Author's note: Thank you for reading!

Jane heard the explosion on the other side of the door and knew she had seconds to act before the room was filled with angry, armed men and women. She noticed that Vicki Smythe and one of the pharmacists were standing in front of the newly created doorway to the morgue. Jane looked at the pharmacist and Vicki and shouted at them to go. Unser grabbed the pharmacist closest to him and pulled him down behind a desk. Jane walked briskly to the middle of the room where Lily Ford was frozen with fear. Just as she reached the younger woman, Jane heard gunshots begin. Realizing they were attempting to shoot through the door, Jane placed herself between Lily and the danger. As she began pulling Lily down the floor, Jane felt two rounds hit her in the vest. Jane propelled her body down to the floor on top of Lily and tried to encourage the younger woman to inch herself forward, under a desk that was 5 feet in front of them. Before they could make any forward progress, the door splintered apart and the room began to fill with armed individuals.

Lily looked up at Jane and gasped, "Your arm, you are bleeding!"

Jane quietly replied, "Don't worry about it. I was hit with some debris from the door. It's really not that bad. Now try to be quiet and let me do all of the talking. We really don't know what will set these guys off."

A gruff, weary looking, middle aged man approached the two on the floor. "Get up," he commanded.

Jane slowly lifted herself up from the floor, gasping at the pain she felt in her ribs, from where she was surely bruised by the impact of bullets hitting her vest. Once standing, she reached down to help Lily to her feet, trying to keep her body between the younger woman and the man who stood in front of them.

The man grimaced slightly when he saw Jane's FBI credentials. Turning to three younger men and a young woman he said, "Search the room. See who else is in here." Then he grabbed two office chairs and dragged them forward. "Sit!" He commanded the two women.

Nodding to Lily to comply with his directions, Jane sat gingerly in the chair. She watched as Unser and the male pharmacist were discovered and prodded forward at gunpoint to join Jane and Lily in the center of the room. The middle aged man who had approached Jane earlier was clearly in charge of the group of approximately 25 who now filled the room. He inspected the newly created doorway to the morgue and then ordered three of his people to go through it and check the morgue.

The man then wearily pulled up a chair and sat down. Looking at the two FBI agents he questioned them, " How long have you been in here?"

"We arrived to evacuate the hospital personnel only minutes before you came through the door." Jane replied, her tone tense with pain.

After looking at her for several minutes he nodded, "well we can't have the feds knowing what's going on in here now can we. Give me all of your gear before we speak any further."

Jane and Robert stood and began slowly removing their gear, placing it on a desk. Jane struggled and could not reach the Velcro strips on her vest due the bruising and pain she was feeling. Noticing her struggles, the man in charge pointed at a young, unkempt man with straw like blond hair and poor eye contact. "Freddy, help her with the vest and then search them both for any weapons or gear they may have hidden."

Freddy came over to Jane and slowly unfastened her vest. His hands touching her body for just a little too long. He took off her vest and then began running his hands over her body searching her thoroughly. Jane tried to keep her face neutral and suppress her disgust with this man. However, when his hands lingered too long in an intimate place, Jane had enough. Growling, she brought her hands up and shoved the man away from her body.

Before any of the others could react the leader was up and between Jane and Freddy. "Enough," he shouted. "I told you to search her, not manhandle her. I want you to search the other one, and you to disable their cameras and communications." The leader pointed at first one man and then another. Jane noticed he was careful not to mention the names of those two men.

The man then secured Jane, Robert, and the male pharmacist to their chairs with zip ties. He motioned to Lily and asked "Where is the vaccine stored? I need you to take me to it."

Lily looked nervously at Jane, unsure of what to say or do. She saw Jane nod encouraging at her, and decided it would be best if she attempted to do what the man asked of her. "The vaccine is in the cold storage behind us. The room is locked and the lead pharmacist has the key and he is not here. I don't know how much is even in there. I know we vaccinated approximately 1200 National Guard members yesterday along with 200 hospital employees. I don't know how many doses are left. Why are you even doing this? Don't you know how important the vaccine is for our service members and health care workers?"

The man's face instantly transformed in anger as he addressed his men. "Go and get that door opened. I don't care how you do it!" Then he turned to Lily, "Don't I know how important this vaccine is? Of course I know how important it is, that is why we are here. So many of us lost people we loved this past year. We couldn't afford to stay home and our jobs did not offer us work from home options. My 31 year old brother died because he had to go to work at the supermarket in order to pay his mortgage. Now, we are being told that while we are essential, we are not essential enough and the doses of the vaccine will go to other people. Not educated enough, not important enough, easily replaced! We have had enough. If we can't get the vaccine another way then this will have to do. Even if some of us die getting the vaccine, we probably would die without it too."

Jane realized this man was at a breaking point and feared he would take his anger out on Lily if she didn't intervene. She thought about the few decoy doses she left on the pallet and hoped they would be enough. Looking directly at the man she stated, "the key for the cold storage is in my right boot. Inside the storage room you will find all that is left of the vaccine on the pallet in the middle of the room. I think there are approximately 60 doses. Take them and get out of here quickly before it defrosts and is no good to anyone."

The man bent down and used his knife to free Jane's hand and told her to retrieve the key from her boot when suddenly the air was filled with shouts of "FBI". The room filled with FBI agents with their guns pointed everywhere. The man lunged forward and grabbed Lily and brought her body in front of his with a gun to her head. He began slowly backing towards the morgue door, dragging Lily with him. Jane sprang from her chair and ran to follow them. She caught up with them in the morgue and was filled with sorrow at the panicked and defeated look in Lily's young eyes.

"Leave her here and take me instead." I make a more valuable hostage than her, she is barely more than a kid." Jane urgently requested of the man in front of her. She raised her hands in the air and got down on her knees, placing herself in a vulnerable position to hopefully earn his trust.

The man pushed Lily away from him and roughly yanked Jane from the floor and began pulling her out of the morgue and into the hallway. He found the same set of stairs that Jane had come down earlier and began walking up them with Jane as his hostage. He briefly paused on the landing before whispering "I'm sorry," into Jane's ear.

Before Jane's brain had even registered what he said, the man pushed her hard, back down the stairs they had just climbed. Jane had very little time to react and was only able to brace herself a little bit with her right hand before her head and rest of her body hit the hard floor and the world went black.