Chapter 34: The World Will End

Sami and Lucas waited on pins and needles for the next three days. At first they were concerned that another witness might rebut Allie's testimony and Allie would be recalled to the stand. Then they were concerned that, after the trial finally closed, the judge would find that EJ was innocent and fit to be extradited to a friendly country that would grant him his freedom.

Sami's every hour was devoted to mentally playing out all possible confrontations with EJ. She was so distracted that she brushed off Belle's tearful apologies for letting Johnny out of her sight as unnecessary. She hung up the phone as soon as she possibly could and returned to her silent planning. She hardly noticed when Joy turned up out of nowhere and Will all but moved into her hotel room, although she certainly appreciated Joy's attempts at chatter and normalcy when she joined Will's family for lunch or dinner.

The fourth day dawned clear and cool. Almost before the sun rose, Lucas received word that the judge would rule within the hour.

At first, Lucas tried suggesting that the family watch coverage of the ruling on television. There was no reason to make Allie more recognizable (though a disreputable website or three had already posted her photograph). There was certainly no reason to put Allie in the same room as EJ.

Sami announced that if Lucas and Allie wanted to stay behind, they certainly could, but that she was going to be looking EJ in the face when he got what he deserved. Lucas knew what Sami thought EJ deserved, so he didn't feel comfortable letting her out of his sight.

Once they had decided to go, Lucas and Sami could hardly forbid Will, Allie, and Johnny from coming along. Will, at least, was an adult, and he was as firm as his mother in his desire to attend in person. Without parental supervision neither of the twins could be counted on to stay put.

So all five of them joined the throng in the packed courtroom awaiting the sentencing. Lucas made sure, once again, that Sami was between him and Will. Johnny sat on Lucas' other side and Allie was beside her twin.

EJ was there, unhandcuffed but carefully watched by no fewer than four guards. A hard, tight smirk twisted Lucas' lips as he noticed that the bruises on EJ's face had not yet faded. Will, Allie, and Johnny openly scowled at EJ as well, but he had no eyes for them. He looked only at Sami, who returned his gaze steadfastly, but detachedly, as if she were a scientist studying a new specimen.

An uncomfortable flame of jealousy flickered in Lucas' gut. He remembered this all too well: Sami looking at EJ, EJ looking at Sami, and Lucas not mattering much to either of them. Sami's kiss and her words— thinking about how I might lose you again makes me want to take every opportunity I have now—seemed long ago and far away.

It would have been sweet satisfaction to cross the room and beat EJ into oblivion, but Lucas had two sons to set an example for. There was Allie, too, but Allie hadn't seemed to need to have any examples set for her lately.

There was fanfare and ceremony and then there was the verdict.

Guilty.

Then blackness.

Lucas wrenched himself awake to the sound of sirens and profanity. A team of uniformed men and women in gas masks were hovering around scores of semiconscious men and women, taking pulses and hooking up oxygen tanks.

"Sami?" Lucas muttered thickly. She was beside him; he sensed her before he felt her and felt her before he saw her. On Sami's other side, he could hear Will gasping and calling for his parents. "All right, Will?" Lucas managed as he turned his attention to Johnny. Johnny showed no signs of regaining consciousness; someone was reaching to cover his face with an oxygen mask. Lucas groggily made to object—he wasn't sure what had happened or who the uniformed people were—but Johnny started to blink awake and Lucas had to reach beyond him to get to Allie.

But Allie wasn't there.

And Lucas was finally able to decipher the profanity as meaning that EJ was gone, too.

Allie folded her arms and glowered at EJ. EJ chuckled. "You always did look most like your mother when you were angry. That scowl, that glare, that look of death." He turned away from her dismissively and muttered instructions at his assorted staff.

Allie hadn't thought she could possibly get any angrier. She had managed to live the first thirteen years of her life without being kidnapped. Now it seemed like she was constantly in danger of being knocked unconscious and dragged away from her family against her will. That EJ somehow believed this was funny was nothing less than maddening.

"They won't let you get away with this!" said Allie almost involuntarily. She hadn't wanted to justify EJ's arrogance with a response. The silent treatment was about the only power she had. "They won't let you take me again. They'll come after you."

EJ laughed again. "That's the plan, Alicia."

Allie's heart pounded. "What do you mean?"

"This has nothing to do with you. I want to see your mother, so I summoned her by taking you."

"Like you tried to rape me because she wasn't around for you to rape anymore?"

EJ lunged toward Allie. His eyes blazed with unmitigated hatred, and Allie couldn't stop herself from cringing. She braced for the slap she was sure was coming.

But EJ pulled back before he touched Allie. "We both know that never happened."

Allie was aghast. "We both know what?"

"I heard your testimony. You sounded very sincere, and you obviously managed to convince the judge. But I never touched you inappropriately." His smile was suddenly less mocking, almost benign. He seemed something like the man Allie remembered from her earliest childhood, the man who had formed a happy family with her and Johnny. "You should know I forgive you, Alicia."

"Forgive me?"

"Forgive you for your lies. Perhaps you've told them so many times that you believe them. Perhaps this… unfortunate upheaval in your life has overwhelmed you. You never were very strong, and there's no shame in that. It's why I always wanted to protect you. I'd be happy to protect you again one day, if you and your mother and Johnny decide to—"

"We would never go with you if we had a choice! We never would have, she never would have."

EJ shrugged. "Today, your mother has a choice. She can choose to come to me, or she can choose not to come to me. What do you think she'll decide?"

Allie gulped.

EJ answered his own question. "She'll come to me, just like she always has."

Lucas got Johnny on his feet and somehow managed to tell Will to help Sami up. Allie's name was on all of their lips as they darted through the confusion and into the relative privacy of the street outside. The fresh air revived them all, and soon Sami and Johnny had shaken off the last of their dizziness.

"We agreed," Sami snarled at Lucas. "We're wasting time, we wasted too much time, he made his move."

"I know," Lucas told her quietly.

"We have to go now! We're losing too much time. Who knows how much of a head start—"

"What are we doing?" Will asked.

"You and Johnny are going back to the hotel. You're going straight to our rooms and locking yourselves in. You don't let anyone else in—well, maybe you'd better grab Joy and keep her with you—but no one else. No room service, no maintenance, no cops, no anyone. God knows who EJ had on his payroll to pull this thing off."

"Joy can stay with Johnny," said Will hastily. "And I'll—"

"She's my twin!" Johnny protested simultaneously. "I know her better than any of you, I know EJ better than any of you, I know this city better than any of you—"

"Johnny," said Sami, "It's because you and EJ were so close that we can't let you go after him. He'll do anything to get you back, he was always willing to do anything to have you, even before you were born."

Lucas pulled Will aside. "Your mother and I need to be able to focus. We can't do that if we're worried about you and Johnny. We like Joy, we're glad you found her, but this isn't her fight, not yet. She's not prepared. She doesn't know how deep everything goes, how far everything goes. The only person in the world Sami and I can trust with Johnny is you. Remember how it was, when it was you and me and your mom against the world? We have the twins to be a part of that, now, and maybe someday Joy. We're all a team, and the whole team has to work together. You need to keep Johnny safe so we can make Allie safe."

Will had always had a way of looking into Lucas as if he knew the wisdom of the ages. "Deal," said Will, and the one word encompassed everything that had passed between Will and Lucas since Lucas' release from prison. "I trust you."

"I love you."

Will nodded and reached for his younger brother. "Come on. We have to let them get going."

Johnny opened his mouth to continue protesting, but he seemed to realize that with Sami, Lucas, and Will allied against him, further argument would be useless.

"Get out of here before people start asking questions," Sami told her sons.

Will and Johnny set off at a dead run.

Sami and Lucas set off in the opposite direction.

"We can still beat him to the townhouse," Lucas assured Sami as they jogged through the cool morning air. "His picture's all over the place, he can't be out in public. He has to be in a car or something, and the traffic will slow him down. As long as you're right about him going to the townhouse first—"

"I'm right!" Sami returned ferociously. "I know him. He doesn't trust anyone. He wouldn't send someone to get his emergency stash before he was even out of prison."

"He has someone he trusted to pump the courtroom full of some kind of gas that knocked us all out."

"That's a lot less risky than giving him access to those papers and those guns," Sami huffed.

They didn't argue further. They saved their breath so they could run, faster and faster, though streets congested with cars and busses and cabs.

They found the townhouse surrounded by surveillance cameras and posted notices. From the corner of her eye, Sami could see that one of the notices warned that only law enforcement officials were permitted past that point. She and Lucas ignored the suggestion.

Sami reached for the front door and found it locked. She swore; Lucas wrapped his jacket around his fist and broke the glass in the front window. An alarm sounded, but Lucas and Sami ignored that suggestion, too. They forced the window up the rest of the way and climbed inside.

"ALLIE!" Lucas yelled.

"ALLIE, CAN YOU HEAR US?" Sami echoed.

There was no answer. Allie either wasn't there or couldn't speak.

"This way," Sami said. She led Lucas up three flights of stairs and set to attacking the double false ceiling.

Will and Johnny were both athletes used to running hard, so they made it back to the hotel in record time. They collected Joy and locked themselves into their room as they had promised. But neither one of them said a word for a long time after they arrived. Instead, they sat deathly still in chairs and let the sweat dry on their faces as they stared grimly at the walls.

"Not knowing is the hardest part, isn't it?" said Joy suddenly.

Will's and Johnny's heads snapped up in unison and they looked at Joy as if they had forgotten she was there.

"Never mind," said Joy hastily. "I'm still working on my bedside manner."

A tiny hint of amusement flickered over Will's features. "No, you're fine. Some patients are beyond help."

"What are you talking about?" asked Johnny irritably.

"I'm a surgeon," Joy explained. "I usually get to be the one doing something. And I'm not very good at comforting the people who have to sit around and wait, let me be the one in control."

"What do they do while you're operating?"

"Same things you're—we're—doing now. Worry. Try to reassure each other. Get updates when they can. Pray."

"We could… try that last one," Will suggested hesitantly. "Maybe."

Johnny shifted uncomfortably. "DiMeras don't pray. I wouldn't know what to do."

Will reached one hand out to Johnny and the other to Joy. Joy took Will's hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world and extended her other hand to Johnny.

Johnny seemed to wage some fierce internal debate before taking Will's and Joy's hands and closing his eyes. Joy nodded at Will and closed her eyes, too.

A shiver ran through Will. His family had always prayed in times of crisis, but he had rarely been asked to speak. This experience was new and foreign.

He closed his eyes and remembered Cousin Doug fluctuating between prayer and song in the Horton Center and the Brady Pub. He remembered his mother's desperate voice in the hospital chapel and a string of priests standing at the front of St. Luke's.

"Dear Lord," he began. "Please watch over our sister Allie, and Mom and Dad, too. We've never had much of a chance to be a traditional family, and sometimes we feel angry with you, God, because it seems like every time we get close something horrible happens to take it away from us. But it's also times like these that remind us that you have blessed us with so much love in our lives, and we remember that we've been foolish. We've held grudges and we've given in to fear. We haven't appreciated your miracles because we've been greedy and we've been looking for more. Allie isn't like that. If I don't have the right to ask for your help for myself, I'll ask for it for my sister. Please bring her home safely. Amen."

Sami shoveled guns and ammunition in Lucas' direction. He selected two or three which he thought looked to be in the best condition and loaded them. Meanwhile, Sami pulled sheaves of documents—fake passports, cashier's checks, affidavits, photographs—from the hidden space and dumped them on the floor. From her pocket, she withdrew a book of matches she had pilfered from the pub at the hotel.

"Watch it," Lucas warned. "There are explosives up there."

"I'll be careful," Sami promised as she lit a match. "But I'll be damned if EJ gets any use out of these. Even if he kills us both, I'm going to make it as hard as possible for him to get out of England."

Lucas stuffed a gun into the waist of his slacks and handed another to Sami, methodically demonstrating how to use it as he passed it to her.

"Let's hide the others," he suggested. "Don't want EJ to get any use out of those, either." Sami nodded, and they carried armloads of weapons downstairs and looked for a hiding place.

"Oh, no," Lucas murmured as he reached the room that must have been Allie's. There was a computer and a television; there were books and DVDs and stuffed animals and dolls. It looked like the bedroom of a well-loved little girl from an affluent family. But this was where EJ had held Allie prisoner.

The ISA, or perhaps the police, had marked off a section of wall. In the middle of the crime tape was a hole that had evidently been hidden by a mirror.

"The bastard was spying on her," Lucas said. Every word made his rage stronger. "He was watching her undress, he was watching her—"

"Don't think about that now," said Sami. She pushed her load of guns and explosives under Allie's bed. Lucas followed suit.

They had just hidden the stash when they heard footsteps pounding on the stairs above them. They exchanged a last look; then, spontaneously, a last kiss.

"I love you," said Sami as the footsteps reversed course and began their trip down the attic stairs. "Whatever I say, whatever I do, I have always loved you and I always will."

"I love you, too," said Lucas. The words rolled easily off his tongue. After all, he had nothing to lose; the world was about to end.

Lucas raised his gun and nearly pulled the trigger as soon as he saw movement outside the door. He stopped himself just in time. EJ had Allie pinned to his chest.

"Well, well, well." EJ sneered at Lucas and leered at Sami. "It's just as I told you, Alicia. Your mother always comes running to me."

"You took my daughter," said Sami. Hate dripped from her every syllable.

EJ squeezed Allie hard. Allie moaned softly. "Tell me you're jealous and you wish to take Alicia's place."

"I'm jealous and I wish to take Allie's place."

EJ laughed loudly. "Odd man out again, huh, Lucas?" He thrust Allie in Lucas' direction and in the same movement grabbed Sami. "Sad how Lucas is always the also-ran, isn't it, Samantha? He's not even the leading man in his own life."

"Yes, Lucas," said Sami, though her eyes never left EJ. "Why don't you take Allie and leave? EJ and I have something we need to discuss."

TBC