Can't thank everyone enough for the feedback. You know who you are: jjgoodhope, Winter's Wolf, ladylampetia, and anime09. :) Kudos to everyone reading along! I thought about changing this chapter after seeing the last episode… but then I decided to keep it anyway. Hope it's not repeating itself too much!

(x)

National Harbor nearby Woodrow Wilson Bridge

Washington, D.C.

Present Day

In no time at all, the van revved to life, and they were moving slowly out of the warehouse. Casey wondered if her merry band of criminals had the smarts to leave someone in there with her. She didn't think so… She didn't hear anybody. Either way, she needed out. Now.

Casey took Dokes' advice and buckled up her legs underneath of her, so that her hands could reach her sneakers. She worked alongside the edge of the sneakers with her fingertips, until she found it.

She retrieved a small, sharp razor blade from inside. She held onto it, positioned it upward, and immediately sawed away at the duct tape. It didn't take her long to tear through that, but then… there was something else plastic around her wrists. Casey shook her head and sawed away. It took longer, at least two or three minutes by her estimate. She could feel the skin of her forearms starting to chafe, and then they started to bleed. But finally, the zip-ties audibly snapped.

Casey let off a short cry of relief. She freed her hands and tore off the blindfold around her eyes and the duct tape across her mouth. She looked around the van. She was right; she was alone. But they were moving, and from the feel of it, they were picking up speed. Casey rooted around for the blade, and then she started in on the duct tape and plastic around her ankles, until finally too broke apart.

Sweating and breathing hard, Casey got up to her feet. She had a thought and she checked her hair, which was done up in a bun. She took the pen out that was holding it together; then she looked around the bottom of the van for a piece of paper. She found an old receipt and scribbled something quickly before throwing it down where she left her restraints.

She fell back down as the van hit a bump. And then another bump. Casey carefully crawled her way to the door. She waited, feeling the rhythm of the road. Bump… bump bump… Bump…bump bump…bump …Bump- Casey opened the back of the van in time with percussion, but the door caught and held tight.

The lock.

Casey growled. "Really? You gotta be effin' kidding me…" She reached down into the lining of her pants. She yanked apart loosely-sewn thread and pulled out a tiny plastic kit. She opened it up, carefully as the road beneath them was getting worse and worse. She silently thanked the God of D.C. construction and everybody else's tax dollars at work.

Casey worked a pick into the lock on the van. She fiddled with it, got up inside the grooves of the lock. "C'mon…" She didn't know how much time she had, if any at all. "C'mon, you son of a-"

The lock opened with a 'clunk'. Casey wasted no time moving outside the van and perching herself on the edge of the bumper. A question loomed front and center. Did they hear her? No. No, not through all the potholes and torn up roadway and detours. And now they were… Christ, she wasn't sure where they were – but they weren't on the highway yet. Casey felt the road grinding beneath the tires of the car. They hit another bump and another – SLAM! Casey shut the doors of the van. If someone would have told her New York City construction would have saved her life, she never would have believed it.

The van was coming around a corner now, and … there was no time for her to even think about it. Casey held her breath and jumped. Casey rolled off to the side of the road, covered in pieces of asphalt and some shards of glass. She scrambled up onto the sidewalk and burst into a dead run down the street.

Or at least, she started to. She slowed down. Her arms felt like lead weights, and her legs … they didn't want to move and…

Then she realized.

It was the cocktail. Whatever Dokes had made her swallow. It was a sedative or painkillers or … dammit, she didn't know what it was.

Casey could feel her brow breaking out in a cold sweat. The streets around her started to spin. She walked forward, swaying, until she reached an alleyway. Casey moved lethargically and her thoughts swam back and forth like an ocean current. She wondered if Dokes or whoever they planned to deliver her to would find her or if something worse would get to her first.

Her mind was so lost in a sea of drugs that she didn't even register that she was beginning to move in a circle. Her heel caught and tripped over the edge of a dumpster. She lost her footing and fell backwards, feeling as though she wasn't just falling from where she stood on the ground, but the edge of a mountain cliff or a skyscraper. She didn't hit the ground though. She fell hard against something strong yet soft.

Breathing heavy, Casey looked up to see the hazy face of Red above her, hat, glasses and all. He shook his head at her. "All the way out here without a plan, an exit strategy, or appropriate attire for this temperature. I would have thought I taught you better than that."

Though Casey couldn't see it, she could feel Red's arm tense as he swerved around. He addressed a set of hazy figures. All of them less than five feet from him. All of them armed. There might have been two. There might have been five. There might have been ten. The double vision that came next made it tough to tell.

Red laughed, as if he'd just heard a philosophical whimsy that put Socrates to shame. "Gentlemen," he drew out. "Now, I expressly said that there would be no need for firearms. This does not bode well for the understanding I thought we had."

Casey felt the world fall away and her eyelids shut, but not before she heard Red say, "If you'll lower your weapons, I just might be able to give you something you've been looking for…"

Consciousness spiraled downward, taking Casey with it, until it became a pinprick that winked out.

(x)

The three armed men with heavy metal guns descended upon with more speed than a murder of crows. They took Casey from Red's arms, lifted her up effortlessly, and ushered her into a black number, a Mercedes with suicide doors, in a matter of seconds. Red stepped forward and joined her in the car. The inside had been converted so that up to six people could sit comfortably, three facing three, a baby brother to the limousine. Red sat down across from what would have been a clean cut figure, except for his long glossy hair.

The man cast his gaze first at Casey and appraised her, as if surveying a mediocre haul. He then turned his gaze just as dryly to Red and lifted his eyebrows. "You were right."

"Habitually." He relaxed himself against the seat of the car. "As I told you, we had one of two options and as I assured you, this one would be smoother."

"I'd ask you how you knew she'd escape, but I'm not particularly interested."

"Are you sure? It's a thrilling yarn. At least when I tell it."

The car made a sharp U-Turn back in the direction they'd come, away from the van which headed straight to the location Ressler had no doubt given them.

The man locked his gaze on Red's. Red had played this game before. The who would talk first game. The man had no idea to whom he had thrown down the gauntlet.

After a few uncomfortable moments, the man took a breath and said, "There's other matters we need to discuss."

"Such as?"

"The matter of the metal detector and what we found embedded in your right shoulder."

He pinned his gaze on the man. "We're back to that, are we? I've already handed over my weapons. I have no communication devices on me whatsoever. Are you aware of how many facilities, how many meetings, how many countries, how many underground locations I have traversed to? In every other situation that has dared arisen I wasn't required to extract the chip embedded in my body. So share with me as to what makes this situation trump other, much more imperative, much more clandestine and covert circumstances than this one? Please, enlighten me. I'm dying to know."

The man kept his composure, waited a tic, and then said, "I represent two parties who would both be equally unbothered by your death."

Red looked at him as if to say 'that's adorable.' "There's not time or enough breath in my body to list the parties I represent, and I would think you know that." Red glanced over to Casey and then back to the man. "You have what you need. I've fulfilled my role in this little caper, tenfold."

"No."

Red lightly arched one eyebrow.

The man said, "You haven't. Not until she talks."

"Well. If you could make her talk now, that would be quite a skill indeed."

"There are other options," he said easily. "I could kill one or both of you. I could look into things, like why she bothered to align herself with hackers to break into a simple warehouse's internet feed. Or I could alert someone else to look into it for me. I have to admit, I wonder what we would discover and who we would find linked to you."

Red narrowed his gaze. The gaze that spelled ruin for so many before this man.

The man continued. "I've chosen this option out of respect to you and to my employers."

The threats gathered and lingered like smoke in the air, only just implied against Lizzie. It was more than enough. In immediate response, Red held out his hand.

The man made a derisive noise. "You want me to hand you a knife?"

Red never blinked. "You have two armed men on either side of you for protection, and yet a knife in my hand concerns you."

The man screwed up his face. Just in listening to Red speak, he knew he had two choices. Deny him a weapon and appear weak in the eyes of his subordinates, or comply with his wishes. It really wasn't a choice at all. He reached into his suit jacket and produced a sharp, heavy knife.

It took some resolution and precision on Red's part, especially as they drove through construction. After a matter of moments, he removed the chip from his shoulder with minimal bleeding that he staved off with his own handkerchief from his pocket. His breathing changed only slightly. A single bead of sweat dropped down his the side of his temple, but he didn't break eye contact. When it was done, he handed over the bloodied chip.

The man took the chip in his gloved hand, cleaned it, and meticulously deactivated it, before tucking it into his shirt pocket. "It will be returned to you." The man turned his gaze to Casey, who still sat slumped over to Red's right. "When we're finished."