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Chapter 3

House was still in shock as Tritter locked the doors. He was vaguely aware of Tritter reaching between the front two seats and cuffing his hands together, but his brain was too busy trying to process the idea that the man who had almost had House sent to prison was kidnapping him.

Eventually, as Tritter turned around and put the car into gear, House managed to form a sentence. "What are you doing?"

"We're going on a little trip," Tritter informed him, accelerating out of the parking lot. "Don't do anything stupid, and I won't kill you."

"Stop the car," House told him, miraculously managing to keep his voice steady.

Tritter gave a low laugh as he switched on the sirens and sped up as they left Newark Airport behind. "Dr. House, you're forgetting that I have a gun. I don't have to do anything that I don't want to."

"Where are we going?" House demanded. He couldn't stand this feeling of being out of control. Even just knowing what was going on would help him feel less panicky. He wouldn't have been this frightened if Tritter had just shot him, like the last guy. It was the uncertainty that got him.

"Patience, Dr. House. You'll find out in time."

Ten minutes later, Tritter pulled up in front of an abandoned-looking warehouse at the edge of Newark. House made an attempt to move away as the detective pulled him out of the car, but Tritter was stronger than he was.

"Let me get my cane." House was disgusted to find that his tone of voice was verging on pleading.

At House's request, Tritter simply shook his head. "You won't need it where we're going."

"Yeah, well, wherever we're going, I'm not going to get there without it."

Tritter laughed again, and pulled House to his feet. House felt a spasm of pain jolt through his thigh at the sudden movement, and he fought to keep the pain from showing on his face. He remembered what his father had once told him about bullies. Don't show them any weakness – show them that you're strong. Show them that you're a Marine. Well, the last part was bullshit, but the first two bits made sense. His new theory, however, was no use as Tritter began to drag him over to the door of the warehouse and his leg buckled. He hissed, and, forgetting about Tritter's presence for a moment, reached instinctively for his Vicodin. His hand, shaking, didn't manage to grab hold of the pill bottle. It did, however, manage to knock the bottle out of his pocket and onto the ground.

Damn.

Tritter opened the door of the warehouse, revealing a large, bare, square room. He pulled House into the centre of the floor and threw him down. House pressed his face to the floor, desperately trying to breathe through the pain and the panic. After about a minute, he felt calm enough to look upwards. Tritter was standing over him, a smile on his face.

That was not a good sign.

"Alright then," House said. "Why don't you explain to me what the hell is going on?"

The smile stayed in place, but Tritter gave no answer. Presumably to make House even more nervous. Well, it was working.

"What are you going to do to me?" Still no response. "Kill me?"

Tritter's smile grew wider. "Oh no, Dr. House. I'm not going to kill you. At least not yet. I want you to suffer."

Where had he heard that last sentence before? Of course. His hallucination. The other guy who had threatened him with a gun had said that too.

Tritter wasn't finished. "You got off lightly, House. You had a smart lawyer. You pleaded guilty, and you sweet talked your way into getting off with two months in rehab and a fine. Things could have been worse. Things should have been worse. You were meant to go to jail for ten, maybe fifteen years if I could swing it. But you haven't changed." Tritter held up the bottle of Vicodin that House had dropped earlier. "Back on the narcotics so soon? You only got home a few days ago. Rehab obviously hasn't done anything to help."
"So you're going to torture me because you want me to stop taking drugs?"

"Not exactly."

"You're not going to torture me?"

"No, I'm going to torture you. But it's not because I want you to stop taking drugs. I don't care whether you take drugs or not. I care about what you do to other people. You're an asshole. You jerk people around. You had plenty of opportunities to change, and you didn't take any of them. You brought this on yourself." Tritter paused. "I'm not just going to hurt you. I'm going to destroy you."

House's heart rate sped up, but he managed to sneer. "Destroy me? With pain? I live in pain every day. I spent the last two months suffering the kind of pain you can't even imagine, because thanks to you, I had no drugs to take away that pain. If pain was going to destroy me, it would have happened a long time ago."

Tritter continued to smile. Then he reached down, wrapped his hands around House's right thigh, and twisted.

The pain was unbelievable. Red dots appeared in front of House's eyes as he struggled to suck in air, to keep living. He couldn't scream. He couldn't move. He was literally paralyzed with pain. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to die, for his suffering to be alleviated. He hadn't felt pain this bad since right at the beginning of the infarction, just after his first surgery. And it kept on going. He expected it to recede after a couple of seconds, but it kept on going at the same intensity for what felt like years.

Finally, the pain began to diminish enough for House to start breathing properly again. There were tears in his eyes, but the pain was still intense enough for him not to care whether or not Tritter saw them.

Tritter. He was crouched next to House now, his face so close to House's that it completely filled his still blurry visions.

"You're wrong, House. Imagine that, all day, every day. Imagine worse than that. For the rest of your life. Can you honestly say that that isn't going to break you?"