Mess With Them, You Mess With Us (Chenford, Wopez ,Marper)

Part 3 - Revenge

TW - violence, kidnapping, blood

All three vehicles stopped at an abandoned warehouse, far out into the country where you could drive for miles and not see another soul. This was bad. Suddenly, Lucy, Wesley and James all felt a pair of arms grab them from underneath their shoulders and drag them out of their respective vehicles, forcing them to walk forwards, blind. Thinking quickly, Lucy started digging her heels in to the gravel as hard as she could, hoping it might leave a trail or track which could help detectives find her. She knew she would probably receive a beating for this later, but she rolled the dice in her head and decided that it could result in her rescue, so continued with her plan of action. She almost wanted to invoke a reaction, as, if she could get one of the assailants to draw blood from her, she might be able to smear it on a nearby wall or something, meaning if she did die here, someone would eventually find her blood on these walls and the men would go to jail for it. Her persistent digging of her heels into the gravel did just the trick, as one of the men whipped out a switch blade and made a small incision on her neck, warning her firmly that if she didn't start walking now, he would slice her throat open and kill her. After a sharp intake of breath, dealing with the intense stinging pain from the cut, she raised her tied hands up to the bleeding cut, trying to ensure she got some on her hands, then stumbled forwards, feeling into the unknown for some sort of wall, pillar or hard surface to print it on. Think like a detective, she thought to herself. She did indeed, bump into a corner of some sort of building to the side of her, presumably where they were walking her into. She was terrified, but pretended to lean on the side of this wall for balance momentarily, successfully putting both her fingerprints and blood on this wall in one fell swoop. She didn't know if this had even worked, but hoped to God it had. She soon felt a chill shiver down her spine as they made their way into the cinder-block building, and into a dark room. They shoved her down onto a chair, tied her arms and legs to it, then walked away. They still hadn't removed the bag on her head, so she couldn't see anything apart from complete darkness. She tried to keep her cool, sure that they would remove it at some point. Sadists like this, love to torture their victims with words as well as actions, so she knew she would get the opportunity to see them at some point. Tim's words from her rookie days echoed in her head. You have to think like a crook. This was exactly what she was doing, and she was determined she would get herself out of there. Either that, or she would manage to hold them off until she was rescued. She would really rather option A, as she didn't particularly enjoy the thought of having to be rescued again. She didn't want to be seen as a helpless victim again, she had already dealt with that once. Lucy took a deep breath, and waited in the chair for her assailants to come back.

James and Wesley walked into the warehouse willingly, out of pure fear and the fact they couldn't see where they were going. Lucy heard the footsteps coming towards her, then heard the screech of two more chairs being pulled up beside her. A small glimmer of hope appeared in her mind; if there were more kidnap victims and they were smart, they might be able to help each other escape, but, if they were incompetent and riddled with fear, it would be even harder to escape than if she was the only victim. She took a deep breath. James and Wesley, one by one, were shoved down onto the remaining chairs and tied to them. The assailants stood back for a second, chuckled to themselves, which made Lucy's blood run cold, then yanked the bags off their heads. They all snapped their heads round to look at each other, horrified. "Wesley? James?"

"Lucy?" James and Wesley both responded desperately, at the same time, before looking at each other and widening their eyes.

"Ahem! As much as we love a reunion, I'm gonna need you to shut your mouths. Otherwise, someone's throat is getting cut. I'll let you decide between you who that should be if you want to keep talking." One of the masked men said, in an eerily deep voice. "So, here's the situation. We were put in prison 8 years ago by your other halves, Bradford, Lopez and Harper, and we want revenge. They destroyed our entire operation that took years to build, killed a load of our men, and took all our product. Now we're out, we're gonna show them how it feels to have the most important thing taken from them. Any questions?"

"Uhm, I do just have one thing to say about that..." Lucy responded, her voice slightly quivering. James and Wesley stared at her in disbelief, willing her to stop talking.

"And what's that, Lucy Chen?"

"Well, me and Tim aren't together anymore, he broke up with me a while back, so hurting or killing me won't do anything to him. In fact, he hates me. You'd actually be doing him a solid by getting rid of me, because I'm getting the favouritism at the station over him. Me being around is making his life way more difficult, and he's being threatened to move to a different station away from all his friends unless he can make it less awkward between him and I at work, so, that's a big flaw in your plan. You won't make him feel any type of way by doing this to me, trust me." Lucy trailed off. The vast majority of this was all completely false; she knew Tim still cared about her and didn't hate her or want her dead, even saying these words out loud made her feel a pang of hurt in her chest, but she needed to be convincing and plant a seed of doubt in their minds about their plan. She was willing to say or do whatever it took to get them out of there. Playing mind games was all she was capable of doing, while strapped down in this chair.

"Well then, we could always just kill you anyway, and frame him for it. If he hates you as much as you're claiming, a jury would surely buy that story, right? We make it look like he did this, and he'll go to prison for murder. What's that saying about two birds and one stone?" The masked man questioned, with a sickening grin on his face, walking up to her and pressing the gun into her temple, finger poised on the trigger.

"You're forgetting that all cops have airtight alibis that can be backed up by multiple pieces of evidence, plus the fact their vehicles have authorisation to be tracked wherever they go, there is nothing that places him here. Do you really think this is the first time someone has tried to frame a cop for something? There are procedures in place that prevent it from happening." Lucy snapped back, terrified, but had determination in her voice. She was not willing to show her fear. Wesley and James kept quiet, but were impressed by her strength of character and how quickly she was able to think on her feet, despite the circumstances.  It gave them hope that she might just be able to get them out of there. "All I'm saying, is that you need to come up with a Plan C, because A and B won't get you the outcome you want. Why go through all this trouble, to not even get what you want out of it?" The men kept quiet. She had successfully got in their heads, for now, and bought them a bit of time. She was glad Wesley and James were there, because people would notice they hadn't come home a lot quicker than anyone would realise Lucy hadn't. Celina was on a date tonight, and even if she wasn't, she would probably just assume Lucy was in her room, sleeping. No one loved her enough to make sure she was home, safe. This realisation hurt her feelings, but that wasn't important right now. Angela and Nyla would know something was wrong when their husbands didn't come home, launch a search party, and find them. She would accidentally get rescued as part of the search team designed for James and Wes. Regardless of this hurtful epiphany, she felt relieved they were there.

Interrupting that thought, she received a blow to the face by a blunt object, and lost consciousness. The men did the same to Wesley and James: struck them across the head with a baseball bat; presumably to keep them from communicating with each other to form an escape plan. They knew Lucy was smart enough to figure one out if they let her stay awake.

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