Oh... Oh, oh, oh it's this chapter... I'm sorry in advance.

So I finished the last chapter (12) sometime after midnight and I hated it, my beta however is an amazing person and made the perfect suggestion so now I'm looking forward to posting it

Enjoy :D

Chapter 10

Her head bounced against something warm and the world was upside down. Voices were speaking and she could feel the rumble of the words vibrate through her.

"What happened?" a man with a stern voice says.

"She tripped" and Jennifer felt the words travel down her spine "head hit a rock"

There was a small soft hand stroking her face as a quiet voice consoled her pet.

Darkness swelled up again.

She woke unable to breathe. Fear and pain assaulted her and she opened her eyes to find herself held up on her knees by Boss's hand wrapped around her neck. Taking control of her orientation alleviated some of it but his grip was tight enough that she still struggled to breathe and forced her to look him directly in the eyes "you've learnt your lesson now haven't you my dear?"

Jennifer nodded hastily in the hopes that he would remove his hand

"Good" he said, not moving at all "we wouldn't want you to hurt yourself again would we?" his lips twisted in what she thought must be a smile, cancelling out any possible sincerity.

A rattle of chains above her signalled Boss to back off as her hands were dragged up above her head and then higher. Soon her options were to swing off her aching arms and fractured wrist or try to stand. Still unsteady on her feet Keller staggered back to her knees twice before she managed to stay upright, whoever was pulling the chain didn't stop to let her adjust and soon most of her weight was taken by her wrists and tiptoes

"Please no further, please! No, don't" she watched pleadingly at Boss as he stood in front of her watching

"Higher" he commanded to someone out of sight.

She could feel the pain intensify as the chain jerked but she stopped begging, there was clearly no point so she reached up and grabbed the chain with her uninjured hand trying to take as much of weight from it as possible. When her toes finally left the ground she ground her teeth trying to ignore the terrible pain as she hung from a quickly weakening arm.

"You know I was hoping you would see the opportunity for escape that we gave you, I really did"

She looked at him horrified and her dirt-crusted sweating hand slipped slightly causing her to gasp.

His grin was malicious "you didn't guess? Oh how delightful" he rubbed his hands together "did you really think I would be stupid enough to leave you unchained and unguarded, even if you were unconscious? Please, I was hoping for a little more faith from you" he looked behind him and smiled at someone outside of the lanterns light "but my boys had their fun and the dogs got their exercise"

Jennifer glared at him and spoke through clenched teeth "go to hell"

He looked startled for a second before his smug grin took hold again "I don't know what hell is but I'll take a guess at 'not nice' shall I?" her silence told him everything, sweat broke out on Jennifer's forehead with the effort of holding herself up by one arm as she prayed the taunting would stop and they would let her down "ok, well my angel wants to play with you for a little bit so how about we gag you" he waved Scar over who wrapped a dirty rag around her head and pulled it tight, forcing it into her mouth. She shook her head at him... and her hand slipped again. Her arm was throbbing but she still noticed the girl slip out from behind Boss. She ran the blunt edge of the knife down his chest and Jennifer could see them both shiver but the hunger in the girl's eyes when she turned to face her was still startling.

It wasn't long before the girl was behind her again, the wait between her disappearing from view and her starting to cut were almost as agonising as the torture itself. Jennifer tried to control her breathing, the gag made it difficult but she knew she needed to keep her concentration if she was going to keep off her wrist.

The first cut was between her shoulder blades and she bit the gag to stop the reflex jerk that made her muscles quiver.

Her hand slipped a little more.

Boss stood directly in front of her and started to talk, pacing and gesticulating as if he was giving an important speech to a roomful of people "do you know what hope does to a person?" he paused to see if Keller would answer, her teeth grinded against the gag "it infects them with weakness. People do stupid things because of hope and it winds up with them getting themselves and others killed" his eyes gleam with joy "the taking away of that hope, of crushing the last sliver of light in a person's heart is the most..." he takes a deep breath and licks his lips as if he's savouring something particularly sweet "stimulating experience you can have" Keller swallowed the bile in her throat and twitched as her attention was drawn elsewhere.

The knife moved to her left hip and slid forward towards her belly. Jennifer looked down to see the line of red drawn with steady hands across her stomach and up and around, red slowly crawling down her belly as the wound bled. The girl looked up at her, the tip of her tongue poking out as if in great concentration and then back down at what Keller could see was a sweeping cut ending in a curl just above her bellybutton "Done" the girl said with great satisfaction and stepped away "Now all we have to do is clean it and its all finished" she looked behind her at Boss who was beaming like a proud father.

"The water and brush are just over there" he pointed behind Jennifer "I cannot wait to see the finished picture darling"

Jennifer's eyes were wide as she realised what was about to happen. Sure enough there was a sloshing noise out of her line of sight and then a scrubbing brush was applied to her back.

The pain was unbearable and she screamed into the gag, unable to control herself as she tried to twist away from the bristles and cold water.

Her hand slipped.

She heard a snap.

She welcomed the darkness again.

"I've done it" came the surprised whisper followed by "I've done it!" shouted as loudly as he could.

Rodney stood up and started shoving things into his bag as the rest of the team hastily packed up around him. He stood up and dialled the gate, his hands remaining braced against the activation button a little longer than necessary as he fought a wave of exhaustion. It had taken a day longer than he had expected to find the address, the repercussions of which he was trying hard not to think about, difficult with a mind as brilliant as his was.

He stepped through the wormhole, scanner already in hand. Beep... Beep... Beep.

"Yes!" he shouted "she's here, she's... oh" he frowned at the display

"Oh?" Sheppard asked, making it clear that oh was not something he had wanted to hear.

"Well she's – oh, no she's fine, well I think" he assured them when he saw their worried faces "the tracker would tell me if she was dead.. Can't do anything else but I have this theory that - "

"Rodney" Sheppard barked before he went any further off track "What's the oh for?"

"She's about 60km away, we'll need a jumper or it will take us all day to get there" he said simply

Without a word Ronon dialled Atlantis and set up communications with Sheppard while Teyla made Rodney sit down and eat another protein bar with the last of his water. He had been impossible since the first address turned out to be only the half way point. He had refused rest, claiming that he could sleep when it was all over. She had caught him taking a pill while she was on watch which she had confronted him about on their second night. He had confessed that he had resorted to caffeine pills to keep himself awake but assured her that he was fine.

Now that they were close she could see the strain starting to show. His eyes were circled with dark smudges and his hands trembled as he lifted the flask to his mouth, Teyla was impressed he was still coherent... well as coherent as Rodney ever was.

The gate deactivated and Ronon and Sheppard came over to fill them in.

"Carson's coming through now, sounds like he and Woolsey didn't see eye to eye on the matter but you know how the doc can be when he gets it in his head to do something. Once he's here we'll cloak and fly over, land as close as we can and take out anyone who gets in our way" he looked each of them in the eye "Any objections?"

Rodney nodded absentmindedly, only half aware of the discussion. Teyla raised a brow at Sheppard's lack of remorse but she couldn't fault it so she remained silent. Ronon on the other hand had a feral grin on his face, clearly longing to have an opportunity to beat the living daylights out of someone who wasn't his boss, armed with a stick, in the middle of a desert, his worry for Jennifer sitting like a rock at the back of his mind.

Sheppard looked up at the slowly sinking sun. Assuming things still worked the same as on earth, they would have about 4hrs of useable light left "Rodney" he bumped his shoulder with his knee "Rodney, how long should it take for a jumper to reach Keller?"

Rodney looked confused for a moment before his brow furrowed in calculation "should be there within an hour, give or take 10 minutes depending on the wind currents"

The Stargate started dialling behind them and they all moved off to the side as the vortex sped out. Moments later Carson was in front of them laden with bags of medical equipment "John, Teyla, Rodney, Ronon" he said, greeting each of them with a nod "good ta see ye lot. Shall we?"

They all made their way into the jumper, Sheppard and Ronon taking the front seats while Teyla, Rodney and Carson sat in the back compartment with all of Carson's medical equipment.

"Dear lord lad" Carson exclaimed to Rodney "what have ye done to yerself?"

So that scene where I break her arm is something I've had in the back of my head since I read shepsgirl72's Atonement (pt 3 in the Deliverance Trilogy) which I highly recommend but writing it was actually very hard because every idea I had made me squirm. I'm fine with cuts and blood and bruises and fear but slowly breaking bones is not cool.

One last thing, has anyone used English – Scottish accent translators, I was not a fan of what it gave me so I do apologise if Carson sounds a little less Scottish than usual.