Author's Note: Phew! I wrote this today in celebration after securing an 94 on one of my exams. Huzzah!

To those going back to the school grind tomorrow: May the curve be ever in your favor! *holds up three fingers*

Long chapter, I know, but I finally cross several story lines with it. Get ready for some serious explosiveness next chapter, and some equal explosiveness in this one. Brace yourselves.

Meera:

The long time that passes seems to never end. I lay prickling, scared, and blind on the floor with my injuries chorusing. I alternate between listening to them and wishing for Barney to come. With my ankles and wrists tied together on a short leash (hogtied, I believe Barney calls it), I cannot explore the room.

What is my love doing now? I try to imagine him surrounded by snow, which I have only ever seen pictures of. Does he know I'm in danger?

I flinch mightily as the measured sound of boots walking down the hall reaches my ears. The horrors of Nepal surface strongly. With a clench of cold fear in my heart, I squeeze my sightless eyes shut and beg Whoever is listening to please, let those boots keep walking, please, don't let him come in here...

The doorknob rattles with a lock, and I feel the draft as it swings open soundlessly. "You're awake then," comes a male voice. The tone is calm, but it belies a ruthlessness that is almost palpable. "Good." He steps closer, slowly walking around me, and I feel his shadow pass over me. My senses are on tenterhooks, reaching for any clues as to his intent. When he is exactly behind me, he kneels slowly, as though testing my nerve. I try to muster some semblance of bravery, but it sputters like a wet match. I don't dare move, but every fiber of me tenses when I hear the sound of a switchblade.

Almost experimentally, he draws the razor-sharp blade across my forearm, drawing blood and pain. I shout and jerk, half-rolling away.

Now the knife is at my neck. "You know how sharp this knife is now," threatens the man lowly. "And that I like to use it. Don't you dare move."

I bite back a whimper and try to still my shakes.

The next shocking sensation is a prick of a needle in my inner arm. I gasp and my whole body tightens, but the syringe does its job quickly. "What was that?" I whisper.

"Something to heighten your awareness," says the man. I hate that I cannot see him, or what he is doing.

The needle's contents are slowly spreading in my veins as he shifts, his boots gnashing the wood floor. The intimacy of this situation is frightening, unwelcome. I am blind and bound, yet tied to his every motion, every whiim. The only sensation I have is what he gives me. It is eerily like sex, or more accurately, like rape, even though he has barely touched me. Every emotion and physical sensation is heightened because of him, and not wanted.

With a flick of the blade faster than it takes the fear to grab ahold, he seperates my wrists and ankles, and my relief is instant, even though the limbs are still tied. But he has still got a knife, and neglects to remove the bag from my head. Even though I cannot see him, I can smell violence on him, and my heart jackhammers in response. It rolls off of him like thunderclouds down a mountain, swift and merciless and unforgiving. It cares not who it flattens, ruins, scatters. It cares not who it hurts.

He roughly takes me under one arm, hauling me to my feet. My legs barely hold me, as they are almost numb and awkward due to my tied ankles. With a jerk, I am dragged after him blindly, shoulder wrenching as it takes my weight. He hauls me easily, like a worthless bag of leaves that he outweighs times-and-a-half. "What are you doing?" I venture to ask shakily. As though he would answer. Do snakes answer mice?

The silence is stunning, threatening, oppressive. "Please..." Please answer? Please stop? Please let me go? All of these, yet none of them. I do not know what I'm begging for, so complete is my terror, but I do it anyway. My fear speaks for me, inarticulate as an infant's wails.

He does not answer, only shoves me against a wall face-first. The force he uses is gleefully unnecessary, like he was waiting for an excuse to excise violence, and I grunt as my head bounces off the wall. This man is very familiar with pain, and at complete ease with inflicting it. He pushes me around like I am nothing, only an animal to be herded and mistreated.

I want to struggle. Barney would want me to struggle. But I am so terrified of what this man could do to me, I cannot command my limbs to fight. I am shaking in my skin like leaf in a hurricane, and every single rebellious inclination I have flees my mind. The strength in my limbs ebbs like a retracting wave.

With another flick of the switchblade, he cuts my wrists apart. Before I have time to even think about struggling, he presses the blade to my neck and mutters with hot breath and hate in my ear, "Don't you dare move."

I clench my jaw shut around a whimper and do as bade. I am still blind, but I hear him rattling a chain behind me. Suddenly I am spun around by rough hands, and there are cold handcuffs on my wrists, cinched tightly. The chain I heard is joined to them with the clink of a carabiner.

There is another jerk, and I am reeled forwards, eventually winding up almost hanging from the ceiling, with just my toes brushing the floor. All my weight is on my wrists, and the cuffs bite painfully. Before I can think to lash out with my desperate feet, he captures them both, and I hear another carabiner clink as he secures them to the floor.

I am trapped. There's no way for me to get down from here. I am at his mercy. The cuffs are digging into my skin in exactly the same place as the sharp, thin twine from the hut in Nepal, and subconsciously, it is driving me crazy. Defeated and on edge, I listen to him step back. "Trussed up nicely," he murmurs approvingly. His voice sends a tattoo of goosebumps over my skin.

I gasp when I feel cold metal against the side of my neck again, more insistently. I freeze, praying he is not going to stab me...

A third flick of the switchblade, and the drawstring of the bag over my head is cut. I am wound so tightly I can feel my blood in my ears. He pulls the bag off my head, and I am plunged into vision.

The room is white-walled, wood-floored, windowless and utterly blank save for a bare mattress on a sturdy wood frame. The adequate light is from several bright lanterns in the corners. Before me is the same man who attacked me at the hangar, wearing the same black clothes and military air. The man's dead eyes watch me without any emotion. "Do you know why you're here?" he asks. With a reptilian grace, he steps back once and sinks to sit cross-legged on the floor, staring at me over his blade.

I think him sitting down is more scary than him standing in front of me. He is implying that he is just as dangerous, if not more so, than if he were standing. I shake my head in response to his question. What kind of game is this? I feel immediately that it is one I will lose at, with painful consequences.

"Barney may have mentioned me after our phone call," he continues, turning the flashing switchblade over and over. "I'm Church."

My face goes pale, and Church smiles.

"So he did mention me. Told you to watch out, didn't he?" His tone is softly mocking. It is not a rhetorical question.

I nod, my gaze fixed on the knife in his hands.

"Taught you almost everything he knows, I bet." A sardonic smile tilts his features dangerously.

I nod again, my cheeks flushing. The words sink into my heart like an arrow, and I feel shamed somehow, like I've let Barney down. I realize I have. I did not fight. I learned everything Barney taught me: guns and punches and kicks. None of it mattered when faced with this man. All my efforts were wasted, because I am weak. My eyes blur with tears. "What do you want?" I whisper, watching him with wide eyes.

Church chuckles lowly, and it frightens me like a lion's growl frightens a lame gazelle. "From you, I don't expect much." He says it factually, but it feels like an bullet in the chest. I am barely worth his time. I am close to useless to him. "Right now, half a world away, Barney is doing his deeds to win your freedom," he assures, still making it feel like a threat. "He's still got twelve hours before I kill you."

This time, it feels like my whole body pales in one huge icy wave. Twelve hours? What has he asked Barney to do? Can Barney do it in time?

"Answer a few questions while we wait for Barney's call," says Church as reasonably as sin-covered Satan. His snake-like gaze captures mine, and my soul quails. He smiles again, unnervingly, and answers my unvoiced question. "I've been watching Barney for quite some time, since Albania. When you pop up out of the blue, you can imagine my curiousity."

Church stands, and reaches out to stroke my cheek with a hand. It sends another shiver over my body, and a hot flush of disgust through me. Our eyes lock, and I debate biting his hand. I decide it is not worth the pain he will inflict as recompense. So I turn my head away from the fingers on my cheek, closing my eyes so I don't have to see the disturbia in his eyes.

He saw the debate in my face, and my decision not to bite him, almost as though it were displayed on a screen on my forehead. "Good girl," he murmurs, dropping the hand. "Keep up this acquiescence, and we'll get along smoothly.

I loathe that he is in such control of the situation, and the emotion is strong, almost as strong as my previous shame.

The potency of my emotions must be the effects of the needle. The fear, shame, disgust, all of it. And it is only growing stronger, a veritable monsoon of feeling.

Church sidles back a step and sits cross-legged again. The knife continues to flash. "How's the cocktail? Jazzing you up yet?" he asks conversationally.

I snort, a glimmer of defiance rising in me, and do not answer.

He smiles the way a crypt full of skulls does. "Give it time," he urges. "We've got a while yet."

Booker:

Trench beats me to Barney's hangar, the bastard. He's leaned against the side of his Beemer in the shade of the overhang when I pull up.

"Took you long enough," he comments dryly. But that's all the tall Austrian says to goad me. He must still be feeling bad about getting Meera kidnapped. No doubt, a new emotion for the man. "What are we here for, exactly?"

"Barney's got an array of hidden cameras in the hangar," I reply, the leftover dirt on my boots from my hunting expedition gritting the concrete as I slam my SUV's door. I leave the laptop going on the passenger seat, the time bar ticking by tenths of a percent as it piggybacks the satellites. "Church might have left some clue as to his whereabouts on them."

I walk past Trench, leaving him to follow me into the huge, open concrete structure. The front of it is bereft of the flying deathtrap that is Santa, and the back third is walled off strongly and must be Barney's home.

"Here," I say simply, feeling around on the facade of the cargo boxes against the wall. Trench explores the rough wood with me, and in moments, we find identical bars that hold the back of one container up. Sliding them out, the container's rear wall drops to the ground, revealing a trio of screens, an array of wires, and a small antenna that wirelessly connects the unseen cameras to the several-terabyte memory bank which holds the recorded imagery.

"Barney has too much time on his hands," mutters Trench. He reaches into the box and withdraws a cheap laptop. "This must be the controls. May I?"

"Be my guest."

Trench sets to work rewinding the footage on all three screens, which takes much longer than I thought. I glance at my watch: we're down another two hours, and have only ten to go. A lot can happen in ten hours; I intend to make it good.

"This is going to take a while," admits Trench, eyes sharply watching the screens.

I grunt and wander to the door of Barney's home, wondering if we're lucky today. "Hey," I get Trench's attention when the cracked door swings open. "Unlocked. Think Church left any evidence?"

Trench frowns in thought. "It's a long shot. CIA like Church aren't prone to mistakes."

I agree. Longer than a long shot, but worth a try for Meera's sake. I take a step through the door.

Only my hair-trigger reflexes keep me from tripping the wire strung across the jamb near the ground. I freeze like a statue in a nanosecond, the wire pinned under my right boot.

Trench notices my freeze, and the wire. After a second, he asks me casually, "You got it?"

I nod. "Yeah. Just a tension-release booby trap." So what, I'm standing on a line attached to a pound of C4. Big deal. Both of us are mercs: no sense getting upset over a little danger. What would be upsetting is if I had completed that step. Calming my stuttering heart is easy. Pulling a multitool from my belt, I slowly kneel, following the wire to the explosives rigged and taped to the wall at knee level. If I step off the wire, the circut completes, and I go into orbit. I locate the wire that connects the C4 to the circut and clip it confidently.

There is always that moment of cringe, when you debate your life choices up to this moment in a flash, and at the end of it, you're either dead or alive to fight another day. Opening my eyes, I see that my prize is the latter.

"Nice," congratulates Trench as I clip the wire at my boot.

I walk into Barney's living space, gun at the ready despite sensing its emptiness. It smells faintly of sweat, coffee, and Thai spices. There is an underlying tone of feminine sweetness, like shampoo and smiles. It warms my heart a little, even though my face stays passive. The place may be a mess, but I know from experience that it could be much, much messier. The place feels less like a military barracks and more like a home, a place to nest. When Hu-Nee became my wife, I noticed the same change in my house, too.

To my left is a line of showers facing a few sinks and a full-wall mirror. In front of me is the largest section of the living quarters, divided into kitchen area, TV area, sleeping area, and the rest devoted to exercise equipment and various projects that occupy a mercenary in his spare time. To my right is a dark hall with one room, and instinct leads me there, Uzi leading the way.

Patting the wall of the stuffy, echoless room, I locate the lightswitch, but think better of flipping it. My harrowing experience at the door has tautened my nerves and made me suspicious. I reach to my belt and pull out a strong flashlight, shining it all around the clothes closet. Sure enough, there's another pound of C4 rigged to the lightbulb above my head, and I exhale wordless praise to my guardian angel as I clip the defuse.

The lightbulb is useless, so I set about eyeing every aspect of the closet closely, looking for anything out of the ordinary. There are a few speckles of blood on the floor, like the drips of a bopped nose, and a woman's leather jacket dropped haphazardly when everything else is hung neatly. That tells me Meera met Church here, with sucky consequences.

Even though I have no clue as to what Meera looks like, my brain supplies a middle-aged and malnourished woman with deep brown skin and black hair. I've been to Nepal a few times in my career, after all. I know well enough what Church looks like. I try to envision the interaction that must have happened as I cautiously pick up the dropped jacket. Meera came in here to hang this up, I think. And Church was waiting for her, having somehow gotten past the front door.

To subdue a woman, even a woman that lived with Barney Ross and undoubtedly picked up his tricks, would not be difficult for a man of Church's experience. After glancing around, I locate the only place big enough to hide a grown man completely in the walk-in closet: the space behind a deep rack of hanging uniforms. I sweep them aside with the tip of my Uzi, shining the flashlight all around.

At first glance there's nothing, but then, I was expecting as much. Only my stubborness and a nagging feeling in my gut make me give the tiny space a second look. There! A very faint shadow on the wall: a white piece of paper only a shade off from the color of the paint. I pick it off the wall excitedly. A receipt. It was stuck there by static cling. Looking at the uniforms, I notice they're all synthetic fabrics, bad for building up a shock. Experimentally, I rub my sleeve against the nearest outfit and touch my gun tip, and the tiny shock confirms my thoughts.

Church slid through these clothes and waited for Meera here. The static cling was just strong enough to make the receipt that must've been hanging out of his pocket stick to the wall.

Damn, I think wonderingly. I should play the lottery today.

"Still alive in here?" calls Trench from the front door.

"Would it break your heart if I wasn't?" I ask wryly, walking back down the hall with the jacket in tow.

The tall Austrian grins snidely. "Hardly. Find anything?"

I hold up the receipt. "It's to the camping and cabin place in the state park, not a hundred miles from here. Dated in the last month."

Trench snatches the piece of paper from my hand. "It could be Barney's. He camps in the off job times."

I incline my head in agreement. "It might be. Have you found anything on the cameras?"

Trench nods. "A boatload, but I doubt it will be very useful." We walk back into the hangar and Trench stabs a finger at the screens, toggling through several timestops he dogeared for reference. "About two days ago, a hot little dyke comes and visits Meera. They leave. Church walks in, pretty as you please, and plants a camera." Trench holds up a bolt-shaped spy camera. "He must have been watching her for a while, and was ready for the opportunity. The dynamic duo come back, and the woman leaves the next morning. I would have killed to be a fly on the wall for that little sleepover."

I nod absently, studying the feed. The grainy image of Meera is petite, smaller even than my Asian wife, especially when compared to the 'hot little dyke' Trench refers to.

"The next day, Meera leaves in the truck. Church comes in for the ambush, keying in the door code he obviously was pandering for with his camera, and a few hours later, Meera comes back."

The little Nepali woman has a pronounced spring in her step, unknowingly walking right into a trap as she keys the door code. The next timestop shows Church walking out like a hunter carrying his kill, the unconscious and tied Meera slung over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"That's the same basic storyline I came up with," I concur. "But it gives us shit to help find them."

Trench sighs, closing the laptop and shutting the cargo box. "So we're back to square one."

In the silence that follows, we both try to figure a way around this massive roadblock. I've got nothing, and Trench's frown suggests the same. This is seriously denting Meera's chances of survival. My ears perk up when I hear the sound of my laptop beep loudly. "Maybe not," I muse, walking over to my SUV and pulling the laptop off the seat. Balancing it on the hood, with Trench looking over my shoulder hulkingly, I scan the data the satellite triangulation came up with.

Three satellites were in the area when Church called Barney with his bad news. They form a trifecta with a hundred-square-mile overlap on a topographical map.

"Hand me that receipt," I tell Trench. Getting my drift, he does so.

In a few minutes, I've narrowed the satellites' overlap down to the area of the state park cabin sites. We're down to twenty-five square miles.

"Now the spy cam," I urge.

Trench is getting excited. "I'm picking up what you're laying down," he says. "Need a USB cord?"

"Yeah."

He retrieves one from his car, inserts the spy camera's port into one end, and I plug it into my laptop. Tracing the signal from the spy camera's feed to the screen it played on, I find it is a CIA-grade computer.

"That type of computer is used in CIA suveillance vans," says Trench.

"Yep," I say, my victory nearing completion. "And guess where that van is now?"

"Parked next to a cabin in the state park?"

I hit the 'enter' key with finality, and a yellow crosshairs zooms across the screen, settling over a grainy satellite image of a square cabin's roof, deep in the woods.

"Bingo, you son of a bitch," murmurs Trench.

"We got the bastard," I say, tapping the coordinates into a GPS. "Now let's go get 'im."

Yang:

It turns out my previous prediction underestimates my awesomeness. I get the door open using wires pilfered from the television. After glancing down the hall both ways, I pick Shawn's lock.

The man is waiting when I swing open the door. He is tall and well-muscled with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. "G'day," he greets quietly, extending a hand.

I shake the hand firmly, grinning at him. "I would offer to play you that hand of cards, but I would rather get moving."

"Aye," agreed the Aussie. "You wouldn't happen to know where our packs are, mate?"

I shake my head, deflating slightly. "We will not get far without gear."

We set off silently down the empty hall, passing several open doors to rooms exactly like ours. This wing of the mansion is incredibly quiet. It occurs to me that Mr. Kresh is keeping us seperated from the rest of the house for a reason: he does not want everyone to know we are here, and unwilling hostages.

At the junction of two wings, Shawn and I pause to get our bearings and listen for people. Sounds of life are coming from the distance, but the huge house sounds and feels relatively devoid of people in relation to its size. Good thing for us.

A vaccuum cleaner powers up not forty feet away, around the corner, making both of us jump. Shawn motions to a cracked door nearby, from which the light of a computer screen emnates, and we dash to the cover just before the maid turns the corner we'd been hiding behind.

I slowly close the door, and we're momentarily safe from discovery. I turn around, and take in the housekeeping station. There are racks of cleaning implements, carts of mops and brooms, and recharging vaccuums. On a old desk there is a stand of walkie-talkies on chargers, next to an ancient computer screen hooked up to a fairly new modem.

Shawn points to the computer. "Think you can contact your boss?"

"Why?" I query, not following.

Shawn blinks. "Mine's in the States. Your boss is the only option I've got for getting out of Russia. If I haven't got a ride out of this armpit of a country, I've no need to leave with you. Kresh is set to release me when Trench pays Barney, anyway." He shrugs, averting his eyes. "It's not personal, mate.'

"I see," I reply, not unkindly. If Shawn has no need to face the howling cold, why should he? I walk over and power up the computer. "You keep watch. I will Skype his sat phone."

The computer's base language is set to Russian, and my reading of the same a little rusty. Still, I recognize the Skype icon and click it. While it dials up the number I have memorized, I find the microphone and plug it in. I guess the housekeeping use the array to coordinate cleaning shifts and such of the huge house. After a few seconds of struggling, the screen displays a connection.

"Who is this?" snaps Barney on the other end. The connection is solid and clear, and the green line on the screen bounces with his voice.

Frantically, I turn the volume down as I answer. "It's me, Yang!"

The shock in Barney's pause is palpable. "Yang? What the hell - ? How?"

"We are on a little field trip," I reply, glancing over at Shawn, who grins and gives thumbs-up from the door. The vaccuum drones on, covering our conversation.

"We?" queries Barney.

"Me and Shawn Sullivan. He's the man Kresh is holding to make sure Trench pays you."

"So this really is Kresh's favorite play," snorts Barney. "It's good to hear from you, Yang. We could really use you here."

"Nadia giving you trouble?" I tease.

"She's the least of my problems," he replies hollowly. "Meera's been kidnapped by Church."

My mouth falls open. I feel Shawn stiffen from across the room, picking up on the tone Barney uses and coming to the right conclusions. "Fuck," he mutters.

"And you cannot leave to go help her because of me," I conclude with growing anger. "Damn that Kresh!"

"I couldn't make it back in time, anyway," says Barney, sounding drained and defeated. "I've got Booker and Trench on it. It's out of my hands."

"The Lone Wolf and Trench," I mutter, stressing but grudgingly agreeable to the choice. I cradle my head for a moment, processing. Poor Meera, alone and helpless against Church's tender mercies. "Meera is Barney's woman," I explain to Shawn, who is watching me with mild confusion.

Shawn sucks in a breath. Everyone knows that harming a merc's lover means calling down hellfire and war.

"How long has she got left?" I ask with restrained fury.

"Eight hours and change," replies Barney. I have never heard the man sound so tired or so scared. For a moment, we commiserate over the many miles, our worry and anger and more-than-slight despair swirling between us like the invisible connection.

"Church is the one behind my team's failure," says Shawn, breaking the silence. He walks over to the screen. "Ross, is it? This is Sullivan. Church's goons are who dogged my team's steps while we were here. They mean business."

"I know," says Barney, coming out of his stupor. I can hear a little of the Schizo in his voice. "They're all dead."

Shawn ducks his head with an appreciative huff. "Good. That's a huge load off. I assume Church made you the same offer he did us?"

"To kill the Kreshes? Yeah. And if they fucked with you guys, too, then I guess you gave Church the same answer I did."

"Amen, mate. Mercs aren't only money whores." Shawn winks at me.

"Sullivan, if you and Yang can make it to the village of Crios and head thirty miles south-south-east, you'll find me and my team. When the mission is complete, we'll give you a lift back to the States." He leaves it unspoken that whatever happens to Meera will not affect the mission, which is just as painful to think about as it would be to experience. I can only hope Booker and Trench perform like the pros they are.

Shawn smiles gratefully. "Sure thing, mate. That ain't but a two-day hike from here."

"Once Shawn and I are out of Kresh's hands," I warn. "Who knows what that old Soviet will do."

I hear Barney's snarl. "Let him try something. I've got his daughter, remember?"

"It can only help," reasons Shawn. "If you're no longer a hostage, Ross is free to leave, if he wants, and go see his girl when she's rescued."

I can practically hear the stab of hope in Barney's chest. "And if you're rescued by me and my team," Barney continues the train of thought. "Trench is gonna have to repay the favor. He'll pay us anyway."

"I'll see to it," promises Shawn firmly. "You have my word."

We both hear the footsteps too late. I have just enough time to sever the connection and whirl around to look guilty. The cow of a woman who brings our food opens the door to see us both standing there. She freezes, looking a little afraid. Time stands still.

I'm just about to leap forward and chop her trachea before she sounds the alarm when Shawn makes a placating motion with his hands, stepping forward. He speaks in soothing Russian to the woman, asking her not to yell.

She eyes him warily, but her suspicion is ebbing as he continues to speak. His tone turns cajoling, tender. I recall all the times he sweet talked the woman over the course of my captivity, everytime he saw her. Presumably, he's been wisely preparing for this very moment. Shawn explains to her that we both must leave, because the lives of our friends are in danger. As he gets closer, he takes her hands in his own, and I can practically watch the woman swoon.

With one final, gently loving implore, Shawn brushes his lips against hers. I look away, embarrassed but impressed.

In under ten minutes, the woman has tracked down our gear, led us unseen to an out-of-the-way entrance not covered by security or cameras, and promised to keep 'delivering' our food to our empty rooms. After wheedling a promise of a return from Shawn, she watches us disappear into the falling night.

"You are a sly dog," I commend Shawn, my breath frosting.

The Aussie only chuckles, his snowshoes crunching the icey top layer of snow as we trudge quickly into the harsh wilderness of Russia's mountains.