Chapter 3
He was in Afghanistan again. He could almost feel the sand under him, baking him to death in this fucking oven of a room.
Dark concrete walls surrounded him, lit by the sickly pale light of a lamp that dangled precariously from the ceiling. There were no windows, and one steel door with a tiny, barred window. John's side felt like somebody was continually stabbing him with a hot brand, his head pounded with the side-effects of whatever drugs he'd been fed, and everything ached. Someone his age wasn't meant to lay down for so long, especially not on a cot that was little more than a rubber sling.
John forced himself to move, swallowing a cry of pain as he slowly inch toward the side of the bed, his torso on fire. He only managed to get himself about a third of the way rolled over before he had to give up, howling with agony through clenched teeth. Clearly, he wasn't going to get anywhere being slow about it. C'mon, John. Like a bandaid. He took a few shallow, rapid breaths for courage before violently shoving himself over. He landed face-first on the floor, and fire tore through him. He tried to scream, but nothing would come out except a wheeze. It was like his rib cage was splitting open like an Easter egg.
He lay there for a few more minutes, waiting for the pain to go from lava-hot to subzero, groaning all the while, and eventually it wore off to a cold ache. John dared to move, propping himself up slowly on his elbows and, grunting furiously, dragged himself in an army-crawl towards the door. He didn't know where he was, but he knew he had been kidnapped, and this place was not a Mycroft type of place to be kidnapped to.
And that meant, logically, based on the kind of life he lived, that he was probably in mortal danger.
He reached the door in no time, gasping and rolling onto his back to rest, bumping into a medical cart in the process. He grunted as the wheel hit his shoulder and a little glass syringe fell onto the floor with a little metallic tink.
He rolled his head to the side to look at it, and suddenly, John realized God was real. God was a little syringe labelled "morphine". He grappled for it, hands clumsy from his little nap. How long had he been out? Hours? Days? Weeks? He stabbed it mercilessly into his other shoulder, taking in a sharp breath as he injected it. That pain was barely anything compared to his side. God, what had they done to his side? He felt almost empty.
Gradually, the pain wore away. He was still having difficulty breathing from it, but with effort and a lot of groaning, John eventually managed to pull himself to his feet, leaning against the cold wall next to the door. He swallowed the bile that rose inexplicably in his throat, and lifted up his shirt to look at his torso. There was an ugly gash running from the bottom of his ribcage to his hips on his left side. It was ugly, swollen, and it made him want to vomit looking at it, but it was a perfect strike, a surgical line put there by practiced hands.
His kidney. His fucking kidney.
Breathe. One, two, three, four, I can't, the air's gone, my kidney is gone, Sherlock is gone, and I am... Where am I? Is this what a panic attack feels like? I think I'm dying. Is there any more morphine?
John struck the medical cart with his arm, aggressively throwing it onto its side. A number of pill bottles spilled onto the floor, and a blood packet splattered onto the wall. No more morphine. If there was, he definitely just broke whatever container it was in.
The sound of footsteps broke off his train of thought, and he froze, his heartbeat and those footsteps suddenly the only two sounds in the universe. He was suddenly hyper-aware of the syringe he still held in his hand, wrist shaking in exhilaration as the sounds grew closer, loud like the snapping of a twig in a silence before a storm, closing in on him.
The key clicked in the lock and the door swung open, allowing in a middle-aged man with dark, slicked-back hair, eyes too glued on his clipboard to notice John. John instinctively picked out three very important things about this situation:
First, this was not a sanitary environment, and this man was not well groomed, and there were not enough medical supplies in this room. He was not in a hospital.
Second, he was no longer in England. Whatever was on the man's clipboard, it wasn't English.
Third, he was in danger. Blood stained the bottoms of this stranger's sleeves.
And within those few seconds of John looking at him, the collar of his coat would also be stained. On instinct, John threw himself out of his hiding place, in perfect time to plunge the syringe into the man's neck. Blood spewed as he writhed on the floor, and John fell back against the wall, groaning with pain and now, squeamishness.
Blood squirted onto his tattered pant leg, and he cringed, scooting back and waiting for the life to leave the man's eyes before inching forward and slipping the gun out from its holster. What kind of self-respecting medical practice, even if it was organ trafficking, let its employees carry handguns?
John gasped in pain, heartbeat deafening him as he cautiously peeked into the hallway. It was lit with LEDs in a single column down the ceiling. There were similar doors all along the corridor, but no windows, but some natural light leaked out from the end of the hall where it turned a corner. He glanced both ways before inching out, heavily dependent on the wall to keep him upright. He tried to be as quiet as possible for the sake of getting out of here. Worst case scenario, he was caught and locked back up. What were they gonna do? Shoot him through the skull? Ha. Not before harvesting his brain. As far as they cared, he was very aggressive, walking merchandise.
He shuffled along, trying to ignore the haunting sounds of people in the other cells, groaning and hyperventilating and screaming in a mixture of confusion and terror. And, even worse, the rooms that were chillingly silent and stank of blood.
The sounds of amiable chatter grew louder as he neared the end of the hallway. At first he thought it was his mind refusing to understand the voices, but he quickly realized that they actually just weren't speaking English. What language was that?
He rounded the first corner to find himself in front of a great, big, shining window. The light blinded him at first, but as his eyes adjusted, he began to pick out the landscape. Beautiful, rolling, green hills extended out to the horizon, traced with streams. He was either looking East or West since the sun was touching the earth. In the distance, he thought there might be mountains.
Honestly, he could be in north Afghanistan. Or somewhere in the Mediterranean. Or Spain.
He didn't know. The voices died down, but it was more out of lack of conversation than anything. Three people. How did you get past three people with nothing but a handgun? If the medical staff was armed, then the guards would be up to their ears in ammo and automatics.
Conversation had picked up again, and now it was getting heated. Two of their voices grew louder and louder until the third cut them both off and said something patronizing. John dared to lean out around the corner, carefully watching the scene. The third voice, another middle aged man, had snatched both of their weapons and was giving them a piece of his mind. The other two were young men, probably barely legal adults, looking sullen. John bit his lip. The third had too many weapons to arm himself in a timely manner, and the other two just didn't have weapons anymore. If there was any time, it was now. He pirouetted out of hiding and into the wall, leering down the barrel of the pistol as he tried to sound threatening.
"Fucking- Ah!" he winced as his side protested, but bared his teeth and lifted his aim to the man with the guns as he tried to reach for his assault rifle. "Put it down!" John commanded, his voice cracking. "On the ground, and kick it over!"
The middle aged man put his hands in the air as John cocked the gun, babbling in a foreign language. One of the young adults shouted something aggressively, and without hesitation, John pulled the trigger. The man fell to the ground, wailing from being shot in the waist.
"Any other q-questions?!" John stammered, gun shivering. He felt himself break into cold sweats. The morphine was starting to wear off. He didn't have much more time to negotiate. Luckily, the younger man that hadn't been shot yet, obediently dropped to his knees and threw his hands in the air. John kept his eyes and barrel on the older one, who wasn't so compliant. The younger man began to speak in broken English.
"Please-! Please, sorry. What do you want?"
"Tell him to drop his weapons and kick them over," John said, nodding to the one with all the arms. The younger one said something, and they broke out in a heated argument for a few seconds before John cut them off. "Now!"
The one on the ground gave the older man a meaningful look, and he begrudgingly obeyed, dropping the three guns he'd gotten and kicking them over to John.
"Do you think I'm an idiot? Empty your boots and pull up your pant legs!"
The man sneered at him, resentfully pulling a knife out of his boot and his backup pistol out of his pants.
"Good," John remarked, and rushed towards him. The younger man cried out in his foreign language, but John ignored him.
He snatched the radio off of the mans utility belt and shot it, then held the pistol up again, waving it at the utility closet. Eventually, with enough cooperation, all three of them were locked in there, and John was free to move on. He had mercifully let them bring in some basic first aid.
Through the window of the door, he could see the outside. It looked like a military base of sorts, but with a lot less camouflage. There were guards at every doorway and staff at every turn.
John's cell building appeared to be one of three, and at the southern end of the outdoor commons he was looking at, there was a huge warehouse. Probably where all the transport vehicles were parked and the body parts stored. People bustled around outside with coolers.
There weren't any gaps where he could possibly try and sneak his way out. He would be lucky if he made it to nightfall if he didn't find a very, very good hiding spot. An idea came to him, and he sent out an unenthusiastic prayer before hurrying to find a place to wait for help to arrive.
Sherlock, don't fail me now.