Alex was forced through a hallway and into a room at the back of the house. Before he could take in his new surroundings, he found that he was sitting down again. This was a very comfortable seat and, looking down, he realised he was on a sofa. He squinted around the room. He was in the lounge. What a strange place to torture someone! The soft furnishings and light coloured carpet must be a pain to clean.

Yassen had disappeared but now he re-entered the room with some things on a tray that Alex couldn't see. The assassin looked… pensive? Was that the right word? He had no idea but it was the one that came to mind so it was the one that Alex decided to go with. He struggled to make the connection between the man's expression and the name of an emotion. What had he been drugged with to make his mind so slow? Yassen was crouching in front of Alex now. When had he moved across the room from the door? Could he teleport now? No, that didn't make any sense.

"Alex." Why was his voice so..? Alex couldn't find the word. Was it full of contempt? Or excitement at the prospect of killing him? Or something else? He had no idea and decided to try and ignore the assassin again but it was harder than it had been in the car. He had closed his eyes so that the man couldn't torture him by showing him what was to come so he felt rather than saw Yassen stand up and lean over him. He was undoing the straight jacket? Well, seeing that the man had drugged and kidnapped him in the first place, he must have known that he was too drugged to be able to fight. Alex opened his eyes again - this took a lot more effort than it should have done - and saw that he was right. His arms now hung limply by his sides. Even with his utmost concentration, he could not move them. Getting out of here was going to be even harder than he originally thought…

Yassen had grasped his left arm. There was something shiny in his hand. Alex only realised it was a needle when the assassin found the vein in his elbow and pushed it in. There was some kind of tubing attached to the needle Alex realised as he followed it down with his eyes. He watched the blood flow through the tube from his elbow to a small bottle. Was the man going to drain his blood and kill him that way? That would have to take a very long time… was he vindictive and sadistic enough to do that? Alex couldn't trust his mind to provide him with an accurate answer to that question, although he felt as though his first instinct - 'yes' - was probably correct. Before he could even try and process what was happening, Yassen was gone with the vial now filled with Alex's blood and then almost immediately back with a glass of clear liquid.

"Drink."

Why did Yassen want him to drink? So that his mind would clear a bit and he would experience the torture more clearly? So that he would actually be able to answer the assassin's questions? So that Yassen could truthfully say that he had been entirely responsible for Alex Rider's death? Or was it a cruel ploy to make him drink poison or something? Whatever the case, it wouldn't be good and he didn't want it but the glass was at his lips and he had drunk before he could stop himself. Maybe if he pretended to still be out of it, he would be able to catch Yassen off guard and escape! It was a rubbish plan, even through his still hazy mind he knew that, but it was the only one he had… so it was what he could do. He looked up and peered through squinted eyes around the room. That part… wasn't really acting. His eyes were still sensitive to the bright light streaming in from the patio doors and he couldn't really make out much detail of the room, no matter how hard he tried.

Yassen got up and moved back to the tray on the table by the door. Had he decided to just begin with the torture anyway? That was exactly what Alex didn't want to happen. Instead, the man picked up something clear - maybe a bag of some sort? - and carried it over. Only now, as he watched Yassen attach the tube trailing from the bag to the one trailing out of his own arm, did Alex realise that the needle was still in. There was a name for that… he wracked his brain trying to remember. A cannula! That was the type of needle that stayed attached! Wasn't it? It wasn't an important detail to be able to remember, but the fact that he had been able to find the correct word (at least, he thought it was the right word) brought Alex hope. Surely that meant that his mind was clearing and he would be able to think better. Unless, of course, whatever was being dripped into his bloodstream even now would keep his mind addled. He had to get it out. But his arms wouldn't obey him. And anyway, if he tried to take it out now, Yassen would only put it back and probably hurt him for the trouble… it would have to wait until Yassen was out of the room. But infuriatingly, the man didn't seem to be going anywhere. He had attached the bag to something above Alex's head so that gravity would do his work for him and was now sat on one of the other chairs in the room. Alex stared at the slightly thicker section of the tube where the drops of clear liquid were stored before they made their way down and into him.

Drip…

Drip…

Drip…

Drip…

It was relentless. He tried to will it to break. To slow down. Anything that would stop it from affecting him and preventing him from escaping.

The doorbell rang. Yassen seemed to spring up in one fluid motion and, with a final glance at Alex, he strode out of the room. This was his chance. He had to get out before the other person who had helped with the kidnapping - for Alex was sure that that was who was at the door - came into the room too. Alex focused all of his attention on his right hand. He could open and close it as he wished. Next was harder. He forced his arm to move. It did! Sluggishly, he moved his arm inch by inch until his hand could reach the tubing around his elbow. He pulled the drip out; the cannula was taped in place and he didn't have time to worry about taking that out now. Focusing his attention on his legs now, Alex was pleased to find that he could stand up. Very jerkily, one foot at a time, he made his way across the room to the patio doors. He pulled the handle down. To his great surprise, the door was not locked. With one final look behind him, and seeing that he was still alone - Yassen and his visitor had not yet returned to the room, although Alex could hear them talking in the hallway - Alex ran.

'Ran' might have been an optimistic and kind way to describe his movements. But he moved away from the house and that was his main goal. Alex knew that he couldn't get too far, which worried him, but if he could find a good enough hiding place then maybe he would be able to avoid Yassen and build his strength up enough to get further away. He made a beeline for the hedge. It looked like it would be thick enough to conceal him and there was nowhere else in the garden to hide. Alex had just settled himself under the hedge - he could only just about see the doors through all of the leaves and branches so hoped that he would be invisible to anyone looking in - when he heard the shout. He had hidden himself just in time. Yassen appeared at the back door and looked around with eyes that knew their surroundings well. Alex hardly dared to breathe.

Then someone else joined him at the door. This must be the person who had been with them in the hospital but Alex couldn't quite make out their face, obscured as it was by one particular leaf and by the fact that his vision wasn't completely back to normal.

"Alex!" the new person shouted. He knew that voice! And not just from the hospital earlier. This was the voice of someone he knew. Someone he had spent a considerable amount of time with. Alex stayed silent and motionless as he tried to work out who this person was. He didn't think that it was someone he distrusted, but equally why would someone he trusted be working with Yassen Gregorovich? Was this how he had been captured in the first place? By someone he trusted, betraying him?

Yassen had disappeared from the doorway momentarily but now he was back with something that he held up to his face. Binoculars? Or, Alex thought with a new wave of panic, a thermal imaging camera? He watched in trepidation as Yassen began to scan the hedges around the garden. The assassin paused a fraction too long when he was facing Alex and he knew that he had been spotted.

Yassen quietly said something to his accomplice that Alex couldn't hear as the two of them made their way down from the house towards him. Alex didn't try to escape. He didn't have the energy to get out of the hedge, let alone run away. He just lay there, waiting for the inevitable torture that would follow his escape attempt. Alex shrank back as light flooded into where he hid as one of the men lifted up the branches and the other pulled him out. He blinked in the bright light now that he was back in the open. Yassen and the other man were looking at him strangely - Alex was still struggling to identify emotions. He decided that it was probably anger that he'd escaped, if the assassin felt emotions as strongly as that. As far as Alex could remember, Yassen didn't really have emotions, not strong ones, anyway. Wait! He knew the other person! It was Ben Daniels! A flood of rage flooded through him. Ben was the only person at MI6 who Alex would have trusted with his life and it turned out that the agent had betrayed him. Ben was working with Yassen Gregorovich! He had helped him smuggle him out of the hospital! And now he was here, presumably happy to either watch or even join in the torture that would be about to come.

Alex didn't struggle or resist as he felt himself picked up and carried back into the house, his last hopes of rescue fading away. If Ben had switched sides, he would be able to divert any MI6 attention away from the house. Alex would never be found. Unless they wanted to send a message to MI6, that was…

This time, he was taken upstairs. He was laid down on a bed and before Alex could even begin to take in his new surroundings, he felt something metal close around his wrist. He tried to move his arm into his line of vision to be able to see what it was but he didn't get very far before whatever was around his wrist stopped it from moving any further… a handcuff. By the time he had worked it out, his other wrist had been similarly restrained. And the drip was back. His situation really was hopeless.