For prompt 12: Spiked drink
Thanks to Cym and guelphbeegirl for looking it over! Any remaining mistakes are my own, of course
Alex felt a little insulted when the woman slipped something into his drink while he was glancing at his phone. Sure, at nineteen, he was one of the youngest patrons at the bar; but young hardly meant naive. Or blind. That woman would not have known subtle if it had bit one of her perfectly manicured fingers.
She was lounging on the barstool to his left, half-draped across the counter as she played with her drink. Not a professional — or at least not of the kind Alex was used to dealing with — so the question was: why? A drug dealer looking for new customers? An arranged kidnapping? Seemed unlikely. It was hard to figure out without knowing what had been added to his glass.
The woman smiled at him. It looked genuine enough if you didn't notice the coldness in her eyes. Definitely good enough if she expected Alex to be a normal student on the good side of tipsy. A fair assumption, seeing as it was near closing time.
Alex smiled back, expression just a little to the loopy side and his eyes not quite focused. Unlike her, he knew how to make it look real. He let his gaze flicker down, as if nervous, before pretending to take a large sip of his beer. He could feel her burning gaze on him as he 'swallowed' his liquid courage.
She introduced herself as Rose and didn't even pretend to be subtle as she flirted with him. Alex responded in kind, all the while trying to judge how many times, he could pretend to sip his drink before she would notice that he wasn't really drinking it.
He slid one hand into his jacket pocket to his phone and pressed the power button three times in quick succession, while he reached for his glass with the other. Rose was too focused on watching his face to notice when he slipped the small phone into his trouser pocket instead.
The next time Alex lifted the glass, he let it slip through his nerveless fingers and watched dumbly as the glass shattered on the counter, spilling beer all over himself.
"S-sorry about that," Alex slurred and staggered to his feet, collapsing against the wet counter as his legs seemingly gave out.
As he had expected, Rose was quick to help.
"Here, let me," she said and propped him up against her shoulder. Alex let himself slump against her side and was surprised when she easily held his weight. She was stronger than she looked.
Rose placed a few bills on the dry side of the counter. "For the mess," she said and gave the bartender a dramatic sigh. "Maybe a night on the couch will teach him when he has had enough."
The bartender grunted something and took the notes, then started to clear the shards from the counter without a second glance.
Rose dragged Alex outside. He did his best to play unresponsive while taking close notes of everything happening around him. Two men met them at the next corner, each taking an arm before they followed the woman to a black car parked a little further down the street.
"That was quick," the man to his left said. He smelled heavily of sweat and beer. Sticking to the flower theme for the fake names, Alex mentally called him Corpse-y after the bad-smelling corpse flowers. The man on his right became Daftodil because Alex had clearly left his imagination back at the bar. Whatever.
"He was already close to passing out drunk. The alcohol must have sped up the effect," Rose dismissed. Alex was glad she clearly didn't have training in sedatives. "You found his flat?"
Alex fought hard not to tense. They knew where he lived. Did this mean they knew who he worked for, as well? If they did, Alex would be a little insulted by their lack of backup.
Corpse-y chuckled. "Just like you said. Lives alone, no pets. I packed an overnight bag and locked the door up. They'll think he did a runner."
"Good."
Rose unlocked the car and opened the boot, and the men lifted Alex and dumped him inside none too gently. Daftodil pulled out a pair of zip ties and secured Alex' arms behind his back. A rough hand stroked his face, and Alex had to suppress a shudder in disgust.
Daftodil's voice got a little husky when spoke again. "Much higher quality than your usual catches, Rose. Think they'll have a bidding war? I might be tempted to pit in ..."
"Quit fooling around," Corpse-y growled. "I'm freezing my arse off."
"Your face's an arse, Scotty. Might make you prettier without it."
"Shut up!" Rose said, clearly irritated. "You're worse than children." This was the first time Alex agreed with anything she had said. The men grumbled, Daftodil heading for the passenger seat while Corpse-y — Or, 'Scotty', Alex guessed … but nah, that didn't fit the guy at all — closed the boot lid.
"Wait."
Corpse-y froze mid-motion.
"His phone," Rose said. "It's in his right jacket pocket."
The man found the phone and dropped it down a sewer hole.
"There. All done," Corpse-y said and slammed the lid closed.
Alex had to act fast. He had no idea how long they would be driving for, and he needed to get his hands free before then. There wasn't much space in the boot, but by a lot of manoeuvring and internal cursing, he managed to force his arms in front of him. Luckily, Corpse-y had only pulled the zip ties around his wrist hadn't bothered to use a second on his arms as well.
The zip ties were secured too tightly for Alex to simply work his way out, but there should be just enough space …
Alex used his teeth to tighten the ties as much as he could and rolled on his back, then he raised his arms as far as he could, spread his elbow to the sides and trust his arms down towards his hips. The ties snapped.
Next, he searched the space around him for any nooks or crannies that would fit his goal. A small pocket used to store shopping bags was not the best option, but it would do in a pinch. Fishing up his second phone from his trousers, Alex hid it inside and prepared himself for when the lid would open again.
He had activated the tracker at the bar, and hopefully, the car ride would give MI6 enough time to send backup. When Alex had officially signed a contract with MI6 at eighteen, Smithers had promised him that Jones would react without delay if the tracker got activated.
Time to put it to a test.
The first person to open the lid got a foot in the face. Corpse-y stumbled back with a howl, clutching his face, while Daftodil and Rose both looked on wide-eyed as Alex sailed through the air towards them. He gleefully slammed into Daftodil, stunning him with two quick punches to the face and neck, before rolling back to his feet. He gave the downed man a good kick between the legs for good measure.
The short scuffle had given Rose enough time to draw a gun, which she pointed shakingly at Alex. There wasn't much light, only a flickering streetlight across the road, and the darkness must have made it difficult for her to judge who was friend and foe, because she didn't fire at once, giving Alex enough time to get back to his feet.
Her second mistake was to step closer to get a better look, and Alex didn't even think before taking advantage. In one smooth motion, he had directed the gun away from himself, causing the shot to go wide, disarmed the woman, and used her weapon to hit her on the temple.
Corpse-y had gotten back on his feet, one hand holding his bleeding nose, the other fumbling for whatever weapon he had hidden under his jacket.
Alex pointed the gun at his head, and the goon froze mid-motion.
"Slowly place your weapons on the ground and step back, arms on your head," Alex said. And Corpse-y reluctantly removed the hand holding his nose and carefully extracted the knife with one hand and placed it at his feet, before stepping back with his hands on his head.
"Good. Do you have any zip ties left on you?"
The man shook his head.
"Any in the car?" Corpse-y hesitated for a moment, but a slight tightening of Alex trigger finger was enough for him to nod. "Where?"
"In the glove compartment," Corpse-y stuttered. His wide, blood-shot eyes were fixed on the gun, and sweat dripped down his chin, mixing with his blood.
"Good." Alex nodded. No matter what he chose, it would be a risk. "Fetch a handful of the zip ties from the car but do it slowly and make sure I can see your hands at all times. Try anything and I'll shoot you where it really hurts."
Alex had never seen someone follow an order that fast, but you know … in a very slow 'fast' way.
Stepping into the warehouse without a plan turned out to be a bad idea. Alex managed to knock out one more guard at the entrance, walked around a tower of crates, and discovered ten loaded guns pointed at his head.
Oops.
"Oh hello," Alex said with a sheepish grin. He waved back at the entrance. "My bad, I must have taken a wrong turn."
Alex managed to walk three steps towards the exit before a click froze him in place.
"Stay, kid," a man growled. "Or I'll fucking make you." He sounded like he had watched too many low-budget action movies.
Alex raised his arms and slowly turned back. The man had bleach-blond hair, and since Tulip was already taken, Alex thought 'Daisy' fit him quite well.
"I really need to get home."
"Back to mummy?" Daisy asked. His goons laughed as if they were paid to. Maybe they were. Alex was reminded of high school bullies. He gave them his best deadpan face.
"I have a goldfish."
"A goldfish?" Daisy looked honestly taken aback. To be fair, Alex didn't know where he was going with this either.
"A very clever goldfish," Alex said. "And if I don't feed him on time, he'll jump out of his bowl in hunger and die. You don't want that, do you?"
As far as excuses went, this had not been one of his best.
"I don't fucking care about your fucking fish!" Spit flew out of Daisy's mouth. Alex grimaced and wiped his face. "Now stay still or I'll fucking shoot you in your fucking leg!"
"A rich vocabulary is not your strong suit, is it?"
"Shut the fu—" The man got a weird expression on his face, then went back to his usual scowl. "You think you're funny, kid?"
"Actually, I think I'm hilarious, thank you." Alex tilted his head. "That means very funny, by the way."
"I know what the fucking word means!"
Daisy looked wild-eyed at his companions as if to convince them he was telling the truth. Or maybe this was only wishful thinking on Alex' part, and the man was giving the order to start the firing squad.
Whatever the man's next move would have been, screeching tires and sirens interrupted him, and the next moment, orders for the men to surrender blared through the air. The men exchanged an uncertain glance, gaze flickering back to the crates behind them.
For once, MI6 had chosen to do their job — credits to Smithers — and armed forces swarmed the building.
Huh.
Alex should probably warn them about the homemade fire-bomb about to blow up the car at the front entrance, then.
As it turned out, the reason backup arrived as quickly as it did was because MI5 had had the building under surveillance for weeks, suspecting correctly that it was a base for human trafficking. They had not been happy when MI6 had showed up, following Alex' distress signal, but they had taken the sounds of shots as an excuse to storm the building. Mrs Jones was still trying to smooth things over and come up with a good enough excuse for Alex operating on British soil, even though he hadn't technical been on duty at the time — no rest for the wicked, including spies. Jones spoke the whole time as if she expected Alex to actually care about inter-branch politics and apologize. Alex thought she would have known better by now.
An hour later, she had gotten tired of chewing him out, and Alex retreated to somewhere he knew he could nurse his growing headache with a cup of much-too-early-for-work coffee.
"Sorry, old bean," Smithers said, stirring his latte while typing on a laptop with the other hand. "Your little party drove MI5 into a right frenzy."
Alex shrugged. Besides …
"Sounded more like I did them a favour."
"I believe that was Mrs Jones' response as well." Smithers winked at him. "But you didn't hear that from me."
" 'Course not."
Alex gave him his best innocent look, and Smithers laughed.
Themes: implied/referenced human trafficking, cursing
Despite my unplanned hiatus, my plan is still to fill all prompts in February. Forcing yourself to write double as fast is a good way to avoid writer's block? Right?
