•Will's POV•
We arrived back in Chicago earlier than I expected. Clarke took us to his home in town. It wasn't fully as I expected. It was old. Like it hadn't been dusted in a while, otherwise it was nice. The furniture was old fashioned. Rugs covered some of the floors. It had a light stench of smoke lingering.
I was back in the cuffs. Clarke's firm hand led me in his home.
"Father? Are you here?" He called out.
He bolted up the stairs doing a quick sweep of the home.
"Empty. I wonder if he's in police custody."
"It's your father, I doubt it. Maybe he's just...Out?"
"Out? Doing what?"
"I don't know. Bad guy things."
"Bad guy things?" He raised his eye brows.
"Yeah. Like robbing banks or kidnapping people. Things like that."
"I need to find him. We need to make the exchange so you can go free. We only have three more hours."
Three hours.
Three hours before everything changes.
"Clarke." He spun around. I threw up my handcuffed hands above his head and rested them on his shoulders. I reached up and kissed him.
"Three more hours. You're dad will show, and you'll be free. I need to go find him so this can all be over with."
I nodded slowly, and put my arms down. He held my cuffed hands.
"I do care about you, Will."
"I care about you too, a lot." I replied.
"You could have Stockholm syndrome. You know, falling in love with your captor."
"There's no such thing. And.. You think I'm falling in love with you?"
Clarke looked at me. His eyes soft like a puppy. He looked a little scared. Did he fear rejection?
I gazed into his eyes and tilted his chin to my level. His gentle eyes looked back at me.
"Because I am." I admitted without a shred of hesitation.
"I never felt like this before. You know? Like, you give me butterflies. But yet, there's no where else I'd rather be."
"Have you been with guys before?"
"No. You?"
"No. Never. Never expected to be. Until you came."
The door busted open. Clarke yanked me by the cuffs and shoved me behind him.
"Father, you're not in jail."
"Why would I fucking be in jail? I'm smarter than that, you dumb ass." He roared like a beast.
"We managed to get away."
"Good fucking thing, too. Didn't think you had the balls to manage it. You got the Merlin boy?" His dad always spoke with a scream and spit when he talked.
Clarke jerked my cuffs and shoved me forward.
"He's clean. What the fuck did you do?"
"I couldn't handle his stench. Smelled fucking awful." Clarke scrunched his nose.
He was by far the scariest man I had encountered. Just the sound of his voice made my heart pound and the hair on my arms stand on end.
"Clarke, I got a job for you." Said his father.
"Now?"
"No. Tomorrow after brunch. Yes, right fucking now."
Clarke stepped forward.
"What do you need?"
"I need you to make a quick delivery."
"Me? Now?"
"Yes, you, dumb ass. Now. Drop this off at the corner of Ainsworth." He went into a lower cupboard and yanked out a duffle bag. He tossed it at Clarke, despite its heavy continents, Clarke caught it effortlessly.
"Be back in a half hour. I want you hear for the trade. Got that?"
"Yes, father. Will he be coming with me?"
"Why the fuck would that happen?"
"I'm supposed to be watching him."
"You've been putting up with this piece of shit for days. Let me." He cracked his knuckles.
My stomach dropped.
Clarke looked at me with fathomless concern.
"Well, get going! We don't have all fucking day! Be back soon, got it?"
Clarke nodded. He threw the bag over his shoulder. He took a final glance back at me and said nothing. He left, closing the door behind me.
It was only me and him. One of the most feared men in the city, and I was standing in his living room.
I was in love with his son.
He rolled up his sleeves and balled up his fists. He drove it into my stomach, slamming me into the hard ground. There he kicked my legs with his steel toed shoes.
"Please.." I begged.
"You're a weak little piece of shit. You know that!" He exerted great force on my legs again.
"If I didn't need you, I'd kill you. You Merlin's ruined my life. Now you need to pay, you bastard."
He thruster his foot into my ribs and dug it in. I couldn't breathe.
"You better hope you're daddy comes through. Either way, I'm killing a Merlin tonight."
My understanding of why Clarke wanted to leave was more clear than ever.
His father was a monster. An evil, dastardly monster.
He didn't stop with his hard blows or his painful insults. I couldn't cry, I told myself, that'll make him want to hurt me more.
His promise to kill a Merlin tonight pierced my heart. What would the world be like without Frank Merlin? Better? Or even more chaotic?
When the Rossi and King truce ends with the death of my father, what then? Chicago would be divided. That was a war I don't want to be in the middle of, a war I don't want Clarke to be in the middle of, either.
Maybe Liam and Nova will have a plan. They usually do, I thought. Nova was intelligent, Liam was strong. They had to have came up with something.
"Get up!" He taunted.
I pushed myself woodenly off the floor. Dirt particles stuck to my hands. He cracked his first against my nose. I fell backwards, smacking my head on the floor.
Blood trickled out of my nose and down my face.
"Where is that piece of shit son of mine?" He stared at the clock.
"Should've left him with his whore mother."
My blood boiled. My fists shook with rage. How dare he. Clarke was too good for him and his stupid bullshit.
"Should've put a bullet in his skull before he learned to walk."
Rage took over. I pushed myself off the floor with my elbows and attacked. I kicked and pushed him from the back. I threw my arms up around his neck. If I could clothes hang him. If I could choke him with the handcuff chain, this would all be over. We would be free. All of us.
He caught my arms in midair and hammered me onto the ground. I heard a crack I landed.
"Try to get the drop on me, huh? You fucking shit head. You could never." He kicked.
He clutched his hand in my hair and yanked me up off the ground.
"Understand one thing. I'll always be one step ahead of you. Got it?"
I nodded. He released me, cracking my chin on the floor.
"I'm going to love torturing your father. Watching the blood drip down from his neck. Listening to him scream and beg. 'P-please! Let me go!' Ahaha." He mocked in a squeaker voice.
"If he doesn't show, I'll do to you what I had in store for him. But it'll be worse for you. Way worse. Then, it'll be your siblings."
The torment continued, Clarke hadn't came back. Did he leave? Did he leave me? Maybe this was part of his plan. I wanted him to swing through the door and save me, but I knew that was a foolish fantasy.
"Let's go. Remind me to bury my son next to your father."
"Jim. Pick up. Now." He barked into his disposable phone.
He towed me out by the collar and crammed me in the trunk of his henchman's car. Why did bad guys always have large trunks? Who started the tradition of shoving people into trunks anyway?
His eyes read me one more time. The blood had hardened and crusted down my face. My breathing was staggered.
In his eyes there wasn't remorse or regret. Only the surge of power. He was proud of what he did.
They shut the trunk with a slam. The whole vehicle jolted.
Where was Clarke? Was he okay? Could he have really left me? Had he been playing me?
Clarke wouldn't play me.
Would he?