It was the wailing of sires that pulled him back out of his deep state of oblivion.
Something about the familiar noise urged him to snap awake, get moving, flee. Slowly opening his eyes, Steve found himself sprawled out on the cold wooden floor, shivering uncontrollably, as every slight breeze coming through the cracks and open doors gave him the chills.
His hands were still tied to the radiator, his wrists raw and bleeding in some spots from a battle he could only vaguely remember. Trying to swallow against the dryness in his throat, he ended up coughing several times, unable to get the strange chemical taste out of his mouth.
The room was empty again.
As he glanced through the door to the kitchen, he saw no signs of anybody being home. The two chairs on the other side of the room were empty. Rolling around to the opposite side, he saw nothing but a set of handcuffs lying on the ground nearby, surrounded by an assortment of blood drops that lead to the kitchen.
Feeling panic rise from within, Steve pushed himself into a sitting position, his shoulders screaming in protest as he once again pulled on the handcuffs, hoping to create enough force to dislocate his thumb and release the restraints.
And yet, his attempts remained in vain.
Swallowing the bile when some of the wounds on his wrists began to hurt and bleed again, he let his eyes drift across the floor, unable to shake the feeling of being watched.
The shadows created through the few rays of sunshine coming in from the outside were moving, slowly creeping in on him. Beneath them, he saw the shapes of human bodies, stumbling toward his position, some of them holding a gun.
"Mike…", he whispered in hopeless despair and fought the restraints once again, the continuous pain helping to settle his panicking mind a bit.
First it was one, but soon several other voices could be heard talking to him, saying things he didn't understand. Steve felt the cold sweat building up on his forehead, as the figures approached him unremittingly, some stumbling, others walking up in decisive precision.
As the flight reflex overtook his mind completely, numbing any pain he could have felt, he began to thrash against the wooden floor, hoping to kick the planks hard enough to break them. Breathing heavily, Steve glanced across the room, trying to ignore the figures coming closer as the seconds passed, looking for a way to escape.
"Why did you shoot me?", one of them asked from the back, "I wasn't going to kill that other cop, my gun wasn't even loaded. Why didn't you see that? Why did you shoot me?"
Feeling the sweat drip off his forehead, Steve forced himself to slow his breathing, trying to get his struggling mind to focus at the urgent task ahead- flight.
"You killed me on the first shot. How did you learn to kill somebody so well? Is it because you do it so often? Do you enjoy it?"
As the voices became louder, his search for a way out grew more panicked.
"Don't you know we also have families that love us?"
A loud pop disrupted his troubled thoughts. Glancing down at the source of the noise, Steve noticed that the thumb on his left hand had dislocated, allowing the handcuffs to move more freely. Surprised that the pain never reached his clouded mind, he grasped the metal clasp tightly with his right hand, before sliding it the rest of the way, until it came off.
Taking a second to rejoice in his newfound freedom, Steve leaned against the radiator, panting, momentarily forgetting the figures and shapes encroaching on him. Finally, as the feeling returned to his limbs, he fed the rest of the cuffs through the radiator, thus freeing his hand before getting onto his wobbly legs.
"You can't run from us, Steve. You can't hide."
With the handcuffs dangling off his right hand, he carefully reached over and manipulated his injured thumb, a faint pop signaling that he'd managed to move it back into the joint. As he stumbled toward the kitchen, the dizziness nearly made him crash into the doorframe, his head narrowly missing the corner of an ill-placed cabinet hanging against the inside wall.
And then he saw it.
Sitting on the back corner of a small kitchen table was his revolver, badge and handcuffs. Instinctively knowing that these items belonged to him, Steve slipped the revolver into the holster he still carried on his belt, the badge into his rear pant pocket like he'd done a million times before, and the cuffs into his waistband along his lower back.
A small key lying on the nearby kitchen counter fit perfectly into the lock of his handcuffs, finally releasing the last evidence of his captivity with a faint click.
His victory was short-lived, when footsteps could be heard from the other side of the run-down apartment, quickly approaching his position.
"Puppet, what are you doing?"