Chapter Four: Patching up

"Hey Riley, can you open the door." I asked him when I got to the van. He opened the door and helped me in.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Yeah." I shrugged it off. I was used to getting wounded. It didn't really bother me as long as the declaration was safe. It hurt like hell and a stream of blood was gushing out of it, but that goes away in time. "Can you hand me the first aid kit?"

He handed me the first aid kit and said, "Here, let me do that."

"Okay."

He opened the kit and took out the gauze bandage roll, the peroxide, and the Neosporin. "Where did the fabric come from?" He asked as he untied it from my arm.

"My dress." I replied. He took off the 'bandage' carefully.

"Oh. It looks like it hurts." He said as he took it off and put the peroxide on it. My skin felt like it was burning.

"I think the peroxide makes it hurt worse." I whined. He rolled his eyes.

"How are you an agent if you have no pain tolerance?" He asked.

"I have a pain tolerance it's just not very high…" I replied.

"Stop talking. Start the van."

Riley finished patching me up and went to the driver's seat; I sat in the passenger seat. Riley started the van. "Uh, Ben, the mean declaration lady is behind you." Riley stammered. Ben and Abby started a conversation.

"Stop chatting and get in the van, Ben." I told him.

Then the alarm started to go off.

"Shit." I cursed.

"Oh my god." Riley put his hand to his head. Ben gave her a declaration and got in the car.

"Go!" He said closing the door.

"We can't just let her go!" Riley replied.

"We can, now go!" Ben ordered.

Riley started to drive off. Abigail went to the other side of the street screaming for security, when a blue and silver van stopped by her.

"Wait, no, stop." Ben said.

I got out of the van and rushed to help Abby. She threw the declaration to me before she got picked up by Shaw and I was picked up by MacGreggor. We were thrown into their van.

"Bianca Gates, I haven't seen you in a long time. And who might you just be?" Ian greeted us.

"Leave her alone, Ian." I stood in front of her.

He chuckled lightly, "Bianca, I'll leave her alone. Why don't you both just pass me that document and I let you both go."

Abby shook her head at me.

"Not gonna happen." I told him.

The truck swerved and we all fell. We went through a rough spot in the road and Abby grabbed my arm and opened the door. The door swung open with her on one side and me on the frame of it. With all of the cases I have ever been on, I must say that this was the most terrifying experience ever. We both started to scream. The van drove up next to us with Ben hanging out the door. Two vans parted to avoid a bus and the door went closer to Ian. He grabbed the declaration out of my hand. The door went back out.

"Get Abby first! Not me!" I yelled at Ben. He grabbed Abigail and got her into the van. As he came to get me, Shaw came out with his gun. Ben grabbed me and we closed the door and he dropped me on the floor next to Abby. Riley drove away. I brushed myself off and sat next to Riley.

"You alright?" Ben asked Abigail.

"No those lunatics they stole the-"She started.

"You're not hurt are you?" He asked.

"You're all lunatics!" She said.

"You hungry?" He asked her.

"What?" She asked.

"Are you alright?" He asked her again.

"Still on edge from being shot at, but I'll be okay, but thanks for asking." Riley replied.

I looked at him and asked, "You okay?"

"I'm fine. You?" He said.

"I'll be alright. It could've been worse." I replied.

"Yeah, well, I'm not alright. Those men have the declaration of independence." She cried.

"They lost it?!" Riley looked between me and Abby.

Ben went over to the small shelf and showed her the real declaration. "They don't have it. See. Now, can you please stop shouting?"

"Give me that!" She shouted.

"You're still shouting and it really starting to annoy. You'd do well, Dr. Chase, to be a bit more civilized in this instance." Ben told her.

"This is the real one, what did they get?" She asked.

"Souvenir. Thought it'd be a good idea to have a duplicate. Turned out I was right. Actually we had to pay for the souvenir and the real one. So, you owe Bianca, thirty-five dollars plus tax." Ben told her. That confused me.

"Huh?"

"Genius." Riley smiled.

"Who were those men?" Abigail asked us.

"Just the guys we warned you would steal the declaration." Ben replied.

"And you didn't believe us." Riley commented.

"We did the only thing to keep it safe." I told her.

"Bianca, please don't tell me you're a part of this too." She begged.

"I can't." I replied.

"Ver-dammit! Give me that!" She tried to go at the declaration again.

"You're shouting again." Ben told her keeping a firm hand on the case.

"Pretty sure she was swearing too." Riley commented.

I nodded, "I think she was, but we kind of deserve it though." My cell phone started to ring. It was the FBI. "Uh, Ben, problem."

He took my phone, turned it off and threw it to the back of the van. "Solved."

"There is not a map on the declaration of independence." She tried to reason with us.

"And there is no chance anyone could steal this either." Ben replied shaking the document that was now in a red travel case.

"I leveled with you 100%, everything I told you was the truth." He told her.

"I want that document, Mr. Brown." Abby raised her voice.

"My name's not Brown. It's Gates. I leveled with you 98%."Ben replied.

"Wait did you just say Gates? You and You?!"She pointed at us. "You're related! And he's probably roped into this because he's your boyfriend, fiancé, or husband or something." She pointed from me to Riley.

"Ben and I are siblings, he's my older brother. Riley is a friend of Ben's." I explained.

"Wait, Gates, you're that family with the conspiracy theory about the founding fathers?" She started to put the pieces together.

"It's not a conspiracy theory." Ben and I retorted angrily.

"Per se." Riley muttered. I glared at him.

"You know what I take it back, you're not liars. You're insane." She said.

I rolled my eyes, "Find an adjective we haven't heard before."

"And you, you lied! I thought you were agent!" She yelled at me.

I glared at her, "You wanna see my badge? I am an agent, just family comes before work."

"You guys can't seriously intend to run chemical tests on the back of the declaration of independence in the back of a moving van." Abby shouted again.

"We have a clean room environment all set up. EDS suits, a particulate air filtration system, the whole shebang." Riley replied.

"Really?" She asked Ben.

"We can't go back there." Ben told us.

"What?" Riley asked.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I didn't have any money on me, so I used a credit card. It was almost maxed out; and I used one of Bianca's to cover what I didn't put on mine." He explained. My jaw almost dropped to the floor.

"You what?!"I exclaimed.

"A credit card slip?! Dude, we're on the grid. They're going to have your records from forever! They're going to have Bianca's records from forever! They're going to have My records from forever!" Riley panicked.

Ben sighed, "I know, I know. It's only a matter of minutes before the FBI shows up at my front door."

"Not only yours, but mine….Goodbye job." I muttered.

"What do we do?" Riley asked Ben.

"We need those letters." Ben sighed.

"What letters?" Abigail asked.

"Get off the road, take a right." Ben instructed Riley.

"Ben?" I asked unsurely.

"What letters?" Abby asked again.