ALEC

Something wasn't right.

The detective's first thought as he began to wake up was; why is it so damn bright?

The second; was trying to remember when he had actually gone to sleep.

The third; was why he found himself in the middle of the forest, encased by net, his hands bound in front of him, hanging nearly 20 feet in the air.

As soon as that fact processed in his mind and the realization that he was not imagining things struck him, Alec bolted up-right. Or rather, that had been his intent. The thick ropes that surrounded him didn't provide leisure for much orchestrated movement.

He tried again to shift his body around to try and catch a glimpse of something that might answer his question, but it seemed like every move he tried to make only succeeded in tangling him up even more.

What. The. Hell? Where am I?

Someone was about to be the recipient of a whole wave of murderous fury.

Rile—RYDER

He watched with a just feeling of satisfaction as he watched Daiyu's irritating partner wake, only to find himself trapped in bindings of rope that he couldn't possibly hope to escape. He had assured that much.

Or he supposed he should get used to calling her only Maize from now on.

It was funny, when they first met all those years ago, they had been two very different people. Or rather, she had been different, and he had been the same couldn't-have-a-care guy. Who had stolen something fairly valuable from a cartel boss. And had landed himself in a rather unfortunate situation. With a bounty on his head. From someone willing to pay for the best. Daiyu.

Oh the good times.

He had been four years less experienced back then, barely past the age of 23 when he had encountered a bounty hunter even younger than himself. She couldn't have been more than 21 at the time. He would have never expected that the hunter after him was a young woman barely past her 20's. And boy did he remember her using that to her advantage.

She had cornered him one night, pretending to flirt with him to draw him closer, planning to get him alone and then most likely take him out so she could deliver him to her employer, but while he hadn't had the same number of years of experience, he still had instinct. Enough so that he had been too cautious to risk falling into her trap.

It was only later when he encountered her a second time—no longer hiding behind a charade—that he realized he had been right to follow his gut.

The order hadn't been to kill. Just to deliver him to the cartel boss's doorstep—so he could do the killing himself. They must have thought it'd be easy.

Twenty-seven attempts. Twenty-seven times she tried one way or another to capture him. Twenty-seven times he had maneuvered himself out of her reach. And not to mention having Kota who would warn him any time he sensed her did help immensely. If not for that he would have been caught for sure.

He remembered all the conversations they had had as she either tried to subdue him or him giving her a call after he had disappeared—just to antagonize her. He had a knack for pissing people off, which he learned quickly.

Furthermore, she had forgone her attempts at capture when the employers had gotten impatient and mandated a kill order instead. Not that it had changed anything. She still couldn't catch him. Trying to catch him was like trying to catch a shadow of a fox—you didn't. He had been dodging people since he was 16. It would have been ridiculous to say he wasn't good at it.

It really was odd how such a hostile start had become the trusting affinity they now had. When it was clear he could not be caught, the bounty had been called off. It was after that time that he had decided to contact her—Maize Daiyu, the equipped bounty hunter—personally, having been impressed with her ability despite her unsuccessful efforts. They had begun a trade or sorts then, in secret, but not a partnership. He already had the only partner he needed in Kota and she had had another teammate of her own back then. Neither needed another. But every once and a while, they would cross paths, meet in unexpected places, call on certain favours. They built trust in one another. But one thing he had learned back then was that she only went by one name—Daiyu. And now she had completely abandoned that title, and most likely buried the identity behind it.

She hadn't explained much. But what he could deduct, something had gone wrong with her and the group she had been a part of at the time. And whatever it was had left her not the same person she once was.

Now she had the name Ember—which was rather uninventive for his taste, but he supposed it did suit her. And she had brought a gang of cops to his door without even so much as a phone call beforehand. Where he had been met with an 'oh so lovely' surprise when he had returned home from his latest job.

The irritation of the night before still bugged him. Though not so much as this morning...

Yes, it had been a reflexive accident that he had thrown the closest thing he had at the unsuspecting detective—which just so happened to be a kitchen pan.

Yes, maybe the detective had also been a tad bit right when he called out on his 'accidental' actions being bullshit. Grabbing the pan had been a reflex. Aiming for the detective's head may have not been.

No, he did not feel the least bit sorry about it. At all.

Not even now as he watched the detective take a bemused note of his surroundings before he realized he had woken up in a completely different location than before. It was only a second later before Ryder could hear him curse angrily and try to pry himself free of the ropes around his wrists to keep them together.

"Finally awake, huh?" He called out, his voice bored after having waited half an hour for the drug's effects to wear off.

The look that the detective gave him as he finally found him, standing at the base of the tree, with his hands naturally tucked into the loose folds of his black cargo pants, and propped up against the sturdy bark oh so casually with Kota at his side, could have made any other person fear for their life. But his face reflected nothing but a neutral indifference that seemed to rule up the detective.

With that combination of solitude and lack of surprise at the detective's predicament, the prices seemed to come together fairly quickly for Maize's cop partner, he could see it from his expression even before he spoke.

"For hell's sake, don't tell me this shit was your fucking doing?"

Brash was definitely one word that he would use to describe Maize's agitating companion. That and quick to anger.

Ryder tilted his head up to meet the detective's gaze directly as he stared back with steel lack of concern.

"What do you think?"

It was a rhetorical question, but it might as well have been an answer itself.

The detective muttered a curse that carried loud enough down to him, "Fucking hell."

Ryder mused that for a supposed 'good-guy', the man had a mouth that even the devil himself probably couldn't even compete with—he had seen enough in the short time being in his presence to attest to that. And he had a feeling that Maize would testify the same.

Cold eyes were chilling into him. A look that could probably freeze hell with the amount of iciness behind it. When the detective opened his mouth there was frustration written all over his face. "I knew it was too quick to trust you. Maize was wrong. Where is she and what the hell did you do to the others?"

Ryder resisted the frown of confusion that was threatening to pull at her otherwise impassive expression. He assumed that he did something to the 'others'?

"For someone who's job is to solve problems, you seem to have the wrong idea about your situation," he responded slowly, watching every reaction at a distance.

"That so? Because it looks like you've got me hung up in a tree. People don't do that with good-intent you know," the detective retorted.

Ryder snickered quietly to himself at that.

That was true, they did not.

"You think you're trapped because what? I plan to hand you over to the gang that after you and collect the reward?" Ryder questioned, stating the facts of the matter openly. He nearly smiled. "Now that wouldn't be such a bad assumption..."

"You damn bastard."

"But like I said, you have the wrong idea. I could care less about the gang or the bounty on your heads, I don't work for anyone. This is simply a matter that needs to be solved between you and me."

The detective frowned at him. "You lost me."

Ryder huffed and snapped sarcastically, "It's called payback, I'm sure you've heard of it." At the narrow-eyes glare he received Ryder only barely managed to suppress a sneer and his voice lined with a condescending tone. "I don't know about you city cops, but I happen to be petty fond of it."

"You tied me up in a tree like a manic...because you were ticked off?" The detective questioned with demeaning bafflement.

He shrugged. "So what if I did."

The detective deadpanned at that. "So what your saying is that you're not only deranged but petty too?"

Ryder felt his jaw I voluntarily clench with pricking irritation. He would not let this aggravating enforcement officer rile his temper again. Not while he—being the man not in the net—clearly had the higher ground. Figuratively speaking.

He glared back. "And you're not only stupid but stuck too," he retorted in the same deriding and indifferent tone.

"This damn 'prank' or whatever you want to call it isn't funny," the detective stated brusquely. "It's borderline on the word psychotic just so you know."

"Thanks for the lesson," he replied dryly.

Maize's companion sent him a murderously threatening glare.

"Let me down."

It clearly wasn't a request.

Too bad, Ryder didn't take well to being given orders. He hadn't for a long time.

A lazy grin spread across his face, a clear patronizing look.

"Nah. I think I'll leave you up there for a little longer...maybe a few hours," he added snidely, the thought bringing a smirk that would have reached his face if not blocked by his steel mask.

"Fuck you, Riley."

"Not my name," he growled, the idea he had propped sounding more appealing by the second.

"Let me down, Roger."

He frowned with a bite of annoyance. "Are you trying to piss me off even more?" He raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not asking, Ryker."

"If so you're succeeding," he concluded with a bitter edge.

"Dammit, Roy!"

Ryder finally snapped. "I told you it's Ryder! The name is RYDER! By gods, get it right!"

"I'll get it right when you get me down," was the retort he was rewarded with. Followed with, "And then I'll knock your damn teeth in. How's that for payback? Now get over here dammit!"

"Tempting," Ryder replied dryly as his eyes found themselves rolling in sarcasm. "I'll pass, thanks."

The detective sure did have an expressively colourful catalogue of crude vocabulary—which Ryder had the pleasure of experiencing the following minutes.

The whole time the detective had been pulling against the ropes, tugging relentlessly to fight the tight bindings. He would have no luck though. Those ropes were thick, pure strength wouldn't be able to break them. If they could, Ryder would have had a much easier time getting out of about a dozen past situations that he could remember.

"I wouldn't bother, it's a waste of your time," he called up to him.

The detective paused from his muttered cursing to shoot him a far from friendly look as Ryder stared up at him with taunting hidden behind his steel gaze.

"You're going to be stuck up there for a while," he mused.

The detective shot him a look that could freeze a volcano, but Ryder didn't stop. This was fun for him.

"It's about a 5 km hike back to the house, calling for someone isn't an option, so why don't you just hang tight for the time being while I head back." He smiled. "Might as well go back and see if anyone's noticed your absence yet..."

The cop looked at him disbelievingly, as if he didn't think he was actually serious about leaving him there.

But oh he was. One hundred percent.

"You can't actually leave me up here...what the hell?!"

"Weren't you listening to a word I said?" He questioned. Jeez, it was like the guy was purposefully choosing not to listen to him. "That is exactly what I plan to do."

The guy should be grateful, Ryder thought to himself, I left him high enough so that the predators can't get to him.

Most people who pissed him off weren't always that lucky. The detective did not seem to appreciate the sense of generosity he was being given here.

Ryder sighed unvaryingly. "Anyway, have fun. Serves you right. See you when the sun goes down. Maybe," he added with a contemplating thought. After all, the guy still had yet to say his name right even once.

And he had to be doing it purposely because his name was not a hard one to remember, and no one was that dense. At least, he was eighty-percent sure...

But then again, the detective's first instinct had been to tick him off even more after he found out the reason he was there to begin with, so maybe the world wasn't as bright as he gave it credit for.

Ryder straightened and Kota followed suit, the dog that was like an extension of himself in every way he could think of, the perfect canine partner, a pair that were always in perfect synch. They walked away from the contraption, paying no heed to the sound of curses that followed every name that started with R but his own.

And Ryder threw a backwards wave of his hand as a response.

I regret nothing.