Much. So I could move a little. With the fogginess starting to
clear from my brain, I could feel the restraints on my wrists and
ankles fastened to the chair I was sitting on. I couldn't see because
I had a blindfold wrapped tightly around my head. Someone had
done a great job, because I couldn't look under it at all. Having a
large nose came in handy in most blindfold situations.
I sound like I have a lot of experience with blindfold situations?
None of your business.
"Nice to see you back with us, Special Agent Mulder." I didn't
recognize the voice. "See? We didn't hit you too hard. If you
behave, this won't be too unpleasant. If not..." I felt something
constrict, punishingly tight, around my neck, cutting off my air.
Something rough cut into my skin in a loop. The pain started to
build, and I saw lights... Then it stopped and loosened. "You get
more of that. But we don't want to do that. Really, you're just a
means to an end. When we get what we want, you go free."
Bastards. I wanted to rub my neck, and I thought I could feel a
little blood dripping. Could have been my famously overactive
imagination. I had to watch that; psyching myself out would
only make their job easier.
They certainly wanted me to believe that they'd let me go. The
blindfold would supposedly stop me from identifying them,
keeping them safe. Keeping me safe.
Yes, them. I listened hard to try to figure out how many of them I
had to deal with. It's not like I had much else to do right now.
It was true that being blindfolded like this heightened your other
senses. Unfortunately, it didn't also give you the knowledge and
experience to make much use of them. Hearing could be useful,
yes. But if you never paid much attention to your sense of smell,
how does suddenly having it seem stronger help you identify
anything? You don't have a store of memory to compare it to.
Time passed, like it tended to do. Without any light cues, I
couldn't tell how much. The absence of light and outside stimulus
also kept putting me to sleep no matter how hard I tried to stay
alert. None of the members of the revolving cast of two guards
ever spoke to one another, not even during shift changes.
Surreptitiously moving my wrists and ankles under the tape just
made it tighter, so I stopped until I could find a way around that.
I had to stop ditching Scully, or at least find a way to do it so I can
skip off but still leave her a note she'd find if things went wrong,
like they had here. I walked into that ambush so stupidly...
I inferred that I'd been captured as bait. If I had an idea about my
captors' agenda, I could have made a better guess about who they
wanted. My disappearance would draw Scully for sure, but that
seemed too easy. This made me ditching her to keep her safe look
like a huge mistake, no surprise. But I think they expect to snare
someone else as well.
I asked my guards some questions and tried to goad them into a
response. I'm famous for my ability to annoy people. They
responded with the choke collar, hard enough to make me black
out. After three shots of the collar, I gave up on talking to them.
My abused skin made me feel like I had a ring of hot barbed wire
around my neck.
They didn't feed me or give me any water. They didn't untie me
even to let me take a piss, just handled me themselves. At least I
didn't get the feeling that my guards enjoyed that too much, to my
understandable relief. While I should have been more concerned
about my life than my ass, I had wondered if rape would be one of
their intimidation tactics. These guys had a choke collar on me
after all.
Time kept on passing, and I kept going under from boredom when
I wasn't trying to figure out an escape. A body can only stay on
adrenaline-alert for so long. Not even concentrating on my hunger
or the pain in my neck could keep me conscious, because they
were too steady, almost lulling.
I heard gunshots in the distance. One of my two guards muttered
something to his partner about taking a look and left. More
gunshots followed, and he didn't come back. My remaining guard
cursed and took off too, leaving me alone. Bound, blindfolded, and
helpless.
I didn't know for sure if they'd placed my chair in the middle of
the room, but I sure as hell felt highly visible and vulnerable. I
picked a direction and started to hop my chair in it as quietly as I
could. Even so, I heard the legs scrape against what might have
been concrete. This might be my rescue arriving, but it could also
be someone far worse than my current captors. I needed to find a
hiding spot and get an ID before I greeted anyone as my savior.
More gunshots. I moved faster, which also meant louder,
unfortunately. I bit back a yelp of pain as my left arm hit a cement
beam. Footsteps. It was a large, fucking beam. I had to figure out
a way around it; maybe I could hide behind it. Maybe I could
scrape the tape off against the rough cement.
From the sounds, the unknown person seemed to be walking
straight at me. Closer, closer. The footsteps sped up until the
person stopped right in front of me. I stopped moving too, because
what was the point?
I couldn't be sure, but I felt like he was staring right at me. He
stood in front of me and didn't say a word. Aside from the sound
of our breathing, his and mine, everything was silent. None of my
guards had smelled quite like this, of leather, metal, gunpowder,
blood, and mint. Mint.
It was Alex Krycek, no doubt armed and grinning as he looked at
me sitting here helpless. And how frightening was it that I knew
how he smelled? But it wasn't my fault. I just remembered
from our days as partners that he had an addiction to those red-
striped mint candies almost as bad mine to sunflower seeds. He
was probably an ex-smoker too.
Last time I saw him, I was half-conscious atop the dashboard as
the men who ran us off the road led him away, taking my lead to
the DAT tape, the Holy Grail. Now here he was again.
Did my captors grab me to be bait for him?
"I can tell you know it's me. Your whole posture just changed,"
Krycek said in his soft, worn sandpaper voice.
I didn't answer. I had to decide a strategy for dealing with him.
And fast. Krycek never waited for me to catch up.
He sat on my lap, radiating still heat, facing me. I felt the chain of
the collar tighten a little around my neck as he took hold of the
end. This close, with him breathing on me, the mint almost
overpowered the blood and gunpowder. I couldn't suppress my
shiver. As usual with him, I didn't have my part of the script,
didn't know what the hell he wanted. He slid closer to me. To my
disgust, I felt my cock harden in idiot response to the stimulation.
"Do you know the opportunity I blew off to get here? Do you?"
Krycek rarely raised his voice; he didn't do it now. Instead, his
soft, even tone gave me an impression of white-hot anger anyway.
"I don't—"
"These assholes aren't very bright, and they saw it well enough
to decide to use it. I can't have any liabilities, Mulder."
I wasn't sure what the hell he was talking about, but I could tell it
was bad. The collar kept tightening and loosening around my
neck, tightening and loosening... "Krycek—"
The collar immediately pulled tight. And stayed that way. I'd
thought it was bad, too tight, before. Those times had been playful
compared to this. I couldn't think through the searing pain or the
pounding pressure in my head. I struggled, but my bonds and
Krycek's weight kept me down. Flash bulbs kept going off under
my eyelids. I heard something making pathetic, agonizing sounds,
and I thought it was me...
His mouth clamped over my open one, muffling my cries, and I
felt like he wanted to steal my very last breath. I kept struggling,
jerking, and he jerked back, riding me.
Everything exploded, and I went with it.
Mulder came to in the ambulance. The pain, terror, and confusion
in his eyes made me wince, but at least his pupils were equal and
reactive. The two attendants and I had to pin him to stop him from
trying to sit up even with the cervical collar, backboard, non re-
breather mask, and IVs they had on him.
"Mulder, we're on our way to the hospital. You're safe now."
Until he recovered. Then I'd kick his ass for ditching me and
getting himself so badly injured. I wouldn't think about...
He calmed a little, and I could tell he wanted, felt that he
needed, to tell me something. "That will have to wait. You can
talk later. You were lucky. Now let the nice attendant take your
vital signs."
Lucky. The anonymous caller had tipped the local police to
Mulder's location, and I only got a call once my partner's identity
had been established. By the time I reached the scene, they'd
already freed him from the chair and... the choke collar and had
him ready for transport.
I still didn't have most of the details, but I'd picked up a few at the
scene. Seven bodies, probable cause of death being gunshot
wounds. And Mulder, barely alive, taped to a chair with a bloody
chain choke collar loosely draped around his neck. His trachea
hadn't been crushed, and his airflow and pulse were good.
The angle of the wounds and bruising suggested that the
perpetrator had sat on Mulder's lap, facing him, during the
strangulation. The slight stains on Mulder's suit...
But why let Mulder live? All the signs suggested that the
perpetrator had intended to kill, then changed his mind. The way
the collar had been loosened into harmlessness so the abused,
swelling flesh wouldn't trap it suggested foresight and care.
I'd have to ask the perpetrator when we found him. Right before I
killed him.
THE END
24 hour Live Bait
by Viridian5
When I came to, I immediately realized I was blind. Right after, I
also figured out that I couldn't move either. Would have been nice
if I could say that I didn't panic, but I couldn't say that. I did
panic, all over the place. At least I managed to stay still. Oh,
right, I couldn't move much anyway.
