Thank you to those who reviewed the previous chapter - they were much appreciated. If you didn't review - you still can! All thoughts and comments welcome.

Many thanks to Lily Moonlight for reading through this - you are a great help :)

Chapter 19

Scars

The sky hung its darkness out to dry, the sins of the day masked for a period of blackness that allowed other sins to be committed. Jess sat on the windowsill, looking out into the city, seeing the skyscrapers peering over the miniscule people, dwarfing them. Fragments of silver broke through the dark smoky blue of the sky. The light pollution made sure that New York never saw a truly dark night making the stars seem as precious as diamonds. She recalled a family holiday to Oregon aged about eight, camping in a field. She'd woken up in the middle of the night needing the bathroom and as she'd crept out of the tent she remembered looking up at the sky and seeing a swirl of stars flickering in a black cloth. She'd lay down on the damp grass, forgetting about needing the bathroom, and looked up, trying to count them. Her father had emerged from the tent, as silent as an owl, and he'd sat down next to her, looking up at the sky too.

"We're only small in the scheme of things, Jessica," he'd said. "Each one of those is a sun like ours, with planets orbiting it. We're just flecks of dust." He'd sounded quite happy about it, she remembered.

"I'm not just a fleck of dust, Daddy," she'd replied.

He'd laughed and nodded. "No, you're a small girl who should be tucked up in her sleeping bag. Look," he pointed to a rather large spider that had decided to sit in the awning of the tent. "I'm sure Mickey wouldn't like to find that crawling on him."

Jess had forgotten about the stars and collected the spider, smelling revenge for a dunking she'd received from Mickey the day before.

She'd never agreed with her father that people were just flecks of dust but over time she'd understood that was how he'd dealt with his job, by placing things in a bigger picture. She'd never been able to see it that way, however.

It had been a tough day.

They'd driven Jackie to the station; her speech had become incoherent and babbling, and at first Jess had agreed with Don that they had picked up an escapee from a psychiatric ward. Ninety minutes later and she was with the woman in ER and her words were beginning to make sense, a sense which made Jess' worst fears about the case become realised.

"It's okay," Jess said. "You're safe. But we need to know what's happened to you."

The woman stared at Jess with large brown eyes that shone with fear. "I don't know how I managed to get out," she whispered, as if afraid that someone would overhear them. "But I heard them talking about the final act, about everyone dying. Sam…" she averted her gaze away from the detective and looked towards window whose only view was of an extension of the hospital: brick and glass.

"What's your name?" Jess asked.

The woman stared at her coldly, although Jess realised the emotion wasn't directed at her. "I'm Jacqueline Simms. Jackie. I was studying at Holocaust Litigation at NYU law and I have no idea how long I've been missing for."

"Your parents listed you as missing ten months ago," Jess said as a nurse came in and looked at Jackie's notes before clearing the detective out of the room. Flack was outside, holding a fresh cup of something that looked like coffee.

"How's it going?" he said, passing her the cup.

Jess shrugged. "We have a name. She's one of the people from Goddard's list. Jackie Simms. It appears she's managed to escape from Rostow. I'll go back in once the nurse lets me."

Flack nodded. "I'm meeting Mac to locate the building. We've managed to track back using security cameras where she came from. Call me and let me know what else you find out. We need to know how many are in there, building lay out and anything she can tell us about Rostow and McKinsey's state of mind."

Her brown eyes met his blues and for a second the professionalism broke. He leant down and kissed her and she tasted mint and coffee. For a second the case wasn't there and there were no worries.

"I'll see you later," he said. "I've posted a guard. I don't think Rostow and co will make any attempt to get to her, but I'm taking no risks on my watch"

She smiled and watched him leave, reentering the room as the nurse left.

"Are you okay to keep on talking, Jackie?" she said, sitting back down next to the bed.

Jackie nodded. "What do you need to know?"

Jess looked at the scrap of sky she could see between the buildings, a few bright stars glimmering through the haze of false light. She huddled into Flack's sweater, the NYPD emblem on the front faded from being washed after games of basketball with Danny. Even though Flack's apartment was warm and the night wasn't cold, she couldn't shake the icy grip that held her.

Jackie had told of living nightmares, of drugged sleep and an absence of time that would have driven Angell mad. She mentioned routines and lectures that amounted to brainwashing, if not psychological torture, and a filmed room where uncooperative members would be kept, sleep deprived, until they cracked.

Murder was, unfortunately, an every day occurrence, and it was what Jess had become hardened to. But she struggled with the inhumane treatment to which Jackie had been subjected – and not just Jackie. From her accounts there were around thirty-five people in there, half-starved and willing to die because of a madman and his warped ideas.

"People didn't leave," Jackie said. "Some were escorted out of the building, blindfolded, but others were… finished, I think. There was a team of people, real, real, real believers, who would go with someone who wanted to leave to this room and put them there. They would go back to the room later, and when they came back from there they would bring some of the leaver's jewellery or clothing – always things that had been precious to them. The people would celebrate it mockingly. I hated that, but I was too scared not to join in."

Jess felt her blood run cold. The woman was in shock, and was being treated as such, but Jess had no idea what Jackie would be like once the shock had cleared and the reality of it all came back to haunt her.

"What roles did others have?" Jess said quietly, knowing that she needed to keep her responses to herself and needed to gain as much information as possible.

"David chose people to work outside and recruit. Those were always the biggest believers – his chosen ones. There's a girl he's just picked, Jennifer. She often goes alone with him, to one of his rooms. She believes that time is a lie – how time not be true? – everything he says she memorises it," Jackie stopped speaking, as if words had failed her. She looked up at Jess, her eyes empty. "How can one person hold so much power?"

"I don't know, Jackie," Jess said. "But with your help we can stop him. Can you remember what the building was like inside?"

Jackie nodded and began to describe it. In order to keep herself sane she had spent the past few weeks finding out as much about the place as possible, knowing that the information would be needed at some point. Jess wondered why such a bright young woman had ended up there, but now was not the time to ask.

Jess rubbed the condensation from the window pane that her breath had caused and watched the lights of the city flicker. Neon signs and lasers took the blackness away from the night sky; the false lights making sure the city never did sleep.

She hugged Flack's sweater around her more tightly, waiting for the day to come.

-&-

It was nothing he hadn't done before. Mac looked around the room; the serious expressions of officers around him making the room feel smaller somehow. There were no jokes; the jocularity of the bullpen had evaporated. Too many lives were at stake and they had to tread carefully. He looked over at Detective Angell now stood with Flack and recently returned from the hospital where Jacqueline Simms was, two armed officers discreetly placed at her door. He'd gone through Angell's findings with her, and she was to present what she knew to the rest of the team, along with Flack, who'd been busy with a bit of surveillance work himself that afternoon.

The men were tired, he knew. A lot of them had been hit with the bug and were back at work sooner than they should be. A few of them, he could see, looked as if they were about to come down with it. He felt a small moment of appreciation for the fact that he had the constitution of an ox.

"Let's get started," he said, no need to raise his voice as the room was sombrely quiet already and his words cut through the air like a bullet. "5061 Bramhall Avenue. It's where we believe David Rostow and Rachael McKinsey have the base of their cult. As of this moment, we are treating all members of that cult as hostages. Cult members can be divided into roughly two groups: those who believe enough to die for the cause and those who will want to escape should death be imminent. There is a good chance that the former group will not be allowed to leave alive. We need to attempt to get as many people out of there alive as possible. We have members of the Critical Incident Response Unit here among us," he looked at the men and women who were now on a brief secondment to his team. They had spent the past two hours discussing the best way to approach the task and he felt confident that they had chosen the right way to go about it. "When we go in, we look to get the people out. I'm now going to hand you over to Detective Angell who has more light to shed on the people inside and the layout of the building."

Angell stood next to him, the large screen beside her that would be used to show the map that Jackie had drawn and the original architect's plans of the building. He had never seen her nervous, not even on her first day. Her demeanour was calm and cool, utterly professional, although in his office a short time earlier he had seen cracks as she described the atrocities Jackie had recounted.

"We believe there to be around 38 people inside, including the two leaders: David Rostow and Rachael McKinsey. Five of those – excluding McKinsey and Rostow – are extremists within the group and will be more than capable of using extreme force to prevent any disruption of the group's final plans. Six people are thought to want to exit the group but are too afraid to do so. The rest are firm believers, although we are unsure of how the will react to Rostow's final plan," she stopped briefly and took a drink of water. Sheets had been passed around the team showing the names and photographs where available of those people believed to be in the building. The officers present were studying them, memorising the names and faces, especially of the five who were considered to be most dangerous.

"The house was built with four storeys. A ground floor, first and second and a basement. In the past three years renovation has been done to extend the basement two further levels underground. Detective Flack managed to get in touch with the contractor who carried out the work and the plans of the building are on screen now," she turned and looked at the large screen to her right, clicking a button and imposing Jackey's map onto top.

"Jackie Simms escaped from Bramhall Avenue this morning. After being treated for shock she managed to draw a map of where certain rooms are. The one I want to draw your attention to is this," Angell used a red light to indicate a large building in the third level of the basement. "This is the gas chamber. It's already been used to kill at least seven people in the past ten months. However, we believe that there is a way to use the air conditioning to pump gas throughout the three levels of the basement." She stepped back, allowing the rest of the team to look at the maps.

Mac looked again at the faces of those present. The silence was now cold, the initial shelling had finished and they were dealing with the casualties of their thoughts. there were potentially walking into a concentration camp, which was precisely Rostow's idea.

"We know that Rostow and McKinsey are planning on the mass murder-suicide of all the people inside Bramhall Avenue, except themselves. McKinsey has spent most of the day arranging funds to be transferred to various offshore accounts, as well as booking seats on no less than eleven different flights and hiring four cars from different companies. Because of this, we think it's doubtful that they will use the air conditioning to gas the whole of the basement. Capturing McKinsey and Rostow is not our main priority – it's a bonus. Our objective is to get the other 31 people out of there with no casualties," Mac fell silent for a moment, watching their faces.

He began to explain the different entry points, giving a brief overview of each groups' targets. Ideally, one team would have entered using the air conditioning system, but that was too much of a risk to take.

"We suspect that Rostow's 'Final Plan' – the mass suicide – is scheduled for tomorrow night as the flights and cars are all booked for early the following morning. That would also coincide with the birthday of Rostow's father, a holocaust survivor, which we think is of importance to him. Special events and lectures were planned for tomorrow night already. Zero hour will be at 4am tomorrow. That's precisely seven hours away. Once you have been briefed by your team commander, I request that you go home and rest."

He stepped away, allowing Flack to take centre stage, assigning the men to their groups. He was confident, he had to be. But for now, it was a waiting game.

-&-

"You need to eat," Stella said as Mac approached his office, seemingly ambushing him out of nowhere.

"Stell – I've got a lot to sort for the morning…" he began and then shrugged. To win the battle you sometimes had to know when you were defeated.

"You still need to eat. And it's not like you're going to sleep much." She already wore her jacket, and her purse was over her shoulder, ready to go.

"Where do you propose taking me then?" he said, turning his back on his office, leaving it locked.

She smiled. "I thought the Chinese where Flack and Angell were the night Goddard's body was dumped in the precinct. It's close by, Flack says it's good which means it's clean and their take out the other night did smell good."

"This one's on you, Stell," he said. She linked her arm through his as they left the lab, heading towards the lifts and he wondered how she managed to keep going even when they were dealing with situations such as Bramhall Avenue. He supposed it was a defence mechanism, just as his was throwing himself into the case.

"How do you do it?" he said as they entered the lift.

"Do what? Persuade you to leave your desk for an hour to get some food?" Stella said. She looked him hard in the eye, as if reading the answer from his face.

"Stay upbeat," he said. He could see that the usual shine in her eyes was absent, that usual glimmer of life wasn't there.

"Because if we all sat about moping we'd never get anywhere. We'll do it, Mac. We'll get those people out there," she said, her tone strong and confident.

"But what if we don't? There's a huge chance that we'll lose people tomorrow morning, even some of our own." She was the only person he could show any form of doubt to, the only one he ever let beneath the cool exterior he wore like armour. After Claire's death she'd been the only one who he'd let in to see a shard of the suffering he was going through. For Danny, Flack, Lindsay and Hawkes he needed to be resolute and tough. Stella knew him better than that.

"And if you think like that Mac, you're in the wrong job. We'll do it. We'll get those people out."

-&-

Flack turned over in bed, pulling the duvet further round himself, and became acutely aware that he was on his own. He sat up, automatically alert, and listened.

He was aware than someone was in his apartment, and that the someone would be Jess, but he couldn't hear her movements, or the TV or sounds of her tapping on a keyboard. He got out of bed, not noticing the coolness in the apartment and not even thinking about throwing on a t-shirt to cover the scars on his chest.

The scar tissue was not the prettiest thing about him, he knew, but he had stopped being ashamed of the criss-crossed pattern and jagged, slightly pinker mark where Mac had had his fingers in his chest. The first time Angell had seen it had been in the locker room. He'd just showered after a rather messy incident with a dumpster and wasn't sure if the smell would ever be erased. He'd had a towel around his waist and was sniffing under his arms when she'd walked in.

"Well, hello there," she'd said, giving him a grin that suggested he wasn't going to live this down.

He'd looked down, half checking the towel was still in place and half wanting to avoid her eyes when he'd noticed the scars. He'd felt her gaze on them too, tracing their lines and his skin felt as if it was being touched.

Looking up, he'd seen that she was no longer smiling, the joke had gone, disappeared like his chances of anything happening with the new detective.

"Do they itch?" she'd said, sitting down on the wooden bench near the lockers, her eyes still on the scars.

"Sometimes." He'd sat down next to her. "This one," he pointed to the largest, "sometimes burns up even when I'm feeling really cold."

"Can I touch it?"

The question took him by complete surprise and he laughed loudly. "Are you getting your game out on me?"

She'd looked at him innocently. "I have no game, and if I did it'd be better than that!" She'd placed her hand on his chest, her finger tracing the scars.

He'd watched her, amused and intrigued at the same time. Some girlfriends had found the scars repulsive; others had said it was a turn on – showed what a hero he'd been – but then they'd ignored them, preferring to pretend they weren't there.

When she'd looked up, her fingers had remained, scarring his skin in a different way.

"Don't get rid of them," she'd said.

"I don't intend to," he'd said, and he'd meant it. He'd keep them just for her.

She was sitting on the windowsill and the light from outside caught the tears that were slowing making tracks down her cheeks. He said nothing, simply pulling her into his chest, into the scars, and onto the seat nearby. She felt cold, so he would warm her; her cheeks were wet, so he would dry them. He understood how she felt, after a day with a victim and the promise of possibly worse things to come. He also understood that he would endure more scars, if only to ensure that she stayed safe.