"What do you mean, Rowan stayed behind?" Stark bellowed. Major Kramer stood in front of him, bloody and covered in dirt and salt crystals that were, apparently, from an impromptu sea bath. Carter could only watch from the corner of the room, feeling completely helpless. Rowan had been captured or killed; no one knew which.

Major Kramer looked up at Stark, his eyes bloodshot, his face a pale grey. "Exactly that. She told me to leave, and that she'd be careful, but I think she knew we were made, so she... caused a diversion."

Stark buried his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking. "Stupid," he snapped. "Stupid, stupid, stubborn girl!" And Carter realized, with a jolt, that he was crying. "I will never understand what the hell goes on in her head, never!"

Major Kramer swayed a bit, and Carter noticed that he was shaking. Exhaustion, she decided, exhaustion, maybe some injury, and defeat. She reached surreptitiously for her medical bag.

"I'm sorry," Major Kramer said, his voice breaking, and, to Carter's surprise, he reached out and pulled Stark into a bone-crushing hug. "I know that she's your family. I failed you, and I failed her. I'm so sorry."

Stark let out a heart-wrenching sob. "It's not your fault. Rowan knew exactly what she was doing. He pulled away and straightened his hunched shoulders. "And now we have to go into damage control mode. I know I should be more worried that she'll talk, but this is Rowan. She's done several hostage drills, though none recently. I'm more worried she'll die to keep those secrets, if she hasn't already. No, the first thing we have to do is arrest Nash. We need to seize his mansion. I doubt they'll keep her there, but... we need what Nash knows." 

Major Kramer nodded. "I'll go brief the cadets," he said, but he was swaying with exhaustion.

Carter cleared her throat. "Sorry to interrupt," she said, as compassionately as she could. "But, Major, before you can do anything, you need medical treatment. Come with me down to the MedBay, and I'll just make sure there's no severe damage."

"There isn't," Major Kramer insisted.

Carter shook her head. "Please, let me be the judge of that. How about we go to the lab instead. It'll be more private."

Major Kramer's shoulders slumped, and he gave in, albeit grudgingly. "Fine," he said, sounding completely worn out. "But it can't take too long."

He followed Carter to the door, and, just as they were about to leave, the door shot open, and Lieutenant Reid stormed in. "What the hell is Captain Falk talking about, Rowan didn't make it back?"

Stark pressed his hands against the back of a chair. "She stayed behind so Major Kramer could escape," he said brokenly.

Lieutenant Reid sank into a chair, burying his head in his hands. "Stupid, stubborn bitch," he breathed, and Carter thought that the similarity of his response to Stark's would have been funny in any other situation.

"Come on," she told Major Kramer. "Let's go down to the lab."

In the lab, Gerrit and Tess looked up from what they were doing as Carter led Major Kramer inside. "What the hell happened?" Gerrit demanded. "I thought you were going to a ball, not running through a swamp."

Carter sat Major Kramer down in her chair and braced herself. "Rowan's been captured or killed," she said, and she found that she herself was crying. "She stayed behind so he could escape."

Gerrit slammed the tools he was using down onto the counter. "Sometimes, I really hate the bitch's stubbornness," he said, and stalked from the room. What was it with everyone calling Rowan a stubborn bitch, Carter wondered. It was true, but still. Why couldn't anyone have a unique reaction?

Tess looked up at Carter, her eyes wide. "Are you doing a check up?" she asked. "Do you want me to leave, or can I help you?"

"Stay, please," Carter said. She really didn't want to be alone right then. And Tess didn't know Rowan as well, so she would be steady, which Carter really wasn't, just then. Truthfully, she was shaking violently. "Thanks."

Tess smiled and gave Carter's hand a squeeze. "This is Rowan we're talking about," Tess said, mustering up a smile. "We have to believe she's alive. She's one of the strongest people I've ever met. If anyone can survive that, then she can."

And Carter realized that maybe Tess did know more about Rowan than she'd thought, or at least knew the important things.

***

They hit Nash's mansion just after midnight, the Horizon dropping down from above and the different squads parachuting down in a Low Altitude Low Opening jump. They hit hard and fast, taking out every guard they encountered without hesitating.

These people had taken Rowan.

They found Nash barricaded in a living room at the back of the house, overlooking the beach. But they kicked down the door, and Levi and Carter got the pleasure of cuffing him and escorting him out. Even better, the press had descended on the place like hornets, and they got prime shots as Carter and Levi led Nash onto the Horizon.

Carter was willing to bet that the next morning's headlines would be dominated by something along the lines of, "Criminal Billionaire Disgraced After Arrest by Rangers!"

They shoved Nash straight into an interrogation room–no time in a prison cell to contemplate his mistakes for him–and cuffed him to the chair. Levi stayed behind with Stark, and, to her dismay, Carter was banished from the room.

Instead, she set up camp in the viewing room, her tablet on her lap. She knew what Levi and Stark were going to do to Nash, and she knew she shouldn't feel glad that he was getting exactly what he'd had planned for Rowan, but she was. They hadn't found any trace of Rowan in the house, except for one thing: the lock-picking gadget Gerrit had made for her, dropped just out of obvious sight, tucked under a blue divan in the living room. Dropped purposefully. Because, otherwise, there would have been no way it could have been tucked that neatly under the daybed, its display facing perfectly up, an x scratched into the paintwork.

Rowan had told them where she'd been.

Rowan was alive.

Carter couldn't help but watch as Stark and Levi got to work. Both men had stripped off their shirts and hung them over the cameras, and Stark was leaned over Nash, whispering something in his ear. Carter realized that the speakers weren't on, and hesitated as she was just about to flick the switch. Did she really want to hear this?

Then, before she could change her mind, she turned it on, and Stark's voice filtered into the room. "... woman you took is my sister," he growled, and a million things clicked into place in Carter's mind. Of course, Stark thought of Rowan as a sister.

It explained his reaction earlier, his response when he learned she was leading the squad in his absence, and so much more. Whenever he'd learned that Rowan was doing something successfully, Carter had seen a spark of pride in his eyes.

"Now, since you didn't seem to know it before, it's time you learned that brothers can be very protective of their little sisters," Stark whispered, which, somehow, made it scarrier, Carter thought. "So, tell me, Jan–I can call you Jan, can't I?–tell me what you did with my sister?" He punctuated every word, yelling the last three.

Nash leaned over lazily and spat on the floor. Stark and Levi exchanged a glance filled with cruel malice, and Levi stepped forward, carrying a massive jug of water. "Just tell us, Jan," he said cheerfully. "You ever been waterboarded? No? Well, let me tell you, it is not a pleasant experience." He kicked Nash's chair over and stood over him. "Now, this? This is is just the beginning."

And he upended the jug, letting water cascade over Nash's face. After a minute, Stark knelt next to their prisoner and pinched his nose shut. Nash spluttered and choked, his need to breathe making him drown, essentially.

Then, the jug was empty, and Nash heaved a breath, then vomited everywhere. Stark and Levi stepped aside, waiting for him to finish, then Stark straddled him, perching on his legs. "Have you reconsidered?" he asked, saccharine.

Nash coughed weakly. "She's pretty, your sister," he said hoarsely. "Real pretty. What do you think they're doing to her right now?"

Calmly, Stark undid his belt, and said, too calmly. "Pervert." He pulled off his belt and brought it down, hard, on the soles of Nash's feet. Nash screamed, the most horrible, animalistic sound Carter had ever heard, and she knew she should be disgusted or terrified, by all she could think was that she was glad she had people like Stark and Levi in her corner.

Stark brought his belt down, again and again, against Nash's feet, and the sound of each lash echoed through the room. Then, as Nash opened his mouth to yell, Levi poured another jug of water down his throat.

As the jug emptied, Stark and Levi stepped back, watching. Nash was nearly unconscious, by then, and Stark gave him a rough kick in the ribs to keep him alert. Levi crossed over to the observation window, rapped at it, and said, "Carter, I know you're in there. Any objection to reviving this guy?"

Carter thought about it. She might have been a doctor, and she had sworn, when she'd been certified, to do no harm. Still, it wouldn't be her doing the harm. She would just be facilitating it. And Nash deserved it. She'd read between the lines like the guys hadn't when he'd said Rowan was pretty. He was a rapist, and a monster, and he'd turned her friend over to be tortured.

So she gathered up her medical bag and left the observation room. She unlocked the interrogation room door, slipped inside, and set her bag on the table. "I'll make sure that this hurts a bit," she told Stark and Levi.

She knelt beside Vail, poking and prodding at his skin, looking for damage. "No broken bones," she told the guys. "I'm almost disappointed. You'll have to try harder." Nash flinched at her words, and she decided to help the guys out a bit. She pulled a syringe out of her bag and filled it with the contents of a blue capsule. "Truth serum," she said cooly, jabbing it into Nash's neck. "It won't make him talk, but it'll make sure the talking he actually does is the truth."

Stark reached down and ruffled her hair. "Good girl," he said. "I like you."

Carter snorted. "As if you didn't already," she told him. She probably shouldn't have been joking around, since they were in the process of torturing a man, but it felt right. "Okay," she said after a while. "He's not going to die on you yet. I'll be in there if you need me."

She wondered if she should tell them that Nash had raped Rowan, but she didn't really want him going mad from pain before he talked. Instead, as she walked past him, she kicked him in the groin with her steel-capped boot. Nash swore and leaned over to puke again.

Once Carter was safely ensconced in observation again, Levi and Stark got back to work. This time, though, Stark just used Nash as a punching bag. Once he was coughing up blood, Stark righted the other chair in the room, turned it around, and sat on it so that the chair was facing backwards, and he could rest his arms on its back.

"Let's try this again, shall we?" he suggested icily. "What the hell have you done with my sister?"

Nash began laughing, a horrible, grating sound. "I gave her to the Red Night," he said between laughs. "They'll be doing to her what you're doing to me. At least I got her before they ruined her pretty, pretty face."

Levi and Stark both went completely still, then Levi said, so softly that Carter almost missed it, "You raped her?"

Stark advanced on Nash, calmly uncuffed his legs, spread them wide, and pulled out his knife. Carter reached out, pulled the blind over the window and turned off the speakers. She was pretty sure that watching Stark castrate Nash would make her lose her lunch.

A long time later, she heard a door close, and then the door to the observation room opened, and Stark and Levi traipsed in. Both men were covered in blood, and Levi looked haunted, while Stark sank into a free chair and buried his face in his hands. "He raped her," he whispered. "He fucking raped her."

And Carter didn't hesitate. She walked over to him, and, ignoring the blood and sweat he was covered in, wrapped her arms around him. Levi came over and joined in the hug, one arm around Carter, one around Stark's shoulders.

After a long, long time, Levi said, "At least he told us where she's being held."

Carter straightened, almost bashing Stark's nose with her head but dodging at the last second. "He did?" she asked.

"They have her in a fortress out on Acantha," Stark said wearily. "We need tonight to regroup, but we'll get there by evening tomorrow. Rowan can last that long."

"Rowan can," Levi agreed. "But that's their headquarters, apparently, or at least one of them, and that's where they're holding everyone they took at the School. Who knows how long they can last, if they haven't cracked by now."

"We've been ordered back to the Hub," Stark said. "All the starships have been ordered to go to the command center nearest them as soon as possible. HQ is worried that someone may have talked by now."

"So we can't go after Rowan?" Carter asked. They'd been ordered to leave one of their own? No, she wouldn't do it. She couldn't leave Rowan behind.

Stark and Levi exchanged a heavy glance. "We told the captain," Stark said. "He's choosing to disobey a direct order. We're going after Rowan. If we get her back, who knows how they'll punish us. But, until then we're going rogue."

Just as Stark said that, the ship's comms system crackled into life, and Captain Falk's voice echoed through the ship. "Ladies and Gentlemen," he said, his voice heavy. "We have information on the location of where the Rangers taken in the attack on the School are being held. We have also received orders to report directly to the Hub. I have decided to ignore those orders. We are going to rescue our own. If you have a problem with that, you are welcome to leave the ship now, because anyone who stays will be declared rogue, as will the entire ship. Your call."

Carter stood. "Well," she said. "If we're attacking a Red Night facility tomorrow, I'd better go get some sleep. I'll see you both in the morning." She crossed the room to the door, and made the mistake of peering through the gap between the curtain and the observation window.

Nash lay on the floor in a pool of blood, water and vomit, his face swollen and coated with blood. One of his arms had been broken, and both his legs, and they all lay at unnatural angles. His feet were covered in red welts, and blood coated his trousers.

Carter ran from the room, pausing only to throw up. She had let it get that far by fixing him up. It was her fault.

The image of Nash lying on the floor, mutilated, would haunt her nights for years, and, for years, she'd wake from those nightmares, screaming.