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“GBI!”
“Police!”
Faith, Michael, Amanda, and Angie followed in after the tactical unit, calling out into the darkness.
The officers split up wordlessly, Amanda and Angie taking downstairs whilst Faith and Michael pushed upwards, further splitting when another set of stairs appeared.
“Will?” Faith called out, her and three other GBI agents at her heels.
They turned a corner, the warehouse still dark but for their flashlights.
Time seemed to slow down, and Faith was conscious of the fact that for Will, that time was almost up. She risked looking down at her watch.
17:21
Seven minutes and twenty one seconds until Will was dead.
“Will!” she carried on yelling for him, growing more and more anxious that he was nowhere to be found.
All paths led here. He was here.
He had to be here.
They carried on pushing deeper into the building.
The clock had plummeted to below eight minutes when Faith’s flashlight cast a light across a slouched figure, and she dashed forward.
Will? Her brain asked hopefully, but Faith knew best not to assume.
“Guns down, I need light,” Faith said, cautiously approaching the figure, tugging the hood off from their head, only to reveal that their face was still hidden by a mask and huge ear defenders.
Whoever this was, no wonder they could hear their calls.
The person became agitated, thrashing about in their restraints, wrists already bruised and bleeding, no doubt from previous failed attempts to free themselves.
Five minutes.
She tugged the ear defenders off.
“GBI. You’re going to be alright. Let me help.”
The figure stopped moving, and Faith gently reached for the straps behind the person’s head, pulling the mask away to reveal… Will.
Oh.
My.
She’d hoped to meet his eyes, reassuring him that he was fine, that they’d found him, that whatever ordeal he had undergone, he was fine.
But the ordeal was far from done – instead of seeing his pupils, she saw his closed eyes.
Eyes that were sewn shut, crudely by the looks of it, an extra piece of black thread thrown over the bridge of his nose.
“Will, it’s Faith. It’s Faith. You’re okay,” she told him as her eyes carried on scanning the rest of his face, taking in the fact that his lips, too, were sewn together in the same crude fashion.
Will jerked in reaction to Faith’s voice, a muffled, broken noise coming from him.
“Shhh, Will, don’t try to speak,” she tried to calm him down, looking down to see the timer now frozen.
| Just in time, Agent Mitchell. Give Will Trent my best – I’ll see him soon again.
What the…?
There wasn’t anytime to figure that out just yet – Will needed to get to a hospital and fast.
Will continued moving in his restraints, more broken sounds coming from him.
“Will, Will, you’re only going to hurt yourself more. Wait just a little longer, please,” she begged of him, crouching before him, hands resting on top of his hands.
“Just a bit longer,” she said, shaking her head at the agent who had pulled out his tactical knife, ready to cut the bonds tying Will to the chair.
The second those bonds came off, Faith had no doubt Will would cause himself even more damage trying to pull out the thread.
She couldn’t do that to him – she couldn’t let him do something to lose the main form of communication he relied on.
“How far out is medical?” she asked, just as Amanda and Michael made their way to her location, the look of horror on both their faces evident even without the light.
“Three out.”
*
Those three minutes felt more like three hours, Faith monologuing the entire way, trying to keep Will as calm as possible.
The medics finally made their way up to them, instantly going to work.
As Faith expected, there wasn’t anything they could do for Will then and there – the risk of permanent damage was far too high.
“We’re going to need to sedate him,” one of the medics gently explained into Faith’s ear.
Oh, Will was not going to like this.
“Will, are you listening to me?” Faith asked, and Will nodded in response, a tear somehow escaping from his sealed lids.
“Will, the medics are going to give you something to help, okay? Just to make sure nothing happens to you before we get to the hospital. Is that okay?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice level.
Will nodded again, but she could see how tense his body was, how he continued to flinch at every touch, perhaps even unconsciously.
She grabbed his hands again, nodding at the medic, who effortlessly slid the needle into Will’s arm, managing to hold it there as Will flinched again, his fingers digging into Faith’s palms.
“I got you, partner. I’ll be there when you wake up, alright?” she promised just as Will’s body slackened, the drugs working as intended.
*
Hours later, Special Agent Will Trent was wheeled into a room, a room that Faith Mitchell and Angie Polaski had taken turns camping out in since Will had been admitted.
It was Faith who was in the room when Will was moved there.
The stitches were gone now – his lips swollen but no longer sewn shut, his eyes no longer held together in a crude and torturous fashion.
What else happened to you? She thought as eyes wandered down to the mottled bruises up and down his arm, the crude marks left on his wrist.
“Special Agent Mitchell?” a doctor knocked on the door, beckoning for her.
“I’ll be back in just a moment,” she told the still sleeping Will, making sure not to wander too far from Will’s room in case he woke up sooner than predicted.
“As you know, our intervention was successful. There was a small corneal tear in his left eye – most certainly from his… ordeal…, but that should resolve itself within the next fortnight or so.”
“Good. No lasting damage then?”
“No. He is very lucky. But Mr Trent’s prognosis is not the only reason I’ve come down to see you.”
“Oh?” Faith asked, watching the doctor pull something out of his pocket in a plastic bag, not unlike the one they used to hold evidence.
“There was a note left inside the patient’s mouth. We didn’t know what to make of it.”
Faith took the bag out of the doc’s hands, trying to make sense of the random letters and symbols on it.
Whatever the note said, one thing was clear – this was only the beginning.
And if this is how he started-
Faith shuddered to think about what their unsub’s next move would be.