Lucifer: Taken

Part VII

*Sorry it's taken me so long to update! I got kind of stuck and wasn't sure where to go. But here we are, part seven!*

"Alright, Mr. Morningstar. Thank you for coming in. We realize that it's been quite a week for you."
Lucifer sat in the interrogation room, uncomfortably settled into his chair as best as he could be. Although his more human injuries had healed once he had banned Chloe from his hospital room for twenty-four hours, every wound that was caused by Azrael's blade was, unfortunately, not healed and still just as painful. But at least he could walk.
"Of course. I've been to hell and back before; this was nothing," he quipped, getting no reaction from the two men across the table.
"Of course," one of them responded, obviously confused but willing to placate him. "Please state your name and title in regards to your position here." Lucifer held off on a smart comment, instead giving a slight nod.
"Lucifer Morningstar, Civilian Consultant to the Los Angeles Police Department."
"Great. Mr. Morningstar, I'd like you to start from the beginning, if you would please." Lucifer's eyes slowly met Chloe's, and she gave a small nod of reassurance.
"Right then. Detective Decker and I had been working on this case for a little over a week before I got a lead. It was around 3:30am, and I didn't think it would lead to much, so I didn't wake the detective when I went to look into it. That's on me, not her," he added, and the man across the table nodded.
"We're not here to investigate you or Miss Decker. We just want to know how things went down," he assured Lucifer, who stared skeptically. "What kind of lead did you get?"
"I spoke with an acquaintance of one of the victims, Eamonn Conway. He mentioned that Eamonn had a few run-ins with a former coworker that were less-than-friendly." This was all information that he'd received from Chloe while in the hospital. He didn't particularly want to tell these people about the 'Luci' note, or the signs of another celestial on earth. If his and Maze's plan was going to work, he had to be very careful about what he said.
"Eamonn's acquaintance told me where I could find him, and I followed the lead. When I got there, I was knocked unconscious, and when I awoke, I was chained to the ceiling in a meat freezer." Lucifer raised his arm that wasn't in a sling in a 'that's that, what can you do' fashion.
"And after that?" the detective prodded. Lucifer frowned, very slightly.
"After what?" he asked, guarded.
"After you awoke. What happened?" Lucifer hesitated, and Chloe, bless her soul, caught it. She stepped forward from her place behind the two investigators.
"Is that necessary?" she asked, glancing at Lucifer and then over at Dan, who shook his head. He was not going to be a part of this, that much was clear. Not that Lucifer expected any defense from him anyways. "He's been through a lot in the past week, and I don't know that he's ready—"
"Thank you, Detective Decker," one of the investigators interrupted, not sparing her a glance. "This is of the utmost importance. I realize that it's poor timing, but the law doesn't wait for people to be ready. Mr. Morningstar, please continue." Lucifer avoided Chloe's eyes as she stepped back, and cleared his throat.
"Of course. When I awoke, I was in the freezer, chained up by my wrists. Malek Romero was in the room with me, otherwise it was empty. No furniture, no other people. It was like that as long as I was down there. No one else ever came in." Lucifer left it at that, left hand tightening into a fist and relaxing repetitively in his lap.
"And your injuries?" the same man prompted again, earning narrowed eyes from Chloe, an uncomfortable shift in weight from Dan, and an irritated look Heaven-ward from Lucifer.
"Aren't you nosy?" he questioned with a raised brow.
"Mr. Morningstar, it's my job to be nosy. I'm trying to make this as easy as possible for you," he reasoned, and Lucifer gave a short laugh.
"Of course you are. You can't imagine how grateful I am for your assistance," he sneered.
"Lucifer," Chloe warned, and Lucifer sobered at her expression. He waited for a few seconds, deciding what she did and did not need to hear. Everything that he was about to say was in the second category. He stood and leaned over the table to whisper in the investigators' ears.
"I need the Detective gone," he breathed, and sat back in his chair with a pained noise, meeting his eyes.
"Detectives Espinosa and Decker. Perhaps this would be easier without an audience. Please step out of the room." Chloe stared in disbelief, and Lucifer could feel her trying to make eye contact with him, but he stared at the table instead, until he heard a huff of breath and two sets of footsteps leaving the room.
"Thank you. No sense in them hearing all of this, yeah?" he murmured, then cleared his throat. "Romero started slow. I believe that the broken ribs were first, followed by the lacerations and bruises on my chest, back, and arms. Those were drawn out for the duration of my stay. He wanted me to do something for him, and when I said no . . ." Lucifer motioned to himself with his left hand, and shrugged. "This is what you get for saying no to the biggest drug lord in LA."
"What did he ask you to do?" the investigator pressed.
"Oh, this and that, betray the LAPD and work for him instead, the usual." That part wasn't a lie, at least. Uriel had wanted him to leave the LAPD and work for him. Just in a warmer climate.
"And how did that work? He would ask . . ." he trailed off, leaving Lucifer to finish.
"I would say no, and he would cut into my skin with a knife," Lucifer responded flatly. What a stupid line of questioning. How did he expect that scenario to go, exactly?
"And you never told him yes?"
"Do you think if I had told him yes, he would have stabbed me where it counted and left me for dead?" he snapped in return. "No. I said no every time. I would never betray the detective." This last past was muttered, almost just to himself.
"Right. Tell me about your final day there, then. You said that's when most of the major injuries happened?" Lucifer sighed, mind flashing back to that day. He sifted through the photos laid out on the desk, pulling out a few of the top moments of his time with Uriel.
"The shoulder was for talking back. This one was because he knew he was losing. When he started to doubt himself, he got more violent. The ankle was somewhere in the middle, on the second day, not the third. He got frustrated with the lack of progress he was making, I think." Lucifer pointed to pictures of each injury as he talked about it, sliding them back across the table to the investigators while he told them the details. "And this . . . well, this is what happened when the LAPD knocked on the door," he said softly, remembering the pain, the shock at what his brother had done. The fear, that he hadn't felt in a long, long time. And the relief, when he saw Chloe again.
"—star. Mr. Morningstar," the investigator said loudly, snapping Lucifer out of his memories. "Are you with us?"
"Yes. Yes, of course, my apologies." Lucifer looked them in the eyes, but his thoughts were elsewhere.
"Tell us about the IV in your arm." Lucifer tensed up, drawing in a sharp breath.
"It was there when I woke up in the basement, and still there when I woke up in the hospital."
"How did it make you feel?" he pressed. Weak. Useless.
"Tired," Lucifer chose his word carefully. "Although who knows, that very well could have been the staying awake for three days and being tortured bit." Again, he got lost in his thoughts. The IV was the part that didn't make sense to him. He was already chained, Uriel had Azrael's blade. What was the point of the IV? It couldn't have done anything else for Uriel.
Unless it wasn't meant to help Uriel. There was a chance that he had used it for the sole purpose of getting under Lucifer's skin—both literally and figuratively. Uriel knew that free will was Lucifer's biggest—
"Mr. Morningstar." It was clear that the investigators had been trying to get his attention for a while now, and he gave them a blank look, gears still turning in his head as he worked out the IV problem.
"Yes? Any other questions for me?" he asked, wiping any and all emotion from his face.
"No, that's all for now. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Morningstar. You're free to go." Without another word, Lucifer stood and swiftly exited the room and the precinct, not stopping until he was back at Lux, bent over the bar with a drink clutched tightly in his hand.

~~~

Chloe and Dan stood in shocked silence behind the two-way mirror. Dan's arms were crossed in front of his body, and Chloe gripped the windowsill tightly, just staring as the investigators tried to get Lucifer's attention. She wanted nothing more than to walk in there and help, to bring him back from whatever memory he was lost in. All she could do was watch helplessly as he came back, and stood to leave the room. Chloe immediately went for the door to follow him, but Dan grabbed her arm, and she turned to look at him in confusion.
"He can never know that we heard that," he reminded her, and she sighed and nodded, knowing that he was right. It had been Dan's idea to come in here, and Chloe had barely argued, guiltily ignoring Lucifer's obvious request for privacy. She had to know what had happened before they got there, and she wasn't sure Lucifer would ever tell her if she didn't hear it now. She could tell that Dan felt the same way.
"Right. Thanks, Dan." She opened the door and let it shut behind her, calling Lucifer's name as he left the precinct as quickly as he could, never turning back.