"He's still alive," one of Ramirez' goons said about Nic in Spanish. Raoul nodded and pointed at Danae. The man stepped over to check on her, and Carlos started forward. Two others held him back.

"Not him," Carlos gritted out. "You know what he does."

Raoul pulled a silencer out of his pocket and attached it to the barrel of his pistol. "Watch yourself, Paco. Remember we are the gentlemen here." He fired his gun twice into Nic's head.

Danae opened her eyes to see Paco's leering face, so close she could smell his musty breath, and she recoiled. "Carlos?" Carlos pulled away from his captors and went to her, putting himself between her and Paco.

"You ok?" he asked. Danae nodded, then her eyes changed from bewildered to frightened and she shook her head. She pulled up the hem of her shirt to show a sluggishly bleeding wound. She had fallen on some of the broken glass.

"It's not bad," she said uncertainly.

"Clean yourself up," Raoul said, indicating Danae's bathroom with a wave of his gun. "We'll need you alive and well before the day is done. Paco, go with her."

"Hands to yourself," Carlos warned Paco in Spanish. Danae squeezed his hand. She didn't speak a word of the language, but she recognized the tone in his voice and, she was pretty sure, the word cojones. She wasn't worried about herself at the moment; she had a pretty good idea what Raoul wanted from Carlos. "Your brother broke the law," Carlos said to Raoul as Danae stumbled down the short hallway to her bathroom. "He destroyed lives for money." Raoul hit him, and Carlos laughed as he wiped blood away from his lip. "He didn't want this life for you!" The second strike knocked him down.

"Take him to the back," Raoul said calmly. "We don't have much time."

It had only taken Kim minutes to tap into the 9-1-1 switchboard, and mere seconds to figure out their electronic filing system. She knew Carlos car was at Danae's apartment complex, so she typed that address in to the parameters field. Sure enough, there was a disconnected call from the location she would bet came from Carlos' phone, as well as a report of gun shots a little after that. Carlos' cell had not been traced yet due to his scrambled signal. Kim was the only one who could connect the two events. She chewed her fingernail; if the responding officers weren't warned, they could be taken by surprise. If Carlos of all people had been overpowered, then the unassuming responding officer didn't have a chance.

She had an idea, and within moments had found the extension number she needed. She held her breath while it rang through.

"Ryan."

"Detective Ryan," Kim said, speaking quickly. She needed to appear helpless, hopeless, and more than a little incompetent if she was going to get this man involved in saving Carlos' life. "My name is Kim Sutton. I'm the secretary for Thunder Investigations." Actually, she was the office manager, not a secretary, and she was mostly responsible for keeping the business running and successful. She abhorred being referred to as a secretary. But desperate times called for desperate measures, right?

There was a pause on Ryan's end. "Yeah?" Ryan sounded annoyed. Good.

"Well you know our agents are s'posed to check in every hour and Carlos Sandoval hasn't and when I called him a Hispanic answered the phone and sounded angry and I think he's in big trouble and I told him he should listen to you about Ramirez!"

"Ramirez?" Ryan was hooked.

"He said he was going to kill Carlos!" she wailed. From Ryan's reaction, she decided she could make a killing in Hollywood.

"Listen. I need you to calm down. You did the right thing. I need you to think hard. Do you know where he is?"

"I don't know," she let her voice tremble.

"Any appointments?"

Kim shuffled mail around her desk to make it seem like she was leafing through volumes of unorganized paperwork. "Um. It looks like he was going to make sure Danae's apartment was secure before he closed her case."

"Good. What's the address?"

"Don't yell at me!" She had to cover the mouthpiece on her handsfree set to muffle her laugh as Ryan apologized and tried to calm her down.

"Here it is." She sniffed again as if she'd been crying and gave him the address. Ryan hung up as soon as she gave it to him, and Kim sat back, taking off the headset. She turned on the TV and police scanners to wait for word on either of her men. Hopefully, they were as half as brilliant as she was.

Despite the element of surprise, Trent was getting his ass kicked. Hard. Ira's enormous boot sent him sprawling again, and he rolled away easily to buy himself time. Making Ira come to him would wear him out, too. Instead, Ira looked to Bee, and Trent got his lucky break. At first he had thought Ira was deferring power to his employer, but he couldn't figure out how Beatrice had risen to power so quickly in such an established organization. The answer was in the look Ira and Bee shared: they were in love!

Trent put Bee between himself and Ira. Margo was behind him, sprawled on the stage. He didn't lay a hand on the senator's wife, but Ira knew that he could. Bee looked from Trent to Ira warily. "How about we calm down here for a minute?" he asked. Ira hesitated, and suddenly the doors at the back of the auditorium slammed open.

"They're here!" a man in a Kevlar vest exclaimed. He was armed with what looked to be a sniper rifle, which he carried with the barrel pointed down to the ground. "The Feds are here!"

Ira and Bee looked at each other. "To your posts!" Bee shouted. She turned to Trent. "We'll deal with you two later." She ran to Ira, grabbing his hand and pulling him away into the moving crowd. Trent grabbed Margo and ushered her off the stage back the way he had come. There were more guards in the hallways now, and unlike Bee and Ira they did seem to care about the escaping duo. Trent made short work of the first two, while Margo launched herself at a third coming around the corner.

"We need to get out of here," she said.

"I'm open to ideas!" he tossed back, as yet another wannabe-soldier came at them. The more time passed, the more they were dressed like the sniper with vests, helmets, and weapons. Margo grabbed his hand and ran back toward the stage with him.

"They're moving to defend the entrances," she explained. As long as we stay away from them, we should be fine. They've got a political war to start just now. But make no mistake: if their position is compromised, they can and will blow this entire building!" She climbed up the catwalk ladder Trent had found earlier, then dashed across the catwalk itself, high above the now-empty auditorium. They came to a control booth, and Margo reached up to displace a ceiling tile. She squirmed her way into the hole she'd made and offered Trent a hand.

He followed her through the ceiling silently. They must be above the second floor. Finally she stopped and pulled up a tile to peek down. Trent could smell smoke. Was it smoke from a flash grenade or smoke from the building burning? Margo let herself down and waited for Trent to land beside her.

"Stairway," she mouthed to him. She pointed down and they began their silent descent. Between the two of them, they disposed of the five people they met. Margo stopped Trent after the last armed Reformist and whispered to him "Why don't we play a little dress up?" Admittedly, undressing the unconscious man and woman took time, as did donning all that attire, but it proved to be a good idea when the fire alarm and sprinklers went off. Soot-streaked Reformists streamed into the stairwell, headed for the outside. Apparently the building was on fire in a major way, and those Reformists not quite ready to martyr themselves in a fiery explosion were getting out while they could.

Margo took off her helmet as soon as she was outside so that the waiting Rangers and FBI agents could recognize her. "It's going to blow!" she yelled, ushering people further away from the building. Trent could see flames poking out of windows and felt uneasy. He grabbed her hand again and pulled her toward the barricade of police vehicles. The force of the explosion knocked them forward onto the grass. Trent took the brunt of the impact on his forearms and belly, then rolled to standing. He hefted Margo up by her waist and dragged her further away. They could feel the intense heat from a second explosion on their backs; if they had stayed put, they would be burnt right now.

Professionally, each checked the other to make sure they were uninjured. Finally, rush of the frenzied fight, explosion, and awe of seeing each other again died, and Trent smiled broadly at Margo.

"It's really you," he said. "I thought I lost you…" He was stopped from explaining the worry he and her parents experienced during her absence because she silenced him with a dizzying kiss.

"It's been a long time, hasn't it?" she grinned, eyes sparkling.

"Too long," he agreed as he leaned in to meet her lips again.

"You taste like ashes," she giggled, and Trent pulled her in for a tight hug.

"Agent Jones." Agent Martin had found them. "There's work to be done."

"Yes sir," she said, letting go of Trent and taking a gun. Martin gave her orders, and she quickly ran to obey.

"I'll get her back to you as soon as I can," Martin said.

Danae shut the door behind her and ran hot water in the sink. She could hear Raoul and Carlos in her bedroom, and the sounds made her sick. Every minute or so, Paco would knock on the door and tell her to finish her business. She had cleaned her wound and dressed it; now she lay on the cold bathroom tiles and tried not to cry. She no longer cared if she lived through this, but she felt helpless when she thought of the grim fate Carlos would undoubtedly meet. It was all her fault. "Uno momento, por favor!" she yelled as Paco knocked again, exhausting her knowledge of Spanish in a single sentence. She stood and washed her face and hands…and had an epiphany. It was a long shot, but it just might work.

When she opened the door to the bathroom, she fell immediately into her guard's hands. Unprepared, he caught her with both hands, releasing his hold on his gun. Quickly, she sprayed an aerosol can of bathroom freshener in his eyes, and she took his gun while he screamed in pain. Roughly, she shoved him inside the bathroom and used a hand towel to bind his hands as best she could. She shoved a washcloth in his mouth to keep him from attracting too much attention.

Quietly, she peeked out of the room. She saw no-one. She figured Raoul was probably working Carlos over while his other two minions held him. She tiptoed across the short hallway to the bedroom and stopped. She had never shot a gun before, and while she knew she should pull the trigger, she didn't know if there was a safety. If she opened that door and couldn't pull the trigger, she and Carlos would both be dead.

She heard a cracking sound as someone kicked through her front door, and she turned to open the closet door behind her. With any luck, whoever had just come in hadn't seen her hide. She heard indistinct shouting and decided to feel around on the gun to see if she could locate a safety. Did gangs even bother with safety mechanisms? she wondered.

Heavy footsteps got closer and she pointed the gun forward, leveling it at about the height she thought a man might stand. There was another sound of splintering wood as her bedroom door was destroyed, and this time she could tell that the shouts were saying "Dallas PD." Two shots rang out, and she could hear the sounds of struggle underneath exclamations to stay down, put your hands up, you're under arrest.

"Danae!" she heard her name as someone knocked on the closet door. "Danae it's Detective Ryan. I'm going to open this door, ok? Put down the gun and don't shoot at me."

True to his word, the closet door opened, and there he stood. Danae finally put the gun down, slowly so that it didn't discharge, and she stood up. "Where's Carlos?"

"Well he could use your help, if you're up to it," Ryan said. She could tell by how large his eyes were that he didn't trust her just yet. He expected her to break down into female hysterics at any moment. He was trying to appeal to her professional side just now to keep her in check.

"There's a first aid kit in the bathroom, if you please," she said as she walked into her now-demolished bedroom. Her body felt light and rubbery, and she jumped when she stepped on a piece of broken lamp. "Carlos?"

"Danae." The "n" sound almost didn't come out. She turned on the lamp and saw that the lighting mechanism still worked, even if the base was in pieces. Carlos' face looked horrible in the naked light.

"Can you get up on the bed?" She grabbed him around the biggest part of his chest and helped him stand. She propped him up on some pillows and took the first aid kit from Ryan.

"The ambulance is only a couple minutes out."

She soaked gauze in sterilized water and began washing Carlos' face. His nose was definitely broken, but the rest of his skull seemed to be in tact from what she could feel. It was his heavily bleeding nose that made it look so bad. Taking a pen light, she checked his pupils.

"How do I look?" he asked. His left pupil was dilated, his hair was sticking out at angles, and he had blood all over his clothing.

Danae laughed. "Like you're on speed."

Carlos winced. "I want a second opinion."

"A very handsome guy on speed?" she tried again. She began to prod at his ribs to check their integrity. By the time the paramedics came, Danae had cleaned up the worst of his wounds. She decreed he would need a CT scan for his concussion and rest for his cracked rib and broken nose. The paramedics were more interested on getting her into a gurney for her own injuries and having real doctors evaluate them.