Hey readers,

Thank you all for the reviews and sooo sorry for the late update. Life got in the way, you know what I mean. ...

CHAPTER 05

They took a little more than the standard hug time given the depth of the situation before Jay placed a trail of kisses from her forehead to the neck ending with a passionate kiss to her lips. This did a good job taking away the pain of removing the duct tape over Erin's lips. They felt inseparable and despite all factors against them Erin felt safe in his arms. She wanted to continue the embrace but Jays shaky voice broke her out of the reverie.

"Erin, I'm so sorry, I'm so god damn sorry "

Erin removed herself from his embrace and cupped his face between her palms.

"Its' Okay" she said as she stroked his cheek with her thumb like she used to. Instead of the familiar sense of his cheek she felt the growing beard and what she suspected to be the wetness of a single tear. How she wished she could see his face ! but the blinding dark was between them.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt ? "

"I'm fine" she said and felt Jays tensed body relax . "What is going on Jay ? "

"Its a long story " Jay said as he sat comfortably with his back against the cold wall and guided Erin to sit next to him. "But in short, we failed our mission because captain Reed decided to switch sides and now a pulse bomb is in three pieces between the army lab and these bastards. Who ever gets to collect all three pieces is up to me because I managed to lock the bombs with my password."

Erin gaped her mouth because of what she heard. She could not imagine the burden Jay must be having on his shoulders. In a matter of second she put two and two together and realized why she was here. She was here as bait and she only felt sorry for Jay. What they were meant to go through next and how Jay will handle that was beyond her comprehension.

"Er I swear, I'd just kill my self than let them hurt you" Jay said as if he read her mind.

"Jay" was all Erin could manage to say at the helplessness in his voice. But she knew this was the time she had to be strong for him. So she voiced her honest opinion for him. "You can't consider me more important than the whole of Chicago. If it comes to it, you have to be prepared to give me up. You need to know I'm prepared for that"

"I know" Jay gave her an amused look. Knowing the tough patriot woman in her he could not expect any less from her. But even the idea of watching her being hurt shook him to the core. "its a miracle I'm not going crazy" He said as he messaged his temples to relieve the growing headache.

Erin couldn't agree more and she could feel the tension running through Jay. She knew what he was thinking. If they start torturing her or worse for his password so they could activate the pulse bomb and destroy Chicago, what should he do ? Save Chicago or save her? Is that even an option?

But the uncomfortable silence was not for long as the door opened to the cell. Two men got Jay up to his feet, cuffed his hands and dragged him out of the room. Another stood a few feet away from Erin with his gun pointed at her. Erin could only stare as the door closed behind Jays apologetic glance. He was truly sorry for dragging her in to this mess. The door opened again and another stood blocking it while another one came in taking a syringe out of his pocket. She suddenly realized they were not here to just stand and guard her.

Jay did not protest his captors. He was not going to make empty threats. He was better than that. So instead he honed his senses to the world outside. Although he could see absolutely nothing through the blinds he listened intently. He was stood after a few Minutes and a door opened with a loud crack. He was dragged in and his blinds were removed to an audience of gang members and his former captain.

" sit " the huge man known to Jay as "big d" commanded. One of his men dragged a wooden chair and pushed Jay down by his shoulders. Jay sat, his icy glare, the only weapon he had right then was piercing through his former captain who in turn looked away.

"If you promise to behave, I promise in return nothing will happen to you or your girl. You should know there are two guns pointed at her right now. If you misbehave they will take care of her. And for the next vacancy I will drag your brother and his beautiful girlfriend here. Are we in agreement?

Jay nodded promptly as he had no doubt big d was not making empty threats and the man behind him returned to remove his cuff. His hands were free and he so wanted to punch a hole right through him just for dragging Erin here. But his rage was clearly not the answer. So he forced himself to think tactically. Invent a way to turn the tables at these bastards.

"Believe me, I do not underestimate you. Your captain has provided me with enough information on you to not make that mistake. If I had the slightest doubt that you can get away from here I will not free your hands. Infact your hands are free as a gesture of good will"

A pregnant pause passed between the parties and Jay made himself comfortable in the chair sensing what was coming. This man needed him. Which is why he was keeping him alive and Erin was his leverage.

"you need me" Jay said through gritted teeth when he understood that the silence was suppose to make him feel threatened. He has had enough and was not going to let them continue on the mind game. "and you have the leverage to make me do what ever you want because I would do anything for her. So cut the frigging speech and get to the point"

The huge man stood in front of a light table.

"fair enough, couldn't expect anything less from a man with your set of records" he said almost admiringly and waved a hand at Jay to come closer. Jay stood up and walked to him without a delay .

"I need you to retrieve something for me in return for her life. This is a detailed plan of the lab and its security plans, cameras and everything someone would want if he is to steal something from the lab. I already have a tech guy who can hack in to the camera system and play it while you are on to it. And although I have a dozen men who would volunteer to do this for me I cannot think of a better man than you Jay Halstead. Because you know why, you were part of the team who originally created the foolproof security plan of the lab, so only one of them would know the back doors and loopholes. And only a man of your agility would be able jump over those fences created by yourself"

Jay blinked to make sure what he was hearing. He came here to receive the threat to give away his password for Erin's life. What he heard was an admirable request to steal something from the lab. And Jay had no doubt about what they wanted.

"you want me to steal the remaining two parts of the bomb and bring them here so you could have the complete bomb" Jay asked amused. "now how the hell do I manage that?

But the man did not look amused. "That's not all, you missed the rest of it, the part where you use your password to reactivate the assembled bomb and successfully detonate. And maybe we will give the two love birds enough time to get away from Chicago before we blow it up.

A chuckle escaped Jay upon hearing the last part of the proposal. "go to hell" he muttered at the end of it. Big D looked at his man behind Jay and gave him a nod.

"I thought the idea of having your true love hurt would bring sense to you but it seems like you need demonstration, in which case you need this."

Jay looked at him puzzled as he placed a syringe on Jays palm.

"Oh! don't look so horrified at it, you should smile because that is the antidote, the poison was just injected to your girlfriend"

Before the sentence finished Jay automatically turned to run to Erin. but two men grabbed him stopping in mid air, pushed him to the wall and pointed a gun at his head.

"You need to give it some time before the poison take full effect on her and it will swell her trachea and choke her to death" Big D said circling Jay. A triumphant smile danced on his lips and the only thing stopped Jay from struggling the two men and be free to run was the gun. Because he knew he had to be alive if he is to save Erin.

"shall we ? " Big D said as he took the lead and opened the door. The men grabbing Jay cuffed him again and dragged him back to the Cell. Jay could see a bright light has been placed in the cell. His eyes immediately looked for Erin and noticed her sitting slumped in one corner of the cell. She looked defeated. Her hair was a mess, her T shirt sleeve was torn and Jay could see she was in a struggle - one that she lost. Her eyes made contact with him and it looked like she was apologizing from him.

In fact it was the first time he saw her since his redeployment and their eyes observed each other in hunger taking each other.

"The light will stay in as complementary so you could witness what your stupid decision is putting her through."

Big D snapped his fingers and everyone left the room. Jays Hands were free again but the said antidote was taken from him. As Big D passed him he waved it in the air. " Just shout out loud when you change your mind and I'll come with this and an Oxygen tank" he said as he himself closed the door.

Jay ran to Erin. They hugged tight and hr felt perspiration on her skin.

" Jay I'm sorry, I tried to stop it but I couldn't. I don't want to be your weak point so please go to the other corner and don't look at me again so you don't have to witness anything."

Jay sighed in defeat but took her by her arms.

"Erin stop, I'm not going any where"

"Jay please" She begged.

"Erin, we are in this together"

Erin pulled herself from Jay and sat against the wall. There was an uncomfortable silence between them. When she saw Jay was not moving away from her she finally gave up and signed Jay to sit next to her and as he did he saw the puncture mark on her arm through the torn T shirt sleeve. His thumb instinctively ran over the reddened area of her skin.

"They said it would take at least twenty minutes to start feeling the effect of choking" she said to him and immediately regretted saying it so raw when she felt how he stiffened.

"How do we stop this" Jay asked as Erin leaned on to him and her head rested comfortably on his shoulder. " If it is not you, next will be Will and Nina, It wont stop until I give in or go crazy or just kill myself somehow, and even if I die they wont stop until they find someone who can crack the code and rewrite it to their will"

"you seriously considered your death?

"If my death could solve all these problems , then yes I did considered that, but they already have a few hackers working at breaking the code, though unsuccessful so far...I don't know how long Chicago will be lucky. I wan to stop them permanently"

" Jay can you start from the beginning, I have twenty minuted to kill anyways" Erin requested.

Although Jay didn't like the idea of the twenty minutes theory he didn't much had a choice, besides he thought it would be a good idea to go through what happened so his brain could maybe show him the directions to the right path.

"The bomb was made by two scientists who worked for the US defense research. They were kidnapped and for six months army intelligence searched for them before they got intel that directed them to Syria. They found out the two were kidnapped by an extremist group for the exact purpose of building a pulse bomb to attack US cities and they were successful with building it. We were to infiltrate their lab and retrieve the bomb and the scientists. The mission was a success until we were on our way to deliver it to the Chicago labs. "

"why the Chicago labs? why didn't you just destroy it right there?"

"Because although the bomb was built on the same concept as the US pulse bombs, their programming and the design was totally different, So the Army decided to study it rather than destroy it. But it was risky because they didn't know whom to trust because from the very beginning the intel was assumed to be compromise. So that's where the ex-ranger team came in to play. And a third party lab was transformed to a fortress by our team so it will be kept away from the reach of a traitor within the army. "

"okay"

"we were using a trail road to transport the bomb, away from the people and at the mid point of our journey, Reed instructed us to stop and he said that a separate unit was to take over from there for security reasons. I was so happy because I could finally go home." Jay grinned remembering the moment. But from there onward it was all down hill and his smile disappeared.

"They followed all the procedures properly when the handover happened and we had nothing to suspect. Our team had twelve and we started leaving in three vehicles. Me, Harvey and Mandel was in the last vehicle. We just started the engine and that's when I identified one of them. I knew him to be a gang member and there was no way he was a ranger. I knew something was wrong and I got off the vehicle to talk to Reed. He knew that I identified him and gun fire started immediately. We were outnumbered and I knew we were gonna loose soon. So I asked Mandel to cover me and I managed to lock the parts which was the detonator and the second part that was the pulse generator. But I could not go to the other. I remember Mandel got hit by a bullet and I pulled him to cover and suddenly it all went blank. I now think Reed came behind me and knocked me out" Jays hand involuntarily went to the back of his neck, the pain was still there.

"He might have decided not to kill me when he saw that I had locked the bomb and he was gonna need me to unlock. When I woke up, I was here with Harvey. We didn't know how long we were out. And we received food and water everyday ever since. When Reed decided to show up to ask for the password, Harvey thought going up that air vent was a better option than being their leverage against me. I think they found him and... ." Jay could not manage to finish his sentence, he felt like he was trapped inside an ice berg, the cold slowly attacking his heart. Mandel was shot right in front of him and his brother Harvey ...well he didn't even know what happened to him. He felt Erin's body unusually warming up, like she was having fever so he passed the water bottle to Erin who was still leaning against his shoulder.

"I think they shot him and he fell in to the river " Erin said after she gulped down some water. She felt her body warming up and was sure she was already having high fever. her immune systems response to what ever was injected to her. To her further displease she felt herself a little short of breath. She closed her eyes and opened them and saw Jays Green eyes staring at her.

"you are feeling it ? Jay asked rather stated.

" I'm a little short of breath, not even near choking" Erin said managing a smile.

" you are speaking as if you are going to have cold and fever" Jay said in disbelief. How could she be so calm full at the face of death. He has seen it in trained soldiers and it wasn't a foreign feeling for himself. But Erin is no ranger.

Jay felt his heart filling up with pride for his girl for how brave she is. He always knew she was, he has witnessed what a bad ass detective she is. But this was a new level of bravery and he could not help but kiss her.

"you are the bravest girl I've ever seen" he said to her. " I'm so proud of you, and I need you coz I don't know if something happens to you what I will become, But I promise you one thing, I will not let these bastards win"

Erin looked at Jay with awe. "well I'm flattered as much as I am about to choke" she said but thought of turning the direction of their talk because of two reasons. One - she was about to cry and she didn't want to , not right now because her tears might weaken Jay. She wanted to put up a brave face so he would think straight and find a way to solve this mess. Two - her hand was softly placed on Jays chest and she could practically feel his heart thumping threatening to burst out of his chest. If she let him go on in the direction their talk was going, and if she tell him how she feels, how much she love him and how much she wanted him to move in with her, how much she wanted to have a life with him, maybe have kids and grand children too and that was the only thing she was gonna miss if she dies...she thought Jay might have a heart attack. So she pretended like she didn't hear the warmth in his words. She pretended like she didn't see the tears in his eyes...

"I was saying, I think they shot Harvey, I'm sorry Jay"

Jay let out a breath and stopped his tears from falling. He could read in to Erin like she was a book. he knew what she was doing and decided to play along, just like he did with Harvey when he decided the only way to deal with his twin brother Mandel's death was to pretend like he didn't even exist.

"how do you know?"

" I was conscious just before they stopped the vehicle here, and I heard the sounds of a gate opening and then some one shouted 'stop' and a gunshot followed with a plunging in to water sound. I assume it was Harvey. He maybe made it out of the vent but not too far"

Jay swallowed hard. He didn't know how the fire exchange ended or how the secondary blast unit ended with the gang and the other two units ended at the hands of the army, he didn't know because he blacked out. During the two weeks the team of twelve were together for the mission they had gotten closer. They had depended on each other for their lives, was at the verge of death and had came out of it alive because they were there for each other; made sure everybody goes home at the end. It hurt jay beyond comprehension when he thought how many of them would be alive by now. And for the first time he felt guilt rising from the bottom of his heart.

" The ...um... the system in the bomb is designed to act in two ways, sleep mode and kill mode. We activate each mode using the type of passwords we use. Thing is, if I used the kill mode passwords to lock the bomb it kind of destroys the circuitry, makes the bomb useless. And the labs won't be able to learn a thing. So I used the sleep mode password because never in my imagination I though it would be possible for the bomb to be in the wrong hands. "

"Jay, you should be glad you managed to lock it at all in the middle of a fire exchange, You did the rational thing, you put it in to sleep until the fire exchange was over, you didn't know that Reed was behind all of this"

"maybe, but now I have created myself an impossible situation, when someone uses the sleep mode password, he is the only person who can reactivate the system, and that too by using both password and a scan of my retina. if not for that safety Reed could override my password."

"I understand" Erin said as Jay paused for breath.

"Harvey thought, the only way out of this is by getting out side help, that's why he decided to try the air vent. I thought by staying in i can try to screw up their plans by agreeing to give them the password and then use the kill password instead. But now they have an inside guy at the lab, hackers at their disposal and they are gonna get the remaining units with or without me, maybe I should have listened to Harvey"

"I'm sure when Harvey got caught, he thought he should have listened to you" Erin said trying to lighten the mood because she could sense the guilt creeping from jays words. But Jay knew what she was doing, trying to be funny so he would feel better when she couldn't even breath properly. But he turned his thoughts in to words.

"I've been thinking, getting out side help and screwing up their plans from inside could both be achieved if I some how get the hell out of here"

"and the only way to do is by agreeing to rob the lab" Erin protested.

"Yep" Jay said as he lifted his arm and took Erin under the crook of his neck and she snuggled in.

"I wouldn't advice on that because when Al talked to a senior guy in the Pentagon, they were considering seizing your properties because they think you are behind all this, so if by any chance you get caught how on earth will you prove your innocence"

"what" Jay shouted incredulously. he could not believe his luck. Here he was fighting to save his city but his own people were considering him a traitor.

"sorry, they were considering seizing your properties"

"That bastard Reed..." Jay spat as he clenched his fists.

" So my own won't trust me, but what if I can get to our team" Jay wondered aloud quickly dissipating his anger and focusing at the actual matter at hand.

"oh shit why didn't I think about it before, " Erin smacked her forehead . Maybe Jays idea will work."Mouse is watching the lab"

Jay turned and sat facing her curious at what she was saying.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you what happened at my end. We had received intel from one of Hanks CI's that something really important is to be transported from Chicago labs. We interviewed the lab manager who declined any answers because they were classified at pentagon level. Later that day we were informed that you were MIA and I ...was on a spree driving around the town to calm down" she stopped momentarily and Jay realized how much his departure had impacted her. But Erin recovered quickly because she was feeling a burn inside her chest. She wanted to let Jay know everything that could help him.

"That's when I saw captain Reed waiting to enter the lab, I was curious because although I didn't know how to chain up all the pieces I felt that they were all in the same chain. The Labs, pentagon, captain reed... So I asked mouse to do a full search on captain Reed and the lab manager, Mouse started right away and the last I heard from him he had hacked in to the Lab's camera system. Maybe you can get him to see you."

Erin felt the sudden surge of pain in her and automatically she clutched on to her chest. The world was spinning around her and she felt Jays strong arms grab her and lie her down on the floor. She finally had to admit the pain and the lack of breath which she had been denying for Jay's sake. She heard Jay shout something and bang on the cell door and she tried to fight the darkness that was crawling behind her eyes. " not again" she said as she remembered how she fell unconscious when they abducted her and not being in control was a feeling she hated.

she then heard the cell door open and through her bleary eyes she saw some one really large come to her and injected her with a syringe.

"not again" she she thought...again.

Next she felt the only good thing she had that day. Jay's embrace. She felt him taking her on to his lap and his hands swiftly ran through her hair. If she was going to die, she thought...this was the best moment. The burn in her chest was going away and she felt at ease. she felt like she could breath again. It was the best thing next to having Jay with her. She felt fine and that was when she gave away her stubborn fight against the darkness. It wrapped her...she felt the cold, but she felt fine...