Hello People! A Merry Christmas to you all! I am STILL struggling with the final chapter, but there's several to go before that happens so we'll see if I can figure out how the stuff that's supposed to happen is going to. I can hope!
"You shot a copper!" The words echoed in her mind as she felt herself falling. "The copper will get what the copper deserves." The two voices repeated over and over in her mind, always the same two phrases until finally, she landed at what was her desk in CID. A case file was open on the desk, the one she had dealt with on her last day of the Before.
"Bollocking hell", Alex muttered to herself, looking through the case file. "God damn it." There it was, clear as day in one of the photos. The wheel brace marked, ready to be taken in as evidence. However, it never made it back to the station. The most vital piece of evidence in her murder case, left at the crime scene by some incompetent technician. She had to go back to the scene, had to see if the wheel brace had been left, or if it was gone. She couldn't tell Gene either. It was as much her fault it was missing as the technician's. If he got wind of her leaving evidence behind…
Alex grabbed her jacket and walked out of CID, ignoring Gene's yell behind her. She would be back soon enough, and he could bollock her later if he really was so inclined. It wouldn't be the first time it happened, and she knew for sure that it wouldn't be the last.
She stepped out of the station, basking in the warmer air that promised spring was approaching. Alex took a minute to let the rare March sun warm her face before walking down the steps of the station. She knew that the crime scene was only ten minutes away by foot, so she didn't bother with a car, preferring to enjoy the day and the few minutes away from the smoky air of CID.
She walked slowly, listening to the chatter of the world around her, when suddenly a loud yell broke her reverie. It sounded like fear and pain, and before she knew what she was doing, Alex took off running. She saw a man lying down on the ground, blood pooling around the head. Alex knew immediately that there was nothing she could do. A large bullet hole was over the man's left eyebrow and the amount of brain spattered on the wall behind told her that he had been dead immediately.
Alex suddenly realised that she had no radio. By refusing to tell Gene where she was going, and not taking a car, no one knew where she was or what she was doing. She couldn't reach anyone unless she tried to ring them. Alex took one last look at the body before turning to find a phone, instead finding a barrel levelled at the middle of her face.
"You saw nothing, do you realise?" the man behind the gun said quietly.
Alex raised her hands above her head, swallowing hard, trying to not look directly down the gun barrel. The last time she had seen one this close, she had ended up in 1981. And even if she was not going back to the future, she had no desire to die in this world.
"YOU SAW NOTHING!" the man yelled suddenly.
Alex nodded her head quickly. "I saw nothing. I've never seen this alleyway, and I'll never see it again." Her voice was steady, but she knew that the man could hear the undercurrent of fear.
He lowered the gun slightly, but it still pointed at her. By lowering it, however, she was able to identify his features. The man seemed about the same height as Gene, but it was evident that he spent the days doing manual labor. His hair was close, cropped as though he was in the military or just fresh out. He had no beard, which showed the cleft in his square chin. His eyebrows were furrowed and bushy over dark brown, nearly black eyes. He looked over her shoulder and nodded his head once.
Alex became aware of someone approaching from behind her. She looked as far over her shoulder as she could without moving her head, which was enough to see the man's outline. He was also tall, but not nearly as muscular as the man in front of her. His long hair was black, but that was all she could discern.
"Arms out," the man with the gun said.
Alex closed her eyes at his demand, unwilling. If they found her warrant card, she would be shit out of luck. She might as well just shoot herself now. She could feel her eyes burning and a lump forming in her throat. She was going to die in the next five minutes, and there was nothing she could do. She cursed herself for not telling Gene where she was going. Yes, the bollocking would have been bad, but she would have lived to see tomorrow. She would have taken a car, had a radio, some backup. She wouldn't have been in this situation at all. Not until they called Fenchurch to come look at the body whenever it was found.
"I said to put your arms out," the muscular man said again. Alex nodded, inhaling deeply. Whatever she did next would sign her own death warrant. So did she fight a battle she knew she would lose, or did she go meekly like a lamb to slaughter?
The man cocked his gun and she lost her nerve, putting her arms out to her side. She felt the other man's hands against her, pressing down on her hips, down each leg. She sighed in annoyance when the man cupped her buttocks, and then moved around to the front to feel up the front and held her breasts, squeezing them before letting go. The man with the gun smirked at this, but didn't move a muscle, clearly trained to hold a weapon for a long period of time. The second man finished the pat down, and she felt relief wash through her. They were going to let her go now. They had to. She didn't have her gun, they didn't find her warrant card. They didn't know she was a cop.
The man lowered his gun, putting the safety back on and stowing it. "You don't remember my face. If cops come after us, you are dead."
Alex swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. The muscular man moved aside and hesitantly, she took one step forward. The men didn't move. She took another cautious step, and then another, continuing forward out of their reach. Alex finally turned away from them, ten feet away from the front of the alley.
"By the way love," the muscular man said, and she instinctively turned to look at him. Before she could process anything, she heard a pop and pain radiated through her shoulder. Grabbing her shoulder, she stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, stunned. The second man pulled her back further into the alley so that no passerby would see her.
"You wouldn't seriously think we would let you just go, did you?" the first man asked, laughing. He disconnected the suppressor he had attached to his gun. "You've seen our faces. You're done."
The smaller man walked up to Alex, a look of consternation on his face. She was finally able to make out his features. A hawk like nose was the predominant feature of his face. His small eyes were watery and blue. His lips were thin, and his enormous mustache did nothing to help that fact. He walked up to the front of the alley where she had fallen, grabbing a small object off the ground.
"What is that?"
Alex couldn't do anything as he opened her warrant card, merely closing her eyes as she silently resigned herself to the death sentence she knew that she had just received.
"Shit. Shit! SHIT! She's a fucking pig! Jimmy, you shot a bloody copper!"
The muscular man, Jimmy, looked at Alex in new light, the judgment evident from his eyes. "The copper will get what the copper deserves."
Alex tried to get up and run, but before she could scramble off the ground, the smaller man slammed his fist into her spine. She fell with a grunt to the pavement, where he sat on her, pinning her down. There was a burning in her face and she knew her cheek had grazed against the hard pavement.
The man started going through the pockets of her jacket, finding the inside pocket where she kept her handcuffs when she was not chasing a suspect. He pulled her arms behind her and tightened the handcuffs.
Alex heard the ripping of fabric behind her. Jimmy stood next to her and lifted her into a standing position. The smaller man held tight to the cuffs as Jimmy tied a strip of fabric around her eyes. He shoved another wad of fabric into her mouth before gagging her.
"Wait here," Jimmy said. He walked off, leaving her alone with the other man. The world was dark around her and as much as she wanted to run, there was nowhere she could go. Even if she could run away, she couldn't see. She would more than likely end up running into a wall.
She tried unsuccessfully to move the wad of fabric out of her mouth. It tasted awful, like a mingling of sweat and blood. She wondered numbly if it was the dead man's shirt or Jimmy's.
Alex heard a car moving down the alley. The brakes squealed painfully as it stopped and she was pushed forward until her legs hit the car. She heard the distinctive click of the boot being opened and realized what they were about to do.
"No!" she yelled, her voice almost inaudible through the gag. She tried to pull away, but the small man was still holding the chain between her handcuffs. As she tried to pull away, her arms pulled back, sending searing pain through her shoulder. Her yell dwindled into a moan of pain.
"Oh shut up," Jimmy said. He picked her up and she felt her stomach drop as the ground disappeared from beneath her. She tried kicking at the man, attempting to wriggle out of his arms, but it didn't matter. He held her tightly, and the blows from her heels did nothing as he lowered her into the boot. He tried to push her into position to close it, but stuck her leg outside. Alex yelled in pain as he slammed the door on her calf, but didn't move. He slammed it again, and she felt blood start to flow as the latch punctured her leg. One of the men pushed her leg back in, but she pushed it back out again.
The cold barrel of a gun settled on her temple. "Stop, or else you die now," Jimmy said quietly. Alex felt tears burning in her eyes, and allowed her leg to be put into the boot. As it slammed above her, she started crying in earnest. All of this because she refused to tell the Guv she'd messed up.
The car started moving. She was not sure how far they went or how long they drove, but every second felt like an hour. The car turned onto gravel, driving for a while before it finally stopped. She heard them get out of the car, feeling it shake as the doors slammed. The boot clicked open and someone lifted her out. Her shoulder throbbed in unison with her calf as they set her down and stood her straight. She felt the gun press into the small of her back and one of the men pushed her forward. Alex stumbled, but stayed standing, her mind racing.
Where were they taking her? Why were they letting her live? They showed that they would kill earlier, and she was a cop who had caught them in the act. Surely, she should be dead by now. Were they going to keep her for ransom?
"Take the blindfold off. I don't want to try and carry her down the stairs," Jimmy said. "She can walk." Alex felt someone scrabbling at the back of her head, and the cloth fell away from her eyes.
She blinked in the sudden light, but it was much darker than it was earlier. The sun was just starting to set behind the buildings. That meant she had been gone for at least two or three hours at least. Had anyone noticed yet? Or did they still think she was just off for the hell of it?
"Keep walking," Jimmy said, pushing the gun into her back again. Alex started forward, taking in her surroundings.
She was on a boat, which was docked along a very rundown part of the Thames. The place seemed absolutely deserted. Did they just take her here to kill her more privately?
"Down those steps."
A memory flashed in her brain, something from so distant in the past and yet so far in the future. A man, with scraggly hair and reflective sunglasses, yelling the same words at her. She felt the same fear curling in her stomach, the same desire to try to work out what these men were feeling psychologically. However, she knew that just as in her memory, trying to establish a dialogue with these men would end up with her dead.
The gun was jammed into her back again and Alex finally followed his direction, limping down the stairs to the underbelly of the boat. When she got to the bottom of the stairs, the small man put the blindfold back over her face. Alex grunted in protest, but could do nothing else.
After they replaced the blind fold, one of her wrists was released suddenly. Alex swung wildly, but her fist only found air. One of the men grabbed both hands, forcing them to hold onto a pole. She felt her free wrist become encased in the metal once more and felt the pit of despair grow even larger in her belly. There was going to be no way out. Just like the last time, she couldn't reason with them. She couldn't form a dialogue. She couldn't even plead.
"Do you think that the bullet will kill her?" the small man asked.
"Doubt it. We can hope it does, but it looks too high to have caused much damage," said the other. "We can check in the morning. Who cares if a pig suffers?"
With that, she heard their footsteps recede, climbing the stairs and off the gangplank. As the sounds of the car faded, overwhelming loneliness washed over Alex. What was she going to do now?
Eventually, she fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming of her fateful walk to try and cover her arse. Over and over, it repeated in her mind, making sure she knew how undoubtedly stupid she was for going alone. There was no comfortable position, and she woke several times to the pain of the bullet in her shoulder. Every time she fell back asleep, the dreams resumed.
Over and over, the cycle continued, until she was snapped into full alertness by the sound of footsteps above her. They had returned, but whether they were going to kill her remained to be seen.
The footsteps sounded loudly down the stairs and came to a stop in front of her. "So you're still alive then," Jimmy said dryly. "That means we have a choice to make. Or rather, you do."
Her hands were suddenly freed, and the gag and blindfold were removed. Blinking, she stared at the two men, before taking off in a dead sprint toward the stairs. Alex started screaming as loud as she could, calling for help. Before she could reach the stairs, however, she was pushed from behind and went sprawling. She grunted as she hit the floor, feeling new bruises forming even as she lay there.
"That was not the choice I was giving you," Jimmy whispered in her ear before slamming her head into the ground. Bright lights exploded in front of her eyes as Jimmy gripped her by the ankle and pulled her away from the stairs. Stunned, Alex could do nothing except grab her forehead in pain. She tried to curl into a foetal position, but before she could, Jimmy was raining blows down on her. There was nothing she could do except cry out in pain as each punch and slap landed.
Blackness started to eat away at the corners of her vision and she decided to succumb to it, to get it over with. If she were unconscious, at least there would be no feeling there.
The center of her vision turned to black and she felt herself falling. The pain faded into nothing as she gave in to the desire of death.
A foul smell ripped her back into consciousness, renewing the throbbing of every part of her body. Alex moaned as her head gave a particularly bad throb, and tried to curl up again. This time, the man let her.
"Detective Inspector Alex Drake," Jimmy said, as though he was about to read her death sentence to her. "You have two choices. You can either live, or I can kill you right now. Which is it that you want?"
"I want to live," she said immediately, trying and failing not to cry. "Please, let me live." As much as she wanted to give up, she couldn't. What would happen to Gene if she died? To CID? Would she give up life in 2008 if she died here?
Jimmy stared at her, as though he was measuring her up. "I can let you live, but you have to give me some promises."
"Anything. Please. I don't want to die!" The fear of death gripped her stronger. She would do anything now to live, she knew. Anything he wanted.
Jimmy smiled at her. "You have to forget everything you saw in the alley and everything since. My name, Liam's name, the fact that this boat exists. Do you think you can do that?"
Alex nodded. "No one will know what happened here. Or in the alley. I can promise you that. This never happened."
He looked at her for about a minute before moving. Finally, he nodded to the small man, who threw her a bag with a sandwich and a bottle of water in it. "Eat," the muscular man said.
Alex looked at him uncertainly, but unwrapped the sandwich and started eating it. He made no move to stop her, and so she finished it voraciously. She chugged the water as well; it had been at least sixteen hours since she last had anything.
As she finished her meal, the man gathered her blindfold, gag and handcuffs. He squatted down, looking directly into her eyes. "See, the thing is, over the years, I've learnt not to trust what coppers tell me. You'll tell me anything to save your life, won't you?" He gave her a half smile. "I think, as soon as you get off this boat, you're going to tattle."
"No," she whispered, feeling her eyes start to burn with tears that she hoped wouldn't fall. "I won't tell. I promise, I won't."
The man grinned even wider. "But why should I believe you? You're a cop, and after doing some digging, I figured out who your boss is. Fucking Gene bastard Hunt. No, DI Drake, you don't get to go back."
Tears started running down her cheeks in earnest as he handcuffed her around the pole again. The blindfold went back on, and the gag, minus the wad of cloth in her mouth, was replaced last. He tightened everything as tight as it would go, so all restraints were pinching her skin.
"I'm going to tell you a secret, DI Drake. I'm not going to shoot you. Liam told me I should have killed you on sight, but I didn't want to. That's why you're still alive now. Instead, you're going to die, alone, days from now. Do you want to know why?"
Alex numbly nodded her head yes.
The man cackled in response. "You don't need to know that." He cackled again. "I'm not an evil villain. I'm not going to monologue. Enjoy your death."
With that, his footsteps walked away from her. She heard them go up the stairs as she burst into a fresh round of tears. They soaked into the blindfold, slowly rolling down her cheeks as the footsteps voice called back down to her.
"Oh, and if you do somehow make it out of here alive, you better pray to God that you don't remember this. Because if Hunt starts coming after me and I figure out you're alive… I'll kill him in front of you. And it won't be a nice little bullet through the head like Arthur got either. I'll tie his feet to concrete and throw him in the Thames at low tide just to watch him drown as the water rises. Best just to die here now, yes? Ta!"
With that, his footsteps left the boat. She heard crunching and straining when suddenly, the boat felt like it was moving. A few moments later, she knew for a fact that it was moving, as it started rocking side to side from the current. Alex rested her aching head on the pole to which her hands were cuffed as everything slowly faded again. It was all over now.
And there you have it. We finally know what happened in the before. The big question is: will she remember her dream? Or will she just forget it all when she wakes up like she's been doing for the past 2 months?
Merry Christmas again!