Standard Disclaimer applies. Janet owns them…I don't. I'm not making any money, nor do I wish to. This story takes place in alternate universe. Characters are changed for better or for worse.

Chapter 10

Soon enough, darkness overcame me as well.

♫

Tank, Bobby, and Lester walked in the small room. They had four minutes to get Stephanie and Bree out of the house before it blew. Tank was counting down. Ric and Paul were outside, hiding behind the thick entrance to the tropical rain forest.

They saw Steph and Bree lying unconscious. Tank swung Stephanie over his shoulder and Lester carried Bree.

"Time is precious, men," Tank said to the rest of the group as they ran out of the house. "We have three minutes to get away from the house. It'll take us ninety seconds to reach the doors without complications. We need to get as far away from the house as possible."

The men had been waiting in the house for the last while. They had drugged every known person and set the house to explode. In two and a half minutes, Rodolfo Andrés will be dead.

They exited the house and found the clearing they had made for themselves. Tanks heart stopped dead in his chest but he kept running when he heard the yelling. "Hey, wait!" He looked back for a split second to see an overweight guard running toward them.

The men picked up the pace. There was no way the man would make the explosion. He was running too slowly.

Tank counted. Thirty seconds…twenty seconds…fifteen…ten, nine, eight, seven, six-they reached the forest- five, four, three, two, one.

The world behind them went up in flames. The ground shook beneath them. Tank didn't want them to be thrown. Stephanie's and Bree's bodies were in much too delicate condition to undergo much more pressure. And Tank didn't ignore the bubbling Stephanie and Bree were making. It scared the shit out of him.

♫

Paul and I were in the helicopter back to the states. The flight was estimated to take an hour and a half. A hospital in San Diego awaited their coming, hearing how critical it was.

Bobby made a thoracostomy in their chest to save them from drowning on their blood. That should keep them alive until we reached the hospital in about forty-five minutes, Bobby had said. Paul, Tank, Bobby, Lester, and I were out of danger…but they weren't.

"Damn!" Paul exclaimed. The two women he loved most in this world were lying here dying. "I knew this wasn't a good idea. Why the fuck did we go through with this?"

My thoughts exactly. That didn't stop me from trying to reason with myself. They were trained. It could've happened to any of us.

"We knew exactly what this man did to girls before we went into this," he went on. "We saw the daughter of the man that gave us the horses. We knew exactly what could have happened. And what did we do? We fucking let it happen."

An exact continuation of my thoughts.

I lightly held Stephanie's hand. It was mangled and probably badly broken. Not to mention the knife hole going directly through it. I thought back to the day I watched her conduct an orchestra. Would she ever be able to do that again? I though back to listening to her practice the piano late at night. How the beautiful melodies wound together in perfection. Her other hand didn't look much better.

I looked at her face. She was beautiful. Her hair was matted with blood, fresh and dried. Her nose was flattened and had been smashed. She had a huge bloody indentation in her forehead. I wondered if she would remember me or anybody else for that matter. Her lip ring had been ripped out and she had a slice along her cheekbone.

She had several knife wounds and a gunshot wound in her hip. Her knee was at an off angle, extremely swollen and bruising quite nicely. I figured someone buckled it backward and put a knife through it. I wondered if she'd ever walk again.

It made me sick, noting all the damage done to her. Within the past couple months I had been falling in love with her. It all seemed odd to me. And I hadn't even fucked her yet. Go figure.

I looked over at Bree. She had several bruises, slices, and probably broken bones.

Bobby had said that the girls would make it through the flight. But would they ever be able to function again? There was a big difference between dead and alive. But there was a space between. There was a big difference, again, between a walking, talking, functioning person and a vegetable.

The helicopter landed on the pad of the hospital. Nurses started flooding the rooftop and doctors pulled them out of the chopper and started yelling orders. They had survived the trip. It was looking up.

♫

They both needed X-rays, cat-scans, sutures, and whatever the hell they did to your bones when you break one in surgery. But that would come later. They needed to get the critical stuff out of the way.

Ric and I went in search of coffee. Boy did I need some. We found a small food court when it appeared I was starving.

We made orders worthy of the large military men we were and found a table. I looked across at Ric. He had been spending a lot of time with my sister. And word got around that they were sharing a bed. No word about them having sex. As a matter of fact, there was word that they haven't. I was unsure about Mañoso. I had heard about his reputation with women. And I didn't like it

"Mañoso, have you had sex with my sister?"

He looked at me wearily. "No," he stated.

"But you've been sharing a bed with her?"

"Yeah."

"But you haven't had sex with her?"

"No."

"I find that kinda odd. You've been sharing a bed with a woman. I mean maybe I've over looked a few things being that Steph is my sister, but she is a beautiful woman. You haven't had sex with her?"

"Stephanie is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. Being that I've gotten to know her, she's even more gorgeous. And if you want to know my intentions, I might be falling in love with your sister. And, for the last time, I have not had sex with her…yet."

♫

The man across from me nodded. Thank god. After my final soliloquy he shut up. Although, after thinking about it, I would be just as cautious with my own sisters.

We waited in the waiting room until a nurse came out to get us. She led us into an empty waiting room and gave us the news. She was pretty. Her hair was blonde, long and straight. She had deep brown eyes contrasting with her pale skin. Opposite of Stephanie. More like Bree with the hair and eyes. Very East Coast's version of California.

"Stephanie Plum," she stated. "Shattered kneecap, shattered every bone in her hand—her fingers remained fine, though—has a major concussion from receiving quite a blow to the forehead. Broken nose, which turned out to be a lot worse than it looked. She had a collapsed lung from where a fragment of a shattered rib punctured her lung. Multiple shattered, crushed, and fractured ribs. A sliced ligament from where a knife entered her elbow. The BB was extracted from her hip. It hit her at such an angle that it didn't break her hipbone, she was very lucky. Although, for that deep of penetration of a BB, it would've had to be shot at close range." I didn't want to think about that. "Also, we are supposed to call the police to report this. Which we will do once Stephanie's awake. You will probably also be asked to make a statement."

"The government will take care of that," I assured her. "Not to mention we took care of any and all that caused this."

The woman looked skeptical but continued on.

"Bree Ret suffered a broken nose and jaw. Along with several knife wounds and slices and a major concussion. Several fractured, crushed, and shattered ribs. Both women lost a lot of blood and had to be transfused."

She flipped a page on her clipboard. She looked at us, concerned. "We had been asked to run a rape-kit." My heart dropped and the room swam. I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself. "The kits came back negative." I felt the relief hit me like a wave in the ocean.

"Stephanie and Bree are sharing an ICU room on the eleventh floor." She flipped through a few more pages. "Room 1172. They are sleeping and need their rest and are also heavily medicated, but you can visit them now."

We started to head to the elevator when she called us back. "Mr. Plum, Mr. Mañoso, the doctors agree that the thoracostomy was done excellently and that probably saved Ms. Plum's and Ms. Ret's lives."

We nodded and headed to the elevator.

♫

You know those dreams, where you fall down in the middle of the street and a tanker truck comes along and is aiming right at you, but you can't find the strength or energy to get off the ground and move; so you try to crawl away but you're not fast enough and you wake up right before the truck hits you?

Yeah, well that's how I felt. I couldn't move well. I was heavily drugged.

I pulled my eyes open to find a darkened hospital room before me and a slightly propped up hospital bed beneath me. I had an IV sticking into my arm and I looked at the holder to find about eighty different bags pumping into me.

Next to the IV pump, Ric was in a chair sleeping, gently holding my hand. On the other side of me, Paul was in a chair sleeping, holding my other hand and holding Bree's. Bree was beyond the separating curtain that was pulled aside to let the rooms join.

My right knee was in a brace and on top of a pillow. My left hand was in a cast and my right was in an ACE wrap, feeling like a knife went through it…oh wait, one did.

I carefully pulled my hand from the men's. My head pounded and I reached up to feel a bandage around it. Great, that was probably attractive. My elbow was heavily bandaged and probably was stitched up underneath.

I was alive. I still couldn't believe it. I still didn't know what happened. Paul and Ric looked tired and I didn't want to wake them up.

I did, however, have to pee.

I spotted a wheelchair directly next to my bed. I got up and my vision blurred, my stomach dropped, and my head hurt worse. Concussion.

I carefully lowered myself into the chair, only putting any weight on my left leg. I was off to the bathroom.

Or maybe not. With the cast, the bandage, and the hole in my hand and elbow, I couldn't exactly wheel myself.

That's okay, Stephanie, I told myself, you're probably going to be in a wheelchair for a while. You're going to have to figure something out. You can't be dependant on someone to get you to the freaking bathroom.

I pulled myself with my left leg and eventually got to the bathroom, feeling proud of myself and what I had accomplished. I took care of business, splashed some water on my face from the sink, and found a toothbrush and used it.

I exited the bathroom to find the lights on, the men awake, along with Bree. They were smiling amusedly.

"Steph," Paul said, "You could've asked one of us for help, you know."

"I didn't want to wake you up," I stated.

"We're your brother and…whatever the hell Ric is to you. You could've woken us up. No. Big. Deal."

"You guys need sleep, too," I stated. "Besides, what the hell even happened? Where are the rest of the guys? And where are we?"

"We are at the San Diego Hospital. The guys are on a flight here. Later today, probably, you and Bree will be transferred to St. Francis," Ric told me. "Tank, Bobby, and Lester drugged the house and set it to blow up. Found you unconscious in a room, pulled you out, and ran away from the house. The house blew up, Bobby preformed a thoracostomy, and Paul and I boarded a very cramped medical helicopter that had been on call here to take us here."

I leaned back against the bed. "My life is insane," I commented.

"Oh, and by the way," Paul said, "I, uh, kind of took the initiative and got movers to pack up your house and move your stuff to a storage unit in Trenton."

I stared him down. "Guess there's no changing my mind about moving, now!" I said exasperated.

"You're moving home?!" Bree squealed. "I would get up and hug you, but I'm really drugged and I hurt."

"It's the thought that counts."