I wanted to mention that a character has fears that she might be about to be raped in this chapter. There's absolutely no real threat or danger of rape, but I thought I better let people know that there is something with someone being pretty terrified that's going to happen, even if there isn't an actual danger of it happening.
"Why is it always in the middle of nowhere?" John grumbled as he followed behind Jasper, who was holding bushes and tree limbs back and trying to clear the path as much as possible to make it easier for John to carry Victoria without risking unnecessary jolts. "Why no matter what evil group it is, why do they always put their evil headquarters in the middle of nowhere? Don't evil people ever want to call out and order a pizza? Why can't they put their evil headquarters in New York or Chicago or Las Vegas or something for a change of pace? Some place with a working EMS system around the corner, anyway." He said the last with worry as he looked down at Victoria. Her eyes had slipped closed again. "Vic?" He called her name, worry in his voice. "Open your eyes for me, okay? No going to sleep on us."
"Here." Jasper stopped and scanned the area before spotting a place under an overhang of evergreen trees that looked relatively protected. He shoved a couple of branches aside to let John get Victoria under cover, and the followed himself, dropped to the ground next to them. The light was rapidly fading and filtered through the branches, but he could see enough to tell that he didn't like the way Victoria was looking at all. She was pale, her breathing slow and shallow, her eyes somehow still closed even through John chattering enough to raise the dead. "John, she doesn't look good."
"Yeah, I know." John said. "Vic? Come on, open your eyes. Vic? Baby Girl, Nick's going to take hearing about this worse than he took that mess in Tijuana. Do you want to go into a coma or something and miss it?" He reached out and as carefully as he could pushed an eyelid back to try to check her response even though he wasn't sure how well he would be able to see in the dim light under the tree. If that bullet had done damage even though it hadn't penetrated her skull…. But before he could start to panic, there was a light moan and Victoria's eyelids twitched before the other eye slipped open.
She hadn't wanted to moan, had tried her hardest to keep from showing any weakness, but she hadn't been able to hold it back, and now she had failed at keeping her eyes closed, at doing everything in her power to drift off into the safety of a coma and death. Victoria cursed herself for her failure, even as confusion washed over her as to where she was. What did John and Jasper hope to gain with this, walking through the woods instead of just starting the torture and interrogation back at the base? She could only assume it was part of some plan to wear her down. Not that it would take much. She moaned again despite trying to fight it as nausea washed over her and she gagged, painful dry heaves sending agony shooting through her stomach. A coma. Why couldn't she just slip into a coma or die already?
"Vic…." John didn't know what to do, besides holding her tight, hoping it would somehow comfort her. He had never felt this helpless in his life, not even in Sarejevo. In the middle of nowhere with no way to get Victoria proper medical attention, no way to get her water which would at least stop the pain of the dry heaves because there was no way to be sure it was safe, no way to even keep her warm. The sheets Jasper had found weren't much protection, and even though he had tried to keep her cradled as close as he could to share a bit of body heat, John could feel that her skin was icy cold.
"Here." Jasper wrapped his arms around Victoria as well, and snuggled close to her other side. He shivered as he came into contact with her icy skin, and looked at John with real worry. That cold, and Victoria wasn't shivering at all. This wasn't good.
"I wish I had my jacket." John said. No shivering, this definitely wasn't good.
"I'd offer mine but it's covered in alien basting sauce." Jasper said as he looked down at his clothes with a frown. "What sort of aliens don't peel their food before basting?"
"Maybe they needed fiber?" John speculated. They needed to get moving again. Victoria was definitely in shock and slipping into worse hypothermia by the minute. She needed a hospital, or at least a warm hotel room and a comfortable bed. Before they got started again, though, he knew he better check her belly to make sure at least that wasn't getting worse or showing signs of potential internal bleeding.
Every fiber of her body tensed as John opened up her blouse again, and unfastened the kevlar, his hands running up her body. Now, this was going to happen now, out in the woods, under a tree? Victoria wanted to scream, wanted to fight, or at least show some sort of resistance but she didn't have the strength. All she could do was to force her eyes closed and pray that it would be over quickly, or if not that it would somehow worsen the head injury and allow her to slip into a coma before she could feel much.
"Vic?" Her belly was still soft, and he had been as gentle as he could when he checked her, but from the expression on her face, and the tear slipping from closed eyes, he obviously had caused her pain anyway. "Baby Girl, I'm so sorry. We're going to get you some help, alright?" He told her as he got the kevlar back into place and fastened her blouse back up before motioning for Jasper that they needed to get going. "Just a little bit longer and we'll get some help. You just stay awake for me, alright? Nick is really going to have my head when he hears about this. Tijuana, this is definitely going to top what he did when he heard about Tijuana. You don't want to fall asleep and miss what he's going to do to me when I have to call and tell him about this mess, do you? Come on, Baby Girl, keep your eyes open, okay?"
"No Nick. Nick's dead." Victoria whispered.
John and Jasper exchanged a look of confusion. They had been gone awhile. At least John knew that he had been. Had something actually happened to Nick?
"He puts up with Tony Stark." Jasper said, shaking his head and forcing away the thought that something might have happened. "If anything was going to kill him, dealing with Stark would. He's fine." Unless maybe Stark had managed to do something big that had given Nick a heart attack? No, he forced that thought away. Nick was fine. What did it say about how severe Victoria's head injury was that she was imagining Nick was dead, though?
John nodded. "Nick's fine, Baby Girl. You've been having some really bad dreams. He's fine and he's going to rip me a couple of new ones when he finds out about this. Nick's fine. Hey, has he had to come to you for help with his taxes yet? Did he get his tax forms in Sanskrit or hieroglyphics this year?" Taxes, that reminded him…. "I really hope that alien remembered to do my taxes." The last thing he needed was to have been abducted by an alien, forced to carry his injured best friend for miles to help, faced with whatever Nick was going to do when he got the call about this, without having the IRS waiting with an audit when he got home. He was pretty sure a return of his had made an entire office of them cry once and they tended to hold that kind of thing against you.
"He did a really good job of imitating you." Jasper said. "If he did your taxes, I think you might be in worse trouble than if he forgot them."
"Baby Girl, please tell me that nasty alien at least thought to ask you questions about my taxes at eleven at night on April 15th, or I think I might be going to prison." John said with a groan. "Would you like that, to see me drug off to prison? I probably deserve it, I know. Vic, just keep your eyes open for me, okay? Stay awake!"
Taxes. John babbling about his taxes. Something about that felt…. No, don't think. She couldn't afford to let herself think. She knew the position that she was in. Hydra had her, and thanks to that traitor Ward, she knew rescue wasn't coming. Weak from blood loss and in pain from the head injury, she wouldn't stand a chance when it came to being interrogated and the information she had was too valuable to risk letting it fall into Hydra's hands. As much as part of her brain screamed at her to fight, to try to hold on, she knew that death was her only viable option. She closed her eyes and tried to will herself to drift off.
"Vic?" They hadn't even gone a hundred yards from where they had been resting under the tree and she was already trying to fall asleep again? This wasn't good. "Vic, come on! Keep your eyes open for me, Baby Girl. You're going to get worse if you go to sleep right now. You know that. Open your eyes for me, okay? Vic?" There had to be something, some way to keep her awake. If she did fall asleep he was terrified that she wouldn't wake up again. But what… He suddenly had an idea. "A hundred bottles of beer on the wall, a hundred bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall! Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer…."
"Are you trying to make me wish I had been stuffed in that oven?" Jasper grumbled. But Victoria let out a whimper and her eyelashes fluttered in response to the noise. If John singing worked, and kept her awake…. "Take one down, pass it around, ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall." He joined in with the singing, and Victoria whimpered again. This might actually work.
It was dark and growing colder when they finally spotted the lights.
"I have never been so glad to see a Walmart in my life." John sighed with relief when he spotted the store's bright blue sign.
"So do we call an ambulance or…."
"I don't know." John said with a frown as he settled onto the ground, sheltered by trees and shrubs on the outskirts of the parking lot, Jasper beside him leaning against Victoria's other side while they tried to figure out what to do. They had been able to keep Victoria awake and it didn't seem like she was getting any worse, even though she was still rambling about Hydra. Hydra, what had Phil been doing that had somehow got his poor baby girl so fixated on Hydra in her concussed state? Did he finally convince Fury to okay that massive Captain America roleplaying game he had came up with in the Academy as a training exercise? "Let me go in and see about getting a phone, so we can get hold of Nick and consult with medical to see what they say. Maybe there's a team somewhere close by that can pick us up pretty fast. Probably better to get her to a Shield facility if we can at all, with her head messed up the way it is. She would kill both of us, or at least me, if we took her to a civilian hospital and she let something classified slip if we could avoid it. Vic, I'm going to go and get a phone so we can let Nick know what happened, okay? You just stay with Jasper and stay awake for just a little bit longer. Think up ways for Nick to punish me for missing that budget meeting. That ought to be fun for you. I'll be right back. Jasper, whatever you do…"
"Don't let her go to sleep. I know." And keeping Victoria awake, that meant singing that terrible, terrible song. "Get a few bottles of water along with that phone. After three hours I need something."
"Water, phone. Be right back."
Jasper was seriously questioning if John knew the meaning of being right back by the time he hit five bottles of beer on the wall for the third time. A song of a hundred verses and he had sang it almost three times through? How long could it possibly take to grab a burner phone and a couple of bottles of water?
"Jasper?' John called.
"Finally! What took so long?" Jasper said as John came into view, loaded down with bags and dropped down beside them. "You got more than a phone. You were just supposed to get a phone and water."
"Jasper…." John's voice was shaky, like he had just been hit in the gut, which was pretty much how he felt. "Jas…."
"What's wrong?" Jasper asked. "Did you go ahead and call Fury?" But the way John sounded, like something much worse than being chewed out by the Director had happened, Jasper was a little afraid, he had to admit, to find out what put that tone in his voice.
"I…" How could he tell them? John didn't know how to tell them. Well, how to tell Jasper, anyway. Vic obviously already knew. Vic…. "Baby Girl, I'm so sorry." He whispered as he wrapped his arms around her and gently hugged her, pressing a soft kiss into her hair. "Vic, I'm so sorry."
"John? What's going on?" Jasper demanded. Did it sound like John was fighting to hold back tears? This wasn't good.
"There was a newspaper." John finally made himself speak. "Shield…. Shield's gone."
"What?" Jasper's eyes went wide and he almost asked if this was a joke before catching a look at John in the dim light filtering through the bushes from cars in the parking lot. Tears were running down his cheeks. "What happened?"
"Hydra. The Hydra thing that Vic kept talking about? It's real." John said.
"What?" Hydra, that definitely wasn't what Jasper was expecting to hear at all. "Captain America and Director Carter took care of that in the 40s!"
"Apparently they missed a few, and I really hope whoever had to give that bit of news to Director Carter was insured." John told him. "I wanted to get back out here so I didn't read everything. I grabbed the papers and figured we could go through them for more details later, but apparently Hydra was inside Shield the entire time."
"Hydra was…. How is that possible?" Jasper murmured. "We would have known. Someone would have known. Seventy years? Someone would have seen something!"
"I don't know." John said with a shake of his head. Shield was gone. The organization he had given his life to was gone. He wanted to throw up just thinking of it. "I didn't read everything but there was something about helicarriers and something called Project Insight?"
Insight. That sounded vaguely familiar. "I think that was something I heard Fury mention after New York. An idea for stopping big threats like another alien invasion before they could happen. He wasn't really clear on it yet, and then Felix sent me out to chase bank robbers and I got kidnapped by aliens so…. Wait, this is something Fury had up and running? How long have I been gone?"
"From the date on the paper, I lost four years, so I'm thinking two for you." John said.
"How is…." No, worry about how long the two of them had been gone later. Shield was…. "Where's Fury?" Even if Shield was gone, surely the director was doing something to try to regroup his people.
"According to the papers, he was killed a day or two before this entire mess happened."
"What?" Nick was…. Jasper shook his head, not able to speak, the shock was so great.
"The dead thing, I figure he faked it and went to ground." No way John was going to believe that Fury was dead based on a newspaper report. He honestly wasn't sure if he would believe it even if he had the body in front of him. "We've got a bigger problem, though. Vic was right about Hydra. She was right about Hydra and she thought we were part of Hydra so apparently…."
"The aliens joined Hydra? I can't be a Nazi! I'm Hispanic!" The shock of that bit of news brought back his ability to speak big time. "Hydra's Nazis! I'm Hispanic! Why would the Nazis recruit someone's who's Hispanic and you…."
"Yeah. I wouldn't think the Nazis would be very interested in me either, unless somehow Nazis have became a lot more tolerant in seventy years." John said with a shake of his head.
"Nazis. And we were replaced by aliens! What are aliens doing joining the Nazis?" Jasper demanded before it hit him the position they were in. Shield was gone. They had been replaced by aliens who had decided it was a great idea to join the Nazis. They had a badly injured friend on their hands and minimal resources. "What are we going to do?"
"I wish I knew." John said. "I looked in the tiny phone book this place has. There's a motel down the road. The only idea I have is to get a room and try to get Vic patched up. If we can get her head injury tended and get her warmed up, hopefully she'll realize that it's really us and maybe between the three of us we can come up with some sort of plan."
What other option did they have? Without access to Shield and without knowing who they could trust or who would trust them thanks to the aliens who had decided becoming Nazis on top of being kidnapping aliens was a great idea, any other option they might have was pretty much non existent. Jasper gathered up the bags of supplies John had purchased while John picked up Victoria once more.
"Come on, Baby Girl. Let's get a room and get you in a warm bed." John murmured in her ear. "It's going to be okay, Vic, I promise." Shield was gone, but the three of them were together and safe and somehow they would make it through this, whatever it took.
The motel was small, and John was able to get a room at the back. There were no cars around, or no people to see as Jasper opened the door and they slipped inside.
"Okay. Bed." Jasper turned up the heat and then turned towards the two beds in the room. At least for a tiny, out of the way motel this place looked like it had a high degree of cleanliness. "Just a minute. I'll get the bed."
"I grabbed some new sheets and and a plastic sheet at Walmart." John told him as he settled in to one of the two chairs at the room's small table, cuddling Victoria against him. "Just a few more minutes, Baby Girl. Jasper's getting a nice bed all ready for you right now."
Jasper pulled the covers on the first bed down and then stripped the second bed, layering those items on the first bed, comforter first, then two blankets, and then both sheets, followed by the plastic sheet John had bought and then one of the new sheets. Once they got Victoria cleaned up and her wounds tended, it would be easy to cocoon her in the nest of blankets and covers to warm her up.
"That looks nice and warm, doesn't it? You're going to be fine, Vic." John said in what he hoped sounded like a reassuring tone as he laid her down on the bed and eased her shoes off, frowning at how cold her poor feet felt. "I got some more clothes for her. Can you get them?"
"Fluffy socks?" Jasper said with a slight laugh as he got the clothes, a pair of red sweatpants, matching zip up shirt, and fluffy socks. It would probably be better to get Victoria into some warm clothes before tending her wounds. At least that way she might start warming up a little while they were getting her bandaged up.
"Better than frozen feet. See if you can get some hot water so we can try to clean up her hair a little." John told him as soon as Jasper set the clothes on the bed. "Okay, Baby Girl. These aren't your usual style, I know, but they'll help you get warm, okay? I'm really sorry. Walmart didn't have a whole lot of things in the tall line."
Terror had hit Victoria as soon as she felt the mattress beneath her. Bed. She was on a bed and her eyes flew open, her heart pounding as John loomed above her, reaching out and taking her jacket off, opening her blouse again, unfastening the kevlar and moving it out of the way leaving her half naked and trapped on the bed. She couldn't fight, at least she knew she couldn't fight and win, but she lashed out anyway, clawing at John's face with the nails of one hand, hoping that at least if she couldn't stop him that she would provoke him into either killing her or knocking her into unconsciousness.
"Vic?" John was more startled than anything, although there was definitely a lot of pain too from where Victoria's nails had raked his face before he could catch her hands and he was definitely very glad she kept her nails short. "Vic, hey, it's okay. I've got some nice warm clothes for you. Red, to match those streaks. You'll like that, right? I know you think my taste in clothes can be iffy sometimes, but I swear these aren't that bad. Vic?"
"Maybe we ought to call an ambulance?" Jasper sat the ice bucket filled with hot water on the bedside table before joining John in trying to calm Victoria down. The look in her eyes was alarming to say the least, and weak and sick or not, she was suddenly fighting against John with everything she had. Sudden agitation, wasn't that a potential sign of a worsening head injury? "Victoria?"
"Vic?" What had…. And then suddenly it hit John and he paled as he backed quickly away from the bed, and waved for Jasper to back away as well. "Vic?" He whispered her name, his entire body almost shaking, realizing what she had thought that he was about to do to her. What….. He didn't know what to do. Victoria was sick and weak from her injuries. She needed their help, but if that alien had done what he was horrified to think might have been done…. "Baby Girl?" He held his hands up, moving slowly and barely resisting the urge to throw up. "It's just some warm clothes, okay?" No way she would have the strength to dress herself, even though she had somehow found the strength to try to fight him. But they had to get her into something warm fast. "Can Jasper help you get them on?" Maybe she would do better with Jasper? He was a lot smaller. Would that make her feel a tiny bit safer? But then Jasper had been replaced by an alien who had thought becoming a Nazi was a great idea, so he probably wasn't the most acceptable choice either.
"Victoria?" Jasper eased closer to the bed, barely fighting back tears as he realized what John suspected might responsible for the sudden agitation. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. Let me help you get in some warm clothes, okay?" What were they going to do if she wouldn't let them help her? As weak as she was, they could physically hold her down, but the mental damage that could do, he didn't want to consider it.
She couldn't fight both of them. Victoria knew she couldn't fight both of them, and she could feel the sudden burst of strength rapidly fading. She couldn't fight them, so she closed her eyes, tears she didn't have the strength to hold in any longer running down her cheeks, with nothing she could do but wait and pray it would be over quickly.
"Here." Jasper was reluctant to touch her, but they couldn't just leave her like that, half dressed and almost totally frozen. He moved to the bed and as quickly and gently as he could eased the sweatshirt onto Victoria, zipping it securely and then getting her suit pants off and redressing her in the sweats and socks as fast as he could, with as little touching as he could manage. "Victoria? It's okay. It's okay, I promise. John?" She was crying. Jasper wasn't sure he had ever seen Victoria cry before. What were they going to do? How could they help her if she thought they were going to…. He wanted to throw up just thinking about it. Victoria really thought…. And something suddenly occurred to him and he barely was able to make it to the bathroom in time to throw up a meal he had eaten two years before. What if the aliens who had replaced them had already done something? What if that was why Victoria was so terrified of them? What if she had already been raped and thought that a second round was about to start? He gagged and threw up again at that thought even though he didn't have much left to throw up.
"Jasper?" John called his name, and he shook his head to snap himself out of freaked out friend mode and into agent mode. Figure out what to do to help Victoria. That was the only thing they could worry about right now. The rest could be dealt with later.
"Maybe we should call an ambulance and get her to a hospital?" Jasper suggested. Victoria's eyes were closed, but tears were streaming down her cheeks so she was obviously still awake, awake and terrified. How could they help her if she was afraid of them and thought they were going to rape her?
"I don't know." John had absolutely no clue what to do. Shield was gone. Shield was gone and Hydra was a thing after seventy years, and there were aliens on the loose somewhere impersonating people. And Vic… "I don't know. No Shield and Hydra's out there." A civilian hospital, with how high up Victoria was on the Shield ladder and with how many things she knew, would she be safe if they got her there? "What about…." Who could they call for help, though? Phil, Maria, Felix, they were probably all scrambling trying to keep things together, and if the alien who had kidnapped and taken his place was still undercover, he would be afraid to chance calling Grant. "Is she still seeing that Isabelle? Isabelle's her name, isn't it?"
"She was two years ago when I let Felix send me out to find those bank robbers. I wouldn't have any idea how to contact her, though."
"What about Melinda? The people in admin are probably safe, right? Why would Hydra care about the department that provides all of our paperwork in triplicate?"
Calling Melinda for help. That was definitely a workable idea. "What do we do until she can get here?" Jasper asked. With Shield gone and their people scattered, it wasn't like Melinda could grab a plane to fly there at the drop of a hat, wherever there was. He still hadn't looked at the paper so he didn't know for sure what their location was. He had to assume based on how far they had walked to find civilization that they were somewhere fairly isolated, though, that at best it would take hours for Melinda to get to, once she found a way to get there.
Hours at the least before Melinda could arrive to help them. The injury to Vic's head couldn't go that long without some sort of attention without risking the wound getting infected. But she was crying. She was crying and obviously afraid of them. How could they help her without making that worse? "I don't know. I don't know."
"Maybe…." Jasper thought hard, trying to come up with something that could make this work. "Maybe if we go slow? And get her wrapped up first so she can start to warm up? Maybe if she's warmer, she'll be a little calmer?" Get her warm, would that help? Maybe if Victoria could tell they were trying to warm her up, that they were trying to take care of her, she would be at least a little less afraid no matter what the aliens who had replace them had done to her. Had they raped her? Her clothes had all been in place. Jasper reminded himself of that and prayed it was a good sign that she might have been spared that.
John nodded. Even if it didn't do anything else, they needed to get Victoria warmed up anyway before the cold made her injuries worse. "Vic? Baby girl?" He called to her as he slowly approached the bed. "I'm just going to get you tucked in so you can start to get warm. I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. Vic, I'm so, so sorry. Baby Girl, I'm so sorry." He said the last in a whisper, hesitating for a moment before reaching out and tucking the bedding around her, so she was cocooned into a snug nest of blankets.
She couldn't move. There was something wrapped around her, and she couldn't move. Victoria's eyes came open and she looked up to find John looming over her once again. "I won't betray Shield." She somehow mustered the little strength she had left to make her words firm. "You'll have to kill me. I won't betray Shield."
"Vic…." What could he say to make this right, to convince her she was safe? Honestly, John couldn't think of anything, and his eyes stung with tears of helplessness. "Baby Girl, I'm so sorry. I know you don't have any reason to trust either of us, but we're not going to hurt you. I'm so sorry, Baby Girl. Can you let us get your head fixed up for you? We're going to call Melinda and get her to come and pick you up, but it will take her some time to get here. You can't let that thing go for that long without risking it getting infected."
They were trying to get her to drop her defenses, trying to get her to let the bit of a guard she had been able to cling to down, but what could Victoria do? She couldn't move, and she was too weak to fight anymore. She closed her eyes, biting her lip as tears ran down her face, trying to brace herself for whatever they intended and hoping by some miracle she could hold out against them.
She wasn't calm, but she wasn't trying to fight them, and maybe that was the best they could hope for in this situation. John drug a chair to the bedside as Jasper got the first aid supplies situated on the bedside table while he got gloves on.
"Baby Girl, I'm sorry if this stings a little." John told her as he poured some alcohol onto a gauze pad and dabbed at the wound. Suddenly, his eyes went wide as he felt something beneath his fingers. Was that…. "Jasper, get gloves on and see if this is what I think it is."
"There's a bullet still in there." Jasper said in a horrified tone after gloving and touching the area John indicated, right behind Victoria's ear. The two men exchanged a horrified look. A bullet still in her head. What could they possibly do about that? Jasper carefully felt the wound again. Was the bullet beneath the skin, or could it possibly be imbedded in the bone? He just couldn't tell. "John…."
What could they do? Trying to get the bullet out would up the risk of infection at the least, or could make things worse if it was in bone instead of just beneath the skin. "Clean it and bandage it." He finally said. "And hope Melinda can get here fast."
Jasper nodded, and started to hand John the items he needed, more gauze to clean the wound as best he could, antibiotic ointment to cover it and then gauze bandages to wrap around Victoria's head to protect the wound and hopefully keep the bullet from moving until they could get her proper attention.
"Okay, Baby Girl. We're going to call Melinda now and get some help for you, okay?" You just try to rest and she'll be here soon." Surely it was safe to let Victoria at least doze, and maybe that would help calm her, anyway.
"John? Problem on the Melinda front." Jasper said after dialing the number. "The call's not going through. I can't tell if the line's not working or…." Jasper didn't want to think it, or say it, but he couldn't help the thought that rushed through his head anyway. What if something had happened to Melinda? Hydra had been in Shield. They had thought the admin department would be safe due to the agents who were assigned there generally having a low rank, but Melinda hadn't always been there or held that rank, not to mention her friendship with Phil and Fury, plus her mom's status. What if the department or Melinda specifically was targeted due to that?
They couldn't get through to Melinda? The pair exchanged horrified looks, before looking at the bed and the injured Victoria. Shield was gone. They had been replaced by alien imposters, and who knows who they could trust or who would trust them as a result. If they couldn't get hold of Melinda, who they felt sure would come to Victoria's rescue, what were they going to do?
"Keep trying." John said. "Maybe it's spotty coverage or something. Or she's trying to keep a low profile after what happened, and she's got her phone off temporarily." Because if it wasn't one of those options, he really had no clue what they were going to do. Victoria needed help, and the sooner the better.
Somehow Victoria, John, Jasper and Felix had cuddled up on the larger of the two beds, Victoria tucked securely in the center, the group needing the physical closeness after being hit once more with the memories of everything they had lost when Shield fell. Victoria let out a soft whimper as she drifted, lost in a nightmarish memory, and John and Jasper snuggled closer to her in their sleep, tears slipping down all of their faces, in sleep and memories mourning for what was lost.