Earlier this year I read an interview with JE, where she seemed pretty happy to get rid of the number centered book naming thing. It made me wonder about coming up with 27 number themed titles, and then pairing up story ideas with them. In the end, I came up with 31 story ideas (more, if you count the multiple ideas for several of the numbers), and The Number Series was born. Some stories are longer one-shots, some are short, and some developed into multi-chapter offerings. All have the title somewhere in the story. I have no set posting schedule for them.

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All recognizable characters belong to Janet Evanovich, I'm just playing.

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A/N: tissue warning for implied character death.

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Fourteen Steps

Chapter 1

LPOV

Pausing at the door to the second floor, I take a minute to center myself. I know why I'm the one here, but it feels a lot like drawing the short straw. I'm definitely stalling when I check my watch…again. The time doesn't really matter. Not anymore.

The sound of me opening the stairwell door is loud in the uncharacteristically quiet building. Steph's neighbors are mainly elderly and retired; a visit to her apartment is usually punctuated with a soundtrack of the TVs turned up loud enough to know exactly what's being watched in every apartment. Instead of the usual annoying canned laugh track or the droning of the nightly news, there's just an eerie silence permeating the hallway. Looking down towards Steph's door, I absently wonder where everyone is.

I'm still stalling. It's fourteen steps to her door. More for her, with her shorter legs, but I've made the trip enough times that I don't even have to count anymore. It's fourteen steps that I don't want to take, fourteen steps that will change everything.

Standing frozen in place in the open doorway, the stairwell door feels heavy against me. I remember all the times we've been here, all the times I've been here. Every time Steph has hit her panic button or placed a 911 call, teams of us were dispatched here to her crappy little apartment at St. James and Dunworthy. We never knew what to expect, what we would find; we just followed protocol and hoped for the best when we arrived.

Some of those trips slide through my mind like a flip book on steroids but one stands out. Fucking Scrog, that shitbag. Ranger knew he was likely walking into his death, and he did it with his eyes wide open. Steph and Julie were getting out of there alive, no matter what. There were seven of us in the hallway outside her apartment that night, me the furthest away over here by the stairwell door. That was the night I counted my steps, anything to stay calm after we heard the gunshots.

Morelli wasn't first in the door, but he was right behind another Trenton detective and the FBI. Tank muscled his way into fourth place. By the time I made those fourteen steps to the doorway, the scene was chaos. We heard eight shots and it looked like most of them went into Ranger; we later found out that he took four to the chest, one in the shoulder and one sliced his neck. All that blood. Jesus. Steph, struggling to breath, was being released from the chair by Morelli. That meant that it was likely little Julie that fired at least one shot that tagged Scrogg in the torso. Ranger absolutely hated knowing she had to live with that.

My phone beeps with a message to call in to Tank, but I ignore it, still trying to psyche myself up to walk down the hall and knock. There were times that I was on Bomber duty and resented it; she never took her own safety seriously, so it fell to whoever Ranger assigned to her when she had a new threat. How I wished this was sentry duty.

Finally conceding that I can't escape the inevitable by standing still, I take the first step forward and let the stairwell door close behind me. With a deep breath and a prayer, I watch my own foot move forward on the threadbare carpet that had seen better days.

Two steps.

Beautiful called it quits with the cop several months ago. No blow up or public fight, just a quiet end. Didn't matter the reason why or the way it was done, we were all just happy as fuck.

Three steps.

We weren't happy that she was sad, we were happy that now maybe my cousin would see what was right in front of his face. We hoped both of them would see what we've seen for years.

Four steps.

We've watched them do the flirty banter thing ever since he brought her to the office. That button to kill the camera feed has certainly gotten a workout when she's in the building.

Five steps.

We wondered how long it would take him to make his move. Because honestly? If he didn't, he was going to find himself with some competition from guys who were eager to show her that we weren't all emotionally stunted. We planned to give him a week to get his shit together.

Six steps.

Tank won the pool on that one. Thirty-six hours. Ranger gave it thirty-six hours before he was at her door. My bet was two hours; I should have factored in that my cousin has always had more restraint that me. He admitted that he took a little extra time to think things through; he didn't want another Orin situation where he had to scramble to save her because someone from his past targeted her. Which, let's be honest, makes no sense. First off, her pulled her in to help him with Orin, and second, the woman attracts her own set of stalkers. And shit, killer clowns. Fucking clowns.

Seven steps.

I think, in the beginning, they fooled themselves into thinking they were just fooling around and having fun. Not much different than what happened when she and the cop were doing their usual separations. I think we all thought that at first, that he would keep things light.

Eight steps.

I mean, I know how my cousin feels about her. No way he does the things for her he does, or takes the risks he does, just for a piece of ass. If things went sideways, he faced serious charges for that stunt he pulled with the county records lady when the funeral home dude had her. And that's even before you look at that Abruzzi freak. No, my dipshit cousin was in love with her, but stood back and let her go home to someone else.

Nine steps.

I get it. We've seen things, done things, that stain our soul; things that make us bad bets for boyfriends, husbands, and fathers. That's not to say that some of us haven't tried, but when you're the best of the best, a leader, you carry an extra burden that can be harder to fight. Ranger may have wanted Stephanie Plum, but he half-heartedly fought it until half her heart wasn't enough.

Ten steps.

Plum's a fighter, that's for sure. The job she threw herself into would have sunk anyone else. But she gets up, dusts herself off and says "next!" You've got to admire a woman like that. Once my cousin's heart was involved, he was screwed. You don't walk away from a woman that looks at you like she looks at him. But somehow, he did, time after time, until he'd run out of reasons.

Eleven steps.

They've been loosely together now for about two months. Not long in the grand scheme of things, but long enough for both of them to see that neither of them was going anywhere.

Twelve steps.

The changes in both of them have been both subtle and noticeable. Beautiful takes herself more seriously now after realizing that what she does affects other people. Captures have been a little more organized, a little less messy on average. Ranger is a little more open, a little less rigid. He's not taking her up against the wall in the control room or anything, but he's not hiding his affection for her anymore, either. Both are good things. Really good things.

Thirteen steps.

They have plans for tonight; dinner and dancing, I think. I'd give him hell for it, if I wasn't so damn jealous of him getting to have a woman like Steph in his arms. He should be here to knock on her door and hand her the flowers he stopped to pick up for her. This is so fucking messed up, but I drew the fucking short straw and have to be here.

Fourteen steps.

It's not the first time I've done a notification, but none of them have made me want to turn tail and run. Her door is currently red, the new paint job coming after a stalker smeared shit all over it. She's still Steph, still going to draw the oddballs to her like a moth to a flame. I wish that's why I was here now; I wish that the last fourteen steps had been the normal ones and not the ones that will break her.

Bracing for whatever may come next, the sound of the stairwell door opening mixes with the sound of my knocking. Steph has her door open almost immediately, laughing as she says, "You're late! I was starting to think you forgot about...Les?"

My voice is breaking right along with my heart. "I'm sorry, Steph. I'm so fucking sorry."

Her eyes roll back in her head, and I barely catch her before she falls.