Chapter 18: Pain

She couldn't hold on.

In the few moments when he left her alone, she gave in to the pain and helplessness and despair she was feeling and cried, not caring if he saw. She was positive he was watching even when he wasn't standing right in front of her; positive that he was taking an intense amount of pleasure in her pain. But she was in too much agony to care.

Pain came from the paracord that cut into her arms and bleeding wrists because she was virtually hanging by them. The nails he'd pounded through her palms, while producing blinding agony, weren't taking any of her body weight. The ropes that bound her arms and wrists to the horizontal beam were doing that, tight, cutting into her skin. Both eyes were swollen, her right eye completely closed, her left rapidly on its way there. Her lips were swollen, cracked, and bleeding down her chin; she was desperate for water. Her time sense was muddled from the vicious battering her head was taking, and she had no idea how much time was passing.

She couldn't stand anymore. He'd set a punishing pace to get here, to his cabin; she'd had a general idea that they were ascending a slope, going up a mountain, but with no shoes on her feet they'd rapidly gotten scratched, torn, and dirty, and now they were so swollen and painful she couldn't put any weight on them anymore. Her legs had sustained huge, hideous bruises as he'd grabbed her thighs, tried to force them apart… she shied away from the memory, burying it deep, refusing to think about it. Now she simply hung from the wooden beam, bare toes barely brushing the grass under her, and prayed for it all to be over soon.

He seemed to have an uncanny knack for knowing when she was just on the verge of passing out—and then not giving her that last blow, that last bit of pain that would grant her a brief respite from the hell she was enduring. She was completely helpless to stop any of this, to make anything any better. All she could do was hang there and endure.

He did take breaks, did leave her alone. This was one of those 'breaks'. She closed her eyes, tried to get her breathing under control. The gag—a towel tied in a knot, shoved between her teeth, and then tied in place at the back of her head—muffled the sound of her screams because, he said, this was a forest preserve, and even though he'd chosen this location for his cabin because it was deliberately far from any trails or campgrounds, he'd still told her that regrettably, he wasn't going to be able to enjoy her screaming the way he wanted to. She'd retched, but with her stomach empty, nothing came up. She wouldn't even be able to asphyxiate on her own stomach acid.

A crackle in the brush off to her left caught her attention, and she raised her head, trying wearily to figure out what was making the noise, whether it was him, coming back, trying to hurt her again. She saw a dim shadow inside the treeline, and for a moment her heart leaped—was that a dog, a big German Shepherd-looking dog? Bear? Had John brought Bear into the wilderness to look for her? But as she squinted through swollen eyes, trying to make out what she was seeing, the shape in the tall, dry grass disappeared, and after a moment she let her head drop heavily back down to her chest. She was hallucinating; had to be. But maybe that was a good thing, maybe that meant that she was close to dying, and she could get away from all of this.

She just wished she could see John one more time.

It took every ounce of self-control he possessed for John Reese not to run to the battered, broken figure hanging from the wooden crossbeam under the tree. Every nightmare he'd ever had, every worst-case scenario he'd ever imagined, came down to this.

He knew a moment of sick, black despair when he first looked at her, didn't see the rise and fall of her chest. For that one terrible, eternal moment, he thought she was dead, and the bottom dropped out of his world—and then crashed back in when he saw a slight flutter of her eyelashes as she looked toward the dry grass where Bear had been moments before.

He ordered Bear to sit and guard, and the big dog did, while Reese forced himself to look past the horror of what had been done to the woman he now knew with complete certainty that he loved, and assess her condition with an eye to escape. A vicious beating. Her hands had been nailed to the beam. A gag had been forced into her mouth. Ropes tied in a chain hitch down her arms cut into flesh, leaving raw sores and drawing blood. And her feet were a mess.

But she was still fully clothed, and he felt a tiny measure of relief. Hopefully that meant Walker hadn't raped her. He'd been terrified of that happening to Joss—but it looked like the killer hadn't gotten to that part of his entertainment yet.

And now that Reese was here, he wouldn't get a chance to.

Satisfied that Walker wasn't in easy reach of them, he stepped out of the grassline. She lifted her head partway at the sound of his footsteps, and his heart broke at the sound of her half-stifled, terrified whimper. She couldn't see him clearly through two black eyes and thought he was Walker, coming back to hurt her again.

"Joss," he breathed. "Joss, baby…" her head came up, all the way up; she squinted with the one eye she could still see out of, and then he saw tears stream out from under her swollen eyelids.

His fingers flew on the towel knotted behind her head, and the first sound from her cracked, bleeding lips was his name. "John…" and he'd never heard a sweeter sound in his entire life.

But there was no time for this; they had to move, get away from here, before Walker came back. "Joss, you're gonna have to be brave for me, okay? Just a little longer. I have to get these nails out of your hands…"

He wasn't sure she heard him, but after a moment she gave a tiny nod. He could see her make an effort to brace herself as he grabbed the head of the nail and yanked. Six inch roofing nail, not that thick, barely the diameter of a pencil. It hadn't been meant to take the weight of her body; it served no purpose at all except to increase Joss's pain and shock. Sadistic bastard. Walker hadn't driven the point that deep either; but John still had to wiggle it a little to get its point out of the wood, and he had to do so carefully to avoid tearing bigger holes in her hands. She gritted her teeth; a small scream escaped, but that was all, and then she went limp, panting, as it came free of the wood—and her hand. "Please," she croaked. "Please, John, it hurts…"

"I know, I know. You're being very brave, Joss." He took the time to give her a quick hug; she let her head fall on his shoulder for a moment, and he felt hot tears soaking his shirt. "Just one more time, Joss. One more time. Just to get this other nail out." He felt her nod against his shoulder, and then she made a valiant effort not to scream as the second nail came free of her left hand. She gasped for breath as he tried to saw—as gently as he could—through the paracord that bit into her arms. "Taylor. Taylor, is he okay? Walker…" choked sobs. "Walker shot him…"

"He's fine, Joss. He's fine. The bullet just grazed his arm. Finch called Lionel, Lionel took him to the hospital, patched him up, took him home with him. Your mother's on her way back to New York, but until she gets back in Taylor and Lee are sharing a bedroom and Lionel's not leaving his house. There are two cops sitting outside of his place, and Finch and Shaw are keeping an eye on them too. He'll be fine." A last slash with the knife, and she was free, falling limply into his arms, and he felt her hot tears on his shoulder as he fell to his own knees, weak with relief that she was alive, he had her, and he would never let her go. "Oh God, Joss, I thought I lost you… stay with me, Joss, stay with me…"

She could barely walk; every step she took on her bare feet wrung a gasp of pain from her, and yet she still made the effort, understanding that they had to get out of here, before anything else; they had to escape. As soon as they were back in the treeline he swept her up in his arms, ignoring her weight; he couldn't bear to watch her try to take any more steps on her brutalized feet.

They were on the side of Panther Mountain, the west side; toward the northwest side he'd found a cave that looked like it had been used by an animal to store dead prey, and he'd cleared some of the bones and left his pack there. Now he brought Joss to the cave and laid her half-conscious body down, supporting her head on his lap as he ripped open the pack and grabbed for the first-aid supplies.

The nail wounds in her palms were bleeding, but not profusely; the nails hadn't hit any major blood vessels, then. He pressed gauze to the palms and the backs of her hands, then wrapped elastic bandages around them, tight enough to put pressure on the wounds and stop the bleeding. That done, he used antiseptic wipes on her feet, cleaning the deepest and worst of the cuts, then wrapped bandages around them. He couldn't bear to touch her face, the lightest touch on the swollen purple-and-black bruises would likely cause her more pain. All he could do now was hold her, cradle her in his arms. "Joss…Joss…I'm so sorry I yelled at you. I love you…"

She stirred; her cracked lips parted. "Didn't think….you remembered…"

He lowered his head to hers, the better to hear her, and whispered. "Remembered what?"

It was hard for her to shape words with those swollen lips. "The night…your arms got cut…went to check bandages…you said 'thanks…love you.'" A ghost of a smile, a hint of the Joss Carter he knew in the body of the tortured woman in front of him. "I said…'Love you too'…I didn't think…you remembered."

He hadn't. Until now.

Memory came crashing back. He'd been half asleep; hadn't really consciously processed what he was saying. But he remembered her bending over him, now; remembered her dropping a kiss on his temple, whispering 'Love you too…'

He'd been thinking for the last few weeks that his memory had been playing tricks on him, taking Jessica's words and putting them in Joss's voice, but it hadn't been a trick, had it? She had said those words. And she meant them..

"I love you, Joss Carter," he whispered now, fiercely, putting his heart and soul into the words that he hadn't dared say before but now felt truly right. "I love you." He wanted to kiss her, but didn't dare; it would hurt. Wanted to hug her, but that too would cause pain. "When this is all over I'm taking you out to dinner."

A soft smile. "I'll…wear….that…dress…"

He smiled through his own tears. "You do that." A promise, that there would be a later.

For both of them.

The ropes had been cut too cleanly. A knife.

The nails he'd picked out just for Joss Carter lay discarded on the ground, still sticky with her blood. The size of the boot prints in the dirt under where Joss Carter had been hanging said it had been a man, a tall man; and a smaller, circular print with four distinctive pads said the man had been accompanied by a dog. A big dog.

Damn it!

It was no longer a matter of obsession. It was a matter of survival. He had to find the man and Carter and put an end to both of them. If they got away, got back to civilization and told their stories, the authorities would never stop looking for him until they found him. He'd already spent time in a military jail; he had no intention of going back to any kind of prison.

It was now roughly 24 hours since he'd kidnapped Officer Carter from her home. The sun had just set, and night was creeping in over the mountain. He'd been very careful when he hit her—although he hadn't burst any internal organs, he'd produced enough crippling pain that she wouldn't be able to move. And he'd seen the mess made of her bare feet as he'd force-marched her though the forest. He hadn't paid attention then, hadn't been concerned—how would the tall boyfriend from the city be able to find her out here in the middle of the wilderness? But even though he wanted to believe that Carter's rescuer was a passing random hunter, his instinct told him differently. He'd been found. He hadn't counted on the tall man from the city having a trained dog.

Now he had to eliminate witnesses.

Walker hadn't paid much attention to the tall man in the suit before—dismissed the man as inconsequential, unimportant. But now as he thought back to what he knew of the tall man in the suit, he realized there had been subtle clues. The way he moved, the way he looked around him when first walking into the room, as if checking for potential threats—this man was ex-Army, and potentially every bit as deadly as Walker himself was.

But he had one weakness—Carter.

He's seen it, in the confrontation by the tollbooth coming out of Manhattan. A trained killer, yes. Every bit as deadly as Walker. But he had weaknesses that prevented him from killing an innocent just to take out someone he perceived as a 'bad guy'—in this case, Walker. And now, with Carter hurt, injured, unable to move, he wouldn't leave her to go get help. He would find somewhere to lie low for a couple of days until she could at least hobble; secure in his belief that he could handle Walker. And, of course, there was the dog.

Maybe the tall man had been a K9 handler in the army, Walker thought. Maybe he could take the dog as his. He'd like to have a dog up here. Someone to talk to on the long nights, someone with whom he could share his exploits, his fantasies of killing, with; someone loyal who wouldn't care about his mistakes.

Okay, he'd try to take the dog alive, tame it to his hand. Dogs were mindless, brainless creatures who could switch loyalties. He'd easily wean the dog away from the tall man. He'd kill the tall man, too. But he'd kill Carter first. Slowly, painfully, making both of them suffer physically and mentally, until by the time Walker killed the tall man, he might actually welcome death. Might even beg for it.

He knew every inch of Panther Mountain, having spent the last decade since he got out of Leavenworth exploring the land, making it his. He knew where his quarry was likely holed up; the cave on the northwest side of the mountain. Dry, shallow, not well frequented by other animals since Walker visited it regularly; there was a small spring in the back of the cave, a source of pure, fresh, cold water that didn't need to be treated to be drinkable; yes, that was where the tall man and Officer Carter would hole up.

He'd have to take the dog out of the equation first. Get it out of the way so it wouldn't alert the tall man and Carter that Walker was near. Then he could sweep in, grab Carter. She was injured and helpless—and the tall man would do anything to prevent Carter getting hurt.

Oh, Walker would still hurt her. She'd escaped—that alone needed punishment. But he'd use her against the tall man. And in the end, Walker would have both. Two kills, and one of them another Army veteran like himself!

He couldn't wait.

Night had fallen, and in the deep quiet, so different from the city sounds, John finally heard it. A whisper of sound, a faint drip of water; he carefully untangled himself from Joss's half-conscious form and went to investigate, Bear sniffing alongside.

It was Bear who found the spring first, a trickle of clear water from a crack in the rock in the back of the cave. It had been there for so long that the water had worn a channel through the stone to form a shallow basin under the crack in the rock, and it looked clear, clean. No debris or detritus floated in it, no different-colored ring of mineral deposits on the stone around the basin, and thick soft emerald green moss carpeted the back of the cave around the shallow stone basin. When he gingerly reached a hand down to taste it, there was no aftertaste, and it was so cold it made his teeth hurt. He hurried back to his pack, grabbed his canteen, filled it from the spring as Bear slurped his fill from the rock basin below.

"Joss. Water. Here." He didn't really want to move her, he knew she had to be hurting, but it was over a full day since she'd been kidnapped from her house and he knew Walker wouldn't have been considerate enough to offer her food or water. Food—the protein bars in his backpack—was impossible; the swelling around her lower jaw was hard just for John to look at, and he wondered if her jaw had fractured under the relentless battering. But she needed to have water, so he eased an arm gently under her head, raising it just enough to rest the edge of the canteen spout lightly against her swollen lower lip and tipped a tiny bit in between her slightly-parted lips. She swallowed, choked a little, then focused on the canteen, and she didn't have to say anything for him to know she wanted more. Her throat was swollen and sore, raspy, and he was afraid to give her too much for fear she'd choke; he held the canteen, giving her small sips until she finally gave him a tiny nod and closed her eyes. And then she was finally asleep.

Bear was sitting on the stone floor of the cave, looking out over the lip of the cave to the valley below. "Bear. Guard," John commanded in Dutch, and the big dog settled to the stone floor, relaxed but alert, and John carefully draped his own jacket over both him and Joss, curling up next to her. It wasn't freezing, but it was chilly, so he scooted close, trying to share as much of his body heat with her as possible, and finally succumbed to sleep himself, curled protectively around Joss.