Author: Karen
Title: Lockdown
Timeline: Directly after Angel fires the Batpack in Season 2.
Disclaimer: Sadly not mine but willing to submit a reasonable offer for
the use of Lindsey and the boys at the Hypernion.
Feedback: Much appreciated as it's my first fic to be submitted for
general consumption and I'm nervous!
Dedication: To Chrissy for being so nice and helping out a complete
stranger and to Sunny(?) for her encouraging comments and giving me my
first ever feedback.
Rating: Have no idea as I am new to this but around a film 12/15 at the mo
and progressing to an 18 later. (God and Cordy and Lindsey willing)
Archive: If you want it all you have to do is ask!
Written in response to a challenge on the fan page to have Lindsey and one of the white hats trapped in Wolfram and Hart for the night.
Lockdown Part 4.
Cordelia jumped as the confined space she found herself in suddenly echoed with the furious pounding of the demons on the other side. She took an involuntary step back and Lindsey yelled into her ear.
"My foot! Jesus watch where you're standing!"
Cordelia scowled as his voice dipped down towards the floor
"Some seer you are." "Suck it up whiny. And for your information that's seer not seeing eye dog!"
She reached out a cautious hand and touched a cool, damp wall and then reached out with the opposite arm and brushed the opposite side of the tunnel with her fingertips. So, trapped in a pitch black confined space with someone she didn't like and the screaming hordes of the underworld after her blood. She felt sixteen all over again.
"Any idea where we are Mr trap us in the place where we're most likely to meet our horrible agonising deaths?"
Lindsey frowned at the sarcastic tone of Cordelia's voice and wished he could see her face as he snapped
"Really, no thanks necessary for saving your life. Please don't mention it."
Cordelia rolled her eyes and stretched out her leg to feel around for her bag as she answered
"Way to go Lindsey. We can't see, we don't know where we are, we have no idea where to get out and to top it all off we have no idea what's down here with us. Really I can't tell you how much I appreciate this."
Her foot brushed something soft and hoping it was her leather tote and not something that was going to rip her arm off, she bent to retrieve it. She snagged the material and breathed a sigh of relief. Arm and fingers all attached and accounted for. Things were looking up.
They both jumped as the demons renewed their efforts to get in by hammering at the false wall with what sounded like a battering ram. They spoke at the same time
"We need to get out of here!"
Cordelia shoved her hand into the bag and felt around "I can't find the lighter."
She heard Lindsey's clothes rustle and then yelped as a flame appeared an inch away from her nose
"Watch it!"
She stepped backwards and closed her eyes wincing at the pain caused by the unexpected flash. She slowly opened her eyes and saw Lindsey's face seemingly bobbing in mid air as he held the lighter before him
"Ok we need to move now."
They both turned towards the door as another particularly loud crash sounded, Lindsey peered around him raising the lighter as he did so and then made a triumphant sound. He reached over Cordelia's shoulder and flicked a switch and suddenly they were bathed in soft golden light. He let the lighter go out and then glanced around. They stood in a tunnel with a very low ceiling and a dirt floor not more than two metres wide. A row of tubed lighting stretched away around the corner following the tunnel's path and the reflections glinted from the slightly damp walls. He glanced back to Cordelia and took in her apprehensive expression and felt fairly sure it mirrored his own. He shrugged
"Well we still have pulses and a heartbeat that's gotta be a plus right?"
Cordy shrugged
"Normally I'd agree but this all looks very familiar. I think I saw this in my vision and I'm definitely sure that we're not on our own down here."
She gestured to the floor and Lindsey looked down and saw what was unmistakeably some kind of animal droppings. He saw with dismay not only were they large but also very fresh.
"Shit!"
Cordy grinned
"My point exactly."
She glanced back as the rhythmic pounding began to pick up
"Well whatever, we can't stay here."
Lindsey nodded in agreement and moved in front of Cordelia
"I'll go first, follow me."
Cordelia obediently fell in behind him grinning at the authority in the tone. If he wanted to be first choice out of a fresh delivery of human meat so much the better. She planned to stay well back and concentrate on looking as gristly and flavourless as possible.
They reached the curve of the tunnel and realised that the light would get much dimmer as they went on thanks to the lighting paring down to one solitary strip of tubing that flickered uncertainly. Lindsey felt Cordelia take a deep breath behind him and without thinking reached back to squeeze her hand to reassure her. Much to his amazement his fingers were grasped in her slightly calloused hand and he smiled as she held on as he set out into the gloom. His grin widened as she whispered
"Don't for one minute think I like you Lindsey. I just don't wanna take a fall and ruin my three thousand dollar dental work."
The sounds of the demons trying to follow them faded behind them as they progressed down the tunnel but slowly their eyes began to water as the most incredible stench rose around them.
"Christ, what the hell is that?"
Lindsey moaned through his fingers fighting the urge to follow Cordelia's earlier example and hurl all over the floor. Her voice came from behind him betraying no emotion
"Dead bodies. Lots of 'em and a long time a rottin' judging from the smell."
Lindsey paused in mid step and glanced back at his unwilling companion in this nightmare
"What?"
Cordelia stared into his frightened eyes grimly
"Dead rotting corpses. Probably human. Killed fairly recently judging from the smell." "What you can tell how long something's been dead from the smell now?"
Cordelia eyed him in condescendingly
"No but if they'd have been down here years they wouldn't still be smelling. They'd be bones and dust and all we'd have to worry about is how long it had been since somebody vacuumed. Duh!"
Lindsey opened his mouth and then closed it when no suitable rejoinder came to him. Cordelia looked away from him down the tunnel and he felt a tide of shame flood over him again. Whilst obviously concerned with not being eaten Cordelia was also deeply distressed at the fate of the beings whose remains were now choking them with noxious gases.
Lindsey felt minor, very minor, curiosity as to who they were but his first thought definitely hadn't been poor souls may they rest in peace. Maybe a brief thought as to what they'd done to deserve their fates but that was it.
He grasped her hand more firmly in his and set off again breathing through his mouth and trying to stay away from the thought that the smell was clinging onto his clothes and seeping into his pores.
They rounded another corner and the tunnel suddenly widened out and became a small round cavern. The source of the smell was evident as dismembered and very dead bodies littered the gore-drenched floor atop older remains and bones that looked like they could have been there for decades.
Lindsey felt cold drops of sweat spring out on his forehead as he stared around helplessly and he pressed a hand to his stomach trying to suppress the heaving of the contents. He had never seen anything like it not even in the cellar when he woke to the special contracts division spread out like meat at market and suddenly the reality of the world he dealt in daily came crashing home to him. He turned from Cordelia and helplessly threw up wave after wave of vomit wishing he could purge himself of his past so easily.
Cordelia watched the young lawyer throw up in the corner and then turned back to the horror before her. She felt nauseous but numb as though this was the horror that finally broke her. She walked slowly out among the dead staring down at them determined to bear witness to their passing. Here a young man ripped in two, there a middle-aged woman her face forever frozen in horror and the back of her head bitten clean off.
Cordy paused in the middle and slowly spun in a circle fixing the images in her mind forever and vowing silently to avenge their deaths if she could. She froze suddenly and her mind screamed as she tried to assimilate what her eyes told her. There on the ground was a tiny pink foot no bigger than her palm with the tattered remains of a blue romper suit hanging around it. Cordelia traced an unwilling path up the infant's leg and it's body until finally she saw the head of a young baby pillowed on an equally dead breast. She took a deep breath and then another and slowly bent to lay a hand on the side of the child's face. The skin was cold and rubbery under her touch and was colouring into the deep purple of decomposition but she could still see the sweet curve of the lip and cheeks and the delicate bones in the chin. It didn't appear to be injured but then she saw the savage marks on it's chest half hidden by the body it lay on and then she knew that it had been eaten whilst alive and then tossed away like so much trash when it's attacker had found something more nourishing.
She straightened and turned her head towards Lindsey who leant weakly against the wall wiping a shaking hand across his mouth and staring in horror at the innocent child on the floor. His eyes came up to meet Cordelia's and he flinched at the bitter fury and purpose he saw there
" We don't leave here until this thing is dead. You get to be bait."
Across town Gunn was staring in bemusement at Wesley as he paced the small area of their office floor and ranted
"I ask you! Was it too much to hope the girl could obey one simple instruction and stay put? That's all I asked of her. Who's meant to be in charge here?"
Gunn wisely refrained from answering any of Wes' questions and instead posed one of his own
"Wes man, what's the big? It's not like we've got a note saying give us some cash and we'll give you the girl."
Wesley snorted and snatched the thin piece of paper Cordelia had left them and read in a high voice
"Guys, had a thought and went to follow it up. Check in later."
He flung the piece of paper down on the desk in disgust
"Unless the local boutiques now routinely open at three in the morning the only thought that girl's had is involving the Angel situation. God alone knows where she's gone and who she's mixed up with."
He flung himself into a chair and put his head in his hands
"She's not answering her pager or cell and we have absolutely no idea where to start looking for her. Honestly this is beyond the pale."
Gunn perched his long frame on the corner of the desk and frowned down at the top of his friend's head. He hated to admit it but his own sense of disquiet at Cordelia's absence had grown in the face of Wesley's certainty of bad things afoot and he now had images flashing in his head of Cordelia's drained and lifeless corpse lying in a darkened street somewhere. Her image kept fading to be overlaid by the face of his dead sister and he shook it off with difficulty. Not this time. This time he was going to make damn sure he did whatever it took to get his girl. He reached down to clap a reassuring hand to Wesley's shoulder
"Cm'on I got an idea."
Back in the depths of Wolfram and Hart Lindsey was trying without success to reassert his briefly held authority over Cordelia and for the first time found himself empathising with Angel.
"Cordelia I'm telling you we're moving now! No questions, no arguments. Now move."
Cordy stared at him calmly and idly swung her axe in one hand and then without taking her eyes from Lindsey smashed it twice into the wall sending echoes crashing down the tunnel. Lindsey sprang forward to snatch the axe from her hand but it was too late. Deep within the gloom they heard a roar. A bloodcurdling, terrifying and above all hungry roar.
"Christ!"
He froze inches from Cordelia's cold set face and stared into eyes that were black with hard purpose
"What have you done?"
The terrified whisper hissed from his lips and he began to shake as from deep within the tunnels the sound came of something moving fast towards them. Cordelia raised an eyebrow and stared into the terrified blue eyes above her
"What I have to."
She shoved at him suddenly and he fell back onto the remains on the floor in clear view of whatever came through the opening. Lindsey cried out again in disgust and fear as he tried to find firm purchase on a floor soaked in the remains and gore of countless victims. Cordelia reached up with one hand and drew her knife from the sheath on her back and then took a firm grip on the axe with her other hand. She moved to one side of the tunnel opening so that she would be hidden from view for a few crucial seconds and Lindsey saw her in the dim light for what she really was. A slim figure still covered in the blood and dust of her slayings earlier in the evening body held with confidence and relaxed before battle eyes calm and deadly with the knowledge she was soon to kill again. A warrior and a champion; someone who would give her life without hesitation for the cause of light. He scrambled to his feet his eyes on her and his mouth opening to beg, plead, scream; anything before it was too late. Then suddenly it was. He saw a massive, dark figure move impossibly fast towards him through the tunnel mouth and then it smashed into him sending him to the floor with a painful bang and then he was fighting and screaming for just one more breath.
"Run, run, run, run, runaway, My run,run,run,run,runawaaay!"
Lorne winced as Gunn and Wesley joined their voices together in what they clearly believed was harmony and then before the closing bars of the song had chance to die away they were before him and glaring
"Where is she?"
He stared between the two faces so different and yet so similar united as they were in common purpose. Their bodies radiated tension and muscles were clenched under the skin with fear and anger.
"Now, now kiddies lets not ruin the little seer's party. She's safe, for now, and on a solo flight for the PTB." His eyes widened as Wesley's arm shot out and gripped his throat
"I don't give a damn about the Powers. Where. Is. Cordelia."
Lorne's eyes cut to Gunn in the hope of some aid in controlling his obviously deranged friend but the tall black man merely glared back and pointedly flexed his own muscles. Wesley shook the Host by the throat to draw his attention back from Gunn and smiled grimly as the tall green demon said
"Wes, come on. You know there's no violence in Caritas." "Lorne there's no demon violence allowed in Caritas."
He allowed his cold smile to widen
"I'm human."
Lorne quickly weighed up his fast diminishing options and made a choice
"She's with that little lawyer boy you all dislike so much. Fightin' the fight and all."
Wesley frowned in confusion and then Lorne yelped as his fingers clenched and the knuckles turned white in fury
"Lindsey McDonald has her? You tell me she's safe and then that Lindsey bloody McDonald has her? Where?"
Lorne scrabbled at the fingers on his throat and Gunn stepped forward with a sigh to pull his friend off the green man
"Wes, chill. He can't tell us nothin' if you rip his throat out."
Wesley loosened his hold and then with a disgusted sigh shoved the Host away from him. Gunn stepped in front of his friend and co-worker and allowed a grim smile to grace his own face
"He can however tell us what we need to know if we just cut bits off."
He unconsciously mimicked Cordelia's threat from earlier in the evening as he drew the twin of the knife he had given her
"Spill or I get chop happy real quick."
He stared into worried red eyes and waited.
Written in response to a challenge on the fan page to have Lindsey and one of the white hats trapped in Wolfram and Hart for the night.
Lockdown Part 4.
Cordelia jumped as the confined space she found herself in suddenly echoed with the furious pounding of the demons on the other side. She took an involuntary step back and Lindsey yelled into her ear.
"My foot! Jesus watch where you're standing!"
Cordelia scowled as his voice dipped down towards the floor
"Some seer you are." "Suck it up whiny. And for your information that's seer not seeing eye dog!"
She reached out a cautious hand and touched a cool, damp wall and then reached out with the opposite arm and brushed the opposite side of the tunnel with her fingertips. So, trapped in a pitch black confined space with someone she didn't like and the screaming hordes of the underworld after her blood. She felt sixteen all over again.
"Any idea where we are Mr trap us in the place where we're most likely to meet our horrible agonising deaths?"
Lindsey frowned at the sarcastic tone of Cordelia's voice and wished he could see her face as he snapped
"Really, no thanks necessary for saving your life. Please don't mention it."
Cordelia rolled her eyes and stretched out her leg to feel around for her bag as she answered
"Way to go Lindsey. We can't see, we don't know where we are, we have no idea where to get out and to top it all off we have no idea what's down here with us. Really I can't tell you how much I appreciate this."
Her foot brushed something soft and hoping it was her leather tote and not something that was going to rip her arm off, she bent to retrieve it. She snagged the material and breathed a sigh of relief. Arm and fingers all attached and accounted for. Things were looking up.
They both jumped as the demons renewed their efforts to get in by hammering at the false wall with what sounded like a battering ram. They spoke at the same time
"We need to get out of here!"
Cordelia shoved her hand into the bag and felt around "I can't find the lighter."
She heard Lindsey's clothes rustle and then yelped as a flame appeared an inch away from her nose
"Watch it!"
She stepped backwards and closed her eyes wincing at the pain caused by the unexpected flash. She slowly opened her eyes and saw Lindsey's face seemingly bobbing in mid air as he held the lighter before him
"Ok we need to move now."
They both turned towards the door as another particularly loud crash sounded, Lindsey peered around him raising the lighter as he did so and then made a triumphant sound. He reached over Cordelia's shoulder and flicked a switch and suddenly they were bathed in soft golden light. He let the lighter go out and then glanced around. They stood in a tunnel with a very low ceiling and a dirt floor not more than two metres wide. A row of tubed lighting stretched away around the corner following the tunnel's path and the reflections glinted from the slightly damp walls. He glanced back to Cordelia and took in her apprehensive expression and felt fairly sure it mirrored his own. He shrugged
"Well we still have pulses and a heartbeat that's gotta be a plus right?"
Cordy shrugged
"Normally I'd agree but this all looks very familiar. I think I saw this in my vision and I'm definitely sure that we're not on our own down here."
She gestured to the floor and Lindsey looked down and saw what was unmistakeably some kind of animal droppings. He saw with dismay not only were they large but also very fresh.
"Shit!"
Cordy grinned
"My point exactly."
She glanced back as the rhythmic pounding began to pick up
"Well whatever, we can't stay here."
Lindsey nodded in agreement and moved in front of Cordelia
"I'll go first, follow me."
Cordelia obediently fell in behind him grinning at the authority in the tone. If he wanted to be first choice out of a fresh delivery of human meat so much the better. She planned to stay well back and concentrate on looking as gristly and flavourless as possible.
They reached the curve of the tunnel and realised that the light would get much dimmer as they went on thanks to the lighting paring down to one solitary strip of tubing that flickered uncertainly. Lindsey felt Cordelia take a deep breath behind him and without thinking reached back to squeeze her hand to reassure her. Much to his amazement his fingers were grasped in her slightly calloused hand and he smiled as she held on as he set out into the gloom. His grin widened as she whispered
"Don't for one minute think I like you Lindsey. I just don't wanna take a fall and ruin my three thousand dollar dental work."
The sounds of the demons trying to follow them faded behind them as they progressed down the tunnel but slowly their eyes began to water as the most incredible stench rose around them.
"Christ, what the hell is that?"
Lindsey moaned through his fingers fighting the urge to follow Cordelia's earlier example and hurl all over the floor. Her voice came from behind him betraying no emotion
"Dead bodies. Lots of 'em and a long time a rottin' judging from the smell."
Lindsey paused in mid step and glanced back at his unwilling companion in this nightmare
"What?"
Cordelia stared into his frightened eyes grimly
"Dead rotting corpses. Probably human. Killed fairly recently judging from the smell." "What you can tell how long something's been dead from the smell now?"
Cordelia eyed him in condescendingly
"No but if they'd have been down here years they wouldn't still be smelling. They'd be bones and dust and all we'd have to worry about is how long it had been since somebody vacuumed. Duh!"
Lindsey opened his mouth and then closed it when no suitable rejoinder came to him. Cordelia looked away from him down the tunnel and he felt a tide of shame flood over him again. Whilst obviously concerned with not being eaten Cordelia was also deeply distressed at the fate of the beings whose remains were now choking them with noxious gases.
Lindsey felt minor, very minor, curiosity as to who they were but his first thought definitely hadn't been poor souls may they rest in peace. Maybe a brief thought as to what they'd done to deserve their fates but that was it.
He grasped her hand more firmly in his and set off again breathing through his mouth and trying to stay away from the thought that the smell was clinging onto his clothes and seeping into his pores.
They rounded another corner and the tunnel suddenly widened out and became a small round cavern. The source of the smell was evident as dismembered and very dead bodies littered the gore-drenched floor atop older remains and bones that looked like they could have been there for decades.
Lindsey felt cold drops of sweat spring out on his forehead as he stared around helplessly and he pressed a hand to his stomach trying to suppress the heaving of the contents. He had never seen anything like it not even in the cellar when he woke to the special contracts division spread out like meat at market and suddenly the reality of the world he dealt in daily came crashing home to him. He turned from Cordelia and helplessly threw up wave after wave of vomit wishing he could purge himself of his past so easily.
Cordelia watched the young lawyer throw up in the corner and then turned back to the horror before her. She felt nauseous but numb as though this was the horror that finally broke her. She walked slowly out among the dead staring down at them determined to bear witness to their passing. Here a young man ripped in two, there a middle-aged woman her face forever frozen in horror and the back of her head bitten clean off.
Cordy paused in the middle and slowly spun in a circle fixing the images in her mind forever and vowing silently to avenge their deaths if she could. She froze suddenly and her mind screamed as she tried to assimilate what her eyes told her. There on the ground was a tiny pink foot no bigger than her palm with the tattered remains of a blue romper suit hanging around it. Cordelia traced an unwilling path up the infant's leg and it's body until finally she saw the head of a young baby pillowed on an equally dead breast. She took a deep breath and then another and slowly bent to lay a hand on the side of the child's face. The skin was cold and rubbery under her touch and was colouring into the deep purple of decomposition but she could still see the sweet curve of the lip and cheeks and the delicate bones in the chin. It didn't appear to be injured but then she saw the savage marks on it's chest half hidden by the body it lay on and then she knew that it had been eaten whilst alive and then tossed away like so much trash when it's attacker had found something more nourishing.
She straightened and turned her head towards Lindsey who leant weakly against the wall wiping a shaking hand across his mouth and staring in horror at the innocent child on the floor. His eyes came up to meet Cordelia's and he flinched at the bitter fury and purpose he saw there
" We don't leave here until this thing is dead. You get to be bait."
Across town Gunn was staring in bemusement at Wesley as he paced the small area of their office floor and ranted
"I ask you! Was it too much to hope the girl could obey one simple instruction and stay put? That's all I asked of her. Who's meant to be in charge here?"
Gunn wisely refrained from answering any of Wes' questions and instead posed one of his own
"Wes man, what's the big? It's not like we've got a note saying give us some cash and we'll give you the girl."
Wesley snorted and snatched the thin piece of paper Cordelia had left them and read in a high voice
"Guys, had a thought and went to follow it up. Check in later."
He flung the piece of paper down on the desk in disgust
"Unless the local boutiques now routinely open at three in the morning the only thought that girl's had is involving the Angel situation. God alone knows where she's gone and who she's mixed up with."
He flung himself into a chair and put his head in his hands
"She's not answering her pager or cell and we have absolutely no idea where to start looking for her. Honestly this is beyond the pale."
Gunn perched his long frame on the corner of the desk and frowned down at the top of his friend's head. He hated to admit it but his own sense of disquiet at Cordelia's absence had grown in the face of Wesley's certainty of bad things afoot and he now had images flashing in his head of Cordelia's drained and lifeless corpse lying in a darkened street somewhere. Her image kept fading to be overlaid by the face of his dead sister and he shook it off with difficulty. Not this time. This time he was going to make damn sure he did whatever it took to get his girl. He reached down to clap a reassuring hand to Wesley's shoulder
"Cm'on I got an idea."
Back in the depths of Wolfram and Hart Lindsey was trying without success to reassert his briefly held authority over Cordelia and for the first time found himself empathising with Angel.
"Cordelia I'm telling you we're moving now! No questions, no arguments. Now move."
Cordy stared at him calmly and idly swung her axe in one hand and then without taking her eyes from Lindsey smashed it twice into the wall sending echoes crashing down the tunnel. Lindsey sprang forward to snatch the axe from her hand but it was too late. Deep within the gloom they heard a roar. A bloodcurdling, terrifying and above all hungry roar.
"Christ!"
He froze inches from Cordelia's cold set face and stared into eyes that were black with hard purpose
"What have you done?"
The terrified whisper hissed from his lips and he began to shake as from deep within the tunnels the sound came of something moving fast towards them. Cordelia raised an eyebrow and stared into the terrified blue eyes above her
"What I have to."
She shoved at him suddenly and he fell back onto the remains on the floor in clear view of whatever came through the opening. Lindsey cried out again in disgust and fear as he tried to find firm purchase on a floor soaked in the remains and gore of countless victims. Cordelia reached up with one hand and drew her knife from the sheath on her back and then took a firm grip on the axe with her other hand. She moved to one side of the tunnel opening so that she would be hidden from view for a few crucial seconds and Lindsey saw her in the dim light for what she really was. A slim figure still covered in the blood and dust of her slayings earlier in the evening body held with confidence and relaxed before battle eyes calm and deadly with the knowledge she was soon to kill again. A warrior and a champion; someone who would give her life without hesitation for the cause of light. He scrambled to his feet his eyes on her and his mouth opening to beg, plead, scream; anything before it was too late. Then suddenly it was. He saw a massive, dark figure move impossibly fast towards him through the tunnel mouth and then it smashed into him sending him to the floor with a painful bang and then he was fighting and screaming for just one more breath.
"Run, run, run, run, runaway, My run,run,run,run,runawaaay!"
Lorne winced as Gunn and Wesley joined their voices together in what they clearly believed was harmony and then before the closing bars of the song had chance to die away they were before him and glaring
"Where is she?"
He stared between the two faces so different and yet so similar united as they were in common purpose. Their bodies radiated tension and muscles were clenched under the skin with fear and anger.
"Now, now kiddies lets not ruin the little seer's party. She's safe, for now, and on a solo flight for the PTB." His eyes widened as Wesley's arm shot out and gripped his throat
"I don't give a damn about the Powers. Where. Is. Cordelia."
Lorne's eyes cut to Gunn in the hope of some aid in controlling his obviously deranged friend but the tall black man merely glared back and pointedly flexed his own muscles. Wesley shook the Host by the throat to draw his attention back from Gunn and smiled grimly as the tall green demon said
"Wes, come on. You know there's no violence in Caritas." "Lorne there's no demon violence allowed in Caritas."
He allowed his cold smile to widen
"I'm human."
Lorne quickly weighed up his fast diminishing options and made a choice
"She's with that little lawyer boy you all dislike so much. Fightin' the fight and all."
Wesley frowned in confusion and then Lorne yelped as his fingers clenched and the knuckles turned white in fury
"Lindsey McDonald has her? You tell me she's safe and then that Lindsey bloody McDonald has her? Where?"
Lorne scrabbled at the fingers on his throat and Gunn stepped forward with a sigh to pull his friend off the green man
"Wes, chill. He can't tell us nothin' if you rip his throat out."
Wesley loosened his hold and then with a disgusted sigh shoved the Host away from him. Gunn stepped in front of his friend and co-worker and allowed a grim smile to grace his own face
"He can however tell us what we need to know if we just cut bits off."
He unconsciously mimicked Cordelia's threat from earlier in the evening as he drew the twin of the knife he had given her
"Spill or I get chop happy real quick."
He stared into worried red eyes and waited.