Author's Note: This is where the story begins to get dark. The chapter carries a trigger warning for torture.

I was in another stone room. Like my cell, it smelled like mildew and had minimal light, but was much bigger and had a large archway instead of a door. Quite the change of scenery. I was strapped to a chair with leather restraints, the kind they use in psych hospitals. They were fastened too tight for proper circulation, much less escape. At least they didn't chafe the way rope or handcuffs would. Next to me was a tray of instruments, and despite my valiant efforts not to look at them, I had counted eight knives and scalpels of various types, a blowtorch, a cigarette lighter, three vials of God-knew-what, a case of syringes, a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, a beaker of hydrochloric acid, and an electric cattle prod. Even the new Melinda was a little shaken.

"Melinda May, no?" asked the man who'd taken me from my cell. He'd probably gotten my name off my ID tags. His name, he'd told me as his goons strapped me down, was John Bodho, but in the privacy of my own mind I'd nicknamed him Bozo. He was about my height and seemed more than slightly out of shape. I could easily take him in a fair fight, or an unfair one, for that matter. But he was flanked by his two goons, each of them a solid six feet and built like an MMA fighter. Neither one of them had any weapons, most likely so I couldn't steal one and escape. I could probably overpower one of them, but both would be pushing it. I'd need the element of surprise and a lot of luck, not to mention the use of my arms and legs.

"Who are you people?" I asked. The more information I had, the better. I remembered that the Black Widow's signature interrogation style is to allow herself to be taken prisoner and then surreptitiously extract information from her captors, all the while making them think it was the other way around. I wasn't stupid; I knew I was nowhere near as good as Romanoff, but maybe I'd get lucky.

"It's very simple, Agent May," he said with a smirk. "We are businessmen. Entrepreneurs. We reappropriate Microtex shipments and sell them on the black market. Brings in a lot of cash, no?"

Great. Glorified racketeers. At least this one liked to gloat. Looked like I was getting lucky after all.

"We were very disappointed to see SHIELD interfering in our business," he continued. "So you can see, we had no choice but to deal with you and your companions."

A knot formed in my stomach. Coulson.

"Unfortunately, you and Agent Hand were the only ones we were able to apprehend. But, no matter. We were able to seize the shipment nonetheless." He hadn't said anything about not killing Coulson, but it was a fair bet he'd be gloating about it if he had. The knot in my stomach loosened.

"How did you know we were coming?" I asked, trying to play into his ego without being too obvious. "We're SHIELD's finest; we cover our tracks."

"We didn't know," he said, with a smile. "We were waiting for the same shipment as you."

"But you jammed our communications," I pointed out. "You had to have some kind of intel."

He laughed. "That little gadget? We always carry it. Never know when you might run into trouble." So Coulson had been wrong. It hadn't been an ambush, just pure blind luck on their part. Well, at least that meant we didn't have a leak. "We always come prepared," he said. "Glorious, no?"

"I'm going to go with no," I replied, rolling my eyes slightly. I regretted the words as soon as I said them. This wasn't a spy movie. It is okay to be a smartass in the ten seconds before you escape, and only then. It's the first thing new agents learn in resistance training. Sure enough, he backhanded me across the face so hard I yelled. The slap stung, but it probably wouldn't leave a bruise.

My relief was short lived. He picked up a scalpel from the tray and twirled it in his fingers, leering at me. "Indeed, Agent May." His voice took on a hard edge. "But no matter. I'm sure that you will tell us everything we need to know, starting with the location of your base."

I stayed silent. The seconds ticked by.

"Very well, then," he said, and with a grin, brought the scalpel down. The blade bit into my thigh, cutting through my pants and down into my flesh. It was dull and thick, so it didn't hurt much, just a scratching sensation. He cut into me again, deeper this time, but I didn't flinch. Between my resistance training and the new Melinda's relative indifference to pain, this wasn't going to be too hard as long as he stuck to the blade and didn't go too deep.

"Where is your base?" he asked me again, holding up the bloodied scalpel. "Do you have one in the Congo, or did you fly in from somewhere else? Just tell me and this can all stop." At my silence, he simply shrugged, switched blades, and cut into me again, my side this time. The blade was sharper, and it hurt slightly more, but I didn't scream. "Where is your base?" Another cut. This was getting old.

Just when I thought he was starting to sound like a stuck record, he switched questions. "What was the source of your information on the Microtex shipment?" I didn't answer, and he cut open a section of my shirt, laying bare the white skin beneath. "What was your source?" I regarded him calmly. His eyes took on a feral gleam and he gave me that sadistic grin again. "Very well. Have it your way." He cut all the way down to the muscle this time. "What was your source? Come on, Agent May. Talk to me. I can help you. If you tell me, then there will be no need to subject your friend to this treatment, no?"

"Hand is not my friend," I said, just for the record. I thought about adding more, venting my spleen to this man. I thought about telling him how annoying she was, the hard-nosed bureaucrat-in-training so out of her element in the field it would be comical if it weren't so life-endangering. I thought about telling him that I would rather have jumped into a pool of lampreys, which I happen to know was a method of execution back in medieval England, than work with Victoria Hand. That this was all her fault for being too loud on the stakeout anyway. That the only reason I'd been putting on some semblance of civility towards her was because Coulson told me to.

But I kept my mouth shut, because the less said during an interrogation, the better. Ideally, I should have said nothing, which is enough to beat half the interrogation tactics in the book.

And also because the moment he threatened her, I felt my stomach turn. Sure, she was stupid and irritating and if it were up to me I'd send her butt straight back to administration where it belonged, but she didn't deserve this. For a fraction of a second, I wanted to tell him everything, names, locations, sources, the works, if it would keep her safe. But I didn't, because bureaucrat or not, she was an agent of SHIELD, and she knew the risks just as much as I did.

The questioning continued for an hour, two, three. I lost count. He would keep switching questions, trying to catch me off balance, coax me into revealing even the smallest bit of information. He taunted and cajoled and threatened, but I stayed silent the whole time. Every time I didn't answer a question, he cut me, deeper each time. I started having to grit my teeth to keep from yelling.

After a while I started feeling tired, adrenaline crash, injuries, and drugs taking their toll. Eventually I was fading in and out of awareness, until a bucketful of cold water thrown in my face woke me up. It startled me so much I yelled, but since it was probably the closest thing I was going to get to a bath in the foreseeable future, I didn't mind too much.

After Bozo finally figured out he wasn't going to get anything from me today, he grabbed the bottle of rubbing alcohol and splashed it on my numerous cuts, including the scrape on my calf. It burned, but I kept my composure. I was actually slightly grateful; he was basically disinfecting my cuts.

He motioned to his guards. "Take her back to her cell and bring me the other one." I was too exhausted to put up a fight as they dragged me through the hallway to my cell. They tossed me back into the concrete room, and I fell to the ground, my reaction time too slow for me to catch myself. My knees hurt where they'd hit the floor; they'd be black and blue the next morning.

Then the two guards grabbed Hand. She fought them, managing to get in a few good hits before they subdued her with a punch to the temple and dragged her from the room, closing the door behind them with a final-sounding clunk. I rolled over onto my back, the room swimming. I must have lost a lot of blood, I thought idly. Dehydration probably didn't help either. I breathed in and out, focusing on that and that only. After a few minutes, I fell into a sort of stupor, neither asleep nor fully awake.

My daze was shattered by the sound of Victoria Hand screaming.