Chapter Text
Ryland wakes more solidly and discovers to his complete horror that no, unfortunately, this was not just some incredibly vivid stress dream.
The zipties have caused his wrists to be slick with blood but there's no give. Rylands hands have long since gone numb and his shoulders ache from the strain. His head hurts so badly that he feels like he's back in his doctorate program and having spent the entire night writing a paper again with nothing but questionable energy drinks as fuel. His mouth is dry.
He peels an eye open, and to his dismay the kid is still there, maybe a foot or two from where he's open his eyes. He was hoping his mind was playing tricks on him, that she wasn't actually here. If he squints he can sort of see the way that she's curled into a ball, face in her knees. He has no clue what happened to his glasses and he decides he'll let himself fret about replacing them later.
"H-hey..." Ryland's voice is cracking from disuse, dryer than the Sahara. "Are you h-hurt?"
"No," She whispers with a soft sniff. He thinks she looks down at him, it's hard to tell when she's blurry, "You look awful."
Always something he loved to hear, but now he knows that it's got less to do with the helmet hair, lack of sleep, and coffee stains and more to do with everything else.
"I'm Mr. Grace," He says. If he can just pretend, even for a moment, that this is just another day in his class and he's introducing himself to a kid who's never met him before, it will make him seem braver, more assured than he really is. "What's... what's your name?"
"Claire." The kid says softly.
"Sorry to meet you under unideal circumstances, Claire."
Claire huffs a soft laugh at that, "You too, Mr. Grace."
Ryland manages to flip himself from his stomach onto his side, curling somewhat around his aching ribs and better able to see Claire and also breathe.
"What grade are you in?" He asks, trying to keep things light, keep heads level.
"Seventh." She answers. Ryland wonders if she's started learning about thermal energy and particle motion yet. "What, um, what did they want with you?"
Ryland truthfully has no idea. He likes to think that he's a pretty unobtrusive person aside from the whole being dragged out of UNESCO conference kicking and screaming thing. But scientists, at least in the circles Ryland used to run in, are not the kinds of people to drug and kidnap their enemies. Usually icing them out of academic circles and openly laughing at their research more than sufficed.
Beyond the science world, he's not made many enemies, he doesn't think? He's on good terms with everyone in his apartment building, including the upstairs neighbor who he's convinced goes bowling on a nightly basis. The majority of the faculty at Grover Cleveland, for reasons he's still not sure of, adore him. Even the handful of parents he gets emails from about how he can't be indoctrinating their kids by teaching them things like germ theory, evolution, and that the earth is not flat are largely harmless
And that's part of why he doesn't attempt to soothe her with platitudes like assuring her that everything will be okay, they'll be fine. He doesn't know who has taken them or why and something he always tells his students is that you can't draw conclusions without sufficient evidence.
"They grabbed me because of my uncle." Claire informs flatly and unprompted.
Ryland's stomach twists with the unfairness of it all. Claire is a kid. She should be thinking about what book she should get from the library and homework and little normal things like that. Whatever the deal is with her uncle, this should be handled by adults. "Oh, Claire..."
"You really don't know why they took you?"
Ryland shakes his head as best as he can. For the life of him he really can't put his finger on it.
"Is it becuase of Six?" Claire tries, "You... You look like him."
Oh. This Six is a person. He has a vague and fuzzy memory of saying something stupid in response to being asked about that before he'd passed out again.
"Never met a guy named Six," Ryland says, praying his voice is light and gentle sounding.
"Oh."
Ryland tries to make out as much as he's able from the room he's in. Even blurry, it's large and elegant. He can determine that much from the big windows and the gold trim.
"Where are we?"
"Croatia. I think. I thought I heard someone mention it on the plane."
Ryland feels sick to his stomach. Croatia. That's close to halfway across the world and that means he lost a lot more time than he can account for, a lot more time than he's comfortable with.
His kids are going to be worried when he doesn't show up to class. He didn't even have time to arrange a sub.
And if Ryland is this freaked out, he can't even imagine how Claire is fairing. He can't break down. Not when it's just the two of them and he's the grown up.
"Can you help me sit up a little?"
Ryland thinks he could probably manage on his own. It would take a little longer, sure, but he knows that kids, especially in times of duress, like to feel helpful. Like they're making a difference instead of being passive observers who aren't trusted with even the most basic of tasks. Whenever kids in his class are having a hard time at home, he likes to give them jobs around class. It helps, at least most of the time.
It's awkward and slow going, but together, they get Ryland into a sitting position. Claire scampers off just long enough to get a cup and some water from the bathroom and hold it up to his face. It's lukewarm and coppery but possibly the best water he has ever had.
"Thank you,"
"'Welcome," Claire says, seating herself cross-legged beside him.
He thinks she's about to ask him something, but he's never sure what it's going to be. Not after they hear footsteps down the hall and both go terribly still.
"Claire." He whispers, "Get behind me." She opens her mouth to protest, but Ryland cuts her off with a slightly desperate, "Please, Claire."
She gets behind him, and he scoots the two of them back until they're against a wall, Claire huddled behind him. Ryland tries not to shake as the footsteps get closer and closer, but he fails. Out of his brothers, he's never been the brave one like Colt or the strong one like Court.
God. Court. He should not have thought about Courtland, not when he was already in a vulnerable state. Thinking about his big brother, his other big brother, even at the best of times resulted in a lump in his throat and stinging eyes even after all this time.
This coming August would mark eighteen years since his dad, his real one, not the sperm donor, had gently woken him up and told him that something had happened to Court.
"They, um." Finley Grace had struggled with his words, his hands twisting on his lap, "They think... It was probably an aneurysm in his sleep. They- they say it would have been fast. He didn't suffer."
Ryland had stared at him uncomprehendingly. The words didn't make any sense. Courtland could not have been dead. He just couldn't have.
"I am so sorry, Ryland,"
Finley wasn't like their biological father. He would have never lied to him about something like this and he definitely would not have joked about it. He wasn't cruel for the sake of it like the man that Courtland had shot. Ryland had known that, but that was still the most logical thing he could think.He'd called his dad a liar and bolted from the room, only to scramble to Colt's room and finding him clinging to Helena, sobbing his eyes out into the fabric of her bathrobe as she rocked him back and forth.
That's when the reality had crashed down on top of him that his brother was gone. Gone and never coming back.
Ryland is drawn back into the present by the door opening, almost relieved by it until he feels Claire's small fist balling into the fabric of his shirt.
"Oh wow!" A man says, clear delight in his tone, "You really do look just like him!"
Footsteps come closer and the speaker comes more into focus.
Ryland can't make out many details beside a lightly tanned face, a mustache, and muscular arms, especially when a hand reaches out to wrap around his jaw, fingernails digging crescents into the skin of his cheek. His head is tilted, this way and that, near appraisingly.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd have figured you were the real thing,"
"What are you talking about-" Ryland keeps his voice careful and even, trying to bleach any fear from his tone. "Who even are you?"
Colt would always tell him that bullies just wanted a reaction, wanted to see that they got to you- it was part of what made Ryland, who cried when he was sad or angry or even just really happy, such an easy target in school yards. Ryland needs to keep the guy talking though, talking enough so he doesn't try to start in on Claire, just behind him.
"Hansen. Lloyd Hansen. Lets say that I'm an old pal of Sierra Six." The guy says, finally letting go of his face. "I mean, when I found out he had twin baby brothers, I was sure that you all would look at least a little alike, but wow. You sure you're not triplets?"
Ryland is a good problem solver, it's part of what made him enjoy science as much as he does, but he has no idea what this guy could be on about.
"I- we don't have an older brother-"
The man's hand grabs a handful of his hair and jerks his head to the side so hard that he gasps.
"Don't lie to me, okay, sunshine? It's not nice."
"I'm not!" Ryland can't stop himself from shouting, heat rising to his cheeks and tears to his eyes, "I had a big brother and he died, okay?!"
He hopes thats an answer that won't make this guy hurt him even more, hopes that he believes him saying that.
He's not sure what to do when Hansen's grip slackens on his hair and he laughs. Actually laughs like Ryland told him something desperately funny.
"Oh, you really didn't know, huh? Wow. Guess we'll circle back on that one, won't we?" He can recognize the way that Hansen's gaze shifts from him to the space just behind him. "In the meantime, I just need you to help me send your uncle a quick little message, okay, sweetpea?" Hansen's tone is all mocking gentleness that makes Ryland's hackles raise. Especially as he begins to reach right behind him for Claire, "Come on."
The image of an active shooter drill from his second year of teaching bubbles right to the surface of his brain for some godforsaken reason. Somehow, after the kids had ducked under their desks and the lights had gone out, Ryland had found himself holding his desk scissors in a white knuckled grip- he had not remembered even picking them up, nor did he like to think too hard about what he was intending to do with them had it not been a drill.
His batch of sixth graders that period said that he looked like he was going to go full John Wick. It was the talk of the school for the next few days or so that no one knew that Mr. Grace, who cried at every graduation and got misty-eyed when being handed homemade cards, had that in him. Ryland certainly didn't. He was not a violent man, nor was he particularly brave one.
He just knew that there was a room full of children who trusted him. That he owed it to them to plant himself firmly between them and a threat and become as big of a problem as he could be.
So when Hansen reaches out, like he thinks he can just grab Claire right out from behind him, he's got another thing coming.
One of his little fun facts was along the lines of how a human bite force averaged around 160ish PSI. Not the strongest in the animal kingdom by far, but still ruthlessly efficient when it needed to be.
He doesn't exactly have a wealth of options to choose from at the moment.
Ryland's head moves so quickly, so violently, that even Hansen seems surprised in the half second before Ryland has his teeth embedded in the yeilding tissue of the man's wrist.
Both of the people Hansen brought with him begin an effort to detatch him and for a moment, Ryland tucks himself up and into his own head the way he used to when he was a kid and Dad was being particularly awful. He doesn't feel the kicks or the punches, not really. That will change later, when he comes back to himself. But for right now, the only thing he's cognizant of is the taste of blood that doesn't belong to him between his teeth.
Something tears in the man's skin or just beneath it in the time it finally takes for someone to pry him off. When Ryland spits out the blood he also spits out a chunk of meat. The exact amount of flesh missing from Lloyd Hansen's arm.
Yeah, he thinks. More than efficient.
"Motherfucker!" Hansen barks, his hand wound around his forearm to stem the bleeding.
Ryland snarls, his chin and shirt bloody.
The adrenaline overrides the fear enough that Ryland isn't thinking about the recourse or how bad it's going to hurt when it comes. All he's thinking about is the fact that if he's done what he's intending, Hansen will have all but forgotten about the child just behind him.
"Alright," Hansen pants, "That's how you wanna play it."
When they begin to drag him away from bucks and struggles. He's not going to let them hurt her. Not after all of that.
To his relief they do not reach for Claire once he's no longer in front of her. Instead, someone holds him still, upright. Another pair of hands hold his legs still by the ankles. A gloved hand holds his head still as Hansen stalks forward and slams his loafer squarely into Ryland's outstretched leg. Hard. Hard enough that he swears he hears something just above his ankle snap, the sound not unlike a celery stick being broken neatly in two.
The pain follows a second later, fireworking through his entire body and leaving him screaming in agony. Claire, he realizes belatedly, is screaming too, moreso from fear and horror, but screaming nonetheless and the only thing sharper than the pain is the thought that keeps circling his head that Claire should not have had to see that. Claire should not be there for this.
Hansen is talking, talking, talking, but Ryland can't pick out more than a few words at a time.
Brother. Volunteer. Message.
He's dragged out of the room shortly after.
[TEN HOURS EARLIER]
"… Yeah, Mrs. Laurie, thank you for understanding," Colt keeps his voice calm, careful, as he reaches out to the principal of Ryland's middle school. "Hopefully he'll be back within a week or two. I know he's gonna be crushed about missing the start of the geology course. Alright. Thank you again, bye,"
He feels downright dirty lying to the school like that, but Court's already told him that he can't let anything slip about the actual reason that Ryland will not be making it to class the next week. A no-call no-show is bad enough at a regular job, let alone a teaching job. And Ryland loves what he does. It's breathed lige into him like nothing else. Colt knows that he'll be crushed if he's saved from whatever bullshit Court's into just to find that he's been fired.
Courtland is staring at him, completely even keeled. He didn't want Colt to call at all. The less people knew, the better, or some bullshit like that.
That being said, he'd watched Court have an equally cryptic conversation with a man he called Fitz, and another with someone he called Cahill. When Colt had opened his mouth to ask about it, Court had cut him off with some bullshit about how he didn't want to know.
If he thinks he can table the discussion for long, he's got another thing coming.
Ryland is out there and he's probably terrified and his brother that he's been mourning for the better part of two decades is sitting in the passenger seat of his rental.
He sends another quick text to Jody- an apology, mostly, but also a lie. Something about how he had to catch the first red-eye to San Francsisco in order to get to Ryland. It was the one thing he knew Jody wouldn't pry about without invitation.
"You gave her the same bike accident story as the school?" Court drawls.
"Yeah. He drives the thing like a complete asshole." Colt says, trying for humor and landing flat. He flexes his hands on the steering wheel, "But, um. This way I can tell his school that his phone got broken at the same time I explain how he no-called no-showed."
He's wishing that Court will say something about how, 'but gee colt won't they wonder what happened when he gets back unscathed and in one piece?'. But Court doesn't and the thought disquiets him. He does not expect Ryland to be alright.
"What do these people want with you, anyway?" Colt asks as he drives on and toward the airport. "Or- or your friend, anyway."
"Fitz knows where the bodies are buried." Is what Courtland says. Like the cryptic asshole he is. "My guess is they want a particular body and very badly. Badly enough that they want me out of the way."
"Why not go to this Fitz guy directly then?"
"They have."
"What's that supposed to mean-"
"He's got a niece he's raising. Claire" Court cuts him off, each word sounding just a bit like he's speaking them through a mouthful of glass. "She's twelve. Has a pacemaker. They took her too."
"Oh,"
Colt feels like an absolute asshole and allows himself to sit in silence for a few minutes, taking occasional glances at Court from where he's staring out the window at the amber lights standing sentry on the freeway.
That's another thing he's not used to when it comes to this whole undead brother thing. Court used to be like this with their dad, flat in a deliberate and calculated sort of way, like he was hoping their father would grow bored of trying to get a rise out of him. He was different with him and Ryland. Lighter, funnier. To this day Colt thinks he's never laughed harder than he had with his brother.
He decides he shouldn't think about that too hard.
"Turn here." Court says flatly. They're still miles from the airport, the exit turning off into what looks to him into a long road in between miles of empty fields. Colt must have a put upon look on his face because Court sighs and says, "Please. Just trust me on this."
Colt pulls off the exit and down the road for over an hour, long enough that his back starts to twinge the way it does when he's been seated too long. The sooner he can get off the road and take one of his painkillers, the better.
"This is it." Court states, pointing to what Colt, at first glance, thought must have been a farm, not a small airstrip with a waiting plane.
He's not getting the deposit for the rental back is he?
As he parks the car, he turns to Court, "You're sure that they're in Croatia?"
"Claire is in Croatia." Court states, still eerie calm. He unbuckles and steps out of the car, moving like a machine, "And if she's there, than that means so is someone who knows something about where Ryland is. And they'll tell me."
His car door shuts with a little too much force and Colt decides he doesn't want to know what that's going to entail. As long as it means Ry is safe.
Six decides he can't let Colt know about the video the second it arrives as an encrypted file on his burner while they're driving to the drop point. He doesn't even watch it right away, knowing that he may not be able to school his face into something unreadable. Not for Colt, anyway. He and Ryland were always much too adept at reading him for his liking.
So instead, he opens it when they're over the Atlantic on the flight that Cahill chartered for them and Colt has fallen into an uneasy sleep beside him and his head pillowed on his lap.
Six remembers the way that Colt and Ryland would fall asleep in his bed most nights back in the old Florida house, even on nights where his wheezy box fan barely made a dent in the summer heat. They never had to tell him that they felt safe there, in his bed, in reach of him. He just knew that they did, because so did he. There were nights in prison where he'd wake in his bunk and expect to find each of his boys tucked against his ribs, the emptiness howling within him when he remembered that they were not there.
He allows himself the brief indulgence of running his hand over Colt's head, feeling the spikes of his hair where it's been fried from the bad dye job. For just a moment, watching him sleep, it's like no time has passed at all.
And then he places an earbud and turns the video on.
Ryland looks terrified and the sight of it makes his heart contract painfully within his ribcage with a kind of helplessness that he's not felt in ages.
In the video, he's been stripped down to nothing but his socks and boxers, tied to a chair. Tear tracks line his swollen cheeks, but Six's eyes focus on the jumper cables clamped to Ryland's arms and legs, the way he's jerking slightly in the chair, his breaths coming fast and shallow as he tries to breathe though the rag tied between his teeth.
"Hiya, Six!" an off screen voice gloats, sounding downright chipper. "You know, your baby brother isn't much of a conversationalist." a gloved hand grips Ryland's face, jerking his head up and back toward the camera, "Are you, Doc?"
Ryland whimpers.
"But hey, it's not like you're gonna win Brother of the Year anytime soon." His hand gives Ryland's head a little shake, "Ry here didn't even know you were alive."
Six is biting the inside of his cheek to keep the rage from bubbling over, tearing at the scar tissue in his mouth from back when his father insisted he was turning the twins into "real men". Old habits, or whatever it was they said.
"Look, I'm not gonna give you the whole 'Comply with these demands or he dies' schpiel. I know Fitz has told you to drop it, but also that you're much too loyal to actually listen. You're a smart boy. You already know exactly whats going to happen to your baby brother if you don't mind your business like a good little dog."
It's all Six can do to keep from crushing the phone in between his fist.
"Anyway. It's been real, pumpkin! Chat later,"
Six forces his breaths to come as slow and as steadily as the tide, tries not to feel the incandescent rage bubbling up to his head and making his ears roar with blood. Fitz used to say that his temper was only as good as his ability to use it to focus; if he couldn't control it, it was worthless.
Ryland and Claire do not need him to be a loose canon. Ryland and Claire need a precise, near surgical, tool. A weapon of pure, cold, steel.
He was going to tear whoever thought they could hurt either of them apart.
[ PRESENT MOMENT]
Claire flinches back at the sight of Mr. Grace as he's dropped back onto the floor in a heap of bruised and bloodied limbs. There's a terrifying second where Claire can't determine if he's breathing or not, but as she inches closer, she can just make out the steady rise and fall of his chest.
Oh thank god.
As Claire hovers over him, tries to figure out where the worst of his injuries are, there's a bright flash that she recognizes immediately.
"There we go." Hansen says, a poloroid printing from the familiar blue camera. "Now this should be a perfect warning for your dear old uncle."
Claire trembles as she looks down at Grace. It looks like he's been hastily redressed- he's not wearing the clothes he left in. Just a large black t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. At least this time, he's not tied up.
When the door shuts behind Hansen, Claire takes just a second to whisper an apology before she's stripping the top sheet of the bed and trying to tear it into strips with her bare hands. It's not nearly as easy as it looks in the movies, but eventually she has a small pile of makeshift bandages.
She can't just sit here. Not after Grace...
It was stupid of him. It was so stupid. He couldn't have thought this wouldn't have happened after he bit a chunk out of their kidnapper's arm.
But then again. If he hadn't done that... The message sent to Claire's uncle might have been more than her looking terrified in a poloroid. Maybe Mr. Grace had figured that out too.
It's hard to think of him as just a sacrificial idiot once she's taken that into the equation. He was still so incredibly stupid for that, but she can't bring herself to be mad at him in earnest.
Maybe he wouldn't have gotten hurt at all had she not been there.
She wets one of the bandages in the bathroom sink and begins to dab at the dried blood on his face.
"A... are you...h-"
"No," Claire finishes the thought for him, "They didn't hurt me."
"Good," It's barely audible, a cracked lung wheeze that makes her stomach hurt.
Claire's voice cracks as she dabs at the dried blood on his face. "Don't ever do that again."
"I'll try,"
That's about all she can ask for at this point.
"Whats your favorite... favorite subject?" he asks, his eyes looking especially blue through the bruising all over his face. "In school,"
Claire has to think about it for a second, washing and wrapping what looks like an electrical burn on Grace's arm. Are burns even something that she should cover? What are they going to do if he gets an infection? What if he dies right on the floor in front of her?
School seems so far away, once she starts thinking about things like that, but eventually she tells him, "I like art. And English."
Grace nods, "I'm.. I'm a science t'cher, Did... Did I tell you?"
"No," Claire stares just a little at his broken leg, the way it's swelling. Maybe it's selfish to want him to keep talking, "What were you teaching?"
Maybe it's her imagination, but his eyes brighten just a little,
"Ha...ve you started learning about th-thermal en'rgy?"
Claire shakes her head.
"Okay," Grace takes as deep of a breath as he can, "There a-are these little particles..."