An hour later Scott, Hank, Storm and Banshee had a plan. And Betsy emerged from the bathroom in a long, dark green velvet dress with a high neckline and a slit halfway up her thigh; it looked absolutely radiant on her. Bobby was already dressed in a tuxedo and impatient to get going.

"Are we all ready to go?" Scott inquired.

After recieving acknowledgements from all of his companions, he lead the way to the waiting Blackbird.

"Remember, we'll be right outside. If you have any trouble, call us on your comm-links," Cyclops told Betsy and Bobby for the thousandth time.

"Yes, oh great and fearless leader," Bobby said as he got out of the jet.

"No need to get sarcastic about it," Scott mumbled.

Bobby and Betsy entered the Hellfire Club. There was a line of people waiting to get a table. They stood at the end of the line.

"This could take a while," Bobby mumbled.

"Shush," Betsy quieted him. Suddenly, all of the people ahead of them left.

Bobby looked at her in surprise. "Did you just..."

"Never. Now come on," she said. The maitre'd looked shocked. But quickly recovered when the two of them approached.

"May I help you?" he asked politely.

"I hope so," Betsy said sweetly. "We need a table for two."

"Name please?"

"Elizabeth Braddock."

He opened a large book filled with the names of all of the members of the club. "Why yes, your father was a member before his death."

"That's right."

"Right this way madame, sir." He led them to a table in the back of the dining room. "Can I get you drinks?", he asked as he handed them menus.

"Yes, please. I'll take a glass of wine...something red," Betsy said.

"Me too," Bobby muttered, preoccupied.

The maitre'd left to get their drinks. "Do you see her?" Betsy asked Bobby, not wanting to turn around and look suspicious.

"No, she's not here," he said frustratedly.

"Maybe she'll show up soon."

They waited two hours. Eating dinner and finishing a bottle and a half of wine. After watching Bobby make ice designs out of his wine for about twenty minutes Betsy looked around and sighed.

"She's still not here," Bobby stated, discouraged.

"Maybe she decided not to come," Elizabeth proposed. She looked at her troubled companion. "Bobby, is something bothering you?"

"No, why?"

"You just seem edgy...faraway."

"I'm fine," he assured her. "I think I drank too much. If you'll excuse me, I'll be right back." Bobby got up from his seat.

Elizabeth smiled at him. "Of course," she said.

Bobby headed for the bathroom, but once he was out of her sight, he went down a hallway that led the opposite direction. He stopped outside a set of huge oak double doors. It's as good a place to start as any. He pushed the door open slowly, making sure no one was in the room. A library. The house is centuries old...there are probably secret passages all over the place He looked around the room. He walked over to a shelf in the corner. "Elizabethan England: Torture and Execution." Sounds like quality reading to me The whole shelf, he found, was filled with books on torture, and a few about execution, from many different countries and centuries. He had the abrupt feeling that he was no longer alone. He spun around to see a woman with short black hair standing before him, as well as Shinobi Shaw.

"Very good, Tessa. Who are you and what do you want?" Shaw asked curtly.

"I'm looking for Emma Frost...where is she, Shaw!?" Bobby demanded.

"Ms. Frost hasn't been a member of this club for over a year. Now who are you!?"

Bobby shifted to his ice form. "We know she's here...what have you done with her!?" he cried.

"Ah, Iceman. I don't..." Shinobi began, but Bobby cut him off bu grabbing him around the throat.

"Where the hell is she Shaw!?" he demanded.

"As I said before," he phased through Bobby's hand, "Emma Frost is no longer a member here!! You had better leave before you anger me further!", he glared at Bobby.

"She came here because she got a note asking her to meet Donald Pierce...but you and I both know he's dead. You lured her here for some reason! So where is she?"

"I haven't a clue what you're talking about! I suggest you go!" Shinobi's patience was wearing thin.

Bobby lunged at Shaw, but was rendered unconscious in midair by Tessa's telepathic strike. He fell to the floor, changing back to his human form.

"What should we do with him?" Tessa asked.

"I want to know what he was babbling about. Put him in a guest room until he wakes up. Make sure he's guarded." Shinobi left the room.

Tessa had no intentions of doing what Shinobi Shaw told her to do with Iceman. She walked over to the panel on the wall closest to the bookshelf Bobby had been looking at. She pressed the smaller square panel just above it, and it swung open. Grabbing him under the arms, she dragged him down the long narrow staircase. It was dusty, since it hadn't been used for a long time. Until recently.

"You have company," Tessa said mockingly to the woman who sat alone in the small barred cell at the back of the large dungeon-like room.

"Yeah, what's up? Did you find her?" came his response.

"No," she said. "But Bobby left me about twenty minutes ago...and he's still not back! And I can't sense him telepathically. Scott, he's got to be in trouble."

"I agree. Get out here, Betts, now. We've gotta move fast if we're gonna find Bobby and still find Emma before...something happens to her. Cyclops out."

Elizabeth paid for their food and drinks and headed for the Blackbird, parked behind the club in the trees. She boarded the plane, kicking off her heels and tossing her purse down. "Ororo, would you be a dear and unzip my dress?" she inquired.

"Elizabeth, this isn't the place to..." Scott began.

"I'm not stupid Scott.", Psylocke told him as Storm unzipped the back of her dress. She wore her uniform underneath. She peeled the nylons she wore off, and tugged her boots on. "Ready to go," she announced.

"Okay, we don't want to cause any commotion in the dining room. They wouldn't be there anyway. We'll go through the back door," Cyclops stated authoratively. "Let's go people."

They approached the building quietly. Cyclops tried to turn the doorknob, but found it locked. Storm pulled a lockpick from her belt, and, within seconds, they're walking down a long corridor. It was huge, and had about twenty doors leading to other rooms. "This could take forever," Psylocke stated bluntly.

"Forever? No, but a very long time, nonetheless," Hank said thoughtfully.

"We can't take the time to search everywhere. Especially considering there are probably ten more hallways in this place that are just as big. We're gonna have to do it some other way. Betsy, can you contact either one of them?" Scott asked, running out of ideas.

Psylocke tried to contact Bobby, with no luck. "He must still be out," she told the others.

"Try getting through to Emma," Hank suggested.

She closed her eyes, concentrating. Upon sensing Emma, she attempted to talk to her. Emma, are you there?

Psylocke, is that you!?

Yes. Where are you?

In the basement. It's a secret passage sort of thing. But I don't know where you enter this particular part of it.

Emma, who's keeping you here?

Suddenly their contact was broken by a third telepathic party. Elizabeth's eyes snapped open and she jerked her head up to look at Cyclops. "She's here. In a secret basement room. But she doesn't know how to get to it. And there's another telepath here somewhere; they cut us off before I could find out who was holding her. There's no way I can shield all of our minds from an experienced telepath. They could know what we're going to do almost as fast as we do," she informed the others.

They looked at eachother, knowing what they had to do, but none of them liking it.

"We're gonna have to leave them here, and come back when we're more prepared," Cyclops announced, stating the obvious.

"But we don't know where Bobby is," Betsy reminded them.

"We'll have to find him when we come back," Scott said. "Let's get out of here before someone finds us."

They left without a problem. After dropping Sean off at the Massachusetts Academy, and promising to tell him everything that happened, as well as let him go with them when they went to rescue them; the rest of them headed back to the mansion to wait for the other X-Men to get home. All of them hoped that their decision to postpone their attempt didn't cost Bobby or Emma their life.

Emma sat on the hard, dirty cement floor of the cell she and Bobby were being held captive in, his head on her leg. He was still unconscious from his earlier encounter with Tessa. Emma couldn't help but feel responsible for his predicament. If I hadn't been so damn gullible, he wouldn't be here. She brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead.

Bobby felt his head throbbing before he even became fully awake. And the pain got more intense the closer he got to full consciousness. He moaned softly, and rolled his head to the side. Bobby opened his eyes. They adjusted slowly to the dimness of the room. He saw the bars, and the stairs, and the small lantern that was the only light in the room.

"I was wondering when you were going to come around," Emma said softly. "You were out for nearly three hours."

Bobby sat bolt upright at the sound of her voice, but was instantly sorry that he had. He winced as pain knifed through his head.

"You should lie down. The witch hit you pretty hard," Emma told him. She spoke softly, knowing his head must be killing him.

"Where are we? How did I get here?" Bobby demanded.

"Calm down," she instructed him. "I assume you came looking for me. You got in a match with Tessa , somehow, and I'm afraid she won."

"Betsy! Is she all right? She was with me," he cried.

"I spoke to her for a brief moment telepathically, they left I'm afraid. And they don't know that you're with me," Emma replied. She placed her hand on his shoulder, trying to get him to lay down. He shook her hand off and stood up. He began to pace. She stood as well, facing him. Her pose that of a defiant child; arms crossed over her chest. "I'm warning you, Drake, if you don't lay down this minute, I'm going to knock you out again."

Bobby looked at her. She would too. Not wanting to lay on the hard floor again, he sat instead, hoping she'd take it as a happy medium. Emma didn't complain, but sat next to him. "So who's keeping you...us... here?" he asked.

She shrugged slightly. "I'm not sure. It's not Shinobi, I'm fairly sure he doesn't know this particular passage exists. But Tessa never works on her own, there's someone else. She only refers to them as 'they' or 'them'."

Bobby only nodded. He couldn't think straight, his head was still pounding. Next to him, he felt Emma shiver. He looked at her. She was wearing her usual 'White Queen' attire. He tugged off his suit jacket and draped it over her bare shoulders and arms. Emma looked at him, her bright blue eyes meeting his icy ones. They both looked away quickly. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Emma spoke. "Why did you come after me?"

"Because you were in trouble and Sean asked us to help," Bobby answered her.

"Oh. Well, thank you for your help."

Bobby glared at her. "You don't have to get sarcastic," he said coldly. He stood once more, this time he walked to the other side of the enclosure. Emma looked at him, clearly shocked.

She wrapped his jacket more tightly around her body. "Bobby, I didn't mean to sound rude. I mean it, thank you for coming after me."

He turned to look at her, his eyes burning into her, despite their cold appearence. She looked at the floor, trying not to meet his gaze. "I'm sorry I snapped at you," Bobby apologized.

Emma shook her head, dismissing his outburst. Yet she still avoided looking at him.

"No, I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. I'm just a little uptight. I had no right to take it out on you," he proclaimed.

"It's no big deal. I probably could have put it better. I did sound sarcastic," Emma protested. Bobby sat down next to her once more. Neither of them knew what to say...or do.

Bobby looked at Emma closely for the first time since he had woken up. Her face was smudged with dirt and she had a black eye. Dried blood caked her forehead, where he noticed a long gash. Her blonde hair was dirty and in complete disarray. The rest of her was covered with dirt, but otherwise she looked fine. No broken bones or vast amounts of blood that he could see. He reached over to brush her hair from her face so he could get a better look at the wound on her head. She jerked away at his touch.

"I'm not gonna hurt you. I just wanted to check it out," he said, trying to calm her. "You might need stitches."

"I'm fine. It's already healing.", she replied brusquely. But she let him push her hair back and look at it. She flinched as he touched the injury gingerly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you," he said tenderly.

She smiled weakly at him. "It's all right. It didn't hurt that bad." He could tell she was tired. Her eyes were dull and droopy, and she simply looked worn out. But with the gash on her head, he was loathe to let her sleep for fear that she may have a concussion. But she needed the rest.

"You should get some sleep," he instructed her. "There's nothing we can do right now anyway."

She nodded in agreement, looking distastefully at the concrete floor. She laid down and closed her eyes. He'd never seen Emma look so childlike and helpless as she did laying there all curled up trying to stay warm and go to sleep. After a few minutes of watching her, he gave in and laid down next to her, wrapping his arms around her to keep her warm. She didn't shove him away as he had expected her to, but cuddled closer to him. She's freezing to death! They both fell asleep within minutes.

To Be Continued