⚠️ Warning: Drug mentions; strong language
Tony POV
Blink.
Too much light.
Everything hurts. My eyes burn. I shut them again.
Blink.
Still too bright. Yellow. Not sunlight. Blurred, buzzing.
I close my eyes again. It's too much.
Blink.
The light dims a little. I hear tapping of heels. Stilettos?
I'm face-down. Something soft under me. Satin sheets?
I can't move. My limbs feel like they've turned to concrete. My head is splitting open. I want to go back to sleep.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Someone's approaching. A gentle hand flips me over, a little too fast. Nausea rolled over me.
They sit me up. My head's exploding. I try to push them away, but I can barely lift my arms.
"Mr. Hawker?" a woman's voice says. "Can you hear me?"
I try to respond, but nothing comes out. My throat's bone dry.
"Oh, of course. Your throat, just a moment."
She props me against something wooden. Then I hear her walk away. Metallic sounds followed: chink, boom, tink, clink, and she returns.
Her fingers pry my mouth open. My head's forced back. A warm, fishy-smelling liquid hits my tongue.
I cough violently, unprepared.
"Easy, Mr. Hawker," she murmurs, rubbing my back. "Just drink. You'll feel better soon."
I don't trust her, but I don't have a choice. I swallow it down. She rests me back, and everything fades again.
When I woke again, the lights were low. The pain had dulled. My vision was no longer a smeared painting. The bed was too soft, almost dangerously comforting. I sat up slowly, scanning my surroundings.
There was just a bed, a lamp, a side table, an armchair, and a table with some strange tools on it. Everything was gray and muted. The room had an eerie, sterile emptiness, like a converted basement.
I reached for the lamp to brighten it. But before I could—
FLASH.
The overhead lights came on in full blast, blinding me again. I blinked hard, adjusting.
"Finally awake, Mr. Hawker," said a smooth male voice. "Made me wait quite a while."
The voice came from directly in front of the bed. I couldn't see his face through the brightness.
They slowly stepped forward.
An unfamiliar, but elegant, tall blonde woman, followed by a man.
My blood ran cold on seeing the face.
Stephen Olsen.
***
The moment he appeared, I jolted awake. My body felt sluggish, but the fog in my head was starting to lift. The memory of what happened came rushing back in jagged pieces. I'd been talking to Robbie, distracted, when I walked right into two men. My phone slipped from my hand. I never saw their faces; it was too dark, and my mind was elsewhere.
When I bent down to grab my phone, one of them approached fast. He grabbed my arm and injected me with something. I tried to pull away, panicked, demanded to know who they were, but the second man was already on me. He scooped me up like a sack of grain, slinging me over his shoulder. I tried to scream, but an overwhelming dizziness crashed down, and everything went black.
Now, the memory left a pounding in my skull. I pressed my hand to my forehead, nausea rising. What the hell did they drug me with?
"Aaahhhh, Amanda, I told you the dose was too much," I heard Mr. Olsen mutter to the woman beside him.
"I apologize, Mr. Olsen. I didn't want him to be alert enough to draw attention. We barely avoided the cops as it is," the woman, Amanda, replied.
Cops?!
"Fine, fine. Clear his head now," Olsen said, far too casually.
"I don't think that's a good—"
"I said do it." His tone cut like glass.
Amanda flinched, then nodded silently and walked to a table. The sound of her heels was thunderous in my ears, each tap like a nail being driven into my skull. My eyes teared up from the pain.
She mixed something, a dissolving pill in a glass of water, and brought it over.
"Drink this, Mr. Hawker. It'll counter the sedative," she said, holding it out.
I eyed her warily. Tall, broad-shouldered, with straw-blond hair and hard blue eyes; she looked like the type who'd been on both sides of the law. I wanted to ask what she was giving me, but my throat was dry, and my head still spun. When I didn't take the glass, she came closer, gripped my jaw, and forced it down. I coughed as the liquid hit my throat, some of it flooding my nose.
By the time she backed off, I was gasping, but... the fog was lifting. The drug's grip was loosening.
Across the room, Olsen had taken off his coat and was now sitting casually in an armchair facing the bed. He was watching me, his gaze trailing over me like I was meat on a hook. He licked his lips slowly.
A chill crept down my spine.
"Better now?" he chuckled.
I glared at him, the memory of the party resurfacing like bile. He'd already made himself memorable that night for all the wrong reasons. And now, drugging me? Kidnapping me? What the hell was this really about?
"What do you want?" I rasped.
"Hmmm… let's say, lots," he said, eyes gleaming with something dark.
"I don't—"
"Ohhh, you haven't met Amanda properly, have you?" he interrupted, gesturing toward her. "Come here, babe."
She walked into my line of sight, took his hand, and he kissed it with a smug smile.
"She's my right hand," he said. "Actually, I think you have seen her before, maybe not face to face, but… let's say, on school security cameras."
Security cameras. School. Twen.
My stomach dropped. The horror of my own situation had momentarily pushed everything else aside, but now it came crashing back. Robbie and I had just been talking about Twen before I was taken. And now this bastard was talking about school surveillance?
I looked at Amanda. The realization hit like a bullet: She's the one who took him.
I tried to leap off the bed, but my legs gave out. I collapsed, catching myself on the headboard.
I heard Olsen laugh. "The antidote did work. Look at him all fired up."
"YOU!" I screamed. "You took my son! Where is he?! What have you done with him?!"
Amanda snorted and turned her back on me, walking away like I wasn't worth a glance.
"WAIT! GIVE MY SON BACK!!"
My legs refused to cooperate. I could only watch her disappear, powerlessly.
"Haaahh, relax, Tony," Olsen said, leaning back with a cold smirk. "She was following my orders."