Chapter Text
Jake knew the assignment had the chance of going to hell, but he didn't expect to wake up covered in his blood in a warehouse that stunk of something he can't quite identify. His arms are tied behind him with a rope that is cutting into his wrist.
His cover had been blown somehow, he wasn’t sure how. Or can't he remember how it was blown? His memory is a little fuzzy. Probably because of all the hits to the head he took with a crowbar
His head throbbed with every beat of his heart, which was racing a mile a minute. He doesn't know how long he has been in the warehouse. Had it been hours or days? He can’t see sunlight anywhere in the room he’s been held in. The one window was taped over so he had no chance of even knowing if it was night or day, let alone how long he’s been there.
He was only two months into the assignment, he heard that they were closing in on the Ianucci family. He thought he would get to go home soon. He thought he would get to see the nine-nine again. To see Rosa and Terry again. To see Charles and Holt again. To see Amy again. His thoughts drift to Amy. Her smile, her laugh, her constant self-burns.
Jake can’t tell if he is dreaming or if he’s been saved because he can only see her. Amy is talking to him over their desks. Amy is smiling at him on undercover operations.
Before he can speak to her and ask he if it was real, Jake woke again when pressure was applied to a wound on his abdomen that he had forgotten about. When did he pass out? Why did his abdomen hurt so badly? Was he stabbed? Was it just a bruised rib?
He subconsciously lifts and looks into the eyes of the man he’s been at the mercy of the whole time. What was his name again? When did the light get turned back on? Does it matter?
“Wakey wakey.” Jake’s scalp hurts from the iron grip on his hair. “We aren’t even close to being done yet. You still haven’t told me what you know. I just need to know when the cops will try and get us. Then I can put you out of your misery.”
Jake says nothing in return and just stares the man down. Jake suddenly realises there are two other people in the room. One holding some kind of cables and the other some kind of box?
The box-shaped object is slammed down on the table next to him and Jake realises it’s a car battery. The cables are attached to the battery. The two behind him tap the other ends of the jumper cables together causing sparks to fly. The pain in his head spikes again as his heart rate rises. His body feels even colder than before. Sweat builds on his forehead and along the top of his lip. The cables are jumper cables that get clipped to either side of the skin on his hips. The metal tears his skin and makes the injury on his abdomen worse. His blood feels hot against his skin. It sent goosebumps up his chest.
“Is there a sting operation in the works?”
Jake says nothing.
Jake’s breath gets caught. He can’t hear anything but ringing in his ears and can feel his entire body on fire and moving without his permission.
The smell of ammonia fills the air around him along with something else. Something that makes him want to vomit at even the slightest sniff. It takes a moment for him to realise what it is and why his jeans are suddenly warm.
He can’t hear the crooks laugh at him over the ringing in his ear caused by his screaming.
Saliva drips down Jake’s red shirt. Was it always red or is that just his blood stains?
He couldn’t hear them ask him the same question over and over again. He could see them connect the jumper cables to the car battery again and again.
He braced his body as best he could for each time until it didn’t come.
He lifts his head a little, sending blinding pain through his forehead and eyes. The three of them are arguing over the car battery when one of them rips the jumper cables off it. He then reaches over and unclips them from Jake. He doesn't quite open them far enough causing the metal to pull and rip the skin around his hips even more than it already had.
Muffled words are yelled at him. He can only watch as the main man in charge grips hard on the cables and barks something at the other two.
His word is sent spinning as the other two thugs flip him over the chair. They untie his hands, and flip his body over, sending specks of blood across the room. Jake’s legs are stiff from sitting in that chair for so long. He can barely stand on his own, luckily for him, the other two goons are holding him under his armpits.
He hears the sound of the rubber cables rubbing against each other and that’s when it hits him on what’s about to happen.
Before Jake can brace his back for what’s coming the first slash hits.
He can’t help the choked sound that comes out of his throat. He doesn’t think it split his shirt or skin but the sheer force of the slash will undoubtedly leave a mark and a bruise.
Slash after slash hits Jake back with no end in sight. They weren’t even asking him questions at this point, just torturing him for the fun of it.
Eventually, Jake’s legs give out from under him completely. His shoulders were pulled into a painful position from his arms being held up above his head.
Jake breathes heavily, desperately trying to get the pain under control. As if they knew he was trying, the two goons holding him drop him onto the concrete floor, which is somehow still warmer than most of Jake's body.
The three laugh as they walk away. Muttering about how if somehow he hasn’t given up on holding out then they would continue after their poker game.
Jake wants nothing but to curl up into a small ball and cry but every movement sends more pain through his body. Instead, he cries silently whilst praying for the nine-nine to find him.
He doesn’t know how long he is laying there before he decides to do something about it. Jake takes in the pain across his body before making any moves.
Pinching his shirt, he moves it up to look at his hips. There’s too much blood to tell how bad the actual wound is but he tells from the heat coming off his hips that he definitely has burns.
Jake knows the longer he lays there, the more likely he is to die in the warehouse. He knows he’s at risk of infection. He knows he could go into shock. He knows he needs to act now to get out of there.
He starts by sitting up slowly. His back burns with pain. White flashes across his eyes as he moves. The breath leaves his body as something in his chest causes it to constrict. He can’t breathe.
His heart doesn’t feel like it's working properly. It feels as though it's all over the place.
Jake tries desperately to breathe. He can’t panic. If he panics, he’s dead.
He tries to think about Die Hard. What would John McClane do?
His brain and body are panicking too much about its current state. Jake thinks about his mum and how upset she would be if he died on the job. Would they be able to do an open-casket funeral? Is his face to beaten up to recognise? What will the nine-nine think? What will Holt do? How will he tell his mum about his death? Or the squad for that matter? What about Amy?
Amy.
What would Amy do?
She would think logically and not act like a crazy idiot.
Jake calmed his breathing until his chest opened up again and his heart rate returned to nearly normal. There was something wrong but he couldn’t identify what it is.
Using the chair as support, Jake manages to stand fully. Taking a minute to breathe until the room stopped spinning.
In front of him was the door his captors used to come and ago.
Can’t go that way, he’d be seen. Right?
Jake takes a second to look around the room.
He can feel a breeze against his ankle. There must be another door or window in the room.
Jake turns a little too fast and knocks one of the lights over. It clatters to the floor loudly.
Jake holds as still as he can in his current state and prays no one heard it. After a beat of silence, Jake is in the clear.
He closes his eyes for a moment to thank whatever God or angel is watching over him. He reopens his eyes to see a sliver of light coming from behind loose paper covering the window of a door.
Jake limped his way over to the door. Jake pried the door open with all the strength he could muster. The door screeched as it opened.
Jake’s heart dropped at the sound of shouting coming from behind him. He had to get out of there, now. Jake wriggled his body through the open crack. For a brief moment, Jake could only see orange.
Once his eyes adjusted, Jake realised he was down at the docks. That explains the smell he couldn’t identify, fish.
With footsteps and voices gaining on him. Jake pulled the door closed again, breaking the handle off in the process.
He turned and started limping away as fast as he could. He had no idea where he was going to go but he knew he needed to get away.
Jake heard the screech of the door being opened behind him. Panicked, he slips through the open door of a nearby shipping container. Gently pulling it closed but not entirely shut behind him.
He rested his head against the cool metal and slowly leaned his whole body against it. The burns on his hips felt somewhat better against the cool metal. The rest of his body was still freezing cold though.
He heard footsteps running past him and voices shouting to find him.
“I thought you said that door was welded shut!”
The three of them regrouped nearby the container Jake was in.
“I thought it was! It’s not my fault you left him unguarded!”
“We just need to find him before the boss fires us! Where would he go?”
“His precinct is nearby, maybe it’s time to pay them a little visit?” Jake’s blood ran cold.
“He was in pretty bad shape, I say we alert our contacts in the hospitals to keep an eye out for him and check his apartment in case he ran there.”
The trio agreed to check everywhere they said before they disappeared into the evening.
Jake gave it a minute to make they are gone before emerging from the container.
He needed to get his bearings and get to the precinct.
Jake hobbles his way to the street and realises he is only a couple of blocks away from the precinct. Ignoring how much his body screamed at him to stop, Jake ran as fast as he could down the street. He didn’t know who was working but he had to get there anyway to warn them.