The problem, it seemed, with telling Hades to go to Hell in a handbasket was that he was no longer willing to take Liam's phone calls. That, in turn, made it far more difficult to find the bloody bastard and take the price of Killian's death out on his worthless hide before sending him to the Underworld. Liam seethed, listening to the police scanner as Emma called every contact she had who owed her a favor or six. Part of him wanted - needed - to call David, to have his partner by his side for what might very well turn out to be his last suspect chase.
Liam didn't much care if he survived this or not.
That, coupled with the questionable legality of this venture, was most of the reason Liam hadn't let Nolan or Locksley know where he and Emma had holed up. They'd both either jump at the chance to help and end their careers or they'd try to be the voices of reason, slowing Emma and Liam down and letting Hades get further away.
Hades wasn't walking away from this. Not while he was still breathing.
Emma looked nearly as furious as he felt. Contact after contact either refused to answer the unknown number from the burner phone she'd bought or they couldn't - or sometimes flat out wouldn't - help.
"Son of a bitch!" she shouted as she slammed the ancient looking flip phone closed. "Just answer the goddamned phone!"
Liam knew better than to ask, to speak, practically to breathe lest he turn her ire onto himself. They'd both been short the past two days, had had their fair share of fights with each other over trivial things.
It seemed that Killian was the only thing he and Emma could agree on. He didn't deserve to die like that. He deserved to be avenged.
Bloody hell, he deserved to be happy and healthy and alive, grousing over Liam's needling and Emma's… well, he deserved to be able to know the love they both shared for him. Killian would be pissed at what they were doing. Not that Liam thought for an instant that his little brother wouldn't do exactly the same if their roles were reversed.
God, he wished their roles were reversed. Killian was the good cop. Killian was the hero. Liam was just the baggage he had to carry around. The worthless git who couldn't keep up with the image his little brother had of him. It was Liam's job to protect Killian from the world, not to… not to murder him, himself.
Liam shut those thoughts down as quickly as he could, but not before they'd doubled him over like a sucker punch to the gut.
"Stop thinking about it," Emma commanded, fixing him with a glare that would have cowed every instructor at the Academy.
Liam nodded, filing the emotions and the memories away for a time more suited to a glass or ten of scotch and no bloody demon to vanquish. There would be time to mourn Killian later.
If there was a later.
"Have we learned anything new?" Liam asked rather continue to dwell on that happy thought.
Emma shook her head. "Everyone I've managed to get a hold of is either a dead end or 'will look into it'," she said the last bit with every bit of mocking derision she could muster up.
Liam was a little impressed by it. He'd thought his little brother had cornered the market on dramatic, but now…
No! he thought angrily at himself. This was not the time. Killian and all the feelings associated with him other than vengeance needed to stay locked in a box.
"Hades must know by now that I'm coming for him," Liam threw in sadly. "I almost wish I hadn't-"
"Don't," Emma ordered again. "You can't do that to yourself. You were under his thumb for far too long, Liam. It was the right thing to do."
"It got Killian ki-"
Emma stomped her foot and strode forward, jabbing Liam in the chest with her finger. "Gold got Killian kil… it was Gold's fault, not yours. He was coming for us either way; the timing was just…" she trailed off.
"There was never going to be a good time for Gold to show up," Liam agreed half-heartedly. "But if Killian had been in top form… if he hadn't been so hurt…"
"Then Gold would have changed the status quo so that Killian had no choice but to… to…"
It seemed neither of them could finish their sentences when it came to Liam's little brother. He scoffed, almost genuinely. "My God, could I ever rile him up calling him 'little brother'. He used to love it, you know? When we were very little, he'd go around telling anyone and everyone that he was 'Liam Jones's little brother'. He'd say it like it was something to be proud of."
"It is, Liam," Emma allowed. "He loved being your brother. He always did."
"Aye."
They lapsed into silence for a while, both pouring over document after document on their respective laptops. Between the information the department had on Hades and Liam's documentation of every meeting he'd had with the man and his lackeys, they had plenty of paper trails to follow.
But none of them were worth a damn if Hades had decided to go to ground after learning that Killian Jones was dead right along with Robert Gold. The man had far too many contacts and far too much capital to be caught if he didn't want to be found. Hubris might be his downfall, however, and it was Liam's only hope at the moment. It was all he had going for him.
If his little brother's death was going to mean anything, then Liam had to finish what he'd started. Had to truly finish it.
Only then could Killian rest.
Emma pounded the desk in frustration, shaking the box of pushpins and the flashlight that balanced precariously against the lamp.
"We'll find him, Emma," Liam tried to reassure, but it sounded hollow, even to his ears. Hades' bank account statements were as good as frozen, his assets untouched. There was nothing to find on paper; they were just wasting time here.
"We're wasting our goddamned time!" Emma echoed his thoughts as if he'd spoken aloud.
Liam nodded, shutting the laptop and folding his hands on top of it. "We are. Hades has no reason to do anything rash right now. Killian's de- he's no longer a threat. Nottingham's death means that anything that ties Hades to Gold is hearsay at best. I'm…" he trailed off, eyes wide as he stared at Emma.
"No."
But Liam's brain was already spinning.
"No, Liam," Emma said again, looking angrier and angrier as he continued to stare.
Liam grinned ferally. "It'll work, Emma. You know it will."
"How would we even contact him? You've already tried." She nodded at Liam's burner phone.
Liam shrugged. "Turn on my actual phone. You know he's tracking me. Make it seem like I'm running…"
"There's no guarantee he'd come himself."
Liam raised an eyebrow. "The last man standing who can take him down? He nearly lost everything trusting Gold to take care of Killian. He'll come, Emma. He'll be there to make sure."
"Killian wouldn't want this, Liam," Emma tried.
"Well he's bloody well not here to stop me, now is he?" Liam shouted, whirling on her.
Emma's eyes widened, but then her nostrils flared. "And whose fault is that?" she screamed back.
Liam felt like he'd been shot.
"I…" she gulped and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Liam. I didn't mean that."
Liam sat down - or, rather, his legs gave out and dropped him in a chair unceremoniously. "Doesn't make it any less true, lass. Let me make it up to him. Let me be the bait."
"He'd kick my ass if I did," Emma reminded him.
Liam laughed humorously. "Aye, and mine, too. But he didn't even get a chance to get closure for Milah before… I need to do this, Emma. Please."
Emma nodded slowly, still looking anything but happy about his idea. "I'd rather be with you than try to stop you, I guess," was her only answer.
"I'll take it, lass. Now," he ordered, not giving her a chance to change her mind, "we have a lot of work to do."
It was more difficult than he'd thought, however, to come up with a good place to stage the showdown. It always worked out so well in the movies: find the equivalent of an Old West style box canyon, stash weapons behind every crevice, and then call out the bad guy in the black Stetson.
In reality, it was a lot more effort to find unregistered weapons. For all Liam had been under Hades' thumb, he'd never really crossed the line more than he'd had to. Not like most of the man's minions, and certainly not like Gold had done. He had his own, personal weapon stashed away in a safe in the apartment, of course. And Emma had a small arsenal to her name, apparently. But as much as Liam didn't care what happened to him, he didn't want this to end up with Emma rotting in a prison cell for his vendetta.
Killian would come back from the dead to murder him if Liam survived that. And he'd haunt him in Hell for all eternity if he didn't.
The 'where' was the easier option to figure out. Hades had any number of warehouses near the Harbor that he used for shipping goods and property overseas. Not all of them were monitored at all times and they could use his own holdings against him. Liam knew of one, in particular, that was right on the water and had a speedboat moored just outside. He and Hades had met there several times, the water and a rented boat of his own giving him a quick getaway if he'd needed.
Part of Liam wanted to finish this on the Jolly Roger… damnit, Killian, I'm not calling her that anymore… but he couldn't bring himself to risk the ship. The Jolly had meant too much to his brother, to both of them, to risk her now.
And, goddamnit, he'd keep calling her the bloody Jolly Roger for as long as she was seaworthy. No matter how much it made him feel like a fool to captain a storybook character's ship.
Liam still thought the Jewel of the Realm sounded much more regal, but he'd lost that bet a long time ago.
Finally, a contact of Emma's - a woman named Lily who Liam trusted about as far as he could throw her - came through with a cache of weapons that they weren't to ask as to the origins. All they needed to know, she'd assured them, that any ballistics trace would lead back to some very cold cases with suspects who were either already doing life or had been shot down before they could be taken into custody.
Liam didn't want to know anything else.
Neither did Emma.
It took them another three days to scout the area and assure that it was currently unused and unguarded. Slowly, he and Emma began moving in the stolen weapons into blinds and slips throughout the office where they planned to confront Hades. They mapped the exits and likely places for Hades to order his own men for backup.
They were as ready as they were going to get.
"I still don't like this," Emma mumbled as she rubbed charcoal over her face. She had her own hiding spot picked out where she could be overwatch for Liam's back. "I'd rather be down there."
"I'm not go-"
"I swear to God," she interrupted, "if you say that you're not going to risk me over this, I'll shoot you myself. In the ass."
Liam gulped. The statement was funny, but the look on Emma's face and her tone of voice was anything but. He nodded his acquiescence, but didn't say anything else.
"The first sign of trouble, and I'm down there, you understand?" Emma asked, punctuating each word with a step towards him. "I won't sit by and watch while Hades kills you just because you think you owe some kind of penance to Killian for what happened at the cabin."
Liam opened his mouth to deny it, to tell her to stay put, to… he didn't even know anymore. So he did perhaps the first smart thing he'd done since they started talking and shut his mouth.
"Good."
God, Killian would kill him if he let anything happen to Em- no. Killian wouldn't kill him. Killian couldn't kill him. Liam sighed, checking the clip of the unfamiliar Sig Sauer for the fourth time. It was full, there were three extra clips stashed in various pockets, and there were a number more strategically placed throughout the warehouse.
Liam really didn't want to know the details as to how they'd gotten their hands on so much ammunition.
"I think we're ready," Emma said quietly. Liam still heard the uncharacteristic waver in her voice. "I'm going to head out and get in position. You'll wait until 7:30 tonight and then turn on your phone, right?"
Liam resisted the urge to roll his eyes, checking the clip again even as he eyed the SIM card from his normal phone resting on the table. They were both on edge, knowing what this meant and refusing to muck this up over some trivial detail. "Aye. And then I'll take Storrow up to the Harbor and set up shop in the office, looking for the keys to Hades' boat. We'll get him, lass."
Emma nodded. "We have to," was the last thing she'd say to him before all hell broke loose hours later.
Liam waited by the door. He paced the length of the hallway. He checked and rechecked his weapon. He brought out the cleaning kit and meticulously went over every inch of the gun Killian had given to him that day at the cabin. He paced some more. He made a bowl of pasta before staring at it until it cooled and then tossing it in the rubbish.
He wasn't nervous. No, not at all.
Finally, after what seemed like days, it was time to go. Liam checked the clip on his Sig for the umpteenth time, pried the back of his phone open, and inserted the SIM card. Two minutes - and a lot of cursing - later and the phone was on and broadcasting his location to whoever was looking.
Liam was positive that Hades was looking.
He left the ratty old apartment with its mice and questionable stains behind and headed down to the street, finally getting annoyed with his phone trying to explode in his pocket and turning it on silent.
There were over a hundred messages from David alone.
Liam was caught up in the need to call his partner again, wanting Nolan at his back when he did this. But no, he wouldn't put David through that. Liam would rather have the man pissed at him forever than risk being gunned down - or worse - in front of him. Besides, David had a family to provide for; Liam had nothing to lose.
It seemed the car ride took forever and yet was over in the blink of an eye. Liam pulled into the warehouse's parking lot and stashed the old beater deep in the shadows of the building. Emma was here somewhere, hiding in the catwalks with as good of a view as she could find of the office.
He was trusting her - and no one else - to watch his back. Liam hoped that Killian's trust in her hadn't been misplaced.
Not that it matters as long as I get Hades first, Liam thought derisively as he slid open the door just enough to squeeze inside. This would be over before it began if he tripped some kind of silent alarm or a well-meaning patrolman saw the door opening.
It was eerie inside the building, the cold winter's evening doing nothing to combat the chill. The moon's light filtering through broken window panes cast everything into sharp contrast, making Liam jump every time he moved. What was that line? You're not paranoid if people are actually after you. Liam was certain that several people were after him, and any number of them could be hiding in the shadows.
Despite seeing images of hitmen and lackeys behind every box, Liam made it to the office unscathed. He set his phone down on the desk and started rifling through the drawers. He saw the keys under some files in the first one he looked through, but the boat wasn't really his goal.
"Did you really think you could steal from me after turning your back on my generous offers?" an oily voice echoed through the room.
Hades.
Hades was his goal and the bloody bastard had sauntered right into their trap without a care in the world.
"You bloody bastard!" Liam shouted, coming around the desk to face the man head on and this wasn't the plan. "My brother-"
"Your brother was a crimp in my plans and the only thing keeping you from reaching your full potential within my organization."
Liam stumbled to a stop. The man was deranged. He'd thought that Killian was holding him back? His head started shaking before the words even formed. "If it wasn't for my brother, I'd have put you behind bars the first time you cornered me on the Jolly Roger. Killian was your only bargaining chip and your lap dog killed him, you… you… you demon!"
Hades shrugged. "An unfortunate mistake and one I would have rectified myself if you hadn't taken out Robert yourself. He was under orders not to harm Killian, if you remember correctly. That was part of the deal we made. A deal that I never went back on, unlike you."
"Don't you dare speak his name," Liam hissed vehemently. "You don't deserve to even think about my brother."
The smirk on the bastard's face had to go. "Your brother was… shall we say, becoming problematic. He and his little princess were coming far too close to discovering my ties to your depart… I'm sorry, it's not yours any longer." - he nodded to Liam's side, where he'd been stabbed the year before - "Regardless. They were going to erase my ties to Killian's department and I wasn't going to stand for that. Robert got cocky. Just. Like. You."
Liam heard the muffled shouting before Hades was finished and his heart sank into the pit of his stomach. He pulled the Sig Sauer from the small of his back finally and aimed it at Hades' heart. "I can end you; right here, right now."
"Ah ah ah," Hades tutted, not flinching with the barrel of the gun pointed at him. "You might no longer care about yourself, but what about…"
He turned his back on Liam as the door to the office opened again.
"Miss Swan, how nice of you to join us."
Emma hated waiting. For coffee in the morning, for leads to come in, for stakeouts to come to fruition, for Killian to… nope. She hated waiting. She hated being kept on the sidelines even more, and this… this felt a lot like being sidelined. She shifted in the rafters again, her burner phone off but still digging into her hip where she was lying uncomfortably on it. She should have just left it in the car - there was no one she could call now and no one who would be calling her. Liam was the only one with the number anyway and he had no reason to get ahold of her.
They knew the plan. They had gone over it so many times and it was a good plan. It would work and Hades wouldn't be leaving here alive. A tiny part of Emma was screaming in the background about justice and vengeance and vigilantism, but the part of her that had been consumed with grief after losing Killian shut it up quicker than she could blink. Gold may have been the reason Killian had died but Hades was responsible and she wasn't going to give him a chance to wield his power from a prison cell.
No, Hades was going to find his end here, today, and Emma knew that of all the things they disagreed on, she and Liam were on the same page with this.
Now she just had to find a way to keep Liam alive throughout this whole mess.
Emma rolled her shoulders, trying to work out the kinks before she had to actually focus. They'd agreed that she should get here hours ahead of time to scout out the location, but there wasn't a soul within 500 yards of the place and nothing was moving in the cavernous room below her other than rats.
Which left Emma with far too much time to think. She thought about what Killian would have thought about all this. She thought about what might have happened with them if he'd had time to come to terms with Milah's murderer being dead. She thought about why she'd been so frightened of him and what they could be together.
She thought about the words she hadn't said to him and if he knew she'd believed them.
Hours passed slowly, the dripping of water somewhere to her left doing nothing to speed up time. She'd counted to a thousand and then backwards by sevens, she'd memorized the alphabet backwards in French, she'd named every capital and its state that she could remember - and would swear she got all 50 if anyone ever had reason to ask.
Finally, when it seemed like she was going to have to resort to naming every animal she'd ever heard of or something equally as ridiculous, Emma heard the warehouse door screech open. She risked a look at her watch and frowned. It was barely 7:30. Liam shouldn't have even left the safe house yet, never mind gotten through traffic and made his way into the building.
It wasn't Liam.
Emma watched with bated breath, trying to see around an upright without moving. She could just see the shadow of someone standing in the doorway, hands on his hips and not moving. There hadn't been anyone here for days; it seemed highly unlikely that Hades would - all of a sudden - decide to use it on a Wednesday night in February. Unless…
Unless Hades already knows you're here. The voice in her head sounded suspiciously like Killian, which was enough to give her a moment's pause. He… or she, she supposed, was right, though. If their trap was actually a trap for Liam, for them, then she had to get out of there. She had to warn Liam. She had to-
She had to take better stock of her surroundings. No one could possibly know where she was in the warehouse, if they even knew she was already here. The place was huge and the scans they'd run over the past few scouting trips hadn't revealed any cameras or wireless signals broadcasting off site. If there were cameras they'd missed, they were on a local feed and whoever was here hadn't even come in the building yet.
Don't panic, don't give your position away prematurely; Emma's training ran through her head even as she mapped possible exits. She'd left herself three egress points from where she lay - the path up to the roof behind her as well as left and right along the catwalk. Unless her interloper had friends, she had options.
Emma froze as a man finally walked around the I beam that had hidden him and stopped in a beam of light filtering through a window. He was tall and skinny, his head darting back and forth wildly as he looked around the room. There was something familiar about him, but Emma was sure she'd never seen him before. He wasn't looking up at her, though, and that allowed her to breathe a little easier.
All she had to do was wait for him to move, to figure out why he was there, and she'd be set. She could text Liam to let him know there was an unaccounted for variable and that would be that.
It seemed to take an eternity, but finally the jumpy man left, sliding the door shut and leaving the warehouse blanketed in silence once more.
Weird, Emma thought, her own sharp gaze flicking wildly around the room below her, trying to figure out what he'd done. Why he'd been there. Who he was. She slid the burner phone out of her pocket and flipped it open, glad that - for all its lack of features - it remembered her brightness preferences. Emma squinted in the darkness, trying to make out enough of the screen to pull up the texting page and then Liam's number.
She never expected to be blinded by every one of the warehouse's lights coming on in an instant.
Emma couldn't bite back the cry of surprised pain as she slammed her eyes shut against the bright light that assaulted her vision. She blinked rapidly, shielding her eyes from as much of the light with one hand and scrabbling to find the phone she'd dropped with the other. She'd only just brushed over it with her fingers when a sound to her right startled her.
The next thing she heard was the crash of plastic shattering against concrete after her phone careened off the catwalk.
Damnit!
Ignoring the phone, Emma rolled onto her back, pulling her sidearm and aiming it at the noise she'd heard first.
A burly man stared back, his own weapon trained on her chest and how in the hell had he gotten there without her hearing him?
"Get up," he snarled, gesticulating with the weapon. "Leave the gun."
Not bloody likely, Killian's voice echoed in her ear as Emma got slowly to her feet. She eyed her other two exits as she stood, surprised to find the spindly man she'd been watching aiming his own weapon at her from the ladder behind her. How had he gotten there so quickly?
"Kick the rifle off," Burly ordered, cocking his pistol and leering at her.
Emma turned to face him, putting Panic at her left and keeping Burly in front of her. She needed the rifle to watch Liam's back once he got here, but she needed to not be dead in order to do that.
Emma hadn't gotten as far as she had in life without learning how to improvise. She took four huge steps back from the rifle instead, raising her weapon in supplication and wondering how far he'd let her go before-
BANG!
A bullet whizzed over her head and slammed into the wall far behind her. Emma could hear the projectile ricocheting around the warehouse until, finally, it buried itself into something.
"That's far enough, girlie," Burly told her, his smile getting even more lewd as he blew on the barrel of the smoking gun. "Boss wants you alive for his grand finale with Jones."
Emma resisted the urge to hang her head. If Hades knew who she was, and that Liam was coming, they'd never stood a chance.
She took another step back, watching Panic move steadily towards her and she wanted to swing the weapon down to bear on him, wanted him to back off, but Burly sent another bullet her way and this one nicked her ear. Hot blood coursed down the side of her head even as she ducked away from the pain, clapping a hand over the wound and hissing when she put pressure on it. Barely a graze, but enough to get the message across.
They had her dead to rights.
"Put. The gun. Down," came the order from behind her. A third man that she hadn't even known was there poking his head out of the hatch from the ladder she'd climbed hours before. His own weapon was trained on her back.
Well, shit.
Emma had no choice. She put the gun down.
"Very good, lass," the third man praised facetiously, grinning as he climbed off the ladder and moved towards her. He motioned her backwards as he reached for her weapon, Panic's own gun settling in the middle of her back.
She was trapped.
"This is some fancy hardware, love," Burly commented idly as he picked up her rifle, swinging it around until the strap secured it to his back.
"Don't call me that," Emma hissed, every muscle in her body tensing for a fight.
The third man snickered and took another step forward, jamming the barrel of his gun under her chin and twisting. If not for Panic's gun in her back, Emma would have made the asshole eat it.
"I'm going to have some fun making you scream," he promised, and Emma named him Pain.
"Not if I get you first," Emma whispered back, pleased to see a flicker of fear cross his features at her tone before he lifted his chin and grinned.
"Once the boss is done with you and your… did you switch brothers so quickly? Is that what this is?"
Emma bristled.
"Guess not," Pain continued as if they were exchanging idle gossip. "Either way, I'm going to have fun breaking you when Jones is drowning in his own blood."
Emma's sarcastic retort was cut off when he reached out and pinched her bleeding ear, twisting and giggling when she tried to suppress the cry of pain.
"Enough," Burly commanded. "Boss wants her quiet until Jones gets here."
Emma didn't have enough time to think about what that meant before the lights went out - metaphorically and physically.
When Emma finally came around, she was lying on her stomach with a gag in her mouth and one of the men sitting on her back.
"We've just got to wait for the signal, girlie," the man sitting on her tapped the back of her head with what felt like his gun. Burly, then, she thought. "Then you and lover boy can be reunited."
Emma didn't know if he was smart enough to mean Killian or dumb enough to mean Liam.
It took a few moments but soon Emma heard the screech of the warehouse door and measured footsteps echoing over the concrete floor she was lying on.
Run, Liam! Get out of here! she muttered angrily as she thought the commands as loudly as she could. She could see Panic pacing the floor in front of her and hear Pain's amused breathy chuckles to her side. This was her last chance. If she could just make some kind of commotion… if she could…
"Don't even think about it," Burly ordered as he slid the cool metal over her throbbing ear. "You wouldn't get two steps before we took you out and Jones is already a dead man walking."
Emma squirmed anyway, ignoring the way Pain kicked her in the side and Burly shouted for him to be careful - he'd almost nailed the idiot in the jewels. There was nothing for it; she'd have to wait for some more of Hades' plan to work itself out before she could find a way to escape.
To keep herself and Liam alive until they could regroup.
All too soon, she was dragged to her feet, her hands still bound behind her and the dried blood on her neck pulling at the little hairs there. Emma's eyes watered as she was shoved along, Pain and Panic each taking an arm as Burly prodded her with his gun.
She was going to make him eat a bullet first chance she got.
"Ah ah ah," she heard Hades scold someone - probably Liam. Her heart sank. "You might no longer care about yourself, but what about…"
Emma stumbled as Pain shoved her out of Panic's hold and into the room. He didn't give her a chance to straighten up before he'd clamped one hand around her neck and jammed the pistol into the base of her skull.
"Miss Swan," Hades continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, brandishing - of all things - a nasty looking dagger, "how nice of you to join us."
Liam looked broken, holding his weapon shakily on Hades but looking at her like his world had ended. And, she realized quickly, if they didn't find a way to turn this on its head, it very likely had. They wouldn't survive this without some kind of intervention and Liam would never rest if he didn't avenge Killian first.
Neither would she.
"Let her go, you bastard. It's me you want."
Emma almost rolled her eyes. Leave it to a Jones to be chivalrous to a fault. Even when it was futile.
"Actually," Hades spoke as if he were teaching a toddler, "it's both of you. Did you miss the part where Miss Swan, here, is hellbent on taking down my entire organization?"
Pain shook her as if Liam needed the reminder that she was there. Emma's head was spinning, stars beginning to cloud her vision. She needed to breathe.
"Let. Her. Go." Liam commanded again, his hand shaking more violently as he raised the point of the gun a little higher.
"Here's how this is going to work," Hades began conversationally. "Miss Swan is going to keep us company for a little while. I'm sure my… associates will have some interesting things to show her. Then-"
Burly piped up. "Then you're gonna-"
Hades nodded once and Pain pulled his gun away from Emma's head long enough to put a bullet through Burly's skull.
"I don't like when you interrupt me," Hades spoke to the corpse. Panic started fidgeting, hopping from foot to foot and swinging his own gun wildly from Burly to Liam and back again.
"As I was saying," Hades continued, "While these two imbeciles are keeping Miss Swan company, you're going to go down to the precinct and make sure that any files on me have been erased."
Liam shook his head. "Not a chance. Let Emma go. She has access to the files; I don't."
Hades laughed. "I'm sure you can get… creative."
"And what if I don't? What if I" - he swung the weapon to sight in on Panic - "just take out your men one by one?"
Panic blanched, his eyes frozen on Hades while his gun hovered somewhere close to pointing at Liam's abdomen.
Not a good shot, then, Emma thought, watching Liam warily.
Apparently he had the same idea, if the next few minutes of utter chaos were any indication. Emma sagged completely in Pain's grasp, falling to the floor and nearly passing out when his hand tightened around her neck. But it gave Liam the opening he needed to shoot the bastard in the neck, killing him in the time it took Pain to sag to the ground and collapse on top of her.
"Liam! Look out!" was all Emma could yell from where she was pinned to the floor, watching in slow motion as Hades snarled, raising the knife and charging across the room. Panic fired his weapon, spinning Liam around and out of Hades' direct path, but that was the only shot he was able to fire off as another bullet came out of nowhere, stopping him dead in his tracks as he looked down, comically almost, at the spreading flower of blood on his chest. He threw one scathing look towards the door before he hit his knees and fell, face first, onto Burly's back.
"Detective!" a voice shouted from behind her, but with the adrenaline flowing and the fear taking hold, Emma had no idea who was shouting.
Liam's left hand clutched at his shoulder as he turned just in time to catch Hades' arm as it arced towards his unprotected back. They both fell to the floor in a tussle of limbs that left Emma lost as to who was whom.
"Detective?" a voice asked, booted feet in front of her as whoever it was watched the scene in front of him. Emma tried to look up, but only got as far as jean-clad knees before Pain's bulk halted her movements.
"Fine!" she shouted. "Help Liam!"
Someone else kneeled next to her and Emma's head whirled around, making something snap audibly in her neck and causing her to cry out.
"Hold on, Detective," the other voice soothed, placing his gun on the ground in her line of sight before disappearing.
Seconds later, the weight on her back disappeared and Emma scrambled to her feet, snatching up the gun and pointing it at whoever moved.
Robin and David both stared at her with raised eyebrows before turning back to the melee at their feet. Every time one of them tried to get close enough to pull the grappling men apart, the knife slashed out and backed them up. Emma tried to train her gun on Hades, but it was a lost cause; there was too much movement to ensure that she wouldn't hit Liam.
"Help him!" she shouted again, dizzy now that she'd paused for a moment. Adrenaline could only overcome so much and Emma had been unconscious for a considerable amount of time before this.
"We're trying!" David shouted at her, looking as lost and terrified as she and Liam had felt after Killian was shot.
Robin peeled his gun out of Emma's hands as she wavered, nearly stumbling into David. She couldn't see straight now and relinquished the weapon as she started to buckle back to the ground. Arms held her up, slowing her descent, but couldn't stop her fall.
She shook off the help, watching with bated breath as the two men rolled again. "Help him, please," she muttered, not knowing how they could do anything but watch.
David was shaking next to her, resting on one knee and gripping his weapon as if he could will it to fire the right shot. "He needs this," was all he muttered.
And then, it all ended in a flash of light and the smell of gunpowder and the pained shout that drowned out everything else.
Hades had gotten the advantage, one hand clasped around Liam's as it choked the life out of him and the other raising the knife above his head. Robin was the one who took the shot, firing through the middle of Hades' back and not taking any chances with a head shot. It didn't matter; Hades was dead before he fell, but the damage was done. The path of his knife drove it into Liam's side as he landed on top of him, and Emma heard the clink of metal chipping concrete even as Liam screamed.
"NO!" they all shouted, and time sped up as Emma scrambled to his side, securing the knife in her hand as David peeled Hades' corpse off of Liam's chest. Liam's blood ran hot over her hand as she grabbed the shirt Robin pressed against the wound.
"Son of a bitch!" Robin muttered as he pulled out his phone. "Killian is going to murder me for this."
Everything stopped.
Emma started to shake.
She couldn't breathe.
Her hands went numb.
Her eyes started to water.
She'd never been this cold.
She couldn't hear anything.
Nothing except Robin's words echoing.
"Killian is going to murder me."
Killian!
Is. Present tense.
Present.
Alive?
Emma's eyes swiveled up, fighting off the blackness that was encroaching on her vision as she silently begged Robin to explain.
"Kil… Killian?" she croaked, her voice cracking on every syllable.
Robin nodded. "I tried to find you two. Bloody hell, would it have been too much to leave a damned phone on? I didn't have time to tell you beforehand and then, by the time we got him settled, you were gone. He's going to have my head for worrying you guys like this."
Emma just shook her head, sure that it was some kind of oxygen deprived hallucination. "Wh- what?"
Robin shrugged apologetically, holding up a finger when his phone finally connected with a dispatcher.
Emma whirled on David, snarling when he tried to move her out of the way to put pressure on the wound in Liam's shoulder. "What?" she screamed again, well aware that she sounded a little hysterical.
"I didn't know, Emma. I swear, I wouldn't have done this to him" - he nodded at Liam - "or to you. Robin got some credible intel from one of their sources that Hades had put a price on Killian's head. He didn't have time, and he didn't think about anything. He just… he got Whale to fake Killian's death. You two disappeared before we could tell you."
Emma stared for another minute before she felt tears streaming down her cheeks. Jones was alive! Killian was… he was… they could…
Liam groaned, not really conscious and not aware that his life was slipping away and his goddamned brother was alive! Emma pushed down harder around the knife, careful not to slice her hand open but unwilling to let him slip away.
It wasn't going to be enough. Liam went slack beneath her hands as his eyes rolled to the back of his head and then closed.
"Don't you dare!" Emma shouted, pushing down harder on the gaping wound and ignoring the way her palm split open along the blade, their blood mingling together on the wadded up shirt.
Liam went frighteningly limp and Emma swore.
"You self righteous asshat! You don't get to die and leave me to tell Killian you were a goddamned hero!"