AN: This idea has been circling for years but I never had a place to use it within the series until now.

*Trigger warning: Violent, graphic scenes and sexual assault.*

Set: Mid Season 15

She began to stir.

And it was immediate, something was off, something was wrong.

Her arms were aching and she must have slept on them awkwardly because there were pins and needles and a numbness she couldn't dispel.

She opened her eyes, expecting to see shadows, objects, outlines but all she saw was a jet-black expanse. Her eyelids were heavy, lethargic and her eyelashes scraped against soft material as she blinked against nothingness.

She tried to move, to turn, but she was stuck, cemented. Bound.

There was a low mechanical hum filtering through her ears and it felt like she was floating, moving - hovering almost.

She tried to breathe through her mouth but her lips were pressed shut, almost as if someone were pressing their palm flat against her mouth. She continued to draw deep, languid breaths through her nose as she tried to ascertain what was happening.

She was dreaming.

She knew this feeling. She had been here before. That disconnect between consciousness and dream state. That rare and peculiar awareness when you're dreaming within a dream. It had been a while.

Not since Lewis.

She couldn't move her hands, her mouth and she had been stripped of sight like one of those dreams where you scream to the heavens only to be faced with muted silence. She wondered how long it would take her to wake up, stir, to breathe life into her limbs once more.

She moved her legs in an effort to shake herself out of it as it was the only thing she seemed to have the ability to move. The flat palms of her feet ran across the smooth short fibers beneath her. Carpet maybe? Only finer.

Her legs were bare and the cool night air tickled her skin sending a cold shiver thorough her body. Perhaps she would rouse soon and realize she'd kicked the sheet off during the night, and awkwardly slept with both arms beneath her.

Behind her.

The mechanical hum almost appeared to be getting louder, more prominent and the moveable base beneath her suddenly came to a grinding, solidifying halt. Her whole body rolled forcibly to her left until she slammed into a hard, unforgiving surface. Her forehead connected with something jagged and it snapped her into the present.

She's no longer in a dream state. She's conscious and her heart thuds violently in her chest when she feels her arms - bound behind her back, metal bracelets piercing into the raw skin around her wrists. She smells fumes, she tastes blood, she can barely breathe through her nose, there is tape over her mouth, material over her eyes, carpet beneath her body. She's freezing and aside from her underwear, she's completely naked. Her head is splitting where her forehead connected and tears start to prick at the realization that she cannot move a fucking muscle.

Her sight has been stripped but she feels an enclosure above her, a roof - only lower, trapping her, confining her. Making the breaths she's urging through her nose more urgent, more critical.

The carpet beneath her starts up again and she feels her whole body roll because the mechanical hum is back and she's moving again. She falls back a little, her backside digging into her bound wrists, causing a sharp flood of pain to shoot through her. She moans through the throbbing but it's muffled by tape, the sticky pressure drowning out the noise so desperate to escape. She's been in these cuffs for a while she realizes, and they are tight – too tight.

She hears it then. Small sounds that she hadn't registered before and suddenly it hits her full force.

An engine, the clicking of an indicator, the dull hint of traffic outside.

She's in the trunk of a fucking car.

No, no, no, no, no.

The tears start to stream on their own accord because this isn't how it's supposed to go.

Harris. Lewis. Therapy. Cassidy. Life after death.

She was doing so well.

It's oxygen she's lacking considerably now and it's rapid-fire breaths that she's drawing through her nostrils. She is crying - sobbing, the moisture of her tears seeping into the material covering her eyes, and the bile in the back of her throat has nowhere to go but back down.

"Mmmhmmmmhmhm," she screams against the constraints that have her surrendered completely, but the noise barely travels further than her ears. She needs air, her body is trembling. Her chest rising and falling by the second. She is going to pass out she thinks, because she is practically hyperventilating. Her leg moves up in desperation until it comes in contact with the roof of the trunk above her and she kicks with all her might, over and over, foolishly thinking she might actually have the strength to concur metal.

Her lungs are screaming for oxygen, and she is moaning, sobbing, shrieking beneath the tape, knowing full well that she is only making things worse on herself. She rolls over then, scooting as close to the edge of the trunk door as possible and her feet feel through the darkness, moving from carpet, up the ridge until they hit plastic.

She feels it then, the backing of the taillight and it's with one heavy, gut wrenching grunt that she kicks it out of it's socket. Plastic pieces, bulb glass - shattering, cutting into her bare feet but it's air she thinks, and a portal to the outside world.

It's going to be ok now. She can do this, but her heart is still racing, the sound reverberating in her eardrums and her hands bound behind her are now completely devoid of feeling.

All she can taste is metallic acid but there is a silent relief because her lungs are no longer screaming for air. She feels much calmer, lightheaded almost and her body tingles with an overwhelming feeling of weightlessness.

And then just black.

A shooting pain rockets through her back and her eyes snap open.

The air she so desperately craved is now rapidly drawing through her nostrils. She feels a sticky, stinging ache between her shoulder blades where she thinks broken plastic or glass must have wedged into her skin. Her feet are stinging now, the cool air irritating the open cuts from where her feet made contact with the taillight.

She isn't as frantic as before. Passing out must have been the slap across the face she needed to counter her hyperventilation.

She needs to focus, get a grip, and not allow that panic-stricken state to return. The car slows to a stop once more and she rolls faster this time, and her eyes slam shut because she's knows it's going to hurt. The slice of pain rips through her as the shard in her back hits carpet and she rolls further until something unexpected breaks her fall.

Her body slams into another body.

She screams beneath the tape when she feels warm, clammy skin beneath her body. Her thigh up against someone else's, her face slamming into what she can only imagine is their upper arm.

She tries desperately to scuttle backward, using her feet against the carpet to move her off but her bound hands coupled with the pull of gravity restricts her.

A dead body. She thinks.

A fucking, dead body right up against her. And she's next.

When the car begins to move again she is given the leverage to move backwards and she scoots as far away from the body as possible. When she feels her bound hands press up against the trunk door she is shaking from the panic, the cold, the fact that it's noticeably dropped 10 degrees since she kicked out the tail light and she is sobbing because the only thing worse than waking up in here alone.

Is not waking up alone.

She is breathing rapidly through the sobs, and she thinks about her squad, her captain, Brian – the fact that 7 months had passed and they'd only just stopped treating her like a victim.

And now this..

She hears movement beside her and it forces her into a state of absolute paralysis. She is completely still. She refuses to even draw a breath until she figures out what she's hearing.

Then it's a soft moan beside her that causes her eyes to widen under the blindfold. The body beside her is alive. Of course it is. It was warm, clammy - not cold and stiff. She thinks it's another victim. A second body to torture and dismember. Maybe he'll make her watch as he does her first.

Lewis.

She swallows, the tears streaming openly now because maybe she needs to just accept that she is destined to be a victim. How many times does she have to go to hell and back before she realizes she's not invincible? She thinks about her mother, her father, her roots, her history all so violently and horrifically interweaving into her present.

When will it end?

She can't do this again, not when she knows what's ahead.

She hears shifting, the body is moving now - twisting. She feels the ripples beneath the carpet and the gruff, muffled noises coming from underneath what she can only assume is duct tape. There is something about the tone that unsettles her, it had been a grunt, a low sound of exertion but it had been deep, horse, masculine.

It doesn't fit. The profile. The situation. It doesn't make sense, but then she remembers the feel of the body as she slammed into it. Large, long limbed, muscular, firm.

She hears more twisting, more grunting and she holds her breath and clamps her eyes tightly shut because maybe this is one of the abductors. Maybe it's a trick. Either way she doesn't want to make her presence known until she ascertains exactly what she's dealing with.

She hears a low noise of exertion followed by a heavy thud and her throat catches in shock, she prays that he will just stop and revert to being unconscious.

Then she hears it, the slow tearing of tape against skin as he removes the duct tape from his mouth.

She expects to hear her heartbeat thud so loudly in her ears she can't think straight but it's just dead silence as if her heart had stopped completely.

She listens to him draw in a long, overdue breath and all she can think is.

How?

How could he take off the tape if his arms were bound behind him like hers were? But the question rapidly slips from her mind when she feels it. Movement in her direction, his presence getting closer. Hands moving across the carpet, searching, feeling – until all the air in her lungs expel as a cold, clammy, masculine hand scrapes the side of her bare torso before quickly retreating.

She hears the rapid intake of breath from her right and she knows then, this guy wasn't anticipating her presence either. He is just as blindsided as she is. But she's still not convinced so she remains silent, dormant, unmoving.

After a few excruciating beats his hand returns, this time moving far more hesitantly. His fingers tentatively graze the ridge of her shoulder before retreating again. Then she clamps her lips together when she feels them on her neck, goosebumps exploding across her body. And all she keeps thinking is – play dead, play dead, play dead.

His hand gains a little more confidence, moving up her neck, across her jaw line until he locates the tape. He loiters for a few seconds before he moves his hand further up, smoothing across the material that's blocking her sight.

He's touching her as if he can't see in front of him either and she holds her breath, trying to remain completely and utterly still but she's trembling from the cold. From his touch, and she knows it won't be long until he discovers she's completely conscious.

It's moments then before his hand falls downward and his fingers locate the crook of her neck, and when they press firmly inward she realizes what he's doing.

He's checking for her pulse.

The short, rapid breaths above her are almost warming her skin he's that close and the tears continue to trickle beneath the blindfold because she has no idea what to expect. No idea where to go from here.

The man above her however, knows that she is alive and breathing but it isn't until his hand smoothes further down her neck and trails across the thin gold chain that splays across her chest that she feels it.

A deep, familiar, unrealistic throb in her heart, her lower belly. His fingers, his breath, his body, his groan. All tangible, all possible, all suddenly frighteningly familiar.

Stop, she tells herself. Just stop. Because no. It's something her therapist had pressed her on when those thoughts start to arise. She needs to just stop and accept the fact that even in times of danger she has to avoid clinging to safety, familiarity, stability… because it's not realistic.

It's not healthy.

But when his course fingers slide down the chain and wrap around the rectangular structure that symbolizes everything she used to stand for - she hears it.

His breath catch, his fingers still and the pendant falling achingly back onto her clammy skin.

And it's a solid wave of disbelief that washes over her when she hears the man above her whisper her name through the darkness.

"Liv?"

TBC