Hello again! First, thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, favorited, and followed! Based on your reviews, I'm happy to see that you've been liking the story. :)

I hope you all enjoy this longer chapter.

Her head was pounding and the metallic taste of blood – that of Wraith mixed with her own – poisoned her tongue. She fought against her two captors, lunging, dragging her feet, and even biting to make them loosen their tight hold on her. If she could get just one of them to release her, she stood a chance…but neither one yielded. Immune to her resistance, they hauled her down several dark and foggy corridors until they arrived at the entrance of the laboratory. A string of clear slime hung suspended from between the automatic doors like a foul and tenuous tightrope as they opened. She was unceremoniously shoved through it and into the room, the sensation of the cold ooze against her skin making her stomach turn.

"What's this?" a definitively human voice curiously asked from inside.

"A prisoner," one of the drones simply replied. It released her wrist but before she could take advantage of the change in position and strike, the other drone had already clasped both of her arms behind her back. With the first Wraith kneeling at her feet in order to bind them, she kicked hard, her boot made contact, and there was a loud crack. The drone's helmet split in half. It rose to its feet and the face that met Eva's made her wish she had aimed her kick in a different spot. It had slits like a snake's in place of nostrils, blank unseeing eyes, and a gaping mouth like that of a screaming corpse. Irate and unhinged, it closed its fingers around her throat and brought its other hand to her chest to feed.

"If our master asked you to bring her here, then I imagine he will be extremely disappointed to find her already fed upon," the man in the room calmly stated as he tinkered with a device in his hands.

The drone released her and she wheezed, the throbbing in her head keeping time with the pounding of her heart. Before she could deliver another kick, the unmasked drone seized her by the ankles and, with the help of the other, flung her onto a cold metal examination table. Her vertebrae crashed into steel, sending a twinge of nerves up the length of her spine. With the slap of leather and the clinking of buckles, they tightened restraints first around her wrists and ankles and then finally around her neck.

The drones then stood sentry at the threshold of the laboratory until the man spoke once more.

"You may leave," he said without taking his eyes from his work. "She can't do any harm while strapped to the table. Do us all a favor and go fetch yourself another mask, perhaps."

The two drones regarded each other for a brief moment, until they eventually left.

"Please – you have to let me go," Eva immediately said as soon as the drones were gone, turning to look at the man.

He stood up from his seat. A tall, thin man with blue eyes, dark brown hair and small, almost beady features, he walked slowly and deliberately, carrying himself with a certain poise. Once he reached the examination table, he graced her with a smile, its intent – whether friendly or sinister – hidden by the shadows.

"I cannot do that," he answered.

"Please," she insisted. "My father is still out there and it's my fault –"

"Hold still," the man instructed, ignoring her pleas. He produced a handheld Ancient medical scanner from the folds of his robes and ran it down the length of her body.

"You have the gene?" she asked in astonishment.

He looked into her eyes. "The gene?" he repeated with a raised eyebrow.

"To operate Ancient technology," she supplied.

He looked back down at the scanner. "Yes. I suppose I do," he mused.

"Why won't you let me go?" she asked again. "Do you work for these Wraith?"

"You have a moderate concussion and your nose is broken," he informed her, ignoring her question.

"Yeah, I know that," she spat. "But in the grand scheme of things, those are kind of the least of my worries."

The man returned to what Eva assumed was his work area, grabbed another device and returned to her side.

"This may cause you some discomfort," he warned her.

"Why?" she asked. "What are you going to do to me?" She squirmed away from him as much as she could from within her restraints.

"Fear not. This will not harm you."

He placed the new device securely in the palm of his hand and held it over Eva's forehead. He closed his eyes and it emitted a bright green light. The ache in Eva's head intensified until the green light shut off, at which point her pain ceased entirely. He repeated the process over her nose, blood still trickling down her face. The discomfort increased until, once again, it stopped. The man reached for a cloth and dabbed at Eva's nose to wipe up the blood.

"Better," he simply stated.

Before Eva could decide whether to thank him or not, the laboratory doors opened and the Wraith commander as well as three drones entered the room.

"We successfully retrieved a Lantean gateship," it informed the man. "You shall begin work on it soon. But first," it approached Eva, "we have a matter to address."

Eva once more writhed from within her bonds, but they were too tight.

"You have heard of runners, little one?" it asked.

She stared at the ceiling, refusing to answer.

The Wraith ran the back of its index finger along the side of her cheek and, for whatever reason, she felt suddenly compelled to answer.

"My father was a runner," she confessed. She shook her head in an effort to rid herself of its influence on her mind.

The Wraith took in a dramatic gasp of air that chilled her tender spine. "How poetic." It turned to the drones. "Turn her over," it instructed, its voice low and sharp with ruthlessness.

The drones approached her and stationed themselves, one at each of her arms and one at her feet. In a simultaneous and rehearsed maneuver, they released the leather straps that bound her, then – despite her thrashing – flipped her over like a pig on a spit. They restrained her again.

Eva's pulse accelerated as panic began to take over. Being face down on the table was somehow infinitely worse, infinitely more vulnerable, than being on her back. Her view was blocked; there was no way for her to see what was happening around her.

"Locate her transmitter," the Wraith ordered.

The man who had healed her earlier ran his scanner once more over her body and found her Atlantis-issued subcutaneous implant near her left shoulder.

"There," he stated.

The Wraith, scalpel in hand, made a deep incision in her arm. There was no anesthetic, no numbing agent. Eva bit her lip to suppress a scream and closed her eyes. It took a pair of forceps and dug around in her arm until it found her implant. It dropped it, stained with her blood, into the man's palm. "Disable it."

The man went back to his work station. "Disabled," he confirmed after just a few short seconds. "It will no longer broadcast her location."

Eva glanced at her arm. Dark blood seeped slowly from the cut and puddled onto the floor.

"Good. Let's do a trade, shall we?" it sneered. It pushed Eva's hair off her neck and back. Her blood ran cold. It gripped the collar of her shirt at the top of her spine and ripped. The fabric gave way and the skin of her back erupted into goosebumps.

Don't cry, she thought. Don't cry.

The man scanned her back, then touched her with his index finger, drawing a short, vertical line to the right of her spine. "There."

With no hesitation and no time to prepare herself, the Wraith cut into Eva's back with its scalpel. Unable to contain her anguish, she released a scream of pain. She couldn't help but cry, sobs racking her body.

The Wraith slammed a hand on her shoulder blade and forced her to the table. "Hold still," it growled. "The new tracking device," it began, directing its attention to the man, "is it complete?"

"Yes," he replied, "though it has not been tested."

"Bring it here."

The man approached, there was a clanking of metal, and Eva felt something small and cold enter the open, bleeding wound on her back.

"Close her up."

The man took the device he had used earlier to heal Eva's head and nose and brought it first to the cut on her back, and then to the incision on her arm. Like before, she no longer felt any pain; it was as though the injuries had never existed.

The laboratory's doors opened once more, and another Wraith entered. "The humans have launched their battleship. It will be within weapons range –"

Before it finished its sentence, there was a loud boom and the whole ship shook.

"You say the tracking device is still untested?" the commander asked the man.

"Correct."

It smirked down at Eva. "Then let us see how well it works. Make the next scheduled jump," it ordered to the other Wraith. "And take her to the fighter bay," it nodded to the drones.

Her restraints were removed, and she was escorted out of the laboratory.

"If you can track me, so can my family!" she shouted.

The commander stopped and turned around to look upon her. "You are going somewhere where they will never, ever find you, little one," it leered, taking a strand of her hair and running it through its fingers.

With that, it turned its back to her once more.

The ship groaned and shuddered, preparing for what Eva assumed was a jump into hyperspace. But as the groan grew in volume and intensity, her skin began to feel like it was stretched too tightly across her shoulders. Her bones tingled and blistering heat seared from the tracker in her back. She didn't know what was happening, but she had traveled by hyperspace before…and this wasn't what it felt like.

One more inch. Just one more inch and he could reach his knife. One more inch and every Wraith on this ship would take its last breath. One more inch and he could save his daughter.

His fingers closed around the ivory handle. Bit by bit he sawed through the web enveloping him. First, his right hand was free. Then his left arm. He ripped, sliced, and strained until he finally emerged from the cocoon. The coolness of the air, shocking to his skin, made him shiver.

They had taken her to a laboratory. From what little he knew of the design of Wraith ships, they tended to keep their labs near the stern of the aircraft. He followed the last corridor he had seen them take her down, his blaster set to kill, but all the corridors looked the same – walls of organic matter shrouded in heavy mist. He stopped for a moment, concealed in the shadows, to find his bearings. He hadn't sensed a jump to hyperspace yet, so he still had time. Unless they had made the jump while he was unconscious…

The impact of a collision shook the walls around him. It had to be Atlantis. The Hammond must have made it into orbit.

Heart pounding, he glanced around at his surroundings; he was sure he was near the stern of the cruiser. She couldn't be far. There was still a chance.

The hiss of an automatic door drew his attention. He swung the muzzle of his weapon toward the sound and the Wraith commander emerged. For the second time that day, just as he established lethal aim, bright light surrounded his body, and he found himself on the deck of the Hammond.

Colonel Lorne was shouting commands mid-deck from the captain's chair.

Doctor Nichols collapsed against a wall, hands pressed tightly to both sides of his head, tears coming to his eyes.

To his right, the shriveled corpse of a female lay splayed out on the floor. The silver of the chain around her neck gleamed in the light.

Silver – just like Eva's necklace.

"We need a medical team with a body bag to the deck immediately!"

Ronon pushed his way to the corpse and fell to his knees. Terrified, he took the chain into his hand and ran his fingers over a set of silver dog tags.

SCHMITZ, MELANIE L.
824-09-1165 AF
A POS
JEWISH

First relief, and then guilt for that relief, flowed deep through his core. Gently releasing the tags, he raised himself to his full height and searched around him once again.

"Eva? Where's Eva?!" he shouted. "Where's my daughter?!"

"We only detected three subcutaneous transmitters, sir," the first mate responded.

"She was with us!" Ronon yelled. "Check again! Scan again! She was onboard with us!"

The first mate looked to Colonel Lorne for permission. He nodded to her. "Do it."

She scanned the cruiser again while Ronon checked the screen from over her shoulder. She was right. Nothing was transmitting.

"Send me back there," Ronon ordered. "Send me back and I'll go find her. I know where she is."

"Ronon, I can't send you back by yourself," Lorne replied.

Ronon snatched Lorne's collar and lifted him from his seat. "She is a sixteen-year-old girl! She is my only child! We can't leave her on that ship!"

"I agree," Lorne said and Ronon released him. "But I can't send you in alone." He turned to the first mate. "Get Malcolm, Knox, Kim and –"

"Sir, I'm detecting a strange energy signal from the Cruiser," a scientist called from his station.

"What kind of signal?"

"Unsure it's like—"

Ronon looked out the deck window at the Cruiser. It had stopped firing at them. For a moment it remained still and then, in the blink of an eye, it disappeared.

"Did they just jump to hyperspace?" Lorne asked.

"No, sir," the scientist replied. "No hyperspace window was detected."

"Then where the hell did they go?" he shouted.

The cruiser was gone.

Eva was gone.

The breath had left his lungs. He tried to inhale, but he took in no air. Tears started to blur his vision.

The entire deck was silent.

"Beam me down to the city," he said in a voice only just above a whisper.

"Ronon…" Lorne started.

"What if that was one of your girls? Beam me down to my wife so I can tell her what happened to our child," he persisted.

With a nod of comprehension from Lorne, he was transported to the middle of the gate room. He lifted his gaze to the control room and his eyes met hers. He tracked the emotions as they crossed her face. First joy that he had returned safely. Then panic, because he was alone.

Emma ran out of the control room and down the stairs, then planted herself in front of him. She looked up into his face, at the tears now freely falling down his cheeks.

"Where's Eva?" she whispered.

His eyes met hers, but his mouth, like his lungs, refused to function.

"Where is she?" she asked, her voice trembling.

He was lightheaded. All he could do was stare down at her.

"Dammit, Ronon!" she shouted and pounded her fist against his chest. "Where is my baby girl?!" she shrieked.

"They took her," he breathed. "The ship disappeared and they took her."

Emma took a step back as a soft whimper escaped her lips. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body. "Is she alive?" she asked, trying to keep her own tears at bay.

Ronon shook his head and closed his eyes. He couldn't face her. He couldn't witness the pain he was about to cause her as he delivered the news. "I don't know, Emma. I don't know."

"How can you not know?!" she shouted at him.

"She was alive last I saw her," he answered. "They took her to one of their labs."

"To a lab? Why?"

"To…" he fixed his gaze to the floor, "to turn her into a Runner."