o()o
Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed so far. You guys are the best, you know that?
Nifty Fact for the Day: Taytos are an Irish brand of potato chips. It kind of takes on the general meaning of all different brands of chips, like Kleenex does with tissue.
o(29)o
Connor should have known what was coming.
Murphy had been unnaturally silent during their hasty walk back to Danae's apartment, both of them knowing instinctually that it was where they needed to be. Connor could feel the tension radiating off his brother in waves and Murphy's already frantic fidgets had intensified until he was a noiseless symphony of movement.
Bursting through the front door, his twin went straight for his black duffel bag, wrenching it from its hiding place behind the couch and pulling out his guns, setting them on the well-used coffee table, his face unreadable.
"What the fuck are ye doin'?" Connor asked.
Murphy stopped, looking at him as though he had lost his mind. "We're fuckin' goin' ta get her."
"Murph, we don't know where the fuck she is."
"Then we'll fuckin' find her." Murphy said, his voice strangely calm.
"We've got fuck all squared ta go on ta find her," Connor protested. "The note said ta wait anways." They had the disadvantage now; it was wiser to hold off doing anything until they had something to go on, some idea of what to do.
"Fuck the note!" Murphy yelled, whirling on his brother. "They've fuckin' got Danae. I'm not goin' ta wait around until they fuckin' decide to hurt her."
Reaching out, Connor placed a firm hand on his twin's shoulder, startled by Murphy's mercurial change in temperament. "Get a fuckin' hold of yerself, man. There's nothing we can do right now."
"Fuck you!" Murphy shouted, slapping the hand away, his eyes bright and angry.
"Murphy!"
"I fuckin' said we're going ta get her! Either ye fuckin' go with me or I go the fuck alone!"
"Fine!" Connor yelled back, his patience finally splintering. "We'll go out roamin' the fuckin' streets lookin' fer her and when those motherfuckers call and we don't answer and then they decide to fuckin' kill her . . ."
The blow came swift and hard, knocking Connor back a few steps. Raising a hand to his mouth and drawing away bloody fingertips, Connor looked at Murphy wrathfully. His brother's eyes were deadly, his face colorless and tense.
"Don't fuckin' say that." Murphy ground out. "How could ye fuckin' say somethin' like that?"
"Because it's the fuckin' truth, and you fuckin' know it."
With a cry that was born more of grief than fury Murphy launched himself at his brother, fists connecting solidly. For a moment, a real brawl raged between the two with hard, forceful punches being thrown and received, they fought without speaking, their normal insults and curses lost in the ferocity of the struggle.
Then Connor saw the look in Murphy's eyes.
His brother needed this, needed to release some of the pressure that had been building since he had opened that envelope in the hospital. Carefully, Connor blocked the flurry of blows with open hands, but threw no more of his own.
Get it out o' yer system. He encouraged his twin silently. Get it out now, Murph.
Finally, his breathing ragged and his fists clenched Murphy stopped, staring down at his brother prone on the floor. Connor watched as the anger in his twin's eyes shattered, leaving behind only fear and helplessness.
"Fuck." The word rushed out in a tremulous sigh and he knew that Murphy was finished.
Slowly rising to his feet, daubing at his now bloodied nose, Connor reached into his pocket to produce a pack of cigarettes, tapping two out. It was a gesture that had signified the ending of a fight for as long as either twin could remember.
Even before they had discovered smoking, when the peace offering had been a candy bar split in two or bag of Taytos, the act of sharing something easily bridged whatever gaps the dispute had left behind, and by the time the offering was finished, neither brother could bring to mind what the fight had been about to begin with.
As they grew older, the act of smoking in even-tempered silence became a balm that soothed away harsh words even as the nicotine soothed their sometimes painful bruises.
Murphy reached out toward his brother, eyes pleading. "Connor, I . . ."
Connor shook his head, offering his twin a cigarette and giving him a fond pat on the back. "Don't." he said softly. "Get the phone, now and c'mon outside."
Nodding, shakily, Murphy picked up the telephone from its cradle and looked at Connor, his heart in his eyes. Connor slipped an arm around his brother's shoulders, feeling the slight tremors running through his body.
"C'mon." he said again, gently. "Everything will be all right."
They smoked in quiet, Connor reaching out occasionally to comfort his twin, not missing the fleeting, remorseful glances that Murphy tossed his way from time to time.
The dissonant ring of the phone disturbed the dense silence, startling both brothers. Connor grabbed the phone, aware of Murphy next to him, eyes wide and apprehensive.
"Hello?"
"Mr. MacManus." A smooth voice on the other side of the line purred. "Am I speaking with Connor or Murphy?"
"What the fuck does it matter?" asked Connor, incensed.
Across the line came the unmistakable sound of a cry of pain and Connor knew with stomach-dropping certainty that it was Danae's. Those motherfuckers!
"It matters." The voice said.
"Connor!" he shouted into the phone. "Yer talkin' ta Connor."
"That's better. Connor, as I'm sure you've noticed, I have your friend . . ."
"Let me fuckin' talk ta her!"
"Mr. MacManus," the words were followed by a piercing, sobbing, scream.
The scream came clearly through the receiver and Murphy drew in a sharp breath gripping Connor's shoulder hard enough to bruise. "Jesus fuckin' Christ!"
"I don't think you fully understand the situation here." The voice continued, still calm and sleek.
"Danae!" Connor shouted into the phone, clutching the handset, aware of Murphy echoing his words. "Danae!"
Connor could hear her crying in the background so close and yet so far away, and, after a moment, realized that she was sobbing his name over and over.
"You motherfucker!" he yelled into the phone, knuckles curving white around the handset "What the fuck do ye want?"
"Want?" The voice sounded genuinely surprised and Danae gave another pained scream, this time closer. "You don't understand. This young lady is an insurance policy, so to speak."
"What the fuck's that supposed ta mean?"
"Well, you already have a nice lock of hair to remember her by. If you, or your brother, decide to cause any more trouble for me I'll send you something else that belongs to her, maybe a finger or, perhaps, her head."
This time Danae's voice was clear and close. "No," she gasped, and Connor could hear the terror in her tone. "Please, no. Oh, God."
"Danae!" Connor yelled as the line went dead.
Letting the phone slip from his suddenly nerveless fingers, he turned to Murphy, breathing ragged.
His twin was unnaturally white, his eyes dark and stormy and idly Connor wondered if he himself looked as stricken. Swallowing he ran a trembling hand through his hair and forced the words past the bile rising in his throat.
"Murphy, Get yer guns."
o()o
The first thing Danae learned while under the 'care' of the Street Priests was that it was a very bad idea to cry when your mouth was duct-taped shut. She had spent the first several hours dizzy from lack of oxygen, panicked, and disoriented. The room she was in was small, dark, and, not much better than the trunk she had arrived in, offering only a tiny window too high to reach. Not that she could do much even if she could reach it, mind you.
After the initial shock wore off, the almost paralyzing fear settled in but she couldn't cry because, as terrified as she was, the idea of asphyxiation was worse.
The second thing she learned was that trying to be brave only made them hit harder. They had beaten her phone number out of her before taping her mouth shut and when she refused to relinquish her address, open-handed slaps had turned to fists. She was battered and bruised but so far, nothing seemed to be broken, and they still didn't know where she lived. Connor and Murphy were out of harm's way, for now.
Her back ached from long hours curled up on the cold floor and her hands had long since gone numb from being bound behind her back, the only indication that they were still there at all was the occasional bite of whatever they had used to tether her against the already raw skin of her wrists.
When the door swung open, illuminating two large silhouettes standing there, Danae cringed away from them, knowing that whatever was about to happen couldn't be good.
They dragged her out of the tiny room and across a large hallway, shoving her roughly into a chair before propping her up in it. The overpowering smell of smoke clogged the air and a man stepped into her line of sight, a thick cigar between his fingers.
He looked more suited to the stock market than a Columbian drug cartel, dressed in an impeccable business suit, his salt and pepper hair neatly slicked back.
"Miss Pierce." He said, his voice soft and accented as he held up a telephone handset, taking a deep inhalation from his cigar. "You are about to be very useful."
Pressing a series of buttons on the telephone, the man paused and Danae felt her heart stop when he spoke.
"Mr. MacManus. Am I speaking with Connor or Murphy?"
There was another brief silence as the man listened. He gave an amused smile into the receiver and then nodded to a thug behind her.
In a quick, brutal motion, the thug ripped the tape from her mouth, the adhesive taking a fair amount of skin along with it.
Crying out at the sudden sting, she could feel the warm slickness of blood trickling across her lips from where the tape had torn the sensitive skin there and realized, with horror, that this was just the beginning.
"It matters." The man said into the receiver, his smile broadening. "That's better. Connor, as I'm sure you've noticed, I have your friend . . ."
The man frowned as he listened, shaking his head. "Mr. MacManus," he said, his tone chiding, and the thug landed a sharp blow against Danae's already bruised shoulder, sending exquisite pain arcing up into her neck and down to her fingers.
For a blinding moment, she was certain he had broken something, snapping through bone like a matchstick, but he hadn't. He'd moved the once dislocated joint just enough to provoke the agony he wanted.
"I don't think you fully understand the situation here." The sleek man continued, taking another puff off of his cigar.
The man moved closer to her and she could barely hear Connor's voice across the line, yelling to her, his voice tinged with desperation. She sobbed his name like a prayer wondering how hope could be so close yet so far away.
Please find me. . .please please please find me. . . please please please. . . .
"Want?" The man's eyebrows shot up toward his graying hairline and he chuckled slightly walking up to studying the burning end of his cigar thoughtfully, "You don't understand. This young lady is an insurance policy, so to speak."
The man was so close to her now she could hear Connor's voice, but the words were garbled. Idly he tapped the ash of the end of the cigar and brought the freshly glowing cherry dangerously close to her skin
"Well," the man responded to whatever Connor had said, "you already have a nice lock of hair to remember her by, if you or your brother decide to cause any more trouble for me I'll send you something else of hers. Maybe a finger or, perhaps, her head."
Holding the phone up to Danae's mouth, he slowly brought the burning end of the cigar closer to her until it was only a breath away from her face. She could feel the heat of it against her cheek and tossed her head back and forth, trying to escape the glowing ember.
The man's face was solemn as he rotated the tip bringing it alarmingly close to her eye, and she froze, terrified, blinking against the ash that clung to her eyelashes, tears making the cherry sizzle.
"No," she gasped, trying to recoil from the cigar, "Please, no. Oh, God."
There was the telltale beep of the call being ended and the cigar was withdrawn. Sobbing, with relief and fear, her breaths coming in frantic little bursts, Danae saw dark spots dance before her eyes as her tentative grasp on consciousness began to slip.
"You did very well, Miss Pierce." The man said as her world went dark. "It's going to be such a pity when I actually do have to kill you."
o()o