Lost in London [Completed]

Dix

*A/N: Set before previous flashbacks, Kay has just been abducted, timeline needs to be made clearer in second draft.*

Kay woke up in the darkness, head pounding. He brought his hand to his head, winced at the contact, head stinging. The sticky blood came off on his fingers as he picked himself up off of the floor, desperately attempting to get his bearings.

He stumbled around the edge of the room, hands finally hitting the light switch and left a reddened smear on the plastic. He glanced around in the new light – a bedroom. Dust smothered the end tables and the mattress was dirty and uncovered.

His confusion continued as he tried the door. Locked. He flinched at the sound of movement outside the room. Kay fumbled with the door, though stumbled back when the door was shoved open. Instead of trying to force his way out, Kay stepped backwards, tripping and ended up sitting on the bottom of the bed.

"Glad you're awake," he was snapped at. "Camera ready, I hope?" The man who had come in waved a cell phone at Kay and tossed a newspaper into the boy's lap.

Kay looked up at him, more shocked than anything else.

"What do you mean? I – What is it that you want? You won't get it." Kay asked, though was quickly shut up with just one look.

"I mean that I need to prove that you're alive, that's all."

Kay nodded slowly, deciding that he should just play along for now.

"And what am I supposed to say? That I'm having a nice fucking vacation? Where's Halden? Tell me what you've done to him and I'll play nice."

"God, you're so naïve. Doesn't matter where he is, and you just need to say that you're fine, being treated well, and the date. It's on the newspaper. Then we can discuss your options."

Kay nodded, the surprise too deep for him to argue. "Yeah – uh – okay – okay," he continued to nod. This was a best case situation right now. And then the camera was on him.

"I – uh –" he looked up hesitantly. "I'm fine. It's uh –" Kay paused and scanned the newspaper for the date. "It's October Seventeen, Twenty-Sixteen, and – uh – and I'm fine, they're treating me well." His tone shook, but then the camera was off.

"Wasn't too hard, was it?"

Kay shook his head.

"When are you going to let me leave?"

"When you tell me where Halden is. I know you planned to meet him, and you know what he owes some of his time."

"I'm not going to tell you – I – I wouldn't even tell you if I knew," Kay slowly stood up, gently placing the newspaper to the side. "I'm not going to cause you any trouble, you can just let me leave."

"Can't do that, kid, you're gonna need to tell me where your boyfriend is."

"Fiancé."

"Oh," his face contorted into an expression that was almost sympathetic. "That doesn't matter to me. But I do need you to tell me where he is."

"Or what?" Kay challenged.

"Or I'll have to kill you, after I've had a little fun."

Kay took a deep breath in, before lifting his chin and looking upwards to meet the man's eyes. He was about to make the biggest mistake of his life, well, so far. And he knew just as much, but there was nothing that could prevent it.

"Do your worst. I'm not saying a goddamned word about Halden to you."

-*-

Jennifer Edwards watched the video play on loop in complete horror. Her son, bloodied and shaken up speaking on the screen, stammering and reassuring her that everything was fine. Over and over. The thirteen second clip of Aeon's shaky voice, speaking the same sentence over and over.

"I – uh – I'm fine. It's uh – It's October Seventeen, Twenty-Sixteen, and – uh – and I'm fine, they're treating me well."

The family lawyer finally pressed pause on the video, leaving the image of Kay checking the newspaper for the date frozen into the screen.

"The ransom demand is eighty-million, Mr. Edwards," he was addressing Kay's father at this point. All financial decisions went through him, no matter how minor. This wasn't anything of the such. "What are you thinking? The message that came along with the video said that any police involvement and they'll execute."

Stanley was standing up, slightly behind Jennifer with his hands on her shoulders. His face betrayed no emotion, for one reason only: there was none there. He was silent for several minutes, staring at his son's face on the screen. Eighty-million, not a small sum by any means, but it was doable. And it would barely make a dent.

"No, make contact, negotiate it down to ten, and then I might consider," his tone was firm, not one to be argued with. Not one of an undecided man.

This elicited a dramatic gasp from Jennifer as she got out of her seat, spinning around to face her older husband. It didn't faze Stanley in the slightest.

"Stan, dear! This – you can't say that, he's our son, we can afford to pay," Jennifer was already verging on tears as she stepped closer, hands in a vague praying gesture at her own chest. "Aeon is our son, they said they'd execute him," she continued, eyes wide with fear.

Stanley shrugged her off, giving her a gentle shove backwards. "I can afford to pay, and I'm choosing not to. The boy has been nothing but trouble. He probably got himself into this, and I refuse to bail him out of this one," was the simple response given.

Jennifer wasn't surprised by the harsh attitude, not now, but it didn't change the fact that she moved towards him again, this time grasping Stanley's hands in her own.

"Please just pay, dear, you'll make the money back in a few months, weeks, even."

Stanley pulled away his hands from Jennifer's desperate grip, pausing for a moment before bringing his hand upwards in a threatening gesture. "You know better than this, honey. And you also know that Aeon has been more trouble than this is worth. Don't you?"

Jennifer nodded reluctantly, turning on her heel and leaving the office, not daring to allow tears to fall until she was far out of the way of Stanley's potential rage.