Without A Trace

Chapter Four: Mutual Strength

Chapter 4   Mutual Strength
 
 
Orlando lay on his side curled up on the bed, knees drawn to his chest, his face buried in the pillow.  He was now chained to the headboard of the bed with only one shackle encircled around his right wrist and he was still naked.  Although he was thankful for the lack of restraints, he had begged for his clothes but was abruptly denied by Len with a cruel retort of being more sexually pleasing to his captors’ eyes nude.  He hadn’t pressed the issue afraid that he’d receive a repeat of his earlier abuse by the two men.
 
Denver and Len had left the room right after Len had taken him roughly the second time no doubt spurred on by the conversation the man had had with Viggo.  It probably gave the man a satisfying sense of control to be able to rape Orli without the young actor’s lover being able to do anything about it. Len had gained great satisfaction in hearing Mortensen’s pained sobs at listening to Orlando’s cries of pain over the phone earlier as Denver had taken him without restraint.  That second time had hurt Orlando physically.  He was bleeding now and he was sure he had been torn inside.  He’d felt his body give painfully under the brutal attack, for Len had not prepared him, nor given his body time to adjust to the relentless thrusts.  When Orlando had cried out against the searing pain Len had casually slapped a cupped palm over Orli’s mouth muting his despairing moans of agony.  He’d been unchained after, save his right wrist, and left alone in the room.  He had no idea how much time had passed but at one point Denver had entered the room and without a word had set a plate of sandwiches on the bed right next to Orlando’s head and settled a large glass of water on the nearby nightstand well within the young Brit’s reach.  Orlando did not move but watched silently, his large brown eyes following Denver’s every action, as Denver served the food and water, and once again left the room quietly closing the door after himself.
 
Orlando’s ankle was throbbing again, and his abdomen kept spasming occasionally sending sharp pains throughout his lower body.  He let his eyes trail to the plate of food but ignored the pangs of hunger and shoved the plate away.  Why give his kidnappers the satisfaction of seeing him eat like a submissive dog that had grown used to constant mistreatment, willing to eat forgivingly, whatever its abusive master brought it. He had no doubt in his mind that Len would feel victorious in seeing Orlando eat.  A sure sign, to Orli anyway, that he was accepting their harsh brutal treatment. 
 
Orlando turned his thoughts to his Viggo now, how heartbroken the older man had sounded when Orli had been allowed to speak to him.  It had torn at his heart having to describe everything Denver had been doing to him.  Had been very hard to hear his love try to stifle his sobs in an attempt to sound strong for Orli, but the young man hadn’t been fooled.  He’d heard every pitchy tone in the older actor’s voice as the man tried to assure him that every thing would be alright.  That he’d rescue him.  Orlando gulped back a sob and buried his face into the pillow to try and stave off the burning threat of tears as he thought of how soft and kind Viggo’s voice sounded in his ear as Denver had used him. Orli had clung to that voice to save his soul as his body was ravaged. Viggo was a very soft, gentle man and although the rape had been physically and emotionally taxing for Orlando, the brown haired younger man knew it was shredding Viggo’s soul right to the core.  He knew it would haunt his lover for the rest of his life as much as this rape would haunt him.  He just hoped that once the men were done with him, his death would be quick and merciful and Viggo would be able to move on. 
 
Orlando curled tighter in on himself and let the tears and sobs flow freely as he wondered what would eventually happen to him and how Viggo would react to his murder.  He hoped that the rest of the cast would be there for the older man.  He knew he would be…….in spirit.
 

 
 
In the suburbs of Wellington, Elijah and Viggo sat quietly on chairs at the kitchen table in front of the laptop computer screen.  As soon as Viggo had pulled himself together emotionally, he’d phoned the young American and without saying why, asked if he could come over.  Elijah sensed that the ruggedly handsome man was holding something back so he promptly agreed stating that Viggo was always welcome into his home regardless of whatever the time was.  It was 11:46 p.m. now, and they both waited anxiously for the expected e-mail.
 
Viggo had arrived two hours ago, knocked, and stood on the steps waiting nervously for Elijah to open the door.  When said door opened, Elijah quickly stepped back and let Viggo in.  Without a word, Elijah gripped the tall man by the arm and pulled him into a strong embrace. Viggo broke down immediately, sobbing against Elijah’s shoulder.  “They called this morning….” He started to explain brokenly. “Two men grabbed him and are holding him….”
 
 Elijah silently hugged the older man tighter not rushing the conversation by asking questions.  After a few moments, Viggo gently pulled away, quickly wiped his tears and elaborated. “They have Orli and I need access to a computer.  They’re going to send an e-mail with instructions for what they want.”
 
“Come sit down.” Elijah encouraged as he walked into the frontroom and offered the older man a seat.  Viggo flopped down into the nearest chair and dropped his head down into his hands.  His exhaustion was more than obvious to Elijah. When he’d answered the door, the first thing he noticed was how drawn and strained the large Dane looked.  His swollen red eyes were black underneath, his hair had not been combed and he hadn’t shaved or bothered to clean up.
 
Elijah settled down on the edge of the coffee table right in front of Viggo and placed a gentle hand to the man’s knee. “Did they give you any indication of where they might be located?” he asked softly.
 
Viggo let out a shuddered breath and shook his head, keeping his face buried in his hands. “I have no idea where they are and they used Orlando’s cell so I have no lead there.”
 
“This e-mail? When are they planning on sending it? Did the bastards give you a time?”
 
Viggo slowly raised his head to meet Elijah’s concerned gaze. “Midnight. Tonight. I’m sorry I gave them your address but I didn’t know what else to do…….they didn’t give me a choice.”
 
Elijah shook it off. “Don’t apologize.  I could care less as long as it gives us something to go on. What about the police? Maybe-“
 
“No!” Viggo gasped eyes wide.  Elijah started for a moment from Viggo’s desperate plea but quickly composed himself.  The older actor tried to relax and sorrow flooded his blue eyes again. “I said I wouldn’t.” he added barely above a whisper. He looked down at his hands as he picked at his finger nail absently. “They warned me not too or they’d hurt him.”
 
Elijah gave Viggo’s knee a squeeze and the man looked up at him questioningly.
 
 “Do you….” he swallowed hard obviously uncomfortable then continued carefully. “……do you think they’ll kill Orli?” Elijah asked.
 
Tears welled up in Viggo’s eyes. “I don’t know Elijah.” He choked out. “But I heard them……heard what they did to him.” His face contorted in pain as the tears overflowed and trickled down his cheeks. “They raped him!” he forced out in a strangled gasp. “They raped him and it was bad enough that I heard it but they made him describe it to me!”
 
Elijah’s jaw dropped in shock.
 
“You should have heard him!” Viggo weeped. “The pain he was going through.  I couldn’t be there for him!  I should have been there!  Christ, I never felt so helpless, Elijah. So useless.”
 
Elijah was at a loss for words.  For the first time in his life, he figured.  He had no idea what to say to the usually strong logical man sitting in front of him.  He gave Viggo’s knee another reassuring squeeze and slowly got to his feet.  “I’ll make some coffee and set up the laptop.”  He started for the kitchen keeping his back to Viggo, trying to hide the tears in his own eyes.  As he reached the doorway to the kitchen, he paused momentarily. “I’m sorry, Vig.” He spoke quietly then turned and faced one of his best friends. “We’ll get the sons of bitches.  We’ll figure something out.”
 
For the next two hours they sat with the computer on the table.  Neither one of them said much, each of them lost in their own thoughts as they waited for the message.  Viggo nursed his fifth cup of coffee and Elijah aimlessly kept hitting the space bar on his keyboard every time the screen saver kicked in.  He kept track of the time mentally as he did it.  His screen saver was set to appear every ten minutes and he’d hit the space bar five times now.  Fifty minutes.  A little more than ten minutes to go now….
 
“Orlando will never be the same.” Viggo said flatly, staring blankly at the wall across from him. “My Orli…..if I get him back, will never be the same.”  He let his gaze slide to the smaller man beside him. “They’re hurting him and there’s fuck all I can do!” With that remark Viggo slammed his coffee mug down so hard onto the table top, the coffee slopped over the rim scalding his fingers and the handle broke clean off the cup.  If he’d burned himself, Elijah didn’t notice.  The man didn’t flinch.  Instead, Viggo pushed the chair he was sitting on back roughly enough that the feet squealed against the linoleum as he got to his feet.  He stepped over to the sink, grabbed the wash cloth went back and started mopping up the mess.
 
“Vig-“  Elijah started but the Dane cut him off.  “Our fun, open, happy go lucky Orlando, will never be the same.”  He tossed the cloth in the general direction of the sink and looked down at the boy. “When they took him, Elijah, I could hear a part of his soul die.  I could tell by the tone of his voice.  He sounded detached….distant. Even if they don’t kill him, a part of who he is died this morning as I spoke to him.  As they raped him.”  He was then deep in thought momentarily. “I should have never left the set last night.  I should have waited for him, not left him alone.”
 
“It’s not your fault, Viggo.  Orlando should have been safe.  Hell, everyone on this Earth shouldn’t have to fear for their lives.  It’s sick bastards like these two who make it unsafe to walk home at night, or go to a movie, but what’s happened to Orlando is not your fault.  They’ve obviously been stalking him for some time or they wouldn’t have got him when he was alone.  If they hadn’t got him last night it would have been some other night but the sick fucks still would have got him. We’ll get him back.” Elijah was trying to convince himself as well as the Dane standing beside him. “We’ll get him back and we’ll help him pick up the pieces.  We’ll get him the help he’ll need and we’ll be there for him.  Orli is resilient he’ll overcome this.  He’s that kind of person.”  Elijah grabbed Viggo by the wrist and looked him right in the eyes. “Let’s just get him back first.”
 
The computer’s toned beep gave them notice that mail had arrived.  Elijah flew to his chair and quickly read the incoming e-mail address.  Viggo stepped behind the young man and bent over his shoulder peering at the screen.
 
Elijah glanced back at the Dane to see his reaction then turned his gaze back to the computer. “I’d have to say it’s them.  This is strange, an e-mail address usually consists of a name at least…this is just a sequence of numbers.”
 
“How’d they do that?” The older man inquired.
 
Elijah shrugged and clicked the message.  He shifted out of the chair and putting his hand on Viggo’s hip guided him to sit down in his now vacant seat.
 
Viggo scanned the message.  It was them.  Len, it appeared, demanded forty million dollars to be dropped off at a remote beach front pier on the outskirts of Wellington by 9:00 p.m. Wednesday evening.  He had four days to do it.  It was Saturday now so that meant he had to come up with a substantial amount of cash in a very short period of time.  If he did everything requested, the kidnappers promised that Orlando would be dropped off in a secluded area that same night for the older man to pick up. Once the money was safely in the captors’ hands Viggo would find a map left for him at a nearby phone booth which would lead him to where they’d left the British actor.  If Viggo didn’t do it, he promised that Orlando would not be found alive and if Len felt generous enough to leave them a body to find.
 
Elijah pointed over the older actor’s shoulder to the tool bar at the top of the screen. “There’s attachments.  Looks like pictures.”
 
Viggo’s gaze followed the young man’s finger to the small icons at the top of the page.   He moved the cursor up and clicked on the first picture.  The large picture took up most of the computer screen and Elijah gasped at the sight.  The image was of Orlando lying flat on his back on a bed, naked and chained by his wrists to the head of the bed somewhere.  His arms were pulled taught over his head which was thrown back against the pillows, his mouth open and eyes squeezed shut.  Obvious pain was etched across his beautiful features and his long chestnut curls were messed out about the pillow around his head.  Elijah let his eyes trail down the length of Orli’s outstretched body, and a man was kneeling between Orlando’s wide spread legs, his member deeply buried inside the young actor’s body.  The kidnapper had one hand splayed on Orli’s hip and the other was grasping Orlando’s cock clearly stroking him to a forced climax.  The captor’s head had carefully been omitted from the picture from the shoulders up in a careful attempt to keep his identity unknown to the viewers of the picture.
 
Viggo let out a choked sob and blinded by his tears, tried to navigate the cursor up to close the picture again.  His heart beat rapidly in his chest as he thought of how his young lover would feel knowing that others had viewed the picture.  His shaking hand prevented him for getting the hateful image off the screen so with silent empathy, Elijah reached in front, gently placed his hand over the older actor’s and carefully guided it up and helped him close out the picture.
 
Without a word, Viggo opened the second picture.  This one was more disturbing then the first.  Although it was much the same, this time it was a different man and he was also in the middle of raping Orlando.  This man’s hands were curled tightly around Orli’s throat, his thumbs up under the Brit’s jaw forcing his head back to expose his neck to a better grip.  Orlando’s eyes were wide in shock, his hands grasping the chains of his shackles in a desperate attempt to endure the strangulation or try to escape it.  Elijah didn’t know which.  Orli’s legs were tautly tied back against the bed and bent at the knee to hinder his kicking the rapist.  His back was arched straining up from the mattress as if trying to buck the man off him.
 
Suddenly, Viggo’s mournful cry broke the young American from his study of the picture and he turned to look down at the Dane whose face was hidden in the palms of his hands.
 
“I will castrate these bastards!”  He wailed angrily to no one in particular “I will make them writhe!” Then in a grief ridden tone barely above a whisper, he added. “My poor, sweet angel.  What have you ever done to deserve this? My beautiful, gorgeous, Orlando.”  Then for the first time ever, that Elijah remembered, Viggo broke down completely, his hitching sobs and soft mutterings breaking the deadly silence in the house.
 
Elijah didn’t know what to do.  This was far more than they could handle alone.  They needed help.  But who?  Elijah gave Viggo’s trembling shoulder a gentle squeeze and was about to tell the older man this, when Viggo quickly gathered his emotions, closed the picture out and opened the next one.
 
This one was a video and it had definitely been shot at the same time as the second picture had been taken.  Both actors stared in horror as they watched the clip start to play even before it had completely loaded.
 
Orlando was jerking his wrists against his chains begging for the man to stop as the kidnapper curled his hands around his throat and slowly choked off the young actor’s cries and pleas as he thrust hard into the body beneath him.  Orlando’s chocolate brown eyes widened in terror when his air was cruelly taken from him and he arched his back in a futile attempt to loosen the man’s grip from his neck.  Not breaking his rhythmic thrusts, the man bent down over the lithe body and, using his thumbs, forced Orli’s head back to expose the front of his throat and bit him there.  Orli visibly stiffened against the new pain.  Viggo caught the heavy set man’s hair color, as he came into view, and promised himself to back the video up to get a better look after he’d watched the video completely.  Orlando’s plaintive cry drew Viggo back to the complete picture.  The kidnapper now straightened up somewhat and keeping one hand tightly clasp around the Brit’s throat, shifted the other one down between Orlando’s legs and grabbed the erect member there and started to stroke it roughly from root to tip as he continued to rape him.  Orlando’s body shuddered against the touch and his whimper of protest was choked off abruptly as the hand on his neck tightened.  The man spoke then, his voice gritty, low and demanding. “Come for me you lovely slut.  I know you want this.” then sharply as he gave Orli’s cock a firm stroke. “C’mon!”   For the next few minutes not a sound in the room was made other then the rattling of the chains as Orlando twisted against them. Not many moments later, the young Brit’s body bristled against the ministrations and he trembled then came.  His semen visibly flowing over the kidnapper’s tight fist.  The man then leaned down and caught Orli’s slack lips in a bruising kiss, still keeping hold of him by the throat.  “Good whore.” He praised in mock affection after breaking the kiss. “Liked that, didn’t you.” He grinned and continued his deep penetration into the body under him.  He then pushed back out of the video frame and let go of the young actor’s throat.  Orlando drew in a deep shaky breath and started coughing.  The video ended there.
 
Viggo vowed to keep his emotions in check until he replied to the e-mail but it was almost beyond his ability.  Although he managed to keep from a total break down, tears were coursing down his cheeks when he turned to the dumb-struck youth standing next to him.  “How do I respond to this e-mail?” he choked out as he suppressed his sobs.
 
Elijah turned his own tear stained eyes to the older actor. “Reply button at the top.” He said in a flat shocked tone.  Then he seemed to suddenly snap out of it. “Viggo, what are you gonna tell them?”
 
“Whatever they want to hear.” The Dane answered as he started to key in his response. “I don’t care if I walk away a broken poor man as long as I get Orlando away from those sick sons of bitches.”
 
Elijah watched Viggo key in his agreement to their demands and plead for them not to hurt Orlando any more than they already had.  He promised to be on time with the money and not go to the police.  Then he sent his response.
 
“Viggo, maybe we’d better get the police in-“
 
“No!” Viggo snarled as he swung around in the chair and faced Elijah. “I will do nothing to endanger Orlando’s life!  I want him back! I want him safe in my arms again! I want to-“ he fought his sobs now. “I want to feel him next to me in our bed every night, and smell his sweetness!  Hear that soft bloody British accent of his as he says good night!” he shook his head as he started to cry, hard. “I don’t care if it costs me every penny I’ve ever earned to be gifted with him again.  I want him back and away from those sick bastards.”  With that, Viggo lost the battle and broke down completely, sobbing uncontrollably.  He turned away from the young man and buried his face in his hands as he cried broken heartedly. “How many times have they done this to him already?” he wailed. “H-how many times have they choked him and raped him?  H-he can’t even protect himself!” he turned to look at Elijah again, all the horror, pain, and fear evident in his expression. “He can’t even stop them or tell them to quit!  They chained him up, Elijah!  He can’t even defend himself!”
 
Elijah just looked at Viggo, stifling his sobs, tears streaking his cheeks as well.  How could he answer that?  Orlando was his best friend but Viggo was Orlando’s lover.  It didn’t matter how much the young American loved the Brit, it paled in comparison to the deep love that Orli and Viggo shared.   He could not begin to fathom all the feelings that the Dane held for Orli but he could understand Viggo wanting to comply with the kidnapper’s demands in hope of getting his lover back safely.  He just knew they couldn’t do this alone. He also did not trust the kidnappers.  They needed help, and more importantly, support and if not from the police then from someone else they could trust to keep it quiet and not endanger Orlando’s life by going off half cocked to the police.
 
Viggo fought his emotions back under control again.  Getting so upset that he couldn’t think straight was not going to do Orlando any good.  He had to get himself on track and concentrate.  He couldn’t handle this alone and to expect Elijah to carry him and his emotions through this was not even rational.  He needed help.  He looked Elijah squarely in the eyes.  “Call Bean and get him over here.”
 
Suddenly the computer chirped indicating that an e-mail came and judging by the numerical address, it had to be the kidnappers. 
 
Viggo opened it.  One word appeared: Agreed.