AN: Not a huge update today...but this definitely has some
action in it, for those who enjoy it. Once again, please read and
review and thanks once again to everybody who's been supporting this
story!
Chapter 12 – Don't Make it Personal
Sue and Jack had exited the van and joined the rest of the squad to try to find anything they could about where the Shens might have taken Sylvia, trying their best to be optimistic about her whereabouts…and whether or not she was still alive. Myles and Eric arrived back from doing a scout of the local area with disappointed looks on their faces.
"Either the locals have absolutely no idea who we're talking about or they've been hit with a severe case of amnesia," Myles said gloomily.
"Yeah, that tends to happen when you have gangs running the area." Bobby replied.
From a distance, a man wearing neatly pressed black suit started walking towards the parking lot a box of cleaning supplies in hand. As he got closer he noticed the crowd of agents gathered around the van and instinctively reached for his gun, firing it in their direction.
"Look out!" Eric replied and pulled Sue away from the range of fire behind the van. Eric fell back onto the ground, having caught a bullet in his shoulder.
"Eric!" Sue rushed to his side.
"I'm fine, I'm fine." Eric grunted. "The vest caught it."
The assailant soon started to run in the other direction away from the scene. Jack took the distraction and reached for Eric's gun running off after the man.
"Hey, Jack!" Bobby called after him and followed suit.
The man ran as fast as he could down the street in the opposite direction while Jack gave chase. Eventually, he caught up to him, his years of F.B.I. training obviously haven't left him yet. He tackled the man to the ground, holding him down by the neck and pointing the gun in his face.
"Where is she?" He demanded. Bobby finally caught up to them and stood behind them, unmoving. The man tried to sit up and struggled from under his grip but Jack merely pushed him back onto the ground effortlessly. Bobby witnessed this and almost grimaced. "Where is she?" He repeated.
The man hesitated; gasping for air but eventually gave in. "The Lotus Club. They're still closed from the explosions."
Jack pushed the man back against the ground, standing up and running towards the club. Bobby pinned the man back down before he could make his escape. "Jack!" he called out after his friend.
"Take care of him!" Jack called behind him without stopping.
She had to make sure her eyes were actually open when she opened them. The last thing she remembered was getting into the flower van before meeting complete darkness. It was dark all around her and she was lying down on objects with uncomfortable edges stuffed all around her tightly. She banged on the side of her confined prison and tried to find a way out of it to no avail.
"Oh, Leanne," she heard a female voice from the outside reply. "You were always a feisty one, but you should know that it always gets you into trouble."
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Sylvia cried.
"Doing what we should have done a long time ago," a male voice replied. "If we knew it was going to be this easy we never would have paid that useless twit to do the job for us."
"Sam," Sylvia spat. "I'm surprised you're here. You usually have one of your monkeys doing your dirty work so you don't get your suit stained."
"Oh, but this," Sam said mockingly. "This, I have been waiting for, for 30 years. I would not miss this."
"You're way in over your head," Sylvia yelled. "They're going to find me."
Patsy smirked devilishly. "Of course they will." She smirked as she poured gasoline all around the freezer they had stuffed her in along with all of the evidence Boon had collected over the years.
"You know, Leanne? Or…Sylvia, this really does make me sad to do this." Patsy replied as she paced around the freezer playing with the top of her lighter. "You really were like the sister I never had."
From inside the freezer Sylvia panted, out of breath from anxiety and her struggles. Patsy continued. "We could have been really good friends, you know? We had so much in common…all you had to do was leave Boon alone and everything would have been perfect," Patsy sang. "Well, except for the fact that the plan was to kill you right from the get-go."
"What hurts more, Patsy?" Sylvia called out from inside, her voice still very composed and calm. "The fact that he loved me or the fact that he didn't love you at all?"
Patsy kicked the side of the freezer and the contents of the freezer fell and jabbed Sylvia in the gut. She winced in pain from the inside but managed to suppress the yelp that formed in her throat. "You've always had a problem of saying the wrong things at the worst possible times."
"This is nothing personal, Leanne. Well I guess in a way it is," Sam piped in. "It's just too bad you were born into the wrong family. You could have made a great member of the Shens."
Patsy grinned wide. "Don't worry, Syl-vi-a," she pronounced every single syllable when she said her name. "You'll be with Boon, just where you always wanted to be." Sam and Patsy walked away from the freezer and when they were a safe distance away. Patsy lit the lighter when they heard a gun cock from behind them. They spun around and came face to face with Jack holding a gun to them.
"Don't move."
Sam smirked. "And they say chivalry is dead…Boys?" Seemingly out of nowhere a suited entourage emerged with their guns pointing directly at Jack. "I seem to have a habit of getting rid of your boyfriends, Leanne."
Patsy smiled threw the lighter towards the freezer watched in glee as flames around the freezer ignited into a large blaze. Sam walked over to Patsy, putting an arm around her and giving her deep kiss before exiting through the back entrance of the club, leaving Jack to look at the blaze helplessly, the entourage with their guns locked on him.
Vans and squad cars were on their way to the Lotus nightclub, which was boarded up from the damage.
"What do you mean the F.B.I.'s here?" Sam demanded.
"They're here…they followed the van…there's a whole squad." His driver explained helplessly.
"Well then, I guess you better drive really fast then," Patsy shot back at him and he nodded, starting the car and taking off down the street.
The F.B.I. team arrived at the club and carefully dispersed themselves around the premises. Sam's entourage who were waiting outside the club as well saw this and exited their cars, loading their guns and began to shoot at them. One of the units stopped to fend off the assailants and eventually Eric's team managed to find their way into the club, forcing the bodyguards inside the club with their guns aimed at Jack to back down. As soon as he was safe, Jack tried to move towards the fire but the blaze came into contact with more gasoline and formed a powerful blast that forced him to step back from the heat.
As Sam and Patsy's car sped down the street, breaking all of the speed limits imaginable, a car making a left turn from an intersection collided head on with their car, forcing it to spin out of control onto the sidewalk. Sam and Patsy exited the car attempting to make a run for it before running smack dab into Bobby and his squad.
"Sam Long, just the man we've been looking for." He said and pushed him against the wall to arrest him.
Inside the freezer, Sylvia gasped for air as the smoke and heat overwhelmed the freezer. She eventually felt her consciousness slipping away. Jack looked up at the ceilings and noticed that the piping for the building was visible due to the explosion and he prayed that they were still working. He pulled Eric's gun away from him and used the end of it to bang against the piping. The pipe finally burst, causing water to blast everywhere and eventually taming the fire.
"I've got to let you stop stealing my guns," Eric replied dryly.
Once the fires were extinguished, Jack and Eric, now both dripping wet, raced over to the freezer and lifted the lid. Inside, Sylvia was lying there unconscious amidst the pile of evidence against Sam that Dylan Boon had collected. Jack reached in and took her out gently. The coldness of the water woke her up and she opened her eyes abruptly, gasping and coughing for air.
"Jack?" She choked out and shivered from the cold water.
Jack nodded and smiled. "It's me. You're all right." He brushed some wet hair that clung to her face and held her. "It's over."
Jack held Sylvia's hand as she was loaded onto a stretcher and into an ambulance. More F.B.I. cars, ambulances and fire cars pulled onto the scene. Sue and Levi anxiously pushed through all of the crowd and business.
"Jack?" Sue called out anxiously.
Jack turned around and ran to her who pulled him into a hug. "Are you all right?" She asked. "I was so worried."
Jack nodded and returned the hug with the same enthusiasm. "I'm fine."
Bobby came up to them, patting Jack on the back. "Nice to see you haven't lost any of your game."
Myles, D, Eric, Tara and Lucy joined them. "Not that we had any doubts of course," Myles piped in.
"Yeah, you did manage to take Eric's gun away from him, twice." Tara added.
"I was down on the ground that one time!" Eric defended himself.
"Which makes that second time even worse, if you think about it." D answered.
The group burst into laughter, something they hadn't been able to share these past couple of days. Jack kept an arm around Sue as the group conversed and joked with one another, the team's genuine affection for one another, despite all of the seriousness that surrounded them with each case, apparent to everybody around them.
As she was loaded onto the ambulance, Sylvia looked on and suppressed that wistful sigh that formed inside of her. She was staring at a picture that she knew she wasn't a part of.
