Chapter 21: Narcointerrogation

It seemed like an eternity before Sandra came back.

An agonizing eternity, to the redhead strapped to the restraint table. There was no way to measure time, since there was no clock.

The drugs didn't help either.

From her counter-narcointerrogation training at Quantico, she recognized sodium pentothal when the first dizzy rush hit her. A minute of euphoria, a feeling of flying; then the drowsiness, dizziness, a disconnected feeling, and some part of her mind vaguely recognized it as a drug rush. She tried to hang onto her focus, on her command of Gaelic, reasoning that Sandra would probably not have heard it before, much less know how to speak or be able to translate it. Time and again as the drugs wore at her consciousness, she lost that focus, lost her sense, but each time when awareness returned, her mind repeated the lessons she'd learned at Quantico. Forget what happened, what you might have said the last time you lost control. Refocus and try again. So she did. Again. And again.

It was so, so hard for her to try to not think of Snake Eyes; she wanted him, desperately, wanted him to appear out of her drug-induced hallucinations and fevered imaginings and hold her, hug her, reassure her it was all going to be okay and he would never let her go. But she also knew that if she were to let go, to let her mind wander to thoughts of him, she could be placing him in danger. Snake Eyes and Flint and the Joes and especially White Queen and Polaris. Shana didn't know how many of these rogues Sandra had at her beck and call; and she couldn't risk their small force of ten—nine, now, with her capture—trying to hold off an entire army. They would be overwhelmed, their training no defense against sheer numbers, and while some of them would die before they were captured, Shana was positive that special effort would be taken to capture Alex and Cam alive. And the thought of either of them captive in their hands, was something Shana didn't even want to think about. Alex wouldn't survive captivity a second time, and Cam... Better to not even think about that.

She felt the wave of exhaustion hit her as she started to come down off the drugs, and only then did she realize just how high a dose Sandra must have given her. She weighed pretty much the same now as she did when she'd taken the training, and they had been very careful to maintain her weight through the narcointerrogation course because if she lost too much or gained too much the dosages required for the training would be 'off' and be either terribly ineffective, or be dangerously high and she would suffer physically from them. Care had been taken throughout the training to avoid having her become either physiologically used to them or psychologically dependent on them; she'd been given weeks in between drug sessions in which to 'detox' and empty her body of their influence. Sandra had given her a much higher dose than Shana's trainers had ever given her, and she could feel it in the sudden exhaustion-fatigue symptoms.

She was gritting her teeth and trying to force herself not to shake when Sandra came back in. "Going through withdrawal?" The Colombian woman crooned sweetly, nastily, and she laid a hand on Shana's leg, felt the involuntary muscle spasms in Shana's thigh muscles. "After the amount I gave you, the symptoms will be severe. Here, let me give you some more, then you won't feel it." Shana yanked against the straps that held her, but was unable to prevent Sandra from injecting the inside of her elbow with another large needleful of pentothal. "Now, are you ready to tell me where I can find your boyfriend?"

"Go…to…hell," Shana heard her words slurred but still intelligible, and then as she felt the sick dizziness arising from the first rush of drug, retreated behind her training, forcing herself to think in only Gaelic, focusing on speaking only Gaelic.

"Bitch!" Sandra didn't slap her this time; it was a punch with the full force of her weight behind it. Shana's head snapped around on her neck, banging painfully against the head of the table she lay on. "I'll teach you to laugh at me, you…"

She headed for the bank of cabinets, opening drawer after drawer, door after door as she looked for the items she wanted. Another TENS unit, electrode pads, more alligator clips. She had glanced at the ones she'd stuck to Shana's temples earlier; they were still firmly on. Good. Not that she particularly cared whether Shana was visibly damaged or not, but she wanted to keep the redhead intact. Sooner or later that boyfriend of hers would come looking and Sandra fully intended to capture him when he did, using Shana as bait. Then, the real fun would begin. She would show them both who was better; the perfect soft American bitch or herself.

She put all of that down on the table, unbuckled the straps that restrained Shana's ankles. She felt safe enough doing that now; Shana couldn't possibly kick up a fight with that much of Sandra's drugs running through her. The strap that ran over her knees was next, then the one over her upper thighs.

That was when Shana made her move.

She lashed out with her legs, picking her right leg and lifting it over Sandra's bent head, bringing it down behind Sandra's back and pinning the Colombian woman against the table. Even under the influence of the drugs and with the tremors in her muscles, she was still stronger than Sandra and was able to pin the other woman; then with all the rest of the strength in her body she brought her knee up and slammed it into Sandra's nose.

Blood fountained. Sandra screamed. Gritting her teeth, Shana did it again. This time, when she brought her knee up, she drove it up at an angle, carefully chosen to accomplish what she was trying to do.

It worked beautifully. For Shana, at least. Her knee slammed into Sandra's nose, drove the shattered bits of bone and cartilage up into the woman's brain, killing her instantly. It was a move that Snake Eyes had taught her, long ago; her father had never taught her to kill, but under Snake Eyes' tutelage she'd learned how to perform moves like this to save her life in an emergency.

This classified as an emergency.

And Shana couldn't help but feel a bit of satisfaction as she relaxed her leg, letting Sandra's dead body slide off the side of the table until she hit the floor with a dull thud. Got you, you sick little bitch. That's for Liv, and Clayton, and Alex.

Now, the next problem: to get free.

Martial arts required flexibility. She'd spent a lifetime getting that flexibility and maintaining it. Not flexibility like Cam's—she'd seen Cam lift her leg behind her until her heel touched the back of her head; Shana winced whenever she saw Cam do it because it looked like her spine would snap—but she was flexible enough to bring one leg all the way up, straining until she could touch the edge of a buckled strap with a toe, and start nudging that backward until she got the strap free of its restraining loop, then started working the tongue of the buckle free. She had to stop several times as she was doing it; the drugs made it hard to focus on what she was doing, and muscle tremors from the previous drug dose made it hard to maintain a sustained position for long.

She had gotten the buckle around her right wrist free and was considering how to go about working on the strap around her forearm, just under her elbow, when the door opened.

Two burly, muscled African men came in, and she recognized them as being two of the three who had picked her out of the river back in the jungle. Shana felt her heart sink even as she braced herself for a fight, for retaliation; she'd killed their boss, and somehow she didn't think they were going to let it go.

She didn't need to know French or any of the native dialects to know what they were shouting as they flew across the room, knelt to check Sandra's pulse. And when they found none, and turned to look at her with ugly expressions, she braced herself, cursing that she hadn't worked faster, tried harder to get herself free, earlier.

The first blow snapped her head around on her neck, slammed her head against the top of the restraint table. The next one drew blood as her teeth accidentally cut her lip from the impact of the fist against her mouth.

And then she stopped counting blows, stopped being able to think of anything except pain as fists slammed into her, using her restrained body as a punching bag. She tried to be stoic, tried to stay silent, but it grew too much and by the time they stepped back, knuckles red with blood from her bloodied nose and her split and bleeding lip, she was crying in pain. Please, Snake Eyes, please, find me, save me, please…She didn't know she'd spoken aloud until one man looked at her, asked her what she'd said. The other man just grinned and pointed to the bottles and needles on the counter.

She was barely conscious as they stepped back from her. All she could feel now was a sick relief that they were done, and all she wanted was for them to leave her alone. Between the drugs and the concussion she was sure she'd sustained during their beating, all she wanted to do was drift into the darkness she could sense just behind her eyes.

She came to semi-awareness as they reached for the buckles and straps around her arms, and she fuzzily tried to gather herself as they started to unbuckle the restraints. As soon as she was free she wrenched herself away from them, stumbling away to the other side of the room, and grabbed for one of the needles. The first shadow that came at her she lashed out with the needle in her hand, not really thinking she could do any damage but desperate to keep them away from her in whatever way was possible.

The next few minutes were a blur; she had a confused recollection later of a man coming at her and going down in a gush of blood; the needle in her hand snapped, and she reached behind her, snagging one of the bottles of drugs. A quick snap, and she had a bit of jagged glass in her hand, which she used to slash and hack at the shapes that came at her through the blurred perspective of her eyes.

Then someone grabbed her from behind, and she screamed but was too weak and dizzy and disoriented to fight as they wrapped her in a bear hug, immobilizing her arms. An impact to her stomach made her retch as her aching midsection objected to being punched—strenuously—and by the time she managed to stop heaving, her arms were secured behind her with more of those damn plastic zip ties and her ankles were similarly secured.

They took some time, then, to kick her as she lay helpless on the floor. She cried and screamed as their heavy shoes impacted her side, her back, her arms and legs and stomach and ribs and face; a heel in her eye almost made her lose her breath entirely with the pain, and finally someone stomping on her fingers behind her made her start to cry. She couldn't help it, she was exhausted, dizzy with drugs and repeated blows to her head, unable to think, react, fight, or defend, and all she wanted was for them to please, God, just leave me alone!

The vicious battering finally stopped, and she barely felt hands on her arms, hauling her semi-upright. Her brain registered the change in position, and she threw up helplessly, sick and dizzy, and she was abruptly dropped again as the man on her right jumped back to avoid getting anything on him.

She went limp, unable to fight anymore as they dragged her out of the room and down a hall. Moments later a hood was popped over her head and then she was thrown into the bed of a truck—the same one that had brought her here? She didn't know, and really, couldn't bring herself to care. She was in too much pain, too sick and dizzy from the beating and the drugs, and as the truck engine started under her cheek, she let the sound of the engine lull her down into the darkness. Her last thought was Snake Eyes, please…find me…

Snake Eyes sat up with a start. He'd finally managed to lie down and catch a few hours of exhausted sleep; haunted at the thought of what could be happening to Shana on this, her second full night of being missing, he'd been unable to sleep till now.

But even now that he'd been able to get some sleep, he didn't feel any better. His dreams had been haunted with images; Shana, her face bruised, swollen, battered, one eye swelling shut, lip split and leaking blood down her chin, whispering to him, pleading brokenly with him to find me, please find me, please…

He'd never been able to resist her when she asked him for something. For someone who had been shaped and defined by what others expected from her, she was remarkably undemanding herself. Yes, she demanded a lot from their recruits, demanded that they meet Joe standards, and she kept all of them on their toes; but personally, no. She never expected, never demanded; only asked, and was perfectly ready for a refusal. And it was for that reason that whenever she asked him for something, he rarely ever refused her.

And he wouldn't now. I'll find you. I don't care how long it takes, Shana, love, I'll find you no matter where you are. Hold on for me!