Title: Chapter Three: Revelations
Author: Alrielira/ Rai
Spoilers: General spoilers
Disclaimer: The usual disclaimers: I make no money from Janet Evanovich's fine characters. I am merely playing with them for a short while before returning them. This story was started initially as a one shot, but, it seems to want to be continued, and, as many times seems to be the case, stories have a mind of their own.
Rating/Warning: PG-13
Summary: "Challenge: Use this song as inspiration: "Come on Closer" by Jem. Any length, due one month later ;) I got in early. The original chapter was cross-posted to live journal's babefic community

Chapter Three: Revelations.

I woke some time later, disoriented and aching, my head felt like I'd been whacked about with a baseball bat, and I couldn't help but whimper as I tried to sit up.

"Easy Bombshell." Lester. I knew that voice. "Just a side effect from what we gave you. Sit up nice and slow…that's the girl. Bobby?"

A muffled "Kinda busy." Came from the cockpit of the aeroplane, I presume busy meant flying it..

"Tank?" Lester asked.

"I'll get her something for it."

A few minutes later, I had three white pills in my hand. I took them, along with a mouthful of water from the bottle that had just been handed to me. I tried not to gag, and miraculously managed it.

Sleep claimed me once more. Tank had grabbed the bottle of water from my hand as it slipped towards the floor and I woke up again several hours later in a room, bare but for a bed, and a chair, which contained a sleeping Ranger.

"Ranger?" I muttered quietly, to which I got an equally quiet, "Babe?"

"How long was I out? Where am I? And what the hell happened?"

Ranger sighed, ever so quietly, and his features were set, but for the briefest of moments in a grim look. He replaced it just as quickly, with a blank look, and sat up straighter, his torso leaning forward in his chair, hands coming to steeple, resting on his knees.

"The first time? Seven hours. The second? Nineteen. The third? Twelve."

So that was thirty six, no, thirty eight hours. That meant I could be anywhere.

"You're in one of our safe houses, somewhere safe…"

At my pointed look he took a deeper sigh and responded with a sad smile.

"Malaysia, we're in Malaysia. We're going to move on tomorrow morning. We just wanted to make sure you were well. We're in Malaysia, because of what happened in Trenton, Babe? Do you remember what happened in Trenton? With Joe, and Terry and Albert?"

Everything came flooding back in a painful suddenness. "They're dead." I whispered, my eyes already tearing up. "They're dead, and they think we did it don't they?"

Ranger nodded, and rose slowly. "Get dressed Babe, have a shower, it's through that door, and to the right, we'll brief you on everything once you're all cleaned up."

I nodded mutely, and rose, before realizing I didn't have any clean clothes. Ranger, as if sensing this reached under the bed, for a black duffel bag, which he handed to me.

"Hair dye is in there babe, I expect you to use it." He left then, with me standing shocked in a bare bedroom, somewhere in a foreign country on the other side of the world.

It took me a long time to move out of the bedroom, and up into the small bathroom. White tiled, lit with a florescent light, and climbed into the small shower to wash away almost two hours of grit and grime using the small travel pack of soap that was in the duffle Ranger had given me. I showered quickly and wrapped a towel around myself, and opened the bag again, pulling out the red hair dye. I read the instructions, and made the mix up, and, with gloves on my hair, I used the two bottles that were provided. It needed half an hour to set.

It was while I was standing, naked but for a towel, with my hair covered in hair dye that I got a chance to think. I had just blindly followed Ranger's orders. Without question. What did that say about me as a person? I'd allowed them to kidnap me, drag me halfway across the world to a foreign country, no doubt on a false passport, and here I was, standing here, dying my hair, all because Ranger had told me I had to.

Banging on the door shook me from my revere and I realized I had been standing there forty minutes. I called out a hurried "Just a few minutes." And stepped into the shower again to wash the dye from my hair. Drying it ruined the towel I'd been given to use, but I didn't think Ranger would miss one towel.

I stared back at myself for a minute, before dressing in the black pants and tee that had been provided for me, and pulled my now red curls into a pony tail and stepped out into the hall and walked back to the kitchen.

This place was an apartment clearly. One bedroom, small bathroom, joined kitchen and eating area, with no TV, no couch and a few stools around the kitchen bench. The men were gathered in the kitchen, pouring over papers which had been laid out on the table. Looks like I hadn't been the only one to be given hair dye. The boys, all but Ranger had dyed their hair, and Ranger was getting his head shaved by tank at the moment, as he sat on a stool in the kitchen with a plastic drop sheet underneath to catch the falling hairs.

The boys all offered smiles when I entered the room, but they all came nowhere near their eyes.

'Babe." Ranger gestured me closer. "We have some things to explain to you. And then we have some decisions to make."

I nodded and stepped closer in silence, catching sight of building plans on the table, as well as several world maps, and sheets of loose leaf paper with handwriting on it. They made no move to cover it up.

Lester stood, and offered me his chair and I took it. Waiting to be told what event, or information that had taken me from my world, and turned me into a fugitive.

Ranger sighed softly and began his story.

"When I was in the Rangers, I was assigned to a unit, neither military nor civilian, but a mixture of both. We did what are known as wet work, the stuff that even those who participate in black ops won't admit to doing. That's how Tank, Lester, Bobby and I met, we were all members of that team. Tank was a Ranger like me, though I hadn't known him before hand.

Lester was a SWAT member from LA. SWAT applicants undergo rigorous selection and training, similar to the training some spec op units in the military receive. Emphasis is placed on physical fitness so an officer will be able to withstand the rigors of close quarters battle. They're trained in marksmanship for the development of accurate shooting skills. They get training in explosives, sniper training, first-aid, negotiation, and other area's.

Bobby was an agent with the DEA. Drug Enforcement if you didn't know. The DEA is lead agency for domestic enforcement of Federal drug laws, it also has sole responsibility for coordinating and pursuing U.S. drug investigations abroad.

We were one of the primary teams. We were sanctioned by the government, and worked under their approval. When the administration changed, we were released from our contracts and Rangeman was born. We had a lot of skills, legal and legitimate as well as the darker side of our world, and we figured we may as well utilize the legitimate ones we'd learnt."

I was glad I was sitting down. I have to admit that.

"That was the most I think I've ever heard you speak."

"Babe." He offered me a faint smile, and the boys couldn't help but chuckle quietly.

"Six months ago. Everything changed."

Now why didn't that shock me?