I might not be able to update for a few days, but I will try---- hope you all like it! 

Have a great day!

Chapter Forty-Eight 

~Nobody's POV~

Tony crosses his arms. "So let me get this straight. You make a deal with that village up there. They give you people. But that didn't work, did it? You kept trying over and over, and none of those people worked."

"Which leaves the girl." says the man. "Yes."

There's a stony silence. Then, Tony says, his question directed at Kafrandi, "Would you mind telling me how, exactly, you are staying alive after we keep trying to kill your ass?"

Kafrandi's tail flickers. "I am one of those blesssssed with the gift of immortal life." His forked tongue snakes from his jaws. "Now. We need the girl."

"She's not here." says Thor, his hand clenching tightly over the hammer. "Nor will you ever find her."

"I detesssst." counters Kafrandi. "We know exactly where she is."

"Where?" demands Steve. 

"The sssssame place as the boy, the monster, and the man," says Kafrandi. He looks around at his query, eager to see expressions of contempt. When he sees none, he hisses, "Give her to us." 

"She's half a world away," points out Tony, discreetly reaching into his pocket and turning off all radio communications.

"No matter," says Kafrandi. "That portal, below you," his tongue flickers down to the ground as if he is tasting it- it is a hatch built in the ground, and Tony makes a note on how it is seemly teeming with energy. "Gives us access to one place. One place alone, wherever we see fit. And that is the location of your demi-human girl." 

"So what exactly are you going to do?" asks Steve. "Demand that she comes so you can open that hatch?"

"Yesssss..." hisses Kafrandi. "Oh yesssss."

*

"What do you mean you can't contact them?" demands Kyle, storming into the small (and now very messy) office that Bruce has been working in.

"Exactly what I said." says Bruce, kicking his swivel chair away from his computer so that he's facing Kyle, who does not look pleased. "Tony's not responding. None of them are."

"Thea is unconscious, and Jack had a black-out. I don't consider those events to be coincidental. Moreover, there's a vial of blood on the counter next to Thea, but nobody knows how it got there."

"It's her blood, didn't you take a sample last night?" asks Bruce calmly. 

"No, in fact, I did not." says Kyle testily. 

Bruce looks back at his computer. "Bring Jack in here so we can keep an eye on him."

"And Thea?" 

"Let her be. She'll wake up soon." 

Kyle stops in Thea's room first, to see if she's woken up. She hasn't; she isn't even moving. He sighs and walks over to her, pulling the thin, thread-bare blanket over her body. Spotting the vial of blood next to the bed, he grabs it, hoping to analyze it back in Bruce's lab.

No sooner has Kyle come back into the office with Jack- who can now walk by himself, although he winces- than the explosion ricochets through the building. 

Just in time, Kyle throws Jack out of harms' way as the building around them explodes. They both cough from the flames, Kyle's wrist bent backwards in an unnatural position. "Jack," he yells. "Jack!" 

Jack crawls towards him, out of the wreckage. He seems to be all right, although he has a gash across his left cheek. "Where's Thea?" he asks, not wasting time even to wipe the blood from his skin.

Kyle looks up, towards the remans of the building. "Thea..." he whispers. Then, as he stands up, he yells back at Jack, "Stay here!" 

He knows that Jack won't listen to him, but he doesn't have time. Just as Kyle sprints around the front of the building, a deafening roar rattles around him, and he sees the Hulk, big, green, and monstrous, stomping towards the wreckage where Thea's room would have been. 

It's a mess. Discarded splinters of wood, medical instruments, tools, glass, and the remains of the bed. There is a gaping, dark hole in the ground; smoke is filtering from it. Kyle is just crawling towards it when, with a hiss, it closes back up. 

The Hulk roars in defeat, sending flocks of birds scattering from the trees. 

"Thea..." moans Kyle, slouching against the not-quite-upright pole of the bed, holding his wrist in his hand. 

*

~Thea's POV~

When the explosion sounds through the forest, I wake up immediately. The sun is shining through the trees above me, filtering light over my face. Loki, who is awake, is standing at the other edge of the clearing. He, too, looks up at the noise. 

"Was that the shelter?" I demand. 

He doesn't reply, but merely yanks the blanket from me and. "We need to go."

"I'm not going anywhere without Jack," I say, crossing my arms. I hear a loud roaring noise, which can only mean one thing. 

Loki hears it too; I can tell, because his frown becomes more pronounced. "We're leaving, Thea. Right now."

"No."

Loki mutters a curse between his teeth. "Thea, now." He's standing at the other end of the clearing, having tossed some of the food (which I did not eat- I'm now very, very hungry), the blanket, and the lantern into a rucksack. I recognize it as my own. 

Of course, seeing as we are on opposite sides of the clearing, which is about twenty feet, this gives me the opportunity to run, in the direction of where I believe the shelter is. 

I make it approximately thirty feet before Loki grabs me. "I did not want to do this," he says, taking out a piece of cloth from the rucksack. Before I can protest, he has gagged me, so that my shouts are silenced. I struggle against the musty tie, but it remains stuck; he has knotted it so that my dull nails can't possibly undo it. 

Before I know it, he is pulling me by the hand along the ground of the rainforest. I try to pull away, I really do, but he's too strong; I have no choice but to stumble behind him. It's a miracle I don't fall. 

*

~Nobody's POV~

"Okay then," says Tony as the Imeldi come slithering up through the hole, with the prone body of Thea, "Now what?"

The Imeldi hiss at him (Tony hisses back), and drag Thea towards the sharp needle on the pedestal. 

"NO!" roars Peter, flinging the high-tech fibers he has perfected at the Imeldi. It snarls as it gets yanked back, tearing at the cord. 

"PETER, STOP!" yells Thor, grabbing Peter's shoulder and pulling him back. 

"What the hell are you doing?!" shouts Peter, trying to get past Thor, but seeing as the Norse god is much, much larger than the skinny Peter Parker, he fails. 

Peter, lunging as hard as he can to get out of Thor's grip, tries to get to Thea, but it's too late. The Imeldi force the unconscious girl's hand onto the needle, drawing blood. It drips down to the base of the stone bowl. 

"NOOO!" yells Peter as the final drops drip down onto the stone. 

Five seconds pass. 

Ten. 

Fifteen. 

Nothing happens. 

Kafrandi hisses. "What ssssssort of trickery issssss thisssss?" 

"Absolutely no idea," replies Tony, who looks just surprised as everyone else. "Not a clue."

Kafrandi lunges at Thor, but he's too fast. In a second, Thor has slammed the hammer down on Kafrandi's hood, pinning him to the ground. 

"Where isssssss sssssshe?" Kafrandi hisses, flapping like an eel out of water. 

"Um," says Tony. "Isn't that her?"

"Assssssgardian!" snarls Kafrandi, and Thor's blue eyes swivel from Thea to the snake. "What happened?" 

Thor, still holding Peter back, ignores the snake and turns to Clint. Both of them nod. 

Swick. Swick. Swick.  

The three other Imeldi fall, with arrows in their heart. Clint then fells the human guards, but does not kill them- they are merely puppets, just innocent-

BANG. 

The last human guard has shot a gun, right into Thea's side. 

"NO!" screams Peter, and the air is full of the shouts and yells of the Avengers. "THEA!" Peter runs forward, cradling Thea's head in his arms. Tears prick in his eyes. 

"NO, PETER DON'T!" roars Thor, but it's too late. Peter has sprung towards the wounded guard who has felled Thea and with a yank, has broken the man's neck. 

Max grabs Peter, pulling him back before he can kill the other human. 

Clint knocks the other one unconcious. 

"RUN!" yells Natasha. "Go, go, go!" 

They sprint back out of the cave, Max practically dragging Peter away from Thea. "We can't leave her!" exclaims Peter. "We can't!" 

"Yes, Peter, we can!" shouts Thor, pushing him forward. Peter doesn't have a choice, and he is pushed out of the cave, up towards the sky, which is beginning to lighten. "GO!" 

Peter is sobbing by the time Max pushes him up onto the rainforest floor. Clint is dragging the last live human guard up out of the surface of the cave.

"We have to go back Thor," says Natasha, looking back into the cave. "We have to go get her."

Thor is holding his hand out to the side, and with a swish of energy, the hammer flies into his hand. Conjuring lightning from the sky, he slams the cave door shut.

"Thor." says Natasha, walking up to him, trying to block out the sound of Peter's anguish. "We can't just leave her."

"Yes we can." says Thor.

"Are you crazy?" she whispers. 

"That wasn't Thea." says Thor. 

There's silence. 

"What?" hisses Natasha. 

"That wasn't Thea." says Thor. "Now let's go." 

"You have some explaining to do." says Natasha as she leads the troupe around past the back of the village, back towards the hidden plane. 

*

Jack, Bruce, and Kyle find themselves on an emergency deport plane, flown by a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and manned by Agent Maria Hill. 

Jack has locked himself in the only small cabin and refuses to let anyone in, or speak to anyone, even though Agent Hill, a long time friend of Jack's (and who had endured capture with him in the Imeldi camp) tries as hard as she can. 

Kyle has a mind to do the exact same thing, but he doesn't. The only thing that is going through his mind is, "I failed. I failed her."

*

~Thea's POV~

That night, Loki throws me to the ground of a cave, high above the ground with a view of part of the trees, birds, and sunset. I'm still gagged, either because Loki thinks I'm going to scream and alert the Imeldi where I am (that's the only explanation as to why he's gagged me), or because he simply finds pleasure in my yelling curses at him even though he can' possibly understand me. 

As an extra precaution, he ties my hands. Not in the normal sense, where he ties my hands behind my back. No, the bastard ties my fingers together on each individual hand. I understand why. If my hands were tied, then I could possibly untie my bonds plus the gag. But he's smart enough to prevent that from happening. 

He smirks at me, causing my blood to boil, and then walks to the front of the cave, where the rain is just beginning to fall. 

My sleep is disturbed by dreams. Dreams with shadows in them, people who are dead but are walking anyway, and then sounds of screams, burns, shrieks, hisses. Fire that burns so high, I can't feel the heat burning my skin. Spaceships that I can't get off of, aliens killing my parents in front of me, and then the dreams shifts...

The first time I see him, he's walking towards me, the boy, that cursed boy that turned my world upside down. It's dark in the world, just as it was. I'm alone. I try to scream, but I can't. It's dark and small in this room. I keep screaming and screaming and then...

The slithering serpents are slithering towards me so quickly, I can't move. They tighten around me, choking me, and I claw around, but their bodies are pressing around me so much, I can't breathe, I can't breathe.

*

~Nobody's POV~

Loki is sitting at the mouth of the cave, watching the rain roll across the sky in sheets and above the trees. The lightning crackles, and far, far away, it sets the top of a tree on fire before the rain extinguishes it. 

The roar of the thunder, rain, and lightning is so loud, he doesn't notice that Thea is crying and rolling around the ground until her cries have reached soft screams, muffled by the gag. He turns his head and sees her clutching the air, as if trapped, trying to get out of something. 

Standing, Loki walks towards her. Her sobs are limiting her breathing, which is not helped by the gag. He takes out his emerald-crested dagger from his belt, falls on his knees next to Thea and pulls her up. 

Her eyes snap open, and seeing as the first thing Thea sees is Loki hovering over her with a dagger, she screams-or she tries, but the gag makes that virtually impossible. 

"Calm down." mutters Loki, turning her around and slicing through the gag. She immediately starts to cough, sucking in air through her mouth. 

She turns around to face him, her eyes wet, red, and swollen. "L...loki?"

"It's just me." he says, standing up and walking back to the mouth of the cave. 

Half an hour later, the storm reaches the cave, sending sheets of rain into the front few feet of the cave, causing Loki to move back. The thunder is atrociously loud, and Thea, try as she might, can't stop her tears. She has been afraid of thunderstorms ever since the day her parents died.  

Nonetheless, Loki is surprised when Thea crawls over to him and buries her tear-streaked face in his shoulder. Glancing down at her, he raises an eyebrow. He doesn't move, but lets her to stay there, her shoulders shaking from fear and tears, and wait out the storm.

Hope you like it! Please VOTE and COMMENT!

Thanks, 
Sierra