Chapter Twelve

Blair watched Jim closely as they sat in the outdoor seating of the restaurant. Jim's injuries had been extensive, but he was healing. The dark bruises that covered most of Jim's body was a visual testament to what Jim gad endured while held captive. But what bothered Blair more was the psychological damage Anna and Villanueva had caused. Jim still wasn't saying much about that.

They were on Jim's first outing since being released from the hospital. He had spent a week in the hospital and another week at home, but the walls were starting to close in on him, so Blair suggested going out to lunch. Blair had worked hard to help Jim, but he was walking a tightrope. Jim didn't want to talk about what had happened and Blair knew Jim well enough to know he had to talk before he could start healing.

Jim's nightmares were living proof that he was still being haunted by those grim memories. Even now, Jim was staring out into the street, lost in his thoughts. He finally moved and glanced back to Simon and Blair, as if noticing them for the first time. "You know, I don't need a police captain and an anthropology doctoral candidate to escort me around."

Blair leaned forward. "Who's escorting who? We're just having a nice lunch with friends. Look around, Jim. Inhale the air of this gorgeous spring day."

"Yeah, and pretty soon you'll have me tiptoeing through the tulips . . . "

Simon laughed. "I'd like a picture of that."

Jim turned toward Simon and made a face. The waiter came, interrupting their discussion. She handed them with their menus and left.

"Man, there are too many good things to eat at this place! What would you think if I ordered a couple entrees for myself?" Blair said with a laugh.

"I'd think you must have a fast metabolism to burn off those extra calories," Simon said as he shook his head and went back to his menu, but Jim didn't react, almost as if he had tuned them out somewhere in the conversation. Instead, he was staring off into space, once again lost in that time warp of his, still grieving for the newly dead and those long since departed.

Blair hesitated. He didn't want to crowd Jim. Some of the things Jim was dealing with had to be felt before they could return to their rightful place in the past, but Jim looked so alone, as if he didn't have a friend in the world, unable to realize he had two very close friends sitting right beside him.

Simon caught Blair's gaze and shook his head slightly. "Leave him alone," Simon mouthed.

Blair sighed. What Simon was asking him to do was very hard to obey. His gaze wandered to the street where a couple of city workers were climbing out of the manhole they'd been working on, waving to others down the street and shouting it was time for lunch. The group of men headed into a diner across the street.

Blair's mind would let go of Jim's situation. Maybe if Jim could get away for a bit, maybe that would help him let go of recent events. Not to be pushed into the back of his mind like he did with the Lima fiasco, but to give him a temporary break from the obsessive memories.

Their waiter came back to take their order and Blair had to disturb Jim's solitude to get his order. The interruption had pulled Jim back to the present, but the past still lingered in Jim's haunted expression. Geez, just how long would it take for Jim's heart to heal?

Broken bones, rope burns, cuts and abrasions, even dehydration could all be given an expected recovery time, but the human heart was something altogether different.

Blair felt a tapping on his arm and he looked to Simon. "Don't worry, Sandburg," he whispered, "Jim will be okay."

Blair's gaze darted to Jim, seeing that he had zoned out on them once more. Blair wished he possessed the same optimism that Simon had. Maybe it was watching Jim peel back the layers of his forgotten memories as they had come to light. It was almost as bad as watching someone eat broken glass. The experiences were hard to Blair to endure, but as bad as it was, Jim was the one walking through hell.

Ellison still hadn't spoken of his time as a prisoner, barely commenting on how his injuries occurred, but then again he didn't have to. The injuries themselves told a grim story of how they came to be. Blair pondered Jim's situation again, thinking back to Jim's earlier revelation. Without prodding, Jim had told Blair that his memories involving Lima had returned, and then he added, "So don't worry about me any more."

Like a simple statement would calm all of Blair's worries, concerns, and fears regarding Jim's physical and emotional health. Simon shot Blair a worried glance as several different attempts to draw Jim into conversation failed one after the other.

Finally, Simon was starting to show his own worry over Jim.

Their meal arrived a short time later and Jim was still out of it. He didn't see the food until Blair tapped him on the arm.

I should have never agreed to come to lunch with them, Jim thought as he watched his two friends trying to get him to laugh or even to smile, but Jim's heart just wasn't into being cheered up.

People were dead because of him. Good people who didn't deserve to have their lives cut short the way it happened. Jim went to take a deep breath, but had to hold his ribs as they reminded him he still had to take it easy. Pushing away the pain, Jim's gaze returned to the street, oddly disturbed by a sense of deja vu. He flashed back to the outdoor café in Lima, Peru. Similarities began to crop up that made Jim's breath catch in his chest for another reason.

The restaurant they were at was packed with businessmen, shoppers, and families since it wasn't a school day for the children of the area. He heard Simon calling to him, but Jim didn't listen. Something was about to happen. Something terrible and chilling and . . .

His head whipped around to look into the street just as the pair of grenades fell under their table. Looking up, Jim saw Ramon standing on the street ten feet away from him, armed with more grenades and filled with such a hatred, it radiated from him in roiling waves.

"Grenade!" Jim shouted, "Get out of here now!"

There were screams in the background as panic struck the crowd, and soon there was a stampede of people vying for the exits. Babies were crying, jostled in their mother's arms as they ran for safety. Little children who didn't understand why they had to run were asking questions that went unanswered. Jim stood, staring at Ramon.

He took a step toward the street and Simon pulled on Jim's good arm, causing Jim to turn around. His gaze darted to the panicked crowd trying to flee the area before he resolved himself to what he had to do.

Not again, Jim told himself, it's not going to happen again.

"Simon, you and Blair clear out this area. There's someone I need to talk to."

Ignoring sore, stiff muscles and broken ribs, he bent down and grabbed both grenades. An internal time clock told him he had maybe three or four seconds before the grenades would go off.

He hopped over a wrought iron fence that stood about three feet high, separating the restaurant from the street, and whirled around to throw them into the open manhole cover he had noticed earlier as an image of Villanueva's son, Enrique Jr, flashed through his mind.

Back and forth, the current situation wrestled with the past and Jim finally understood why. Ramon was Enrique Villanueva Junior. Both appearances blended one onto the other, and the twelve-year-old boy became the twenty-year-old man standing before him.

"This ends now, Enrique!" Jim shouted and tossed the grenades he was holding into the open manhole beside Enrique. It was a perfect two-point shot. While Jim was distracted with the grenades, Enrique made a flying tackle, catching Jim in the chest and they rolled on the ground, wrestling with one another when the blast threw them further away.

Jim was close to passing out, but he looked to Villanueva as he knelt above him. "That's enough . . . Ramon . . . or Enrique Junior, or . . . whatever name you want to go by."

"So you know who I am. I am glad of it. A man should know the true name of the man who is about to kill him." Enrique Jr grabbed him by the throat and leaned closer as he asked, "Aren't you at all curious how I escaped the first time?"

Jim looked at him and then the manhole that was now in tatters. "That's how you did it."

Enrique tightened his hold on Jim's neck and began squeezing. "I have thought of nothing else but your death ever since you killed my father and my sister! And now it will come to pass!"

The edges of Jim's vision was fading to black when he heard Simon shout, "Stop right there, Ramon, or I'll blow you away. Believe me, after what you've put Jim through, I won't give it a second thought. Now, release Ellison and back away slowly."

Enrique grunted, but didn't stop as Jim's lungs starved for air. In the back of Jim's mind, he wondered if Enrique would succeed in killing him this time. He stopped wondering when Simon fired at Enrique Junior.

The young man was knocked back several feet and collapsed to the ground. One outstretched hand reached out in Jim's direction before it dropped to the ground.

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