All right everybody, this is the last chapter of this story…but the sequel is in the works, and it just won't stop swirling around my head, so it might be a week or so before I get the first chapter up. If I can do it sooner, I will, but I'm not making any promises. And it will be rated M, as the new rating system goes, because things are going to get a bit...interesting. heh heh. So be sure to show your ID at the door.
Special thanks to all my reviews, especially Dawnie-7, Hockey Gurl, and of course, Winged Seraph – her story over there is getting really good, guys, you need to go read and review! Plus all the other people who have dropped in their two cents from time to time, you are always welcome and I hope to hear from you all again come the sequel!
Chapter Ten: Think Anybody Will Notice?The silence and the darkness were comforting.Vincent listened to the sounds around him, acclimating, probing, sensing. He felt invisible here, and it was a pleasant feeling. This was all there was, the hunt, the kill. This was all his life was good for, all he was good for.
He heard the sound. The faint scratching of stockings against carpet. He propelled himself toward the sound.
The woman had long, black hair that hung across her back like a curtain. She didn't hear him at first, but pure tension forced her to turn her head and look behind her. She let out a small, breathy gasp and turned around, pushing herself as far away from him as she could as the barrel of Vincent's gun came level with her head.
She was against the wall, looking afraid, as they all looked afraid, and then she shut her eyes and turned away, unwilling to see it coming. She was brave, he had to give her that. Other women would have been shrieking and crying hysterically by now
There was a noise. Vincent looked up, startled. Someone was charging through the darkness, toward him. He caught the outline of a figure, saw something bright and metal rise into the air—
And barely shifted his hands in time to catch the heavy metal chair that had been flung at him. One of the legs got past his barricade and caught him smartly in the ear, sending a flare of pain through his head. It was just enough to make him lose his balance, and he landed on the ground with a thud.
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Callie watched Vincent topple, and looked down at where his gun had been pointed. A woman huddled there, Callie couldn't make out anything in the dark, she just reached out and seized a hand, yanking the girl to her feet and dragging her with him.
"Callie!" came Vincent's enraged scream as he rose up from the ground.
"Run!" Callie shrieked at the woman as they both headed for the door to the hallway. There was the sound of thunder and explosions, glass shattering so loud it was more terrifying than the rage that came behind it.
The elevator door was still open, doubtless because the building was very empty and its programming gave it little else to do. Callie nearly hurled the woman into it in front of her as she caught the door and spun herself around, her thumb locking down onto the "close doors" button.
The darkness outside disappeared behind a wall of bright silver steel.
In the elevator, Callie turned and looked at the woman in the corner, still stunned out of her mind. But she was a quick study, this one, and managed to gather her wits enough to ask a very good question.
"What the hell is going on?"
"My name's Calliope Fanning," Callie said. "Call me Callie. I take it you're Annie?"
"You know who I am?"
"I saw it on your office door."
"My office?" Annie repeated, this time in anger, as if feeling violated.
"Long, long story," Callie panted. "We have to get as far away from here as we can, and I'll explain everything…but not now."
"Wait a minute…Fanning? Do you know a Detective Fanning?"
Callie stopped, her breathing suspended for a moment. "My brother?"
"He called, warned me something was going to happen…he said a squad was on the way but he got cut off—"
Callie shook her head. "I don't think he's going to make it in time." She looked down at Annie's feet. "Lose the heels. You can't run in those."
Without hesitation, Annie flipped them off.
She looked at the other woman again, scowling. She knew her from somewhere…earlier that night…"Max," she said aloud as the bell sounded, signaling that their floor was near.
Annie frowned. "What about Max—you know him?"
"You were the woman from the cab, earlier…when I picked up Vincent…the man who's chasing us." Callie shook her head, knowing she wasn't making any sense to the lawyer, but knew she didn't have time. "That's when I met Vincent, when he got into my cab, when all this mess started."
The elevator doors opened and they charged out.
Callie reached out and caught Annie's arm, her eyes catching a sign far to the right. Annie spun on her, frustration in her face. "This is the street!" she said, as if it should be obvious.
"This way," Callie said, her eyes finally focusing on the metro sign. Vincent would be down any second, no doubt he was charging the stairs four at a time. He would expect them to take to the street, but at this hour of the night, with everything deserted and empty, they would be easy prey.
The metro, however, meant people. And it meant options. Yanking on Annie's arm again, she directed her toward the escalator, where they hustled down as fast as they could without falling.
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Vincent was so angry, too angry. He shouldn't be this angry. It was bad to be this angry. It made him sloppy, careless. He was going to make a mistake.
He put the energy into his feet. He hardly felt he impact as he slammed them again and again against the hard tile of the landings in between the flights of stairs. Before he knew it, he was back in the main hall.
He turned to the left, where the front doors awaited. But no, something stopped him.
The street was too quiet. Nobody had been through those doors. He turned around, looked the other way –
And saw the metro sign.
Without hesitation, he pursued.
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Annie had shifted in her grip and was now gripping her back, their arms linked as if they were long lost sisters who had just found each other. As Callie slowed, Annie slowed with her, the connection between them immediate and intimate.
"Which way?" Annie asked.
Callie looked down. "Escalator," she said, dragging the woman behind her down another flight. When they reached the bottom, just then, there was a flashing of light and the distant sound of brakes.
"Stop!" Callie barked, and they froze. Turning, Callie watched the escalator they had just left, making sure to stay just far back enough so that whoever was at the top couldn't see them.
Nothing. Had Vincent followed them, or had he been successfully tricked?
Fat chance. She turned around, saw the next escalator going up. Vincent was going to think that they would hop on the next train, and any second he was going to appear on those stairs. But what if they went back upstairs again? There was another track, going perpendicular, cutting the station effectively in half. He couldn't follow, not without coming down here first, and by then, it would be too late for him to catch them if by some strange luck there was another train up above.
These thoughts were neither logical nor random in her head, they simply existed, and she acted on them. She started up the escalator, taking the steps two a time, Annie barely keeping up with her.
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Vincent stopped in time to see the second train roll in.
He looked down. The other train's doors had slid open, and waited for passengers to enter.
Where were they? Which train?
He looked up, he looked down, he felt himself begin to move, stopped himself with a mild stumble, and then moved again.
He ran forward. There was a track separating him from that train, no entrance on from this way. The train was starting to move.
He jumped. He landed on the median. The train was just starting to pick up speed. He jumped again, reaching, every muscle in his left arm straining with the effort.
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They crawled on the filthy floor, but Callie paid no notice, and Annie made not a sound. They hunkered down, out of sight of the windows, and waited.
The doors hissed shut. The train started to move. Slowly, so slowly, Callie pulled herself up, found that her palms were slick with sweat and slid against the cold metal bars. She had to sit down in one of the cheaply lined blue and plastic chairs to keep from falling back to the floor.
Annie was panting. She had run her stockings, which was a good thing, as nylon got nearly no traction on the slick tile flooring. Still, it was better than running in those blasted heels. The woman was in shape, Callie had to hand it to her. The only thing keeping herself going was the adrenaline. She was so full of it now, she doubted she would feel it if the train suddenly decided to flip over and landed on them all.
There was a pounding sound coming from somewhere distant to their left. Callie leaned forward, not sure if it was just a loud sound, or if her hearing was so intensified by the situation, she had temporarily become Superman – or Supergirl, as the case may be.
A flicker of movement. Callie didn't hesitate. "SHIT!" she rasped, grabbing at Annie again. The other woman was on her feet in a blink, this being her first adrenaline rush of the evening. She was all panic and running, and Callie let her get in front of her, not sure if it was some kind of protective instinct or if it was the anger that Vincent was chasing them.
Vincent was chasing them. God knew what he was going to do. She almost wanted to find out. He'd had a dozen chances to kill her, had even shot at her before, but now, this was serious, and she had a bizarre desire to push her death into his face, to make him take some kind of action and just stop leaving her hanging all the damn time…
"There's a station!" Annie said, and they swung into the gap by the doors, hiding behind the metal barricades, and waited.
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Vincent crashed through the doors, one after the next. He caught the flash of dark hair ahead of him and increased his pace, but the girls were fast, he had to give them credit. Then he felt the train start to slow.
They were going to try and get off. He moved toward the closest door and waited.
The train stopped, and the doors popped open. Vincent moved sideways, into the station, and pointed his gun forward.
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Callie leaned out, caught a flash of gray, and pulled back in. Annie was standing there, watching her, unnerved by her unwillingness to get off the train.
"He's out there," Callie hissed at her.
Annie mouthed a curse, looked around, desperate for something, anything –
Callie found herself wondering what would happen if she ran out there. If she ran right into Vincent's path. Would he just fire? Or would he hesitate long enough for her to make a break for it down the stairs? Would he chase her or would he just get right back on the train? No, Callie couldn't risk it, she couldn't leave Annie alone.
She felt the urge to laugh, bitterly. "You know," she said, just as the bell sounded and the doors began to close, "Vincent almost got into Max's cab."
Annie looked at her, even more discomfited, if that were possible. "What?"
"He walked away. Probably because Max was in dreamland over you. He came over to my cab, I took him, I shouldn't have…tell Max how close he came to being right here, when you see him."
"When I see him?" Annie echoed. "What are you—"
"Callie!" came the scream. Both women jumped.
"Run," Callie said, "when I move into the aisle. Head for the driver, tell him to call the police."
Annie shook her head. "I can't leave you! He'll kill you!"
Callie stepped out, not hearing her. She stood in the middle of the car, and motioned behind her for Annie to run.
Vincent threw open the last door and stood there, gun on her, enraged, bleeding from the nick the chair leg had made in his ear. The blood stained his dark suit, accenting the tears from the earlier accident.
"I do this for a living, Callie," he said, a bit softer, but not much. The car was empty around them.
"You want her, you go through me," Callie said.
Vincent almost smiled. "What, that's supposed to be a threat?" He turned his gun and fired. The bullet screamed past her, hit the plastic behind her, shattered it with an explosion. Annie shrieked behind her, pushing hard at the door that separated her from the driver's cab, her panic making it a more difficult task than it should have been.
Vincent stepped forward. He lowered his gun just a little, and Callie lunged at him, catching the gun with both hands. She struggled for it, trying to keep the barrel away from her and away from Annie, but Vincent was far stronger than her. He looked down into her face and he smiled.
"You know, I gave you credit for being smarter than this," he said. The next thing she knew, something hard had caught her right against the side of her face, right behind her eye, and her face felt like it was exploding. She landed on the floor of the car, winded, staring at the ceiling.
Then she heard it. She heard the three shots, heard the muffled cry of death.
Callie screamed. She didn't know why she screamed, not until a long time later. The moment suspended itself, as her scream seemed to come back onto her, drawing back into her lungs, choking her into sobs.
How long she really lay there, she didn't know. She felt utterly alone, abandoned, forsaken. She looked up at the blank, white ceiling, her mind reeling, everything crashing on her at once.
And then Vincent appeared. He looked down into her face, then bent over her.
"Get up," he said.
She just stared at him, hating him. He bent closer.
"Come on, Callie. It's almost over."
Was that…tenderness she heard? No, that was too twisted. She looked away from him, then felt his hand against her cheek, felt him pull her closer to him again.
"I'm sorry I hit you," he said, his fingers stroking the slowly-forming bruise behind her eye.
She scowled, incredulous. "You're…you're sorry?" She pulled herself up, hiccupping on her tears, hardly able to breathe with the force of her sobs, which still pounded out of her, involuntarily now.
He shook his head, looking into her eyes, really looking now, as if what had happened hadn't just happened. "You should have stayed tied up, Callie. It was for your own good. Now you had to go dragging us all the way out here." Vincent looked over his shoulder, at what, she didn't want to think. The thought of Annie…oh, God, Annie…
Callie curled away from him, sobbing harder now, burying her face in her arms on the dirty, ugly floor of the metro car. She felt movement on her arm, it felt wrong, it felt like her skin had stopped feeling at all. Someone was rubbing her there but she couldn't feel it.
"You're getting awfully bent out of shape over someone you knew for five minutes," Vincent said, still sitting beside her, now leaning over her, sheltering her with his body. He laughed, a short, dark sound. "Think anybody will even notice her before the sun comes up?"
Callie sobbed harder, and tried to crawl away from him. Anything, just any distance at all, an inch, a centimeter, a millimeter, it would help. He grasped her shoulder, pulling her arm away, giving him a view of her face.
"Callie, look at me," he pleaded, his voice still laced with that hard, angry edge.
She shook her head, refused. "No," she groaned, then threw her other arm over her face, and twisted away. "God, let it just be over…just get it over, Vincent. Just shoot me and end it, for God's sake!"
If she'd been more together, she would have noticed Vincent's startled expression, the pullaway, the way his eyebrows came together. "Get up, Callie," he said, straining to keep his voice gentle.
"Why?" she cried, dissolving into sobs and whines again. "Why get up? Just leave me here, with her…just…just do it, Vincent. Don't play with me anymore, please, for the love of…God…anything…just please, I'm begging you, stop."
Her last words finished in nearly a whisper. There was silence for a moment, and then, abruptly, Vincent pulled her to her feet. "We're almost at the next stop," he said, pulling her into his arms. He looped one firmly around her and grasped a bar above him with the other, steadying them both. He pressed her against his chest, and she had no choice but to muffle her sobs against his shirt, as she was unable to get any other breathing room. Once she stopped pushing against him, he gave her a little more space, but didn't let go.
Finally, she raised her eyes to his, knowing there wasn't any other way. He looked down at her, and gave her the smallest of smiles. He let go of the bar, and she realized that the train had stopped. He grasped her hand.
"Come on," he said. "It's time to go."
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The blue line connected into the green line, which lead right to the airport. At the very next stop Vincent pulled her off, and she followed, pushed past her point of endurance, now just a dead weight hanging off the end of his hand.
How they wound up getting back on another train to another station and a connection, she would never remember. She would never remember those moments, except in fragments and dreams. When they arrived at the airport, the sky was light, the sun hadn't made its first appearance but the morning had the fresh scent that only California could create. The winds swayed the tall palm trees from the south, making them bend and dance.
The cold entrance to the airport was like entering a prison. Vincent had her firmly in tow, and she no longer had a single clue as to what to expect. What she was still doing with him, it made absolutely no sense, he should have killed her by now, he should have killed her when he killed Annie, hell, before he'd even gone to find Annie.
With no luggage to check and an e-ticket, all Vincent had to do was stop at a check-in terminal, punch the right buttons, and he was cleared to go. Looking around him carefully, his eyes going up and down Callie once to make sure she didn't look suspiciously haggard, he made their way to a seating alcove, right in front of the security check in.
Vincent looked down at his watch. "Five-forty," he said with a nearly jovial smile. "The plane has already landed, they're boarding on time." He turned his smile to her, his grip on her hand gentling. "So now we say goodbye."
She lifted her eyes to meet his. Red-rimmed and nearly swollen, they took him in with the kind of amazement that a torture victim might feel to suddenly discover themselves liberated. "You're…you're letting me go?" she whispered.
He stepped closer, his face close to hers. "I should never have gotten into your cab, Callie," he sighed. His breath felt warm against her cold cheek. He let go of her hand, and took her chin in his fingers. Then, he lifted both hands, letting his fingers slide into her hair, pulling her close in a lover's embrace. As their faces neared, Callie was sure it was just a show, a final act, to put the last touches on a splendid performance before he vanished for the curtain call.
Softly, his lips closed over hers. She didn't respond, didn't even move, and he sensed it. He pulled away, puzzlement in his face, and then, something she didn't think could possibly emerge from those cold green depths.
Remorse.
He held her eyes, waiting, counting the minutes. It seemed that he could have stared at her forever, expectant, waiting. What he wanted from her, she didn't know. Her eyes narrowed a bit, her rage starting to flicker again.
To her surprise, the corner of his mouth quirked into a grin. "There she is," he murmured. "I was wondering where you'd gotten to." He shuffled in his pockets, then brought something out in his fist. He took her hand in his free one, then enclosed it in both of his, and she felt the rough caress of the bills in her palm. "I owed you three hundred more, plus an extra hundred, think of it as hazard pay."
She raised an eyebrow. Her fingers had closed around the money only because Vincent had made them, and she wanted to let go of it, wanted to throw it at him, to do anything, but not to take it, hell no, it felt dirty and wrong to even have it in her hand. Her lips parted to speak, but Vincent kissed her again, and this time, she had no choice but to accept it.
It was a strange thing, what happened. His mouth pressed against hers, his hot breath flowing into her mouth, the taste of him, the touch of his tongue against hers, so humbly requesting entrance, the feel of him so hopeful, so hesitant. She wanted to pull away, even felt her body weight start to shift back as reflex tried to put space between them, tried to reject what was happening.
It was like holding a block of ice to the side of a hot stove. The ice started to melt, against its will. Unable to withstand the strain, her mouth twisted to join with his, just to relieve the pressure. He took full advantage, pulling her closer and closer until she was sure she could feel every part of him, that he was touching every part of her at once.
Then, slowly, he pulled away. She felt a terrible betrayal when the sensation of a blush crept into her cheeks, and her hands, with a will of their own, still clung to him, reluctant. When had they ever grasped at him? She didn't know, didn't care. She yanked them away as soon as she noticed them, but it was too late.
He was smiling at her. Smiling in such a strange way, a way she had not seen that evening. It was so strange that he was going to leave now, and it really was going to be over.
He stepped away, reached into his pocket for his boarding pass, and took the half-dozen steps to the security guard to hand it to her. He tossed Callie one last look over his shoulder, went through the checkpoint, and disappeared into the crowd.
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Epilogue"This is impossible. She shouldn't be alive."
The monitor just slowly beep, beep, beeped. The patient in the bed was not out of danger, not by a long shot, but that heart just kept beating, and as long as it kept beating, there was life. It didn't show any inclination to stop.
Ray stood outside the intensive care unit, looking through the fiberglass window at the prone figure of Annie Farrell. Letting out a deep, stress-filled sigh, he turned and walked toward the waiting room area.
He hadn't been quite sure what he'd expected when he'd picked Callie up from the airport a little less than an hour ago. She'd called from a payphone, and she sounded so hollow, so distant, that he almost didn't recognize her voice. She'd also been remarkably serene about everything, level-headed and calm as she told him what had happened on the subway (although the rest of the details of the story he hadn't heard yet, and somehow doubted he wanted to). He'd gotten the paramedics to roughly the right place at the right time, and what they'd found was amazing.
Callie still didn't look right. She was so terribly pale, her hair was flush against her skull, in bad need of a good washing. Whenever Callie stressed, it seemed to go right to her hair, a trait she had never been happy with. Her voice was strained, her eyes were bloodshot, and her lips
Her lips were bruised.
"I can't believe he missed," she whispered to him as he sat down beside her.
Ray shook his head. "I saw the other bodies, Callie. This guy doesn't miss."
She wouldn't look at him. Her eyes were turned away, down, toward the tile floor. Her eyes seemed to be tracing the lines there, over and over, trying to find a pattern.
The doctor came out, still in his scrubs but with the mask and gloves disposed, a clipboard in his hand. He was shaking his head.
"I've seen a lot of things," he said, "but this one is for the history books."
Ray stood up, even though he had just sat down. He felt like a Jack-In-The-Box. "So what's the story?"
The doctor, his name was Lemming, met him straight in the eyes. "That woman had two bullets in her chest and one in her head. That kind of grouping didn't leave any room for doubt." The sharp eyes slid to Callie, but wisely didn't address her. "Something must have gone wrong, or it's a miracle, plain and simple."
"So she's going to make it?"
"If she makes it to noon, I'll be more confident," the man said. "The bullet in her brain missed the apex. It went to the right, toward the soft tissue. She'll need a lot of physical therapy and I doubt she'll ever practice law again, especially considering the two bullets in her chest are responsible for the lack of blood to the brain, which was where the real damage was done. Yet they also veered to the right, missing the major arteries, hitting her lung and the other passing through, tearing a nice hole in its own right but nothing we weren't able to repair and that time won't heal."
Ray looked down at Callie, and was startled to find her looking up at them, her eyes wide, haunted.
"This is impossible," Ray murmured, almost against his will.
Callie looked away again, her head shaking slightly. "Did he know?" she whispered.
The doctor was watching them both curiously, Ray noticed, and so he decided to remove the audience. "Thank you, doctor," he said with an air of finality as he sat down beside his sister. The man got the message and moved on, busy enough with his night.
"You don't know?" Ray asked. "You don't think it was deliberate?"
"Why would it be deliberate?" Callie said, still not looking at him. "Why would he do that?"
"He might have been…distracted," Ray tried, treading lightly.
Callie shook her head, her expression turning fierce. "No, he wasn't distracted."
"Look, Cal," Ray said gently, putting an arm delicately around her frame, "a professional like that, I mean…you don't make a mistake like that, it just isn't possible. The only way he could have done that was if it was on purpose. Like the only way a genius could possibly fail a test was if they knew all the right answers and deliberately picked the wrong ones."
The fierce expression didn't leave. "That doesn't make any sense, Ray. You don't…I mean, this guy…" She struggled for words, growing frustrated.
"Shh, Cal, it's okay, you don't have to talk about it yet," Ray said. "You've been through a lot. I want to get you somewhere safe. Why don't we go to Dad's?"
"Oh, God," Callie moaned, slapping her hand against her forehead. "Oh, God, Ray, don't tell Dad about this. He will totally freak out!"
Ray frowned. "Well, yeah, but –"
"No, no, I mean…" she finally looked up at him. "I had to take him to Dad's house. Before. Remember?"
Ray turned pale. "That man was in Dad's house?"
"It's your fault, you made me go," she muttered. Ray was almost relieved to find that that comment had a tone that sounded faintly normal.
"I knew you'd figure out a way to blame all of this on me," Ray said, taking her hand and pulling her upright. "Come on, we're going. You can tell me whatever you want, whenever you want. I'm just…" He pulled her closer to him, wrapping his arm tightly about her shoulder. "I'm just glad you're safe."
Callie nodded. Ray did not realize that the closeness between them, the tightness of his grip, which had always been comforting and familiar in the past, suddenly brought on new memories. And it was just as well that she didn't tell him.
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Vincent settled himself into his chair. First class all the way, he hated coach, it meant being smashed into a tiny place like a bunch of canned sausages. He liked the room in first class, he liked the food, he liked the quiet, and he also liked flirting with the stewardesses.
He sighed deeply as he turned away from the one who had been waiting on him, disinterested. He was right, he should never have gotten into Callie's cab. It had been a mistake, he'd known it from minute one, and yet he'd done it anyway.
Stupid. That was all it was.
He also knew that he was damn lucky to be alive after the evening's chaotic events. That didn't really bother him, though. There really wasn't a good reason to live or to die, not for him, and the only thing that made it all bearable was the jazz, the improvisation, the rhythm and the lack of reason. But, after all, the past was the past, the future lay ahead of him, and he was on his way home, as far away from the stinking sinkhole of L.A. as he could be.
Yet…somehow…he knew that from now on, he would think of L.A. a bit more fondly, because of that one little star. The one who would probably never quite be able to shake off the feeling of his kiss. It was amazing how he could still so soundly believe that he was lost in space, and yet he had managed to crash into the singular body in the world that could affect him so uniquely.
Life never made much sense to him anyway. And he wasn't even going to use the word love in the context of himself. He shrugged it off, sliding the headphones back on, letting himself get lost in a sea of jazz, and trying not to think about that dance he'd shared with her, to the slow, seductive rhythm of a saxophone, in a jazz club he would probably never visit again.
Sometimes it was just too bad. And sometimes it wasn't bad at all.
