When Willow came back around, it took her a few moments to figure out what had happened and what was going on now; to her dismay, she found herself thrown over her wife's shoulder and being carried that way, the slight bouncing this caused with every step of the demon not helping with her pounding headache and the nauseous feeling in her stomach.

A quick glance around showed her that between being knocked out and waking up again, Pat had not only taken her out of the house, but had made it all the way to the High School with her, giving her a vague estimate of the time she had been out cold; either not noticing or not caring that the witch had woken up, the taller woman kept up her rather brisk pace, walking down the stairs with her now, voices soon reaching her ear, too far away still to let her hear any actual words, but clear enough to let her recognize the Alpha's voice, her blood running cold as she thought of what Pat had gone through and had to ask herself if the same fate was in store for her now.

"Welcome back", she heard Alpha greet her partner as they entered the Hellmouth-room, "and I see you brought some company. I'm glad you made it back, we were starting to get worried."

The only response he got was a vaguely agreeing grunt from Pat, then she stopped walking – and, instead of lowering Willow to the floor more or less gently, simply dropped her, a low noise of dismay coming from the redhead at the impact before she could try to bite it back.

"Miss Rosenberg", Alpha greeted her, smiling slightly, a smile which might have been honest and even benevolent, but scared her nonetheless, as she remembered seeing that exact same smile in her partner's memory, after he had whipped her for the first time, "Willow. I may call you Willow, right? Welcome to our camp, it is quite basic I'm afraid, but if everything goes according to plan, we will move into some nicer lodgings soon."

While he was talking, the witch glanced around inconspicuously, trying not to let her surprise show when she found the whole group alive, including those she had been sure Buffy had taken down; none of them looked any different from when they had met them the first time, and when her gaze finally returned to Alpha again, his smile had widened slightly, telling her that he had noticed what she had been doing and that he knew what she was thinking.

"Yes", he confirmed out loud, "my boys are just fine and dandy again. It took a bit of magic, surely you are familiar with the toll healing magic takes on the caster?"

She nodded before she realized what the implications of this were, swallowing heavily as she asked herself how powerful exactly he was, now also remembering his use of magic to chain Pat up in the memory she had seen; and even though she still felt woozy, she had recovered enough to make the connection, her mind reeling as she figured it out.

He's powerful enough to have stopped us when we attacked, she had to realize, his smile widening yet again as he clearly knew what she was thinking, but he didn't use any magic to stop us… so he…

"You let us take her", she said the conclusion she had reached out loud, the small chuckle he let out in response being enough to confirm this, "that was what you wanted all along…"

"Yes", Alpha now confirmed it out loud as well, "correct. You really are as smart as I thought. In fact, I told her specifically to let you capture her. She wasn't happy about it, as you probably can imagine, but I am her Lord Commander, so she did as she had been told."

"She knows", Willow bluntly replied, prompting him to raise a bushy eyebrow, "she knows what you did to her. Perhaps not everything, not yet, but I triggered the memories, and sooner or later, they'll come back."

"I doubt that", Alpha gave back, "she's loyal to me, no matter what you put into her head. Aren't you, Burning Heart?"

"Yes", the demon curtly replied in response, making him smile yet again; then, his gaze moved to another one of his demons, and he gestured at the witch, sounding as if he had lost interest in her when he told the demon to take her away and lock her up.

"Make sure she's comfortable", he added, a malicious glint in his dark eyes now, "once we took her home with us, she won't be again for a long, long time."

That thinly veiled threat would have made Pat explode under different circumstances, and would have made sure that she'd fight him, until either he or she would be down and unable to go on or maybe even dead; this time though, she didn't react at all, but merely remained where she was, watching how the demon jerked Willow to her feet and marched her off, an uncaring, cold expression on her face.

Keep your calm, Willow told herself a few minutes later, now locked up in what probably had been an utility closet before the school had been blown up; she idly wondered if the demons had rebuilt the walls and door just for the purpose of taking prisoners, then shrugged it off, momentarily glad that she wasn't chained up, but also knowing that this was so far the only thing she could be happy about – they hadn't tied or chained her, but the demon taking her there had mumbled some spell under his breath before he had shoved her into the room, and now, a translucent, bright red light moved over the door, the witch guessing that it was magically reinforcing the wood or even acting as some sort of shield, keeping her from using magic of her own.

Remembering what had happened the last time magic had kept her from using her own, she refrained from doing so, the memory of how painful the result had been still uncomfortably fresh on her mind; not sure what to do now, she started pacing up and down in the small room, feeling a bit like a caged tiger as she walked back and forth, her mind racing in an attempt to figure out how to get out of this.

You better do so quickly, she told herself, uneasy at how perfectly Alpha's plan to have her captured had worked out, and how useless her tries to bring Pat back apparently had been, you can't count on Pat to get you out of this, and who knows how long it will take Buffy to come here. And if she's too late…

Unbidden, the scars covering her lover's back resurfaced in her memory, making her swallow heavily as she thought of how badly it must have hurt to feel the whip biting into the skin and flesh, again and again, and how much worse the holy water had made this pain; the holy water per se wouldn't do anything to her, should they use it on her, but on the other hand, she knew that Pat's pain tolerance was way higher than hers, simply thanks to her nature, and that the whip alone probably would be enough to make her faint after a couple of lashes strong enough to break the skin.

"And that's just the tip of the iceberg", she mumbled to herself, a cold shiver running down her spine; she hadn't noticed any more scars, but on the other hand, she hadn't looked all too closely, and from how the demon was behaving now, it was more than obvious that other, dreadful things had been done to her while she had been stuck with Alpha and his cronies.

Briefly, she wondered why exactly Pat even had ended up with such severe scarring, knowing that wounds like whip lashes normally wouldn't have left any; then, she shrugged it off, telling herself that it didn't matter for now, that in this moment, all she should focus on was getting out of this before they could drag her off to the other dimension and do all kinds of horrible things to her.

Deciding that finding out what exactly the field of energy over the door did would be a good first step, Willow took in a deep breath, steeling herself against possible pain, then reached out with her power, her breath slowing down as she focused fully on the task at hand; it didn't take long until her magic made contact with the demon's and to her relief, it didn't cause her pain, some of said relief vanishing again though when she realized how strong that barrier was.

Okay, it's strong, she then told herself, slowly withdrawing her magic, not sure if the demon who had cast the spell was somehow connected to it and would know if she tried to manipulate it, but so are you. Remember, you're one of the strongest witches on the planet, if not the strongest, so you can do this. Just keep your calm, nice and slow will do it…

Lowering herself to the ground into the lotus position, she closed her eyes and emptied her mind, pushing all thoughts of torture, pain and fear as far away from herself as possible; her breath slowed down again as she slowly started working her magic on the barrier, imagining it as a sort of big blanket she'd have to unravel thread for thread, hoping they'd have time to do just that before the demons would come back to take her away.