Author's Notes: If I was still doing chapter titles, I would probably name this one "The Passion of Danny"...you'll see why.
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Chapter Three
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Slowly opening the door to Danny's darkened room, Ed peeked his head inside to make sure that the younger man was still awake before entering. Sure enough, the tall, brown-haired ex-Marine was sitting in his reclined bed, staring at the white plaster cast that now covered his right arm from the base of his fingers to the middle of his forearm. A sigh escaped Ed as his blue eyes also took in the bandaged mid-section, split lip and black, left eye his protégé was now also sporting, and that wasn't even counting the numerous bumps and bruises the white blanket and hospital gown were now covering up!
"Man," Ed remarked with a smile, shaking his head as he walked in. "Please tell me that the other guy got worse."
"Ed!" a surprised Danny said, sitting up slightly and turning to his body to look at the older man. He found himself quickly regretting that action as a sudden stabbing pain radiated from his broken ribs. Hugging his stomach with one hand, Danny's eyes shut tightly and his face contorted to keep a loud cry of pain from escaping him. "Glad you're here."
"Clearly." Ed chuckled, rubbing Danny's shoulder in an attempt to soothe him. As the pain passed, McCoy opened his eyes again and let out a quick sigh of relief. "You going to be all right?"
"The Professor did this, Ed." Danny revealed, lying back against the adjusted bed again. "He's escaped from prison!"
Ed nodded his head silently for a moment, absorbing this little tidbit of information. Suddenly, curiosity filled his blue eyes and the gray-haired man looked back down at his protégé.
"Tell me everything that happened, Danny." Ed instructed, although he wasn't too sure that he wanted to know. Sitting down on the side of the hospital bed, the older man kept a supportive hand on the younger's shoulder.
Nodding, Danny closed his eyes as his mind began to flash back to the events of that morning.
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"Enough!" the Professor ordered firmly from somewhere nearby.
His four muscular henchmen backed away, revealing the battered and groaning form of Danny, lying facedown on the ground. The tall, brown-haired man had been the men's personal punching bag for what he estimated had been about a half an hour now, and his body was just now being allowed to take in the damage. McCoy felt as if every inch of his body was being burned and poked by needles at the same time, and it pained him severely to even take a breath. His shirt and pants were torn in several places, revealing bruised and bloody flesh, and the men had already taken his cell-phone and whatever money he had on him. However, Danny McCoy wasn't one to go down without a fight!
As he got to his knees and elbows, the brown-haired man looked up to see the Professor standing over him. An entertained look on the older man's features and his arms were crossed across his chest, giving off a victorious aura.
"I thought that you said you were going to stop me, Danny." the Professor reminded, the smile never leaving his face. "What happened?"
Saying nothing in response, Danny merely glared up at the older man.
"Perhaps, you should go back to dealing with small-time cheats." the Professor suggested, "It seems to be what you're more suited for. Of course, as always, you'll only do what Ed Deline wants you to do like a good, little lapdog."
"Go to hell!" an enraged Danny exclaimed, spitting on the older man.
"Pity." the Professor remarked, his unreadable eyes focused solely on Danny. "And here I was actually considering letting you walk away." Turning, he headed for a nearby desk that had been left in the warehouse. "But, it appears that you have yet to learn your lesson, Danny." He turned his head towards the men. "Bring him here!"
Prepared to fight, Danny got to his feet, but two of the much larger, more powerfully built men grabbed his arms before he could do much damage. The ex-Marine attempted to resist, but found that it only landed him a punch to the stomach from one of the remaining two men. His feet dragged across the floor as his captors brought him over to the desk. Upon seeing a heavy wrench in the Professor's hands, Danny tried to struggle once more, sensing that nothing good was coming. He was forced to grimace as the men tightened their grip on his already injured body.
"Put his right hand up here." the Professor instructed, tapping the desk with the wrench.
"Why his hand?" the goon on Danny's right side sneered, "As pretty as he is, I think his face would make a much better target!"
"His right hand will send a very distinct message to a third party." the Professor explained, keeping his gaze on Danny. As the men did as they were told, McCoy knew that the intended third party was his mentor, Ed Deline. "Hold him steady."
"No." Danny exclaimed as the Professor raised the wrench high in the air. He tried to free himself once more, but found that it was a futile effort. As the wrench was brought down, two sounds followed in succession: the cracking of bone and Danny screaming in pain.
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"Damn." Ed quietly remarked, interrupting Danny's story. Even while he shook his head in sympathy, Deline's blue eyes were fixed on the white cast that lay right by him.
"There's more." Danny continued, rubbing his aching temple with his non-injured hand. "The four guys continued to beat me up a little bit more after that, until…"
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Even though he could hear the footsteps of the four men dying away, Danny felt no comfort whatsoever. He knew that the Professor was still lurking around out his line of sight, but his head (which was resting against the ground) hurt too much to move to find out exactly where the older man was. McCoy's cranium wasn't alone in causing him pain, as his entire body seemed to ache, especially his right hand, which he had pinned protectively between his stomach and the concrete floor beneath him. It throbbed heavily against the relatively cold floor, and tears formed in the corners of the tall, above-average looking man's eyes if he dared to move it.
"There." the Professor said to himself after Danny heard him break something else with the wrench. The ex-Marine questioned what as he heard the man's heavy footsteps coming over towards him. The older man spoke again with a more amused voice as he stopped right in front of Danny, who could barely look up at him. "If only Ed Deline could see his little protégé now. How ashamed he would be!"
Any pain was pushed out of his mind by a feeling of rage, and a silent Danny made a valiant effort to get to his feet again. However, once he got to his knees, he found that neither his legs nor his left arm had the strength to do so. He collapsed against the floor just as quickly as he had come up, which elicited a laugh from the Professor. Suddenly, fragments of something fell from the Professor's hands to the floor, scattering themselves in front of Danny.
"My cell-phone." Danny whispered, recognizing the broken pieces. For reasons he didn't even understand, he reached out for them. "No."
"Don't worry." the Professor said in a mockingly reassuring tone as Danny felt the man's foot collide with the back of his injured head. Darkness began to embrace him. "I'm sure that someone will find you eventually. Farewell, Mr. McCoy."
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"That's when I blacked out." Danny finally finished, looking into Ed's sympathetic eyes. The tall, above-average looking man shook his head. "I don't remember anything else until Dad found me."
"He's not going to get away with this, Danny." Ed promised with fierce, narrow eyes. He rested his hands supportively on the casted arm of Danny. "I promise you that I'll make the Professor pay for what he's done."
"There's something else." Danny suddenly remembered, "When he was taking me to the warehouse, he mentioned something about having another piece of business to do in Vegas before he left." McCoy shook his head. "But he didn't mention what it was."
A wave of pain suddenly erupted from his wrist, causing Danny to cry out and put his healthy hand on the cast. The doctors had warned him that there would be some pain after his surgery, but it had still caught him unprepared.
"What's wrong, kid?" a concerned Ed inquired, taking his own hands off of the cast.
"Pain." was the only word Danny had managed to say before Ed raced immediately to the door. The gray-haired man pushed it open just as a brown-haired man wearing a Clark County Police uniform was about to open it from the other side. It was Luis Perez, a detective with the force and a good friend of Danny's.
"Something wrong?" the concerned Hispanic man asked, seeing Ed's face.
"Yeah." Ed nodded as a nearby nurse took notice. "Mr. McCoy's in terrible pain."
"I assumed he was going to want some morphine by now." the friendly nurse nodded, grabbing a syringe kit and heading into the room past Ed.
"So, you here to question Danny?" Ed assumed, looking at Luis as the two men waited outside for the nurse to administer Danny's medicine.
"No actually." a nervous Luis replied, looking at Ed. "I need you to come down to the station, Ed."
"The station?" a puzzled Ed repeated.
"We found your Aston Martin abandoned in the desert with a ransom note inside." Luis sighed, rubbing the back of his head. Only the bravest of souls would volunteer to give Ed Deline this kind of information. "We think that someone may have kidnapped Jillian and Delinda."
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"Are you sure?" a dark-haired man said into his cell-phone, hoping he hadn't heard his contact right. "Both Deline women?" The voice on the other line spoke again, causing the man to rub his forehead wearily. "And McCoy's pretty bad off?" He waited again for the other party to respond. "No, no, no, Mark. Ed's got enough on his plate right now." A mischievous smile suddenly appeared on the man's features. " Besides, me and him kind of enjoy dropping in on each other." After hanging up on that call, the man dialed another just as quickly. "Yes, I want to make reservations for a trip to Las Vegas as soon as possible." The other party spoke. "That would be under the name Jack Keller."
To be continued...