JESSICA JONES 2.5: GIMME SHELTER
Ep. 10: AKA So You'd Be the Boyfriend?
Jones wasn't surprised the wife didn't believe her. She sat quietly, her heel swiveling her chair back and forth, hands folded over her stomach, while the woman raved from the chair across her desk. She watched the wife leave – along with Jessica's check repaying her everything, "because it took me too long" (and it made for less hassle in a month with plenty to worry about but an unusually large bank account).
And she was genuinely sorry to realize the wife would spend the rest of her life doing a Camille Cosby impression – even after losing her own seven figure "associate pastor" slot with McSwizzlestick's mega-church. (The latest dodge to double the millions for the mega-church pastor, she'd learned in her research.)
She hadn't raised the Hoskins issue, dead certain the wife would know nothing and refuse to believe anything the evidence said anyway. It was only now, as she zipped together her notes, and the recording that McSwizzlestick made with her on the record, telling everything he knew (AKA everything he was willing to say until he's got a deal) and pleading for a bargain, that she let herself smile about it.
She punched ENTER to "send" to Eddy Costa.
She stared at the screen. Pursed her lips; tapped her fingers 1-2-3-4 on the desk several times. Sighing, she bundled a second set of documents and photos into a zip file, everything she had or suspected regarding the disappearance of Rebecca and Mattie – minus any references at all to Jessica Drew. Her name didn't appear in the bundle at all. Jess didn't think twice about that – it was instinctive, leaving a powered sister running without eyes on her.
Jess had taken a photo of the corkboard behind her. When she'd come in, she'd seen where Mattie and Smithie had – on that afternoon she met Mattie – set out fragments of Rebecca Cross' life formed from photos, scraps of notes, odds and ends from the backpack she'd tasked them with cataloging. She zipped it in.
Her finger hovered, shaking slightly.
She remembered Costa telling her, "You did what you had to, Jones." Same attitude he'd had toward her, again and again. Maybe because he was a cop with a soul, he understood victims, understood even some perps; understood that pain or circumstances or some combination of both drove people to do those things for which they'd be objects of condescension or hate from those who never faced the same situation.
She'd never be friends with Costa. Their worlds were too different, but ….
Fuck it. Somebody takes me down, I need everyone I can get out there looking for those girls.
She pressed send. Closing her eyes, she breathed carefully as if expecting a cloud of ammonia, but she felt fine. Not so much as gray haze in her head, let alone purple.
Turning her chair around completely, she focused on the corkboard behind her where Mattie and Smithie had – it seemed like ages ago – set out fragments of Rebecca Cross' life formed from photos, scraps of notes, odds and ends from the backpack she'd tasked them with cataloging.
She recognized Smithie's meticulously well-ordered style in the logical flow of pictures and paper, tied together with colored string taken from Jess' desk. She leaned forward, the old creaking, and looked through a line of photographs taken up and down Main Street, Lago, New York.
Copy of her exhibit. I'm a fan. Good composition, so nuanced and —
Holy fucking shit.
She scooted her chair closer, squinting at one in the middle. The shot missing from the official exhibit in the school closet.
A café with a small knot of people outside laughing, chatting. Among them: David Lawson, Chris Hoskins … Samuel Cross.
Smithie had simply placed the Main Street photos in the order one would have seen the sites pictured, walking up the sidewalk. The café photo had no particular significance – to Smithie. Jess leaned back, folding her palms over her tummy.
"You look intrigued."
She jolted up, bolting to her feet, and turned to see Jessica Drew standing in the hallway that led from the office to the living space.
"Jesus, get shot much?" Jones huffed.
Her counter-part chuckled in her usual, maddingly assured, honey-alto as she prowled into the office proper. She was in that "tac-casual gear for the busy PI who happens to climb buildings" outfit she favored. Soft boots, light weight black fatigues, ordinary white pullover just thick enough that only a pro like Jessica could make out the Kevlar jacket underneath - and she made it look good enough they should pay her a sponsorship.
"Spiders have a way of turning up in the oddest places," Drew admitted. She nodded. "So, what's with that one?" She pointed at the photo that had held Jones' attention, then arched an eyebrow as Jess kept silent. "Jones, remember the deal? You don't want a partner fine, but let's pool that info, lady."
Jones shuffled, scowling, then plopped back in her chair and explained who she was looking at.
"Samuel Cross. The man who hired you to find Rebecca?"
Jones glowered at the photo. "Yeah. AKA, the guy who's about to lose some teeth."
Drew looked at the picture intently, then hesitated as if she surely must be missing something, "I don't see Cross."
Jones pointed, growsing a bit – she'd circled Cross, Lawson, and Hoskins in red with their names atop each one. "Right there. He's the asshat with the - wait – what?" She turned and looked up at her. "You know Samuel Cross?"
"No." Drew pulled the backpack up to the desk and dug into it. "But I was here a bit earlier, and I thought you wouldn't mind if I went through the 'file'."
"Or you didn't care if I minded but you went through it my papers anyway."
"Yes, well, spiders do that." She pulled out a couple of photos. "Right, then. Rebecca's mom and dad, I presume?" She laid one on the desk.
Jones looked at it. "Younger. Never saw him, but going by her? That's from maybe ten, twelve years ago. Looks like happier days."
"And then there's this," she handed Jess a photo with the back facing her. On that was scrawled, "Happy 7th B-day! I carry your pic with me everywhere! See! / Uncle Sam". Jessica turned the picture over to see a shot taken in some Near Eastern mountain setting. A handful of Marines surrounded an officer who was grinning, holding up a photograph of a young girl, doubtless Rebecca.
Jessica didn't have to look back at the picture on the cork board.
There simply was no resemblance at all.
A violet gel held her eyes on the grinning Marine as she wondered what happened to the real Samuel Cross and who that was standing on … Main Street. Fucking figures. Well, what the hell? Birch Street … Higgins Drive.
"So …." Drew said gently, her sass dropped as she scanned Jones' stricken face. "So, I dare say the gentleman on Main Street there with Lawson and Hoskins isn't Samuel Cross?"
"No," Jessica said. She tapped one of the other Marines with her blunt fingernail. "But this asshole?"
"Yes!" Drew said crisply, pointing at the old photo to the three men circled in the Main Street picture. "That would indeed be David Lawson. I noticed."
"Cobalt Lane," Jess muttered. "So, the deal was – pool resources, share knowledge. Your turn."
"Quite right," Drew nodded. She began pacing, and then ran through all she'd learned in quizzing David Lieberman and Sylvia Packard after handing her the micro-recorder so she could load the audio into her files. Jones was relieved to hear Mattie was getting "anything she wanted" (apart from being set free), remarking, "That's a lotta protein shakes, I bet."
"And then," Drew said lightly, pulling her cell phone, "there's this." Drew held up her phone, flipping on a recorded radio program with Reverend Hoskins debating with a woman about the "demon spawn, the Nephilim."
"And now – last night at this so-called 'Excelsior Club' - they were calling for this Daredevil to arise," the Reverend offered in dulcet tone. "What does it say to you that these creatures call upon the Devil for salvation?"
"What does it say of your version of God," she replied, "that they feel they need the Devil for salvation?"
"They turn from the truth," he went on, "and you blame that on the faithful? A reckoning will come. It has begun already, where Heaven's Kitchen will be born from the ashes -"
Drew flipped the track off and stared at Jess.
"What?" Jones flung her arms wide. "What? What do you want from me, here, Drew? I'm not just sitting on my ass." She slapped her computer. "I just handled Hoskins and he's doesn't even know it yet." Ignoring Drew's intrigued look, she added, "But I can't save the world."
"How about just Hell's Kitchen?"
"What am I?" Jones snorted. "Daredevil? Trust me. I saw him in action. I knew him. And I'm not – him."
Her remark about Daredevil seemed to strike a nerve. The other woman turned away a moment, visibly shaken, then looked back. "I'm not asking for anyone to replace him," she said quietly.
"Then what?"
"Open your bloody eyes! They are coming after us. All of us. And I need you to work with me to stop it."
"You want me to trust you?"
"Didn't say trust. Said work with."
Jones stared at her, blank face, searching her eyes. "Fine. Work with."
"Fine."
"Fine. So, what were you doing on the rooftops while I talked to Richie Rich and Wonderboy?"
"Ah!" Drew laughed with that liquid smoke she'd perfected. "Thought Smithie caught me. I was tracking a five man kill squad doing a practice run on you. Did Smithie happen to catch that?"
Jones' stomach iced over. "Me?"
"Well, they may've have been targeting the chap selling slices out of a cart a half-block down, but they left right after you did, so …" she shrugged. Sighed. Her flippancy melted. "Trust me. Don't trust me. But some of this we've got to work together, just for numbers sake."
Jones sat through three long breaths.
"You were Hydra." She yanked open a desk drawer, shoving aside her collection photos of the production side of the DCEU, wistfully recalling the precious handful of days when she had nothing to do but kill time on that research for practice. She pulled out Hudson Manhattan Rye in its distinctive stubby, round bottle and took three full gulps, staring hard at the "spider."
"So were my parents. You can't choose your family. Until you can, anyway, and then you gotta choose who to trust." Drew braced her fists on her hips. "So, I'm ready to spill if you are. Soul for soul. Torture for torture. The full story. You can sit and drink alone or we can get this out of the way so we can go find our girls."
Jones slid the bottle over the desk toward Drew.
A smile sparked, then glowed on the spider's face.
"But just we're clear?" Jones pointed. "Whatever else happens, you are not my partner."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Drew said, spinning the cap free again slowly between an elegant forefinger and her thumb. She tilted the bottle, her throat flexing as she slipped two swallows down. Capping the bourbon, she winked. "I'm starting to like you, too, Jones."
"Because you don't know me." With an almost sadistic gleam in her eye, Jones leaned back. "So let me start from the beginning. Like … the very beginning."
They had talked for hours.
They had wound up at Josie's, inevitably, and were down to telling each other bar-brawl jokes to test if the other knew them. Wrong answers meant a round of drinks. Two rounds for right ones.
"Okay, okay, okay," Jones slapped lightly at the bar. "What's a sucker punch?"
"Anything with a fist," Drew said. "And the puncher is the sucker."
They drank to it twice.
"Good way to break your fingers," Jones ran the smooth glass over her forehead.
"Yeah, snapped my wrist once," the former Spider-Woman frowned, looking at her forearm. "I mean, Skrull skulls can shift to a pretty hard shell. But it got better."
"You heal fast, too?"
"Yeah," Drew sighed. "Not always a blessing."
"So, when I called, you were in Chicago?" Jessica said. "I thought you were strictly Bay Area."
Drew rolled her eyes. "You still don't trust me?"
"Well …." Jones drawled, swiveling her glass between her palms. "You were Hydra." But by now that had become a punchline for them.
"I was in Chicago working the Red Hampton case," Drew said. "He was eighteen, new to his powers, went by 'Red Wire,' had an –" she waggled her fingers. "Electricity thing."
"Sounds familiar," Jones said dryly.
Drew chuckled. "Well, Red wasn't spidey, but electricity is a spider thing. Darwin spotted it sailing on the Beagle a century ago. Spiders would fly in and land when they were well at sea – then rise up and sail off. Everyone thought they were sailing on silk – hell, I sail on webbing I made along the jacket I wear – but now they think it's more a matter of their ability to sense and manipulate electrostatic charges in the air." She paused, then took another healthy swallow of whiskey. "Maybe I do that, too, controlling my flight."
Jones said nothing. Drew was droning on – avoiding something. Silence fell, and she sighed.
"Anyway," Drew said. "Hampton – Red Wire – was gunned down in an alley by some cops. They said he pulled a gun on them. Thing is, he'd never carried a gun. Never owned one. Everyone who knew him was shocked. I was trying to get the lid peeled back when – this happened."
Jones held her glass forehead high, staring into the whiskey – easy to do as she was leaning over the bar, shoulders slumped. "Hey? We'll find Mattie. She's tough, she's a smart kid, she'll stay alive and we'll find her."
"I obviously should have taught her about more things than pheromones and protein shakes."
Jones laughed, a little too loudly, eager to encourage a slight lift in mood. "Wait, that was you? That kid's all about protein shakes."
"And sewing," Drew said, refilling her glass from the bottle Josie had left them. "Which is good, in this business, we need a hobby. You have a hobby, yes?" She lifted the bottle, eyeing the amount left.
"Yeah," Jones replied. "You're looking at it. Okay, sewing, fine, but what's up with the protein shakes?"
"Well," Drew answered slyly, trailing condensation along the bar's wooden surface, "if you think about what and how spiders eat, especially the how? And, well, she's a growing spider, she just came into her powers."
Jess did think, got it, and then made a face that caused Drew to laugh.
"Well, that sucks," Jones said. Both women leaned over the bar in drunken laughter. "Literally." Jones shoved herself up unsteadily. "Okay. Okay. And the pheromones?"
"Yeah, it's – this thing we do. Drives men crazy, drives other females away."
"Mating chemicals, basically?"
"Artifact of evolution," Drew nodded while sipping more bourbon, then chuckled. "We still have bit of lizard brain, and lizard brain evolution is about procreation more than love. Which anyone who's seen two geckos humping could tell you. Our spidey pheromones can be a bitch if you're gay. She had boys all over her – wasn't interested. And meanwhile the same chemicals were knocking back every crush she ever had. Poor girl didn't know why, until I explained it, and taught her to control projecting those nasty pheromones."
"And then she met my gal?"
"Rebecca? Yes." Drew smiled. "Mattie texted with me just two weeks later about meeting her. Four weeks later they were seeing each other, texting, Skype, all that. A lot."
Jess smiled. "That's …. You got anybody?
Drew's face clouded. "Did. He was killed, not long ago."
"Oh, my God! I'm –"
"No way you could know." After three long awkward moments, Drew went for the obvious out and Jones went along. "You have anyone?"
"Well," Jones tossed her head back and forth. "Define have? There's a guy but … I wouldn't say he's my boyfriend."
"What are you waiting for?" Drew said. "You're not getting any taller, you know."
"You're not getting any smarter," Jones retorted. "Harder you push me straight at somebody, the farther I stumble back."
"Ah," she laughed. "You want subtlety? Didn't see that in you, Jones." Drew stared at her, then smiled and looked back into the long mirror behind the bottles. "So, if I was to find the man for you, I'd have to slide him at you a bit sideways?"
Jones choke-laughed on her drink. "Yeah, and pray I never realized you did it."
Drew raised her glass. "We are getting our girls back together, you know. Safe and sound."
Jones answered Drew's raised glass with a clink.
"Yeah," she said. "Got an idea on that, but it'll have to be a solo run."
Brett Mahoney would forever congratulate himself that he didn't jump when Jessica fell. The fact was impressive in that Jones fell several stories to land on her feet just past his arm's reach in the alley. Maybe, he'd concede, a little less impressive since he'd known she was coming.
He didn't bother turning around. "Well, you said pick an alley and you'd find me, so I gotta give you that. But why couldn't we do the whole thing over the phone? And why not your buddy Costa?"
"Hoping if they have your calls under surveillance," Jess said, stepping up beside him, "it's recorded, not real time, so they wouldn't scramble a covert surveillance team in time to follow you. Figure they got Eddy on real time watch."
Now he faced her. "Don't know who 'they' are."
She flashed an intentionally fake smile. "Yeah, I'm kinda thinking you do," she answered mildly. "But I'm gambling you're still a Costa-type cop, maybe even wanting to do something about the 'they'. I just need one thing, Mahoney. One small thing. Check into it, if I'm right, tell me, and give me one perfectly innocuous piece of information."
"Why the hell would I do any of that? Maybe you're with 'they'?"
"Costa trusts me. You trust Costa. A little third-hand love for the set?" He started to walk out of the alley but stopped when Jones added, "Two girls might die soon."
"Franklin," he sighed, turning back toward her again. "And Cross. We're on it."
"Yeah. And the success the Department's having makes the mind reel."
"Some of us do care!" he snapped, stepping toward her hard, until he was in her face. "I fucking care!" He sniffed. "Are you drunk?"
Taken aback at his heat, Jessica simply raised her eyebrows and ignored the last question. "I believe you. But I don't know why."
He sighed, palmed over his hips, staring at the pavement. "Word is Franklin is Spider-Woman, right? The new one?"
"If you say so."
"My cousin, she's a rookie on the force. Got cross-ways of some Broad Day Shooters in an alley, stupid rookie mistake, and that Spider-Woman girl happened to be there. Saved her ass. Then I heard Cross is her girlfriend. So – yeah, I been pushing, but like every good cop around here, the clique in the bag for Keaton has all of that locked down tight."
"Okay." She shifted on her feet, head bobbing a bit. "You know I can do things … extra."
Mahoney ran a thumb over his chin, then muttered. "What do you want?"
"Somewhere in your Department," she said, "someone has been spending a shitload of discretionary funds buying protein shakes. Probably by the case. If I'm wrong, then we're done. If I'm right … tell me where they're being delivered."
Clink.
Clank.
Jones scuffed her boots to a stop, turning at the sound of chain … several chains rattling together. She heard firm wood slapping a palm. Slipping her hands from her jacket pockets, she took careful side steps back down her hallway toward the elevator, stopping as five Watchdogs in full regalia swung from around the corner leading to the stairs.
One swung heavy chains lazily back and forth. Two were bouncing baseball bats off their palms. "So this really is your home sweet home, freak? Looks like Alec Johnson was right again."
She sighed, holding up a palm. "Look, guys, I just wanna get some sleep. You think I can't take you?"
The man in the middle spoke, possibly since he carried the biggest bat. "Oh, we know you could, freak," he stepped closer. "But the way we see it, you can't do shit right now. You see the news? Murder, kidnapping – God knows what other charges they're thinking about dropping on that cute ass of yours. They just need a little shove."
She rolled her head around and then glared back at them. "Seriously, assholes, you don't want to be doing this."
"You don't have shit to say about it," he said, as his posse spread out around her. "Who do you think people gonna believe, whatever –" he licked his lips. "Whatever goes down here, right now? You got that – what is that they call it, again Pete?"
"PTSD."
"Right, PTSD. Poor crazy little freak. So, you think they're gonna believe, freaky ass bitch? Hell, half of 'em be happy to know you got some street justice smacked on your ass." He smacked his bat hard against his palm. "Thinking this is the right time to take that fine ass down a peg, bitch. Once we tune it up."
They're riiiiight, Kilgrave was hissing in her ear. You can't fight this, Jessica. You do and you're going to jail for sure, at least long enough that Rebecca and Mattie will never be coming out of whatever hell hole your stupidity has landed them in.
She turned her head to answer the illusion, and it was then the leader swung. Though she caught it in her right palm, and he grunted with surprise and the pain of the sudden stop, another bat was heading straight for her rib-cage, a doubled-up line of chain at her head, all while Kilgrave laughed, Go on, then, Jess, fight! Leave Rebecca and Mattie for dead!
The chains had wrapped around her out-flung left palm but the bat to the rib cage doubled her over. And in the midst of Kilgrave hooting, the Watchdogs laughing, the distraction of one tugging at her jeans even while others worked over her ribs, her back, and the back of her legs, with boots, bats, and chains. Her actions became wild, unfocused, her aim blurred, as she screamed in pain, in fury, in fear.
And smelled an arc of electricity split the air.
Then a second.
The 'Dogs backed off of her, turning to their right, and as she scooted back on the floor, she looked up to see a sharp-dressed man standing firm in his apartment doorway, aiming some sort of military-grade shock gun in his left hand just as the Watchdog leader jumped back up heading for the man's right.
"Nuh-uh," Malcolm Ducasse said, pointing a snub-nosed revolver at the leader's face, stopping him in mid-move. He cocked it. "Yeah, benefits of my new license and employment."
Nobody moved after that.
"This is how it is," Malcolm said. "I just called the cops, but I'll leave it up to you whether to stick around and listen to me tell 'em what I heard." He tilted his head up to the security camera over his door. "And recorded."
The 'Dogs exchanged glances, then began a sullen sulk-walk to the elevator. "Fucking freak-lover," one muttered. When the door closed, Malcolm went over to help her to her feet.
"Thanks," she muttered.
He shrugged. "Actually, didn't know if you'd want the cops called or not," he said, "what with all the shit's been going on. Up to you. I'll get 'em down here, tell 'em what happened if you want. Figured you'd want to think about that."
He glanced back, his hand going to her arm to still her when she jerked at the sound of boots running down the stairs off the side.
"I did call Oscar," he told her. Turning away, he walked back to his apartment. "Figured you didn't want me."
"Hey," she called out softly. He turned. "Hope things are … you know."
He nodded and went back inside.
Oscar came around the corner, ran to her, and half-carried her as she limped into her place. She collapsed on the couch, mirthlessly laughing to note that the wrapping tape was still there from a job she'd done a month earlier. She slipped her jacket off, wincing, then groaned getting her tee-shirt off with Oscar's help.
He sat on the arm of the couch as she wound the tape tight around her abdomen from her tummy to her bra, watching her down a three shots of Cutty Sark in the process. "What happened?"
She shrugged and winced. "Dunno. Maybe a rib or two busted. Kidneys bruised. You know me, it heals fast."
"No, I mean who did this – this time?"
"Oh." She finished the wrap and started to pick up her tee-shirt, but left it, feeling comfortable with Oscar there. She took another hit off the bottle. "Usual bullshit. Watchdogs. I'm fine."
He fussed over a cut on her cheek from errant chain links. "Christ, Jess, let me call Claire."
She hesitated, remembering the tension she'd sensed in the Luke Cage-Claire Temple apartment. "She's … out of town."
"Well, there's gotta be somebody. Isn't there anybody else you guys use?"
"Us guys?"she said wryly, looking up at him. "You mean us street freaks?" But there was no malice in his eyes and she couldn't bring herself to pretend there was, although taking offense might have boosted her adrenaline and helped with the pain.
"I'm calling 911," he said, eyeing her tape job with suspicion.
"No, you're not. You're not because I don't want you to." She started to stand, but her left leg folded, and she fell back on the couch. She winced as she stretched to the coffee table instead, reaching for the whiskey.
"Hey?" Oscar walked over, gently taking the bottle from her and capping it.
She glared at him. "This discussion, again?"
"Just saying take it easy for a minute. What's with the leg?"
She shrugged, leaning back into the couch, arms folded. "Nothing broken. Bad bruise, I expect."
"Bad bruise," he sighed. "Come on, you need to lay down." He asked if she wanted the shirt, which she didn't, and then offered to carry to her bed, which she allowed.
It was when he started to move away that she became active again, grabbing his hand.
"I'm staying," he told her. "Just going to get a chair."
"Yeah," she sighed. "Another night with Jessica Jones. What, my mattress too hard for you?"
He hesitated, then slid carefully beside her, taking her in his arms as lightly as if she was made of crepe paper.
She rolled her eyes. "Oscar? I won't break. Remember the other night? We practically wrecked this bed and I was fine." She tossed her head side to side, considering. "Pleasantly sore, but in a happy little can't-wait-to-fuck-him-again way."
With the booze in the next room, and violet fog forming in her head, she desperately wanted the escape of pure sensation. She kissed him, working his mouth hard with hers, then pulled back, repeating, "I won't break."
"No, but you can hurt," he said. "You get hurt a lot." He nuzzled her hair. "Just tell me how to take care of somebody banged up like this when they're somebody like you," he said. "Gifted. Powered. Whatever."
Jess sighed. "Okay, you know, look, here's the thing. I may be a little bit stomped out right now, but you're still talking to me, okay? I don't need coddling."
Oscar grunted. "You know how Vido calls you 'pretty lady'? It's so funny watching your face. You want to roll your eyes at it, but you don't because you don't want to hurt my kid's feelings. It's like your face hurts but you let it hurt so you don't disappoint him." He shifted, trailing a finger along her chin. "You're prettier than you think you are. And you're a better person than you think you are."
She gripped his wrist firmly, pulling his fingertip to her lips. She kissed it, then drew his finger into her mouth, swirling her tongue around it, before pulling his hand away.
"I know who and what I am, Oscar. Vido thinks I'm a hero. But I'm just trying to survive, here."
"Thanks for letting him see what he needs to see." He sighed, leaning down, brushing her lips feather light over hers. "But I don't need you to be a hero. I want you to be safe. And maybe, someday, happy?" He smiled. "Maybe?"
She closed her eyes, rolling her body against his, one leg over his thigh. "I need to sleep," she said, then kissed him hard. "But I don't want to."
"I'll be right here when you wake up." He brushed her face with his fingertips, then pulled her head against his shoulder, his fingers squeezing the back of her head with a firm, steady rhythm. He kept his breathing steady against her, through the little jerks and twists that accompanied drunk sleep, at one point running the line of sweat off her brow with his thumb.
Eventually, he fell asleep himself. He wasn't surprised when he woke up before her. But he was surprised to find a long-haired brunette who radiated lethality staring at him from the chair she'd drawn up by the bed.
"You'd be the boyfriend?" she asked dryly. She raised her hand, and a weird dance of electricity and light spun around her fingers as she toyed with it. "Either that, or this will get unpleasant very fast."
"Jess," he said, shaking Jones' shoulder. "Somebody's kind of snuck into your apartment right now."
Jessica turned her head, staring with one bleary eye before she said. "Yeah. That's Jessica Drew." She yawned. "She does that." She buried her face in a pillow. "Somebody wanna turn out the floodlight?"
"My name's Oscar," he said.
Jones' voice was muffled. "And he's not my boyfriend."
Drew arched an eyebrow, staring at Oscar.
He smiled. "She does that."
Jess smiled into her pillow.
Oscar went to pick up Vido from visitation with his ex-wife while the Jessicas decamped around the desk. Jones tried but failed to be irritated by Drew's constant long-eye side-glances every time she moved, her protective vibe apparent as she made sure Jess' super-healing was properly in gear on the ribs, face, legs, and whatever else the 'Dogs had battered.
It was her pride that Drew seemed most determined to build back fast – and a little too obviously. She cooed over the file Jones had compiled, flipping through it, yet it was the Frisco PI who finally found the link that had rattled loose through Hell Kitchen's head for so long.
"The address," Drew said idly. "The one you've marked here, the run sheet on Lawson's day that you picked up with the plant."
Jones was tapping angrily on her keyboard, running through pictures of Watchdog rallies, scanning faces, trying to spot one or more of the men who'd "visited" her the previous night. "Um-hmmm?"
"You put a question mark by it."
"Right. No idea what that visit was about."
"Well … you always say start at the beginning, so I did." Drew picked up a slender stack of paper from the desk. "This contract with Samuel Cross, the one you and he agreed in writing. Back at Josie's, the day you met?"
Jones tilted her head up, vision tunneling. "Yeah?"
"It's his address." She turned over the contract to face her. "Lawson was visiting the building where Mr. Cross lives."
Jones went back in her chair with exquisite lag. "Mother –"
The shot was close enough to clip Drew's hair and send her spinning to the floor. A crack sounded outside immediately after, as Jones skated on her hip over the desk, dropping to all fours, staring wildly at her fallen counter-part. She fussed with her hair, seeing a bruise swelling around a shallow slash at the temple but no entry point.
"Jessica, you goddamn spider, damn it, don't-don't-don't be - damn it Jess –"
Drew's eyes came back into focus. "I'm okay," she answered, detached, almost child-like with wonder, pulling Jess' fingers away from her temple. "Just missed me."
Jones' eyes flared. "Well, I'm not missing them."
Drew flailed, trying to stop her, but the concussion of the high velocity blast kissing her skull had her dizzy. She fell, then pulled herself over the floor toward the window.
Jones had jumped high, scanning furiously, until she saw fembot Hill wave at her from the rope ladder she was taking into an unmarked hovering helicopter. An NYPD chopper sailed past it, heading toward Jessica's office window.
Drew pushed up, fell, crawled toward the window as something howled up beside it, then shoving herself to her feet again. An NYPD officer sitting in tac gear stared at her through the scope of an M4 rifle aimed through an open door, chopper blades whirling above.
By then Jess was trying to control her fall. She realized her impulsive leap had sent her spiraling through a predictable arc she couldn't quite correct. Ledges, landings, loose awnings – she bounced from one to the other on the way down, smashing into the concrete of an alley where she lay, panting with pain from freshly throbbing ribs.
Tires. Rolling slowly past. A stop. Backing up.
Jessica shoved herself to her boots, unsteady, vision blurred.
A white van.
Her "friend" from the parking garage kidnapping, One-Eye McCoy, slipped out of the front passenger's seat, grinning.
"You want Mattie Franklin?" He rapped the side of the van. "Get her."
"Get ready," Jess growled, sway-stomping his way when three gunshots from behind her filled the alleyway, deafening her for a moment. Three holes had opened on the side of the van while Jessica threw herself back against the alley wall, looking to see a central casting version of a PTA maven walked into the alley, smirking.
"What the fu—"
"Language, young lady," Mrs. PTA-and-lace shook her finger, then pulled the clear surgical glove off it. Her other hand tossed a smallish pistol down, letting it clatter toward Jessica's feet. She took off that glove, stuffing both in a sensibly plain purse along with a plastic baggie that might have held the gun. Jess looked down at it: a Lorcin .380.
Jessica turned. The van was gone, and Mrs. PTA was walking to where it had sat. Jones got one blink in, mind spinning, aware vaguely of helicopter rotor blades chopping the air nearby.
PTA hit her mark primly, turned, cleared her throat with a dainty fist at her mouth, and began screaming bloody murder.
From around the corner, walking around PTA and stepping carefully toward Jess, came four uniformed officers. Jessica heard one of the cops burring into his shoulder mike, "10-34," while another simultaneously requested backup, shouting into his own mike, "10-13, shots fired."
"Fuck me," Jessica said.
"I don't care for that kind of language," the woman told her primly, pulling a whistle from her trousers. "Let's be professional about this, dear."
"Fuck you."
"Language, please!" she hissed.
"Look, Miss Manners -"
The woman's smile went gut-twistingly gleeful, a sadist in her heaven. She raised the whistle toward her mouth as she said, "Oh, I'm just a concerned citizen, Miss Jones. Here to raise the alarm."
The concerned citizen blew the whistle loud enough to release the work force of a distant factory. For show, Jessica realized – for anyone nearby to later recall a terrified woman calling out for help in a way that accounted for a rapid police response. Jess slapped it from her hand. Nobody would unjumble the time line.
Citizen lady started screaming, wailing with Tony nominee realism, "She's trying to kill me!"
Jessica had turned, heading toward the end of the alley. A patrol car squealed to a stop there, a cop rolling out of the passenger door with his gun at the ready, shouting at her to get on her knees.
"Fuck it." She got three steps in headed the other way when a patrol car pulled up there as well, causing her to stumble against a huge and heavy trash container. "Fuck the world. And fuck this!"
"Jessica Jones," Miss Manners shook her head. "Can you just stop saying the wordfuck?"
"What are you – Netflix?"
A third car squealed to a stop. "Jesus, is there anybody left for speeders?" Two officers crab walked fast down the alley, shouting, guns shaking in their hands.
Miss Manners shook her head, folding her arms. "Well, they'll shut up that mouth for you soon enough, freak. You'll finally learn that's something freaks can do."
"Yeah?" Jess turned and smiled. "Let me show you something else freaks can do."
She made as if to jump, so the shots arched over her head when she stopped well short, simply grapping the lip of the container's opening.
She whirled it, spinning it hard toward the cops at one end, who scattered as the giant metal bin slammed from wall to wall while she spun to her feet.
Then she jumped.
It wasn't so much the physical act of evasion that saved her from the guns of those who hadn't scattered. It was the psychological effect – what she had counted on, having seen it before – that froze everyone else as she launched into the air.
Even if one, some, or all of them knew Jessica Jones could jump-fly, actually seeing a slightly built woman in street clothes take to the air like that held back any shots, even any shouts, as she scuffed over the roof, rolled hard onto her shoulder, then ran, jumping again, reaching the next rooftop.
Later, fuckers.