The human body is made up of more than blood, as Pam thought back to her 7th-grade anatomy lesson. Mrs. Lawson, room 205. The body is made of bones and skin; muscle and sinew. She sat next to a girl with a purple Trapper Keeper and she had a blue one, so they traded. Blood was life-giving, but tying all those elements together in a cohesive being was skin. She always liked purple. Skin was so fragile, so delicate. So easily pierced with a blade. What was her name? There is so much blood. It was like a dream and the filmy gauze of it kept her from truly being there and her thoughts were scattered like marbles on pavement.

She stood there, mostly naked covered in his blood, frozen as if some invisible thread held her to the worn floorboards. Watching the life drain from his body and soak the bed in a giant bloom of scarlet, had transfixed her. Her knife gripped in one hand, her other coming up to shakily wipe the dripping tears from her chin. Voices from downstairs jolted her back and she jumped at the sound. She pulled at her clothes, a tangled mess of denim and torn cotton, mindlessly returning them to their original location. The two pieces of jewelry, gilded and argent, precipitately placed on the dresser, called back her resolve.

She trembled as the cold metals, along with their symbolism, fell into her palm and her fingers folded around them. She was terrified of what lay beyond that door, but there were things stronger than fear. If Jim was still alive, she had to find him.

Her senses felt electric now; the adrenalin of trauma heightening everything. She rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs and looked into the main living area. There were several men sitting around a card table talking and drinking loudly and even though they were feet from her, they felt abstract and distant, her mind focused on the door at the end of the hall that was freedom.

"…Two pairs. I win asshole…."

"….Mac going to be done? ….get in there."

"Fuck you….I get her next."

She waited flat against the wall, the ancient chair rail digging into her back and the smell of musty, stale air filling her nose when one man reached across the table to swing at the other. There was crashing glass and fists hitting faces and she used the distraction to slip down the hallway and out the back door.

She was so cold and when her feet hit the cool grass outside she shivered. She moved forward heedlessly towards the next building, no certain direction, instead being pulled by some unseen force, hoping she would find some sign of him. When she turned the corner of the derelict garage, she hit something solid but warm. His voice filled her ears, and even though she instinctively knew, her body refused to relent.

Blackness pulled at the edges of her vision as her knees buckled and she hit the ground.

He didn't know how long he'd been out but a million thoughts ran through his mind at once, abject fear and repulsion warring each other. His entire body throbbed with something slow and inexorable, pulsing through him hot and violent. He shifted, pain shooting up his side at the slight movement from his cracked rib. He felt the blood beginning to pool under his hands, warm and sticky under his fingers, his wrists destroyed by all his pulling and twisting. He hazard a glance at Brian who sat with his head down, the entire left side of his face a swollen, bloody mess. He briefly wondered if his looked the same but then the human garbage in front of him spoke.

"You know what's happening right now, don't you?" The large man pushed off the wall and stepped toward them. Jim stared ahead, blood pounding in his ears, fury pulsing through him, exposed and ready to burst.

"Oh yeah, you know." He laughed and made a crude gesture with his hips and the bile rose in Jim's throat and burned.

He locked eyes with him, the smell of rage a palpable miasma around him."I'm going to fucking kill you," came spilling out of him without any forethought.

"I don't think so," the man leaned in closer, his foul breath suffocating, "but I'll think about that when it's my turn with her later." He gave a malefic laugh, and Jim pulled at the ropes so hard he was sure it was going to snap his bones.

The large man turned in the direction of Brian, hoping for a reaction, "In fact, I heard there is a lot of fun at that farm of yours. It will be quite a party sampling all that when we get there."

Brian's head slowly lifted, the first sign he had given that he was still conscious, his voice low and deadly, "The hell you are. You aren't fucking getting near them."

In that instant, he heard the soft ping and wiz of a silenced bullet and with a sickening thud, the man's body jerked backward as the bullet pierced his flesh. Another shot made him lurch again and then the loud whisper of a familiar voice.

"Jim! Brian!"

Before Jim could locate the source, Pete's hands were quickly working the bloody ropes from his wrists as Brad recovered the weapon from the dead man.

"Oh man, it is good to see you two." Brian gasped as he freed himself with Pete's knife.

Jim stood and looked down emotionless at the man's body bleeding out on the floor and then turned to Brad cold and venomous, "Give me a gun."

Pete pulled one from behind him and laid it in Jim's hand and he stepped away swiftly toward the house.

"Jim! We got to go, man!" Brad whispered loudly before turning to Brian, "Where the hell is he going?"

"They have Pam," Brian answered hollowly, following after him.

"Oh shit. Jim, we had no idea she left…" Pete explained helplessly seeing that Jim was already long gone.

Jim moved around the corner of the back of the house slowly glancing around before advancing when he slammed directly into a body about a foot shorter.

"Jesus! Pam, oh my God!" She collapsed into him heavy and boneless and he buffered her fall until he was down on his knees.

She was pale and trembling with such veracity that the curls around her face almost bounced against her ghost-like skin. His hands skimmed over her looking for signs of injury but only finding blood everywhere; the knife he had given her still clutched in her hand.

"You're alive." She choked out and he met her eyes but she was looking through him.

"Jim, we have got to move," Brian said nervously as he, Brad, and Pete gave cover from every direction, their weapons drawn.

"Pam, baby, give me the knife." He reached slowly and cautiously to take it out of her hand, "It's me now, just let go of it, I'm here." He pulled harder as her grip was unrelenting. She finally processed his words, nodded numbly, and loosened her hand. He slid the red-coated and sticky the knife in his belt and swept her up into his arms.

"Let's get the hell out of here."

The beat-up nineties era Suburban roared down the debris scattered two-lane road with feverish intent. He still had her, refusing to let her go, and she was still trembling, staring off into the night vacantly and he realized she must be in shock. He pulled his coat off and wrapped it around her, noticing she was also missing her shoes, her bare feet resting on the fake leather bench, her clothing in a distressing state of disarray.

She held out her left hand, each finger trembling as it unfolded, revealing her pendant and Dwight's ring.

"He had them."

He stared at the two pieces of jewelry, rigid, as he placed the sequence of events that led to them being here in her hand.

"I think I killed him." She said so softly, Jim could barely make out the words, "When he was…on me...I stabbed him in the back."

"I'm so sorry, baby. So sorry..." His voice broke and he pulled her even tighter to him, the pain of her suffering like a vice grip on his chest competed strongly with the overwhelming need to kill something, or at the very least, cause it considerable pain.

She finally met his eyes like she was just now seeing him, huge and dark, burning. Suddenly the flood gate opened and her whole body shook with her hard, gut-wrenching sobs, she clutched to the front of his shirt like it was the only thing holding her to the planet. He pressed his lips to her hair in silent petition, desperate to take it all from her.

Pete looked over at them sadly, "Jim, we didn't know if he had Toby's walkie. She must have left to try to tell you. We had no idea until Isabel told us," he mumbled as he slid his hand over his face.

Pieces of information fell into order, like leaves fluttering to the ground. Toby's walkie. The fact that they knew where to find them. Pam being out alone looking for him. The anger turned to energy and pulsed through him, intense and furious, like the current in a live wire, making his vision clear.

"Does he know we know he has a walkie?"

Brian's rough voice came from the dark recesses of the truck, "I doubt it."

"Brad, radio back to the farm. Make it sound like we are fleeing to town." He pressed his lips to Pam's temple as she released a shuddering breath, the plan forming fully in his mind.

"We are going to set a trap for these sons of bitches. This ends tonight."

Pam was thankful for the chaos and there was nervous energy rippling through the place in preparation. The yard looked like a war zone. Every working truck had been pulled along the outer wall and people were loading guns and ammunition on all the trucks' surfaces creating a formidable protection force against any attack.

She allowed Jim to completely take over any decisions and deflect any questions, relaxing against him fully as he carried her up to their room, He set her on the bed and locked the door behind them, his entire posture wracked with uncertainty. She looked up at him with exhaustion and defeat, her eyes red and swollen.

"Do you want to get out of those clothes?" His voice was cautious as if he was approaching a frightened bird and she could see his eyes, dark and soft in the dim lantern light, the corners tight with pain.

He silently gathered some clothes and brought them over to her, setting them in her lap.

She held out her hand to examine it, the stained red skin trembling. "Why can't I stop shaking, Jim?"

"I don't know." He exhaled the words, each syllable taut with grief.

She fingered the frayed tag of the teeshirt he had given her uncertainly before shrugging off his coat from her shoulders.

"Do you want me to leave?" He asked softly and her eyes shot up to him with panic.

"No, don't go." She shook her head and tears threatened once more. She was precariously adrift, reaching blindly for the anchor of him.

He dropped immediately to sit down next to her, "I won't go, I just wasn't sure if you wanted to be…"

She put her hand on his face and he closed his eyes and leaned into it. The cold heavy feeling in the pit of her began to thaw, unwinding some of the frozen threads of fear inside her. She gently touched the swollen bruise that had formed around his eye and the gash on his cheek and he pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm.

"I love you," she said simply, the complexity and depth of what she felt boiled down to those three words.

"God, Pam…" The words coming out in a relieved sigh, still speaking into her palm, holding it to him, with his eyes closed.

Her gaze moved over him, taking inventory for the first time how battered he was, "What did they do to you?"

"Not important." He brushed her cheek gently with the backs of his fingers, "nothing that won't heal." Fragile silence passing between them with the knowledge that some scars are invisible and never do.

She wordlessly changed her clothes into the ones Jim had given her and sat back down. He brought over the basin and a clean towel and gently cleaned the blood off her arms and her waist. She watched him silently, words suddenly paltry and unnecessary.

"Do you want, uh, Larissa to help you or whatever? I can go get her." He spoke quietly, pain laced in every word.

Pam tilted her head curiously at his troubled anxiety, unsure what he meant, then it dawned on her what he thought.

"He didn't get that far, Jim," she said softly, "He just...," she looked down at her hands and swallowed hard the lump that threatened to choke her, "He was …about to… when I stabbed him but he…didn't."

He sighed heavily and leaned forward and put his head in his hands for a long minute. He was still but seemed to vibrate with something unyielding and terrifying. She felt it roll off him in waves.

"I can tell you what happened…if you want to know." She instantly felt guilty sorrow wash over her as he silently nodded. She sensed his hesitation, to know something was one thing, and to be told the details, another.

"He offered me a drink," she began sardonically and he slowly blinked and shook his head in disbelief.

"He told me he hated you and that if he fucked me he could make you pay for killing his brother. He wanted to know what makes me so special that he died." With that, Jim stood and started pacing and rubbing the back of his neck. She could see the anger course through him so hot and violent and so thoroughly, she felt as though he might come apart if he didn't move.

"I knew it was my chance. I still had my knife, they never took it. They never even checked." She looked up at him again and the expression he wore was unreadable. She knew every nuance of him, every mask he wore, but he had dropped them all now; the regret, the anger, and the fear were all visible, etched clearly in the desperate lines of his face.

"He told me to take off my shirt and when I didn't want to, he told me he was going to go slit your throat if I didn't." Her tears silently fell again and she briefly marveled that she had any left, "I'm sorry, I had to do it. I just didn't want him to hurt you."

He stopped his pacing and looked at her horrified, "Don't you dare think that any of this is even remotely your fault, Pam. Every bit of this is that fucking bastard's fault." The words seemed to come from somewhere deep and primal as explosive fury rocked him.

She swayed back slightly having never heard him like that before. She sat shocked and numb from the violence of it, her tears making the light from the fire blur in her vision.

He sat back down next to her and pulled her hand into his, kissing her knuckles, "I'm sorry, I'm just angry, not at you though."

She relaxed again, allowing her body to drift towards his in the natural way it always did when he was close and she saw the tension in his own shoulders let go slightly.

She nodded quickly and continued wanting to get it all out as fast as possible, "He was rubbing himself so I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see that or him. I think it made him angry because he threw me on the bed hard and grabbed my face to force me to look at him. I knew I had to do something then before he found the knife on me so I just reached down grabbed it and started stabbing." She shook her head again, looking down at their tangled fingers in her lap, "I don't know how many times I did it, I just did it until he stopped moving. I pushed him off of me and went to find you."

She was suddenly exhausted. Having now expelled the memory, he shared the burden of it and the missing weight left her tremendously tired.

He was silent so she chanced a look at him. He was leaning forward on his knees and had his chin resting on his hand, staring straight ahead, tears had filled his eyes and one had left a trail down his cheek. She reached up and brushed the hair off his forehead and he turned and looked at her with sorrowful eyes, the entire scope of human emotion behind them.

"Pam, I am so sorry. None that should have ever happened."

She rested her head on his shoulder wearily, "Don't say sorry. I was the one who went out there and got caught."

His eyes drifted down to the floor in front of them. "I had so many chances to kill him and I didn't take them. You were the brave one."

He shook his head and she knew he wouldn't let it go. They were both very seasoned at self-deprecating blame. She turned toward him fully, leaning forward and kissing his temple, then his brow slowly, careful to avoid the injuries that covered him. He closed his eyes, allowing her to love him and she moved her lips to his eyelids and then his mouth before resting their foreheads together.

"We're okay." She whispered to him. The empty space inside her was starting to replace the swirls of fear with love again, a fraction at a time, which was equally as frightening.

"That's all that matters." He whispered back.

Jim left long enough to fetch fresh water for the basin and Jack. With the lull in activity, he took the opportunity to clean himself up, haphazardly wrapping bandages around his wrists for the time being. He felt emotionally drained like he had run a marathon in the middle of a nightmare that was only half over.

"You need to let Larissa or Mike look at those, they are very deep," Pam said with concern as she shifted a sleeping Jack from one shoulder to the other.

"I will. They are busy helping Brian right now." He glanced at his reflection in the oval-shaped mirror and grimaced at the mottled discoloration on his face and as he lifted his shirt to examine, the entirety of the left side of his torso.

Brad appeared in the doorway, pushing open the cracked door apologetically, "Jim, everything is ready to go."

Cece and Phil ran in under Brad's arm, "Mom! We were looking for you."

Phil melted into her side the way only a child does.

"Yeah, Aunt Larrisa said you went somewhere but nobody would tell us anything and everyone is acting weird," Cece added incredulously.

"Even Ms. Angela wouldn't tell us, and she always tells us," Phil continued, his voice muffled from Pam's sweater.

Pam looked over Cece's head and met Jim's eyes. "All that matters is that I'm home now, okay?"

"Jim," Brad said quietly again and Jim looked at him and nodded.

"I have to go. Please, please stay here…all of you," he pleaded. Pam nodded resignedly and with one last look, he left his family in the safety of their room.

As Jim walked down the main hallway, he could feel all the eyes on him. Someone handed him a rifle before he made it past the front door and he checked the clip to see if it was full as he walked. He was more ready than ever for this to be over and tonight it was going to end.

He was suddenly restless again, the bone-melting exhaustion he had previously held dissipated completely as Brian appeared in front of him, cleaned up and bandaged.

"They took the bait."