'Even precious things get lost,
You put them down
And someone's taken off
With them.
So give me hope any way you can.
I need to know that there's a plan.'
"Precious Things" ~ Jonathan Seet
Now this is more like it.
Quiet (finally), soft under his head, cool air. No screaming or bright lights. A much more pleasant return to awareness than the first time.
Ed feels a niggling somewhere in his mind.
Spike! That's it!
He needs to check Spike over for injury. He must be terrified, blind and beaten.
That replayed image is enough to snap Ed's eyes open. The incident, that horrible assault, feels like it just happened. "Spike? You there?"
The fact he can keep his eyes open is his first clue. It's dark, cave dark, so that he can't even see the edges of the mattress he lies upon.
It wrenches between his gut in spasms once the realization arrives—he's alone. Spike is nowhere near…wherever this is. Or he would have answered.
Maybe he can't, Ed wants to believe. He could be unconscious or gagged.
Ed struggles to piece together what happened and finds he can't. He has no memory after getting out of the truck at the tailor's shop. There's that hazy, terrible image of Spike getting yanked around by his hair and struck but it doesn't coalesce properly. Did that happen in the alleyway?
Ed isn't bound, his second shock.
He tries to sit up, his head throbbing in one spot this time, low in the back of his skull. Probably concussed to high heaven.
Nope. Nuh-uh. Ed takes it back: this is ten times worse than before.
Before he can even sit up to ninety degrees, nausea swirls in a reverse tornado up his windpipe.
Ed scrambles around until his hands hit a plastic bucket. He leans over it, spewing into the bucket while he stomach clenches and unclenches. Ears ringing.
It's one of the worst cases of nausea Ed's ever experienced. He rides it out with eyes squeezed shut, hands nearly cracking the bucket.
Definitely a concussion, then.
There isn't much in his stomach and though he's not hungry, he can physically feel how empty it is.
The only light in the room comes from a seam of cracks around the door to Ed's left. The floor is wood by the cold and smell, no windows at all.
No sound at all.
Once Ed is done turning his intestinal system inside out, he breathes heavy and strains to hear traffic. Maybe they're in a skyscraper, high up?
Ed wants to do a revolution of the room, if nothing else than to see if Spike is here too, or if there are any potential weapons, but he can barely sit straight without swaying.
He sets the bucket down and feels around.
At first he wonders if he's not firing on all cylinders. The sensory information coming to him doesn't make sense.
His hand comes in contact with something rough and crackling.
It's…it's straw.
Ed huffs, amazed. "I'm sitting on a straw mattress."
He remembers a trip their school took once, when he was in elementary, to an "authentic village" an hour or so drive out of the city. The historic settlement was preserved to teach new generations about daily life for their ancestors.
This feels exactly like that, thick cloth stuffed with hay.
Ed is so flabbergasted that he nearly knocks over the water bottle near his feet.
He holds it between his hands for a long time. What if it's unsafe? What if it's a ruse, psychological torture?
Shaking, muscles cramping from dehydration, Ed knows he doesn't have a choice. He sips warily at it. It tastes normal, purified even. His parched throat, inflamed from all the vomiting, feels worlds better.
However, an empty stomach sloshed half full of water is enough to bring on the queasiness again.
He refuses to succumb to it. Ed clamps his lips shut while reaching down for his boots. His captors have to come back eventually, probably with more water or food, if they've kept him alive this long.
There's even a bandage around his head.
Ed pats at it with ginger fingers. Wincing, he takes note of how the bandage has been carefully folded, taped with an 'x' formation, just like he taught—
Spike.
Ed's eyes, blown wide and uneven, grow bright. Spike bandaged him up, suffering alone for who knows how long, protecting Ed through it all.
A shuddering starts in Ed's limbs, an echo of the fire from before.
How dare someone lay a finger on their boy! Ed wants to tear these men limb from limb just for the sheer audacity of it.
They not only blindfolded an unarmed man but taunted him too.
Ed is so consumed with rage that he actually finds the energy to get up. Not much, just to all fours, but it's enough for him to do a quick survey of the room. Tiny, your basic private office size. Not a scrap of furniture or wiring in it to speak of. There aren't even any electrical outlets.
Strangely enough, the walls are made of red brick. Few buildings in Toronto are made like this anymore.
The trip costs Ed more than he predicted. By the time he makes it back to the mattress, his movements are sluggish, uncoordinated. The shades of dim blur together and Ed curls up as best he can, head wound far away from the fabric to avoid brushing it.
Though he loses the battle with consciousness, he comforts himself with one simple victory—
He's almost got the laces off both boots.
In a childlike slip, showing his age, Dean gasps and asks, "Like the J. Edgar Hoover FBI?"
Peter breathes out a laugh, slightly hysterical. "The director of Homeland Intelligence himself, to be precise. Director William Hartford."
They're gathered around the front desk, Peter holding the landline in his right hand and muted by his left. He tries to hand it to Greg.
Greg scoffs. "I'm not active, Peter. Hell—I'm not even an officer anymore. Jules is team leader. Give it to her."
Peter shakes his head. "As soon as your name came up in the database, they insisted on you being the point of contact."
"Why would my name…?"
Greg closes his eyes with a defeated sigh at the same time Jules whispers, "Secondary consent. They must've found out that we're next of kin for Spike."
"Um, hello?" Dean flaps his hand. "Is nobody else freaking out that the FBI is calling us?"
"Actually," says Peter, smoothly ignoring Dean, "Director Hartford said it's because of your track record. He was impressed by your success rate throughout your career."
Wordy's eyebrows hike higher. "How did they even find out…actually, you know what? I don't want to know."
Leah took Dan off to Vice, with profuse thanks for his help, and the rookies went home for the night. So it's just the five of them in the front lobby.
Sam sits behind the dispatch computer, following a lead. His eyes flick up to watch the ongoing drama every few seconds.
Winnie joins them a moment later. She's redone her make up, a little more rested from a catnap, and by the hard set of her jaw, she's ready to get back in the fight. "Answer it, boss. If the kidnappers really did make it across the Canadian-US border, whether by illegal or legal means, we need all the help we can get."
Greg looks into the face of each individual here. The memories, the good with the bad, mistakes and victories shared and shouldered together.
"Alright." Greg inclines his head. "Alright, give it to me."
Peter does, with a smile. Since the SRU landline is wireless, Greg walks away into the briefing room and sits facing the windows. He needs as few distractions as possible.
Still, once alone, Greg pauses.
He realizes he's been going for hours straight. That he hasn't given himself any time to feel. He doesn't want to, but his heart gives him no choice, ravenous, devouring any images of his friends that dare pop into his mind—and they do, with abandon.
There's just one, really. A banal one, at that.
The day they finished a tough call, a successful takedown of a bank robber near the park. Sun setting at their backs, everyone shielded their eyes in irritation and fatigue.
Not Spike. Spike had turned to face the sun, stretched his back in that cat like way, the golden light setting his hair into a bronze flame. The corona flare over that dimpled grin melted the hard lines on all their faces.
Ed laughed at him, shaking his head with a ruffle of the tech's sun-warmed hair.
Greg's absent eyes burn. He closes them for a moment, just breathing through it. He needs to be level headed, at his best, to help them. Even if it's killing him.
With a sniff, he brings the phone to his ear. "Director. Sorry to keep you waiting."
"Sergeant Parker." There's a smile in the man's voice. And no small dose of sympathy. "Not a problem at all. All-nighter aside, I know this has been a hard day."
"You can say that again. Call me Greg, please."
"Greg, I'll get straight to the point, if that's alright with you."
Greg lets out a terse breath. This man isn't going to mess with him, he can tell. He likes the man's efficient way of speaking and no-nonsense approach; it reminds Greg of Ed. "That's a relief, actually, Director. Thank you."
"Forgive the unusual urgency in contacting you, but when two SRU officers were captured by someone with a wasp tattoo, we took notice."
"And why is that? Surely the Bureau has more pressing matters than two Canadians, grateful as I am."
This time there's a reluctance. Hartford's voice is heavier than moments earlier. "What I'm about to tell you is normally classified, but I assume I can trust you with it since you have a personal stake in this case."
Greg swallows, not that it helps his wet lashes any. "Yes, you can. There's…there's very little I won't do to get them back."
Hartford's own sigh crackles the line. "Just as I thought. Their kidnapping is the very first solid lead we've had in over two months."
"You're trying to catch this man with the tattoo?" Greg asks. "He's a US citizen, I'm assuming, since his prints didn't show up in our database."
"Correct, though we don't know his real name," says Hartford. "Greg—this isn't the first time he's grabbed people. Our agents, both undercover and here in DC, have gone missing. We're in a tizzy trying to stop the cycle."
A snare tangles up in Greg's chest and its spool of silver thread. His voice is forced to a whisper. "How many are we talking?"
Silence over the line.
Greg's lips quiver once and then still.
It is so silent, in fact, that he can hear the bustle of phones ringing and agents chattering in the back. It's two am, DC time, and even they aren't sleeping. The implications of that settle in Greg's stomach.
"Greg…I've lost twenty-three agents to this bastard, some colleagues and childhood friends, in the span of seven months."
Eyes closed again, Greg massages the bullet site in his leg.
"Your guys make twenty-five," Hartford finishes, quiet.
