Chapter 2: Chains
Notes: Still updating these chapters, while I keep on writing the rest of the story. (Reminder: you can tell which chapters have been updated, based on which ones of them are titled. Enjoy, leave kudos, and share your thoughts in the comments!
1
Funny how much you could read into a person's apartment. Fragments of a life, lying there, for anyone to notice—anyone who paid attention. Like Michael did.
Overcrowded bookshelves, anatomy and biology for the main part, but at the bottom Michael dusted out a dozen worn, over-read novels. Hardy, Bronte, Stevenson.
No pictures on the walls, except for a group photograph on high school graduation. Frank Tancredi had provided more than enough information for Michael to recognize Sara as the tall, smiling redhead.
He picked up the frame and looked into the young trusting eyes.
Pangs crept up his chest, warning him not to get lost in turmoil, at the simple thought that there were people evil enough to kidnap a young woman all so they could make tons of money out of gun sales.
He hung the picture back on the wall.
"Well, what'd you think?"
Michael turned back to his brother. "Doesn't look like there's been a struggle," he said.
"Nope. I just checked out the bedroom. The bed's unmade, aside from that, there's nothing out of order. Nothing broken."
"Of course not. These guys are pros."
Lincoln joined him in his contemplation of the photograph hanging from the wall for a short while.
Unlike Michael, Lincoln had no direct links with the CIA. He was, in his own words, "a straight-up cop", and he often joked he had had little choice in the matter. "The way I am," he said, "the academy was the only thing that was gonna stop me from spreading mayhem everywhere I went. I like trouble too much. It's an all or nothing situation." Often, at this point, he'd give a shrug that meant, What you gonna do? "After a whole childhood spent being a troublemaker, I figured, if I didn't straighten up, I was just gonna keep on breaking the rules until it really landed me in a jam. And I didn't want to wake up one day facing jailtime because I'd been too lazy to pull myself together."
That speech did wonders on aspiring delinquents, who found it glamorous to be on the other side of law and order.
Michael never tired of hearing it. He had been a firsthand witness to Lincoln's transformation, and though he'd been sorry to watch Lincoln leave the family home so he could go into training, Michael had always admired his brother's determination.
"At some point in life," Lincoln said, "you have to grow up, Mike. Man up, you know what I'm saying?"
Of course, the way both brothers had gone about doing just that had been poles apart. The academy had been the first step toward a career in law enforcement, to Lincoln, while Michael had gone on to become an engineer. But not quite your average engineer.
In fact, as the brothers met up for drinks, and Lincoln was full of talk about his latest cases, Michael had started giving him precious insight that had slowly made him a more or less official consultant with the police. Then, he could only guess as to how his reputation had gone all the way to Washington, until one day he was approached by a dark-clad man, who had a lot of things to offer, and who asked only for Michael's occasional participation in return.
It had been intimidating, sitting opposite that man—he had convinced Michael to have a tête à tête in his car—and the idea of working for the CIA had him cautious.
But in the end, he'd thought, Why not?
It might have been different if he'd had a family, a partner or a child, whose welfare he needed to consider. Probably, the thought of rubbing shoulders with such dangerous people would have set him against it. But at the time, he was a twenty-seven-year-old, brilliant young man. The CIA could offer cases much more challenging than the ones for which the Chicago PD occasionally needed his help. It was more than enough incentive to push Michael over the brink.
On days like this one, he wasn't sure whether he should be sorry.
The face smiling at him from the photograph made it hard to keep his emotions in check.
It was the first time he ever took on a kidnapping.
Lincoln took a step closer to his brother, and Michael thought again it was fortunate Frank Tancredi had agreed for his brother to assist him.
"Yep," he said, with a casualness behind which Michael discerned anger. "They are pros. And bastards."
Without a word, Michael shot his way to the bedroom, his mind alert, ready to pick up on the mildest discrepancy. Darts of discomfort sprang from his chest at the sight of the unmade bed, the ambient smell of coconut body lotion, the undeniable sense that he was violating a woman's privacy.
"You've rubbed everything for prints?"
"Yeah," Lincoln said. "I'll have some guy at the lab check them out. Hush-hush. Owes me a favor of two."
Michael sighed. "Good."
Lincoln had no time to stop him or register what his brother intended to do before he leapt on the bed, so suddenly the springs creaked.
"What on earth—"
"Shh."
Michael closed his eyes, lying fully clothed in the middle of the sheets. Inside the bed, the pleasant smell of coconut was stronger, but he shut off the distraction, closed all the gates in his mind that didn't open on his mental representation of what had happened last night.
"They got to her while she was sleeping," he said.
"There might have been a struggle," Lincoln sounded cautious. "They might have covered it up."
"They wouldn't want to risk it. The walls are drywall. Thin. There's a neighbor next door. She might have screamed." He shook his head. "Safer to use drugs."
"This is a fine building, as far as security goes," Lincoln said. "Entry pass to get in. Without mentioning the door was locked when we found it. And intact."
"And there are cameras in the entry hall. But they won't show anything wrong."
Lincoln let out a surprised huh as his brother rolled over and dropped to the floor. The carpet was abrasive. Would they find tiny specks of her blood? Would she have moved like this, numbly, before the drugs swamped her system?
Michael opened his eyes. He was lying on his side, his left eye nearly level with the floor. Into the fabric, he could see small furrows, nails trailing along the carpet, before they had picked her up.
"The apartment won't teach us anything, will it?"
"Maybe." Michael sprang to his feet. "We should check out the security cameras at the front of neighboring shops. Possibly, the kidnappers won't have wiped those. They must have had a car waiting somewhere close."
Lincoln sighed.
"What?" Michael said.
"Just—this is foolish, Mike. And dangerous. Of all the kidnapping cases I've heard of, all those that wound up all right were the ones where you give the abductors what they want. Does it suck? Sure. But it sucks less than losing a daughter. Tancredi should just swallow his massive ego and do the right thing. I don't like this, risking the life of an innocent girl."
"Woman. That graduation picture's ten years old."
"Makes no difference."
Michael cocked his head to the side. "He's trying to keep her safe. It's what he hired me for."
"Well, I have as much faith in you as anyone else does, Mike. But I don't like the chance he's taking, all the same. And I hope old Tancredi's brain clears up, soon. Before he gets a finger or a tooth in the mail."
2
The butter knife emerged blood-red from the slice of blueberry pie which the man, Lance, cut into pieces.
Sara sat silent, on the bed. There was nowhere else to sit. Her hands were twisted into her lap, fully visible. She could tell that Lance glanced at them every now and then as he cut the pie.
Although he hadn't suggested tying her up again, although he was stretching the friendly act to its most obnoxious limits, it was clear that bringing a knife and fork into the picture was some kind of test.
And Sara would pass it.
Did he think she was an idiot?
That she would try to overpower him, at least two hundred and twenty pounds of flesh and muscle, with a butter knife? A butter knife?
"There you go. Go ahead. It's good. As far as frozen pies go, it's really good."
Since outright rebelliousness wasn't an option, Sara opted for ice-cold manners. It was the best she could do to counter his nauseating friendliness.
"Thank you. I'm not particularly hungry just now."
He granted her answer more thought than she expected.
Fear bristled down her neck.
Yes, the cool act helped make her feel in control of the situation. If this had happened during her childhood, back in the days her father warned her constantly about it, then there might have been room for panic, tears. A tendency to turn the abductors into ten-feet-tall creatures.
Now, she could at least be pragmatic. Most likely, things would go down as Lance had said. Her father would do whatever it was they expected of him, and she would get out of this scratch-free.
Most likely.
"Well," Lance said, then waited a while, filling the whole room with the expectation of his next words. "I can't leave the cutlery with you. You'd have to eat this with your fingers," he looked at the plate, feigned to find the idea ridiculous, and emerged with a wide grin as he looked back at her. "That'll just be messy, won't it?"
Sara held eye-contact, without allowing herself to blink.
A sudden hate burned inside her, and she almost told him to take back the food as well as the knife and fork, that she'd be on a hunger-strike as long as this exchange lasted. There would be dignity in that, at least. Yes, on the whole, it'd be easier to give up food for a few days than to bow her head to the caressing hand of her kidnapper. It felt easier, at the moment, when she still had last night's meal to keep her going.
But of course, that piece of blueberry pie was a great deal more than it looked.
It wasn't about Lance wanting her to have a good breakfast. It was about power.
She sunk her nails into her palms. His eyes darted to them, and she knew he was watching her knuckles go white.
This is the message he wants me to communicate. I won't be trouble. You have my cooperation.
You have the power.
He pushed the plate in front of her. Speared the fork into a piece of pie.
Oh, the temptation of defiance.
But what good would it do Sara to spit in his face, toss the plate to the ground?
All she wanted was for this to be over, return to her life. In a couple of days, she'd be back at the hospital, doing more good than she ever could if she was lying buried in some unknown grave.
Yes.
This was not the time to make a stand. Just an unpleasant moment to be endured.
Sara accepted the bite as he glided a piece of pie into her mouth.
She didn't break eye-contact.
The sugary, crumbling pie tasted like submission in her mouth.
Maybe there were no handcuffs, maybe there was no gun or weapon or threat.
But there were other ways to put chains on someone.
And something told her that Lance—whatever his name was—was an expert at finding them.
When she had finished, he got up to leave, but turned back before he had reached the door.
"Thank you for making this easy, Sara. I know it might feel like you have very few options right now, but I do value your cooperation. Very much. And if you choose the path of cooperation whenever there's a choice for you to make," he smiled. "You can trust I'll make my own choices based on your best interests."
When the door clicked shut behind him, Sara rushed to the bathroom and drank water straight from the sink, to wash away the sickly sweet taste.
"Bastard." She said, then splashed water over her face. She turned off the tap and stood facing the sink. There was something missing, though it was a while before she realized what. No mirror. Probably for the best. Better wait until this was behind her, before she started thinking of herself as a person again.
Back in her room, Sara found nothing to do but browse the Bible stored in the drawer of her bedside table.
Her eyes landed on a familiar passage.
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
"Right," she said, "right."
She hadn't read the Bible since she was a child. Maybe this was a bad idea. Without a mirror around, sitting alone in that room, she might forget she was actually a grown woman instead of a little girl, trapped inside a childhood nightmare.
She flicked the pages at random and closed the book.
But not before a certain verse caught her eye, and made her shiver, as if she had sliced her hand on a magical omen.
And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands.
…
AN: Hope you enjoyed this chapter. The quotes at the end are taken respectively from Matthew 7:15 and Acts 12:7. Is quoting the Bible in a Prison Break fanfiction taking the world of fanfiction too seriously? I think not ;-). Besides, so many biblical references are woven into the show… But that's enough digressions. Share your thoughts in the comment section!