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Kono realized she was clenching her fists, her fingers curled in so tightly that her knuckles were raised and red.
"I've got blood here," she called out to her cousin from a deserted bathroom of their newfound suspect.
It was almost easy to get the name out of Peter Kingsley after telling him about his brother's murder. The man had gotten mad and was certain that the person who took Danny was the same person who had killed his brother.
Jennifer Weston.
Single. No family. No ties. No criminal record. Ex-military.
They didn't think there was anything suspicious about her, until they found out about her workplace–the very same building as Five-0's HQ. She's been employed as a janitor for the past year and a half. But Kono doubted she did it for money. It surely granted her opportunities to spy on Danny for whatever reason.
Their friend had been missing for over fourty hours now, and she stood in Weston's house, staring at the bloody patches on the tiles. She had a sneaking suspicion it belonged to Danny, and it made her blood boil.
Chin appeared in the doorway, following her gaze, and frowned. "We'll find him, cuz," he said for at least the hundredth time. It didn't help.
"I'll ask CSU to take a sample. Might be Danny's," she said, forcing her mind to stay in line. "You got something?"
"Actually, I do. You should see it." Chin walked back to the living room and she followed.
The floor in the middle of the room seemed shinier than the rest of the room. Cleaner and less used, too. Almost as if it used to be covered by something. A rug? Maybe. If there had been any, it was gone now.
"Here." Chin pointed into an open drawer.
She glanced inside, and her stomach twisted. A heap of photographs filled the drawer, the most of them capturing their missing friend. Danny at the crime scene, Danny on the beach with Grace, Danny with Gabby in a restaurant, Danny and Steve in front of the SEAL's house, Danny waiting for Grace in front of the school, and dozens of others.
"Oh, God." There was no doubt about it now. For some reason, she was obsessed with Danny. "How long has she spied on him?"
"A long time, it seems."
She scooped the photos together and checked them one by one, horrified at such a violation of Danny's privacy without anyone noticing.
"And look at this." Chin pointed to the shiny object mixed up in the photos and picked it up to examine it further. "An engagement ring."
Kono stopped at one of the few pictures that didn't have Danny on it. It was a couple–young and happy. The brunette had her hand stuck out in the air, proudly showing off her new ring while the man hugged her waist. She turned it around and found a handwritten text on the backside.
Jake and me - 2005
"I think I found the fiancee."
Chin glanced over and nodded. "We'll see what we can find out about him. But there is something else I wanted to show you."
He closed the drawer and opened the one bellow. It was full of clutter, but Chin reached inside, picked up a plastic medicine bottle and turned it in his hand. It was halfway full of small white tablets.
"What is it?"
"Risperidone."
"That's an antipsychotic."
"Prescribed for our suspect by Dr. Becker."
Kono cocked her head. "Let's give him a visit."
Danny had no clue how long he was out for. Anywhere from a couple of minutes to… anything above that really, if Jennifer topped the dosage while he was swimming in a hazy fog. Whatever the answer, they were still travelling when his mind started to clear a little. A road vehicle. Danny was lying on his side, engulfed by darkness. He was curled up in a heap, unable to stretch his legs without hitting a hard surface.
A trunk of a car, he was sure.
The car travelled on the poor quality road, the vehicle bouncing around, Danny's body jolting and smacking against the bench and the side of the vehicle. His hands remained cuffed behind him, painfully twisted for way too long now.
Eventually, it came to stop, and Danny readied himself, waiting for the trunk to open up. A soft sound of steps on the gravel reached his ears, a click, and then light penetrated inside, forcing him to squint against it.
He didn't see a thing when he kicked out, aiming for the body and ready to fight back. But his feet only met with thin air. By the time he adjusted his eyes to the bright light, he was staring in a muzzle of a weapon.
"Nice try," Jennifer said, the weapon outstretched in her hand. "Now get out. Nice and slow."
Danny weighed his options. She was too far for him to do anything before she'd pull the trigger, and too close to miss. He'd missed his chance for now.
He tried to pull himself up. His body ached, his neck in particular. He'd obviously been stuck in an awkward position for some time.
"Come on, get out." Jennifer sounded as calm and in control as possible.
He did as told, finding out his limbs were far heavier and less coordinated than he'd thought. Dizziness washed over him when he finally managed to get on his feet.
"Where are we?" Danny asked, the words coming out in a slur.
"Your new home."
He glanced around, taking in the surroundings. But there wasn't much to see, apart from the thick foliage of tall trees and bushes, and a gravel road leading to a small wooden cabin. There was nothing else to see. No ocean, no city, nothing at all. The rustling of the leaves was the only thing interrupting the utter silence.
They were in deepest, darkest nowhere.
"My parents used to take me here every summer. You'll like it."
Danny said nothing to that. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't anxious, but he had to remain focused now. Find a way to escape and get back to civilization. Back to his injured partner.
"Let's go inside," Jennifer instructed, gesturing toward the doorway with a tip of her gun.
Once again, Danny thought about his options. Maybe if he was quick enough…
"Daniel, move."
She brought him here for a reason, didn't she? If he understood correctly, she'd taken him to make her twisted imagination a new reality. She wouldn't shoot him now, after all the trouble she'd gone through, would she?
"I don't like to repeat myself," she said, the calmness fading from her voice.
He decided.
He made a side-step in the direction she asked him to, hoping it'd make her think he was about to do as told. Then, without further delay, he dived forward at his captor instead. But the drugs flowing in his blood were still present, making his reflexes slower than usual.
Jennifer didn't blink an eye before pulling the trigger.
But a loud noise of a gunshot never came. Instead, he heard a dull thwack and felt light, stabbing pain in his thigh. He looked down to see a dart sticking from his leg and he could feel a trickle of blood escaping from the small, plunged wound. A dart gun.
He collapsed to the floor.
The world spun relentlessly, but he made out an angry face of Jennifer leaning over him. "You're just making this harder on yourself," she growled. "How many times do I have to tell you? You're mine now. And you're here to stay."
It was the last thing he was aware of before darkness swallowed him.
Cold racked through his body and an unpleasant damp smell filled his nostrils when he came around again. The hard floor underneath him was chilly, and he felt goosebumps rising on his skin. He opened his eyes and took in the room.
It was dark, not even a sliver of light, and it took a few moments to adjust his eyes to make out the basic shapes. The mouldy walls formed a square no bigger than three by three feet. There was a stairway leading somewhere above on the other side of what he guessed was a cellar of the cabin he'd seen from outside.
His head was pounding. Probably a side effect of all the drugs pumped into his body in the recent past.
With a groan, he pushed himself up. His hands were free of restraints now, and not only that. His bleeding wrists must have been taken care of while he was out of it, and they were now carefully wrapped in clean bandages, as well as his wounded shoulder.
A rattling sound of metal came with a sudden movement and Danny's gaze followed it to the floor. A chunky chain trailed from the sturdy bolt fixed in the concrete floor up to his right ankle, where it attached to a thick metal cuff.
Great. Just great.
He gave it an instinctive tug, not really expecting it to move. Running his fingers along it, he found the lock, which was made of some kind of metal, too. After a few moments of futile attempts to free himself, he turned his attention to the bolt built-in in the floor, hoping that he'd be able to break it off somehow. But it didn't give either.
Fighting the desperate thoughts sneaking into his mind, he looked around once again, searching for anything that might be helpful. A thin and grimy mattress lay in the corner, and a white portable toilet made of plastic right next to it. Other than that, there was a large chest freezer next to the stairway, but it was out of reach.
He stood up, ready to test his theory and curious to find out just how far could he move with that damn thing on his ankle. The chain stretched taut after three steps before he even had a chance to move halfway across the room.
It was obvious what Jennifer's goals were. Let him move 'freely' within a short radius in a corner of the cellar while away from anything that might give him a chance to escape. But he wouldn't let her win. He had things to do and places to be at and being chained up in the darkness like a rabid animal definitely wasn't on his list.
No. He had to get the hell out.
Hours ticked by and he had lost count of how many times he tried to wrestle his leg free or loosen the link between the chain and the bolt in the floor. His fingernails were broken from the constant effort, but it was no use–he wasn't going anywhere.
Refusing to give up, he kept trying again and again, when the key turning in the lock grabbed his attention. He scrambled up to his feet and looked up to the stairway.
Looking as casual as ever, Jennifer swung the door open and turned the light on. She held a plastic bottle of water and a pre-packed sandwich.
Once again testing the length of the chain, Danny stepped forward as much as it allowed, anger bubbling underneath his skin. "I didn't order room service," he said, not breaking eye contact with Jennifer.
She smiled, stopping a few feet away from him, and placed the food on the floor, barely within his reach.
"You must be hungry," she said. "I didn't have time to cook proper dinner, so this must be enough for today."
Danny's stomach growled, yet the food was the last thing on his mind right now. "I'll pass, thanks."
"Don't be so stubborn, Daniel. You have to eat something."
He threw her a hateful glare.
"You're comfortable here?"
"Not really."
"I'm sorry about this." She glanced down at the chain secured to Danny's ankle. "But it's for your own good."
In what universe was this for his good? This woman really must've hit her head or something. Hard.
"You see, I care about you, Daniel," she said. "I wish you would understand."
Yeah, definitely crazy.
"Care about me? You don't even know me!"
She smiled. "I know plenty. Just a kind of a man I've always hoped for."
"Have you ever thought about asking me out before… this?" With his hands in the air, he gestured to the space around him. "You know, that's what normal people do if they like someone. They don't kidnap other people in the hope they'd like them back!"
She stared at him in silence, her face calm, almost emotionless.
"You can't force someone to like you!" Danny went on. "In fact, if you lock them up, the chances are that the effect will be quite the opposite. So I'll tell you what. Why don't we go upstairs so we can talk about this like two adults?"
"No."
"Look, Jennifer, you need help. I know a guy. He's really good at what he's doing. Let me help you with that."
"No."
Danny gestured to the cuff at his ankle. "Come on, unlock this and let's talk."
She gave him a withering look. "I don't think so. I can't risk you getting away from me. I've been waiting for you for way too long to lose you now."
Danny scoffed. "Why? Why me?"
"You're special," she said. "I knew that the moment I met you for the first time."
"Which was when exactly?"
Her smile faltered and a hint of hurt flashed through her gray eyes. "You really don't remember, do you?"
"Enlighten me."
For a moment, Danny thought she'd tell him. That maybe she'd shine some light on how long he'd been spied on before she decided to make her move. But her eyes hardened and her face contorted in anger instead.
"Sleep well, Daniel."
The light went off, the door closed again and she was gone. Danny sat down on a hard mattress, his back against the cold wall. His brain fired with desperate thoughts.
Sleep well?
Not a damn chance.
*to be continued*
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