Chapter Text
Mark Reed sat in the back of the police car, trying to find a position that didn’t crush his hands behind his back.
It wasn’t something new for him, but the cuffs dug into his skin in a way that was more painful than usual, and he couldn’t sit still, even if he tried. The officer in the front seat kept glancing at him too, eyes darting between him and the road in the rear view mirror.
“So, uh, you come here often?” he asked.
The officer snorted, clearing his throat violently, and twisted in his seat to slide the partition between them closed. Mark gave him a glare through the smudged plastic.
“Ass,” he muttered.
It really wasn’t his first time being arrested. Mark had the routine down to a perfected art. Endure the painfully awkward trip to the station. Refuse to answer questions. Say he wanted his lawyer. Call up the rest of his crew and have one of them act like his legal counsel. And then it was a ride to freedom.
Mark leaned back against the seat, shifting his hips forward and managing to find a position that allowed him just a bit of comfort. He looked out the window, since conversation with the officer was out of the question now, watching the passing lights of the late-night city as they traveled downtown.
He even knew the city like the back of his hand. His home turf. The streets that he had grown up in and had treated him fairly well. Every turn and sign and dive bar. Places he knew he could get a free meal and other places where he knew people wouldn’t be watching their pockets that much.
He was mostly confused when the cruiser idled at a light, before taking a left rather than the right that would take it to the station Mark knew all-too-well.
He sat up in the seat, frowning, and double checking his streets to make sure he wasn’t mistaken.
No, the directions were indeed wrong. With a click of a blinker, the cruiser turned onto a highway that curved out of town, taking Mark away from the glowing lights of the city and the bustling population that he usually got lost in.
“Hey,” he said, trying to catch the officer’s eye in the mirror.
The officer snorted again, clearing his throat in the grossest way possible, and pulled his sunglasses over his eyes, avoiding looking back at Mark altogether. It was fucking ten at night, who was he kidding?
“Hey!” Mark repeated, slamming a foot into the back of the officer’s seat. That got him a glare. “Where the fuck are we going?”
The officer pulled down his sunglasses an inch, looking at him over the brim of his glasses. “I think you chose the wrong house to burgle, son,” he muttered, shifting in his seat as if he were just as uncomfortable as Mark was.
Mark frowned. “What does that mean?”
He didn’t get a response.
“What the fuck does that mean?” He kicked the seat again.
The officer glared at him again without an answer, and Mark settled down into a hunched pout, glaring back with as much venom as he could muster. Apparently he wasn’t getting answers there. Fuck the cops anyway. He stared out the window again, trying not to let the officer see how his stomach was flipping with nerves.
‘Burgled the wrong house.’
What did that mean?
Mark had been running a relatively successful scam of lifting art and small bits of jewelry from the huge, millionaire houses that made up the northside neighborhoods of the massive city he lived in. The smaller bits of gold and silver could be pawned off in shops for pocket cash. The art he could either hold ransom or find someone who would take it on a market that didn’t care about where he got it from.
He knew about private collections, and he thought it was funny how rich people always fixated on the weirdest items to collect. Maybe it was the mixture of eccentricity or just the money burning a hole in their pockets, but he had gotten his hands on paintings, statures, crypto-whatever, one-of-a-kind, swear-up-and-down-it’s-priceless shit, and it had made him money .
The lights of the city faded quickly around them as the cruiser picked up speed. With its lights flashing, it got a clear road to speed down, and Mark’s stomach twisted with even more nerves. He swallowed, watching all of the cars pull off to the side of the road, deferring to the officer’s authority.
He was in some shit.
He knew it.
This wasn’t normal, and the city growing smaller and smaller behind him didn’t make him feel any better. This was unfamiliar. This was strange.
Mark liked his plans. He hadn’t planned on this.
The lights on top of the cruiser died, and then in the next couple minutes it pulled off into a dark, side road.
Mark sat up in his seat on high alert, all of his senses straining as he tried to pick out landmarks or signs or literally anything identifying in the shadows of the woods around them. The pine trees grew dense and tall on either side of the hidden road, blocking out the night sky and obscuring the full moon, the only real source of light, from view.
The car grinded to a halt in pitch blackness, the only visibility coming from the headlights shining against a tree, giving everything around the car an eerie, dim-yellow glow. They were in the middle of fucking nowhere. Mark’s wrists ached as he subconsciously strained against the metal of the handcuffs, hoping they’d somehow give so he could make his escape.
His plans. He wanted his plans.
His gaze followed the silhouetted form of the cop as he stepped out of the car, slamming the door behind him and rattling its captive. Cheek and forehead pressing against the cold glass to his left, Mark watched as the officer approached a dark, flat shape, only visible from how it reflected the car’s light. Glass. It looked like it was made of black glass, like some kind of freaky obelisk in the middle of the forest.
A high-pitched sliding noise pierced the tense silence, and an opening shifted out of the spotless, reflective wall. Meeting the cop was a tall, middle-aged woman with short brown hair, likely freshly cut to accentuate her long neck, adorned with stupidly expensive jewelry.
She said a long statement that Mark couldn’t hear, clearly elaborating on some details with the cop, but her actions spoke louder than words as she placed a metal-bound wad of cash into his hand. He said something, she laughed, and then both pairs of eyes turned around to look directly at Mark.
Mark couldn’t help but shudder, sinking down in his seat in an attempt to hide. He was struck with an uncanny sensation of something otherworldly was looking him up and down, and it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end and goosebumps crawl down his arms.
‘Burgled the wrong house.’
What the fuck had he done?
He sank deeper in his seat, trying to get as low as he could, as if that could save him now. He could see the predatory grin, like a cat who had a canary beneath its claws.
And he was the fucking bird.
The officer nodded at something, stepping to the side of the door as two more, significantly more intimidating figures squeezed past the woman and the cop. They were definitely humanoid, and Mark could recognize the bulk of padded armor and extra mass of security uniforms anywhere.
As soon as they left the dim glow of the doorway, their faceless masks with terrifying reflective glass came into view. They were covered head-to-toe in the heavy, stiff fabric of their uniforms, leaving no characteristics to identify them, and Mark panicked as they grabbed the handle of the door and ripped it open.
“Get your fucking hands off me!!” he yelled, struggling as much as he could as the gloved hands, rough and uncaring, hooked under his arms and dragged him out of the seat. “Who the fuck are you?!”
The heavy breathing behind the masks was his only answer as they dragged him away from the car towards the clinical, alien building that seemed to stretch high above his vision.
Mark screamed, yelling at the empty night sky, babbling false promises and begging for mercy as the guards dragged him along. All of his protests died in his throat as he passed the officer, hurrying back towards the car, head low and clearly doing his best to remove himself from the situation.
Mark didn’t get the chance to say anything else. Hanging between the two guards, he was dragged toward distant fluorescent lights, and the doors closed heavily behind him with a thud, trapping him inside.
Mark didn’t remember any of the twists and turns the guards took as they pulled him through the building. Pitch blackness turned to bright, white lights that nearly blinded him. The tips of his shoes dragged along the linoleum floor, squeaking from just how spotless it was. And the entire time, not a single other soul passed them.
Mark shuddered, the terrifying feeling of being alone sinking deep into his stomach.
No one knew where he was. No one was coming to help him.
After being dragged for what felt like hours, he was carried into an elevator. The heavy doors slid closed, Mark lifted his head. The entire right side of the doors was illuminated with buttons that went up thirty floors, along with five others named B1, B2, and so on. His eyebrows scrunched in total bewilderment.
His head tilted back to look at the ceiling, looking himself in the eye as the mirror above him reflected his restrained form--showed his crumpled shirt and the hair, normally gelled-up and flawless, falling into his face.
He was gonna get out of here, he thought to himself. Somehow, some way. They couldn’t keep him restrained forever.
The elevator stopped with a ding, barely shifting as it arrived at its destination. Even through the thick, metal doors, he could hear the muffled sound of people talking. Music in the distance.
The next thing he was aware of, was the security personnel slamming his chest down on the hard surface of a beautifully carved oak coffee table. The chatter from before stopped completely, but he could still hear classical music as shadows loomed over him.