... I'm in trouble, aren't I?

Well it's here, and that's all that matters! And more good news, there's only one chapter left!

Much thanks goes to Storyspindler for being the world's best beta. We really knocked heads over this chapter. But it all turned out well in the end.

Enjoy!

CHAPTER III

Back when Charlie was in the hospital, Don could distinctly remember feeling like a rubber band, being pulled in a hundred different directions, lost in a vortex with neither time nor recollection. That horrible feeling now seized him again, his thoughts rushing through his neurons faster than he could comprehend them while reality crept on at an agonizing pace.

He could hear Megan talking to him from somewhere far and distant. He could not discern the words, just the low murmur over her voice in the back of his mind. At the forefront of his brain were images of his brother, of the terror he must have felt having to face a gun again … of the agony he never should have endured … of the end that never should have been …

Blurred thoughts suddenly coalesced into sharp lines as McHugh emerged, alone.

A conflagration surged through Don's limbs. Images of Charlie's fictitious demise burned themselves onto his retinas. The demon inside, for this entire standoff fighting for control, emerged violently as McHugh stepped from the house.

"You son of a ...!" More of a violent snarl than coherent words, it began softly, almost staid, then escalated into a growl nothing short of feral. He reached for the gun that was no longer there. It took several precious seconds for his fingers to realize they grasped at air, long enough for Edgerton to grasp Don around the waist and yank him backward just as the younger man's feet prepared to hit the ground running.

"Don, Don!" Edgerton sneered through clenched teeth. It was all he could do save wrestling the other man to the ground. "You've gotta keep it calm, Don. Charlie might still be in there."

"Dead," Don spat, managing to writhe halfway out of Edgerton's grasp. "McHugh!" His voice carried for miles. "Where is he!"

For several intense seconds McHugh gave no answer, no indication he had even heard the agent. Suddenly he pondered the gun in his hand. A sinister grim crossed his face and Don felt his heart sink.

"You sure do jump to conclusions," McHugh sneered. "Lucky for you, I'm a lousy shot."

Don released a breath he didn't know he had been holding. Without thinking, he took one step closer, drawing nearer to the presence he suddenly felt again.

McHugh tensed.

"McHugh," Don checked his step. His tone bordered on pleading. "Listen to me. Just let him go. All of your demands will be met. Just leave him be."

"No. I have no reason to trust you. It's very simple. Drop the case, he goes free. I'm being entirely reasonable."

McHugh stared at the agents for several seconds as if anticipating a response. Finding none, he raised his gun in a sinister gesture, stepped inside the door, and closed it without another word.

Don watched him disappear and sighed, defeated. " … So am I."

He stared at the barren door for several seconds. Clenching his eyes shut and balling his fists, he breathed a curse through his teeth, all he could do save drawing his own blood with his nails. He struggled back several paces to the SUV and buried his head in his arms, leaning heavily against the hot metallic surface.

A soft presence drew up beside him. Don turned an apprehensive eye on Megan through the crook of his arm.

"Don, what is wrong with you?"

He refused to look her in the face.

"I can understand that this is Charlie we're dealing with here, but you're being irrational, Don. This isn't like you."

He strained his neck haphazardly in the cabin's direction, stared for a moment, and snarled. "You wouldn't understand."

"Like hell I wouldn't, Don! You're not coping well with this situation at all. I want to help you. I want to help Charlie."

A long pause.

"… Do you know what death feels like, Megan?"

She sputtered, the question one she had never expected to hear escape from her partner's lips.

"I—what?"

"Charlie does."

"… Don?"

"It was … six months ago, at least. A sniper case. Charlie was at the scene … and … the sniper shot him. And I didn't—couldn't—do a damn thing about it, Megan! Not a damn thing!"

"But he's—"

"He was in a coma for … for days. He spent two weeks at the hospital—and the therapy. I know he tries to hide it, but—"

Don's sentence stumbled to a halt as Megan cut him short.

"You blamed yourself for what happened to Charlie then, and you're blaming yourself for what's happening now."

Though her face wavered as she tried to hide a shred of uncertainty, her tone embodied just the opposite.

"Don't you start it too," Don spat. "Everyone, from my old partner to my father told me the same thing. 'Don't blame yourself, Don. It's not your fault, Don.' Believe me, I've tried. I even thought I had it right for awhile. But now this happens and I realize that things haven't changed at all."

"Don, it's not—"

"It is my fault that this happened to Charlie."

My fault, my fault, my greatest fault.

"And the second McHugh steps out of that door again—gun or no gun—so help me, I'll wring his dirty neck."

Megan recoiled. The statement was so icy it was uncharacteristic. She stared at her partner in sheer disbelief for several seconds. Resisting the shiver that crept up from her feet, she stumped past Don for a few paces until she came to the walkie-talkie face-down in the dirt.

"Stay there," she ordered Don forcefully, "I'm calling Colby and David."


Upon his arrival, it did not take long for David Sinclair to realize something was terribly wrong.

Megan's message had been unusually vague, but once David took in the scene, all the minute details came out in full force. The eerie stillness of the scene, that sense of apprehension, was all too similar to the feeling that had permeated the scene after the sniper attack.

The dejected aura that surrounded his partner provided all the confirmation he needed. He had seen that expression before. Throwing the SUV into park, David crossed the distance between them in a dozen brisk paces.

Without thinking, David sought Don's gaze. "Is it Charlie?"

Don merely nodded.

"How long?"

Don shook his head. Hell if he knew how much time had passed; it felt like an eternity.

"About four hours," Megan offered.

"What are all these people doing just standing around?" Colby had caught up to the group and gestured in a not-so-subtle fashion to the dozen or so men scattered randomly in a twenty-five foot radius behind them.

"McHugh is being uncooperative," spoke Edgerton as he appeared from behind Don's SUV, rifle in tow. "We can't risk making a move and provoking him with Charlie in there. I'm going to head back out and see if next time he comes out I can get a good shot at him."

"No, no," Colby continued. "Think about it. McHugh's probably scared. He thinks we're out to kill him. He probably sees Charlie as a last-ditch effort to stay alive."

"He doesn't know we know he's innocent," David continued, discerning Colby's point. "And he's probably not going to take any chances with us."

"I've already tried reasoning with him," Don offered, "and he threatened to take Charlie's head off."

A brief moment of silence sliced between them as each person dwelled on the severity of that statement.

"… We've got to get all these people out of here," Colby started. "McHugh's outnumbered. Among many things, he's got to be paranoid right now."

"Yeah, Don," David agreed. "Send them all back out of sight. Maybe that'll ease him."

Don replied with a nod.

"As long as we get my brother out of there. And no one gets hurt."

Sinews of his lost confidence were slowly growing back.

"Yeah, I'd rather this not go down in gunfire," Megan interjected. "For all our sakes."

"Even still, I'm going to head back there." Edgerton shouldered his rifle as he spoke. "If this goes on much longer, who knows if McHugh will snap? He's already taken shots. And I don't want to take any more chances."

Megan held up the dusty walkie-talkie she had rescued from the ground. Edgerton replied by patting his own attached to his belt.

"We'll be in touch," she said.

As Edgerton vanished into the foliage, David and Colby turned to disperse the excess men. When David walked by he gave his partner a clap on the shoulder, a symbolic gesture of someone who had been there, too.

"Hang in there, Don."

Don returned his affirmation with a silent nod.

"… Hey, David," he added after a moment's pause. David retraced his steps back to his partner's side.

"Call up a medical team, will you? Get them up here as soon as you can. I don't want to take any more chances, either."


Promptly after returning from his discussion with Don outside, McHugh stormed to the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. This entire situation was fraying at his nerves. He sank into a chair away from the window—in fact, he had drawn the blinds shut in a fury—and began to drown the beer in breathless bursts.

"You know, kid," he sputtered between sips, "those FBI friends of yours are pretty damn stubborn. I'm not askin' for anything difficult, here. On the other hand, I'm kinda surprised. I was sure as hell they'd shoot me dead the second I stepped out there without you."

Charlie wanted to scream, to drill into McHugh's head all the reasons why this whole situation was a folly. But his head throbbed, and he settled merely on a half-mumbled phrase.

"Be thankful they didn't."

Charlie had to half-throw himself to the floor to avoid the bottle McHugh suddenly chucked his way. It crashed into the wall only inches from Elyse's head—she shied away as glass and unfinished beer showered down on her.

"I'd watch my tongue, kid."

Charlie set his jaw. This was it. He had come too far to turn back, now.

"McHugh," Charlie gasped, almost breathless, as he half-ducked behind the couch, "just let us help you. We can get Graybridge the punishment they deserve! Just give yourself up and end this futility!"

Just for one-millionth of a second, Charlie thought he had succeeded. Then a hellish fire of an ilk he had never before seen crept into McHugh's dark eyes and a sinister scowl smeared across his face.

For one angelic moment, everything stood still. And then, in a fraction of a heartbeat, Charlie Eppes crashed headfirst into hell.

McHugh crossed the room in two strides amidst a string of curses. Charlie instinctively ducked lower behind his barracks, but not before McHugh snagged his left arm in claws of wrathful torture. With one massive yank, almost inhuman in strength, McHugh ripped Charlie off his knees and nearly straight into the air.

Suddenly, the chaos stopped, and Charlie seemed to hover motionlessly in mid-air. He could hear Elyse start screaming, though the words were muddled and incomprehensible. Then McHugh's grip on his arm redoubled and gravity resumed. A primal scream echoed in his ears.

McHugh's other arm sought Charlie's ankle and, with a snarl unheard of in the mortal world, he flung Charlie down toward the ground. But the mathematician's trajectory sent him straight toward the coffee table, and his left side crashed into the solid wood with a merciless fury. An agony of a degree Charlie had never known—not since then—blossomed in his left shoulder and shot through his entire left side like a thousand tiny rockets. He rolled onto his right side to escape the pain and tumbled off the table, crashing face-first onto the floor.

But hell had not yet come to pass, for he had landed right at McHugh's feet. The older man kicked him in his wounded left side, and Charlie, unable to choke down a painful cry, instinctively curled away. McHugh went for him. One solid punch landed square in Charlie's temple. Now hurting in more places that he could count, Charlie went limp. He had tried …

To Be Continued…