"Seriously, I realize this isn't the best time...but does this just feel completely surreal to you too?" Sam's question broke the silence the two women had fallen into.
"I..." Carly had a snipe ready...but strangely the need and the desire to utilize it just wasn't there. "Y-yeah. Surreal...I'm just...it's strange how calm I feel."
"That's because we're on the right path. We're gonna take care of things, Carly."
Carly looked up at Sam and… To tell the truth, had absolutely no idea of what to say to that. She was of two minds on the subject. Regular, every day Carly wanted to say something smartass about stating the obvious or that they were on the right path, of course, because she'd come up with the idea. New, desperate Carly, however, wanted to thank her for helping and that she was glad that she wasn't there alone. Carly felt like Two-Face in that Batman movie. She wished she had a special coin to flip that would tell her exactly which side to go with. Not having that coin meant that she was just stuck in the middle, wavering back and forth between flippant and sincere.
Sam sensed Carly's tension, and it wasn't just because she was one perceptive former scavenger. Sam held her own tension and apprehension where Carly were concerned. While she completely understood that they were both desperate and had quite a bit in common, it was very hard to get over the mutual hatred that they'd had for so long. They just didn't like one another, plain and simple. If they managed to come out of this situation… not friends exactly, but at least not enemies, well… It would really prove that dire circumstances made for strange bonds.
"There he is." Both women were shaken out of their ruminations as Royal walked slowly into his apartment. Carly thought that he seemed… sneaky. As though he wanted to be sure that nobody saw him. "Now, why in the hell would he be looking like he's trying to make a getaway?"
"Because he's guilty as hell." Sam's eyes narrowed. She flexed her hands, then cracked her knuckles. The sound was muffled by her black leather gloves. The wind blew hard and her hair came crashing against her face. She shoved it back, then put her hand in her pocket. This was dirty work, and loose hair wasn't going to work for it. As she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, she said, "Alright, we go in there and we make him tell us what he knows."
"And if we ask nicely and he doesn't talk?" Carly's hair was already tied back and she yanked on the ends of her ponytail. "Are you sure you're up for what I'm willing to do to him?"
"He stole a little girl and framed me for it." Sam stood up and dusted the snow from her knees. "Royal deserves everything that he gets. And, who knows. I just might give it to him whether he tells us or not."
"They're going to get arrested. For all of Carly's talk that she can depend on you, in the end, can she really? You just let her go off without even a word?"
"I tried to stop them."
"You didn't try hard enough. Dammit, Morgan! Are you really in this to help Sam and Carly? Or are you just doing this as part of some kind of duplicitous scheme concocted by Corinthos? You sent them straight into his arms!"
Jason looked at Lorenzo and glowered. He could have strangled Carly for leaving him to handle this mess… Or at least gave her a very disapproving glare. Of course, Carly always left Jason to clean up her messes. He just didn't like it when cleaning it up involved explaining his actions. He didn't believe that he needed to explain anything to anyone. As long as he understood why he'd done the things that he'd done, then he didn't care. Unfortunately, Lorenzo Alcazar wasn't going to take that as an answer.
"You know what I don't need right now?" Jason groaned then grunted as he pushed himself up on the bed. He would have preferred to be standing for this argument, but he'd already ripped out some of his stitches trying to talk Carly and Sam out of their little mission. He didn't like Alcazar standing over him while he spoke, didn't trust it, but unless he wanted to end up in a hospital somewhere, he had to lie down. "I don't need you making matters worse. I have enough problems of my own to deal with where Sonny is concerned without you throwing accusations at me."
"Then tell me why I shouldn't think that you have something to do with this? Tell me why I shouldn't toss your ass overboard and worry about explaining it to Carly later."
"Well, for one…" Jason gritted his teeth against the pain as he reached under his pillow. He came out with a shining, silver 9mm. "We'd both end up dead. Your guards would come running but not before I put one in your head."
Jason's arm wavered and the time it took him to straighten his arm was long enough for Lorenzo to pull a piece of his own. Lorenzo's gun was black and sleek, and it nestled easily in his palm. "Then there won't be a need for explanation, because we'll both be dead."
"Exactly." Jason sighed and slowly let his arm fall to the bed. He wasn't aiming now, so much as pointing in Lorenzo's general direction. He knew that neither of them was going to do anything, but neither would they verbally back down. "I let them go because they were right. They both need to do this. They need to be strong on their own without us saving them. Sam and Carly… They know how to take care of themselves."
"Carly's been beaten down too much to stand up to Corinthos." Lorenzo folded his arms, but kept the gun pointed in Jason's direction. He didn't want to shoot him if he didn't have to. Carly had lost enough in the past twenty-four hours. However, he wasn't ready to put his gun away just yet. "They're both too emotionally involved to handle this."
"Do you really know Carly at all, Alcazar? Do you know what she does when she really gets emotionally involved? This is the woman that shot a man in open court for kidnapping Michael, all because she knew she'd spent a little time playing crazy in Shadybrooke, then be back home. Carly knows how to handle herself."
"And Sam? Are you prepared to let the woman you love stand out there alone?"
"She's not alone. She has Carly." He shook his head. That sounded strange. From the look on Alcazar's face, it sounded just as strange to him. "I'd rather they both had me at their backs, but I've done all that I can for them, and so have you. I've got a bullet in me, and you're their information. They'll call us when they need us. And by then, bullet or not, I'm getting off this yacht and going in."
"And Corinthos? What if he gets ahold of them?"
Jason stared at him, his breathing slow and even. "They say history is doomed to repeat itself. In my case, if Sonny hurts Sam or Carly…" He shook his head. "If he hurts either of them anymore than he already has, then it will just repeat itself."
"And what does that mean?"
"It means, Alcazar, that you've had one life and lost one brother. I'm on my second life, and I'll be left to lose my second brother."
"Now, we're going to ask you one more time." Sam knelt in front of Royal, her hands resting on his knees. "Who are you working for and where is Kristina?"
Royal looked at her with defiant eyes. He looked pat her to Carly and a grin spread across his face. He didn't think either of them would do anything. They were too small, too demure. He'd watched both women bow before the will of Sonny Corinthos too many times for him to believe that either of them had what it took to get information out of him.
"You might as well start running, now, because as soon as you're gone, I'll be on the phone to Mr. Corinthos. He'll have you both in jail in seconds. That is, if you don't end up in the hospital, first."
Carly caught herself before the shudder passed all the way through her. She didn't doubt that, should he find out where they were, Sonny would come in and let his anger rage on. She'd seen enough of it for a lifetime in the past day and had no desire to see it again. But, she wasn't about to let Royal see that she was afraid.
"And what'll you tell him, huh?" Carly folded her arms and pursed her lips. "What'll you tell him about why we're here? About why you were sneaking around and packing like you're headed out of the country?"
"I'll be unpacked by the time he gets here. It'll be like there's nothing wrong. And as for why you're here…" He shrugged as best he could with his arms strapped to a chair. "I'm sure I'll come up with something."
Sam glared at him, then pushed herself up to her feet. This man was scum. He had no conscience whatsoever. He was helping someone, a person who, for all they knew, could have been ready to kill Kristina at any second. Sam spat at him and the spittle caught on his cheek, then dripped thickly down to his shirt. She turned to Carly and said, "Go for it."
Carly stepped up and was surprised that she didn't have to prepare herself more. She didn't need to find her fortitude in the bottom of a bottle. She didn't need to think of how to get out of it before she did anything. The last time she'd even come closely to doing something like this was when she shot Tony Jones in open court. And that hadn't even been physical contact. That was distance between the two of them, with a handgun crossing the gap.
But Royal knew where Kristina was. Royal knew how to end all of this mess so she could get her children back. Royal probably even had an idea where Sonny was keeping the boys, and he wouldn't tell her. That was all the steel she needed in her spine.
Carly took her wedding rings from her left hand and put them on her right. She balled her fist tightly and swung. She collided with Royal's cheek, her rings striking and tearing his flesh at his cheekbone. Her knuckles stung, but she was able to forget about it when she saw the blood on his face. He didn't give her any reason to believe that it had hurt him, and she knew that it probably wouldn't have if she hadn't been wearing the rings. But split skin hurt anyone, even if the only proof was water instantly welling in his eyes.
A click behind her made Carly turn. Her face was calm as she stepped to the side, letting Sam step forward. The petite brunette lifted her leg and rested her foot against Royal's knees. She leaned forward and aimed the small gun at him. "Something you should always know about Jason, Royal, is that he never goes anywhere without a backup. Where he is now, he won't need it, but I just might."
"You're not gonna shoot me." Royal tried to keep his voice even, but the waver was audible. A woman hitting him was one thing. A pissed off woman pointing a gun at him was something entirely different. "You fire that thing once and there'll be cops all over this place."
"Oh, really?" Sam reached back with one hand and Carly placed a small, cylindrical object in her hand. She stared at Royal as she screwed the silencer onto the gun's barrel. "Now, what is it you were saying?"
"Lorenzo has so many of those around." Carly stepped forward, her right hand still covered with Royal's blood. Clenched within the palm of that hand was a small gun of her own, complete with silencer. "And he has so many of these, too."
"Now," Sam said, stepping back from him, "before we have to do something more drastic we'll give you one more chance to tell us where Kristina is and who you're working with."
"And where Sonny's keeping my boys."
Royal made the mistake that was going to cost him a lot of information. Carly fired into his right knee. Sam fired into his left. The bullets left the guns in soft pops. A scream left Royal's mouth in agony. Sam quickly stuffed one of her gloves in his mouth, then stepped back to stand beside Carly.
"We'll get what we want out of you one way or another," Carly told him stiffly. "It just looks like it's going to be the way that causes you a whole hell of a lot of pain."
