This is a very, very delicate subject. Rape, torture. Not easy subjects to write about. Somewhere I read that I must put my characters through hell for them to be believable. People keep writing Elena as weak, as sensitive and shy. This Elena in here isn't. She's a survivor. This is her story.

Rated K+ for subject matter.

I do not own TVD, the characters or anything like that.

Damon POV

A steady beep slowly woke Damon up. His room was pitch black, his pager's green flashing light the only thing illuminating the room. Damon sighed, and rubbed his face covered with stubble.

"Shit." he grumbled, slowly sitting up. He had gotten-what, two hours of sleep? He had been working nonstop on a rape/murder victim for a month now. They had finally located the perp on his way out of the city. He thought he was going to get a full night sleep, nightmare free, for once.

His eyes in slits, he glanced at the pager.

"Shit. Shit." he said, scrambling up to put on his pants. Central needed him in. Now. The kidnapping case he was assigned to finally got a hit; what, he didn't know.

His phone started to ring, the shrill sound echoing through his tiny, one bedroom apartment.

"What." Damon snapped.

"Where are you? Did you get your page?" his partner Andie snapped. "Captain wants us to get working on this case as fast as possible."

"I'll be right there. I just got in and must have just gotten it. Keep your panties on, geez." he replied. He scrambled to put on his pants, throwing a leather jacket over his slept-in shirt. He clipped his badge to his front pocket, running out of the door onto the New York streets.

Damon Salvatore was a detective of Special Victims Unit of NYPD. He specialized in locating kidnapped rape victims. They said he had a nose for this kind of thing. Damon always knows when there's a damsel in distress, his coworkers would chuckle. He had been born for law enforcement. His fit, athletic body perfect for chasing down fugitives. He had slowly worked his way up the ranks, slowly but surely. He had just been promoted to SVU detective about a year before, and was assigned his pain in the ass partner, Andie.

He neared the doors of Central, and quickly ran up the large marble stairs. Once he reached his office, he quickly swiped his key card and neared the break room.

He reached for a coffee cup, but Andie's hand swiped the cup right from under him.

"Me first. I don't think I've slept for the past ten years." Her light brown hair hung limp around her face. Dark circles under her eyes popped out on her pale face, as she closed her eyes to appreciate her first hot sip. Damon smirked. She really looked like shit.

"You look like hell warmed up, Andie," he snapped. Andie rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to retort. Damon interrupted, "So what is so important? What is our lead?"

"Well if you stop being suck a dick, I'll tell you." Andie snapped.

Andie and Damon walked together towards their office, their steps in sync.

"We got a tip from an older lady down on West Side. She said she saw a suspicious vehicle in front of her street for a while. She said she brushed it off, but then the next day she thought she heard screaming. I went over and interviewed her, and she didn't seem crazy. Her place is within two miles of where the vic was picked up."

Shoulder to shoulder, they looked over their display board. The victims' photo was posted in the middle of the board, surrounded by maps and different pictures of suspects.

Andie turned to Damon.

"I really think we should get a team in there. I think it might be her."

Damon shook his head. "For all we know, it could be an out of town lover screaming her head off in ecstasy. We don't know jack shit. I'll scope the place out, but I'm not doing anything until I have some reasonable evidence." He put his now empty coffee cup down. "Want to come with?" he asked, grinning.

"Damon. This could be it. You know I have good instincts. I really think this is it." Andie insisted, her green eyes full of concern.

Damon put his hand on her shoulder. Andie always got attached to the victims. It made for a painful recovery when they didn't make it.

"I know," he said. "But we can't get our hopes up. Come on, let's go."

They headed down to the garage together, and climbed into an indescript squad car.

Damon revved the engine and headed towards the West side. In the quiet of the car, his mind wandered.

They had been working on this case for a week now. A whole week, this innocent girl was kidnapped, and probably tortured. Damon sighed. Her face haunted him in every dream. All the victims did.

His mind flashed to a girl they didn't get to in time. A prostitute, beaten to an inch of her life by her pimp. They found her in time to bring her to the hospital. Damon clasped her hand in the ambulance all the way there. She died in surgery. Some things you can't fix.

Finally they arrived. In the whisper quiet of the night, Damon pulled up next to the endless rows of brownstone.

"Nice place," he muttered. They climbed out of the car, and looked over the houses. "I'll take the back. Remember, this is just a look around. No entering, no knocking, nothing," he barked. Andie nodded and started towards the front of the house. Damon crept into the dark alley next to the house. The house had a tiny backyard, with tall wooden plank fence surrounding one side. Damon reached for the lock. Surprisingly, the door swung open.

"Hmmm. That's interesting." he muttered. He quietly slipped in. Letting his eyes adjust to the darker backyard, he looked around. A sliver of light came from a low window, the light piercing the dark night around it. Damon crouched and came up to the window, peering through the sliver.

"Oh. Shit."

Uh oh…. what's in the basement? Until next time! Review! Is this good? Bad? Should I ditch it?