Disclaimer: "Law and Order: SVU" is the property of Dick Wolf

Elliot's phone went to voice mail after six rings. Olivia tried to calm down and focus on driving. She hoped that she was just overreacting and would arrive at his apartment to find him just fine so she could hammer him for making her feel like this.

Somehow, though, she didn't think that would happen.

As if on cue, her phone rang as soon as she disconnected from calling her partner. She answered immediately, hoping it would be him.

It was Officer Shepherd. She lost her breath when he told her what was happening.

Elliot had moved to an apartment closer to the precinct when he and Kathy had finalized their divorce the previous year. She could make it there in 25 minutes on a good day, 45 minutes if there was traffic.

She drove as fast as she could, knowing that it would never be fast enough.

The car was moving before he was even inside. Two men were in the back, but Elliot didn't get the chance to memorize their faces before he was shoved to the ground behind the front seats.

It was tight and he barely fit between the floor and their legs. He winced as his face squished against a dirty floor mat, but then searing pain when his cast leg twisted awkwardly made him moan.

His arms were yanked up and his wrists pinned behind his back. He heard the jangle of metal and felt the cold steel of handcuffs biting into his flesh. They were tightened to the point of numbness.

Hands reached down and grasped him by the neck, pulling his face up, and he groaned desperately as a gag was pushed between his teeth and tied in place behind his head. Then he was pushed back down onto the floor.

No one said a single word the entire time.

Panic made Elliot feel like he was suffocating. He struggled not to think the worst.

But with a broken leg, bound hands, and armed men on all sides of him, he had to admit that the situation didn't look very promising.

When Olivia's car squealed to a stop beside the apartment building, she hurried out and ran toward where three officers were standing by the stairs leading to the building. Officer Shepherd was among them, but she didn't see Officer Duncan.

"Did you get an APB out on the vehicle?" she asked urgently, barging up to them without preamble.

"As best we could," one of the officers said gravely. "We have a general vehicle description, but she couldn't describe any assailants or remember a license plate."

He gestured subtly over toward the top of the steps. Kathy sat there, hugging herself listlessly. Olivia strode over toward her, taking the steps fast.

"Kathy," she said.

Kathy's head flew up at the sound of her name. When she saw Olivia, she almost crumpled.

"They took him, Olivia! " she gasped tearfully. She had stopped crying, but seeing her ex-husband's partner made her start again. She sobbed so hard that she could hardly speak. "Oh, God. Oh, God!"

Olivia immediately held out her arms. She lowered herself next to the other woman, letting Kathy lean on her. As scared as she was, Olivia knew she had to exert coolness.

"It's alright," she said as calmly as she could. She rubbed Kathy's shoulder. "Just relax. Take some deep breaths for me." Kathy sucked in a few huge breaths. "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head.

"Good," Olivia said. She nodded and looked around at the other officers. "Here, let's go have a seat in my car. You must be freezing."

She took Kathy's arm and helped her up.

"Officer Shepherd-"

She said his name sharply enough to get his attention from where he stood a few feet away. When he looked her way, Olivia gave him a dark look to remind him that this was actually his fault. He reddened.

"-Will go grab you a cup of coffee from down the street. Isn't that right, Officer? "

She narrowed her eyes threateningly at him. He gulped and nodded.

"Yes, Ma'am," he said quickly. He practically ran away from them in his haste to obey.

She guided Kathy to her car and opened the door for her. Once they were both inside, Olivia turned the heat on.

As she'd hoped, it seemed to snap Kathy out of her shock to be in the warmth and away from the officers. She waited until the other woman was breathing easier and then asked her what had happened.

The car turning frequently and taking curves in the road made Elliot's stomach turn queasily from the floor. He prayed he wouldn't puke. Although it would give him immense satisfaction to vomit all over the feet of whoever had his shoes shoved up against his face, Elliot had enough sense to realize that the gag would force most of it back down his own throat.

"I'm sure you're racking your brain back there trying to find an opportunity to escape, Detective Stabler."

Elliot was surprised when someone spoke from the driver's seat. They had been driving in complete silence for a long while.

"I would encourage you to think twice."

There was a pause. He racked his brain to see if he recognized the voice but came up with nothing.

"Just in case you think I'm not serious-"

The deafening boom of a gunshot exploded in the air suddenly, making Elliot jump in surprise, followed by a sickening splattering sound. His eyes flew wide and he very nearly lost control of his bladder, he was so shocked. His heart thudded frantically and his ears rang.

Above him, he saw the legs nearest him flop over. Something began dripping onto his head.

He rolled his eyes upward and was horrified to find himself staring into the wide, blank eyes of a dead man with a smoking hole in the side of his face. The back of his head was gone.

"Jesus!" the man in the front passenger seat exclaimed. " You crazy fuck! What the hell was that?"

Then they laughed.

Laughed.

Gory bits of the man's brain were falling onto Elliot's face. He felt his throat contracting in and out and it wasn't until he felt himself getting dizzy that he realized he had forgotten to keep breathing.

He tried to look away from the dead face staring down at him. But he couldn't.

For the first time, he began to feel real, hopeless fear pounding through his veins.

"You're sure you aren't hurt?" Olivia asked.

Kathy shook her head. "No," she said, swallowing.

Olivia nodded.

"Tell me everything you can," she said. "What happened?"

Kathy swallowed again and shakily relayed the events that had started earlier that afternoon.

She had come home from work and was about to go pick up Eli from his babysitter. As she was locking her front door, someone had come up behind her and put a gun to her head.

He took her keys and made her walk backwards with him to his car so she couldn't see him. Then he held up a phone, had her dial the phone number of Eli's babysitter, and then tell the woman that she would be late picking him up. He made her lie down on her stomach across the backseat before he started driving.

Her chin trembled.

"He said as long as I stayed still and didn't try to look at anyone, they wouldn't hurt me," she said. "We stopped and someone else got into the backseat by my legs. This one said not to worry because they only needed me for a minute and then they would let me go."

"Did you recognize anyone's voice?" Olivia asked.

Kathy shook her head.

"After a little while, the man next to me told me to sit up," she went on. "That's when I recognized Elliot's apartment building outside. He put the gun to my head and told me to call Elliot and make up a reason for him to come downstairs."

A sob suddenly escaped.

"He said that if I didn't make it believable, he would shoot me since I had already seen his face," she choked. "But he said that first he would take me upstairs to Elliot's apartment and kill him while I watched. They knew his apartment number."

Olivia's fist clenched.

"I didn't know what to do," she said tearfully. "I was scared they would hurt him if I didn't do what they said."

"You did the right thing, Kathy," Olivia said again. "Cooperating kept you alive."

She gulped down tears.

"What about Elliot? " Kathy said in despair.

Olivia tried not to let her mind go in that direction. She couldn't.

"We'll find him," she said, trying to sound confident. "The entire department is going to be looking for him, I can promise you that."

She tried to tred carefully despite every inch of her wanting to force the other woman to remember more details.

"But we won't get very far without a description of the vehicle or the men who took him. Can you think hard and see if you remember anything that you couldn't before?"

Kathy inhaled. "I'll try."

It felt like hours before the car stopped. Elliot's pulse quickened when the driver's side door opened and then the back side door

Hands grabbed his arms and hauled him backwards up out of the car. When he felt a blindfold being pulled over his eyes, he bucked and squirmed with all his might. His instincts screamed that it was going to be his only chance to fight back.

It obviously took the person behind him by surprise. He felt his cast connect with flesh and heard a curse of pain, fueling his resolve to fight harder.

But it came to a screeching halt when he suddenly felt a searing jolt of hot agony down his back. It felt like a hundred burning pokers combined with an electrical shock.

The gag made his scream of pain barely audible as he collapsed. Hands grabbed his cuffed arms and hauled him roughly back upright. They had to take his weight because his muscles felt locked and he couldn't stand on his own.

"You know," a voice said as it approached from around the car, sounding amused. "Fighting us is only going to make this harder on you."

The man speaking stepped closer and held out his hand toward the others. He looked strangely familiar, but Elliot couldn't figure out how.

Something was passed over that looked like a thin, silver cylinder of some kind. The man held it in front of Elliot's face.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked conversationally.

He moved it back and forth casually between his hands. Elliot painfully regained his footing but couldn't fully straighten up.

"It's a cattle prod."

The words made Elliot freeze. The man grinned wider, watching his face pale.

"And not just your ordinary, run of the mill cattle prod, either, " he went on. "This one is made especially for controlling larger livestock. Bulls, mostly...up to 2,000 pounds. You know those nifty tasers you cops have? This little beauty has the voltage of about five of those. "

Elliot jumped reflexively and his eyes widened when the man brought it less than a hair's breadth from one temple.

"You only felt about a half-second's worth of it's potential just now," he said lowly. "What do you think would happen if someone shoved it into your eye socket?"

The man ghosted it across his face, nearly caressing it with the prod, and Elliot couldn't stop the choking noise of trepidation that escaped.

"Or maybe down your throat?"

The man's face darkened. After a minute, he moved it away. Relief made Elliot lightheaded.

"I'll be generous and give you the choice, Detective," he continued. He handed the prod back to his colleague. "You can cooperate." He nodded at the man now holding the prod. "Or he can decide between burning your tongue off and pushing this through your brain stem."

Elliot struggled to keep his breathing steady. He didn't resist as the two men turned him around from behind, his gaze dreadfully fixed on the cattle prod one of them held out threateningly toward him. The second man pulled the blindfold over his face.

They roughly shoved him back to face forward. Then with a gleam in his eye, the man holding the prod jabbed it playfully into Elliot's back again.

This time his cry of pain was strong enough to be heard. The two men gripped his arms tighter when his legs wobbled of their own accord. He moaned as they forced him to begin limping blindly along with them.

Olivia insisted on taking Kathy to the precinct and also instructed units to pick up all of her children to bring them there as well. She wasn't taking the chance that any more of her partner's family might also be targeted. She knew it was what Elliot would have wanted done.

She called Captain Cragen to update the APB using the murky details Kathy had been able to remember. She knew that the other woman had been rightfully terrified during her ordeal and her ability to recall specific details was slim to none, but it didn't help the growing feeling of despair she was struggling not to acknowledge.

Kathy couldn't tell her any license plate numbers, thought that the sedan they had used was either beige or white, and only could say with certainty that she had glimpsed at least four white men inside the car as the abductors forced her out, one of whom may or may not have been wearing a dark-colored jacket.

The descriptions were essentially useless. Light-colored cars with white male occupants driving through one of the most densely populated cities in America were a dime a dozen. That wasn't even accounting for the fact that numerous bridges and tunnels leading to any number of other states made it possible for the abductors to be practically anywhere with Elliot by that point and there was almost zero chance of heading them off.

But even worse than that? Night was coming, meaning it would be practically impossible to pinpoint the car they were looking for...if anyone even noticed it. Darkness would also make it harder for them to easily locate Elliot if he was no longer in the vehicle.

She knew it and the captain did too. She heard it in his voice as he confirmed the details as she relayed them. But somehow, that defeated tone being echoed by their boss suddenly made her emotions overwhelm her when she hung up.

She had to struggle to keep from crying as she drove, turning her face so Kathy wouldn't notice.

What if we can't get to him in time? What if it's already too late?

The blindfold disoriented him and his hands cuffed behind him made keeping his balance with a cast on difficult. He kept feeling uneven ground under him and twice they had to yank him roughly when he stumbled through an unexpected hole. It sounded like they were taking him through tall grass.

They seemed to be going deeper into a deserted area and he had already seen how one of his abductors had easily murdered one of his own colleagues in the car like it was nothing. There was a good chance that they were looking for a spot to execute him, too. The cattle prod could also mean they planned to torture him instead. Maybe they were going to do both.

Elliot breathed shallowly against the gag, trying to push back the terror that threatened to swallow him

Why hadn't he grabbed his cell phone before he had gone to meet Kathy downstairs? Why hadn't he told Olivia about feeling threatened right away when she could have helped him?

Please, God. I'm not ready to die. I'm not ready.

They came to an abrupt stop and he heard a shuttering sound, like a garage door being lifted. Their steps echoed cavernously as the men pushed him along and he felt it getting colder. A heavy slam thundered behind him.

They stopped walking after a minute and he felt them the handcuffs tugging. Then the weight of the hands on his arms was gone. He tried to move forward and something pulled at the cuffs, keeping him in place.

He heard a quiet buzzing like florescent lights. The blindfold was removed, but the gag remained in place as he blinked away tears from eyes desensitized from the constant darkness.

He looked around at the large concrete room they stood in. A short chain had been run through the handcuffs and then attached to a large steel ring that protruded from one wall behind him. Chained upright without being able to shift weight from his cast sent bolts of pain up his injured leg. Hearing his gasps of pain each time he struggled in vain to ease off of it made one of the men laugh like it was the funniest thing ever invented.

There was a long line of kennel cages along the opposite wall and a large table in the middle of the room with straps on one end. There was a single door on the other side of the room that provided the only means of exit and a few long standing cabinets.

The man who Elliot had assumed to be "in charge," since he had been the one to fire the shot in the car and order the other two around, was unlocking one of the cabinets.

"I'm curious," he said, voice echoing in the large room. He turned slightly to glance at Elliot with a smirk. He rummaged around inside the cabinet. "Do you recognize me yet, Detective Stabler?"

Elliot glared from across the room. He didn't, but he wasn't going to indulge their amusement further by trying to speak through the thick gag. Somehow he sensed Tweedledee and Tweedledum over closer to him would just love that.

The man turned back and slipped a white coat on. He faced Elliot again.

"How about now?" he asked with amusement.

Elliot couldn't keep the startled look from his face. The man saw it and grinned widely.

He did recognize the man now. It was the doctor who had handed him a medication refill as he walked out of the hospital with the uniformed cops.

"Dr. Mark King, at your service" he said with a comical bow. "I aim to give the best patient experience possible in every facility."

He winked at Elliot and opened a few drawers inside the cabinet.

"Of course, anyone who bothered to really do their background research would know my specialty these days is veterinary, not human, " he went on conversationally. "It's almost insulting how those idiots at Elmhurst let any doctor walk into that place with a medical badge, you know? You should probably file a complaint with that hospital."

"What's with the infomercial, King? Jesus!" One of the other men cut in, sounding annoyed. He stepped over next to where Elliot was and put out his hands in a get on with it gesture. " Are we going to do this or what? "

"Are you in a hurry, Turpin?" Doctor King said hotly, switching his gaze to him.

The man just scowled. King walked over to stand near him.

"Relax, my friend," he said. "All in good time, right? "

Then he pulled a gun from his pants, put it to the other man's head, and fired in the span of two seconds. Elliot couldn't stop a short, muffled yell of surprise and horror. The man fell dead, inches away from him.

King's face was stormy with rage. He pointed the gun first at the remaining man, who looked at him in shock, and then moved the aim to Elliot.

"Does anyone else have something to say?" he screamed, the fury unexpected and intense.

Elliot tensed fearfully, his mouth going dry, and tugged helplessly on the handcuffs. He was as trapped as a fish in a barrel and directly in the firing line of a man who, he was now realizing, could just be insane enough to shoot him down where he stood.

The other man shook his head.

"Nah, Boss," he said quickly, holding up his hands in a placating manner. "All cool here!"

King narrowed his eyes at Elliot. In a sudden move, he rushed up into Elliot's face and shoved the gun against his head, making him cry out again involuntarily. All traces of the man's earlier amusement had disappeared.

"Play time is over," he growled.

He pressed the gun hard enough against Elliot's head to leave an imprint and cocked it. Elliot closed his eyes.

King left the gun there for a few seconds, glaring at him, and then moved away. Elliot's heart felt like it was skipping.

"Get this piece of shit out of here," he ordered the other man, waving the gun toward the dead man. "And then get rid of the car."

He placed the gun on the table and watched the man struggle to drag the dead body across the room.

Then he smiled over at Elliot. It made the hairs on his neck stand up.

"I'll entertain Detective Stabler until you get back."

The 16th Precinct was in a flurry of activity when Olivia and Kathy stepped inside.

Officers had come in off of personal vacation and overtime, detectives from other precincts were there, and even academy recruits had volunteered to help out. There were so many officers in the bullpen that Olivia couldn't even get through to her desk.

Captain Cragen was attempting to divide them up into teams to handle every possible lead. Officer Shepherd had provided a description of what Elliot had been wearing in the chance someone called saying they had spotted someone similarly dressed.

Munch was at Elliot's computer, searching through her partner's files there, and Fin was presumably in a back office searching through more.

Olivia sidestepped two officers walking past her.

"Captain," she called, alerting him to her presence.

He looked over at her and she gestured toward Kathy. Cragen immediately parted through the detectives, coming to them.

"Kathy," he said reassuringly, placing a hand on her arm. The blonde was looking around at the frenzy with tears building. She started as his touch like she hadn't noticed him approach. "Let's go into my office."

He led her across the room. Olivia finally got to her desk and looked at Munch anxiously.

"Anything?" she asked.

Munch looked up at her bleakly.

"No," he replied. "We've been going back through years of Elliot's cases. I don't even know what to look for. How many perps have held grudges against any number of us throughout our careers, Olivia? Thousands?" He shook his head. "We don't even know if it is a perp we're looking for. It could be a family member, a wronged suspect..."

He trailed off, indicating the burden they faced. Olivia exhaled shakily.

"There has to be something," she said. Something popped into her head. "See if you find anything with the name 'King.' Someone was using that name a few times when we were at the hospital yesterday. "

John adjusted his glasses. "I'm back to 1995 so far," he said. "What year did Elliot become a cop?"

She had to think a minute.

"...'92, I think?" she answered.

She typed in Elliot's name and that year into the case file database. She hoped fervently that the older files had been entered electronically and weren't languishing in a file cabinet somewhere.

She scrolled through and tried to concentrate. But her mind kept wandering.

We're sitting at desks. Christ, I'm sitting at a desk while my partner is God knows where, having God knows what being done to him right now.

She abruptly stood and pushed away from her desk. John looked up in surprise when Olivia almost ran out of the squad room.

She pushed into a stall inside the women's restroom and for a terrible moment stood bent over the toilet. She inhaled and exhaled several times, her body shaking, but managed not to throw up.

Once she had composed herself, she walked to a sink and wiped her clammy forehead.

Think positive. We'll find him. We'll find him.

She sniffled and pulled open the restroom door, her phone ringing at her waist as she stepped back into the hallway. She cleared her throat.

"Benson," she answered.

"I told you to stay out of it."

The unfamiliar male voice made her stop in her tracks. She clenched the phone in her hand, knowing who it was. Her mind raced as she thought of what to say.

"We know who you are," she said, faking confidence she didn't feel. "Let my partner go and I give you my word that you won't go to jail."

The voice huffed a laugh in her ear.

"There are a few things wrong with that statement, Detective Benson," the man said, sounding amused. "I never trust a cop who says 'you won't go to jail.' And you don't know who I am. Because if you did, you would be here stopping me from doing, well...this."

He stopped talking abruptly. She furrowed her brow as she listened to silence.

And then screaming was coming through into her ear, making her jump. It was close, it sounded like someone experiencing pure agony, and she knew it was Elliot.

She gripped the phone so hard it nearly slipped from her hand. Her surroundings faded around her when she recognized her partner's voice, gasping and whimpering and then screaming again.

"Stop!" she begged, her heart hammering. "Stop hurting him! I'll do whatever you want, just stop hurting him." She swallowed hard. "Anything you want. I swear."

"Yeah, we'll see about that, " the man said coolly.

She strained her ears, listening for Elliot. She heard nothing.

"The first thing you're going to do is come to the address I text to you," he said. "Come alone and don't let anyone know you're leaving. I'll be searching you for tracking devices when you arrive. I will not hesitate to kill him if you test me on that."

He paused.

"Also," he went on. "I expect you here in under 30 minutes. Every minute that you take beyond that becomes a minute of punishment I get to inflict on your partner. Your clock starts...now. "

Silence filled the line as he hung up.

Olivia took off running toward the stairwell faster than she thought she'd ever run in her life.