The bag was pulled roughly off Ophilia's head after much jostling. Someone had tied her to a chair. With a dull horror, Ophilia realized that she couldn't open one of her eyes. The light of the room burned into her one good eye and she squinted to see, until the world came back into focus. She was in a large, open room with cabinets and boxes packed against all the walls. All around the room stood some of the men in the white suits, talking among themselves. If she strained Ophilia found she could pick snippets out of the conversations.

"... have her. Now what?"

"... is gonna be pissed..."

"... sure this is gonna work?"

"... all dead. We're all fuckin'..."

Ophilia shook her head, trying to shake away the dull throb in her skull, but that only worsened things, making her dizzy and nauseous. It felt like someone had smacked her upside the skull with a hammer. She could even taste blood. In a simple, blind rage she spat at the nearest man, staining his white suit red. "Who the hell are you people? I'll have you know, I'm—"

The man she'd spat on punched her, lifting her chair off the ground and throwing her with it. When she landed, pain bloomed in her face and Ophilia saw a fresh splash of red on the hard, unyielding concrete floor.

"Shut up and be a good little girl, or we'll have to tape your mouth shut. Or cut out your tongue." the man said nastily, before kicking her hard in the stomach. "Capisce?"

Ophilia coughed, doubling over in pain. She started shaking as reality settled itself in. She'd dealt with bullies her whole life, but these men weren't schoolhouse punks. They were far, far worse. She couldn't get out of this with bluster and tricky wordplay. As she lay there, her head cleared just enough for her to think and, more importantly, to remember. She clearly remembered the events that head led here: the bullets hitting her car, the violent clash between the two vehicles, and being bodily thrown into a van. With absolute horror, she realized that these men had kidnapped her.

"W-what do you want with me? Please, I promise, I don't owe you guys anything. Hell, I don't even smoke cigarettes, let alone use drugs. I—"

"I said shut up, you dumb bitch!" The man shouted at her, but he didn't hit her again. She clammed up and he hauled her chair back upright. Once she was sitting properly, he grabbed the front of her shirt in a fist, staring at her with frightening, hunted eyes. "You aren't responsible for this. If you wanna blame anyone, blame your damn father." He let her go with a push and Ophilia had a brief moment of vertigo where she was certain the chair would fall over again. With luck – and a bit of good balancing – she put all four legs of the chair back on the ground.

"My dad?" She asked, anger suddenly making her stupid. "But I don't even know him!" She struggled against the ropes, gritting her teeth. "He abandoned me when I was a baby! What does he have to do with any of this?!" She shouted, not realizing how loud she was being as she glared daggers at the man who'd hit her. "He's a scumbag, and so are you!"

She'd earned another punch. The concrete struck her harder this time – her head snapping against the stone, making white dots flash over her vision. She heard the man talking, but he sounded far away. "Get the fucking tape. I'm tired of this bitch already."

She didn't have time to recover before they were around her, peeling the tape off it's roll. She screamed, calling for someone – anyone – just before the tape was put into place. She still screamed after; helpless, useless, feeling warm tears burn their way down her face. That second punch had opened her other eye – it'd been crusted over with dried blood from her head wound – and Ophilia started to cry, struggling feebly against her bindings.

"Now what, Nick?" One of the other men asked the man who had hit her.

"Contact her dad. Let him know we have her, and if he doesn't want to find bits of her floating in the Hudson, he'll call off his fucking bloodhound." Fear made Ophilia whimper, flailing more strongly against her bonds, but it was utterly useless. She wasn't going anywhere.

The words of the men meant nothing to Ophilia at the time. She was completely clueless as to why any of this was happening. In fact, she wouldn't know specifics until that fateful day in her father's office when she learned the truth about her mother. All she knew was this was just another reason to despise the man she was forced to concede was her biological father.

Oh, he was there, somewhat. He paid her guardian annually and sent the odd letter on her birthday, but she hadn't ever seen him or her mother since she was a very little baby, barely able to toddle on her own two legs.

She hated him and, up until about a year ago, she'd hated her mother too. When her guardian, Belle, had told her that her mother was dead, Ophilia had actually cried for her; she'd never gotten to meet her, never got to know her, and was convinced that she'd never get to know if she'd really cared or not. But Belle had sat Ophilia down and told her all about her unseen mother.

Apparently, Belle and Ophilia's mother – Lillianne Melody – had been good friends when they were in school themselves. When Ophilia was born, Lillianne had turned to her friend for guardianship and gave her charge of Ophilia almost immediately after her birth. Belle wouldn't tell Ophilia why she'd been abandoned, only that 'abandoned' wasn't the right word for it. Her mother, Belle had said, was trying to protect her; to keep her safe from something, though she wouldn't say from what. One thing she was certain of though was that Lillianne had loved Ophilia very, very much. She'd even visited several times over the years, while Ophilia was in school. She'd never stayed too long though; she had been too ashamed to face the daughter that she felt she'd failed.

And then, she was dead and gone. And now this. But this – her current nightmare – had nothing to do with her mother. This was entirely about her father.

The father who never came to see her, even when her mother died. The father who never once had shown even an ounce of compassion or love towards her. Even in those rare letters, he was all pomp and formality, like he was writing his congressman or a business partner or something...

She remembered one particularly snowy December when she was seven years old. She'd heard from boys at school that Santa wasn't real; that he was just her dad in a bright red suit. While other children railed against this idea and insisted Santa was real, Ophilia was actually excited. She wrote to her father that year rather than the North Pole, telling him how happy she was that he'd been delivering her presents all these years. She told him that this Christmas, she would wait up for him so he wouldn't need to sneak around anymore and she could finally see him. She told him she was glad that Santa wasn't real if it meant she would get to see her daddy.

He'd written her back with a letter almost immediately. Ophilia remembered her joy at seeing that letter, that feeling of her heart leaping in her chest. She'd taken it right from Belle's hand and scampered upstairs to read it. Belle had told her to wait, but at the time she hadn't listened. She'd locked her door, tore open the letter, and sat on her bed to read.

In the letter, her father opened by said he was amazed it took his daughter this long to stop believing in a magical fat man who delivered presents all over the world. With cold calculation he explained that, yes, he paid for her gifts every year. But, he quickly clarified, the gifts were hand-picked by her mother and sent by mail to Belle. He even went so far to clarify that he'd never set foot in Belle's house even once.

Ophilia hadn't opened her presents that Christmas. She'd refused, crying the whole morning while Belle sat in a sad, uncomfortable silence, unable to say a single word to make the pain go away. Belle had really tried her best, Ophilia recognized, and she was still like a mother to her. No matter how Ophilia looked at it, Belle was the only mother she'd ever really had.

Thinking about Belle and cursing her father, Ophilia cried silently into the tape with her eyes closed. The men in white ignored her, talking among themselves; about ransoms, about safety, about bloodhounds, and about someone trying to kill them. She drown them out, not caring what they did or said anymore. All of this was her father's fault. She didn't know why or how, but she hated him all the same for it. She'd never stop hating him, until the day she died.

Seconds turned into minutes, which turned into hours. Ophilia ran out of tears and her hate burned down to the flickering embers of disdain. Her tears were replaced with a kind of nervous fidgeting. Having never been restrained like this before, her body felt full of energy. Suddenly, an idea sparked in her brain.

She motioned to one of the men with her head, making some muffled pleas through the tape. The man walked over, turned to look at the man in charge named Nick to be sure it was alright, then ripped the tape off her face with a swift motion. She felt her eyes water all over again from the pain, but she didn't let herself cry.

"I need to use the bathroom," she said simply. She'd watched plenty of movies – mostly spy movies. She imagined herself doing that old trick where the hostage would plead using the bathroom as an excuse to get alone, then either escape when her kidnappers weren't paying attention or creep out a window and run for help.

Nick raised an eyebrow at her, then nodded. "Yeah, sure. Might as well wash the blood off her face while you're in there. She's been quiet enough the last hour or so."

Ophilia felt a sudden surge of relief and waited for them to untie her hands. She'd bide her time, be a good little prisoner, and then get her hands on one of their guns. Then she'd fight her way free in a flurry of action; they'd never expect it from a little waif like her. She didn't need her father, or anyone else for that matter, to save her. Never once did she consider that she'd never even held a gun, nor the implications that came with firing a gun at other people.

Her father wouldn't save her – she hardly existed to him – and fear was getting her nowhere. She had to save herself. She needed to get back home to Vivian.

Vivian. With an intensely hot flash of shame, Vivian's face flashed in her mind. She'd been so wrapped up in all this madness, she'd forgotten all about her nerdy little lover. What time was it? Was she still at school? Was she waiting to be picked up? Or had she gone home already? Did she know what had happened?

Had they hurt her too?

Ophilia couldn't wait for the ropes to come off. She'd get some answers, goddammit. She snarled deep in her throat, ready to punch one of them the minute the ropes came off. If any of these men had laid a single hand on her Viv...

But the ropes didn't quite come off. She was released from the chair, but her hands were still bound tightly at the wrist. For a moment, Ophilia was confused, then crestfallen when she felt the harsh material of the zip-ties. Nick, who had watched all the emotions play out on her face, smirked at her.

"What? You thought we'd just take the ties off you and let you wander around as you pleased? You've been watching too many stupid movies, kid." His words were so close to her own thoughts that Ophilia shrank back from him a little, a shiver shooting up her spine. "We aren't morons or some b-movie reject villains. Don't think about trying to run off on us or turn on us, girl." He put his hand on her chin, forcing her to stare right at him. "We won't kill you yet, but we will start cutting bits off. You don't need to be whole to do what we need you to do. And when the time comes, if you were a problem for us, we will kill you. And we'll make it look like an accident."

Ophilia's blood ran cold in her veins. The matter-of-fact tone to his voice made her restless; he'd killed people before, she could tell. If she tried anything, she wouldn't even be a sleepless night to this man. She'd just be another thing to brag about.

Defeated, she was led out of the room by another man in white – the same one who'd pulled the tape off her mouth. It seemed like he was Nick's personal lackey, but maybe Ophilia was just reading into things the wrong way.

She got a good look at the building they were in, but it wasn't very helpful. It was run-down and Ophilia noticed rusted signs that marked this as some old auto-garage. The man lead her along to a pair of doors – the restrooms, she presumed. She walked inside and heard the door close behind her. She looked over her shoulder and felt her heartbeat quicken; the man had walked inside with her and was standing by the door with his arms crossed.

"W-what are you doing?" She asked, countless grim scenarios playing through her head, making her breath catch and her eyes widen.

The man seemed confused for a half second, then rushed to speak all at once. "No, no, don't worry. I'm not a pervert or anything like that." He held up his hands and shook his head as he talked, looking genuinely shocked. "You'll probably need help at some point. Not to mention Nick told me to keep an eye on you, so..." He trailed off, scratching the back of his neck. He politely took off his fedora and turned around, putting his back resolutely towards her. "Please, don't mind me."

It was the single-most embarrassing moment of Ophilia's life. The humiliation was complete when, after managing to shimmy her panties back up, the tie that was holding her wrists together got hooked on her pants. Unable to see and nearly pulling herself over, Ophilia had been forced to take up the man's offer of help. She didn't miss the way this supposed gentleman took the time to stare. She wanted to kick him in the face while he was down there, but she imagined that wouldn't go over very well with Nick.

They returned to the room with the chair and Ophilia was tied back into place. She stared at Nick balefully, but didn't say a word.

"We won't need the tape again, will we?" He asked, almost mockingly, waving the silver roll of duct tape. Ophilia shook her head silently twice. "Good girl. Glad to hear we understand one-another. For your good behavior, you get a treat: something to eat. Anything you want." He paused and tossed the tape to one of his goons. "Take out, of course."

"I want a taste of freedom," Ophilia responded in a defiant tone, sneering.

Nick chuckled, raising an eyebrow at her, then laughed in full when he realized she was completely serious. "Oh, you've got wit, I'll give you that. You're nothing like your old man."

"I take that as a compliment." Ophilia shot back, earning another laugh.

Wiping his eyes of probably fake tears, Nick pulled over a chair and sat across from Ophilia. "But that's a very costly request, you realize."

"If you let me go, I can talk to him. Whatever is going on, I'm sure it can be resolved in some other way," Ophilia said, hoping beyond hope that this somehow worked. However, before she was even done speaking, Nick was shaking his head.

"No, we know you and your pops aren't exactly close. We knew it before we nabbed you. But even putting that aside, your old man ain't really one to be stopped once he sets his mind on a goal." Nick sighed, his eyes gaining a far-away look. "He can't be stopped so easily. Else we wouldn't be here, you know?" He slowly shook his head a few times as his eyes came back into focus. "No... No, we definitely wouldn't be here otherwise."

Time began to blend for Ophilia. The days passed with so little incident that they were both tiresomely long in their boring nature, but also blessedly short in their sameness. When one minute is like another minute, it becomes difficult to determine how many of them have passed.

After that first day, the men in white had moved Ophilia to a locked room without windows or furniture and left her to her own devices. She spent most of her time crying, sleeping, or imagining what Vivian was doing that very moment. Whenever she acted out, she was silenced swiftly and brutally. Whenever she complied, she was rewarded with peace of mind and peace of body.

The same man who'd brought her to the bathroom the first time, William – he told her to call him Will – took her every other time she needed to go, binding her hands with zip-ties and leading her along. Nick had told him he had to do it, or so he said. Ophilia was inclined to believe him. It seemed like he had been appointed her caretaker, or something along those lines, and he took his job very seriously. He didn't however, take advantage of her helplessness – not once. He stared, yes, but he never even said anything vulgar to her. One time, Ophilia decided to press him about it and he let slip that he thought she was beautiful, though he mumbled it under his breath so she could barely hear him. Despite the fact that he was at least ten years older than her, Ophilia found comfort in the simple compliment. With some time and effort, she'd have a steadfast ally in Will, she knew.

Over all their time together, Ophilia had learned that she didn't hate Will at all for his involvement in what happened to her – at least not completely – and that she actually looked forward to being around him. It was far better than the solitude that ruled over most of her days. She could see the shame in his eyes now as he helped her shimmy into her pants; he was just as ashamed of this situation as she was about needing his help to pull her pants on.

William's absence was what let her know something was wrong. Ophilia didn't know it yet, but help had come and it had come riding a wake of blood and fury. After the fact, she became certain that Nick had known what was coming. However, no amount of preparation could prepare him and his crew for the Bloodhound.

Ophilia woke to the sounds of muffled bangs – gunshots, she thought. Even as hope surged in her chest, she huddled down into the blankets that served as her bed, terrified at what this all meant. A change in the routine frightened her now; it meant pain would be coming soon.

The door burst open and three men rushed in; Nick, Will, and a man Ophilia hadn't ever learned the name of. He was just another man in white, as far as she was concerned.

Nick was shouting for William to get her, while William refused to do it. The third man slammed the door shut and backed away from it, gun drawn, while Will moved between Nick and Ophilia with an almost protective air.

"This isn't the right idea, Nick."

With a furtive glance at the door and the silence that laid beyond, Nick bullied his way past a protesting William and rushed Ophilia. He grabbed her by the hair, hauling her from her cocoon of blankets and dragging her up to her feet. She screamed in pain but Nick didn't seem to hear her. He spun her around towards the door, wrapped his arm around her neck, and put something cold against her temple.

Ophilia bit down a mortified scream, trembling violently against the man's arm. It was a gun. He had a gun to her head. The scream leaked out as a kind of whistling whimper, like the mewling of a dying kitten. She felt a warm wetness run down her leg but she was too terrified to even care. Her brain shut down, replaced by the barest, most animalistic thoughts. Denied either a fight or flight reflex, her entire body locked up like a deer in a car's headlights. Like a rabbit staring down a wolf. He was going to kill her. She was going to die here.

She frantically looked at Will, who was staring back at her with a mixture of fear and anger. She silently pleaded to him, begging him to help with her thoughts. He wasn't by any means innocent or trustworthy, but he at least saw her as a human being, which was more than she could say for the other men in white.

"Nick," Will said, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. "Let 'er go. Do you really think that'll fix any of this? She's useless to us now and killing her won't accomplish anything either. We'd be better off surrendering; maybe he'll spare us if we do."

"Bullshit!" Nick spat the word with so much force that Ophilia felt some spit his the side of her face. "You saw that shit out there. That was all one guy, William. One. Fucking. Guy. And he did all that." Nick laughed, but it sounded hollow, almost like wind flowing through an empty vase. "He won't show mercy. You're stupid for thinking that. I won't die like a dog. I'll kill this bitch before—"

Everything happened so fast. The door opened just slightly, but Ophilia saw it clearly. So did the third man, who shouted in alarm and surprise as something skipped into the room. It was a small cylinder with holes in it. She only had enough time to be confused for a moment before the stun grenade exploded in a burst of white hot light and roaring thunder. Ophilia was deaf, blind, in excruciating pain, and had no idea which way was up anymore. Two more muffled bangs hit her ears, but they were nothing on top of her pain. She felt the ground on her face and heard a loud ringing that she knew was tinnitus.

Slowly, very slowly, vision returned. An image of the cylinder was burned into Ophilia's vision, but she could see well enough to mildly understand what was happening. She was still facing the door. William and the other man were both on the ground, in some form of pain or another. The door was open and a man was walking in, dressed in body armor underneath a bullet-riddled jacket. The man had a gun in each hand, but Ophilia could only really recognize the pistol at that moment. He almost casually raised the weapon and fired a shot into the third man. Red and grey erupted from the back of the man's skull, mixed with chunks of white bone. Ophilia screamed, trying to pull herself to her feet to run.

The man ignored her feeble struggles. The grenade had disturbed the fluids in her ear, removing any sense of balance she had, causing her to stumble and trip back to the ground. William was likewise trying to get to his feet. He must have gotten it worse than her, which Ophilia found hard to believe; and yet, there it was. He pulled his gun off his belt, threw it across the room, and shouted something as he put his hands up in surrender. He partially opened one eye, looked straight at Ophilia, smiled a little, said something to her, and then his face exploded.

Bits from inside his head splattered all over Ophilia's front, covering her face and chest in red stickiness. She was positive she screamed then, even though she couldn't hear herself; she tore her throat absolutely raw. She stumbled over to the corpse, staring at him. His face was blown clean open, the exit wound having torn a fist-sized chunk out of his skull. She couldn't do anything but stare and scream and cry, even as the man walked to her and forcefully pulled her to her feet.

Now up close, Ophilia got a good look into the eyes of her 'savior.' They were dead eyes, like two black holes or the eyes of a doll. They were pits of darkness, devoid of any semblance of human emotion or conscience. Those eyes scared her almost as much as William's violent death. She tried to pull away from the man; to escape those heartless eyes; to run, hide, and never look back; but his hand was like a vice grip on her wrist. She kept screaming and, lightning fast, he snapped his hand out and slapped her.

He didn't talk. Surely he recognized that she couldn't hear. But regardless, that slap silenced her. Worse would come if she kept making noises, she was certain. Now slowly regaining her mental faculties, Ophilia looked back over her shoulder to see Nick, a hole in his forehead, sprawled on the ground behind her. Before she even had the change to feel anything about that scene, she was being dragged from the room.

The man moved with an exaggerated, almost silly caution, approaching every doorway in a kind of strafing arc. Ophilia quickly pieced together that he was scanning the next room for enemies before he even stepped inside. She knew there was a term for it, but she'd no clue what it was. He'd put his pistol away and was carrying a larger gun now – the one he'd had dangling from his off hand as he'd killed her captors. It was small, but still larger than a pistol, with a piece to rest against his shoulder and help him aim. What had Vivian always called them? Sub-machine guns; that was it. It was a sub-machine gun. Like from one of Vivian's games.

The auto-garage was filled with bodies – some dead, some in the process of dying – sprinkled about the floor like the first fallen leaves of the season. Their pristine white suits were now forever stained red. All twenty of the men who'd captured her were there, her fear-addled mind supplied. He'd killed them all mercilessly, like a butcher cleaving meat; she was both awed and afraid – though mostly afraid – of this fact. He'd saved her, even if he'd terrified her in the process. She should be thankful, shouldn't she? And yet, all she kept seeing was William's face exploding – that one scene, playing over and over again on repeat.

He hadn't been a bad person. He couldn't have been, with how gentlemanly he had treated her. Ophilia had genuinely believed he was a good man, beneath his flaws. And now he was dead and his blood was decorating Ophilia's face. Lost in a daze, she brought a trembling hand up to try and wipe the red from her face, trying to get it off, to get it away from her.

And the man, he just ignored her and continued to pull her along slowly and cautiously. She couldn't go home like this. Vivian would be mortified. Or maybe she'd think it was all kinda cool. She'd always loved those action movies and games, and now Ophilia was trapped in one. She could tell Vivian about it, and all of this would be okay. Like a bad dream.

Sunlight burned into Ophilia's eyes for the first time in two weeks and she raised a hand to shield them from the harsh glare. They were in an alley behind the auto-garage and the sun was aligned perfectly with one of the alley's openings. The man gave it a knowing glance, then looked down at his watch, giving a small nod before continuing along. He moved slowly, seeming to expect an ambush at any moment. He darted across the alley with Ophilia in tow, hurrying along to a garbage bin along that wall. The bin was pulled out from the wall slightly, the other end wrapped in a semi-circle of trash bins, and behind it all was a motorcycle – a dark-red Cruiser with the word "VMAX" on the gas tank – covered with a dirty grey tarp.

The man took time to drag the bike out – one hand always on or close to – a gun of some sort. He reached into one of the side bags and drew out a folded leather jacket. He draped it over Ophilia's shoulders and offered her a helmet that had a protective visor to protect her eyes from the sun. Either this man was very prepared, or he was just smart about picking out his gear.

Ophilia put on the things offered to her mechanically, thinking about home and how nice it would be to hug Vivian and let her know everything was going to be okay. This nightmare was finally over. But the man didn't take her home. Instead, he drove out of the city, roaring down the thruway without stopping for a moment until the sun set. As her mind cleared and fear settle back into place, Ophilia realized that she was being kidnapped for the second time in two weeks.

Author's Note

Sorry this chapter took so long. Aside from it being lengthy in it's own right, I battled with dividing the chapter, decided against it, rewrote it once or twice, edited Salvatore's entire personality three times, changing my mind and dividing it again, and finally settled on this.