The trunk lid popped open, the tape was ripped from her mouth, and Paula blinked, trying to clear her sight. As the smiling face came into focus, she realised she knew the guy.

He dragged her from the trunk and hauled her, feet first, across the dusty barn floor. Her arms took the worst of it as her hands were handcuffed behind her back but, despite that, she managed to put a name to the face: O'Neill. Boone's lawyer.

"What did you do to me?" He'd done something, she knew that: her head was aching and her concentration was shot to hell.

He squatted by her side, his hand stroking the side of her neck. Paula couldn't help her instinctive flinch, though he ignored it as he answered, matter-of-factly, as if this was an every day event for him, "I hit you in the head with a shovel, my dear."

"Did you kill that woman we found?"

He leaned in close and whispered, "I did," then slapped her lightly and stood up, walking away from her.

Paula forced her mind to start working, to keep him talking, though she knew she wouldn't be able to hold him off for long. "How many more are there, O'Neill?" If she survived, Gibbs would want to know.

O'Neill paused. "Let's see, there is uh..." He counted up quickly, too low for her to hear, then told her, "You will make five."

The flash of the camera made her blink, adding to her disorientation but, again, she forced it back, aware of her desperate need to keep him talking. "How did Boone turn his lawyer into his replacement?"

He seemed amused by that, smiling down at her with his hand holding onto a chain dangling above his head. "You really think I'm Boone's lawyer by coincidence? Come on!" His voice rang out in the dim barn, the chain clinking as he let go and approached her again. "See, I..." The camera flashed once more. "I sought Boone out."

"Why?"

O'Neill was back to circling her, and she kept her eyes on him, knowing the attack was coming soon.

"So I could learn from him, learn from the best. And you..." He bent and grabbed her throat, lifting her face towards his. "You're my graduation present."

Letting go, he pulled back, and Paula's breath whooshed out of her as he kicked her in the stomach, knocking her over onto her back.

As she fought down the pain radiating from her middle, he leaned down and ripped open her shirt, then knelt on one knee beside her. "You know, you can scream if you want to," he told her. "It's allowed." The camera flashed again, and he poked her in the side almost teasingly before getting up. "Kyle says he wants Agent Gibbs to remember him for a long, long time after he's gone."

She could hear him sorting through knives, as if deciding which one to use on her first.

"So you and me," he turned, tapping the flat of a knife against the side of his head, "we're gonna take this nice and slow."

As the blade slashed through the air towards her, Paula rolled away, but not quick enough to avoid the knife as it caught the edge of her shoulder. The camera flashed again, and she heard him laugh, low and soft under his breath.

She rolled back to glare at him, then forced herself onto her feet. She'd be damned if she was going to die at his hands.

He seemed almost pleased. "Oh..." Another half laugh. "A fighter, huh? I haven't had one of those before."

O'Neill circled again, and she circled with him, keeping her eyes on him.

"Try that thing again with the knife -"

He lunged, and she dodged back out of reach, knowing the odds were stacked against her, but refusing to give in and lie back to be carved up like the others. Somehow, she had to either disarm him or kill him.

It seemed his patience had run out as he stopped circling and talking, instead thrusting forward again, the blade flashing in the lines of sun that bled through the barn slats and onto the floor.

Paula danced back again, her foot flying up to kick him in the face.

He pulled back, looking almost shocked as his hand went up to wipe at the blood dripping from his nose and split lip. "That's gonna cost you."

More than her life? She doubted it.

They circled again, his eyes fixed on her, as if searching for a weak spot. He lunged again, swiping at her with his knife. As she jerked back out of reach, Paula would have sworn she could hear her instructor's voice telling her to keep calm, what to look out for, how to turn an opponent's strength against himself.

Okay, she'd missed that opportunity, but "the advantage of fighting someone armed only with a knife is they normally have to approach you to attack". Her instructor had said that, and O'Neill didn't seem the type to have mastered knife-throwing; he wanted to be up close and personal when he stuck the knife in.

He came for her again, and she was ready, kicking out with one leg and aiming for his knee to disable him. Her foot connectedly solidly with the joint, and he fell, his scream cutting off as he landed on his chest, as if he'd run out of breath.

Paula stepped to one side to watch his face. He was huffing for breath, blood bubbling from between his lips as his hand scrabbled in the dusty straw. She could see his eyes moving, glaring at her feet as he tried to talk.

Finally, he lay still.

She wanted to check that he was dead, the threat was gone, but she couldn't take the chance it was a trap. Backing up to the car, she kept her eyes fixed on the body, then she slid her back along the hood of the car, making for the passenger side. O'Neill had to have a cell phone. If she could find it, she could phone for help.

Paula found it on the passenger seat, and had to force herself to look away from O'Neill in order to memorise the layout of the buttons. If only she'd had a way to get her arms free, but she couldn't see any handcuff keys, and the option of forcing her body and legs through her arms to bring her hands to the front would leave her vulnerable for too long.

So...

She took a deep breath and stared at the keypad, then turned her back to the passenger seat and slid her fingers gently over the phone. There was a beep as she hit the key to initiate a call, then she trailed her fingers down the pad and over the keys, hoping she was dialling the numbers correctly.

The faint sound of a car stopped her, her eyes leaving O'Neill's body for a few seconds as she approached the side of the barn and peered out into the blinding sun. He had to have been working alone...hadn't he? Surely Boone hadn't had more than one follower.

Paula's breath caught in her throat. The writer. Another admirer. Another killer?

She heard a car door shut quietly outside, and she left O'Neill's car, hurrying past the body to the back of the barn. Whether she had time or not, she had to try. She dropped to her knees, and shoved her feet past the handcuffs, ignoring the strain in her arms as she forced herself backwards. It felt like the metal cuffs were biting into the sides of her wrists, digging deeper and deeper as she struggled, but finally her hands were in front of her.

This time, it was easy to get to her feet, and she was up and half way across the barn to the table where O'Neill had left a stomach-churning array of knives, when the barn door opened and silently slid shut.

She lunged forward, her hands stretched out, reaching for the knives, then a hand grabbed her arm and pulled her to a standstill. She jerked back, then relaxed suddenly, feeling as if her muscles were turning to water with the relief. "Gibbs."

He smiled, and she could see the relief in his eyes before he glanced towards the body on the floor. "Nice work."

As he let go of her, and stepped closer to the figure, Tony moved in, his eyes sliding over her. Paula suddenly realised what she must look like with her shirt hanging open and her bra in view, but there was no familiar, teasing mockery in Tony's eyes, and he wasn't looking at her bra. Instead he was focussed on the wound at the top of her arm, his mouth tight with anger as he comfortingly rubbed his hand down her other arm.

Blinking back her sudden tears, Paula looked over to where Gibbs was toeing the body onto its back, McGee's gun steadily trained on O'Neill's head.

O'Neill was dead all right. The knife he'd planned to use on Paula was embedded in his chest.

Gibbs nodded, then straightened, stepping back from the body. "Very nice work, Agent Cassidy."

Tony reached out and gently tugged the edges of her shirt together, then turned. "Boss, we need some handcuff keys."

"Check the table and the car. If not, we'll search the body."

As McGee relaxed from his battle-ready stance near the body, he headed towards the car, smiling at Paula and readily showing the relief he felt.

She swallowed, feeling that stupid urge to cry rise again, then looked at Gibbs as he peered at the wound on her shoulder.

"There's an ambulance on the way," he said quietly, almost to himself.

Paula shook her head. "I'm okay."

"Let them check you out," Tony said. He took the cuff keys McGee had found in the car, and started to free her wrists. "They have the good drugs."

"They won't be long. They were right behind us," McGee chimed in, reassuringly. He paused, then added, as if in explanation, "Gibbs was driving."

Despite how shaky she was feeling, Paula had to smile at that.

"Once you've been seen to, we'll get back to NCIS," Gibbs told her. There was a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. "Then we'll break that son of a bitch."

As he led the way out of the barn, his phone to his ear as he shared the good news and ordered a Forensics team for the site, Paula glanced back at O'Neill's body before accepting the support of Tony's arm. Somehow, she knew Boone wouldn't take the death of his lawyer all that well.

The end.