Elizabeth didn't even realize what had just happened to her until she hit the cold brick wall at the end with a bone breaking thud and fell back onto the hard stone landing at the base of the stairs. Her jaw was throbbing more painfully than anything she had ever felt before and dark red blood was pooling horribly in her left eye, blurring her vision.

As the dark angel lay in a painful heap at the bottom of the stairs she heard the two guards trotting down the stairs after her and laughing their diabolical laugh, commenting on how no one had ever bounced down those stairs quite as hideously as she just did.

They both reached the bottom of the stairs where Elizabeth lay in a bruised and bloody heap. Looking over her they leant down and painfully yanked her to her bruised feet before dragging her body with them as they started down a tunnel. Elizabeth attempted to pull her feet underneath her so she could walk but both her legs refused to work at all.

Halfway through the tunnel Elizabeth picked her head up and looked around. She soon realized it was another corridor they were dragging her down, not a tunnel, she noticed the dim lights shining every few feet up high on the walls. With her one good eye she looked around and saw small, unlit rooms on each side of the corridor.

The two guards reached the end of the dimly lit corridor that they had obviously walked countless times and turned right.

Those small rooms Elizabeth had noticed on both sides of the corridor they just left were gone, replaced by very old barred cells on either side of this hallway instead. At the very end of the hall they came to a halt and the guards threw Elizabeth forcefully into the last cell.

Elizabeth hit the hard ground beneath her with bone-breaking force and heard a horribly sickening snap come from her left hand.

As the dark angel lay there shaking and in agony on the cold, damp ground she tried to blink away the blood that was still pooling in her eye and crawl to her feet.

But the guards walked in and reached her first; they reached down and again yanked Elizabeth to her feet leaving large black bruises under her arms. This time they dragged her to the side of the cell where there were old rusty metal wrist restraints on the wall about two meters up from the floor.

They pulled her skinny body up with ease and cuffed her wrists in the old shackles then let the unforgiving force of gravity take over.

Elizabeth was surprised that she was tall enough not to dangle by her wrists above the ground, however she only just managed to touch the ground with the tips of her toes. Her body had to stretch for her feet to touch the ground flat-footed and unless she stood up as far as she could the rusty metal of the shackles dug painfully into the bony skin of her wrists.

Moments later Elizabeth heard a steady and already all too familiar sound of footsteps approaching the rather large cell.

"You can go now men."

Elizabeth couldn't see the person talking, or anything more than a meter from her for that matter, but she picked the deep drawling voice almost instantly. Warden McNeill had arrived as promised and she heard the guards leave as ordered.

With all the will power she had left in her broken little body Elizabeth forced herself to open her painfully swollen and bloody eyes to see what the Warden had in store for her punishment. She didn't believe for a minute he was going to let her get away with just hanging there in the shackles all night, no matter how incredibly painful it was to her. Elizabeth knew that McNeill was the kind of man that wanted to be the one to inflict the real pain upon his prisoners.

At her first blood filled glance she didn't think he was holding anything and thought maybe she had gotten lucky, maybe he was just going to let her hang there all night. Upon her second glance she saw the bloody rag he was wrapping tightly around his knuckles as he stood before her, malice flashing through in his cold gray eyes.

"Oldin, not hurt are you darling?" McNeill taunted with what sounded like it must have been a spiteful smile.

Elizabeth opened her mouth once or twice to answer him, but no sound would escape past the agony.

"ANSWER ME OLDIN!" McNeill screamed, rage bellowing in his voice. "Or I swear to the good Lord above that you will never speak again!"

"N- no Warden," Elizabeth somehow managed to quietly stutter through what felt like a broken jaw and what she knew to be a bloody nose.

"Good to know Oldin," his tone was low once again and icy cold. "I'd hate to have to hurt an already injured inmate."

Elizabeth closed her eyes again, the pain of trying to keep them open becoming too much for her to bare.

McNeill stepped closer to the woman he was now determined to break and pulled out what was still tucked in of her shirt before touching his left hand to the soft skin of her hip.

"Why is it always the beautiful ones that insist on misbehaving?" he said moving his hand around to her back now holding his body against hers.

Elizabeth felt his lips touch her neck and she snapped, a promise she had made to herself a long time ago about never being raped again was not about to be broken now. "Because we don't let bastards like you control us McNeill!" she hissed at him with all the strength she had left in her aching body and instantly regretting it.

The Warden immediately drew back from his prey; the maliciousness back in his eyes and again his cheeks flushed bright red with sheer anger. When Elizabeth had first walked into the prison and seen him standing before her, she knew he was one of those men who demanded respect from everyone around him, and this was not the answer he thought he would receive from any person in his life. Let alone an inmate. Let alone a woman.

"You will give in to me Oldin," the Warden hissed in a low and menacing tone. "I don't care how far or hard I have to push you because every other man here has caved under my pressure. They all caved, and it was very easy, and you are no man." He turned and paced the cell in deep thought. "Do you know the press are calling you 'the dark angel of Alcatraz' now?" His tone had changed, the Warden sounded almost amused at his own statement. "I wonder how much an angel can bleed."

Elizabeth opened her bruised and blackened eyes just in time to see McNeill's tightly bound right fist come flying at her faster than the speed of light. In an instant he made brutal contact with her left cheekbone and didn't stop for what felt like hours.

* * * * *

Elizabeth who was still hanging from her now ragged and bloody wrists was completely unable to move from the ruthless 20 minute beating she had almost admirably taken when the Warden finally stopped.

The Warden himself was covered in a mixture of sweat and Elizabeth's blood and was trying to catch his breath. McNeill stepped back from her and looked at his latest victim, rather pleased with the pummeled outcome. "Maybe now you will understand respect," he spat before un-strapping his hand. He used the bloody rag to wipe his forehead and walked out of the cell, leaving Elizabeth to hang by her tattered wrists that had now been severely cut open from the rusty shackles.

A minute or two later a new guard that had just changed shifts walked in and undid the restraints holding her up, letting Elizabeth fall helplessly to the ground. He threw a rag onto her bruised body and walked out.

Hours later, the same guard came back to check on her. Elizabeth literally hadn't moved even a fraction of an inch from the exact spot he had dropped her earlier in the evening. "Oldin," he called out to her louder than he would usually speak but not quite yelling.

Elizabeth still didn't move from the spot where she lay twisted and broken on the ground, blood still seeping slowly onto the floor around her.

"Hey, Oldin!" he yelled just wanting to know that she was still alive and hadn't swallowed her tongue or lost too much blood.

Completely unable to open her eyes and see who was actually talking to her, Elizabeth slowly turned her head instead and faced him.

The guard laughed half in amusement and half in relief and casually walked back the way he came without another thought for the broken woman laying on the cell floor.

As the long wearying hours passed from then until morning, Elizabeth moved very little until she was able to open at least one of her eyes again. Concentrating on her body and the aches all over she picked the area that was most painful and looked down at her left hand, seeing that most of her fingers were bending completely the wrong way.

Using her right hand and her teeth she found a tear in the bloody rag and ripped it in half long ways as best she could then attempted to tie the two pieces together and finally managed to create a rather loose knot. Wrapping her right hand as tightly as she could around the broken left one and using all the strength Elizabeth had left in her bruised body and hearing a few sickening snaps of bones clicking back into place she managed to straighten her fingers to at least look a little closer to what they should do.

Elizabeth then wound the bloody rag around her throbbing hand and tied it as tight as she could. Pain continually shot through her broken hand but there were other parts of her body that hurt much more than her hand did at that particular moment.

The agonizingly long hours ticked by slower than Elizabeth could have ever thought possible. Several times during the excruciating night the same guard walked past demanding some sort of movement and then laughed at her when she had signaled that she was indeed still alive. The guard also stopped several times along the way to check on other inmates that had been thrown into solitary confinement.

Elizabeth knew it was finally morning when she heard the familiar footsteps coming towards her cell right at the end of the dimly lit corridor and not stopping at any other cell. Only seconds after she heard the first few footsteps coming towards her cell, Warden McNeill appeared on the other side of the bars with his horrible smile and a menacing glare through his freezing gray-blue eyes.

"Good morning, Oldin."

Knowing all too well that if she didn't answer the question she would once again piss him off and probably end up with another severe 20 minute beating before having to go up for breakfast and start work. Elizabeth decided not to attempt to move her head to look at him but quietly whisper, "morning, Warden," through her harshly bruised and swollen jaw which took up a lot more energy than she originally thought it would.

"Good to know you've still got a voice there Oldin." McNeill pulled a ring full of keys from his belt and opened the cell door with one before returning it to its place upon his thick leather belt and walking into the cell with her. "Now, do you think you can walk?"

Elizabeth shook her head slightly before remembering what happened to her last time she didn't use words when communicating with the Warden. "I don't know, I haven't tried, Warden." Her whisper was broken and hoarse.

McNeill knelt down next in front of the bruised but still beautiful woman and held her gently by the jaw with his left hand, not at all trying to break the bone this time. Carefully he wiped dried blood from her face with a clean wet cloth held in his right hand.

This good cop/bad cop routine he was playing so tenderly with reminded Elizabeth of most of the police officers from the prison lock-up she was detained in for over five weeks back home.

"Come on," he said gently to her as he rose to his feet. "Let's get you up and on your own feet Oldin." The Warden put Elizabeth's scrawny arm over his shoulder and helped her to her feet, supporting her waist. With great care and what she felt could have almost passed as affection, McNeill carefully helped Elizabeth out of the cell she had spent the night in and down the hallway. At the intersection to the entry corridor there were two new guards waiting for her.

"Take her up to the hospital," the Warden said to them, no emotion whatsoever apparent in his voice. "Make sure she gets some clean new clothes also, don't want her getting around in those blood soaked rags all day. Back in her cell before seven, you know the drill boys."

Both the young guards nodded at the Wardens' orders and gently took one of Elizabeth's arms each, slowly walking her out of the dungeons and up the hard metal stairs she had been so violently thrown down the night before.

As she slowly and incredibly painfully walked up the stairs Elizabeth noticed dark splashes all the way down which looked suspiciously like blood, old and new splashes of all shapes and sizes, some infinitely darker than others and definitely not just hers.

The rest of their journey was nothing but a queasy and spinning blur for Elizabeth and seemed to go on forever and then maybe just a day or two longer as well. But they arrived in the prison hospital only minutes later and to her great surprise they made it without any further injury.

"Miss Adams?" one of the guards called out to the head nurse as they carefully walked Elizabeth down the concrete stairs and into the small entrance room of the little hospital.

"Come on through," a soft feminine and Irish voice called out.

The guards led Elizabeth straight through into the second room full of beds without any hesitation and put her down on one of them.

"Oh dear god!" the pretty middle aged woman wearing a white coat over her prison approved clothing shrieked loudly in shock. "What on earth happened to this poor woman?"

"She fell," one of them almost laughed with a sly smile.

"Thank you guards, you can go now," Miss Adams' voice was strict as she told them to leave, letting both of them clearly know that they were not to question her. They were to leave immediately or she would inform the District Warden of their inappropriate actions towards the convicts being held within this prison.

Both the guards glanced at each other with a cautious look before turning around and walking out the way they had come.

"Oh my dear lord, what's your name darling?" Her soft and caring voice was back, the accent of The Isles was thick but not so bad that Elizabeth couldn't understand her. Compassion shone through like a wonderfully bright burning beacon over the dark ocean when she spoke.

"Oldin," Elizabeth quietly whispered back to the caring nurse, pushing aside all the pain.

"Tell me my dear, off the record, did Warden McNeill do this to you?" The nurses thick black locks of hair fell forward and hung around the sides of her pretty face as she looked over the dark angel that was so badly beaten and broken on the bed before her.

Elizabeth slowly nodded her head, her eyes still too sore to open.

"I knew it had to happen to the first woman that was an inmate here," Miss Adams said shaking her head and holding Elizabeth's hand in hers. Her bright blue eyes were full of sorrow. "He loves to beat the inmates, 'teach them a lesson they will never forget' as he all too often says to justify his actions. I knew he could never resist a woman."

The nurse stepped away from Elizabeth for a few moments and returned with a trolley, rolling it over to the bedside she opened a few sealed bags. Pulling out saline solutions and gauze she began cleaning up Elizabeth's wrists that were still dripping with blood.

"His pretty little wife only comes to visit him once every second weekend.  Comes on a Saturday with their two little children and then leaves on the Sunday. Same thing week in and week out. Oh my dear, he didn't," the nurse paused for a moment, her bright blue eyes stared off into space as she searched for the right word, "force himself onto you did he?"

Elizabeth shook her head.

"Oh thank god. The women that work around the here don't really mind the attention they get from the Warden all that much, if they don't want him then he doesn't force them into anything. God we all know that loose little secretary of his just loves it, always on her back for him that little devil. But I always thought he wouldn't be able to help himself if he ever came across an inmate as, well as beautiful as you."

"He tried," Elizabeth whispered hoarsely as tears once again pooled in her big green and horribly bruised eyes.

The nurse stopped and gently squeezed her hand, deep compassion shining through in her beautiful blue eyes.

"You won't say anything will you?" Elizabeth almost sounded as though she was pleading with the kindly dark haired woman as a tear painfully fell from her glistening eyes.

"No dear, of course I won't say a thing to anyone, I wouldn't want to get you into any more trouble than you're obviously already in."

The nurse continued to gently clean up Elizabeth's wrists, placing a few stitches in the tattered flesh to accelerate the healing and wrapping both in white gauze to protect the lesions from further injury. It was then the nurse noticed the funny direction some of the bones in Elizabeth's left hand were pointing.

"How did you break your fingers darling?" Miss Adams asked as she bent down to look at the injury closer.

"I don't remember, I think when they threw me into the cell, or maybe it was those stairs. I really don't remember, last night is all just a bit of a blur." Elizabeth's voice was slowly coming back to her now but was still very broken and raspy.

"Not the dungeon stairs?"

"Yeah, them ones." Elizabeth's forehead crinkled as she remembered the pain of the fall she had taken down those metal grate covered stairs.

Miss Adams scoffed indignantly at the way the guards and the Warden had treated the poor beaten young woman in front of her.

With a few cracks Miss Adams had straightened Elizabeth's bones back to where they should be then strapped the hand tightly with thick white gauze before she continued down Elizabeth's battered body. She covered up the bad bruises with padding and gauze, cleaned abrasions and taped up anything still bleeding. Elizabeth soon felt the nurses' gentle hands paying careful attention to her face but knew there wasn't going to be much she could do about the bruises there.

"Right, you're done, you okay love?" Miss Adams quietly asked as she packed up her trolley and wheeled it back to where she had got it.

Elizabeth looked down at her body as she lay on the bed and was slightly reminded of a half-finished Egyptian mummy. "What's the time?"

"Half past six dear, I suppose the guards will be back soon to take you up to your cell."

With a great amount of strength and a few bolts of pain that stabbed agonizingly at her body Elizabeth managed to get herself sitting up in the small bed and she looked into the mirror on the wall next to her. Her left eye was black, not blue or purple as most bruises usually began, this one was just plain black. There was small white strips of tape almost completely covering her left eyebrow and there was more tape covering lacerations on both sides of her jaw and on her forehead. There were bruises covering her neck and breastbone and jaw where McNeill had so violently grabbed her with his bone breaking grip.

"It's really not as bad as it looks, most of it is superficial. The wrists are the worst part by far but I'm sure the scars that are going to heal from it will just blend in with the rest of the ones you have there. Hopefully the Warden won't know any of that and