A/N: This is considerably shorter than the last chapter, but it still deserves a warning!
WARNING: THIS CHAPTER IS RATED HIGH TEEN FOR RELIGIOUS CONTENT. READER DISCRETION, although not necessarily the best way to go, IS ADVISED.
So there's your warning! New episode (the kick-ass one, but then again, all of them are) is premiering tomorrow! Expect a new chapter coming soon! Review, disclaimer is in the first chapter.
"This is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms! Come out, you're completely surrounded! For your own safety, come out with your hands in the air!" Elias heard the negotiator from the ATF yelling through a megaphone and slinked away from the window of the hall they had slept in the night before. He came back to sit next to Courtney, who was no longer blind, and his sister Anna. After a long moment of silence, Anna decided to talk to Courtney and her brother.
"This is worse than Zion Ranch! Why does he have guns?"
"We have to trust him." Elias responded to his sister. At the same time, Jeb, who was watching near the window, came down and sat next to Lars to give him an update on how their situation was looking and what he should do about it.
"Jonas, you must speak to them, to your people. They're afraid." Lars stared at Courtney for a long time.
"Do you believe it Jeb? Do you believe in her?"
"I don't know, I don't know what to believe. You took her into the dark, you put the light in her eyes, there was nothing, no physical reaction, no change, how do you fake that?"
"And yet she sees." Lars started crawling to Courtney, which caused her to recoil slightly in shock, but remain in place. "Esther, those men outside, I know you didn't bring them. I know you were telling me the truth. They've come to destroy us, to raise the Garden and assault the earth. Esther, before I looked into your eyes, and I saw nothing, and so I believed. And I look into them now, and I need to know…was this a miracle?"
"I was blind, but now I see." Anna and Lars were near tears when Courtney uttered that sentence.
"Then you were brought here for this purpose, so that I might know what to do." He kissed her hand, and the feeling she felt was one of disgust and shock. But she remained calm nevertheless. "And now I know what to do."
"You've got no way at all to communicate with her?" Wesley asked Chase while they were walking on the outskirts of the complex.
"No I don't." Chase responded. This guy is pissing me off and fast…
"So my inside man is worthless, which is what you're telling me."
"She was never your inside man." Chase fired back with a hint of attitude in his voice.
"So she's just another one of them? Fine, that's how she'll be treated."
"Look, you do have someone on the inside: whoever sent out that cry for help. We should try to put a name to that, and then at least maybe we can form a strategy."
"WE are not going to do anything. You are not a part of this, not anymore." Wesley and Chase both noticed two news vans pulling up to the side of the compound. Ah crap, Chase thought to himself. "Oh fuck!"
"It is true. Below us is a cache of weapons Brother Jeb and I have hidden there in case this day should ever come. I prayed it would not, but I always knew that it would, the darkness cannot abide the light. And yet I now believe my prayers were answered. Esther was sent to us in advance of these men, a demonstration of God's power, so you will not take up arms. You will not have to. Come with me." Courtney was relieved that she didn't have to shoot anyone as Lars had instructed, and all of the cult members were herded out of the building and into another one.
This herding was caught by the news crews, and Chris had been watching the TV in his hotel suite when he spotted Courtney being herded out of the building. He immediately called his boss to tell him of her whereabouts.
At the same time, Geoff, Noah, and Sadie watched the same broadcast, as did Gwen (who was at Sadie's home resting), Ezekiel, and DJ (Ezekiel and DJ were at the Federal building downtown watching the TV). And every single one of the saw Courtney. Her face was unmistakable. Crap, she's there. Every single one of them thought.
"I didn't see who wrote the note down; it could have been anyone. There was a bit of a mishigas going on at the front of the store at the time." Elva responded to Chase's question while putting in a few poppy seed muffins in a glass case. Chase had decided to do some more digging on who actually wrote the note; he didn't want to have to kill Courtney or see her being killed.
"What kind of mishigas?"
"Jesse Dillard, across the way at the auto repair shop, he followed them in here and tried to start something."
"Why?"
"Well, they are kinda odd, but there have been a lot of rumors about the stuff happening in that compound. Now, I never believed any of them until I saw that note." Chase, ever the observant one, noticed a surveillance camera perched on the ceiling behind Elva.
"Anyone check the security tape?"
"Well, nothing was stolen and nobody asked. Want to see it?"
"Yeah, absolutely." Elva showed Chase to his office in the back of the store.
"You can watch them here."
"If I need to, say, print anything out, can I do that?"
"Printer's hooked up and everything. Hope you find what you're looking for; I'm still setting up shop, so I'll be out front if you need me. Just holler."
"Thanks again." And Elva left Chase to search through the security tapes. After Chase found some startling evidence, he printed out the picture and immediately reported to Wesley to talk to him about it. Chase came at the right time; Wesley had just sent Jerry away. In reality, Wesley noticed Chase walking toward him, so he sent Jerry away early.
"Okay, you want to go in and get your girl? I'm open to letting you do that—under a couple of conditions." Chase couldn't take Wesley's utter disregard; it reminded him too much of Harold's attitude. So Chase pushed Wesley against a tree and held him there.
"How about these conditions: you stay the fuck out of my way and maybe I won't tell anyone it was you." Wesley lightly shoved Chase off of him, and Chase took this as an opportunity to show off his proof. He pulled out a picture of a man wearing a jacket and a cap, somewhat shielded, but in the camera's view. "You knew he sent his people into town once a month, you were waiting. You stirred up tempers, started rumors in the town, created the diversion, and then you wrote that note. That's how you got your warrant. Nobody asked to be saved—not by you anyway." And Chase left Wesley to sink that in.
Later that night, Lars had gathered all of his followers into a simple church style gathering, but he was talking to Jeb alone.
"You're witnessing the wonders of the Most High, Brother Jeb. Do not lose faith. Now go." Jeb sighed and left the building to do as Lars had instructed. "Esther, can you read—sight read?"
"It's been a long time; I was nine. Yes." Courtney stood up and took the Bible that Lars held out to her.
"Read that for us." Lars flipped to a page in the Bible, and he left to his place on the small stage in front of the cult members.
"Then Nebuchadnezzar ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than normal, and commanded the strongest soldiers in his army to throw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the fiery furnace. The furnace was so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took them up. King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his men, 'Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?'. The king's men replied, 'Certainly, O King.' And the king said, 'Look! I see four men walking in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.' Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the furnace and shouted, 'Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out!' So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire and the king saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their head singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them." Courtney then noticed the other people whispering, becoming frantic, and then smelled something—something burning. Jeb walked in, his job complete: to douse the building they were in with gasoline, then set it on fire in an act of mass suicide (the suicide reason was not revealed to Jeb).
"We have witnessed more than one miracle these last days. Prepare yourselves for the next." Lars revealed his intentions, and Courtney's mouth started falling to the ground in surprise and shock.
"No, no, no, I wanna leave." Anna, who was sitting next to Courtney, got up and made her way for the door.
"Anna, Anna, wait! Everyone, wait. Lose your faith, and you will perish. Those flames can't hurt us; they'll protect us. Only the unrighteous will be consumed. It's okay. Come, sit." Lars managed to get Anna to come back to her seat, but Courtney was slowly starting to realize that this mass suicide wasn't such a good idea. "Thank you." Lars took the book away from Courtney. Now the text makes sense.
Outside, the ATF was preparing a fire crew not to rescue the people, but to find the gun arsenal.
"Fire seems to be contained to our target building." Jerry explained to Wesley. After Chase had left Wesley, he was never seen again, causing Wesley to assume that Chase started the fire himself and was working with Lars.
"No, this might be a provocation, they might not even be in there, and they're trying to draw us out. All right, fire gear, we move in same pattern, this is not a rescue operation, remember, we're still here to serve a warrant."
"Yes sir."
"That security consultant Orson, I think he might've been working with Veerson."
"The security consultant?"
"Yeah, he may be our fire starter. If he's gone in there, we take him down."
Inside the compound, Chase was dressed in ATF fire gear—mostly. He still needed the full uniform, so when an actual ATF officer came in, Chase quickly knocked him out, took him aside, and ripped off all of his clothes. When Chase reemerged, it was like the original officer was never gone.
Inside the building that was burning, Courtney was watching her fellow brothers and sisters coughing from smoke inhalation and praying at the same time. Courtney couldn't take much more of this madness and approached Lars about a better way out.
"Jonas, Jonas, you have to let them leave here, you have to tell them to—" Lars took her aside, away from the praying cult members.
"Esther, where is your faith?"
"This isn't right, you can't force a miracle!" Lars jerked her even further away from the crowd.
"And he saw that the flames did not harm their bodies nor was a hair on their head singed, and there was no smell of fire upon them."
"These people are going to die of smoke inhalation before the flames—" Courtney fell to the ground, courtesy of another hard slap to the face from Lars.
"If that's what God wants, you pray." And Lars went back to his original position and started to pray again. After a few seconds, Courtney got up, took one of the tall metal candelabra on the table on the stage, flipping the wax tea light candle off of it, and swung it as though it were a baseball bat, the ball being Lars's head. She hit Lars's head perfectly, knocking him out temporarily. The cult members, shaken out of their prayer, gasped.
"GO!"
"SISTER!" Jeb screamed and ran to Lars's body and started praying over it.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! YOU PEOPLE ARE DYING!"
"What have you done?!" Jeb screamed frantically.
"Start taking these people out of here. He swore to protect them, if he won't, we have to." Courtney knelt down so she was level with Jeb. "Jeb, the blind girl is looking you in the eye; do you know what that means? It means God brought me here. He has a message for you, and that message…is MOVE YOUR ASS!!!" Courtney stood up to command the other people to do so. "GO, COME ON!!!" However, even after Courtney herded everyone out, Elias remained and prayed. "Elias, we have to go."
"Where will we go?"
"I don't know, but outside is life, and inside is—no."
"How can you doubt after God restored your sight?"
"Elias, I don't think God let me see again so I could just watch." Elias was deeply offended by Courtney's response, and he spit in her face. It neatly landed on her cheek, and now she was pissed.
"Our home is gone." She wiped it off, and then, ever the strong one, punched Elias across his face with all of her strength. Jeb ran in right after Courtney punched Elias, and the two men made their way out of the burning building. Courtney was about to run too, but a gun cocked behind her. Lars was now awake. Courtney turned around, standing tall in her dirtied white long sleeve button down shirt and sky blue floor length skirt, unafraid of death.
"And He commanded them to purge the evil from their midst." Lars was ready to put a bullet in her chest, but a few bullets made their way into Lars's chest first, and Lars fell to the ground, dead. Courtney turned around to see an ATF officer come in to rescue her—or so she thought. The man removed his oxygen mask, and it was Harold, smirking and grinning all at the same time.
"Our trouble ends here." And he used the barrel of his machine gun to knock Courtney out with a swoop to her temple. After she was down on the ground, Harold made his way out of the burning building, disposed of the clothes, and made his way back to the company jet to fly back to Las Vegas.
Outside, medical attention was being given to the escaped cult members, and Wesley didn't care about Chase or Courtney's whereabouts (they could be dead in the blaze for all he cared), but as for Lars, he was holding out only a small bit that he was still alive, in a desperate hope for revenge. Wesley told Jerry to call back the ATF officers, and he made his way to the newscasters to lie to them about searching for survivors.
Inside the burning building, Courtney was starting to come to, only to find ANOTHER ATF officer coming in to save her. This time, it was really Chase.
"I know you. How is that possible?" Courtney asked, breathing hard from the smoke inhalation.
"It's not."
"I thought you were an angel." Chase merely smiled and gave her his oxygen mask before picking her up bridal style and walking out of the burning building.
"Of course, we won't stop until we're sure we've found everyone, but the grim fact is we don't think there are any more survivors." Wesley explained to the live camera crew. The camera man's mouth soon started to drop in shock, because he saw Chase decked out in ATF gear carrying Courtney, but they were indistinguishable in the darkness. Wesley turned around, observed them for a second, and then turned back to the camera. "Thank God."
The next morning, the awkwardness between Cody and Beth had worn off, and they were back into their distant relationship—somewhat. However, Beth had learned that morning that Cody hadn't told Heather about Nick's erection due to him liking Bridgette until Heather walked into her office the very same morning. So when Heather called Beth while she was performing a physical on Justin (which brought up a few feelings for him back in TDA, but after she saw how mean he was, she fell out of love with him), Beth quickly finished Justin's physical and went straight to Cody to confront him about his procrastination.
"DAMN IT CODY!" She yelled and slapped him clear across the face.
"A little feisty today, are we?" Cody slyly asked.
"This is no time for you miserable flirting attempts! I cannot believe you waited a DAY to tell Heather about Nick!"
"Hey, I had to let it sink it my head before I could tell her!"
"I shouldn't have trusted you. I really shouldn't have."
"Beth—!" Cody yelled at her, but the two immediately snapped out of their argument because Heather and Harold had just walked in.
"Hello." Heather smiled her real, and yet fake smile.
"Hello Heather." Both suppressed an eye roll. Today, Heather was wearing a yellow knit ¾ sleeve V neck shirt, a light brown pattern pencil skirt that went just below her knees, black high heels (ridiculously high, around three and a half to four inches high), a black gem bracelet and a canary diamond ring on her right index finger, meaning it was for show, not because she was engaged. Cody laughed at the thought of Heather being engaged to anyone. Harold stayed on top of a flight of stairs, and Heather went down to the second floor within the office, where Cody and Beth just so happened to be standing.
"When were you going to tell me about this?"
"We found out two days ago, and Cody—" Cody cut off Beth's explanation.
"It slipped my mind to tell you. I was busy with Imprinting the other Mankins. I can't multitask that well." Cody came up with the perfect lie; he had remembered it, he just didn't feel like going to Heather, but he was also Imprinting other Mankins, such as Katie, Eva, and Lindsay. Heather wandered to the window and watched a few Mankins practicing yoga in the center of the complex.
"A place of safety, of untroubled certainty, of purity. This is the world we must maintain. It is imperative that nothing disturb the innocence of life here. Once any temptation is introduced, it will spread like a cancer, and all will be infected. Nick must be Scrubbed, and monitored—closely. Do you two understand me?"
"Yes." Both responded. Wonder where she pulled that Biblical crap from, Cody was itching to ask Heather, but he could tell the discussion was over.
"And next time, anything is wrong, you report to me or Harold—immediately. NO EXCEPTIONS." She gave Cody and Beth a cold, hard stare, but the two remained unfazed. Beth was focusing on the Mankins practicing yoga, and Cody was quietly observing Heather's ever changing facial expressions. Harold, however, was grinning like a Cheshire cat on the inside. Now they'll have to go to me or Heather. YES! Heather walked up the stairs, beckoned Harold to follow her, and the two left Cody and Beth alone to think about their cold scolding. "So tell me Harold, how was Arizona? I hear it's a dry heat." Harold gave her a weird look. "Don't play fucking innocent with me. You commandeered a company jet last night."
"Courtney was glitching on a government job. I thought I should be on-site in case measures were called for." Harold really wanted to kill Courtney, strangle her, mutilate her, whatever, as long as she was dead and suffering from it too.
"I see." Heather didn't believe a word of Harold's lie, but didn't let it show.
"As always, just trying to protect your interests." Again, Heather detected another lie. She knew people, even as well as she knew herself. People were out for two things: money and power, she reasoned. Heather knew she was out for both, as was Harold and The Sir, but Harold was more driven by power (in this case, revenge over Courtney) and The Sir was more driven by money (power came very close though).
"I'm touched." Heather replied, sarcasm dripping from her voice.
"If I may: Courtney is acting exactly the same as Tyler was before his Fritz. If you're not willing to send her to the Attic—" Heather boarded an elevator to take her to the top floor, where her office was.
"Don't try to act like you know me and my interests Harold, because you don't. Take the stairs." And the elevator door closed on Harold.
In the Imprint Room, Cody and Beth were standing over Courtney, who had just finished having her Imprint wiped, and was now back in her mind-wiped state.
"Hello Courtney. How are you feeling?" Cody no longer talked with the same tone of voice he used to; it was now very dull due to Heather's evil grip.
"Did I fall asleep?"
"Only for a little while."
"Shall I go?"
"By all means." And Courtney got up and left the room. Beth, realizing she forgot to ask Courtney something, stopped her when outside of the room.
"Courtney, can you see okay?" Beth looked at her questioningly, waiting for a response. Courtney looked down to the ground floor, watching Blaire and Tawny talking to each other, Mankins milling about in their own little world, and Harold, who had just stepped down to the ground floor and was now looking about him, observing the Mankins in their idyllic state. Courtney recognized him, and her hatred (and a little forgiveness) burned inside of her.
"I see perfectly." And Courtney turned away from Beth and walked down the stairs to go for a swim, hoping to meet Bridgette or Nick again. Beth knew something was wrong, and she couldn't shake the feeling that Courtney had seen something, something—or someone—she didn't like. It had been written all over her voice. Beth sharply inhaled, very scared for her future in the Twilight Mall, and briskly walked back to her office, the air around her staying almost perfectly still.
A/N: Some food for thought!
Mishigas-Yiddish for craziness
The excerpt from the Bible that Courtney reads is from the Book of Daniel, verse 3, line 19 (Daniel 3:19 for the Biblically savvy). Words vary from translation to translation if you ever want to read it.
People always want one of two or both things: money and power. That insight is an insight I was taught one day, and I have seen that it applies to EVERYTHING. Just let that sink in for a moment, apply a few examples, and you'll see that I'm right. There are the few rare people who are truly generous, but they're very rare.
No songs this time.
Same couples, same Company, same kidnapped/gone list.
The takedown is getting closer! And you know what that means! This fanfic is about to come to an end. I know you're upset, but I probably have six or so more chapters to go. Just a little heads up for all of you. So review please!