Helen was having difficulty opening her eyes, particularly her left one. She tried to move her hands but her wrists were bound and locked straight above her head. Her shoulders were burning and her feet weren't touching the ground so she was unable to relieve the pressure. Helen rolled her head in an attempt to force movement into her stationary and stiff body. She struggled to take in a deep breath, but a very loud hissing sound and wheezed out.
Dipping her tongue out to wet her lips in an automatic gesture she tasted the blood. Closing her eyes she could feel it slowly dripping down from her eye—no wonder she couldn't open it. Coughing, she continued to have problems drawing air into her lungs, her entire body racked from side to side with the movement which only caused her shoulders to strain even more.
She couldn't see anything with her one good eye. Straining her neck as slow as possible from side to side Helen found herself in complete utter darkness and unable to make out anything in front of her. She licked her lips again in concentration this time—where was she? Her fingers curled over the handcuffs that were confining her hands above her. They were tight and already digging into her flesh; if she focused hard enough she could feel the small slices against the boney parts of her wrists.
Wrapping her hands around the chain she pulled her body up slightly, relieving the pull on her shoulders but increasing the pain in her biceps. It was lose—lose but at that point the latter was preferable. Her face turned into a grimace when her arms loosed and her body dropped to hang again.
She heard the shuffle before she felt the presence. She wasn't alone. She didn't speak, only waited to see what would happen. A warm hand found its way to her side and gently caressed her skin before pushing and swinging her limp form back and forth. Focusing only on the presence she ignored the flashing pain that was threatening to blind her. The hand was removed, its fingers leaving her stomach last—whoever it was, they were right behind her.
The hand moved to her shoulder and trailed over her back as they moved in front of her. Her eyes strained to see a face, but it was pitch black—she would never be able to see. The fingers trailed around her waist and to the center of her abdomen before it released quickly from her body. Before she had time to react or brace herself the fist pounded into her stomach. Her body jerked back and swung in a circle. She tensed her muscles, bracing for another blow that didn't come quickly. Rather, it waited patiently until she began to relax before it struck again in almost exactly the same spot.
On the fifth or sixth punch, she was quickly losing count, she felt one of her ribs snap and her voice rang out through the air for the first time. Immediately it all stopped. She felt the warm hand on her side again steadying her body before it back to swing her back and forth again. The respite was small, but she took it.
Her breathing was shallow and difficult and she could see white spots in her vision. She was going to pass out if this kept up. Her body swung forward just as a hard object collided with her front, breaking more ribs and forcing a loud grunt from her vocal cords before the white fuzz took over.
Will was watching the monitor closely; his face was almost pressed to the screen. As soon as he had recovered enough he forced Henry to pull it up and Kate to let him out of the infirmary. He was insistent on joining in the search; getting away from the witch doctor Kate, had only taken another hour at least so he wasn't that far behind. Declan had already viewed it multiple times looking for any hint of where Helen and Sara could have been taken, but Kate suggested his "freaky eyes" could probably find more.
The kidnapping was quick, a dark and nondescript form covered entirely in black slinked into the room from the hallway and returned with the girl first. It came back moments later and went into the room. The second time it came out it was dragging Helen by her arms down the hallway to the end of the corridor where it miraculously disappeared from all cameras. There was nothing in the room, no camera's to catch that horror, but he could only assume if he was drugged, that Helen and Sara had been as well—seeing as how neither put up a fight.
The Big Guy and Jephthah were already doing a floor to floor sweep of the Sanctuary starting from top down. Will was headed to her rooms again to try and figure out exactly where they had gone to. Declan was informing the Sanctuary heads of what was going on and working with Henry on a more technical aspect (which mean Declan was running through videos while Henry played with the system).
Kate had the unfortunate job of feeding all the abnormals and attempting to ignore the situation, although she took the opportunity to search the SHU and all containments for their lost boss and her daughter. She ran into Sally the mermaid when an idea hit her. Placing a hand against the glass like she'd seen the boss do many times she waited for the mermaid to swim up and mirror her. Looking into the woman's eyes she thought as strongly and as much as she could of Magnus and verbally asked if the woman knew where the Doc was.
Sally shook her head in response and sent Kate a sorrowful feeling. The woman was tempted to step back and go on her way, the idea had been stupid. But the feeling of fear that Sally sent her was something else altogether. The name Sara bounced around in Kate's head on whispers that echoed in hers ears. Kate's mind was brought to a tiny room; she could see knees surrounded by tiny arms when she looked down. Glancing around there was nothing distinct about the room. She flashed back to looking at the mermaid who had sad eyes.
"Keep her safe." Kate didn't know what else to do.
The mermaid nodded in response before the girl's name changed to two words. "She's here." It was on the same whispery tones as Sara's name had been and it was overwhelming.
"She's here?" The mermaid nodded in answer. Kate's smile grew suddenly before she thanked the mermaid and ran out of the lab. She raced into Magnus' office to find it empty before moving on to Will's office. It was also void of people so she pulled the radio off the clip of her belt. "Will!" She called into it waiting for an answer.
Luckily, she didn't have to wait long, "What?"
"Talked to Sally—Sara's in the building."
"Magnus?"
"She didn't know."
"Got it. Declan, Jephthah, Henry? Get that?" After he heard affirmatives from all three he continued. "Declan, leave the comps to Henry and help Biggie with the search."
"Right." His voice was strong now that he had something to go on; the team had a lead and was ready to act. They were no longer lost in the unknown.
Helen woke up to cold water running down her face. She assumed someone had tossed it on her to try and wake her; unfortunately for her it had worked. She cleared her throat and licked her lips dragging in as much of the water as possible to quench her thirsty and cottony throat. She hadn't noticed that before, the cotton mouth. She most certainly had been drugged.
She could feel the presence almost immediately this time and she decided to try to speak. "Wh—where's Sara?" Her voice was gruff and gravelly and she swallowed hard trying to rid the dryness in her vocal cords. She wasn't as loud as she would have liked, but she waited for an answer nonetheless. Whoever it was circled her: watching her hanging head, blood riddled clothes and wet stingy hair.
With her eyes completely useless, her ears were on full alert. So when the light shown in the corner of the room she was literally blinded by its brightness. Squeezing her eyes shut she picked up the sound of a virtual click and footsteps before she heard a voice. "You're going to die today." The voice was happy and taunting, a woman. Dana—the voice was Dana Whitcomb's.
Helen groaned inwardly and opened her eyes to pitch back again. "Where's Sara?" She asked again, hoping to get an answer this time round. Instead she received a blow to her already swollen eye. Her head snapped back instantly and forced her neck to stiffen in response.
The voice sounded again, but there was no light this time, only the words, "You're going to die today." The resonance and timbre of the voice was exactly the same as it was before.
The hand grabbed her chin and jerked her face towards the presence. The fingers were warm even against her burning wet flesh. The other hand moved to her broken ribs and ground into them. Helen cried out in pain, "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" She tried to swing her legs forward to kick out, but as soon as she got the momentum to reach the pinnacle her ankles snapped back, cuffs slicing her flesh and chains rattling. Damn, she thought. Her legs were shackled. How had she not noticed that before? She had lost feeling at this point in her hands and the majority of her arms. The painful tingling was gone until she felt the knife. Cold steel against her forearm as it sliced down a straight line to her armpit.
She whimpered at the feeling, but instinctively she knew the wound was only superficial which allowed it to bleed but would cause little in the way of infection or scarring. "What do you want?" She was soft and meaning to sound resigned as the words lilted off her tongue. She received no answer other than a sharp slap across her face. She felt her body being pushed backwards until at the peak of tension between the chains confining her hands and the one digging into her ankles. She was released and swung forward with such a force that she thought she would vomit from being jerked back at the opposite height. Upon her return swing she felt the wood strike her back and stop her swing. Crying out her muscles arched and tore her shoulder out of its socket. Her eyes began to fuzz over white again and she fought hard to stay conscious, but ultimately failed.
Henry was sitting in the weapons lab with all monitors and computers working at full force. The air in the room was becoming stifling because of the constant work the machines were doing. Will walked in with Kate close on his heels to get a report. "What you got for me, Henry?"
"Ok, so I ran a full perimeter sweep to see if I could find any glitches or breaches in the line, and I found a lot. They could have taken her through of any one of them. Someone hit us with a hack through our own system that caused the breach to happen from midnight on." He shook his head sadly, "I'm still trying to fix the entire thing. The worst part is that our scanners inside the building are not functioning to capacity so I'm unable to find Sara."
"That's alright, we'll keep searching and you keep working on it." Will pointed at Henry as he was walking out of the room to rejoin the search. All three: him, Declan and Jephthah, had taken separate search areas and were working alone. He wasn't so sure that was a great idea, but he had yet to find a better solution until Henry had all the systems up and working. Being alone created an unnecessary vulnerability in his team.
He and Declan met up in the front hall to discuss strategies after finishing their latest designated zones. "This is ridiculous, Will, with only the three of us, it's going to take at least a day to run through every known room in this building, not to mention all the ones Magnus put in that we don't know about when she built this place." The man threw a hand through his hair and let out a frustrated sigh. "It's bloody hopeless."
"We know Sara is somewhere in these walls, even if Magnus isn't. We need to find her first; Helen would want it that way."
The other head nodded roughly in agreement. "You're right."
Will's radio clicked and he heard Henry's voice: "Will, I got the scanners up and running for a second before there was a second hack that wiped them out, but I got Sara's biometric reading. She's in the foyer."
Will and Declan locked eyes for an instant before turn in a circle, "I'm in the foyer Henry and she's not—wait." Will spotted the huddled form against the side of the stairs. "Sara!" He took long and fast steps over to the girl just as she glanced up and saw him.
"Will!" She stood and reached her hands up for him to hold her. Will happily obliged and pulled the girl into his embrace.
Pressing his lips to her head he spoke to her, "Are you ok? Nothing hurts?" The girl's head shook against his shoulder in an answer. "Alright, it's ok now." Sara was crying profusely, unable to hold back the wave of emotions that seeing him brought from her.
"I'm scared."
"I know, baby. You're safe now, it's all ok." He wasn't about to let go of her, but he needed to check her over for injuries and make sure she really was okay. "Declan, report this to the others and find the Big Guy and send him down to the infirmary." The man nodded and went to do as he was told. Will moved into the elevator pressing the button with his elbow to bring him down to the infirmary. "Sara?"
She nodded and sniffled against his neck, "Yeah?"
"How did you end up in the foyer?"
"I don't know. I was so scared and it was so dark and I just thought of how you told me that in Mommy's room the bad dreams couldn't hurt me and then I wasn't in the little room anymore."
"Ok, well no one's going to hurt you now okay? I'm not going to leave you." He set her down on an infirmary bed and held her wrists tightly. She still had tears trailing over her cheeks, but at least she wasn't sobbing or having a hard time breathing through the sobs anymore. He wiped away the salty tracks with his palms and thumbs pressing lips to her forehead in comfort.
She nodded her head and tried to reign in her overwhelming fear, "Where's Mommy?"
"I don't know, baby, I'm still working on that one."
"You have to find her!"
"I know, I know."
"You don't understand. She's hurt…a lot."
"Ok," running fingers over her curls he attempted to calm her again, "Your mom is strong, Sara. I need to look you over, to make sure you're not hurt, ok?"
She nodded again and let him begin to examine her, looking for bruises or cuts. "She's hurt real bad." Will didn't answer her only moved his hands over her arms feeling for any broken bones that weren't supposed to be there. Her cast was still firmly in place.
He finished his exam just as the Big Guy entered. "She's not hurt so far as I can tell. You might want to take some blood just to be sure that nothing is wrong there."
Biggie grunted in an answer and drew a needle from a drawer. Placing it gingerly against the girls arm he drew the blood. "I'll run tests, but Helen will do them again."
"Yeah, I figured. Come on Sara." He picked her up again, not minding cradling her small form into his body. He felt an immense amount of relief having her that close and he wasn't about to let that go if she didn't mind being coddled. Will took her to the weapons lab to regroup.
Everyone was huddled around the tiny table with monitors and computers galore covering every surface. Henry was cursing under his breath, "Sorry, it's going to take me a couple hours to get the scanners back up and running."
"That's fine, just keep working on it." Will seemed so much calmer now that the girl was nestled in his arms; it was quite shocking that he was this comfortable with her, but something he could easily learn to deal with. Magnus was strong and used to being in these types of situations, she could easily pull through. He was still worried about the woman, but he had more confidence in her ability to survive than in his ability to find her. His chin was resting on the crown of the child's head when he heard a beep. "What's that?"
Henry flipped through a few more screens until he found what he was looking for. "Email: marked urgent."
Will and Declan exchanged looks, but it was Jephthah who spoke first, "Well, open it." Henry got confirmation from Will before he double clicked. There was a link inside—this was beginning to look eerily familiar. Opening the link an image appeared before them. They could barely make out the figure hanging in the center of the room, but the night vision and sudden jerking of the body brought the image into focus. It was Magnus.
"Henry—"
"On it."
Will moved his entire body away from the computer and left the room, Sara did not need to see that. Kate followed him. "Will—catacombs." Her voice was confident and she pulled out a gun from its holster.
"You're sure."
"Yeah, Hank and I were snooping around there a while back, we went into that room."
"Get Declan." He watched Kate leave before turning to Sara, "Sweetie, would you be ok to stay with Henry so I can go find your mommy?" She nodded her head against his shoulder but didn't make to move any more than necessary. Will went back into the room. "Henry, you're in charge of Sara and turn that monitor off. She doesn't need to see that." He transferred the girl effortlessly into Henry's waiting lap before leaving once again.
He was on Kate's heel, who was leading the way; Declan and Jephthah were on his with weapons drawn. They weaved in and out of the building until arriving at the door in total silence. Taking a standard formation with two people on each side of the door, Will turned the knob silently and was surprised to find it unlocked and unhindered.
He pushed on the heavy wood and let it swing with its own momentum. His eyes roamed inside the doorway that was being revealed moment by moment and made out her form in the light spilling in from the hallway. The door smacked into the wall as it swung completely open and it was then that she looked up and saw his face while simultaneously he heard the gunshot resound through the stone room and hallway.
A/N: am I learning the art of cliffhangers or something? Muhahaha…sorry this wasn't posted Saturday like I promised…the next and hopefully final chapter of this love story will be coming soon to a screen near you. Enjoy and be sitting on the edge of your seats. ~~Arones