Not So Secret Sideblog

“Hello? Is anyone there?” A woman’s voice rang on the other end of the line.

Dani jumped as she remembered she was supposed to say something, too.

“Hi—shit—yes. This is, uh, this is Sheridan Wayes—I mean, Wallis—and, um…”

“And what’s your emergency, Sheridan?”

Dani thought for a minute on how to describe the situation she’d gotten herself into. Uh, hi, yeah, I fucked with this old guy who just so happened to be some kind of serial killer, he kidnapped me, and now I’m trapped in his fucked up little cabin in the woods, God knows where, where he’s been hurting me and forcing me to memorize scripture? Can I get a ride out of here?

“I’m being held hostage.” Was what she managed to decide on.

“Okay, and do you know who’s holding you hostage?” Dani could hear the operator typing something on the other end of the line.

“I, um, actually don’t know.” Dani gripped the phone against her ear in both hands. “I think his name is Jack, but that could be a fake name.”

“Alright. And do you know where he’s keeping you?”

Dani looked outside the window she could now see out of. The moon was just barely shining over the trees, and besides the backyard of the property, that’s all that could really be seen from her angle. “In the woods, I guess? I tried to run, but I didn’t get much farther than that.”

More typing on the other end of the line.

“You said you tried running. What happened that prevented you from making it somewhere safe?”

Dani lifted up her ankle and inspected it, running her thumb along the back to feel the small bump under her skin. “He put something in my ankle.” She said, moving the little bump under her skin. “I tried to run, and then I hit an underground electric fence.”

“Are you hurt?” The operator asked.

“No, no. That was, like, weeks ago. I’m fine now.”

“So, how long has this man been holding you hostage for?”

Dani thought it over in her head. “The last day I had access to anything that could tell me was June 20th.”

More typing resumed, then quickly stopped. “Honey, can you tell me what state you think you’re in?”

Dani put her ankle down. “I have no idea. I could be anywhere. Virginia was where I was last.”

“Well, honey, you’re definitely not in Virginia anymore. You’re pinging in somewhere between Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi.”

A weight dropped in Dani’s stomach. “You don’t even know where I am?”

“Not exactly, but we have a rough perimeter of where you could be. Can you describe any of the foliage around you for me? We might be able to get a rough idea of where you are based on that.”

“It—it’s just trees.” Tears sprung up in her eyes. “I can’t describe any of it, it’s just trees. Trees and a cabin and a barn and shed and—”

“Maybe through satellite imaging we can—”

“You’re not going to find me, are you?” Dani’s throat felt like glass shards.

“We’re going to try, but—”

“Then this is pointless, isn’t it? You have no idea where I am and neither do I.”

The operator sighed. “It’s not—“

“I have to go.” Dani could feel the tears beginning to pour down her cheeks. “I—I can’t do this right now.”

“Please don’t hang up—”

She didn’t let the operator finish.

Dani backed into the door frame, sobs building up at the base of her throat. No one was coming for her. Not if they had no idea on where to start. They couldn’t even narrow down the state she was in, never mind which part of it she was in. How the hell was she going to be able to get out of this now?

Dani let herself, for a moment, sink into all the negative thoughts she’d been avoiding. How there would be no saving, no escape, no life beyond whatever laid ahead for her in this fucking cabin. One way or another, she would die here, just as the man keeping her had intended. He’d win. He was winning. And he’d continue to win, right until the very end. It was hard not to sink into the spiral, when faced with proof that no one would be coming for her. Just her fucking luck.

And then, Dani had another thought.

They knew her name now. That was something, wasn’t it? They knew her name—that she was missing—and they had a rough approximation of where she was. And she had a fucking phone. She could keep calling, until the battery died, until she got someone who could help her.

She, at the very least, wouldn’t die forgotten. Something Jack had been undoubtedly counting on.

Dani swiped the tears off her cheeks with the side of her hand and stared down at the phone in her other hand. She could call anyone, theoretically. But who the fuck’s number did she remember, and would they even be awake at this hour?

Mumbling the little song, Dani punched in the corresponding numbers into the little burner phone in her hand, and pressed the call button. And then waited.

The ringing ended with a final click when he answered. “Hello, who is this?” He asked, voice drenched in suspicion.

Dani sniffed, wiping her nose. “Max?”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment, before Max spoke again. “Dani?” He asked, incredulous.

“Hey.” She couldn’t help but laugh through her stopping tears at the way he sounded.

“Holy shit. What—where are you? What’s happening?”

Dani looked up to the ceiling and shrugged. “It’s—it’s hard to explain, and I don’t know if I have time.”

“Well, could you try?” Max was clearly a little frustrated, and she couldn’t blame him.

“I got kidnapped.”

“What?”

“Yeah, like I said. Long story.”

“Holy shit.” There was a thud on the other end of the line. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Well, I’m all in one piece, for the most part.”

“That’s not very encouraging.” There’s a beat where nothing is said, and then: “Why are you calling me, though? You should be calling 911.”

“Tried that. Didn’t go well.” Dani sighed.

“Okay…? What happened?”

“They have no idea where the fuck I am, Max.” Dani sucked in a shaky breath, glancing back out the glass paned doors that led to the kitchen and living room. “To them, I could be in three different states. It was useless.”

“So, what? They ended the call saying they couldn’t help?” He sounded doubtful at that.

“No, I did. I hung up.”

“You hung up?” Max’s voice rose, before he audibly took a deep breath and lowered it again. “Dani, why the fuck would you hang up on a 911 operator?”

“What are they gonna do, Max, charge me for making a false report? They can’t even find me!”

“…Fair enough, but—”

“Max, let’s just—can we talk about something else? Anything else?” Dani asked, voice small.

Max took in a deep breath breath on the other end of the line. “Sure. Yeah, we can—I mean, what do you want to talk about?”

“How’s Mindy?” Was the first thing that came to Dani’s mind.

Max snorted. “She’s fine. Started summer break this week. Sad about you leaving, though.”

Dani’s fingers tapped on the plastic back of the cell phone, thinking back to what Jack had told her at their dinner together. “And everyone else? What are they saying happened?”

“Well—”

“If you’re thinking about lying to me, Max, then don’t. I want to know what’s going on.”

“…They all think you just up and left. Except for like, me and Christina. Oh!” Max’s voice hopped up as he clearly remembered something. “And the P.I. I’ve been talking to. He just found your car abandoned in a parking garage.”

“Great.”

“It’s better than nothing.” Max said defensively. “It’ll get people on your case. It’ll get you an actual case, not just a corkboard with pins and strings on it in my room.”

“…You have a corkboard going with pins and strings in your room for me?”

“…No. You know what I mean.” Max struggled to say.

“Convincing.” Dani tried, coming up short with the necessary sarcasm meant to pull the comment off. “Sorry. Just… I appreciate you. Caring, about what happened to me, I mean.” Now it was her turn to be awkward, pulling at a strand of hair as she said it.

“Yeah. Any time, Dani.” There was a pregnant pause in their conversation, before Max asked, “So, what’s happening? With being kidnapped, I mean. Are you okay?”

“You already asked that.” Dani huffed, glancing down what she could see of the cabin hallway. “I’m not bleeding out on the floor, so… I’m fine. It’s… not as bad as it could be. It’s actually okayish, now. I’m allowed to sort of… move around the place? If that makes sense? Enough to sneak one of the burner phones he’s hiding, at least.”

“Are you hurt?” Max asked, voice heavy.

“I was. I’m okay now.” Dani said, rubbing at the healing cuts on her forearms. “It’s… nothing, really. It’s like, the minimal amount of hurt I could be getting.”

“The minimal amount of hurt you could be getting is zero, Dani.”

“Well, okay, Mr. Knows-It-All, I’m just trying to keep you from freaking out about me!” Dani snapped, voice raising. “I’m fine. That’s all you need to know.”

“Is there anything you can tell me about who kidnapped you?” Max asked, shuffling around on the other end of the phone. No doubt to try and grab a pen and note pad.

“Well, uh, he’s old, for one. But not that old? Like, in his fifties or something. His name is Jack, I think.”

“You think?”

“It’s what he told me, but, he could be lying for all I know.”

Max hummed in affirmative and said nothing for a minute. “Where’s he keeping you?” He followed up with.

“In some cabin in the middle of the woods.”

“Classic.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, I just meant—kidnapping someone and keeping them in a cabin in the woods is pretty classic. Almost as classic as keeping them in a dingy basement.”

“Max, I will hang up this phone if you don’t cut the shit.”

“No, wait, don’t do that. I’m sorry.” Max stuttered on the other end of the line.

“Give me a reason not to.” Dani responded.

That’s when she heard something on her end.

A door opening.

Quickly, Dani whispered, “I’ve gotta go, sorry,” and hung up, whipping the phone down from next to her ear and dropping to her knees to slip the phone back into the popped open space under the floorboard. As she dropped the floorboard back into place, footsteps came thudding around the corner from the hall, stopping in front of the other side of the paned glass double doors.

“…Why the hell are you still awake?” Jack asked, voice rough from sleep, rubbing his forehead. “It’s past midnight.”

Dani searched for something—anything—to say in that moment.

“I was, uh, reading.” Is what she came up with.

Jack blinked slowly. “Reading what?”

“Hmm?”

“What were you reading?”

Dani glanced at the bookshelf, trying to remember anything about any of the books she had briefly perused through before. “I was reading about, um, framing. Don’t really understand it, but.” Her words rushed into each other as she tried to explain what she was most definitely not reading about.

His sigh interrupted her rambling. “Look, darlin’, it’s late. Can you just shut your light off and go to bed?” He rubbed his face once more, clearly half-asleep.

“Sure.” She said hesitantly. “I’ll, um, turn off the light.”

“Thank you.” He turned around without another word, headed for the bathroom. Dani sighed a sigh of relief when she laid down on the floor after turning off the lamp above the leather chair, settling her head on a pile of clean laundry. As she closed her eyes, only one thing came to mind.

Dani prayed to God he didn’t notice there was no book in front of where she was crouched down.

One in particular, Williams, thought he was hot shit when he could flex some power over Buck. Making threats and taunts, “accidentally” shoulder-checking him in the hall or bumping into him while he had his hands full.

One day he pulled his gun. Waved it around as he gave Buck some speech that was supposed to intimidate him, but he wasn’t listening. His eyes tracked the movement of the weapon. Out of fear, Williams thought. But they were wrong. 

Williams kept his finger off the trigger, Buck noticed. At least if he was going to ignore every other safety rule, Buck didn’t have to worry about him accidentally squeezing off a shot. 

Buck had been paying attention to the lessons. Maybe more than Williams. Certainly, he was able to disarm him with ease. 

“Fletcher.” Buck’s voice was stern.

“Wha…” Fletcher looked up from the pile of carrots they were peeling, and trailed off. 

It was the most surprised Buck had ever seen them, second only to when he had killed Petrova. Ironically enough, more so than when he had pointed a gun at them, considering he now had a gun pointed at one of their students.

Buck held Williams in front of him, one hand holding tight to the collar of his shirt. The other hand held the gun, pressed to Williams’s temple.

“Give me the key to your truck,” Buck demanded.

Fletcher’s eyes traveled to Williams.

“This is going to look bad on your report card,” they said. “You could be looking at summer school.”

Williams made an annoyed noise.

“Whatever, it’s not like he’s actually gonna do it.

“Oh, he’ll do it,” Fletcher assured them easily. “He’s done it before.”

Williams paled. “What? He killed someone before and you kept him?”

“First time the gun wasn’t loaded, second time it was actually in my best interest.”

“Twice?”

“First one was an attempt on me, not a student,” Fletcher clarified.

“Fletcher,” Buck interrupted. “Your keys.”

Fletcher stood from the kitchen table slowly, and even slower reached toward their belt.

“Keys are by the holster,” they said. “I’m gonna go slow.”

Buck nodded. Fletcher carefully unclipped their key ring from their belt loop and held them aloft. 

“How we gonna do this?” Fletcher asked. 

“Toss me the keys. When I get to the truck, I’ll let Williams go,” Buck instructed. 

“Normally I would insist on an at the same time thing, but I guess you have no reason to kill Williams if you get your way.” Fletcher reasoned. They looked at their keys for a moment. “If you take my truck, I’ll be stranded.”

“I know you have the four wheeler,” Buck shot back.

Fletcher shrugged, caught. “Where’s my truck gonna be?”

“What?”

“Tell me where you’re going to leave the truck so I can retrieve it.”

“I’m keeping the truck,” Buck insisted. “I don’t have anything; I’m going to need…”

He trailed off. 

“Yeah, what is your plan?” Fletcher asked. “Sleep in the truck? Be homeless? You have nowhere to go, you have no money, you don’t have anyone to turn to.”

“I know where you keep your cash in the truck,” Buck said. 

Fletcher scowled, then returned to a neutral look. 

“Fine, that’ll get you started. And then, what, get a job? You know how long it will take you to save up enough money to get an apartment? Did you pack a bag? You’ve got one change of clothes and no shower, so good luck at interviews. Applications are all online now, anyway. And you’re going to need to save that money for food, so-”

“Goddammit, Fletcher!” Buck snapped, rattling Williams who let out an involuntary gasp. “Anything’s better than staying here!”

Fletcher’s laugh started off small, then crescendoed. 

“That’s not true.”

Buck flexed his fingers on the grip of the gun. 

“You gonna come after me?” he asked.

Fletcher thought for a moment, then shrugged. 

“Undecided. Probably not now that I’m in the middle of a training season. So that’ll give you a good head start. Might not be worth the effort to try to pick up your trail… as long as you’re smart about it. You know not to go to the cops, right? It’s a death sentence.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Buck said, exasperated. “Give me the keys.”

“We need to come to an agreement about the truck.”

“The agreement is that you give me the keys or I blow your student’s fucking brains out!” Buck roared.

Fletcher let out a small chuckle, eyebrows slightly raised, like they were more amused than intimidated. 

One moment, Buck was staring Fletcher down with their trainee at gunpoint. The next moment was all pain, sharp and overwhelming in the back of his skull. The next moment was on the ground. Both his hands were bracing against the floor, which meant that the gun…

By the time his eyes caught sight of it, having fallen from his grasp and slid a few feet away, a hand was already reaching down and picking it up. He tracked the movement, leading his gaze up to Fletcher. 

Buck tried to push himself up, but collapsed back down as the pain doubled. He pressed one hand to the back of his head, expecting to feel blood, expecting to feel his skull caved in. A new pain slammed into his ribs now, in the form of a steel toed boot. 

“Alright, Caldera, you got him, thank you,” Fletcher said. “I’ll take it from here.”

Williams held out his hand for his gun, but Fletcher tucked it into their belt.

“Oh, you’ve lost gun privileges."

“What?” he protested. 

“For now. We’re going to talk about how this happened, and how we can prevent it from happening in the future,” Fletcher said, voice dripping with condescension.

They crouched down in front of Buck, who managed to look up enough to meet their gaze.

“That was a good attempt,” they said, then sighed. “I hate to lock you up again; I thought we were past that. But really, more than anything, I need to keep you under observation.”

They took Buck’s chin and tilted his head up as he grimaced, studying his eyes. 

“When you’ve recovered a bit, then we can discuss how things are going to be from now on.”

~~

I'm never sure if I should add the taglist for bonus stuff (or how many of those urls are still accurate, or how many ppl asked to be tagged after I had finished the series and I thought I was Done Forever so I didn't make a note of it) but uhh here we go

@lonesome--hunter​​ @desert-dyke​ @burtlederp​

@whatwasmyprevioususername​ @whump-only​

@oceanthesarcasamfox​​ @redstainedsocks​

@thehopelessopus​ @im-just-here-for-the-whump​

@thatsthewhump​ @mermy-blogs​​ @utopian819​

@whumpinggoodtime​ @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi​