Hunted Chapter 8

Regina's eyes open slowly.

She can hear the rush of her her own breath in her ears as everything shifts around her. Her head hurts, she thinks. It's throbbing all over and when she draws her hand to her temple, it comes away stained red. It makes her feel sick, or maybe that's just whatever drug she's been injected with.

Her legs are bound with rope, a perfect knot, the kind you learn to do when you're a kid with those overbearing parents who send them to camp every summer to learn pointless things like knot tying. Except now it's not pointless, this child who learnt perfect knots at summer camp is now a serial killer, and she's walked straight into his trap. One attempt at pushing herself up with her right arm and she's almost out cold again, the sick rising to the back of her throat. Her shoulder is out from the fall. It's not her shooting arm, but it doesn't matter, her gun is gone.

All of a sudden her mind flashes to Robin. Lovely, kind Robin who invited her into his life when he knew of all the skeletons in her closet and didn't for one second think that today would ever be his last day on earth.

Is he dead?, Regina finds herself wondering. She thinks about Roland, the sweet little boy who's going to grow up without a mom and a dad because of her, because she just couldn't leave her stupid job and run away to be with her son four years ago. Her face is wet again, and she wonders if her head is still bleeding.

A voice startles her out of her thoughts, "Don't cry Regina, I haven't given you anything to cry about yet." For the first time in four years, she's looking at the man who left her on the side of the road to die. He's younger than she remembers him being, dark hair, shockingly blue eyes and a smile that you would mistaken for being kind of you didn't know the monster that was lurking underneath it. It's the long jagged scar along his neck that catches her eye then, it's old and puckered but can't be missed. It's as if someone tried to take his head off.

He hoists her into a sitting position against the wall and sends a hot bolt of agony up her arm. She sees the smirk on his face. "Maybe I have given you something to cry about."

Regina diverts her eyes from his and takes in her surroundings. The body she'd seen just before she'd been ambushed is still there. The dead eyes stare emptily at the ceiling and Regina is glad they're not staring at her.

She doesn't say anything. Doesn't want to give this man the satisfaction of knowing that all three of the worst days of her life are due to him. Her own brown eyes meet his blue and she really looks at him. This man killed the love of her life, her partner and more than fifteen women that looked like her. Yet she has no idea who he is. He must see her confusion because his eyes grow stormy in an instance.

"You don't recognise me, do you detective?" He's angry, as if she should instantly know who he is, but she doesn't have a clue. It makes him angry. "LOOK AT ME!" He grabs hold of her head and drags her face up to meet his, close enough that she feels his breath on her. She shakes her head, thinks about what could possibly be the right thing to say, "I'm sorry, I don't know who you are."

It's clearly not the right thing as he drags her roughly to her feet and yanks her towards the door.

They're into the hallway of the house again, the outdated and eerie remnants of whoever lived there years ago still evident all over the walls. She doesn't get a chance to look as he pulls her down the stairs behind him, and she knows her legs are going to be tarnished with bruises in a few hours.

They get to the bottom of the stairs and she's shoved roughly through a door and then right back into the room she and Robin saw when they first entered the house. She lands hard on the ground, thankfully on her good shoulder.

She hears another voice then, weak but unmistakable, "Regina."

It draws her out of her daze.

It's Robin. He's alive. Their eyes meet and she sees how awful he looks. His hands and feet are bound. He's ashen and his shirt is crimson over his shoulder. Oh fuck, she thinks, he's been shot.

It's as if their kidnapper has read her mind then, as a safety on a gun clicks. The sound is oh too familiar after working as an officer for nearly 15 years. She knows it's her gun, she'd had that gun for a long time, practised three times a week at the range with it and now that same gun had been used to shoot her partner. "If he'd just have stayed down when I told him to, I wouldn't have had to shoot him."

Regina can't help but hiss back her response in anger, "If you want to kill me just get on with it."

He laughs, shakes his head then pulls over a chair. "I don't want to kill you Regina, at least not yet."

"Well what do you want from me?"

He reaches over to her, and squeezes her shoulder, "I want you to remember."

She almost passes out from the pain. Her mouth feels like wool. She can't even speak. She sees him push the gun roughly into his waistband and out of his pocket produces a small stack of paper.

He lets them fall to the floor slowly in front of her. Some land face up and she realises they're pictures. She doesn't move to have a closer look until she feels his eyes burning into her. "Look at the pictures, they might jog your memory a little." It's not a request, it's an order. She reaches for the closest picture and on the back there's a scribble. Jeff and Grace. On the other side there's an image. A lanky raven haired boy with blue eyes and a small blonde girl with the same eyes. It's clearly a summers day but both are covered up. The boy has dark circles under his eyes, but the girl is cheery. The background of the picture is familiar, it's the front porch of the house they're at. They're the same children in all the pictures on the walls.

"Take another one"

She does what she's told and the next picture is just of the girl. She's a little older on this picture and she's not smiling. On her wrist she's wearing a red ribbon.

"Take another"

She reaches out for the next picture. Only this time it's not one that's been snapped on a disposable camera on a front porch, it's a crime scene photo of an alley. It looks familiar.

"Are you getting there yet?"

She swallows hard because she knows she should know who these children are and where the alley is, but her mind is drawing a blank. She reaches for the last image and this time it has her gasping.

It's a crime scene photo again. A body.

It's the body of Grace Hatter.

It all comes rushing back to her, a memory she'd pushed to the back of her mind for nearly 15 years. She'd worked a case long ago when she was just starting out in child crimes. She'd been sent out to do a welfare check after a neighbour reported several disturbances at the Hatter household. She'd arrived and the father had been charming, a single dad who'd lost his wife in a terrible accident that has nearly taken the life of his son, who was now reclusive. The son in question, Jeff had been getting into trouble with the police and one woman had called in saying that he was watching her daughter playing in the park with a little too much interest. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary, but when Grace disappeared a few days later and she was discovered in an alley five days later with a slashed throat and broken arm, Jeff was the prime suspect. The father played the grieving parent well for a few weeks, as his 16 year old son was arrested and placed into protective custody in an adult prison. It came to light several weeks later that the charming father was in fact an abuser, his wife's accident not so much an accident, his son's terribly scarred neck a result of a near successful garrotting and Grace had simply pushed him too far one day.

She remembers that when Jeff was in prison he'd asked to speak to her, and she'd ignored the request, figured he wanted to spin a web of lies. In reality, he probably just wanted to talk.

She swallows thickly and looks up at her captor, "Jeff, your name is Jeff."

"My name is Jefferson, I hate Jeff, that's what my father called me." He snarls the word father in disgust. She doesn't blame him.

The room is almost silent, only Robin's raspy breathing can be heard. She clears her throat, "I'm sorry for what happened Jefferson, but it wasn't my fault."

He laughs, head shaking. "Oh but Regina, it is nothing but your fault." He sits down heavy onto the chair in front of her, gun pulled from his waistband. Click.

"You could have stopped it. But instead you were taken in by his false words and fake smile."

She shakes her head, "I didn't see any signs of abuse, you'd just lost your mother, I thought you were just grieving."

He levels the gun at her, arm resting on his leg. "But the signs were there. You were just too distracted by your boyfriend to notice."

She remembers now that Daniel had been partnered with her that day. The chief had put them together that morning, knowing it wasn't ideal, but with no other option. They were both too subordinate to handle cases on their own, but they'd had a new rookie that morning and Daniel's partner was her stand in TO for the day, Regina's own partner out sick with the flu.

Regina racks her brain for any memories of what Jefferson could mean. She suddenly remembers heading back to the car, and the strange knot she felt in her stomach as she looked back at the house. She remembers telling Daniel about the feeling. He'd smiled, pulled her in close and shook his head, "Not every parent is out to get their child Regina." She remembers she'd nodded at him, wanted to believe his words. Then they'd got into their patrol car and Daniel had reached over to take her hand, "We'll come back next week on a surprise visit, see if you still have the same feeling." As they drove away, she'd seen Jefferson sat at the base of the tree outside the front porch.

She shakes her head, "I wasn't distracted, I was coming back to check on you and Grace."

Jefferson shakes his head, "I tried to tell you, even after she was dead, you just ignored me."

Regina swallows thickly, not quite knowing what to say, "My captain told me not to, said it would interfere with the case if I went to visit you."

She knows it's not going to satisfy him, but her answer is the truth, she had been told not to go to the prison, and chose to follow orders. It earns her a backhand to the face that makes her see black seethes in his rage and paces back and forth between the two doors, gun once again in his hand. It goes on for a while before he finally turns to Regina. "I'm going to give you a few minutes to think about the important stuff, you know, who's going to die first and all that." Jefferson leaves the room then, and she hears his heavy boots thumping up the stairs.

When she's sure he's out of earshot she turns to her partner. His eyes are on hers immediately. He looks worse than she's ever seen him before. Pale, clammy and blue eyes stormy with pain. "Regina, god, I'm sorry, I should have seen what we were walking in to."

She shakes her head, "This is my fault, you're going to die and this is my fault."

Robin smiles at her then, "We're not going to die."

She laughs hysterically, "You've been shot, I have one good arm and no weapon and there's a guy with a gun upstairs, the odds aren't in our favour right now."

"We just need to hope that someone notices that we've disappeared and not checked in."

Regina smiles sadly, because she knows that by the time their team realise what's happened, it'll probably be too late. Still, she gives Robin his hope, "I bet they're already wondering where we've gone, Captain Lucas will be sending in swat as we speak."

She doesn't dare to hope like Robin, but in her head, Regina pleads with whatever God is out there that she gets to see Henry again.

...