Paige's ribs cracked as her body upheaved itself against her will. Her eyelids peeled themselves apart as her arms began to quiver; her bones humming restlessly as the sensation spread through the length of her body until every part of her was shaking desperately.

"Rise and shine." She heard the words echo through the basement and could make out her captor's figure to her left. She watched as his arm lunged down to Jas's head and scooped up a mass of tangled, matted blonde hair. Fingers laced against her scalp, he dragged her frail and battered body across the floor until he reached Paige, then he released his grip and Jas dropped to the ground with relief. She was wailing now, any words completely incoherent. She hadn't spoken for the past day, only muffled sobs and this desperate cry had passed her lips. Paige was sure she would die if they tortured her any more; their situation suddenly felt more perilous than ever.

She stayed silent- she had learned this. Stay silent, don't move, don't look at anyone. She fixed her blurry vision to the blood stained floor, she didn't even listen as Bazish talked. Beyond the pain she'd grown accustomed to, a fuzzy uneasy feeling tingled in her fingertips. Both she and Jasmin were being kept conscious by adrenaline, and each time she was brought back to hell the feeling got a little worse; the throbbing in her head pounded harder and the prickling in her skin stung more. She was slumped rigidly still as the buzz of electricity shot through her veins, a gasp jumped in her throat and pins and needles peppered her spine. At least she could breathe now, at some point she'd come around to find her jaw realigned and some relief in easier breaths. A sharp sting licked her thigh and she glanced down. Fresh blood... Paige was confused. Something kicked her leg with force, and she stifled a groan and drew her eyes up.

"Ignore me one more time and you can watch as every man here rapes your friend!" Bazish's voice echoed off the walls furiously and Paige looked up obediently with a start. Bazish had the laptop and camera set up again, the small lens aimed squarely at her.

"You want to say hello to your people? Look, these ones are English. Say hello," he picked the laptop off the table it had rested on and shone it in Paige's face. The light from the screen glared at her dazzlingly and she winced back, harsh blazes of light creating rings in her already blurry and confused vision.

"Sit up, come on," Bazish hit her around the back of the head impatiently, grabbed her under the arm when she didn't immediately respond and hoisted her up until she was upright against the concrete wall. He rested the laptop on her thighs, the warm air shooting out from the fan burning the fresh wound there. He crouched down beside Paige, pointing the small camera towards her. "Don't be fucking rude, say hello!"

Paige tried to get the figures on the screen to make sense. Why did everything feel so... difficult? Everything felt a little too far away, a little too hard to reach, a little too blurry to focus on. She frowned deeply as she tried to fix her eyes.

"-home..."

Any image she saw was swimming, like water was rippling across her retinas. Some figures were starting to come in to focus. People, lots of people in a large room. Sitting at a large table. That was all she could manage.

"- drugged them?!"

A woman. Had she heard a woman's voice? Where would she hear a woman's voice from in here? She was still in the basement, wasn't she? Something burned uncomfortably on her thigh. That was sore, what was that? She dragged her eyes open and a piercing glare hit back. She gave up and let herself succumb to the dark. She felt warm all over, comfortably so everywhere except the back of her neck which prickled with heat. Sweat dripped down her spine and off the tip of her nose. She was inexplicably hot now, like somebody was rolling a thousand flames across her skin. She felt like she was drifting off in a boiling sea...

*

"They're floating them," Ant muttered as he noticed a small pile of discarded needles. It was only adrenaline, probably to keep them conscious during torture. It was a common method in enhanced interrogations. Agent Lorres and the Americans had been visibly and audibly shocked when the screen illuminated the two tortured hostages. Ant and the rest of his team took it in their stride, barely showing any discomfort at the image in front of them.

"They'll be dead by the time we get there," Jim shook his head in dismay. When they were given 36 hours to respond, the assumption was that the girls would have been left untouched until then.

"You guys were on the first call, this can't be a shock to you," Ant studied his US counterparts. Their stony faced glares were fixed squarely at the screen, jaws locked shut and mouths in thin straight grimaces.

"They weren't like that when we last talked," Jase snapped back. Al-Raheem was his target. Don't worry about the women, don't think about the women; concentrate on the dangerous terrorist. Sonny side eyed him with uncertainty. Were they seriously meant to take that fucker alive? Well, alive wasn't the highest criteria, he decided. As the image on the screen showed him, there could be a perilously long road between living and dead, and they could make sure he walked the tightrope between the two back and forth until they delivered him to the black site. They hadn't said anything about him being unharmed.

Lorres and a couple of the brass negotiated with al-Raheem, and a location was set for the bogus prisoner swap. What Bazish didn't know was that UAV's had located their current whereabouts. They would have stayed entirely concealed if their young courier hadn't pulled himself out of a camouflaged tunnel entrance at the same time their heat sensor drone flew overhead. He was only noticeable by a slight limp in his walk, which matched a tiny slither of an image from their first video call. It was pure luck.

When al-Raheem became bored of their conversation and the various demands that were made of him, he barked a command at one of the hostages. When he had no response he shouted again, then almost instantly leapt off his stool and retrieved a fraying bullwhip. He adjusted the camera until both the hostages were in view again. Jasmin was visibly breathing but looked dead by all other accounts. Paige was slumped against a wall, eyes shut but obviously awake, her body uncomfortably tense in her unnatural position. Ant could remember that feeling from his own experience with torture. There was no comfortable way to rest, so you just held yourself in whatever position you were currently in to avoid further pain by moving.

The whip moved fast and lashed against her leg, the sound echoed around their conference room. Pain like that would summon you to attentiveness almost instantly, but it took a second to register on Paige. She didn't show any signs of being hurt, but instead gazed at her thigh in confusion, watching a thin slug of blood drip down her thigh. Her perplexed expression only irritated al-Raheem more, and he kicked her hard near the oozing wound. She groaned with reluctance and looked up to face Bazish. Her unwillingness to acknowledge pain in front of her captor gave Ant hope. She still had some fight left, despite how she looked. He couldn't believe she was the same person as the picture in the op file. The image in his brief showed a beautiful young woman in a candid picture, looking up at the camera with sparkling blue eyes and the beginnings of a smile on full, rosy pink lips. She was stunning, a harsh contrast to the bruised and bloodied woman he now saw. Ant looked back at the screen as he heard the end of a threat to rape them, and clenched his fingers around his jaw as he stroked the rough stubble. He was going to kill this man.

"You want to say hello to your people? Look, these ones are English. Say hello," al-Raheem picked the laptop and camera up from the table and held it in front of Paige's face. She winced back as the bright glare hit her eyes. "Sit up, come on," he was losing patience with every passing second. Paige was smacked around the back of her head, then hoisted up by the arm until she was sitting nearly straight up against the wall. The pain the movement induced was clear on her face. The laptop was rested on her legs, Paige looked numbly at the screen and shifted slightly, rolling her head back until it hit the concrete and closing her eyes in discomfort.

"Don't be fucking rude, say hello!" al-Raheem ordered. She opened her eyes obediently. Small beads of sweat shone on her forehead. Through the bruising and dried blood covering her face, her skin looked clammy and as white as a sheet. Her lips were practically shredded, from being busted open during beatings and deep cracks from dehydration. Paige frowned as she stared back at them. She looked so... lost. Jase swallowed down his frustration. She wasn't the target. Agent Lorres sucked in a breath.

"We're going to bring you home," she spoke calmly and clearly. The words had no effect.

"She's practically fuckin' dead," Sonny muttered with his fists clenched tightly. Paige's eyes began to roll as she struggled to keep them open.

"Have you drugged them?!" Lorres shouted the question to al-Raheem.

"No, no. Only to keep them alive, that's all," Bazish laughed. Jase had been right, the 'camera sport' had been the least of their worries.

Paige made a small whimpering sound and the screen wobbled as she shifted her legs. She opened her eyes and almost instantly closed them as the light from the screen hit back. The beads of sweat on her forehead were running freely now, she was sick. Her breathing was raspy and as a breath caught in her throat she lurched forward with a cough that brought up bloodied frothy mucus.

"Epinephrine overdose," the present medic stated, looking agitatedly around the room.

"I want to make it clear that these hostages are not to be touched again, al-Raheem," Lorres kept her breathing steady as she retained her composure. She was furious, mostly with herself. She should have gotten him to agree to that the first time. But who hurt their prisoners when negotiations were being discussed? You left them because they were your bartering tool, too valuable to mess with.

Bazish looked back at the camera, a small smile dancing on his lips. "I won't touch them," he raised his hands and bowed his head in promise.

As soon as the signal timed out the plans for the op were arranged. The last blueprints for the underground structure were eight years old, but it probably hadn't changed that much. They studied the model until each of them knew the layout like the back of their hand.

"Ok, so Helo infil at 2200. Time Sensitive Target status now, we need to keep this one short and sweet guys," Jim nodded at the SOF men around him. In the back of his mind he hoped Jase would ignore him and ensure the hostages were first priority, even though he knew the SAS guys would move hell and earth to protect them. He would always be for his team first, but the British special forces reputation was more than fearsome and they were famous for rescue ops. Hopefully the women could hold on for a few more hours until they arrived. All they needed to do now was not to die.