Grace Alone - Chapter 3

A few hours later Tommy saw that the coast was clear, so he and Kimberly made their way above ground. Hayley met them there, along with Officer Morgan and a few others from the Reefside Police Department. While a few of the officers canvased the area, Morgan stayed behind with the trio to ask questions.

"Based on the ammunition and the forced entry, these guys were pros. Highly trained. You guys are lucky to be alive."

"Did anyone come after you?" Tommy asked Hayley, who shook her head.

"No one, but I left right when you told me too," she shared.

"How did you know they would go after Hayley?" Morgan asked.

"They said they would," he replied. "We saw and heard them through a video feed."

"You saw them?" Morgan asked incredulously.

"Yeah," Tommy replied.

"I need to see this tape..."

"Look, Officer Morgan, I can get it to you, but I'll need to do a few things..."

"You need to show me that video, right now," Morgan demanded. Tommy looked sheepish, as did Kimberly. "What are you hiding?"

"Look, Officer Morgan, we can bring you downstairs and show you the tape, but it can only be you," Tommy replied. "No one else can come down here, and you can't tell anyone else what you see."

"I can't make a promise like that," Morgan replied sharply.

"You can after we explain," Tommy shared. He walked to the side table that the t-rex rested on, and, like before, pulled the lower jaw to reveal the secret passageway. "After you."

Morgan instructed his men to continue looking throughout the wooded area via his handheld radio, buying Tommy time to explain what was going on. They made their way downstairs, and Tommy turned on the lights to reveal the refurbished command center. Morgan took a moment to take everything in, and then realized why he wouldn't say anything to anyone else. In the corner of the room rested five suits on manequins. He recognized them immediately, they were of the power rangers that once protected Reefside.

"So there's a lot more to you than meets the eye, isn't there Dr. Oliver?"

"I was the mentor of the power rangers here in Reefside," he replied.

"Just the mentor?" Hayley prodded.

"And the black ranger," He added.

"You were the black one?" Kim asked. "You stole Zack and Adam's color?"

"First of all, Adam stole mine when he became the green ranger..."

"Wait wait wait..." Morgan interrupted. "How far back does this all go?"

"Kimberly," Tommy replied, pointing a finger at her. "It goes back to Kimberly. Nearly 14 years ago, a space witch named Rita Repulsa escaped from an intergalactic prison, which forced the being Zordon to choose five teenagers to become the mightiest force the world had ever seen. Kimberly was one of those five. Soon after, Rita tried to defeat the rangers by creating her own evil ranger. That was me. Kim and her friends freed me from Rita's evil spell, and I joined the team. Fast forward a decade, after I had left the ranger business, but had found dino gems that possessed a power unknown to us. After Mesogog threatened Reefside, I designed ranger powers, and soon became the black ranger."

"You guys were both power rangers," Morgan said aloud. "And what were you?" He asked, pointing to Hayley. "Yellow ranger?"

"Me, oh no, I'm not a fighter. Just a brain."

"Now, I'm pleading with you, please keep this a secret," Tommy replied.

"I'll do everything I can," Morgan said. "But I need that tape." Tommy walked over to the computer screen on the back wall, and sat down at the desk in front of it. He started typing and clicking, in the process grabbing a flash drive and plugging it into one of the USB ports in the computer tower. After a few seconds it beeped, and he took it out.

"Everything you need should be on this," he handed the drive to Morgan.

"Thanks, Tommy. Now, we are going to have to put you in protective custody..."

"No..." Kim replied softly. "Look... I don't mean to be difficult, but I don't want to have to be moved from place to place."

"Ms. Hart, I hate to break it to you, but we don't exactly have too many options," Morgan retorted. "I'm still waiting on information, remember? You want to tell me why these guys would want you dead?"

"Because I'm a threat to the head of their crime ring," Kim retorted.

"Who is it?" Tommy asked.

After a long pause, Kim disclosed her secret. "Sebastian Schmidt."

"Schmidt?" Tommy asked. "Wasn't that the last name of your..."

"Gymnastics coach," she finished the sentence. "Yeah... Sebastian is his son."

"Wait, Sebastian isn't some low-level player," Morgan added. "We've had him on our watch list for a long time."

"He should be," Kim added. "You don't deal with the mob or the triad unless you know what your getting into. He didn't only deal with them, he practically owned them."

"That explains the professional hit," Morgan replied. "Look... we really need to get you protection..."

"What if we went somewhere else?" Tommy asked. "Got out of town for a while."

"I would imagine that someone of Sebastian's stature would be able to keep his eyes out for you," Morgan replied.

"That's okay," Tommy replied. "I know a place where we could be protected, and a place that would feel like home as well."

"Where's that?" Kim asked, her lip quivering.

"Where our story began," Tommy replied.

"Angel Grove," Morgan replied. Tommy nodded, a slight grin coming to his face. "I'll have to notify my superiors..."

"You're coming with us?" Kim asked.

"Look, I get that you and Doc Ock are former superheroes, but I can't let you guys go without supervision. If this involves one of our top targets, then folks back at the station will understand."

"Thanks Officer Morgan," Tommy replied.

"Please... call me Derek." He walked upstairs and made a few calls. While he did that, Tommy and Hayley rounded up as many things as they could and packed them into two unmarked vehicles that were brought over from the station. Derek dismissed the rest of his squad after giving them a few orders, not disclosing where they were headed. Then they made the trek to out of Reefside. Hayley rode with Morgan, while Kim rode with Tommy.

"Sorry I dragged you into this, Tommy," Kim mentioned. Tommy noted that her voice sounded tired, which would make sense. It had been an eventful day, and adrenaline was probably wearing off at this point.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for, Kimberly," Tommy replied.

"Yes... yes I do." Silence reigned for what felt like an eternity. She watched the road, the lines blurring together, much like the past ten years for her. "I appreciate what you tried to do back there... your orphan story. Trying to show that we're the same. But Tommy, you have always been the white knight, riding on a white horse to come to my aid..."

"Pretty sure you mean a white tiger..."

"You know what I mean," she snapped, the tone in her voice signaling to Tommy that this was not the time to joke.

"Sorry... I..."

"It's ok," she replied, her voice shaky. "When I went to Florida, I never fathomed that I would break up with you. You were the reason why I went down there. You believed in me, and in us. I thought it would be enough to get through."

"What happened?" Tommy asked gently.

"There was a party over at the University of Miami that everybody wanted to go to. At the time, there was a guy that showed me a lot of attention. His name was Brandon. I was sad that we didn't get to talk as much, seeing as at the time you guys were taking on the Machine Empire and dealing with Billy having to go to outer space. So I was sad, and my roommate Abby convinced me to go out." She paused for a moment, looked over at Tommy, who she could tell wanted to look at her but knew better, keeping his eyes on the road.

"Abby wasn't exactly the greatest influence on me," she admitted. "It was her idea for me to write you that letter in the first place. She was on me all the time to break up with you and date around. I guess she just started to wear on me. So I had something written down, but I never intended to send it to you. I just wanted her to shut up. It got worse though."

"How?"

"Well, we met Brandon at this party. We drank, we danced, but I was naïve. I... well, don't remember anything from that night after about 9:15 PM. I woke up tied to a bed bruised and cut up. Two of my teeth were chipped, my nose was broken, an eye was swollen shut."

"You were rufied," Tommy replied.

"I'm not sure who actually planted the drug, but Brandon was behind it. He and two other guys... they..." she paused for a moment, reliving once more the truth she had carried for so long. "...gang-raped me. One of them was Sebastian."

"Kim... I'm so sorry," Tommy shared, at that point feeling like he had been punched in the gut.

"I wish I could end there, but it gets worse," Kim replied. "Gunther was a good man, but he was also pretty aloof about his own children. He never knew what his son was doing, and he believed that his son was always the model citizen. So, he threatened that if I took any of this to his Dad, the police, anything..." A tear welled up in her eye, she began to sniffle, words became harder to say.

"He would make sure to silence you," he finished.

"I covered for them. I figured I could live in silence, but then he summoned me once more. It was in the middle of the night, and I walked down to what I now know was his base of operations. It was relatively small ten years ago, but he had started a drug ring and prostitution with athletes at the pan-globals as well as at the University of Miami. He was making a fortune off of it. And he asked if I would play along, keep this little secret, and be one of his escorts. He said that I 'passed my audition.'"

Tommy gripped the wheel hard, his anger boiling as he gripped it. He knew that, if he was all ready angry, he needed to prepare himself for what Kim had next to share.

"I refused, initially. I had my purity taken away from me, but I refused to let it brand me, you know? But he brought Abby out in front of me. They had tortured her. And then he murdered her right in front of me."

"That's when the letter came," Tommy realized.

"I knew that if he was willing to kill, then none of my family and friends were safe. I was so afraid when Jason practically kidnapped me and brought me to Angel Grove so we could surprise you all..."

"I'm sorry that we didn't know," Tommy replied.

"You couldn't have. That's the point. I pushed you all away so you wouldn't get hurt." She paused once more and collected herself, and then continued to explain. "When I got back from Angel Grove, I found out that Gunther had died. He left a majority of what he had to Sebastian, and that's when he was able to expand the operation. My role shifted week to week. Some days I dealt, others I was a hooker on the corner. I've had sex with more guys than I'd care to count, sold more drugs than I'd ever thought I would see."

"And no one ever was able to help you?"

"You ever hear of Nevin Shapiro?" Tommy shook his head. "Up until recently, the Miami Hurricane football players were being given prostitutes for a 'good time.' Shapiro was a high-profile client of Sebastian's, and he 'took care' of his guys. And it happens at almost every school, and the NCAA is too slow to get to the top of the ring. And when the NCAA and FBI finally started sniffing our direction, we moved out here. More liberal, more colleges, more moral flexibility."

"Goodness..."

"The worst part of it is the monster I've become," she confessed. "To survive, I had to learn to enjoy those men. I had to learn to enjoy the thrill of not getting caught. Tommy... I'm not the same Kimberly you fell in love with. I'm not a superhero, I'm not a good girl. I'm a whore, a drug dealer, a thief, and I deserve to be locked up. Least of all, I don't deserve your care or friendship."

"No offense Kimberly, but you're full of it," Tommy shot back. "You made choices, yeah. And you'll need to own them. But some of those choices were impossible ones to make."

"Tommy, I'm irredeemable! What don't you understand about that?"

"Is that you talking, or Sebastian?" He countered. The words sunk deep into Kimberly's soul, Tommy could tell as she was visibly taken aback by them. "Look... yeah, you lost your purity. You lost a lot of things. You also had things taken from you. But one of the things you can't have taken from you is my care for you. So don't you dare try to convince me that you aren't worthy. It's not about that."

"Then what's it about?" Kim asked.

"It's about caring for someone because you want too." Kimberly pondered this statement a while before she dared speak again. She closed her eyes and considered the grace that one could have, to hear things done to her, as well as the things that she had done, to still care. Before she could respond, Tommy intterupted her thoughts. "Kimberly, I would die for you. And I will if I need to."

"Why? All I've done is bring you pain."

"That's not true," Tommy replied. "It's true that you have caused me pain. But to bring me pain would have to mean that you mean something to me. Someone I don't care about can't really harm me. But you mean the world to me."

"After all this time?" Kim asked, a glimmer of hope in her voice. "After all I've done?" Tommy nodded to confirm what he had said. His nod gave way to a long silence, but it wasn't long until they started to slow down.

"We're here," he added, they pulled into a parking lot and got out of the car. Kimberly looked across the way, and saw they were at a karate school.

"Red Dragon Karate?" Kim asked. Derek and Hayley got out of the other car, and emptied it of their belongings, which just had a couple of bags, and they joined Tommy and Kimberly outside the front door of the dojo.

"You sure this friend of yours will be ok with you dropping by?" Derek asked.

"Trust me, they'd be ticked if we didn't," Tommy smiled. He gave a knock on the massive double doors, and they waited a while until they heard footsteps from the other side. The door swung open to reveal an old friend.

"Hey Jason," Tommy said.

"Come on in," he whispered, waving them in. He led them down to the lower level, which was where his apartment was. They opened the door to find Katherine, who was sitting on the couch in her pink pajamas.

"It's good to see you all," she said, a genuine warmth came from her voice. However, seeing her made Kimberly want to scream. However, before she could process the information, her small frame was enveloped by the other resident.

"I missed you so much, Kimmie!" Jason shouted. "We looked everywhere for you."

"You did?" She stammered.

"Of course we did, I'm so glad they found you," Jason replied. "Hayley, good to know that you're still keeping Tommy in line." He gave her a hug.

"You gave me an important job, and since you're here..."

"You realize I can hear you, right?" Tommy quipped.

"You'll get over it," Jason joked. "Hi, I'm Jason Scott, and that's my wife Katherine," he said pointing to the gorgeous blonde. He extended his hand to the muscular, dark-skinned officer.

"Officer Derek Morgan of Reefside PD."

"Oh man, I've heard a lot about you, Morgan," Jason replied. "Heard you're one of the best they've got over in your neck of the woods. Even heard the FBI has come calling a few times."

"Some weird guy from the Behavior Analysis Unit keeps calling... how do you know that?"

"I'm a lieutenant here in Angel Grove. The dojo is just a side hobby."

"Gotcha," Morgan smiled. "Well, thanks for your help. Typically I don't approve of people assigning their own protection, but, this is a nice surprise."

"Look, Tommy gave us a brief run down of what's going on, but we're going to need some help identifying these guys. Any thoughts on how to catch them?"

"I think most of our intel at this point will come from Ms. Hart," Morgan gestured over to the petite gymnast. Jason looked over at his dear friend and saw the exhaustion in her eyes. His face fell, seeing just how run down his once vivacious friend had become.

"Look, how about we run through everything in the morning," Jason said. "I can bring Kimberly to the station, and we can set up a few more protections, though I think you'll find that this place is more than secure."

"You sure about that?" Morgan asked.

"We've got security alarms and surveillance cameras, and I have access to them through the computer," Jason replied. "When you're a lieutenant for a police department, you make enemies. It's good to have all your ducks in a row."

"Well then, let's get some shut-eye then," Tommy replied.

The group settled in, Kim and Hayley got the guest bedroom, while Tommy and Officer Morgan took the couches in the living room. Jason stayed up with the pair in the living room while the ladies slept.

"So what happened to her?" Jason asked, concern laced through his voice. "I've never seen her so beaten down."

"Remember how I said on the phone that she had been working with Schmidt?" Tommy asked, to which Jason nodded. "It all started ten years ago, while she was in Florida. She was date raped, and then coerced into some pretty deep stuff."

"Sebastian Schmidt would get you there, that's for sure," Jason replied wistfully. "So, she's been working for him for ten years?" Tommy nodded. "I don't understand... why didn't she ever tell one of us?"

"She was threatened, for one," Tommy shared.

"But... I mean, she knows all of us could take them down, right?" Jason asked. "I mean the network of..." Jason cut himself off, realizing he shouldn't say anything in front of Morgan.

"Rangers?" Morgan asked. Jason's alarmed expression was met with a wide grin. "Don't worry, I figured it out pretty quickly when I had to peruse Tommy's command center for video on their assailants."

"I was going to say..." Jason replied with a small look of relief.

"Look, I know you're a bit bewildered as to why Kim would leave you in the dark, but you have to realize, she's been through hell. And when you are abused, raped... it's hard to bring it to the surface. And every despicable act she's done since then has reinforced this view of herself."

"What view?" Jason asked.

"That she's broken, worthless, and..."

"Irredeemable," Tommy interjected. "That's what she said to me on the drive down."

"Why go to your friends, if you think it's your fault in the first place?" Morgan posed to them. "It's my fault that I keep letting people use my body. It's my fault that I'm used to sell drugs. Or, at worst, it's my fault that my friends die."

"How do we help her?" Tommy asked.

"Keep showing her that her brokenness isn't a deterrent. That she's valuable, even when you've seen her at her worst. That there's a way for redemption."

To be continued...

Thanks for reading, as always, feedback/reviews are always appreciated!

- Googz333