"Jane! It's good to see you." A salt and pepper haired man said, walking by, a file in his hand.
"Good evening Dr. Jacobs." Jane answered with a smile as she accepted the files being handed to her by the secretary behind the oak desk.
"Oh and you had a call from Agent Gartman. He said he needed to talk to you about something but you needed to come to his apartment." The secretary handed Jane a sticky note with the message and address written on it and continued, "Poor guy, I think he's too afraid to leave his house again. Have fun with that one."
Jane accepted the note and slid it into her leather shoulder bag. "Thanks Joanna, I'll check on him on my way home." Roy Gartman was one of her regulars, she'd been helping him for the last eight months after he suffered a mental break during a particularly high stress field mission. After a lot of effort she managed to get it out of him that he had unintentionally killed four civilians in an attempt to neutralize an enemy threat. Overwhelmed by guilt Roy had struggled to follow through on later operations and had to be transferred off field ops.
She knew how much that had killed him inside, but she also knew it was for his own good. Being in the field in the state he was in made him a liability and put everyone around him in danger. Still, she felt pity for the guy, watching him continually worsen, to the point where at times, like today, he couldn't even leave the house, paralyzed by the fear that he would hurt someone else.
Jane tried to push Gartman to the back of her mind and forced herself to focus on her current patient who she was currently walking to meet. The hallway was quiet aside from the rhythmic clicking of her heels on the shiny waxed floor. Opening her file she saw her first appointment was with one of the patients from L7, a 16 year old girl who had watched her boyfriend get blown to pieces by a terrorist organization. Jane had only be seeing her for a few weeks, but she was optimistic that with the progress she had already seen, it wouldn't be much longer until the girl would be able to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. in a fully stable mental state, able to return to her life.
"Hello Madison." Jane said cheerfully, stepping into the room where the girl was sitting on an oversized sofa, her legs curled up under her body. "How are things today?" Jane pulled a green armchair across the carpet and positioned it a few feet away from the girl, and took a seat. Most of the other counselors would seat themselves behind the desk that was in each of the appointment rooms, but Jane always felt that doing so forced a huge distance between herself and the person she was trying to connect to. It made her feel disconnected and far too formal. Instead she tried to make things as comfortable and personal as she could.
"Well, to be honest not that great Miss Smith." Madison said softly.
Jane could see her eyes were red from crying. "Please, we've been together nearly a month you can call me Jane." She said with a smile. "Is this because Theo's birthday is next week?"
The girl looked at Jane, confused how she could have guessed correctly so immediately. "How did you know that?"
In reality she had recalled seeing the dates in Theo's file during a previous appointment, but instead of telling Madison this she simply replied, "Just a hunch."
Too emotionally drained to question it, Madison accepted Jane's explanation and continued. "I just don't know how I'm supposed to move on with my life and forget about him. I mean, if it wasn't for me we never would have been down at that pier and he wouldn't have died! How am I supposed to go to birthday memorial and act like everything is okay? How can I look his mother in the eye, knowing it was all my fault?"
Jane could see tears pressing at the girl's eyes, and her heart went out to the girl. "First you have to stop blaming yourself." Jane said, placing her hand on the girl's. "Punishing yourself you didn't do isn't going to make anything better."
"But I did do it!" The girl said, distraught. "I begged him to take me to the pier; he didn't even want to go!"
Jane nodded, keeping her voice calm. "You didn't know what would happen, there was no way you could have. You were just at the wrong place at the right time, you can't beat yourself up for that!" A silent tear rolled down Madison's cheek and she searched for a reply, but no words came out. "I know I say this a lot," Jane added, "but I believe it really is true. It will get better with time. You may not see it right now, in the midst of everything, but eventually things will work themselves out and the pain will fade. Maybe not completely, but enough that it won't be consuming you, permeating every waking moment." Jane tossed the file in her hand onto the coffee table beside her and leaned her elbows on her knees. "Now, about the party. I don't think acting like everything about your life is perfectly put together is the right idea here. No, you see, I think you should aim for being genuine rather than just faking it. Pretending you're not hurting when you very much are isn't going to do you any favors, and it isn't going to do Theo's mom any favors either.
"She's hurting just as much as you are, remember that. Just be honest with her about the struggles you're facing because odds are she's already going through them. You're longing for someone to understand what you're going through, and she's the one who does. Don't push them away because you're afraid they'll see you cry. Holding it in is only going to tear yourself apart, and you know the more you do that, the longer you have to keep coming back to see boring old me." Madison let out a small chuckle and slowly a smile tugged at her lips.
The two talked a bit longer, until Madison finally felt ready to leave, and Jane gave her a big hug before walking the girl out to the secretary desk where a guard from L7 was waiting to escort her back to the compound.
Checking her file once again she looked to see who else she was meeting with the rest of the day. Over the next hour she battled mutant rabbits with a paranoid schizophrenic, discussed various breathing techniques with a very anxious agent, and helped another come to terms with the realization that there were far worse things out there than mere human beings.
Having reached the end of her file for the day Jane returned the papers to the front desk and retrieved her things from the chair in the staff room where she had left them. "See you tomorrow." Jane called to the woman at the front desk as she walked out the doorway, slipping her arms into her coat.
"Goodnight Jane!" The woman replied back. "Get some rest tonight, you look exhausted!" Jane just smiled and waved goodbye, both knowing taking a break was something Jane rarely ever did.
Stepping onto the pavement outside the S.H.I.E.L.D. building Jane felt the coolness of a rain shower that had passed through not long before. The ground was still wet, but a slight sprinkle was all that was left of the rain. Regardless, Jane was glad she had grabbed her umbrella that morning, and opened it above her. She felt her leather bag resting on her hip and she dug inside for the note with Roy's address on it. She knew where he lived, as she had been there before, but she pulled it out anyway and held it tightly in her hand.
The New York subways felt eerily desolate at the late time of day, with only a fourth of the usual hordes roaming about. Taking a seat under the florescent lights of the subway car Jane pulled her bag onto her lap and pulled out her headphones. No matter how many times she used it, she always found the notion of iPods incredibly fascinating. When she had woken up in the hospital the first time, knowledge of modern technology seemed to be lost on her. Not that it was completely foreign or unfamiliar, but rather that it was neither familiar nor unfamiliar. It was just there. Since then she'd found it quite interesting, though at times a bit overwhelming, learning all the things that her scrambled memories had left her a stranger to.
Ten minutes later Jane heard her stop called over the speakers and quickly gathered her belongings, pulling the strap of her bag over her head and resting it on her shoulder. It didn't take long for her to find her way to Roy's building, despite the rain beginning to pick up again.
"Mr. Gartman, you home?" Jane asked after knocking for the third time and still getting no response. "Roy, it's me, Jane. Are you going to let me in?" Jane flashed a friendly smile to a couple leaving their apartment two doors down. "Roy, if you don't answer me I'm going to have to leave." She said after the couple disappeared down the stairs, knocking once more on the door.
When her knocking still returned no response Jane turned to go, disheartened that she had wasted her time coming all the way out there just for him not to be home. She hesitated, a thought pressing at the back of her mind. Slowly she placed her hand on the doorknob and gave it a turn, fully expecting it not to turn. To her surprise it opened with ease and her heart skipped a beat. Something didn't feel right, why would Roy's door be unlocked and he not answer?
"Hello?" Jane asked tentatively, stepping across the threshold. "Are you in here Roy? I got your message I was just coming to check in, see how things were going." Jane latched the door behind her and flicked on the light. She walked into the open living room and headed to the kitchen where she removed her bag and laid it along with her umbrella on the counter.
Jane glanced all around the apartment, wondering where Roy was and why he had left his door unlocked. He may have been dealing with a lot of stuff lately, but he was still a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and security was always the first thing they ingrained in an agent's mind during training. It was highly unlikely Roy would have forgotten such a simple thing as locking his door when he left. Turning back towards the kitchen a piece of paper caught her eye, taped to the sink. Assuming it was a note from Roy explaining where he was she hurried to the other side of the counter and peeled the tape from the faucet.
"Jane, I'm so sorry." The first words scribbled on the paper made Jane's stomach lurch. "I never meant for this to happen, but I can't keep going on like this. You've done so much for me, and for that I will always be grateful. But I just can't live with myself anymore knowing the people I have hurt. I never wanted this to be my life, and now it won't. Don't mourn for me, nothing I have done is deserving of that, please just—" Jane felt like her heart had stopped beating as she realized what this note was. Without reading the rest of the note she dashed around the counter, adrenaline and dread pumping through her veins.
Frantically she looked around the apartment, her eyes landing on a door to Roy's bedroom. Jane hurried in, her breath caught in her throat. Upon seeing nothing, she continued on to the adjoining bathroom. With shaky fingers she flipped on the light, only for her heart to drop into her stomach. "No, no, no!" She breathed, "Roy don't do this to me!" Prescription bottles lay strewn on the counter and Roy was motionless in a heap on the ground.
"Roy!" Jane screamed, dropping to her knees beside him. Hurriedly she flipped him onto his back and checked for a pulse. Not feeling anything, her mind flashed back to her S.H.I.E.L.D. initiation training and quickly started chest compressions, her own breathing sharp and ragged. "Don't you dare do this to me Roy! Even though she knew CPR was futile she continued on until tears began to cloud her vision forcing her to accept the reality that he was already gone.
Roy's eyes stared up at Jane, immobile like glass, and with a trembling hand she gently closed them. "What have you done Roy? Why, didn't you just tell me it was this bad? I could have helped you!" She whispered with shaky breath, her hands resting on his unmoving chest.
Just then a loud knocking sounded from the front door, startling Jane and causing her to whip her head around to look in the direction of the noise. She hesitated, waiting to hear the noise again. A few seconds later knocks echoed again and a man's voice boomed from outside. "Roy! Let us in!"
Heart racing, Jane stood and hurriedly dried her eyes in the bathroom mirror then headed for the door. Cautiously, she peered through the peephole to see two men in suits, one with a S.H.I.E.L.D. badge visible. With a sigh of relief she pulled open the door. "Oh thank God it's you, I came to check on Roy and found him like this; I don't know what to do!"
The men looked at each other, neither knowing to what she was referring. Hurriedly they barged in, past her and followed her directions to the bathroom where they found Roy laying on the tile. Upon finding him, one man ran his fingers through his hair and exhaled slowly. Jane stood a few feet back from them, in the doorway connecting the living room and bedroom, and couldn't make out what the two men were talking to each other about in hushed tones. "I don't know, should I call the police or something?" She said after a moment.
The men immediately stopped talking and turned to look at her, as though they had almost forgotten she was there. "You're that counselor woman he was seeing aren't you?" One asked, stepping closer to her.
"Um, yeah I guess, is that important?" She said, giving a nervous laugh. The man stepped closer and Jane instinctively backed away from him into the living room.
"He probably told you a lot of things, didn't he? Things about his job?" The man said, squinting and following her into the room, the other man staying behind to inspect Roy's body.
The man's tone of voice was making Jane uneasy, something didn't seem quite right about the two of them. Suddenly she was feeling like letting them inside was a mistake. "W-well yeah I suppose." She stuttered. "It was the only way for him to work through things. I don't see how that would affect you though."
The man continued walking towards her until she was backed up against a fireplace with nowhere else to go. "It does affect me though, you see, Roy and I worked very closely together and information he gave you could very well be about me. Information that if blabbed around town could cause a lot of issues for me and my buddies. Do you see why that's a problem?" Jane stood, eyes wide, unsure if she should feel threatened, or if this guy just had an abnormally abrasive personality.
"You know I almost feel bad about doing this, but in the end I have to." He said with a smile.
"Have to do w-what?" Jane asked, her instincts definitely telling her something was very wrong.
The man calmly reached to the back of his waist band and pulled out a gun, pointing it at Jane. "Why I have to kill you of course."
She'd had a feeling that was what he was going to say, but seeing the gun still made her blood run cold and her breath feel trapped in her throat. The man inched closer and Jane searched the wall with her hands for anything she could use as a defense.
"Don't bother trying to run, and screaming won't help you either." The man laughed and pulled the gun up, ready to fire.
Jane's hand brushed up against something cold and metal, and she recognized it as a fire poker. She knew that if she thought about what she knew she had to do next, she would never follow through, so in a split second decision she sprang into action, swinging the metal object with as much force as she could muster, directly at her assailant. Vibrations echoed through her arm as the object made contact with the man's head.
She could hear him cursing at her, but his voice was soon drowned out by the deafening sound of the gun going off, far too close to Jane's ears for her liking. Fueled by adrenaline she took advantage of his moment of surprise and focused all her energy in to simply bashing him in the head as many times as she possibly could. Even though it wasn't required for her position, she had started taking some of the S.H.I.E.L.D. combat training courses, just as a hobby. But nothing in her training had quite prepared her for this.
She felt him land a hard blow on the side of her head with the handle of his gun and she reeled from the impact. She could feel blood trickling down her temple but she ignored it, focusing on the more pressing issue at hand. Using a maneuver she had learned a week prior, she skillfully twisted the man's arm around and kicked his elbow, forcing him to release his grip on the gun. With the man grunting in pain she kicked the gun away where he could no longer reach it. After that, everything she did was pure adrenaline fueled instincts. Kicking, clawing, and swinging her makeshift weapon she worked at inflicting as much damage as she could.
She soon came to find herself, much to her own surprise, standing over the man's unconscious body, the fire poker gripped so tightly in her fist that her knuckles were white. Everything within her wanted to panic, but she was quickly reminded of the second man in the bathroom who was now entering the living room.
Jane looked up and the two made eye contact, both wondering who was going to make the first move. "What in the—" The man exclaimed, upon seeing his partner sprawled across the floor unmoving.
Her breath caught in her throat, unsure of what the man's next move would be. She expected him to pull out a gun, just as the other man had done earlier. When a few seconds had passed and the man remained standing in the doorway, Jane followed the man's gaze to where the unconscious man's hand gun lay on the carpet, three feet away from Jane. She wondered why he was just standing there, not making a move to attack her, until finally the realization struck her. He didn't have a gun and he knew if she got ahold of the one on the floor, she would have the advantage.
Disbelief at her stroke of luck washed over her, and she had to restrain herself from letting out an audible laugh. Quickly she lunged for the pistol, grabbing it with her left hand while keeping the fire poker tightly gripped in her right. With the shaky gun pointed at his head, the man had no choice but to slowly lift his hands. "Look, you really don't want to do this." He said, his voice oddly calm.
"Yeah?" Jane replied, trying to sound convincing. "And why is that exactly? Because your partner just tried to kill me? That seems like a pretty good reason to me."
The man's mouth contorted into a smile and he said with a chuckle. "We both know you won't pull that trigger. No, you're much too afraid for that. How about you just hand it to me, and we can go our separate ways huh?"
The way the man laughed infuriated Jane, and she hated how condescending he sounded. "Oh, you think so? You sound so sure about that."
The man grinned, "You and I both know you're too weak to actually go through with it, you couldn't kill me. You're just—"
Before the man could finish his sentence Jane angled her gun a few inches and pulled the trigger, causing a bullet to fly through the air, landing in the man's thigh. In an instant he was kneeling on the carpet, clutching his injured leg.
"Still think I won't do it?" Jane said smugly. The man just swallowed, looking up at her, his teeth gritted.
Jane was relieved knowing the man was essentially immobilized, but panic soon returned when she realized she now had to figure out what to do with him. She considered calling the police and waiting until they got there, but she realized that at some point she would have to explain why the men were here, why she was here, for that matter, and in doing so, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s name would definitely come up and she knew the trouble that would cause would not be worth it. Calling in to S.H.I.E.L.D. itself was another option but she quickly eliminated that possibility, seeing as these two men were S.H.I.E.L.D themselves and she was not keen on the idea of more of their buddies showing up. With all things considered she knew there was only one viable option. She had to leave them here and get away without a trace.
Just the thought of killing either of them, though they probably deserved it, made Jane sick to her stomach. The man had been right earlier, there was no way she could actually kill him. She didn't know if she had already killed the man lying on the floor, but she decided she really didn't want to know. Knowing she couldn't leave the injured man unattended when she left she quickly began searching for a way to incapacitate him long enough for her to get away. Even if she couldn't kill him she knew she had to do something.
Eyes darting around the room she looked for any sort of wires, cords, or ropes that she could use to tie him up, but the longest thing she could find was a plug on a lamp that was two feet long. Not long enough to do anything useful. Desperately she tried to calm the panic rising within her. She knew that with the gun shots that had already been fired, the police would have been alerted and would soon be there.
Her mind struggled to think coherently, with the blow to the head and the pressure of the situation making it nearly impossible to concentrate. Suddenly, amidst the chaos in her mind a solution occurred to her. Hurriedly she moved towards the man, clinging to his oozing wound, keeping the barrel of her gun aimed at him. She stepped over him through the doorway and walked backwards towards the bathroom. The man slowly reached towards his pocket to grab his cellphone. "If you move an inch, the next bullet is going between your eyes."
The man grunted, unhappy to be taking orders from her, but knowing he had no other options. Begrudgingly he let the phone fall back into his pocket and removed his hand.
Keeping an eye on the man she reached behind her to the bathroom counter where she could feel pill bottles lined up. The image of Roy limp on the floor kept pushing at her mind but she pushed it away and grabbed several of the pill canisters. Quickly she scanned the labels. Anxiety meds, anti-depressants, she recognized many of them as the ones she'd had Dr. Jacobs prescribe. After a moment she found the combination she was looking for and tossed the others back on the counter.
Jane retraced her steps so she was back in the living room and opened the canisters and letting the tablets spill out onto the kitchen counter. Even though she wasn't allowed to prescribe medication to her patients, Dr. Jacobs had taught her enough about the different kinds that she knew with the right combination and dosage she could knock him out without killing him. Quickly she picked out a small yellow pill, two white ones, and a clear capsule.
Making her face as commanding and authoritative as she could, she held the assortment of pills out for the man to take them. "Swallow these." The man stared at her silently, not moving. "Now!" She yelled angrily. Sternly, the man accepted them into his own hand, but made no movement to put them in his mouth.
"What, I don't even get a glass of water?" He asked sarcastically.
"Look, I can just as easily shoot your other leg!" She added impatiently when she saw the man was not going to cooperate. She moved, to place her gun against his leg point blank but the man finally gave in and dumped the pile of pills into his mouth and swallowed.
He lifted his hands to show they were empty and then opened his mouth to prove he had swallowed them all. Jane lowered her gun slightly, knowing it was only a matter of time before the quick release tablets began to interact with the others. She would only have to wait a minute or two until he was knocked out to be sure he didn't make himself throw the pills back up, and then she could leave. She just hoped it would work fast enough for her to get away before the cops showed up. The man started coughing and she knew the drugs were starting to take effect.
His coughing increased, then tapered off as he struggled for his breaths, his eyelids growing heavier by the second. "You won't escape this." The man mumbled through ragged breaths. "They will find you. HYDRA will always find you."
Jane's stomach lurched at the name HYDRA. She had come across it in her file work in the past and she knew what HYDRA was, but she didn't understand why he was bringing it up. This man was slipping into medication induced unconsciousness in a dead man's apartment and he was bringing up a Nazi terrorist organization from over half a century past. In confusion, she looked to ask him what he meant, but he was already out cold.
Her thoughts reeling she quickly realized that above everything else, regardless of what he meant by his statement, she had to get out of there, and fast. She considered leaving the gun in one of their hands, to make it look like the three men had been the only ones involved, but the thought of encountering more people like these two men caused her to instead shove it into the pocket of her coat. After checking one last time to be sure he was really knocked out, Jane rushed towards the door. The handle in her grasp she closed her eyes with a sigh. Hurriedly she ran back into the kitchen to grab her bag, but left the umbrella.
When she reached the streets she breathed a huge sigh of relief, and began walking as quickly as she dared without looking conspicuous. Sirens sounded in the distance and she flipped up her collar, trying to hide her face each time another cop car flew by. Catching a glimpse of her reflection in a laundromat window she remembered the wound on her forehead and she quickly pulled her sleeve to her head to wipe off the blood that had dried on her skin and matted into her hairline. Feeling she was far enough away from Roy's apartment building for the time being she stepped into the nearly desolate laundromat and took a seat on one of the bench seats behind a wall of dryers.
Finally having a chance to just sit and be calm, the impact of the last half hour washed over her. Roy was dead, she had drugged a fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and possibly killed another. She struggled to process this realization and despite her attempts to keep them in, tears spilled down her cheeks. Slowly she pushed her hand into her pocket, to feel the smooth metal of the gun, confirming to her that it had all been real and this wasn't a dream. She took a deep breath trying to compose herself. Just as she was about to pull her hand back out she felt paper brushing against her knuckles and pulled out the object.
It was Roy's suicide note and she grimaced, knowing the contents. She smoothed the wrinkled page on her leg and blinked away the tears clouding her vision. "Jane I'm so sorry." The first line stared up at her. She read through the letter again, until arriving at the point where she had left off before. Suddenly the entire tone of the letter changed, and no longer was Roy explaining his desire to no longer go on living, and the lines were all scrunched together as though he began writing the last lines very quickly and fervently. "We thought they were gone but they never were. They 've been here all along." She struggled to make out in the scribbled handwriting.
Jane wiped her eyes and looked more intently. "HYDRA has been inside S.H.I.E.L.D. all along. They forced me to join them but I can't do this anymore, it's not who I am." The words scrawled in black ink stabbed Jane like a knife. For a moment she thought her heart had stopped beating all together. The words kept resounding in her head and she refused to believe what she was reading. Anxiously she read on. "It's too late for me, I know that already, but I hope that at least my death can help expose them, if only in part."
Jane shook her head in disbelief. The man in the apartment had mentioned HYDRA just moments before going unconscious and now it was written in Roy's letter, she knew there was no way it could be a coincidence but she didn't think the alternative could be possible. HYDRA, back? Everything she knew about the organization ended with the indisputable fact that it was disbanded by the SSR after WW2.
"If you're reading this it means I am dead, but it also means HYDRA has already begun executing their rise to power. I've listed all the names I know of people who are part of HYDRA on the back, but believe me when I say there are countless others. S.H.I.E.L.D. is entirely infiltrated, you can trust no one. Just get out Jane, get out." The letter ended there, and Jane sat shocked, and dumbfounded at the revelations of the letter. Her hands still shaking, she flipped over the paper and scanned through the list of twenty or so names. "Jasper Sitwell, Marion Burke, Joseph Wilmington, the list continued on, but so far she hadn't recognized any names. Then her stomach lurched as she read the name 'Thomas Bishop' scribbled on the page.
"Nicki." She muttered breathlessly. Tom was Nicki's boyfriend and Jane knew her friend was with him. Scenarios began rushing through her head of Tom attacking Nicki the way the two men had attacked herself.
"Hey Jane! What's up, did you change your mind; are you going to come join us?" Nicki said enthusiastically into her phone.
Jane could hear people laughing in the background, and she knew Nicki was at O'Reilly's, probably thoroughly inebriated by now. "Nicki, I need you to listen carefully, where is Tom right now at this moment?" She said seriously, her heart beating hard in her chest.
Nicki glanced across the room to where her boyfriend was sitting at a table with their other friends. "Umm, he's enjoying himself with the group. I can't say as much for you, when are you getting here?"
By her tone of voice, Jane could tell she was not in a sober state of mind. "Nicki, listen to me! Tom is very dangerous you need to get out of there right now!"
Nicki simply giggled in reply. "Oh Jane, I know you have a crush on Tom, but you're not going to fool me into leaving him that easily."
Jane closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Nicki, I do not have a crush on Tom." She said defiantly. "But I'm serious, you need to get out of there."
Tom glanced over at Nicki, who was jabbering into her phone by the bar, and she gave him a flirtatious wink. "Oh come on don't deny it, you know it's true!"
"Nicki!" Jane said loudly, snapping her friend out of her lighthearted mood. "I am not kidding about this! Something really bad has happened at S.H.I.E.L.D., turn on the news if you don't believe me." Jane was watching the screen in the laundromat where the only two other customers in the laundromat had gathered to watch the unfolding scenes of S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarriers being shot to pieces and falling into the Potomac.
Pulled out of her inebriated stupor by her friend's directness and harsh tones, Nicki grabbed the attention of the bartender and asked him to change the channel of the overhead televisions. Nicki's mouth gaped as she watched the broadcast. Slowly, the screens caught the attention of the other patrons until the majority of the place was watching in hushed tones and disbelief.
When Tom caught sight of what Nicki's eyes were glued to, he calmly, but quickly moved across the room and grabbed her by the arm. "I think it's time for us to go." He said to her, quietly but sternly.
"Wha-what?" She stammered.
"Nicki, don't go with him, remember what I said!" Jane said into the phone as loudly as she could without the other customers at the laundromat hearing her. "Nicki, Tom is HYDRA!" She continued, but Nicki couldn't hear her friend anymore.
"We're going now." Jane could faintly hear Tom saying in the background. There was a click on the other side of the line, and then silence.
Hello everyone, thanks you all for reading! I really loved writing this chapter and I couldn't help myself, I had to post it early! As you probably noticed, the chapters have now started getting longer, and they for the most part will remain that way. This chapter is also where the story really starts picking up and i would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear your reviews of it so far! Let me know what you think!