no rest for the wicked [jason todd]

forty three

"SO, THIS IS THE GIRL?"

A man asked, sitting behind his chair, his fingers linked together. His voice was gravelly and demanding, the voice of a leader who'd done this all too many times to have any emotion. He leaned back in that comfy as hell, squeaky leather chair and then opened up a tab on his computer. Through the window, he could see to a camera where a blonde girl was, messy hair and tired eyes. She was passed out on a small cot-like bed, mouth open.

In another tab that he pulled up, a black haired man had his hands tied behind his back, a cloth tied around his head and in his mouth. He was on his knees and he was, in fact, awake. Instead of doing anything else, his eyes were fluttering slightly and scanning his surroundings, probably looking for a way out.

They did use to call him Boy Hostage, after all, or was it Boy Wonder?

The man laughed to himself as his fingers danced over the keys of his computer, looking up to his employee still standing there patiently, awaiting orders. "Get the girl some food," he told him, "we want that baby to survive, don't we? It could be useful in the future."

The employee nodded quickly and left just in time, a ringing started on the man's phone to his left. Tiredly, he picked up the phone and put it on speaker, saying, "Hello, Wilson. I have your boy if you'd like to come to retrieve him, he was a bit of a hassle to get to. Took a lot of my men to get him, so I can't promise he's in an apt condition, but you said nothing about conditions other than his life be spared."

"I should have clarified," the other man said, "no worries, Rome, 'least you got 'im. Get what you were looking for too? The girlie?"

There was a brief pause and Roman eyed her condition on the monitor, nodding. "I did," he agreed, a smirk forming on his lips now, "I'm sure Hood will have words for me, but that is if he can find me in time before we move her to the next location."

"Mm," Slade said with a little hum, seemingly preoccupied with something else, "I wouldn't wait too long for that. Don't underestimate those Bat Brats, you know how well he trained them. Not even that, but if the others find out you've got her, they might be interested in using her against Hood as well. Guy's wronged a lot of people, you know." 

"Do I ever," Roman replied, turning away from the computer and picking up his phone as he approached the glass window to stare out of it. "I'll send you the address you can pick Grayson up from, I'm sure he'll be glad to see you, even if it takes a little bit of... Convincing, you might say." He paused, smirking out at the city now. He could have it all if Hood was gone, all of it. "We'll rule this city, Wilson. I'll rule this city."

Disinterested, Slade scoffed. "I've got a bottle of scotch to finish and a boy to pick up, so if you'll hurry along and get me that location, Sionis, we can finally part ways."

"Always the impatient one, Slade," Roman replied, turning back toward his computer and sending off the text to Slade with the address to pick up the former Boy Wonder. "You should be receiving the address. Pleasure doing business with you."

The other man sighed. "Not back at you," he said after a moment, "but yeah, Rome, thanks for this."

The phone call finally ended and Roman glanced back to see the girl starting to wake up on the screen, a tray on the ground near her cot. He watched her stretch her arms out and fingers found the collar around her neck, a gasp escaping her lips. It was electronic and Roman knew it was there. A tracker, a shocker -- it was a lot of things. 

Even if she got the collar off, however, there was a chip in her arm she wouldn't know about to send her location right to his desk. He wouldn't be able to lose her.

He debated whether he'd get up to go see her or not and decided against it, figuring she'd be much too angry to speak to him. Instead, he turned up his volume to hear her scramble around like a scared cat. 

Which wasn't what Tye did at all.

She fiddled with the collar for a moment and was surprised that after pressing down on a button, a shock jolted her entire body. She jerked her hand away, figuring that for the baby's and her own sake that she would avoid the hell out of that button. She shifted, glancing throughout the room. No windows, probably an underground room. There was steaming food, hot, which meant there was something akin to a kitchen.

There was a cot and combined with the food, it meant they wanted to keep her alive. There was no bathroom and a security camera was hung up in the corner. She avoided looking at it head-on to play dumb and feign ignorance.

She was wearing the tank top she usually wore as an undershirt and a pair of shorts, which means someone had gotten their grimy hands on her to shimmy her out of her uniform pants and into these. She internally grimaced and then figured that Dick might be somewhere around. Cool stone pressed against her knees and she shifted, taking a deep breath. The door seemed heavy, maybe something akin to steel.

She was locked up and considering the hooks for chains in the room, she wasn't the first person to be trapped in this room. She hoped she wouldn't be the first to die, or that she would die at all. She instinctively reached to touch her stomach but withdrew, and instead, she was focusing on a bruise she knew was on her upper thigh.

 If they didn't know she was pregnant already, she didn't need to give that away to people that wanted her dead.