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Truth is I feel you near, a ghost in black who disappeared….
- Undone, by Bush
His hands were cold.
It was the first thing he was aware of—followed very quickly by the fact that his shoulders burned, his head was pounding, and there was a wicked cramp in his lower back. He tried to pull in a breath and stopped.
There was tape over his mouth.
Not just over his mouth, he noted as he fought to lift his head. The tape was wrapped around his head, pulling at his hair, and sticking to the sensitive skin at the back of his neck.
MacGyver sluggishly opened his eyes only to arrive at a final terrifying realization: he was blindfolded.
The complete lack of light shot his mind to full awareness. Years of training kickstarted an automatic sitrep. His hands were cold because they were bound together above his head. He was hanging from them, suspended, he noted, as he flexed his feet and felt nothing below him but air, and had been for long enough his shoulders ached with the strain of his weight.
Breathing slowly through his nose, he tried to block out the pain and get a sense of his surroundings, listening for anything that might indicate size, location, if there was anyone near. After a moment he picked up on the echo of running water—sounded like…pipes, maybe across the room?
The room didn’t feel particularly cold, but his muscles were trembling. He couldn’t hear anyone else in the room with him, but he knew from experience how quietly another person could be when they wanted to.
He tried to twist his hands, testing the strength of his bindings, and groaned when he realized they’d used tape on his hands as well. Enough that he couldn’t move his wrists—he could barely shift his fingers, the digits feeling heavy and numb with lack of circulation.
A vaguely familiar, sluggish twist of his stomach sent a cold sweat across his skin. He could not get sick, not with his mouth taped as it was. He would asphyxiate and die. Drugged, he realized. Chloroform, maybe? Maybe…rohypnol or GHB?
Huffing a short breath through his nose, Mac tried to pinpoint his last clear memory before coming aware strung up like a side of beef. He remembered standing in front of the committee. He remembered delivering his argument, the multiple three-ring binders spread out before him like accusations. He remembered looking for Desi as he left the building….
And then nothing.
His thoughts began to skip, tripping over each other in a race to the forefront of his attention. Codex was gone—his Aunt Gwen had seen to that. Right? Unless…but, no. Russ had sent people in after the explosion, retrieving bodies, closing access. It…it couldn’t be Codex.
Who…who else? His mind slipped and skidding across memories of Murdoc, the Ghost, Mason—
The sound of hinges creaking against the rust of time, metal scraping in a slow slide against cement in what sounded like a door being opened, jerked his attention away from his spiraling thoughts. Instinctively, Mac pulled his head up, angling his ears toward the sound, as his back and neck muscles protesting with lightning bolts of pain.
A low grunt, a shuffle of stumbling boots, a thud as something heavy hit the ground, a harsh bark of a humorless laugh all crashed against the silence, the unexpected chaos of noise causing Mac to flinch.
“Ah, good. There he is,” a voice growled almost seductively, approaching him.
Male, Mac’s mind quickly assessed. Rough—by cigarettes or age, it was hard to tell.
“You, stay down,” the voice ordered, and Mac heard what sounded like someone panting, the noise now coming from the opposite side of the room from the voice.
The heavy footfalls continued to advance and then without warning, a hand was at his face, calloused fingers gripping his chin. He jerked against his bindings, his legs swinging slightly as he tried to move away from the unwanted touch. The voice chuckled low; a sound weighted in dark mirth.
“Still a fighter, I see,” the voice commented. “He said you’d be hard to defeat.”
Mac felt his breathing pick up speed and fought to bring it under control. The weight of his body, the position of his arms, worked in tandem to compress his chest. With his hands as numb as they were, he couldn’t pull up on his arms to expand his lungs, so panicking now would only cause him to pass out and possibly suffocate. He had to keep his breathing under control.
“But then, you’re not the one I want to defeat,” the voice murmured, fingers tracing from Mac’s jaw, down his throat, and then his body jerked painfully against the tape binding his hands as the front of his shirt was violently ripped open, buttons pinging against a solid surface as they flew from the material.
Mac grunted against the pain in his hands and arms, his torso clenching as the fingers traced down from his throat, across his ribs, and to his belly. He could hear a knife flicking open and in a futile but instinctive move, he tried to pull his body away by tightening his core. The panting across the room shifted to an angry-sounding moan, but no other sound contested the slide of the blade against Mac’s cotton T-shirt.
“There,” the voice sighed. “I like a blank canvass when I begin to work. Helps the ideas flow.”
A hand patted his sternum and then pushed slightly so that he swung painfully from his bound hands. Mac bit the inside of his cheek to hold back the groan of pain. The sadistic insinuations screamed Murdoc, but the voice…the voice was wrong.
And, he reluctantly had to admit, so was the touch.
“Now, how about you?” The voice moved away from Mac and he could hear the panting grow increasingly frantic across the room. “Ah, ah, none of that, now,” the voice scolded. “You remember what happened the last time you tried to fight me, don’t you?”
Mac heard the knife flick once more and then the panting turned into a whimper and a low groan of pain.
“Unless you want more of that, you’ll do exactly what I say, understand?”
Mac didn’t hear a reply, but the groan quieted as did the panting. He strained to hear what was happening, when suddenly the snap-hiss of electricity hit his ears and the unmistakable smell of ozone permeated the air. He shivered, his exposed skin breaking out in a cold sweat.
“Before we get down to the business of using you as leverage,” the voice said, drawing closer to Mac once more, “we need to make sure you’re going to cooperate.”
Mac tensed, his belly tightening as he instinctively tried to recoil, his shoulders weeping from the motion. He tried to turn his head one way, then another, desperate for some indication of where the danger would be coming from. The sound of his own blood rushing in his ears blocked out any other warning and then suddenly heat…fire…pain pain pain.
His muscles screamed and shook, his back and neck bowing backwards against his bindings, helplessly reacting to the surge of electricity that coursed through him. For a moment—a brief, blissful moment—it ceased, and then it surged once more from a different spot on his chest, his skin burning from the contact.
Anguish crashed desperately in his throat, unable to escape the prison of tape.
And then the heat was gone once more.
Mac hung helplessly against his bindings, harsh, frantic breaths shuddering through his nose, his head spinning from pain and lack of oxygen. Rough, helpless whimpers slapped against the roof of his mouth, muted, and trapped.
He couldn’t slow his thoughts, couldn’t find one thread that would anchor him in a solution. His environment allowed him to improvise; he used his eyes and his hands as his primary tools in any given situation.
With both taken from him, he wasn’t a former EOD tech, a genius spy, or even a lucky inventor.
He was simply pain.
“I bet you’re wondering what you did to deserve the VIP treatment, eh?”
A hand patted his sternum in an almost comforting gesture. Mac flinched away and then instantly regretted it. His body keened in protest at the movement; the muscles along his ribs and across his shoulders seized painfully and a groan vibrated against the tape. He could taste blood from where he’d bitten his tongue. Sweat ran down his face, beneath the blindfold.
He was starting to feel true panic wrap cold fingers around his throat, a claustrophobic sense of being imprisoned as his breaths hitched and shook inside his compressed ribcage.
“I’ll tell you,” the voice continued. “Nothing. And that’s the truth of it. You did nothing.”
Mac fought to slow his breathing, to focus on the voice, to try to identify who it was and maybe find a reason, a purpose.
“Well, actually…I take that back,” the voice chuckled, and Mac heard it rotate away from him. “You did one thing.” The smell of ozone hit the air again and Mac whimpered. “You were Jack Dalton’s partner.”
The heat hit him again, this time low on his belly, the pain shuddering through him until his scream turned his throat bloody. His head snapped back as his muscles seized and then the world slipped away, the darkness sliding over and around him, taking him under completely.
**
He came aware once more in a stuttered perception of a fragmented world, sound and sensation rolling forward in waves, as though consciousness was the surface of the ocean and he was bobbing within it. The world seemed faded at the corners, noises splashing around him, muted, disjointed, and meaningless.
His chin touched his chest, and his breath was shallow. His head spinning viciously, disorienting in the blackness behind the blindfold.
Slowly, carefully, he pulled his head up, trying to draw in a breath. His hands were completely numb, his shoulders on fire, pain sliding down his back. He could hear voices across the room, murmurs, pleas, harsh, mocking retorts, a slap of skin on skin—sharp and vicious.
“Back with us?” the voice called, having apparently picked up on Mac’s movement. “Think you’re ready to cooperate? Or do you need more convincing?”
Mac heard the snap-hiss of the electricity spark from the voice’s position across the room and he couldn’t help it: he flinched.
“Good,” the voice approved. “Good, good, good.”
The voice had mentioned Jack, Mac remembered suddenly. The voice knew Jack. What if…what if the person panting…the person in pain across the room…could it be…Jack?
“I think it’s time for the next part,” the voice said, closer than Mac had expected.
Before he was ready, the hand was at his face again, but this time it reached for the blindfold that had been snugly wrapped around Mac’s head and tugged hard, pulling the cloth from his face. Mac blinked in the suddenly blinding light, his vision blurred, sweat stinging his eyes as it now ran freely down his face.
He couldn’t focus on any one thing; visual stimulation at once overwhelmed him and he closed his eyes quickly.
“Ah, now,” the voice tsked. “None of that.”
A quick jab against his ribs with a quick snap of electricity had Mac gasping through his nose, eyes flying open.
“Open those eyes now, Angus,” the voice ordered, the almost taunting use of his given name causing Mac’s eyes to fly around the room seeking out the source of the voice.
With rapid blinks, his blurred vision slowly began to clear. He could see that he was in a large, nearly empty warehouse. He seemed to be hanging from a thick chain attached to a steel I-beam, tape wrapped around his hands and wrists and secured to the chain. The cement floor beneath him was surprisingly close. Directly across from him was a wall with a large window, the other side of the window darkened. Several industrial-sized lights hung from the ceiling harshly illuminating the stark room.
Mac’s eyes slid to either side, unable to see much beyond the press of his arms. He could sense the source of the voice lingering behind him but couldn’t crane his neck far enough to see. A groan from across the room reminded Mac of the sounds of misery he’d heard earlier, and he blinked sweat from his eyes as he tracked to the sound.
A man sat huddled in the corner of the room, beneath the darkened window. He was dressed in black tactical gear, and Mac could see blood covering one side of his face. A gag had been tied savagely around his face, pulling the sides of his mouth back so far, he appeared to be staring at Mac with a macabre grin. His hands were tied behind his back and a bloody X was cut across his chest, through the black shirt.
And despite all of that, despite the misery radiating from across the room, Mac breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know the man.
“Maybe I should introduce you two,” the voice said off to Mac’s left. “Specialist Angus MacGyver, meet Corporal Sam Esterly. Turns out you two have something in common.”
The voice stepped forward and Mac shifted his gaze away from the huddled, bleeding man, straining, trying to see. The voice turned, suddenly facing Mac.
“Jack Dalton.”
Mac blinked, trying to keep his vision steady when it kept trying to slip to gray, his head spinning dizzily. He knew this man. But, how…?
“You see, Dalton worked as Overwatch for you in Afghanistan,” the voice continued, tilting his head as sharp brown eyes seemed to study Mac.
Images skidded before his eyes. Black and white photos in a file. A grainy image on Jack’s phone.
“And then he kept watch over you for years after, until he left you. For me.”
Thin lips drew back in a grimace that seemed to pass for a smile, and Mac felt a chill chase itself down his spine.
Kovacs.
Mac shuddered, unable to strip the horror from his gaze as he stared back at the man, the tape wrapped around his face seeming to shrink and pull as he fought to steady his breathing.
“Then, he spent a couple years watching Esterly, here,” Kovacs glanced over his shoulder at the huddled man, then looked back at Mac. “Until he left him. For you.”
Mac felt his brows pull low. Jack hadn’t come back—he’d know. He’d know.
“Now,” Kovacs turned, hands clasped loosely behind his back, and wandered almost aimlessly away from Mac. “Don’t get me wrong. He came pretty damn close to his target.” He gestured to a white scar that ran along the side of his head, burying itself into his close-cropped gray hair. “But he missed. Again.”
Mac arched his back slightly, trying to get more breath in, desperate to stay present, trying to focus on what Kovacs was saying. His vision continued to blur, and he blinked hard to bring the man across the room into focus.
“Thought we got the best of him when we caught Sammy, here,” Kovacs was walking again, Mac realized, moving closer to Esterly. He patted the top of the man’s head almost gently. “But then, we learned that a good soldier like Jack Dalton wouldn’t sacrifice his mission for the likes of a man he’d been placed with by order of his government.”
Mac felt a growl of protest build in the back of his throat. The tape kept it trapped inside. He saw Kovacs reach to his back waistband and realized what was about to happen mere seconds before the solider bound and bleeding in the corner of the room.
His eyes flew wide as he watched Esterly pull back abruptly just as Kovacs’ gun pressed against his temple. Mac’s body jerked in retaliation of the sharp retort of the weapon, Esterly’s body slumping, motionless, to the ground. Kovacs sighed, glancing over his shoulder at Mac.
“And since I couldn’t use him to lure out Dalton,” he said, lifting a shoulder, “I used him to identify the next best thing.”
Kovacs tucked his gun back into his belt as Mac felt his heart thud painfully against his ribcage, heat building behind his eyes and crowding his head at the thought that he was being used as bait for Jack.
The man had given up years of his life—separated from his friends, his family—just to remove this evil from the world and now the very thing Jack had feared, the very reason Jack had left Mac behind, was playing out like a goddamned Greek tragedy.
“But I wasn’t sure you’d be enough, you see,” Kovacs continued, turning to stare at the darkened window and Mac felt himself freeze.
His eyes pinned to the dark window.
No. His protest screamed silently within him. No, no no no no.
Kovacs reached over the dead man’s head and hit a light switch. Mac stared in horror as the other side of the darkened window lit up. It was a room, such as one that might be used to observe executions. In the center of the room, in what looked like an old, wooden electric chair, sat Riley.
She seemed unhurt for the moment. Mac could see tears had left mascara tracks down her face, her hair was disheveled, and her arms were taped to the chair arms from wrist to elbow. He could see by the look on her face that she had seen everything that had happened in that room.
“You see, Esterly was more than happy to give you up once I started carving into him,” Kovacs continued, his back to Riley, eyes on Mac. “Even had the exact GPS coordinates of your house. Imagine our surprise when we found this pretty young thing there instead of you?”
Mac began to shake.
Kovacs sighed dramatically, waving a dismissive hand. “Of course, it was much too big a risk to chance Dalton would allow himself to be caught just for your girlfriend…,” Kovacs lifted both hands, palms up, shifting them like scales. “Innocent human life, partner he’d willingly die for.”
Mac felt dizzy with relief. Kovacs didn’t know. He didn’t know who Riley was. He didn’t know.
The world started to gray out slightly around the edges. Mac felt his eyelids flutter, his breath stuttering as his chest seized.
And then Kovacs bent over and picked up something from the ground. A long, black baton-shaped object with a rounded end. And Mac felt his attention snap to front. It was a cattle prod. The burned, weeping skin on his chest throbbed in reaction.
That’s what had been used on him. A fucking cattle prod.
Kovacs wandered forward, spinning the cattle prod around his hand like the handle of a sword.
“You see, I’ve been waiting for years,” he paused, thrusting his chin forward in emphasis, “literally years to kill this man. He nearly took me out once but,” he offered Mac a strange, almost conspirator’s wink, “I rallied. He’s like…,” Kovacs lifted his empty hand and curled it into a fist, his eyes closing as though in pain, “an old wound.”
He opened his eyes and stopped walking once he was directly in front of Mac.
“He’s an old wound that aches when it rains. I cannot be rid of him by avoiding him,” he spun the baton once more, tilting his head to regard Mac, running the fingers of his free hand along Mac’s jaw, then pressing the flat of his fingers against Mac’s hammering pulse. “I need to remove him. But the man…is shifty. He is a ghost. Slips through my fingers every time.”
Kovacs patted the baton against Mac’s skin to emphasize his words.
“So, I decided to bring the fight to him,” Kovacs shrugged, lifting the baton next to his head and flicking it on so that Mac could see the blue-white charge snap between the leads. “He made it almost too easy,” Kovacs smiled slightly. “Coming here for Codex.”
Mac blinked, pulling his eyes from the snapping cattle prod to look at Kovacs in surprise. Jack had known about Codex? How—
“Ah, but that’s all gone now, isn’t it?” Kovacs shrugged. “And he’s here alone—no team, no mission, not even a dead terrorist to show for all his trouble.”
A cold smile stretched Kovacs’ face and Mac felt his heart stutter.
“And I have you,” Kovacs whispered, his eyes hardening as he unexpectedly jabbed the prod against Mac’s chest in a vicious thrust, sending his senses reeling.
His body bucked, head snapping back, vision blanking and sparking as his agony was held muted and dimmed behind the tape. As the world folded in around him, Mac saw Riley leaning forward in the chair on the other side of the window, her mouth opened in the scream he couldn’t utter.
And then, he saw a figure behind Riley.
And then, he didn’t see Riley at all.
The world slipped away again, and Mac felt his body go limp, swaying on the chain, his chin touching his chest as he hung between awareness and oblivion. Sounds were disconnected, echoing hollowly in his perception like a half-heard soundtrack from the outside of a theater. He was lost in a sea of pain, misery wrapping around him like a cloak.
He thought he heard gunfire, shouting. He thought he smelled the acrid stench of gunpowder, the tang of blood. He thought he heard someone call his name.
But he couldn’t open his eyes. He could barely pull in more than a shuddering breath.
He was done. No more.
And for a fraction of a heartbeat, it was a relief. No more loss, no sacrifice, no more loneliness, no more if onlys and almosts. Just…peace.
And then a cool hand touched his skin—gentle, soft, trembling. Another touched his face, lifting his head slightly off his chest, fingers pressed against his throat. Arms wrapped around him, pulling his body close, stinging the wounds on his chest. He felt a jerk above him, and he was falling, strong arms holding his pliant body as he was lowered to the ground.
His arms fell forward and suddenly pain roared through him. His shoulders were on fire, searing him and causing his eyes to fly open, tears blinding him. He tried to scream, but the tape kept the sound trapped inside him and he felt himself shudder and shake, the arms that caught him holding him tight.
Someone kept saying his name, repeating a promise, over and over.
“I gotcha…I gotcha, Mac, I gotcha, kid…you’re okay…you’re okay, Mac….”
There were voices everywhere—too many voices, shouting and calling to each other and the world was just noise and pain and he had to close his eyes, feeling the tears slip free of his lashes and track down the sides of his face. Something tugged at the tape on his hands and he heard a curse.
He faded slightly, feeling a weightless sense of falling before reality jerked him aware once more, slamming him back into the world.
Someone was cutting the tape from his face, pulling it gently from his skin, cutting it from his hair and freeing his mouth. Mac felt his jaw drop open, grabbing air like a drowning man. A whispered voice, the words urgent, almost frantic as they slapped the too-bright air around him, brushed against his face but Mac simply breathed.
Marveling at the ability to fill his lungs. Relishing the completion of a simple act he’d taken for granted his entire life.
He blinked; eyes reluctant to open against the harsh reality of the warehouse lights. He was being held, he realized. He was sitting semi-upright, the cold of the cement floor leaching heat from where it connected with his body.
Someone sat behind him, holding him against them, strong arms clad in black keeping his heavy arms away from the burns on his chest. His eyes rolled sluggishly, unable to focus on any one thing, unable to focus on much of anything beyond the ache in his chest, the fire in his shoulders.
After a moment, he realized the tape at his wrists was also being cut free. The sensation of pins and needles in his hands was intense; he groaned helplessly as the tape was carefully pulled away, turning his face toward the body behind him. The weight of his body had pulled on the tape until it dug grooves into his wrists and Mac cried out when removing the tape started to remove some of his skin as well.
“Leave it, leave it,” a voice said, a deep rumble from the chest he leaned against. “Just cut them apart, don’t take it off.”
Whoever this voice was talking to complied and Mac felt his arms suddenly fall to either side of him, too heavy to move. He could feel himself shaking, the tremor moving from deep in his gut and reverberating through his whole body until it chattered his teeth.
“Riley,” he managed, his tongue rubbing painfully against his teeth, raw from where he’d bitten it multiple times.
“She’s okay, kid,” the voice behind him said. He wanted to turn, to look at who held him, but for the moment the warmth and strength was such a welcomed relief from the moments before, he lay still. “He didn’t hurt her,” the voice continued. “Thank God, he didn’t hurt her.”
“M’fault,” Mac tried, wincing as he tasted blood. His mouth was a mess.
“No,” the voice snapped, and suddenly Mac felt himself suddenly lifted away from the warmth and safety of the chest he lay against.
The body behind him rotated and then hands were at his shoulders, their weight almost too much, the pain from muscles pulled past the point of resistance screaming through his body at the contact. He couldn’t stifle the shuddering groan that slipped from his heart outward, like ripples on a pond, ending at his fingertips and lingering in his hands.
The grip softened, loosened, but didn’t depart. Mac slumped forward, wincing as the curl of his chest rubbed at the burns left behind by the cattle prod.
“No, kid, none of this is on you,” the voice continued as one hand moved from his shoulder to gently grip the back of his neck.
Mac froze at that touch. He knew that touch. That grip.
He knew it like he knew his own name. He swayed into the grip, fighting to pull his eyes up as the voice now came from somewhere in front of him.
“You hear me? None of this is because of you.”
Mac blinked, staring. He saw the man before him, heard his words, but they seemed to fall from his lips and float in the air between them, hollow and meaningless. They were simply sounds, nothing more. The pain seemed to scoop him out, the pressure of the fingers at the base of his skull enough to send spikes through his head.
His vision grayed at the edges, the world once more folding inward, and he felt his eyelids flutter as he fought to hold onto consciousness.
“Whoa, whoa, hey. Look at me.” The order was familiar, solid. Something he thought he’d never hear again. From a voice he hadn’t heard in years. “Right here, at me. Are you with me?” His cheek was patted with a calloused hand. “Let me see your eyes.”
And Mac looked at him then. Looked right at him. Staring at the familiar creases of worry around dark eyes.
“Jack?” he managed, his voice strangled, weightless.
“Hey, bud,” Jack replied, his mouth softening from a worried grimace to a relieved smile, tears swimming in his eyes. “There you are.”
“You’re…you’re back?” Mac felt his heart shake, his body swaying weakly in Jack’s grip.
Jack slid forward, gently pulling Mac against him once more, taking the weight off his burns, cradling his damaged arms, holding him. Holding on to him.
“I’m here,” he asserted. “I got you.”
Mac’s eyes slid to the side, skimming over the flurry of activity as police and military moved around the empty warehouse. Saw Matty and Desi talking to a man in a military uniform. Saw Riley sitting on a stretcher as an EMT checked her out. Saw her smile tremulously at him. Saw more EMTs moving through the chaos toward them.
Saw Kovacs body.
“Is it over?” he asked weakly, staring at the slack face, a bullet hole glaring back at him like a third eye.
Jack rested a hand on top of his head, tucking him close against his chest in less of a supporting hold and more of an embrace. Mac let himself sink into it, feeling his body tick down like a bomb. He felt thin, fragile, breakable.
As if at any moment he might explode, spreading pain and sorrow and loneliness over every person in the warehouse. And the only thing holding him together, like a finger on a dead man’s switch, was Jack.
“It’s over, Mac,” Jack whispered, his voice quaking with emotion. “It’s done.”
It was done. Years of necessary radio silence. Of loneliness. Of losing both his found family and his biological one. Of searching for balance and being his own safety net and moving through life as of he wasn’t simply one half of something else.
Over.
He saw two men crouch down next to them, but Jack’s hand came up, holding them off.
“Mac?”
“You’re…,” Mac started, his damaged tongue catching against his teeth, his heart stuttering in his chest with the pain. “You’re home?”
He felt Jack nod against his head. “Yeah, kid,” Jack replied, his arms tightening gently around Mac’s wounded body like a promise. “I’m home.”
Mac closed his eyes, surrendering to the pain, letting himself be examined, lifted, strapped to a stretcher, and wheeled from the warehouse, feeling the weight of Jack’s hand on his until they reached the ambulance.
“Jack—” he called, not sure his voice had been strong enough to reach past the noise and chaos.
But Jack heard him. He always heard him.
“Just take it easy, Mac,” Jack said as the ambulance doors opened. “I’ll be there when you wake up.”
He clasped both hands on one of Mac’s tape-damaged ones, squeezing his fingers like a pledge.
And his hands were warm.
FIN