Chapter Text
“Chris?”
“Chris!”
Chris groaned as the voice slowly pulled her from her slumber.
“Wake up, Chris!”
It took her a moment to recognize Street’s voice.
“Chris, please!” Street called out again.
Chris registered the strange echo that carried his voice. She slowly opened her eyes and looked around.
She found herself in a large, dimly lit warehouse. Based on the spotlights and cameras on the ceiling, she’d guess that it was an old movie studio, one of hundreds around LA. There were props here and there and cardboard buildingsfacades along the wall.
She scanned the room until her eyes fell on Street. He was standing in the middle of the room, his feet barely touching the ground as his arms were suspended, tied with a long, metal chain to the ceiling.
“Street!” Chris cried out in horror as she got to her feet, stumbling a little from whatever was still in her system wearing off. She didn’t think about the fact that she wasn’t tied up despite the two of them clearly being captured.
“Chris, you need to get out of here! I’ve heard them talking earlier, they have something planned. You need to leave before they come back.” Street replied frantically.
Chris shook her head. “I’m not leaving without you!”
“You can, if you want to. If you’re willing to lose your boyfriend over here.” A voice came over the speaker, echoing through the studio.
Chris shuddered, she recognized the voice. “It’s Raul,” she whispered to Street before looking around, scanning the warehouse but there were a lot of dark corners.
“Raul, it’s me you want. Let him go!” Chris shouted.
A laugh came over the speakers. “Do you know what it’s like to feel pain, Ms. Alonso? To feel true pain?”
“What are you talking about?” Chris frowned at Street who shook his head, no idea what was going on either.
“I loved her, you know?” Raul’s voice came over the speaker again, a tinge of sadness in it. “I loved Alicia. I would have given her everything and yet she betrayed me. That pain, it was almost unbearable. I vowed that if I would ever catch her and her little friend, that I would make them suffer. And look here, I got one of the two.”
“So you got me!” Chris called out. “You can let Street go now, I don’t care what you do to me.”
“No, that would be too easy, Ms. Alonso.” Raul’s voice echoed through the warehouse. “I have a choice for you instead. Consider it, me being generous. You have the choice between two types of pain. You can leave your boyfriend behind where he will be killed, brutally and publicly, letting you feel the same way I felt when Alicia broke my heart, or you can face whatever torture I have in mind for you instead which will likely end in you dying a slow and gruesome death. Choose the first and the world will know the woman you are but you will leave unharmed after you have watched him die. Choose the second and your boyfriend will leave unharmed after he has watched you die.”
“Go!” Street instantly told her. “Leave me behind and go, Chris. Save yourself.”
Chris turned around to face him, a sadness in her eyes, and shook her head.
“Chris please,” Street begged her. His voice a low and desperate whisper.
Chris placed a gentle hand on his cheek, her voice shaking. “Remember when you told me that if you lost me you would never recover because of how you felt?”
Street nodded, a frown on his face.
Chris met his eyes before she said the words that both filled Street’s heart with hope and joy as well as devastation as he knew she wouldn’t choose herself. “I can’t lose you either.” She whispered.
“Chris, please!” Street cried out, tears welling up in his eyes as he knew she had made up her mind.
Chris shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t lose you.”
Before Street could continue his pleas and arguments, Chris leaned in and gently pressed her lips against his.
Street had been dreaming of kissing Chris again ever since their first, drunken kiss. But not like this. Never like this. For this kiss, it was a kiss goodbye.
Chris turned away from him after giving him one more sad smile before calling out to Raul. “I’ve made my choice. Street goes free.”
Suddenly, the warehouse was completely lit up. The spotlights turned on, illuminating Chris and Street.
“Wonderful!” Raul Lopez said gleefully as he approached them, no longer just a voice over a speaker.
Aside from Raul there were half a dozen men, all carrying guns, as well as Paco, his second in command.
“I must admit, Ms. Alonso, I was curious to see what you would choose. Self-preservation is a powerful thing, sometimes more powerful than love.” Raul Lopez gave her a fascinated look. “But, I am grateful. Now I can broadcast your death to anyone who would ever doubt Los Huesos. Trust me, after I am done live streaming your fate, no one will ever dare cross me again.”
“Chris, please get out of here.” Street begged.
Raul tutted. “Now now, the lady made her choice. You should respect that.” He gave a signal to one of his men who pressed a button on a panel on the wall. The chain holding Street started retracting, lifting him to the ceiling. “Don’t worry, I will let you down once it’s over.” Raul laughed.
Chris felt the smallest glimmer of hope. She knew that more than likely 20 Squad and maybe even the FBI would pull out all stops the moment they realized her and Street were missing. The live stream could give away their location. She had very little faith that Street would live, even after they had killed her but if she drew out whatever Raul had planned long enough, they might be here in time to save him.
And saving Street was more important than anything in her eyes. And in her heart.
Chris faced Raul, folding her arms in front of her chest. “So, how do you want to do this?”
Raul frowned. “You know, usually when people face their imminent death, they are scared. Yet you are standing there as if it’s any other day. I would have expected tears by now, perhaps some begging and pleading. I was hoping for a proper show. The only one who has been begging and pleading so far is lover boy up there.”
Of course Chris was terrified but she refused to give Raul and Paco the pleasure of seeing that. She had spent over half her life learning to school her emotions. She wasn’t going to show them and who knows how many other people on the live stream just how scared she was.
“Maybe I don’t scare that easily.” Chris replied coolly.
Raul chuckled with Paco smirking by his side. “We can change that.” He snapped his fingers and the six armed men all stood in a circle around Chris.
Find a way to delay.
The longer she lasted, the more likely it was that Street would be saved.
Chris did something wholly unexpected, something that threw off Raul, Paco and the six men completely.
She chuckled.
“I didn’t know you wanted to show everyone just how weak you are, Raul Lopez.” Chris called out to him.
“What are you talking about!” Paco shouted at her. Clearly she had hit a nerve.
“Well, most gangs wouldn’t need six men to take out one girl. Are the members of Los Huesos so weak that you need so many men to take out just one, unarmed girl?” Chris taunted them, playing into the misogynistic views that she normally despised.
There was a pregnant silence for a moment before Raul chuckled. “You really aren’t easy to scare, huh?” He snapped his fingers again and the six men backed off.
Chris stared him down, only watching the armed men around her from her periphery, not wanting to show any nerves.
“But if it’s a fight you want,” Raul said as he nodded at Paco. “A fight you will have. Paco, rough her up a little. See if she is still so brave after taking a beating.”
Paco gave her a sly smirk before grabbing a heavy metal chain from the wall. “Ready for round two, pretty face?”
Chris rolled her shoulders, loosening up for what was likely going to be the first of many hard fights. “I don’t know, are you ready to get your ass handed to you again?”
“We’ll see about that.” Paco snarled, uncoiling the long chain, holding it like some kind of gruesome whip with one side firmly wrapped around his wrist.
“Need a weapon to face me, huh Paco?” Chris taunted as Paco approached. Fighting was all about control, about outsmarting your opponent. She had spent long hours training and learnt that the hard way. She was hoping to make Paco lose control so he would make mistakes that would cost him in the end.
“I don’t need anything to take you out, but this,” Paco lifted the chain. “This will just make it all the more fun to roughen you up.”
“We’ll see about that! Last time you went down pretty easily.” Chris taunted. “And you were armed with a gun back then.”
Paco growled and lunged at her, trying to hit her with the heavy chain. Chris jumped back, narrowly avoiding the chain. He charged at her, arms outstretched, ready to grab her. Chris sidestepped him, trying to find an opening to deliver some blows.
Chris saw the chain trail after him and realized that it was both a strength and a weakness. She dodged Paco’s next lunge for her and grabbed the chain, janking on it hard so Paco stumbled back. She used his momentary imbalance to land a hard blow to his chin. She dropped the chain and stepped back again.
Some choice curses escaped Paco’s lips as he spat out some blood. He turned towards Chris like some raging bull, pure fury in his eyes. He charged at her, lashing out with the chain at the last moment. Chris was too late to dodge and the chain hid her side before wrapping around her waist, turning into a belt of pure torture.
Paco janked on the chain, pulling Chris closer while making her let out an involuntary cry of pain as the chain brutally cut up her flesh. He punched her hard in the face before kneeing her in the stomach, letting the chain slice even deeper.
“Chris!” Street cried out desperately.
Chris ignored Street’s cry, only focusing on her opponent as she placed her hands on Paco’s shoulders and kneed him hard in the groin. She pushed him away as hard as she could while she started spinning until she was free of the chain.
Chris glanced down at her waist where her shirt was mostly destroyed and quickly turning red. She saw small, loose ribbons of flesh and quickly lifted her head again. She couldn’t focus on that right now, she had to focus on her opponent.
“Raul! Let me fight in her place!” Street cried out, watching the damage the chain had done to Chris.
Street’s pleas went unanswered as Paco recovered, cursing Chris as he lunged for her again.
Chris took a deep steadying breath and focused on the chain, trying to think of a way to use it against him. Suddenly it hit her and she steeled herself, mentally preparing for what she had to do.
As Paco lunged, Chris grabbed the chain, this time not janking it but in one swift motion looping it around Paco’s neck. She grabbed both sides of the chain while jumping up and placing her knees on Paco’s back, pulling hard.
Paco thrashed around, trying to get Chris off of him and his neck freed but the more he thrashed, the tighter the chain became around his neck. The man was slowly turning purple.
“Stop!” Raul shouted, realizing that he might lose his second-in-command. “Release him!”
“Let Street go and I will let him go!” Chris shouted back. She didn’t care about her own safety, just Street’s.
Raul looked resigned and Chris hoped that he would let Street go but what he said next chilled her to the bone. “I was going to draw this out so the world could watch but you leave me no choice. Shoot her!” He ordered his men.
“No! Chris!” Street cried desperately.
The men flanking Raul raised their pistols, giving Chris only a second to react. She jumped down from Paco’s back, janking the chain to turn them around as the first shots fired. A part of her felt bad as she felt the man beside her get hit multiple times but then she looked down at her own bloody stomach and all pity disappeared.
It only took a few shots for Paco to collapse to the floor, leaving Chris out in the open. Chris quickly ran for cover behind some old barrels that were used for what she assumed was a western movie. She thanked her lucky stars that these men weren’t SWAT trained or she would have never been able to make it to her cover position.
“Hold your fire!” Raul shouted just as the first bullets lodged themselves into the barrel.
Chris peaked around the barrel and watched as Raul approached Paco who was laying in a pool of his own blood, the chain on the floor beside him. Raul bent down and checked his pulse before sighing and closing Paco’s eyes.
There was a coldness to his voice when he stood up again. “You killed my second-in-command, Ms. Alonso. The man who has been my friend and brother since we were kids. If you think your death was going to be painful before, it’s going to be so much worse now.”
Keep stalling.
Chris prayed that 20 Squad would be on her way, not for her but for Street. She just had to stall them long enough so Street would be safe. Then she…
Then she could stop fighting.
“Bring her to me!” Raul ordered as several of the men approached her hiding place.
Chris braced herself, watching as three of the six armed men approached her. The moment the first one was in reach and tried to grab her, she grabbed his arm and flung him over her shoulder, rolling over him to grab his gun and without hesitating, shooting the other two men.
She didn’t miss. She never missed. She shot them both between the eyes and watched their bodies drop in front of her.
Before she could do anything else, the man who she had initially floored, grabbed her foot, making her slam to the floor where he pinned her down, straddling her waist and wrenching the gun from her.
“You two, help him!” Raul shouted. “And you, get the rest of the men!”
The three men grabbed Chris, manhandling her as she fought like a cornered cat, struggling against their grip.
They dumped her on the floor in front of Raul before quickly ziptieing her hands behind her back.
Raul looked down on her, unphased by the fact that she just killed two more of his men. “You have become quite the interesting challenge, Ms. Alonso. Far more than I expected from a simple cop.”
Chris got up from the floor and spat at him. “I’m not some simple cop.”
Raul slapped her hard, making her crash down to the floor again. “A normal cop or SWAT, does it really matter?” Raul sneered. “All I know is that you killed two of my enforcers. Now those are replacable, but Paco isn’t, and for that you will suffer.”
“Hold her there,” Raul ordered his men who instantly pinned down Chris against the hard, cement floor.
Raul moved to the panel on the wall, the one that controlled the different chains hanging from the ceiling, including the one used to hold Street. He pressed a button and a second chain came down from the ceiling until it stopped not far above Chris and the men holding her down.
While Raul was doing that, another dozen men, heavily armed, entered the room. It was the backup that Raul ordered to make sure that Chris would not make it out of there alive.
Chris watched the men file in and felt her heart sink in her chest. After taking down Paco and two guards, she had the faintest bit of hope that she could survive long enough to save Street. With over 15 enemies in the room now, her odds were slim to none.
Just keep holding on.
The zipties around her wrists were swiftly cut before her arms were forcefully pulled up and tied to the chain above them. The chain was then lifted until Chris’ feet dangled a few inches above the ground.
“You know, Ms. Alonso, I count myself a man of the world. It’s actually something Alicia encouraged me to become. She told me to use my intelligence to grow within the organisation. So I studied, I planned, I plotted, I killed. I have come across some interesting things during my studies. Do you know what Lingchi is, Ms. Alonso?” Raul said coolly before picking something up from the table in front of him.
Chris didn’t answer. She didn’t know the answer nor did she think she’d want to.
Raul turned towards her holding a long, sharp knife. “Lingchi, dear Ms. Alonso, is more commonly known as Death by a Thousand Cuts. One of the slowest and most painful forms of execution and one I have been wanting to try out for a long time.”
A shiver ran down Chris’ spine as she glanced at the knife in Raul’s hand. It was a sharp blade that reflected the light as Raul lifted it.
Raul stopped in front of her. With a few flashes of the sharp knife, her pants and the remainder of her top were torn off her. She was left hanging in just her underwear, ready to be tortured.
Raul pressed the cool blade against her upper arm, pressing ever so gently until a line of scarlet appeared. “You know, in a different world you could have been a high ranking officer in Los Huesos. I do love a feisty girl.” Chris refused to make a sound.
He smirked, satisfied with the cut on Chris’ arm before moving the blade to her cheek which was already slightly swollen from where Paco had punched her earlier and Raul had slapped her. “It’s curious how easily your life can change. See when I just met Alicia, I was a simple drug runner. She gave me the power and motivation to climb and kill my way to the top.” Raul pressed the knife down until another scarlet line appeared, this time on her cheek. Chris still refused to make a sound. She refused to give him the satisfaction despite feeling the warm blood slowly trickle down her face.
“And when I was at the top,” Raul continued as he moved the blade to Chris’ other arm. “You,” this time Raul made a much deeper slice, causing Chris to let out an involuntary gasp, blood gushing from the wound. “And Alicia almost ruined everything.”
“But,” Raul said as he moved the blade to her thigh, a certain excitement and eagerness in his voice. “It isn’t over until you’re six feet under.” Instead of slicing, Raul stabbed her thigh, making Chris cry out in pain. “Oh how fun this is!”
“Stop! Please!” Street cried from a distance. He felt helpless as he watched Chris slowly being tortured to death. He begged to take her place but it fell on deaf ears.
“Isn’t love beautiful?” Raul chuckled as he pulled the knife out of Chris’ thigh, letting the blood run down her leg. “Your boyfriend is all in a panic, seeing you slowly bleed to death. You’d think he knew it was coming. After all, I made it very clear that one of you would die and I am not one to break my word.”
Raul walked around Chris, placing the blade between her shoulder blades. “Love makes us fools. Like how I was a fool to trust Alicia.” Raul slowly ran the blade down her spine, creating a long, thin cut that stopped right above her torn-up waist.
Chris’ vision slowly started fading. Raul’s voice turned into a blur. She felt so tired.
Keep holding on. Don’t lose hope.
She vaguely registered Raul appearing in front of her again. She shook her head to regain focus, fighting to hold on for just a bit longer. Hoping, praying, that 20 Squad would be here soon. Then she would finally be done, then she didn’t have to fight anymore and could give in to her body’s desperate cries to shut down.
Raul laughed at her dazed expression. “Now don’t fall asleep on me, Ms. Alonso. We are far from finished.”
Chris narrowed her eyes at him, refusing to give him an answer.
“I do need to pace myself a little, can’t have you bleed out too fast. What would be the fun in that?” Raul chuckled. He pressed the blade against her uninjured upper thigh and slowly ran it along the length of it, creating a long, scarlet streak.
Keep holding on. Find a way to keep holding on.
Raul walked around her body, carefully considering where to cut her next.
He lifted Chris’ left leg, raising her calf towards him, fascinated by the trickle of blood that had already run down it. “To think, we’re not even at ten cuts yet. Quite a few more to go.”
He pressed the blade against her lower calf, slowly pressing down on it.
But then Chris did something he didn’t see coming.
Chris kicked with her raised leg, freeing it from Raul’s grip but pressing into the knife to get it stuck in it. She wrapped that leg around Raul’s neck, pressing his body against her. She wrapped her other leg around him as well, pressing it against the knife lodged in her lower calf, pushing it through until it stabbed Raul in the throat.
Chris screamed in pain but kept pushing until Raul was gurgling blood, at which point she yanked herself free. The blade exited Raul’s throat as she removed her legs and Raul’s body collapsed to the floor with a loud thud.
Silence.
The whole warehouse was silent.
The manouvre was so fast that none of the members of Los Huesos even realized what was going on before it was too late.
Chris hung down limply, the blade still lodged in her calf as her eyes were getting heavier. It had taken her last bit of strength to take down Raul.
Keep holding on.
The members of Los Huesos stared at each other. None of them was sure what to do. Their leader and their second-in-command were dead. Two of their enforcers were also dead. The enforcers that were left were staring at the blood covered body of their leader in stunned silence.
Keep holding on…
Blood was dripping down Chris’ body, landing on the floor and mixing with Raul’s blood.
She was tired.
So tired.
Keep holding on.
“Chris!” Street tried to get her attention. “Chris, talk to me.”
His voice sounded far away and distorted, as if her head was under water.
Hold on...
Suddenly there was a commotion and shouting.
“LAPD SWAT!”
Let go…