The Sound of Silence

Chapter 19

You panted against the pain when the shocks finally ended moaning softly as you fought back sobs. It was presumably once the van was far enough away from the battle. You tried not to move, tried to avoid drawing attention to yourself. You didn't want shocked again just for breathing.

Your mind whirled, focusing not on how to escape; that was impossible at this juncture, but instead on the abduction. How had they gotten you away from the team without anyone trying to help you? Had someone betrayed you? That seemed unlikely, they were all super heroes, but your mind had to consider the possibilities anyway.

Bruce had been too far out of it from the change back from the Hulk; it had been a particularly hard transition this time and the gas had taken him out before the Hulk could reappear. The jet had been too far away from the battle and was out of sight. The team had trusted you and Bruce to be safe because the Hulk liked you and it was incredibly difficult to get past him, even after just changing back to Bruce. The skirmish had been too quiet for your friends to hear; you and Bruce were both taken down by the gas. Your friends would have been expecting to hear the Hulk roar or your screams if you were in danger. And... and...the abductors were dressed as SHIELD agents. No one would have looked too closely at the agents bringing one last enhanced to the prison van. You could have been walked right past Captain America and he might not have looked closely enough to tell it was you under the hood.

They probably hadn't found out that anything was wrong until they found Bruce in the snow outside the jet.

Loki would come soon. You still wore the locket he gave you, you never took it off. He would come, most likely as soon as the van stopped moving and he could get a clear lock on where you were.

The hood over your head was removed after you came to the conclusion that the team hadn't betrayed you. They'd been tricked too. You saw that the other prisoners were already unhooded. They were also unbound and had started congratulating and talking among themselves. They had all been in on the trap too, it seemed.

"Search her," the agent who seemed to be in charge barked the order.

"Right, you remember what Loki said about the token he gave her," someone else added. You blanched. They'd been spying on you since at least the first day of school. That was the only time Loki had ever mentioned how token worked. They had to have been planning this for months.

"Don't say his name!" Agent In-charge hissed. "To speak the name is to summon the man." You fought to avoid rolling your eyes. Loki wasn't Voldemort, though their fear of his arrival indicated that he was equally terrifying to these people.

You kept your head down, trying to keep your hair over your face and neck. You wanted to hide the Loki's locket, keep it out of sight behind your hair. It was of no use, of course, they would find it, but you hoped it would be after Loki got a lock on your location. A female agent searched you, searched your pockets before she saw the necklace under the combination of your hair and the shock collar. She ripped it from your neck. You watched her open it with a carefully blank expression.

"This is it," she told Agent In-charge when she saw the lock of Loki's hair inside the locket. She snapped it back shut again and handed it to him.

"Good. We're almost at the rendezvous." Agent In-charge turned his attention back to you. "You're going to do exactly what you're told, Prophet, unless you want shocked into next week. SHIELD may not have known how to deal with such a commodity, but we do. And maybe, if you can learn to behave this time, we won't even have to treat you like we did in The Raft. Yes, we've been waiting to get you back since then," he added at your shocked expression. You finally recognized him as one of the men who had used your abilities in the prison. "But SHIELD had you tucked away in that tower with those freaks, and even when you did venture out into the world, it was always under the close eye of that troublesome boyfriend of yours, so we've had quite the chore to reacquire you. We won't make the mistake of losing you again." You refused to remain property, or with them. You'd have to bide your time, but they would make a mistake. There would be an opportunity to escape. You would just have to bide your time until they dropped their guard or the others could find you, whichever came first.

"I don't think you're stupid, stubborn maybe, but not stupid. So I'm going to tell you exactly what is going to happen," he paused to make sure he had your undivided attention. "When the van stops, you are going to come with me to the waiting car with no fuss, no fighting, no arguments of any kind. If you behave, you get to sit in the car like a person. If you fuck this chance up, you'll be shoved in the trunk and very lucky if you're not shocked the entire trip to our next destination. Do you understand?" he demanded. You nodded meekly and didn't even have to feign terror. You tried to convince yourself that you were just playing along, biding time, but you were terrified and in pain. You'd do almost anything to keep yourself from any more pain.

The van stopped and Agent In-charge pulled you to your feet and kept a hand firmly around your upper arm. You couldn't manage to get up on your own with your arms bound behind you. Agent In-charge handed your locket to one of the men. "Wait until her friends show up. If it's just him, try to take him out here; if you can't defeat him, or if it's all of them, Jones, you drive south with that as fast as you can, that'll draw his attention, keep him off of our trail,"

"Yes, sir," the man with your locket replied, but sounded nervous. He didn't want to face Loki's wrath.

"Hydra appreciates your sacrifice, Jones," Agent In-charge said. What was Hydra? Hadn't Cap mentioned something about it at some point? You couldn't remember.

A moment later, he was out of the van, dragging you with him. "Walk, or you go in the trunk," he ordered in a hiss. You walked. There was a car and a second van in the parking lot the rendezvous was taking place in. Jones got in the other van alone, prepared to act as decoy. You felt your hope plummet with how well they had planned this out. Agent In-charge led you to the waiting car, opened the door, and pushed you inside. The woman who had searched you got in the back of the car with you, and Agent In-charge got in the passenger's seat.

"Drive," Agent In-charge ordered the driver. The car sped off at once. "Careful, we don't want to get pulled over." He told the driver, who slowed some, obviously trying to obey the speed limit. Of course they didn't want the cops to see a bound and gagged girl in the backseat of the car. That might be a little suspicious.

You yelped in surprise and pain when the shock collar went off again. "Now, Smith," Agent In-charge ordered the woman in the back seat with you. She jabbed your neck with a needle. You hadn't even seen her move, too distracted by pain. "Can't have you know where we're going and figure out how to tell that boyfriend of yours," Agent In-charge said as the shock ended.

*

The world faded away in a matter of moments, but not before the stab with the needle opened you to the visions. You couldn't speak the visions you saw, but you saw them clearly enough, though you couldn't be sure if it was a drugged dream, or a true vision

You saw Loki appear in the parking lot the rendezvous had taken place in. He fought with some of the enhanced with an efficient brutality you had never seen before. You saw most of the group jump into the original van and both vans sped off in opposite directions.

It was only a teleport for him to appear in Jones' van. It took only a moment for him to realize he'd been tricked, that your locket was there, but you weren't. He was in the passenger seat of the van, smiling pleasantly at Jones an instant later. "Where have you hidden my darling?" he asked equally pleasantly while he played with one of his daggers. Jones just looked terrified of the pleasantly, though psychotically smiling man beside him. Loki's pleasantry in this situation was way more frightening than his obvious rage.

"F-Far f-from here," Jones stuttered. He chomped on something in his mouth and was nearly instantly foaming from the mouth as death took him.

He'd chosen to kill himself rather than let Loki kill him.

It was probably a faster cleaner death.