Author's Note: Hey guys! This chapter is a little shorter than my previous ones, but since I wanted it to end where it did, there wasn't much opportunity to make it any longer. So, sorry it's short by a few hundred words. I hope the cliffhanger is worth it ;) Enjoy!
"Cisco, would you please make that thing shut up?"
The irritated voice belonged to Iris West. Along with Cisco, Caitlin, and her father, she was gathered around one of the computer screens in the Cortex of STAR Labs. For the past hour or so, the small group had been doing whatever they could to try and locate their missing speedster, looking through feeds from several different security cameras to see if they could trace the path the rogue metas had taken after snatching him. It was hard to focus, however, with the crime alert blaring in the background. It wasn't the first time it had been set off, either; the damn thing had blasted at least four times since they had gotten back, a grim sound warning them that various cocky criminals had decided to take advantage of the quite busy police force after the chaos that had happened with the Flash being abducted. The city's unofficial protector disappearing was apparently enough to bring them crawling out of the woodwork, acting while they could. And every time it went off, it only made Iris's already terrible mood dampen more; at this rate, Central City would quickly be going off the rails.
"Yeah, yeah, I've got it," Cisco grumbled, getting up from his seat once again to silence the alarm. Iris turned her attention back to the monitor as he did so, grimacing; Caitlin was playing one of the security camera footages over again, and she was not keen on seeing Barry getting beat up again for the umpteenth time that hour. It was disturbing to watch; seeing it multiple times from various different angles had not made her desensitised to the scene in the slightest.
"Any luck with his tracker?" she asked, turning her head away from the screen to look at Cisco as he came to sit back down. The alarm had been shut off, and it made the space rather quiet again. Caitlin spared a quick look at one of the other screens, then shook her head with a frown.
"No, it's still offline," she answered, somewhat distracted as she went back to watching the monitor in front of her. "It must have been damaged in the fight. I can't think of any other reason why it wouldn't be working."
"Do you think they took it off the suit?" Joe asked, massaging his temples.
"They didn't know it was there. And even if they did, there's no way they'd be able to find it," Cisco input, running a hand through his long hair frustratedly. "Trust me. I hid that sucker well."
Iris let out a sigh. "Well, this isn't working," she pointed out, reaching out a hand to pause the surveillance video that Caitlin's eyes were still glued to. The other girl made a noise of protest, but Iris just simply shook her head. "We've been over these at least a dozen times," she said. "And we still haven't found anything. There's got to be a better way than this to find Barry."
"Well, if you've got anything, we're open for suggestions," the doctor mumbled, running a hand tiredly over her face. She probably had it the worst out of all of them currently, trying to work through all of this running on zero sleep. But they all wanted the speedster back; they couldn't imagine what was happening to him, wherever he was. However, their spirits were rather low after over an hour of looking and finding practically nothing that pointed to where he may be. The only reassurance they had was the screen displaying his vitals pulled up on yet another monitor. While they weren't at their highest considering his current illness and the fight he had put himself through, they at least showed that nothing else terrible seemed to have happened to him.
Yet.
Iris sucked in a deep breath as a thought suddenly occurred to her.
"I actually have a really terrible idea," she announced, and suddenly all focus was entirely on her, three sets of eyes watching her anxiously.
"Which would be?" Joe prompted, looking at his daughter with both hope and wariness.
"Snart," she said finally, holding their gazes. All three of the other members of Team Flash seemed surprised to hear the name, and Iris couldn't really blame them; he was probably the last person on their minds right now.
"...what about him?" Caitlin asked slowly, not quite following what Iris was suggesting. Or perhaps she had an inkling, and didn't quite want to fully connect the dots.
"He owes us, right? Since we helped save Lisa?" There was silence for a moment.
"Mmmh...I don't know," Cisco replied, looking unsure. "I mean, he warned Barry at Christmas last year that Mardon and Jesse were out to get him. Knowing him, he probably counts that as his repayment."
"On top of that, no one knows where he is. And I doubt he'd risk his own safety for the sake of Barry, even if he did owe us," Caitlin pointed out gently.
Iris let out a huff. "Yet, he's still probably our best chance," she pointed out in return. "If anyone could somehow get in contact with those metas, it'd be him and you know it. Not to mention that Shawna and Mardon sort of owe him; he kept them from being transported to Oliver's prison. And Cisco, don't you have Lisa's phone number?"
Cisco's cheeks reddened a bit, but he quickly shared a look with both Joe and Caitlin; Iris, unsurprisingly, did have a valid point. Even if it wasn't the best idea out there, it was the only one out there, besides to keep pouring over the surveillance videos. And Iris was right about that, too; it was not getting them anywhere. This truly did seem to be their best option.
"...I guess it's worth a shot," Joe said finally, though still understandably wary.
Cisco shook his head, a look on his face as if he were truly wondering what the hell their lives had come to.
"We're all seriously screwed up," he said as he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket.
No one opened their mouths to argue with him.
As Barry started to slowly wake, the first thing he was aware of was the immense discomfort.
His head and jaw were pounding, his shoulder pulsing. He felt far too hot. His head felt stuffed with cotton, his throat dry and scratchy, nausea lingering under the surface. The second thing he was aware of was that he couldn't move. He struggled to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt like they weighed a ton, and wouldn't budge right away. It seemed to take agonizingly long before he could even get them to twitch. By that point, he was awake enough for muted voices to start to reach his ears. Everything was so muddled, however, that it was as if he were hearing them from underwater. He couldn't comprehend anything that was being said, so he instead focused on trying to pry his eyes open again. He let out a small groan at the effort as they started to flutter. And then one voice, louder than it had been moments ago, rang out much clearer than before.
"He's coming to." The voice sounded pleased, but for whatever reason it did not sit well with the speedster. "Wakey wakey, Flash."
A stinging pain suddenly sprang up on the right side of his face, and Barry's eyes finally flew open with the realization that he had been slapped, none too lightly. He blinked slowly, groggily, as his eyes tried to focus, and he let out another groan. What the hell was going on? What had happened? It took another bleary moment of hard blinking before the scene before him came into focus.
And he found himself staring into the face of the grinning Mark Mardon.
If Barry hadn't felt so drained, he might have flinched at the sudden and unexpected proximity. As things were presently, her barely had enough energy to keep his eyes open and take in his surroundings, which were unfamiliar. He was in a dimly lit, large building of some sorts - perhaps a warehouse. Why were villains always able to find abandoned warehouses? He could see now that he was definitely chained to the wall, and aside from Mardon, there were five other figures present, and their identities slowly rattled off in his brain: Shawna Baez, Clay Parker, Roy Bivolo, Jeremy Tell and Nathan Bliss. For a moment, Barry was thoroughly confused.
As some of the fog cleared from his mind, however, he found the events that had lead to this moment slowly coming back to him. The screaming, how he had run to investigate. How he had been very stupid to do so, because he had gotten his ass handed to him and apparently been kidnapped. Just his luck.
"Good to see you back, Flash. You were napping for quite a long time. I do hope that you're alright," Mardon drawled, his voice awash with mock sympathy and an underlying malice that made Barry's skin crawl.
"What do you all want?" Barry muttered, his voice just as hoarse as it had been earlier, if not more so. He was in no mood to play guessing games with these psychos; clearly they wanted him for a reason, and he wanted to know what it was.
"You took our freedom." The voice was Shawna's this time, the girl stepping up from the back of the group. "You took Central City from us, when it's just as much ours as it is yours," she said forcefully.
Barry scrunched his eyes shut momentarily in tired, weak frustration.
"I didn't even put half of you away," the speedster said slowly. "You, Bivolo and Mardon, sure. Because you were using your powers to commit crimes. And you've been free for months, since the Snart incident."
Shawna seemed to falter a bit at his protestation, but Clay put a hand on her shoulder, as if trying to assure her that she was right. Bivolo scowled.
"Living the life. Keeping a low profile, trying not to show your face. Unable to use your powers unless you want to get caught and thrown back in your little meta jail."
"What a tragedy," Barry replied with as much sarcasm as he could muster at the moment, which wasn't much. "And the rest of you?" he questioned irritably.
"I was offered an out from prison," Bliss piped up cheerfully from the corner.
"You're friends with that pest the Green Arrow. That's enough for me," Tell spat. Barry didn't need an answer from Clay; clearly he was in this with his girlfriend, egging her on.
"Enough chit-chat," Mardon snapped at them all. He seemed to have taken control rather fast, which didn't appear to sit well with Shawna. Her eyes narrowed at the man, and she looked like she might say something, but decided against it. For now, at least.
"We don't need to tell you anything," the weather-controlling meta continued. "All you need to know is that you're going to regret deciding to be the hero after we're done with you, Flash."
Barry's stomach did a backflip.
"Shawna, you wanted the honor?" Mardon asked moments later, his voice thick with a false respect. Shawna scowled a bit but nodded, walking towards him with purpose.
Barry didn't know what she wanted the honor of, what she was about to do, but the large list of what it might be was quite unsettling. His heartbeat picked up, thumping almost painfully against his chest. He struggled weakly against the chains holding him, but knew that it was no use. Even if he could muster up the energy to phase out of them, he wouldn't be going anywhere; he was far outnumbered, and it had already been proven that, at least currently, he was no match for the group. Then Shawna was directly in front of him, looking down at him not with malice but, strangely, curiosity and a smug smile.
"I've always wanted to know what you looked like under that mask," she said.
Barry could only watch with a horrified expression as she reached out a hand to tug down his cowl.
Author's Note: Seems like a wonderful place to leave you all hanging ;) Leave a review, let me know what you think!