Chapter Text
Shane Hollander. 23 years old. Asian features and an athletic enough build to pose a threat, which meant he’d have to bring Ryan Price along just in case. Maybe Troy Barrett, too. That was all the information Ilya needed to go hunting. If what he was about to do could even be called hunting.
The photos sent by one of his contacts scattered across Eastern Europe told him he’d chosen his people well.
Lately, Asian men have been more highly sought after. Men, specifically. Women had gone out of style ages ago. And the freckles he could spot in a few of Hollander’s pictures were a great touch. They told him that once he was done with him, he could turn a very nice profit. Considering his current location and the plans he’d shared with his contact, they wouldn’t even need to force him toward the facilities. It’d be enough for the train he was boarding tomorrow to make a stop at the right abandoned station, and that would be that.
He was pretty. Maybe not 18 or 19 like most of his clients preferred, but his features were pleasant enough to overlook it. Or at least he hoped so. Photos could lie sometimes, so it was better to wait until he saw him in person before drawing any conclusions. Still, it wasn't as if he was going to lose money on him.
He still refused to work with minors, despite the requests that kept piling in, and that was never going to change. Ilya was a businessman, not a fucking pedophile. How was he even supposed to train a kid who…
Just thinking about it made his dick go limp in his pants. Nope. That wasn’t happening, no matter how much they begged him. His business brought in more than enough money for a zero more or less in his bank account to make no difference, and it wasn’t as if he spent that much anyway.
He started prepping everything for the next day and making a few calls.
The train Shane had taken to cross between countries didn’t look to be in the best shape, and it had taken him a while to calm his nerves once it started moving, but now he was completely relaxed, taking in the beautiful scenery through the window. Not that he had much of a choice anyway. His phone had lost signal about fifteen minutes ago.
He wished he’d brought a book along, but the Eurotrip he was on was low-cost enough that he couldn’t afford anything more than a 45-liter backpack, and it was already too stuffed for him to be hauling books on top of his stuff.
Things had been so bad the previous year that he’d thought he’d never smile again. When his parents died in an unexpected snowstorm (their car breaking down and leaving them trapped in the middle of nowhere on a back road in Canada), he felt like his life had died right alongside them.
In a fit of desperation, he took part of the inheritance money they’d left him, which was far more than he’d ever thought possible, dropped out of university, bought a one-way ticket to Spain, and started traveling across Europe.
Nearly six months had passed since then, and the experience had been incredible, completely eye-opening.
He’d met so many people along the way. Other backpackers like him in the hostels he stayed in to save a bit more cash, or locals on the street who’d invite him into their homes to show him what life was really like in whatever city he happened to be in at the time.
The first time had been tough. He’d been terrified of going off with the older man who claimed his wife could cook him a far better paella than any restaurant in Barcelona. The language barrier hadn’t helped his suspicion, either. But as the invitations kept coming, from guys his own age inviting him to meet their friends so they could party together, or from a sweet older woman offering to give him a free guided tour of her village just because she was grateful he’d chosen to visit the place, he decided that maybe he should start giving people a chance.
That was how he discovered that the world was a much kinder place than the news made it out to be.
He had never stepped so far out of his comfort zone before.
Usually, he was an extremely anxious and socially awkward person, but looking back, he realized that had changed quite a bit.
He knew he’d eventually have to go back to Canada, finish his degree, and get a normal job, but he was going to stretch the money as far as possible to delay that decision for as long as he could.
That exact mindset was what had brought him to Eastern European countries, which were way cheaper than Paris or Switzerland. Or London. London had been a terrible decision. In fact, he was thinking that once he was done here, maybe he could pull a bit more cash from his inheritance and head off to Southeast Asia. Tons of backpackers had told him it was paradise, and the hype to check out that corner of the world had grown huge. Plus, everyone kept emphasizing how dirt cheap it was.
Even the idea of learning how to ride a motorcycle was exciting.
If past Shane could see him now, he wouldn’t even recognize him.
He was lost in these thoughts when a train worker approached him, asking for his ticket again.
“Oh, sure. Here,” Shane said, handing it over.
The man looked at him, then down at the ticket, and told him to please follow him.
His English wasn’t great, so when Shane started asking what was going on or if something was wrong with the ticket he’d bought, he got no response.
The man simply guided him farther and farther back through the train until they reached the final car.
“Stay here,” the man said before leaving him in the empty carriage and heading back the way they came.
Maybe he’d bought a ticket for a different class than the carriage he had been sitting in before? But the first guy who checked his ticket didn't say anything. And the guy his age he’d met at a bar a few days ago had helped him buy it, so that couldn’t be it. Besides, every single carriage looked the same to him.
Either way, he didn’t want to get into trouble in a foreign country, and it wasn’t like he minded being alone for a while, so he took a middle seat, tossed his backpack onto the seat across from him, and checked his phone one more time.
Still no signal.
Not even five minutes passed before three men suddenly appeared through the door, and he wouldn’t have paid them the slightest bit of attention if one of them hadn’t come straight up behind him and clapped a hand over his mouth, while another kicked his backpack aside and sat right in front of him, pointing a gun at his chest. Holy fucking shit.
A third man stayed by the door, keeping his eyes locked on where they were sitting.
“Hi. Shane Hollander. Are you going to give us problems? Do you want to die?” the man in front of him asked with a smile, leaning his elbows on the low seat back and keeping the gun trained on him.
The first thing Shane did was raise his hands and shake his head. How the hell did they know his name? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Good. So if my friend Price behind you uncovers your mouth, are you going to scream?”
He shook his head again.
“Have you ever watched action movies, Hollander? This gun has a suppressor. I could shoot you right now, and nobody would find out until this train hits the last station and they check it before heading back.”
Shane glanced at the corners in his line of sight, but he didn’t see a single camera. The train was ancient, there was zero tech on it. Even the doors had to be opened manually instead of with a button. Oh my god.
If he screamed, would anyone even hear him? The train itself was making so much noise, plus he’d only manage to scream for a split second before the guy behind him clapped a hand back over his mouth.
And he would, because Shane wasn't weak, but from the quick glance he’d gotten of the guy coming in, he looked massive compared to him. Besides, they all probably had weapons, not just the one sitting in front of him.
All these thoughts flashed through his head in a blur, and a few tears slipped down his cheeks.
“Don’t cry, Shane. This doesn’t have to be bad for you if you cooperate. Are you going to cooperate?”
He had no choice but to nod.
“Cool,” the man said, still smiling, and gave a quick gesture to the guy behind him.
One second his hands were up, and the next they were being yanked behind the seat and held with a vice-like grip.
“Alright. Let’s get this over with then.”
When the man in front of him used his free hand to pull a syringe out of one of his pockets, the panic Shane was already feeling spiked tenfold. Especially when he ordered him to tilt his head to expose his neck.
“Wait. Oh my god, wait. Don’t do that. Please, please, I’m going to die.” He blurted it out as fast as he could without raising his voice too much, desperate not to make them think he was trying to scream and get shot anyway.
“You’re only going to die if you keep making this difficult, Hollander.”
“No. No, no, no, you don’t understand. I’m allergic. Please. If you inject me with that, I’m going to die.”
The man in front of him already had the syringe halfway to his neck.
“You don’t even know what’s in here,” the man said, still calm, though the smile from before had vanished from his face.
“I have a sulfite allergy! I swear! And that’s used as a preservative, it’s common in sedatives and tranquilizers. That’s what that is, isn’t it?” He started babbling as fast as he could, explaining that if he ate something with those preservatives, nothing really happened, maybe just a few hives or diarrhea, but that he’d already had a severe allergic reaction to an injection once, which was how he’d found out, and please, please don’t inject him with that because he wasn’t carrying an EpiPen.
The man kept closing in anyway, and in his attempt to pull back, Shane had done exactly what he wanted: giving him even better access to his neck to inject whatever was inside that syringe. He couldn’t move to hide it again, either, because out of the corner of his eye, he could see the needle so close that he was terrified of accidentally impaling himself on it.
“Oh my god, I’m going to die,” he said one last time, instantly regretting that those were going to be his final words.
At least his parents hadn’t suffered as much from hypothermia. Or at least that was what the doctors had told him. At least they’d had each other in those final moments. But he was going to die alone, and he was going to suffer with his throat closed up, and he wouldn't be able to breathe. He didn’t even know how long it took someone to die like that. Maybe he should have looked it up.
It had never really been an issue beyond that first time when he was 14, and the dentist had injected him with anesthesia for a procedure. That was how he’d found out. But after that, all he ever needed to do for any medical procedure was heads-up the medical staff so they’d use one of the medications without that compound. They existed, and there were plenty of them. But there was no way to know for sure if whatever was in that syringe was free of it, and it didn’t seem like the man in front of him really understood what he was saying, or cared, considering he hadn’t stopped moving it toward his skin.
“You have ten seconds to show me proof of what you’re saying, or I’m injecting you anyway and we’re going to find out if it was true or not.”
Fuck, how had he not thought of that sooner?
“Yes. I have. In my arms.”
When the man backed off slightly, Shane finally dared to look up at him, locking eyes directly with his to try and convince him that he wasn’t lying.
“Is this a trick to get my friend to let you go? You feel like putting up a fight, Hollander?”
“No. No, it’s not a trick. Just let me show you one of my arms. I have tattoos.”
“I have tattoos too, Shane. You’re not making much sense here.”
“Oh, you asshole,” he blurted out before he could stop himself. “I have the allergy tattooed on the inside of my arm just in case I’m ever in an accident. So they don’t inject me with anything containing that compound.”
The man in front of him narrowed his eyes, studying him closely. Shane tried not to shrink under the scrutiny.
“Let go of one of our new friend’s arms. If he tries anything, break a couple of his fingers.”
Instantly, he felt one of his wrists freed while two fingers on his other hand were bent backward almost to their limit.
“I’m waiting,” the man in front of him said, since Shane had been too terrified to make a single move for fear of getting his fingers snapped anyway.
“Okay. Please don’t break them. I’m going to move my arm now,” he warned, starting to move it agonizingly slowly. Apparently, the guy behind him had a bit more empathy than the one in front, because he felt the pressure on his fingers ease up slightly.
He felt clumsy moving his arm, but he managed to bring it back over the seat, extending it palm-up toward the man in front of him. The guy just raised his eyebrows.
Right. His hands were full, so he couldn’t pull up his hoodie.
“I’m going to use my mouth to pull it up,” Shane warned again before doing so, making sure they wouldn’t think he was trying anything weird and snap his fingers or shoot him.
And there, inside the elbow, were the two exact words he had spoken earlier. Sulfite allergy.
The smile returned to the man in front of him.
“Nice. Alright, Shane. I really appreciate the honesty. So I’m going to give you two options. First option: you stay quiet until further notice and do everything I tell you.” Shane watched him grab the syringe cap with the same hand, holding it and recapping it with practiced ease. “Second option,” he said, finally tucking it away, though the relief was short-lived, because next thing Shane knew, a massive hand was wrapped around his throat and a gun was pressed against his head, “is that I choke you until you pass out, and we bypass your little allergy problem altogether.”
Shane immediately shook his head as best as he could within the tight grip.
“Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“What’s your answer, then?”
Shane just kept staring at him. He wasn’t about to be stupid enough to fall for his trick when he’d already been told not to speak. He bit his lower lip because it had started trembling, and he was on the verge of crying all over again.
After a few excruciating seconds, the man patted his cheek twice and barked something in another language Shane couldn't understand.
From that point on, the orders came rapid-fire, and Shane was still so terrified the man would change his mind and shoot him or inject him anyway that he did the only thing he could: he followed every single one.