3. Convoluted Cover

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(The Ides of March)

Sarah inhaled sharply as consciousness found her. Her lungs burned and her mouth stung with contaminated air, acid, and choking dust. The stark whiteness of the room blinded her so painfully that she pressed her eyes closed again. Her cheeks itched and the tip of her nose was cold. She squirmed, but felt nothing. Was she healed or dead?

The soft thrum of machinery spoke of a medical facility, as did the stiff sheets tucked up to her chin and the plastic tube running under her nose. She inhaled again, this time feeling the euphoric effects of concentrated oxygen circulating under her nose. The itch on her cheeks was the pull of medical tape holding the tube in place. Cautiously, she opened her eyes again, squinting enough so that her eyes could adjust to the light in the stark, white room. It was difficult to remain calm in a place so void of life. This was not her hospital room.

Wriggling and tensing, she tested each muscle head to toe, trying to remember Casey's inventory of injury, but nothing struck her as being more than mildly uncomfortable. Either she had been unconscious long enough to heal or she'd been drugged numb, and as unsavory as it was, she much preferred the first. At least now she could lie on her back without wheezing or feeling the stab of the exit wound from being shot.

Lifting her arms, she tested and examined her hands and fingers. She must've been out for at least a few days, because all of her scrapes and shallow cuts had vanished. Her left wrist was still splinted, but it didn't hurt. The bruise on her elbow had faded to yellow and the joint moved easily. Slowly, she wedged up onto her elbows and lifted her head from the pillow. Her vision went spotty, but only briefly. She looked down her body, but it was covered with a white sheet, and she felt eerily like a corpse rising from the dead. She was dressed in a white hospital gown with a drafty back, but she'd woken up with less in more dire situations than this, so she wasn't concerned.

The first thing she felt was the tautness across her abdomen as she sat all the way up. Lifting her gown, she examined the entrance wound just above her right hip. Her skin was stitched and ugly, but most of the bruising was localized and faded. The surgery was at least two weeks behind her, based on that.

Yanking the sheet from the bed, she wrapped it around her shoulders so that the gown wouldn't seem so drafty. This uncovered the cast on her left leg extending mid-thigh to mid-calf, firmly bracing her knee. Smiling, she leaned forward and ran her fingers over the various endearments and signatures written on it with Sharpie. Chuck had clearly spent hours doodling on the cast using his stylized cartooning to convey past adventures. Morgan's haiku was written scandalously close to the top of the cast with a long streak that was clearly someone else swatting his hand away. Even Casey had left a signature and a doodle of a fat fish.

Her right leg was working fine and she shifted in the bed gingerly so she could swing it over the side. The oxygen tube yanked across her face and the IV tugged lightly at her arm. They pump you so full of drugs; they just want you to keep going. Sarah had no intention of staying here. With a deep breath, she shifted backwards so she could lean against the headboard for a moment. Why was she on oxygen? Why had she been moved from the other hospital? Was she even among friends? She was pretty sure the answer to the last one was yes, but given the lack of cards and flowers in the room, she clearly was not among civilians.

Looking analytically at the monitors behind her bed, she saw that her condition seemed stable enough. The IV was connected to nutrients at the moment, meaning she should expect atrophy in her system. She tested her voice and after a few croaks, found her vocal cords dry but functional. She called out a tentative hello, but the door to her room was closed. Running her fingers against her skin, she loosened the tape on her cheeks and removed the tube from under her nose. Next she carefully closed off the drip line and disconnected her IV. Then she scooted to the edge of the bed and slid onto the floor, which was difficult with the cast on her leg, but not impossible. The drugs had numbed her, but not sufficiently to shield her from the ice cold touch of the tiles against her bare feet.

Shivering, she pulled the sheet around her shoulders again and leaned against the bed until she felt stable enough on her feet to stand on her own. Her heart pounded in her chest, unaccustomed to the upright position after being bedridden so long. Her stomach tied in knots, but had nothing to vomit. Her first steps away from the bed were cautious and small. If they were going to pump her full of drugs, she could use it to her advantage - she'd been trained for that. Swallowing her doubts, she tottered across the room to the door. The handle didn't turn when she pulled it and she noticed a keypad next to the door. She was locked in. Why, for God's sake, was she locked in?

She knocked politely on the door, then shuffled back to the bed to look for a nurse-call button. She recognized this style of room - their goal was containment. A call-button was not standard, but an observation window was, and she saw no window. Maybe she was dead and this prison was her own personal hell.

Despite her pessimism, Sarah rustled through the bed sheets by the pillow, and though she found nothing to summon a nurse, she found the little turquoise former-Ipod-shuffle that Casey had given her in the hospital. She pressed the middle button twice, and then went in search of her own way out of this room. She had no idea what kind of battery life the thing had, and in all likelihood, she was in a Faraday shield zone and no signal would make it through anyway.

-----

(Thursday 10pm, two weeks earlier)

Casey picked up speed as they rounded the corner to Sarah's room. Any man that ran like that was up to no good, and Chuck's shout identifying the runner as Potato Head only confirmed the notion. Adrenaline surged, but Casey forced his senses outward rather than tunneling in on his target. The ability to remain hyper-aware of his surroundings in pursuit situations had kept him alive where others would've fallen. He could hear the steady puff of Agent Moon's breath half a step behind him. He took note of every civilian in the hallway that had pressed against the wall and cried out at the sight of weapons drawn. He anticipated and leaped over the patient that Potato Head had plowed through and knocked to the ground. When they rounded the corner, the white doctor coat had vanished, but Casey read the wary looks on the faces of those that belonged there as they eyed and ducked away from the man in blue scrubs walking too slow to be moving toward an emergency and too fast to be anyone but their target.

"That one," Casey said, nodding in the direction of Potato Head. Dasik kicked the shed coat sideways. Like pack wolves, they picked up pace, but their quarry was aware of them. Coming stealthily from the side, Casey moved fast as lighting, hard as steel and tackled Potato Head to the ground. He only got one punch in before he felt the sting of a blade slicing through the front of his shirt and cutting deep into the skin. Crying out a string of curses, Casey rolled out of the way and Dasik swooped in, kicking the blade from Potato Head's hand. The man had an escape plan and a defense, but he had not been expecting two agents to pursue him.

Blood slickened Casey's hand as he pressed it over his wounded chest. He sat up and radioed for help as Dasik pursued their target into the stairwell. Pushing to his feet, Casey joined the chase, realizing immediately that Potato Head was fast, lithe, and not alone. Gunshots rang from somewhere above and Casey sounded the general alarm. Dasik and Potato Head were two stories down. Casey dashed down the stairs, nearly getting clobbered as the door opened and a civilian doctor entered. With hushed words of warning, Casey wrapped and arm around the man's chest and pulled him back into the hallway.

"Not the day to take the stairs," Casey informed him. He pulled his badge, to justify his gun. "N.S.A. Get lazy and use the elevator."

"You're hurt," the doctor said, reacting without thinking. The doctor pulled at the remnants of Casey's shirt to get a closer look at the knife wound, but Casey warned him off and told him to contact security and keep people out of that stairwell. Taking his own advice, he went to the main stairs and flew down the steps three at a time. Once at ground level, he swerved through the lobby toward the back well just as Potato Head came out. Casey felled him with a single shot to the chest.

"Don't move," he ordered, as if the man had a choice.

The door to the stair well burst open, but no one came through. The silence was deafening; the crossfire from the upper floors had ceased.

"Drop the gun!" Dasik hollered, the barrel of his own gun peaking out from behind the door.

"I got here first," Casey said dryly, holstering his own weapon as Dasik edged out of the well. Dasik radioed their back-up seeking information on the other shooters while Casey flagged down a doctor to see to Potato Head. Whoever the man was, he had no identification and he wouldn't be talking any time soon with that hole in his chest.

"You should see a doctor," Dasik said, pointing to Casey's blood-stained shirt. As the adrenaline faded, he felt the throbbing of blood through his veins and the sting of the open air in the wound. It wasn't a deep cut, but it would need stitches.

"You should also get back upstairs if you have any hope of maintaining a civilian cover. Too many people here know you from your cover life."

Nodding, Casey left Dasik to deal with Potato Head and ran back to Agent Walker's room on the fifth floor. He stayed outside, watching through the window because the room was more of a whirlwind than the shooter-filled stairwell had been. Devon held the vial with the poison to the light, examining it a few different ways and giving instructions for things to try based on his hypotheses. Ellie was calling the shots, keeping paddles primed for every time Sarah's heart stopped. A nurse held an oxygen mask to Sarah's face, another stood bed side calling stats and vitals whenever such things were requested. Chuck was backed into a corner, out of the way, face ash-white.

"I'm taking this to the lab," Devon said, rushing out with the poison, nearly bumping Casey as he went. He stopped immediately when he saw the blood on Casey's shirt. Without a moment's hesitation or questioning, he pushed Casey's hand aside and gave the wound a cursory examination.

"Tracy!" Devon called, looking down the hall and summoning an intern. "Clean and suture."

Devon didn't have time for more words. He patted Casey once on the shoulder as acknowledgment of humanity, then ran off, keeping the half-full vial of poison close to his chest. The intern tried to direct Casey out of the hallway and into a room, but gave up almost as quickly when she received a death glare. Once Sarah was stabilized, Ellie backed against the wall, sighed in exhaustion, frustration, and fear, then looked out into the hallway directly at Casey. He couldn't tell if she was simply overwhelmed by what had happened or if she suspected him and his cover was blown. The more she knew, the more dangerous it was for her, so he saw no point in verifying her suspicions if she had any.

Morgan waited for the doctors to clear out before he tried approaching the room again. He kept his head turned away from the intern sewing up the gash in Casey's chest, but he touched Casey's shoulder from behind and said, "You tried, man. You tried."

He released the balloons as soon as he came through the door of the hospital room and sat down on the floor next to Chuck. Chuck blinked and nodded in response to whatever Morgan was saying to him and for the first time ever, Casey was glad that Morgan was there. Bartowski was shaken and Morgan was his friend.

-----

(Friday, 8pm)

Casey wasn't surprised that Agent Moon had arranged for Walker's transfer to a secure facility as soon as she was stable enough to move. It was best for all involved considering they hadn't managed to capture any of the shooters at the hospital and Potato Head was still in critical condition. Even with photo and finger prints, they hadn't yet found a name for the man, but it had been less than a day since his capture, so Casey was certain something would come up.

Despite the trauma of the night before, Casey had insisted that Chuck go to work the next day, since they couldn't both call in sick and Casey wasn't about to leave Chuck and Ellie home the entire day without supervision. Dasik was still pursuing leads at the hospital and couldn't be bothered with the Intersect, so Casey felt he was pretty much on his own. It was strange, because he'd hated having a partner and he'd wanted to handle the case on his own from the beginning. Casey shook his head to clear any wistful thoughts. It was the disruption in the rhythm of the assignment that was irking him, not Sarah's absence – Agent Walker's absence.

When Casey and Chuck returned from the BuyMore, Casey set some vegetables to steam, cleaned and re-bandaged the area around his stitches, and set the switches for a night of eavesdropping on the Intersect.

"Do you think she'll wake up?" Chuck was asking tiredly.

"Of course she will."

Casey recognized the weariness of their voices, and guessed them both slumped on the couch.

"That's the supportive big sister answer," Chuck said. "What do you really think?"

"She only got half the dose. There's no known counter-agent, because it's usually instantly lethal ... the fact that she's living is something, but it's not much. She had so many other things in her system. I wish I'd known the real her."

Casey bristled. Both had been warned by Agent Moon that they should not even be hinting at the existence of their alternate lives.

"It all happened so suddenly, you know," Chuck murmured. "I went to bed one night and I was Chuck. The next morning, I have all these secrets and my life –"

"You don't have to apologize to me," Ellie said. "Just don't die ... or get shot and poisoned ..."

"There was that once, you were hit with the truth serum –"

Casey groaned again. They were in forbidden territory.

"– and you told me you stole money from my room when we were kids. But you never mentioned having government clearance."

"It never seemed like a big deal to me. I had the clearance in case I overheard something, but I never did hear any secrets worth mentioning. Now I'm on egg shells wondering who's going to turn out to be part of your secret –"

Swearing loudly, Casey threw down his head set, secured his apartment, and darted across the courtyard, knocking loudly on Bartowski's door. Chuck answered.

"Morgan usually uses the window," Ellie commented, peeking over the back of the couch and looking confused.

"Hey, big guy," Chuck greeted casually, pretending he'd forgotten that he had no private life.

"Did you forget the order to keep your mouth shut?" Casey growled, leaning in close and keeping his voice hushed. Ellie had not been told about Casey, so he wasn't allowed to threaten her. Chuck was still fair game.

"Do you really want to play with your sister's life –"

Chuck rolled his eyes and walked away. He'd been pretty cocky since he punched Dasik… probably because Dasik didn't kill him back.

"Hey, John," Ellie greeted pleasantly. "Did you need something? Are the stitches bothering you?"

Suppressing his annoyance, Casey adopted the sympathetic neighbor look. "I was just thinking about Sarah ... didn't want to be thinking alone."

Ellie looked at him skeptically, and Casey knew that since Sarah had been uncovered, she'd been waiting to be blindsided again. He knew from eavesdropping that she even suspected Devon, so Casey tried not to take it personally. He told himself that she simply wasn't believing him about the stitches not bothering him, because if he weren't so accustomed to being injured and sewn together again, they probably would.

"We were just going to watch a movie," she explained as Chuck ambled back to the living room. "Chuck, what are we watching?"

"Serenity!" Morgan cried, appearing from Chuck's room, having used his traditional entrance.

"No," Ellie said firmly. "Not again."

"Morgan, remember how we talked about moderation," Chuck called from the living room, though he wasn't engaged in the conversation.

"But it's good!" Morgan protested, finding his way to the kitchen and checking the fridge. The kid certainly made himself at home here, more so than Casey thought he had a right to.

"Where is Captain Awesome?" Morgan asked, coming back from the kitchen with a bag of grapes.

"Devon," Ellie corrected, snatching the bag from him and leaving him with only a step. "He is at the lab, still working on tracing that poison."

"I thought the police took that," Casey said.

"And their techs consult with the local expert," Ellie said proudly. "It's not often he gets so much of the original sample."

Alarm bells blared in Casey's head and he made a note to call Dasik at the earliest possible moment. As Ellie returned the grapes to the refrigerator, Chuck wandered in with a stack of DVD boxes.

"Pirates?"

"That's more of a rum movie," Morgan said thoughtfully. "Ellie mentioned Umbria."

"Umbria?" Casey repeated. It was an Italian wine – one he'd shared with Ilsa the first night they were together.

"I have a few patients that are foreigners," Ellie explained. "They go home and they bring me back their native liquor. This bottle came from Rome ..."

Casey's breath caught at the mention of Rome and Ellie cocked her head.

"Okay, that was a real pout," she grinned, taking his arm and leading him to the couch. "What was her name?"

-----

(Saturday, 2pm)

Chuck leaned his elbows on the counter of the Nerd Herd desk as he examined the laptop in front of him. His brain was only partially functioning, but fortunately this job wasn't so demanding 99.99 percent of the time.

"My husband keeps telling me I'm crazy," the customer prattled. "If I had a screw loose, this wouldn't be a problem. The screw head is stripped and I can't get it out."

"It happens all the time," Chuck murmured as he reached for the tool he needed, removed said screw, and returned the now dismantled laptop to the owner. "Have fun."

"Thank you."

Chuck rubbed his eyes, glanced over at Casey to make sure the big guy wasn't about to clobber any customers, and then leaned his elbows on the desk. The BuyMore was Chuck's domain most days, and as much as Casey could play the part of needy neighbor for an hour or two, it was Chuck that watched out for Casey when they were here, not the other way around. Chuck needed a break – maybe a Bartowski sandwich. It had been awhile since he'd wandered into Lou's shop and he didn't know if he was still on the menu. The Wienerlicious had been closed since … had it really only been four days? Four days with no free corn dogs and an eternity of fear, confusion, and pain.

Chuck stood straighter when he recognized the man striding angrily toward the Nerd Herd desk as Sarah's boss, Scooter.

"She's not at the hospital," he said as soon as they were within reasonable speaking distance. "They won't tell me where she is. She doesn't have a phone."

"She's fine," Chuck said as he tried to recall the details of the cover that Agent Moon had spouted to him exactly once after he'd been awake for 22 hours.

"Please tell me she's got hospice or something. I know what getting shot is like. No way should she be on her own right now."

Chuck started to speak again, but stumbled over his words. "You were shot?"

Scooter didn't get a chance to answer before Dasik crowded to the desk as well. Why did duty always call fifteen minutes before lunch time and last all afternoon?

"May I speak to you, Mr. Bartowski."

"Sure. D - Detective Moon." Chuck remembered the title and congratulated himself. He waved his hand between Scooter and Dasik. "This is Sarah's boss from ... over ... there."

"Yes, we met the other day," Scooter said as he shook Dasik's hand. "You're working on the case."

"I am. Perhaps you can help."

"Anything."

Dasik pulled the photo of Potato Head and Chuck averted his eyes before the image could trigger another dizzying half-flash.

"Have you seen this man before?"

"Yeah," Scooter answered almost immediately, sounding perplexed. "I don't think he's a local. Is this related to the case?"

"He is a person of interest," Dasik acknowledged. "Why do you say he's not local?"

Scooter shrugged. "Dress. Manner. When he came in, he looked like he was on some other business. I remember because I asked him to leave."

"Was he disruptive?"

"No. He came in just before lunch rush, sat at a table, and never ordered. I told him the tables were for customers and he needed to buy food or leave."

"And then he left?"

"No," Scooter said again. "He bought a couple dogs and stayed another hour until the rush ended. I was annoyed that he kept the table blocked, but then he left a huge tip and most people don't tip at all."

"Did he pay by cash or credit?"

"Credit."

Dasik nodded. "If you can give me the receipts for that day –"

"I don't remember the day," Scooter interrupted. "It was a few weeks ago. Just look for a charge of $19.97. I remember thinking it odd, because the tip had uneven change and most people that do that round the total to an even number. But he didn't do $20, he did $19.97. It's not a common total when people order a meal, or a value pack, or ... anything. Corporate would have the records."

"Thank you for your time," Dasik said cordially and dismissively. "If there's anything else you remember –"

"I've never seen a first name like his," Scooter murmured, squinting his eyes as he tried to see. "His name was Croy something."

Chuck's world went gray as a flood of information punched through the barrier that had been blocking the Intersect. Ties to eight different organizations, never as a leader, but suspected as a puppet master –

"Are you alright?" Scooter interrupted the flash. Apparently he'd stopped speaking when he saw the look on Chuck's face.

"Yeah, I'm…" Chuck stammered, looking from Scooter to Dasik. Then he ran off to find Casey.

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(The Ides of March)

The drop ceiling didn't look penetrable, but it was her best hope of getting out. This was not a typical containment room, so it was possible it was less secure. Sarah had no flash light and the only way into the ceiling was an air vent, that hopefully was supplying top-quality hospital-grade purified air. Truthfully, she'd be lucky to get the vent cover off and even so, wouldn't fit more than her head inside. But no one had noticed the beeping instruments proclaiming her death since she'd disconnected herself from the machine and she couldn't just sit around and do nothing. The drugs would wear off sooner or later.

It took some work, but she managed to pull one of the metal braces out of her wrist splint and that would get the screws out of the vent cover - she hoped. She pushed the bed under the vent and cursed her way to standing. The ceiling was still too high to brace herself against it, so she tottered unevenly and reached up with the metal strip. She needed a Phillip's head, not a flat head screwdriver. Grunting with exertion, she pressed on.

"Now there's a view."

Sarah nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Casey's voice and she would've fallen were it not for his hands on her hips, stabilizing her. He wasn't guiding her to sit or anything, he was just holding her steady, curious to see if she'd reach for the ceiling again. Given that he must've come through the front door, such alternate routes were no longer necessary.

"Get me out of her," she said, startled at the gruffness of her own voice. She placed her hands on his shoulders, using him for support as she jumped off the bed. He lowered her carefully to the floor and let go so she was standing on her own.

"This is not an emergency," he pointed out.

She wasn't listening; she was already hobbling to the door. "What's the code?"

"I gave you that page for emergencies," he said patiently.

"Casey, please."

Casey folded his arms and leaned against the wall, eying her critically. His jaw moved like he wanted to speak but wouldn't let himself, and he had that deep, lost look in his eyes like he couldn't believe he was watching her walk around just now. Sarah knew she was likely to exacerbate her wounds doing so, but she could not suppress the instinct to escape from this place.

Forcing reason to the forefront, she hobbled back to the bed, leaned on her elbows to get weight off her leg, and pulled the sheet around her shoulders like a robe. She wished desperately for a bath, even though it felt like the hospital staff had kept her relatively clean. Casey still hadn't moved and if he was this calm, she could be too.

"How's Chuck?"

"He's not your concern at the moment," Casey said airily. "He is, however, my concern and I'd be protecting him right now if I weren't here bailing you out of this life-and-death situation."

Sarah's jaw tensed and she looked over her shoulder at the door. "Why am I locked up in here? No one came when the monitors flat-lined."

Casey's features tensed and he looked at the floor. His head bobbed side-to-side as he weighed his response and chose his words. She half expected him to tell her sorry, she was in fact dead, welcome to hell.

"You were poisoned," he finally said. "It's been two weeks. I suppose no one was watching close because after the first few days, no one expected you to wake up again... ever."

"So why lock the door? Why ..."

She paused as the last half of what he'd said sunk in.

"Ever?" she repeated.

He nodded and finally dared meet her eye.

"Where are the doctors now?" she asked, wondering sincerely if she was okay or if she'd entered some walking ghost phase before she finally kicked.

"I told them to let me come in first. You have a violent streak, you know." He smiled anemically, then looked sideways to divert his emotions. "Are you going to let them treat you or are you going to cut them down and run away?"

Sarah was starting to get upset by how deeply affected he seemed. "Who did this?"

"Does the name Croyden Yang mean anything to you?" Casey asked.

"Croy," Sarah breathed, her heart sinking. "Oh, God. I knew he recognized me, but he never came back after that day."

"Were you ever going to tell me?" Casey asked. He was angry with her! And he had a right to be considering all that had happened.

"I told Director Graham," she defended. "He said he'd put another agent on it and Croy never came back after that day. There's no reason to assume he knows anything about my current assignment."

"Former assignment."

The words stung, but Sarah didn't object.

"We were partners, Walker. Don't you think you might have passed along a name or a picture? You worked with the goddamned Intersect! Did you not think it was worth a mention to see if we could parse out why the man came to town?!"

Sarah leaned more heavily on the bed, but it couldn't support the weight of her guilt and she sank slowly to the floor. Casey caught her by the arm.

"Oh, no, you don't get to play weak now," he said gruffly.

"Did you catch him?"

Casey shook his head. "He escaped Federal custody two days ago and he's gone deep, but he had Zer staking out the Wienerlicious for over a week and that day when you were shot, he had at least five shooters at the shopping plaza, meaning he was entrenched and planning something major. He stalked the hospital himself and when he poisoned you, he had shooters lined along his exit track. Different shooters, because his first five from the shopping plaza were dead. This man has gone a long way to hunt you down and kill you, so you'll understand if I'm not too eager to spring you from this very secure facility."

Sarah swallowed defiantly. "What does Chuck know about him?"

"Bits and pieces at best. It's as if his name was deleted from the Intersect."

"Maybe it was," Sarah breathed. She stood straighter as the logic presented itself. "The reason I didn't tell you about the sighting – the reason I only told the Director… Croy was an agent. He was part of one of those projects so classified that I could get shot here and now just for telling you this."

Casey cocked his head. "Croy was assigned to infiltrate the Chetallis?"

"I don't know exactly. He had his fingers in so many pots, it was never clear who was the puppet and who was the master. Bryce and I were trying to flush him out when he fell off the grid. We were debriefed, warned against talking, and assigned elsewhere."

She took a few breaths and looked directly at her partner. Despite the increased risk of sharing the information, they were both stronger and better equipped to defend themselves because of it.

"But why would he come after me?" she asked. "After all this time ... he must know about Chuck."

"Then why not go after Chuck directly?" Casey countered. "He's been close to the kid a hundred times; why not just take him?

Sarah shifted the sheet wrapped around her shoulders as she thought. "Maybe he already is. Croy is methodical, controlling, and connected. He'll make everything look legitimate until the last possible moment, even using unwitting people that happen to have aligned agendas. He'll place people in just the right position –"

"Like a CIA Agent hell-bent on overseeing the Intersect's extraction."

Their eyes met, sharing a string of unspoken curses that always came on the threshold of the heart-pumping, life-threatening, hell-in-a-hand-basket adventures they both lived for. Casey groaned again when he recognized the fire in her eyes and realized Sarah was not about to sit this one out.

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Part 4 (final section) coming soon… Please comment.