Chapter 14:

The water was thick and angry, churning as its oily surface burned in patches. Jason felt like it was trying to pull him down, the weight of his shirt as it absorbed the liquid making it difficult to fight the feigned gravity of the tug. He wiggled out of his shirt, letting it sink beneath him as he took a deep breath at the surface and then dove under the water as near to the boat as he could manage.

It was like trying to look through a wooden plank. The water was think with debris and dust startled up from the bottom by all the commotion up top. Jason forced his eyes to sift through it all, focusing on the blurred outlines to distinguish them as chunks of the boat or as human bodies. He recognized the frame of a body, arms and legs splayed apart in unconscious floating, and swam towards it, hooking his strong arms around the midsection and kicking them both to the surface.

It was one of his men, bleeding from the head. Disappointed, but obligated to rescue him, Jason half swam half dragged himself to the rocky area beneath the burning docks. He pulled the limp body from the water, checked for a pulse, and then, taking a breath, made for the water again.

"Sir!" A voice called from above him. Jason pulled himself around and saw, standing on the edge of the wrecked mooring of Manny's boat, his keen eyed employee. In his arms, her eyes shut tightly and her small hands covering her ears, was Kristina. Jason felt his relief hit the pit of his stomach, almost causing him to throw up. It was a conflicted emotion, but he fought it off, nodding a powerful thank you to the man.

At his feet, the man he just rescued grabbed his ankle. Jason looked down to see that he had just used it as leverage to stand. Face to face, the man jerked his head up at the pier.

"Get Manny. We'll take care of the others."

Jason grasped the man's shoulder briefly, then climbed back up the ruined dock, the intense heat of the raging flames startlingly raw against his shirtless body. He looked around and, to his dismay, saw no sign of Manny or Sam. What he did see startled him.

Leaping over a patch of small flame, he skidded to a stop and kneeled beside the crumpled body of a man. He turned him over and saw in an instant that he was dead, a messy bullet exit wound replacing what used to be his face. He saw the identification necklace of a police officer around his neck and understood at once what had happened.

Manny had brought enough men to cover him here, which was why his defenses on the island were so limited. He didn't care about that island, and ultimately wanted Jason to escape alive. The men he brought back to Port Charles had hidden themselves in the most advantageous sniping points: the places he knew the cops and Jason's men would set up their guns.

They were all dead, shot from behind as this man had been. Just a dozen more marks for Manny's scorecard. More lives Jason was obligated to avenge. He snapped out of his angry musing, pulling himself away in a half leap back, hitting the dock heavily and taking off in the direction he felt Manny had gone, his hostage in tow.

Jason didn't think about anything. He couldn't. It would just slow him down. All he could do was chase Manny down. Rescue Sam.

Make sure Manny never hurt anyone again. Ever.

His knuckles grew a bloodless white as his grip tightened over his gun. A taunting, almost giddy voice called to him. Jason slid into a full turn, turning around completely because the voice drifted over from behind him. The dancing flames of the fire on the docks cast scarlet shadows across his path, up his chest. He watched as they licked at the sky, thick black smoke blocking out the moon and stars. Had he run straight by Manny? Was he back at the docks? Jason frowned, planting his feet and pulling the plug back on his gun. He looked around carefully, his eyes blazing as brightly as the fire before him.

"Lost, Jason?" Manny called again, his manic laughter strangling his words. Jason snarled, angry that he was being made a fool of, "come on, I thought you had a second sense about this sort of stuff? Don't you want to find your beautiful Sam?"

"Come out, you coward. Stop hiding behind her and face me like a real man," it was the oldest taunt in the book, but Jason had a feeling that it was the perfect one. Manny hated the idea that Jason was more powerful than him. It wasn't about a happy life. It wasn't about the perfect woman. Manny hated Jason because Jason had power over every aspect of his life: and no one had the balls to challenge. Manny fancied himself an equal rival to the renowned mobster because he wasn't afraid to try and steal from him, to confront him head on in every sort of battle. Jason would prove to him just how stupid he was.

"You want to fight me, huh?" Manny sauntered into view, his hands in his pockets. He was grinning like a mad man, nodding as he spoke. Jason aimed his gun at him, but hesitated.

"Where's Sam?"

'Safe. Maybe a bit warm. But safe," Manny stood directly in front of Jason, some ten feet away, his feet planted squarely apart. He looked like he was ready for a gun duel, the way his body swayed reflective of a cocky cowboy. Jason didn't want to play this game. He wanted to end every here and now, even if that meant dying at this perverts hands. If he could just take him out, no matter what the cost, everything would be better.

But surviving sounded like a good plan. He wanted to try and pull this off with that part in tact.

"Tell me where you hid her: if you hurt her."

"Or what? You'll kill me? That's funny, because I thought you were going to do that anyway?" Manny stepped leisurely backwards, grinning at Jason. He was drawing his opponent towards the fire, but Jason couldn't guess why. Even so, he followed, his steps careful and slow.

Manny stopped and turned to face Jason, standing in the middle of a large ring of fire. He kept his hands in his pockets, acting as if this were a high school confrontation. Involving guns. Jason kept his level, right at the tattooed mobsters face.

"What's the game, Manny?"

"Funny, Sam asked me the same thing. You two, you think a lot alike. I hear that's not really good for a relationship, you know? Opposites attract and all," he shrugged theatrically, grinning dryly. He left his meaning hanging, looking around to show he was switching gears, "it's a shame, this mess. All those lives."

"Fewer lives than you think, but enough to seal your fate. You're not getting away with this. Any of it. Tell me where Sam is. Now."

"No." With that one word, that one breath, Manny sprang into action. He crouched, hands out of his pockets, one small hand gun in each palm, and leapt forward. His charge was that of a tiger, his teeth bared, his eyes fixed on his target. He aimed his guns as he got ever closer, not slowing down as Jason adjusted his aim calmly.

Three gun shots rang out simultaneously, a fourth echoing slightly behind the initial group. Two bodies hit the ground, one rolling, one almost instantly struggling back up.

One final shot rang out.

Sam sat up abruptly. The air was thick and hostile, suffocating. She coughed violently, dropping back down to the floor like all those after school specials told her. Smoke rose, and with it all the dangerous chemicals. The lower she kept herself the less she would inhale, or so she imagined.

She never had paid attention to those specials.

Her eyes burned like someone had dumped a bucket of salt in them, and they watered heavily, blurring her vision to near blindness. She couldn't make out where she was. Dancing pillars of red smudges told her that she was not safe. What had happened back there with Manny?

Jason jumped into the water to rescue Kristina. She had screamed. Manny told her Jason didn't think he important enough to save first. Manny took his fist to her stomach, hitting her with such surprising force she had blacked out without any sort of fight. She closed her eyes tightly, shaking her head and rubbing her palms into her eyelids desperately. When she opened them again she could see a bit better, and recognized the place as a warehouse just off the docks. She was literally right ten feet from where he had hit her. All she had to do was find a way out and she could help Jason.

Four gun shots in close succession alerted her to how pressed for time she was. She crawled forward, navigating carefully. Luckily for her the building was not burning very quickly, most of it made of metal, and what was on fire, a few crates and other stored items, was isolated enough to keep from spreading faster than she could deal with. She reached the door and stopped, flames flickering through the bottom of the door. Not a good sign.

She drew a deep breath and slammed her foot against the door, right beneath the handle. It buckled, groaning, but did not give way. She kicked it again, but simply could not muster enough force in her small foot to do any real damage. She needed to change her form of attack. And she knew she would regret it.

A fifth gun shot steeled her resolve.

She squared her shoulders evenly while ducking her head and tilting it slightly away from her dominate shoulder. This was going to hurt. Badly. She shut her eyes tightly and throw herself against the burning hot door. She remembered as a kid she once put her hand on the stove, and vowed never to touch anything like that ever again, because it hurt so badly and her mother refused to treat it because that would mean no lesson learned.

This was a thousand times more painful than that.

It felt as if her shoulder was being burned through the muscle, each sinew curling under an open flame like paper. She ignored it completely, running on pure adrenaline, and followed through her initial charge with one more, from a short distance. Her shoulder screamed in protest, but the door giving way beneath her was instantly gratifying. She hit the ground and rolled, curling up to escape the flames that danced in front of the door. Manny must have set that little wall of fire up.

Bastard.

Groaning, but refusing to stop for anything, she pulled herself to her feet. Glancing around, coughing and still blurry eyed, she couldn't see anyone. No one was standing on that burning pier. Sirens pierced through the air, the fire department finally getting off their butts to come and deal with this situation. Half a dozen more sirens joined it.

Sam's head did not appreciate the sudden burst of noise. She stumbled forward, toward the water, dragging her feet and gripping her burned shoulder tightly. She felt like a zombie, moving without the grace granted living human beings. Shaking her head, she cleared a large piece of debris and came upon an open part of the dock, ringing almost entirely by fire. In the center were two bodies.

Neither one was moving. Both were ringing by dark puddles of blood.

"Oh my God. Jason!" She leapt through the flames without regard, running on legs that gave out with each footfall, stumbling over herself and even dragging herself by her hands and knees towards the body she recognized as her fiancé. She skidded across the old wood, her skin raw under her jeans. She took Jason's head into her lap, looking him over with tears in her eyes. For a moment she wondered what happened to his shirt, his chiseled body a familiar, comforting sight. Until her eyes fell on the bleeding gun shot wound in his side. And then over a twin one high on his thigh. Two wounds.

Five gun shots.

"Sam," Jason groaned. A flood of strength came over his features and he sat up, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into a tight hug. She closed her eyes and hugged him back, tears slipping down her cheeks.

"I thought you…" They began in one voice. Sam laughed, coughed, then laughed harder. Jason held her silently. She opened her eyes and looked across at the other body. Manny's body. The blood beneath him was still spreading, painting the dock a gruesome near black red.

"Is he…" she couldn't finish her sentence. It was almost too much to imagine. She closed her eyes again. She didn't need to see him any more. Ever again.

Jason held her tighter, kissing her even as she tried to get him to relax. She pulled off her own shirt, little caring about being found in her bra by the rescue personnel, and tore it in two. She moved into a better position, leaving him lying flat on the ground, and applied pressure to both his wounds, the fabric quickly growing dark and heavy.

The sirens finally reached them, the clop of people running in heavy boots and shouts of orders filling the air. Men suddenly crowded around Sam and Jason, pulling her away from him without giving her a chance to tell them what was going on. Paramedics knelt to aid him, while another group wrapped a blanket around Sam's shoulders, ordering her to sit down so they could examine her. Police officers were also in the group, questioning her between the orders of the EMTs. She ignored them.

"Manny Ruiz is over there! His body: over there."

But even as she spoke and pointed she realized she was wrong. He was gone, a long trail of blood dragging towards the water.

"Miss, just relax. We're going to take you to the hospital," she heard a paramedic say, though, the words meant nothing to her. She stared at the stain on the docks, everything else melting away. He wasn't dead. He couldn't manage to swim away. He wasn't immortal. Even if he got off the dock, the short fall to the water would be enough to kill him. Look at all the blood he left behind. It must be half his volume. There was no way…

As she was herded towards a second ambulance, the first already peeling away with Jason inside, she tricked herself into believing this rationalization. All she wanted to do was feel safe. At last.