Okay, here's where the R rating might come more into play. I have to say that writing this thoroughly exhausted me and my energy reserves are spent. I hope I can drag this story to the finish line and still make it sound good. It was a challenge to write this part, but I hope you enjoy it and that it came out okay. Thanks for reading it!
Hunted Part Five
Rated: R
James tapped a syringe full of liquid, carefully examining the dosage and making sure it was correct. He grinned savagely. “You should be honored, MacGyver,” he said, still staring at the syringe. “Not even very many of my clients are treated to coke as pure as this, and at the highest possible dose available. It should be quite a ride, quite a rush. When injected, it will reach your brain in a matter of seconds, and there will be nothing you can do to control it.”
He turned to face MacGyver, who was strapped to a table in the basement of his office building where he stored most of his smuggled product inside plain, inconspicuous storage boxes, his legitimate business a front for his drug running operation. Nadine was tied to a chair in a separate room nearby, guarded heavily by his men.
“Please don’t do this, James!” She shouted. “You’ll
kill him!”
He turned toward her. “That’s the idea,” he said. “You know, Nadine, I think it’s time you saw a demonstration of my product, of what has given you your massive fortune so you can better understand and appreciate it. After I’m finished with him, I’ll give you a taste of it as well. It’s about time you enjoyed the source of your profits. At this high a dose, anything could happen. It’s unpredictable. Heart attacks, embolisms, aneurisms—who knows? It will be a surprise. How do you think MacGyver will die from a cocaine overdose?”
“You’re sick,” Nadine said, struggling against her ropes.
James laughed, dismissing her insult as nothing but folly. “Then again, maybe he won’t die,” he said. “Maybe he’ll become an addict, just another valued customer. He’ll become my slave, answering only to me when he wants his fix. He’ll finally see the extent of my power. He’ll see that I own the drug trade, and no one can stop me. I’ll own him, and if you survive your overdose and become addicted as well, I’ll own you.”
“You already own me,” Nadine said, “or at least you think you do. Imprisoning me with obscene amounts of filthy money, leading me to believe that’s what I needed to be secure and loved. Well, now I know better. It doesn’t matter what you do. I’m not yours to control any longer.”
“You’d be lost without me.”
Nadine smirked, shaking her head. “No,” she said. “That’s where you’re wrong. Maybe in the past I would be lost, but now I’m not. I will do just fine without you.”
James laughed again and shook his head. “You’ll never be without me,” he said.
He turned back to MacGyver, who was struggling violently against the straps that held him, staring wildly at the syringe, fighting hard to free himself, to escape the injection. Nodding at his men, James had one of them elbow him and the others hold him down, adding extra restraint, immobilizing him. He still fought, straining against them, groaning in frustration, desperately trying to make even the slightest movement, but it was useless. He was outnumbered, crushed beneath their added weight. Calmly, James tied a rubber hose tightly around MacGyver’s barely twitching arm, patting it, searching for a good vein.
“This one is free of charge,” he said to MacGyver, tapping once again on the syringe, preparing it for injection. “If you manage to survive, the next one will cost you.”
“For God’s sake, James! Don’t
do this!” Nadine screamed, wriggling against her ropes, trying to break free and stop him. One of his men jabbed his gun into her ribs, warning her to stop.
Ignoring her, James at last found the perfect bulging, fat vein he had been searching for on MacGyver’s taut, sinewy arm.
“Have fun,” he whispered.
Without further hesitation, he plunged the needle into the vein, pumping MacGyver’s bloodstream full of the potent dose of cocaine that would most likely be lethal, overwhelming and flooding his system.
“NO! James!” Nadine shouted, unable to contain her tears any longer. “MacGyver! Oh, God…”
Once the injection was finished, James worked quickly to undo the rubber hose around his arm and the straps binding him to the table.
“We’d better get out of here and stand back,” he said to his men. “When the drug is administered this way, it acts quickly, the most effective means of transmission. He’ll become increasingly agitated and violent. God knows what he’ll do. Exciting, isn’t it? Let’s watch. It should provide some delightful entertainment.”
He and his men retreated to the room where Nadine was being held, surrounding her, preventing her from taking any measures to escape and help MacGyver as the drug began to overtake him, consuming him…
***
The first thing MacGyver noticed after the cocaine entered his body through the injection was an intense, loud, high-pitched ringing in his ears that warped and distorted sounds around him and made him dizzy as he tried to stand, staggering around the room. The sound was piercing and unbearable, causing him to clutch his ears in pain. Bright dots and trails of light swam before his eyes, and soon he experienced overpowering exhilaration, as if he was soaring. He felt giddy and began giggling uncontrollably, his giggles cut off abruptly by projectile vomit as he gagged and retched, massive quantities of it spewing and spraying around the room. Several of James’s men looked away, nauseated and in disgust, but James continued watching the effects of the drug on MacGyver, fascinated and amused. Nadine forced herself to watch as well, feeling trapped and helpless, wishing she could help him as the insidious drug continued to devour him.
MacGyver paced the room rapidly and frantically, almost sprinting, panting heavily, restless and manic. He smashed himself into walls, screaming, wailing, and howling. He fell to the floor, twitching, laughing, and rolling in his own vomit. His elation shifted rapidly to despair and he sobbed loudly, once again screaming and howling, begging. He moaned and scratched at his arms, drawing blood. He stood again, swaying, pacing the room and slamming himself repeatedly into walls, shrieking and laughing, pounding his fists against the concrete. His skin turned red, and he grumbled about it being hot, and then he shivered, collapsing to the floor again, groaning and hugging himself, grimacing in pain.
“Help me!” He screamed in a panic, staring wildly at the ceiling, his eyes darting frantically, his legs making jerking, kicking movements as his muscles began to contract and spasm. He laughed, as if he were being tickled. “Oh God, help me! Hahahahaha!”
Somewhere in that euphoric, drug-addled state, he knew he was in trouble. He knew the drug was killing him. Yet, he felt so
good…
“MacGyver,” Nadine said, shaking her head in dismay. She closed her eyes and looked away, tears splashing on her cheeks, enduring the agony of watching the drug destroy him.
I wish I could help you. If I could only get free…
“H-help me,” MacGyver whimpered as he continued to flail and twitch, his muscles balling and twisting, contorting. He writhed on the floor and moaned again, his body folding into itself. “Oh G-God…feel sick…I need…more…please…more…stop…”
His body went into convulsions, flopping and jerking, thrashing around, pulling his body tight, wrenching him around the floor, saliva foaming at his mouth. He gasped for breath as his body’s vibrations grew stronger and more violent, bending into unnatural positions that did not seem possible. Nadine wondered how much longer he could last, how much damage had already been done to his body.
“Please, I’m asking you to stop this now,” she said, watching as MacGyver continued to suffer from convulsions, more tears streaming down her cheeks as she once again squirmed against her ropes. “He’s
dying! You can’t do this to him!”
“But I did, and I can,” James said, looking down at her, smirking. “That’s the whole purpose of this…experiment. Either he dies or becomes dependent on coke and my supply of it for his overall well-being. I can’t stop it, and I don’t want to. You forget that you’re in no position to negotiate. Besides, he was pleading for more. He wants to feel good, he wants that consistent high…I have him!” He smiled broadly in satisfaction. “I have him, Nadine. One way or the other. Don’t forget that you’re next.”
MacGyver’s convulsions ceased, his body going limp, passed out in a pool of his own vomit and blood from cutting and scratching himself.
“What a
party!” James whooped, laughing, clapping his hands as if in a jubilant, celebratory mood, mocking the danger MacGyver’s life was in, taking delight in it.
Enraged, Nadine fought mightily against her ropes, trying to act on her urge to slap him. “You heartless creep!” She screamed. “You’ve killed him! You’ve
killed him!” She wailed and screamed again, thrashing around until she thought the ropes would cut clean through her wrists and sever her hands.
“Shut up!” James snapped, delivering a slap that sent her reeling, almost tumbling backward in the chair she was tied to, defenseless. He looked up at his men, and then out towards where MacGyver lay, lifeless, covered in waste, filth, and grime. “Clean up that mess,” he said. “Check on him, see if he’s still alive.” He pulled another hypodermic out of a case. “If he is, give him another dose.”
“NO!” Nadine screamed. “No, you can’t—
James slapped her again, drawing blood on her lip. “Do it,” he said to his men.
Before they could act, sirens blared and federal agents and police officers were swarming the area, acting quickly to apprehend them. James turned toward Nadine, fury blazing in his pale eyes. “You…you did this, didn’t you? You called them!” He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back. Grabbing a pair of scissors off the desk in the room, he held them against her neck.
“No, I didn’t,” she said as calmly as possible, her voice still trembling from tears. “I wish I had, but I couldn’t. Don’t be stupid. How could I if I was here the whole time, tied to a chair?”
“You called them before I took you and MacGyver,” he said, his rage still boiling. “You told them everything. Don’t
deny it!”
“Do what you want to me, but it won’t matter now,” Nadine said, closing her eyes, trying to shut out the horrifying images of MacGyver convulsing and vomiting, hurling himself violently around the room, shrieking and laughing maniacally like a psychotic. “They’re here. They’re going to find you eventually. You’ll just incriminate yourself further, add one more murder to your list. Face it, James. You’re going down. It’s over.”
“Then I’m bringing you down with me!” James screamed, holding the scissors high in the air above her, prepared to thrust them into her throat. A gun clicked behind him, stopping him in midair.
“Mr. Mondragon, you’re under arrest for illicit drug smuggling, dealing, trafficking, and attempted murder,” an officer said behind him.
Nadine opened her eyes, watching with relish as she saw the defeat in his eyes, how stunned he looked, unable to speak, paralyzed and numb as the officers surrounded him, disarming him, removing the scissors from his limp hand.
“You have the right to remain silent…”
As they recited his rights, others worked to free Nadine, cutting her ropes. Everything happened so quickly that she felt just as stunned as James did. She hadn’t called the authorities, still too scared and worried, seeking MacGyver’s assistance before she proceeded, but someone else had. The question was who?
“Please, there’s a man…MacGyver…he needs medical attention…James injected him with pure cocaine, a high dose…he might already be dead,” she said, gripping one of the officer’s sleeves tightly.
“We know, ma’am,” the officer said. “We’re assembling a medical team to examine him and rush him to a hospital immediately.”
Now freed from the chair, the ropes coiling around her on the floor, stained with her blood, she stood, bracing herself against the chair to support herself, feeling faint. Vaguely aware of the burning pain around her wrists, she rubbed them alternately with her hands, staring blankly. Someone was talking to her, but she barely heard them.
“Hmm?” She asked.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” The same officer that had undone her ropes asked. He looked at her red, chafed, and bleeding wrists, rough and raw where the ropes had cut into them. “Maybe you should go to the hospital as well.”
“MacGyver…”
“Ma’am?”
She turned towards the officer, her eyes empty voids, drained of color as her shocked face was drained of blood. “I want to see him,” she said.
“I’ll take you to him,” another man said, entering the room.
Nadine jumped at the sound of his voice, feeling it was familiar somehow. When she turned to face the stout, rumpled man, she recognized him.
“He’s one of them!” She shouted to the officer standing beside her, feeling that she was about to go into a fit of hysterics after everything she had witnessed. “Arrest him! He’s one of Mondragon’s men!”
The portly, unkempt man flashed a badge. “Agent Simms, FBI,” he said, smiling.
Nadine stared at him in disbelief. “You’re…you’re the one who called,” she said.
The federal agent shrugged. “Did you think MacGyver was the only man undercover on this sting operation?” He asked. “We’ve been tracking Mondragon’s network for a long time. Finally, we have gathered enough evidence we need to act and bring him down, along with his associates.”
Nadine was speechless, absently rubbing her sore, inflamed wrists again.
“Peter Thornton of The Phoenix Foundation, MacGyver’s outfit, is here too,” Simms said. “I’m sure he’d love to talk to you and find out everything you know and everything you learned about Mondragon. But first, I’ll take you to see MacGyver.” Simms lowered his eyes, making them look almost sunken in his ruddy, puffy cheeks. “I’ll tell you, though, just to caution you…it isn’t pretty.”
Nadine thought back to when she first saw MacGyver after he’d been shot. Her expensive, designer gown had been sullied by his blood, the gown James had bought for her so she could look glamorous and impress the high society, shallow friends he had assembled for her who really didn’t value her as a person but as an object of wealth. She already knew what she would find when she saw him, how he would be covered in yellow bile and blood, how he would be scraped, cut, banged up, and unconscious. She didn’t care. She was beyond worried about getting herself dirty.
“Let’s go,” she said, sighing deeply.
***
Pete was already hovering over MacGyver’s body as it was loaded onto a stretcher, the medical team examining him. He held his nose and fought his own nausea when he smelled the sour stench of vomit that was still all over the floor.
“Good God, would you look at this mess? It looks as if he lost the entire contents of his stomach out here!” One of the paramedics said.
“He’s burning up,” the other one said. He looked at his colleague in alarm. “Fever?”
“No, not in this case. No, this is a classic massive cocaine induced overdose, all right—vomiting, bodily injury from psychotic episodes and cycles of euphoria and depression, rapid pulse, seizures, respiratory problems—the heat has to be due to hyperthermia. We’ll administer sedatives to reduce his elevated heart rate and recommend ice bags and cold compresses to reduce his body heat.”
“I just can’t believe it,” Pete muttered. “A
cocaine overdose?”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Thornton. The doctors and staff will do everything in their power to keep him alive and help him recover.”
“What if he becomes
addicted to it?”
“Then they’ll treat the addiction, but I’ll tell you, statistics say it’s actually rarer for a person to become addicted to cocaine when they’re forced a dose as he was than it is if he had taken it for recreational pleasure. Keep in mind also that this was the first time he was introduced to the drug. I know it was a high dose, but still it normally takes a few hits before someone becomes dependent.”
“I understand,” Pete said, nodding. “Please, make sure they do everything they can for him.”
The paramedics smiled reassuringly. One of them reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “We will,” he said.
“I want to ride in the ambulance with him. Can I do that?”
“Of course.”
Pete fought back tears, stroking MacGyver’s red, hot face, not caring if his hands were smeared by vomit, blood, and saliva that was still around MacGyver’s mouth, drying and crusting around the corners. As he touched MacGyver’s face, staring down at him, he noticed another hand joining him, a slender, feminine hand. Looking up in surprise, he saw Nadine, dried blood on her swollen lip, her skin pale, but otherwise an exquisite, attractive woman.
“Who are you?” He asked.
“You must be Pete Thornton,” she said, smiling faintly. “The Phoenix Foundation, right? MacGyver works for you doesn’t he?”
“Who are you?” Pete asked again.
“I’m…I’m the woman he’s been seeing,” she said. “I’m also the woman who has a lot of important information that can help you in your case against James Mondragon. Can I ride along in the ambulance with you? We have a lot to discuss.” She looked at MacGyver’s red face again, her eyes tearing. Even though he was unconscious, she could still see traces of the chaos and turmoil he had been through while overdosing on cocaine, pain and discomfort still seeming to crease his face. “Besides, I love him,” she said, allowing her tears to flow, collapsing into sobs, leaning against Pete. “He needs me as much as he’s going to need you through this ordeal.”
Overwhelmed, dazed, and exhausted as she was, Pete wrapped his arm around her. This was the woman he had warned Mac about, recommending he keep her at a distance.
“She’s harmless, Pete…” So she was. At least, she had turned out to be.
“All right,” he said. “Tell me everything you know. We’ll arrange some way to protect you. First, let’s help MacGyver get well…see him through this.”
To be continued…
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
--Henry David Thoreau
brains+brawn+beauty+personality=MacGyver
Hope you're okay dear. You're just a sweetheart bringing stories to your fans. Get a lot of rest and we'll see you here next weekend, ok?
very intense, but sooooo good!! hope you rest up and post more this weekend cuz i dont noe how much longer i can hold out before i 
lol. Anyway love your story. 
