Trigger warning: This episode contains a continuing abduction, and sundry nasty bits.
Continued from yesterday:
Todd didn’t seem able to unfreeze himself, curled on his side in the trunk of Manny’s car. Even when he felt the undercarriage shake with the ignition turning, the panic only choked him further and clouded his brain. Think, yo, some small part of him was berating himself. Ain’t nobody can help you but yo own self, so fuckin’ do somethin, already!
Ever so slowly, Todd felt out with first one leg than the other as to how much room he had to move in. It was a maddening process, flinch reactors were at an all time high. Whenever his foot encountered something he wasn’t expecting, he tried to draw it back into the protection of his defensive curl. Todd gritted his teeth against it and felt past the toolbox and all the rope, feeling for where the damn taillights were supposed to be. He kicked once, without much effort. Nothing other than vibrations going through his sneaker. Todd kicked harder, frantic when nothing continued to happen. Weren’t these things supposed to just knock right out? He gave one last violent kick, not sure whether he was really giving it all he could he was so afraid. The car halted sharply. Todd yelped as he slid toward the backseat and cowered there, terrified Manny had heard the kicking and was coming to investigate.
Voices. There were voices, asking for ID. Todd almost wept with relief - the rentacops were guarding the parking lot too and asking for validation. He was going to be okay. Manny didn’t sound too nervous but Todd could see in his mind’s eye how the man would be licking his lips as he lied. The cops were sure to see right through him, he thought giddily. Then his mind seemed to quarrel among itself in hushed tones for a moment, before coming back with the embarrassed reminder: Oh, right, these are cops we’re talking about. Remember? Whoops. They weren’t superhuman. They couldn’t detect lies, and if Manny had fake ID that was convincing enough, they were going to let him pass without a search. Todd struggled to get closer to the lid of the trunk. “Help!” he tried calling, and his voice was a pathetic squeak. He forced himself to cough, to try again. “HELP!” he shouted, but the car jerked into movement and Todd banged his forehead against the sharp corner of something as he was rocked forward.
After that was full-blown panic. Manny was getting away with him, there wasn’t anyway out of the trunk or to even indicate he was in trouble. Todd kicked at the confinements of the small space anyway and managed to dent it. He tore at the fabric to try and find a catch to the lid inside - failing that, cutting his fingers before pounding the lid until his wrists ached. He couldn’t get his legs in a good enough position to kick the lid open and he didn’t want to get stuck in any position on his back as far as Manny was concerned.
If Manny had been hoping to exhaust him by the time they got to the flat, he was well-rewarded. Todd was curled in rather much the same way Manny had left him except for the cuts and drying blood on his shirt. Manny glanced at the boy while Todd tried to get his bearings. They were in some kind of garage, concealed from the neighbor’s view, which meant…
Todd didn’t have time to process the thought of ‘dodge’ before Manny’s fist connected with the side of his head. Partially dazed - he’d had worse - Todd let himself be dragged out of the trunk by his wrists and was dumped on the floor to watch as Manny slammed the lid shut again. The blow would have knocked out Kenny, but Todd was all too aware of being dragged through the garage and up the familiar wooden stairs to the apartment above. His body was limp and the more functional parts of his mind seemed to be far away and useless, leaving him to deal with the rest of it.
It all came back in a cruel rush as Todd recognized where he was and he suddenly froze in the doorway, heedless of Manny’s hands on his shoulders which were forcibly steering him to the kitchen. Todd paled remembering blood on the tiles, steak knife in her hand. He tried to twist out of Manny’s grip, not wanting to be there and not able to say why. Manny gripped him by the elbow and backhanded Todd viciously. “Give me another reason,” the man snarled at him, grinning. “And I’ll be happy to oblige again. Sit."
Todd made a noise, thinking Manny meant the floor. He couldn’t, he just couldn’t sit near that again. Manny forced him into a chair at the table where Todd closed his eyes and didn’t look at anything at all. He could still see everything however, and it hurt worse than the blows that had already drawn blood. "Good news for you, eh? I’m a'call the little bitch, Kenny. Your friend can either bring Tolensky here, or she can leave you with me. More of a choice than I give most people. If you don’t make me hurt you worse, you’ll be walkin’ out of here by sunset. Got it?"
Todd choked and nodded, eyes still shut and leaking tears. He crumpled into the chair and hid his face in his arms.
"Good. Stay still and be quiet.” Manny picked up the cell phone he’d had charging by the wall and flipped it on. He had her cell number and if not, Kenny would just have to inform him of the correct one. The numbers dialed and he waited.
~
Sara was dithering madly in ever-decreasing circles at ever-increasing speeds - until her cell chirped _Istanbul (not Constantinople)_. She rushed to answer it. “Thylacine Enterprises… how can I direct your call?”
“Hello, Sara Louise…” said a voice on the other end of the line. “Do you know where your little friend is?”
She went cold in an instant. Sub-arctic. Arctic. The mean temperature of the moon. Zero Kelvin. “Manny, I assume,” she said.
“You’re a very clever girl,” said Manny. “Unfortunately for you, I am also very clever. I have your friend Kenny.”
Tears formed and fell without a blink. “Don’t hurt him?”
“I won’t - unless you give me a *reason*…” he menaced. “All *I* want is a nice, friendly *chat* with my nephew, Todd Tolenski. You bring him to meet me… and you can have your friend.”
“You do realise that I must ask for proof that you have him alive, first. I’m not one to fall for ransom scams of any ilk.”
Footsteps. Slight echo… sounded like there was old linoleum present, and rising damp in the walls. A distant, “Talk!” from Manny.
“Don’t listen to him, Sara! Forget me. Go *Home* and have a good life with Todd. Don’t let him–”
A hard thump. Sara knew the sound of the wind being knocked out of someone by heart. She’d made it all-too-frequently during her days as Essel.
“How sweet of him,” said Manny. “But of course you would know about me from Todd. You wouldn’t want me to get *bored* and start entertaining myself, now, would you?”
Sara’s voice failed.
“*Would* you?”
“How much time do I have?”
A pause. Obviously he was trying to calculate travel times based on a single data point. “I will give you until midnight to call me back. You will have Todd when you do… or things will become most - *unpleasant* for Kenny.”
Distant, in the background, “Just go home, Sara! Go *home*! Go–” the call shut off.
Go home? Sara quirked her eyebrow. Her home was the Institute. What would Todd want her to do there? Cerebro? No. Cerebro only picked up on mutants using their powers. Todd was currently incognito and at the mercy of a mundane. Outing oneself was not the solution.
Her former home was not the answer. There would be no solutions from the Pierce side of the family.
“Something?” said Dad.
“Todd’s been kidnapped by his abusive uncle,” said Sara. She was still dead inside. “Something Todd said… he told me to go home.”
“Not your home.”
“No. I’ve eliminated that. But… he used to live at the boarding house.”
“We can start there,” Dad suggested. “Maybe there’s some record there of his old abode.”
“…kay,” she managed. _Professor… Todd’s been taken. See what you can unearth, please?_ She slouched under her father’s arm towards his renta-car. “Daddy… there’s something you ought to know…”
~
Manny shut the cellphone off and dropped it onto the counter behind him. “Go home, Sara! Just…” Todd trailed off as soon as Manny turned around.
“I didn’t give you permission to keep talking, Kenny,” he said evenly. Todd cringed as far back in his seat as he could, but no blow came his way this time. Manny approached him slowly. “Do you know what kind of person you’re even protecting? Todd one of your friends?”
Todd flinched, not sure how to answer that without giving himself away. Manny was close enough to feel his breath and just that made him want to kick the man through the wall, but he couldn’t seem to gather the nerve. This was far beyond and beneath mutants versus mundane, this was personal.
It wasn’t Toad’s fight, it was Todd Tolensky’s and he was losing. He only hoped Sara would know what he meant when he told her to go home. His home. The others would know where he kept the things she needed. She was smart enough to figure it out, he knew. But he was also afraid she wouldn’t be. Not any reflection on her; he was the one who kept all the information to himself.
“No?” Manny smirked. “You know him because the bitch is doing him?”
“Don’t call her that, and she ain’t doin’ nobody!” Todd snapped.
Manny’s grin got wider. “You like her,” he said.
“No,” Todd moaned. It didn’t matter, but Manny might find a way to use it against her. Against him.
“You do. How pathetically cute, Kenny. What do you feel like when she has bruises she won’t explain, hmm? Angry? Disgusted?”
Todd’s face morphed into something very close to a snarl. “He doesn’t hit her."
"Really? I’m surprised,” Manny feigned shock. “He’s done so much worse, after all. I admit his father and I were a bit hard on him in his younger days."
"No shit,” Todd muttered flatly.
Manny looked at him and Todd felt terror scrabble at the walls of his stomach. “He told you all about it, eh? Well, I suppose you must think my brother deserved being murdered then.”
Todd looked up sharply. “What?” he asked softly.
“My brother. Todd’s father and his mother were both found dead in this apartment. From what I’ve been told, my brother was stabbed and my sister-in-law’s throat was slit like a pig’s."
"Nngh,” the boy said, not needing the imagery haunting him again. Or to hear Manny likening his mother to a pig. “I thought it was a suicide,” he tried.
Manny was still for a moment, then he moved and the next thing Todd knew he was lying on the floor, cheek pressed against concrete and bits of glass and dirt. He tried to move and his body responded with a protesting creak of pain.
“Don’t get up,” Manny spat. Todd felt hands at the back of his shirt and he was being dragged back into the kitchen by it. Manny let him slump against the lower cabinets and stood over Todd, turning the sink water on. “Don’t you ever correct me again, you son of a bitch, or I swear next time I will kill you. My brother was fucking murdered and his body lied on this goddamn floor for weeks with a fucking knife in his chest!"
The hand came into focus again. Todd shrieked and turned his face away, but Manny only hauled him back to his feet and forced a wet towel against his face. He scrubbed at the blood and cuts roughly, hand clamped on the back of Todd’s neck so he couldn’t pull away. The boy didn’t behave through it all, twisting and making noises like a tortured animal until Manny finally let him fall back to the ground. Todd curled up and wept. The combination of water, Manny, and towels was reaching for the uglier memories in the back of Todd’s brain and bringing them out for him to look at once more.
Manny left him where he lay, but leaned against the counter and wiped the blood off his hands. "You tell me, Kenny. If somebody ain’t a murderer, why the hell they don’t call the hospital or the police when they got their own Pop and Momma bleedin’ on the kitchen floor? Huh? You fuckin’ tell me that.”
~
The boarding house was looking marginally improved since the last time she’d seen it.
“Mutant,” said Daddy for the fifth time in as many minutes.
“Yeah. I’m not exactly… normal… normally.” She wound the doorbell and produced an asthmatic rattle. Lance answered the door and flinched.
“I’m unarmed,” she announced. “Todd’s in trouble, this is my Dad, and I need to know everything you know about Todd and where he’s lived.”
“Um,” said Lance. “How could Toad be in trouble?” A sidelong glance at her Dad.
“He knows,” Sara said. “Now. Can we come in and battle-plan, or should we loiter on the doorstep where the rest of the mundanes can hear us?”
“Uh. Oh. Yeah. Right.” Lance stood aside. “You know where everything is.”
“Afternoon,” said Dad. “Where are the records for this establishment kept?”
“I'unno,” Lance grunted. “If th’ boss-lady had anything like that, it’d be in her room. It’s locked. Like, uber-locked.”
“Not for long,” Dad smirked and jogged upstairs.
Lance glared at her. “The fuck’s going on?”
“Did Todd ever say anything about unwanted relatives? Specifically an uncle Manny?”
Lance went white. “…shit,” he whispered. “*Fuck*…” he scrubbed his hair. “*HE* is in town?”
“You know about Uncle Manny.”
“Heard some of the nightmares,” said Lance. “Never got a lot out of him about it. Did some digging…” he sighed. “Manny’s one sick, twisted fuck, you know? CPS busted his door down 'cause some neighbour filed a complaint, found him an’ Todd in bed… naked and worse…” the last three words were a rushed mumble. Lance turned red. “Two weeks later, his folks got into their last domestic, if you know what I mean. The bodies were found something like two months after that.”
Sara filled in the sketch in glorious colour. Abusive father who favours both bottle and fist, a mother desperately trying to protect her son. Things get more heated than usual… and suddenly things became irreversably out of hand. Mom either fatally wounded or too terrified to face the law… And Todd, witnessing it all, too scared to do anything because they might just put him with his only living relative.
“Dragon scars,” she whispered. “Those wounds run so deep, they’re almost invisible.”
Lance shrugged. “He doesn’t talk about it,” he said. “He’s happy with the 'now’ so we let it lie, y'know?”
“That, sir,” said Sara, “was almost a sin.”
Dad danced down the stairs with a bundle of folios under one arm. “Found the records,” he announced.
“How the fuck did you get in there?”
Dad grinned. “Ancient gypsy secret. Learned the trick from a fellow named Wolfgang[1].” He placed the folios down. “It’s all here, History, past residences, manifestation episodes…” he held up a relavent page. “Manifestation episodes?”
“Mutants manifest,” said Sara. “There’s usually some precipitating stress or something of the ilk…” she took off her watch, revealling her aqua scales. “Me? I shed my skin and got this lot.”
Dad whistled. “Impressive…”
“It has its bonusses,” said Sara, finding Todd’s file. “Shedding was a pure bovine, alas.” Previous abodes… there. The tenements on the wrong side of the tracks. The flat and the news articles about the domestic squabble. The gory photos… Damn the Media.
The forlorn picture of Todd in an ambulance next to a suspiciously Darkholme-esque counsellor put it all together. He hadn’t had his nose broken at the time of the photograph. “Haufmann! That fucking *bastard* was *HAUFMANN*!” Her skin coloured red, black and yellow. “I’m going to track him down and bash his lying face in! I’m going to tear his arms off and beat him to death with the wet ends! I’m going to rip his entrails out and feed them to him with a side of fava beans and a nice Chiante! I’ll flog his skin off with his own–”
“*Sara*…” Dad interrupted, “He’s not worth the effort, sweetie.”
“As if the *Law* would do anything to him,” Sara fumed. “It’s time for some *kharma*.”
[1] Yes, it’s Uncle Wolf
~~