Step 3: Test the Theory
Summary: Lance is a self-serving dick; Wrench's THINGS NOT TO DO list; and the OC comes on the scene
Notes: So sorry for taking so long on this update. *mumbles things about real life sucking* Started writing this and then I realized my carefully planned storyline has a few major missing elements. So, I've been working on revising that. Also, almost completed a side-chapter that I'll probably publish separately, though it's also part of this universe. And got partway through the next chapter so it shouldn't take a couple of months to post. *insert quiet "yay!" here*
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Lance awoke to the annoying beep of his smartphone alarm letting him know his six hours was up. Rolling off the luxurious, king-size bed onto the floor, he did a quick 25 pushups before hopping up and dismissing the alarm, releasing a breath at the blessed silence that followed. His morning routine usually included doing pull-ups or Lily, when she was around. Neither was an option today-no pull-up bar and Lilly was in Atlanta this week, unfortunately.
As he prepared for a shower, he idly wondered if she would have enjoyed last night as much as he did? She had enough kink in her to let him indulge a bit of his sadistic side on a regular basis but he wasn't sure if she enjoyed inflicting pain, as well. She'd never seemed interested in that, allowing him instead to indulge his need for control and some level of violence but he'd never been able to go as far as he had last night. Not that he'd want to with Lilly. With her auburn hair and flawless, cream-colored skin...just thinking about her writhing under him, coupled with images of last night dancing around his head, was enough to turn his morning wood into a raging hard-on. Definitely something he would have to take care of before Dad arrived.
Twenty-five minutes later found him standing in front of his dad's dresser, damp hair curling slightly at the ends, feeling equal parts buzzed and satiated and debating whether he should bother putting his watch on. Even the "casual" Piaget he currently had with him was close to $10K and he had no interest in damaging it. He reluctantly slipped it into his overnight bag and headed through his parent's sitting room and down the hall to the kitchen to put on some coffee, provided he could find some in the house. He hoped his brother wasn't a complete heathen because he wasn't going to have time to run out for a cup before Dad arrived.
Searching through the cabinets in the kitchen turned up nothing but a few almost empty bottles of some nasty-ass cheap liquor. Pantry had a half-full box of ramen noodle packages. Drawers had nada, as well. Lance finally hit paydirt in the freezer where he found a can of coffee and set to making himself some, missing his Keurig. Or a Starbucks. As the smell of dark roast filled the kitchen, he leaned up against the door jamb to the living room, crossing his arms and staring at his little brother, still unconscious and tied to the chair, back facing him. Sunlight streamed in through the partially open curtains on the picture window that faced the street and highlighted the gold in Brandon's hair. There was a time, when they were a lot younger, that he felt sorry for the kid. To be stuck with that birthmark on his face had to be tough. Especially with someone like William Philips for your father. Dad demanded perfection and didn't accept excuses. He was definitely a hard man to please. Fortunately for Lance, his mom adored him and she pretty much had Dad's balls in a vise grip. And any sympathy he had for Brandon disappeared when the little shit had hacked his dad's info and taken off. Lance liked being rich and powerful and he sure as hell didn't want to lose everything because his idiot brother had some bug up his ass about how ugly he ended up looking...or whatever it was that had turned him into this mask-wearing freak.
Didn't help that the little douchenozzle had completely trashed his old bedroom. Lance had ended up having to stay the night in his parent's room since apparently his brother had gone on a rampage and destroyed all of his things leaving wood, glass, plastic and torn posters littering the floor. All his trophies and awards were in pieces except for the football trophy stuck in the wall. His parents' suite had been desecrated in a different way-crude and obscene images drawn all over the priceless paintings; antiques and figurines painted badly and positioned in offensive ways. It left Lance shaking his head in disgust. He'd originally finished "questioning" his brother around 1 am but after seeing his bedroom, he'd come up with all sorts of new things to "ask" involving generous use of the cord from his old stereo that Brandy had destroyed and a curling iron he'd found tucked in the back of the cabinet in his mom's dressing room. It was a shame about the gag. Lance was sure the little faggot was finally gonna start begging around 2 am but he couldn't risk the neighbors hearing and coming to check so he left the tape in place. Too many questions and Dad wanted this kept low-key which meant they'd probably be moving Brandon sometime this morning.
Lance turned back into the kitchen and busied himself preparing his coffee while mentally running through the logistics for transporting his brother to a more private location.
When he first came to, he really didn't want to open his eyes. Not just because he didn't have the energy, though God knew he was exhausted and every muscle in his body ached. His head was throbbing, his shoulder was on fire and his throat hurt from screaming. Gagged or not, his brother had found a multitude of ways to cause agony that had Wrench straining his voice. But no begging. Wrench wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Not to mention, the fucking duct tape appeared to be industrial strength shit so there was no way he'd be working it off his mouth any time soon.
But opening his eyes was currently near the top of his THINGS NOT TO DO list. Yes, contrary to popular belief, there were actually a few things that Wrench wouldn't do. Granted, many of those items didn't make the list until he'd tried them at least once. For instance, number 10 was Hook up with ANYONE after mixing too much booze and recreational drugs. Okay, so that one took him 2 tries and one aborted trip to Las Vegas that almost ended in marriage or...a duel of some sort? He was kind of fuzzy on the details though he distinctly remembered a cathedral-like chapel and being chased by some knights with swords.
Then there was Piss Sitara off. That one came in at number 5 about six seconds after he met her. Seriously, the ice cold look she could give a guy would make his balls shrivel up so far that he'd have to reach the 9th level of hell before they'd drop again.
Steady at number 3 was Let anyone screw with his family. And he wasn't talking about the fucknuggets that he shared DNA with, either. His real family, DedSec. Specifically, Sitara, Josh, Marcus and, heck, he'd even throw T-Bone into the mix at this point, though he was still kinda pissed at the guy about Wrench, Jr.
He tried not to think about the 4th item on his list too often but it held it's spot solidly after showing up there about a year ago. Fall for Marcus wasn't going anywhere anytime soon for 2 reasons.
1. Wrench was pretty sure Marcus was straight. Like, very straight. The guy always eyeballed the ladies and invariably went home with one when he picked someone up. Wrench personally didn't care about gender. If he liked someone, he liked 'em whether they were male or female.
B. And, more importantly, the second part of rule 4 was See number 3. Sure, Wrench might tease Josh mercilessly but it was all in fun. He might fight with T-Bone, harass Marcus and do everything he could to irritate Sitara (just to see how far he could go before she reached number 5 levels of pissed off). But he would never hurt them deliberately and it was almost ordained that Marcus would get hurt if he and Wrench ever...not that Marcus would be interested in that anyway, so number 4 held it's place.
Numbers 1 and 2 varied, depending on his immediate circumstances. Presently, first on the list was Die. Not that it usually ranked that high because he didn't really care a whole lot about that. It wasn't like he was gonna leave some huge hole in the world when he was gone-well not from his lack of presence, anyway. If he could cause a Philly-sized explosion to commemorate his passing, that would be epic. So, yeah, die tended to fall closer to the bottom of the list normally. Driving faster, bigger explosions, larger fires...lots of things usually trumped dying on the list. But he absofuckinglutely refused to die at the hands of his family.
And, at the moment, Open your eyes was holding the 2nd spot. Not, as he noted before, because he was exhausted. Not even because last time he'd opened his eyes after passing out for a bit, he'd sat there watching blood drip steadily onto his lap, soaking the front of his jeans. Who knew that being tased repeatedly would apparently cause part of your brain to implode and drip out of your nose?
No, open your eyes was on the list because he knew that once he did, it would be real. He wouldn't be able to pretend anymore that it was some PTSD-induced nightmare like one of the many similar nightmares he'd had over the years. Once the blood, cuts, bruises and burn marks came into sharp focus, he wouldn't be able to make himself believe he was crashed out on his cot at the garage, snoozing on the couch at the hackerspace, or even upstairs in his old bed curled around his laptop, sleeping fitfully. Plus, he figured playing possum for a bit might buy him some time to try and come up with some sort of plan so Wrench kept his head down and tried to keep his breathing even and body as relaxed looking as possible even though every nerve ending was screaming at him because his fuckwit of a brother had grown even more sadistic since their childhood.
At first, he just listened to Lance as he moved around the kitchen, using up his coffee, fucking buttmunch. It didn't help that Wrench was now craving the stuff, made more desperate by the smell and the knowledge he wasn't getting any of that sweet nectar anytime soon. Top all of that off with the sudden realization that he was flat-out starving because he hadn't eaten anything since the night before last and it all left him feeling miserable, seriously pissed off and, if he were honest with himself, a good bit scared, as well. He wasn't seeing a way out of this and if just one night with Lance, the Psychopathic Cockmuppet left him like this, he shuddered to think what the next day would be like...or the one after that. No, he definitely needed to get the fuck out of this sooner rather than later.
He knew from the phone call Lance made last night that dad was coming in today. Unlike Lance, Billy was going to want some answers which meant the duct tape was coming off so they were going to have to move him out of the peaceful, upscale neighborhood to some place that would provide more privacy or soundproofing. That was probably his best chance-the move between here and wherever.
If he missed that opportunity, he wasn't sure he'd be walking away from this one at all but he was damn sure going to figure how to destroy as much shit as possible in the process. Go quietly had been a permanent fixture on his THINGS NOT TO DO LIST since he'd started it.
Several blocks east, Marie stepped out of the donut shop into the bright morning sun and paused a moment, closing her eyes and lifting her face to the sky. Taking a deep breath, she reveled in the feeling of freedom. An irritated huff and "Excuse me" from behind startled her and she stepped to the side with a mumbled apology as the man walked by muttering something about dumbasses.
Standing in the middle of a busy doorway on a public street is a great way to go unnoticed, she thought to herself wryly, shaking her head. Trevor was probably going to kill her already for wandering so far from the house they were staying but it had been four long months since she'd just walked in the sunlight, free to go where she pleased so he'd just have to be mad. She hunched her shoulders a bit, burying her hands in her jacket pockets and headed up the street towards the pretty neighborhood to the west. It was very affluent looking, one of the neighborhoods she hadn't seen yet since moving to San Francisco last fall when she'd started grad school.
She'd grown up in Small Town, USA. Normal family, normal life. Everything revolved around high school football and church. It wasn't bad. She'd had a happy enough childhood, plenty of friends, and was successful in school. But she was bored before she'd ever graduated from high school. Mostly because her interests didn't really suit their small town lifestyle. Marie wasn't interested in being the wife and mom like her mother and grandmother. She didn't want to be stuck working at some local business in a dead-end job or trying to teach science in a community that valued sports over everything else.
Her real love was biology. Well, biotechnology, actually. Her interest in it had developed over a couple of years after her younger brother Jake lost his lower leg in a car accident at the age of 12. She'd watched him struggle for a long time after that. Not just with learning how to live minus a leg but to be accepted again in school, even in town. People can be cruel, even small town folks you've known most of your life. Fortunately for her brother, his friends had readily accepted him, missing limb and all, even if other people they'd known forever didn't.
Marie couldn't say the same about her first boyfriend but breaking up with Randy had opened the way for Tom and Tom had been amazing. He'd been both supportive and friendly to her younger brother, treated her like a princess and even got along with her parents. The topper to it all was that he'd loved how smart she was. He was no slouch himself-captain of the football team, good looking and still did well in school but he never seemed to mind that she was smarter than he was. The guy was every girl's dream.
Except hers, not that she understood that at the time. She'd been 15 and a science whiz when they first started dating. Tom would just sit and listen to her babbling on about cybernetics and nanotech for hours. She'd initially focused on rehabilitation physiotherapy but became more fascinated with the idea of nanotechnology after her grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She had grand dreams of helping find a way to use nanotech for both amputees and degenerative mental illnesses like Dementia. Tom encouraged her to pursue her interests. He dated her throughout high school and, even though he probably knew pretty early on that she wasn't going to be happy remaining a hometown girl and he wasn't going to be happy leaving, he stuck it out through most of college and never tried to discourage her from pursuing her dreams.
And then, during her final undergrad year while she was preparing to make a definite decision on which grad school to go to, Tom had broken up with her. She wanted to be mad at him, to hate him for leaving her and have any reason you could think of to make it his fault, but she couldn't. Truth was, he did everything right. He never cheated on her or saw anyone else while she was at university in the city and he was at the community college back home. He never ignored her or failed to visit with her, check on her family, send her gifts for all the appropriate holidays and anniversaries. And when he broke up with her, it wasn't just a text or even a phone call. He drove out to university, took her to a nice dinner and sat and talked with her, logically and maturely. Heck, he didn't even start dating someone else back home immediately after breaking up with her.
She realized later, when she got settled in at USFCA, that he was perfect and that was precisely what the problem was. Not that she felt she was undeserving...except maybe just a little. She didn't have any lingering self-doubt about what she wanted to do with her life or her abilities and intelligence. But, she'd watched Tom spend hours of his time just hanging out with her brother, making him feel normal. She'd seen him hold a conversation with her grandmother while the confused woman called him Little Frankie and talked to him like he was her son who had died in Afghanistan. He volunteered for just about every charity event that came up, never seemed to get angry about anything. Truth was, in her mind, he was somewhere around the level of a demigod and who actually wants to be married to that? So she chose the University of San Francisco for grad school and moved halfway across the country, Skyping with her parents and brother to keep in touch with them and throwing herself into her studies. Which was how she ended up here.
And where was here, anyway? She looked around, shaking off the memories that, honestly, had been nice to sink into so she could avoid thinking about the hell that was her last 4 months. Occasional images of scary looking medical devices and faces covered with surgical masks looming over her intruded on her dreams and sometimes flashed behind her eyes in the middle of the day. Thinking about her ex was a relief right now.
Glancing back at the street sign she just passed, told her she'd just crossed Octavia Street and was heading deeper into the obviously expensive residential area. Even though a lot of the homes were row houses, she bet they were all upwards of $1 million or more. Marie idly considered whether she'd enjoy living in something like a row house. They were all pretty, in her opinion, and the bay windows were to-die-for but she got the feeling they might be a bit stifling.
Speaking of pretty windows, a lovely house up ahead with light yellow trim and a huge picture window in the front caught her eye. The curtains were partially opened and she couldn't resist trying to see inside as she came up alongside the house, wondering what it would be like to grow up in a house like that. Their house back home had been a small ranch-style home. Single-story, sprawling wide and sat on a half-acre.
Marie's eyes widened as she suddenly made out what was sitting behind that pretty façade. There was a man on a kitchen chair who looked unconscious, hands behind the chair in what had to be an uncomfortable position. Her steps slowed as her eyes travelled down and she gave a gasp when she saw bare feet with the ankles zip-tied to the chair legs. She glanced around as if looking for someone to verify what she was seeing but there wasn't anyone nearby. Most people had probably headed off to work by now so, except for a couple of people half a block down heading away from her, the street was pretty quiet. There has to be a rational explanation for this . Marie looked back toward the window, unconsciously starting across the yard to get a better look. Maybe he was practicing a scene in a play or something. This is California-that's what people do here, right?
Unconsciously noting the black van parked in the driveway, she moved closer to the window, trying to see more through the partially open curtain. Everything about the room screamed luxury. Expensive furniture, expensive décor, expensive rug. Even the chair the guy was sitting on looked fancy for a kitchen chair. One step closer. Her roaming eyes started taking in the incongruities. There was a pretty end table tipped on its side with a broken leg and smashed lamp next to the suede couch, some broken dish on the floor in front of a console table along the wall. A black lump of something she couldn't identify to the side of the console. A black jacket or hoodie, with metallic dots or studs gleaming across part of it, haphazardly tossed across the coffee table. Another step closer. And there was the man himself, tied to the chair, probably the most out of place thing in the picture. He was wearing stained, torn jeans but no shirt and had a number of tattoos scattered across what she could see of torso. Definitely didn't seem to belong in that neighborhood, let alone the very pricey looking home. One more step. She realized there was duct tape wrapped around his head, discolored down the front with some dark substance. She noted splatters of the same dark substance (couldn't be blood, right?) on his pants. One last step that brought her to the window. She scanned the room looking for anyone else before looking back at the man on the chair. What had looked like blotchy skin from further back resolved itself into angry red welts, burn marks and she couldn't tell what all. His face looked like it had a large bruise or mark over the left eye.
Her stomach did a flip and she swallowed hard. This can't be real. It looked like the scene from a movie but not the kind that should be played out in the middle of a living room in an upscale neighborhood in San Francisco. She chewed on her bottom lip unconsciously, considering and discarding scenarios rather quickly. 911 was out. She couldn't risk being found. Trevor had told her the people who'd been holding her very likely had contacts in SFPD so she was to avoid any police, military or security guards at all costs. If these were actors practicing (there'd have to be more than one), she'd embarrass herself but they might all get a laugh out of it and she'd at least know it wasn't real. If they were into, you know, kinky stuff, she'd be mortified. But again, it'd probably be worth it to make sure that was the case.
She could...probably should ...call Trevor but, if it were real, the time it would take him to get here could be the difference between helping this person escape and...well, she didn't know what. His death? Maybe. Certainly he'd be hurt more and perhaps they were planning moving him somewhere else, though it seemed odd to do this in the morning rather than at night. She looked over at the black van, actually paying attention this time. It had been backed into the driveway and there was a door to the house directly behind it. She leaned over a little and noted that there was no license plate which set her heart to racing. That definitely didn't seem to point to possibilities one or two.
Her hesitation only lasted another moment, wavering between being smart or being brave but stupid. All it took was a flash in her mind of being strapped to a hospital bed in a sterilized room with a silver tray of scary-looking surgical tools stationed next to it...two people walking in fully kitted out as surgeons...a third man with cold eyes, also wearing a surgical mask leaning over her with a gas mask... She shook her head and turned toward the door. The idea that anyone else would have to deal with something like that when she could do something to help wasn't even worth considering.
Trevor could kill her later. As long as she survived this.
Notes: Yeah, I got nothing. Oh, actually-I've never had a dislocated shoulder (hopefully never will) but based on what I've read, you'll just have to suspend disbelief that Wrench can go as long as he does with one. I'm totally cheating since it would likely do some major nerve damage for as rough as I've treated it and as long as I'm going to let it go on. Sssh...it's fiction.
Also, my first review! Woohoo! *throws confetti*
Thanks, Maxsunny! I'm so sorry for not responding to this. I never got a notice or saw it come in. I had things planned out very specifically until I realized (as mentioned above) that I'm missing some major elements that need to be handled/resolved before it's all said and done. I don't generally go with cliffies, but I'm not promising on this one since things are changing now, as I go. Glad you're interested enough to come back for more though. :D
And thanks to the people who've decided to follow the story and to those who have favorited it. You make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
