Jadie
Disclaimer: Not mine, but I'm putting them on my holiday wish list…
WARNING: Swearing
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CHAPTER 16: Praying—"… and still, he ran…"
David walked into the hospital; the dull sound of his shoes on the tiles was obnoxious to him as he moved towards the front desk. He'd been to several hospitals already and this was one of the last few. David had almost given up all hope of finding Don in a hospital, thinking that it was more likely that he should be preparing a body bag, maybe even two; one for the witness, and one for Don.
David approached the red-haired nurse at the desk—she was wearing green scrubs and looked like she would have much rather been somewhere else.
"Hello," David forced a smile as he flashed his badge, and pulled out a photo of Don, "Have you seen this man?" The nurse studied it with a nonchalant glance and David felt like he wanted to punch her, however her next words stopped any anger he might have had.
"Oh, sure" She snapped her gum, "He came it a couple minutes ago with a kid—we put 'em in separate rooms 'cause he had more serious injuries. Last I heard though he was ranting about something, giving the doctors a rough time."
"And what room was this man put in," David spoke, his voice strained.
"Umm, humm…" the nurse clicked a couple keys with her gaudy pink stick-on fingernails on a nearby computer, all the while David's mind was screaming and all he wanted to do was jump the desk and throttle the life out of the woman. "Oh, here it is," she snapped her gum again, "Room 37, it's just down the hall there." She leaned forward and pointed, and David took off half shouting, "Thank You!" as he went.
The white washed hallway glared at David and every part of him was screeching faster, faster. He jogged the last distance to the room as he heard a familiar voice.
"Don!" David rounded the corner into the room, straight into a very interesting scene. There Don stood; one hand over a bloody gunshot wound on the side of his chest, looking pale and not so steady on his feet; and across from him stood three nurses and a doctor. Blood was all over Don's clothes and hands; there was even some smeared on his brow where it looked like he had wiped away perspiration only to replace it with his blood.
At the sound of his name Don turned his head towards the door, and with missing a beat, spoke with a hoarse voice.
"Hey David, these bastards won't listen to me—maybe you can help me out here—apparently since I've lost a lot of blood I'm not thinking straight."
"Don," David said with concern and no small degree of incredulity, "you've been shot—you need to let the doctor do his job!" David walked over towards Don, reaching out to support him with a hand, which Don abruptly smacked away, stunning David.
"You don't get it," Don's eyes were clear despite the fact he looked like hell warmed over, "I think that psychotic bitch followed us in here…" David immediately went into full alert, drawing his gun and looking directly at Don. Just then the doctor decided that he needed to speak up.
"Listen gentlemen, I don't know what's going on here but I'm sure hospital security can handle whoever…"
"Sir," David interrupted him, pulling out his badge, "This man and I are FBI agents and there is a good chance that a highly dangerous serial killer is in the hospital…"
The nurses all gasped and the doctor paled slightly, his mouth gaping like a fish.
"This is why I need to keep the girl nearby…" Don spoke intently, and David gave him a questioning look.
"When I got in here, I thought that the killer might have been following me, but I guess I looked worse than I thought—they snagged up Jadie and moved her to another room as they pulled me down the hallway, yelling for a gurney before I started to raise hell—I…I…don't think I was thinking very clearly I just kept trying to tell them that it was important the girl stay with me…" Don trailed off helplessly. David just nodded, then remembering something, he pulled Don's now reloaded pistol from the back of his belt and handed it to Don.
"Just in case." Don looked grateful at David's consideration.
Meanwhile, the doctor had called hospital security, the local police and was trying to reach the FBI headquarters. David turned to ask Don what room Jadie was in, when suddenly a shrill scream filled the air. David took one glance at Don and knew that it was Jadie by the stricken panic that passed over Don's face.
David raced towards the door, and the only one out of the door faster than him, was Don.
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Don ran as fast as he could, his lungs screaming at him for air as his ragged gasps blared in his ears; pain was lancing out from his wound and his whole body ached from blood loss. And still, he ran—praying all the while that this would be different—that this would be his redemption, his redemption from the nightmare that plagued him night after night.
Please God, Don prayed, don't let me be too late.
Don rounded the corner and slid to a halt, hearing David yelling behind him 'FBI!' and he raised his weapon. There, their serial killer—The Sadist—was standing in the hallway holding Jadie up against her by her neck. Jadie was facing then, her expression completely blank, focusing completely on getting the precious little air that she was allowed from the monstrosity that held her hostage.
"Put the girl down!" Don yelled, aiming his weapon. David was speaking—protocol hostage negotiation, no doubt—but as Don looked directly into the ice blue, unflinching and unfeeling eyes of the killer, Don knew that it was between him and her. Don studied her, this psycho that preyed on children. She wore a gray turtleneck shirt; the shoulder of it was torn and drenched in blood where Don had shot her earlier. She also had on tan pants, similar to the breeches that some horse-riders wore; and finally meticulously shined black boots that came up to her knees. Her face sent chills down Don's spine, Her face was an alabaster white, unhealthily pale, her stringy blond hair coming down in her face down to just below her chin making her look incredibly animal-like. Her blue eyes were rabid, freezing blue. They were not the eyes of a sane person.
"Oh," The woman spoke in a cold flippant voice, "Has the little toy's guard dog decided that he wants to play?" She giggled, an unnatural sound, and Don winced.
"Put…the…girl…down…"Don annunciated each word, his vision blurring from fatigue and he prayed that he was holding the gun steady.
"He's got his hackles up doesn't he?" The blond woman murmured into Jadie's ear, seemingly oblivious to the tears that were running down her face. Slowly, the killer raised he other hand and with one of her pointed fingernails, she scratched Jadie along the jaw and smiled maliciously at Don's horrified expression as she licked the blood from her daughter's jaw line.
Suddenly she dropped Jadie to the floor, and before Don knew what was happening, she tackled him to the floor. Don tried to push her weight off of him, but was too weak to do so. He heard David yelling and vaguely realized he was trying to pull the woman off of him, but to no avail. Don could feel her sticky warm breath on his face and he felt like he was being suffocated by the stagnant smell. She was like a feral animal, attacking her prey. Don felt as her hand found his wounds and Don heard himself screaming as she dug her finger into the bullet wound, giggling.
Suddenly the weight of the killer's body was off of Don. He dragged himself over to the wall, only vaguely realizing that David and hospital security had restrained the screaming psychotic killer.
As Don's the edges of Don's vision began to turn black, he felt a small body curl up next to him. Realizing it was Jadie, Don cradled his arm around her and began to murmur reassurances.
" 's ok, you're safe." Don mumbled over and over until he heard the child's sobbing cease.
Then, Don's vision momentarily cleared before everything went black.
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A/N: Ok sorry I meant to have this posted earlier today, but I had some things to go take care of. Ah, well—its getting down to it now—one more chapter plus a short epilogue, oh and I'm also going to tack on a little voting thing at the end. I have three ideas for my next fic—I'll let you guys decide what it'll be :-) Anyway R&R