Author's Note: Thank you all for your reviews, I love putting my little day-dreams of our favourite duo on paper. Here's the next chappy..

Disclaimer: Refer to Chapter 1..

Keep Running, Chapter 11

Struggling Towards the Light

Parker's cell-phone was on the bar-table beside her front door.

She tore her eyes away from Jarod's, the rhythmically blinking screen and distinct vibration of the phone against the wood a welcome distraction from the terror that was beginning to grow within her. She attempted to disentangle herself from the position she rested in within the pretender's arms, every slide of skin and cloth as loud as gun-shots in the silence of her living room. Even as she kept her eyes averted from his she was painfully aware of every movement he made, the way the muscles in his chest and arms coiled and released as they assisted in moving her off the couch. Their breaths sawing through their throats, and the way her damn lips just seemed to keep pulsing from his kisses meant that for now there could be no escape from the knowledge of what they had just done, of what she had been willing to do.

I must be out of my bloody mind…

Getting enough leverage to push off the couch, Parker just about lunged for the cell-phone. Swiftly pressing the green call button, she walked away from the bar, and from Jarod, keeping her head down as she spoke.

"What?"

"Angel?"

She froze. Horror began to gnaw at her insides even while the cynical part of her wanted to chuckle and yell that ofcourse, ofcourse it was her father calling. God always did have a wicked sense of humour when it came to her, so who else but the venerable Mr Parker to call and interrupt the very moment his daughter was in the midst of betraying him.

"Daddy?" she whispered, resisting the urge to turn and meet Jarod's gaze now, to see how he took in this ironic turn of events. But what really kept Parker from turning to him was the realisation that what she desired was the reassurance she would see in his gaze, reassurance which was in itself built of a complicity between the two of them, the hunter and its prey.

"Ah, Angel, I was hoping to catch you before you went to bed. I heard you got a call from Jarod today?" the words were pleasant, unrushed and seemingly innocent. They could have been talking about a garden party or a family dinner if one just focused on that tone. But they caused an instant frown to develop between Parker's eyes and even as she turned to look unseeingly out her front bay windows, her mind assimilated the possibilities behind his question.

"I did, daddy, and made that clear in the daily report I faxed over to your office before I left. I was sure you received it. Why are you calling, Daddy?" Her enquiry was worded with no hint of an accusation or the worry that was began to pit in her stomach.

What caused this growing trepidation was the reality that she never got late-night calls from her father, and he had never before made the effort to follow up on any of her reports about Jarod's phone calls since after all, he had a taping of each and everyone of them, and was either too ignorant or arrogant enough not to care if his daughter came to the natural conclusion that the Center did tap her phones . A couple of years ago, she would have welcomed any contact between her father and herself, would have cherished the moments and the words, but lately she found herself scrutinizing his every action towards her as if he were the enemy.

Sometimes Parker wondered if her life could possibly get any more dysfunctional.

"No, no, I got the report. Your diligence, as always, is commendable," a little chuckle accompanied the statement, a chuckle that would have been reminiscent of a parent sharing his pleasure at a child's natural accomplishments if not for the tension that seemed to underlie it. It was nearly indistinguishable, but Parker's training as a sweeper before being plunged into the seedy world of the Center's corporate division allowed her to pick up on it easily enough.

"I just thought I would check if you had come up with any leads from this contact with him. Angel, I don't have to remind you of what an asset Jarod is to the Center and that his retrieval is our top priority. He must be returned to where he rightfully belongs at all costs."

"Daddy," she kept her frustration at this rhetoric from invading her tone, keeping it soft and pleasant, "I am well aware of my duties at the Center. I have Broots looking into several leads and if he comes up with anything solid I will be on the first jet out of here. Getting Jarod back is my first priority. The words meant nothing now, having been said to many time too count. She ignored the reason why she had deliberately left out the words "Jarod back to the Center." This was not the time to scrutinize her words too closely.

"Ofcourse, Angel, I know that you will never let me down. You have always made me proud and it gives me such pleasure to know with all certainty that the Center will be in good hands when I leave. Your brother and you will make the perfect leaders."

"But, Daddy.."

Parker realized her protest fell on death ears.

The single-toned dial signal that was all that was left of her father's communication with her seemed to mock her, manifesting the reality that was her relationship with Mr Parker. Selective hearing; she was heard only when it suited his needs, and when it didn't she was dismissed from his attention, rudely and without mercy.

He had remained seated all throughout her conversation with her father.

She might not have wanted to look at him as she struggled away , but Jarod had kept his eyes on her bent head, and had watched her hands at it pushed at his chest, or clutched at his shoulders to leverage herself off. His body had been roiling with emotions, every nerve attuned to her touch and the memory of her kisses, of her skin. Yet, the look on her face when she jerked away at the sound of the call, it had been a lance through his body as well, making him question the sanity of his actions.

When he had heard her whisper "Daddy", the words soft and tremulous, he could not control the surge of revulsion that seemed to seep through his frame from his soul, spreading all through him. He had looked down, his eyes on his hands clasped between his knees, his shoulders slumped in his dark leather jacket. The word signified so much that Mr. Parker had made an abject mockery of, and for her to provide him with such unjustified loyalty and devotion, it was all Jarod could do not to take her in his arms and shake her till she came to her senses. If only to keep her from getting hurt again and again.

This is not what you came here for, Jarod...

Jarod heard the quiet click as she hung up, his head coming up to gaze at her back. She tossed the phone onto a low chest of drawers that sat close to the curve of the wall leading to the corridor that culminated in her bedroom. Her hands coming to rest on her waist, her head seemed to of its own volition fall such that her chin just about rested on her chest. Dark curtains of hair concealed any hint of her expression from him, but the way her back remained ramrod straight and the deep sigh that escaped her within seconds was enough to let him know the call had affected her more than he should question if he valued his life.

I think I might prefer her spitting-mad instead of this..

"He knows."

Startled, Jarod jerked his eyes to what he could see of her face.

"He knows what?" He asked, fearing the answer. His jaw tight, he felt the muscle to the right of his forehead jerk.

"He knows something is up, that something was not right with the call today. Maybe I did not veil my hints as well as I should have, or some of what you said rang odd to him but he suspects something." She turned to face him as she spoke, and he watched as she took a deep breath, and subtly stiffened her shoulders before she met his gaze.

What was between them, or could be between them could wait. He understood that well enough from her demeanour. Jarod decided that for now the focus should rightly remain on what he had come to Blue Cove to accomplish.

"Other than giving you a call, what do you think he would do to alleviate his suspicions?" he had some thoughts of his own, but Parker knew her father's tactics well enough by now to predict his next steps.

"He will keep Raines out of it for now, the two of them won't share information unless absolutely necessary especially now that the Triumvirate is watching their every move to gauge if the successor for the next term at the Center should be one or the other. Lyle is the wild-card, he has done all he can to mark out his territory on my father's butt by now and his lips aren't going to give up their spot any time soon. My father might trust him enough to ask him to take some steps to ensure the call was as innocent as I am making it out to be, maybe shadow my movements and phone activity for the next couple of days."

Parker began to pace, her mind ticking off the different possibilities even as her heart began to pick up its beat. The fear that she might have jeopardized their chances to get into the Center and leave with the child safely was unacceptable to her perfectionist character. She had to defuse the situation.

Jarod watched her, her movements were sharp and confident, strength in every yard that she covered with her long legs but in the way her fingers would imperceptibly jerk, her hands moving from a position at her waist to her sides with ever turn, he knew that she worried that this would mean the end of their mission, and inside that brain of hers the self-flagellation would begin.

"Parker." He drew out her name.

"What?" she spun to look at him, ready for a fight, her eyes on fire.

"All we have to do is assimilate this into our plans. This does not mean that our objective is defeated." He remained seated, his eyes locked on hers, not making any large movements because he knew that any excuse for her to get into a physical confrontation with him she would take, if only to distract her from what she felt inside.

Letting out a slow breath, he watched as the fight seemed to drain from her eyes, leaving only resolve and alertness. Moving to sit back on the couch, she appeared open to what he had to say, though he noticed the way she deliberately refused to sit back in the exact same position she had been before, keeping a significant amount of space between herself and Jarod.

"Alright, what's the plan genius?"

Parker maneuvered her car into the Center parking lot, and while on the outside all one could observe of the ice-queen was her dark wrap-around sunglasses and perfectly rouged lips and starkly-outlined porcelain-like cheekbones, what an outsider would have missed was that behind those frames her eyes moved to take in all of her surroundings, catalouging everything both swiftly and expertly.

The two male employees walking with clip-boards toward the back stairwell, the camera that was positioned such that it could observe that particular stairwell and security guard rolling fluidly by in his little golf-cart.

Sliding her keys out of the ignition, she took a deep breath as she reached for her bag and briefcase. She felt her body switching into what she used to refer to in her sweeper-days as attack-mode, a less than adequate label for her state of being just before she would plunge into a dangerous situation, her mind trained to predict the response of her prey or to instantly track its movements.

"Let's go!"

Parker's head jerked up at the yell, the grip around her briefcase tightening such that her nails bit into its leather. She watched in her rearview mirror as two large, muscle-bound hulks of men burst out of the stairwell and took a quick lope to their sedan, their suit-jackets flapping to accommodate their movements. Eyes narrowing, she knew one of them looked familiar to her and then it hit her. She had a flashback, remembered the image of Angelo's child being dragged from under her desk. In her mind, she freeze-framed that image and allowed her eyes to track up the dark, brawny arm whose hand roughly clasped the scrawny child's thin limb, up his shoulder and his wide shoulders to his face.

Lyle's sweeper..

A swift intake of breath was the only outwardly manifestation of this realization. Something was wrong with this picture, she could feel it in every nerve of her body and Parker never ignored her instincts.

Yesterday before she had left the office she had commandeered a random computer at one of the work stations on her floor and had used Lyle's password to check on his active assignments at the moment. Most of them required his attention at corporate meetings or at business dinners, none would compel him to send his two best sweepers running for their sedan.

For a moment, she wanted to reach for her phone to call the number Jarod had given her. It reached a random laundry place down in Chinatown, but it would be enough to alert Jarod that she meant for the plan to be called off, then and there. What kept her from doing that was the knowledge that one, she did not really know what Lyle was up to; those two sweepers could simply be tasked with cleaning up one of his latest cannibalistic culinary adventures and two, this was their best opportunity to get in, get the kid out and get lost. To lose that chance would be to stall the plan for days and Parker did not want a repeat of Angelo's performance of the treatment the child had to endure while within the Center's walls.

Roughly jerking her door open, she slid off her leather car seat and stepped out, feeling the silk of her skirt stretch and release as she straightened. Parker had dressed perfectly as always, but she remembered that even as she had stared this morning at herself in her bathroom mirror, at her perfectly coifed hair and pressed suit, she had looked for the signs that last night's 'incident', as she forced herself to refer to it as, had somehow left its mark on her. She looked no different, she had decided.

Parker had begun to turn away from her bathroom-mirror when she had suddenly jerked. Her eyes had fallen onto the skin of her neck, and below her right ear, right where the neck began to curve into the shoulder was a bright red, raw mark. It screamed its knowledge, it bellowed its testament to their passion. She placed her fingers over it, trying to ignore the tingle that seemed to run through her swiftly and the instant image she had of Jarod's face in the crook of her neck, his lips tasting her skin, his eyes closed and his arms caressing her arms, her body.

Parker had stared at herself in the mirror in that moment and knew she could not fool herself into believing the events of the last couple of days had not changed her. It was in her eyes, in its swirling vibrancy where it was only filled with hot rage before and in the way the lines about her mouth seemed to have softened, seemed to have allowed her lips to align itself into a position more susceptible to being kissed.

Ridiculous..naïve, stupid little girl..

"Miss Parker?"

The voice spun her back into reality and she found herself face to face with Broots. He stood before her, tweed jacket and all, with his bicycle being rolled along beside him, his eyes earnest and his hands clasped over a folder he held clutched to his chest.

"Miss Parker, you okay? You seem a little distracted."

If Broots could sense her discomfort and distraction this morning, one of Lyle's dumb-as-wood goons would have no problems, she thought with self-disgust.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch Broots. What do you have for me?", brushing past him as she spoke, Parker fished in her jecket-pocket for her pack of cigarettes, ignoring the scuffles behind her as the computer-tech scrambled to keep up with her and keep his bike upright at the same time.

"Well, I did what you asked me to and I found three incidents of construction mishaps that made the local news.." Parker began to tune him out as she headed for the stairwell and lit up, her heels making a rhythmic, sharp contact with the cement of the parking garage, echoing in the early-morning stillness.

Except for Lyle's sweepers a minute ago..

Using both hands to push at the heavy stair-well door, cigarette held between two fingers of her right hand, she turned to watch as Broots began to chain up his bike. He was still yammering away..

"Did you check if they had anyone new on the crew? Anyone with the intiial J, perhaps?"

Broots movements stilled, and his cheeks began to colour.

"Then get to it, Broots, before I put you into a different kind of hard labour. Don't come to me unless you have names and photos, got it?" Without waiting for a response she turned and began to ascend stairs, knowing she had quite an act to put on for most of the day before it got to the point where she had to make her way to SL-25, disengage the security system from the control room on that level, allowing it to only loop a recording Jarod had of another similar corridor, only one that had less security and had allowed him to access its tapes easily enough, before she intercepted Jarod as he entered from the vents. He knew the plans for the level, where the kid was kept and what it would take to get him out. She refused to think of what she would have to do after they got the child successfully out of the Center because that was a long shot by itself.

Yet, even if I have to die trying.

If disturbed her that she was willing to give up so much for a child she did not know, for a mission that meant an outright betrayal of her father and the legacy he hoped to give to her.

A legacy of blood, evil and cruelty..

"Oomph!"

Parker's thoughts were interrupted as she turned a corner of the stairs and smacked into someone on their way down. Or that's what she thought until she looked up at saw who it was.

Speaking of evil..

"Hey, sis." Lyle grinned widely, his eyes shining with devilry.


A/N: How is the plot line so far? The things is i enjoy capturing emotions of the moment instead of complex plot lines so if you have any ideas regarding the plot i am all ears. Please review.