Note: Pretty freaky, wrote it a while ago. Not Christmasy, bet, hey, whatever.

Iola had heard tons of quote's about courage. As a kid, she always told herself, that when she was older, she wouldn't let fear crowd her judgment. She wouldn't let herself cry out as she was being beaten, she wouldn't let the tears fall unless in solitude.

But, the thing about fear, true, utter fear. Is it's irrational. You can't judge how you will react to fear, the feeling of adrenaline replacing your blood. The panic, trying to make your hands work…trying not to die.

She had never felt that, the pure fear that knocks you senseless, until that day.

The FBI team she was on, a team who worked high profile or high danger and casualty cases, had been assigned to a serial killer who, first, tortured the victim. Stung the young woman, Caucasian, up in a barn like cattle. Then, 'played' with, beat, made her scream his name for several days, nearly constantly, wanting to watch the victim go through pain. Wanted to watched the girl lose all her damned hope. Then, he'd slowly make long cuts down her arms, carve a heart into her back, and wait. Wait, for a woman screaming for help. This alone blew Iola's mind. How could some man, some man who was a little kid holding a stuffed animal at one point, loving and little, do this to a person?

How could anybody, anybody at all close their ears while a living, breathing, thinking woman screamed for help that she was well aware would never arrive?

It sickened her. Her friends, who were fellow team members, told her. It's just another serial killer, you've seen them before, it'll be fine.

It wasn't.

After all that, the man would strip the women naked, cut their heart out, the right thumb off, and tie their lifeless wrists together. He would then dig a hole and dispose of them, or hang them in a tree in the woods.

Probably depending on his mood.

Preserve the heart's in a large walk-in freezer, and, god, eat the finger's.

How the hell could…

It didn't matter. He was in jail.

But, it wasn't over.

Iola's team had been interrogated him, constantly, for the last two days.

He was on death row, due to die next week. Iola couldn't I imagine how this, this middle aged man with wire glasses and a crooked smile could do the things she saw in those crime scene photo's. How David Wilson could do that.

Wilson blamed it on his drunken father, prostitute mother, who had lost a thumb to an angry client, said when he looked at those little girl's, well, not little, but young, beautiful girls. He saw something else. Something.

Iola wanted to run away. She didn't want to see herself in the past female victim's photo's. She wanted the names, Erica Davis, Allison Gender, Hillary Garner, and all those other names to just be names. Just words on a page, matched to grave stones and photo's.

Nothing more.

Iola knew the 'bad guy' was in custody, and they were only interrogating him because 3 of his victim's bodies that he drowned on about were never found, and the FBI wanted a location, but Iola knew it was more than that. There was something. Something else. Something they were missing.

Her gut told her so, she hardly slept, couldn't focus.

They were missing something.

She convinced her old boyfriend, Joe Hardy, and old friend, Frank Hardy, who also happened to be on her FBI team, to come take one more goddamn look at the burial sight. Iola thought back, and figured that Frank and Joe only agreed to come along to put her mind at ease. This case was starting to show wear and tear on her, physically, and, mentally.

Iola remembered, her stomach turning over as they three of them trekked through the woods where the other victim's had been found. She was so close.

She remembered Joe making joke's about poison ivy, Frank telling him to shut up, and Iola leading the way, determination filling her pretty features. The branches scratching her ankles, the beat of her steps, the need for closure.

It was then Iola tripped over something. Joe started to make a joke about her clutziness, but stopped when he realized what she had tripped over.

A human hand.

They dug around there for ten minutes, and found seven other victim's.

Seven wasn't their magic number, their magic number was three.

Three. Four less then seven.

The three agent's then talked, and shared their ideas.

Apparently, they were pretty sure their was an apprentice. This was it, Iola thought, end of the line, I can move on.

How come nothing can be that simple?
Joe then called the rest of the team, their boss, the corner. It was then Iola was hit with a sensation. She had to get away from these bodies. HAD to. Had to get away from the girl's that reminded her of herself. Had to. She mumbled something about going to their car a ways away, and getting a kit, getting a head start on processing.

They said, ok ,hurry back.

It was as simple as that. The simple want to get a head start. So miniscule, to tiny, such a little thing lead to such disaster.

Iola then tore through the woods at an amazing speed. She would have ran, had it not been for the debris in the path. She needed to put distance between her and…them.

Iola then reached the car, opened the trunk, and she didn't hear him.

Didn't hear the man sneak up behind her.

Didn't hear the man pull the chloroform rag out.

Didn't hear him reach and grab her from behind.

In that instant, that one decision to get away, to put distance between her and the girl's, made her one of the girl's. She nearly instantly passed out, barely getting a moment, if even, to put up a struggle.

Her mind seemed to be wiped blank.

She was going to die.

Iola, who was now unconscious, was then thrown in the back of a silver sedan. Not that the color or the car mattered.

And she was taken to a barn. A barn 1.9 miles away from their current location.

A place where four other girl's had died.

When Iola awoke, her mind was hazy, the waking from a long deep sleep hazy. She swallowed once, and, for a moment, thought maybe this all had been a bad dream, really a nightmare, and that she was really curled up in her bed, safe and warm, and her alarm clock was blaring in her ear.

Then, she noticed her hands were tied together.

This was real.

As soon as she attempted to pull her hands apart, it hit her.

She was tied up and kidnapped.

Her thoughts seemed to wiped blank again, only this time not by drugs. Her mouth was instantly dry.

Struggle.

Her body went into autopilot. All the FBI trained she had could not have prepared her for this feeling this feeling of desperation of death of adrenaline of fear.

No matter how many times, as a kid, she had told herself she was going to be strong, yet, at this moment in time, in this time of trial, on this judgment day, her common sense and mental preparation went out the window.

You really don't know how you'll react until you are placed in that situation for real.

"Well, you are awake my pretty." Said a man's voice. Iola forced her eyes open, felt her body go still, totally still, and looked up at a man younger than her. Same mousy blonde hair. Wire glasses.

"Wilson?" She mumbled her mind still blank, mouth full of marshmallows. He laughed a bitter long laugh, hysterical too. She always imagined an insane man's laugh would sound like that.

"His son."

Oh god, oh god. The appetence. This was real, where was she, what's going on? What, What?

I'm going to die.

Iola then, literally, forced her ragged, beaten, and stiff body into a sitting position. Only her hands were tied.

Keep him talking. Just keep him talking.

"I wasn't aware Wilson had son."

The young man, snorted. He was holding a large butcher knife, and running his finger along the handle playfully.

"He isn't either. To him, I'm just some janitor who cleans prison hallways. He's amazing though, isn't he? His work…spectacular."

Oh god. Oh god.

Should I complement his work? Change the subject incase his father makes him hostile? Where am I? Joe? What?

"Your work was so close, that if we didn't know Wilson was in jail, we would think it was him." He let out that laugh again, that goddamned laugh. I seemed to etch itself into Iola's mind. Iola was then willing to bet that she would still be waking up screaming years later, the sound of his cynical laughter ringing in her ears, a nightmare.

"I see you have had FBI training. Never mind, I can take you. I would love to treat you like my usual guest's, but, due you your little friend's, I have limited time. So, no more question's, my little angel. Let's get down to business, shall we?"
Iola somehow managed to get to her feet. When she thought back to this moment hours later, she wouldn't remember getting to her feet, but she knew she did. Wilson's son advanced, and Iola stumbled backward, the knife lightly grazing her arm. She didn't know his name, and she didn't care. But she couldn't die. She just couldn't.

Iola walked backwards, the son walked forwards. It was as if they were dancing. Iola was then aware of the tears running down her face, the sob's she didn't bother holding back.

God, she didn't want to die! She was afraid to die!
Iola then noticed a table towards the back of the room, if she could get behind it…

Iola then slowly lead the son to the back of the room, and slipped behind the table, him across from her, across the table, a crazy Edgar Allen Poe kind of glint in his big blue eyes. The various scratches on her arms, the gashes, the knife wounds, her bleeding wrists from the string that bound them, were all irrelevant now. Nothing mattered. Everything mattered. Her everything mattered on the nothing she did in this moment.

Iola then threw herself against the table, the table knocked the son over and pinned him down.

Ha, a table saved her life, a bloody freaking table!
Iola then stumbled around the table, tripping and slipping, silent prayers of hope running through her head all the while.

She kicked the son smoothly in the head. She wanted him to be alive, to pay for what he did to her, to them. To the girl's she felt connected with. She wanted him, to be tied up like her, to be screaming, to beg for his life. Was that considered insane? Iola wondered. It didn't matter, she had to get out of here.

Iola then stumbled across the barn to the barn doors. Locked. She sobbed hysterically as she threw all her body weight onto the doors.

God Damn it, just open!
After a few more fruitless minutes of slamming herself into the locked doors, she stumbled over to the half dead son, crouched down, still crying, shoulder aching, bleeding, and picked up the knife.

The knife that was supposed to kill her.

Iola managed to somehow cut the rusty lock off the door with the knife. That would be fuzzy too, when she looked back on it.

Iola then trust the doors open, pathetically chucked the knife to the side, and started to stumble through the woods.

She probably should have kept the knife, to cut the rope that bound her tender hands together. But, god, she was so scared and so close and afraid.

Iola ran through the woods, for the second time that day, or at least the thought it was the same day, felt the need to put distance between herself and somebody once again. As she ran, there was no sense of time or place, just the simple utter need to get away!

After what could have been hours, minutes, or, hell, even days, Iola reached the car. Her car, the car. There stood Joe, back to her, on his cell.

"He was knocked out? Well that was-"

"Joe!"
She didn't even recognize her own horse, cracked, teary voice. She would barely see through the tears, and the pain, she was pretty sure her arm was broken, that gash on her shoulder…

Joe then turned, dropped the phone, and ran to her.

"Iola!"

Iola then fell to her knee's, crying harder than ever before. She felt Joe wrap his arms around her, felt her body shake, heard Frank come out of the woods, shout something at Joe, she heard Joe shout back, she heard Frank dial an ambulance, Joe mumbled some comforting words.

But, alas, it didn't matter. The gut feeling was gone, her instinct faded, the son being punished.

She was alive.

Alive.