Chapter 10: Rescue
"Get up."
Amy didn't move. She had her teeth gritted against the awful pain in her body, which flared into life as the hard boot prodded her bruised ribs again. "Get up."
Bullseye didn't wait for her to respond. He grabbed her arm and hauled her upright, to face the Kingpin. Fisk cupped her chin in his hand and stared into her sightless eyes. "Where have you been hiding? Who has been hiding you?"
Amy still refused to answer.
She gritted her teeth as Bullseye shook her again, so hard her teeth rattled. Her front teeth closed on her tongue, and she stifled a cry as she tasted blood in her mouth.
She could not tell him about the X-Men. She couldn't. Charles has told her about the mansion, and about their double lives, and she knew it was a secret she had to guard with her life. So she remained silent.
It wasn't hard, really. Fisk and Bullseye weren't too imaginative; they hadn't done anything to her that she hadn't experienced before in Mount Haven. Granted, her body had forgotten how much some of those things hurt, and she had to fight the urge to cry out with the pain and humiliation, but the one tiny thought in the back of her mind that kept her from telling them what they wanted to know was the thought of what would happen to the X-Men, and especially Bobby, if she told them what she knew. So she gritted her teeth and endured the pain, the battering her body was taking, the humiliation she was feeling, and kept silent.
Fisk growled in anger. "Forget it," he said. "She's not going to tell me. Crandall--"
"Wait, Mr. Fisk," Bullseye interjected. "I got some other things I want to try, I just can't do them here. Too messy. Lemme take her somewhere I can work on her undisturbed. You got that warehouse by the docks, right? Lemme take her there."
Fisk nodded. "Crandall!" The man appeared silently. "Take the girl and Mr. Bullseye down to the dock warehouse, and bring Mr. Bullseye back when he is done. When she's given us the information we want, I want her body dumped into the river, all right? I want no one to think they can get away with withholding information from me. This is my city, I own it."
Amy sucked in a sharp breath. So they were going to kill her. She knew they would, as soon as she had realized she was back in his hands. Now all she had to do was hold onto the secret they were trying to get her to reveal until Bullseye got tired of hurting her and killed her.
She stumbled along blindly, propelled forward and around corners by Bullseye's rough shoving. She was almost nude, and the coolness of the air raised goosebumps as they shoved her through a door. She wasn't given any time to take in her surroundings; Bullseye shoved her again.
He let go of her arm for that barest fraction of a second, and she wrenched herself away from him and tried to run. It wasn't easy; her hands were tied in front of her by rope wrapped around her wrists. She still tried.
Bullseye smiled and drew his gun. The girl couldn't see it, but they were in a parking garage; there was no way for her to get out. He drew his gun calmly, aimed, and fired.
Amy screamed as her leg went out from under her. The bullet hit the back of her thigh, grazing bone on its way out the front of her leg, and running was impossible with her leg muscle torn like that. She fell, sobbing in agony, curling into a miserable ball on the hard concrete. Two pairs of hands grabbed her arms and dragged her backwards, and fire erupted in her leg. She screamed.
Crandall sighed. Digging into his pocket, he came up with a handkerchief and stuffed it into her mouth, effectively silencing her cries, then unlocked the trunk of the black Lincoln and shoved her into it. He grabbed her ankles and pushed her knees up to her chest in order to fit her in. Amy sobbed in fresh agony as more blood ran from the wound, but neither man paid attention to her pain. The trunk was slammed, and seconds later, she felt the car rock as Crandall got in the front. A motorcycle started up beside the car, it's engine growling menacingly, and then started to pull away. The car must have followed it, because the sound of the motorcycle engine didn't fade away. She guessed that Bullseye must be on the motorcycle, and Crandall must be following him. To the docks. She bit back her sobs with an effort. Just a little longer, she told herself. Just a little longer, and it will be all over. They'll kill me, and I'll finally be free of all this pain and misery.
Tears filled her eyes, not of pain, but of sorrow. Bobby. Would he miss her when she was gone? And Carl. Would someone take care of him, or would he return to being a street stray? And Charles…oh, Charles. She had forgiven him; the kindness he'd shown her the last couple of weeks, all the little things he'd done to make her room and the mansion easier for her to navigate, allowing her to keep Carl even though no one else was allowed to have pets…she hadn't had a chance to tell him she forgave him. She believed he knew she'd forgiven him, but she hadn't told him. She hoped he'd understand. All she could do now was hang onto the secret he'd given her about their true identities and not reveal it, no matter how much pain she was in.
The car went over a pothole, suddenly, and she howled in anguish behind the cloth filling her mouth. Something in the trunk had touched the exit wound in the front of her leg. She arched forward, ignoring the pain it was causing her bruised back, and tried to move the offending object away from her leg.
She froze. It was a piece of glass. As she grasped it, its sharp edges cut her finger, and she gasped. If it was sharp enough to cut her fingers, would it be sharp enough to cut her ropes too? She turned the sliver of glass around in her hands and started to saw at the rope.
She was concentrating so hard on what she was doing that when the car came to a stop she almost cut her own hand. The motorcycle engine died, and seconds later she felt the car shift as Crandall got out. Seconds later, she felt a rush of cold air on her half-nude body as the trunk lid was opened. Bullseye grabbed her ankles and pulled her out of the trunk, ignoring her cry as her head hit the bumper before striking the ground and landing in a puddle of some fetid liquid.
The stench was terrible. This was definitely the docks. Canal Street was a part of town ignored by everyone but homeless people and criminals, and used to unload drugs and other illicit substances at night. Amy choked as the stuff soaked her hair and splashed all over her hands. She hoped the stuff was just water, and not something else, or she might get an infection…
She caught herself, and almost laughed. This was going to be her last night alive. She wouldn't have to worry about getting an infection in the cuts on her hands.
Bullseye dragged her upright and shoved her forward through the door into the warehouse. Amy turned the sliver of glass around in her hand and tucked it into the rope beside her skin. She might still be able to try and escape here; if she got away from this pair once she might be able to do so again. She could get away, run, find someone who could help her. Someone would, at least, call the police if they saw a half nude (she was wearing only her t-shirt and briefs; everything else had been stripped from her before her first beating back at the Kingpin's office. She closed her eyes as someone yanked her forward by her wrists, and prayed that whoever it was wouldn't find the sliver of glass.
Bullseye looked at the ropes, and at Amy's hands. Her fingers were almost purple from trapped blood; Fisk had tied the ropes too tight, and Amy could barely feel her fingers anymore.
Amy gasped as Bullseye tugged at her shirt, tearing it off her body, but remained silent as he yanked her bound wrists up in front of her face and held them there a moment. Then something metallic brushed her bleeding fingers, and suddenly her hands were being pulled over her head as she heard more chain rattling. She whimpered as her hands were pulled upwards, further and further, until her toes just barely brushed the floor. Amy was stretched between the hook and the floor, every muscle in her body tight, shaking as she waited to see what they would do to her next.
The thick, heavy belt slammed into the tight, aching muscles of her legs, and Amy jerked, crying in pain…
* * *
Matt could feel the vibration of sound against the glass of the skylight, but he couldn't figure out what was happening inside. He felt for a catch on the skylight, found none, and cursed under his breath. As silent as a cat, he descended from the roof and crept around the other side of the building, searching for another way in. He circled the dilapidated building twice before he felt the edges of a corrugated metal door held closed by a rusty padlock. The padlock was easy to pick, and he slipped inside silently, holding his breath.
The first thing he heard was the sharp crack of something striking something else. The sound waves showed him the inside of the warehouse. It was empty except for the usual detritus piled up in corners; homeless people's cardboard boxes, rags, empty bottles and broken glass, and here and there a used needle. He skirted it all carefully, being careful not to make a sound, and reached the storage area of the warehouse.
He sucked in a sharp breath. Amy hung from a hook-and-pulley affair dangling from a warehouse-sized cargo crane, her body stretched between the hook and her toes just barely gripping the floor. He could hear her muffled sobs of agony as Bullseye struck her with the belt, over and over again, on the stretched muscles and tendons of her body. He could smell blood, and suspected it was from the oozing wound in her leg that he saw faintly outlined on her thigh. As much blood as that was, she was going to go into shock soon if it wasn't stopped. Her writhing wasn't doing any good either. She was keeping the wound open by twisting.
He crouched there, in the shadows, trying to come up with a way to get her free. He decided to try the direct approach, and surprise them, when suddenly, to both his and their surprise, Amy dropped from the hook and hit the concrete floor. He heard the tinkle of glass as it hit the floor, and silently congratulated her on her ingenuity. Bullseye must be slipping, or he hadn't thought her enough of a threat to search her thoroughly. Amy scrambled to her feet and began running, blindly, the way they'd come. Matt heard a crash as she slammed up against the door she had come in (which Bullseye hadn't bothered locking after he'd come in) and then she was through and out in the open air.
Matt fired his grappling hook at Bullseye. The metal hook ricocheted off the concrete roof support right behind him and wound around the man's body, pinning his arms to his side and pinning his legs together. Then he took off after Amy.
"Amy!" he bellowed, when he didn't see her. "Amy, where are you?"
"Help!" came a soft cry, and he heard the soft sound of her bare feet racing back down the dock just before she threw herself in his arms. "Help me, please, they hurt me, please help me get away from here…" He brought his arms up to wrap around her.
"Come on," he said. "He won't take long to get himself free--"
The sharp report of a gun stopped him. Amy released her breath in a great sigh, all at once, and fell backward. Matt, caught by surprise, didn't let go of her. Neither one realized how close to the edge of the dock they were.
Amy went limp, and dragged them both over the edge into the roiling, dark water immediately under the dock.
Matt had the presence of mind to not let go of her. He reached out as they sank underwater and touched one of the dock's pilings, then wrapped his arm around it and hung on. Bullets whizzed into the water where he and Amy had fallen in; if he hadn't reacted as quickly as he had, they both would have bullets in them now. He counted the bullets. Four, then there was a pause as whoever it was reloaded his gun (it wasn't Bullseye; it must have been whoever had driven the car here. Matt cursed himself. He should have figured out where the other guy was when he first went in. He'd have to watch that. Then six more bullets struck the water. Matt waited for a few seconds before surfacing for air. He wrapped his legs around the piling, ignoring the slime that coated the piling. Dirt could be washed off; he had to worry about both their lives first. He pulled Amy's head above water, then clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle her gasp for air as he listened to the voices on the dock above.
Bullseye: "Damn, I didn't even see that friggin' devil man! Where are they?"
The other voice responded, and Matt bit his lip. Crandall. Fisk's right-hand man. He had personally marked the man for death; if he didn't have Amy in his arms now, he'd try taking both of them out now. But he had to take care of her first.
Crandall: "Went down there. I shot into the water. Look at all that blood. They gotta be dead. They haven't come up yet."
Bullseye: "F***!Fisk is gonna blow a gasket."
Crandall: "I won't tell him if you don't. It'll be my neck too if he finds out."
Bullseye: "We'll tell him we killed her and dumped her body in the water. The cops never find half the bodies we dump here; they won't find her, and he won't know. Come on. It's getting cold, I wanna go."
Matt waited until the sound of the motorcycle and the car faded in the distance before he hauled himself and Amy up on the dock. She had fainted with the pain of the bullet striking her body, but the shock of hitting the cold water had woken her. She clung to him as he pulled her up, and then sat beside him gasping. Matt let her rest for a short time, then wrapped his arm around her, supporting her so she wouldn't have to put weight on her wounded leg. "We're not far from my place," he said. "Can you make it there?" Amy nodded wearily, and they started to make their way back to his apartment.
