i spent three years driving around

A plain white ceiling wavered above him as his eyes slowly focused.

There was a temporary blank space where his memory had been, confiscated by the searing migraine between his eyes.  It felt as if a million little arsonists were running anarchically around in his head.  House groaned and tried to grimace but couldn’t.  His mouth was taped shut.

Instinctively he reached up and ripped the restriction off, swearing as the silver duct tape tugged viciously at his beard.  It only hit him afterwards: the peculiarity of being sloppily gagged but not tied up.  He pulled himself into a sitting position in the otherwise empty room and tried to get his bearings.  There was something on the other side of the tape; yet another tarot card.  He was quickly becoming sick of them.

This one he recognized as The Tower.  The stone citadel burst into flames from a lightening strike, and two burning figures were forever frozen in their plummet.  Over the scene, thin and slanted printing in black pen, was written:

Let’s play a game.

They’re both alive.  Call the cops and they won’t be.

You have until dawn to find Allison.

I’m a man of negotiation.  We’ll talk about the rest.

Do something stupid and you won’t be the one who pays.

House noted the bastard had actually signed the bottom of the card, but as Robert Turner.  His real name was irrelevant.  Whether or not he was really security at the hospital was unimportant.  House wondered if graphologists could correctly surmise what a sick hand wrote the words. 

He scrambled to get to his feet, mood sinking even more as he realized not only was his cell phone gone, but so was his cane.

Limping to the nearest wall, he moved towards the window to get his bearings.  He surmised he was in an upstairs room, probably intended to be a spare bedroom or office area.  The view outside showed another neighboring home, but not Cuddy’s.  He must have been dropped off in the far corner of the house.

House’s headache negated his leg pain to a dull and distant throb, but it did nothing to aid his walking.  He rummaged around the room and checked the walk-in closet but there wasn’t anything that could be used as a cane substitute.

He closed his eyes for a long moment and gathered his breathing.  There was the light upstairs he had seen twice from Cuddy’s porch.  He bet that Tritter—Turner—used that as command central.

House staggered to the door, hands searching the wall for steadiness, and hoped Turner was prepared for some early negotiation.

* * *

The door wasn’t even closed, which spoiled the chance for a theatrical entrance.  House focused on the thrumming between his temples and drew himself up as straight as he could to make it through the door without need to clutch the wall.

Blinds were drawn.  A pale light came from a lamp plugged into an outlet and set on the floor.  It looked ridiculously out of place and cast reverse shadows upwards.

Wilson was half-curled on the ground, his legs bound together with a thick cord, and his hands secured the same way.  Tape sealed his mouth.  His eyes were still closed.  Dried blood crusted on his face.  His chest rose and fell shallowly.

“Up already?” Turner emerged from the other side of the room.  He looked pleased and bored at the same time.  The same coffee mug was in his hand.  “That’s a quick recovery for a blow to the head.”

House turned away from Wilson as a burn started circling in his chest and rising upwards, until it brought sharp nausea to his mouth.

Turner took a sip of his drink.  “I like coffee cold.  For some reason it reminds me why I’m drinking it.”

“What the hell did you do to him?”

Turner set down his mug and raised both his hands easily.  “Nothing.  Not yet.  You haven’t given me any reason to.”

“Untie him.  This has nothing to do with him.  I was the one who figured what the hell you were doing.”

Turner shook his head as if he were sincerely sorry.  “Then you shouldn’t have brought him along.  I think it’s pretty obvious I can’t just let him walk away now.”

He approached House and reached out to touch his shoulder.  This close, House noticed new bruises, small and circular, just below his eye.  Some were bleeding around the edges.  House swiped his hand away and took a swing, but Turner quickly caught his arm and twisted, spinning him around and shoving him chest-first against the wall.

“It’s a long night,”  Turner whispered near his ear.  His voice was soft and gravelly and smelled stale.  “Relax.  I take it you got my message?”

House struggled but Turner slammed him against the wall.  He felt his leg beginning to give out.

A thin coolness pressed firmly against his jugular.

“What you do determines what I do to him,” Turner explained carefully.  “This knife is not for you.”  He rescinded the blade and House stilled, although he shook and a hot whiteness burst repeatedly in his eyes.  Turner stepped away but House remained face-first to the wall.

“You expect me to trust you?” House finally spat.

“I don’t expect you to do anything.  I will merely observe and react to the decisions you make.”

House choked on a biting laugh.  “What kind of shit is that?”

“Simple shit, really.”  Turner, House saw when he turned back around, was standing between himself and Wilson’s body.  “As I see it, and feel free to correct me, here are your options:  You can try to attack me again, in which case I will easily outmaneuver you, and by the time you wake up your friend will be dead beside you.  You can try to escape or call the cops, but I promise you that will kill both him and Allison.  Or your third choice, you can go find Allison.”

“And then what?”

“And then you’re welcome to bring her back here and we’ll talk.”

“You think I’m that stupid that I’ll waste time looking for her, as if that’s going to save us?  You could kill us all anyway.”

“I don’t like assumptions, Dr. House.  What I do like is a good game.  Especially if it’s the real thing.

“Now even if you succeed with your third choice, I don’t expect you to believe that it’s all going to end well.  But if you don’t try, it most definitely won’t.”  Turner paused, remaining monochrome and monotone. “You strike me as a man who takes chances.  Ready to play?”

“A game I can’t win?” House argued.  He desperately wanted Turner to raise his voice to an equal level.

“You have choices within the game,” Turner reminded him.  “What you don’t have is a choice to play.  Unless you really don’t care about the others already committed.” Turner glanced over to Wilson.  The knife caught an unearthly glint in the light.  He smiled.  “I could see you being the cold bastard who would do something risky.  Something that would be negligent of their lives.”

House stared at him furiously for a long second.  There had to be a loophole; it was just a matter of finding it and slipping through.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said lowly, “until Wilson wakes up and I can talk to him.”

“Wilson.  Is that his name?” Turner paused for a moment and smiled again, subtle.  “Is that what you call him when you fuck?”

House moved so quickly he lost balance and stumbled to one knee.  His thigh screamed decibels above his migraine.

“You son of a bitch,” he seethed.

“Offended?  Or was that too close to the truth?” Turner considered, then shook his head as if entitled to pass up a test question.  “Then again maybe you’re not lovers.  I might have misjudged.  You did seem much more concerned about Allison throughout the night.” Turner gave one last look at Wilson, gagged and tied.  “Although I saw the way he looked at you.”

House was still half-crumpled on the ground.  He stared at the fresh, untouched carpet, breathing hard, and then raised his head.

“If you touch him, I swear to god, I will kill you.”

“Whether I hurt him or not is your decision,” Turner repeated.

“I’ll find Cameron.”

“Good.  I’ll be waiting.”

“I want to talk to him first.”

“He’ll be cut for every sentence you say,” Turner warned.

House felt his resiliency stumble.

“You can’t do that.”

“It’s all fair within the constraints of the game.  He also gets the knife every fifteen minutes until you come back.  Hopefully that will be some incentive for you to hurry.”

A low, pained murmur interrupted them.  House watched as Wilson slowly came to, first his forehead furrowing and then his head rolling; the weak movements of his legs and fingers as he slowly recognized they were now useless.

His eyes opened.  They were dulled and drifted in increasing panic until they fell on House.  Wilson tried to speak but it was only unintelligible mumbles.

“Tell him what you want,” Turner said.  House looked away from the knife, hanging in wait in his grasp.

“Give me my cane, Turner.”

“I think you’ll have ample motivation to do without it.”

“It’s a pointless disadvantage,” House snapped.

“You’re alive.  I didn’t have to give you that advantage.”

House glared and willed himself back up to a standing position.  He felt Wilson’s eyes frantically searching his face, but House couldn’t turn towards him.  The terror of abandonment would creep like half-dead things along his skin.

Turner nodded approvingly as House made it to the door.

“You have until dawn.”

* * *

House trusted that Cameron was alive, only because operating on the other assumption made the entire search futile.

He only wished knew Turner well enough to be able to make logical conjectures about where she could possibly be.  Was he the kind of person who would hide her upstairs, near where House was, because he assumed House would think the opposite:  that Turner had hidden her downstairs, and so House would drag himself down there and search in vain, and then have to drag himself all the way back up, wasting valuable time and energy?  Or was he the kind of person who would hide her downstairs, thinking House would be suspicious of his logic and so search upstairs first?

House concluded quickly that he didn’t know Turner well enough, and that Turner couldn’t possibly have read him well enough either in order to make that decision.

Turner had a lot of rules but hadn’t proved that any of them could be trusted yet.  And the house was big.  Needle in a haystack and wild goose chase comparisons cropped up in House’s mind but he cut them down.  Clear action was necessary above all.

He decided to start searching upstairs because he was there already.

The layout of the building, identical to Cuddy’s, was large and spacious—three bedrooms, a guest or study room, two bathrooms, several storage closets.  At the very least, this house was unlived in, so any tampering with the floor or walls would be an obvious arrow to a trap door or other hidden space.  House had no way of telling whether Turner had been there for months or hours.

He knocked along surfaces and listened for hollow responses.  Nothing.

He stutter-stepped and hopped to keep most weight off of his right leg, although the pain was dimming at the moment.  His mind grew increasingly disconnected as fragments of the night broke off and floated like icebergs, numb and detached.

He’d just finished up the master bathroom and the three main rooms when Turner poked his head in from the hallway.

“Still here?  It might help to look a little more enthused.”

“I’ll sing a fucking song.”

“Great.  Just wanted to let you know, the first fifteen minutes is over.  Do you want to come watch?”

“Do I want to come watch?” House repeated.  Adrenalin shot through his limbs; he felt himself burning out with it.  But even then he knew he wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to overtake Turner’s speed and size.  “You fu—”

“I didn’t think so.  Don’t feel too guilty, though.  His mouth is taped shut, so you probably won’t hear him scream much.”

“Cut me,” House yelled after him. 

Turner paused in the hall and slowly stepped back. 

“Do it to me instead.  I’m the one not moving fast enough.”

“A noble gesture,” Turner said after a moment.  “But it’s not part of the game.  Interesting, though.”

“What the hell is interesting?”

“I hadn’t pegged you as being that quick to offer self-sacrifice.  I thought you’d at least let the fag bleed a little before it got to you.”

House ran at him anyway.  It felt as if his leg was sliced off at the thigh and the second his full weight hit, he crumpled again.  Turner caught him by the neck of his shirt and held him up just long enough to punch him hard in the jaw.  House dropped to the floor.

“I’ll let him know how you are,” Turner said, and House watched from the ground as his steps faded around the corner.

CONTINUED:  http://nakannalee.livejournal.com/62727.html