AN: So we're almost there! I'm thinking one more chapter, but as this story was originally planned for five chapters I could be wrong. This one's a bit shorter, but hopefully you still enjoy it. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter :)


What has he done to her?

There is an awful moment of stillness around me, hanging heavy upon my shoulders, a dreaded mantle, the weight of which almost causes me to buckle before it just as suddenly eases, as if everything everywhere had come to a sudden and grinding halt and then slowly, painfully, and with great effort starts up again. A groan from behind me draws my fogged awareness back to my surroundings and I turn, Teresa still in my arms, to see Linus Wagner dragging himself up to a seated position, slumping his body against the chair upon which he had been sitting when Cho burst into the room. He is clutching his shoulder and through his straining fingers I can see a glimpse of glistening red. His face is ashen, even more so than usual, and his eyes are shadowed wells of darkness against his pale skin. Cho strides to him hurriedly from where he had been checking the corpse of the guard across the room, and collects a small handgun from where it had fallen at Wagner's side. I am once again grateful to have him with me to remember such practicalities.

In this same unfolding of newfound awareness, I now also notice that Wagner had been sitting at work before an easel when we entered so abruptly to interrupt him. There is a scatter of paints and brushes strewn across the wooden floor, but the easel and the painting resting on it remain upright. The painting itself depicts a familiar though unfinished scene. It takes me a moment to recognize it, one which I had seen and abhorred just hours before: Daphne fleeing Apollo and in the beginning stages of her transformation into a tree. But Daphne's face has become…

Cold beetle-feet of trepidation scurry down my body as I turn back to the woman in my arms. For the first time I notice that Teresa is draped in swathes of white gauze as if to emulate the nymph in the original work, the shadow lines of her lithe figure very much visible through the layers and evoking an immediate response from my traitorous body which I immediately seek to quell. Her hair is loose and flowing and upon this dark and lovely head is some ridiculous crown of leaves. A wave of revulsion runs through me as I finally comprehend that Wagner has abducted Teresa to use her as some kind of doll in his sick fantasies. Revulsion is quickly superseded by rage as I release her and prepare to throw myself at this puny little man and proceed to throttle him violently.

Cho steps between us.

"As much as I agree with you, Jane, I can't let you do it," he says, his voice a beacon of calm forcing its way through my blustering ire and securing it fast. Wagner looks like he wants to interrupt him but Cho silences him too with a gesture. "He's not going anywhere and he's in a helluva lot of pain. That's got to be enough for now."

He maintains eye contact with me until he sees my body relax somewhat. "I'm calling this in," he then continues. "You try to do something there." He gestures to Teresa who has remained standing behind me, a still figure of tragic contradiction: somehow divine in her state of apathy, at once strong and vulnerable, athletic and lethargic, poised and listless. I look for something to cover her in, I know she would hate to be seen like this, but have to settle for carefully removing the absurd headpiece before violently tossing it aside, and removing my own suit jacket to place over her bare shoulders. Taking her hand in mine, I draw her gently over to a chaise-longue upholstered in a bright red fabric. She follows me willingly enough and takes a seat beside me, yet her movements slow and languorous.

I can hear Cho giving orders to someone over the phone, requesting backup and an ambulance, along with Wagner's occasional pain-filled groans, these latter building to an anguished crescendo as Cho presumably applies pressure to his wound, but I push these sounds to the back of my mind as I begin my examination. Placing the tips of my fingers beneath her chin, I raise Teresa's face to more fully meet mine and notice the frequent flutter of her delicate eyelids, dark lashes performing their fleeting dance upon her cheek before rising once more to reveal large dark orbs. I feel gently for the pulse point in her neck and register it slow and languid, a pace matched by the outward wisps of her breath, the somehow still sweet scent of which fills my nostrils.

Yes, definitely hypnosis, but there's something else here too. I run my hands and eyes down her bare arms, marveling at the silky smoothness and patina of freckles alike. In the translucent blue-veined skin of each inner elbow, however, I trace the angry red welts and accompanying bruising of numerous needle marks marring the otherwise pale surface, some several days old and others more recent. My heart stills and I feel suddenly incapable of breathing properly.

I'm not sure how long I sit there, holding those arms, their weight so heartbreakingly small and light in the palms of my hands, my head bowed, and struggling to get air into my panicked lungs. She doesn't seem to mind this stillness on my part. She sits beside me, relaxed and calm; this complete lack of tension terrifies me even more. I don't know if I've ever seen Teresa fully relaxed, completely free of any sense of volition. She has always been such an active forceful presence in my life, all fierce determined motion; never still, never…placid. This awful torpor is more disturbing to me than any physical wound, but still…

I can't do anything about whatever drugs he's pumped her full of, but the state of mesmerism I can fix, I'm sure. Wagner doesn't come across as a skilled hypnotist by any means, I think to myself, as I glare across the room at his occasionally convulsing form. I turn back to Teresa and move my arms up to her shoulders, under the jacket, tapping my fingers gently. As I suspected, he's done a shonky job and I can immediately observe the subtle shift in her gaze when I hit the right spot. At the same time I run through potential phrases in my head. Not surprisingly perhaps it is "Artemis" that releases the inexpert grasp keeping her mind held captive, and I find myself breathing more easily as she moves an inch or two back from me, her body gaining some small sense of precision as the beginnings of a question rise up from the depths of her eyes and reach out towards mine; but it's not enough and I remain staring at her helplessly, unable to rescue that drowning self so dear and familiar to me that I see attempting to surface in her gaze.

Then a small miracle happens.

"Jane?"

It is one word, and such a small tentative one at that, rasped out in a strange half-whisper that catches at my soul, but it is something. It brings Cho over to stand near us, furthermore, and Wagner's handcuffed figure stills in my peripheral vision.

"Teresa," I breathe out. "Lisbon. I'm here." My hands move down her cheeks, sweeping her tangled hair back and over her shoulders. She looks like she's about to say something more but again there comes that inner struggle and her gaze drops from mine with a sense of unwilling surrender. "It's okay," I say and draw her into a hug. It's enough for the moment that I know she's still in there somewhere.

Just then there comes a disquieting sound from the doorway, a low rumbling growl that carries on for an inordinate amount of time. As I pull back from Teresa, I see Cho's entire posture stiffen in my peripheral vision. I look over to the doorway.

And freeze.

There, standing stiff-legged atop the broken-in door is a massive dog. Big and black and apparently very very angry.

"Wagner," says Cho slowly. "Wagner, call him off. Now." But Wagner merely smiles at us, a nasty leer which stretches his already unpleasant visage with its broad bony forehead and unusually high cheekbones. The room is still then, a frozen tableau, as we all watch the dog from our respective positions. It continues its unceasing growl, muzzle scrunching up, its yellowy-white and unpleasantly sharp teeth bared and glistening. A long thread of saliva drops from its jaw and hangs precipitately for a few moments before collecting to pool on the floor.

I hear myself swallow.

Then, its muscles bunched and stiff, the hackles on the back of its neck raised and threatening, the animal begins its slow, measured stalk towards us. I find myself unable to move, but watch Cho reach behind him for his weapon and draw it slowly. Normally I would term myself an animal lover, but right now I am failing to muster anything that could even faintly be termed love towards the creature now only a few meters from where I sit.

Just as the animal crouches to spring and Cho readies his gun to fire, that small voice from beside me speaks again.

"Theron," Teresa says, her voice gentle and containing not even the slightest hint of fear. Instead there is a surprisingly fond quality to it. The dog ceases its growling and its hackles begin to subside.

"Theron," Wagner says more sharply, his voice, I am pleased to note, laced with pain. "Theron, attack." The animal looks to him and back to Teresa. She makes a soothing noise deep in her throat and slips from the sofa to kneel on the floor, one hand held out. The dog whines in response, and lowers its head. Keeping a wary eye on Cho, whose stance remains fully alert, it sidles closer until it's right beside us. I admit that I too am far from relaxed at this point, but neither Teresa nor Theron seem to care, as the formerly fearsome beast lowers himself to rest its head in her lap. She strokes its velvety head soothingly and continues to make that low crooning noise.

So typical, I think to myself, that Teresa Lisbon, even in a drug-addled, partly hypnotized state of being, still managed to somehow charm her way into the affections of the most vicious of canines.

Wagner is now scowling but seems to have accepted the failure of this last-ditch attempt to rid himself of us, probably regretting ever introducing his guard dog to his prisoner, and Cho is wiping his hand across his forehead in relief whilst replacing his weapon in his holster. Teresa has her arms around the dog's thick neck, her face buried in its fur, and is singing to it softly, while its cropped tail beats a steady rhythm on the wooden floor. As for me, I am caught somewhere between some form of abject terror and an exhausted ease. For a moment I see the five of us captured visually in time, a ludicrous family portrait hung grandly on some palatial mansion's wall.

Then somewhere below us I hear the wail of sirens and the crunch of tires on gravel, and for the first time in a long long while I can almost see an end to this nightmare. My eyes fall on the back of Teresa's head, bent as it is over the animal in her arms. I reach down and finger a few locks of her thick dark hair.

Physically she's here, I ruminate still somewhat anxiously. If only something can be done to bring the rest of her back to me.


AN: Hope you liked it! Do let me know in a review :)