Chapter Twenty Four: Resistance

Nicole sat in her new home quietly staring at the wall. She felt Dawn continue to watch her from the other side of the room as the woman pretended to keep herself busy. Nicole knew she was worried. It was nearing the time for the other kids to come home from school and Nicole wanted to run away. She hadn't found the courage to ask Dawn for the phone and thought that the woman might freak if she just picked up and started dialing.

Besides she could make it twenty four hours before she broke down and called him…right? She felt a burn that she couldn't make go away, a hole that only seemed to grow large with each passing second. The door opened and her three 'siblings' came in laughing and shoving each other. Nicole sighed and turned away from them. Mandy came in and tossed her book bag into the corner of the room and looked around, spotting Nicole on the couch.

Derrick and Ricky were already gone from sight as Mandy sat down next to Nicole. She was quiet at first waiting, and Nicole grew agitated by her staring. She turned her head slowly and rested cool calculated eyes on the other girl. She saw Mandy flinch a little as her gaze cut into the other girl. Nicole felt a small smile cross her lips briefly before disappearing again.

"Mandy, Nicole will be in your class starting tomorrow," Dawn said cheerfully as if that would make Nicole feel so much better. Mandy smiled but Nicole turned away from her once again.

"Cool. I'll show you around tomorrow then," Mandy said with a smile. Nicole shrugged before getting up and walking away. She could feel the frown as it crossed over Dawn's face but ignored the woman as she headed upstairs to her new room. She could hear Mandy behind her following her making the effort to be friends. Nicole knew she only meant well but for some reason she felt like resisting these people. When she reached her room she tossed the door shut behind her, knowing full well Mandy was only two steps back.

The other girl caught the door and slowly came in the room taking up a spot on her own bed. Nicole flopped onto her back and sighed audibly as she picked at the frills of the comforter that was spread over the top of her bed. Mandy worked up the courage to speak one more time.

"You don't like it here do you?" she asked as if she had failed. Nicole pushed herself up on her elbows and looked over at Mandy thinking about her statement.

"It's not that I don't like you or this house, it's just that I'm not used to living with a…large family," she said half heartedly hoping it would satisfy the other girl in the room. Mandy studied her a moment contemplating what she had said. She didn't buy it.

"I think it's more," Mandy said cocking her head to the side. Nicole dropped down onto her back again and shook her head closing her eyes.

"Maybe," she said.

"They said you saw what happened to your mom," Mandy said in a whisper. "Is that what you have nightmares about?"

Nicole sat up again and crossed her legs in front of her. She didn't want to talk about this with this strange girl. She didn't want to think about it; just the mentioning of it had flooded her mind with images that scared her. She closed her eyes and held her breath to clear her thoughts before opening them up and looking at Mandy. It was then that she decided to scare the girl.

"Yeah, I saw it," she said in a cold hard voice, her eyes growing dark with anger. "I watched as a man stabbed my mom. He yelled at her then he stabbed her and there was blood everywhere. I ran. And yeah it gives me nightmares. I dream of a man without a face. Imagine he's chasing you in a darkness you've never experienced, a cold you can't imagine, through splashes of red, your own mother's blood. He's coming for you with that same knife, chasing you. You can't run because you can't see. You have no clue where he is, what his plans are, or where he'll get you. So you run, because you're so scared but you feel guilty, because you couldn't stop him."

Nicole watched as Mandy's eyes grew larger and larger, relishing in the fact that the girl was scared. It was then that she realized what she was doing and regretted it. She didn't want to take it out on this girl, she didn't mean to harm her, but it had felt good to scare someone else for a change. She looked down at the bedspread for a moment before eyeing the girl across the room one more time.

"I'm sorry," Nicole said softly, shaking her head. "I didn't mean…"

"No sweat," Mandy said with a weak smile and slid off her bed. She left the room and Nicole groaned aloud. She was not going to adjust well to having other kids around. She hated sharing a room already. She then heard the boys thunder past her door squealing at each other and pulled the pillow down over her head. She yelled into her pillow muffling most of it but she knew some of it escaped. She jumped slightly when she felt the bed give way to weight. She peeked up from under the pillow and saw Dawn sitting next to her.

"Everything ok?" Dawn asked. Nicole groaned internally thinking what a stupid question lady. But she was so sincere about it Nicole knew she couldn't be smart with her. She pulled the pillow back in place and shook her head. "Want to talk about it? You scared Mandy pretty good."

"I didn't mean too," she replied through the pillow. Dawn had to strain to hear her.

"I know you didn't. We just want to help, we understand you're used to smaller," Dawn said compassionately. Nicole pulled the pillow off her head and stared up at her new guardian with tear filled eyes. She slowly nodded her acknowledgement knowing that it was probably hard for them to take her in.

"I didn't want to leave," she said as the tears fell. Dawn didn't understand what she meant and Nicole could tell by the look on her face. "Agent Gibbs."

"I know this whole ordeal has been hard on you. Losing your mother, and then having to come live with a family of five isn't easy."

Nicole wanted to say 'no crap lady' but she bit her tongue. After all she was just trying to help. Instead she nodded and rolled onto her side away from the woman trying to console her. Nicole was done talking, she wanted to be alone now, but didn't know if these people would understand that.

Dawn finally gave up and left the room, the silence calming for Nicole. She stayed there until she was called down for dinner. She sat quietly at the table the entire meal, not joining in the conversation, unless something was said specifically to her. She could feel, and knew the others did too, the drain she put on the atmosphere.

After dinner Nicole once again retreated to her room. Mandy joined her a couple hours later and told her they were supposed to go to sleep since they had school in the morning. Nicole nodded but knew she most likely wouldn't sleep tonight. The man was waiting for her and she couldn't bring herself to join him. Mandy turned the lights off and was soon fast asleep on the other side of the room. Nicole lay awake staring at the shadows on the ceilings dancing and swaying with the outside world wondering what she did to deserve a life like this, who she wronged to be punished so harshly.

He sat in the shadows and waited. He hated having to wait outside, not used to it since his days as a Seal. He had to bid his time though; one wrong move now could destroy everything he worked so hard for. He watched the family through the windows, tracking their movements through the house, committing to memory what he could see.

He wished he could see a floor plan, or pictures of the inside to know precisely where everything stood, and what door led to where, but he knew that was out of the question. So was calling in men to help him, this was going to be a one man job. The hours seemed to creep by for him after the other children came home from school.

He remembered he used to be able to sit perfectly still for hours, even days if necessary in his youth, but the older he got the stiffer his muscles and joints got. Time would be against him as he waited but he was certain he would be able to move stealthily through the house and extract the girl with little to no problem or noise.

It was a matter of timing, precision, and skill. His body may have been softening as he aged but his mind and skill was still the same. He still possessed the speed and cunning to make this mission a success. Besides, too much rode on him capturing this girl and knowing what she saw and heard that night. He was mad at himself for missing her in the first place. He had planned on taking her next but their argument in the living room must have drawn the girl's attention. He cleared his mind, this was not a time to dwell on mistakes, now was a time to plan a mission.

They had operated in silence for so long before that lawyer had accidentally stumbled onto their little side business. He had disciplined the ensign for getting into trouble his own way after it had drawn unwanted attention to his paperwork. He thought they had cleared the problem up but Commander Conrad had continued to snoop without his knowledge, after the case was closed.

His team had slipped and she had found the evidence to shut them down, so he shut her down. It had not gone as planned and now he sits watching a house in Washington DC stalking an eleven year that could potentially bring him down. They sat down to dinner and he settled in for the final hours of his wait. His mind floated to make the time go faster, but his senses were still trained on his surroundings, making sure he was not detected. The last thing he needed now was to be seen and have to wait until things settled down before he could make his move.

His mind reviewed his objectives for the night, and planned a variety of missions in his head. If there was one thing he learned being a Seal it was to have multiple plans, and be ready to improvise, because nothing went the way it was supposed to. The hours slipped by slowly drawing nearer to the time of attack. He felt his adrenaline starting to pump as his heart rate increased and he felt his muscles flex in anticipation.

He felt jazzed as his blood flow increased and he breathed in deeply. The lights in the house were going out one by one. Two rooms in the top floor had gone out earlier in the evening and he knew those were the rooms where the children would be sleeping. Now he saw as the bottom floor lights were turned off and soon the upstairs floor went dark. He checked his watch and noticed it was just after eleven. He would wait one more hour and make his way into the house after midnight, once he was sure they were sound asleep.

It was all coming together now, just one more step before everything would be back to normal. All he had to do was complete this one last mission and leave no trace, tie up the last loose end and make this nightmare come to an end. One little girl and he would be free of Lt. Commander Conrad and her snooping nose once and for all.

Nicole glanced at the clock and sighed. It was eleven o'clock and she was still scared to fall asleep. She had a feeling she was going to sleep through school tomorrow but she didn't care. Every time she closed her eyes she saw him standing in the darkness smiling. He had no face but she was sure he was smiling, she could feel it. She rolled over in her bed once again, tangling herself even more into the bedspread.

She looked over at Mandy and envied the girl that was sleeping so soundly in the next bed. It didn't seem fair to Nicole, and she had the urge to wake the other girl up simply because she was stuck awake. She decided against it, and instead tugged the covers from her body and tossed them to the side as she slid her feet to the floor. She walked slowly from the bed, so not to wake the other child, to the dresser, picking up the scrape of paper Gibbs had given her, and left the room quietly. She walked through the hall and down the stairs and grabbed the cordless phone from its base.

She thought about sitting on the couch but decided it was too open and she would be noticed immediately if one of the adults came out of their room. So she made her way quietly to the den in the back of the house and sat in the chair at the desk. She laid the paper in front of her and stared at the numbers debating whether she should call him this late or not, as she glanced at the clock it was just past midnight. Finally she broke down and dialed his cell number and waited as it rang.

TBC…