Surprise! Early chapter, because it's my birthday and I can do what I want. Plus, season premiere on Tuesday!
Enjoy!
The breaths came fast and painful, glass embedded in her lungs. She didn't realize how much the air had closed in around her until Barry's presence punctured it.
"What do you mean, never made it here?"
"I left him this note," Caitlin said, her voice hiking an octave. "And this. He hasn't touched either of them. His phone's not here. He hasn't been—hasn't been answering—"
"Okay, let's breathe," Barry said with a hand to her shoulder. He was barely composed, she could tell, but working very hard to remain so. "Maybe he was here and didn't—wasn't hungry. Or maybe he hadn't left his apartment yet when he got your messages to stay away."
That sounds like a whole lot of maybes. But, resigned to Barry's hope, Caitlin nodded. "Let's go, then."
They zipped away again, this time before Caitlin could even prep herself for takeoff. One second she was standing, the next in Barry's arms—and the next outside Cisco's apartment door, heart beating like a drum.
Barry set her down and she immediately reached for the Star Wars themed garden gnome that Cisco unbelievably kept by his doormat. "The spare key should be in here."
"No need," Barry said, and he pushed on the handle. The unlocked door swung open easily.
A momentary relief rushed warm in her blood at the sight of Cisco's orderly apartment. At least, as orderly as Cisco ever kept his apartment. Here and there lay scattered a crumb-dusted plate, or a book that was bookmarked by another book. His laptop sat open, but dark, on the coffee table. Cisco was nowhere to be seen, but if Caitlin had anticipated signs of a struggle, they weren't there.
She closed the door behind her and followed Barry deeper into the living area. No streaks of blood, no shattered glass. Not even a stove left burning, or a TV on. Exchanging a dubious look, the two of them ventured toward the hall, Cisco's tiny bedroom and bathroom.
"Cisco?"
Like the living area, the bedroom and bathroom were empty. The lamp beside his bed was still on, and the covers rumpled, but Caitlin had crashed on his couch enough to recognize both of those things as normal—he'd never been the most tidy person, and after the events of the past year he had a tendency to fall asleep with the lights on.
"No signs of forced entry," Barry said. "Or…forced exit."
Everything looked normal, sure, besides the unlocked door and Cisco's absence. "I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for all of this," Caitlin said. She glanced over at Barry. "Right?"
"Of course," Barry said. "C'mon, we'd better get back before our ten minutes are up."
Though Caitlin wanted to stay, perhaps wait for Cisco to return, she assented and allowed herself to be picked up again. While she couldn't process as quickly as Barry could, she could've sworn he did a lap of the area around the apartment complex before heading back.
When they skidded to a halt at the West household, Iris cornered them immediately, already peppering them with questions.
"He's not at either place," Caitlin cut her off. "But there are no signs of a struggle anywhere. Everything looks normal—except he probably never went to STAR."
There was no mistaking the hard bob of Joe's Adam's apple. "Okay, we'll take this one step at a time. You keep trying to contact him. When I get to the station I'll file a missing persons report. Get the police on it. You know they care about Cisco. I'm sure they'll do everything in their power."
"Everything in their power isn't enough if it's…if it's Eiling," Barry said. At the collective flinches around the room, he threw up his arms. "Listen, I'm not saying I like entertaining that idea either, but everyone is thinking it. If Eiling's somehow taken Cisco, we need to be prepared, and reasonable. The police aren't going to be able to do anything."
"We'll get them looking, at least," Joe said firmly. "The worst thing we can do right now is panic. That's what Eiling wants. Panic. Irrational thinking."
"What are we supposed to do, then?" Caitlin countered. "Just calmly go about our day?"
"Yes," Joe said. "You research, you reach out, you investigate. You wait. But you do it all with a cool head."
For whatever reason, the words grated. Caitlin huffed. "You know that's what I do best." She turned on a heel and marched for the stairs. "I'm going to get changed."
Once upstairs, she let her façade crumble and her emotions take over. She wasn't one for punching walls; instead, she placed her palms against the wall and ground in the heels of her hands, pushing so hard her arm muscles strained, savoring the solidity of an immovable object.
After a minute of this intense channeling, her forehead joined her hands flat against the wall. Pressing herself against it, she focused inward. In most stressful cases, she would build up walls herself, feel herself retreating into iciness. It was something she'd been more aware of lately, ever since the warehouse incident. In times like these, however, in very rare instances, she felt those exceptional traces of Ronnie: of fire and imminent combustion, too hot to sustain for long.
"Hey."
Caitlin tightened her muscles and pushed away from the wall at Barry's entrance.
"Don't you dare tell me that everything's going to be okay," she said.
Barry dug his hands in his pockets. It was somewhat ridiculous, Caitlin though, both of them standing in that hallway in their pajamas, with such grim expressions on their faces. "I wasn't going to."
Caitlin crossed her arms over her chest, shrugging in warmth. "It's been thirty-eight hours," she said. "Thirty-eight hours since we've seen him. He could've been taken thirty-eight hours ago and we never even knew he was gone. What if…" She swallowed the end of the sentence, feeling as though she might choke it back up regardless. She clutched at the fabric of the t-shirt, burying her fists in her armpits for warmth. Damp with sweat.
Barry blinked, and didn't say a word.
A day later, her phone finally rang.
It was suffocating, the anxiety, and it mounted with each hour without a trace of Cisco. She was suddenly conscious of her own heartbeat, drumming away relentlessly, easier to stop than time but equally as inescapable. She wanted it to pause for a moment, let in some silence, some calm, but it continued to thunder its loud, incessant reminder.
That wasn't to say the rest of the team wasn't as antsy as she was; Barry's barrage of ideas and questions alone were about enough to drive her up a wall.
One such interrogation on the day in question had her burying her hands in her hair.
"How about…finding the trajectory of Eiling's vehicle?" he was saying. "You know, traffic cameras, license plate numbers…"
"Yeah, there's got to be something around our house," Iris offered. "Cameras, I mean."
"Do I look like a computer engineer?" Caitlin said, more defeated than truly angry. "This was always…Cisco's specialty."
Saying it was like scraping a raw wound. She rubbed her eyes tiredly and leaned forward on the table.
"Sorry," she said. "I'm just…"
"No need to explain," Iris said. "We get it. We'll keep thinking."
Except that was what they had been doing, Caitlin wanted to say. For hours upon hours. Barry and Iris had taken to sequestering themselves in STAR with Caitlin, the three of them figuring that safety, and brainpower, was best in numbers. It made Joe happy, anyway, that they were sticking together. If they weren't at STAR, they were often at Barry's lab—after all, work stopped for nobody, even though Cisco's disappearance had garnered some sympathy from Singh.
It was late in the day at STAR Labs, and Caitlin was just wondering if they should go back there to the police station to work on Barry's license plate hunch, when her phone rang.
Two of the three people who had called her in the last few days were sitting in the room with her; Joe's calls were usually routine updates, so she picked up her phone without hurry. But when she saw the caller ID, she nearly dropped it.
"It's Cisco," she said.
On nervous instinct, Barry leapt to his feet. Iris' spine went stick-straight in the chair. "Put it on speaker!"
Caitlin's finger was already on the button. She turned up the volume and white noise filled the cortex.
When nobody spoke, Caitlin took the initiative. "Cisco?"
Precisely two more seconds of silence. Then:
"I told you to be expecting my call. Did you forget?"
Caitlin's blood ran cold. Every word, every thought, was ripped from her. Everything except: oh, God, we were right.
"Give him up, Eiling," Barry said, filling in where Caitlin left off. Iris made a motion for him to be quiet, but it was too late. "He's not the one you want."
"Maybe not initially, but he's proven to be useful," Eiling said. "I had no idea you had another metahuman in your midst until I saw him fighting with you in the streets. A development that significant, I'm a little ticked you didn't call me."
"I'm serious," Barry said. "Cisco's not one of your pet projects."
"And after everything you pulled last time, you are not sanctioned—"
"Ah, Ms. West. Glad to hear you're still part of this little conversation. Are you going to threaten to bring down the mighty press on me?"
"The thought's crossed my mind," said Iris. "I've also considered taking you apart limb by limb. Which sounds more appealing to you?"
"I'll make this quick," Eiling said. "You know what I want. Mr. Allen, you're a noble man. Surely you'll give yourself up to save your friend's life."
Caitlin reached for Barry's wrist, but it was too late. Her prediction came true: he opened his mouth and said, "How do I know you're telling the truth?"
"You're not giving yourself up," Caitlin mouthed viciously. Barry ignored her.
"Telling the truth about what?" Eiling jeered. "That your friend's alive, or that I'll keep my word if you join me here?"
"Let us speak to him," Caitlin said. "So we know he's okay."
A pause on the other line. "I'm afraid he's a bit tied up right now, but I can assure you he's in one piece. If you want him to remain so, I suggest you comply."
"Proof," Iris said. "There's no physical evidence that you even have Cisco in your custody. How do we know he's with you?"
"Didn't make much of a scene." Eiling's voice trailed, became more absent. "A little commotion in the alley outside of his apartment building, and the true-born hero came running straight into my arms. Couldn't resist the call of an innocent person in distress—I didn't even have to set foot in his building." Another pause, a bit of a shuffle. "I hope this is enough proof."
Caitlin was about to ask what he meant, but before she could, her phone buzzed in her hand. The text was from a blocked number, but she opened it anyway.
A picture. Barry and Iris caught sight of it the same instant Caitlin did, visibly sucking in breath: a picture of Cisco, strapped to a chair, staring directly into the camera with bloodshot eyes. He appeared relatively unharmed, save for the massive bruise on his jaw and the startling amount of dried blood around his nose and mouth. Despite the lack of apparent injury, his overall appearance was rundown, greasy, unkempt. A pang of guilt sliced through Caitlin's gut.
"Like I said a few days ago, we can do this the easy or the hard way," Eiling continued. "Mr. Allen, how would you like this to go down?"
None of them could move. Caitlin wanted to erase the image, smash her phone into pieces, but she couldn't. She couldn't do anything. None of them could do anything.
Barry gulped, fixated on the picture as they all were. "You give up Cisco and I'll come willingly."
"No," Iris hissed, but it was too late.
"Oh, you misunderstood," Eiling said. "I never said I would give him up. I said I would let him live. You don't really think you're so valuable that I would sacrifice my newest asset to the useless STAR Labs?"
At this, Barry looked up wildly at Caitlin and Iris. The desperation was clear, and it was evident that his walls were breaking down; he would do whatever Eiling asked. Caitlin took one look at him, her mind whirling with possibilities, with plans, and then she took to the phone again.
"Take me, too," she said, plunging the room into stillness with the three words. "A two-way exchange. Barry and me for Cisco and Rose Canton. You let them both go, and you get us. Surely that's fair."
Someone had a death grip on her arm now, but she was too focused on the phone to see who it was. Her heart was racing, but her voice remained remarkably level.
"An interesting proposition," Eiling said. "I appreciate the proactivity. Unfortunately, it's not in my best interests to lose two of my most prized assets, even for STAR Labs' finest." A blunted sound came from his end of the line, fingers drumming on a table. A hitch for breath, for consideration. "I'll tell you what, Dr. Snow. If you and Mr. Allen agree to join me here without incident, I'll give up one of the two. Canton or Ramon. I'll even let you make the call."
And that was it—the other shoe dropping.
For the first time, she looked up to the others for guidance, looking for an answer. Iris' face didn't provide it. She had a look that said, This is your call. But Caitlin didn't want to make the call. It should have been easy: her best friend or the woman who had once threatened his life. But another part of her continued to nag, as it had nagged for a month.
Wasn't Rose Canton equally as worth saving?
And which decision would Cisco resent more?
When she looked to Barry, she saw the answer already on his tongue. "Cisco," he said, without exchanging Caitlin's gaze. "Bring Cisco to STAR Labs. We'll go with you."
Caitlin could practically hear Eiling's smirk through the phone. "When will you learn that your friendship is your weakness?" The sentiment was so similar to everything Jason had preached, a rush of déjà vu washed over Caitlin. "So be it. I'll see you tonight. STAR Labs."
There was a click as he hung up the phone. Caitlin silently turned off her phone screen so the picture of Cisco disappeared. Again, a tremulous quiet hung in the air, awaiting someone to snap it. Then Barry jerked upright and slammed his palms flat on the table.
"I sure hope you have a plan."
"I do," Caitlin said.
But it was clear the emotions were running rampant. Barry paced restlessly and swiped an arm over his face. "He has Cisco. He's had Cisco for days."
"I know," Caitlin said. "So we're going to do something about it."
"What are you proposing?" Iris said. "Even Cisco isn't going to be happy about being back if you and Barry are both being ruthlessly tortured by Eiling in his place."
"I would also like to keep the ruthless torture to a minimum," Caitlin said, "which is why we're going to break out. From the inside. And taking Rose Canton with us."
Thank you for reading! More than halfway done now. If you're keen, please leave a comment below! See you on the other side (Wednesday).
Till next time,
Penn