Her head was pounding when she came back to consciousness. Looking around, she took note of the dimly lit room and cold concrete floor. Carefully, she began to sit up, only to bite back a cry of pain. Her hair, now released from its customary clip, was caked dry and stuck to the floor with blood. Her blood. It took quite a bit of effort to sit up, trying desperately to not tug at the aching strands of hair in the process.

"Looks like she's waking up," the second attacker drawled slowly, sounding far too amused for the situation. "And how are you feeling, Lieutenant?" If he hadn't been speaking with such vehemence, she almost would have fallen for his pseudo-kindness when he gently pressed his hands against her shoulders to steady her. "You're shaking."

"Don't touch me!" It took all of her self control to not spit in his face, though somehow she knew that she didn't have the energy for such things even if she tried. Amber eyes narrowed as she watched her assailant lean back from her. If he said something, she didn't hear it, though she knew he must've spoken when the door opened and the first man stepped in. Going by the vague images she had, Hawkeye recognized this man as the one who had grabbed her, the first attacker. Without realizing it, she tensed.

"Look at this," he smirked, crouching into her immediate range of vision. She became increasingly aware of the odd shape of his face, his thin features and beady dark eyes. They were glinting with a hint of malice as he watched her eyes flicker across the room. "She's scared of me."

There was a weary pause from the other man, and he released her shoulders, fingers sliding against the epaulettes of her jacket before his hands dropped. "That she is."

"Wonder what she looks like underneath all that," the first murmured, inching further into her space. His fingers were running delicately over the gold rope that dangled over her chest, then wandered over to the fold of the jacket. Without a second thought, her hands snatched at his wrists, eyes wide in panic.

"Don't touch me, you basta—"

She hardly choked out the statement before he released the jacket and yanked his arms free of her grip, bringing a hard slap to her face, going dangerously close to the previous gaping wound on her head. She shrieked, eyes tearing in pain, and felt the second man grab her arms. He was rough, holding them tightly in his grasp so she couldn't move them.

Wincing, she tried to avert her eyes. The first hadn't needed to do more than bring his hands towards the buttons of her jacket—she knew what he was planning on doing. "Get up."

The other released her, but she couldn't find the strength to get to her feet. The first reached over and took a stern grip of her shoulders, starting to yank. "I said get up!" Weakly, she tried to find her center of balance though her head was reeling. With a violent tug, the first had her on her feet, and was yanking on her jacket. Over the pounding of her heart in her ears, she heard the jacket ripping as he tore the blue fabric to shreds, dropping it to the floor.

"Very nice," he said approvingly. The second man, she realized then, had taken his leave of the room. She could not decide if this was a good thing or not. "Turtleneck will not do," he said slowly, his fingers tugging gently on the collar. With shaking hands, she went to push him away, and defensively crossed her arms over her chest.

"Get your hands off," she choked out, the statement sounded less like she was threatening him and more like she was begging him. She wasn't certain where her voice had come from, only that it sounded very much unlike her. He was stripping her at his own free will, and all she had the energy—the courage—to do was beg. Beg that he would do anything but what she could imagine was coming. "Please…"

"Begging isn't becoming, sweetheart," he snarled, hands wandering to her waist. "We took all of your weapons, I believe. But I'd best check beneath these," he said, tugging at the hem of her pants, "before I consider you all clean. Don't you agree?"

He didn't give her a chance to respond before he was undoing the belt of the uniform pants. Then he was fussing with the button and the zipper, and she started to push away from him again, desperate this time. Her hands were shaking as she scrambled to replace the button, only to find he had snapped it out of place. He was in her face then, the devilish smirk on his pinched features unnerving, his eyes glinting with a barely-contained mirth as he offered her the snapped button.

"Those aren't going back on. Now let it go." His order was strict, but she didn't move, eyes staring, wide as saucers. "Come on now, Lieutenant. You're good with following orders. Do what you've been told."

When she remained still, he decided to assist her, suddenly digging his sharp nails into the flesh of the back of her hands. Immediately, she unclenched her fists, withdrawing them from his realm of touch with a startled cry. Without someone holding the clothing properly, they slid down. She swallowed, squeezing her eyes shut when she felt him move for the last scrap of decency she had left, her shirt.

"You're taking all the fun out of this, being so stubborn," he said gently, as though he was making an attempt to soothe her nerves. And with a final devilish laugh, he gripped the back of her turtleneck in both hands, and pulled it viciously upwards, making sure the fabric passed each injury on its' way. Her hands, which he had already scratched, were stinging, and the gash on her head she was certain was bleeding again. The thought alone of standing exposed in front of him was enough to make her nauseated.

"Now that's much better, don't you think?" He gripped her shoulder, tossing the black top amongst the rest of the shreds of her clothing. Taking slow steps, he moved around her entirely, as though surveying a future prospect, every once and again pausing to prod or examine closer. When he stepped behind her, she could almost feel the breath catch in his throat. His hands were unhooking the clasp of her brassiere, and he was fingering the array.

The moment he had taken in his fill of the tattooed image, he spun around in front of her, pushing her harshly to the floor. With all of his weight on top of her, she could vaguely make out that he was unbuttoning his own shirt and pants through her tears.

Memories of the first few nights with them were unclear. She knew they infiltrated her room more than a few times for their own satisfaction over the first week, and that they would occasionally leave her with a drink of water and some crackers—if she was "good", as they described it. The sense of dignity that she had been so desperate to keep had been stripped away when the first attacker dropped his weight on top of her. In all of her years of life, she had never felt more violated, more disgusted with herself. When she woke up the following afternoon, she had a vivid memory of trying to scrub as much of her body clean with the heavy wool of her military jacket. Which she did, until her skin became raw and irritated, and was flushed the color of ripened berries.

Satiated with pleasure, they turned themselves to decoding the array, which they looked at in every possible light. One morning, they dragged her, naked, outside, so they could see the ink in the rising sun. Some the afternoons, they sat her by the window as they studied. And every late evening, they would have her sit by the fireplace as the light flickered evenly in the background, trying to sear the image into their minds. But after three days of looking at that array in every light they could find, they determined that the burn that marred her back made reading it impossible. So they began to question her.

"What's happened to it?"

Broken and battered, she kept her mouth closed, eyes focused on the floor. She wrapped her hands tightly together, careful to avoid the still-healing skin.

"Who did this to you? It's too focused to be from a natural fire." The second attacker, she had quickly learned, was the smarter of the two. Though the first was far more aggressive, she had realized that the second was by far the brains of the operation.

"I can't…" she heard herself murmur, though her voice sounded distant, as though she weren't really speaking but overhearing another conversation.

The second was grinning maniacally, easing his face into her frame of vision. "It was the Colonel, wasn't it? The one you work for. Mustang, right?"

She must have done something to give herself away, because the second was smirking with satisfaction a moment after revealing what he had figured out. They wouldn't turn and find her Colonel, would they? Drag him down here and torment him as well? And yet they were both looking at her with the same disgusting glint in their eyes that they had when they appeared late at night for their own pleasure and—

"He doesn't know anything!"

The second grinned, and nodded sagely. He surveyed her, arms wrapped tightly over her chest, shuddering on the floor. Her left hand was hanging limply from when she had tried to fight back his partner and ended up with several broken fingers. Her eyes were focused steadily on a crack in the concrete, hair obscuring her features. He had been given the task to keep watch over her whether his accomplice was present or not, and knew she had gotten little sleep over the past week in captivity. If she wasn't already broken, now was the time.

"You'll write him and ask him to come," he ordered.

"I told you, he doesn't know—"

"He burned your back, didn't he? He did that. And no self-respecting alchemist would ruin such a complex array until they understood it completely and had the image memorized. I am not an idiot, Hawkeye. I'm sure you've figured that out by now. You'll write him and tell him to come decipher this for us and fill in the remaining information."

She had sunk further into the floor, shrinking away from his anger and inching towards the far wall. Before she could get far, the first attacker, who had been watching quietly, stood and brought a violent punch to her stomach. Gasping for breath, she fell still, unable or unwilling to move. But he wasn't done. She could hear him pull out something or other, though she couldn't identify it. And then she felt him bring it down on her back, and screamed. A reed, or whip, or something of that nature: thin and flimsy, but incomprehensibly painful when brought down with force.

"You'll do as he says! If he tells you to write a letter to that Colonel Mustang, then you write the letter. If he dictates it to you and tells you exactly what to say, then you write it! Are you going to cooperate, bitch, or do I need to persuade you further?"

Shuddering, she nodded, unsure of what else remained for her to do. All her mind comprehended was that she didn't want that stick brought down on her back again, the place of strike still stinging with droplets of blood settling on the skin. She knew that she was so desperate that she'd do whatever they said, if they would just leave her be.

"Good girl."

The second attacker had left, and returned with a pen and sheet of paper, placing them on the floor in front of her, forcing the pen into her uninjured hand. "By the way, Hawkeye, you're going to tell him exactly what's been happening since you turned up missing."