Sorry for the delay. you'd think when you've been working on a plotline for 18 months that writers block would be less of a thing but nope. anyway, hope y'all had a happy new year. I'm all moved back for my last semester of school, but I'll try to update at the very least every other week.

Warnings for this chapter: depictions of violence

Chapter nine

Barry had not exactly kept his word. He had eaten, and called Iris, and she had promised to do some digging of her own, but he had left the conversation there. He had files of his own to look through, hunt through. There had to be something he was missing, some crucial clue, some scrap of evidence that would lead him in the right direction to find the next and the next, a trail that would lead back to his friends. He was not a cop, but he knew as well as the rest of them that Caitlin and Cisco's chances were not good. Whoever had taken them had even faked a suicide note, staged her car. That wasn't something someone did to a kidnap victim they planned to release unharmed. No, don't think about what ifs that won't solve anything.

Eddie's interviews with the park rangers had turned up nothing much. A woman with brownish hair had driven Caitlin's car in, and while Eddie was leaning on the Piedmont Police Department to have the ranger sit with a sketch artist, that hadn't happened yet.

With Thawne's escape from STAR Labs (and abduction of Eddie), most of the future tech had gone, too. All that remained in the time vault was that single newspaper hologram, but Barry combed through it for every name that might someday be important. Those had gone into boxes, like his murderboard, like his one time blog, clippings and scraps of the unusual, filed away for future reference. He'd thought any future that involved the "red skies" crisis a smaller article spoke of in past tense or some huge street battle in 2024 would come much later. But now, he wasn't so certain.

His phone rang, and in the slowing of time as he reached for it at lightning speed, he thought it was too early to be Joe or Eddie, and checked the caller ID.

Cisco

Barry's heart slammed into his ribcage like a battering ram as he jammed the phone to his ear.

"Cisco? Cisco where-"

"Hang up! Don't li-"Cisco's voice, high and desperate, cut off with a heavy thud.

"Cisco! Who's there, what are you doing?" Barry was on his feet in an instant, gripping the phone so tightly it creaked in his hand. The muffled sounds continued until there was a scream of pain. "What do you want, stop it! Leave him alone! Stop it!"

"Mr. Allen," a new voice came over the line, familiar and hard. "Or should I call you the Flash?"

Barry could feel the lightning that gleamed in his eyes, tiny golden flickers that momentarily obscured his vision. It had been months since he's head that voice, but he hadn't forgotten.

"Eiling. What do you want? Let my friends go."

"That's General Eiling to you. Right to the point, excellent. You, Flash, will meet my men in front of Star Labs and surrender yourself, or your little pet engineer dies. Don't waste my time trying to leave any cute warnings or notes or informing anyone. Anyone you get involved in this little arrangement stays involved, and I'm sure you don't want that. Cops lead such dangerous lives, after all, and that journalist friend of yours is bound to get in over her head sooner or later. After what happened to her mentor, no one will question it very deeply. Do I make myself clear?"

Barry's heart raced at the threat, and it was all he could do to keep his feet planted, not race to the station, not play this to the world. It would only get Cisco hurt, Iris and Eddie and Joe, too. He squeezed his eyes closed to fight the lightning in them down. "Fine. Now let Cisco and Caitlin go."

"I thought you'd agree. Smart man," Eiling ignored that last. "You have five minutes. Better hurry."

The line went dead before Barry could protest-demand to speak to Cisco, confirm Caitlin was even alive. Barry swayed, almost collapsing. He didn't want to think about how Eiling had learned his name, what he must have done to his friends. Barry's brain worked through the information at top speed, sorting, trying to keep the tidal wave of emotions at bay with little luck.

It would be pointless to try to track the phone, if not the call itself, he knew that much. They had tried tracking both cells earlier with no success, and whatever had been used to block the signal would be again. As much as Barry knew that blindly following Eiling's demands was a poor choice, it was the only one he had. He couldn't risk the reprisal, not to anyone he might tell or to Eiling's hostages. Hopefully, Cisco and Caitlin would have enough information for the police, would be able to contact other friends for help if given enough time.

Star Labs. No, not possible. He'd searched, they couldn't be holed up right under his nose. But then, he'd looked for Eddie and missed him, too. What if there was some leftover hiding place from when Eiling had apparently worked with STAR? No, he couldn't have overlooked that again. Maybe it was just somewhere close by. There were buildings, maybe hidden bunkers or something there. They couldn't have been home all along.

It did not take five minutes- four and a half, now- to reach Star Labs, to circle in wide arcs around it, hunting as Oliver had tried to teach him for traps or ambush. If there was one, it wouldn't make any difference, he had no choice but to trip it, not with Cisco's life hanging in the balance.

Three dark vans were already parked in the lot, and Barry slowed his pace, skidding across the thing scattering of gravel. He stopped several yards away. If any of the men Eiling had brought had one of those awful Spike grenades, he wanted to be out of range.

"General Eiling," he called, low enough that only the soldiers spilling from the vans might hear. They were dressed in dark clothing, but Barry could still easily make out the dozen and a half men that fanned out, no doubt to encircle him.

"He's busy." Barry had thought he might recognize their voices, if not the hidden faces, from his prior encounters. That he did not unnerved him, it meant Eiling had a lot more people in on his side projects than anticipated.

"Where's Cisco?" Barry demanded, shifting from foot to foot like a deer ready to bolt, but forcing himself to stay put.

One of the men reached for his belt, and Barry flinched until he realized it was a radio.

"Flash is here, Sir."

The one who seemed to be in charge stepped forward. "Nice and easy, Flash. On your knees, hands on your head."

Barry did not move. " I said, Where's Cisco?"

"Alive, for now. On the ground, Flash."

"I want to see him," Barry countered.

"You will. But if I have to tell you again, it'll be his corpse. Now, Flash."

Barry hesitated, and the man with the radio lifted it to his mouth again.

"No!" Barry's body shook as he held up his hands in clear surrender. Slowly, he knelt, one knee giving out on him entirely as he bent the other.

He could have fought. He could have been on his feet and running towards Joe, towards CCPN, towards the White House before any of them had time to fire a bullet. But all that would have guaranteed was Eiling giving an order to hurt-to kill-Cisco, and then trying again, going after Iris, or his dad. His shoulders slumped. There was just no way out. He let himself be cuffed, and hauled upright.

Something heavy smashed into his head, and even the dim light of street lamps and the tail end of dusk went dark.

When the door to Ronald's cell had opened, Martin had braced for his own door to do likewise. Instead, it stayed firmly closed, and the trio of soldiers-Martin assumed they were soldiers, but they could have been private contractors, he supposed- had surrounded the younger man, two pinning his arms and the third just out of reach holding his weapon with the confidence of a man who knew his own strength, and all the weaknesses of his opponent.

"Wait," Martin had snapped Ronald met his eyes just once, desperately, as he was pushed from the cell. "Where are you taking him? I told your master to leave the children be, you bootlicking schmeckels."

They didn't answer. Martin wondered if they had even heard- the barrier had been soundproof, after all. There was no reason to think they'd heard, but his blood still boiled-not literally, but as close to it as was possible without being merged.

His right knee trembled; it had always been a little weaker than the other. Martin sat again on the thin pallet, more closely related to a plastic gym mat than a bed. Why take Ronald? Eiling had to know that he was Firestorm's creator, he was the one who had all the information. Of course, he had explained most of his research to the younger man, but Ronald was an engineer, not a theoretical physicist, and had admitted that most of the papers Clarissa and Jason Rusch had smuggled them had gone over his head. If Eiling wanted answers, formulas, Ronald could not give them to him. He tried to focus, to feel Ronald's emotions instead of his own, but it was all one swirling mass of fear and indignation and desperation, impossible to separate out. Even the fear for Clarissa might have been Ronald's fear for Caitlin Snow. Unconsciously, he rubbed his forearm, the jagged lines of his scar easy to find without looking. Barry Allen had come to his aid before. He would again, if only he could find them. They would just have to hold on-hold out-until then. He could never let Eiling have the power of Firestorm, but somehow he doubted he would have much in the way of a choice. If giving in was the only way to save Ronald's life, or Caitlin's, or his wife's, Martin already knew he would do whatever Eiling wanted, and he knew the General knew it as well.

Whatever rescue your friends are planning, Caitlin, I hope it comes quickly.

Enough time had passed by the time Ronald's door opened and he was tossed in like a sack of moldy rye that Martin's knee had gone stiff again. His own cell door rattled and opened with a series of heavy clicks and thunks. Martin stood under his own power before they could yank his arms out of socket, and did not bother fighting. Perhaps he should have. He'd have liked to snarl and show these men that he was not cowed, not some docile captive already broken in spirit. But at 65, he was older than them by at least three decades, and they used that youth well. Even if he hadn't been outnumbered and half starved, without the combined strength of Firestorm he doubted his efforts would do anyone a lick of good.

"This way," one of them ordered, flat voiced, shoving hard enough that Martin stumbled, cursing his knee and the soldier both silently. Had he been shackled, the way he had been the first time he'd woken up as a "guest" of the military, he's have lost his balance entirely. As it was, he still had to catch himself to keep from hitting the hard cement floor. Like the cell they had stuck him in, it was smooth, no little grooves to be seen, and the walls were covered in whitewash starting to yellow.

There was a veritable maze of identical corridors, some with a few doors, others without, and his "guides" pushed him along without comment, sometimes ordering him to turn, sometimes simply forcing him around a corner without warning. At last, one pulled out a key card and a key ring and unlocked a door. His companions herded Martin inside.

It was, Martin noted with both gratitude and regret, not the same basement interrogation room Eiling had stuck him in last time. He still had night terrors about that room, but it would have been easier for the Flash to rescue them there. Likely why Eiling chose a new base of operations, you old fool, he chided himself. It had been a half considered hope.

This room was startlingly brightly lit, smaller, with no ominous shadows in the corners. Like that first room, though, the one that had been damp and cold, this one had very little in the way of furniture aside from a counter set above drawers and cupboards, and a single mechanized dentist's-chair-from-hell. Shoeless on the slick floor, Martin's efforts to resist were fruitless.

"You realize you won't be getting away with any of this? This is a dozen kinds of illegal," Martin snarled at the man who was now half dragging him.

"What you think the cops are going to come and rescue you? No one even knows you're here, old man, and no one who cares ever will. Sit down, or I will shoot you. The General needs you alive, but he didn't say whole."

Martin did not sit. The two soldiers who had not drawn weapons pinned him in place, wrists secured to the chair arms. For a heartbeat, he wondered if Eiling had learned how he had communicated his location to rescuers before, but shook off the thought. Ronald was already here, and this room seemed bare of any convenience "you are here" signs.

He could not see the door from his seat, but he heard it open, and the shuffle of footsteps.

"You're dismissed," a new voice said, and the soldiers trooped out, single file.

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