A/N: Oh man, another huge gap of time followed up with a huge chapter. (13k words, sorry not sorry.) At least this ties up a lot of things - still have an epilogue, but this is the huge bulk of what I had to get out and what was probably the most challenging to write. But still super fun! Sorry about the time lapse - I'm working on my own personal novel to release on Amazon in a month or so, and it has eaten up a lot of my time. But I can never let this story go unfinished, so hopefully this makes up for at least a few months of waiting!
Also, this gets a little graphic, but nothing above what I would classify as PG13. Just some blood and a few mentions of the torture Jude is enduring. But just a heads up for any of you that are sensitive to that kind of thing - read with caution.
Enjoy!
This black wasn't so bad, she decided as she let her mind float around for a bit. It was peaceful. There was nothing really around her, nothing distracting her, nothing causing her pain. She was vaguely aware that this wasn't sustainable, but she chose to ignore that small detail for the time being. She was okay for the moment, even if she knew, logically, that she wasn't okay even a little bit. She pushed that to the back of her mind and let herself be okay with her situation. It wasn't so bad.
FIfteen minutes. It had taken fifteen minutes for anyone in the ballroom to realize that Jude wasn't there. It could've been longer, too, if not for Tommy's borderline crazed overprotective nature. Of course, in the harsh light of circumstances, there was nothing 'overprotective' about it at all. If anything, Tommy was cursing himself for not being more protective.
The ballroom was both way too quiet and too loud for Tommy to handle. Exits had been sealed, and while he was frustrated as hell at Bear for not letting him be involved in the search of the hotel, he knew that it was the right call. Wouldn't help anyone if he were to murder someone who wasn't involved. He wasn't equipped emotionally to run around the hotel looking for Jude, even if it was all he wanted to do. Unfortunately, he was also not equipped emotionally to handle the enclosed space of the ballroom right then and there.
Everyone wanted to talk to him, and unless they were the security team or the police, he blew them off. He was pacing in large, wide circles, and after snapping at the fourth person in a row to try and confront him, the crowd learned to give him the berth he needed. He just couldn't get his thoughts in order, no matter how hard he tried. How could no one have seen where she went?
"T." Darius called to him from across the room, standing with Bear and Ace. He sprinted over as fast as he could, having long lost his cumbersome suit jacket.
"They found blood," Bear said in a low voice. Tommy felt the world sway. "Trace amounts, nothing big."
"Where? Whose...is it her's?" His voice was hollow, even to him. He had so many damn questions and he couldn't even get them out.
"In the back hallway. It was being patrolled by men, but its a square that leads to the entire floor. They were doing rounds when we think she got grabbed."
"Is it her blood?"
"DNA tests aren't that fast, T. Do you know what blood type she was? We can narrow that down in a few minutes."
"I can get her father-" Darius suggested, but Tommy cut him off.
"A positive. She's A positive. Is it her blood?"
"We'll know what type it was in a few."
"Where was it found? Show me," Tommy demanded.
Bear gave him a slight nod and jerked his head for him to follow. They walked into the adjoining hall and Tommy wasn't surprised at the activity taking place. There was a Crime Scene Unit swabbing the wall a few yards down, there were cops everywhere, there was even a big light set up to brighten the hallway for everyone to see.
"Why would she be out here?" Tommy wondered weakly. If Bear responded, he heard nothing. His eyes focused down the hall. An emergency exit. An exit. If she was in this hall, she had to have gotten out somehow. He began running down the hall, swerving around the cops mulling around and taking pictures, desperate to get to the end, to get to where he lost Jude.
He pushed open the door, ignoring all signs that said 'Emergency Exit Only,' and was taken aback by the large squealing that sounded all around him instantly. Outside the door, in the parking lot, a cop turned to look at him, clearly about to castigate him, when a burly arm extended past him, pulling and slamming the door shut, effectively silencing the alarm.
"She didn't go out this way, Tom," Bear told him, his voice steady and quiet. His patience was wearing thin on Tommy but he didn't think he was the right person to take his frustration out on. "We had men outside all exits all night. Not to mention the alarm, which wasn't tampered with at all. She didn't leave through this door."
"Then how?" Tommy's desperation that was written all over his face seeped into his voice. Before Bear could answer, his eyes drifted down the hall. It was a square, and while there were nothing but cops and other officials the way they came, down the other hall was a different story. In addition to cops, there were other people, people in their nightgowns and pajamas and curlers, all standing in the hallway talking to each other and to the cops.
"It's possible she was taken to a room. We are having the cops comb through every single room and the hotel is doing checks on everyone, starting with people on this floor."
"You think she's still here?" He wasn't sure if that was good news or bad, but it was something for him to cling on to.
"We don't know, Tom. We will find her. You have to trust us."
"It's not about trust," he grit out, his hands pulling at his hair, a sure sign of his complete and utter frustration. He looked up at the ceiling, forcing his tears to remain at bay. He wasn't going to lose his cool, not now. Not when Jude needed him to keep it together. When he felt calm enough, he brought his gaze to the floor, trying to take deep breaths. "It's not about trust, Bear, it's-"
"What is it about then, Tom?"
"It's...what is that?"
While studying the pattern on the carpet and studiously not meeting Bear's eyes (because as much as he would like to deny it, it was about trust; trust that he didn't have in anyone right now because Jude had slipped through their fingers), his eyes saw something on the ground. It was below a small, thin table on the corner of the hallway, almost hidden behind a potted plant in a wicker basket.
"Oh god," Tommy moaned as Bear bent to retrieve it. "Is that her - no, it can't be-"
"It's her panic button," Bear confirmed. He rose one hand in the air and within seconds, Ace, Ram, and two other nameless Men In Black, as Jude would call them, were by his side. "Get this to the van, see what you can pull off of it, if anything."
Ram took it and was gone with another one of the men.
"Why weren't we looking for this before?" Bear wasn't doing much to instill trust in Tommy, that much was certain.
"We were. It gave us a brief flash of service and then cut out. I don't know why but my men are going to tell me exactly what happened in the next ten minutes, I can assure you." Bear put a hand on Tommy's shoulder, heavy and warm, one he was unable to simply shrug off. "Go back to the ballroom. Comfort her father. I will come get you the second we know more."
Not wanting to go back to the ballroom but not wanting to spend one more minute in his current location, Tommy stalked back towards the room. He couldn't bear to keep watching that hall. Watching techs gather blood and scrape surfaces and fibers and traces and fragments and molecules and all for what? The tiniest bits of evidence that Jude was actually there?
The door closed heavily behind him and he was aware of the eyes on him, but all he could do was slump to the side of the door, close his eyes, and pretend that tonight hadn't happened.
He eventually had to open his eyes though - he couldn't hide forever - and he took in the room before him. People were congregating everywhere - some were at tables, some were in the corners, others sitting on the edge of the stage. Cops were taking statements all over the place, but his heavy heart knew what they would all say: no one saw anything. Of course not.
Jude's father was being consoled by SME currently, which was fairly odd, but he knew the trio had a shared history with the Harrisons. He wanted so badly to go over there, to offer his own condolences and reassurances, but he couldn't get his feet to move. This night had started out as a dream and had quickly turned to a nightmare, one that he couldn't wake up from. How was he supposed to stand there and tell Stuart Harrison that everything would be okay when he was so, so convinced that it wouldn't be?
He felt the beginnings of panic begin to unfurl in his stomach again and he forced himself to swallow it back. If he let himself go, then that would be it; he would be useless in the search for Jude. Not that he was particularly helpful right then, but he thought about the panic button, and he thought about Bear's hand on his shoulder and the look in Darius's eyes, and he knew that he couldn't lose it. Not yet.
He practically fell into the closest chair, startling the other two occupants of the table across from him. They gave him sympathetic looks but remained silent, and for that he was grateful.
Deep breaths and a few counts to ten later, and he felt like he could handle it again. He could make it through this. He could be strong and be there for Jude when they got her back. Which they would, of course. He couldn't even entertain the idea of them not.
However, all of his calm, cool, collected emotions went out the window when a pair of familiar scuffed shoes stepped in his view. His eyes rose to meet Jamie's and he pushed himself out of his chair and began to walk away. Remove yourself from the situation, he repeated in his head over and over. That's what his mother used to say to him when he was young and constantly getting in trouble. If he felt himself about to do something he'd regret, or worse - something his mother would regret him doing - then he just had to remove himself from the situation. The mantra got a bit fuzzy when the situation followed in his footsteps.
"I have nothing to say to you, Andrews, and if you know what's good for you, you'll walk away."
"I just - I need to-" Jamie's voice broke and Tommy whipped around to see Jamie's tear filled eyes.
"No." His voice was louder than intended but he found himself not caring about the scene he was creating. "You do not get to stand there and look like someone just kicked your goddamn puppy!"
"I'm sor-"
"God help me, Andrews, if you try to apologize to me right now." Tommy's voice was laced with venom. He knew that he wasn't as livid at Jamie as he felt, but he needed someone to take his frustrations out on and he was as good a candidate as anyone.
Jamie looked almost bewildered at that, a stark dichotomy to the pain written across his face.
"She's my friend, too, Tom."
And that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
"Your friend?" Tommy screamed, drawing the attention of everyone in the ballroom at that point. "I would hate to see how you treat your enemies, Andrews. You haven't treated Jude like a friend in months and now you want to claim that she's your friend too? Like we have something in common? You treated her like she was nothing!"
Tommy had been closing the distance minutely since he had turned around, but as the rage coursed through him at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to punch Andrews in the face. It wasn't the first time that he had felt this desire, but it was the first time he had no qualms about following through. Before he could get any closer, Chaz was in front of him, blocking his path.
"Think about it, Q, not worth it," Chaz muttered softly. Later, Tommy would laugh about this scene. He had never thought he'd see the day where Chaz was the voice of reason.
Unfortunately, Chaz's interference only encouraged Jamie to continue talking.
"And you treat her so much better, Tom? Huh? So much better than I did? So much better than 'nothing?'"
Chaz had to forcibly stop Tommy from approaching, an arm across his chest and another on his shoulder, trying desperately to stop the runaway train that was Tom Quincy.
"She is everything to me, do you understand that? Everything!"
Before he could fully push through Chaz and corner Jamie like the rodent he was, a voice cut through the silence of the ballroom.
"Tom!"
"Oh thank god," Chaz mumbled, grateful for Bear's interruption. He was under no impression that he would be able to stop Tommy from landing at least a few good punches to Jamie Andrews.
"Come with me." Bear's tone brooked no argument. "You too," he pointed behind Tom. Taken aback, Tommy looked to Chaz for an explanation as to why Bear would want him, too, until he realized that Chaz was not the person standing directly behind him. It was Jamie Andrews.
"Did you get anything off the panic button? Why didn't it go off? What's wrong with it?"
"I'll answer your questions as soon as you let me speak, Tom."
They were gathered around a black utility vehicle in the parking lot - the parking lot Tommy had inadvertently walked out into just a little while earlier. An MIB Tommy was unfamiliar with - Bear kept referring to him as Anton - was sitting in the back of the vehicle with three laptops next to him. He barely spared them all a glance as he continued to click fervently.
Tommy was flanked by Bear and Ace, with Jamie standing a little off to the side, looking distinctly uncomfortable. He didn't want to take pleasure in the kid's fear, but a small part of Tommy relished the idea that out here, it was extremely unlikely anyone would step in to Jamie's aid should Tommy decide to take a couple of swings.
"The panic button experienced a slight malfunction due to a buildup of salt around the sensor."
"Salt?" Both Jamie and Tommy interrupted Bear, earning a dual glare.
"Sweat, gentlemen. Salt from her sweat."
It took a few moments for that to register in Tommy's brain.
"Are you telling me that your gizmo from the future that is supposed to save Jude, was thrown off by a little bit of sweat?"
"This 'gizmo from the future' can be submerged up to 100 yards underwater, T. Salt water. I never really banked on your girl shoving it so far down her dress, it started to crystallize."
Tom couldn't help the smile that cracked on his face. Jude was going to mortified when she came back and heard about this. The second he realized that Jude wasn't there to enjoy it with him right then and there, the smile disappeared, and his anxiety set in.
"So does that mean it just stopped working?"
"No, it just stopped the sensor from reporting that it had been activated. Unfortunately, due to the location of the button, we didn't get many, um, photographs that were helpful." Bear tugged uncomfortably at the collar of his shirt. All of the photos were basically just shadow and light, but in a few, you could make out exactly where Jude had trusted the panic button to remain.
"Many? Did you get any?"
"We got one." Bear turned to look at Jamie as Anton turned a laptop around to face the group. "Any reason why your girlfriend was dragging Ms Harrison out of the hotel?"
It was slightly blurry, almost definitely artificially sharpened by one of Bear's techs, but the picture was unmistakable. The side of Jude's face showed her cringing, and her arm was being held at an awkward angle. Held out by Amber Hayes, Jamie's intern girlfriend.
"What. Did. You. Do."
Tommy's voice was hard as nails and just as terrifying coming at Jamie. The man in question briefly took in his surroundings, knowing that there was no where he could hide that he wouldn't be caught. And that is certainly what he was. Caught.
"Morning, Sunshine."
The insides of Jude's eyes burned a hot pink before she managed to open them and greet the light that was piercing her retinas.
"Tommy?"
The cackling laughter that met her assured her that there was no way she was with Tommy.
"Hate to disappoint, Sunshine. Tommy's not here right now, but you can leave a message after the beep."
The light was still glaring in Jude's eyes and she physically flinched to get away with it. Was it already daytime? Was she still with Amber? Her mouth tasted metallic and her head felt like it was filled with cotton and hammers, simultaneously. Nothing made sense.
"What time is it?"
Amber moved the sun, which turned out to be a simple penlight, away from Jude and clicked her tongue. "Don't worry, Sunshine, you've only been out for like 45 minutes. And by the way, maybe you could stand to lose a few? Almost threw my back out trying to get you into the damn car."
"Sorry," Jude mumbled, not entirely sure why she was apologizing to the woman who kidnapped her. She lifted her hand to rub her face, only to find it frozen beside her. She blinked as fast as she could, trying to clear the sleep from her eyes and to free her lashes from the tacky glue that held them there. Slowly but surely, the world began to come into focus.
"Where am I?" She willed her voice not to tremble, but the smirk that passed across Amber's face told her she had been unsuccessful.
"You're home, Sunshine."
Home. This was not Jude's home. She has had many homes in her life - her childhood house, Jamie's house, G Major, the rehearsal space, and most notably, Tommy's place. She was not any place that she could ever consider home.
It was dark. Dark and musty. She could see small square windows at the top of the cement walls that surrounded them, figured she must be in a basement somewhere, but other than that, it was fairly nondescript. That wasn't the part that concerned her. While the walls were holding the structure up, Jude was enclosed in some sort of different structure. A cage, almost, but bigger. She was lying on a cot that felt like it was from the 1940s, and her wrists were handcuffed to the sides of it, stretching and pulling her shoulders uncomfortably. She could feel the stitches from her glass wound pulled taut and she knew that they wouldn't last in their current position. There was about four feet of empty space in her 'room,' but surrounding that were bars that went up and over, effectively closing her in. There was what looked to be a barred door, swinging open now as Amber was in the room with her, but a large padlock hung off of it.
Jude's breath quickened and dots danced in front of her eyes. If she hadn't already been lying down, she would have quickly elected to do that. What the hell was going on?
"You know, you almost made it too easy for us," Amber mused as she sat down next to Jude's prone body. She had quickly learned that her legs, too, were shackled. She was still wearing the beautiful lace dress from that evening, and she couldn't help but feel like while it was beautiful, it certainly wasn't the dress she wanted to die in. "But don't worry about that. It just gives us more time to hang out."
"Us?" Jude croaked.
"Oh, yeah, well, he'll be along soon enough," Amber muttered, searching through her purse. Jude gulped. The last time that happened, she had retrieved a syringe. She didn't think she'd be that lucky again.
"Who's he?" She was desperate to keep her talking, keep her focused on anything that wasn't her purse.
"Oh don't play dumb, Jude, you know exactly who he is. You should be asking who I am, though. We don't know each other that well at all, do we? Ah ha!" She triumphantly pulled out what looked to be a thick silver pen.
"I know you!" Jude practically shrieked. "You're Amber Hayes! You're Jamie's girlfriend and you've been an intern at G Major for like, 10 months, and you two are pretty in love, right? I mean, he really likes you. See, it's like we're best friends."
Amber cocked an eyebrow at Jude.
"My last name is not Hayes, I dated Jamie to get access to you, and I hate being an intern almost as much as I hate that terrible music you come out with."
"What?" Jude breathed the question, not louder than a sigh. Who was this girl in front of her, if not all the things she thought she was? She had honestly not paid her much attention in the past year, choose instead to devote her time to mindlessly hating her for what she did to her and Jamie's relationship before adopting an apathetic response towards her.
Amber uncapped the silver pen, which turned out not to be a pen at all. Instead a sharp triangular blade that Jude now recognized as an Exact-o knife made its appearance. Amber's face seemed to shift with that simple motion of uncapping the blade; she brandished it like an artist wielding a paint brush, twirling it with grace and respect. It terrified Jude to see just how comfortable Amber was with it.
"You did get one thing right, though. My name is Amber. You probably won't forget it," she laughed and bent forward. Not wanting to see what happened yet unable to look away, Jude twisted her head to watch Amber's ministrations.
With an ease that roiled Jude's stomach, she twisted Jude's right arm slightly, exposing the pale flesh of the inside of her bicep. With her tongue between her lips in a comic interpretation of concentration, Amber pressed the blade to Jude's skin and pressed.
Jude bit her tongue to stop the instinctual cry of pain that begged to be released. She couldn't control, however, her body's desire to contract and move away from the pain, which only resulted in a tightening of the hand grasping her. She briefly bemoaned the fact that she was going to have a huge bruise on her arm before she was brought back to the present, and the soft patter of blood dripping to the floor from her arm.
Her vision cleared - when had it even become cloudy? - and she saw Amber leaning back to admire her handiwork. Large, angry letters now took up the space on Jude's bicep, spelling out AMBER in her own skin and blood.
"Sorry, I wish it were easier to work with this thing," Amber told her without a hint of contrition in her tone. "I could've made it prettier."
"What are you - what are you doing?" Jude gasped, unable to move her eyes from her arm, now covered in so much blood the letters were illegible.
"Yes, Amber, what are you doing?"
A male voice called out from across the room, higher somehow, as if he were above them. It grew lower and closer until Jude realized he must have been coming down stairs.
Amber looked up, but she didn't appear scolded or repentant. She was happy with what she did.
"I thought I told you not to play with your food before eating it?" Jude again found herself swallowing back bile. Were they going to eat her? What the fuck was going on?
"Sorry, Daddy."
Daddy? Jude closed her eyes now, the pain on her arm becoming more and more prominent. She had no idea what she had been drawn into. What was going on? Who were these people?
It became abundantly clear - or well, Jude hoped - that the man was not actually Amber's father when he came to the doorway to her room (cell? cage?) and Amber quickly launched up and planted a steamy kiss on his lips. Jude forced herself to believe that he wasn't her father because she just knew she wouldn't be able to turn to her side to throw up, and puking all over herself wasn't an option at this point.
"Have your fun," the man told her. "Do what you want."
"What do you want?" Jude cried out desperately. "Who are you and what do you want? I can give you money, or, or, anything! I can get you whatever you want!"
"Dear, dear Jude. You know what we want." The man's voice was smoky and low, and Jude almost swallowed her tongue when he stepped into the room, no longer hidden by any shadows. Of course it was him. It had always been him. "We just want to get to know you."
"I didn't do anything!" Jamie insisted as he was unceremoniously pushed into the back trunk of the SUV, surrounded by the security team and Tommy Quincy, of all people. His eyes were wide and he knew he was sweating and oh god, was he going to cry? He couldn't cry now, but he just needed to explain. He had to explain everything and then they would understand and they would help Jude. He just needed to explain. And to stop staring at the gun that had swiftly appeared in Ace's hand. It wasn't pointing at him, but still, it was menacing all the same.
"Your girlfriend took her."
It wasn't a question coming from Bear, just a fact, a fact that he dared Jamie to refuse. How could he, after all? They had photographic evidence. They had all they needed to probably shoot him where he sat and write it off, Jamie assumed.
"Where did she take her?"
"What?" Jamie's eyes finally met Bear's, wild and wide. "I don't know! I had nothing to do with this!"
"I find that very hard to believe, Mr. Andrews."
"I told Jude not to talk to her," Jamie moaned, his eyes closing for a brief second. "I thought...I didn't think she'd do this but she hasn't been acting right! You have to understand me," he begged.
"Then why don't you start making fucking sense, Andrews," Tommy spat.
"She's-she's always kind of asked stuff about Jude. She was always curious. I um, I just assumed it was because she was, you know, Jude Harrison. Or like, maybe it was because of us, and she was just jealous." Tommy snorted loudly at this but Jamie knew he was in no position to respond. "I never really gave it much thought because, she's just Amber, and she's sweet and nice and uh, um. I just didn't really…."
"He told her things about Jude." Tommy wasn't speaking to Jamie, but to Bear. "That's how they knew things. He would know where she'd be and what car she drove and stuff like that."
"Hey, no, I wasn't working with her or anything! I didn't even know what she wanted!"
"Well it seems like you were working with her and you were just too fucking stupid to notice, Andrews!"
Jamie snapped his mouth shut. He couldn't refute it. He had come to the same conclusion after the shooting at G Major. He just hadn't wanted to believe…
"Believe what?" Bear's voice again, was less like a question and more like a command. Jamie hadn't internalized his thoughts as well as he had hoped.
"Yesterday, she um - she just...it was just so weird-"
"If you tell me you had anything to do with the shooting at G Major, I swear I will kill you myself."
"T, you either calm down or you take a walk." Jamie had never seen anyone reign Tommy back in like that, aside from Jude. If he wasn't so terrified of Bear, he'd want to ask him how he did it.
"She just told me I should get Jude in front of the windows, that's all. She made it sound," Jamie's voice was cut off by his own choked sob. "She made it sound like there was going to be something nice for her outside. Like, a fan demonstration or something. She made it sound so good…"
"You lured her in front of the window?" Tommy's voice was tightly controlled, but he was hanging on by a thread. Bear's request was about to go out the window, he could feel it.
"It doesn't fit." Ace's quiet voice almost startled Tom, he was so unused to hearing the man speak. "The trajectory, Bear. You saw it too. The angle was wrong."
"You're right," Bear nodded minutely.
"What's he right about? What are you talking about?" It was Jamie who jumped in this time, eager to move some of the crippling blame off of himself.
"The bullet's trajectory was wrong. If Jude was the target - I watched the footage myself, dozens of times. It comes from the wrong angle if she was the one who was supposed to get the bullet. Besides, she was standing there for more than enough time. I always wondered, assumed it wasn't a pro doing it, but Ace is right. If Jamie was luring Jude there, the angle would have been different and there wouldn't have been such a time lapse. Jude wasn't the target. The target was Tom."
"Me?"
"They had threatened you before, at the wedding. You were the real competition in getting to Jude. You were the one who was supposed to get shot, not Jude."
Tommy was speechless. It made sense when Bear laid the facts out for him, but he was still a bit in shock. It had gone through Jude's sweatshirt. It had almost taken her life, not his. He never even once contemplated that it might have been intended for him.
"I - she never said anything to me about Tom. She never told me that he should be there or anything," Jamie blurted out, unsure if it was hurting or helping his case, but knowing he couldn't hold anything else back.
"How did you know to go out there, T? The studios are soundproofed. How did you know to leave the studio?"
"Uh…" He cursed softly, not willing to believe that he was drawing a blank on what would end up being the most important memory of the past week.
"Think, Tom," Bear urged softly. "Why did you leave the studio? You were recording with SME, right?"
"Yeah, we were recording and…" He snapped his fingers in recognition. "An intern came in to get me! Not Amber. She, she, she uh... said Jamie looked like he was going to hit Jude."
"I wasn't going to hit her!" Jamie scoffed, looking indignant despite the glares he was receiving. "What? You guys saw the video! We were arguing, yeah, but I wasn't ever going to hit her!"
"What intern?"
Tommy closed his eyes, willing himself to remember. He didn't usually know the interns but Jude tried to get him to remember their names and he tried for her and he could see her face and her name was dancing on the tip of his tongue - "Raquel! Raquel Vallero."
"She hangs out with Amber sometimes."
Bear turned to Ace and the still unnamed MIB. "Find her. Bring her here. Drag her out of bed for all I care." They sprung into action, tires squealing before Tommy even knew what was happening.
Anton turned around in his seat in the SUV, peering through the open trunk at the trio now standing around Jamie.
"Boss, you're gonna want to see this."
"Stay." Normally Jamie would have bristled at being treated like a dog, but now he felt as if it were all justified. He had unknowingly betrayed Jude and he was pretty sure that was just as bad as doing it knowingly.
"First," Anton whipped the laptop that had previously held the picture from Jude's panic button around once more. A mugshot of Amber now stared at them, her dull, dead eyes boring holes into them. "Amber Hayes doesn't exist. This is Amber Pietro."
"What do we know about her?"
"26. She's stayed off the grid for the past few years. Known residence is that she lives with her mother, Cindy Pietro, who reside in Nova Scotia usually, but has a house down here-"
"I know that name," Tommy cut in.
"Amber Pietro? What's your connection?"
"No, not Amber. Cindy. And it's not my connection - it's Jude's. That's the woman who Stuart Harrison cheated on Jude's mom with."
"You're sure?"
Tommy had a brief flashback of Jude crying in his arms, lamenting the woman and everything she stood for. Oh yes, Tommy was sure.
"Yeah, that's her. That can't be a coincidence."
"Parker!" Bear barked out and to Tommy's surprise, it was a cop who jogged up to them, not another member of his security team. "I need Stuart Harrison out here, ASAP."
While the cop went to retrieve Jude's dad, Bear returned to questioning Anton.
"What has she been charged with?"
"Run of the mill stalker stuff, it looks like. She has four restraining orders against her, two B&Es, one assault, some criminal harassment charges, and a few cyberstalking."
"How the hell did she get a job at G Major?" Bear wondered aloud.
"Amber Hayes apparently is 19, goes to University of Vancouver, and plays racquetball," Anton read from the screen. "It looks like a clean sweep. Darius wouldn't have looked twice at this stuff and it was an unpaid internship - no tax records, no formal hire process. Would have been easy to get in."
"How long has she been working there?"
"10 months and 16 days," Anton reported back.
"Okay, either this was in motion long before Jude ever started being threatened, or she developed the attachment to Jude from being there, seeing her all the time." Bear walked to the back of the SVU. "How long did you date Amber? How long after she started working at G Major?"
Jamie had the good sense to look abashed. "Maybe four days? Five? She started asking about Jude right away," he supplied, hearing their previous conversation.
"Class act as always, Andrews."
"Bite me, Quincy."
"What is going on here?" Bear muttered, ignoring the pair. He was trying to put the pieces together but it was proving difficult when everyone he talked to seemed to know just a little bit more than they had ever told him before. "What's the status on the panic tracker?"
"What?" Tommy perked up at that, ignoring his desire to needle Jamie. "What tracker?"
"You were there when I explained how it worked, right?"
"Yeah, panic button, pictures, GPS. I remember. Just what does that have to do with Jude?"
Bear held out his hand and Anton promptly dropped Jude's panic button into it. He held it up so Tommy could see.
"Panic button, pictures," he pointed out the button and the keyhole lense. He snapped open the back and where there was supposed to be a USB to plug into the computer, nothing bigger than the size of a wireless mouse USB, there was nothing. "No GPS."
"What do you mean, no GPS? Where is it?"
Bear handed the button back to Anton, who briefly looked up at Tommy before continuing his typing on the computer. Just when Tommy thought no one was going to respond to him, Anton started speaking.
"The panic button is designed to stay in one piece. The USB serves as sort of a hard drive for the GPS, transmitting locations, as well as for the camera, saving the pictures to it. There is an extended life battery in the panic button, as the camera draws more power than the GPS does and, like I said, it's designed to remain whole. Once I remove the USB, I place it in the computer, and it draws its power from there. We are hoping that Jude must have removed the USB."
"Is that good?" Tommy didn't want to get his hopes up. "What's it matter? Why would it matter if the USB portion doesn't have a battery in it?"
"I didn't say it didn't have a battery in it," Anton explained patiently. "I said that it drew its power from the camera's battery when it was in the button, and from the computer when it is out. It usually doesn't need a reason to have a separate power source."
"Tell me," Tommy voice was strangled, even to him, "that you are able to remotely turn on her USB and the GPS inside. That there is a battery within it."
Anton looked up at him for the first time since he began speaking and gave him a Cheshire cat grin.
"It is a gizmo from the future, after all."
Jude's screams echoed off the cement walls, rebounding back towards her and making her own head spin. She had given up on trying to be stoic and silent, instead choosing to scream as loud as she could - sometimes for help, sometimes as an emotional release, and sometimes because the pain was too much to keep bottled up inside. She was disappointed when they didn't seem to care; they took no extra precaution to muffle her or even to silence her screams. She assumed that was a bad sign, as they weren't worried at all about who could hear her, but every time they winced as her screams pierced the air gave Jude a little bit more confidence. She was in no way hurting them as badly as they were hurting her - hell, probably not even as badly as her own screams were hurting her, but at least they were enjoying this sick game a little less due to her.
And a game is what it was. It was, in fact, by all accounts, a game of Truth, in which Jude was the only participant. The man - the stalkerazzo, as she had grown to call him in the past weeks - would ask a question and wait for Jude to answer. If he liked her answer, he would give her a reprieve. Sometimes that would involve just silence for a few minutes, or maybe some soothing water down her parched throat or her stinging wounds. If he didn't like her answer, well, that was something entirely different.
He was unpredictable, which Jude hated. His basis for liking an answer or not was not due to the truthfulness of it, or the lie, or the length of an answer. She tried helplessly to discern a pattern from him to help her survive the game, but she was left wanting. Instead, she would respond as best she could and hope that he liked what he heard. She had all but abandoned telling the truth after it became clear to her that he didn't care. Sometimes she would only get a word out before he would give a small nod to Amber, causing the girl to clap with delight.
Amber's own scars stood out in the small amount of moonlight that flooded the cage where she was still strapped. Jude hadn't noticed them before, hadn't been looking. But there, under the silvery beams of light, the scars took on a more ethereal quality. They were faint white against her pale skin, shimmering ever so slightly with every move she made. She was trying to commit them to memory, every last one of them. She hadn't given up hope that she would be rescued (she had given up hope of a daring escape by her, however) and she was determined to remember every little detail of the deranged couple in front of her, lest they escape without being caught.
Despite how pathetic the small, lithe, and clearly tortured the girl in front of Jude looked, Jude found it very hard to feel anything but animosity towards her. Her punishments for displeasing answers were almost unbearable, and the girl seemed to relish Jude's responses. Her favored form of torture, and subsequently, Jude's least favorite, was a mist of salt water sprayed above Jude's open wounds. She would pour salt water straight onto the cuts occasionally, and while that was more than just a little uncomfortable (it burned a fire deep within Jude's veins that she was convinced would never go out), it did fade fairly quickly, subsiding to the almost constant throb that she now felt throughout her right side. The mist, however, was worse. It would lazily fall into Jude's cuts, with no lightning bolt of pain or the rush of the receding burn. No, it wasn't at all a hurried form of torture. The small particles of salt would settle in the cuts, spreading not like a wildfire but like a small river of pain flowing through her. It lasted for what seemed like ever and it never fully left her, as far as she could tell.
She couldn't see the wounds clearly on her right side anymore, and she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Amber had stuck only to that side, sitting beside her indian style, like a child waiting eagerly for the next chapter of a book to be read to her. Not to say her left side was faring much better; the stitches had completely torn and her lace cap sleeve was soaked in blood. The sleeve which had seemed so beautiful and delicate had turned on her so quickly: the fine lace had slipped inside of the inches long gash and now, every move she made, every breath or scream that tore out of her, chafed the inside of her cut more and more.
She inhaled a shuddering breath, releasing it quickly in a huff in order to center herself, to make the black dots recede in her vision. She kept them at bay for no other reason than fear of what they might do to her if she were unconscious.
"What do you think Tommy is doing right now?"
It was an unusual question, but she found that the man would occasionally slip these in amidst dozens of other banal questions. Before she could convince herself not to, she barked out her response.
"Looking for me."
She closed her eyes and waited for the pain to come. It would be cigarette burns, or the salt water again, or more jagged cuts that spelled words that were now completely lost on the shredded skin of her bicep, covered in blood and useless, desiccated tissue. But none came.
She peeked one eye open, unwilling to commit to both in case he had anticipated this. But no, Amber was screwing open a water bottle from the corner and as she let it trickle down onto her skin, Jude couldn't help but to both sigh and wince simultaneously.
This surprised Jude, although she wished it hadn't. His unpredictability should have been predictable by now, yet he always seemed to anger when her responses would be glib or facetious.
"Such unwavering strength in Mr. Quincy you have," he commented blandly.
Jude jerked her head in what she hoped passed for a nod. Her stomach was quivering uncontrollably and both her arms were shaking with the cleansing.
"I suppose he has been with you for a long time, through a lot of things. I wonder," he mused dramatically, as if he were putting on a show for Jude. "Do you think he will still love you when your skin is nothing but one big scar?"
"You love me," Amber commented blithely, without turning around to face him.
He gave her a soft affirmative noise in the back of his throat, but Jude saw what she did not. An almost invisible sneer, just the faintest glimpse of the contempt he masked below the surface. Jude knew he did not love her. He seemed to tolerate her - a means to an end. She was certainly the mastermind in getting close to Jude, that much had been made clear throughout their… time together. Amber seemed to get off on the chase, the sneaking, the lies. She had made offhand remarks about how she had learned from previous times, how she had finally gotten it right, hadn't gotten caught.
She knew that Amber was the one who had more or less gotten her here, she just wasn't sure why. Was it because Jude was a bit of a challenge, more of a public figure? Did she have more of a reason? Was it even Amber's reason at all? From what Jude had seen of their relationship, she was more than convinced that the man - who still remained nameless, somehow - could get Amber to do just about anything that he bid.
"Can I ask a question?" Jude gasped out, the words so quiet but so loud in the silence that stretched around them.
The man gave her a once over before acquiescing.
"Okay. You may."
"Why me?" Jude gritted out between her teeth as another wave of pain came over her. The blood that coated her right arm, shoulder, and chest acted as sort of a barrier from the elements. She was grateful for the soothing sensation of the water as it washed away traces of salt or even glitter, as Amber had gleefully clapped some on her earlier, but the water was also her enemy. It left her wounds open and an oscillating fan in the corner would sporadically blow cold air over her. The wind would invigorate her as it hit her face, but the sensation was almost too much on her raw skin. It hurt like hell.
"I have to admit, I didn't believe Amber when she said that she could get close to you. She used to love you, you know. Thought you'd be a family of sorts. " The sneer appeared on his face again. "I don't have much use for families. At first, you were a challenge, of course. But then - then I got to know you. I have read every single article about you, every interview, every quote. You're quite the enigma, you know?"
"How so?" Jude had to keep him talking, had to keep him focused on anything except another cut, another burn.
"Well, you contradict yourself constantly. First you love your neighbor, Amber's lovestruck boyfriend, then it is Tom Quincy, then Spiederman, then Mr. Quincy again, then another nameless, faceless boy from off the street, then back to Thomas - quite hard to keep up with, you know. Then you're original, then you're a sellout, then you're writing your own songs, then you're having assistance, it's just...nothing ever seems to make sense with you."
Jude watched again as the carefully crafted mask the man wore slipped briefly. She was terrified - had been terrified, for the entire ordeal - but as she saw underneath the man's exterior, she knew that he was certifiable. She was a kid, for Christ's sake, when she first began her journey to stardom. Of course her answers were going to be different from year to year!
"Tell me about it," she muttered instead of defending herself.
The man in front of her actually huffed out a laugh. Amber looked as surprised as Jude felt, her jaw dropping at the sound. Jude was too focused on controlling her breathing to demonstrate anything except pain.
"Yes, I suppose you would know just how confusing you are. You're just a lost little girl, aren't you?"
She shook her head no.
"No? Not so lost? Just where do you think you are going, Jude?"
"Home," she breathed, a few errant tears escaping into her hair.
"Home? How sweet. How about this? How about I don't think you're going home, but you're going to come with me. With us. A new home."
He waited patiently for her to respond as Amber flicked the cover on and off her Exact-o knife, looking bored with the entire conversation.
"I have a home." Her voice came in small pants, her body shaking uncontrollably now, sweat and tears rolling off her face and getting lost in her hairline. "His name is Tom Quincy."
She screamed before the knife even touched her skin.
"I don't understand?" Stuart Harrison wiped tears from his eyes as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "What does Cindy have to do with anything?"
He stood outside the SUV with the growing crowd; Tommy had situated himself between Jamie and Stuart on the off chance that someone decided to take a swing. He had no idea who that person would be - he was still keeping himself in the running - but he knew he wanted to be in the action to either help Stuart or land the first punch. They all leaned in to hear Bear and Anton trade words.
"When is the last time you saw her, Mr. Harrison?"
"Months? It really has been a long time. We got coffee a few months ago but that was it. What does she have to do with Jude's disappearance?"
"Not Cindy, Stuart," Tommy interjected. "Her daughter, Amber."
"Amber?" He looked bewildered, still trying to piece it together in his head. "I haven't...I only met her really a few times. She was a sweet kid."
"We have reason to believe that she took Jude tonight, Mr. Harrison. We need to know everything you know about her."
It took him a few moments to gather his bearings in order to form complete sentences.
"She was quiet. Kept to herself, mostly, from what I remember and Cindy told me. She took a shine to me. She wanted to meet Jude - it was right at the beginning, right when she had first won Instant Star, but...things were different. Her mom was already divorced, and I was...doing what I was doing. She couldn't meet Jude, it just wasn't possible. She made a couple of comments when we had dinner once about us being a family, but...she never - I never - I don't know what happened," Stuart's voice broke off and he buried his face in his hands, trying to catch his tears before they streamed down his face.
Tommy put a heavy hand on the man's shoulder, which Stuart instantly grasped, keeping his other firmly on his face.
Tires squealing as a car flew into the parking lot distracted everyone.
"That should be the intern. Ms. Pietro is about two minutes out."
"You already picked up the mom?" Tommy was impressed with Bear's efficiency. "When did that happen?"
"About two seconds after we figured out who Amber really was, Tom. Gotta give me more credit than that. Stuart, do you think you can wait out here? It might be good to have a friendly face when we talk to Cindy Pietro. Tommy, Andrews, let's go talk to the intern."
Raquel Vallero stood an intimidating five foot three inches tall, was wearing blue pajamas with clouds on them, and looked absolutely terrified.
"What's going on?" She asked when Tommy stopped in front of her. "I didn't do anything, I swear."
"Why did you come get me when Jude and Jamie were fighting? Who told you to come get me?" Tommy skipped the niceties and went straight for what he needed to know.
"Whoa, whoa, Tommy, let's just take it a bit slower - " Jamie felt for the intern in front of him and didn't want to see her get railroaded by an overzealous boyfriend of Jude's.
"Answer the question," Bear's low timbre cut in. "We either see who you spoke to before talking to Tommy on security footage, or we pull all of your text conversations, or phone logs. You would be making our life easier by just telling us."
"You-you can do that? Get my texts?"
"Raquel." Tommy growled. "You are done with G Major. You are going to be lucky to get a job at McDonalds after this, let alone in the recording industry. You either tell us what we want to know or we figure it out some other way."
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
Tommy had to take a step back to prevent himself for actually lunging for the girl. Bear, on the other hand, remained calm and stoic as ever, just glanced at his smart phone casually.
"You don't know? Well, maybe your parents will know. They're the real protective types, right?" Of course Bear had all this information at his fingertips. "Probably didn't even want to let you go to college in the big city. Wonder what they'll think when they find out you're involved in the disappearance of Jude Harrison?"
"You can't call my mom!" Raquel blurted out. "I'm 19. You can't call my parents. I waive that right or whatever."
"Sweetheart," Bear's white teeth glinted in the parking lot lights, looking more pointed and in turn making him look even scarier. "Do we look like we are the police?"
"Amber told me to!" She practically screamed. "She told me like, a week ago, that I had to do her this favor and then yesterday she comes in and she told me exactly when to do it and she texted me when I should go in and what I should tell Tommy. That girl is crazy. I mean, seriously nuts. She threatened to kill my cat if I didn't do it! She is fucking insane!" She looked towards Jamie. "Sorry, dude, but she is."
"It's cool, we're probably breaking up after this," Jamie muttered.
"Probably?" Tommy scoffed.
"Well, I mean, I don't know if I'll ever see her again."
"You better hope to whatever god you pray to at night, Andrews, that we see her again and we see her real soon."
Bear questioned the girl for a few more minutes but it became evident that she didn't know much.
"That's it?" Tommy questioned when Raquel was taken into the back of a squad car.
"Amber was using fear to manipulate Raquel, they weren't really friends. Anything Amber did tell her was probably incorrect or a half-truth. I'm not going to waste my time on that, but the Toronto PD has no problem asking her a few more questions down at the precinct. Besides, the mom is here."
Cindy Pietro stood near Stuart Harrison, the awkwardness palpable in the air. She looked very similar to Amber, with the pale skin and the dark brown hair and eyes that were almost too big for her face.
"You're sure she has her?" She asked for the fifth time. Even Stuart was beginning to look annoyed with her. "I'm sorry, it's just hard for me to believe, even if…"
"Even if what?" Bear had instructed Tommy to remain quiet, so he was the one conducting the interview.
"Well, she gets a little fixated. But usually it goes away. With Jude, she was always more than a little fixated, but I thought that was because of me and Stuart, not just Jude. But then about a year ago she decided she hated Jude's music and didn't want anything to do with it. She threw away all her CDs and trashed the posters she had of her. I thought that was the end of it. If she really has done anything, I guarantee you its because of her new boyfriend."
"Boyfriend?"
"Yeah, Marco or Carlo or something like that. I think he was the one that got her to stop liking Jude's music, they started dating right about that time. He's never been anywhere near good enough for her, though. He's too old for her and doesn't even have a real job, I don't think."
"Ma'am, we are going to need to know his name. His real name."
She thought for a moment before remembering something on her iPhone. She pulled it out, tapped a few times, then held it up victoriously. It was an article Amber had sent her, saying that her boyfriend had written it. Marco Colantoni.
While Anton was running down that name and still trying to activate the GPS from the panic button, Jamie was speaking quietly to Mrs. Pietro.
"You never noticed the scars?"
Tommy's ears perked up at this but he refused to turn and acknowledge the private conversation occurring behind him. He didn't know what scars Jamie was talking about, but he knew he wanted to find out.
"Like I said, she gets fixated."
"And writes people's names on her arm?"
"She had a really hard time after her dad left," Cindy explained in a small voice, clearly not proud of her parenting skills. "And then with Stuart...I think she really thought that he was going to be it for me and her. She wanted us to be a family. She talked about it all the time. And then Stuart went back to his family and I think she was just so upset that she didn't get another shot at a family."
"I only met her a few times, Cindy," Stuart sounded baffled by the entire thing.
"She gets fixated," she echoed.
Tommy couldn't stand to hear anymore so he followed Bear to the SUV that was still housing Anton.
"Look familiar?" Bear asked as he flipped around a monitor for Tom to see.
"It could be a photograph of Jude's sketch," Tommy marveled. It was true, the man in the picture before him matched Jude's official sketch of the paparazzo in her car from that night so many weeks ago. Same slicked back black hair, beak-like nose, and small lips stared back at him.
"Meet Marco Colantoni, 32. Fancies himself a reporter, but he only took a few journalism classes in undergrad before dropping out of U of Toronto his junior year." Anton didn't even need to look at the data in front of him to give his report, instead bringing up various documents outlining his past. "Seems to have a string of bad luck in the ladies department - his last three girlfriends are all doing time right now for a host of things. B&E, assault, kidnapping, felony larceny, you name it. He always has a convenient alibi for the crimes and the girlfriends never flip on him. All have a history of either abuse or mental illness. He knows how to pick 'em."
"He gets the girls to do the dirty work, and then he gets off scott free," Bear explained. "Guys like him know how to manipulate girls like that into doing whatever he wants them to. We catch them together, we take them down. We don't, and I guarantee Amber will conveniently forget that he was ever there."
"Well, Jude will just tell us what really happened."
Silence. Oh. Bear was assuming if we found her alone, Jude wasn't going to be a factor anymore. Tommy felt sick and cold, like someone poured ice water directly into his stomach and was sloshing it all around.
"We need to find her," he rasped out. "Now."
"I've got something!" Anton's fingers flew over the keyboard in front of him. Maps of all of Canada were zooming in and out in front of him, seemingly by themselves. "It's not transmitting now, but I can see where it last was."
Jude's GPS. Tommy felt his knees almost give way. He wished he had someplace to sit.
"Docks all the way the end of Westgate. Can't get it much closer than that."
"Why wouldn't it still be transmitting?" Tommy wondered aloud.
"By the docks?" Anton stopped typing briefly. "Could be the sensor got damaged, or it's underwater. Or even underground."
"Blueprints of every building in that area. Now. Send them to my phone." Bear held up three fingers above his head, and somehow all of his men seemed to know what to do. "You coming, Tom? I'll make myself very clear: you stay in the car and you don't get out for nothing. If I think you are incapable of following those rules I'll leave you on the curb or handcuff you in the car. Make no mistake."
"Yeah, yes, yeah, I am definitely - I am coming. I am. No doubt."
Bear gave him a single nod. "Ace will suit you up. We leave in two. It takes 20 minutes to get there and we are doing it in 10."
"Aren't we...aren't you going to tell the police?" Tommy asked as Bear went to go relay the news to Stuart.
"If you thought any of what we just did was legal, you are stupider than you look, Quincy," Bear told him under his breath. "I am not going to drag a bunch of red and blues out to the docks with their lights on and their megaphones blaring and hope to get the drop on a guy that has clearly done this before. I am doing this for Jude and I am doing this for you, Tom. We are going to go and get your girl and afterwards, in tomorrow's paper, it's going to be talking about how heroic Toronto PD is, you got that?"
He didn't wait for a response as he took off, and Tommy didn't have time to think about it as someone was instantly behind him, pulling his arms through something.
"A Kevlar vest? Don't you think that's a little over the top?" He asked Ace before turning around to see him. Ace was wearing his own vest, plus a utility belt that Batman and a Navy SEAL would be jealous of. "Guess not."
"You still remember how to shoot?" Bear was next to him again, directing him towards his Yukon, shoving the butt of a gun into his gut. Tommy took it, deftly checking all the chambers and the safety. "I'll take that as a yes."
"All those years of using Chaz's picture as target practice should pay off."
"You better not have to use them tonight. Let's roll, Quincy, and let's go find Jude."
Hours. It had been hours since Jude had been taken, and she tried so hard to keep her hopes alive and stay optimistic, but as the dark sky turned a muted gray through the tiny window, she felt them start to dwindle. Truth was, she was starting to fade in about a million different ways.
She was pretty much constantly dizzy, which she knew was due to the blood loss. She had puked on herself twice, despite commanding herself not to. Guess that champagne wasn't a good idea after all. All it had taken was one look to the side of the bed and to see Amber practically sitting in a puddle of Jude's blood and she lost it.
The real issue, she knew, was that she was starting to lose consciousness. She had blacked out once due to the pain and was rudely awoken by what Amber gleefully told her were smelling salts. She was trying with everything she had to remain awake because she honestly wasn't sure she'd wake up if she fell asleep now.
When she came to after the brief spell (Amber had switched arms and had cut a bit too deeply into her previous wound from the glass), she had an odd sense of clarity, however. She looked at the two people in front of her - the two very very fucked up people in front of her - and she hated them. She felt bad for them, yes, but she honestly hated them for playing with her life and her body like it was nothing to them. But she didn't feel afraid of them. They were going to do what they wanted to do to her regardless. She didn't think they really wanted to kill her (it might be an unfortunate side effect from their methods, but she didn't think that was their intent) and that knowledge alone brought her some peace.
She stopped answering the questions for a while after that, too. It didn't last, but her short demonstration of resolution was enough to confuse and throw Amber and the stalkerazzo off their game.
"I'm going to pass out soon," she told them. "What are you going to do then?"
"Oh, Amber here is a very good doctor." Jude highly doubted that, but remained silent. "And besides, it's almost daytime. We can move you then. What do you think, Amber?"
"I'll take real good care of Sunshine here."
"Good, get the syringe. And then we can take you to a new home." He stood then, hovering over Jude. "One that might not have a name yet."
A loud, singular thump! came from above their heads, and Amber and the man froze. Jude froze for a second too, before opening her mouth and letting out the screams she had become so fond of the last few hours.
Almost instantly was a hand over her mouth, but Jude bit down with all the strength that she had.
"FuckI" He swore, pulling his hand away only for a second before his other came down, this time harder and holding her mouth shut and plugging her nose. "Get the syringe, Amber."
The girl was scrabbling now, the floor and her body slippery with the blood, the small purse sliding out of range. She finally got it and pulled a syringe out triumphantly, still casting terrified looks towards the door, and held it out to the man.
"Does it look like I can do that right now, Amber?" Jude was struggling beneath his hands in earnest now.
"I can't reach and I can't inject her arms...there's too much damage, it won't even penetrate her system, I don't know what to do, why isn't this going right? We did everything right!" Amber was only a few words away from full blown wailing.
"Keep your voice down!" He leaned down, his breath hot and putrid in Jude's face. "If you scream, I will stab you, do you understand?"
He lifted his hands and even if she wanted to, Jude couldn't have screamed. She was trying to inhale, trying to get any amount of air into her lungs, raggedly panting and shaking and trying to survive.
She felt the prick of a needle in her neck but she wasn't aware of the cloudiness that she was anticipating. Another noise had distracted the two in front of her and no one had depressed the plunger. Taking a huge risk that she wasn't even aware of, she twisted her her head, her vision no longer being an aid as the room swam around her, and ripped the syringe from her body with her teeth and spat it as far as she could.
A louder bang! sounded from closer this time, and for the first time since this entire ordeal began, Jude didn't welcome the blackness that overcame her.
The three SUVs pulled up to the docks silently, somehow. Their lights had been cut for blocks before, but there was still an eery glow that lit up the various storage facilities and crates that were stacked around.
"I don't see a car," Tommy breathed.
"Luckily, we aren't looking for a car, we are looking for Jude," Bear told him succinctly. "You get out of this car before I come back for you and I'll shoot you myself, Tom."
"Why did you give me a gun then?" He grumbled.
"Precaution. Only thing stupider than letting you come in with us is letting you sit out here unprotected."
"Gee, thanks."
"This is not free range to do whatever you want. You are not a vigilante. You shoot one of my men and I'll be less than pleased. Keep your cell phone on."
Tommy watched in barely concealed awe as Bear and his men congregated around the vehicles. They spoke without words; it was obvious that these men were once a well-oiled military squadron. They looked to Bear in deference but still with respect, simply awaiting orders. They fanned out, the darkness swallowing them and their black uniforms, gone before Tommy could even try to track them with his eyes.
He checked his gun for what felt like the millionth time - the safety, the chamber, the trigger mechanism. It all worked, of course, but it gave his hands something to do. He propped his phone on the seat beside him and tried to devote equal amounts of energy to staring at it, willing it to ring, and perusing the surroundings outside the car.
Nothing but blackness.
Bear knew they had found the location when he heard the unmistakable scream of a female, only for it to be cut off seconds later. He took a deep breath. He knew his demeanor gave off a certain air about him, which was necessary in his line of work, but he wasn't emotionless. And he knew that if they found Jude in any state less than alive, that the man he left in the SUV would never recover. And he didn't want to be responsible for that.
Silently, he motioned to the team that they had found the warehouse, but to be on the lookout for entrances that went below ground. The first floor was above sea level and wouldn't be responsible for the GPS failing; she had to be beneath. There was no bunkers on the blueprints they had studied, but there were always ways around that.
In perfect synchronicity, the team kicked down the two doors leading into the warehouse and fanned out, with Ace holding his finger in the air to signify that he had indeed found a way below. It was a board in the ground, almost as if it were leading to a crawl space, but Bear suspected there was much more below their feet. Weapons drawn, they entered.
Bear saw Jude first but was unable to spare more than two seconds on her bloody body. Instead, he was forced to lock eyes with the man that had undoubtedly been causing all their problems in the first place, holding a gun on Jude from two feet away.
"Don't move." Bear barked out, quickly stopping only a few yards away from Marco. While the odds were definitely in his favor, Jude wasn't moving, and he was loathe to anger the man with gun that was still in close proximity to her. If she was alive, a bullet hole wouldn't help.
"I should say the same to you." His voice was greasy and oily, just like his hair, and roiled Bear's stomach. "One more step and I shoot everyone in a two foot range."
"You wouldn't get a shot off."
"Such confidence! Are you really trying to test me? And better yet, how bad of a shot do you think I am? Do you really think I would miss her?"
It wasn't the first time Bear had been in a hostage situation and he knew it wouldn't be the last time, but it didn't make the situation any less dire. He had scanned the room as best he could without taking his eyes off of Marco, but he knew that the man in front of him would know the layout better. If he was trying to threaten Jude, there was no way he was anticipating leaving the way that his team just came in. He would have to carry her through no less than ten highly trained military men, and while he was certainly insane, he didn't think the man had a death wish. No, Bear knew that there had to be another exit he wasn't seeing, but he couldn't give himself enough time to look around and find it himself.
"What do you want?" The question Colantoni in a position of perceived power, but Bear was hoping he would give away details that would help them.
"Guns down. Now. Or I shoot her. Kick them into the cage."
Bear gave an almost imperceptible nod. His team each had extra sidepieces, which he was hoping the man in front of him would not know about.
Once down and kicked in, Bear held his hands up, the picture of surrender.
"Leave her alone."
"Yes, well, maybe for today," he said wistfully. "But trust me that this will never be over. I've had a taste and I want more."
Bear balked at that, hoping that he didn't mean what was implied. Amber whimpered behind Marco; the pathetic waif of a girl looked almost demonic in the context, covered in blood that wasn't hers, eyes wild and wide. Bear knew not to rule her out as a threat. She may not have had a gun, but she was plenty dangerous.
"You're never going to come near that girl again."
"Oh, and who is going to stop me? You and what army? And that certainly is what you are, right? American military? You're certainly not cops, no, you've given up on their rulebook pretty easily. So here's what's going to happen." Marco moved quickly, gun still pointing at Jude, but Amber pressed to his chest, his arm around her throat, effectively creating a human shield. She clawed at him but he remained unphased. "I'm going to leave. You are going to have Jude, or whatever is left of her now, and she will think of me every day when she sees herself in the mirror."
He was taking slow steps backwards, practically dragging a complacent Amber, gun still trained on Jude. Bear saw it a moment before he was gone; the back of the cage swung open on a spring that must have been floor-triggered, and Marco shoved Amber forward, and ran towards the darkness behind him which Bear assumed held another exit.
"Alpha team, go!" Bear shouted, instantly pursuing Marco into the barely lit basement. He knew Ace, Ram, and Tony were behind him, leaving the others to take care of Amber and Jude. He saw a sliver of light ahead and knew that had to have been the exit. Adrenaline told him to pursue, but years of military training reminded him what a bad idea that was. He cracked open the heavy metal door and the familiar ping! of a bullet ricocheting off of it sounded close to his head.
"Ace, Tony, you two circle back around through the warehouse. Ram, you're with me." With a prayer and a cock to his gun, Bear opened the door, hoping that Tommy was more prepared for this than he was.
"What the fuck?" Tommy muttered to himself as he tried to make out the shapes that were in front of him. It was too dark, with only one or two lamps on in the vicinity, but he thought he saw people running through the open lot. Were they coming to get him? Was Jude okay?
The unmistakable sound of bullets being fired put him into high alert, stretching from his perch in the backseat to look out the windshield. He still couldn't see much, and it was moving too fast for him to comprehend. Gunshots were ringing out all over the place and as they bounced off of all of the metal shipping containers, he couldn't even tell where they were coming from. His heart was in his throat as he thought he saw someone get hit; they stumbled, but continued running at him, at the cars.
"Oh, fuck," he whispered as the light finally caught the person's face. It was Marco Colantoni, headed straight for him.
He didn't know what to do; his palms were suddenly way too sweaty to even handle the gun, which felt heavy and clumsy in his hands. A part of him knew he had to do something, but there was nothing to do. And as he spied the keys dangling in the ignition, he did the only thing he could think of - hit the unlock button on the driver's side door.
He watched as the man tried the SUV in front of him, which now looked to have a few extra bullet holes, as he saw Ace running at him from an opposite direction. It was locked, and Marco couldn't waste any more time on it. Tommy hoped that the tinted windows did their job as he made himself as small as possible, crouching behind the driver's seat. His heart was racing and his palms were not getting any less sweaty, and as the pounding footsteps got closer and closer, he could've sworn he was going to have a heart attack.
Then Marco was there. He was outside the door, and Tommy heard his rush of relieved breath as the door opened for him and he saw the keys. Suddenly, all the fear he had for his own life was replaced by something else. It was the image of Jude, as she retold her story of being in his Hummer, absolutely terrified as she realized someone was sitting in the car with her. The fear on her face, the terror in her story as she had to listen to some creep talk to her like she was less deserving of his respect because she was famous. That same creep who was about to get the same scare of his life.
"Idiots," Marco muttered as he frantically turned the engine over.
"I know, right?" Tommy muttered as he popped up from behind. Shock and surprised registered on his face briefly before the butt of Tommy's pistol collided with the back of his head and he was the one to experience the blackness.
Tommy didn't want to take any chances so he was instantly out of the car, dragging Marco out of the driver's seat, leaving him on the pavement. He wanted so badly to be the bigger man, to be the better man, and to get to Jude as soon as he could. But seeing that man who had taken her, who still had the nerve to look smug even in unconsciousness, the pull became too much. Without even realizing he was doing it, Tommy felt his fist collide with the man's face, his body hunched over his, his fury unrelenting.
Large, firm hands pulled him off.
"I'm fine, Bear, I'm good, where is she?"
Tommy was surprised that it wasn't Bear who had removed him, but Ace. Bear stood to the side, quickly wrapping up his forearm with a bandage that was becoming soaked with blood too quickly for anyone's liking.
"Just a ricochet is all," Bear explained to the nonverbal question in Tommy's eyes. "Bleeding like a bitch."
Tommy's eyes darted to the warehouse they had just come from. He had so many questions, but couldn't seem to make his mouth move.
"We found her, Tommy. She's alive."
His knees sagged and he had to prop himself up on the grill of the SUV just to keep standing. "Is she...can I see her?"
"Let's go." Bear started to walk briskly to the door that Tony was now standing sentry at. "Cops and ambulances are on their way. She looks bad, Tom, but she's alive. Just be prepared. I don't think we can move her right now, but once the bus gets here, you can be with her."
Before they could go down the stairs, two more men led Amber out past them. Tommy couldn't bring himself to say anything to the girl who looked to be in a catatonic state currently, but he also didn't feel particularly bad for her. She would get everything she deserved.
And then he saw her.
Oh, his poor, sweet Jude. Almost unrecognizable.
There was blood everywhere. The bodice of her dress was mostly stained red now, with only the skirt remaining the light blue that he had admired for bringing out her eyes just hours ago. Even that was splattered, nothing left untouched.
Her right arm was the most noticeable to him, and he found himself staring at it while being only a foot away from her. He couldn't bring his eyes to her face, instead just staring blankly at her arm. Bear's men had done some basic triage for her, but there was a limit to their capabilities, especially with her wounds. Her right arm was wrapped in coated gauze, which was sterile and could apply pressure to the wound, but didn't offer any absorption of the blood. He was vaguely aware of Bear telling him that the wounds were so deep and so plentiful that they didn't want to chance them getting any fibers in it.
They cut her up. The words echoed in his mind unbidden. He wanted them to go away, wanted to make his mind just shut up, but he could only hear those four words, rattling around, repeating. His eyes trailed along her body, cataloging all the wounds he could see. What looked to be a whole t-shirt was wrapped around Jude's left shoulder where Tommy knew her wound from the glass had been.
He didn't know what he had been expecting. He knew it wasn't going to be good, but at the same time - he could've sworn he had been preparing himself for the horrible, monstrous outcome that maybe she wouldn't even survive, but his subconscious had betrayed him, it would seem. He was no where near prepared for this.
He wanted to take her hand. Wanted to hold her and wanted to take her away from this place - this cage - but he stood there, frozen. He didn't want to jostle her, to cause her pain even in sleep, because god, he really hoped she was just asleep.
He didn't know how long he stood there, watching Bear and his men move silently around Jude, taking care of her in ways that he didn't know how to.
"Bus is here," Bear spoke suddenly, his voice jarring Tommy out of whatever reverie he was in. "They'll need space to get her out of here. They might not let you ride with her, but I will have one of my men take you if that's the case."
Tommy nodded jerkily, running a hand over his face, not really surprised when it came back wet. He had been unaware of the tears streaming unbidden down his face, but made no effort to wipe them away. The world was spinning so fast and slow at the same time and soon there were paramedics everywhere and a man in black was herding him outside.
"I go with her." The paramedic looked up at his face and must have seen something he agreed with because with one terse nod, Tommy climbed into the back of the ambulance and let out a shuddering breath as he made himself as small as he could in the corner.
She was alive.