Bo released a tense breath and tried to clear the aggression and stress that fogged her savvy survivor's mind. Her vision struggled to adjust to the faint light spilling in through the two dirt-smudged backdoor windows. Sprawled beside her, the human woman began to buckle under the effects of the injury that Bo had inflicted on her.

"Hey," Bo murmured, trusting that the bulkhead and engine noise would mask any conversation. "I'm Bo. What's your name?"

"Jaime." The wounded blonde's front-cuffed hands allowed her to gingerly probe the scratches on her neck. "Did you drug me?"

"No, you passed out." The lie was smooth and easy and the blonde was already confused enough to accept it. With her hands bound behind her back Bo could not reach out to apply arcane persuasion. "You need to stay awake if you can, all right?" Bo closed her eyes and cursed herself for compromising the woman and making her a victim. "Listen to me, if you get a chance to run, any kind of chance, you should run." Bo insisted. "Don't look back, just run."

"He's going to kill us," Jaime whimpered, gasping for breath as if she might cry. "He's going to hurt us and he's going to kills us."

"No, he's not," Bo responded confidently. "But you have to agree that you'll run if you can." Bo tugged at her cuffs. "I need you to help me now though." Bo twisted her upper body to display her back. "Grab the chain between the cuffs and hold on tight."

"What are you doing?" Jaime asked. Her words slurred as she fought the soporific fallout of the draining.

"I'm going to pull out of the cuffs," Bo said. "If I pull against myself I'll hurt both my hands. If you can help me and support me, I'll be able to get one free."

"He made me put them on you so tight," Jaime said.

"It's OK, I can do it," Bo assured. "Hurry, we don't know how long this trip is going to last."

The vehicle made a hard turn and slammed Jaime's body into Bo, spilling them flat in a tangle of limbs. Desperately aware of minutes ticking past, as the journey took her further from Kenzi, Bo levered herself up and watched Jaime trying to cope with her weakness and disorientation before offering her back again.

"Like this?" Jaime asked nervously as she clasped the cuff chain.

Bo tugged experimentally and jerked free of her anchor at once. "Harder," she prompted. "You need to hang on as tight as you can if I'm going to get loose." Bo wanted to snap at Jaime, to make her do as she was told, but had to accept that the blame was on her own shoulders as she had orchestrated their plight.

"But your hand," the blonde protested.

"Let me worry about it," Bo said. "It's going to hurt, I'm OK with that. I just need you to anchor me." The two women struggled with another turn. "You've got to hurry."

Bo waited for Jaime to arrange herself and pin them together so that Bo had something to pull against. The succubus took a deep breath to ready herself for the pain that was to come, because dragging herself free from the manacle could only break bones. Being injured in a fight was something that Bo was familiar with, but wounding herself on purpose would be harder.

Bo's reserves of chi were already ebbing, she knew that taking more damage was a dangerous gambit. With control already hanging by the barest of threads, having Jaime pressed so close was a temptation that Bo could hardly stand.

The first strong yank gouged the manacle into Bo's wrist and drew a yelped curse from her, although it was nowhere near hard enough to rip free. Steeling herself, Bo heaved again and choked a cry of agony as bones and tendons were buckled, her skin threatened to tear and the wrist joint began to separate.

Abruptly, Bo lurched into the side of the van, and then rapped her chin and cheek hard against metal as the grip on her cuff was released.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I can't," Jaime babbled. "Your hand is broken. You're bleeding and it's crushed and I can't, I'm sorry." The hurt woman, distraught and confused, began to panic.

Bo had assumed that what she felt pooling in her palm was perspiration. She twisted her wrist within the manacle and tested to see if her own blood would serve as a lubricant to let her wrestle free. "Don't freak out," Bo scolded. "I'm OK and I can get us out of this if I can just get a hand free. You have to help me."

The van rumbled to a halt, braking hard enough to tumble the two trapped women into one another. The lean blonde was still solid enough to jolt the breath from Bo's body as they were tangled together. The engine idled for a moment, drowned out by a loud metallic shriek of rusted hinges outside the vehicle. Muted voices, not loud enough to understood, sent a clear signal that their captor had an accomplice.

Once the vehicle began to roll forward again Bo tugged frantically on her cuffs, gritting her teeth against the stabbing pain that rushed up both arms as her body howled in protest. "Just remember," Bo hissed, "run if you can."

The driver's door slammed shut, followed by the sound of footfalls on concrete. The harsh drumming of a fist on the sliding panel made both women jump. "Blondie, get on your feet and get your back against this door. Do it now." The stern drumming was repeated. "Look at the window, both of you."

The two women sent alarmed glances to the grimy glass at the rear of the van and saw a new face staring in at them. The man at the glass was older than their abductor. Deep lines at the corners of his eyes and either side of his mouth carved his features into an aggressive glower. His iron grey and receding hair was cut in the same austere style. Alert eyes tracked the captive women, then hardened in a frown at Bo's attempt to pull free. They watched his lips move as he passed information to the knifeman.

A fresh wave of pounding, angrier than before, drew an anxious keen from Jaime. "You will do as I say," the armed man demanded. "You will do it now or we will light this van on fire and you'll die here." To reinforce the threat, the second man raised a gas can to the window for them to see.

"They're killing us," Jaime whimpered. Desperately aware of how much danger they were both in she gave a soft sob. "They're going to hurt us and then they'll kill us."

Bo relaxed her arms and winced as the edge of the cuffs loosened from the gouges in her skin, exposing raw wounds. "Go on," the succubus urged. "Whatever it takes, OK?" The idea of the vehicle being set on fire with them trapped inside made Bo's belly squirm. "First step is to get out of this van or we have no chance. So do as he says, keep your eyes open and if you have the chance to get away, take it."

Jaime rose reluctantly and presented her back to the door, visibly trembling before Bo's eyes. Streaks of blood from the knife scratches mingled with grunge from the floor of the van. Her head dropped towards her chest, condemned.

The door was vigorously jerked open, squealing on its runners and crashing to a halt. The kidnapper's powerful left arm grabbed Jaime roughly around the waist and hauled her backwards. The tall man's bodyweight, standing square and strong, was the only thing that stopped Jaime from falling flat on her back. The heavy hunting knife flashed back to her neck, forcing Jaime to struggle to get her feet back under herself before she was cut again.

Understanding the man's intent, Bo did not wait for the order. The brunette rose smoothly and stepped out of the van with exaggerated caution. Bo knew that she could not save herself if she was to fall, but her careful descent was orchestrated for her skirt to ride up a few inches and display a lot of leg. Bo monitored the brawny man for potential sexual interest and received a disgusted sneer in answer to her test.

"Follow," he ordered, confident of her compliance.

As soon as the trio had cleared the van, the older man circled behind them and placed himself deliberately outside Bo's line of sight to increase the threat against her. As he advised his cohort that Bo was still safely shackled, the senior man's gravelly voice indicated that he was out of range for even her superior reflexes.

Bo hurriedly stole glances around herself when the entourage moved around the van at the orders of the knife-wielding man. The succubus realized at once that they were inside a vast warehouse. The ceiling of the space was so high that it was not even visible in the gloom. Three of the four walls were in just as much shadow, despite illumination from the van headlights. The warehouse was decrepit and filthy, redolent with the acrid chemical aroma of one of the city's river tributaries.

Bo knew that much of the waterfront district was abandoned and rotting into the water, and was often a haunt for the criminal brotherhood that Bo's work occasionally bought her into contact with. Streetwise and familiar with darkness, Bo recognized that the place had been chosen so that the screams of women, if heard, would be ignored.

Jaime's terrified cry dragged Bo's concentration from her rapid assessment of the space to focus on the human woman's shocked face, before turning to see what had provoked her distress.

The van headlights cast dramatic shadows through a free-standing improvised prison cell. Four walls and a roof of sturdy iron bars were bolted together to form a cube that measured ten feet on each side. Concrete dust powdered the space from drill holes that had been sunk into the ground to anchor the cage in place, although the metal alone weighed more than Bo's strength could handle. The door on the nearest cell wall was secured by a lever which operated deadbolts at the top and bottom. A hefty padlock hung at the ready to secure the lever. The cell was furnished with a single metal bunk, a rough grey blanket folded at the foot of the sparse mattress, and a lidded bucket.

"No," Bo protested at once, every instinct within her screaming in revolt at the prospect of imprisonment. "I won't."

The younger of the two men jerked Jaime to a halt. With deadly efficiency he drove the shaking woman down to one knee before catching her hair and forcing her head to crane backwards as if preparing her for sacrifice. Jaime struggled for balance as the wicked blade kissed her skin again.

"Get in there," the thug ordered, "or I'm going to take her head." His tug on Jaime's hair made her yelp. "Get in the cell. Do it now, no negotiation." To punctuate his point, another bright trickle of blood beaded and seeped down Jaime's throat to stain her neckline.

"All right, OK, just don't," Bo pleaded. The succubus' alert mind tested her options and found them wanting, her street fighting senses warning her that the older man would be armed too, and he was just as judicious in maintaining distance. Bo's survivor sensibilities counseled her that she had no moves left other than whatever it took to stay alive. "I'll do it, I'll do what you want."

Bo listened to the gate slamming shut behind her. The older man secured the bolts and gave a single sour bark of laughter that was humorless and mean. "Gotcha," he gloated.

Jaime knelt helplessly before the knife-wielding man. Bo's jailer joined his partner, both men allowed themselves to relax and exchange amused glances over Jaime's head, trusting that she was was rendered catatonic from fear.

"Let her go," Bo called through the bars. "You've got me, you don't have to hurt her." The succubus' sharp eyes noticed that Jaime's cuffed hands had come to rest by her boot and she was carefully inching up the cuff of her leather jeans. Hoping that Jaime had an idea, perhaps even a concealed weapon, Bo stepped up her argument. "You've got me. You don't need her, she doesn't know anything."

The words, as soon as she had spoken them, chilled Bo to the core as she recognized that she was condemning Jaime. Between them, the two men hauled Jaime back up to her feet. "So, what do we do with her?" The younger of the two asked.

"No, please don't," Bo implored.

Jaime's collar was bibbed in sweat and bloody smudges, her hands clenched together. The fearful trembling had stopped, letting the captors think that she was resigned to her fate. Sky blue eyes caught Bo's panicked gaze and glittered for a fraction of a second. The corner of Jaime's mouth lifted in a small and discrete smirk of her own. Bo returned the look with a subtle nod, willing Jaime to make her move and trying to contain her fear that it was Jaime's last chance.

Jaime directed Bo's focus down to her shackled hands and uncurled her fist as Bo watched. Jaime's slender fingers moved with such grace that she looked as if she was performing a magic trick, revealing a silver key in the palm of her hand with a sleight of hand flourish.

With a wide and fiendish grin twisting her sharp features, Jaime unlocked her handcuffs and let them clatter to the concrete. She rubbed her wrists to relax them, then dabbed light fingertips to the scratches on her neck before raising a quizzical eyebrow at the armed man. "Really?" She asked.

"Had to make it look real, boss," he answered easily. "Do you need another shot?"

Jaime waved off the suggestion, although weariness was still evidently weighing on her. The rangy human took a rag from the elder male, then swabbed her neck and chin. With a contemptuous flick of her wrist, Jaime tossed the key into the impromptu cell. "Take them off and throw them out here," she ordered.

"You tricked me?" Bo demanded.

Allowing herself a soft laugh at Bo's outrage and confusion, Jaime retorted with confidence. "We had an idea of how dangerous you are, so we had to be sure."

Bo released the cuffs and cradled her wounded wrist against her body. "What do you want?" she asked.

"The truth," Jaime said. "And you will tell us." She accepted a black leather jacket from her colleague and zipped it to her chin to hide the blood, then pulled on a pair of leather gloves. "But right now, I think we need a little more leverage." She chuckled at Bo's wary glare. "The gear? We know better than to risk letting you touch us."

"Who sent you?" Bo demanded, grasping the bars with her uninjured hand.

Jaime ignored the increasingly frantic succubus, turning to her team to issue her orders. "Go and get that girl, I think she's human but you should be careful. Let me know when she's in custody. I'm not sure about the other one," Jaime glanced to Bo and matched her fiery glare with a triumphant and mocking smile. "I don't suppose you want to tell us?"

"Don't touch them," Bo hissed, baring her teeth despite her impotence. The succubus tugged hard on the iron bars, as if she could bend them through sheer force of will. "Don't you dare touch either of them."

The trapped succubus' entreaty was met with a new fury that was bright, sharp and more intense than before. Raw hatred that was visceral and barely restrained, seething with venom and fire, shone murderously from Jaime's eyes. "You've learned your first lesson, beast," Jaime sneered. "And this is your second. If they die tonight, their blood will be on your hands. You should be used to that now, but this time you will care."