Author's Notes: Ok, I'm just going to have to have my muse sedated. Maybe then she'll be more cooperative with the creating new chapters for all of my stories. I hope. Sorry about the wait, gang. Please enjoy.
"What are ya doin' here, Kevin?" Percy asks, eyeing his subordinate suspiciously. "Didn't expect to see ya for at least another week."
"I've got news for you, Mr. Percy," Kevin replies cautiously.
"What kind of news?" Percy questions, leaning forwards in his seat, his face still not very welcoming.
"Well, it depends," Kevin answers hesitantly.
"Depends on what?" Percy demands.
"It depends on whether proof that the missing mare is alive is a good thing or not," Kevin responds.
"You've got proof that she's alive?" Percy inquires, a hint of danger in his voice.
"Yes, sir, I do," Kevin answers quickly.
"What have ya got and how did ya get it?" Percy requests suspiciously.
"I thought that since she was allowed to raise those twin colts that maybe she'd grown attached to them and if she got the chance, she'd contact them and then they would tell the Nose," Kevin hastily relays. "Just the other day, she did contact them and just as predicted, they told the coppers."
"How did she contact them?" Percy asks.
"She emailed them," Kevin replies nervously.
"Are ya sure it's her and not someone else pretendin' to be her?" Percy questions, eyes narrowed.
"Well, I'm as certain as my friend at the Nose is an' he says that Finch is pretty convinced," Kevin answers, sweat trickling down his face.
"Ya know someone in the Nose?" Percy inquires suspiciously.
"Yeah, an old school chum," Kevin responds, shifting nervously. "He hacked into Finch's computer sometime ago and he'll give the info to anyone asks, for a price o' course."
"Of course," Percy nearly purrs as he sits back in his seat. "It's always good to have chums in high places. So what does the email say?"
"Actually, there're several emails," Kevin explains as he relaxes visibly. "They pretty much are just her tellin' the brats that she loves them and all that rot. When they asked her where she was she said she didn't know. They asked what it looked like outside her window and she said there are no windows."
"No windows?" Percy snarls. "Where the bloody hell is she that there'd be no windows?"
"Maybe she's locked in one of the center rooms of a big house," one of Percy's lackeys suggests. "Like the one you've got back at the farm for special training."
"Nah," Kevin responds, shaking his head. "She told them that she pretty much has run of the place except for a few rooms, though she can't leave since the man keeps the door out locked at all times."
"What about the man who has her?" Percy asks suspiciously. "What does she say about him?"
"She only said that he hated Jones so much that he killed him and that he's been very good to her," Kevin answers.
"No surprise there," Percy scoffs. "Probably doesn't keep her in line like he should. The bloke got a name?"
"She never says," Kevin replies.
"What else does she say about him?" Percy inquires.
"Only that he's a lover of the arts and a good cook," Kevin responds
"Well, we'll deal with him when the time comes," Percy states as he becomes thoughtful. "Our main problem right now is finding the little bint. Any ideas boys?"
The room falls silent for several minutes as Percy and his men think. Below ground, V watches the day old recording, hardly breathing as a barely suppressed rage courses through his body. His fists are tight, tense balls and the leather of his gloves squeaks in protest.
"What type of house doesn't have windows?" Percy mutters to himself before looking back at Kevin. "What else did she say about the place she's staying?"
"Not much other than it's sort of like living in a museum and a library at the same time," Kevin answers. "She said that she feels like Alice in Wonderland."
"The brats understood that?" Percy scoffs.
"Amazingly enough, yeah, they did," Kevin replies.
"So the little bint has gone down the rabbit hole," Percy muses before falling silent again for several moments. "Dear god, that's what she's done."
"Done what, sir?" another lackey asks.
"She's gone to ground," Percy snarls. "The bitch is hiding somewhere underground. The old tube system. That's where they've got to be. Tommy, I want you to organize the men and start searching the old tubes from top to bottom. Bring in men from the farm if you have to. I want every square inch of that place gone over with a fine tooth comb."
In a flurry of movement, V slams the button to turn the player off, breaking it in the process and then flies out the door in a seething rage. In his haste, he doesn't even notice bumping into his dinner plate, sending it to the floor where the gravy and stoneware splatter all over the ground. He never even hears the crash as he's already half way across the Gallery by the time that it reaches the floor.
Moments later, he slams through the art storage room's door, startling Audrey, making her jump and turn to stare at him wide eyed. Before she can get a word out, he's on her and grabs the chair she's sitting in sending it sailing into the book case with her still in it. She hits the side of her face on the shelving as she falls out of her seat and a second later, books are falling on top of her. She's so stunned by the sudden violence that at first she doesn't move to get out of the way of the tumbling tomes and she barely notices the blood now trickling down her face.
"You stupid, foolish woman!" he yells at her as he opens up the mail program she thought she had hidden. "Do you have any idea what you've done!?"
He turns and glares at her, finding that she's cowering under the fallen books and the knocked over chair. Two long strides and he's towering over her cowering form. He drags her to her feet so quickly that she stumbles into him before she manages to steady herself amongst the pile of books.
"Do you have any idea what you have done?" he snarls through clenched teeth as he grabs her by the shoulders, pulling her up until her feet dangle above the fallen books and gives her a hard shake. "Have you!?"
He gives her another sharp shake to punctuate his last question and her only response is a small whimper as her tears mingles with the blood trickling down her face. His fingers dig painfully into her flesh and the cut stings but it's nothing compared to the pain of knowing that she's lost all communication with the twins. She lets out a cry of anguish as her chin drops to her chest and she starts sobbing, completely oblivious to his anger now while her personal pain takes over her brain.
She barely notices him walking somewhere with her still in his clutches or when she unceremoniously dumped into a hard chair or when he stomps away from her. A few moments later, her face is roughly washed with a wet towel and she doesn't even flinch as the cut is cleaned, an antiseptic ointment is put on it or when a bandage is taped in place. It hardly even registers when she's lifted from the chair, carried across the Gallery and then dumped on the couch. She curls up into a ball on the cushions and sobs her heart out until he drags her into an upright position.
"Watch!" he orders.
She turns towards the now turned on telly and he hits the play button for the DVD player. A moment later, Percy and his men come up on the screen and she gasps and tries to become as small as possible as recognition sets in. By the time Percy is giving the order to search the old tubes, she's panicking, sobbing hysterically and hyperventilating. V grabs her by the shoulders, dragging her to her feet again and starts shaking her, yelling her name to try and snap her out of it, but to no avail.
"AUDREY!" he shouts at the top of his lungs as he gives her another sharp shake.
She lets out a screaming wail in response and then collapses in a heap at his feet when he releases her. Angry and frustrated, he leaves her there on the floor, disappearing into the depths of the Gallery. A minute later he returns with a syringe in his hand and finds that the situation hasn't changed.
Without even bothering to clean the injection site first, he stabs the needle into her upper arm near her shoulder and quickly depresses the plunger and she doesn't even flinch in response of being stabbed. He backs away and watches as the drug slowly takes effect of her body. After she finally loses consciousness some time later, he carries her back to her room and leaves her there.
V returns to his observation room and starts bringing up live video feed of the various cameras he has spread out throughout the tube system, ignoring the mess on the floor. He immediately finds that several abandoned tunnels are no longer dark and empty and he resists the urge to go out there and dispense these foolhardy souls who travel in his domain. As he brings up the last camera, he's given what at first is an unpleasant shock, but then ideas that are quickly forming into plans, parade through his brain.
"This is a huge festering pile of bullocks it is," Evans grumbles as he sweeps his torch back and forth around the tunnel, trying not to break his ankle on all the rubble and garbage strewn about the ground. "What the bloody hell are we supposed to be lookin' for anyways?"
"We're supposed to be lookin' for the major's wife or anythin' that might lead us to her," Blaire answers as he shines his torch into every likely crevice he can find. "Don't bloody well see how Finch thinks she'd be down here though."
"It's them emails that the kids got," Evans replies as he accidentally kicks something that explodes all over his new shoes, ruining them and splattering the leg of his uniform. "Ah, bloody hell. I just bought these."
"I still don't get how she got InterLink connection down here," Blaire continues, completely oblivious to his partner's plight.
"Who cares," Evans grouses. "Let's just hurry up and check our section and then get the hell out of here. This place gives me the willies."
"After my shift I'm hittin' the pub," Blaire agrees. "It's goin' to take more than a couple o' pints to wash the stink of this place out of my mouth."
"I hear ya," Evans mutters.
The two police men continue their exploration of the man made cave through puddles of stagnant water and around pieces of fallen masonry. The dull echo of their footsteps does nothing to improve their mood and when a chunk of ceiling falls within inches of them, they both jump back and shoot it without thinking. They both give a nervous laugh before continuing on, neither one aware that their movements are being watched.
"Ya sure about this, boss?" Tommy nervously asks, not wanting to upset his boss as he carefully inspects a hole under the platform of the station they're exploring.
"Where else could the little bint be?" Percy demands heatedly. "Short of searching every house in London, this is the only place we haven't looked."
"So, what are ya plans for her once we do find her?" Tommy inquires as he gets to his feet and meticulously starts searching for other hiding spots.
"I'm gonna make her my own personal pet," Percy snarls while his torch illuminates the garbage and rubble. "My old one isn't meeting my standards any more. I want to put the little bitch's training to good use before I turn her over to the breeders. If we can get the eye or hair color or better yet both to breed true, then we'll be getting a nice crop of exotics to sell. People are getting' tired of the blonds and brunettes and the blue and brown eyes. Green eyes and red hair and we can pass off the whelps as part Scottish."
"The missus doesn't mind you havin' your own personal bed warmer?" Tommy questions as they move further down the tunnel.
"Why should she?" Percy scoffs, being very careful of where he steps. "She's got her own whippin' boy at home. Gave him to her myself. As a bonus, he's also the stud I sell the most seed from. That boy produces seed by the gallon just about. The missus loves doing the bondage thing and he gets it up just seein' a ridin' crop."
"Ah, so that's where you've been hidin' that stud," Tommy chuckles. "I was wonderin' where he was. The brats that we get with his seed are pretty darn good lookin' and we're almost guaranteed buyers when word gets out that we're expectin' another of his get."
"That's why I keep him under lock and key with the missus," Percy laughs. "Can't have the competition comin' in and stealin' my prize stud. I wonder what a brat from him and out of our missin' bitch would look like."
"Either butt ugly or the best lookin' kid we've seen in a long time," Tommy replies.
"Probably, but first we've got to find her," Percy softly growls. "When I get my hands on her, I'm going to make sure she knows her place and never forgets it."
Several miles from either search party, V pours over an old tube system map, planning and plotting the early demise of Percy and his men. As one part of his brain works on that, another conceives of ways to get the Nose off of Audrey's scent. Down another corridor, an unconscious woman lies completely unaware of what fate has in store for her.
Hours later, Audrey wakes with a pounding headache and a pressing need to visit the bathroom. Clumsily she climbs out of bed and immediately collapses to the floor. It takes her several tries to get to her feet and when she does finally accomplish getting up, she clings to the door frame as a severe case of dizziness makes her feel like she has been on a carousel all night.
She staggers out into the hallway, hugging the wall to stay upright. She moves with her eyes closed since the walls and floor sway and buckle as if they're made of rubber when she looks at them, opening them only occasionally to check her position. Eventually she lurches her way across the hall towards the loo and stumbles in, slamming the door shut only after she manages to catch the dancing portal.
She never notices the dark figure watching her silently from the end of the hallway waiting to see what she'll do next. Every nerve in his body is taught with anger as he glares at closed door. The drug shouldn't have worn off yet and from the way she was moving it looks like that it's still in her system, but that doesn't mean she won't try something stupid like contacting the twins.
Sometime later, she stumbles out of the bathroom like she's very drunk and only gets a few steps past the threshold before she trips over her own feet. She goes down with a 'thud' and she just lies there for a few minutes. He watches her, unmoving, as she slowly tries to crawl over to the wall.
She gets several feet down the corridor as she moves more parallel to the wall then perpendicular to it. She stops and reaches for the wall after a while, but is several inches shy of her goal. He passively watches as she bites her bottom lip while silent tears roll down her face, a look of frustration on her features tells him that her vision is being affected by the drug as well as her balance.
With a puff of frustration, he stomps over to her and yanks her to her feet, propping her against the wall as soon as she's got her feet under her. She looks up at him and screams so loud and high pitched that he actually jumps back a good bit as his overly sensitive hearing is assaulted. She tries to run away, but trips and lands on her hands and knees on the unforgiving stone floor. After shaking the ringing out of his ears, he goes to help her get to her feet only to have her immediately curl into a ball at his feet, whimpering in fear.
"Audrey," he calls in a commanding voice. "It's V. Keep your eyes closed. The drug I gave you is affecting your vision. Hold still and I will carry you back to bed. Do you understand?"
She only nods and he bends down to pick her up, when she recognizes his scent, she visibly relaxes, making it easier to lift her up. As soon as she's in his arms, she wraps her arms tightly around his neck, startling him for a second time. She buries her face into his neck and starts to cry, causing him to nearly drop her.
"What's wrong with me?" she sobs as her body shivers uncontrollably.
"It's the drug I gave you," he explains again as he heads towards her bedroom as quickly as he can.
"I'm sorry," she whimpers, as her trembling gets worse and she holds him even tighter, nearly cutting off his air. "I'll be a good girl. I promise. I'll be good. Please, please no more drugs. I'll do what you want, master."
"I'm not your master," he reminds her as he tries to peel her arms off of his neck while standing over her bed.
"Train me like you want, but please no more drugs," she whispers as her crying intensifies.
"I'm not your master or your trainer," he firmly states as he finally gets her to let go and drops her on the bed unceremoniously.
He stares down at her as she curls back into a ball and continues to sob, begging for mercy, swearing that she'll be good until exhaustion claims her. He watches her for a few more minutes to make sure that she's truly asleep before letting out a sigh of frustration and pity. He covers her with a blanket before he leaves her and heads back to his maps and planning.
He sits back down with the maps, but he doesn't look at them or the monitors showing still a few men wandering the tunnels in a vain attempt to find them. He never realized that using one of the stronger sedatives would have this type of effect on her and he never expected it to bring up painful memories of her past. He contemplates his past or what little of it he remembers of it.
He remembers waking up in his cell, cold, hungry and in pain, wearing nothing but the medical garb all of the 'subjects' wore. He can recall everything in lurid detail from that point on, but nothing before it. He knows that he must have been beaten, nearly starved, used as a guinea pig and humiliated in every way possible before that waking, but try as he might, he cannot remember.
What must it be like for her? To remember every atrocity and humiliation? To never be able to forget them? To have them come and haunt her in her sleep?
As much as he hates what they did to him and the others and how it burns his guts that the worst of the instigators still live and breathe, he at least has the small blessing of never being able to remember everything they did to him. She does not have that luxury and she probably never will.
He turns his attention to a monitor showing a few of Percy's men examining every square inch of a tunnel several miles away and glares at them. It's men like them that did this to her and others like her, making them afraid of their own shadows. Then it dawns on him that even if he did get hold of her ownership papers and destroy them, she'd never be free of her fears. He sits back and sightlessly stares at the monitors as he contemplates how to truly set her free.
As always, please leave a review.