he reached for the tape in the corner of the enclosed space. He pulled a piece off and wrapped it over her mouth. She continued to squeal and move before she felt Carl's hand on her throat, slowly strangling her until she couldn't scream any longer.
"Now be quiet," Carl said. "I will deal with you later on."
Alison tried to move but found herself trapped as the lid closed on her and she was shrouded in darkness once again.
...
A/N: For some reason I can't stop with the cliff hangers! Anyway, thank you to backseatgoodbyeislife, LadyFides, Sunday, AbigailTBird1998 and gillyhelbee for reviewing! I do hope you will let me know what you think so far!