Chapter 18 "Torture"

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A/N: (12 September 2016 late pm) (I date these notes so I can remember when the chapters were written, because hopefully they will still be here in a year or whenever.)

Once again, thank you to all readers, reviewers (bless you!), those who follow and/or favorite! Each shocks me, but in a very beautiful surprising way! Thank you, all! I love the comments. Every review is a special gift. I am grateful.

This chapter is all Danny and Angel.

Disclaimer: CBS owns Hawaii Five-0. No infringement intended.

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Chapter 18 "Torture"

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(22 December 2016, Wednesday, 12 am)

Danny kept working on the link, sawing it back and forth across the edge of the thick metal plate to which his ankle tether was bolted. But his body was tired, his arms felt like lead, his hands cramped, his back ached. The gash on his knee had split open in one spot, and had bled some before settling down. He had checked it again, and there was still no sign of infection. That did not mean it did not hurt. But now, everything hurt. Getting out of the box was going to mean his body would have to work non-stop until he either succeeded in creating a hole in the door wall of the box, or he was rescued.

He glanced at the pantry, at the box of crackers, the smaller box of raisins, and felt his stomach beg him for food. Hunger was a gnawing pain he felt constantly, in his mind, and in his body. He had been good about drinking water. He took breaks when the link got too hot to work with. He kept track of everything by writing it down in his notebook, which also served as a fan.

But Danny had to take another break from sawing. The link was almost burning his fingers, it was so hot. The heat was slowly increasing the temperature in the box. He was glad he was just in his light blue colored boxers, because otherwise his coverall would have been a sweaty mess. Laundry was not possible. He reflected that there were many things he had taken for granted in his life, food and clean clothes and showers being three of those things.

What he wouldn't give for a shower and fresh clothes, and even one of Steve's horrible protein shakes. No, he mentally switched the shake to an energy bar. Those had merit. The protein shakes were a lot like his peanut butter, albeit right now a whole lot more filling. They tasted awful. Like the peanut butter. But he had to be grateful for the peanut butter, because while eating it was torture, not eating it would be a whole lot worse. He felt so empty. So gnawingly empty. He could eat five Big Bob's burgers, the ones so thick they had to be squished before he could open his mouth wide enough to take a bite, and you were in trouble if you did not have a pile of napkins nearby.

It had only been a day since he had awakened in the box. One day, and it felt like a week. He hadn't gotten to call Gracie or Charlie the night before. It felt like a month ago already. Were his kids okay?

Especially Grace had to realize her Danno was missing. Steve must have told her by now. He had no idea if she thought he was still alive, or somehow believed him dead. Whoever had taken him and locked him in this wretched box … they had taken his clothes and put him in the coverall. Had those clothes been used to construct a reason to believe he was dead?

It was possible! Toss them in the water so the currents would wash them up on some beach, and even forensic evidence would not be able to tell if they had been dumped or … put there purposefully.

Danny's face grew pale when a thought that had not occurred to him grew in his worried mind: What if his kidnapper had tried to make it look like he had taken his life? There were so many ways that could be done. But with no body, nothing could be proven. And he was right here, not dead, so there could be no body.

Right?

Danny's memory flashed back to that roofer he had seen on the Edwards' roof, that one afternoon he had dropped off Grace after school, just before Thanksgiving, just two days before Grace had broken her arm. From the back, except for the pony tail under the baseball cap, he could have sworn he had been looking at himself. When the man had turned, he had seen the face, and that dispelled the "twins" Twilight Zone moment. But Grace had even commented that the guy on the roof looked like him for a second there. She had thought it was cool that her dad had a look-alike, teased him he should grow a ponytail. And now Danny glanced at the coverall Angel was curled up on. There was no company patch on the chest pocket or short sleeves. He wondered if he would discover that there had been? It was one of those detective's intuitions he sometimes got.

He tried to force his mind to stop theorizing. His kids would not believe he was dead, and they knew he would never attempt suicide. He wouldn't take off his clothes and fall out of a boat in a swarm of sharks. He wouldn't do that, not to himself, not to them. Not to Steve, or his whole Five-0 ohana, to Eric, to his parents and siblings and other nieces and nephews. They would know he would never do that. He had too much to live for. He had too many people to live for.

But what if they didn't know? What if Steve believed he was gone? He had effectively disappeared. What if the kidnapper had made it look like he wanted to disappear? To not be found, to take up life somewhere else?

Did they think he had amnesia and was wandering around somewhere, not knowing who he was? Unlikely, but not something he could absolutely discount as untrue. He was a detective. He had seen stranger things.

He reached up out of habit to run his hands through his hair, then pulled them back to his lap as soon as he felt his lack of hair. The only way to deal with it was to pretend his hair was still there, and avoid that mirror. Why take his hair? It was such a weird thing to do!

Hair. He would never have cut it, and what sicko would have done such a thing? His hair was something that could be used to make him look dead. Maybe. Or perhaps it was to be used so that it looked like he'd been hurt? Planted with the clothes, on a beach?

No blood, though.

Unless there was!

Danny suddenly checked his body, for anything resembling a puncture mark, from a needle. If someone had taken blood from him, to use ….

He immediately felt one on his neck. Jugular vein, a scab. He went over to the "mirror" and got as good a look at it as he could. Yes, there was a puncture. In fact, there were half a dozen punctures in the same place, like a tiny one-fanged vampire had sucked out some of him several times. He found more punctures in the crooks of his elbows, where he had given blood at blood drives for so long he could not even remember, and where doctors usually took samples if blood had to be tested. He never bruised, so he had never noticed until he looked. There were punctures on his right thigh, several marks close together. They were marks of a thin needle, but that did not mean the syringe barrel had been small. Some of those suckers were pretty big! He'd been in the hospital enough times to know. He tried to get a look at the ankle surrounded by the chafing chain, because it had hurt, and there was a vein. He could not see it clearly, but his pinky finger tip could feel several tiny marks left from something.

The one anomalous wound was a thin, very shallow cut on the back of his neck. He used the cat food packet from the day before, with the silver lining, to see it. It was the only scratch he found. It would not have contributed to any blood loss. But he didn't remember cutting himself there.

Weird.

His kidnapper hadn't had a medical set-up, then, and had had to resort to lots of syringes full of blood. Maybe big syringes. How many big syringes did it take to make a pint? He chided himself. The kidnapper had taken enough to try to make Danny look dead.

Blood. Blood and hair and clothes. Wallet gone, badge gone, the green swirly marble Charlie had given him, gone. Phone, gone. His St. Michael medal, gone. Gun, gone. Even the crazy socks he loved, which Grace had given him, gone.

If done very carefully, it was enough to circumstantially make him look dead.

But Steve was smart. Max Bergman, the Medical Examiner, was smart. Neither would want to believe anything but a body. Would not want to believe … but what if they did believe? If the sicko had been very smart, he could use blood and hair and clothes to make Danny look dead. Murdered. Killed. Especially if there was enough blood. Jugular vein … that would give the kidnapper a lot of blood very fast. But added to all the other places he'd been siphoned like vampire chow, it had taken time. He could not begin to estimate how long.

Danny swore. He had no clue what the guy had done, no clue how much blood had been taken. He did wonder how much blood he was missing. He had donated blood before, so a pint could be taken without him feeling woozy. He didn't feel woozy. He was tired, and aching, and had ….

WAIT screamed his mind. He had been drugged! His blood would have had to be taken after he was drugged. If his blood was used to make him look dead, Max would test it. The drug would be found. Max would find it. And if he was knocked out by some potent drug, he couldn't commit suicide.

That was a relief.

His blood could have been mixed with something to make him look like he'd overdosed. Steve knew he had been drugged, because Steve had been drugged. So he would not be blamed if there was some overdose in his blood. He would be thought of as a murder victim.

"The note says they think I'm dead." Murdered sure qualified as dead. Even if he wasn't dead, if they had evidence enough to make it look like he was, circumstantial enough it be ….

Danny suddenly yelled with all his lungpower: "I'M ALIVE! I'M HERE IN THIS BOX! I'M NOT DEAD! I AM NOT DEAD!" Angel literally leaped into his arms and started purring like a kitten facing into a microphone, and he absently patted her, but kept thinking. He was shaking. He felt weak. He was glad he was sitting down. He just wished he could let his kids, his family, his ohana know know know he was not dead!

But if his kids, his ohana, his partner, his friends, his family believed he was ….

It was torture, not knowing what they were going through. Nobody knew what he was going through.

Right now, everything was torture.

And Danny had to force himself to somehow ignore it. He had one goal: to escape the box. Then everyone would know he was not dead. He was beginning to accept that rescue might not happen. If nobody was looking for a living Danny, then rescue might not happen. And that was not good.

But he still had 28 days of food. That was long enough, he hoped, to get him out of the box. His plan to use the tether chain to scrape through the door wall, once his ankle tether had been sawn through, was sound. He hoped. He desperately hoped. He had 28 days of food for him, the same for Angel, enough water for both of them to go beyond that.

He had plans to make weapons to use once he was out of the box, in case he needed to find food before he could find a town where he could contact help. It was easy to find water in Hawaii. Water held fish. He had plans to spear fish. He had plans to build a carrier for Angel, so he would not lose her. The first 5-gallon water bottle that went empty would become her carrier. He would keep her safe. Once out of the box, he would find food and water and help, in that order if need be. He was okay. He had the peanut butter, the crackers, and the raisins. He was good for 28 days. And it took anything from days to weeks to really starve after that, as long as he had water, so even if it took longer to get out of the box, he would be okay. He might be in bad shape, but he'd make it.

But Angel only had 28 days of food left. He had to get them out of there in that time. She was too small to go hungry.

He settled Angel on her side of the folded blanket and carefully wrote in the notebook, in a shaking handwriting still very legible, that he had found puncture wounds on his neck, arms, and thigh and ankle, and he believed blood had been taken.

As soon as Danny put down the notebook, Angel crawled into his lap and they had a little petting session and conversation. Angel would sometimes start it with a little meow that ended in a question mark. This was one of those times. "I did notice that the Christmas lights are starting to go dim. Don't you fret, Angel baby. I have the glow stick right here by the notebook."

Angel made a little chirpy sound, then yawned so wide, Danny thought he could see her insides all the way to her tail! "Do you need a nice nap? I admit, that sounds real good to me. I'm not used to how abruptly we had to switch times. And if I did lose a lot of blood, then I would be tired, right? Usually I am tucked into bed, or wishing I was by now, instead of seven hours into a very long day that began at sunset."

Angel started up her purr again, and smiled, and yawned again, which immediately brought a yawn out of Danny. "Gracie and Charlie must be asleep by now. I wonder what they did today that they enjoyed? I hope they did something fun. I hope they are not worrying about me. I don't want them to worry about me. I always ask them what they enjoyed in their day." His emotional voice caught, and he cleared his throat while he petted the little white kitten with the dilute peach and tan markings. Angel mewed, and Danny cleared his throat again. "Yes, I do miss them. Every second of every minute of the day. I hope they have happy dreams tonight. I have to hope that."

Angel reached over and patted his water bottle. "Yes, I should have some," Danny agreed, and took a couple long squirts from the bottle.

Danny was struggling again, with his nerves, his anxieties, and fighting a feeling of emptiness that had never left him since the strange incident with what had felt like feeling or hearing a boom. He was pretty sure it was in his mind, but Angel had felt it too, so something had happened. He had felt incredibly empty since then. He wished he knew what had happened, but there was no way to know. He had been careful to sniff the air afterwards, but it just smelled of salt wind, humidity, and freshness.

"Angel, the link needs more work; it's cooled enough. I spent too much time thinking. Should I work more on the link, or have a couple crackers? Maybe a raisin or three?" He felt so intensely empty, but it wasn't just for food. He felt as if he had nothing, and was trying to make it into something.

No, he felt that he had lost everything. He felt the way the note he was trying not to think about wanted him to feel. Despondent.

He refused to feel despondent.

Angel had climbed down from his lap and walked over to the pantry. She sat down below where the box of crackers was placed on top of a 5-gallon bottle of water. Danny limped over, after stretching out his muscles and feeling no relief whatsoever. "Okay, you get a snack too. I promised you a little bit of cracker. I am sure glad to have these to break the monotony of just the peanut butter, and so you can have a treat."

Carefully, Danny once again checked the expiration date, and then opened the box. He looked inside, and his nerves skyrocketed even as he felt oddly betrayed. He could tell at a glance that every cracker was thick with mold.

They were spoiled.

Suddenly fearful, his heart pounding, he tore open the box of raisins.

They were rotten, moldy, mildew-covered. Completely inedible. He grabbed up the other jar of peanut butter.

There was a tiny pin hole in the jar. He unscrewed the lid and sniffed it, carefully, then pulled his face away and felt horrified. It was rancid. But, worse, he could see pricks on the surface, like pointy toothpicks had been jabbed into it.

He dared not eat that jar of peanut butter. He opened the one he had started on, and it looked and smelled fine. Only luck had made him start on that one first. Now, knowing his food had been spoiled and/or tainted, he could not trust the cupcake in the Ziploc baggie.

Danny slumped to the floor. He knew that his next weeks were going to be torture, real torture, and that if his plan to get out of the box did not work, he would eventually die of starvation. He had 28 days left of food packets for Angel. He would not let her suffer if he did not get them out. Beyond that, he did not go in his thoughts, only that he would not allow that sweet kitten to suffer what he knew now that he would have to.

Twenty-eight days felt smaller than the box.

"Who hates me this much?" he asked Angel, who was trying to comfort him with pats and purrs. Quiet tears ran down his cheeks, and Angel just kept licking them away.

He petted Angel with the longest strokes he could on such a little kitten. She stared into his eyes, which continued to drip moisture, until he shook himself, literally. "No. No, I will not give in." He picked up Angel and stared at her, with absolute determination. "If I have 28 days before it gets even worse, so be it. We have water. I'm still alive, and that means there's work to be done. We're going to get out of here. It may be on the 28th day, but it doesn't matter. We are going to get out." He held Angel against his face, and let her little furry warmth seep into his cheek, her purr fill his ears. "I promise I will not let you starve," he whispered. "Let's get back to work, as soon as I throw out the bad food. You get the raisin box to play with."

It did not take long to send the contents of the plastic bags down the latrine hole. The plastic bags followed, since he did not want to mold to contaminate the air inside the box. He dumped out the cupcake, but kept the baggie. It might come in handy, holding all the empty cat food packets. The jar of peanut butter just fit, and to Danny's surprise he heard it break open a short few seconds after he had dropped it. The plastic had broken. He estimated it had fallen perhaps ten or twelve feet before hitting a hard surface.

Then he ripped off one large side of the raisin box, and made another toy for Angel to play with. He brought it over and put it on top of his coveralls, folded on part of the blanket. Angel immediately turned it into The Perfect Kitten Bed. Through half-open eyes of happiness, she purred until she slept, and Danny smiled at her as he got back to work on the link.

He worked faster. He sang Christmas carols. And an hour later, when the Christmas lights dimmed to mere suggestions of colored lights, he cracked and shook the glow stick, which promptly lit up brightly, and he continued to sing Christmas carols. In twelve hours, when the glow stick went out, Danny was sure he would see some real progress on the link.

And he might have laryngitis.