Chapter Text
"No luck." Velma shakes her head and drops her phone with a heavy sigh. Heavy lines surround her eyes and mouth as she glares at the device as if it's somehow at fault for what's happening.
"Yeah, here either," Reenie reports, frustration tinting her words. She glances down at her phone. "Bobby's checking some more leads, but we might need to—"
A knock at the door interrupts her.
"Who could that be at this hour?" Velma redirects her glare toward the entrance. They don't have time for any distractions, not if they want to find Colter.
Sighing, Reenie heads toward it. "If it's another delivery guy with the wrong address, I swear—Russell!" She breaks off with an exclamation that's somewhere between a gasp and a question as she opens the door.
"Ladies," Russell greets from where he's casually leaning against the frame, a lopsided grin tilting across his face. "Thought I'd drop by, say hi, maybe talk Reenie into grabbing dinner…" He trails off and raises an eyebrow, offering Reenie a grin that has absolutely zero effect.
Reenie frowns. "Well, this is not a good time for dinner," she replies curtly.
Before she can continue, Russell steps past her into the office, undeterred. "Oh, come on. It's never a good time. What's the crisis now?" His tone lifts. "Surely it's not big enough to warrant you skipping a meal."
She fixes him with a hard look. "Colter's missing."
Russell freezes mid-step, his grin immediately fading. "Colter's what?"
"Missing," Reenie repeats. "We've been trying to reach him, but he's not picking up. I was about to call you, actually, but now here you are. Really good timing, actually," she adds under her breath.
"Missing since when?" Russell's voice is now hard and focused, far different than moments before.
"We don't know exactly." Reenie absently fidgets with a button on her blazer. "He's on a job but hasn't checked in and isn't answering his phone."
"When's the last time you heard from him?"
The women exchange glances again.
"This morning," Velma answers. "He sent me a text that he was following a lead in the foothills near where the girl he's looking for went missing, but that's the last any of us have heard from him. His phone's not giving off any signal, and the area's pretty rural, so no luck on any cameras or GPS. We've been trying to figure out where he could've gone, who to call—"
"You don't need to call anyone. I'll find him."
"What?" Reenie blinks. "But how are you going to—"
Russell shrugs, already moving toward the door. "I know a guy."
"Russell, wait!" A million questions race through Reenie's head, so she settles for the first one she can pin down. "Where are you going?"
He pauses at the door, turning back with a determined look. "To find my brother."
It's dark.
Not just dark. Blackout dark. The kind of darkness you only get when you're miles from power lines, headlights, and any sort of civilization.
That's Colter's first thought. His immediate second is that something feels off. The air is still and carries stale wood smoke, sweat, and blood. No scent of fresh foliage. No wind through the trees. No distant animal sounds. There's no earth beneath him; instead, splintered floorboards bite into his back and shoulder.
His third thought is pain.
It's dull at first, a low throbbing behind his eyes, but it builds and sharpens quickly into what feels like a spike driving through the base of his skull. Nausea creeps up, but he swallows it back. He groans involuntarily, tries to shift, but—
He can't.
His arms won't move. His fingers are numb, and his shoulders are twisted at an awkward angle. He tugs instinctively and feels the bite of rough ropes.
His hands are tied behind his back. His ankles are bound tightly too.
He stills. Breathes in through his nose as he tries to catalog his injuries: headache, pain, disorientation, nausea…
The odds flicker through his mind without bidding. 95% chance he has a concussion. 60% chance it's a bad one. 100% chance someone knocked him over the head and left him tied up somewhere.
He shifts just enough to test the ground beneath him. Floor, he corrects himself. He's lying on his right side, crumpled in whatever position he was dumped in. His arm underneath him is fully numb.
There's movement somewhere to his right, the rustling sound of someone shifting. He freezes, muscles tensing, trying to gauge the threat.
"Are… are you awake?" a young woman's voice whispers, barely audible. Uncertainty tints her words.
Colter starts to turn his head toward the voice, but the motion makes his stomach lurch. He blinks, trying to orient himself. It's too dark for that. All he can make out is the pressure behind his eyes and a creeping sense of vulnerability he hates. "Yeah," he rasps, then swallows. His throat is dry and cracked. "Where—"
"Oh, thank God," she gasps. "You've been out for hours. I… I wasn't sure you were gonna wake up." She sounds like she's trying not to cry. "I tried to stop the bleeding, but I don't know if I did it right. I didn't even know if I should touch anything, but… there was a lot of blood."
He tries to move again and winces. His arms ache, and his shoulders burn from the awkward angle. Gritting his teeth, he shifts more cautiously, testing the knots. They're tight, really tight. He's not getting free unless he can get his hands on his knife… but when he reaches around to where his knife is usually stashed in his belt, it's not there. Figures. Whoever jumped him knew enough to remove it. His gun's probably missing from its holster as well.
'Never let panic take the wheel,' Colter hears his dad coaching. 'Panicking only gets you in a worse spot than you already are. It robs you of logic, and you can't afford to lose that when the stakes are life and death.'
Colter takes a deep breath through his nose, fighting the urge to cough, and tries to focus. He exhales slowly, grounding himself with sensation. Rough ropes on his wrists, muscles burning in his neck, sweat—maybe blood… probably blood—trickling down his hairline. He still can't see anything, but there don't seem to be windows in whatever shack or cabin he's been tossed into. That's the least of his worries right now, though; he's been in the dark before. He can cross that bridge later.
A job… he was working a job, and now his gut's telling him this is the woman he's been looking for. A name pops into his head. "Sadie?" he asks.
There's a startled intake of breath. "How do you know that?" Fear surges in her tone.
Colter frowns. It's not just fear. Suspicion. She didn't tie him up, and she may have cleaned up his wound, but she also didn't untie him. She doesn't trust him… fair enough.
He keeps his tone calm. "My name's Colter Shaw." His memory's slowly catching up. "Your sister—Katherine?—she hired me to find you."
"That doesn't prove anything."
She's cautious, scared but not frozen. That's something.
"Hey, true," Colter says, trying to keep his tone light. He needs to get her focused and convince her of his intentions so she can help him get free. And quickly, before their captor comes back. That's the only chance either of them will have at surviving this. Hopefully they have a little time and whoever it is won't be back until daylight.
He keeps his voice even as he continues, steadying his tone like he's talking someone down off a ledge. "I find missing people for a living. Your sister called me after you went missing a few days ago. She thought someone might have been stalking you. I tracked you here but got jumped on the trail outside of town."
The silence stretches between them for much longer than Colter would like. He doesn't know if Sadie's buying it. He can't see her to read her face. All he has is her breathing, which sounds fast and shallow. What they don't need right now is for her to have a panic attack, so he continues quickly. "Hey, Sadie? You're right; I could be lying. But why would I be here like this if I'm lying? If I'm working with the guy who put you here, would I be tied up like this? Would he have left me here if we were partners? With a head injury that he gave me?"
She doesn't answer.
"I've been where you are," he adds. "Trapped, scared, unsure who I can trust. But I'm not here to hurt you. I promise. I came to bring you home. Katherine trusts me. Can you?"
Wood creaks underfoot as she moves closer. Colter tenses slightly out of instinct but forces himself to stay relaxed.
"You really came to find me?" she asks hesitantly.
"I did." His voice is soft. "And now we both need to get out of here before he comes back."
Another beat.
"Okay."
Colter lets out a sigh of relief and relaxes slightly. "Okay," he repeats. "I think he took my knife, so you're going to have to get these ropes loose on your own. Think you can do that?"
"I… I can try."
"Perfect," he tells her. "Just do your best."
A second later, her cold fingers touch his wrists. He flinches in surprise, and she freezes.
Colter grits his teeth, regretting the reaction he hadn't been able to hold back. "It's all right," he assures her quickly.
After a moment, he feels her touching his arms again as she starts to work on getting him loose. The knots are even tighter than he thought they were when he was testing them. Colter winces as Sadie moves the ropes back and forth, causing the rough bindings to tear deeper into the raw skin of his wrists. Every movement stings, but at least it's progress. He exhales through his nose, grounding himself as she continues to fumble with the ropes.
Finally, the knots slip loose.
Colter gasps in relief as the pressure on his shoulders eases and his left arm falls forward. He rolls to his back and pulls his arms in front of him to start rubbing the circulation back into them. He can barely feel his fingers, though the pain from the bruising and where the ropes have rubbed away layers of skin is harsh and biting. Colter winces at the thought of the rope fibers that are going to have to be cleaned out of his wounds whenever he can finally get them to safety and deal with his injuries.
Numbness slowly gives way to white-hot pins and needles rushing into his fingertips, and he grunts at the sensation. He bites it back as he flexes his hands and shakes them out, trying to restore the blood flow. Ever so slowly, feeling returns.
She moves to the ropes around his ankles, which hurt just slightly less since his pants have blocked the bindings from cutting into the skin there. "How bad are you hurt?" she asks.
"I've had worse." It's not untrue.
The second set of bindings falls away. Colter draws his legs up slowly, wincing at the stinging feeling now rushing through his feet as well. And he's shaky; he can feel it. A combination of the head injury and lying too long on the ground in one position. The floor feels unsteady beneath him even though it's not moving. He moves to stand up, but the world pitches hard to the left again the moment he moves—and this time, his stomach flips.
He doubles over, gagging, but manages to keep from throwing up.
Breathe, Colter, a voice in his head tells him. Focus. She trusted you enough to cut you loose. Now get her out of here.
"Colter?" Sadie asks worriedly. "Are you sure you're okay? You were out for a while. He must've hit you pretty hard."
It's not the first time he's been jumped while working a case. Probably won't be the last.
Her words bring back flashes of a narrow trail through thick trees, and Colter realizes he can't remember the actual moment of impact. He's had enough experience with head injuries to know the gaps in his memory may or may not fill themselves in with time. And he also knows he can't waste time worrying about it right now. More important things are at hand, specifically, finding a way out of wherever they are before their captor returns.
He pushes everything else to the back of his mind, a skill honed through growing up with a father whose sole focus was making sure his kids could survive anything. Right now, the only thing that matters is making sure Sadie is safe.
Colter prepares to force himself to move. Every breath is a reminder of his head injury, but he's been through worse. He just has to keep going and not let himself stop. When he stops for too long, that's when he has to be worried.
"Can you run?" he asks, voice rough. "I don't have a flashlight, but we might have to take our chances getting out of here in the dark anyway. If we stay and wait for daylight, he might come back before then."
"Um…" She coughs. "I can run, but…" There's something in her voice that sounds like more than just uncertainty over Colter's plan.
But if it's not that, then… Colter's brow furrows, his addled brain still putting the pieces together.
He blinks, an instinctive reaction to try and sharpen his focus. Nothing changes. All he sees is the same darkness with a few faint colors and shifting shadows. Just a dull, soupy blur that's… not right, he suddenly realizes. His mind is lagging, but the pieces from the minutes leading up until now slowly start to click together.
Even if it were night, he'd at least see outlines. Shapes. Even if there's no moonlight, there should be something more than just pitch black.
A beat later, his brain connects the dots and what he should have noticed sooner hits him all at once like a freight train. His stomach dips as the reality of the situation hits him.
Head injury, minimal vision, no changes even when he strains his eyes… There's only one logical conclusion, and it isn't good.
And it really isn't what they need right now.
"It's… not night, is it?" he asks.
Sadie's quiet for a beat too long, cementing the answer in his mind even before she speaks. "No. It's… it's afternoon sometime, I think. There's a window, but it's boarded up."
Not good. If it's daylight and he can't see more than shadows, he's worse off than he thought. Colter swallows and tamps down on the rising panic, forcing himself to take a step back into an objective overview of his predicament.
99% chance he's lost his vision due to the head injury. It's a toss-up between pressure on the optic nerve or damage to the visual cortex, but both have the same effect. And 50% chance it's temporary.
Colter grimaces and files the stats away with clinical efficiency. They don't change the fact that he needs to get Sadie out of here. There's no time for emotion, not right now. He has to triage the situation if they're going to get out of this, prioritize what matters in the moment. He can't do anything about his blindness, and worrying especially won't help anything. So he takes slow, shallow breaths through his nose and tamps the fear down. He's had worse odds before and worse injuries, and he's made it through.
Still, being blind changes every plan he might've come up with. It also adds to the urgency that they escape before their captor returns. Colter's nowhere near any shape to fight, and there's no telling how desperate the man will be now that someone—Colter—got close enough to be a threat.
Colter clenches his jaw, forces the building panic into a small mental box, and locks the lid. It's not gone, but it can wait.
The pounding in his head spikes again, accompanied by faint nausea. Colter shuts his eyes for a second—pointless, but it helps him focus. He forces himself to breathe slower, fighting the pounding in his skull. He needs a weapon, a plan, and a path out. Preferably all three, but he'll settle for at least the last two.
"Okay," he says slowly, voice level despite everything. They're going to have to work together to get out of this. Not exactly the way Colter had anticipated this job going, but these are the cards he's been dealt. No use wasting time wishing for a different hand. He'll have to hope Sadie can step up to the plate right now. "I don't want to worry you, but I can't see. The hit to my head must've done something and blinded me."
She sucks in a breath, and Colter quickly continues. They can't afford her panicking right now. "Hey, hey, hey, Sadie. It's all right, okay? Just means we're going to have to get creative. We can still get out of this, okay? Tell me you can do this."
"I… I can do this." She sounds like she's trying to convince herself as much as him, but at least she's talking.
"Okay, great," Colter coaches. "Now, fill me in on where we are. I'm assuming you've already tried the door?"
"Yeah," she replies, her voice stronger now. "It's padlocked from the outside. And this place looks old, but it's too sturdy to get out anywhere else. I already tried finding any weak spots when he first locked me in here." She sounds terrified but still strong, which is good.
Colter shifts to his elbow and swallows hard as his stomach does backflips. Forcing himself to take a breath, he reaches up to feel his throbbing head and winces as his hand comes away tacky.
"Hey, don't do that," Sadie chides, her voice closer now as she kneels beside him. "You'll make it worse."
"Help me up," Colter brushes off the warning.
Sadie moves closer and slips her arm under his shoulder.
He braces to push up when she lifts, but she suddenly freezes as the distant rumble of a car engine cuts through the stillness. Sadie's pressed up against him, and Colter can feel when she tenses and starts to tremble slightly.
"That's him," she whispers, her voice small and tight.
Colter's heart rate ticks up. He needs to formulate a plan, but his options are limited. No weapon, even if he could see, and a head injury that hasn't let him stand yet.
Tires crunch outside. The engine cuts off. A car door opens and closes.
Colter closes his eyes for a second, focusing, an instinctive move as there's nothing visual to tune out.
The footsteps draw closer. They're heavy, most likely a man's. No doubt armed as well, especially if it's the same person who jumped Colter earlier; he'll be expecting possible trouble even though he'd left Colter tied up. If Colter could see, he'd jump the guy as soon as the door opened, but his injury narrows their options significantly.
A lock clicks, and the door creaks open.
The fear in Sadie's quickened breathing isn't hard to miss. She drops her arm, and Colter can't quite hold back his grunt of pain as he drops back to the floor when the support disappears. Pain flares up his back, but he hears Sadie backing away toward the far wall from where the newcomer's footsteps are now coming.
Boots thump on the wooden floor as the door closes again. The steps are deliberate, not rushed. They're the footsteps of someone confident, someone who thinks he's already won.
Colter's head turns slightly, following the sound.
A low chuckle breaks the silence. "Well, look at that. You're still alive. Barely."
The voice is clearer now, and something clicks in Colter's brain. He knows that voice. He'd heard it when he was asking questions back in town. His brain brings up a spotty memory of a tall man standing outside the gas station, chatting about the weather and shrugging his broad shoulders when asked about Sadie.
Colter doesn't react to the man's taunting words, just waits. There's nothing to be gained from responding anyway, and he needs to catch the man off guard.
Roberts, his brain supplies a minute late.
"Guess I shouldn't be surprised. You've got a reputation, Colter Shaw." Another chuckle. "Though I expected more from someone who tracks people for a living. Kinda ironic, me catching you instead, don't you think?"
Roberts is closer now. The footsteps stop.
Colter doesn't move, just listens. Waits. Counts.
Distance: maybe three feet.
Angle of approach: left side.
Odds of landing the hit if he moves now: 60%.
Odds of living if he doesn't try: 0.
He hears the shift of weight as Roberts leans in.
Now.
Colter tucks his head and rolls hard toward the sound, ignoring the pain now screaming through his head and down his back, and slams into Roberts' legs.
The man shouts in surprise as he topples backward, hitting the floor with a thud.
Colter doesn't wait. Instinct kicks in, muscle memory drilled into him since he was a kid growing up with a father who believed every child should know how to fight. He scrambles on top of the larger man before Roberts can recover.
With his vision practically useless, Colter tries to ignore the shifting shadows around him and fights blind. He grabs for the man's coat, shifts his weight, and slides a knee into Roberts' ribs in a standard control position, just like a thousand times on the mat.
Wrestling was the one thing he always excelled at, even against older kids. Technique over strength. Purpose over panic. And if the odds were otherwise even between him and Roberts, Colter might win here too, but they're not. He can't see, and his head's pounding, stacking the deck against him. He has to pin the larger man's arms before the guy regains his senses. Otherwise, Colter won't stand a chance.
Roberts thrashes beneath him, snarling, trying to buck him off.
Colter tightens his grip and shifts his weight upward to press his forearm across Roberts' throat. "Go!" he yells at Sadie, voice raw and cracking. "Run! Now!"
There's a pause, hesitation where he thinks she's too frozen in fear to react. Then her footsteps sprint toward the door. He hears it fly open and slam against the wall.
But he doesn't have time to be relieved.
"Get off me!" Roberts jerks beneath him again, undoubtedly angered by losing his prisoner.
Colter grits his teeth and hangs on, but his body's failing. The odds of his keeping Roberts down are dropping by the second, but the odds of Sadie getting clear are climbing—and that's all that matters.
Digging deep, Colter holds out for longer than he thinks he can. But even the best technique has limits when you're injured, and Colter's already well past his limits.
With a violent twist, Roberts finally rolls and slams Colter onto his back. The impact sends a fresh bolt of pain through his spine and head and drives the breath from his lungs.
There's pressure on Colter's shoulders now, pinning him down. He fights it, but he can't get up. His pulse is roaring in his ears as he reaches up, trying to get his hands around Roberts' throat or into his eyes.
A fist lands in his exposed stomach, and Colter chokes. What little air was left in his lungs leaves in a silent gasp.
Another blow, this one to his chin. Colter nearly loses his tenuous grip on reality.
It comes back slowly. Colter feels his chest heaving, his lungs fighting to suck in air, and his limbs sluggish as he tries to force them into action.
He can feel Roberts shifting again and braces instinctively. Then he suddenly realizes it's not the same movement as moments before. It's not a strike. The man's reaching downward, toward his waistband.
Colter's heart skips a beat.
Weapon. Probably a sidearm.
He lashes out, grabbing blindly for the man's arm, but he's half a second too slow. His fingers just miss the fabric of Roberts' sleeve.
His mind races, calculating. 50-50 toss-up between a gun or a knife, but it doesn't matter. Colter knows the man won't hesitate to use whatever it is.
"You should've just left town," Roberts snarls.
Colter takes a breath and clenches his jaw, waiting for the crack of the shot.
But it never comes.
In the next moment, there's a rush of feet and a yell and a flurry of confused movement Colter can't track quickly enough. He tries to turn toward the sound, but the world lurches sideways again.
Too much movement too fast. His brain can't keep up.
And then—a gunshot.