A/N: Hey everybody. I'm sorry I've been MIA. I've been very sick for a while but I'm on the mend and hopefully I'll be able to post more frequently now. Thank you SWWoman for your patience and understanding as well as your beta skills. I will give a warning that there is some violence and graphic description of violence against women so if that is offensive to you, you might want to skip the first two paragraphs of this chapter.
Breaking Point Chapter 13
"John," Joss breathed softly as she lay naked on the cold, smooth, concrete floor, curled into a ball. She was breathing shallow breaths because anything more hurt too much. She was pretty sure she had a few broken ribs, one of which may have punctured a lung, making breathing even more difficult. She touched her puffed-up face with a shaking hand; her eyes were so enlarged she could barely see. Running her fingertips gingerly over her busted and swollen lips where Donnelly had begun his attack, tears leaked from her swollen eyes, sliding silently down her puffy cheek to drip onto the cold, concrete floor. She had seen the bodies of women who had been beaten to death by their husbands, boyfriends, or lovers. If she were looking down on herself as a Detective, she would know she had very little time left. Besides her punctured lung, Joss recognized the symptoms of internal injuries and a concussion. She only wished she had been able to see John again before she died. She was beginning to weave in and out of consciousness. At least the pain wasn't as bad anymore. Obviously her plan had backfired.
When Joss had opened her eyes, and smiled at Donnelly he was taken completely by surprise. He was expecting a defiant, unwilling, unwavering, victim but there she was, smiling up at him, and he was at a loss for a moment. Then he smiled back, a lecherous smile of victory, as if he had conquered her, and now he was going to claim his prize. Joss had convinced him to undo the restraints so she could participate willingly in their games. He did so, and before Joss could make a move he backhanded her across the mouth like he had at the warehouse, making her already cut and swollen lip split further, and blood ran down her chin. Her head was still spinning from the strike when he landed another from the other side. It went downhill from there. He ripped her clothing off, but when she didn't fight back, still trying to play her part, he couldn't perform, which enraged Donnelly. By the time Joss saw her mistake it was too late. She had fought back then, valiantly, but his size alone soon overwhelmed her, and now she lay dying, alone, on a cold concrete floor.
"John," she breathed softly again just before slipping into unconsciousness.
John looked at Root with his unrelenting gaze and saw terror in her eyes. He had heard Joss say his name. He was as sure as he was of his next breath.
"Are we too late?" he had asked her and she still had not answered him. Fine. His face turned to stone. He would find out for himself and god help anyone who laid a hand on Joss in any way. He would kill everyone in that building just for being there.
What Shaw and Fusco saw come over Reese made them take a step back. They didn't know what was happening exactly, but whatever it was it had turned Reese into a stone cold killer. They had to get control of him or he was going to get himself and everyone else killed.
John walked around the table heading for the door. His vision had tunneled and he had one focus and that was to get to Joss. He didn't care if they went with him or not anymore. It didn't matter. Joss was dying. He could feel it. He didn't know how or why he knew, but he did. He didn't need Root or their damn Machine to tell him. A shiver ran through him. She was cold. It was as if John could feel everything she was feeling. The loneliness, the darkness; it pressed in on him, making him desperate to get to her.
"John, wait." Root finally said softly but firmly.
John didn't know why, but something in her voice compelled him to stop, and turn to face her. He met her dark brown eyes once more, but this time she seemed to have control of herself, although she still had a sense of urgency about her. Taking a deep breath, Root only confirmed what he already knew.
"Joss is hurt. Badly. Her plan backfired and now her injuries are," she swallowed before going on, "life-threatening. It's urgent we get to her, but John, we need to keep our heads…" Root was talking to his back.
He thought he heard the others clamoring behind him, but it was all just useless noise to him. He reached the SUV and was about to climb into the driver's side when he felt a small but firm hand on his arm. He turned and focused his laser gaze on Shaw. She didn't even blink.
"There's no way in hell you're driving in the condition you're in. You can't even speak, much less drive a car," Shaw said bluntly. John looked at her for a moment then nodded his head and walked around to the passenger side and got in. Shaw let out a long breath and pulled herself into the driver's seat.
Shaw started the car but didn't put it gear. Instead she turned to Reese.
"I know you're all hyped up about Joss. I'm not even going to ask you to explain. But I need to know, before we go in there, if the plan is the same or have you got something else in mind?" She said directly. "Cause I'm not lookin' to die tonight and I don't think anybody else is." She turned in her seat to see Fusco and Root nodding their heads.
John looked at them all. Shaw was right. Closing his eyes he began to compartmentalize everything he was feeling; only allowing his connection with Joss to remain, and his tunnel vision began to fade. Although his face remained a cold mask, he said, "The plan is the same. We'll use stealth to get into the building. My goal is Joss. Your mission is to clear the way. Understood?" He said to all of them and they all nodded in response. Shaw turned in her seat and pushed the button to open the garage door, then backed out onto the road. It was time for battle and she was more than ready.
It took them only a few minutes to get to their destination. They had parked on a side street and walked toward the building where Joss was being held. Shaw knelt in the grass beside Reese fifty yards away from the abandoned clinic turned FBI safe-house; scoping the building and the patrol around the south side while Root and Fusco did the same on north side. The building itself was a medium sized, one story, unassuming square building in a mixed residential/business community. No one would ever think anything nefarious would be happening inside. Reese looked at his phone where he had overlaid the floor plan of the building over Joss's tracker which was still blinking. Finch had reported earlier that her tracker was moving erratically and then suddenly stopped. Whatever happened to Joss must have happened during that time frame. John clinched his teeth together and placed his phone back into his pocket, looking at the building.
"There may be a soft entry point here on the south side where that grate is." Shaw said bringing the scope down from her eye. "It's not guarded, and it looks like a steam grate for the laundry room," she said looking at her own floor plan.
"We'll wait for Root and Fusco to get back, and then we'll make our way to the south side of the building, slip in through the outer perimeter to get to the grate. We'll probably meet resistance as soon as we get close to the building," John said under his breath, speaking his thoughts out-loud.
"That's what we're here for, remember? You concentrate on getting inside and let us deal with the resistance. Now, look at the floor plan of the laundry room. How far is it from Joss?" Shaw asked, mainly to keep his mind busy so he wouldn't get antsy.
John pulled out his phone and ran his finger over the face scrolling down to the laundry room, which was in the basement of the old clinic. Moving his finger again, scrolling up, it looked as if Joss was in one of the larger back rooms of the clinic. He and Shaw would have to travel swiftly and quietly without knowing who could be patrolling the two main halls and the corridor.
According to the floor plan, there were two main halls running parallel to each other connected by a shorter corridor mid-way, where a nurse's station had been at one time, making an H pattern. There were ten rooms on each hallway, with a restroom on each hall, back to back of each other near the corridor. A breakroom was at the south end next to the laundry room near the room where Joss was being held. John's lips thinned into a straight line. He didn't like that in case some of the guards were in the breakroom and heard a commotion in Joss's room. Joss would surly have a guard in her room if they were expecting him. John got a devilish smile on his face; he hoped it was Blondie.
John and Shaw discussed different tactics they could use once they were inside until they heard a noise behind them and they both pulled out their Sigs pointing them at Root and Fusco who had come around the brush where he and Shaw were hidden.
"Hello to you too," Fusco said sarcastically, kneeling heavily on the ground beside John.
"So what did you learn?" John asked ignoring the sarcasm.
"Your basic four man patrol," Root supplied, "two men patrolling the front, two patrolling the side. Is that what you have here?" She asked.
"Yeah, Reese and I are going through the laundry steam grate here on the south side. It's a soft entry point and the closest to Joss," Shaw began, "we'll run point for John so he can get close enough to the building to get through the grate into the laundry room, and then I'll follow while you guys cover me."
Fusco tilted his head as if waiting for more. "And then what? What are Coco Puffs and me supposed to do while you and Mr. Fabulous take down Most Wanted Donnelly. Joss is my partner, remember. I gotta stake in this action too, you know." Fusco said a little put out that they hadn't asked him to help with getting Joss out of the safe-house.
John looked at Fusco with a steady gaze. "Lionel, answer me truthfully. Do you think you can get yourself through that grate, down the piping and to the floor, quickly, with all of your gear?" John waited patiently for Fusco to answer. He wasn't being cruel, he was pointing out that Fusco's talent was in another area. "I need you and Root to draw their fire away from the laundry room grate. You're a crack shot, Lionel, Joss has spoken of it often, and I trust you to take care of Root if she gets in a jam, and vice versa," he explained glancing between the two of them. This seemed to assuage Fusco's bruised feelings.
"Now, is everybody ready? We'll use stealth, but I'm sure, eventually, we will meet resistance so be locked and loaded," Reese said and nodded at Shaw who rose up first and crept around the brush followed by John, Root, and Fusco guarding their back.
John glanced toward the east and saw no sign of dawn on the horizon. Checking his watch, he figured they had a little over an hour before dawn started breaking; they needed to move fast. John's head jerked up when he heard the tell-tell "phst" of a silencer behind him and saw a body drop fifteen feet to his right. Looking behind him, John saw Lionel lowering his weapon, and John nodded his head in thanks as Lionel smirked back. Crouching low, they continued to make their way across open ground, silent as ghosts until they reached the edge of the south end of the building. Plastering their bodies against the wall, they shuffled down the side till they reached the steam grate, which had a pad lock on it, of course. John made quick work of that, but stopped short of opening it. He grimaced as he realized the grate and hinges were rusty, and as soon as he made a move to open it, it was going to make an unholy amount of noise. He looked around at the others crouched around the grate with him. Root and Fusco nodded, standing up, and swinging their MP-10 sub-machine guns from around their backs, took positions on either side of the grate ready to defend Reese and Shaw as soon as he opened the grate.
John grabbed the handle of the grate knowing as soon as he lifted it Donnelly and his men would know he was there. There was no help for it. There was no time to make another plan, plus, this was the most direct route to Joss. Taking a deep breath, he jerked the grate up quickly, like pulling a Band-Aid off so it didn't hurt as bad, only it didn't work that way with this. As he had thought, it made the loudest, most horrendous sound he thought he had ever heard. Shaw quickly grabbed the rim and lowered herself into the hole the grate covered, reaching for Reese's forearms once she was in so he could lower her further into the hole. To her surprise, her feet hit concrete flooring instead of ventilation piping as she had expected. It was also dark so she reached in her pocket for her small flashlight and turned it on just as Reese dropped through the hole behind her and she heard automatic gunfire above her.
Reese turned to Shaw in surprise when he landed on solid ground instead of piping as he had been expecting. By the look on her face she was as surprised as he was. "I thought I was supposed to come down first," Reese said instead of pointing out the obvious. Shaw Just shrugged. They both carefully made their way away from the grate, which Reese had closed behind him. Donnelly's men wouldn't follow that way. He had placed military grade, quick-hardening glue around the edge of the grate before following Shaw. Shaw's flashlight picked out a cement block half wall and they walked towards it.
"They must've cleared out all the equipment and just made a big room out of the basement," Shaw said quietly as they turned the corner of the half wall and found a door that was open to a set of stairs leading up.
"They're probably preparing this for interrogations," Reese replied just as quietly as they reached the steps and started to go up. Shaw turned and stared at him. "The CIA is not the only ones who interrogate people Shaw, you know that," he said as she continued to look at him. She just turned and continued up the stairs leaving Reese to wonder what that was all about.
Reaching the top of the stairs they came to another door. John figured this led to the hall opposite the one Joss was being held on. The breakroom would be right next door. There was probably no one in there since it would be all hands on deck to welcome him and Shaw and to try to catch Root and Fusco. John hoped they were alright. John held his ear to the door with Shaw opposite him, trying to hear if anyone was close by. He could hear shouting and cursing, but it all seemed to be outside. He smirked at Shaw who smirked back. Root and Fusco, it seemed, were giving these men fits. John reached for the door knob as Shaw planted her feet behind him, pulling her MP-10 sub-machine gun from her back, and then pointing it at the door over his shoulder while he crouched low on one knee with his trusty Sig-Saur P229R with a silencer. Shaw counted down with her free hand; three, two, one, and then pointed at the door.
Reese turned the knob pushing forward and out left with the door while Shaw followed to the right. The light in the small space was dim but they easily saw the two men waiting for them to come through the door. John shot first and his guy went down, not moving again. Shaw took her guy out in a similar fashion. John was reaching down to relieve his guy of his weapon and ammo when he heard Shaw shout, "John! Look out!" and straightened up just as a pair of strong arms wrapped around his neck. John acted without thinking, jabbing an elbow to the man's solar plexus while grinding his heel on the man's in-sole, and then turning to plow him in the side of the head with his fist. The man crumpled to the ground, not getting up. With all the commotion two more men came down the hall, but with no cover at hand, John and Shaw took care of them easily.
John held his gun up while scanning the halls, but didn't see or hear anyone. John looked uneasily at Shaw. He could still hear people outside but he had expected to meet more resistance since they knew he was inside the building. Then his body went cold. Unless there were no reason to guard Joss anymore. Shoving his gun back in his pants leg side pocket, he grabbed his phone out of his pocket and looked for Joss's tracker. It was still blinking. Without looking up, he headed in the direction of that small blinking dot. Right now, that was his only focus, that small blinking red dot. Shaw was calling after him, running to catch up. He finally reached the room where her tracker was blinking and burst through the door.
Shaw watched as the same hard, cold look that Reese had on his face at the house came over him again and he started running. Shaw called out for him and tried to catch up, but with his long legs he was soon way ahead of her. Without stopping, he burst into one of the rooms, and then Shaw heard a cry of such anguish that, even for someone who didn't feel anything, it made her heart stop and tears prick her eyes. Racing to the room she stopped in the doorway taking in the scene in front of her.
John was on the floor of a large clinical room cradling Joss's limp, broken, and bruised body in his arms. Shaw couldn't look away. She had only seen this kind of grief once in her life, and that's when her father died. Her mother was inconsolable. Shaw hadn't been too young to understand what had happened, but her personality disorder made it impossible for her to console her mother. Watching Reese now, memories of her mother's grief flooded her mind until she somehow found herself kneeling across from Reese, taking Joss's wrist in her hand, and placing two fingers on her pulse point in her neck, checking for a pulse. Shaw's own heart skipped a beat.
"Reese, she's not dead," Shaw said breathlessly. Reese didn't seem to hear her, so caught up in Joss's loss he couldn't think of or hear anything else. Tears were streaming down his face unchecked, and he just kept saying, "I'm sorry, god I'm so sorry".
"Reese! She's not dead!" Shaw finally had to yell at him to get his attention. John blinked at her as if he just realized she was there.
"What did you say?" John asked, not daring to believe what he heard.
"She's not dead, but we need to get her to a hospital, and now. Finch?" Shaw said into her coms.
"I'm already ahead of you, Ms. Shaw. Dr. Tillman is sending an ambulance from her clinic and it should be there within minutes," Finch said tapping ferociously on his keyboard.
"But, Finch, what about…" then Shaw stopped, listening. It was quiet, too quiet. Looking at Reese who only had eyes for Joss at the moment, Shaw stood and walked away a little from Reese and asked, "Finch, what's going on?" Just about that time, Root and Fusco walked into the room, both moving over toward Reese and Joss.
"Is she…." Fusco trailed off, not sure he wanted an answer.
"She's alive, but just barely. Finch has an ambulance from Dr. Tillman's clinic on its way. What happened? Why are you in here?" Shaw responded, adding a couple of questions of her own.
Root shrugged her shoulders. "We don't know. One minute we're in the middle of a gun battle, then the next, everybody's running and jumping into their cars and leaving," Root replies mystified.
"I believe I can help with that," Finch broke in. "It seems Agent Donnelly, believing Joss was dead, has left the facility to meet with Kara Stanton." He finished then murmured, "They said they had unfinished business to discuss." Finch was sure he knew what that unfinished business was. Unfortunately so did the other three.
At the mention of Donnelly's name, Reese's head came up and his tears seemed to dry up instantly in the heat of his fury. He had never felt hatred like he felt for that man before in his life, and that was saying a lot. Gazing down into Joss's beautiful, battered face, John caressed her cheek and then kissed her forehead. In one fluid motion he stood, lifted Joss into his arms, carried her to the table where she had been strapped down earlier and gently laid her down, brushing her blood-caked hair away from her face. A single tear escaped his eye, but that was all. Just as he turned to exit the room to find Donnelly he heard a soft voice, barely audible, say his name.
Spinning around, John could see, although her eyes were nearly swollen shut that Joss was looking up at him. John bent over her. "Joss, can you hear me?" John whispered desperately.
"John," Joss said in a whisper. She couldn't believe he was there. She must be hallucinating because John couldn't be there. Then she felt his strong, warm hand take hers, and a deep tremor traveled through her whole body. She was getting her chance, her chance to say goodbye. She could hear other people in the room talking hurriedly, and the sound of cabinets being opened and shut but her focus was on John. Suddenly, she was enveloped by warmth, and instead of John, Joss was looking at a paramedic. "No, John? Where's John?" she said almost hysterical.
The paramedics had arrived about the same time John had taken Joss's hand, and he had to move out of their way so they could work. He heard her calling for him and it broke his heart, he had to get to her. Moving to her head he whispered urgently, "Joss, I'm here, Joss. I won't leave you. I'll never leave you again, I promise."
"Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to move," the paramedic said compassionately but firmly. John just shot him a quelling look, and the man went back to work without another word.
They finally got Joss strapped to the gurney, and wheeled out to the ambulance. After loading her in John moved to follow, but the paramedic that had spoken before intended to bar John's entrance, and he intended to stand firm this time until the driver called from the front. He said he had orders to let John ride along. The man shook his head, "You must know some powerful people, mister, cause it's against regs to let anyone ride along with a patient." John didn't say anything, taking Joss by the hand. They had given her something for pain so she was unconscious again and couldn't feel it, but he held it anyway. As he looked at her beautiful face - beaten, broken, blackened and bruised - he began to seethe on the inside. He would see that Joss made it safely to the hospital and stay until she was out of danger. After that….Donnelly had slipped past him this time, it wouldn't happen a second.
Meanwhile, Finch was gathering intel for John for when he was ready to go after Donnelly. Finch had heard everything Joss had gone through over the coms. He had muted the others from Joss's transmission for fear they, namely John, would do something reckless….and John almost had through that strange connection he and Joss had. So Finch had listened as Donnelly had beaten Joss within an inch of her life, and then left her for dead. Now he listened to Donnelly and Kara as they made plans to eliminate John. Finch let a slow smile curve his lips. They had no idea who, or what, was coming for them. John was not the only one angry. Finch was not the only witness to Joss's brutal attack….
A tiny red light is blinking, almost angrily, on a camera mounted in the corner of the clinic room where Joss was beaten; the eye of a silent, angry witness….
A/N: Uh Oh. Donnelly has Reese and the Machine after him! And I wonder what Donnelly and Kara are trying to cook up for Reese. They have no idea who or WHAT they're messing with!