#shadowbound

So you sit there, sweeping the area again as you sip your coffee, willing your rapidly bouncing knee and the fingers tapping against perforated cast aluminum to be fucking still. You try to quell the rapid staccato of your heartbeat drumming painfully against your ribs, to fill your lungs with careful, measured inhales, to expel the anxiety in each exhale. It doesn't work. It never works. Your knee continues to bounce, your fingers continue to tap, your eyes continue to dart across every face you see until you settle on them.

Two men sitting at a table nearby, clearly trying to blend in just as much as you are but are far too tense for the early morning ambiance of a quiet Prague cafe, and oh god, are they looking at you? They're dressed casually, but the way they hold themselves screams Military. Danger. Your shoulders tense as you lift your gaze from them to pretend you're just looking around, but your knee finally goes still as you prepare yourself to run.

Even more concerning than the men, though, is the slight glint of light you see atop one of the buildings across the street.

Fuck. You're moving without thinking about it, clearing the railing surrounding the patio half a second before the shot splits the air and a bullet lodges in the wall near where your head had just been. Startled screams, muffled by the blood rushing in your ears, shatter the still tranquility of the morning, and you have to duck as the brickwork of the wall you're sprinting past explodes under the impact of another bullet.

Rapid heartbeat pulsing more adrenaline through your veins, you duck down the nearest alleyway you pass, another shot striking the ground behind you as you run full-tilt toward the railing you can see at the far end of the alley, blocking the short drop to the river below. A gruff voice yells something unintelligible behind you, but you pay it no mind as you jump, planting a sure foot on the iron and launching into the air. You suck in as deep a breath as you can manage, straightening your entire body into one sleek line as you plunge down into the icy water of the Vltava.

The shock of the cold nearly punches the air right back out of your lungs. You fight the heavy drag of your clothes as you swim up, gasping in a breath when your head breaks the surface, opening your eyes to look around for your escape route. You're relatively safe for now, the sniper's sightline blocked by the buildings lining the river and the levees along the bank, but you only have so long before they find a new vantage point and a lot less cover in the water.

The chatter of your teeth aches deep in your jaw as you swim to the opposite side of the river, hauling yourself up the levee. Ignoring the startled noises of the people walking along the bank you spare one last glance behind you, scanning the horizon for another scope flash and disappearing into the crowd when you don't find one.

You keep your head on a swivel as you wind through the gaggle of tourists and locals alike, people side-stepping out of your way and giving you curious looks as they take in your sopping state. You glance at each of them in turn, looking for anyone who lingers a moment too long, fully aware of your environment even as your mind races a mile a minute. Given how easily you'd been found at the cafe, it feels safe to assume your apartment had been compromised- not that you kept much there, your important belongings packed away in a backpack at the train station for situations just like this one. In that vein, it also raises the possibility that your contact had been burned, too, and now you were going to have to figure out another way out of this damn country. That is a complication, an irritation, but also a problem for another day.

Right now, you need to get your bag and get the hell out of this city.

The train station is relatively packed this time of day, people boarding and unboarding en masse on their way to work or wherever else they spend their days, and it's easy to blend in despite your still dripping clothes, weaving through the crowd until you reach a tall row of orange lockers. You fit the key into the lock on yours when you crouch down, pulling out your go bag and giving it a quick once over before zipping back up and tossing the key into the bottom of the locker.

With your lifeline secured, you allow yourself the tiniest sigh of relief- you're one step closer to freedom. You'll get to a different city, figure out the passport situation once you're somewhere safe.

Slinging your pack over your shoulder, you push up to your feet, turning back toward the exit… and freezing.

You're staring down the barrel of a gun, and one of the men from the cafe is holding it.

Wide eyes travel up the suppressor, over the sleek black body of the pistol, and up to assess the man, quickly taking in stern blue eyes under a black toque tugged snugly down to his ears, mouth set into a scowl amidst a questionable beard choice, brown mutton chops shot through with salt and pepper. He has a broad build- broad shoulders, broad chest, with brawny arms and thick, powerful thighs. He looks like a man who could crack you in half without breaking a sweat, and his partner, a few steps behind him with a weapon and a questionable hair choice of his own, is built the same.

Well, you can't help but think as you slowly raise your hands to show that they're empty, if I'm about to die at least my executioners are nice to look at.

"Who are you?" The man in the back with the mohawk barks in a thick Scottish brogue, piercing blue eyes fixed as firmly on you as his gun is.

"Does it matter?" you answer carefully, and you can tell they're not expecting an American accent by the way Mutton Chops inhales sharply, drawing your gaze back to him, to the pistol still pointed between your eyes. "You can't detain me like this, I've done nothing wrong."

"You were shot at in broad daylight on a crowded street," Mutton Chops growls back, and you can't help but flinch at that. Now that you're not in active danger- from that threat, at least- you wonder if anyone had gotten hurt in your attempts to get away from the sniper. "You can imagine why we might have some questions. Startin' with your name."

His tone suggests there's no room for argument but you mull it over for a moment all the same, narrowing your eyes at him. Blood zings copper against your tongue as you chew the inside of your cheek, considering whether you should be honest, lie, or just keep your mouth shut.

The decision is made for you when Mutton Chops' finger shifts on the trigger guard. You spit your name out through gritted teeth, eyes flitting between both men as you weigh your odds of getting away if you just hit them with your backpack and make a run for it. Low, if your assessment of them at the cafe had been correct and they are military. You'd probably be dead before you got the first strap off your shoulder.

"Why were ye bein' shot at?" Mohawk again, eyes cold and calculating as he sizes you up. He doesn't look like he knows what to make of you or this situation you'd all found yourselves in.

"Ask the cunt who shot at me," you snap, and you regret it in an instant when the barrel of the gun closes those last couple of inches to press to your forehead. You shrink back at the cold, unforgiving kiss of steel, trying to game some semblance of distance, but all it does is bump your backpack against the lockers behind you. This draws attention to your pack, and before you can blink Mutton Chops is grabbing you by the arm and yanking you around, pulling your backpack off with one hand and tossing it to Mohawk, the other firm between your shoulderblades as he shoves you into the lockers. Fuck. It takes everything in you to keep your cool, turning your head to look at them from the corner of your eye. "Fuckin' hell, at least ask before you manhandle me-"

"Shut up." The hand on your back pushes harder, forcing you to exhale with a soft wheeze. Mohawk is digging through your backpack, tossing your belongings carelessly to the floor, and your heart leaps into your throat when he pulls out your gun. The suppressed pistol touches the back of your neck in response to the discovery, stormy blue eyes meeting what little of yours he can see.

"What's this, then?" Mohawk asks, holding up your P890 with a raised brow and a harsh frown.

"You were holdin' one not two minutes ago and you don't know what a gun is?" Pissing them off is a bad, bad idea, but you can't help the sarcastic comment that slips from your mouth. Mohawk's lips press into a tight, irritated line, and the gun digs in- right at the base of your skull, where your spine meets your cranium. It'll be quick at least, painless probably, but right now that bite of metal hurts. "Ow, fuck-"

"Quiet." Mutton Chops pushes harder, and you whimper as the metal of what feels like a combination lock digs painfully into your chest. From the corner of your eye you see him glance at Mohawk, still throwing your scant belongings to the ground. "Gonna guess you don't have a permit for that thing?"

"Can't be quiet and answer your questions at the same time," you wheeze, planting your hands against the lockers. The slight push against the metal to give your chest room to expand properly pushes you back into the gun at your neck. "Make up your mind-"

Something dark, something dangerous, something that screams at you to run, run fast and run fucking far, flashes in his narrowed eyes, a storm over the ocean. This is it, you think, squeezing your own shut in response as the gun digs further into your spine. I went and ran my stupid mouth, pushed too hard, and now I'm going to die for it.

But the shot never comes. Both men are dead silent, and when you dare to slowly crack your eyes open to look, you see why. A circular patch sits in Mohawk's hand, a grey remnant of your past life with worn stitching where your thumb had rubbed over it repeatedly. The patch that had been left on your doorstep two months ago, the threat clear.

It was a warning, the only head start you were going to get. It was all they'd left, not even a note to tell you why- though you could guess- but you'd heard your commander's voice in your head clear as day. I'm comin' for ya, and I like to play with my food. Run.

"We need to leave, now," Mutton Chops barks suddenly, and you barely have time to process before his gun is off the back of your neck and the hand between your shoulderblades is grabbing you roughly by the bicep. A yelp of pain and surprise is ripped from your lungs when he hauls you away from the lockers, leaving your belongings scattered across the platform as he drags you toward the stairs leading back up to the street.

"Get off me!" Your angry shout goes entirely ignored, both by your unexpected captors and the people passing by that avert their gazes at the sight of their weapons. His hand is a vice on your arm, pulling you along like you weigh nothing despite your attempts to dig in your heels. Too open up there, too exposed. "Fucking let go-"

"Not a chance." All of the air rushes out of you when Mutton Chops slams you face-first into the tile wall of the staircase so hard you're sure the handrail will leave a bruise across your stomach. He holsters his gun just long enough to wrench both of your arms behind your back and secure your wrists with zip-cuffs, and the fierce, raw anger in his eyes that you catch in your periphery has you shrinking in on yourself, making yourself small under his fury. "You're gonna come with us, and if you don't wanna tell us why you have a fuckin' Shadow Company patch on ya, we'll make you tell us."

Your mouth goes dry at the implication. "Torture is a war crime."

"I prefer the term enhanced interrogation." With that he yanks you away from the wall again, dragging you kicking and fighting up the last few stairs to where a van is waiting on the curb. He's not nice about it when he slides open the side door and throws you bodily into the interior, and the only thing that keeps you from slamming into the far side of the van is a pair of legs belonging to another man who lets out a surprised noise. "Bag her."

The door slams, and for the second time in what feels like hours but has probably only been ten, fifteen minutes at most, there are unwanted hands on you.

These hands are surprisingly gentle though, lifting your head to fit a stale-smelling black bag over your head, leaving you bound and blinded. Defenseless.

"Sorry about this, love," a kind voice murmurs, but you know better than to trust it- you've seen the good cop, bad cop routine before. They must run it often if, even in the confusion you'd seen on his face when the van door opened, he'd immediately fallen into his role.

"Go fuck yourself," you growl, twisting at the zip-cuffs. You're not getting out of them, but it makes you feel a little better to pretend.

"Watch yer ankles, Gaz, she's a feisty one," the Scot's voice sounds like it's off somewhere in front of you, the passenger seat maybe, an edge of amusement in his tone. Gaz. One name out of three. A nickname, maybe, or a callsign. "Bit like a feral cat, might bite."

"You can fuck right off, too," you spit at him, tugging more intently against the zip-cuffs binding your wrists. You should really quit while you're ahead, shut up before they decide it's too much trouble and just shoot you and dump you back in the Vltava, but you're cold, you're wet, and you're pissed.

Maybe feral cat wasn't too far off.

"Watch it, princess, or you'll get some duct tape too." The new voice has you stopping cold. Definitely English, deep and gravelly and edged with a deadpan kind of danger that has the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. Something tells you that Mutton Chops' handling of you had been a gentle tickle compared to what this man could do to you.

But your mother had always said you had more guts than sense. "Eat a bag of dicks, you fucking cunt-"

"Kid's got a foul mouth on her," Mutton Chops' voice filters back from the front, and you growl under your breath. "Duct tape's not a bad idea."

"Got some righ' here, Captain," the Scot says cheerfully, and you bristle at how easily you'd been dismissed as a threat if they feel comfortable enough to joke around in front of you. You force yourself to focus on the second identifier instead- a rank. Definitely military, then.

"So what's the story here, anyway?" the one called Gaz asks, and you feel a boot nudge your leg. The tap has you growling, squirming your body across the uncomfortable metal of the van's floor to get away from it. He hauls you right back with an almost embarrassing ease. "We come here to meet an informant and end up with a random American?"

"This." The rip of velcro, and a sharp whistle cuts through the vehicle, followed by a quiet grunt.

"What's a Shadow doin' in Prague?" the deep voice rumbles.

"That's what we're gonna find out."

When the van stops you focus on the opening and subsequent slamming of doors. The side door slides open and you lunge immediately in the direction of the breeze you feel against your skin- you don't make it very far before hands are grabbing you again. Your feet are barely under you before they're dragging you over what feels like loose gravel, up a short set of steps, over a threshold, up a longer set of steps. Safehouse. Two floors at least.

You're shoved bodily into a chair, and you squint against the sudden intrusion of light as the bag is ripped off your head, wincing when several strands of hair go with it. Your gaze flits around the room, skating over the four men that come into focus in favor of cataloguing every minute detail of the room from the frigid metal beneath your thighs to how the small space is devoid of anything but a table shoved against the wall next to the door.

Once you've taken in what little you can of your surroundings, you let yourself look at the men. The first to catch your gaze is Mutton Chops- the captain- towering over you, brawny arms folded over his chest. He's flanked to his left by Mohawk, leering at you with a wolfish grin that shows far too many teeth, and to the right a tall black man with dark eyes shadowed by a faded blue ball cap.

A few steps behind them all is the largest man you've ever seen. Built like a brick shithouse, you have to crane your head back until it hurts to see his face, and a violent shiver rolls straight down your spine when all you see is dead, empty eyes staring back at you through the holes in a piece of skull sewn into a black balaclava.

Fear twists like a hot knife in your gut- you know just looking at him that all the others had been child's play so far. This one looks like he could crush the life out of you with one large hand. He looks like he'd enjoy it.

Your train of thought is broken when the captain crouches down to your eye level, and you have to force yourself to drag your gaze away from the man in the skull mask to meet his cold blue stare. "Here's how this is gonna work. You're gonna tell us why you have this-" he holds up the patch, making sure you can see the rook and spade logo stitched into it- "truthfully. If you lie, if you refuse to talk, we'll have to resort to more… encouraging methods."

"Given how you treated me on the platform, I'm surprised you didn't want to start with that," you taunt, and at the same time you want to kick yourself- tell yourself to shut the fuck up because what exactly do you hope to accomplish by continuing to rile up men who aren't above torturing you for answers? You must have a fucking death wish. Still, you can't stop yourself from sticking your foot further into your mouth, lowering your voice and leaning closer to his face. "Bet you get off on that shit, don't you, Captain ? Pushing women around, trying to scare 'em. Hurting them." Something flashes in his eyes before they harden into steel, fingers crushing the patch into his palm.

"Last chance."

"Fuck you."

"Have it your way. Ghost." The captain rises, nodding to the man in the skull mask before leading the other two out of the room. The door slams shut behind them, leaving you alone with the one he'd called Ghost.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. "What's with the mask? You ugly under there or somethin'?" The only response you get is dead silence, not even the sound of his footsteps as he walks over to the table and starts laying out his weapons. You imagine he's probably heard the question a million times, but that doesn't keep you from poking, distracting yourself from the leather bundle he's currently rolling out across the table. "I get it, I guess. If I was torturing innocent people I wouldn't want them to see my face, either."

"Never met an innocent Shadow." In this enclosed space you can almost feel the deep timbre of his voice vibrating in your bones. He's slow, methodical as he runs his fingers along the tools he's laid out, picking some of them up and examining them before putting them down again. What he's doing isn't lost on you- he wants you to see. An intimidation tactic, one you'll never tell him is working. "You have until I turn around to change your mind and start talkin'."

"Are you deaf? I've been doing nothing but talking-"

"Defense mechanism, yeah?" He picks up a wicked looking combat knife, turning it over in his gloved hands. You watch the motion, note the pattern of bones on the back of the gloves to match his mask- at least he's committed to the aesthetic. "You're scared, so you're runnin' your mouth. Seen it before. Everyone breaks eventually."

Satisfied with his choice he turns slowly, those dead eyes meeting yours again. He's idly running a finger along the edge of the blade, gaze boring into yours with an intensity that makes your earlier interaction with the captain feel like a childhood staring contest.

"Maybe I had it wrong earlier," you muse, tipping your head back to keep your eyes on his as he stalks toward you, ignoring that twist of fear, shoving it down to a rolling boil in your gut. "Maybe you're the one that gets off on hurting women."

You aren't expecting a reaction- nothing you've said so far has gotten anything more than cold indifference from him, but that stops him in his tracks. You can see the line of his shoulders go taut, a tense muscle ticking in his jaw beneath the mask as he processes what you've said, and the brief flash of something you see in his eyes feels almost familiar.

It almost looks like fear.

You can't help but prod at it.

"What, I hit a nerve?"

You must have, because he closes that last bit of distance in two long strides to crouch down in front of you, the hand not holding the knife grabbing you by the jaw with bruising force. His eyes are narrowed and absolutely frigid- whatever you'd seen there before is gone, replaced by a fury that, were you standing, would bring you to your knees.

"I don't get off on it," he growls, fingers squeezing into your cheeks like he's trying to impress his fingerprints into your teeth. "I'm doin' my job. That job is to deal with threats." You can't help a gasp when he releases you with a solid push of your head, but he doesn't stand up.

Instead, he brings that knife up to drag it slowly along your thigh- not enough to break the skin, but to remind you that it's there. The promise of what's to come if you don't start telling him exactly what he wants to hear.

It's a familiar threat, and a tired sort of resignation settles over you as you watch the blade catch on your jeans, ripping a tiny hole in the dark denim. The tip presses slowly into your thigh until flesh splits beneath the steel, and oh god it burns, but you just drag a sharp breath through your teeth at the sight of the blood beading on your skin, staining the steel crimson.

He stops there, just the tip of the blade pressed into your skin, his eyes burning holes into your skull. "Tell me 'bout the patch."

For the first time since they'd taken you in the train station, you're silent. He takes it for what it is, and you exhale slowly as he drags the knife down your thigh. Steady, perfect. It'll scar nicely, you think, cocking your head to the side as the blade digs in slightly deeper near your knee. Not like the ugly, unsightly scars the commander had left across your torso and back.

Suddenly the blade flicks up to your chin, pressing into the soft flesh and forcing you to tilt your head up until you meet his eyes again. His stare is almost curious, detached but still scrutinizing, searching for something. You stare right back, wondering what he's looking for, what he sees.

Ghost is a lot harder to read than the captain and the Scot had been, more of an unknown. You don't like unknowns, don't like anything you can't predict, and you think you could spend years trying to decipher even some small part of the man in front of you and get absolutely no where. On a primal level, that irritating little instinct scratching at your hindbrain, that terrifies you.

"Hm." The noise draws your attention, eyes refocusing slightly on the skull mask in front of you. You watch wordlessly as he rises to his feet again, setting the knife on the table and rapping twice on the door. You can hear hushed whispers when it opens, see the captain shaking his head. The door shuts again, and your eyes track Ghost picking something else up from the table- the hood you'd worn in here.

He drops it unceremoniously over your head before noisily cleaning up his tools and leaving you alone in the dark.

part one - masterlist - part two