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The Test

It would be hours later after several cat naps for Callen, Jason and Johnston arriving at headquarters around 6 in the morning, Harrison Kane having not contacted them back yet, and still no new leads before Annie's e-mail account received another message with a video of an unconscious Annie by 9 AM. Again, they all crammed into the ops center to watch whatever was going to happen next to Annie. They watched as Annie abruptly woke up as Stryker entered the room by banging the metal door against the also metal wall.

"Good morning, my darling! Are you prepared for your test today?" He asked with glee evident in his voice. Callen glared holes into the screen as he watched Stryker do his normal pacing around Annie, lustfully taking in her exposed body. If that didn't piss Callen off, they could all see the bruises forming on her rib cage and her cheek bone where Stryker had struck her the previous night.

"It's not like I have a choice in the matter." Annie retorted while rolling her eyes.

"That is true my dear, so let the test commence!" Stryker exclaimed and made a hand sign to Annie's guard, Lucas Walker. The blonde mercenary nodded and left only to return with six extra men, including one that everyone in the ops center recognized as Jose Hernandez. All six men were heavily armed like Walker, and Callen, like everyone else in the ops center, had this sinking feeling as to what was going to befall their favorite fashion consultant.

"This test is to see if you are the same Annie I last saw 8 years ago, the same woman who is worthy of marrying me-" Stryker stated but then Annie cut him off before he could finish his sentence.

"Look, Stryker, I have been chained up like this for over 12 hours and really am sick and tired of hearing your voice. So just tell me the rules to this stupid test so I can lose, show you that I shouldn't be your… wife… and then we can be on our merry way." Annie shivered in disgust as she said this.

"Sorry my sweet Annie, but if you lose then you will be killed by these men. For the rules to this test is to survive and beat four of my mercenaries, for they are fighting to kill and I suggest you do the same for it would be a shame for a woman of such high caliber like yourself to die so easily." Stryker replied and every agent in the NCIS: OSP ops center and Annie's eyes widened in shock at just how deadly her situation was at the moment.

Callen felt everything stand still in that moment as it sunk in that Annie could die right there in front of him and he could do nothing to stop it. He felt nauseas right now and could feel his legs begin to shake at not being able to hold up his weight. Callen uncrossed his arms so that he could place a hand on the computerized table to steady himself. He then realized that everyone else was in their own state of shock as well. Annie's parents hugged each other, Eric and Nell held hands, Carson was stock still with an impassive stare just like Hetty, Johnston was muttering something under his breath to probably keep calm and not freak out as Jason began to pace. When it came to his own team, Sam had balled fists as Deeks steadied himself against the computerized table like Callen and Kensi looked paralyzed with fear. They all could at least be able to get over their state of shock at their own pace; Annie had no choice but to snap out of it quickly.

"Come on, it has been 8 years and even then who says I could have taken on four skilled mercenaries back then?" Annie responded and Stryker laughed at this.

"If I remember correctly it was 8 years ago, six months before your wedding to that bastard Ryans, when you single-handedly took down a Mexican cartel in their own home base." Stryker countered and this surprise seemed to help snap everyone watching this back into coherent thought at least.

"You have got to be kidding me, not even Annie could do that!" Deeks exclaimed.

"She did Mr. Deeks that is how she got the Colt Bisley owned by Pancho Vila in the first place. She took it as a souvenir and proof that the Mexican cartel was out of business." Hetty replied.

"I had help from a few of the locals, it was not entirely me. Sorry to disappoint." Annie retorted.

"Bah! The police chief, Miguel Santiago, his son, and two other lower-level-sad-excuse-of-a-cops cannot be considered help." Stryker dismissed and Annie rolled her eyes at this.

"And you wonder why people never wanted to work with you." She scorned.

"Wait, Annie gave the police chief to hold onto the Colt Bisley. If that were the case, then how could the gun be considered proof of her role in the take down?" Sam asked as Callen and his team recalled the day that Annie giddily went to retrieve said gun.

"National pride," Mrs. Smith answered and they turned to the woman who was encased in her husband's arms.

"How so?" This time Callen asked maintaining peripheral vision on Annie and the video feed.

"Annie's involvement with the takedown of the Mexican cartel was supposed to be kept secret. It was supposed to look like the police chief and his team was the ones who did so, not with the aid of a U.S. agent. The Colt Bisley was symbolic of that specific Mexican cartel and if the police chief had it in his possession it would mean that he was powerful enough to stop this organization. So when Annie completed her mission, she gave the Colt Bisley to the police chief to maintain this illusion." Mrs. Smith explained.

"Then why did she go back and collect it after the police chief retired. Why not leave it there and not create any suspicion?" Kensi asked.

"Because it was shiny, antique, and Annie couldn't resist having it in her gun collection." Director Smith answered and got a round of chuckles that relieved some of the tension that had filled the room. But it still came as a shock to Annie's new colleagues that she had a gun collection, then again it wasn't so much of a shock to them that they didn't know.

"Either way Annie, to pass you need to defeat four mercenaries or die as consequence. But do not try to fight your way to freedom or else the other three mercenaries will shot you as well." Stryker laid out what Annie could and could not do, bringing everyone's attention back fully to the screen.

"Do I get any of my weapons that you confiscated or am I put in a major disadvantage from the start?" Annie questioned.

"I will let you have one knife and one gun that you tried to hide on your person for this fight. But I must first say that you really do know how to hide them. If I wasn't planning on stripping you down and changing all your clothes from the start I wouldn't have found some of the little gadgets you hid. Take for example this dagger you hid in your thong." Stryker commented and revealed a dagger that was rounded and would probably fit in Callen's palm.

"How the hell did she do that and not hurt herself?" Deeks stated the question that went through every guy's head which earned light laughter from Carson, Mrs. Smith, and Hetty.

"There is a small sheath on the inside of the thong and the knife is so thin that it would be hard to detect even with a pat down. The knife is also preferably ceramic so as not to set off any metal detectors. A really nifty technique if you ask me." Carson replied. While Kensi and Nell looked intrigued by this information, all the men minus Johnston and Director Smith audibly gulped at this.

"Just because I was planning on going to my death, doesn't mean that I wasn't going to go down without a few of your men and preferably you as well so that you could never lay a finger on any of the people I love." Annie said nonchalantly and Callen slightly relaxed at this. What she said told Callen that she had at least some fighting spirit left in her; that she wasn't going to give up straight away.

"Well, now you have your wish. Make sure to make it entertaining and believable to me and to your friends and family who are watching this." Stryker responded in the same indifferent tone although the malicious joy in his eyes said something entirely different.

The man then motioned to his mercenaries. Four of them, one being Jose Hernandez, moved at this and surrounded Annie while slinging the machine guns around their backs. Stryker then walked forward and stopped a few feet short of Annie pulling out a gun in the process. He set it down on the ground with the small knife he had produced earlier ago before backing up to his original position near the door. He then took out the remote device from the previous night, except this time he pressed the button below the one that controlled the camera. It seems as if this button released Annie from her constraints as she toppled to the ground. She quickly got up and grabbed the two weapons lying on the ground in front of her and then did a small circle to appraise her foes.

"Begin!" Stryker ordered and that was when the mercenaries moved. Two ran straight for Annie as Jose and the other unidentified man hung back and took out their hand guns, aiming for the huddled mass that Annie was a part of. Meanwhile Annie had to immediately deal with her two attackers.

It was astounding to watch Annie fight for the first time for Callen. A tall olive-skinned man who looked distinctly Italian reached Annie first and his onslaught began with a punch to Annie's face. She nimbly dodged it before going in closer to punch to man in the rig cage a few times and finished it with a knee to the groin, spinning out to pistol whip the man in the face. As she whirled away from the first attacker, Annie met her second opponent.

By this time the other mercenaries could get a good shot at her, so when the second attacker got close enough Annie grabbed the man and twisted him around with the momentum she had gathered so he was facing the other two men. Annie then quickly pressed her back to the disoriented man and pushed him towards the two mercenaries who had begun to fire at her, not caring if they hit their comrade. She shot at one mercenary as she continued to push the still vertical dead mercenary's body towards the fourth mercenary, or Jose Hernandez, so that it would collapse on the boy; effectively stopping him from firing more. It seemed that the mercenary that Annie shot at was wearing a bullet vest under his jacket for he did not crumple to the ground as Callen expected from her shots that landed dead on his chest. Because of this Annie was forced to get close again and slash at the man's lower abdomen with her small knife that everyone forgot about due to her hiding it so well in the clutch of her hand during the fist fights, although it did cut her hand in the process by the way blood dribbled down her hand before she attacked anyone with it.

During this gruesome fight with the third mercenary in which Annie incapacitated the man with an effective hit on the temple from the butt of her Glock 30 SF, Jose Hernandez was able to get out from underneath the hulking dead body Annie tossed on him and sneak up behind the NCIS fashion consultant. When Annie stood straight up after crouching down to knock out the third mercenary, Jose Hernandez pulled out his own hand gun, a Sig P220R compact, and placed it against the back of her head. Jose Hernandez then turned his head slightly to look at Stryker to make sure that it was ok to execute Annie.

But Annie did not see this for she was facing the wall, her back to the camera and the audience. Stryker looked disappointed that after all the fighting that Annie did that she would be killed in the end because Jose Hernandez simply snuck up behind her. Either way Stryker held out his fist, thumb sticking out midair and parallel to the ground. He was about to move it up so that the thumb would be facing the ceiling when Annie spoke up.

"You're relatively new to this aren't you?" She asked and everyone remained dead silent, not sure where she was going with this or seeing that she was smirking.

"What makes you think that?" Jose Hernandez indulged her but Annie did not give a verbal response to the young man.

Instead, she spun again but this time she spun outward to the right and towards Jose so that his gun was forced to chase her but was ineffective when she jammed her elbow down on the joint of his elbow forcing his arm to shot upwards, releasing his gun. Using her other arm, Annie went for another pistol whip across Jose Hernandez's face as she caught his gun and then kicked him behind his knee so he collapsed to the ground. Annie then took several steps back as to create distance and aimed both guns at Jose Hernandez. At this, Stryker gave a thumbs-up for Annie to continue and finish what she started. But when Annie saw this she dismantled the guns and threw them to the ground to indicate that she wouldn't kill the kid.

"But Annie, you remember the rules don't you?" Stryker asked her and Annie scoffed at him.

"You said that I just needed to fight to survive, not to kill." She retorted.

"True, but the Annie from 8 years ago would have easily killed the boy and without hesitation." Stryker continued to press and Callen couldn't believe that Annie could be such a cold-blooded killer. But then again, what did he really know about Annie from 8 years ago? Even then when he thought that, he couldn't help but doubt himself because even though he didn't know the specifics about Annie and her past, he did know her as his friend and that person would never have killed someone in cold blood.

"That may have been so but as I had said earlier ago, that was 8 years ago. I am not the same woman." Annie stated as she shifted her weight to one leg. It was then that Callen and everyone in the ops center realized that Annie wasn't as uninjured from the fight as they first thought.

Her hand was bleeding profusely as well as from the leg she was taking her weight off of. It appeared that one of the third and unconscious mercenary's bullets hit her in the thigh missing the important arteries which would explain the arc of blood splatter on the floor from where Annie spun around Jose. She used her injured leg to balance herself as she span. Also, another bruise was forming on the bottom of her chin on the same side as her old bruise from Stryker and the cut in her cheek reopened because she spat out blood after answering Stryker both times. Annie was starting to look like hell warmed over.

"Fine, if you won't finish him then I will." With that Stryker took the machine gun from Walker and fired at Jose and the two unconscious mercenaries, careful to avoid hitting Annie thankfully. When the magazine ran out and he was sure that all four mercenaries were dead, Stryker returned his attention back to the injured, captured fashion consultant.

"Congratulations, my dear, on passing! Now, if you would please walk back to where the constraints are and place your hands in the shackles." Stryker told her and Annie stood her ground. Callen was both proud and scared that Annie was still trying to fight her situation. Stryker sighed and motioned once more to the two unidentified mercenaries and then they beat her until she collapsed on the ground which wasn't long after they had started. But instead of letting up they continued to kick her. Callen and surely everyone else in the ops center was now seeing red at what was happening to Annie and like everyone else, he was frustrated that he couldn't do anything.

"That's enough, now tie her back up." Stryker commanded and the mercenaries did as they were told once more.

"You're as stubborn as your late husband was and I am referring to FBI Special Agent Kevin O'Riley, not that scumbag Ryans. Although, I did take great satisfaction in having him tortured even though I wasn't the one who actually performed the deed, just knowing what happened to Elijah Ryans and how much pain he was in makes me smile." Stryker said maniacally but everyone only paid attention to the first part of his statement about Annie being married to her deceased partner, Kevin O'Riley.

"What do you mean that you were referring to O'Riley? Stryker, what the hell did you do to him?" Annie spat out, she probably intended for it to be a growl but she was in too much pain to put in the effort.

"Oh, I did nothing my dear, more like it was you who did something or the lack of something." Stryker replied cryptically and once more began to pace in front of the bound Annie as her eyes became slits and her nostrils flared up in anger.

"Cut the crap Stryker! What did you do to O'Riley?" She bellowed at the end, or as much as she could with a few broken ribs.

"You know, now that I think about it some more. I did the man a favor, killing him before he found out that your marriage was a fraud and that you really weren't pregnant with his child." Stryker mused aloud and Annie let out this strangled cry and jerked in her chains.

Callen and his team was already stunned to learn that Annie was married twice, but to learn that her second marriage was a failure and that she was so close to having been a mother blew their minds. However, Callen did notice that at the mention about her false pregnancy Johnston, her parents, and Carson's attention sharpened. It seemed like that they didn't know either about that tad of information.

"Is it true? Was she really married to her partner and thought she was pregnant?" Kensi asked aloud to anyone who could possibly answer her question. She pointedly looked at Hetty who, to the NCIS agents at least, knew pretty much anything.

"I guessed as much." Hetty responded but it was Jason who spoke up and officially answered Kensi's question.

"Mom drunkenly eloped with her FBI partner, Special Agent Kevin O'Riley, and after a year of blissful marriage Mom thought she was pregnant because she was late and the drug store test said positive." He began to explain when Stryker decided to continue to speak.

"I was ready to take you as my bride 3 ½ years ago, only to my surprise to find out that you had remarried and adopted a brat! So I decided to kidnap you while you were working, and it was the perfect plan to. But the surprises kept coming. That day I had planned to fake our deaths by blowing up the building only for you to not show up. No, you were at the doctor's office getting blood work done to see if you really were pregnant! Imagine me waiting patiently for you to arrive only for your husband to show up and ruin everything! Obviously, I was able to knock out him and the rest of his team that I didn't kill so that I could blow it up after I evacuated the building. It truly amazes me how you can do the exact opposite I thought you would do. After your divorce you got remarried two years afterwards, then after finding out that not only it was a false positive on the pregnancy front, but your marriage to Kevin O'Riley was a fraud you run! You run for three years, never staying in one spot long enough for me to catch up to you and seduce you into joining me! My dear sweet Annie, you really know how to make a man work for it." Stryker ended and Callen felt for the chained up woman on the screen. She looked like she was going to throw up, cry, and punch Stryker in the face as well as if she got suckered punched at the same time.

"What does he mean that her marriage to Agent O'Riley was not real?" Sam asked this time.

"When I mentioned that Mom drunkenly eloped with O'Riley, I literally mean they went to Las Vegas for a case and got drunk after closing it; so drunk that they went to a wedding chapel and got married right there and then. They were planning a ceremony for friends and family when O'Riley died. It would be a month after O'Riley's death when Mom would find out that the wedding chapel that they went to was shut down for false documentation and that their marriage wasn't officiated legitimately. Basically she found out that they were married by someone who wasn't allowed to do that and thus, technically, Mom and O'Riley were never married. This incidentally happened right after she got the news that she wasn't pregnant." Jason explained for them all and Callen's empathy for Annie grew a thousand degrees.

To think that everything was coming together in her life, only to have it ripped to shreds by Stryker must have been devastating for Annie. Also, she had already experienced a failed marriage to Elijah Ryans. She married two men and both relationships came to nothing. If Callen knew Annie emotionally like he think he did, he knew that the fashion consultant would have given her everything in both relationships. For her last marriage to come to this and find out that she couldn't reconcile it due to Stryker must be earth shattering for her. No wonder Annie shied away from any romantic advances of any sort, she was too afraid to get hurt again and it will probably increase after Callen and company save her from Stryker.

"Aw, don't cry my dear. You can now be in a successful relationship with a real man." Stryker closed the distance between himself and Annie as he said this, finishing it up by caressing the uninjured side of her face. Annie jerked away, raised her legs and kicked Stryker away from her with a mixture of a strangled cry and grunt probably from the physical pain she experienced.

"YOU ARE NOT A REAL MAN! KEVIN SEAMUS O'RILEY WAS A REAL MAN! I WILL NEVER ENTER A MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU, YOU SICK, TWISTED, PATHETIC EXCUSE OF A MAN!" She screamed angrily and Callen could see the tears rolling down her cheeks and the uncontrollable shaking he recognized as her trying not to sob.

Stryker fell from the push and slowly got back up, rubbing his chest where Annie's kick landed. He then rubbed his hands on his pants to get rid of the dirt before he sighed and shook his head as if Annie was speaking nonsense. He then held his hand out to Walker who in turn placed an electrical Taser in it.

"Annie, you really need to change the way you think." Was all the sadistic man said before getting close enough to the bound woman to touch her with the Taser. Annie's screams echoed in the ops center and everyone felt their faces drain as Stryker continued with this form of torture on Annie muttering things like "Marry me" "You love me" and other variations in between each shock waiting only a brief pause to see Annie's responses to his words and then shocked her once more when she would continue to glare or yell "no" every time.