A/N: Written for International Women’s Day 2011
When Jess came to, her head was pounding. She even felt a trickle of blood on the back of her neck. Someone had blindsided her. She didn’t know how, but somehow her cover had been blown.
Jess tried to move, but found herself deftly tied in place. There was a blindfold over her eyes, but she could see just a sliver below the bottom edge of it. She was on a dirty, concrete floor. She was tied to a steel column at her back and her arms were bound around the column. She must have been there quite a while, because the position was starting to make her shoulders ache. Jess tested the strength of the bindings around her wrists to no avail. All she managed to do was make them feel tighter.
Jess peered at the bindings around her chest. Someone had tied her up with braided leather – wet, braided leather. And now that the leather was mostly dry, it had tightened. No wonder she’d lost the feeling in her hands and was finding it harder and harder to breathe. There was simply no give to the bindings.
Suddenly she heard something. Someone was coming. Even with her normally heightened senses, Jess couldn’t make out what the two new arrivals were quietly discussing. After a few moments there was a definitely a struggle and the sound of a fist connecting with skin, followed by lone footsteps approaching Jess’s position.
Under the bottom edge of her blindfold, Jess was able to make out black leather pants and matching boots. There was a snick of knife blade snapping into place before the boots moved out of her sight and behind her. The bindings around Jess’s wrists were cut and she brought her arms forward painfully. As she slowly reached up to removed her blindfold, Jess felt the constriction around her chest give way as the last of her bindings were cut.
Jess looked up at her benefactor… and almost cringed at the cross look on Dana’s face.
“Thanks.”
“You and I are going to have to have a talk about these damn undercover assignments you keep going on.”
Jess knew better than to point out that she was only following the Director’s orders. Sometimes it was just better to nod and say, “Yes, dear.”
FIN