Author's Note: Sorry it's been slightly longer than usual since my last update - I've been kind of lazy and demotivated this week! But I managed to get this written, finally. A big thank you to gypsyscarfwoman, for the nudge! Oh, and to the guest reviewer who wanted to know if Jane was going to remember Avery - no, there won't be any Avery in this fic. In fact, since Bethany doesn't exist, let's just say Avery doesn't either. :)
The hardest part of knowing she was going to have to do something about Cade was acting as though she didn't know. She ate dinner with Shepherd and Roman, home-cooked and surprisingly tasty. She'd never figured Shepherd for the cooking type, but apparently she'd taken cooking classes shortly after adopting Roman and Remi—her one concession to traditional mothering.
"Did I used to cook? Before my memory was wiped? Because I don't, now. Like, at all."
Roman and Shepherd exchanged amused looks.
"You…tried," Shepherd said. "I taught both of you as you were growing up. Roman took to it like a duck to water, but you… You were less adept."
Jane smiled at Roman. "See? There were things you could do better than me when we were kids."
Roman squirmed a little, as if uncomfortable with the compliment.
"It's nice to see you two getting along so well. You used to argue a lot more than you seem to now." Shepherd's voice was relaxed, but she was watching Jane like a hawk observing a rabbit.
"I guess it's easier to get along if you don't remember all the past arguments," Jane said, setting down her knife and fork on her clean plate.
"Yeah, I'm sure you'll be back to your usual bitchy self once you remember some more stuff," Roman teased.
Jane wrinkled her nose at him and said nothing.
"Well, if you're done eating, we have business to take care of." Shepherd stood up, and the others followed suit. "Remi, we're done with Cade. I thought you'd appreciate being the one to dispose of him, for Oscar's sake."
Jane set her jaw and nodded. "I'll take care of it. Did he admit to it? Killing Oscar?"
Shepherd sighed. "No. He didn't admit to informing on us, either, but Oscar told us someone stole information from a couple of his stashes. Given our doubts about Cade's stability even before your memory was wiped, it makes the most sense that he did it. Homeland Security or the NSA could be looking into us as we speak, and despite all our contacts, we have no idea what they might know."
"I'll take a final run at him. He might be a little more forthcoming when he realises he's of no more use to us." She looked from Shepherd to Roman and back. "Do you have a gun I can use? Using an FBI sidearm doesn't seem to be the best idea."
Roman crossed to the bookcase, opened a false book and pulled out a handgun. "Should already be loaded."
Jane clicked off the safety and checked—not because she wanted to use a bullet, but because she figured that Remi would have done so. "All set." She hesitated. "How did he kill Oscar? I… When you first told me, I couldn't process it. I didn't want to ask. But now…maybe it should be an eye for an eye. Did he shoot him? Stab him?"
Shepherd put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. It took everything Jane had not to recoil from her mother's touch.
"His body was burned, Remi. But there was the remains of a metal implement with him. A scythe or a sickle; something like that. We don't know if he was still alive when he caught fire."
Jane swallowed hard, recalling Mayfair's fear, anger and betrayed look as she'd bled out on the floor of the warehouse. She couldn't cry for Oscar, but Mayfair…
The tears in her eyes were genuine as she let Shepherd pull her into an embrace meant to comfort her.
"Don't think we have any farming tools lying around, but we've got knives aplenty," Roman offered, as casually as if he were offering to fix her a drink.
"And gasoline?" Jane drew back from Shepherd and wiped her eyes. "Matches?"
"I'll have to look into clearing a space for him to burn. Somewhere that he can't set fire to anything else. Give me a little time." Her brother touched her arm and departed.
Shepherd gestured to the stairs. "Up here."
Feeling a little sick, Jane followed her mother upstairs. What kind of screwed-up family am I a part of, that this is a normal request that can be accommodated so easily?
"I know how much you loved Oscar, but I don't know how well you'd gotten to know him again after the ZIP," Shepherd said.
"We were…involved." Please don't make me tell you how involved.
"That cloud of gloom did seem to disappear from around him after the first couple of months. I figured you'd started finding your way back to him." Shepherd sighed. "I'm so sorry things had to end the way they did."
"Me, too." At least that wasn't a lie. The way her relationship with Oscar had ended couldn't have been much worse.
"Do you want me to sit in while you interrogate Cade?" Shepherd asked.
"No. I don't want you to see me like this," Jane said, hoping that wouldn't raise any red flags.
Shepherd nodded and gave her a final hug, then pulled a military knife from a sheath in her boot. "Use this to interrogate him, if you need to. He's pretty banged up, so most likely you won't need to cause any new wounds. I'll be downstairs. Take your time and do what you need to do."
"Thank you," Jane whispered, her stomach churning. No wonder Remi had turned out to be monstrous with a mother like this.
Shepherd pressed a key into her other hand, indicated the door, then turned to leave.
This plan won't work unless you lay the groundwork now. Do it!
"Shepherd?" Jane said, hating how weak she sounded. Knowing her mother was judging every word she spoke, and how she spoke it.
Shepherd turned back, her concern deepening at whatever she saw, but her guard rising, too. "What's wrong, Remi?"
"How bad does he look? My PTSD… Seeing someone who's been tortured could be a trigger."
Shepherd nodded, looking unsurprised, and the chill in Jane's body deepened.
"You're probably right. But you don't remember your last bout of PTSD therapy, do you? Exposure to the things you fear helps to desensitise you. I think this will be beneficial for you in the long run. Anticipate the trigger and breathe through it. It's the only way to fight this weakness and regain your strength."
She gave Jane a smile that was somehow encouraging, but also made it clear that no argument would sway her.
"Right," Jane said, and cast aside the moment of vulnerability that she'd only been half-faking. Clearly, PTSD was something Shepherd had no personal experience with, and God forbid that it took more than determination and a positive attitude to put aside. "I'll deal with it."
"I know you will." With a final nod, Shepherd turned and walked away.
Jane stood outside the door for a second, staring down at the knife and key. Other parents gave their blessings for their children to get married. Shepherd gave a blessing for her to violently avenge her fiancé's murder. As for her dismissal of her PTSD concerns, was this a test of Jane's mettle and loyalty, or had Remi suffered this kind of 'therapy' after returning from Afghanistan? It was too horrifying to contemplate.
More than anything, Jane wished she could go back to this morning at Kurt's apartment, when everything had been so perfect.
Taking a deep breath to try to quell her nausea, she fitted the key into the lock and turned it.
Cade raised his head wearily as she stepped into the room. The look of sullen blankness on his battered face slowly dropped away as he registered her identity, and raw, desperate fear replaced it.
"Remi. No, no, no, no—not you."
Jane shut the door behind her and surveyed the room. Everything looked normal—except for the torture victim bound to a sturdy chair in the centre of the room—but the room could be bugged. There could be a hidden camera. Shepherd and Roman could be watching and listening to every move she made.
This was the only way she could come up with, and it all hinged on the hope that no one else listening in spoke Bulgarian. And that Cade was fluent enough to understand her.
"Shut up," she said in English, crossing the room and grabbing a fistful of his lank, greasy hair. He stank, obviously having gone weeks without bathing, and her instinctive disgust at the way he smelled made it easier to act disdainful towards him.
It was that, or panic at how much he reminded her of her own situation a couple of months ago. She could already feel her chest tightening, her breathing becoming shallower. If she didn't keep herself on track, she could go into a full-on meltdown, and God knew what would happen to her then. At the very least, she would lose Shepherd's respect. Worst case scenario, she'd be too panicked to respond when she
Tilting back Cade's head at an awkward angle with one hand, she pressed the knife's blade to his carotid artery with the other, firmly enough to dent the skin but not quite enough to break it. "Listen to me. Today is the day you die, and I'll be the one to kill you, for Oscar's sake, but you have one last chance to aid our cause and help save your country. I want to know who you leaked information about us to, and what you told them. Do they know about phase two?"
"I already told Shepherd and Roman and everyone else! I didn't do any of this!"
"I don't remember much of my life anymore, but some of my memories have come back. Remember what happened to that guy in Plovdiv?" She switched to Bulgarian. "Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"
Now Cade looked mystified as well as terrified, slurring his speech slightly through his split lips. "Remi, I swear to god, I didn't kill Oscar. I wanted to, but I didn't—"
"Answer my question!" Jane demanded, still speaking Bulgarian. She kept her voice a low, angry snarl, for the benefit of anyone who could hear her tone, but not interpret her words. "I'm trying to save your life, but I need you to work with me. Can you understand me?"
Hope flashed in his eyes for a second, and she knew the second he shut it down, berating himself for falling for the enemy's tactics. It was all so familiar, but now the roles were reversed, and she had become Keaton.
She'd become Jake, her tormentor of so many months. There had been a time when she hadn't even known his full name, yet he'd been the centre of her dismal existence back then.
Oh, God, please let this be a nightmare I can wake up from. She shoved away thoughts of Keaton and concentrated on Cade, nudging the knife against his mottled skin as a warning for him to answer. She'd try just once more. "Can you understand me?"
"I understand your words, but I don't get why you want to help me. Don't you want to avenge Oscar?"
Jane exhaled hard, relieved. They could communicate without being understood—or so she hoped. Now she just had to get him on board with her plan.
"You didn't kill Oscar. I did. Now make sure you sound like you're arguing with me. I don't know if this room is bugged or if there are cameras, or not."
Comprehension dawned subtly on his face, but then he scowled and tried wrenching at his bonds, playing into their act. "You're not really Remi anymore, are you? That stuff they injected you with changed you. Shit, you killed your own fiancé? The old Remi would sooner kill herself."
Well, at least we're on the same page there. I'm not Remi, and I never want to go back to being her.
"I'm sorry I have to hurt you, but if they are watching, I need them to believe this is real." Jane released his hair, stepped back and slapped him hard across the face.
Cade reeled from the blow, but his expression was almost amused as he recovered. "Compared to everything Shepherd and her crew have done to me, that's nothing. Did you have to frame me for Oscar's murder, though?"
"Oscar told me you were dead. I thought I was pinning it on someone they'd never be able to catch."
Jane paced around Cade's chair, checking out his bonds as she imitated one of Keaton's intimidation techniques. Very high quality rope—nothing they'd believe Cade had managed to fray over time with his struggles. These were no amateurs. And the chair looked to be hardy, too—he wouldn't be able to destroy it to get free, the way Jane had when Oscar had tied herup in that barn.
The situation wasn't ideal, but she'd suspected something like this. It was why she'd requested to set Cade on fire—so that they'd have to untie him to move him.
If she failed to break him out of here, he was going to die in excruciating pain, way worse than a merciful bullet to the head.
Still in an angry tone, she said, "You have two options here. I don't know how bad your injuries are under your clothes, so only you can decide. I've told Shepherd and Roman I want to kill you the way Oscar died—stabbed in the stomach and then set on fire. We'll have to move you outside to burn you, which means we can make your bonds loose enough for you to escape. I need you to make it look as though you got the better of me, so I don't blow my cover. But if you don't manage to get out of here alone, it's probably not going to be a quick death."
Fear surfaced on his face again, but also determination. "Try to escape on the way outside. Okay. What's the other option?"
Jane drew the gun from her waistband and pressed it against his forehead. Cade recoiled as far as he was able, squeezing his eyes shut as she told him, "The other option is that I shoot you in the head right now—make it quick, so you don't suffer. If I were in your shoes, I'd want to at least try to escape, but I can't choose for you."
"Remi, this really isn't your best plan," he muttered.
Jane disengaged the safety, making it seem as though she was losing patience and control. His facial wounds were hard to look at, especially since she knew he must be just as bad, or worse, under his clothing, but she made herself yell at him. "I'm doing the best I can with what I have, which is practically nothing. I could have just walked in here and shot you, but I'm at least willing to try this. What do you want to do, Cade?"
He swallowed hard, staying silent for a few seconds of internal debate. "I think I can make it. They kept fixing me up so they could break me down again. My arms are in pretty bad shape and I think my ribs are fractured, and I have a stomach wound too. But my legs aren't too bad anymore."
Jane lowered the gun and re-engaged the safety. After tucking the firearm back into her pants, she grabbed one of his shoulders and applied pressure to his bound arm, exaggerating the motion so that it looked more extreme than it was. Even so, Cade's reaction was an agonised groan that she knew she'd be hearing in her nightmares.
It took everything she had to keep her voice sneering and cold. "I'm sorry for this. I really am. I don't know how much time I have left, and if it sounds like I might be getting somewhere, it might buy us a little time."
Almost hyperventilating to deal with the pain, Cade took a few moments to respond. Finally, he managed to speak. "Tell me what you have planned. And if you really want to keep your cover intact, you'd better hurt me more than that. Did you forget I nearly killed Weller that time? I didn't particularly care if he died, you know."
Jane gritted her teeth and wrenched his arm again. His next words were lost in a scream.