Hey hey hey! Here's chapter four! I love you all, thank you for all the reviews, follows, and favorites! You guys are amazing! :)
Same drill, I don't own them :(
MacGyver felt the beating of his heart, pounding against his chest much faster than was normal or probably safe. He had completely lost track of time, but he knew that way too much time had passed. His head flopped to the side and he stared at the IV in his arm, slowly drawing his blood out of his body. He wasn't sure if he was so lethargic because of the drugs they had given him, or if it was because of how much blood he had already lost.
"Probably a mixture of both," he thought groggily to himself. He inhaled and exhaled through his nose a few times as he tried to at least clear the drug-created cobwebs out of his brain. It worked semi-decently. His vision cleared up a little, and he was able to take in his surroundings better.
He was in a low-lit room; the entire area looked like it hadn't been cleaned in ages. Next to him he saw the IV pole with a plastic bag hooked on it, slowly filling with the crimson liquid that had been stolen from MacGyver. They had replaced the bag of drugs with the bag now slowly filling with his blood.
His head felt like it weighed a ton as he tried lifting it up to look past the pole, but he managed to keep it up long enough to see that he was alone in the room. There was a table about seven feet away from him that, from what he could see, had several tools on it. There were mostly syringes, but he also thought he could make out some rubbing alcohol and other anti-bacterial materials.
He could feel his body start to shake as he continued to hold his head up, and his face felt damp with sweat. He finally relented and let his head drop back to its former position on the table, wincing a little as his head hit the metal surface harder than he was expecting. He tugged at his wrists, but was unable to move them due to the leather straps wrapped around them. His feet also had leather restraints at the ankles.
MacGyver knew he had to get out of the straps and at least get the needle out of his arm, otherwise he was as good as dead. It took a bit of convincing, but finally his legs began working like his brain was ordering them to. He lifted his left knee as much as possible with the restraint around his ankle, then brought his right foot over to his left. He began kicking at his left shoe, trying to get the shoe off of his foot.
It took many attempts, and several minutes with breaks every few kicks as he fought with his ever-weakening body, but he finally managed to get his shoe off his foot. He braced himself by gripping the edge of the table as tightly as he could, then pulled on his left leg. He squeezed his eyes shut as he pulled, feeling the tension in his ankle. He felt a twinge of pain as a muscle felt like it was pulled, but he pushed the pain aside; he could feel his foot starting to slip through.
His head was still aching, which made concentrating that much more difficult, but he could have yelled in relief as he finally felt his foot slip free of the restraint, his sock slipping off his foot just a little bit. He began to move his leg around, trying to kick the IV pole down so that the needle would be pulled from his arm, but he was too slow.
A door opened, and two sets of footsteps walked in, their paces echoing in the room louder than usual to MacGyver. Cries of surprise sounded from the newcomers and Mac knew he had been caught. He felt someone grabbing at his free leg, but he wasn't ready to give up just yet. He pulled back his leg and lashed out, feeling it connect with something solid, causing whatever he had kicked to howl in pain.
"He broke by dose!" the man yelled through his clogged nose. There was suddenly a very heavy pressure on MacGyver's chest and throat; the thin, wiry man who had been so nervous around Mac was on top of his upper half, rage in his eyes as blood streamed from his nose. Mac struggled to get in a decent breath, and would have passed out had it not been for the man's partner pulling him off. The blond American coughed, a deep chest-rattling cough that made his head feel like it was going to fall off.
"Stop!" the other man insisted. "He still has blood we can use. How much of the drug did you give him?" he asked angrily as he wrestled MacGyver's leg back to the table after letting go of his friend. Mac felt his leg being strapped down again, despite his best efforts to get away.
"Ode shod, jusd like you said," the wiry man replied, a pout evident in his stuffy voice.
"He's stronger than most of the others," the calm man mulled quietly. "Help me with this," he said finally after a few moments of quiet contemplation. MacGyver tried to see what they were doing, but he was exhausted. He knew it was from the blood loss, and he knew he should be trying to figure a way out of the mess he had gotten himself into, but he was so tired…
MacGyver tried rolling over instinctively, forgetting for a moment that he was restrained until he felt hands pushing him back and holding his knees down. He finally managed to lift his head and saw, as well as felt them wrapping yet another strap around his knees, pinning them to the table. He strained against the straps for a moment before he had to let his head drop back to the table thanks to sheer exhaustion. His breaths were coming in short gasps, and he started shivering due to how cold he was feeling.
Two blurry faces appeared above his face, and he tried pulling away, futily of course.
"Time to switch out bags," said the one who seemed to be more in control of the whole situation. MacGyver watched through fuzzy vision as the man walked over to his IV pole and began switching out bags. "This is great. We've got a buyer coming in tomorrow, and with everything we can get from this kid, as well as the others, this will be the best payday we've ever had!"
0-0-0
Jack left the young woman in the back of the booth as he took long strides to get across the street. The vendor of the booth he was walking towards was still out in front, talking with some customers and trying to get them to buy some of his merchandise. Jack simply squeezed his way through, pushing to the front of the line.
"Excuse me!" the seller exclaimed. "I'll be with you in just a moment, if you'll kindly step ba-" he faltered as he recognized who the newcomer was.
"Hey man," Jack said, fake pleasantness seeping through his voice. "Mind if I talk with you?"
"I-I can't, I have customers," the vendor tried protesting weakly. Jack turned to the couple, who were watching the exchange with interest, annoyance, and confusion.
"You don't mind if this guy and I have a word in private, do you?" he asked, jerking his head towards the seller. The man and woman looked slightly terrified and both backed off, shaking their heads before turning and making their way quickly to another booth.
Jack walked to the side of the shop's short walls and hopped inside, then pushed the vendor back into his back section, which was filled with boxes of merchandise, some of them almost as greasy-looking as he was. There was a single chair, which Jack pushed the greasy man onto.
"Okay bud, you and I need to have a talk."
0-0-0
Riley sat down on one of the chairs in the back section of the booth, pulling out her laptop and opening it. She began typing furiously, trying to find anything she could access that would help her learn the identities of the people who owned this shop.
"Hey man," Riley heard Jack call out. She lost track of his voice through the din of the crowd outside, so she decided to focus on her own work; Jack could take care of himself. The sound of the keyboard typing formed an almost-soothing rhythm for Riley as she searched.
"Hello," she muttered, finding records of all the flea market shop owners. She scrolled through the list until she found Grease-man's shop across the street, and she clicked on the lot across from his. When she clicked on that, it brought up a picture of two men, both in their mid-to-late thirties.
"Kaayan and Armav Sai," she read out loud, scrolling through the sparse information the site granted her. The only information she was able to extract was their name and a contact phone number for the both of them. She was about to do another search when the curtain was flung open, startling her. Jack strode in, a determined look in his eye. "Well?" she asked expectantly.
"I got him to admit that he saw MacGyver come back here, but that he never saw him come out," Jack said, holding his hand out to the young girl and helping her to her feet. "Once he started talking, he couldn't seem to stop. He said that he hasn't seen these people leave this early in the day before, but sometimes they close up shop an hour or so before the flea market closes. He also said that once every few days, people will come by and come back here, only to leave less than ten minutes later with what looks like an insulated bag," Jack explained. "He thought that's what MacGyver was doing, but he did find it odd that Mac didn't come back out." Jack pulled Riley out of the back of the tent and began walking briskly towards the entrance of the flea market.
"How did you get him to talk?" Riley asked, a little suspicious.
"Um, the usual way," Jack said as he pulled the young woman along. "Which is why we need to leave now, before he calls the authorities on us," he added. Riley rolled her eyes.
"Great, good job," she drawled. "I found out some information too," Riley added, struggling to keep up with her partner's long stride while also fighting the crowds.
"Escape now, explain later," Jack insisted. They finally got to their car and climbed in. Jack started the engine and peeled out of their parking spot, flipping a U-ey and driving away before he nodded to Riley. Okay, what did you find?" he asked.
She stared at the police cars speeding past them towards the flea market before turning her attention back to her laptop. "Right. I found the information for the guys that own the booth. I was about to run a search for their bank accounts to see if anything suspicious has been going on with their accounts. It should only take a few minutes," she assured Jack.
They drove on for another mile or so before Jack's phone began ringing. He glanced down slightly to see who was calling. "Hey Bozer," he greeted, putting the phone on speaker. "You're on speaker, so don't say anything that could embarrass us both!" he added jokingly, trying to keep the stress out of his voice.
"I'll make sure to keep any of those comments to myself," Patricia Thornton's dry response came over the other end of the line. Jack's eyes nearly bugged out of his head.
"Heya, Patty," he said, sounding slightly nervous. "What's goin' on?"
"Well, when MacGyver's phone went straight to voicemail, it reminded me of when you four went after that little girl without telling me, and I figured that calling from Wilt's phone might make you less suspicious enough to answer. What's going on?" she asked.
"I swear, Patty, we weren't avoiding you," Jack promised. "We were just, uh, trying to get some more information before we actually called you!"
"More information on what?" she asked. "Did you find the tourists?"
"Not quite, no," Jack said hesitantly.
"Well I tried to get ahold of you earlier, but you must have been on the plane," Thornton said. Jack thought back to the few hours on the plane when they had all dozed off, figuring she must have callen sometime then and they just hadn't seen it or called her back.
"Sorry about that," Jack said. "What were you calling about?"
"Jack!" Riley mouthed at her partner. He quirked his eyebrows and she nodded her head towards the phone. "Are we gonna tell her about Mac?"
"In a minute," Jack mouthed back.
"I was calling to inform you that we found out how our tourist died of hypovolemic shock," Thornton said, cutting off Riley and Jack's silent conversation.
"How?" the two of them asked in unison.
"The ME found several pin pricks all over the body, and she said that it looks like his blood was drained using an IV," Thornton explained.
"Wait, are you saying what I think you're saying?" Jack asked, feeling very queasy.
"It looks like this man, and we're assuming all the other tourists that have gone missing are having their blood harvested," Patricia confirmed gravely. Riley looked like she was going to be sick. "Mac, what are your thoughts?" Thornton asked.
Jack and Riley looked at each other with new panic and urgency in their eyes. "Um, Patty," Jack began. "There's something we need to tell you."
Uh-oh...
So? Thoughts? :D
