Chapter 3:

A/N: Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate it. Hope you all continue to enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own them, and I'm broke, please don't sue.

--

Seven sets of eyes watched Samantha Hunter stir on screen in low contrast black and white. The picture itself however, was surprisingly clear. Even there, in the beginning of the DVD, she looked beat up. She rolled onto her back slowly, before jolting upright on the cot, hands up and fisted as her head swung wildly from side to side. It took two or three passes with her eyes around the tiny, cinder block room, to assure herself she was alone and lower her guard.

The image of Sam on screen began to check herself over, sliding to the edge of the cot and swinging her feet over. Slick new blood began to sluice down her left shoulder and upper arm and she ripped the thin sheet off the cot and tore it into narrow strips, one of which she bound around her arm to stem the flow of blood. Then she pushed herself to her feet, moving quickly to the door at the edge of the camera frame, steps quick and tense. She held her ear to the door for a moment.

"Why is he showing us this?" JD questioned, quietly, breaking the utter silence that had pervaded the conference room.

"My guess," Chris said, arms crossed over his chest, "is because he can."

The video played on, and Samantha overturned the cot, and proceeded to bash at the framework with her heel. "What the hell is she doing?" JD asked.

"Getting herself in a heap more trouble," Vin commented.

Buck shook his head. "Sometimes that girl has more grit than sense." Vin looked at him sideways, one eyebrow arcing upward. "A lot of the time." He caught Chris' eye next. "Okay, most of the time," Buck amended.

The framework of the cot bent, and soon her handiwork had garnered Samantha a three foot long piece of aluminum piping. She swung it a few times, holding it like a baseball bat, and pressed herself up next to the door.

"She's gonna fight back," JD said in mild wonderment.

"Do you remember Samantha son?" Josiah questioned. " You really thought she wouldn't? Hell hath no fury... especially that woman's fury."

"I get the feeling all she managed is to piss this guy off," Vin muttered.

Samantha didn't have long to wait. The DVD rolled on uneventfully for a minute or two, before the men of Team Seven saw Sam tense, readjusting her grip of the pole. The heavy steel door swung inward. Dressed in dark colors and donning a stocking mask, Samantha's assailant stepped inside her cell. She was ready.

The aluminum bar found its mark, striking cleanly across the man's exposed midsection. He doubled over, clutching his stomach, and Sam drew back to hit him again. But this time the man was ready, catching the pole as it sailed toward his face. Sam let go without a fight, instead grabbing the back of the man's shirt, pulling him downward as she slammed her knee repeatedly into his chest. Briefly, he fell to one knee, before charging forward, thick arms wrapping around Sam's waist. He slammed her bodily into the wall, and she drove an elbow into his back.

The men of Team Seven found themselves tense, pitched forward in their chairs, as if somehow, some way, this Samantha on screen could fight her way free.

As his grip slackened, Sam wrenched herself free. She pushed him back, already moving toward the still open door. But she didn't make it. His hand snaked out, latching onto her ankle and Samantha crashed to the floor. The man scrambled to his feet, practically crawling over the top of her. He couldn't let her escape. He reached the door, sped out, and Sam lunged after him, wrapping her right hand around the edge of the door. Then he slammed it shut. Despite there being no sound, it was obvious to all seven as Sam's face contorted and she cried out in pain.

Nathan winced. "That explains the broken fingers," he observed.

Samantha wrenched her hand out of the doorway as it cracked open once more, clutching her hand close to her body. The door crept slowly open, and her kidnapper came back inside. Yet this time there was no fight in Sam's eyes, only pain, and fear. She had lost her one, best shot to get out, and she knew it. She backed away from him, but she only had so far to go. She tried to block him, continued to fight back when it was painfully obvious she'd already lost, but it was no use.

He hit her, hard, and kept at it. At one point he grasped the base of her neck, thrusting her face into the wall. Sam slid bonelessly to the ground, her fluttering eyes the only sign she was still conscious. Then he kicked her ribs, brutally, mercilessly. "And the ribs," Buck offered. It became difficult not to look away. When Sam had been reduced to little more than a barely breathing, bloody mass on the ground, he grabbed a large hunk of hair, and dragged her out of the cell, and out of camera range. But the camera kept rolling. A voice, electronically altered, piped in.

"Chris Larabee, you and your men have been chosen for judgement. You work for a morally corrupt government, their best of the best. So I seek to prove my worthiness. God has shown me my righteous path. First I destroy the agents of this evil, and then I destroy sin itself. You shall wallow in your living nightmares, Pray for redemption from your Lord in death, it is the only chance you have left." Then the screen went dark.

--

The next day, six of the eight members of Team Seven walked purposefully through the halls of Swedish Medical. The two nurses stationed at the desk on the fourth floor looked more than a little overwhelmed at their presence. "We're here to see Samantha Hunter," Chris informed them gruffly, already marching down the hall by the time they gathered themselves to protest.

"Gentlemen," one of the nurses jumped out of her chair, "I'm sorry but we only allow two visitors at a time..."

Buck pulled out his badge. "Official business," he told her, dark eyes raking quickly over the woman's ample curves. She blushed, from the flourish of the badge or his gaze... he wasn't quite sure. Oh well, time enough to find out later. He grinned to her, touched two fingers to his forehead and followed his friends.

Samantha had been waiting for them, she knew they would come. "So I get the whole crew this time," she said tiredly. "Well," she corrected herself, "almost the whole crew." She wasn't surprised.

Buck and JD came in first, and she watched as a barely restrained cloud of anger crossed Buck's face. JD's eyes went wide. "God Sam, you look awful," he blurted out.

"Gee thanks JD," she responded dryly, one corner of her lip curling into a half smile, the most she could manage without significant pain. Good old JD, always one to be counted on to speak his mind, and not necessarily after contemplating what he was saying. Buck cuffed the back of his head. Sam chuckled, then stopped, holding her breath, hand creeping across her torso to hold her ribs. "Damn it you two, don't make me laugh."

Nathan edged his way past Buck, grabbing her chart off the foot of the bed. Dark eyes flicked over the first page. "Doctors find any complications with the broken ribs?"

Sam breathed through the stabbing pain, opening one eye into a slit. "Not so far as they've mentioned."

"And your pain level?" The ex medic asked, his voice calm and reassuring, just like she remembered it.

"Fine," she answered with a small shrug, "till I move. I sleep a lot. Docs say it's the concussion. Just can't help yourself, can you Nathan?"

He grinned. "Don't rightly think so. I'll be back." With that he slipped back out of the room, presumably to go find the on duty doctor and discuss her case.

"Where'd the duffel come from pard?" Vin asked, nudging the small black bag sitting at the edge of her bed with his toe.

"Mary brought it by..." she trailed off. Whoops. Hadn't meant to let that one slip out. "earlier," she finished lamely.

"Mary?" Chris repeated cooly, though she was almost sure she'd seen surprise flit briefly across his face. "Didn't realize you two had kept in touch."

Damn, but it was impossible to lie to that man. Nothing in Chris' tone was forceful, or even accusatory, but it always felt like he was testing you. Like he could see right through any omission of truth. Those damn gray eyes just burned it out of you. "Yeah," she answered, suddenly feeling very small. "Since I moved back. Her and Inez, actually."

"And how long ago did you come back exactly? And where to?" Buck queried.

Sam made a face. "Colorado Springs like... six months ago," she mumbled lowly.

"Six months?" Buck exclaimed incredulously. "Lordy girl, and they knew the whole time?"

"I asked them not to say anything," she explained quickly. Pissed at her was one thing, pissed at Mary and Inez on her behalf just didn't sit right. "I didn't... I didn't know how..." she locked her teeth down with a snap, muscles in her jaw working. She couldn't look at them. This, of all the scenarios that had played out in her head about running into the Seven again, had not been high on her preferable list.

Silence stretched on interminably, though in reality it was probably less than a minute. "Regardless," Larabee's voice broke in, "you're here now. That microchip in your leg led us to the Denver Bus Depot, to a locker. There was a DVD, and a scalpel. Guys a whack job, says he's after all of us. We need to stop him. Hunter I know you remember more than you told Vin and me the other day. I want to know everything, even if you don't think it's important, and I want to know it now."

There would be no arguments, no omissions this time. So the tale came, slowly at first, then ever more rapidly. Everything, every cut, every sound, the angle of the sun through every window she could remember. "... He had me tied, chained... from the ceiling, in a big, open floor." She shut her eyes, willing forth the memory. But her brain felt addled, exhaustion crept in on her. "And there was this sound... like... tires over train tracks. But he never talked, and he never took off that damn mask."

Chris leaned closer to Vin, muttering something in the sharpshooter's ear. Vin nodded quickly. "JD, you're with me. We're gonna go check out a lead," Chris informed the others. "We still may have questions for you Hunter. Don't go disappearing on us yet."

"Not a chance," she grunted.

JD paused at the door. He had to ask. "Hey, Sam?"

"I didn't tell Casey kid. She's got enough on her plate with school, working and you. I didn't want her to feel like she was lying to you." The youngest member of the Team nodded, then followed Chris out and Sam was left with Buck, Vin and Josiah.

"What was on the DVD?"

"Oh, just about six or seven minutes of watchin you scrap it out like two rabid pit bulls in a dog fight," Buck told her.

"You had him whipped Sam, till you got your hand caught up," Vin agreed soberly.

"Yeah well, don't think he was expecting for me to fight back like I did." She couldn't look at the sharpshooter. She knew what she'd find there, disappointment, hurt.

Josiah broke in then, adding his own pearls of wisdom. "It's like they say. Sometimes it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."

"Josiah," Sam said slowly, a thin smile playing across her lips, "you just call me a bitch?"

"Uh...well..." the ex preacher stammered.

"Well if the shoe fits darlin," Buck interjected with a laugh.

Sam nodded, eyes drifting shut. "Aww, missed you too Buck. But hell, never said he was wrong."

Buck looked at the others and jerked his chin toward the door. "You should get some rest Sam. We'll go collect Nathan, come let you know what's up as we figure it out."

Josiah and Buck filtered out into the hallway, but Sam caught hold of Vin's wrist before he could leave. He stopped. "Vin."

"You coulda dropped a line Sam. Called."

"I know. And I tried. You don't even know how many times I picked up the phone and dialed your number. I just... never hit send. And then I just stopped. I'm really sorry."

"I know that too. Don't worry about it right now. Rest, get better, and we'll have plenty of time to work on gettin' back to good." Samantha nodded sleepily, at least mild reassured, and released his wrist. She was asleep before he got ten feet.

--

"The Central Platt Valley Train system," JD announced to the others the next day. "Best as I can figure it, he had her holed up somewhere in that network of rail systems. Back in the early part of the twentieth century it served as a network for a bunch of warehouses and packing plants outside of Denver. Most of the lines are shut down now."

Chris shook his head. "I don't know JD, we're talking about a section of the city that includes Eliches, the Pepsi Center and the Denver Children's Museum. It's not exactly a low traffic area."

"True, but there are still plenty of abandoned buildings still standing. And what's better than to hide in plain sight? Lots of traffic, who's gonna notice one van, or one guy?"

"Okay, find me some possible sites and we'll get together with the Denver PD and check 'em out." Chris looked around, brow furrowing. "And where the hell is Ezra?"

--

Ezra Standish stepped through the double swinging doors into the wide hallway of the fourth floor of Swedish Medical. Anxiety clawed at his chest as he approached the nurse's station. What the hell was he doing here? He hated hospitals, had spent far too much time in them, both as patient and friend. The glaring fluorescent light, the soft click of shoes on linoleum, the lingering smell of antiseptic and sickness. Ezra's stomach turned and his feet stopped their steady march.

"Sir?" A middle aged woman whose rich chocolate hair was streaked in silver thread had stopped in front of him. She watched him carefully, this man with the intense green eyes with a pallor on his face to match. "Sir?" She reached out and touched his arm gently. He started, blinked, and then looked at her. "Are you here to see someone sir?"

"Oh, yes, yes I am." Ezra collected himself, smoothing out some invisible wrinkle on the front of his suit. "I am here to see Samantha Hunter. Could you please direct me to her current accommodations?"

"Sure, she's just down the hall, take a right past the nurse's station. It's 478." Ezra nodded a thanks and started down the hall. "You're in luck you know," the nurse called after him, "another half hour and you'd have missed her."

"Excuse me?" Ezra paused.

"She signed herself out AMA, against medical advice," she explained. "They're just processing her discharge papers."

"Really? How... interesting."

In her room, Samantha moved slowly about the business of packing her few meager belongings into her borrowed black duffel bag. She slid the novel Mary had leant her inside, and withdrew a clean T-shirt. She traded the hospital gown for it, gritting her teeth as she lifted her arms over her head to draw it on. The shirt was gray, same as the borrowed sweatpants that hung loosely off her hips. One should not underestimate a forced diet of torture and hospital food. Then she pulled on her running shoes, the only piece of her original clothing that had not been relegated to the dumpster.

"Leaving so soon?" the lilt of the man's words did nothing to detract from the dryness of his delivery.

Sam froze, hands clenching reflexively over the handles of the bag. She knew this would be coming, sooner or later. She had just hoped for later. "Hey Ez."

"Hey Ez? Come now Hunter, surely you can come up with something more original. Especially considering the surreptitious manner of your forthcoming departure."

Sam zipped the top of the duffel shut with a sigh. "I told Chris what I know. Hospital has my address and phone number, he can reach me if he needs to."

"I suppose this time we should be thankful you've seen fit to enlighten us with a forwarding residence." The words came sharp and quick, and more bitter than he'd expected.

"I just want to go home," she responded quietly, heavily. Sam turned slowly to face the southerner. The swelling on her face had gone down, but the bruises were becoming a kaleidoscope of purple, blue, green and yellow. Horror and sadness licked at his chest, but he pushed it down.

He didn't want to feel for her. For now, he just needed to be angry. And in some odd way, he wanted her to be angry too. They'd always fought, they had been good at it. And for some reason, fighting seemed easier than... almost anything else. "You're signing out against medical advice," he reminded her. "Perhaps those employed in the medical profession have a better idea than you when that would be prudent."

"Physically? Sure. Financially, I doubt it. Bottom line, I can't afford to stay her any longer. Besides, I'm pretty sure I can be bruised and broken in my own bed as well as I can in this one."

"Plus there is that added benefit of being on your own, not accountable to anyone else."

"Damn Ezra, you ever consider a career in law?" she finally snapped at him. "You'd have been good at it. You really like arguing your own particular vision of the truth."

"And you would have made a fine agent," he scoffed. "I guess we both missed our calling."

"Right!" she exclaimed. "Now I remember."

"Remember what, pray tell?"

"Why exactly I have felt the need to slap you every day since I met you," she growled.

Both she and Ezra had their backs up now, and they each squared their shoulders and faced the other, insults beginning to fly.

"You insufferable..."

"... self righteous..."

"...loathsome creature of..."

"... son of a..."

"... reprobate..."

"...ass..."

Their voices rose to a fevered pitch. The middle aged nurse that Ezra had run into in the hallway walked into the room pushing a wheelchair. Her eyes flew wide as she took in the scene. "Hey," she called out. Neither Samantha nor Ezra took any notice.

"HEY!" the nurse bellowed. The feuding pair quieted abruptly. They both appeared surprised that there was another person in the room. "We've got other patients on this floor," she scolded them sternly, "ones that are trying to rest and recuperate." Samantha's face flooded red and Ezra had the good grace to look mildly sheepish. "Thank you. Now, Ms. Hunter, you are all set to go."

"What's with the wheelchair?" Samantha asked.

"You. I'll be escorting you downstairs and out of the hospital."

"I don't need a wheelchair," Samantha protested, "I can walk."

"Sorry Ms. Hunter, hospital policy. You don't leave unless your butt is seated." At this point the woman just sounded frustrated.

"I would be happy to escort Ms. Hunter downstairs," Ezra offered with a wide smile. "I'm sure you have other, more, important matters to attend."

"Really, that's...unnecessary," Sam said dryly.

"No, no," Ezra persisted, "I insist." He reached out and took the nurse's hand in a firm shake. "Thank you, for all your service." The nurse looked at Ezra sideways for a long moment before shrugging and leaving the room.

Hands on her hips Samantha questioned in a hiss, "Did you just slip her a twenty?"

Ezra shrugged, taking up position behind the wheelchair. "A fifty seemed like overkill," he explained. Sam shook her head a little. "Now Hunter," he motioned to the chair, "hospital policy and all."

Sam mumbled something he couldn't quite make out. Then she slowly hefted the duffel across her right shoulder, holding her ribs protectively with her left hand. The grimace crossed her face before she could control it.

Ezra rolled his eyes and left the chair. "You're positively ridiculous," he muttered, taking the bag off her shoulder. "You can barely move."

"I'm fine," Sam protested between locked down teeth.

"Of course you are. Get in the chair." Grudgingly, she obeyed, shuffling painfully across the room.

"You're enjoying this way too much," She grumbled, lowering herself slowly down into her seat.

"I admit, there is certain entertainment value to the situation."

Samantha remained petulantly silent as they rolled through the halls. It was only after they'd ridden down an elevator, which opened into the hospital's parking garage, that she noticed something was amiss.

"Hey Ezra, this is not the hospital front entrance. The cab is meeting me out there."

"I'm sure it is, and were you going to be taking a taxi that is where we would be presently headed. But you are not, so we are not."

"Okay then, so you gonna fill me on the plan? Or do I just get to guess?"

Ezra let out a pained sigh. "I see your powers of deduction have been hampered by your recent trauma, so I'll forgive you." She looked at him blankly. "I'm taking you in my car," he explained.

"But why?" she asked, genuinely confused.

Ezra stopped the chair in front of his two door Jag. He opened her door, threw her bag in back and waved a hand for her to enter. "Because you're not taking a cab," he said. Sam immediately got the sense that that was the best explanation she was likely to receive, so she let it go, and slid slowly into the passenger seat.

They spent most of the two hour drive in excruciating silence, save for the occasional moment Ezra asked for directions. He wove the Jag through the city, past a number of neighborhoods and apartment complexes. "Down there," Sam said, pointing to a narrow alley way on their right. "You can park over there," she told him, indicating a handful of parking spots with a reserved sign above them.

Ezra complied, placing the sports car in park and turning off the engine. "Is this neighborhood uh... safe?" He asked, taking in the surrounding buildings faded and peeling paint and the few less than affluent people wandering the street.

"Your car is fine Ez, but it's not like you have to come up. You got me here, you did your service for the day."

He considered it, briefly, before kicking aside the notion of just dropping her outside her front step. Something just felt... off. He didn't know why. It was the same feeling that had led him to drive her back here in the first place, the feeling that had him wishing she'd just stayed in Denver. The feeling that it just couldn't be as simple as all that. And though Ezra was many things, he was not a man to ignore his instincts. He removed the keys from the ignition.

The southerner hopped easily out of the vehicle, taking in his surroundings. The three story building in front of him was badly in need of a paint job, a color that might have once been a light green fading and peeling away from the walls. Chain link fencing four feet high enclosed a small grass and weed infested lawn. Wild looking bushes gathered in a clump in the shadow of a small porch.

A narrow set of stairs ran up the side of the building, which Sam headed towards. "I'm the second floor," she informed him. Ezra quirked an eyebrow, then grabbed the duffel and followed the slow moving Sam. Before she could take the first step however, Ezra grabbed her arm and shook his head.

"Let me go first," he said. Handing her the duffel bag, he reached into his suit coat and retrieved his gun from its holster.

"This is why you brought me," she said in realization. "You've got to be kidding."

"Can't be too careful."

Sam sighed. "Now who's being ridiculous?" She followed him up the flight of steps, using the hand rail for support.

At the top of the flight Ezra paused, holding his left hand out behind him. "Give me your keys."

"I don't have keys," she replied. "They were with my car keys and God knows where those are. There's a spare under the flower pot." She pointed to a large earthenware pot filled with dirt and a decrepit withered plant.

Ezra stooped and tipped the pot, retrieving the key from beneath it. "Crack security system you have here Hunter." She ignored him as he slid the key into the lock. The door stuck, like it always did, and Sam gave the bottom corner a firm kick with her toe. It swung inward.

Ezra slid past her into the apartment, movements suddenly tense and aware. Green eyes flicked in every direction. Nothing stirred. Samantha followed him with a roll of her eyes and shut the door behind them, dropping the bag just inside the threshold. Suddenly she felt incredibly tired.

"Satisfied?" she asked. "No one jumping out from the shadows."

Ezra holstered his weapon, though the feeling of unease still lingered. Instead he began to take in his surroundings, meager, but homey. A beat up leather couch rested in one corner of the living area, and beside it a similarly beat up barcalounger. A small TV sat on a low stand next to a fireplace. In the kitchen, a few dishes rested beside the sink. "Do I smell," Ezra's nose crinkled, "curry?"

"Yeah," Sam bit down on her lip as she wrestled with the window above the sink. "We're next door to a Thai takeout place," she explained. Sam moved haltingly to the sliding glass patio doors, and slid them open as well. "You get used to it," she said before heading outside, leaning her elbows over the worn wood railing. "You can get used to a lot," she murmured to herself, not intending for Ezra to overhear.

Ezra continued with his meandering observations of the apartment. A warm peachy beige colored the walls. Two large black and white photos of a band of wild horses adorned the East and West walls. On one end of the couch a large pile of blankets had been flung haphazardly. Books teetered in stacks on nearly every available surface. He had to admit, the place felt like Samantha.

Ezra then proceeded down a short, narrow hallway, opening each closed door in turn. One led into an overly blue bathroom, the second a small linen closet and the third the utility room that housed the hot water heater. The door at the end was obviously the bedroom, and he paused briefly before twisting the handle and letting the door swing wide. The soft click was loud as a gunshot in his mind.

There, sitting directly in the center of a queen bed, a digital timer flared to life. His brain barely had time to register the small stack of explosives next to it before the glaring red lights began counting down from ten. Ezra whirled, sprinting back down the hall. "Hunter!" He bellowed, arms and legs pumping. "Hunter!" He reached the living area and headed for the still open patio door.

Sam had started to turn and come inside at his call, but the look on the Southerner's face stopped her cold. Ezra's pace never slowed. He plowed through the doorway, wrapped his arms around Sam's waist and kept going. Behind him Ezra could hear a great intake of air, like the roar of some angry wild thing. The wood railing splintered and buckled as they struck it and they sailed outward into nothingness, and the apartment burst into flames.

--

Chapter 3

Hey there guys, hope you liked this latest installment. Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!