3
Jax Is Really Alive
Chapter Recap 36
Tara tells Jax that she is finally ready to put the past behind them and move forward with their future together. Jax notices Tara is still weak and calls Kozik to their hotel room to check her. After consulting with Ryland, she is given medical treatment for most of the night.
After Jax and Tara drop off the team near their spaceship, they return to their hotel room. They decide to return to bars that evening hoping to find someone who can help them find Brooke or Wendy.
Jax gets a call from Brooke saying she's scared, she's at Nero's farm and she thinks she knows the boys' location.
Jax and Tara rush to Nero's farm. Jax notices odd cigar butt looking pieces in the hall. He realizes they are fingertips just as he sees Wendy in the master bedroom. She's dead. Tortured. They rush to leave when two police cruisers pull up. Jax realizes that they were set up.
Chapter 37 Ryland Rattled
Jax figured out plans, but the options he had available didn't look good.
"You feel up to stopping time?"
"That's exactly what I was thinking," Tara said.
She closed her eyes and held out her hands almost as though she were trying to physically stop time.
Jax saw the officers outside frozen in place. Jax and Tara ran to the SUV and took off.
"I think we are far away enough," Tara said. "Stop the car and I'll restart time."
Tara shut her eyes, raised her hands again and dropped them to her sides. There was a rush as time caught up in the area where time had been stopped.
"That time rush thing is disorienting," Jax said as he resumed driving. "Are you OK physically?"
"I feel fine. It's a good thing I had all that medical treatment thanks to you or I wouldn't have been strong enough to stop time."
"Cas, Louise told me you can change license plates and the color of this vehicle."
"Within limits, I can instruct the car to do that."
"Change to another California plate and change the color to silver."
"You will need to leave the vehicle for five minutes. The temperature the car material needs to reach is uncomfortable for living creatures."
"OK. I'll tell you when I'm ready," Jax said.
"What happened to Wendy?"
"She'd been dead for awhile."
"I should have looked. I might have been able to give a better time of death."
"You would not have wanted to see what was done to Wendy. Whoever killed Wendy, enjoyed torturing and killing her."
Jax continued to drive along winding country roads until he found an abandoned gas station that had lost all its business when a better road was put in a couple of decades ago.
Jax and Tara got out of the car and he told Cas to change the car's color. The paint color was designed to change when it reached extreme heat or cold—too hot or cold to exist in nature, but the car had the ability to reach both temperature extremes when instructed by Cas.
"So, we were lured there to get found with Wendy's body."
"Not only that, but whoever called the police had to have been watching. We got there much sooner than I told Brooke or the voice that sounded like Brooke. We would have been gone before the time I said we would get there."
"Cops got there fast."
"The person must have been watching maybe from that shopping center. We need to talk to Ryland and get Hale on that police call to see what the source was."
"Ryland," Jax said, "Tara's with me and there may be a problem. We got a call from Brooke the babysitter. She said she knew thought she knew where the boys were and she was at Nero's farm. We went there and found Wendy. She'd been tortured and killed. Two cop cars showed up. Tara stopped time and we got away. We're on a country road and Cas is changing the license plate and color of the car."
There was a pause. The screen blurred and Ryland disappeared from view.
"Ry, are you still there?" Tara asked.
"Yeah," he said but the screen was still blurred. "Hale will be back to you in ten minutes. Stay put for now."
"Son of a bitch," Ryland said and there was a crashing noise before the call ended.