Okay, y'all. Don't come after me with pitchforks after reading this chapter, please! 

Warning: this chapter contains torture, blood, etc. I just wanted to let you all know before you read this chapter. ILYSM.

Teehee lol Sebastian Stan wandered his way into the story:). You'll understand in a while why he's there, k?

Jim's head ached. No, that was an understatement.

   He tried to open his eyes, and bright white light seemed to grate into his eyeballs.

   Then he remembered what happened. Fear lodged a lump in his throat. He ignored the migraine and snapped his eyes open.

   His entire body jerked forward against... some sort of restraints. Tightly knotted rope kept him in place. Wrists, tied. Feet, tied. Face... gagged.

   Where the heck was he? White walls surrounded him on four sides, Jim's chair positioned right in the centre of the tiny room, facing a steel door that gave him a warped reflection of himself.

   Jim's bangs fell in front of his eyes and he swung his head up, trying to get the hair away from his eyes. Just as he did, the metal door clicked, and someone stepped through.

   A handsome man around six feet tall, looking around thirty years old, smirked at Jim and walked around him and his chair.

   The guy ran a hand through his tall, gelled caramel hair. He wore a pair of dark grey jeans, and a blue T-shirt with a black leather jacket pulled over it. The shirt had a small hole near the hem.

   Guy chewed and smiled with his teeth at the same time, showing a wad of gum. The peppermint smell was strong and cool.

   He bent slightly and yanked the gag out Jim's mouth and it hung limply around his neck.

   Jim frowned.

    "I have one question for you, and one only... Wait, no, I have two, actually," Guy said. "But first, you can call me Trevor... because it's my name."

   He smiled wide.

   "Question one... Where is Excalibur, Jim?"

   Jim gasped. "Why?"

   "Wrong answer, kid." Trevor's hand came up behind him and yanked his hair back, intensifying Jim's headache.

   "It's not that hard. Just tell me, and I won't hurt you or your little girlfriend,"

   Jim's face paled. What did this have to do with Claire? If those thugs had kidnapped Claire, too...

   "W-what girlfriend?" he asked, playing dumb.

   Trevor's hand didn't let go, but his other hand moved, and Trevor pulled his cell phone from his pocket and showed Jim the screen, tilting it so he could see it properly.

   For the second time, Jim gasped.

   Claire's glare seemed to burn through the screen. She glared right into the camera. She was tied the same way Jim was, a gag pulled down around her neck.

   Jim scowled, but he hadn't expected Trevor's next question.

  "Would you tell me if I threatened to hurt Claire?"

   Sitting limply in her chair, Claire shifted, her skin chafing against the rough rope that bound her limbs to the chair.

   She had just been sleeping peacefully (well, not the most peacefully; nightmare) and woke up in the strange white room.

   She had already been interrogated. A stupid, idiot man named Marcus had come in with his taller friend, Trevor, who was a bad mix of handsome and unstable.

   Marcus had used his knife and cut her across the face (it wasn't a very deep cut) then... Her pinky finger still hurt like hell, especially the tip of it. She shuddered again, remembering how he had tortured her. And Trevor was serving his good looks and asking her a few questions before he let Marcus step in and left "to show your boyfriend" the picture he had taken of her on his phone.

   Yes, Trevor said Jim was here, too, and she was worried, since both interrogators could be with Jim right now.

   A mirrored panel faced her. Claire knew how that must work after all of the cop and spy movies and shows she'd binged with NotEnrique.

   Fuzz, she missed her little brothers already.

   She took a deep breath and gathered herself together, raising her head to look at the glass mirror.

   She took another deep breath and spat as hard and far as she could at the panel. It sailed to the glass at splat, it landed in the middle. The saliva slid lazily downward, and Claire glared at the glass. 

   Behind the glass, a man with perfectly styled brown hair leaned back in his chair and laughed, because her aim was actually impressive. She'd scored a headshot on him, right by the forehead.

   It was amusing, considering she couldn't even see anything on this side of the glass.

   Trevor had already tried to get info out of her, and the boy, too. But no luck. It just wasn't his day, he guessed. Marcus hadn't been able to crack the girl, either, so he was hopefully now obtaining information from Jim Lake. If that didn't work, he'd have to pull out his secret weapon.

   He licked his lips and chewed on his gum some more.

   Jim flinched involuntarily, the cold blade parting his skin.

   Marcus smiled a horrible smile and his fingers slowly twisted the hilt of the knife, opening the cut perpendicularly.

   He shuddered, trying not to move his face. His cheek stung painfully, but his shaky breaths were interrupted by Marcus. "Just tell me where it is and I will make sure that you, my friend, are able to walk out of this room on your own two feet."

   There was no freaking way Jim was giving this dude anything. He had no idea what these guys wanted with Excalibur, and he didn't want to find out the hard way what they were capable of.

   He felt the blood fall, streaking down his face like tears.

   He had gone through so much, and he wasn't about to let everything he'd fought for go down the drain.

   The pain would fade and the wound would close, he hoped.

   Abruptly, the knife whipped out and stabbed into his upper thigh. The sudden, new burst of agony made a scream erupt from his mouth. The only thing he could feel was pain.

   Jim barely even noticed that Marcus had taken the knife away from his leg.

   He reached out and used the hem of Jim's sweater to wipe off the blood on his blade.

  His favourite blue sweater. That snapped his focus back to Marcus, rage boiling up in his stomach. "I'm gonna kill you. When I get out of this chair, you are going to wish you hadn't done that."

   Marcus snickered. "Hurt you, or stained your shirt?"

   Jim spat out the blood in his mouth aiming at Marcus's legs. A red splotch splashed onto his grey pant leg.

   Letting out a yawn, Marcus grabbed Jim's hair to keep his head in place (second time today and he was getting tired of it), then slapped the wounded side of his face.

   Hot, stinging pain raced across his face and he screamed again.

   "I'm... not... telling you. Anything."

   "Ah, I think you like getting stabbed." Marcus pointed at Jim's hands. "How 'bout here? I think here. Unless you'd like a tongue piercing."

   Jim panted. He could feel the blood draining out of his body. "I can do this all day,"

   The blonde man sighed, then let out a chuckle. "I...understood that reference."

   Marcus stretched out his arm and checked his ugly grey watch. "Oop, it's been a long, long time. Behind schedule – "

   The door hinges squealed as someone swung it open. Trevor's arm held the door open, the other hand gripping the back of a chair.

   Claire glared dangerously, twisting her neck to look at Trevor. He smirked back, turning her chair to face Jim's.

   She gasped, taking in what they had done to Jim, and Jim scanned her for injuries. A small slit, smaller than Jim's cut, marked in the side of her face. Jim tried to smile at her, but it fell away as he noticed that her eyes were full of unshed tears.

   Jim's heart lodged itself in his throat. All he wanted to do was comfort her.

   But the question Trevor had asked him earlier haunted him suddenly.

      "Oh, no..." Jim groaned. 

   Trover smiled. "I know, Jim. I know. Marcus, start again with the girl. Jim... you are going to tell me where the sword is, and if my friend kills her, it will be your fault, 'kay?"