Chapter 8:
A/N: This story is developing a bit of a life of its own. Please let me know what you think of it!
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Josiah was fit to be tied. The burly profiler stormed through the bullpen, leaving a swath of destruction in his wake. The desk he and Nathan shared had been swept clean by one of his massive arms after he'd gotten the call. The former medic would have itched to straighten it, but it would have been as effective as building a house in the path of a Class 4 tornado.
"Josiah," Chris appeared his doorway, Mary's wide eyed, blonde head poking around around the Team leader's right shoulder. The big man went on with his rampage and Ezra grabbed the computer monitor off his desk as Josiah passed. "Josiah!" Chris bellowed. "My office, now!"
The profiler stopped dead in his tracks. His face still held a tinge of purple, but he spun on his heel and marched into Chris' office. Mary scooted out as soon as he was through the threshold.
"I've never seen Josiah so angry," Mary breathed as the door thunked shut behind the tall profiler.
"I'm afraid Mr. Sanchez just received some rather disturbing news," Ezra offered, his head hidden from her behind his computer.
"What news?"
Ezra pushed his chair back from his desk and shot Mary a toothy grin. "Ah sweet Mary, you know that I hold you in the highest regard, but you can hardly expect me to give up information so easily."
Exasperated by the lot of them, Mary sighed. "I wasn't looking for a quote."
"Well until the words 'off the record' pass your lips, you'll have to forgive my guarded tongue."
Mary locked his eyes for a minute, blue boring into green, but Ezra never even twitched. He might as well have been bored. The blonde reporter let out a sigh. "Off the record," she acquiesced. A treasure trove of information and good stories, and not a single squeaky wheel, a reporters nightmare.
"He went to Red Feather," Ezra stated simply. Mary blanched. Hannah.
"Oh my God," she breathed. "Is she..."
"No," Ezra gave a sharp jerk of his head. "Our perpetrator did not see fit to commit such an atrocity, but from what I've gathered he did terrify the poor girl. I believe Josiah will be venturing there forthwith."
"How long will he be gone for?" she questioned. Vin was out of commission, JD was with Buck, who was in no state to be working, and Nathan spent most of his days sitting vigil at the hospital. Team 7 had quickly deteriorated into a team of two, and both Chris and Ezra were beginning to show the signs.
The southerner gave a tired shrug. "Tonight would be the earliest he could return, but I'd wager a day, or two. "
"And how's Vin?" Mary questioned.
"The same." Ezra did offer to expound, just turned back to his computer, and Mary didn't press. As far as the undercover agent was concerned the conversation was over. Mary didn't even try to push her luck. She just gave a tight lipped smile, touched Ezra's shoulder briefly, and left. Ezra hit the return key a little harder than usual.
"Fingernails and bloody teeth." Chris grimaced. "We've got ourselves a collector."
"My sister's damaged soul should not have had to borne witness to this evil." Josiah's chest still rose and fell in enraged waves. He would rip this man apart for tormenting the last blood family he had.
"I'm sorry about Hannah Josiah."
The burly profiler forced himself to take a deep breath and stemmed his outrage. It would get him next to nowhere, he knew that from experience. "Any leads from the video?"
Chris shook his head miserably. Now that Ashley's abduction and murder had become National news, the brass upstair had started throwing around their collective weight. Despite their previous dismissal of the case as a one time incident, now Chris was under pressure to 'shore up the problem or face paid administrative leave for himself and the rest of Team 7 until the case was put under wraps. Larabee had met with deaf ears when he'd tried to explain that putting Team 7 on leave would not stop this man.
"So we're nowhere," Josiah muttered.
"At the moment," Chris agreed with a small nod. He threw his pen down on a stack of papers on his desk and thrust himself back in his chair, running a hand through close cropped blonde hair. "Take your time at the Abbey," he instructed. "Nose around, see what you see. We need answers, and I'll take them any way I can get right now." The profiler nodded, then left quickly eager to be on his way. Chris sat alone in his office, and his shoulders sagged. "Shit."
It was dark when Ezra trudged his way into the Critical Care unit of Denver Memorial Hospital, and well past visiting hours, but most of the staff had been around long enough to see one or more of Team 7 through it's doors, and none of them bothered to argue the point anymore. Visiting hours were for normal people. They just didn't apply.
Nathan sat in the waiting area, immersed in the New York Times crossword, a container of half eaten Chinese food sitting abandoned beside him. Ezra sat heavily on his right, reached over and picked up the container of food, stirring it with the chopsticks left inside. Chicken and snap peas. And it was cold. Disgusting. Ezra finished the container off i less than two minutes and never tasted a bite.
Nathan finished writing his last answer and folded the paper into quarters, tucking it away beneath the book he'd brought. The one with the four page first chapter he'd read at least eight times, and still didn't know what it said. "I've been thinking."
"A perilous endeavor."
Nathan shot the southerner a withering look. "Like I was trying to say, I've been thinking and... don't you find it a little strange?"
"Don't I find what a little strange?" Ezra was hard pressed to keep annoyance out of his voice, though he managed. He was tired, and his quasi functional brain was unwilling to work to figure out where Nathan's logic was heading.
"All of this that's been happening. It bothers me that this guy knows so much about all of us."
Ezra shrugged. "We are his poster children for immorality and sin. Makes sense he'd do his research on us. And in this age of readily accessible public information, not terribly hard to come by."
"Maybe," Nathan frowned, "maybe not. But take Ashley and Buck for a minute. JD and I have girlfriends, and we're not married to either. But he knows enough to label Buck the playboy?"
Ezra quirked an eyebrow. "To be fair, that wouldn't take more than a few weeks of observation in order for a person to reach that conclusion."
"And Samantha? How'd he even know about her? That's not a week or two of following us around that's near on two years. Just don't sit right with me."
Ezra felt the flesh on his arms prickle. He lowered his voice. "Surely you are not suggesting that this vile perpetrator be someone inside the agency?"
The medic shrugged, "Perhaps, or maybe some local beat cop feeding him information."
"Now that is a disturbing train of thought."
"Yeah," Nathan grunted, "no kidding."
"I'll let Chris know when I return to the office."
Nathan shot him a sideways glance, taking in Ezra's uncharacteristically bedraggled appearance, even if for Ezra bedraggled meant an open collar, crooked tie and an unruly patch of hair that stood akimbo to the rest. "You taking Samantha home and then going back?" Ezra nodded absently, his mind already racing through the likelihood of finding a traitor in their midst. "When was the last time you had a decent night's sleep?"
"Perhaps a day, or two," Ezra replied, suddenly cautious.
"Right. Which means more like four or five. Go home Ezra. Eat. Sleep. You're not gonna help anyone running yourself ragged."
"Maybe."
"Definitely. Don't make me get Chris involved."
Ezra ignored the threat. "Where is Ms. Hunter anyway?" Nathan sighed. Ezra deflected well. Always had.
"With Vin," Nathan supplied. "It wasn't your fault you know Ez, what happened to Vin."
A muscle in Ezra's jaw flexed. It was as close to cracking as Nathan had ever seen Ezra's poker face get. "You weren't there." he returned softly. Without waiting for a response, Ezra walked away.
Nathan, for his part, didn't follow the undercover agent. It wouldn't have helped anyway. Ezra reached Vin's private room and paused, leaning his shoulder against the door jam, hesitating to cross the threshold. Monitors inside beeped steadily, and he took some small comfort in it, along with seeing Vin's chest rise and fall beneath the thin bed sheet. Half the sharpshooter's head had been shaved so that the doctors could clean and stitch the six inch long gash that decorated the side of his head. Vin was going to have a fit about it when he woke up. Ezra grinned, but it faded quickly. If he woke up.
Next to the bed, Sam had dragged one of the room's two chairs. It wasn't exactly plush, with its wood arm rails and minimally padded seat, but she had somehow managed to curl up in it. She was like a dog that way. She had her feet tucked up beneath her, head lolling against the backrest, left hand stretched out across Vin's bed. It lay carefully across his fingers, so as not to disturb the IV that ran out of the back of his hand.
Ezra almost felt bad for waking her, until he saw her eyes crack open into slits. "You don't have to try to be so quiet," she said lowly, "I wasn't sleeping anyway."
"Not to offend your feminine sensibilities," Ezra returned dryly, "but your current appearance clearly gives away that particular fact." To call her disheveled would have been kind. Her hair was pulled back in a loose, sloppy knot and it was dull. Dark circles beneath her eyes made her face look sunken and her skin was pale and drawn. She'd lost weight too.
"You saying I look like shit?"
"I'm saying it looks like you haven't slept. Have you slept?"
"A few hours."
"Uh huh. And I take it showering has been out of the question as well."
"Funny."
"I wasn't joking."
"Well next time the nurses come in to give Vin a sponge bath I'll ask to get in on it."
"Or you could do us both a favor and take an actual shower back at my domicile."
"I'm not leaving." She turned away from him, obviously hoping to end the discussion.
Ezra wasn't about to be deterred. "Yes you are. Nathan's orders." Okay so not exactly true, but close enough. "Besides, you're starting to frighten the orderlies."
Sam grunted. "Funny twice." She kept her eyes averted, but Ezra could see her start to chew on her lower lip. "He killed that girl, and he made a show out of it. He nearly killed Vin. If I hadn't let him get the drop on me..."
"Stop." Ezra cut her off. "Just stop. I cleared that room before you ever went in. Or at least I thought I cleared it."
Sam sat up then. She hadn't meant then, she'd been thinking of the garage. She could have stopped all this before it started, but she hadn't been strong enough. But that's not what Ezra needed to hear, so instead she said, "If I'm not allowed to play the would-a, should-a, could-a game than neither are you. We could do that all damn day."
"Fair enough," he agreed without further argument. He didn't mean it, but she needed to hear it. "Now come on, you need to sleep and I highly doubt you'll manage it adequately in that chair." Samantha shifted her position and grimaced, her leg was asleep. Still, as she stared at the lithe man lying prone in the hospital bed the indecision was etched upon her face.
"Nathan's here. He won't be alone and I'll bring you back in the morning before I head in," Ezra assured.
Sam took another long look at Vin before she relented with a nod. A bed and a shower did sound good, and the sharpshooter had been upgraded from 'serious' to 'stable' condition. And really, Ezra looked like he could use a night at home. The two left Vin's room side by side, walking wordlessly out of the hospital toward Ezra's Porsche, each lost in their own thoughts.
Later that night, Ezra had to admit there was something to be said for coming home to comfortable clothes and a hot shower. He stood beneath the steady stream of hot water for a long time. He'd let Hunter shower first of course, it would have been discourteous for him to do otherwise. Plus, he hoped that by the time he finished his ablutions she'd be asleep, so he could slip out and return to the hospital.
Shifts be damned. Nathan, Ezra and Josiah had reluctantly accepted them during working hours, mostly because Buck was still on leave, and JD with him, and having the ladies man in the hospital was better than him brooding in the CDC. Since Vin's admission into the hospital however, all the members of Team 7 had spent their nights there.
Ezra carefully set his suit for the next day inside his garment bag that lay open across his comforter. Then he stole quietly across the hallway, expecting, hoping, to find Hunter passed out in her room. The thought gave him a moment of pause. Her room. When the hell had that happened? He shook his head. Regardless, she was not there. A frown creased his lips and Ezra padded out into his living room.
The TV was on, the volume low. Illumination from the screen flickered kaleidoscope lights over the small form on his couch. Hunter lay on her side, half covered under a blanket. She was asleep, though as Ezra neared he could see that it was less than fitful. A sheen of sweat covered her face and neck. She clenched the blanket so tightly to her chest that her knuckles had turned bloodless. She twitched.
"Hunter," Ezra said softly. Sweat beaded upon her furrowed brow. A quiet whine of protest eked from her lips. "Hunter," he said again, loathe to leave her in such a state. He reached out to touch her shoulder.
A scream ripped out of her as she launched herself off the couch. Ezra jerked backward as she lunged at him, but her casted arm managed to strike him on the collarbone. The sound of plaster hitting bone made for a nauseating crack. Despite the shooting pain, Ezra managed to catch Sam's next wild, blind swing. He twisted her arm, spinning her around, trapping her in a bear hug that pinned her arms to her sides. She railed against his grip.
"Hunter!" Ezra yelled. "Sam!" She thrashed again, her heel squarely meeting his shin. "Hunter it's me, calm down. It's okay."
She must have woken, because the fight drained quickly out of her, until she stood solidly on her own feet. But he could still feel her tremble in his grasp.
"Let go of me," she said quietly.
"Have you finished utilizing my person as a pugilist's target?"
"I'm fine. Let go."
The moment Ezra released her, she shot away from him. She brushed hair out of her face with her good hand, not meeting his eyes. "You care to explain that?" he asked.
"Just a dream. It was nothing."
"Really?" The southerner arced a dubious eyebrow. "Because the hematoma you just inflicted on me while attempting to cleave my collarbone in half would suggest otherwise."
"Cute."
"Hunter."
"I'm fine," she snapped. "You just surprised me."
Ezra peeled down the collar of his shirt to inspect the damage. Already the skin had turned a dark purple-red. It felt warm to the touch, and even the light press of his own fingers made him wince. Surprise generally ended in laughter or a yelp, not ice packs and Ibuprofen.
"You're not fine Hunter." He was pushing, and he knew it.
"What would you know about it?"
"Nothing," he responded flatly. "Not one thing, because you're too damnably stubborn to talk about it."
Sam stared at him, jaw locked down. Her eyes brimmed with pain, but she couldn't, wouldn't say anything. The words were stuck halfway in her throat. Ezra threw up his hands. "Forget it. You're never going to change."
"I don't know what you want me to say," Sam murmured. "I don't know what you want from me."
"I want you to stop running, but you can't, can you? You've been doing it your whole life." He nodded to himself. He knew the signs, if anyone did. "Things get tough, you get backed into a corner and you turn tail, or you lash out. It's your default setting."
"Wow," she said wonderingly. "You're really still pissed at me for leaving."
"You give me any particular reason not to be?
"I seem to recall someone telling me that you ran away once too."
"I came back," Ezra bit out.
"Did you somehow miss me standing, right here?" Sam asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice.
"It shouldn't have taken you a year and a half!" Ezra yelled. Hunter's eyes shot wide. Yeah, the uncharacteristic display of emotion had surprised him too. His face grew hot and he ran a hand over his mouth as he reined back his temper. When he spoke again his voice had regained its customary droll indifference. "It wasn't even a choice you made. It was circumstance that brought you back. So I think you're still standing with one foot out the door. I think you're scared."
Sam grunted. "I'd have to be stupid not to be. This guy is a complete psycho."
Ezra shook his head, a humorless smile playing over his lips. "That is not the scared to which I am referring." That did it. Silence. Fear and indecision choked her, made her mute. He nodded, it was no less than he expected. "I'll be at the hospital. Try and get some sleep." He slipped gingerly into his jacket, grabbed his keys and left without looking back.
Chapter 8
Ok, I know this was a long time coming. I have started 9 already though!