A/N: Hi guys... Here I am with the next chapter. As I promised, it is chock full of action... and literally bleeding due to all the whump-age. I've never written whumpage before and I just found that I hate putting my characters in pain. :'(

Anyways... I hope I've done a good enough job to keep you all interested. I guess this wll be the penultimate chapter of this story... I will be wrapping it up in the next one... So plz review and tell me what you thought.

Chapter 7

Closing his eyes, Eliot Spencer centered himself and honing his senses, concentrated on finding out exactly where Parker was. He was praying to every god he could think of that Parker had understood the significance of his last comment. He knew that if there was anyone that knew him well enough to pick up his cues, it was her.

His vision now not distracting him, Eliot's sense of hearing sharpened and slowly the he could hear every single sound, every bit of noise that was present all around him. Starting from the soft sound of his own breathing, the soft-heavy thudding of his heart, the humming of the elevators, the various sounds of electronics being used, the sounds of his team mates' breathing... everything that could be heard by a human ear.

At first, it was all one big blur... a cacophony of noises, but slowly and surely, Eliot could identify and separate each and every little sound from the other. Finally, almost a minute into the process, he became aware of very, very faint thudding... coming from somewhere above him. It sounded as if someone was very slightly tapping their boot into the floor... an un-carpeted floor by the sound of it. He knew it was Parker trying to help him out.

He also knew that it shortened his time frame to get to her because, knowing Mikhail Ivanevich, there was no way he would let Parker get away with helping his enemy get to where he was. Taking a deep breath, Eliot started to run. He barely remembered his way back to the stairwell but turning a corner, he was forced to come to a complete stop. There, blinking unashamedly red at him was the electronic key card lock on a two inch thick access door, with two more such doors behind it.

He remembered passing three electronic doors on his way in... He knew that Hardison had made them open for both him and Parker when he'd hacked into the system. But now that Hardison could no longer help him get through them, Eliot had to figure a way out himself... and soon.

"Oh look at that... Isn't that cute?... The little canary is trying to help Spencer. Very nice Spencer... I like her. She has a lot of spirit... and I am going to enjoy breaking her."

There was a pause as the Russian mobster ran his hand along Parker's golden hair

"Into tiny little pieces..."

The short sentence was followed by a small squeal of pain from Parker as he fisted his hand in her hair and pulled sharply.

"Misha, I know you're listening to me. Stop it Misha. Your problem is with me and I am coming to you. So just stop goin' after my team."

The sound of Ivanevich chuckling filtered into Eliot's and the rest of their ears, sending a chill down their spines. Here was a man who was capable of anything and everything to get what he wanted... And what he wanted, was Eliot Spencer. And not just that... He wanted Eliot Spencer, dead... A slow, utterly painful death.

"Eli-"

The word was snatched from Parker's mouth as she felt a slap strong enough to snap her head around sting across her face, a ring on his hand opening up a gash on her cheek making her bleed.

"Who said you could talk?... No one opens their mouth while Misha is talking. You open your mouth again and I will be forced to break one thin little finger for every word. Do you understand?"

At Parker's silent nod, the mobster turned his attention back to the comm in his ear, slightly bigger than what the Leverage team used. To his amusement, he could hear the sounds of an utterly frustrated Spencer trying to break down the electronic doors.

One floor below, Eliot was putting all his strength into kicking the damn door down. The frames were like two inches thick and he wasn't making much headway. The glass was also shatterproof but it now seemed like a better option that kicking down three doors like this one. So, pulling off his shirt, Eliot wrapped it around his fist like a boxing glove, protecting his hand and punched the glass with all his remaining strength.

There was a slight reverberating sound as the glass took the strength of his punch but still remained intact. Eliot was growing very frustrated and very angry.

"Yeeaah..."

With a short shout, he pulled his right leg back, folded it and unleashed a straight kick at the pane, cracking the glass with the sharp burst of energy that he unleashed on it. After that, punching the broken glass out and jumping through the hole to the corridor was child's play. He was aware that above him, Mikhail Ivanevich also knew that he'd just managed to kick one door down.

'Okay Spencer... one down. Two more to go.'

He'd already heard the sound of Parker being slapped around and had barely restrained himself from wasting energy shouting at Ivanevich or punching anything else. He couldn't afford to waste energy blowing off steam. He had to conserve every bit of his anger, energy and concentration for when he had to face Mikhail Ivanevich.

Eliot knew that the Russian was a sneaky bastard and wasn't above using whatever underhanded trick to get the upperhand in any contest. Eliot would've to not only get rid of him and his hooligans, he would also have to make sure that Parker or anyone else in his team wasn't hurt and he would've to do it fast.

He was running out of time and every precious second he wasted, Eliot lost one more tiny little bit of his team to the bad guys. The only way he could get through this was to become what he had tried so hard not to be for such a long time.

There had been a time when he'd been codenamed 'The Beast' by his mates in the army. He'd had a major temper control problem and he'd just gotten around it by learning to channelize it into his violence in short bursts, rather than try to get to the root of the problem and get rid of the anger.

When he was in his 'Beast' mode, Eliot Spencer felt nothing. Neither blows nor bullets... All he saw was one thing... The goal. To eliminate anything and anyone that stood in his path. He'd become a killing machine that felt nothing other than rage and hatred towards whatever he knew he had to destroy.

It had taken him years to control his rage and the side effects of this were very heavy... both physical as well as mental. The injuries that he obtained while in his rage wouldn't matter until the second he finished the job. But after that, once the rush of adrenaline was gone, it literally left him too weak to even move. And that had resulted in many tight situations for him earlier, where he'd escaped by the skin of his teeth.

And worse than the physical results of his rage were the ones that stayed with him. The psychological impact of his rage and the lives that he had taken had weighed heavily on Eliot Spencer for the rest of his days. They still stayed with him in the form of vivid nightmares that haunted his dreamscapes night after night. It was one of the main reasons Eliot had trained himself to need no more than 90 minutes of sleep a day. If you didn't sleep, you couldn't dream.

But on the rare occasions that he did sleep more than that, he would invariably see a clear video of one of the incidents that had taken place when he was in the army and had been needed to kill a whole roomful of people that he had been informed were terrorists and armed to the teeth. He and his team had prepared carefully for this operation and had everything had gone as planned. The only thing that was wrong was the information that they'd been given.

Somehow, the terrorist camp had known that they were coming and were able to mount a counter attack and Eliot had lost more than half the men in his team that night before he had voluntarily made himself lose the tight control he held the beast inside him in, and letting loose, had killed 23 terrorists singlehandedly, razing most of their camp to the ground before the back up team had arrived.

He'd been given bravery awards for his services during that operation but they meant nothing to him... just rusty pieces of metal that lay in the back of a drawer in his dresser, under a false bottom along with other unbearable souvenirs of a previous life... A life that no longer was. A life he would have to bring back again... for the sake of his team... for the sake of the woman he knew he loved more than anyone or anything else.

Eliot could hear Nate saying something very softly into the comms. He didn't know whether Nate was talking to him or Parker or even Ivanevich. All Eliot could see now was the red that was building up in his vision.

For the third time in his life since meeting Li-san, Eliot disregarded the old man's teachings and let his rage build. He fed the anger deliberately, getting his emotions to a level where he knew there only existed a tenuous thread of control. For the first time in a long time, Eliot relished the raw power of his anger instead of fearing its repercussions. Letting the beast inside him loose, Eliot put his booted foot through the second pane of glass and it went through as if this pane was made of spun sugar rather than heavy duty shatter proof glass.

He made quick work of the door and was just through it when he heard Mikhail talk again. While Nate's voice hadn't gotten through the anger before, this one got through loud and clear... and it only served to build his already raging out of control anger.

"Eliot... I know you can hear me... And I know you know where I am. You also know that I am a very impatient man and I do like to be kept waiting. So you have 30 seconds. Get your ass in here or your little koschka here feels a lot of pain... Trust me Eliot... I have my ways. 30 seconds okay?"

Eliot had barely snapped out of it when he heard another sound that made his blood run cold. The sound of a boot kicking someone and Parker's voice screaming as Eliot knew her ribs were broken... probably courtesy of a steel toed boot.

"Tsk... Tsk... I am so sorry. I told my... assistant to wait for 30 seconds but I guess he... what do you say... misunderstood. What can I do?... I might as well enjoy this before you get here Eliot. After all, I need some warming up before I take care of you..."

Through all this, Eliot was busy kicking down another door that was in his way and jumping up the stairs how many ever he could manage at a time. Dimly, he could hear the harsh breathing of Nate and Hardison in the background. They sounded as if they were running and Sophie was sobbing uncontrollably... but he couldn't worry about that... it almost didn't process in the face of his focus on Mikhail. Till now, he'd been focused on saving Parker. Now he was focused on destroying Mikhail and his gang.

He was up the stairs in the blink of an eye and running to the corridor where the offices were supposed to be. He'd heard more screams from Parker, this time they were even louder and more heart wrenching. But he didn't even stop to think as to what the cause for those screams was. He knew that he wouldn't want to be dwelling on Parker and her injuries now. He had to get to Mikhail and his goons and kill each and every one of them for even daring to touch his family.

He'd just turned a corner when he found himself running headlong into three of Mikhail's trained guard dogs... his fighters. The normal Eliot Spencer would've stopped, thought about what was the best way to take them down and would've done it... cleanly and correctly. This Eliot Spencer wasn't wasting any of his brain capacity on this... he was fighting purely on instinct now.

The beast from within had been unleashed in all its bloody glory and was reveling in the freedom to cause mayhem. It was quick and it was dirty. By the time the three fighters could stop to take a fighting stance, one of them was on the ground with a shattered kneecap, the other getting kneed in the stomach while he got an elbow right on his spine, rendering him immobile.

The third had slightly more time to deal with the sheer rage that was Eliot Spencer and so he was more successful... marginally at least. He had the time and opportunity to get in one punch underneath Eliot's guard before he too met the ground in a dead faint from a Spencer head butt, his arm laying beside him, useless... twisted in a bizarre angle.

Eliot was marginally aware of more pained whimpers issuing from Parker's comm while he was dealing with the welcoming committee. It seemed as if she had no more energy in her to even scream. The beast temporarily took the backseat as Eliot's eyes cleared of the manic rage for a second.

"Hold on baby... I'm there."

Jumping over the now useless guards, Eliot once more ran towards the offices that he knew Parker was inside. Outside the doors, he was met by two more guys he made quick work of and tearing open the door, Eliot was met with a sight that would haunt him for the rest of his life. A sight that made all his nightmares seem like a little boy's fear of monsters under his bed. Because this... This was what he truly feared. This was what killed him... on the inside. This... was what made him realize his life was now worthless.

Because he saw Mikhail Ivanevich and his hitter Ivan standing over the broken and bloodied figure of his thief. Parker lay crumpled on the floor, blood pooling around her thin body, her skin pale and lifeless, littered liberally with bruises. Slashes from a knife on her arms, her shoulder and her back. They were all shallow, meant to hurt and draw blood rather than kill.

But he could literally see the life ebb away from her... She was going away from him. Slipping away in front of his eyes and there was nothing he could do.

"Oh... I thought she was tougher than that... I actually hadn't meant to kill her so soon. I wanted you to be here to see her die. But I guess I will have to settle for this. Say goodbye to your little slut here Spencer and we can get to work on sending you down to hell... where you can be with her... forever."

Eliot stood frozen at the threshold of the room as he heard a chorus of 'NO's from Nate and Hardison and a heart wrenching scream of loss from Sophie. The Russian and his henchman laughed cruelly at that. If they were hoping to see one ounce of emotion from Eliot, they must've been disappointed.

Though the hitter knew he was broken inside, this time permanently, he couldn't let his focus get blurred. He still had to protect the rest of his team, his family. He could mourn the loss of his soul later... He could let his spirit die along with his little thief... but after he had finished the job.

A/N : You don't know me well enough by now if you think I am gonna let Parker die... Seriously... I had enough trouble putting her through a beating, I have no plans to let her die for... oh I don't know... let's say another 60 years at least. I mean come on... Can't you just see old but still crazy as a bat Parker teaching her grand kid the secret to picking locks?... Awww... So cute. :)

So plz review your thoughts on this chapter and all others... Keep reading and reviewing... Your support means everything :)

lotsa luv

Macybear