Rachel has a little more trauma in this one. No sexual assult. However, she is hurt and has a panic attack. Please be warned.
Chapter 11: I Am The Fire
December 7th, 2013 - 1400 (2:00 pm)
Tom hadn't been able to breathe since he had heard Rachel's call for help. He was running on autopilot, ordering his men to set up a skeleton crew on the base, and send everyone else they could spare to look for Rachel and Tex. The power plant team, who hadn't quite made it back to the base, was also dispatched to look for the scientist.
"They're gonna be OK, boss," Thorwald said, placing a calming hand on the Captain's shoulder.
Tom shrugged it off, shaking his head.
"I'm heading out to look for them," he decided, and quickly grabbed his gun before marching out of Granderson's office.
He hadn't made it far when his radio crackled again. He felt hope well up within him, but it was dashed almost immediately as the voice on the other end spoke.
"We have your scientist," the voice said. "You're going to turn yourselves in, or we will kill her and the children."
Children? Tom wondered.
But of course Rachel had managed to pick up some stragglers on her way back. Probably she had found some small children who didn't have any living parents, and was planning on bringing them back to Thorwald's camp.
He quickly grabbed his radio to respond.
"Don't hurt them," he growled. "Tell me where you are, and me and my men can meet you and we can talk this out."
The man on the other end laughed. "No way in hell. You're going to come to me. Just you - you are the one in charge, yes? And we can negotiate here."
Tom's heart was beating wildly in his chest. He would give himself up in a second, if everyone else made it out safe.
He turned to Thorwald, who had been listening in on the conversation.
"Recall everyone we have looking for Rachel," he commanded. "I don't want to spook this guy. I'll go and meet him. Can you hold down the fort here, keep everyone else safe?"
Thorwald nodded, immediately grabbing for his radio and calling his men to tell them to regroup at the base. It was for the best that everyone was in the same area. More defensible. Safer.
"When they get back, tell Lieutenants Green and Cruz where I am. They are to follow me, but stay hidden, in case I need backup."
Then, Tom clicked on the radio again. "Tell me where you are. I'm on my way."
"You come alone. Unarmed," the man demanded.
Tom winced, but began unbuckling his gun from his vest.
"Done. Where are you at?" he asked again.
The man on the other end gave him a location as Tom tried to push down his fear. He could hear voices in the background as the man spoke. Rachel's voice, for sure, and maybe Tex's? He wasn't positive, but it didn't sound as though the conversation happening in the background was pleasant.
"On my way."
After tucking a small knife into his boot, and a second into the waistband of his pants, he stalked out of the room, leaving Thorwald in charge for the moment.
He would get Rachel back, and then he would kill these men, he decided as he quickly walked out of the compound and toward the abandoned warehouse the man had indicated.
December 7th, 2013 - 14:15 (2:15 pm)
Rachel was having a hard time keeping herself calm as she huddled down with the children. Tex, next to her, kept throwing worried glances in her direction. He had a good idea what thoughts were running through her head right now, and he wished he could do something to help her.
They were being held in an empty warehouse, shoved into the far corner where there were no windows and no doors, with three men guarding them. If it were just him, Tex would have tried to overpower the guards by now, but he knew that his current duty was to protect Rachel and the children.
"Are you OK, Rachel?" Ashley asked from where she was cuddled into Rachel's side. She could hear Rachel's heartbeat and her fast breaths as she tried to hold back the panic.
"I'm fine, love," she whispered, stroking her fingers through Ashley's hair. "Just remembering something unpleasant. But I'll be OK, I promise."
Ashley accepted her answer, and Rachel tried again to keep herself calm. She was struggling, the memories of the last time she had been taken captive bombarding her. She wasn't stupid, she knew that she was suffering from PTSD, but she didn't know how to calm herself despite knowing what was wrong.
Tex noticed her building panic, and scooted closer to them. He nudged Ashley with his elbow, and said, "Hey, why don't you go sit with Sam and your grandpa?"
Ashley looked like she very much did not want to move from Rachel's side, but she nodded reluctantly and moved over to where her bother was. Her eyes, wide and observant, stayed trained on Rachel and Tex the whole time.
"What can I do?" Tex asked, as Rachel pulled her knees to her chest and put her head down between them. She was having a panic attack, she realized.
She shook her head; there wasn't anything Tex could do to help.
"Hey, what's going on over there?!" one of their captors demanded, and Tex swiveled around to glare at them.
"She's having a panic attack, asshole!" he yelled, clenching his fists.
Rachel found herself giggling breathlessly at the absurdity of the situation.
But her laughter died down when she couldn't manage to take another breath in. She'd used up all of her oxygen. Her chest was burning, and her eyes were filling with tears. She thought for sure she was either going to pass out or throw up, when a tiny body crawled over to her and climbed into her lap.
Sam touched her face with his tiny hands, his left one a little slobbery from sucking on it.
"Rachel," he said gently. "I used to get scared sometimes at night. I had 'mares. But Daddy would hug me and help me take deep breaths. Can I hug you?"
Rachel nodded, reaching her arms out and holding the small boy close. He took deep, exaggerated breaths, and she, absurdly, found herself following along. Clearly, this was something the little boy had done a lot. His father, Tom, had clearly done this for him often, just as he had helped her calm down after what had happened on the Vyerni.
After several moments, she could breathe, although it was still shallowly. She no longer felt like she was going to throw up, though the tears hadn't slowed down or stopped. She buried her face in Sam's hair and breathed him in, holding him tightly to her.
What a precious little boy.
Just when she felt like she wasn't going to pass out anymore, she felt a sharp tug on her hair and found herself lurching to her feet. She heard Sam cry out in surprise as he was yanked out of her arms, but she couldn't see him, her vision blurring from the pain of having her hair pulled so roughly. She cried out as she was dragged away from the others and tossed into a chair. She wanted to scream, to run away, but she couldn't make herself move.
The panic she had just avoided was threatening to overwhelm her again.
She could hear Jed and Tex yelling behind her, but struggled to pay attention to them. The man in front of her slapped her cheek to get her attention, calling out to her.
"Hey, hey, pay attention to me!" he yelled, grasping her chin in his hand roughly and forcing her eyes to his face. "You need to calm the fuck down, lady. What is it gonna take to shut you up?"
Rachel could only shake her head, trying to hold back tears as he slapped her cheek again.
"Focus! We've got your boss on his way, and I'm going to need you to shut the fuck up before he gets here. Do I need to gag you? Because I will. Or can your shut your whore mouth on your own?"
She couldn't breathe again. She was trying, but there were dark spots swimming in her vision as she suffered from lack of oxygen. She could hear Sam and Ashley crying behind her, but she couldn't do anything about it.
Clearly the man took her lack of response as answer enough. He reached to his left and when his hand came back into view, he was holding a dirty cloth. He forced his fingers into her mouth, prying her lips apart, before shoving the rag into her mouth.
She cried even harder, though the sound was muffled now.
How was this happening again?
She could feel her arms being tugged behind her back and secured with a zip tie. They pulled it as tight as they could, causing the plastic to cut into her wrists. They did the same with her legs, securing them to the chair, and when they were finished she coudn't move.
She felt more helpless than she had ever been in her entire life.
She knew she had to help Tex keep the kids safe, but she couldn't focus on anything. Her vision was blacking out, and her chest felt like it was going to explode. She felt herself vomit, but because of the gag in her mouth, she began to choke on it.
She didn't remember much after that.
December 7th, 2013 - 14:25 (2:25 pm)
When Tom threw the door to the warehouse open and entered, he felt white hot anger race through every nerve in his body at the sight before him.
His children.
Sammy and Ashley were curled up with his father in the corner of the warehouse, crying and screaming (and clearly sick. Had Rachel given them the cure before they were caught? Oh, God, he hoped so). Tex had been tackled by a man much larger than himself as he struggled to help Rachel.
Rachel.
Rachel.
Who was tied to a chair, tears streaming down her face and over the red welts from where she had been slapped. She was coughing, choking, trying to breathe past the gag in her mouth. She couldn't move her hands to get rid of it herself, and it was clear that she couldn't breathe.
Tom didn't think.
He just acted.
His vision blacked out for a moment with the anger he felt, and he was across the room before he realized it, one hand curling in the hair of the man who was standing over Rachel, his other hand grabbing the knife in his waistband and slashing the man's throat.
The man fell to the floor with a loud thump, and he could hear Ashley and Sam crying even harder as Jed forced them to turn their heads into his chest so they wouldn't see what was happening.
Tom wanted to go to Rachel, but in that moment, two other men raced toward him, one of them managing to stab his own knife into Tom's shoulder. He screamed in pain, but didn't stop his forward assault. He had gutted one of the men and knocked the other to the ground before they could blink. A fight ensued, and Tom's attacker managed to flip them over and pin Tom to the ground, grabbing the handle of the knife still in his shoulder to press it in harder.
Tom screamed with pain, trying to get a hold of the man on top of him. He looked to Tex for help, but Tex was busy fighting a fourth man. He'd managed to disarm him, but was struggling to hold him back from the kids and Jed.
As he tried to fight the man on top of him, he noticed that Rachel had stopped struggling.
She had stopped breathing.
Tom screamed again, pushing past the white-hot pain in his shoulder to shove against the man holding him to the ground. But it was futile; the man on top of him was much stronger, and had managed to grab the handle of the knife in Tom's shoulder once again, tugging it out. Tom felt every inch of the blade as it was removed from his skin.
The man above him grinned, his teeth and lips bloody from where Tom had managed to clock him in the mouth.
"You shouldn't have hit me like that," he said, and raised the knife above his head. Tom reached out, grabbing the other man's wrist and halting his attack. He wasn't sure how long he could hold out for. The guy was strong.
Just as he was afraid that he was going to lose the fight, a shot reverberated through the warehouse, and the man on top of Tom dropped like a rock.
Tom heaved a sigh of relief, and then shoved the man's lifeless, bloody body off of him. He was moving in an instant, chancing a glance back at his father and the kids (who were, thankfully, safe) before moving toward Rachel.
"Rachel," he sobbed, his shaking hands reaching out with the second knife he had hidden in his shoe to cut through her bonds. He gathered her in his arms, and was alarmed at how limp and unresponsive her body was. "Rachel, sweetheart," he croaked, tears burning his eyes as he grabbed the gag and pulled it from her mouth.
She still wasn't breathing.
Tom sobbed violently as he placed her on her back on the ground, beginning CPR as the warehouse door behind him opened. He spared a single glance to make sure it wasn't more enemies - it wasn't; it was just Danny and Cruz - before turning back to Rachel.
It was clear she had thrown up, probably from panic, but hadn't been able to expel it because of the gag. She had choked on her own vomit, and was dying.
"Please, please, please, please," he begged, pressing hard on her chest as he leaned down and breathed to inflate her lungs. "Rachel, please."
Danny fell to his knees beside Tom, reaching out and positioning Rachel's head without being asked to better open her airway. Tom continued CPR while Danny provided rescue breaths. He could still hear his children crying behind him, and he wanted to go to them, but Rachel wasn't breathing...
"They're fine," Danny assured him, glancing back to where Tex and Cruz were now standing with Jed and the children. Cruz had taken down the fourth man when they had entered the warehouse. "They're safe. Focus on Rachel," he said, and Tom nodded, unable to see clearly through the haze of his tears.
"Come on, baby," he whispered, and he sobbed in elation when she took a breathe, coughing violently and throwing up again.
Danny helped position her to she could clear her airway this time, and Tom continued crying as he lifted her head into his lap. He ran shaking fingers through her hair, his other hand gently rubbing the red welts on her cheek.
"Hey," he said, leaning over and pressing his lips to her forehead. "Hey, Rachel. Welcome back."
She stared blearily up at him as she coughed. He helped her sit up, and patted her back gently, encouraging her to get it all out. She spat another mouthful of bile and mucus out, and then, when she could breathe again, she collapsed against Tom, sobbing.
"I've got you," he said, wrapping both arms around her tightly, rocking her gently on the dirty floor of the warehouse. She clutched onto him tightly, her fingers white with how hard she was holding him. "I've got you. You're safe. You're with me, and my dad and kids, and you're safe."
He knew this was a bad one; she was still panicking, her breaths short and shallow. He looked up when he head footsteps come near him, and found Sam staring at them, his lower lip wobbling and his tears falling freely.
"Rachel," he whispered, and crawled into his father's lap so he could sit with her. "It's gonna be OK. Just take a deep breath, like me." He grabbed Rachel's hand, and put it on his belly before breathing in deeply.
Rachel tried to copy his movement, taking a quick breath in. The second came easier as Ashley walked up to them, sitting down next to her dad and taking Rachel's other hand. Her third breath was almost deep enough to get some oxygen back into her veins. Tom dropped his head onto her neck and wept freely.
She was alive.
His children were alive.
His father was alive.
They were all hurting, but they were alive.
"I love you," he whispered into Rachel's ear, and held her even tighter as she breathed and cried. "I love you. I love you. I love you."