A/N: new chappie! enjoy!

Chapter 10: Torture

Quennel groaned as she awoke, her eyes still shut. She was kneeling, her head hanging forward with her arms outstretched on either side of her, restrained by pinching, metal shackles. She was cold. Whoever had grabbed her had stripped off her coat, leaving her in her jeans, boots and a dark blue blouse.

A burst of cold water slapped her face, filling her nostrils and mouth when she gasped at the temperature, making her cough and sputter and gasp again.

"Wakey, wakey, Miss Felton," an accented male voice taunted as her eyes shot wide, darting around the room, unseeing. "You want to see papa, don't you?"

Quennel frowned in confusion as she coughed then recovered, looking up to find herself in a dark, dank room, a light shining in her face. A figure she couldn't quite see stood off to the side with a bucket in his hand, and she knew he'd thrown the water in her face. A scent suddenly filled her senses once her nose stopped burning, and she cringed at the scent of raw meat. She pulled at the chains to try pulling her hands free but it was no use, they only pinched around her wrists even tighter.

"No use struggling, little girl," the figure taunted, and she heard his footsteps heading toward her in the form of slapping sounds from his shoes hitting the puddled water around her. She cried out in pain when a hand grabbed onto her hair and yanked her head back so that she stared up into his face, and she kept her glare, even if her heart raced in panic. "You and your detective friend killed Nikolai. He was my brother. For this, you will die…and your father will watch, but not until he tells my where those blueprint are. So, you will cooperate for me, da?"

"Net," she ground out, and that earned a scowl from him, but she kept his gaze. Nikolai and Yuri Petrov were the best at what they did, but Nikolai was the brawn, and Yuri was the brains, operating behind the scenes. Thinking quickly, she feigned an American accent as she added, "You won't get anything out of me. I don't know anything about his projects."

"Oh, I won't need you to talk," Yuri smirked, evilly as he leaned closer to her face, twisting the locks of hair still within his grasp. "I only need you to scream."

Quennel's eyes shot wide in panic so strong that she couldn't hide her terror.

"Where's my daughter?!"

"Ah…here comes papa," Yuri grinned smugly as he shoved her head forward again, releasing her hair as she looked to the doorway she was facing. It burst open to reveal a middle-aged man being dragged by two other, burly men. The black-haired man being dragged was shoved to the ground and he turned sea-green eyes to Quennel in fright, only to frown in confusion. "Your daughter is here, Mr. Felton. No need to fret."

"But…" Mr. Felton breathed, still looking confused and Quennel's eyes met his. "But that's not—"

"Dad, I'm sorry," Quennel cut in, desperately, making his frown deepen slightly as he met her gaze. "They followed me to Baker Street. I was with Mr. Holmes when they grabbed me. I tried to escape…I'm so sorry, dad."

Her eyes urged him to play along, knowing the only way to keep Olivia safe was to make them believe they had her. It seemed to click and he sighed in relief made to seem like defeat.

"Let my daughter go," he pleaded. "She has nothing to do with this. She doesn't know anything!"

"No, but she will still be of use," Yuri smirked as he circled behind her. "You will tell me where you hid the blueprints for the missile, and I will release your daughter, and you once I have them. Is that clear?"

"Dad, don't do it!" Quennel shouted, earning a hard hit to the back of her head from Yuri, and she wasn't sure if he'd used his hand or a foreign object.

"Leave her alone!" Felton shouted, struggling against the two men holding him.

"Then tell me where the blueprints are," Yuri insisted, calmly, walking around the other side of a now dazed Quennel, her head hanging slightly forward as it spun.

"I told you! They're in the cylinder under my desk!" Felton replied, desperately.

"Which was a lie to stall us," Yuri reasoned. "We looked. They weren't there."

"Somebody must have taken them," Felton guessed. "Maybe the messenger that picks them up from me every night. I'm not always there when he comes to get them, please—!"

"Another lie," Yuri drawled, shaking his head and looking to one of his men. With a gesture toward Quennel he released Felton, leaving him with his comrade and marched toward her, unlocking her chains as Yuri stepped into a patch of shadows. The scrape of wood on stone echoed through the room as Yuri dragged a long bench into the light, and Quennel came out of her daze enough to start struggling. "Olivia, are you right or left handed?"

Quennel still struggled against the man dragging her toward the bench, but didn't answer as Felton began struggling against his captor as well.

"Let her go!" he shouted.

"Well, since you won't answer, we'll go with the odds," Yuri smirked, reaching into his belt and pulling out a huge, hunting knife. "Sleva." (Left)

Quennel panicked even further when the man holding her grabbed her left wrist and planted it onto the bench, palm down and she tried wriggling out of his grasp.

"No!" Felton screamed, not knowing what Yuri would do, but not liking it either way. This could have been his daughter. "Leave her alone! She doesn't know!"

"Oh, I am certain of that," Yuri smirked, aiming the knife at Felton. "Where…are…the blueprints?"

"I told you! Please, stop!"

"Very well," Yuri sighed, flipping his knife to stab it lengthwise into Quennel's hand. She let out a blood-curdling scream of pain that bounced off the walls of the room, tears instantly springing to her eyes as her free hand tried to reach for the knife to remove it, but the man holding her in place grabbed her wrist to keep her from doing so.

"You son of a bitch!" Felton screamed, pushing on the man holding him captive but he was much smaller than the huge Russian.

Quennel gritted her teeth against the pain then screamed again when Yuri yanked the knife from her hand. She collapsed, limply against the man holding her, he being the only thing keeping her upright as she sobbed in pain, blood dripping from both sides of her hand and down her fingers. The blade had gone straight through, leaving a mark in the wood.

"Once more, Mr. Felton," Yuri called. "Where are the blueprints?"

Felton was shaking in terror seeing Quennel limp and seemingly lifeless if not for her sobbing.

"I already told you," he shuddered again. "If they're not there…I don't know where they would be. You know how particular I am—"

"Na spine," (On her back) Yuri ordered the man holding Quennel.

She groaned in protest, shaking her head as she was lifted and set on the bench, lying on her back. Yuri made his way into the shadows again as the man held a weakly struggling Quennel down on the bench by her shoulders, standing at her head, and when Yuri returned to the light he was carrying a bucket of water with a cloth in it, and a pitcher, his knife now sheathed. Quennel instantly realized what was happening.

"What are you doing?" Felton demanded, struggling against his captor. "Please, stop this! Let her go!"

Quennel tried to fight, kicking at Yuri, but he dodged her easily. She was off balance as only her head, spine and rear were supported by the bench, leaving her arms and legs to hang over the sides, her shoulders being held by one of Yuri's goons. He grabbed the cloth from the huge bucket, wrung it out into it then slapped it over Quennel's mouth and nose. Seeing it coming, she took in a gulp of air and held her breath before Yuri began pouring water from the pitcher over her face.

"Stop!" Felton screamed.

Quennel shut her eyes and tried struggling but it was no use. Water dripped through the cloth into her nose and she blew air through her nose to keep from drowning, water pouring over her eyes and making her shut them, tightly. She thought it would never end until finally the pitcher had run dry and the cloth was pulled from her face, making her cough and gasp for air.

"Stop," she rasped through a cough, but they showed no mercy as the cloth was slapped over her mouth and nose again. This time she hadn't had time to get in any air, and when the water began pouring over her face, she was sure she would drown.

Felton screamed at them to stop, but they continued until the bucket was empty and Quennel was nearly drowned, but still breathing. Yuri's man released her and she fell from the bench, onto her side, making her wheeze in pain, but she didn't move as the things were cleared to the side of the room again, and Quennel was left in a shivering, coughing puddle of cold water.

"You're a monster," Felton shuddered, tears in his eyes that this poor, innocent woman who bravely took the place of his daughter was suffering like this.

Yuri approached him with a smug smirk and nodded at the man gripping his arm to release him before reporting, "You have an hour to take care of your daughter. Then, I will return and either you will tell me where the blueprints are, or we do this all over again."

He nodded at his men to follow him and marched around Felton to head out the door. He jumped when the door slammed shut behind him, leaving him alone with this strange, nearly dead woman. Without a second thought he rushed toward her and knelt next to her, turning her over to examine her.

"No," she groaned, trying feebly to shove him away. "Leave me alone."

"Miss, it's me," he called, soothingly. "I won't hurt you. Richard Felton, Olivia's father. I need you to sit up."

Richard hauled her into a sitting position and she jerked as if ready to puke and when she did, water spilled out of her mouth, making her cough again as he tried stroking her dripping hair from her face.

"Don't fight it," he warned. "Just let your body get all the water out of your lungs."

She hurled again, but this time it was her stomach contents, and when she went to wipe her mouth with her left hand, Richard grabbed her wrist, not wanting her to infect the wound in her hand. He wiped away the saliva and puke from her mouth with his sleeve as she stared ahead, unseeing. She wasn't sure when, but she'd left her body in the middle of that water torture, and now she was struggling to get back. He said nothing else as he ripped off his other sleeve and wrapped it around her wound, trying to be gentle.

"What's your name?" he asked, hoping to pull her back to reality, seeing the glaze over her eyes. "Miss? You talked about Mr. Holmes. Did you mean Mycroft or the detective, his brother, Sherlock."

That snapped Quennel back and her eyes met his in a slight daze.

"Sherlock," she rasped, her voice raw from throwing up, screaming and choking. "Olivia…came to Sherlock for help. I was there. Mycroft sent her to him. My name is Quennel Yule. I'm a reporter."

She was rambling, but at least it was useful information instead of the thought she had on loop in her mind at that moment: Sherlock will save us.

"So, my daughter is safe?" Richard hoped. "She's with Sherlock Holmes?"

Quennel only nodded and he gave a sigh of relief before lifting a hand to stroke her hair, looking her in the eye.

"I'm so sorry you got mixed up in this, Miss Yule," he whispered and she only nodded, mutely. "By any chance, is Sherlock the one who has the blueprints?"

Quennel nodded again before adding, "He found them where you left them. He figured out what they are, then figured out you were working for Mycroft."

"These men are terrorists," Richard explained. "They want the prints to take over Russia."

"Yuri's brother, Nikolai, he went looking for the prints but Sherlock and I ran into him," Quennel explained, tears coming to her eyes but she managed to keep her voice steady. "Sherlock fought him and he bit into a cyanide capsule he had in his mouth, but Yuri thinks we killed him. It doesn't matter what you tell him, he's going to kill me to avenge his brother. We have to hold out until Sherlock finds out where we are."

"You think he'll rescue us?" he hoped.

"I know he will, Richard," she nodded. "He promised your daughter he would."

221 B Baker St...

"Why didn't you call me sooner?!" Lestrade nearly yelled over the speaker phone of John's phone as he and Sherlock stood in the kitchen, John having made the call as Sherlock bustled around the kitchen.

"I'm sorry, Greg," John replied, calmly, watching Sherlock move around the kitchen, lifting the paper he'd stolen from Nikolai to the light then sniffing it. "Sherlock thought he could deal with this on his own. Things just got a bit out of hand."

"I'll say, you've got one of you kidnapped! That's well out of hand!"

"Lestrade, if you insist on reporting the obvious, I'm going to have to have John hang up on you," Sherlock finally chimed in, not having said a word as he examined the piece of paper. "Bring a handful of your officers with you to the address I'm about to have John text to you. I'll meet you there. And an ambulance."

"Ambulance?" Lestrade echoed.

"Yes, an ambulance," Sherlock repeated, rolling his eyes as he used a scalpel on the table to cut a huge chunk of the paper off.

"Greg, I'll text you the address," John explained, then hung up. Time was of the essence, and he didn't have time for polite greetings or goodbyes. He shook his head as Sherlock began examining the piece of paper he'd cut off under the microscope. "I should've gone with you."

"Then Miss Felton would be in danger," Sherlock replied just as John looked up at him with a frown. "No doubt they think they have Olivia, and if Quennel is as clever as I think she is, she'll let them believe she is Olivia to keep the client safe."

"But she could be hurt," John insisted.

"But the client is not," Sherlock replied. "Either way, an innocent person would be hurt, which would you have it be, the girl or Quennel? Where is Miss Felton, by the way?"

"She's with Mrs. Hudson," John replied. "And I'd rather not have either one be hurt, Sherlock."

"Well…in a perfect world," Sherlock muttered, distracted by what he was looking at in the scope. "Blood stains. Not human, I don't think. The paper smells of meat."

"What are you going on about?" John questioned, stepping toward Sherlock to watch him closer.

"This paper was on Nikolai Petrov when we found him," Sherlock explained, not looking away from the scope before pulling it out and feeling at it, examining it in the light. "It's been dampened, then dried again. It's been in a cold place, and once taken out, the condensation soaked the paper and then it dried."

"So somewhere with a refrigeration unit," John guessed, watching Sherlock drop the paper to the table before standing from his seat and sailing around him.

"Where meat is stored," Sherlock confirmed, marching toward the door to grab his coat and scarf, pulling them on as he continued toward the stairs, John right behind them. "I know where they are. Give me your phone. I'll text the address to Lestrade. Keep up John!"

"Should we bring Olivia along?" John wondered as they both rushed out the door and Sherlock hurried down the street, John pulling out his phone and handing it to him.

"There's no time!" Sherlock snapped at him, still moving as he took the phone. "We'll retrieve her after we've rescued her father and Quennel. Hurry up!"

Meanwhile...

Quennel struggled as best she could as the handcuffs bit into her raw wrists where she hung an inch off the ground from a meat hook in the center of the room. Her legs kicked wildly as Yuri stood just out of range, one of the other men manning the chain that operated the hook to make sure no one lowered it.

After the hour mark, Yuri had returned with his two goons and a chair to sit Richard down in it with one of the men keeping him seated as Quennel was tortured with the water once more. However, this time she had more time to catch her breath as Yuri questioned Richard over and over about where the prints were. Yuri had said she would need her energy, so this time the torture wasn't as merciless.

Now she thrashed on the hook, her entire weight making the handcuffs dig into her wrists, hurting her wounded hand even further and causing blood to run down her arm. She had no idea what they had planned next but by the way Yuri was fiddling with that knife of his, she knew it wasn't going to be any more pleasant than the last two actions she'd suffered through.

"Your daughter…is very beautiful, Mr. Felton," Yuri drawled, and Quennel really didn't like where this was going.

Richard only glared back at him, feeling helpless and useless, unable to help this woman trying to help himself and his daughter. Yuri stepped toward Quennel with the knife aimed at her and she stopped thrashing, glaring at him as well, but she was panicking inside again. He held the blade up to her so she could see her reflection in the metal before pressing it sideways to her lower lip.

"Tell me where the blueprints are, and I will not rearrange her face…" Yuri trailed off as his knife slipped from her lower lip to slice off the top button of her blouse, "…and the rest of her."

"You really think he would let this go on if he knew where they were?" Quennel shuddered in her false American accent, catching his attention. "He'd do…anything to save me."

"I believe he would," Yuri murmured, slicing off the next button to open her blouse further, then whispered, "But I'm enjoying this too much to even care, now."

She gathered up what moisture she could in her mouth and spit it into his face, making him cringe before he glared at her and raised his knife in rage.

"No!"

"Police!"

All eyes shot to the door leading from the warehouse into the room, and Quennel took advantage of the distraction to kick Yuri in the gut, making him double over in pain with a grunt, his knife coming down and stabbing her in the leg. She cried out in pain as the knife stuck out from her thigh and there was more shouting, and a shot rang out. Quennel looked up to see a silver-haired man aiming a smoking gun in her direction, but when she looked to the ground, she saw Yuri lying face down on the damp floor…dead. She looked back up at him with wide eyes, her heart pounding in her chest as several other officers took down his goons and Sherlock and John hurried toward her.

"Lestrade," she murmured as the rattling of a chain being pulled at sounded and she was slowly lowered to the ground again.

She'd interviewed him many times at crime scenes. She knew he was a Detective Inspector, but what she couldn't fathom at the moment was why he was here. Her hands were taken off the hook and lowered in front of her and a pair of strong arms wrapped around her to gently lower her to the ground. She was sure she was dreaming all of this as Lestrade and John came into view.

"Quennel," John called. "Can you hear me? Focus on me."

Her eyes darted around for a moment before focusing on John, but he was blurry around the edges.

"I have to get this knife out of your leg—"

"Oh, for God's sake, John!" Sherlock snapped before grabbing the handle.

"Sherlock—!" Lestrade tried to stop him, but the consulting detective yanked the knife from her leg, making her scream, her back arching in terrible pain.

"You could've—!"

"I didn't," Sherlock interrupted John, yanking his scarf from around his neck and using it as a makeshift tourniquet, and knowing exactly what John was about to say about an artery he could've nicked. "Lestrade, go take care of Mr. Felton, I'll get her to the ambulance."

Without another word Sherlock lifted the now dazed Quennel into his arms and carried her toward the stairs, John right behind him. She watched her surroundings pass by her in a blur, not registering much, only that she was being carried to safety. Sherlock Holmes had saved her.

A/N: I went to a bit of a dark place with this one. reviews?