...waking up was not a pleasant experience, and Rick was once again, as he had been during the first attack, nauseous. Before he even fully grasped the reality around him, Castle leaned forward and crouched as far as he could with the frequent coils of duct tape at his elbows and wrists: when he threw up, there would be at least some chance of not choking. And to begin with, you have to somehow twist and rip off the wide scotch tape put on your lips by someone. Someone, who in such an unpretentious way insured himself against all sorts of trouble. The biggest surprise of all, however, was his, Castle's, kidnapping, and whoever was behind it, three times damned...
The lump pushing at his throat made Castle cough, his whole body twitching - he couldn't reach his hands. And, moving his lips as best he could, Rick tried to bite and crumple the sticker, and then someone's hand, smelling of kerosene, roughly peeled off the band-aid along with pieces of skin.
- ...awake or what? - Someone asked surly, but a sweet, nauseating mush was already spurting out of Castle's chest, and unable to move, Rick barely had time to pull his knees apart. True, both pants and boot socks were thoroughly splattered, and Castle, again and again, sneezed, coughed and spit up, straining to catch the hoarse notes of someone's definitely familiar voice...
- ...where ... me? - Rick struggled to get out the words, and then collapsed back into a fit of vomiting.
- Of course you're at a friend's house,- the kidnapper mocked him, and his voice sounded as if it came from heaven. - It had to happen to us sometime ...
With great difficulty Castle straightened up, leaning back on the hard uncomfortable backrest - in front of him, growing as if from under the ground, stood a stocky man with a grim, angry and maimed face; in his left hand he held a small ice axe.
- You?! It can't ... can't be!
- Yes, it can, Castle, yes, it can. And it took you a while to wake up. You probably didn't expect to see me, did you?
In response, Castle grunted and spit sticky, bitter saliva.
- Sam Rofhlin. I'm not really shocked, more surprised. Because you'd have to be able to get away with it for a long time without getting caught. Tell me, does Kira know you're back? I mean, you're the one who took her away from me, and I couldn't imagine what else you'd want to do with your life. You had plenty of money, a solid record, and a beautiful girl. How could not the most famous novelist keep up with you?
- You're not talking about Kira right now, Rogers, and you're forgetting such important and obvious things as contempt, jealousy and competition. In anything. In love, in righteousness of action, in the desire to live and create, and I guess things would have been a little different if I hadn't stolen the van with your books back then. A few years ago, I might have wondered whether I should punish you instantly or wait a little longer, but the certainty came of its own accord. And that's why I've been watching you, Rick, for a long time. And the higher you climbed up the graphomaniacal ladder, the louder the tragedy would spread around the world. And you know what hype is. And when you dumped Kira.
- it's still a question of who dumped who.
- Shut up, Castle! Don't lie to yourself! - Sam jumped up and threatened the writer with an ice pick. - I saw how she suffered, lonely and forgotten, deceived in hopes and disbelief in people. She broke her nails on the pillow as she sobbed for you, Castle, and there was no power in the world to interrupt her agony. But it was up to me, Rick, me, not you, to support her and help her. To hold her hand, to speak words of comfort or just to be there for her. Yeah, it helped, if only for a little while, but with every day I spent with her, I knew and felt, Castle, how much you owed her. For broken happiness and unfulfilled dreams, for ruined future plans and peace of mind. She needed a strong shoulder, Castle, and you bastard chickened out. You hid and kept your mouth shut. And by punishing you, I shall repay her for that very debt...
Roflin finally calmed down; breathing heavily and shaking his head nervously, like a hunted horse, began to walk in front of Castle, throwing at him angry, hateful glances, but a sense of fear in the prisoner was not. On the contrary, some strange feeling in his chest and incomprehensible relief, and not only due to the unstable physical condition. To be honest, Rick himself was tired of these deadly games around him. Tired of the death of innocents, the uncertainty of the present and the uncertainty of the future. And the denouement should have inevitably happened, and in the way this drama was framed and developed, neither his fault nor Beckett's. After all, they weren't the ones who, embittered by a thirst for revenge, planned the murders. After all, it wasn't Ryan and Esposito who bombed and shelled the city. And even if Roflin is leading this whole game so far, that doesn't mean the ball will be on his side all the time. You just have to fight and believe, stall for time and spin the bastard into a conversation...
Suddenly the phone rang, and Sam pulled it out of his breast pocket to put it casually to his ear. When he heard the other person, he grinned gloatingly.
- I think we're getting some movement, cops are scrambling around,-and he put the phone back in his pocket. - I don't see your mind-blowing hottie, or that swirling, swarthy-faced little guy, but it should be enough time. You take a look around, get a sense of doom, and I'll leave you alone for a few minutes.
He waved his ice axe and strode off behind Castle's back, but Rick didn't even think to look at him. If fate was giving him a break, he should make the most of it.
...The villains dragged him into an abandoned room, empty and looking more like a small hangar. Tarnished concrete floor, obscene graffiti on the dirty plaster of the supporting columns and the dim sun that barely broke through the dusty glass of the exhaust lantern. Castle himself, like some sort of wedding general, sat on an enormous wooden chair, duct taped to it at six points. And if his body had some degree of freedom, his arms and legs were immobilized, and the chair itself - Rick tried it - couldn't be pulled off the floor. And another thing: like Hannah's corpse, Castle's location was encased in stacks of books, his books. The essence of his work, clothed with the power of thought in the magic of printed pages. Matte, shimmering with the palette of the rainbow, the covers glowed, and from some Rick smiled to himself, while he was, in fact, not at all interested in smiling. Not one, but two plastic canisters with spouts Castle noticed not far from him - they were arranged in a row close to one of the columns. And right in front of the chair, a dozen to a dozen and a half yards away from the prisoner, was a tripod with a camera.
- Like you're going to roast a pig, - Castle grimaced with heartburn. - But you bastard doesn't know about the Eye of the Universe or Plan B.
He was still thinking about Plan A, but that didn't change the fact that he had to fight for himself. He must fight for himself.
Castle glanced cautiously over his shoulder: there were two gaping openings in the partition behind his back, and somewhere far behind the walls he could hear someone talking. And Rick had little doubt now that the second of his captors was Simon. Just as cruel as Sam, ruthless and hating everything around him. Probably because of his limp from the injury. Maybe it was the loneliness and disorganization of his life, and definitely these guys were worth each other - two determined, ruthless and uncompromising misanthropic wolves. And if one didn't even consider the reason they might have gotten together, their goals for him, Castle, had become obvious. And as such, there would be no mercy for him...
... in the agonizing effort to twist his right wrist, Rick was soaking wet- the coarse tape was almost unstretchable. But Castle wouldn't be Castle if he wasn't prepared for something like this. And the fact that the criminals wrapped the victim in duct tape rather than twisted halyard made the author's task a little easier. Once upon a time, his hero Storm had also intricately disentangled himself from the clutches of villains, and it would have been foolish not to utilize a long-standing practice.
Another attempt to duck his forefinger and middle finger under the jacket cuff brought success: in an inconspicuous lining crease, literally on a drop of glue, lurked the tip of a slightly modified sewing ripper. Its rod was thin for large writer's fingers, but when Castle, cursing the hundredth generation of devils, finally reached the "lockpick", his mouth stretched with pleasure almost to the ears. Because the principle of life worked: "Caught once, shame on him, caught twice, shame on yourself."
By the edges of his fingernails, Castle pulled the tamper to the base of his palm to intercept it as necessary, and methodically clinging tape squeaked and finally gave in. Then the matter went much faster, and when the last coil was ripped, Castle once again listened to the pain in his ears - the bandits were still chatting carefree, giving him carte blanche. And Rick carefully stepped over the stack of books, so as not to ruin it, and looking around, strode to the opposite wall from the place of execution: in the gloomy, dusty haze barely saw the outline of a powerful gate. It was possible that the door was blocked, but the undeniable desire to survive pushed and pushed Castle forward.
And there it was, the gate, and the door on the right side-it was locked from the inside with only a deadbolt. Somewhere in the gap a breeze blew in, swaying the loops of cobwebs. The rough-hewn, rough wood of the lintels scratched his fingers, paint dripped from the sash onto his sleeve. Rick reached for the deadbolt as the air at his cheek whistled and splinters spattered from the gate, straight into his face.
- ... oh, no... - Castle groaned, turning around, and his hands crawled up - at the opposite wall of the hangar, just to the left of the chair, stood his enemies: Sam and Simon. Both large, stocky, and muscular, they looked like twins from a distance: Sam was grinning evilly, and Simon was playing with a pistol with a silencer attached.
- Where are you going without authorization, Castle? - growled Roflin, slowly but steadily reducing the distance: Simon kept a little distance. - The final act has not yet been played!
- So acting is not really in my profile, - Castle hopelessly tried to twist away, although his heart naturally turned to ice, and his buttocks tightened almost to the shoulder blades. - You must be mistaken.
- I-I couldn't- make a mistake! - Sam came practically right up to me, waving his ice axe. - You're the one who made the mistake of crossing Kira and me. A rotten brat that needs to be weeded out. A sleepy bush to be cut down to the root. And if I can't burn you, I'll just crack your skull open.
- And you're not afraid of any repercussions? - and Rick squirmed involuntarily against the gate, pulling himself up against it.
- What's that, Castle? - Sam waved his hand subtly, and the sharply honed tip of the blade dug into Castle's neck below the cheekbone. - That this bitch of a detective you probably haven't fucked is gonna come riding to your rescue?! Huh! I know how this works! And as you've probably figured out by now, we deliberately blew up the mall and opened fire on passersby so we could kidnap you without any trouble. And now all the cops are out there, and you have no one else to rely on, Castle. No one, no one will come to you, Rogers, and I will burn you like we burned that beggar and your books. And when you went to Simon's garage, I knew you'd get to me someday. I had to hurry up so I wouldn't be late.
Roflin made a grimace that, with a little imagination, could be interpreted as a smile, and, with a smooth thrust of his ice pick, left a bloody streak on Castle's neck.
- Too much honor to die so easily, Castle,- Rick could smell his disgusting stomach stench even from a distance. - Simon, drag him back. The torture's just beginning...
How'd that bastard get free, huh?! - scratching his greasy head, Simon switched places with Sam, and Roflin stepped aside, shoving his ice axe behind his belt and his hands folded across his chest. - Where's your magic wand, boy?"
Pressing the tip of the barrel into the writer's genitals, Simon dutifully searched Castle's pockets, and in the side pocket he found the tear gun that Rick had recklessly stowed away.
- Nndaa, - the mechanic gritted his teeth and held it out to his friend. - This is his pen and ink.
"The lockpick" disappeared into the grizzled palm of a frankly disgruntled Roflin, and Rick could have sworn he'd never seen a more disgusted face than that before.
- What's that, man? - Sam waved the lockpick with three fingers. - Did you learn that from yourself?
- That's my know-how! - trying not to emphasize the threateningly unpleasant sensations in his groin, Castle spread his chest with dignity, though not without fear. - After all, that's the kind of ideas I live by!
- All right! How did you search him, asshole?
The end of the sentence was clearly directed at Simon, and he gave a dismissive pucker of his fleshy lip.
- You're so smart! I searched him from top to bottom at the scene of the kidnapping, and he didn't have anything that could have led the cops to our trail. I didn't find any bugs, I threw his phone away, and I didn't look up his ass.
Simon grunted uncertainly, watching his friend and his prisoner with a sidelong glance. Then he glanced at his wristwatch.
- Enough talk. Drag him in, I said, and hurry up.