A/N: I do not own The Adventures of Tintin. I also do not own the Casablanca Hotel. Nor do I own the Ford vehicle brand. I do own my OC's though. At least I get to keep something! :)
By the way, the abbreviation "MtBl" stands for meatball, just so you all know that.

Chapter Five – Gentle Persuasion

She was just starting to get used to the darkness when it was ripped away from her.

Ellie squinted against the bright industrial light that shone in her face from above, cloaking everything else that may have been... wherever she was... and hiding them from her sight. She felt something holding back her arms and felt the faint thump, thump of a man's pulse against her wrists. Her heart raced with fear.

By then she could see again, so the quickly surveyed the room. It was nothing special, with its bland gray paint job and its dirty concrete flooring. It looked somewhat like an old warehouse, only smaller. A clean-cut man wearing a black pinstripe suit was standing in the corner away from her, his head bent so that his matching black fedora hid his face from view. All was silent; but after a moment of her sitting and him standing, he looked up at her. The brim of his hat cast an ominous shadow over his story gray eyes as bland as the color of the room surrounding them, and his lips were curled back in a devious scowl.

"Hello there, miss."

His voice, wrapped in an annoying Brooklynese accent, was like sandpaper to Ellie's ears. A disgusted, terrified shiver ran down her spine.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't introduce myself. The name's Mr. Taylor, at your service." As if he was truly trying to be polite, he tipped his hat to her, and for only a second she saw it. It was a silver tattoo of a scorpion, its stinger poised for attack, just above the man's hairline. It disappeared when he put the fedora down again.

"These are my assistants," Taylor continued, gesturing to somewhere above Ellie's head, "Bronco and Ford."

Two scowling faces suddenly appeared on either side of her, and she involuntarily flinched. One was dark-skinned with fresh scar slicing across his cheek. The other was Caucasian, with a set of intimidating metal studs piercing his nose and both ears. Both were wearing dirty white A-shirts, and both exhibited tattoos that spiraled around their arms and featured matching silver scorpions just below the shoulder. Ellie didn't want them to think that she was scared, so she casually asked, "So, which one is Ford?"

Before she could even get the last word out of her mouth, the dark-skinned one leaned forward and glare at her. She felt the hold on her wrists slacken ever so slightly. "Don't you be talkin' 'bout my name like that, or I'll –"

"Back away, Ford," Taylor demanded, and with another dirty scowl Ford stepped back, disappearing behind Ellie's chair. Taylor smirked at her. "You know what they say: Built Ford Tough." Ellie's wrists were pinched together harder behind her.

"Let me go!" she howled, struggling against Ford's grip failing miserably. The Caucasian man looked like he was about to slap her across the face, but Taylor held up a hand.

"Not yet, Bronco," Taylor drawled, turning back to meed Ellie's startled gaze. "Now miss..." He obviously expected a name, but he continued when one didn't come. "...you are here to answer a few of our questions. You will do it on your own will, and you will not lie."

Ellie spat. "I would never –"

Taylor snapped, and Bronco stepped forward, clasping his entire hand around her neck. His thumb pressed roughly against her windpipe.

Taylor leaned toward Ellie and pulled a small object out of his pocket: a voice recorder. He clicked a button on it. "First things first. What is your name, miss?"

Ellie narrowed her eyes and bit back a cry for help. "As if I would ever tell y –" Her sentence was cut short when her supply of air was cut off from her lungs. She choked, then fearfully whispered, "...Baxter. Ellie B – Baxter."

"Good!" Taylor smiled wickedly. "That wasn't so hard, was it? Now, are you traveling with a Belgian boy reporter named Tintin?"

Ellie didn't respond, but a few seconds of coughing breathlessly prompted an answer. "Y – yes." Bronco's hand released her, and she flooded her lungs with air.

"What hotel are you staying at?"

The hand squeezed her throat again, forcing her to release the air inside of her lungs. She could feel herself start to suffocate. "The... the Casablanca..." Another release, another breath of fresh air.

"I have only one more question for you, Miss Baxter, before I must be on my way." Taylor stared dramatically into the space just above Ellie's head before staring right into her scared eyes. "I already know your friends are flying to Chicago tomorrow, but I don't know which hotel they will be staying at while they're in the Windy City. Where are they staying?"

For the longest of moments, Ellie couldn't breathe, not just because of Bronco's suffocating hand. Is she told this man where her friends would be staying, there's no telling what he may do to them. She could just die here and save her friends while she still had some to protect...

She suddenly saw stars, and realized that she felt extremely lightheaded. She must have panicked, because she started spurting out the hotel's name before she could even stop herself. "O... Omn... Omni. I... It's... Om... ni..."

"The Omni Chicago." Taylor smiled slightly, amused.

"Swanky," murmured Ford from behind her. She was so dazed that his ultra-deep voice didn't even make her flinch.

Taylor turned around, his back to the prisoner. "Release her."

The pressure on Ellie's throat and arms released, and she slouched back in the chair, gulping down air. She shook slightly; it was obvious that she didn't have the strength to move an inch.

Taylor raised an eyebrow at her, slightly confused by her sudden lack of will. "What room number?"

"I... I don't know," she whispered between gasps.

"Too bad," Taylor remarked with a shake of the head. "You'll just have to help us find it then, Miss Baxter. Here's what you'll do. Hold a white cloth up to the window of the room at 11 sharp tomorrow night. And don't try to trick me – it's obvious that he would get a room with a window. I'll have people watching."

As the black spots started to dance away from her field of vision, she nodded once, blankly.

"Goodbye, Miss Baxter. Too bad we have other places to be."

Just as suddenly as she had been brought back to this place she was pushed out, chair and all, through a hidden door behind her. Her back hit the cold pavement of an alley, and she sat up, scanning the alleyway for the door, the room, any signs of life. There was nothing but piles of trash, two stray cats, and the ominous darkness.

-x-

"Ellie's been out for a while," Tintin murmured half to himself, looking away from his notes an back at his watch. "It's been nearly twenty minutes. You'd think she would have been back by now..."

"It's New York, lad," the Captain reassured him. "Everywhere is crowded. There was probably just a long line at the sandwich shop. No need to get antsy."

Tintin gazed out the window facing Theatre Row and nodded. "You're right, Captain. I just need to calm down. She'll be back any second now..."

Exactly one second later, there was a knock at the door.

Tintin jumped slightly at the sudden noise, but wasted no time in hurrying over and opening the door. He smiled when he saw Ellie standing there, holding a few paper-wrapped bundles in her arms. The collar of her coat was pulled up around her neck, and her cheeks were rosy from the outside chill.

"Sorry I took so long," she started, slipping past Tintin and settling the sandwiches on the table. "There... there was a long line at the shop."

The Captain shot Tintin a quick look, silently saying I was right before standing and snatching up one of the sandwiches in the pile. "Which one's mine?"

"The one with the big BLT on it." Instead of taking off her coat, Ellie pulled it a little tighter and gently took hold of the paper package marked MtBl and cradled it in one arm. "I'm... I'm going to eat in the courtyard. I just need to... clear my head." She reached for the door again.

"Fine," the Captain mumbled, speaking around a mouthful of no-mustard extra-pickle wheat-bread BLT. He didn't look up from his sandwich, and didn't notice the shadow that passed over her normally jubilant eyes. Tintin saw it for just a second when she glanced at him, smiled softly, and stepped into the corridor once again. The door made a solid thunk behind her.

Tintin stared in the direction that she left, his mind buzzing, his hunger forgotten with Ellie's sudden change of character. What happened to her? Maybe she's just tired – she was standing in line at the sandwich shop for twenty minutes. Or maybe... He grabbed his coat from the end of his bed and took the remaining sandwich from the table. "I'll be back."

The Captain would have said something to stop him, to keep him from getting into any trouble for just once in his career as a reporter. Don't worry about it, he would have said, along with a simple gesture to the spot beside him on the couch. She's fine, just a little tired, that's all. It's been a long week for all of us, laddie.

But by then Tintin was already gone.

A/N: For all of you reading LotS, I will try to have a new chapter for you guys by Wednesday the 12th. Life has been hectic for me lately, and I'm just now getting new chapters done. Thanks for being patient with me, guys. :)