Misfortune ( Lin Manuel Miranda )

Chapter 13

Vanessa wakes to the smell of must and a cold floor.

She slowly opens her eyes and blinks a few times, lifting her head to see dried blood on the concrete floor beneath.

As Vanessa slowly sits up she feels scratchy rope around her wrists, connected to a pipe behind her.

Then she sees Lin across the room.

"Lin!" She says, and Lin jumps awake, his eyes lighting up.

"Vanessa!"

-~-

Lin isn't quite sure where he finds the strength to stand and run to the other side of the room, collapsing down next to his wife so that they can meet in a sort of hug, craving physical contact from each other.

"I thought they killed you. I thought they were just going to hand me your body and-"

"Shh, V, it's ok. We're alive. We'll get out of this, ok?" Lin says as calmly as he can, even though not one part of him is calm.

He kisses Vanessa's head repeatedly, doesn't even hear the door at the top of the stairs open.

"The love birds reunite at last." Ross says, snickering.

Lin's blood boils as he spins around, "Leave her out of this!" He yells.

"I don't think you're in a position of telling us what to do." James says darkly, approaching Lin.

He abruptly grabs Lin's upper arm and yanks him away, dragging him back to the other side of the room.

"No! Stop, leave him alone!" Vanessa yells, and Lin struggles against James before he is thrown once again to the ground, his head cracking back against it.

"That's cute." James says, turning back to face Vanessa.

"Lin, you never mentioned how beautiful your wife was. Pictures don't do you justice, love." James says, sauntering back towards Vanessa as chills rack through her body.

"Don't you fucking dare." Lin threatens, his words slurred as he sits up once again, leaning against the wall to keep himself up.

James steps up to Vanessa, squatting so that he is eye level. He reaches out his hand and Vanessa spits in his face, a feeling of pride welling up inside Lin- that's my girl.

James grits his teeth together and wipes it off his face, laughing.

"Robert," he says, holding out his hand.

Robert steps up and places a knife in James' hand.

James twirls it in his fingers before roughly grabbing Vanessa's throat, resting the knife roughly against her cheek as Lin screams in the back ground.

"You shouldn't have done that." James says, sighing as he quickly slices the knife across her cheek.

Vanessa screams as Lin helplessly watches on, trying desperately to work his hands out of the ropes.

He needs to do something or neither of them will make it out alive.

-~-

Jon drives further and further down the windy, no houses or cars in sight, only dark woods and that bridge over the river he drove over a couple miles back.