The Mentalist is not mine. This inadequate drabble of yours truly is.
Teresa Lisbon ran. Over this dirty floor in this decrepit building. Wearing a bulletproof vest and wielding a shotgun. Her lungs burning and her heart pumping on her mouth.
She was hunting.
Somewhere in this cesspit there was Red John. She would find him. She would kill him. Jane was right. Red John deserved death and only death. And she had his secrets now.
"Gods," Lorelei Martins had told her in their last meeting. "That's his secret. The gods shield him. Red John is protected by the invincible gods of love, justice, and enlightenment."
Lies. The truth as Lisbon knew it now was something much simpler and bloodier. Red John was protected by all those people he had seduced, bullied, shamed, fooled, perverted, and beaten to submission. Shields enough for a criminal he was.
And there he was, running, a filthy rat trying to find his hole. He looked afraid. He should be.
"For Jane!" Lisbon shot. "For Angela! For Charlotte! And for everyone else you hurt! But mostly, mostly for Jane, you son of a bitch!"