Disclaimer: Not mine, I wish.

A/N: Sorry for the massive delay. I had a wedding overseas to go to, so my life's been a little nutty. But I don't have any more major life events for a few more months so I'm hoping to pick up the pace on this. The good news, though, is that I managed to write the next few chapters of this while on my various international flights (ugh). So if you're extra nice, I'll post a few more in the next few days :D

Happy reading!

Chapter Ten

Stephanie

My hands were tied to the bedposts, and I could feel the rope chafing my wrists, but for once, I was grateful for the pain. It was probably the only thing keeping me coherent right now. Every time my mind started the descent into panic, I would pull at the ropes to bring myself back from the edge. Moreno had left – who knows how long ago, and I had no idea if – no, when, I had to believe he'd be back at some point – I had no idea when he would show up again. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had locked away all the fear and pain of that, because if I wanted to get out of here with my sanity in tact I had to do what I do best. Denial. But the longer I was left alone, the harder it was to deny. Nobody had any idea where I was, nobody knew I was taken, and nobody was expecting to see me for another day. The small part of the old Stephanie that was left – the part that I was desperately clinging to – wanted to come up with a plan, figure out what to do. But the rest of me – the part that Moreno had torn apart – recognized that there was no way out. I couldn't free myself, and I was too terrified to yell. At the moment, I was too terrified to do anything but lie there and try not to think about my aching body and my growing hopelessness. I wanted to sleep, if only to escape reality for a little while, but every time I shut my eyes, I could see Moreno above me, sweating and grunting, eyes full of anger and revenge. So, my eyes stayed open.

I was just starting to convince myself that I could think of something other than this hell I was in, thinking if I could just focus on Ranger, and his fearlessness and strength, that maybe I could hold on long enough to make it through this – that's when I heard it. A door opened. Adrenaline surged through my body, my fear rising higher with every footfall I heard. Again I wanted to shut my eyes, turn away, but terror kept my eyes glued to the doorway of the room. I heard footsteps get closer, then fade. I heard Moreno talking. He sounded angry, but it was hard to focus through the haze of panic. The footsteps stopped – and came closer. They stopped just outside the doorway, and my breath stopped with them. I knew it – I knew he would come in again. Finish what he started. Maybe this time he would finish it all. The old me rallied against that thought, but the new me, the new disgusting, torn, dirty Stephanie that Moreno had created, welcomed the finish. At least there it would be quiet. At least there, no one could touch me. And I would never again ache in the violated way I ached now.

Moreno came in, stalking toward the bed I was tied to, and I watched as he undid his belt. Unzipped his pants. Stepped closer. When he grabbed my hair to yank my head back, exposing my throat, I felt the new Stephanie decide she could take no more. So I disconnected. That wasn't me on that bed. That wasn't Moreno on top of me, wrenching my legs apart, forcing himself inside me, muttering those sickening things to me. That wasn't me.

I watched as he ended it. My eyes were vacant, my legs lax, my arms no longer straining against the rope. I stopped trying to get free. There was no such thing anymore. I would never again be free.

Suddenly I was awake. I was in my bed, but my wrists were no longer restrained. I was drenched in sweat, but somehow I was freezing, shivering, my teeth chattering. I didn't know where I was. I couldn't breathe. I had to get out of here. Moreno might come back. I wasn't sure I wanted to live, but I knew I didn't want to die.

I stumbled out of the bed, still not recognizing anything. I could only focus on the fact that I was no longer tied down and that meant I had to get the hell out before he came back, before he found me, before he tied me up again and –

There was a man in the doorway and I screamed, stumbling backwards, thinking I had nowhere to go. I couldn't get away, this wasn't happening again, this couldn't be happening again because oh God he was going to tie me down and rape my body and this would never end, oh God, this would never end – and I screamed again, and then everything was black.

Bobby

I was lying on Stephanie's couch, only half coherent, trying to figure out what we were going to do about this massive bag of dicks we'd been handed, when I heard Steph moving around in the bedroom. I left Lester snoring in the recliner, thinking I could handle this one myself, he'd nearly killed himself in the gym and I knew we'd need him tomorrow to help with the manhunt.

Approaching the open bedroom doorway, I saw Stephanie stumbling out of bed. Just as I was about to ask her if she was okay, she looked up – and let out a hysterical scream. Rushing into the room, I got a good look at her face, and immediately yelled for Lester. She was half out of her mind, shaking and hyperventilating and if I couldn't get her calmed down, I was going to have to sedate her. Lester tore into the room and I ordered him to bring in my med kit. Stephanie was white, her skin clammy, and she was incoherently mumbling to herself, backing away from me. I approached slowly, trying to get a good look at her, and saw the wild fear and panic in her eyes. Lester shoved my bag at me, telling me to fucking help her already, couldn't I see she was terrified and to fix it right now. I ignored him, grabbing a fast acting tranquilizer and edged toward Stephanie, trying to figure out how to do this without making the whole situation worse. She finally snapped, letting out another scream, and I knew I'd have to do it the hard way. I motioned for Lester to help me hold her down, and he restrained her while I gave her the injection, and her screams finally died.

Les had picked her up when her body went limp from the sedation, and he laid her back down on the bed while I checked her pulse and watched her breathing grow even.

Looking up, I caught Lester's eye and nodded toward the living room, and he left so I could recheck her wounds and make sure none of them had reopened in her panicked state.

Reassured that physically she was fine, I followed him out.

"Shit." I blew out a breath, throwing myself down on the couch. "I don't know how much more of this I can take. I don't know how much more Steph can take. What the fuck are we gonna do, man."

Les looked over at me, his expression dark, with pain and fury all rolled into one massive, roiling ball of fuck. Lester was just as on edge as I was at that moment, and if one more goddamn thing happened tonight, I think we would both lose it completely.

Lester

"What the fuck are we gonna do, man." Bobby asked. He looked exhausted and edgy. I knew the feeling.

"Fuck if I know."

We just stared at the walls for a few minutes, trying to regain our composure.

"Look, Bobby. We're just going to have to treat this like a case. A massive clusterfuck of a case, but the same plan of attack still applies. Steph deserves that much. So here's what we're going to do. You're going to stay here until 0800, when I'll come relieve you. I'll go put together a team to start on the research, get word out that we're looking for this douchebag, and start hitting up contacts." Bobby nodded, and I took off, glad to have a mission to distract me from the godawful misery pervading the room. It was suffocating me.

I went and roused Tank, Cal, Ram, and Hector, kicking their asses out of bed, and told them we were doing this now, goddammit, no it can't wait until zero nine, that by that time I wanted a full report and if they didn't have something to report by then, they'd better meet me on the mats and we were going to review proper intelligence gathering skills. Tank in particular looked at me like I'd lost my damn head, but I was practically vibrating with the need to just fucking fix this and make everything okay for Steph again, and if that meant ordering Ranger's second in command around like a damn e-nothing, I would damn well do it. They could take their shock and shove it up their asses, for all I cared.

That done, I left RangeMan and headed for Stark. I had a few contacts that might be useful, if not for intel, than for human-shaped targets.

The Team

Tank, Cal, Ram, and Hector were gathered in the conference room, and every one of them looked dazed as hell.

"Somebody want to tell me what the fuck that was about?" Tank growled, glaring around the room. He clearly expected a response, but the rest of the guys didn't know what the hell had just happened either. Lester had looked like he was about to pull his gun and shoot the first person who argued with him, which was probably the only reason Tank had let him get away with giving him orders. That, and they all wanted to help Steph find the assclown that thought it was a good idea to kidnap her. Tank just shook his head and started organizing the team. He'd deal with Lester later. Right now, RangeMan was going hunting.