Jenny's heart was pounding so loudly that she was half convinced McKidd would be able to hear it from all the way across the room. He regarded her for a moment, for far longer than she was comfortable with before he turned back to the box he'd been digging through, and she could exhale a shaky breath. It was several seconds before her body calmed enough that she dared to manoeuvre the knife in her hand around, refusing to think of what would happen if it slipped through her fingers. It was with small, careful sawing motions that she began to cut through her binds. Barely moving, just her fingers contacting and relaxing, painstakingly making sure that no movement was visible, that McKidd wouldn't realise she was up to something. He seemed distracted sorting through his box, but Jenny wasn't going to take the chance.

At one point, she spotted a passport in his hand, what looked like a birth certificate. All papers that suggested a fake identity. Something inside her clenched- he would truly vanish with another new name and a new life. Look how well he'd hidden with his current one.

Her fingers sped up. The ties meant that the knife was at an awkward angle, the blade pressing into the base of her thumb with every pass. She ignored the pain, the spreading warmth that suggested blood. Ignored the way her barely healed wrist screamed, not agreeing with the angle she was having to hold it at. All that mattered was freeing herself.

McKidd still had his back to her. "I thought about keeping you alive for a while longer," he said, conversationally. "A bit of company while I wait. But I did some research on you, Agent Shepard. You can be quite resourceful when you need to be."

Jenny glared at him. "You have no idea."

"It does mean our time together is at an end. I'm sure you understand." He turned around, gun his hand, and Jenny moved her fingers faster. She was making progress, she could feel the notch in the plastic where the knife sat.

"I think I should be offended." She swallowed, pinned him with a look far more confident than she felt. "All I get is a bullet?"

"You'd prefer something else?"

"I thought you'd have more style."

He narrowed his eyes at her, clearly wary of her attitude. She fought to keep her expression blank, but there must have been something. Because McKidd frowned, coming closer and tilting his head at her. "What are you up to?"

Jenny smiled at him. An overly sweet, suspicious smile that had him raising the gun from his side, gaze flicking warily around the room. "You're bluffing." But he flicked the safety off of the gun. "This is a ploy."

She continued to smile, and he surged forward. His hand gripped her jaw, wrenching her head upwards and even as he took a breath to speak, Jenny struck. Her arms came from behind her back, knife firmly within her fist and she used the weight of her entire torso to push forward and plunge it into his chest.

She was aiming for his heart. But his scream was more anger than pain, and Jenny could have cussed. That was the problem with pocket knives- they simply weren't that big. She quickly bent, sliced the zip tie from one of her ankles. And just caught sight of the gun raised in her direction. The chair clattered to the floor as she threw herself to the side, relieved when the noise of the shot wasn't accompanied by pain, other than the bite of the plastic cutting into her ankle.

Another slice of the knife, and she was free. Instinct had her rolling away, barely missed by the bullet that hit the floor where she'd just been laying.

Jenny was barely aware of the voices that suddenly entered the fray. Shouts and calls, all dimmed to chaotic background noise as McKidd pressed one hand to his chest, pinned her with a look of pure fury. Jenny assumed that if she could hear whoever was outside, they could hear her. And there was only one person she hoped was on the other side doors.

"JETHRO!"

He wouldn't have reached her in time even if he'd been in the room. McKidd raised the gun towards her yet again and her entire body screamed as she rose to her knees, propelling herself towards him. Her momentum against his legs sent them both spawling across the ground, and the gun fired again. This time, Jenny gasped as flames licked along her side, a burning distraction that enabled McKidd to push her away, to grasp for gun that had skidded away in the struggle. Her own knife was inches away from her face, and she didn't even remember dropping it. But she grabbed for it, plunged it into McKidd's thigh without thought.

"Bitch!" He reached for her, aiming for her throat and she kicked out, feet landing squarely on his knee. It wasn't enough. It stopped his hands from connecting completely though, and her next blow was to his face, the heel of her hand connecting with the underside of his chin. It would have hurt, but he barely appeared to notice. He grabbed at her, and she felt herself being lifted, slammed back down into the floor. She didn't have enough warning to protect her head, waves of pain crashing through her skull in a way that had nausea rolling through her stomach. It echoed the crash of the door behind them, and suddenly the shouts from outside were an awful lot louder.

McKidd lifted her once again, but Jenny knew his intentions this time. She wrapped an arm around his neck, securing herself, preventing him from throwing her back down. A knee against his ribs threw him off balance, took him by surprise just long enough that she could twist, lever herself against the floor. And suddenly she was on top.

She knew what he was doing as he did it. Throwing her off, reaching out. Her knife was close, and she threw herself forward, relieved when her fingers closed around it first. Only to realise her mistake too late. Because McKidd wasn't reaching for the knife. He'd been going for gun that had been just beyond it, and he hadn't been tied to a chair for hours. He moved faster, barrelling back into her and now Jenny found herself pinned under his weight as the knife skidded away, the barrel pressed against at her temple.

Her heart stopped for a second. She watched his eyes narrow, his finger begin to squeeze. It was instinct that had her closing her eyes, unable to watch any further.

Only the shot never came. Instead, his hand closed around her arm and he dragged her upwards, off of the floor and onto her knees, his arm a band around her body that pressed her to him.

"I'll kill her! You know I will!"

It was with only a dazed realisation that she recognised that there were people in front of them. People shouting orders and pointing guns as McKidd hauled her to her feet and began to pull her backwards. She stumbled and tripped, acutely aware of the gun still pressed to her head and the man holding her so tightly she was sure he was leaving bruises.

"There's nowhere to go!" She wheezed desperately. "This warehouse will be surrounded. You can't escape this time!"

"Watch me!" He jammed the gun harder against her head, tightened his grip around her. "Any closer, I'll put a bullet through her skull!"

The room was far from silent. Ragged breathing and crackling radios, people shouting. And yet somehow, there was also a deafening lack of noise.

"You're going to let us walk out of here," McKidd continued. "Anyone comes close, anyone tries anything and she'll be dead before she hits the floor."

Jenny closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. "Michael, they will never let you take me," she told him. She could feel his rapid breaths against her back, swallowed past the pain in her throat to continue talking. "They'll kill you first. They'll never let you go."

"They will if I make them."

He pulled her back, another step. And Jenny's foot hit something on the floor. She glanced down automatically, barely moving her head and her eyes widened when she saw her knife. It had ended up here after McKidd's tackle… but there was no way for her to bend to grab it.

As if to reinforce the point, McKidd's arm tightened around her, the officers in front of them yelling orders. McKidd glanced around, looking for an exit, for a way out and the movement shifted his grip on the gun, loosening just enough that he was no longer pressing it quite as tightly against her head.

Jenny didn't think about what she was doing. She simply allowed her legs to give out underneath, her body suddenly a dead weight against McKidd's arm. Surprised, he stumbled and allowed her to fall to the floor, her hand closing around the handle of her knife in a move that probably looked choreographed but in reality was mostly instinct combined with a healthy dose of luck.

It took McKidd mere moments to realise what she'd done. He let out a noise of pure fury, grabbing for her but Jenny was already rolling away, shoving at his hands and somewhere above her she heard a shot ring out, one not deafening enough to have come from McKidd's gun. She wasn't even surprised when he lunged for her, bringing the gun up at the same time.

This time, he wasn't thinking about escape. The intelligent, logical man from before was gone, replaced by one that was driven by pure anger and no longer had anything left to lose. He wasn't planning to use her as a hostage, there was no way out. Now, his eyes told her that he was thinking purely about revenge. That gun was going to fire as soon as he had finished raising it.

She acted on instinct. She made one, last, desperate attempt to stay alive, lashing out blindly with the knife and it was with no small amount of surprise that she felt it meet skin. McKidd seemed to freeze, his eyes widening and Jenny didn't dare scramble away, didn't dare move at all. Instead she watched in horrified fascination as his throat parted unnaturally, crimson blood hot where it arched to splatter across her face.

His body slumped over hers, winding her, the weight pushing her into the floor. Warmth soaking into her clothes, that distinctive metallic tang filling the air and Jenny was frozen in place, her entire world suddenly centred on the man pinning her in place.

Hands pulled McKidd away, accompanied by more shouts that only now penetrated her consciousness. Boots thumped around her, but her gaze was fixed on McKidd's until suddenly, there was someone blocking her view.

"Jenny?" It sounded as if that wasn't the first time Gibbs had said her name, his voice raised and the panic within it barely hidden. He was knelt next to her, hands brushing her hair back from her face, gaze scanning her up and down. "Are you hurt? Is any of it yours?"

Green eyes met blue, several beats passing before she slowly shook her head. A combination of proximity and familiarity meant that she saw the sheer relief that crossed his face, the worry that had pinched his eyes easing as he reached down, a hand around her shoulders supporting her as she sat up. Only she felt more hands on her than there should have been, and when she turned to look Ziva's worry was just as plain to see as Gibbs' had been.

Jenny managed to give them both a weak smile, leaning more heavily against the both of them than she would have liked to admit. "What took you so long?"