Chapter 4

"Lucy!" Natsu screamed as he burst into Lucy's apartment, gun drawn. He immediately noticed the blue-haired woman laying on the floor.

"Shit! Levy!" Natsu exclaimed, glancing around the apartment. He took note of Levy's chest rising and falling as he did a quick sweep of the apartment before returning to her side, seeing a small amount of blood on the collar of her shirt.

He turned her over, checking her pulse and finding it steady. He shook her shoulder lightly, calling her name.

"Ugh," Levy groaned, coming to after a few minutes of shaking. "Natsu? What happened? Where's Lucy? Wait! Lucy!"

Natsu held his hands up, stopping Levy from sitting up. "Woah, slow down. You got hit pretty good, Levy. Take it easy. Tell me what happened."

"We were...sitting on the couch, I think. She called you. And then that guy busted through the door with a gun. He...he grabbed me and told Lucy she had to go with him. And then...he hit me? I think?" Levy explained, grabbing the back of her head and wincing.

Natsu took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. "What did he look like? Do you remember?"

Levy furrowed her brows. "Um, he had a bandana on. It covered half his face. He had glasses though. Wire rimmed ones. And white hair."

"God dammit," Natsu cursed.

Levy looked up at him, her eyes wide. She watched Natsu pull out his phone and dial a number.

"Natsu, what's going on? Who is he? Where did he take Lucy?"

Natsu ignored Levy's questions for a minute while he explained what was happening to the dispatch operator. "This is Detective Natsu Dragneel with the Magnolia Police Department. I need an ambulance and a crime scene unit to 777 Strawberry Street, apartment 12."

"Copy that, Detective. Are you injured?"

"Negative. A civilian was injured in a break in. I also need to report Lucy Heartfilia missing. She was kidnapped."

Levy began crying. "Natsu, please. What's happening?"

Natsu finished his report to dispatch and finally looked at Levy.

"A man from the case we worked on three months ago, the one involving Lucy's dad. He has a grudge against me and Lucy. He's the one that took her."

Levy choked on a sob."You're gonna f-find her, right? Please, you have to find her."

Natsu's mouth set into a thin line. "I will, Levy. I promise you I will.

Lucy watched Lapointe carefully, shifting in the chair he had tied her to. After leaving her apartment, he had dragged her to a van. There he had put a bag over her head, tied her hands behind her back, and driven her to some warehouse. She had no idea where she was or how long exactly she'd been there. Lapointe was grinning and cackling maniacally, pacing about fifteen feet away from her. At least he had taken the bag off.

"I can't believe how easy that was. I wasn't expecting you to send Dragneel away like that. I had hoped to get you both. But I suppose I can lure him to you easily enough. And then I can exact my revenge."

Lucy rolled her eyes. Exact his revenge? What is he, a super villian from a video game or something?

Lucy took stock of her surroundings. She was tied to a chair in the middle of a large warehouse looking space. There were crates along the walls and huge shelves lined up in rows. She could see a logo on the side of the crates, but did not recognize the company.

She looked back at Lapointe. He was still pacing around and laughing. He seemed to forget that he had a hostage at all. Lucy took the opportunity to shift her hands around in her bindings. He had only tied her hands together and then tied them to a slat in the chair. Her legs were completely free.

Lucy's breath stuttered a bit when she realized that her ropes were loose enough for her to contort her hand just right and slip out. Her eyes shot to Lapointe again. He was still distracted, now mumbling to himself about ways to lure Natsu in. This guy was either so insane he was making easy mistakes, or he was just an idiot. Lucy was inclined to believe a combination of the two.

She slid her hands out of the ropes, keeping a hold of them so they wouldn't fall to the ground. Glancing around again, she found the door of the warehouse. If she could just incapacitate Lapointe somehow, she could make a break for it. Lucy tried to find something in the warehouse that she could use as a weapon. Nothing immediately stood out to her. Unless...

"Perfect!" Lucy jumped when Lapointe suddenly shouted out.

"You're not gonna get away with this, you know? The MPD already know it was you behind the letters. It doesn't take a genius to figure out you're the one who kidnapped me as well," Lucy goaded.

'That's right Lucy,' she thought. 'Make him angry. Make him stupid.'

Lapointe's head whipped around. He grinned at her, tilting her head to the side. "Well of course they do. I wasn't exactly hiding it, was I? I don't care if they know it's me. I don't even care if they bust in here and kill me."

Lapointe walked up to Lucy, bending down to put his face mere inches from hers. Lucy prayed that he wouldn't notice her loose bindings.

"But if they do, I'll be taking you out with me. At least that will be some sort of reve-"

Lucy cut Lapointe off by rearing her head back and slamming it forward into his nose. They both let out a shout of pain, Lapointe grabbing at his now bleeding face. Not wanting to lose her momentum, Lucy let out a battle cry and stood up, grabbing the chair out from behind her and swinging it around herself. The leg of the chair connected with Lapointe's head with a sickening crack and the man crumpled to the floor.

Lucy stared in a mix of shock and horror, the chair slipping from her grasp. She watched Lapointe carefully and nearly collapsed herself when she saw his chest rise and fall with a breath.

"Okay," she whispered to herself. "You didn't kill the psycho. Now get out of here."

Lucy took off at a dead sprint for the warehouse door. She pushed at it but it didn't budge. Lucy's heart stopped.

"No," she breathed. "Please no."

She pushed at it again and again but it still would not move. Sending up another prayer, Lucy tugged the door inward. It swung open with a loud creak. Lucy let out a sharp breath and continued running.

As she ran down the walkway, she took stock of where she was. Given the railroad tracks, she assumed she was at the line of warehouses around the train yard on the south side of Magnolia. She knew this yard well. She had come here often enough with her bastard father as a child. Lucy ran in the direction of the train yard office, knowing there would be a phone there that she could use to call for help. She found the main road of the yard and kept up her dead sprint down it.

Her heart stopped once again when she saw a car turn onto the road from the entrance of the yard. It couldn't be Lapointe, not from that direction. Which meant it was someone who could potentially help. Hopefully.

Lucy began waving her arms wildly. "Hey! Help! I need help!"

As she ran closer to the car, Lucy noticed something that nearly brought her to tears.

It was a police car.