Chapter 5
Disclaimer: I'm not going to try to claim all of it. Just the characters you can't recognize!
A/N: I find it necessary to respond to a few of the reviews I got:
CallistoRevo: For the sake of this story, assume all SD-6 operatives are still working with SD-6. But I promise not to bring Dixon into the mess I'm creating.
Somewhere outthere: I don't respond to threats. I get 'em all the time! Hehe. Lots'a people don't like me…
Natalie: Thank you! Finally, someone completely ignored the implausibility factor to see the humor of it!!! Of course Vaughn being taken completely off guard is unlikely, but it's also funny, people!
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Sydney came very close to throwing her cell phone out the window of her newly repaired car when she discovered it didn't work.
"Damn it!" she screeched. What else could go wrong between here and LA?
Against her better judgment, she stopped at the first gas station she saw with pay phones and called Jeff.
"Leah's in LA. She knows I've been telling you everything she said, somehow. She said she'd tried to call you, but couldn't reach you, so she wanted me to pass on a number to you. She wants you to call her," Jeff reported miserably.
"Was she furious?" Sydney wondered.
"Not until I denied it. She seemed almost relieved at first at having a way to reach you," Jeff admitted.
"Thanks, Jeff."
Sydney hung up and quickly dialed the number he'd given her.
"Hello?"
The voice was enough to melt every bone in Sydney's body.
"I'm sorry," she said, finding her voice husky with memory. "I must have dialed a wrong number. I was trying to reach my daughter."
"Sydney?"
Oh, damn it, it was his voice. What had her daughter cooked up?
"Vaughn."
"Sydney, Leah's gone. I think SD-6 identified her. She looks so much like you…Where are you?" Vaughn asked.
"Nevada. If I drive like a bat out of hell, I can be there in an hour and a half."
"Get here in one piece, Syd. We'll find Leah. Then, or may be before, we'll talk about why I just met my daughter." Vaughn's voice had a definite edge to it.
Sydney decided to save the apology until they were face to face.
"I'm coming."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Leah bit her lip against the moan that rose in her throat.
Her whole body felt heavy. Although she figured anyone watching would already know she was coming around, she could stall until she was more alert. The longer she gave whatever drug she'd been given to wear off before she faced potential captors the better.
Within minutes, the heavy fog that seemed to encompass her body lifted.
Feet shuffled a few feet away.
"Mmm…" Leah mumbled. "I thought I lost that tail."
She heard a surprised shuffling in response, and someone was standing over her.
"Mmm," she moaned pitifully again.
She felt the hand on her neck, feeling her pulse, and that was all she needed to gauge the location of the face. She swung her elbow and opened her eyes at the same time. Her elbow hit just above the man's eye, hard enough to make hit see stars, she judged.
Her mother had gone above and beyond amateur karate classes. Sydney had taught Leah past what local classes had offered, and Leah knew karate wasn't the only martial art form Sydney had taught her concepts from. For the first time since she'd started lessons at seven years old, Leah could have dropped to her knees and worshiped her mother for insisting she pursue the hobby to the fullest extent.
Leah jumped up as the guy fell backwards, but he got up too. She had managed to catch him off guard enough that she could place a well-aimed kick to send him hurtling back against the wall of the dimly lit little room, with enough force to snap his head back into the wall and probably make him see stars again. Before he had a chance to recover himself again, Leah smashed her elbow into the side of his head. He slumped to the floor.
Leah panted, out of breath and her heart racing from the brief encounter. She began to search for means of escape.
The room was empty, and the only window small and high. But Leah was tall and very skinny. If she could just get it open, Leah was pretty sure she could get out.
She searched her guard for anything that might be useful. She found a loaded handgun, and didn't think twice before checking the safety and tucking it into the pocket of her jean shorts. The man didn't have a wallet, but she took the loose change she found in his pocket.
The window was the type of window you'd find in a basement, one that swung inward to open. There was a thin cement ledge under it; just enough that Leah thought she could hold on long enough to swing open the window.
Leah stepped back to the opposite wall--nearly four steps--and got up some momentum to jump. The first time, her fingers slipped from the ledge before she could grab at the window. The second time, she missed the latch on the window and slipped. On the third try, the window swung in.
Within five minutes, she'd managed to pull her self up enough to see outside. There was nothing but an empty alley above. At least she wouldn't have to drop to the ground from the window.
She dropped down again and moved back for a running start. Leah just managed to haul herself up and out, rapping her head on the top edge of the window in the process.
Once free of the window, Leah ran. She ran up the alley. She ran through an overgrown lot at the end of the alley. She ran up a dark street of a town that had gone quiet with the sun. She ran until she came up on a quiet housing development, where, thinking of nothing but a quiet, hidden place to think, she ducked into a child's playhouse.
Have they missed me yet? Leah wondered as she waited for her heart to stop racing.
Crouching in her hiding place, Leah wondered what she could do. She didn't know where she was, she had no money save…she counted quickly…seventy-six cents, and that wouldn't even get her much time on a pay phone if she were willing to risk it. And she had killers after her. Michael Vaughn hadn't come right out and said it, but she knew it was what he'd meant. What would her mother do?
"Ha," Leah muttered under her breath. The face of Sydney Bristow she knew was the sweet high school teacher, not the die-hard CIA agent.
It was cooler outside, even in summer, she realized. So she wasn't still in the south, where even the nights were humid and heavy. Having spent her entire life in Georgia, she had no way of even guessing where she was. The furthest she and Sydney had ever traveled was Orlando, Florida, when she'd been ten.
Leah shivered, and rubbed the bare skin of her arms and legs. Time to start thinking of a way out of her current predicament. Slipping silently from the tiny playhouse, she gazed up the street. Most of the houses had porch lights on, and cars in the drive, and the one dark, carless house caught her attention. Careful not to appear out of place, Leah walked up the street to the house. She felt along the ledge over the door, checked under the welcome mat and in the loose topsoil of a potted plant. Leah stopped and put her hands on her hips, thinking.
The nest-door neighbor's front door opened and an older woman stepped out.
"Hey! Girl!" she called to Leah. "What are you up to? Angie didn't mention going' off anywhere, and you don't look familiar."
Leah saw a small cat jump up into the between curtains that weren't quite closed.
"My family just moved in a few blocks away," Leah called back. She left on short notice, and called to ask me to feed her cat, but I can't remember where she said she left the spare key."
"Taped under that window ledge there!" the neighbor called. "Youngins these days…don't pay no attention to nothing' " Leah heard her mutter as she went back inside.
Leah grinned, ecstatic. It had worked! But now that she'd been seen she'd have t work fast.
She first went to the phone and dialed the number she'd given to Jeff, and to her relief her father's cell phone rang.
"Vaughn."
"It's me. I don't have long. I can't talk. Can you trace this number?"
"Give me three minutes."
"Good. I'll leave the phone off the hook until I get ready to leave. I'll get in touch again later." Leah's voice was a harsh whisper, but the panic one would expect was absent. She laid down the phone.
Her next task was to find warmer clothes. She suspected the resident of the house was as old as her neighbor, so Leah was surprised to find a closet full of clothes that were not only close to her size, but close to her style, too. Leah grabbed a dark gray wind suit, pulling the pants on over her shorts and zipping the jacket up to her neck.
Allowing herself a small grin, she did feed the cat a scoop of the cat food sitting beside his bowl since he followed her around meowing.
All of it had taken her just under three minutes. She picked up the phone.
"Got it?" she asked.
"Got it," her father's voice responded.
"I'm gone."
"Leah!" she heard him yell as she hung up the phone.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Hehe. Leah's one smart cookie, huh? I'm really enjoying this story myself. I like Leah. And before you comment on the unrealistic-ness of this chapter, just stay tuned. There's more to it than you see.