A/N Welcome to my new fic! Captured by the Lorca family, Elizabeth Scott doesn't think she's going to make it out alive. When the notorious criminal Raymond Reddington discovers her in a filthy cell, he realizes who she is and takes her away with him. Violence and dark themes from the start. I don't own the Blacklist or the characters. Please do review – you'll make my day! NTDx

My name is Elizabeth Scott. I am twenty-seven years old. My name is Elizabeth Scott. I am twenty-seven years old. I am Elizabeth Scott. And I don't want to die.

She no longer knew how long she had been there. The room was cold and windowless – no light or change in temperature for her to go on. For the first day or so she had tried to keep track of time. She listened for footsteps and other sounds in the warehouse. She tried monitoring her own internal clock – hunger and tiredness are good indicators. But to begin with she wasn't hungry or tired. Fear kills the appetite. Adrenaline keeps people awake. Starvation and sleep deprivation had soon taken care of that. Now she was hungry and exhausted all the time.

Lorca was her first big case. There was a new cocaine smuggling operation in New York, brought to the attention of her mobile psych team when it became clear that that the competition were disappearing fast - disappearing without a trace. There were never any bodies. No-one expected her to do anything except paperwork, but she'd been the one to put the profile together. She'd pointed the finger at Lorca – she'd got him, and his people knew it was her. His family knew. This was payback… and revenge is really the coldest of motivations.

She sat and leaned listlessly against the wall, examining the iron chains around her wrists for the thousandth time. She had a knack for locks, but not even she could work her way out of those. The concrete floor was hard and rough under her blackened fingernails. She knew she was filthy. She was still wearing the wretched pant suit she was wearing that day after work, minus the jacket – that had come off in the fight.

And oh, how she had fought. But she hadn't had a chance, really. They'd chained her up in a cell with nothing but a bucket of water and a grate in the floor, hurling fists and boots and abuse. Her pants and shirt were torn; sausage thick fingers pinching, grabbing, slapping, spitting…laughing. One of the men had urinated on her. The water she had was to be saved for drinking, not washing, she'd decided. She was brave. Or if not brave, then sensible.

For the first time in her life, she hated her ability to read situations. She knew that this wasn't the kind of room that people made it out of alive. If she was lucky, she'd pass out before they chose to end it. She lay down on the cold floor, exhausted, the ache of bruised ribs off-set by the ache of her empty stomach.

Not long afterwards she opened her eyes with a start to the sound of gunfire ricocheting through the building. There were shouts, and boots running on concrete, metal clanging against metal and the sickening sound of bullets ripping through flesh. As a profiler she knew that, whatever this was, it probably wouldn't end well for her. If the Lorca family operation had been compromised, they would kill her as soon as possible. No witnesses. No unfinished business. That's what made them so successful. She crawled into the corner as far as the chains would allow, and awaited her fate.

She flinched as the metal door to her cell banged open, clanging against the wall. A tall, black man she hadn't seen before entered and did a sweep of the room with his gun before his eyes settled on her. He said nothing, but she was encouraged by the fact that he holstered his weapon. He stood in the doorway regarding her in silence with a look at could have passed for compassion.

The commotion in the warehouse had ceased. The shouting had stopped, and the hail of bullets finished. For a moment there was nothing. Then she heard a moan from somewhere outside her cell followed by a single gunshot so loud it made her jump. The harrowing silence that followed was broken by the sound of footsteps approaching at a leisurely pace. The tall man turned away to speak to the owner of those footsteps. She tried to look, but couldn't see through the doorway.

"Raymond - they have a prisoner" he said in a foreign accent she couldn't place.

"Really! How exciting."

Whoever this man was, he sounded alarmingly cheerful given the circumstances. She watched as the tall man stepped aside and another man entered her cell. If she hadn't been terrified she would have laughed. He looked marvelously out of place in the filthy cell. He wore a three piece suit, with a luxurious overcoat, black leather gloves and a hat that made him look like a gangster from the 1940s.

He studied her for a moment, his expression best described as curious. Without taking his eyes off her he gestured to the other man, who brought him a chair and left the room. Smiling at her, he placed the chair a respectful distance from her and sat down genteelly, removing his hat and placing it on his knee.

She looked up at him from her position curled in the corner, her knees drawn up to her chest. He was considerably older than her, but with a handsome, inquisitive face and a refined manner that made her suddenly ashamed of the filth in which he had found her. Her hair was matted and she knew the dirt and tear tracks on her face must look horrendous, not to mention the aching, swollen cut on her lip where she had been slapped by a man wearing rings. She pulled the edges of her torn shirt together to hide her flimsy bra.

The older man drummed his fingers on the brim of his hat for a moment before speaking to her in a rich, conversational tone that belied the circumstances of their meeting.

"As you've probably gathered, the Lorca family and their associates have just gone out of business. That means whatever business they had with you is…concluded" he said, rolling his tongue around that last word.

She licked her dry lips nervously. "You're not FBI." It came out as a croak.

He surprised her by laughing heartily. "Good lord no!" His laughter died quickly and he suddenly seemed to be looking at her very intently. "But you are."

She opened her mouth to deny it but he continued matter-of-factly. "You think I don't know law enforcement when I see it? But you're something else aren't you?" he said softly. "You're not a field agent - I can see you weren't armed. You weren't prepared for this at all, were you? A lost little girl" he mused. His tone was thoughtful, but he was looking at her now like a fox might on encountering a goose with a broken wing.

She shook her head slowly. She was growing dizzy and decided to ask a question of her own. If she wanted a chance of getting out alive she had to make a connection now. "Who are you?" she whispered.

"Oh do forgive me! I'm Raymond Reddington. Without wishing to sound immodest, perhaps you've heard of me."

She'd heard of him alright, although he looked nothing like his wanted poster. Criminal mastermind. Concierge of the criminal underworld. This was not good. Her eyes widened and she felt her body stiffen.

"Oh no no no, I'm not going to hurt you" he said quickly on seeing her expression. "But I would be very interested to hear how a young agent such as yourself managed to incur the wrath of the Lorca cartel to the extent that they'd risk abducting you. Tell me - what have you done, mmmm?" he leaned forward and clasped his hands on his knees, making a show of not wanting to miss anything she said.

But she couldn't speak. The dizziness intensified and she felt as though her head was being crushed from the inside. She swallowed, wincing in pain as her head rolled against the wall.

He tutted as he observed this. "Ah hell. Dembe, see if any of our deceased hosts has keys for those fabulously medieval restraints."

His companion returned a moment later and handed him a bunch of keys, which he accepted, casually flicking through them for a likely looking candidate. Satisfied that he'd found it, he palmed his hat back on his head and stepped towards her, kneeling on one knee in front of her and undoing one cuff and then the other. As he worked she thought dimly of his designer pants in the dirt. Of how she must smell. He seemed utterly unconcerned, but when the second chain sprang off her wrist he seemed to freeze, his grip on her arm tightening.

Maybe he doesn't like women with scars, she thought. He wouldn't be the first man to be grossed out by the blemish on her palm. But she didn't care. She liked it – she couldn't remember a time when she didn't have it, and that was comforting somehow. She floated back to reality and realized he was now examining her scar. She wished he would stop touching it.

Suddenly, he took her chin in his gloved hand and raised her face up so he could see her better in the darkness, his other hand brushing her matted hair away from her eyes, which were drooping shut. He gripped her cheeks firmly. "Look at me" he commanded, without a trace of his formerly jovial tone. She opened her eyes with effort and looked up at him, with thick dark lashes framing piercing blue eyes.

Those eyes.

"Tell me your name" he said sharply, staring down at her.

"Elizabeth. Elizabeth Scott" she responded weakly.

He sucked in a breath and looked stricken for a moment before his expression softened. "Elizabeth" he breathed. "What a beautiful name." He began to gently smooth her tangled hair and her eyes slipped shut again, her head falling back in his hand.

"Come on, stay with me Lizzie. We're going to get you out of here now." As he spoke he lifted her into his arms and rose gracefully from the dusty floor.

"Are you taking me to hospital?" she murmured.

"I'm afraid not" he said brightly. "We can't have you running back to the FBI telling tales, can we? No - you're coming with me. But don't fret – I have an excellent medical staff who will make sure you're as right as rain."

He ignored her cry of protest and carried her out of the cell she had occupied. She gasped when he turned onto the main floor – the warehouse was littered with bloody, bullet-ridden bodies which he and his silent companion stepped over daintily without so much as a backward glance. She felt so sick and woozy - almost like she was having a horrible memory - although it couldn't be a memory, she thought hazily, because she'd never been around a dead body in real life before.

She was terrified. Everything she'd heard about Reddington at the academy was true; he was a ruthless killer. Charming, yes, but utterly lethal. His hands gripped her a little tighter as he carried her through the warehouse, as though he could read her thoughts. She couldn't fight – she could barely stay awake. In the end she did the only thing she could; she closed her eyes against the horror and passed out in the warmth of the criminal's arms.

TBC