She slept for two days straight almost, waking up periodically to Will working on a computer, with files in his hands, or a phone pressed to his ear. The Big Guy had been in a few times and when her body started shaking again he'd pressed more drugs into her system. She distinctly remembered it and shouting that she didn't want it to happen. When her eyes woke up this time she was staring into the curious face of Will, worry echoing back at her. "What's happening?" She was shivering and the pain was running throughout her body.
"You're in withdrawal."
"F-from what?"
"Cocaine and some other things."
She shook her head. "Didn't do it."
"I know; they gave it to you. You've been through the worst of it for now." His hand was running up and down her arm. "Do you remember anything of what happened?"
Emma started to nod and then shook her head. She didn't want to remember. "Where's Helen?"
"We don't know. She went to go find you and never came back. She hasn't reported in. It's been a few days now."
"Go, find her." Emma worked to sit up, her shivering continuing and the aches and pains in her body increasing, but she didn't pay mind to it. She was fully sitting up, leaning heavily on her knees. "I'll stay here." Will sat back in suddenness and she cringed. "I'm fine." She answered to his questioning gaze.
"I'll think about leaving in the morning, but the Big Guy is staying here with you." She nodded in agreement and he helped her to stand. "He said to leave the IV in for another day or so, but that you could go back to your room when you wanted. Just have to take this thing with you." His arm was around her as they began to walk, very slowly, toward the door. When her knees gave out he forced her to sit in a wheelchair with very little resistance from her.
She stayed that night in her room, still hooked to the IV and restlessly sleeping, if it could even be called that. The Big Guy had checked on her every few hours and the hours that he didn't enter Will had come in with periodic updates of the information he had about Magnus. Declan had sent a team to Croatia to do some of the ground work, but they had made little headway into her whereabouts. It was as if she had disappeared with no trace. He had made arrangements to leave in the afternoon to join Declan's team.
Magnus screamed when the hot iron rod seared across the skin of her abdomen. She hadn't been expecting such pain, but the suddenness from it forced the sound from her lips. She'd been doing well thus far, the excruciating pain hadn't been enough that she'd screamed but with the drugs in her system there was no telling what would happen. The tiny burn that they made, she could see it when looking down, was so small against her stomach. After breathing through the rest of the nerve shattering sparks that had floated through her body, she rested her head back and felt the small tear from the hurt slide down her cheek unbidden. It was barely anything; though the wound was already bubbling into a blister it couldn't have been larger than a quarter just above her belly button.
"Wh-what did you give me?" Her head felt like it was spinning when she rested it against the reclining chair that she was strapped to. The holds on her wrists and ankles were burning and hurting her skin so much that she was having a hard time focusing on anything else. The man standing above her had a mask over his face and she could only see his dark chocolate eyes. He didn't answer her. It wasn't the first time she had asked a question and had gotten no answer. "When will you be done?" He ignored her and she started screaming again when the hot iron rod was once again placed against her overly sensitive skin. She was mostly naked with scant and dirty cloth covering certain parts of her body. The metal wasn't leaving her skin this time like it had before, in fact, there was a second rod added to the mix just below her collar bone, following the line of it.
It was ripped off her body just when the blackness was beginning to take over her eyes sight and the rest of her body had heated. She had been about to pass out, but the pull of the skin that was seared onto the now cooling metal ripping from her body had pulled her right back into reality. There was a needle pressed to her arm and blood drawn while her head tilted back and forth and she tried to regain her composure. Even under this kind of torture she wanted to be one up on her game. She was drawing in deep and short breaths when the bucket of ice cold water was thrown over her face. Gasping for air she felt the fist backhand her.
There was something else that was pushed into her system. She could feel it as it started to take hold of her body. The tingling sensation as it worked through her veins from her arm down to her fingers and up to her shoulder. She tried to move and fight off the sensation as it continued to barrel onward throughout her body but there was nowhere that she could turn to. She was strapped to the chair and it was inside her.
Her body was shaking so violently that she couldn't stop it. Her voice was whimpering and her eyes tightened shut against the hold the drugs had on her. Whatever she had been given was slowing everything down. When the hot rod was pressed against her skin once again she could barely move, she couldn't avoid it, and she couldn't make it stop. She just laid there and let it happen, her mind screaming at herself to make it stop: not only the pain, but her non-reaction to what was happening. She wanted to kick ass, she wanted to get free and kill the guy that kept pushing different chemicals into her blood stream and then taking samples from her body.
The man who had been with her almost since she had been brought there took the samples and left the room. When he returned his hands were empty and his eyes on her again. "We're done with you." She started shivering again. It was the first time she had heard him speak and his accent was decidedly Slavic in origin. The way he was looking at her had her worried. Her body wanted to retch, but there was no way she could move the medications still taking over her system. His fingers moved over her body, over every curve that she had.
When the door slammed open and the gunfire went off the first bullet whizzed past her stationary form before she heard the second one hit its mark and the man fall onto her body before sliding to the ground and dying. Will was at her side in two seconds flat taking his jacket off and throwing it over her scantily clad form. He took her face between his hands and forced her slow body and brain to focus on him.
She wet her lips trying to moisten them to speak. She couldn't remember the last time that she'd had water. "E—Emma?"
"She's fine. She's home." She nodded and closed her eyes again as he began to untie her wrists. The rest of his team was moving around the room looking awkwardly from him to the woman on the chair. "Gather up what you can, we're going to need to know what they were doing to her." The others went about their work and he carefully took her out of the room.
The Big Guy was going about his cleaning duties. Will had called and informed him that he'd found Magnus in a small Chilean town near the tip of South America. Emma had taken to her duties like she had never before. He'd refrained from commenting and asking questions: it wasn't his nature. He would let her deal with what had happened in her own time and way, but he was very careful to watch her. Two days and Will was set to return; he'd been gone only a week to find their boss, but he wanted to make sure that she was well enough to travel before they did so.
He finished with Magnus' office and moved to Will's. That was when he heard the piercing scream. Dropping his feather duster he moved rapidly to the room down the hall. It had come from Emma's office; where she'd holed herself up in for the past week. He opened the door to find her smooshed into the corner between her desk and the wall, shivering and shaking and rocking back and forth, arms over her knees and her eyes buried in her legs. She kept whispering, "Who is like God? Who is like God? Who is like God?" When he reached down to press a large and hairy hand to her shoulder she jumped back jamming her elbow into the stone wall and her eyes wide with fear until they focused on his face. It took minutes for her to calm further, for her breathing to slow and the color to enter back into her cheeks.
"Emma?" His deep voice rumbled and she felt it in her own chest. She bent her head again and let the tears fall. "What happened?"
She shook her head violently and ignored him while she began to shake again, the images coming unbidden in her mind. She hadn't done anything to warrant the memory to take hold of her. She hadn't done anything. Again she started to repeat herself. "Who is like God? Who is like God? Who is like God?" The Big Guy gave up and sat on his bum in front of her, dragging her body into his and wrapping his arms tightly around her. She barely resisted the move, but she remained tightly curled into herself. It was maybe an hour before she began to slowly relax and turned her face into the hairy man still holding her. He was sure she was completely calm and mostly back to the way she had been before but he remained where he was. "Helen?"
"Will found her. They'll be back in a few days."
"How bad?"
"He said she was experimented on, but nothing else." Emma nodded into his beard and felt the braids against her soft skin. "Remember anything else about your time there?" He felt her tense again and was sure that she did.
"No." Her voice was short and quipped upon answer. "Where was Helen found?"
"Chile."
Emma took a deep breath and bolstered herself before sliding away from him. She wiped her eyes with her fingers and then her hands on her jeans. She moved to stand and he let her. "Well, I better get back to work." He let her move away before standing himself and starting towards the door. "Biggie?" She was biting her lip when he turned back around. Her eyes were shaded but wide and her cheeks pink from embarrassment. "Thank you."
"Anytime. Only between you and me promise." He nodded when she accepted what he had said left the room. Emma took a deep breath and stared at her now sleeping monitor.