Title: Undercover, Ch. 10

Rating: K+, maybe T

A/N: Sorry this took a while to write, but you know how it is when you want it to be just right. By the way, this chapter doesn't really follow the previous chapter's patterns as far as point of view and that sort of thing...but since it's kind of the pivotal chapter of the whole story I thought I could break the rules for once. (Especially since I made them up.) Anyway, enough of my nattering. Please...read it, let me know what you think, and I really hope you enjoy. :)

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There's a sharp pain shooting through the back of his head, a heavy throbbing behind his eyelids. He doesn't want to open his eyes, but he knows he has to. When he does, everything is dark and for a moment he's scared he's gone blind.

After a moment, he begins to make out the shape of an opening on what must be a wall on the other side of the room. It's a window, he realizes, and the light is coming in from what he guesses is a street outside. He can hear the whoosh of the cars passing, the sound of horns being blown in heavy traffic.

He tries to move, tries to stand up and go over to investigate, but discovers that much to his surprise his hands are tied behind his back and his feet are secured to the legs of the chair he's sitting in. His heart begins to pound and there's a sick feeling in his gut as he tugs against the restraints, trying fruitlessly to free himself. Suddenly he senses movement out of the corner of his eye, and turns his head to see a now-motionless figure standing only a few feet away from him, his face unrecognizable in the dim light. As Gibbs stares at him, unable to form words, the figure steps forward and even in the darkness there is the flash of teeth in a wide, white smile.

"Good," the stranger says, a faint purring note in his voice. "I was hoping you'd wake up soon." He looks down at the floor near Gibbs' feet. "We've been waiting for you."

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They had both been on edge after that dance—if you could call that joint effort at vertical seduction just a dance—and to calm their nerves he'd suggested they head over to the bar and get drinks. They'd run into Mark and Beth Sommers on the way over and opted to share a table with the other couple after everyone had ordered. While he and Kate were waiting—he for his obligatory Scotch, she for her usual Manhattan—they had flirted shamelessly, standing at the corner of the bar. He'd run a casual hand down her arm, noting with pure satisfaction the slight shiver that ran over her slender body; she'd lifted a small hand to boldly caress his cheek, smiling when his eyes lit and his breath caught. And when they finally got their drinks and were walking over to the little table where the other couple was already waiting, he rested his free hand proprietarily on her waist, daring any other man in the room to so much as glance her way. Somehow, she didn't really seem to mind.

As they sat down and made small talk, the tension between the two of them was nearly tangible. The conversation was light, casual, mostly comments about the elegance of the gala and the beauty of the evening. The women exclaimed over each other's gowns, the men made the requisite derisive remarks about fancy dress. But underneath the meaningless chatter and seemingly lighthearted rapport, a slow anticipation was coiling in his gut, a heady excitement building in hers. They made the right moves, said the right things, sipped their drinks smoothly and smiled often. No one else knew that their thoughts were filled with vivid images of heated sighs, tangled limbs, pounding hearts and racing pulses. No one else realized that every second that passed heightened the connection between them until both were wound so tightly that their joint self-control threatened to snap at any moment. No one but them.

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Slowly, the stranger bends down and lifts something from the floor, grunting a little at the weight. It's out of Gibbs' line of vision, but he feels a prickle of anxiety crawl up his neck, overriding the more immediate concern of being tied up and being hit on the back of the head. Something else is wrong, something worse, and all of a sudden he has a horrible premonition of what it is.

And as the man lays his burden down on the floor again, he sees that he's right. He would know that particular face anywhere, that slender body, that mane of dark hair. The faint light from the window shines over her ruined hairdo, glitters on the beads that ornament the front of her dress, sparkles on the jewels in her necklace and at her ears. Her eyes are closed, her face lax, and he realizes she's been drugged. He's still too dazed and disoriented to remember what happened or how they got here, but he's lucid enough to realize two things: that it's Kate who is lying on the floor at his feet, and that both of them are in very serious trouble.

He closes his eyes for a moment, searching for calm, for control, for a way out of what is rapidly turning into an impossible situation. He can't think straight through the pounding in his head and the bubble of panic that is rapidly rising in his chest. It's not himself he's worried about; he's been in worse situations and somehow made it out alive. But Kate is vulnerable, powerless at the moment, and he can't lift a finger to help her. Briefly he wonders if either of them is going to make it out alive tonight.

Through his whirling thoughts he hears a soft moan, and his eyes fly open to see that she's looking back at him, her own eyes dazed and bewildered in the dimness. He wishes that he could say something, that he could tell her it's going to be all right, that he's going to find a way out of this, but there's someone else listening and even if there weren't, he's not sure he could lie to her at this point. So instead he turns his head and looks straight into the eyes of the man who stands beside him, a half-smile curving his lips as he brushes his gloved hands together eagerly.

"She's awake now," he says simply, but there's a note in his voice that puts every muscle in Gibbs' body on full alert. "It's time to begin."

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After fifteen agonizing minutes of slowly chewing off her lipstick and simultaneously fighting the urge to fling herself at Gibbs and demonstrate exactly how unsatisfied she was with their current positions, Kate couldn't take another second. Excusing herself politely, she picked up her evening bag and headed for the ladies' room, deliberately avoiding his eyes as she went. It had nothing to do with teasing him—well, maybe a little bit. But it had much more to do with the fact that if she looked directly at him for any perceptible length of time she was afraid she just might do something crazy—like kissing him senseless in the middle of the dance floor, or ripping all the buttons off that crisply starched jacket with her teeth, or climbing into his lap like a floozy right in front of the entire bar. So she opted for the ladies' room instead.

The bathroom was peaceful and quiet, the lounge area luxurious with softly padded chairs and lush hothouse plants. She pressed a damp towel to her flushed cheeks, meticulously redid her lipstick, touched up her mascara with a slightly trembling hand. It wasn't until she looked into the big gilt-edged mirror that she noticed how huge her eyes were, how deeply dilated the pupils. Suddenly she felt a little dizzy, unsteady on her ice-pick heels, and she laid a hand on the cool porcelain of the sink to steady herself.

"He's not that potent, Kate," she told her reflection reprovingly. "Get a grip already."

But as she shook her head to clear it, the motion seemed to have the opposite effect. The room began to swirl sickeningly about her, colors blending and whirling in a dizzying kaleidoscope of motion, and she felt the floor seem to shift beneath her feet. Gripping the edge of the sink with both hands, she waited until her vision had stopped blurring and stepped slowly into the little lounge. Even those few steps had her forehead breaking out in a cold sweat and her belly twisting with nausea, and she could feel the sharp, acrid bite of panic in the back of her throat.

All of a sudden she sensed movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned to see a red-jacketed waiter standing beside a rolling cart, the kind that the staff used for room service or to take away dirty plates. She could see a few empty glasses on the top and guessed that he was picking up after some of the guests while the ladies' room was empty.

He seemed concerned as he looked over at her, and she thought wryly that she must look a mess as he stepped a little closer and asked gently, "Is everything all right?"

Trying to smile, she swayed a bit and blinked a few times to clear her vision.

"I…I'm fine," she managed, clutching one hand tightly to her rebellious stomach. "Just a little…dizzy…" Just at that moment another wave of vertigo hit, and she was forced to grab the arm of the nearest chair to avoid going to her knees. Dimly through the wracking nausea she managed to think that she needed to get out of here, needed to find Gibbs. But before she could try to right herself, she felt the man's hands gently pulling her down to the floor. Confused, she tried to search his face for a clue to his strange behavior; the dizziness was too strong, though, and all she could decipher was his low murmur as he slipped both arms beneath her and carefully picked her up.

"I didn't think it would work this quickly," he said softly as her head lolled weakly on his shoulder and her weighted limbs refused her brain's command to move. "But it'll be easier for you this way."

The last thing she felt was the smothering darkness as he lowered her into a small enclosed space and dropped something over the top. And as she spiraled toward oblivion, she heard the creak of wheels and groaned at the sudden lurch of movement. Then her world went black.

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Moving carefully, the man skirts around Gibbs as he sits helplessly in his chair and kneels down by Kate, his hand coming out to gently stroke her hair. The gloves he wears aren't Latex, Gibbs realizes suddenly—they're fabric, some kind of thick white fabric, probably cotton. But his brain doesn't have time to process the strangeness of this fact before the man slips one hand beneath Kate's head and uses the other to lift her eyelids one by one.

"Still under the influence of the drug, I see," he murmurs softly, sliding his fingers down to check the pulse in her neck. "But she's coming around nicely. In a few moments she'll be quite alert…but physically sluggish, I'm afraid."

Gibbs struggles against his bonds again, the coppery taste of mingled fear and rage coating his throat as he watches the other's man's hands moving so casually, so intimately, over Kate. As she moans again and stirs slightly under the light touch, the man smiles faintly.

"She took longer than the others to come out of it," he remarks conversationally to Gibbs as he lowers her head gently to the ground. "I suppose it's because she's so small." He looks down at her as she lies curled helplessly on the floor, and the corner of his mouth lifts slightly. "But very beautiful…as I'm sure you well know. Very beautiful indeed."

He looks over his shoulder and Gibbs sucks in his breath sharply at the look on his face, an expression half of envy and half of quiet resignation.

"You're a very lucky man, you know," he says quietly, his hand moving to cup Kate's cheek, his gloved thumb stroking the soft skin. "But luck doesn't always last."

He brushes the backs of his fingers over Kate's cheek and stands up, his demeanor changing with his shift in position. He takes a step forward and suddenly his body language is no longer casual, no longer calm. There is a threat implicit in the way he stands and moves, in the glint of his eyes as he reaches in the pocket of his dark pants to pull out a heavy pistol whose snub nose gleams menacingly in the faint light.

"I should know," he says as he examines the barrel, sliding one finger lovingly over the polished steel. "I should know."

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He knew that something was wrong—terribly wrong. He didn't know why, he didn't know how, he just felt it in his gut. His mind went back to Kate's words on the balcony: "…I just have this feeling that something's going to go wrong and I don't know what to do to stop it." He hadn't placed much credence in her statement at the time, but the longer he sat at the little table close to the crowded bar, the more he was beginning to believe her.

He sat alone, the Sommers having excused themselves a good ten minutes ago, and though he was doing his best to hide it, he couldn't completely conceal the nerves that were eating him up. He felt almost absurd—here he was, a big tough former Marine/senior NCIS agent, barely able to keep from pacing the floor because some little brunette was taking too long powdering her nose in the ladies' room. If it hadn't been Kate, he would've written it off to female vanity a long time ago and ordered another Scotch. But it was Kate, and deep down inside he knew that this wasn't just an overlong make-up session in front of the mirror. He'd been in danger too many times to not recognize the feeling when it crackled soundlessly in the air, and worry was beginning to send gleeful little fingers of tension to prickle mercilessly on the back of his neck.

Finally he couldn't take it anymore. He lurched to his feet, pushing back his chair impatiently, and headed over in the direction of the restrooms with long, ground-eating strides. He barely noticed the people moving swiftly out of his way, too intent on his goal to pay them any attention. Without so much as a knock, he pushed open the slatted wooden door and stepped into the ladies' lounge.

His automatic reaction was to recoil at the sight of overstuffed chairs and green potted plants, arranged in artfully decorative "groupings." The air was perfumed, the walls were papered in flowers, and the whole place reeked of ultra-femininity—not his milieu at all. But this was the last place he'd seen Kate go, and he had no intention of leaving a man behind. So he choked down the rising discomfort and headed into no-man's-land…the bathroom.

Five excruciating minutes later, Gibbs found himself in the lounge once more, his ears ringing from the outraged shrieks of two very shocked dowagers and his head pounding from the tension of barging uninvited into a women's restroom…but still no Kate. He was trying to convince himself that she had simply taken another way out and was currently lost in the crowd, looking for him, when he saw the sparkle of something lying on the floor in the far corner of the lounge.

Walking quickly on the thick carpeting, he knelt down and pulled the little object out from behind the plant where it had fallen. As he looked down at it, unwilling to believe his eyes, he felt a distinct sinking sensation in his gut…the realization that he'd finally found what he didn't want to be looking for. The beads glittered in the lamplight as he tugged open the clasp and pulled out her badge and PDA, his jaw clenching as comprehension sank in. Kate wouldn't have left her purse lying on a bathroom floor, certainly wouldn't have left her badge or the annoying little device that contained all her appointments and personal information. Which meant that she hadn't left that bathroom on her own. He was sure of it.

Huffing out a sharp breath, he pushed to his feet and snapped the purse shut, never slowing down as he hit the door and headed for the nearest exit.

He had to find her, and fast.

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Gibbs can feel the cold steel brush softly against his skin, can sense the nearness of death as it slides along his temple. He tries to keep his breathing slow and even, to still his racing heartbeat. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Kate's eyelashes flutter as she tries to wake up, tries to understand what's going on. In the back of his mind he can't decide whether he wants her to regain consciousness and make some kind of move to help save them both, or whether he hopes that she never fully wakes up to this unending nightmare. More than anything, he wants to break loose of the cord that's tying his hands and feet and rush over to pick her up, check her breathing and her heart rate and make sure that she's okay and unharmed, tell her that he's got her and she's safe and he'll never let anything like this happen to her again. But if any wish is futile, he knows it's that one.

He can hear the sharp rasp of breath from the man who's currently holding a gun to his head. At least the man is focusing on him, not Kate—for the moment. If only he can keep him talking, keep him distracted. If only he can manage to buy them a little time until help comes. Someone's going to notice something wrong, he knows it. The FBI has an entire team watching the entrances and exits, for God's sake. Someone is going to come find them. He just has to make sure that it's not too late when they do.

Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath and is about to speak when there is a soft thud, the cold muzzle is abruptly removed from his head, and the dark figure behind him moves away to look down at the floor again. Gibbs' eyes fly open and focus on Kate, wondering what she just did to attract the killer's attention; he notices that she's flung out a hand, her fingertips digging into the carpeted floor as she tries to gain the leverage to sit up. The sight evokes a tumult of simultaneous rage and pity in him, and he struggles yet again against the merciless restraints.

Suddenly he looks again at the carpeting that she's lying on, glances around at their surroundings, and it hits him for the first time since he opened his eyes and saw a killer standing beside him. They're in their hotel room, he realizes. The chair he's sitting in is the one that was right in front of the desk, the shadowed canopy on the other side of the room is the bed they shared for the better part of a week, the window that sheds the only light in the room is the same one he stared out of after their single kiss, wondering if he'd ever be able to look at her the same way again. And with the realization come two widely diverging reactions: the first, fury at himself for not realizing sooner exactly where they were, despite his disorientation from a minor concussion; the second, stark unadulterated terror at what this means for the two of them…but mostly for the woman lying not five feet away from him, unaware that her life is about to be abruptly over.

Before he is able to think rationally about any of this, he feels his mouth open, hears the desperate words come tumbling out.

"Why…why are you doing this?" he rasps, his voice sounding thick and rusty. "Why her?" His bewildered mind thinks desperately that if only he can get her out of here, he can deal with this maniac on his own. If he can get the bastard to leave her alone…and so he tries again.

"Just…let her go," he manages through a dry and aching throat. "She doesn't have anything to do with this."

The figure in front of him turns his head, and Gibbs can feel his heart constrict in his chest as he sees the glitter of madness in those calm eyes.

"Oh, but she does," the man says smoothly, and in the low tones Gibbs for the first time recognizes something familiar. Before he can place it, though, the killer's next words are dropping like lumps of ice into his gut. "You were both so much in love, you see. I watched you this whole week—how the two of you laughed, how you smiled, how you looked at each other. That's when I knew that you would be the next ones."

He sincerely hopes that even if she's hearing all this, she isn't yet lucid enough to understand it. But as he glances down at her, he sees that her eyes are open and, while they're still hazy from the drug, she comprehends everything the other man says. Following his line of sight, the killer glances down as well and smiles a little.

"She understands everything we're saying," he tells Gibbs with a trace of self-satisfaction. "She's very bright, you know. That's one of the things that convinced me that she was worthy of playing this part."

He freezes in his seat, wondering what to say now, what to do. Frantically, he uses his eyes to telegraph to Kate, telling her to stay still, to not do anything to anger the madman while he tries to buy them time. He hopes desperately that she'll do as he tells her. Their survival may depend on it.

The killer looks at him curiously, cocking his head to one side in what could pass for amusement.

"You don't have to tell her to be quiet," he informs Gibbs matter-of-factly. "She knows what's coming next." He flexes his hands once, stares down at them as if he's never seen them before, then reaches down in a sort of trance to straighten the white gloves he's wearing before he tugs on his fitted jacket.

"We both do," he says quietly as he strides forward and kneels down beside Kate, looking into her eyes for a moment before he slips his hands around her neck.

"I'm sorry, Katheryn," he murmurs as his fingers begin to tighten. "But this has to be done."

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It didn't even cross his mind that the FBI had cameras trained on every exit to the ballroom, or that he had a cell phone attached to his belt that bring his team running at a moment's notice. He wasn't thinking of backup as he sprinted to the elevator and hammered on the down button. And he certainly wasn't thinking of the impact on the case when he jammed the button for the fourteenth floor and, safely inside the little metal box, twisted to retrieve the handgun he'd concealed at his waist.

When the elevator doors finally slid open, the quiet whoosh sounding almost painfully loud in his hyper-sensitive ears, his jaw was set and his eyes hard as flint. He moved silently, swiftly down the hallway, years of training kicking in as his gaze darted from side to side, watching for potential intruders. At last he stood in front of the door he wanted, one hand darting to the pocket of his jacket to pull out the little plastic card he'd stashed there. Every muscle tensed as he quickly slid it in and out and the little green light flickered in response. Taking a single deep breath, he brought his weapon around in front of him and slowly opened the door.

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He can't let this happen. He can't just sit there, silent and helpless, as a crazed psychopath strangles his partner and agent only a few feet away. He has to do something. So, thinking fast, he remembers the profile Kate created for the killer and straightens a little in his chair. He only has one weapon, but there is no doubt at all in his mind that he knows how to use it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demands, injecting all the steel he can muster into his tone. Years of serving in the Corps, of leading the best (and most fractious) team at NCIS, of facing down more criminals than he can count, have taught him well. No one but he can tell that his spine has turned to jelly and that his knees would be shaking if they weren't jammed against the chair legs. Thank God.

The killer freezes, his hands still around Kate's neck, but his fingers have stopped their slow lethal tightening about her throat. Gibbs hears her draw a hoarse breath and feels a tiny thrill of relief trickle down his spine.

"Let her go and leave her alone," he orders, his voice more confident and self-assured. He doesn't dare look at her, focusing all his attention, all his concentration on the man in front of him. "I told you that she has nothing to do with this. If you want to deal with me, then let's deal. But you leave her alone."

He waits with bated breath, wondering if he's gone too far and the killer will continue out of sheer rage. But amazingly his tactic seems to be working. The man's hands are loosening from Kate's throat as he slowly turns in what seems to be astonishment.

"You're supposed to plead for her," the man finally says, his words slow and puzzled. "You're supposed to beg me not to kill her. Why aren't you begging me?"

This is the moment, Gibbs thinks. This is the watershed, the second in time where he has to make the choice from which he can't turn back. He hopes to God that it's the right one.

"Because we both know who's in charge here. Me."

The man sucks in a harsh breath and jerks his hands away from Kate as he jackknifes to his feet.

"Don't say that!" he hisses wildly, his hands shaking as he rounds on the man staring coolly at him with a single raised eyebrow. "Don't say that. It's a lie, it's always been a lie. I'm the one in control here. I'm the one in charge." He bends low, spitting the words into the impassive face in front of him. "Say it—say that I'm the one in control. Say it."

Tilting his head back, Gibbs shoots him a deliberately icy look. "We both know that it's not true. You'll never be the one in charge. You never were."

For a single heartbeat the killer stares at him in blank shock. Then he lashes out blindly, one fist connecting with Gibbs' cheek and snapping his head back against the seat of the chair. For a moment he sees stars, and then his head clears and he narrows his eyes as he takes in the contorted face in front of him.

"It doesn't matter how many times you try to kill me. I'll always be the one who calls the shots. And deep down, you know that."

He's winging it here, and that scares him stiff. But as long as it's working, as long as the minutes are ticking by, it doesn't matter what happens to him. She's safe for the moment, the team is looking for them, and all he has to do is wait it out.

The man in front of him is standing straight and stiff as a ramrod, his eyes burning with a light so fierce and intense that it seems to consume the rest of his face. Slowly he raises one hand, curling it into a fist and staring at it with those blazing eyes.

"I will kill you," he whispers hoarsely. "I've killed you before. I'll do it again. And you'll beg me for mercy before you die. You'll tell me anything I want to hear. And you will never hurt me again. Do you understand?" He repeats it, his voice rising as he does so. "Do you understand?"

And then he closes in, fists pummeling every inch of Gibbs' body he can reach, his face, his torso, his arms, his shoulders, ignoring the involuntary grunts of pain that result. The assault seems to go on forever, the punches falling randomly from every direction, until Gibbs can no longer think through the haze of pain. And as the darkness begins to close over him, the last thought that runs through his head is that Tony and the team had better be close. Because he can no longer hold this together alone.

But before he can descend into that welcome blackness, he suddenly feels the flurry of blows stop and senses the other man stepping away. Slitting one swollen eye open, he sees the killer bent over at the waist, gasping for air as he glares wildly about the room. His eyes light on Kate, and instinctively Gibbs knows that the moment he's dreaded has come. He has done everything he can think of, and yet it still hasn't been enough.

"This is wrong," the killer whispers quietly, his features stilling into an impassive mask, his eyelids falling to shutter those hell-lit eyes. "This isn't the way it's supposed to be. This isn't the way it should happen."

He straightens, his eyes still fixed on Kate's still figure. Gibbs can tell that she's awake now, even if she can't move much. Her stillness isn't from the drug, he knows, but from a deliberate attempt to not bait the madman who stands above her. Through the pain and the sickening despair he feels a slight glimmer of pride at her determination and her courage. If anyone could outsmart a killer, he thinks fuzzily, it's his girl.

"I know what to do," the man says in a half-whisper, almost as though he's talking to himself. "I know what I have to do. It has to be done," he says plaintively, as if trying to explain to someone who isn't there, hasn't ever been there. Stepping over to Kate, he kneels down again and locks his gloved hands, now stained with Gibbs' blood, around her slender throat. Gibbs can see her swallow desperately, sees her close her eyes in fear or resignation or both. Gathering all his remaining strength, he lunges against the bonds one more time and only succeeds in feeling them cut even deeper into his already swollen flesh.

"It's time now," the man murmurs softly, his eyes locked on Kate's still face. "You know what has to happen." And his hands begin their slow tightening around her neck as the moment spins out endlessly between the three of them, locked in a frozen, horrified silence as death enters the room on soundless feet.

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At first he couldn't see anything, coming from the bright lights of the hallway into the darkness of the room. Then, as his eyes gradually came into focus and a sliver of light from outside fell over the floor, he finally made out a figure lying on the ground close to the bed. A very familiar figure.

Abruptly he forgot all about training and protocol and rules and lunged into the room, letting the door fall shut unheeded behind him. His weapon clattered on the floor as he knelt down beside her, his fingers going unerringly to the pulse in her throat and his ear bent to her lips, listening intently for the sound of breathing. For a few chaotic moments all he could think was that she was alive, that he hadn't been too late, and the realization made his heart gallop with relief and fresh adrenaline. Then he realized that she should be waking up now, that her continued silence and stillness was a sign of something still very deeply wrong. For the first time since he got up from his lonely table and headed for the discreet sign that read "Restrooms," his brain kicked into gear and he reached for the cell phone that hung on his belt. He had the number for Headquarters on speed dial, and he had already pressed the glowing green "Send" button when he heard a pleasant male voice speak up calmly from behind him as a foot landed firmly on the butt of his weapon.

"Now, I really can't let you do that."

And the last thing he heard before a blinding pain bloomed from the back of his head and enveloped his skull was the sound of the phone ringing once, twice…and then he could hear nothing but the rush of blood in his ears—and then, silence.

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She's dying. She's dying before his very eyes, her windpipe slowly closing shut, her lungs screaming for air as her body starts the convulsions that signal the beginning of the end. He can see her face begin to flush as her air is cut off, can see her fingers curl up as her hands claw at the carpet in desperation. He knows that in a few moments it will be over, that nothing he says or does at this point will make any difference. But he has the pictures of three women in his mind, their lips and fingernails blue, their faces locked in the unforgiving rigor of death. And he cannot bear to see Kate's face beside theirs.

So once more the words come spilling out of his mouth, wild, despairing words that don't make any kind of sense but whose meaning is clear nevertheless. He pleads earnestly, humbly, begging for her life with a desperation he has never known at any other point in his existence. He makes promises he can never fulfill, mutters appeals that will never go before a judge or jury, whispers prayers that will never be heard by any deity except the angel of death that kneels before him, performing his terrible ritual with all the deafness of a graven image. None of it avails him anything at all.

He tries the last thing his feverish brain can produce. He knows who the killer is now. Somewhere in the past twenty minutes something clicked—some tone of voice, some movement, some signature tilt of the head or lift of the eyebrows. He would never have recognized the man's face, not as twisted and terribly enlivened as it is now. Even in the dim light he can make out the features, but they are no longer those that belonged to the man he knew. He knows him, though, deep in his gut, as surely and certainly as if the killer stood before him in broad daylight. And he has one last card to play before both of their hands fold permanently.

Clearing his throat, now raw and aching unbearably, he whispers hoarsely, "Sommers, listen to me." The man's head turns slightly, but his hands never loosen, and he can hear Kate choking over the rushing noise that fills his ears. "Sommers…don't…don't do this. Let me…" he stops, coughing violently as his abused throat protests, "…let me help you. I can…get you help…" Somewhere in the back of his mind he can't believe he's offering help to a madman, to a maniacal killer who is threatening both their lives and has taken too many others already. But that tiny rational voice is buried beneath a flood of determination to save them both if he possibly can.

"Sommers…" he tries again, his voice a thin thread of sound in the terribly silent room, the only other noise the soft rustle of Kate's dress as she struggles weakly for air, "…you don't have to do this. Your father…he's dead, died a long time ago. He'll never…" his lungs spasm viciously again, "…never come back for you again. You're…in control now. You…know that."

The killer's head turns completely, and he looks over his shoulder at the older man, his face calm and set.

"I know," he says simply, his hands still tightening as Kate's struggles slow infinitesimally. "You always end up saying it. You always tell me. Every time."

Satisfied, he turns back to the woman who is now lying limp on the floor and presses harder on her windpipe. Against all expectation, her eyes open slowly and focus on the man in the chair behind him. Big brown pools stare endlessly into his battered face, tracing every feature with infinite tenderness. And as they begin to close over in the throes of death, he stares back, held motionless by a cord stronger than those that bind him to the chair that keeps him prisoner.

"Katie," he whispers hoarsely, unable to look away as her lashes flutter down over her cheeks. "Katie…"

And as he tips his head back, begins to slide into the black night of the soul that tempts him so in this last endless moment, he almost misses the sound of eager hands battering down the door, the rush of feet pounding into the room, the clatter of handcuffs and the cries of a madman, the sharp edge of desperation as someone yells for the EMTs and the high-pitched whine of sirens. Even when they untie his hands and feet, when they chafe his extremities to bring back the flow of blood, when they dab antiseptic on his face and rip open his shirt to check for bruising, he is barely floating on the edge of consciousness. Only when he senses she is finally gone does he let himself slip over the edge that he's held onto so stubbornly until now, and free-falls, willingly, into the silence and the darkness.

He does not return for what seems a long, long time.