The grip on my wrists could easily of broken them, and or cut the blood away from them. Of course it wasn't my first time restrained, and it didn't take an artist anyway to know when too tight is too tight.

As they threw me in the van I caught sight of the number plate, not one I had recognised, though it wasn't surprising it would take a real fool to throw me in the back of their own van. Knee's scraping on the uncarpeted steel a cable tie was fastened around my wrists, thankfully looser than the steel grip of the man before. With that they closed the back and started the engine.

Either this was their first time, I supposed, or whoever wanted me cared little for what state I arrived in. It did take me a second to twist myself over and lean against the side wall of the van, fighting against the bindings and the dull ache in my abdomen where I'd taken the hit. It was foolish to leave my legs unbound, if I had a death wish I could take one of them out upon their entrance.

I focused on my breathing as they drove, as the van was all but silent. On the floor was nothing of actual use for my defence: a couple of extra cable ties and some stray nuts and bolts. I wasn't a woman to make plans, so I didn't. I would work my hardest to stay alive or die in the easiest possible way. This didn't have to be deadly, submission would keep me alive. Tell them what they wanted to know about everyone and everything short of him, because selling him out wouldn't be a quick or painless death and whatever they had lined up would be much more pleasant.

The drive didn't seem long but, I couldn't possibly tell you how long. Time was an illusion and by the time they opened the back door the sun was rising in the distance.

Head down, eyes down. They didn't want to be identified so I wasn't going to make them nervous, because they weren't the most delicate of captors. Wordlessly I was led, well dragged outside. I stole gazes, it was rural, warehouse with a small office I suspected more than likely abandoned. I kept up as best I could, unwilling to be dragged across the gravelly ground and suffer the wounds the came with.

It was the office I was taken into, as suspected it was desolate, with gaps in the pale blue paint where the fixtures once attached to the wall and darker patches where once desks had resided. All that was left were two pale blue padded seats, I was less than elegantly placed in one, ankles cable tied to the chair. Quickly they left the box room and it was silent, I checked my bonds, while I could have escaped it would have involved dislocations and I would have nowhere to go after that, it didn't take a genius to work out how that would end.

It was some time, I would have said perhaps longer than the drive but time is an abstracted, before she entered. I could have guessed whom; it wasn't that much of a stretch to figure it out. The clipping of heels could be heard for what I thought was miles in the echoic little room.

"It's been far too long my dear" Irene whispered, taking the chair opposite to me.

Part of me wanted to believe that her presence, as it always had for me commanded safety but the rest of me knew a hell of a lot better than that sadly. Once mentor and protégée we were now vying in a deadly battle to win James Moriaty's approval, and to that end an extended life span.

"Ages, apparently." I returned, frustration in my voice as I deliberately kicked my leg, pulling at the chair to remind her or indeed inform her.

Her eyes lidded for a moment, head bowed and the tiniest laugh escaped her. This process took just a second before she returned right back to her normal visage.

"I hope they didn't damage you too much, I rather think I've had my full of putting you back together." Green orbs surveyed me, noting the 'damage'. It was hard not to be taken back to a younger me, one who would be sent on jobs, only just learning the trade and return home to be patched up again.

"Now, to business." Irene's face softened slightly "The game, who's side?"

The words could mean a hundred things to us but I knew she knew. Of course she did. Moriarty wanted me to out her; she was the only person in the world who had protected me for even a moment. If I ousted her I would be alone, if I didn't I might be dead.

There are time when the law of your life comes first seem harder. It's not that I felt I owed any to her, it's that without her I might be in much greater danger of a worse ending. Family, friends and enemies are one thing, but Irene to me had been at one point much more like life support and that's harder to shrug off.

What about James though? It would be impossible to say what his further interests in me might be, they might include something a bit more substantial than information if I pulled this. I didn't until this point know who's side I would take, the ultimatum at this point unanswerable but I had to have an answer, I couldn't go on without so I took one, and said the single word I thought would have me well and truly dead within an instant.

"His."