Chapter 2

For the first time in the last four and half days his eyes were finally closed and he could feel the peaceful and regenerating sensation of sleep. Unfortunately, that moment lasted just a few seconds as his senses were slowly coming back.

The first one was olfaction. An intense and disturbing smell under his nose swept away that pleasant feeling abruptly. Suddenly his throat didn't feel as harsh and dry as before, but it didn't take more than a split second to have taste solving the mystery and worsening everything. It wasn't water what he had in his mouth, it was blood.

Next sense to come back was hearing. An indistinct background noise seemed to get louder and clearer as time was passing by. It was a voice and it was telling him to wake up. Even if he wouldn't have wanted to, there was no choice but to listen to it, also because the smell under his nose was becoming stronger.

Tony slowly opened his eyes as they were two heavy boulders to lift and here it came sight. At first everything was confused and out of focus, but after beating his eyelids a few times, things started to be delineated. In front of him there was a man whom Tony recognized as one of his captors and who was breaking some salt pills under his nose to make him regain consciousness. By instinct, Tony turned his head away from them.

"Welcome back", said the other man with a grin as he put away the salts and got on his feet.

Tony watched him walking toward the table while his aching head was trying to remember what had happened. The answer this time came from his belly, through an intense and agonizing pain. It was then that he remembered.

After the little water incident of some hours before, both the guards had left, leaving him alone in the room. At that point, Tony had two things he could do: finally getting some rest or trying to escape. Even if the first sounded the most comfortable in the immediate present, the second was definitely the better choice in the long run and so second it had been.

Taking advantage of the empty room, he pushed his chair near the table and started to lose the knot at his wrists using one of its corners. Once free, he walked to the door just to find what it was already obvious: it was locked from the outside and there was no way for him to be able to open it without any tool. He had to wait for someone to open it for him and then sneak out.

After having studied for a while the corridor outside through the door lock, he saw what he was waiting for, coming straight toward him. The guard that earlier had been about to give him water was returning to the room and, luckily, he was alone.

Tony returned steadily to his chair, acting unconscious. When the man opened the door, Tony waited for him to come closer and then, without thinking twice, used the surprise factor to knock him out with his now free hands that he was hiding behind his back. Tony was surprised too by the strength he still had after all. Adrenaline was playing well to him.

Checking the guard's pockets, he thought he was even luckier than he expected: besides a set of keys, the man was also wearing a holster with a gun. Tony checked the chamber and then put it in his pants while reaching for the door. It took just two attempts to guess the right key and open it. Freedom was closer.

He walked stealthy through all the corridor, stopping at the end with his back in front of the wall. Looking over his shoulder, he saw it was clear. It was time to go again.

The corridors of the building weren't pretty long but they were empty and with very few doors. Tony thought that if someone had suddenly appeared on the other side, he would've had no place to hide, basically, he would've been a sitting duck. To solve the problem there would've been just his stolen gun. Yeah, the gun. It didn't take long for Tony to realize that the pistol he had been so happy to have found wasn't such a big deal. Without a silencer, even a single shot would've burst throughout the facility and, in Tony's eyes, that would've meant only a thing: starting a firefight one against…damn, he didn't event know how many they were. No, he wouldn't have shot first or, at least, not until it was absolutely necessary. The problem remained unsolved.

Under normal conditions, he would've kept on analyzing every single possibility, but with his aching head and unbearable sore throat he could barely stay focus on where he was going.

"If that happens, I'll think about it", he had thought.

"First big mistake", Tony thought rewatching all of this his head.

The big mistake had been indeed evident few minutes later when suddenly one of the doors of the corridor he was walking along opened and two men got out. In a split second, Tony had to find a solution to the problem he had refused to solve before. All that his brain could think about was run.

"Second big mistake", he realized now in his mind. "Never count on running when you can barely stay on your feet."

The two men noticed a noise coming behind their backs and turned around just to see a man running away. Reaching immediately for their guns, they begun to chase him through the corridor and then decided to split. He was a rat in the cage, no need to worry about it, they would eventually find him.

Tony ran in the opposite direction checking all the doors he found on his way to see if at least one was open and he could hide inside the relative room. His breath was so damn short and adrenaline wasn't just enough now. His body was not responding as he wanted and he didn't know how long he could've kept on running.

Finally, an open door. Without thinking twice, Tony pushed the doorknob, entered the room and closed the door back behind him. His heart was pounding so high, but air still barely arrived in his lungs. Plus, to get things worse, everything around him was slowly becoming gray.

"Damn, not now", he tried to order to his body. Fortunately, his body listened to him and, after a few moments leaning against the wall and trying to collect his breath, his sight started to slowly come back.

It was in that exact moment that his messed-up mind had a creepy realization: he had just run into the room without checking if there was actually anyone in it.

"Third big, enormous mistake", Tony considered at the present time. "How could I've been so damn stupid."

Definitely, the pain he had been in had played a role in it, but those were the damn basis.

A click was heard coming from his right side. Tony's hand immediately came down his right flank, looking for the cold metal safety of the gun.

"Don't even think about it", someone said from the hidden part of the room. "Drop it now!"

With his hand still on the gun, Tony glanced at him, starting to slowly turn around just to see a man with his weapon drawn at him. Few seconds later, the door behind him opened and the men he was running away from came in. Tony could easily feel their guns aimed at him too.

"A'right", he said tossing his weapon on the ground and slowly putting his hands up.

What happened at that point wasn't hard to imagine. They captured him again, put him back in his cell and beat the crap out of him just to make sure he wouldn't try that again. After a long half an hour or so, they had finally got away, leaving him breathless on the chair. It was then that his body probably decided that the pain had been enough and made him black out.

Taking a look around the room at the present time, Tony tried to estimate how long he had been out. A dim light was still coming from the narrow grid over the door, but it was artificial so it couldn't help beating the time. Actually, nothing in that room could, that was the purpose of it: to scramble his biological clock and leave him in total disorientation. Tony thought that it was indeed working. At that moment, he had no idea if it was still day or already night, he was really starting to lose it. The only thing that could make him feel the passing of time was his growing thirst which was becoming harder and harder to endure.

Looking at the guard sitting next to the door, he wondered if things could get any worse. His escape attempt had miserably failed and the more time passed, the less he would've had the strengths to try another one. Oh, yes, they could. A sudden ominous feeling came into his head. This time could really be it.

In some sort of self-preservation attempt, Tony's mind went steadily back to the only thing that had kept alive in these last years: the thought of Michelle. Closing his eyes, he could still see her, beautiful, in front of him and, in the same way, he could still hear her voice, softly, whispering to him or feel her perfume as she slowly put her lips over his cheek in that last kiss they had.

Then the blast, the windows smashing, the run to the car and the fire surrounding both of them. Tony could still feel his skin burning as it did 5 years ago on that damn morning that took her away from him. He shouldn't have let her go alone to the car, he should've been the one starting that damn engine while she was waiting safely in the house, basically, it shouldn't have gone that way.

No, he still had to fight to stay alive, he had a promise he had made to himself to keep: to kill that son of a bitch Alan Wilson who was responsible for everything that had happened that damn day and finally have some justice. Until then he wouldn't give up, no matter what.

A sudden bang snapped him back to reality. Still confused if what he heard was real or was just a creation of his messed-up mind, Tony looked around to find some kind of confirmation in the guard's behavior. He was talking frantically at the radio as if there was some big problem. Yeah, this is happening for real.

"Rattle Snake, do you copy? What the hell was that?", the man asked to the radio, completely freaking out. No answer on the other side.

"Rattle Snake, do you copy?", he insisted. Again, no answer.

The guard glanced at Tony who was too trying to understand what was going on, then, without waiting any longer, he cocked his gun and reached the door.

The bursts coming from the outside were getting louder and closer, so that was possible to clearly understand what they were: gunshots. The man immediately got out, closing the door of the cell behind his back, leaving Tony only imaging what was happening outside.

The firefight continued for several other minutes, then it came an irreal silence. Tony, still uncertain of who caused all that mess, couldn't decide if this was a good or bad sign.

A beat and a little explosion forced the door of his cell to open. Smoke spread through the room and only when it cleared up, Tony could see a man standing at the door with his gun drawn and waiting to come in. Immediately he recognized his face. It was a very familiar face.

Until more or less a year ago, seeing that face in similar circumstances, would've meant only one thing: safety. Now, he wasn't so sure anymore. Who would be sure after having tried to kill that man, strapping a bomb on him? It didn't matter if he was already dying at the time. It didn't matter if it was for a right cause. What he did to him was so damn cold and even colder was the way he'd been played him and betrayed him. Thinking about it again, Tony knew that he'd never wanted to hurt him that way, but he'd really had no other choice. It was his only chance to finally get to Wilson and he wouldn't have let it slip, at any costs.

Staring at the man now, Tony considered if maybe he wasn't even here to finish what he had started a year ago, when, after having found out his play, he'd beaten the crap out of him so badly and, eventually, had taken him under arrest. If that was the case, Tony said to himself that he wouldn't even blink. After what he'd done to that guy, maybe he deserved it.