Around 8 hours later

The steps became louder and louder, and Kate could tell that somebody was clearly coming in the direction of the room she was in. Think, she ordered herself hurriedly, going down on her knees and feeling for anything she could use as weapon.

She didn't know what had happened after she had faded away, but she had to assume that she was still in the old house, and that the person who came closer and closer, was her attacker.

Gibbs, she thought briefly. Where was he? He had been right before her, he must have realized that something was wrong. But if he had been there, how could she have gotten in this room? Why hadn't he prevented it? Unless...

No. She forced herself to calm down. There was no indication, that anything had happened to Gibbs. Any assumption of that kind would not only be irrational, but also only serve to increase the feeling of panic in her stomach. He was probably already searching for her and would certainly find her. Maybe it was Gibbs who was coming towards the room...

Kate concentrated on the steps that approached. She could now see that there was a small space under the door, maybe one inch of height, through which an approaching light sent its weak beams. Then she could glimpse the shadows of two feet that were standing in front of the door. The sound of steps stopped.

Kate's heart skipped a beat. There was no was that this was Gibbs, since he hadn't called for her. How would Gibbs know that she was behind this door without calling to see from where her reaction was coming?

Hastily she looked around. The dim light that shone into the room allowed her to see a little bit of her surroundings, but to her utter desperation, the room was completely empty. There was nothing she could have used as a weapon.

She heard the metallic sound of a key being turned in the lock of her door and stood up on her feet, bracing herself to a possible attacker.

When the door opened, she had to close her eyes to the bright light that was shining directly into her eyes, blinding her.

"Look at that... the little lady is awake..." The male voice said, followed by an evil laughter. "Perfectly in time."

Kate couldn't see the man, nor his silhouette or anything else of him, but his voice mirrored everything that she needed to know. It was the mean voice of a psychopath with whom all reasonable talking was superfluous. The giggle that could be heard from him reflected his evil character and left no doubt, that he was a human being who didn't react to pleas of mercy or cries of pain. Attack was the only choice she had.

And so she blindly stormed forward in direction of the light, intending to punch the man out with the weight of her body. She had had a few lessons in hand to hand combat when she had still been at the secret service, she reminded herself.

But she had not taken into consideration the still considerably high amount of sedative that was running through her bloodstream, and not only slowed her down, but also made her loose her balance and rather tumble against the man instead of knocking him down.

"Well, well..." he murmured, laughing madly, "my little girl still seems to be a little tired, isn't she?"

He stroked her cheek and Kate blindly slapped for his arm, knocking the lamp out of his hand to the ground. That did at least serve to give her the possibility to see the face of her attacker, since the light of the lamp was not directed into her face anymore.

The man grabbed her hair and painfully pulled her head back. "Let me explain the rules to you, little bitch. You belong to me! And you will do what I want you to do! And what you did just now was a violation of those rules!"

"I don't care for your rules," Kate winced as he pulled harsher at her hair and forced her to her knees.

"Give me the lamp!" he ordered, and when she didn't react instantly, he slapped her so hard that she fell to the ground. She whimpered in shock, holding her hurting cheek – but the shock of the physical violence she was confronted with also counteracted the remaining aftereffects of the drug she had been on.

"Get up," the man yelled at her and Kate fought to regain her balance. Tears were starting to form in her eyes. What had happened? Why hadn't Gibbs come to search for her? Focus, she told herself. She had been trained to control her emotions in situations like this. Focus on the reactions of the criminal, try to find out his weaknesses. What could she learn from his reactions? So far she could only tell that a slight misbehavior on her part enraged him to a violent amount, a fact that made him extremely dangerous.

When she couldn't get up right away, the man pulled her forcefully up to her feet, looking at her, his face only inches from hers. "If this relationship is supposed to work, you will have to follow the rules. Tell me your name!"

Kate closed her eyes, breathing heavily in pain and disgust. She didn't want this pig to speak out her name. "Janice..." she whispered. The next moment she could see the rage in the man's eyes again and his hand lifting to beat her.

"Liar! I found your badge, Caitlin! This was a test and you are obviously not willing to stick to the rules."

"No... don't..." she whimpered, holding her arm up in front of her face to shield her still hurting cheek. Surrender seemed to be the wisest choice at the moment – at least until she had found out what he was up to or had a chance to attempt to escape. Her whole body was trembling. She had never felt so helpless and degraded in her whole life. "I... I will stick to your rules..."

"Good girl..." The man said, stroking her hair. "You will call me master... now come with me!"

He pushed her out of the room into a small dark corridor. "To the left!" Kate did as he said and they walked the long corridor for about two minutes before they came to a crossing where they could either turn left or right.

Kate waited for his direction, a plan forming in her head. The opposite direction of that which he ordered her to turn to would possibly lead her out of this darkness. Of course she was still unsteady on her legs and trembling, let alone the fact that she didn't have light and didn't know these corridors – whereas he obviously did well. But she had to take that chance. It was possible that this was the only chance of escape she would ever get.

"Right!" the man bellowed and that was Kate's signal. Faster than she herself would have expected, she turned to the left and started to run, blinded with fear. She heard the man curse behind her and start to run after her. She felt herself tumble and the corridor cloudy and dark in front of her eyes, but she didn't want to give up.

"Help me! Somebody please help me! Gibbs!" she started to yell desperately, unable to keep the panic from her voice. She was a federal agent, trained to defend herself, having received mental training to deal with dangerous psychopaths – but all that knowledge was useless once she had become a drugged victim of such a psychopath.

Victim – the thought of that made her run even faster. There was no way that she would give in to him.

Then a wave of pain rushed through her body. She had run directly against the wall in front of her at full speed at the next ninety degree turn of the corridor – which she was unable to see in the darkness. With a painful scream, she fell back and landed hard on the ground, dazed, holding her hurting and stitching head. The pain paralyzed her for a moment – just the time the psychopath needed to catch up with her.

Furiously, he stormed towards her motionless figure and held her down to the ground.

"Oh, Caitlin, you shouldn't have done that..." he whispered into her hair. "We could have been real friends, but now I will have to make you suffer like the others... They all didn't know what was good for them. All I wanted was to protect you..."

He pulled a syringe out of his pocket. When Kate felt the stitching pain of the needle, she protested and tried to pull her arm away from him, but he held her with a steel grip. And then she slowly stopped fighting him, her mind drifting of to other places.

Indifferently, she looked at his face and saw him smile at her.

"This is better," he murmured. "Come on, get up!"

She tried to follow his orders, but her legs gave way under her. He lifted her over his shoulders and carried her the way back, all the while talking to her. She could hear his voice like a melody without words, without meaning. And she didn't even care to try to listen. She didn't want anything at all... the drug had taken its full effect.

Somewhere behind her cloudy mind and muddled thoughts, she heard an old metal door open, then she was put down on her feet and steadied against a wall. Cold metal cuffs clicked around her wrists and then she couldn't move anymore, just stay there, standing against the wall with her hands chained to the wall next to her body.

She felt the callous hand of her abductor ran over her cheek, then her neck and cleavage. "My beautiful Caitlin... I will be back soon, don't worry..."

And then the light disappeared and she was surrounded by darkness again.

"No..." she murmured, in a weak attempt trying to loosen her hands from the metal cuffs that were set in the stone wall. "No... I'm a federal agent-- you can't--!"

Tears of rage were streaming down her face and her plea turned into helpless sobs. "Damn it... somebody help me."

"Kate!"

At first the young woman didn't react, believing that the voice came from the depths of her drugged mind, a shield reaction of her brain to keep her from going crazy from the constant darkness she was in. A darkness which didn't allow her to see where she was, nor what time of the day it was. For all she knew, she could be his prisoner for days...

"Agent Todd, are you hurt?"

Then she realized that it was not coming out of her mind. It was Gibb's voice. Gibbs... her spirits seemed to waken up. She had never been more glad to hear the bossy voice of her grumpy boss.

"Gibbs..." she murmured. "I'm here... where are you?"

"I am here, Katie. Are you hurt? What did he do to you?" She could hear the darkness in his voice, the threatening tone that he always had if somebody dared to hurt one of his agents.

"I don't know... I am drugged... I can barely keep my eyes open... and my cheek hurts, he slapped me pretty hard—and my head..." she moaned. "I want to sleep for a moment."

"Todd, keep talking to me, " Gibbs ordered sharply.

"I'm sorry... Gibbs..." The rest of her sentence turned into incoherent murmurs.

"Damned," Gibbs cursed, pulling at his own chains, not caring for the red marks they left on his wrists. It was his fault. He should have never been so careless to not check the whole house. And he should have never left Kate alone behind – even if it was only a distance of twenty meters they were talking about. With his experience he should have known better – but the playful banter with her about the furnishings of the house had distracted him.

He listened into the silence, angry at himself more than anybody else – well except for the psychopath maybe.

He had been in this room for several hours and still didn't have any idea where he or who the abductor was.

The last thing he remembered was searching for Kate in the house...

Around 8 hours earlier

"Kate, are you coming?" Gibbs was standing in the entrance hall, turning around impatiently. If he hated one thing, it was if he had to wait for somebody – even if it was Caitlin Todd.

He opened his mouth to bark her name again, when all of a sudden his eyes fell on the ground and he froze. A third pair of footsteps - which he was sure hadn't been there ten minutes ago – could be clearly seen in the dust on the wooden part of the floor. Somebody had entered the house behind them.

"Agent Todd!" Gibbs asked clearly into the silence of the corridor, but didn't get any reaction. Slowly, he pulled out his weapon, walking back the way he had come while he scanned his surroundings carefully.

He checked the first room, but it was still empty, then the second and third. And then, in the fourth room he found his partner, lying unconsciously on the ground in the middle of the room.

"Damned," he murmured, checking behind the door for the attacker, then scanning the room. Kate had been right, they should have waited for the daylight, since he could barely see in the dark room. Slowly approaching the woman in the middle, he scanned the room with narrowed eyes.

"I am a federal agent and I arrest you for attacking one of my team members!" His voice didn't lose its dominant tone, even in a situation of danger like this one.

Gibbs bent down next to Kate, without letting the entrance of the room out of his eyes. Carefully he checked for her pulse and was relieved to find that she was only unconscious.

"Show yourself, and I promise we will talk!" Gibbs continued to reason with the unknown attacker. "You have nothing to fear if you cooperate!"

No reaction. Gibbs looked down at Kate, his weapon still cocked in his hand. Softly, he slapped her cheeks. "Agent Todd!"

When she didn't wake up, he assumed, that she had not just been knocked unconscious, but that she had been put into this condition by the use of some kind of sedative – maybe chloroform. That meant he would have to carry her out of here – which again meant that he had to put his weapon back into its holster. There was no way that he would present Kate and himself that defenseless to whoever attacked them.

Still looking around, he pulled out his cell-phone from his jacket and hit speed dial number one. He hoped that the back-up would arrive quickly, since every minute they lost gave the unknown criminal a greater chance to escape. Maybe he was long gone, but Gibbs wasn't willing to take that chance and leave Kate alone.

He listened to the ringing sound on the other end and waited impatiently. "Come on Dinozzo... hurry up just this one time..." he growled impatiently, softly stroking a strand of hair out of Kate's face.

He didn't see the blow coming – there had been no sign of it. No sound of breathing or squeaking of wood that would have betrayed another presence in the room. But still, suddenly he was there, behind him. And that was all Gibbs realized, before he felt the knock on his head and darkness took possession of his consciousness.