A/N: It's been a while. Graduating with a law degree does that to a person. :D But I am going to finish this story. Thank you all for staying with it!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Please do not sue. This is purely for fun.

She should not have slept with him.

The thought haunted Nefertiri, chased down the mental pathways of her imagination until her concentration all but snapped. She should not have slept with him or with any man at this point. She could not afford the emotional complication, the worry that would come with such an entanglement. Not with Decius and Constantine roving around Miami like it was their personal sparring ring. And not with the many secrets she had to keep in order to maintain her own existence.

No, she should not have slept with anyone. Especially not Horatio Caine.

It would figure, she thought bitterly as she slammed her car door closed with more force than was necessary. Of all the men in these modern nights to fall head over heels for, it would be the most stubborn, bull-headed, and extremely loyal of cops in the city. More than once she had stated that the man was like a pit-bull with a bone, his proverbial jaws locked around a mystery until he had shaken every piece loose and could see the whole picture. Only then would he let go. She had seen firsthand when dealing with innocent victims.

She could only imagine how much worse he was going to be with someone he was emotionally invested in.

"Stupid," she swore viciously in a language long dead, stomping towards the back entrance to the morgue. "Stupid, stupid, stupid. What were you hoping to accomplish this time around, huh? You know the man wants a family. He wants things you can't give him, and still you selfishly pursue him. Maybe Constantine is right about you. Maybe you are just as bad as—"

She had only a split second to recognize the reflection in the glass doors, to see the familiar face above the starched MDPD uniform. Her eyes widened as the aluminum baseball bat winged towards her head and she knew she would not duck in time. So she didn't fight it, tried to relax her body and accept that the pain was going to be mind-blowing—but she'd survive it. The man behind her was mortal. He obviously had no idea what he was getting himself into.

Irony raced through her mind in those final seconds, the sardonic thoughts that there she stood, lamenting her clandestine relationship with Horatio Caine when it didn't matter anymore. The force that the man was using was certainly going to snap her neck like a twig. She was going to die in a very painful and public way, the security cameras picking up the footage for certain. Even if her body was moved, others would know that she was dead.

Her life in Miami was over. Her relationship with Horatio was now over. Stupid, she swore viciously under her breath as the bat moved in a slow-motion like movement towards her exposed head. So stupid to be distracted by thoughts of her perfect little life in Miami to not notice how it was now rapidly coming to an end.

Nefertiri watched with a morbid-like fascination as the instrument of her mortal death came closer and closer. There was a kind of sweet relief to knowledge that this life was about to end, replaced quickly with the sickly-sweet desire for revenge. Oh, once she had recovered, she would find this traitor to the police force. Find him and find out who he was working for, and then extract her own brand of justice. Her amber gaze nearly glowed as she memorized every detail of this man's face, down to the minuscule nuances of his uniform.

To her attacker's surprise, a slight smile twisted the corners of her mouth as the bat connected with the side of her head. The revolting wet-crunch sound filled the air, and Nefertiri Elyss'Thra, Medical Examiner, crumpled to the ground like so much dead meat.

Coming back to life was always the worst part.

Inside, she whimpered, helpless to even flinch as bone shifted and flesh mended. Fluids refilled themselves, collecting around her broken vertebrae as membranes stitched themselves back together. She hated it, hating having to experience the process by degrees as whatever it was that made Immortals… well, immortal… began to bring her back to life. She could feel the spinal fluid slithering across shattered bone, twisting its way back into place. Actions under her skin that she was never meant to experience. Bone snapped and crunched audibly as it popped back into place and sealed itself up as if the damage had never been.

And she couldn't even scream in her horror… at least not until the brain became fully functional again.

Her scream came out as more of a gasp than an exhalation of horror. Dormant and empty lungs had to pull in air in order to produce the sound, after all. Still, it didn't stop her from trying. Nefertiri gasped and shrieked, body trembling as precious oxygen circulated through her form again.

It was then that she realized two important things: The first being that her hands and feet were bound, a blindfold covering her eyes. The second being that she wasn't alone.

Scents came to her next, the earthy moist scent of freshly mixed cement filled her nostrils. Fear rose up through the hideous pain of rebirth, and she struggled against her bonds. For beneath that clean street smell was another odor, one far more frightening than it should have been. Lavender-citron with a touch of black musks, the fragrances favored by one of the barbarian Visigoth tribes that had roamed what the world now called France and the northern part of Italy. A fragrance favored by one man in particular.

"DECIUS!" she shrieked, the word echoing back at her like a cruel mocking child.

Nefertiri wrenched her hands to the left and right, pulling her wrists against the cuffs that held them above her head. Her feet were similarly bound, the metal of her chains heavy and scrapping loudly against the stone slab she lay upon. Yet the sounds of her struggles weren't the only scraping sounds to be hand in the cavern. She froze, listening, trying to identify the short scrape scrape sound and place it with the wet-sounding splat that came shortly after.

It took only a moment for her to realize what that sound was… and the terror that welled in her chest was the stuff of legends. She screamed, thrashed, fought as hard as she could. Steeling herself against the coming mind-numbing pain, she twisted as much as she could on the slab and pulled her left wrist down hard. The delicate bones encased in her soft flesh snapped, taking the tiny bones of her thumb with them. Her hand slipped free of the iron chains, the broken pieces of her hand already knitting itself back into shape.

A muffled curse filled her ears, and she rolled again to her other side, protecting her freed arm as much as she could.

"Hold her, dammit!" a gruff male voice called. "I've got the needle right here."

"Shit, man, you know what the boss will do to us if we don't seal her in this crypt. Don't break that needle. It's the only one we've got!"

Needle… they were going to drug her into submission. Then wall her inside a crypt, buried alive behind freshly laid cement and brick. Her mind flashed quickly, trying to pick out the very few locations in Florida that would have an old-fashioned brick cellar-type crypt. There weren't many in south Florida, that was for certain. And she couldn't have gone far before her regenerative powers had taken over, bringing her back to life. That left a window of maybe two hours, tops. Two hours away from the Miami-Dade Crime Lab.

It left only one option: the old cemetery near the docks, in the warehouse district.

She braced herself, trying to slow her heart and still her fears. She was a warrior, a one-time hand maiden of the greatest queen to ever walk the earth. And she would only have one shot at this. Fake whimpers escaped her lips, her body curling around itself and yet laying... prone. Her breath came in erratic puffs, her legs parting ever so slightly.

"Please?" she half-whispered, half-pleaded. "Please, I'm scared. Don't hurt me…"

The footsteps moving towards her faltered momentarily. Inwardly, she grinned. She could almost feel their thoughts clicking a mile a minute in their pathetic little brains. There she laid, this lovely little woman. Helpless. Bound. Sentenced to die by starvation and dehydration. Pleading for her life, no doubt, and willing to do anything to have one more minute of life.

Her captors started forward, a confidence in their steps that hadn't been there before. They'd taken the bait.

"If you behave, we won't have to hurt you." One of them said in what he probably thought was a tough and intimidating voice.

"Dude, Clem, I don't think this is a good idea. Decius said she was dangerous."

"Dangerous? Chained down like she is? My four year old cousin could control her like this. Relax, man, and let's have some fun."

The first one leapt up onto the slab, placing a filthy hand over her mouth. "Behave, girlie, and you'll get to live a bit longer."

She whimpered against his palm, nodding her head vigorously in agreement, parting her legs just a touch. It was enough. The first one went for it, his mouth replacing his hand on her lips, his body crushing against hers. Bile rose up in her throat as she let him stick his tongue into her mouth, rage fueling her limbs as she felt his hands groping roughly at her breasts. The instinct to fight, to use her free hand in a firm chop to his larynx and thereby crushing his throat, was nearly overwhelming.

She fought it down, keeping the other attacker in her thoughts. He still had that needle, still held whatever drug Decius had given them to subdue her. And he wasn't persuaded by her supposed charms as his accomplish had been.

Nefertiri whimpered louder, the writhing she did against the bastard above her and the stone beneath her only half- faked. She wanted him off of her something fierce, yet she wanted something else even more. What did it matter that he thought her movements were attempts to help with his pleasure. A twist of her hips made him shift to the right position, keeping her free hand hidden from the second man. The first was so lost in playing with her form that he barely noticed when her free hand traveled towards one of his pockets…

And the cell phone held therein.

She knew its make just by the shape of it: a standard blackberry. Another twist of her hips, deftly hidden among her writhing, and the phone slipped free of his pocket. It was a simple matter to bring her prize back up to her cuffed hand without detection. Fingers turned the screen face down to hide the glow, dipping it under the loop binding her chains to the stone slab.

She tried her best to ignore what was happening to her body as she typed out a simple and deliberate message to the one man she knew could save her.