Author's Note: This is my first fanfic, so be patient while I get my footing... and please review!!! I could really use the feedback and advice!!!
Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS, the characters, etc., and if I did, I would not know what to do with them.
Chapter 1: Two Weeks Later
When Jennifer Shepard awoke, it was to find herself alone in an empty room. There was one small, barred window high up on the wall. Judging by the amount of light entering her cell, Jenny estimated that it was around noon, maybe a little later.
Jenny ached all over and she could feel something caking the side of her face: blood. Her lovely red hair was matted with it and her clothes were covered in it. Reaching up a hand to her forehead, she felt a large gash. She tried to move from where she lay on the concrete floor, but she found that her left leg wouldn't respond. She looked at it, only to find it twisted at an unnatural angle. She winced.
She remembered being attacked, fighting back, but there were too many of them… She remembered a sickening crunch and then a searing pain in her leg… And still she had tried to fight. Then a blinding pain in her forehead, and warm blood on her skin as the cool darkness had embraced her.
The door in one wall of her cell opened and a man stepped in. He was tall and muscular, the kind of man who would be hired to be a bodyguard… or to beat information out of prisoners, whispered a little voice in Jenny's head. After all, she had information they wanted, and they knew it.
Jenny felt a thrill of fear as she looked at the man. He had no visible weapon, but his eyes said quite clearly that he didn't need one to hurt her. And Jen lay on the floor, covered in her own blood. She was helpless, her leg broken and half-blinded by the blood from her forehead.
The man walked up to her, and, smiling, kicked her broken leg. She screamed, her vision swimming. All she could see through the pain was the man's smile of cruel satisfaction at her suffering.
Jenny was a fighter, used to never giving up, always fighting back. She could be very dangerous, and everyone who knew her knew that. And yet, at that moment in time, as she lay at the man's feet, Jen knew there was nothing she could do to stop him from hurting her. And that knowledge terrified her.
The man kicked her again, this time in the stomach. She curled up in pain. He delivered another kick, once again to her leg. As she cried out, the man crushed her fingers under his boot. Tears streamed down Jenny's cheeks.
"Who do you work with?" The man asked, voice indifferent to her suffering. An image swam, unbidden, into Jenny's mind. A young Israeli woman, long dark curls framing her face, eyes chocolate brown, laughing yet deadly. "Jen," said the woman. The image faded, leaving Jenny alone in the room with the man as he knelt down and ripped open her shirt.
So? What do you think? Review?