Her eyes fluttered open. Although she was wide awake, darkness still hovered along the edges of her vision. Suddenly light filled her vision.

"I see that our guest is finally awake. How are you feeling Gaia?" a man asked her his voice dripping with insincerity.

"Who the hell are you and what do you want with me?" she responded, voice scratchy and ruff.

"You will just have to wait and see," he said with a smirk before leaving the room and turning the light off. As Gaia sat there in complete silence and darkness, she pulled at her restraints. Whoever this man was, he was not taking any risks with her. There were heavy leather straps keeping her arms and legs immobile, and he even went as far as to have her tied up with additional ropes around her waist. She could turn her head to each side and wiggle her fingers and toes but nothing else. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out who would do this to her, who was capable and who was this knowledgeable. Over the last few years, she had been careful. In fact other than the incident on graduation day and the situations that occurred the last few months of her FBI career, she has not made many new enemies. The only big threat she has made recently has been Scorpio which would have a much more violent revenge than simply restraining her to a chair; although, they might have something up their sleeves.

Time passed, Gaia is not sure of how much. The minutes and hours bleed together in the darkness. She had long since stopped trying to get out of the restraints, it was impossible. The only real passage of time has been the clotting of the wounds she had inflicted trying to loosen the restraints. Her eyelids began to droop once again. She decided to give into her weariness, hoping to be more rested and that the extra energy would make a difference in her efforts to get free.

Once again Gaia woke up confused and eyelids fluttering. A quick jerk of her arms confirmed that the situation had not changed; she was still tightly bound to the chair. Right now no amount of struggling or strength could get her free. Once again time passed but Gaia is not sure how much before a light filled the room. She tried to turn her head away from the blinding light, but her range of motion was severely limited and the light was too bright simply to close her eyes.

"Well, it looks like the princess is finally awake," a voice said from behind the source of the light, a deeper and gruffer voice than before.

"Well, it looks like the idiot has finally arrived," Gaia rasped back. For several seconds there was no response, only the sound of footsteps coming closer and a shadow descended over Gaia as the man approached. Once he was close, Gaia just saw the shadow change as he swung his arm around to strike her across the cheek. The hit was hard enough to cause her head to slam back and for her to taste blood. After spitting out the blood from the gash in her tongue, Gaia laughed and said,

"Wow you hit like a girl." For the second time the shadow, encompassed her as the man stepped closer and his arm moved towards her. Instead of feeling a blow like she expected, Gaia felt a sharp stabbing pain in her thigh. As he pulled his arm away from her, she could see the light glint of the blade of the knife in the little section that was not covered by her blood.

"What, no witty comment this time?" the man sneered.

"You might want to wash that knife before you eat your steak, but of course you need a weapon against a twenty year old girl who is tied to a chair, completely immobile. You are a really big, strong man," Gaia responded with a smile, blood smearing her teeth some from when she bit her tongue with the force of his blow.

"You little," the man began.

"Does it make you feel powerful to stab someone who you refer to as little? I mean you got to do what you got to do to make yourself believe that you have some power," she interrupted. His only response was to slap her again, this time on the opposite cheek. This hit caused her jaw to ache so much that she had to take a moment before trying to talk.

"No, don't you dare talk again," the man said as he leaned into her face, his body blocking the light so she could actually see his face. It was very generic, his jaw square but not overly strong or chiseled, and a medium sized nose, brown eyes, and dark graying hair. He was clean shaven and with a few wrinkles starting to appear around his mouth and between his eyebrows. He did not look at all familiar to Gaia , she had no idea who this guy was or what he wanted with her, but he clearly knew enough to keep her well restrained and not to underestimate her. The man took a deep breathe, clearly trying to calm himself before speaking again.

"You are going to behave and not speak again. I have a plan and if all goes according to plan, you just might make it out of this in good shape. I am not in the habit of killing little blonde girls, but if you continue to piss me off, I just might make an exception. Is that clear?"

"Well how am I supposed to answer that if I am not allowed to speak?" Gaia snapped back. Then her head snapped back with the force of the third blow.

"A simple head nod would suffice," he said calmly. Gaia simply nodded knowing her face could not take many more blows before something broke.

"All you need to do is stay in this chair, not talk, and do exactly what I say when I say it. I won't demand too much from you," he said as he cupped her chin and forced her to look right into his eyes.