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Only when the hallway had remained deathly silent for several minutes, was Jill finally able to summon up the courage to creak open the door and cautiously peer outside.
Her eyes scanned right, left, and then right again.
Nothing.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she slipped through the door, shut it quietly behind her and crept toward Kelly's room. She gave another nervous glance down the hall before holding her breath and giving the metal door the softest one knuckled tap she could.
She wanted to break out in a cheer when she immediately heard bustling on the other side of the door.
"Kell?" She whispered, leaning close to the door seam. "Can you hear me?"
She heard shuffling as Kelly pressed herself against the door on the other side. "Yeah." Came her worried voice. "I heard someone talking out here. Are you okay? Did they see you?"
Jill shot another nervous glance down both sides of the hall. "I don't think I'd be here if they had." She said glumly.
"I heard the guy and… and was that what's-her-face talking out there?"
"Yeah." Jill said dismissively. "Hey, I found some keys. Let's hope these work."
"Hoping." She heard Kelly mutter.
The three keys on the key ring seemed to jingle impossibly loud as she tried them one by one. The first and second were failures before they'd even been tried. Hopelessly too big. Jill held her breath as she grabbed the third with trembling hands. This had to be it. She said a quick prayer and slid the key into the slot.
She nearly whooped in joy when the little key slid easily inside.
"Did you get it?" Kelly called anxiously.
But an excited affirmative had to be checked the instant before she answered when the key stubbornly refused to turn.
No. This wasn't happening.
Feeling the sickening feeling of hope draining right out of her, Jill stared at the stuck key in disbelief and tried to turn it the other way. When that didn't work, she jiggled it angrily left and right, cursing under her breath and jerking at the door knob in a momentary loss of control.
"Fuck!" She hissed. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
"What happened?! Jill, what's wrong?"
Jill stopped her fight with the door handle and let her head thump against the door in defeat. "Key doesn't work." She sighed in exasperation. "Dammit, that's the only set of keys I saw. Those freaks probably have the only-"
"It's okay, hang on a second." Kelly whispered. "I might have something."
Jill felt her presence leave the door for a few seconds before thudding back into it. There was a tinkle of metal hitting the floor and then something small and gleaming poked out from underneath the door. "I think you can pick the lock with this."
Jill furrowed her brow as she bent down and inspected Kelly's gift. A small, metal set of tweezers. Longer than the ones she owned. Probably used for surgery. Definitely not for lock picking.
And definitely not by her.
"I can barely pick a lock with my tools." Jill sighed, snatching up the tweezers. "How am I supposed to do it with this?! You're the lock picker not me! Are you sure you can't do it from your si-"
"Do you think we'd be having this conversation if I could!" Came back Kelly's heated response. Jill heard her take a deep breath and when she spoke again her voice was even and calm. "Look, I'll help you, okay? Just do what I tell you."
Jill groaned. She knew that tone. Kelly was trying hard to keep her cool.
"Alright." She whispered, popping up to her knees. This was their only shot anyway, she told herself miserably. She grabbed for the key sticking out of the doorknob to remove it and was mildly annoyed when it didn't easily come out. A second and third attempt met with the same result and by the fourth, Jill found herself starting to panic again. It was impossible to get a good grip on it. She dropped the tweezers to fight it with both hands.
Kelly, blind behind the door, mistook all the rattling for signs of progress. "Are you getting it?" she asked hopefully after a moment.
Jill could have screamed at her. "No, I'm not getting it! It's stuck!" She whispered tersely to the door.
"What?"
"The key! The fucking key is stuck in the door!" Jill fumed back, still tugging madly at it.
"Oh, Christ, Jill."
"Just gimme a second!" Jill grumbled angrily, rising to her feet. She wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans and took hold of the key again. "I need for this stupid fu-"
Her blue eyes widened at a far off sound coming from down the hallway.
"Jill-"
"Shh!" Jill hissed. She craned her neck towards the gloomy silence and listened again. A moment later her worst fears were confirmed.
Footsteps.
An icy cold fear spiked in her chest. "Shit." Jill breathed, grappling frantically but silently with her key. They were coming back. They would find the key. They would know she'd tried to get Kelly out. They would take Kelly away and this time there was no guarantee that she'd ever see her again if they did.
"What's going on?"
Jill jerked her head toward the footsteps. They were getting louder. Closer.
She resumed her desperate fight against the key with renewed vigor. "Someone's coming." She blurted out quickly, hoping Kelly heard. "Listen to me. Don't let them give you a shot."
If Kelly had a response to that, Jill didn't hear it. At that precise moment, the key released its death grip on the door handle, sending the frazzled detective stumbling backwards. There wasn't time to celebrate though. A dark shadow was already climbing up the wall.
Without wasting another instant, Jill scrambled back into her closet and swung the door a half inch from shut.
No sooner was she safe inside, than the shadow rounded the corner and the familiar click-clack of Anna's high heels betrayed her presence. Jill pursed her lips and stared as hard as she could out of the tiny crack she'd left for herself to peek through. Anna was coming to give Kelly a shot, she knew that much. Maybe Kelly could talk her into postponing it, Jill thought wildly. There was no reason for them to think Kelly was suspicious. She'd been in her room this whole time.
A glint of metal on the floor suddenly caught her eye and Jill's already queasy stomach gave a violent lurch.
The tweezers.
She sucked in a sharp breath and began pacing anxiously in her cramped conditions.
Please don't let her seen them, she prayed fervently to herself as the footsteps grew closer and Anna's frame came into view. Jill forced herself to stop moving and, heart pounding, stared hard at the young woman's back as she fiddled with a set of keys she'd dug out of her pocket. Anna's foot tapped impatiently as she flipped through them, landing so close to the tweezers that Jill could barely stand it.
Finally, when she was sure she'd pass out from anticipation, she heard the lock click and suddenly her view of the hallway was flooded with light as Anna pulled open the door. Jill instinctively shrank away from it.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Garrett." Anna greeted Kelly, though her tone was anything but apologetic. "You look like you're in pain. I brought you something for it." She reached into her pocket and though it was out of her line of sight, Jill knew it was a syringe filled with the same liquid that she'd been injected with earlier.
"Oh." She heard Kelly's voice come from beyond the doorway. "You know, I'd rather not. The baby and all."
"I must insist, Kelly. Someone so pretty shouldn't have to suffer." Anna answered softly. She stepped forward and Jill could only watch in horror as her foot sent the tweezers skittering across the tile floor.
The resounding tinkle of metal against tile might as well have been a bomb detonating to the hiding detective. She flung her hands to her face and fought the urge to burst from her hiding place and as far away from that woman as possible.
Anna took a step to the side and suddenly Jill could see Kelly standing beside the bed. Her appearance was startling. Face sickly pale, blood still streaked along her forehead and cheek. Kelly was keeping her features neutral but her green eyes betrayed the same horror that Jill was experiencing.
"Those were in the tray." Anna said slowly, accusingly, her eyes fixed on the offending metal tool a few feet away. "You took them."
Kelly shook her head and to Jill's amazement managed to produce an amused smile. "No, I didn't. You did. You ran out of here in such a hurry. Don't you remember taking them?"
"I didn't take them."
Kelly laughed. "You had them in your hand. I saw you."
"Are you calling me a liar?" Anna whispered calmly. Her gaze drifted lazily back towards Kelly.
"Not outloud." Kelly said, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, fine. You didn't take them. They just got up and walked over there all by themselves. Sorry."
"I need to give you this shot." Anna repeated, shoving the door wide and stepping inside.
Kelly immediately backed away. "And I said I don't want it. It's my right to refuse medical trea-"
"Ms. Garrett, as I said earlier, I must insist." The nurse said, closing the distance between them in two quick strides. She snatched Kelly's right wrist and twisted her arm away from her body. Caught off guard by the unexpected assault, Kelly lashed out with an instinctive left hook that completely missed Anna's face and glanced harmlessly off of her shoulder, accomplishing nothing and costing the injured detective her balance. Anna pushed her towards the wall, syringe in hand, poised and ready, just waiting for her prey to be cornered enough to chance a jab at her.
Determined not to let that happen, Jill burst out of the closet. If Anna was done playing, then so was she.
"Get off of her!" Jill shouted as she barreled into the room.
Anna turned with gritted teeth, surprised to hear the voice of the woman Bruce was supposed to be watching. Jill swept her arm across the medical supply cart and grabbed up the biggest use of a weapon she could find. With a metal tray latched in her hand, she swung at Anna's porcelain features and before the nurse could react, collided the tray into her left cheek. The distinct noise of metal and bone meeting was a memorable, painful sound.
The young girl stumbled back, yelling out inaudible words as she covered her face with both hands. Her knees buckled and Kelly angrily hurtled toward her, fully intending to shove her into the wall. But Jill snagged onto Kelly's arm, redirecting her momentum away from Anna and toward the door. "Go, go, go!" She shrieked as the two scrambled over fallen medical tools on the floor and went running out of the room, Anna's enraged cries loud in their ears.
There was a strong chance Bruce might have been down the hall, so Jill was on high alert as she tore down unseen hallways with Kelly. Very few times had their friendship ever been put to the test like this, to see who would stay for one another or run the other way in times of turmoil. Kelly had always selflessly put her life at risk for Jill and for Sabrina. Rarely did they need to do the same, because Kelly never allowed herself to be put in a position of danger.
If she did, she was able to take care of it on her own.
But on this pivotal night, Kelly couldn't take the chance or the risk of being her normal, dancing with danger self. She had a child growing inside of her that would come first before any of them. In the silence of their running, where only their staggered breathing could be heard – Jill knew Kelly was depending on her. The thumping inside her head and the bile burning in her throat had to be ignored.
Their feet never stopped moving, searching for any kind of exit. They couldn't even find the way they came in. "What was that?" Kelly finally asked, trying to catch her breath. "That stuff in the needle?"
"I don't know, nothing good." Jill answered honestly, her eyes creeping side to side. Bruce or Anna could be anywhere.
And she hadn't seen that Nurse Stone for a while...
"How do you know?" Kelly interrupted Jill's thoughts, suddenly noticing that Jill was slowing down a little. "They didn't – did they give it to you?"
Jill didn't want to turn her head and face the overwrought expression Kelly was deemed to have. She let her silence do the talking instead and faced forward, pushing away the tightened feeling in her chest every time she breathed.
Kelly swore under her breath, desperately wanting to go search for her gun so they would have protection. Yet her hands couldn't release from Jill's lavender shirt for fear that she would fall to the floor. "Maybe we can slow it -" Before she could speak again, Jill twisted her arm around and they began running in the other direction. She pushed Kelly down the hallway they had just passed mere seconds ago, and threw her hand over Kelly's mouth. In normal situations this would have been a problem for her – but by the clear intent on Jill's face she didn't question it.
A moment later, Bruce came hurtling down the same hallway where they had just been. It amazed Kelly how keen Jill's senses could be. He passed them again, surely to his annoyance.
"All muscle and no brain, but he has a good taste in music." Jill commented, looking over at Kelly who ignored what she'd said. "Now that we have a second, you look like shit. You feeling okay?"
"Oh, thanks," Kelly replied dryly but didn't confirm Jill's suspicions. "You too."
Considering the waves of nausea passing through her, Jill wouldn't have been surprised if she looked ill. There was an overpowering feeling to lay herself down against the cold floor and let herself drift off to sleep, undoubtedly an unwanted side effect from her earlier injection. Pain medicine it was not. But despite the ache in her chest and head, she managed to speak as if she was unaffected. "Noted, but you didn't answer me-"
Kelly huffed. "Do you mind telling me what the hell is going on?"
Jill relinquished a sigh, fully knowing Kelly's way of averting the question was a way of answering her. "I know about as much as you do."
Kelly twisted her lips into a frown. "So not a hell of a lot."
"No, just that they need... want us for something."
Slouching her shoulders, Kelly felt like sliding down to the floor to rest her weary legs but a strangled scream from her direction ran a cold chill through her body. Jill moved her out of the way to see what could produce something so shrill.
She shouldn't have been so surprised to see a younger and smaller body huffing with each breath.
The face of the pale younger woman was distorted into such hate that if it wasn't for the now disheveled black hair, Jill wouldn't have recognized Anna. The damage the metal tray had done to her perfect features was fully visible. Her cheekbone swelled with an arraignment of colorful bruising, but it was the deep gash across her pale skin that stuck out. Blood trickled down the side of her face, and Anna used her tongue to lick away the droplets near her mouth. The bridge of her nose was bright red from a similar flesh wound, but in the moment she paid no mind to her pain.
Anna's focus was dead in front of her.
How had she managed to get up and chase them down so fast? It was a question that didn't linger long in Jill's mind as the two detectives ran out to the darkened hallway that Bruce had previously been down.
But Anna was cat-like, seemingly never off their heels.
They detoured around corners to throw her off, Kelly struggling to keep up until something caught her eye. "Jill!" She shouted and made the blonde look to her side, revealing a sleek set of elevator doors. Picking up momentum – or what little she had left – Jill slammed her body into the metal surface and rapidly pushed the up button, hoping with all she had that the elevator was functional.
"Hurry!" Kelly rushed, crowding behind her.
"I can't do anything, it's not opening!"
Anna slowed behind them and Kelly whirled around to see her turning the corner, syringe in her hand along with a deceptive smile. "Lying is a sin, Ms. Garrett. A sin you burn in hell for." She said in a harsh, panting whisper and swiped at the wound on her cheek, smearing blood down the side of her face. "There's still time for you. You can still repent. Just roll up your sleeve, Ms. Garrett. It's not going to hurt."
She began strolling, menacingly towards them, almost casual, as if knowing there was nowhere for them to go.
"Fuck!" Jill cried her anxiety. She spun back around and slammed on the doors with both fists, all too aware that Anna was getting closer and it was either this elevator or a potentially deadly fight with her. Panicking, she took a quick step back, lowered her shoulder and, in desperation, threw her weight into the elevator doors. Her shoulder never connected. In their first bit of luck of the night, the double doors chose that moment to part and Jill's momentum sent her tumbling face first inside.
Anna's loud, garbled cry of fury told them that hadn't been part of her plan.
The raging nurse charged toward them, her pounding footsteps echoing in the hall as Jill attempted to untangle herself on the floor. Kelly was hopping over her an instant later and more than eager to put metal doors between them, she began slapping frantically at every button she could to close the doors before Anna could reach them.
Anna was barreling toward them and Jill rolled herself onto her back, attempting to stabilize herself enough to scramble to her feet. If one of them had to defend themselves it'd have to be her. She managed to get to her hands and knees in time to see Anna stop in front of the elevator, not attempting to go further. Her furious, dark eyes snapped down at her then up at Kelly.
"Ms. Munroe has already chosen an eternity of fire and brimstone." Anna spoke directly to Kelly, causing the brunette's eyes to widen in horror as the elevator doors slowly shut between them. "Soon it'll just be you."
Those words resounded inside Kelly's mind as she looked down at Jill on the ground, the elevator drifting them up to the second floor.