Just as a warning, this is one point where the story will absolutely earn it's M rating. Although nothing is explicitly described, there are major themes of violence and rape. So, for your own consideration, please do not read if this will possibly upset you.
Whilst Gibbs and the team had been checking out Jenny's new home, Abby and Tim had been trying their hardest to crack the encryptions around the message they had received.
It was now almost 10pm and had now been almost 12 hours since the first video had been received.
They knew that when the deadline passed, there would likely be another message.
They could only hope that there was some sort of clue in Jenny's home as to where they had taken her.
"McGee, how long until the deadline?"
"Five minutes Abby, but I'm sure we'll not get a message until they have a chance to double check that Gibbs didn't send the money in the first 12 hours."
The pair shared a look before continuing with their work.
"Hey, Tim, what about the IP address?"
"Abby, that was literally the second thing I checked. It's disguised."
"Disguised, not non-existent. What about if we could trace the software they used to hide their IP? Then we might find a backdoor in through the system and could then trace their location from that."
"That... might actually work Abby, I'll start a program on that now."
Abby smiled as she watched Tim begin to type rapidly and concentrate, occasionally murmuring to himself, before she turned back to her own work.
The pair were so focused on their tasks that they almost missed the beep on the computer.
"Was that?" Abby looked at Tim, worried about what the message could contain.
"I'll check."
Tim clicked into the email system and, sure enough, another email was sitting waiting for their attention, the bold lettering seeming more sinister as Tim clicked on the message.
"It's a live stream. They've added a live stream connection this time."
"Open it Tim, I need to see that she's still OK."
Tim clicked on the link and the pair waited with bated breath as the picture resolved itself into an image of a room.
It was not the same one where Jenny had been held captive before, that being a white walled room, but instead it seemed to look like an older building made with brick walls.
"Abby, start running a track on this. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll have left some signature on this, it's harder to hide the identity of a live stream location than it is a video."
Abby quickly began typing at the next keyboard, her eyes not leaving the video footage that was playing.
The room was empty at this point, with the exception of a light overhead and a couple of loops on the walls. McGee didn't want to speculate about their purpose but he was sure that their uses were far from benign.
"Why are they just sending us blank footage? Have they sent us the wrong link or something?" asked Abby anxiously, the program for tracking the signal now running.
"No, I think they're going to bring her in here, they're just not quite ready."
The pair watched anxiously and Tim was both relieved and scared to see his prediction proved correct as Jenny suddenly stumbled into their view.
"Tim, what have they done to her?" Abby breathed, tears building in her eyes.
Tim remembered that Abby hadn't actually watched the video previously, and tried to comfort her.
"Abby, she looked like this in the first video. I'm pretty sure there's not any major new injuries."
On the screen, Jenny turned to face what they assumed was the doorway into the room and stood resolute and seemingly fearless, which would prove difficult to do so cuffed and gagged in a hostage situation, unless you were Jenny it would seem.
The two young colleagues stood shoulder-to-shoulder as Jenny paid close attention to something off screen.
It was only when she began to turn her head from side to side that two men became visible from opposing sides of the room, and a third stepped forward towards Jenny.
"There's three of them?" asked Abby.
"I don't want to sound pessimistic, but I think there's more. None of them have tattoos like the man in the first video. I think this whole thing is bigger than we thought."
"Not helpful McGee. What are they doing?"
The three men on camera were all moving in closer to Jenny, forcing her to step backwards slowly to try and stay as far from them as possible. But, soon enough, Jenny's back hit the brick wall.
"Come on Jenny, you gotta fight," asserted Abby, but Tim could see the worry clearly on the Forensic scientist's face.
It seemed that Jenny had reached the same conclusions as Abby however as she suddenly launched her body weight forward into one of the men.
She managed to throw him off balance enough so that she could try and dart through the space between him and the man nearest him.
Jenny began to run for the door when the second man lunged at her and, thanks to his extra height on the redhead, he grabbed her around the waist and forced her to the concrete floor.
"Oh god no..." moaned Abby.
"Abs, you don't have to watch this. You could just focus on the search?"
Tim was trying to find a way to distract Abby, particularly as he saw Jenny being turned onto her back and the man holding her moved forward to straddle her hips.
"No, I can't not watch. If I don't watch then I'm just going to think the worst, and I'll know it's still playing and then I'll just have no concentration cause I'll want to watch and then I'll never be any help in finding her at all anyway. So no Timmy, thanks but I need to watch. I need her to be OK."
As the tears finally began to roll down Abby's cheeks, Tim wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
"OK, we'll watch together."
Tim didn't let go and Abby gratefully sunk into his side, her arms wrapping around his waist, hoping to find some level of comfort there as they watched their friend in danger and hoped she would find a way out soon.
The video was unrelenting to their wishes and they could only watch as the other two men moved to hold Jenny down.
The man who was sat on top of her reached forward and ripped her vest top hard, pulling it away from her body until it no longer hindered access to her upper body.
As Jenny's shirt was ripped away from her, Abby heard a quiet groan.
"McGee, is the sound on?"
Pressing a couple of keys, Tim raised the volume on the video and the pair realised that they could now hear everything going on in the room. Not all of which was comforting.
"-used to this slut. It's your own fault you're here so now deal with the consequences."
The snarl that fell from behind the gag sounded almost feral.
"Oooh the kitten does have claws. I think we'll have to tame this wild thing before she goes anywhere, right guys?"
The three men laughed cruelly as Jenny tried to toss her torso under the large man.
"Oh sweetie those moves might work on some little wimp but not on us, we've done this before. So just... lie back and enjoy yourself, as much as you can anyway cause you're gonna have to do it a lot more often very soon. Doesn't look like your Gibbs cares about you at all really, we've not had a single attempt at contact from him. Clearly he's pleased to see the back of you."
Abby could see the slight change in Jenny's expression.
"Oh no, Jenny, don't give up, he's coming. He'd never have stopped looking for you if he knew you were alive."
Abby whispered to the screen, wishing that the woman who became a surrogate mother to her could hear her.
Instead, she watched as the men made short work of Jenny's shorts, leaving her only in matching light blue lingerie.
Turning to Tim, Abby's voice was unsure and soft, something that Tim hadn't been aware she could be.
"They wouldn't... rape her, on camera, would they?"
Tim wished he could soothe Abby's worries, but he knew what was coming.
And it seemed, from the fall in her face, that Abby also knew what the likely outcome of the scenario was.
Jenny kept fighting, and managed to wrestle a wrist free from its captor, using it to rake across the first man's face, carving three gouges out of his cheek with her nails.
"You Bitch!"
A strong hand flew down on Jenny's cheek, the heavy backhand causing her neck to snap to the side and the cry of pain was barely muffled.
"You don't get to fight back, what part of that do you not understand? I think we need to really teach you this lesson, you don't seem to be able to understand words so I hope that actions will speak louder."
Pulling a short knife from his back pocket, the leader of the group grinned when he saw Jenny suddenly still under him.
"Ah, so I see we understand that this can cause pain. Good. But you need to learn we can cause you pain in many ways, and that's something you're going to have to learn. Starting now."
Using the short knife, the man quickly sliced away Jenny's remaining protection, leaving her completely vulnerable.
"You know, for an older woman, you are one fit lady. I mean you're what, early 40's? Your body is ten times better than some women half your age that I've seen. Wonder if all of you is quite as fit and tight."
As the man finally moved off Jenny's hips, he reached for his belt.
"No, don't! McGee, how do we stop it?"
Abby finally broke, tears flowing down her cheeks as she watched the fear on Jenny's face as the man moved between her legs, still brandishing the knife at her.
Tim could only hold her close as they watched the man release his belt and begin to undo his trousers.
As he finally bent forward over Jenny, the screen suddenly went black.
"McGee, what happened? Get it back!"
"They turned the camera off."
"Wait what? Why would they do that?"
"Maybe to scare us all. We know what is going to happen but, if we can't see it, we can't tell if it actually did happen. But it could be a way for them to try and push Gibbs to pay the ransom."
"Gibbs... the tracking program!"
Abby had forgotten for a moment about their trace on the cameras.
Turning to her trusted machines, Abby almost passed out in joy.
"McGee, we found it! The trace worked, we got into the system. I need to tell Gibbs!"
Abby quickly grabbed her mobile and pressed speed dial for Gibbs.
"Abby, don't tell him what we saw, just say we traced the first email. He doesn't need to know."
Tim spoke quickly before Gibbs answered his mobile.
Abby's eyes grew wide before she nodded to Tim, agreeing that telling Gibbs what they had just witnessed would do no-one any good, especially the men holding Jenny, although Abby personally hoped hell would rain down on them when Gibbs got his hands on them.
"Hi, Gibbs. We found her."