Author's Note: God, do I love days off! Had some time, so typed up the handwritten copy of this chapter I'd been carrying around for like a week. I apologize ahead of time for the typos, and thanks again (I know I'm a little spazzy) for keeping on reading this. Means a lot to me. Enjoy.


Chapter 13

"Jeremy! Jeremy, no! Jeremy!" Jack lunged in his chair and nearly toppled it over. "Jeremy, please stop. Just...just get away from her, please..."

His voice was drowned out by Samantha's scream. He had heard that specific scream only once before, and even then it hadn't carried the same fever as it did now. She was coiled onto her right side, her back towards him, her hands clamped over an expanding red stain on her shirt.

Jeremy stood up, shaking, and wiped her blood from his face. He stepped closer to Sam's body. Jack felt sick.

"You get away from her, Jeremy!" shrieked a voice. Jeremy glanced towards Jessica's pale, livid face.

"This isn't your problem, Jess, so please shut the fuck up," he muttered, pacing lopsided next to the fallen agent.

"Not my..." Jessica repeated in awe. Jack shook his head firmly in his direction, but she ignored him. "How is this not my problem, Jeremy? You kidnapped me and my sister! My family trusted you, I trusted you, and you sold us out for what, drugs?"

"It's your own fucking mother's fault, okay?" The boy shouted angrily. "She pulled your entire family down with her when she got into this business..."

"And she's spent five years trying to drag herself out of it, only people like you won't let her!" The girl cried, tears spilling down her red face. "All this time," she murmured, trembling. "All this time I thought you were the only person who understood, who would always be there for me... I don't know who you are anymore."

Jeremy tapped the blade of his knife against his thigh impatiently. "You knew exactly who I was when you first met me, Jessi."

There was a frenzied silence which was promptly ended by a warbled cry. Jack's gaze snapped back to Samantha, and his body tensed.

"Jeremy, listen to me." The boy turned to Jack, lifting his knife. "I want you to think about what you're expecting will come out of this, if it goes any further."

"I know, I know, I know, I know..." Jeremy sputtered, squeezing the muscles in his face that twitched against his will. "I just...I just want what belongs to me, all right?"

He eyed Samantha's bag and Jack knew there were no drugs inside of it. "It's not gonna help you, Jeremy," Jack warned, keeping his voice level and forcing himself to keep his eyes on the kid and away from Samantha. "No matter what it does now, three weeks and you'll still be hungry, and hurting, and someone else will be on the ground, hurt bad because of mistakes you made..." Jack sighed, and lowered his eyes. "But, if it belongs to you, it's your right."

Jeremy stared hard at the agent's slumped shoulders, and then straightened proudly. He sheathed the knife in a pocket and knelt by Samantha, ignoring her soft cries. Her eyes closed as Jeremy reached his hand into her bag. Go, Sam, Jack thought, head bent. He'll realize it's not there any second. Go. GO.

The kid's fingers frantically searched the inside of the bag, then froze. He picked up the bag and shook its contents onto the floor, scrambling through them in a panic. "It's not...I can't find it..." he panted, bent over and trembling. Jack glanced past him to Samantha, and Samantha glanced past Jeremy where Jessica was standing slowly, her entire body quivering except for the loaded gun from Sam's holster, secured between her fingers.

"You lied to me!" Jeremy screeched, advancing towards Jack with his knife outstretched. "You lied! You lied, you lied---"

BANG. Jeremy's eyes grew wide and his mouth fell open into a soundless cry before he crumpled to the ground.

Samantha's head shot up as the gun clattered from Jessica's hand to the floor. Her face was twinged with green, covered in a cold sweat. Her little sister, Tallulah, scrambled to the other side of the room where Jack sat and fumbled with the knot.

"Jessica," Samantha breathed, "it's okay...you did the right thing..." The girl tore her eyes away from the heap that was her boyfriend and looked towards Samantha.

"Are you okay?" she whispered hoarsely, kneeling down beside the agent. " Can I help...what do I..."

Samantha's pain flooded back into her mind with a fresh, new sharpness. She choked on her breath as the girl's trembling hand reached for her bleeding side, when--

"It's okay, Jessica, I've got her." Jack scooped an arm around her shoulders and under her neck. "I've got you, you're okay...easy...easy..."

She didn't know whether it was the strained catch in his voice, the feel of his arms, or the dizzying fear at the base of her stomach, but somewhere in the fatal combination of all those things, something squeezed tight and desperate at her throat and she cried, and cried, into the ruined sleeve of his shirt. Through the pounding in her ears, she managed to distinguish a familiar howl in the distance.

Jack looked up, head cocked. "What the..."

"Sirens," Samantha panted, feeling welcome relief drown some of her pain. "Sue...she did it... she called..."

Tallulah started. "Sue...Sue Allen? Aunt Sue's here? Where is she?"

"Outside." Samantha jerked her head towards the door, and the girl ran to kick the rusted aluminum slab open. On the other side, a middle-aged woman held a pistol steady in her hands, ready to shoot. When she saw her niece, her knees seemed to buckle, and an estranged cry tore from her.

"Oh, thank God!" she shouted as she pulled Tallulah and her sister into her arms. Samantha closed her eyes as the sweet smell of the rain diffused into the dank garage and gulped a deep breath of it.

"I can't do this---anymore," she said, breathing sharply, "Too old." She heard Jack's throaty laugh and opened her eyes. He was hunched over her left side and ripping off the hem of his shirt for a bandage. To steady her, he placed a broad hand, fingers spread wide, on her lower abdomen. Heat like fire shot through her entire body as she panicked and screamed.

Jack shot up, his face tense and searching. He removed his hand quickly. "What? What, does it hurt?" She didn't answer him. "Sam, honey, please...talk to me, tell me what's going on..."

She pulled onto his shirt to bring him closer. "Jack, I---"

Sue Allen ran to the doorway. "The EMT is here, Agent Spade!"

"Hold on, Samantha," Jack told her, ordered her, and Sam willed the strength in his voice to flow into her body. He pulled his hand away from her side, covered in blood, as the medical squad burst through the doorway.

"...knife wound to the left voluntary muscle system...

"...significant loss of blood..."

"...on three. One, two, three..."

Samantha bit onto her lip and tasted blood as the movement onto the stretcher sent searing pain through her left side. "Jack..." her mouth wasn't working properly. "Jack..."

"Right here," his voice answered, but she couldn't find him for the darkness. Then, she realized her eyes had closed, and from the weightless feeling spreading into her gut, she was falling quickly into unconsciousness.