Chapter 14
"Don't even think about it."
Kensi looked past the gun at Alex's face.
"Put it down, Isabella.. whoever you are." Her hand flexed around the gun she still held at her side.
"It's over."
She wanted it to be over, but not the way he meant.
She wanted it to be over because she finally had something to go home to. And he was getting in the way of that, of what she could have, of what she had allowed herself to want for the first time in years. It made her angry.
"You betrayed me. You fucked with my business. You went to the fucking feds?"
"I am a fucking fed", she said calmly.
She watched him process that.
He hadn't figured all of it out, despite having seen her point her gun at him, and shoot at his men, and probably having heard the team call her by a different name.
He looked completely confused at first and then livid, as if the explanation didn't matter now that she had admitted to being an agent.
"Why?"
He stepped a little closer, jabbing the gun at her.
"It was my job."
Kensi took a breath and watched the gun, unsure of his reaction.
"It was your job", he repeated back to her, spitting on the ground angrily. "Your job, was I? Your country treats you like a fucking prostitute and has you saying it is your job like it's the most important profession in the world."
He sneered. "Where were they when that supplier last week hit you, where were they when Costa attacked you?"
His voice rose with his anger, the words echoing in her ears as if for emphasis.
"I should have let him kill you after he did what he wanted with you."
"But you didn't", she pointed out, confused. Kensi wanted to know why he had stepped in, protected her. She had wanted to know then too, but he had brushed it off.
"I told you, spill it or die for it."
"You killed Mario Costa for me."
"Because of you," he spat. "He should not have been anywhere near you. Besides, you were defenseless. This is not power, this is weakness. And I have a mother. She's a bitch, but she's my mama."
Oh God, the man never said much before, but now that he had a gun to her head he wanted to tell her all his childhood memories.
"You're running out of cousins, Alex. You're not willing to die for anyone, and look around you, nobody left willing to die for you."
He leaned a little closer in anger and she saw that his grip on the gun had slackened as he focused on the conversation instead.
He liked using his hands, Kensi remembered. He had no problem getting down and dirty. He trained hard, pushed himself in order to compensate for his lack of a more muscular physique, but he had never been too great with guns.
"I wanted you to kill that blond idiot tonight, just to see your face when you did. I can't stop thinking about how you looked when you watched Mario die. I thought then, you and I, we're not so different."
She brought one hand up to his shoulder while she raised her knee and slammed it hard into his crotch.
She held on to the arm with the gun as she elbowed him in the neck and collarbone, attacking any part of him she could get at in such close proximity and with limited movement.
She focused on the gun, pushing her right forearm hard against his throat and slamming her left down on the hand holding the weapon.
It landed to her left with a thud in the dirt.
Before Kensi could go for it, Alex grabbed her hand and bent her wrist back until she felt a pop that shot white-hot pain up to her elbow.
She screamed before she could stop herself.
He let go, trying to catch his balance and she threw her weight forward with all her strength. He fell backwards with Kensi on top of him, and she scrambled to cause as much damage as possible.
He twisted his legs around her and used his muscles to flip them over, and she quickly locked her legs around his head in a triangle choke and squeezed.
She forced herself to hold him like that as he pulled back with all his strength, almost lifting her off the ground.
She almost had him when a hard blow to her head made everything explode behind her eyelids, and she slammed backwards into the hard ground, her head bouncing off the dirt.
She struggled to stay conscious, could hear her shallow pants as if she was underwater.
Everything moved much slower.
Cappo was breathing hard, blood running down his chin as his hands closed around her neck for the second time this week. Only difference was that last time he had just wanted to scare her a little.
He tightened his hands and she could see he was furiously screaming something, but she couldn't hear him, could only feel the strength with which he was pressing down on her, intent on finishing her off.
Kensi felt around frantically, trying to ignore the agonizing pain in her left wrist, knowing she had felt the gun when she hit the ground.
There was dirt flying up next to her head and she heard grunts, realized someone was fighting close to her head.
She wanted to struggle, her instincts screaming at her to fight for oxygen, to use both hands to hurt him until he let go, and she had to force herself to stay in control as she scraped her hands searching in the dirt.
Everything snapped into place around her again as her hand closed around the barrel of the weapon.
Voices rang loudly in her ears.
"Get up!"
They were yelling at Alex. She felt by the way his fingers held on that he had no intention of letting her go. He was beyond reason, beyond caring about anything other than getting rid of her.
Her brain was fuzzy, but all she could think was that she really didn't want to die staring into this man's face.
Cappo smiled, and that's the last thing Kensi saw him do before she raised the gun and pulled the trigger.
His body jerked weirdly on top of her, like a puppet on a string. She felt the impact of more than one bullet hit him before spots danced in front of her eyes and her vision went dark at the corners.
The weapon slipped out of her numb fingers.
She realized his hands were still around her neck. She wanted to reach up and loosen them but her limbs felt heavy and rubbery, so she just closed her eyes instead.
She felt the extra weight of his body collapse on top of her and then immediately lifted off.
Her name was being yelled out nearby repeatedly.
As if she could forget what her mother named her.
She struggled to open her eyes and suck in air, not wanting them to think she was dying, or anything as dramatic as that.
Oh.
"Kens, if you wanted mouth-to-mouth all you had to do was ask."
Eyes still closed, she repeated the words and the voice in her head stupidly before the happiness hit her. His voice was close, but muffled, as if her head was stuffed with cotton.
"Kens?"
He had her ear almost pressed to her mouth, his ridiculously soft hair tickling her face.
"Is she awake? Paramedics are 4 minutes out."
Callen.
She didn't like the sound of his voice. She wanted to tell him to stop worrying.
"Kensi Blye, I have a Kit-Kat here with your name on it", Deeks growled at her just as she pried her heavy eyelids apart.
She heard Sam laugh but didn't try to find him.
Instead she kept her eyes trained at the sight above her.
Deeks was leaning over her, blocking out the sky and everything else; and it was the best view she could've ever expect to open her eyes to.
She wanted to reach up and run her hand through his messy hair.
"That's my girl", he said, smiling, but she could see he was forcing it. His face was taut, worried, and the smile didn't reach his eyes. She almost asked him what was wrong.
She closed her eyes briefly. As soon as she did she had to fight to open them again.
"Hey", the goofy-looking blond man with the sexy voice whispered. She tried to pay attention. She pretended he was Thor, and she his slave.
"Stay with me or I'll eat your Kit-Kat." Saying things like that might also work.
She opened her eyes with the intention of glaring at him for that comment.
It was both disrespectful and immoral.
Men can't just go around stealing women's Kit-Kat's like that, no matter how beautiful their hair, their eyes, or their midnight stubble. Of course, she thought, as Deeks grinned like a loon at her angry face, some exceptions could be made. Sometimes you want to just hand over the only Kit-Kat you have and enjoy the show.
She wondered at the extent of the damage she had suffered.
It must be bad if she was calling Deeks a God in her oxygen-deprived mind.
She really hoped she was just thinking these things and not saying everything out loud for everybody else to hear. If that turned out to be the case, she was moving to Hawaii and begging Five-o for a job.
Callen's voice interrupted her weird internal monologue.
"Deeks, you're supposed to be monitoring her breathing, not doing… whatever it is you're doing."
"It's steadier than a minute ago, a little deeper. Her heart rate's still too fast and she's really pale."
Oookay, no. Now she was just embarrassed.
Time to get up. Before they humiliated her further by carrying her into an ambulance. Her bruised ego was going to hurt much worse than her head.
"I think she's in shock", her genius partner concluded his very professional assessment.
"Can't blame her. Seeing your face up close like that first thing will do that to anybody."
Ah, Sam. She wanted to laugh but decided against it. She had a feeling that will hurt either her throat or her head. Not worth it.
"Kensi? Defend me."
She moved her legs to see if they still worked. She thought a little bit of her strength might be coming back, although she was shivering and felt like throwing up.
She groaned mentally, realizing that she was probably concussed. The next few days were going to be really crappy.
You deserve it.
And with that thought she pushed off the ground slowly with her good hand, biting her lip to keep from whimpering.
"Woah, Kens, take it easy", steady hands gripped her arms and helped her into a sitting position. She closed her eyes as the world tilted and rolled, along with her stomach.
"Where's my Kit-Kat?", she asked, trying not to frown. She realized she had opened her mouth and said the words, but her voice was wheezy and guttural and by the looks on their faces, nobody had been able to understand what she had just said.
The choking had apparently affected her voice box.
"Crap", she said, which to her surprise actually did come out sounding like 'crap'.
"Don't talk, partner. It seems he damaged your larynx."
Marty Deeks, M.D., everyone.
Huh. Deeks' initials were M.D.
She smirked and immediately regretted it.
She gritted her teeth, afraid she was not going to be able to stand up in front of them, knew she was going to try anyway.
She thought about what Deeks had just said.
He had gestured vaguely to his right as he spoke.
She looked around slowly; saw a few men in handcuffs lying face down on the ground a couple of yards away with Callen keeping watch, and then her gaze landed on Sam who was crouched over with blood all over his hands, which were pressed tightly to Cappo's chest as he lay on the ground.
She couldn't tell if he was breathing in the darkness.
Kensi lifted her eyes to Sam, who was watching her.
"He's still alive", he said. "Barely."
She moved towards Alex carefully and crouched down on the other side of him.
"Why?" She whispered it, hoping he would be able to understand her.
He didn't acknowledge her.
"Alex!" She nudged him in the shoulder and she saw him focus on her, knew it wasn't without effort.
"Why?!", she repeated urgently.
She saw the minute he understood what she was asking.
"You needed my protection."
She shook her head, unbelieving, wincing as she did so.
"It doesn't change anything. You told me once I was not a good guy. You were right."
He went into a coughing fit, blood running out the side of his mouth as he struggled.
Kensi closed her eyes and sat back in the dirt. She swallowed, fighting the pain and the nausea, and a few emotions she wasn't sure how to label.
"Cavalry has arrived," Callen said, breaking the silence.
She pushed off the ground and tried to get up.
She heard Deeks protest, but then felt him hold on to her, helping her stay upright. He circled around her until he was facing her.
"Can you make it to the ambulance?"
She didn't want the paramedics. She shook her head, focused instead on her partner. She lifted his shirt and tried to see in the darkness.
"Hey!"
She wanted to tell him to take off the vest so she could see, she wanted to ask why he was still wearing the vest, whether he was in pain, if the bullet had hit him, but her throat hurt worse the more she used it, so she went with, "How bad?"
He grabbed her hand that was on his chest and pulled down his shirt.
"I'm good, Kens. Let's get you checked out."
"Home", was all she said in response.
"No, you're going to the hospital."
She exhaled angrily through her nose, thought about her wrist; she didn't think it was broken, but she couldn't be sure. She might need a splint, and he might have more than just bruised ribs. The thought was enough to get her to agree.
"Hospital. But you're getting checked out first."
They made quick work of it.
Agents were putting the handcuffed men in cars as Deeks led Kensi to an SUV. She climbed in slowly, her heart pounding so hard she thought it was going to explode.
She sat back, sweating and shivering, and noticed the commotion around the ambulance.
A few minutes later Sam jumped out and started walking towards Callen and Deeks and the car.
She couldn't hear what he said, but she didn't have to. She saw the paramedics close the doors unhurriedly and the flashing lights switch off.
She took a deep breath, tried to let go of the last four weeks and the unease and panic she had walked around with constantly.
She felt them get into the car, but kept her eyes closed, trying not to throw up on Deeks.
"Kens?"
He was going to ask if she's okay, tell her she was dying, or inform her that Cappo was dead.
She was too tired. She was unconscious before he could say anything else.