Hey guys! Sorry for the long wait! i had a lot of exams i had to finish up but now i'm back at it! hope you enjoy, reviews are always welcome! Thanks!


16: The House

The first thing Elizabeth could remember doing was hacking and coughing with as much force as she could. Her throat was raw and there was an acidic taste in her mouth, a little stale, almost like the harsh old burn of cigarettes. She felt the urge to retch, but the thudding in her temples told her if she did manage to throw up her headache would split into a migraine.

Open your eyes. You have to open your eyes, she thought, forcing herself to crack her eyes open. The harshness of artificial light stabbed at her eyes and Lizzie quickly clenched them shut again, seeking the dark solace of her lids. A deep breath filled her lungs and she decided to try again, this time making sure to flutter her lids so the light wouldn't find her all at once.

Lizzie tried to lift her arm up to press it against her sore head, but she couldn't move. Looking down, her breath caught in her chest and a jolt of panic shuddered through her when she saw that four wide leather straps had buckled her wrists and ankles to the metal armchair she was sitting in. Elizabeth Keen looked up and noticed that a slumped over Ressler was sitting in front of her, bound in the same fashion. Quickly, the past events came back to her. There was an ambush on the upper level of Schmidt's building…a smoke bomb and a blizzard of gunfire. She had been punched out.

Now where was she?

Elizabeth ignored how aggravating the brightness of the overhead lights were and looked around. It looked like she was in a living room, two cheap, yet well-maintained sofas on either side of her and Ressler. Behind her unconscious partner, hanging from a metal rod attached and suspended from the ceiling, were a line of about six computer monitors. All had Lizzie's bruised face looking up at them past the back of Ressler's head. She felt the cold trickle of fear when she noticed the trail of blood that stained his hair and trickled down behind his ear.

"Ressler," she whispered as loudly as she dared. "Ressler, can you hear me?"

Amazingly, he moved his head and mumbled weakly before going silent again. She watched the rise and fall of his chest and silently kept count of his respirations. Fourteen and patent, along with responsiveness to verbal stimulation…he was doing well enough for her to feel confident that he was stable.

Survey. Look at your surroundings. Check corners if you can. She craned her head and was able to establish that the room was empty except for Don and herself. There was a bookcase to her right and a mirror on her left. Lizzie looked back up at the monitors, all were fronting her from behind Ressler. Her own face unnerved her so she tried to look around the tied up form of her partner. Where was the camera? Why did they only have one shot? She couldn't really see past him.

Lizzie decided to gamble and speak. "Hello?"

Ressler moaned a little with the sound of her voice.

When she spoke two of the monitors flickered to a different view. The first and sixth screen switched to her side, one of her left and the other her right. She turned and looked at the mirror and then over to the bookshelf. So there was someone controlling those monitors. Lizzie couldn't crane her neck far enough to see if there was a door behind her. She tried looking at the screens but she couldn't make it out.

"Who's there? Where am I?" she called out again.

There was a beep above her and she looked up. A small speaker hovered over her head in the ceiling, a little bit larger than a smoke detector. The buzz of static hissed at Lizzie before a voice crackled through. One question rang out around her. The voice was male and Liz did not recognize it.

"Where's Reddington?"

This was about Red? I'm tied up so they can ask about Reddington? The more she thought, the more she realized she didn't know where he was.

The voice overhead spoke again. "We have your phone. You were texting with someone we believe was Raymond Reddington. Where is he?"

"I don't know."

The speaker went quiet and the two screens at the end of row of monitors flickered back to facing her head on. There was a click behind her, almost as if a door was opening. A shadow hovered on the edge of the bright light behind Ressler. She could barely make out that the person was male with longer shaggy hair and glasses.

"How do you contact Raymond Reddington? Do you speak regularly? Think about your answer, Agent Keen."

Lizzie shook her head and she heard a rustling behind her. Her eyes shot to the computer screen and she could see two figures walking towards the back of her chair, emerging into view. When massive hands found her shoulders, she went to scream, but a wet rag was clamped over her mouth and she was lurched backwards, balancing on two legs of the chair. She couldn't see past the rag, but suddenly water was flooding her mouth and forcing its way down her nose. Lizzie couldn't breathe, couldn't move against the leather straps that gripped her tightly.

Before the world closed around her, she was thrust back upwards and the rag was removed from her face. The water had gotten into Liz's hair and she coughed and sputtered, gasping for air and feeling a burning in the back of her nose from inhaling water. She choked and hacked, her head slumped forward and her chest heaving, drawing in as much crisp, life-sustaining air as she could. The two burly men stepped backwards away from her, back to the shadows. She never saw their faces.

"Go upstairs. One outside and the other to the surveillance room," Schmidt ordered. She heard a door open and the shuffling of feet before it clicked closed. They had left.

The man stepped forward into the light and she looked up at him. As he moved closer, Lizzie recognized him from the young man who had left the location, ordered food, and had went back inside. Schmidt. He was unremarkable, bookish, thin, his glasses too thick for his face. He fished into his pocket and pulled out Elizabeth's phone.
"You were at my place of residence," Schmidt said, tossing the sandy hair away from his face. "And we were ready for you. But you were supposed to bring Reddington."

"What?" Lizzie asked, her eyebrows furrowing together. Behind Schmidt, Ressler groaned and she looked past him to watch her partner's eyelids flutter. "I don't know where he is."

Schmidt shook his head and pulled out a little remote from his other pocket. He turned and pointed it at the monitors. Several snapshots of Lizzie and Red shot up on screen. Her eyes widened and the muscles in the agent's jaw tightened as her gray-blue eyes flitted from picture to picture. One of Red holding the door of his town car open for her, another of the two walking and talking, one of them sitting on a park bench next to the Reflection Pool, and there was even one that was taken the night of Carter's rooftop party, the two standing close to each other and sharing gelato.

Liz's body felt like ice.

"We've been following you two, he seems to be at your hip like a lost dog," Schmidt said. "My employer has been trying to get a hold of Mr. Reddington for quite a while and he was supposed to be with you, or at least nearby." He turned back to her and leaned over, making sure he met her eyes. "We had people surrounding you in that tea shop. We had people on the roofs. We had people on the street. He wasn't anywhere near you. Why is that?"

"I don't know," her voice was as cold as the water that had forced its way into her mouth.

Schmidt huffed and took a step back. "I'm sure you're all caught up about who I am. I work for Alexander Knapp, one of his right hand men actually. You know who else works for my boss?"

The young man's eyebrows rose and Lizzie couldn't help but seethe at his smugness, even if she was the one tied to a chair.

"That old fuck Carter," Schmidt said, slowly moving back and forth in front of Lizzie. He looked like some punk teenager playing out the scene of his favorite Bond movie. Or A young Joker, practicing his leer as he slunk back and forth in front of his toy Batman.

"You've met him a few times. That zip drive he gave you was designed to bring you and Red right to us."

Lizzie was abashed, yet she showed nothing.

"Where is he?" Schmidt asked once again.

She tried a different tactic. "Why do you want Reddington?"
"Where is he?"

"Where are we?

"Where is he?"

Back and forth, two resonating questions, one the same solid lake bed and the other flowing with change and asking for new information.

Schmidt pointed at the phone, his face growing red with frustration. "I want you to call him. Bring him here."

"I don't know where we are," Lizzie responded calmly. Through all of this she was managing to make her voice as deadpan as a dry desert. However, Schmidt was not keeping the same composure. She watched as he bit down on the inside of his cheek in a sudden flash of rage-fueling frustration and reached behind him, pulling out the stocky black pistol. Without hesitating he pressed the barrel against Ressler's slumped head, holding it up and making Ressler's eyes flutter as he tried to look at Elizabeth. Schmidt's eyes glinted with challenge, as if wanting Elizabeth to goad him into pulling the trigger. She could hear his thoughts.

Don't think I won't.

The challenge hung between them, tight like the brittle-as-eggshells silence a mother heard after a child's screams as she waited for them to pick back up.

"My hands are tied," Elizabeth said and she noticed how much it sounded like the cliché. She only hovered on the foolish thought for a second or two before her mind snapped back to the task at hand. "You have to let at least one of my hands go to dial the phone."

If she strained enough, Elizabeth could have been able to hear the tendons of Schmidt's hand tighten around the grip. The young man mulled around the notion in his head and Elizabeth could tell that he felt a little foolish. The tentative shift of his feet spoke out the words that he was thinking.

Well that was stupid.

Making up his mind, he stowed the gun in his waistband and went around to the back of the chair. Once behind her and kneeling behind the chair, Elizabeth watched the monitors. She could feel the jostling of her right wrist and the leather came away, leaving her skin red and itching, but she did not move, didn't want to risk it. He came back around to the front, his gun already back in his hand and pointed at her.

"Dial."

It was a little cumbersome to work the smartphone with just one hand, cradling it in her fingers and typing slowly and steadily with her thumb. She wanted to stall as long as possible, wanted to stay away from the speed dial.

The numbers were typed, all ten of them, and she hit dial. The muted tones of ringing hummed in her ear, each one seeming to draw out forever. The muscles in her jaw were clenched so tightly she felt a pull in her temple.

There was a click followed by a generic voicemail. A robotic, animated voice that stiffly told her the caller was unavailable and if she left a message she would be rewarded by a swift reply.

Elizabeth felt her neck flush and she opened her mouth to speak, but, before the words escaped her lips, gunshots tore through her ears.


Reddington had convinced himself that he was a lucky man only once…when he had employed Dembe. He remembered feeling as if God was really there up in the sky and that, every now and then, he liked to smile down on the humanity at his feet. Dembe quickly became the family that Red had so easily packed away, reminded him that he wasn't a monster, but that he was merely…troubled.

No one had ever killed for Raymond Reddington. He had killed for other people, countless times, so much so that he would be convinced that no amount of scrubbing would ever wipe away the blood on his skin. And yet, in all of his memory, he had met one person who had killed for him, without question and with utter devotion.

Dembe.

And because of that, Reddington considered himself a lucky man.

Sometimes, at night when the world slept and Raymond would sit up in the harsh, judgmental silence of the dark, amid his own lies and his old scars, he would wonder if that made him sick. Lucky because a man took life for him? Surely that made him some kind of a monster. A mob boss expecting a head count at the end of every job.

But before Elizabeth, Dembe was all he had. Luli had come in with a torrid, fiery affair of sex and danger. But now she was dead. Her blood that had pattered the glass walls of his cage had been cleaned and he would try and forget. Dembe stood next to him still. He could rely on Dembe. And Dembe could rely on Reddington.

Now, as they tore apart the two story house on the outskirts of D.C. on the Maryland edge, Dembe was killing for Raymond yet again, proving how lucky the master criminal actually was. The only time Reddington had ever feared his friend was when his skills were unleashed. The old days of child soldiers in the lush Armageddon of some war-torn African country had clearly molded Dembe into a lethal man, strength and quickness combining to make a harsh opponent. Together, wrapped up in Kevlar vests and Reddington wielding an M15 while Dembe pounded away with a riot shotgun, the two tore into the house.

Carter had whispered the address to Raymond and a description of the house as a last plea for his life. Raymond had actually recognized the information. There was once a massive counterfeit scheme that had been organized at the house before it had gotten too big for the 2000 square foot structure. He should've known that Knapp had his hands in the printing game too. It made sense. A civilian home, nestled in Maryland, who would suspect?

Raymond had called Cooper about a half-hour before they arrived and by the time Red had stepped out of the car, sirens could be heard in the far distance. He was not a stupid or naive man, he knew that there was a possibility he would need backup, even with Dembe's ferocious loyalty. However, he was going to make the first move.

The driveway was long and the house was isolated on acres of land, no neighbors nearby and surrounded by privacy. There were two guards at the front of the house, dressed to look like utility men and fiddling with the gutters. When the car pulled up, they stepped down from the latter and kept their hands on their hip, not inconspicuous at all. Without hesitation, Reddington was pulling the trigger of his gun before his foot even touched the gravel of the driveway. The rifle cracked with sharp, repetitive bursts, so fast that Red didn't even have to aim, just pull the trigger and swing the gun from person to person. Blood spattered the house like a fine mist, looking like two massive, gory carnations plastered across the front, blooming from the death.

Dembe kicked open the door when the sound of sirens neared. Reddington didn't have any idea how many men were inside, but he didn't care. He had a fully automatic machine gun in his hands along with Dembe. The door opened up into a large living room to the right and kitchen to the left. With a quick sweep of their guns, the two made sure the spaces were clear. The sirens were growing ever louder.

Reddington and Dembe moved efficiently down the narrow hallway. One bedroom was clear, and the other had its door shut. Reddington pressed his back against the wall next to the door and scanned the frame for any wires or small boxes that could possibly be a rigged explosive. Nodding to Dembe, he watched as his partner swiftly kicked in the door and Red moved in, the machine gun brought up to his face, the barrel moving wherever his eyes looked. He was charged by a large man with a pistol, shooting but missing from the surprise of the door being kicked in. Reddington's gun elicited five short barks and the man crumpled to the ground, his blood staining a row of computer screens and blinking monitors.

"Dembe, watch the door," Red said over his shoulder.
His partner turned and kept his shotgun trained on the open doorway.

Red took a moment to look over the screens, the metallic taste of adrenaline coating his mouth and he swallowed past it. One screen was focused on Elizabeth and Red's eyes darkened. She was tied to a chair, a young shaggy man, Schmidt, pointing a gun at her and screaming. Ressler was slumped over in a chair behind them, his head wobbling as he tried to wake up. Reddington immediately knew they were in the basement, he would've heard them screaming if they were in the upper level of the house.

Elizabeth looked as if she was screaming back. Then, in a flurry of activity, Red watched as Schmidt lunged forward and slammed the side of his gun against Lizzie's head. He watched her slump forward and his vision bled with the scarlet of anger. "He's a dead man," Red murmured as he turned on his heel and breezed past Dembe, ignoring for a moment the possibility of other men hidden in the shadows of the house.

Dembe had caught a glance of Raymond when he passed ahead of him. Raymond Reddington was not a tall man, yet, as he marched forward, he seemed to fill the entire hallway, ten feet tall. A terrifying calm had covered his face, but his eyes were alight with the fire that Dembe feared. Any sane man would fear the lethality of Raymond Reddington's coolness. He stalked forward, shoulders tight and jaw clenched, like some big cat tracking down a trespasser on his territory, the machine gun held at chest height, ready to annihilate anyone that came after him.

The stairwell was discovered easily enough, it was wood and polished, kept up with the coursing of the criminal enterprise that filled the house. The two descended quickly downwards and was met by a door, a single light dangling above them. Red could no longer hear the sirens and he knew they would be close to the house now. He knew that Schmidt was the only one in the room of the basement, he had seen it in the monitors. The heel of his foot met the door and it was solid. Reddington kept kicking until, on about the fourth slam of his heel, the door gave way. The criminal strode in, peering down the sight of the machine gun.

Schmidt was standing with his gun pointed at Lizzie's head, his young eyes narrowed with their own hate. He had opened his mouth to speak and Red noticed the proud puff of the man's chest, noticed how he held himself, thinking that he was a criminal mastermind worthy of standing up to someone like Raymond Reddington. Schmidt was so consumed with what he was about to say, he had made his hostage threat a complete bluff, and Reddington knew that.

Without hearing one word that had escaped the young man's lips, Reddington pulled the trigger. The gun cracked with one solitary shot and Red watched down the barrel as the bullet slammed into Schmidt's forehead, his eyes widening before he fell backwards, half sprawled in Ressler's lap, his head cracked apart and dripping onto the floor.

Above them, as if on cue, Reddington heard the pounding of the FBI.

"Dembe, shout up the stairs, tell them that we are down here and unarmed," Raymond said, letting the gun fall to the ground.

His friend nodded and dropped his own weapon before heading to the stairs. The Kevlar vest was removed before Red knelt and undid the leather straps that contained Elizabeth to the chair. Without being restrained, the unconscious woman slumped forward and Raymond quickly caught her, pulling her to him as he kneeled. The man was silent as he made sure she was breathing and he gently touched two fingers to her neck, assessing a pulse. A pulse was present and her respirations were clear. The gun had bit her temple, a cut splitting across her skin and she was bruised and cut from earlier. Her shirt was damp and Red swallowed back his anger, knowing that Knapp had a fondness of using water to pull information.

Lizzie moaned and Red clutched her tightly, feeling how cold she was. He rubbed her arms and shushed her, trying to give her what comfort he could. He could hear Dembe shouting to the FBI agents and the team shouting back. Cooper's voice could be heard. Relief bloomed up inside him and Red blinked the small tears away before they made his eyes shine and redden. The FBI's footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs and before they would take his Lizzie away from him, Raymond pressed a long, gentle kiss to her forehead. He tucked the top of her head beneath his chin and waited.