No keys in the fool's pockets, great! Sam pushed the body away from her as she realized that bigboy must have the keys - he was the one who knocked her out and brought her to the room so he likely had cuffed her to the bed. Just as she thought about him who should come running in, gun drawn and pointed in her direction, but Sam was expecting him. Before he could do anything she fired at his head, but he was fast too, running back through the door, head down, pulling it shut behind him. Sam didn't waste any time going for the bobby pin in her ponytail again after laying the gun down on the bed by her side, glancing up anxiously at the door every few seconds as she started to work at the lock on the cuff. He started yelling as she worked herself free, "I hope you don't think you're getting out of here. You might as well put the gun down and give up peacefully before you get hurt."
A few seconds later the cuff fell open and away from her hand. Sam rubbed her wrist briefly then grabbed the gun as she sprung up from the bed. She picked up the extra clip that she'd tossed from the would-be rapist's pockets and went over to the one on the floor, checking his pockets too for more. Pocketing the clips, she started pacing the room, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. Strangling a fool takes a lot of energy. Okay, there was at least one more and he was just outside the only exit from this dismal prison, so she would be walking right into harm's way if she went through the door now. Her pace slowed as she thought it through. She had to find a way to get him to enter the room. She realized that he had no way of knowing that she'd freed herself from the cuff, he had the keys after all, so he would eventually venture back in. She listened as he shouted for her to give up the gun and she decided on a game of cat and mouse. If they wanted to play she'd play.
Jason raced out of the diner, phone in hand and headed towards his SUV. The waitress had just confirmed that Sam was there the night before and had left on her own. She remembered her when she saw the photo on his phone because Sam had left her a generous tip, but she didn't see anyone follow her out the door or what happened to her afterwards. "Spinelli, anything?" He had previously instructed Spinelli to run through the camera footage from a gas station across the street from the diner, hopefully they could see who took Sam and which direction they went.
"Why, yes, Stonecold. My fingers were mid-dial when you rang. The trace on Fair Samantha's phone has proven fruitful, I was able to triangulate the pings from the towers near its last usage to a location you, as well as I know quite well. A location that will astound and befuddle you as much as I."
"Spit it out, Spinelli! Where was Sam?" He didn't mean to be short but the longer he took to find her the more his fear grew. If anything happened to her…
"Spoon Island! Our fair one's phone was last used at the abode of the dark prince!"
"That son of a bitch!"
Spinelli went on, "and the camera footage did indeed prove useful as well. It shows the fair one being cowardly attacked from behind and heaped into the back of a Lincoln that headed back to town."
Jason's SUV was in gear and already screeching through the parking lot, making a hard left in the direction of Port Charles. The bastard had touched her again. He'd have to kill him - he was given fair warning last time!
Sam moved back over to the bed and grabbed a pillow, then went and braced it against the mirror and punched it hard. The muffled crack of the glass couldn't be heard over bigboy's shouts for her to put the gun down and give up, which is exactly what she'd wanted. She ripped the case from the pillow, tossing the rest of it aside and used it to gingerly remove a large piece of the glass, going back over to the guy on the bed and eyeing him disgustingly. She was surprised to find that she was a little bit squeamish with what she was about to do, but then she remembered the lobster incident. The one time she'd tried to boil lobsters had turned out to be the only time she'd ever boil lobsters. She remembered how they had appeared dead in the container, hadn't even moved when she took them from it, but the minute she'd landed them in the boiling water, claws started moving and they started flailing around. She had never felt so bad about killing one of God's creatures as she had back then, but in this moment she remembered that as bad as she'd felt at putting live creatures in boiling water, it hadn't been enough to deter her from enjoying their juicy, garlicy meat afterwards. Remembering that, she knelt down on the bed and set about her gruesome task.
Lifting one dead wrist in her hand, Sam used the glass to slit it wide open, allowing the blood to soil her shirt and neck as she grimaced the entire time. Yuuuuuuuuck! She got the blood all over her, then laid his wrist down so the rest could seep out onto the bed. She then took the gun and removed the half used clip then loaded a fresh one, before moving to grab the second gun from the guy on the floor. She emptied the clip from that one but left the bullet in the chamber then went to lay back down, the first loaded gun masked under the discarded pillowcase near her right hand. Sam grabbed the cuff and placed it back around her left wrist unlocked, then fired off the single remaining bullet from the gun in her hand, screaming as though in pain as soon as it went off, before she started moaning as loud as she could.
Less than a minute later the door flew open and bigboy yelled, "I'm coming in blazing unless you toss it, let me hear you toss that fucking gun, right now!" Sam threw the empty gun to the floor by the bed and moaned for good measure, her lids down as though closed as she watched him cautiously enter the room and catch sight of her laying bloodied on the bed. Just as she'd hoped, the sight made him over confident. "Well, well, well - somebody got sloppy didn't she?" He kept mocking as he neared her, "what kinda moron shoots herself, let me guess, trying to shoot your way out of the cuff and it ricocheted off the wall didn't it?" He sounded pleased with his deduction.
"I need help. Please, help me." Sam made her voice sound as pathetic as she could, channeling the nurse to help her pull that off. "Please."
He was jeering. "Please, please…now it's please? You killed two of my best guys lady, give me one good reason why I shouldn't just let you lay there and bleed to death?"
"Because you'd be waiting all day, BITCH!" Sam had grabbed the gun from under the pillowcase before he reached the foot of the bed and was firing before he could raise his hand. Three bullets at close range had him down in no time, and just as quickly she was off the bed and out the door, scanning the outer room for any surprises. Not seeing anybody else she ran towards the first door to her right and found it locked. There was another one to her left so she tried that one too, cautiously turning the handle and swinging it outward, but that turned out to be an empty bathroom. Okay, door number one it must be then. She went back to the first door and knelt down to study the lock…Sam Morgan had yet to meet a lock she couldn't pick. She ran back to search bigboy and sure enough, he had not only her knife from her boot, but also her picking kit from her back pocket. She thought about how they must have groped her when they searched her unconscious form and she straightened up and kicked his body really hard. Assholes!
He also had a bunch of keys, but Sam wasn't about to try and figure them out, so she went back to the door, banking on the skills that she knew. Just as she knelt down to go to work, she heard voices coming from the outside, several voices. Shit, he must have called in reinforcement. Then the voices got chaotic as suddenly there were more voices over radios, but she couldn't make out what they were saying. Sam listened as hurried footsteps took the voices further and further away and she went back to picking her way out the door. When it eased open she was surprised to find herself in a tunnel. A tiny light was peaking at the far, far bend as though from around a corner. Where the hell was she? With renewed determination, Sam decided to get the fuck out of dodge and ask questions later. She didn't know what she'd find at the end of that tunnel but what was behind her was not an alternative, so once more she unclipped the gun to check the bullets then clipped it back in place before she started moving cautiously towards the light. She was going home to her son, one way or the other.
Sam made it through the tunnel without encountering anyone, creeping towards the light with caution, keeping her ears strained for the tiniest sound. One very distinct sound that she recognized was gunfire, before and after what sounded like an explosion and men yelling out orders. What the hell was going on around her? She snuck outside of the tunnel, making sure to press up immediately against it and back her way along the perimeter, her gun ready for any sudden appearances. That was when she looked towards the shoreline and realized that she as at the back end of Spoon Island. Nicholas had kidnapped her and brought her to the castle? The balls he'd grown lately! She still didn't know what the commotion was about or whether it was being wreaked by friend or foe, so extreme caution was still the name of the game. She was inclined to help whoever it was, given that her cousin had proclaimed himself her enemy, and as the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
She needed a boat and fast. Problem was, she would have to leave the cover of the wall and make a mad dash to the pier and she couldn't be sure they'd be too busy fending off the attack to notice her. Just then rapid gunfire seemed to come from her immediate vicinity, so thinking she'd been spotted, she turned to shoot and saw that she had, but her bullets weren't needed. Jason had come out of nowhere and was dropping them like flies, two who had snuck up behind her and another one who had just turned the corner and was heading towards the chaos was caught off guard by Jason's bullets. Sam couldn't contain the sense of reassurance. She had absolutely no doubt that she could make it out of there and home to her son, but Jason Morgan was always the best backup. She'd never felt safer than when he was there and it had been that way from day one. "Jason!"
His relief was insurmountable. She was standing right before him and he had never wanted to hug someone so much in his entire life, until he noticed the blood and his heart crashed to the ground. "You're hurt! Where are you hurt?" He was going to obliterate them all for touching her!
"What?" Sam looked down at her shirt to see what he was looking so frantically at…was she running on adrenaline with a bullet in her? Then she saw all the blood and realized what made him panic. "No, no - it's not my blood. I'm fine, it's a long story."
He felt the relief hit him again and he wanted to sweep her into his arms and hold her close, but he needed to get her out of there first.
Sam didn't miss the relief that swept over him. "Who's with you?"
He was looking around them warily, gun at the ready for any sudden popups. "Nobody, we're on our own."
"Where's your boat - we need to get the hell outta here?"
He was shaking his head. "There's a gang of them near the pier. We need to find cover and wait them out."
Sam shrugged her shoulders as she took another look behind her and turned back to face him, "fine by me - I have some unfinished business inside."
Jason read her eyes and knew she wanted Nicholas even more than he did and he couldn't blame her. As much as he wanted to strangle the prince with his bare hands for what he did to her, she was the one with the bigger axe to grind, so he couldn't begrudge her pound of flesh. He simply nodded and indicated towards her left where a small path led to a door into the castle. The door was unlocked and once inside they found themselves in a small corridor that led to the kitchen. There was no-one to stop them as they ventured through the kitchen towards the front of the structure where they planned to check the study first - it seemed to be the prince's favorite room to be in. Sam led the way, practically tiptoeing to keep her stiletto boots from giving away their presence when upon hearing voices coming from the library, they changed course and moved towards that room. Jason came to a stop just behind Sam outside the door and they both strained to hear what was being said as they made out Nicholas' voice sounding rattled and stressed, followed by another voice they didn't recognize.
"What do you mean she escaped? An army of grown men with guns couldn't handle one tiny, unarmed woman? How incompetent are you people?"
"She got the drop on Stevens, sir, took his gun and was able to take out Martins and Craven after that." The voice sounded almost admiring. Jason couldn't stop the tiny curl of his lips as he pictured Sam picking them off one at a time. He was surging with pride, until his anger at her being taken swallowed him up again.
"And now you have no idea where she is? For God's sakes you're on an island - how far could she have gotten that a platoon can't find her? FIND HER, NOW!"
Sam half grinned to herself hearing how mad he was. He wasn't the first fool to underestimate her and he wouldn't be the last one either.
"Yes, sir!"
They took cover in the adjoining alcove as the henchman exited the door and hurried out the front, barking orders over a radio as he went. Then they went back to the door and listened but heard no sound. Sam eased the door open a crack and saw him…his back was turned towards them and he was standing in front of the fireplace with his hands stuffed in his pockets, his head bent and shoulders sagging as though laden with burden, as he gazed into the flames. Sam moved to stand inside the door while Jason closed it behind them and leant against it, both watching the prince without saying a word. As if sensing he was no longer alone, his head and shoulders lifted but he did not turn.
"You're quite the resourceful one, aren't you, cousin?"
Sam was seething. It was all she could do not to plug him where he stood, "and you're quite the fuckup, aren't you, prince?"
He turned to face them then, surprise registering at seeing Jason there too. "Ah, I should've known - where there's one there's bound to be the other."
"Yet, you thought you could keep my husband away from me, from my son."
Nicholas raised and waved a hand in frustration, "oh, not that song and dance again!"
Sam wanted to shoot him again - he actually had the nerve to appear annoyed at the mention of his gross misdeed. She moved towards him in disbelief. "Song and dance? You blithering idiot, you tried to keep true love apart, something you've obviously lost sight of since Emily died, and then you have the balls to send men to rape me, and what else, Nicholas? Were they supposed to kill me when they were done using my body at your command?" She really wanted to shoot him.
Jason practically leapt off the door where he had been lounging and listening for any movement on the outside. "He did what? They touched you?" His gun was already raised at Nicholas' head when Sam turned to the sound of his voice. She had to spring into action, quickly grabbing his outstretched arm to skew his aim away from the prince, knowing she had but a second before he pulled the trigger.
"It's okay, Jason, the first one died trying." When he didn't immediately lower his arm she continued, "he's mine, Jason." She wasn't sure she could get through to him as his icy gaze was still locked on the prince, but then he slowly put his arm down and went back to guarding the door.
Nicholas would never admit it to them but he thought he'd seen his maker in those few moments. He composed himself as he addressed Sam, his eyes never leaving the enforcer for more than seconds at a time. "Don't be so uncouth, cousin. Of course I didn't instruct my men to do anything so vile. I merely wanted you to see reason and since I couldn't get you to listen to me elsewhere, I thought a long overdue stay at the castle would make it easier for us to talk." He walked over to the bar and poured himself a brandy, holding the glass up to offer her one, then shrugging his shoulders when her cold stare was all the response he received. He took a swig of the burning amber liquid and turned back to the music. "I apologize if they were less than polite in your presence."
That was it for Sam, she was done with him making light of everything he did to her and her family. In one swoop she laid her gun down on the table next to her and moved to him so rapidly he hardly had time to register the right fist that hit his nose with such force that it staggered him into the bar, sending glass crashing to the ground. At the sound, Jason quickly opened the door and checked the hallway for moving bodies. Not seeing anyone he eased back in and closed the door, turning to see Sam's left fist connect with the prince's face, just before she bent to the left and sent her right foot up and out, guiding her boot straight into his gut. He was on his knees in the next moment with Sam yelling for him to get up and face her.
Nicholas leaned his head back and held his nose, his teeth glistening with the blood running down, as he grinned up at his cousin. "You know neither of you will leave this island alive, right? You might as well give up now, make it easier on yourselves." He moved his hand from his nose and looked at the blood dripping through his fingers then laughed up at Sam, "you do know that you're dead, right?"
Sam grabbed her gun from the table and placed the barrel smack up on his forehead, pressing hard so it would leave a mark, then holding it in place, she knelt down in front of him menacingly cocking the gun and looking him in the eye. A full five seconds later she lowered the gun and said with disgust, "I'm not going to kill you, Nicholas - not when there are fates a million times worse than death, and nobody deserves one more." She held her hands up to his face, "these are the hands I use to hold my baby, to hug my mother…your aunt. I will not use them to take your life, the life of Spencer's father." Her contempt was more than evident. "As deserving as you are in this very moment, I will not use my hands to kill my own…because you were once a good cousin to me."
She rose to her feet, instantly taking away his moment of relief by adding "but they will be the hands that send your sorry ass to prison, make no mistake about that." She backed a few steps and looked incredulously at him, "what do you think would have happened if something happened to me? You think all the evidence I have against you would've just magically vanished? You really think I wasn't smart enough to put up safeguards against your petty retaliations?"
He looked at her as if it hadn't even occurred to him. Rising slowly to his feet, he eyed Jason as he moved away from the door, his gun once again trained on the prince's head.
"Sam won't kill you but I have no such qualms. You've been hurting my family for quite some time now and it ends here! Today! Pickup that phone and call your men off, or I'll put a bullet in your brain and we'll shoot our way off this forsaken, cursed piece of shit island you call a home." When he hesitated Jason cocked the gun, "pick up the fucking phone right now!"
Nicholas reached for the receiver but before he could pick it up the door burst open and five men trooped into the room, instantly flanking Jason and Sam with automatic weapons aimed at them. In that same instant, as if by instinct, Jason and Sam were back to back, bracing up against each other as their weapons took aim at the newcomers. It was a standoff, and outnumbered or not, backing down was not an option. These bitches were about to learn what it meant to take on Port Charles' Bonnie and Clyde.