Alternate Termination
Sequel to Alternate Existence and Alternate Infatuation. Sydney and Michael finally had a perfect life. A real family with no lies. Friends who knew the truth. And then they lost it all.
Chapter 11: Receding Hopelessness
Disclaimer: No, Alias is not mine. Nor is Sydney, nor Vaughn, nor Irina, nor Jack, nor Khasinou, nor Kendall. But Jeffrey is! He's all mine! No touchy!
Her head throbbed, but it didn't matter. Misty slumped in another chair nearby. Sloane had probably drugged her.
Sydney leaned tightly against the ropes binding her wrists and upper arms and legs to the chair. Sloane watched her in silence for a few minutes before she even knew he was there.
"I always knew I was destined to work with the Chosen One," he said cheerfully, an ominous threat underlying the tone. "You could be made so much more comfortable, if only you'd cooperate."
Sydney railed against the ropes, surging forward in a silent message that, if she were not bound, she would kick his ass.
"Get this straight now, you bastard!" she screamed. "You threatened me, you threatened my friends, and you took everything away from my family! I will never work with you! I will kill you, you bastard!"
Sloane smirked quietly, as if her enraged screams amused him. Then he walked out without another word.
Sydney leaned back, forcing her tense muscles to relax into the biting ropes. She could see Misty, her wrists tied loosely to the arms of her chair, as if Sloane knew she was no threat.
"Miss, wake up. Come on, Missy, I know you can hear me," Sydney begged. "You have to wake up, Misty. Please." Sydney voice cracked and she realized hot tears streaked down her face. "I can't do this alone," she whispered, closing her eyes against the tears.
In desperation and with her eyes still squeezed shut, against pain now, Sydney twisted her arms against the ropes at her wrists, trying to get her hands on them. The tight ropes bit into the bare skin on her arms, stinging viciously. Within minutes, not only were her hands to slippery to grasp the reddened ropes, but warm trickles of blood ran down her arms, sending a chill up her spine.
There were officers. Dozens of them. One large room full of partitions, all empty. Just desks, many without even a chair. But the guns they held remained drawn and close to their sides.
Downstairs. Basement rooms. It was all so surreal. Sounds…noise from a room…which room?
It was all so surreal.Vaughn felt drugged, as if there was a hazy veil between him and everything else. He heard, he saw, but her felt nothing.
This room. Behind this door…
Vaughn paused with his hand on the cool metal or the door, Irina halting behind him.
"Agent Vaughn?" Derevko whispered, alarmingly close to his ear. "We must move."
Vaughn turned his head to glare into her eyes, which were unnervingly close.
"There's someone else in there," he snarled, turning the door handle.
His silenced gun left a bullet in a bulky man's chest before a thought passed though his head.
Blood, was his first thought. On Sydney's arms. Her hands. A spot on her face. It ran sluggishly from a spot near Misty's shoulder as she slumped in her seat. It spilled from the guard's chest to stain the floor.
"Vaughn!" Sydney gasped, pulling his gaze to her face, to meet her eyes. He saw something there that scared him, springing him into actions. A receding hopelessness. She hadn't believed he would find her. She'd lost hope, he realized. He watched as tears of relieved disbelief streaked down her face, blending with those of hopeless fear.
"It's okay, Sydney, I'm here. I've got you," he soothed, petting her hair between attempts to slice through the ropes that held her.
"No! He's still here. He'll just…" Sydney began to argue.
"Syd, there's nobody here, we…"
"No!" Sydney bolted from the chair the instant Vaughn had severed the last of the bonds. She took his gun from his hand. "He's here. Get Misty out, I'll be fine."
Vaughn rose to follow, but Irina stopped him.
"Stay. Get Misty out. I'll go with Sydney," she said in a tone that crossed between pleading and ordering.
Then she was gone, before Vaughn could argue.
Sydney heard her mother follow, but she didn't slow. Irina caught up to her anyway.
"There's only one way out of the basement," she informed, gesturing toward a hallway leading to the staircase she and Vaughn had descended. "If Sloane's still here, he'll be in one of the offices."
Sydney noted, as had Irina and Michael, that the building was eerily empty. She ran from door to door, busting in gun first. But she only encountered empty space and bare walls.
Irina followed suit, checking room after room of emptiness.
Discouraged, Sydney opened the door to the last office on the hall and froze.
There was Sloane.
As she watched, he thumbed off the safety and his finger moved to the trigger.
Vaughn examined the contents of the medicine case on the floor across the room from Misty. They had all the trappings for the best torture: three kinds of drugs to knock you out, truth serum, temporary paralytic drugs…and drugs strong enough to pull you out of an induced coma.
Vaughn grabbed a hypodermic needle and a vial of the latter drug and drew a dose he hoped would be strong enough to bring Misty around but small enough not to cause any brain damage.
He jabbed the needle into the arm still bound to the chair and stepped back. Who knew how she'd react to the drug?
Misty gasped a moment later, her body going rigid as one who's been holding their breath for a long time does when they finally get air. Her eyes slammed open, full of fear.
"It's just me," Vaughn said, quickly moving in to slice the remaining ropes. "Are you okay?"
Misty put her newly freed hand to her sluggishly bleeding shoulder, pulling a hissing breath through her teeth at the sting. But she nodded.
He saw her look around, disoriented.
"Where's Syd?" she asked suddenly.
"She's okay," Vaughn assured. "She went after Sloane."
"Alone?"
"No…" Vaughn hesitated, then met her questioning gaze. "With her mother."
"Drop your weapon."
Her gaze riveted on the finger that kept a firm, unyielding pressure on the trigger, she had no choice but to comply. The gun she held clattered to the pristine tile floor.
"Kick it over."
Raising her eyes to meet his, Sydney gave Sloane a look of pure, unadulterated hate. But she shifted in the doorway to kick the gun anyway.
When Sloane moved around the desk to retrieve it, Sydney moved slightly inside the doorway. As he leaned down to get the gun, she kicked, but he moved as if he'd known her move before she'd even made it. Before Sydney could recover, he had her twisted around with her back pressed flat to the top of the desk.
With more than a little fear beginning to cloud her thoughts, Sydney realized Sloane held the gun to her head.
"The first time we met, Sydney," Sloane said calmly, as if his hand didn't hold a gun to her head. "You were precious to my agency. You held a knowledge no other being could possibly possess. And so, because we couldn't risk killing you, you were able to escape. I don't know how you managed it this time, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that this time is different."
An evil smile on his face, Sloane leaned down to whisper in her ear.
"This time, if something were to happen to you, we can always find your son."
Horror gripped Sydney. She couldn't help it, couldn't move, couldn't breathe.
"Hello, Arvin."
The sudden voice caused Sloane to look away. The owner of the perfectly courteous voice held a gun trained on him.
"I warned you what would happen if you pursued my daughter again."
A surprised look took over Sloane's face.
"Your…"
The explosion of the .38 caliber round seemed impossibly loud in the small office. Sydney saw the rose-colored stain begin to spread over the white shirt Sloane wore, and moments later he collapsed onto her. Uncharacteristically horrified, Sydney shoved his limp form away and bolted toward the door.
The last sight Sloane ever saw was Sydney's blurry face staring down at him with an intense look of fury.
She was the infamous Lina Derevko, he thought around the pain as all other earthly sensation left him. No wonder she got away so easily.
he thought around the pain as all other earthly sensation left him.
Ooh, one more chapter and the prologue and we're through…I just still have to write the prologue…But I promise you'll like it. Remind me to tell you about the new idea for a fic that I had the other day…I don't wanna put anything about it until after the prologue…or you could just check out my bio…at the very end…
