It should have taken much longer to find where the bastards were keeping Bashir. The note that Khadijah had given her was vague in details and the places that Bashir traveled to were many and far between. Luckily, Alex had kept in touch with one of her old contacts back in The Project. He was the one that had gotten her and Cris access to go visit Eden -- that felt like years ago -- and had kept her informed on whatever he could. With his vast knowledge of how to twist the cyber world to his bidding, he had gotten her a general location, a broad sweep of landscape.

Close enough.

After three grueling days of searching, Alex found herself camouflaged behind a series of overgrown trees, staring at a warehouse. It was abandoned, decrepit, but deceitful in its disguise. Despite its pitted metal walls, none of them had sunk beneath the weight of ignorance and time. The doors, scattered across its body like pockmarks of rust, were thick, solid, likely locked. She watched for what could have been hours, picking apart the structure, searching its defenses.

Finally, movement.

A door, three floors up, opened. She didn?t let herself grin as she watched the sniper move from his perch, giving his watch over to the next man who stepped out. A very underskilled man. A very unlucky man. He didn?t even see her slither from one point of shadow to the next, didn?t even hear her boots as they ascended the metal staircase to where he sat. He didn?t even have time to react as she reached around, snapped his neck.

His compatriot, who came to relieve his watch four hours later, didn?t have much luck, either.

Catching the door before it closed, the ex-pilot slid into a hallway. It was well-lit, despite the appearance of lack of electricity, and she pressed her back to the cool metal railing that ran the length of the catwalk. Listening. Waiting. When no sound came to her, she began her search through the labyrinth.

While the warehouse wasn?t gigantic, it was a twisting maze within, fortified walls slicing up what should have been a vast, empty space. At least it was where Alex had come in. A series of catwalks, constructed of rusted metal, dividing the three stories, sending her further into the bowel of what she could only imagine was someone?s, likely Bashir?s, hell. The thought of that drew her teeth together, ground enamel until it ached through to the bone. She remembered what it was like to be captive in a place like this, what these men could do. But Bashir wasn?t a pilot -- not a Jaeger pilot. Could they still invade his brain like they had hers? Would it hurt so bad? Would he even survive it?

Scattering those thoughts, distractions, with a fierce shake of her head, Alex refocused on the task at hand: finding, and escaping with, Bashir. He damn well better be alive, or this place was going to burn to the ground, metal be damned. She?d find a way.

Pressing herself into a shadow, another soldier was quickly incapacitated as he came around a corner. For the moment that her arm was slung around his throat, the man thrashing as his knees began giving out from beneath him, logic wrestled with anger inside of her head. Use this man to tell her where Bashir was, or kill him right there and then. As she felt his consciousness slipping away, the decision flashed before her eyes. With a quick jerk, it was made, and the soldier?s body slumped to the steel grating.

A few more brutes met their end as she came across them, relying on both training and pit instinct to get away with as few blows as possible, and defeat them with just the same. Time was of the essence here, and she could only imagine that Bashir?s experience was no more pleasant than hers had been, likely worse.

Finally, after however long of winding through that Relativity maze, she came upon an enlarged space. Three of the four walls spanned up the full three floors, ghastly lighting shooting down from hanging bulbs with dirty covers. Catwalks rimmed the highest levels, but she couldn?t see their entire stretch from the base-level hallway she hid in, just figures. Figures holding guns. Back pressed to a wall made of concrete, on any other day she would have been reminded of their inglorious romp at the pits. Instead, she was hearing that sickening sound of fist meeting hamburg flesh.

Setting her head back against the wall, she let her mind shoot off in its many different directions, dissecting the moment, calibrating the ways and chances she could have at her disposal. She swallowed against the smell of blood, sweat and bile, of iron and steel and coppery tang. Imagery of possible futures blossomed behind her mind?s eye and she turned her head, risking the sliver of a look out into the room, to where there was a body, a man, chained to the far-opposite wall, another beating him like a near-dead animal. Something suddenly registered, weighted heavily in her right hand. With a glance, she saw the black pistol held between bruised and bloodied fingers. Mouth thinning, her grip on the thing tightened.

It had been too long. She was already late. While the lighting was poor, what with its layers of grime and filth, it was still easy to tell that Bashir had been beaten to hell, then worse. And if this is how they were treating him after having him for so long? she could only imagine what had already been done. Holding onto that sudden bubbling of rage, she gripped the gun even tighter. She didn?t have any extra bullets, just what was left in the magazine, which meant that she had to make every last one count. There were three men, at least. Two at the front, near her, and the one delivering the punishing blows. Probably more, somewhere. They all needed to die, but there was the risk of them killing Bashir. She couldn?t let that happen.

Flipping the pistol in her hand, she stepped out of the hallway and toward the guard on the left. The element of surprise benefited her as the man turned to look, putting his head in the precise location of where she wanted it so that it could meet the butt of the gun. Not watching him long enough to see the way his skull cracked and caved at the temple, she was already twisting to send a high sidekick at the other guard, who came lunging. The blow caught him between the collarbones before a fist came in to shatter his nose, casting a spray of blood. Another kick sent him over backward as he bent at the waist, hands to his face. Neither of them were moving as she began running to the far end of the room, skirting to one side and throwing a glance up toward the platforms. If anyone was going to take a shot at her, now would be their best chance, or if a call to arms brought them running down the stairs, she wanted to take them out as soon as possible. But her main goal was to get to Bashir, and the man interrogating him.

Fortunate for Alex, and fortunate for them. There was nothing but wrath in her eyes, and she planned on turning that on to anyone else she might see. But for now, she was content focusing its full potency one that one single man. ?Let him go,? she demanded, clearly, stopping however far away it was when the guy decided to turn, bringing up that gun. Normally, she would have waited. But this was not the time, nor the situation, that Alex was feeling like negotiating. She wanted her boyfriend--or whatever he was--back, alive. Putting a gun in someone?s face usually worked pretty well in letting them see your side of things.

Bashir's attempt to rouse drew a glance at him. Inside, she winced. He looked awful-- no, he looked like he should be dead. But years of training taught her better than to wear her heart on her sleeve -- a testament that Bashir could likely swear was true -- and her eye moved back to the captor. ?I will shoot you right now. Don?t test me.? As if to prove her point, and better judgement, she lifted the gun slightly, pinning the sights directly at the man?s head.

He smiled then, hands held up, palms out toward her. ?You?re not going to shoot me.?

?And why the **** not?? She took a half step forward, the bare muscles of her arm tightened. She could feel the bloodied grain of metal biting into her palm.

There should have been a curse when she felt fire strike like a match across her cheek, the sprout of blood instantaneous, slick as tears as it slid toward her jaw. Her flinch away from the gunshot drew her aim off of the man, but instinct had her turning full around, leveling the gun, and firing off a series of rounds. Four in total, not enough to empty the clip (she hoped), but maybe luck would be on her side and get that gun off of her back. She took a few steps while firing, conveniently bringing her closer to where Bashir was still slumped, and maybe wherever the leader had likely fled to. With quick scope out of the corner of her eye, she scanned for him and anyone else that may be coming to their aid. ****ing guns.

Swinging the gun back around, her other hand came up to to help support it as she centered the needle on the captor once again. Blood wept down her right cheek, and her ear throbbed. It was nothing to ignore it once she saw that knife pressed to Bashir's throat.

"Let him go," she demanded for a third, and final, time. Her ears were listening for approaching footsteps, and her eyes wanted so desperately to look around, or at Bashir. She didn't let them, knowing it would spell his death. This was a game of bluff. One wrong step and neither of them would be getting out alive.

Alex's eyes snapped back and forth between the two newcomers and the one holding Bashir. If they didn't want him alive, if he wasn't more than a source of their amusement, he would have been dead already. But since he wasn't -- Alex hated to think it -- he was a bargaining chip. And apparently so was she.

Lifting her hands, she let the gun swing down by her thumb, allowing the men to yell at her a few seconds longer before crouching down, sliding the pistol across the cement floor toward them. Standing back up, fully expecting at least one of the men to approach her, she spared a glance at Bashir. The eye of the storm -- that's what that look was.

Alex kept her eyes steady on Bashir, even when she saw the mess of his face try to laugh, even after the man took the blade from his throat. The other two men went mostly ignored, the smell of their tension thick in the air. She heard what the leader had to say, let it solidify the thesis that, indeed, Bashir had suffered so that they could get their hands on her. He hadn't talked. Instead she had simply walked into their hands.

Or so they thought.

The leader of this little trio had made one major mistake -- assuming that she wasn?t a threat when her hands were empty. If he had seen the result of such a thing, for example the trail of dead, bloodied men she had left behind, he would have known better. Lucky for them, his ignorance was their golden opportunity. Granted, the chance to meet whoever it was that was behind all of this -- the bounty, Bashir?s abduction, the torture -- was tempting, almost overwhelming. But staring at the destroyed perfection of the air pilot's face was the conviction she needed to do what she had come here for, the underlying threat on his life the final straw.

Alex snapped into motion, the ridge of her left hand meeting the barrel of the gun closest to her, slapping it aside as she stepped in close, ramming her other fist straight into his throat. Continuing with the momentum, she used the sudden compliance of his body to turn him around, grabbing hold of the back of his vest to pull him in close. The other soldier was twitchy, trigger-happy, nervous. Seeing the sudden burst of action tripped his wire, drawing a burst of gunfire blasting ahead of him -- right into his partner. Digging in her heels against the backward push of the body-turned-shield, she shoved them both forward, toward the shooting soldier, who was now yelling like Rambo. Once close enough, she threw the first guard at him, to the side, just as she swept low, kicking out a foot to catch the second man?s legs from under him, sending him to the ground. She came back up, slamming that same foot down, crushing an eye socket beneath the tread of a powerful heel.

What she had brought up with her, cold and dirty in her hand, was the pistol. Swinging it in an arc, she barely aimed before pulling the trigger. Bam! Bam! Clickclickclickclick. Two shots, that was all that was left. One bullet was a disappointment, sinking deep into the cement wall behind him. The other was a better prodigy, finding itself buried into the chest of the man standing behind Bashir. Alex stood there for only a moment, long enough to watch the man's expression change from anger to blank to shocked awe, watch his body stumble and fall, before she lowered the gun, dropped it, and moved for Bashir.

?Hey, hey,? she said, almost quietly, as she stooped beside him, grabbing at the keys his captor had been holding. Her other hand came to his face, cupping his jaw, turning it to face her. It would hurt, sure, but maybe that would help to rouse him. ?It?s me. Bashir, it?s Alex. Wake up.?

?Hey, yeah, it?s me,? she continued in a tone that didn?t befit the surroundings, or the blood and battle wounds scoring their flesh. Scraping the keys across the floor, she shifted closer to him, to undo the shackles biting into his wrists. He was going to have scars. ?You gotta wake up now. I?m going to need you walk for me. Okay?? She knew he couldn?t walk, not by himself, but she needed him to try anyway. Working the key in the grit of the lock, the first fell away. Shifting again, she was onto the next.

She caught him beneath the arm, putting her shoulder beneath the hinge of it and his torso. She could, would, make this work. ?Come on now, you?ve got to get up. You?ve got to stay awake.? It was a useless demand, really, but it would hopefully keep him focused on her, on staying conscious -- alive. Dislodging the second shackle, she scooped both arms around him as he inevitably fell, supporting him for a moment before getting her feet beneath her. ?Alright, come on, let?s go. We?ve got to get out of here.? Rising, gentle but firm, her ultimate goal was to bring him back the way she had come.

To fumble was to fail, and she did so ungracefully. There wasn?t even enough time for a curse before Alex was buckling beneath the sudden flare of pain registering from her right shoulder, and Bashir?s multiplied weight pressing down on her. On instinct, to try and prevent further harm from befalling him, she turned, scooping both arms around him again, cringing hard against the sunburst of searing pain as she lowered him toward the floor. Looking back now, she saw the man she had thought she had shot. She had, but his fortitude had kept him alive long enough to crawl to one of the fallen soldiers, work out one of their pistol from a holster. Gritting her teeth, she made the tough choice, the only choice, leaving Bashir behind to run straight at the man, gun be damned.

Sure, he could lunge at her. It would make it just that much easier for her push off to one side, swing a left hook for the side of his face. The bullet that had whizzed by was barely noticed, too much red filling her vision, fueling the unsuspected amount of strength put behind that punch. When he went down, she didn?t let him lie there in peace. No, instead she went after him, straddling him on one knee as she grabbed him, throwing him onto his back. Fisting the front of his shirt, she yanked him upward, bent at the waist. The series of blows that came next were brutal, aimed entirely at his face. Had she the time, and the mental stability to think of it, she would have jammed his knife into the bullet hole she had made in his chest. Then again, there was still the chance. But, right now, all she wanted to do was pummel his face in until it looked worse than Bashir?s -- and she was well on her way to that goal. Long past the point of decency, she was still destroying his features, blood splattering everywhere, teeth chips like bits of stone in the carmine catastrophe. It wasn?t until her arm simply stopped working, the ignored pain too much to keep pumping that shoulder, that she stopped, breathing hard, staring down at her morbid handy work. Finally, she dropped him, like so much useless waste. Pushing to her feet, she looked back, toward Bashir.

Good, he wasn?t dead. Alex didn?t like admitting it, but that had been an afterthought fear when she thought to glance back at him. Moving across the room, droplets of blood escaping her fingertips to cast her wake, she crouched down, got her good shoulder beneath him again. Quiet words, coaxing and encouraging, helped her draw him back up to his feet. Redirecting them for the exit, she followed the bodies that showed them the way.

The rush of humid air wasn?t refreshing as she opened the door to the platform she had originally entered from. Kicking the legs of one fallen body out of the way, she looked down the metal stairs, bit back a groan. But before starting them down that impossible trek, she pulled out her cell phone, thankful it hadn?t suffered much damage save for a splintering crack in the corner of the screen. Ignoring the slice of bristled glass, she punched out a text message to one of Bashir?s cousins who had been circling nearby areas. ?Got him. Come and get us.?

Putting the phone back into a pocket, she hoisted Bashir further onto her shoulder, then started them down the stairs. It was going to kill his broken leg, she knew, but they had to get somewhere clear. Once down on the main level, after much too long of a time, she began drawing them away from the warehouse, frequently glancing toward the sky in search of the helicopter that was supposed to be coming for their extraction.

She had been too busy looking up at the helicopter, squinting into the wind as their savior began to land. There was no sound but the beating of the wind, no reason to look behind them. It wasn?t until Bashir was falling, sinking with an even heavier weight than before, that she looked to him, saw the blossom of bright red spreading out across the despair of his shirt. She yelled his name -- again, no noise, just the battery of propellers cutting through the air -- and tried to catch him, but her own shoulder failed, leaving him to sink to the overgrown floor. She kept on shouting as she knelt down beside him, hands going to his chest, trying to find the product of the deadly spring. It was all a mess of carmine -- his, hers, the other men -- but she pressed both palms down, hard, at where fabric and flesh frayed.

It was not a pretty sight. She kept on screaming, demanding that he hang on, calling his name, as she put her full weight onto the wound. The shriek of her own shoulder was a forgotten annoyance, and there was blood and sweat staining her own face. Tears, too, although she hadn't quite known it yet, as she watched the blood flee from his body in any way that it could. The arriving help wasn?t even acknowledged -- all that existed in her world was the man lying next to her, losing the battle she had fought so hard in order to give him a winning chance. ?Don?t you leave me!? she yelled at him, not caring if it managed to go above the deafening thwap of the propellers, or if he could even hear her anymore. ?Don?t you ****ing leave me! Do you hear me?! Don?t you dare give up! I love you! God damn it, I love you and you have to live! Bashir!" Madness wasn?t an uncommon visitor, but this kind was of a different breed. It cloaked itself over her effortlessly, drowning out her senses, leaving her vision blurred. His face was the only image remaining, surfacing through the blackness rimmed in blood and tears.