Guess who spent the better part of an hour messing around with different acceleration and distance formulas to calculate accurate speed and distances for an out-of-control caravan, but eventually decided to exaggerate a bit anyway to increase the stakes?

Yes. That would be me.


Chapter 8

Saturday, 6.29 PM

Keith slammed his shoulder against the door. Again and again. It creaked under the pressure but remained closed. In the corner of his eye, he could see the cliff edge approaching. The foam of the crashing waves far below. The thin wire fence the only thing in their way.

Less than 3000 feet. Then they'd be smashed to pieces.

"Would you stop that?" Lance pulled him back. "It's not gonna open!"

He had figured out as much himself, but that didn't stop him from snapping back, "You got a better idea?"

The caravan rocked side to side, rapidly picking up speed. Clothes and dishes and equipment crashing in a muddled heap on the floor. Keith braced a hand to the wall, struggling to keep balance as he and Lance searched for another exit.

2900 feet.

2800 feet.

"The roof hatch!" Lance yelled at the same time Keith caught sight of it.

The caravan careened again, nearly sending him sprawling. Somehow he didn't and stumbled over to the hatch. A handle. Compression springs. Push the handle down and it should open by itself… right?

2600 feet.

Keith jumped. Hand closing around the handle.

The hatch sprung open.

2400 feet.

Lance came up beside him, the wind howling through the opening almost stealing his words. "You're shorter! I'll boost you!"

If they hadn't been about to plummet to their deaths, he'd have bit something back. Now he didn't hesitate as he stepped on Lance's joined hands. Heaved his upper body through the hatch.

2000 feet.

A screech of metal, followed by a violent jerk to the right. And Keith's ribs flared with fire.

For a second he could only hang there, half-in, half-out, gasping for air.

"Keith!"

1500 feet.

Clenching his teeth, Keith dragged himself up the rest of the way. Taking a white-knuckle grip of the opening's ledge. Black spots dancing in the corners of his eyes as he extended a hand. "Come on!"

Beneath him, Lance stumbled to his feet. Blood trickled down the side of his face.

1000 feet.

Lance grabbed his hand. And jumped for it.

Ribs screaming, Keith pulled for all he was worth.

300 feet.

Lance's knees hit the roof.

100 feet.

Keith threw himself forward just as the caravan smashed into the wire fence. Metal screeched against metal, the entire thing ripping right from the ground and streaming along the vehicle's sides like twisted wings as it toppled over the edge and–

A second. Two. Then a deafening crash.

Rolling onto his back, Keith gazed up at the darkening sky. Heartbeat thrumming in his ears. Breath coming in short bursts. The fear finally hitting him, delayed like the thunder of faraway lightning.

That crash… it could've been them. With a little less luck, it would have. Their legs breaking from the impact, their skulls being crushed in, their bodies being swallowed by the unforgiving waves. The only evidence left a broken fence and scraps only divers could find.

"I'm never getting a caravan," he heard Lance, just as breathless as him, mutter somewhere to his right. Which was fair, considering they almost died in one. Almost–

Keith sat up. Haggar. Twisting around, his eyes darted between the caravans, searching the shadows, the bushes, the crevices. Had she seen them escape? Was she out there, waiting for round two? Or had she already made a run for it?

The panic clamped around his heart like a vise at the last thought and he flew to his feet, unable to suppress a hiss as the movement pulled on his battered stomach but it didn't matter right now because she had to be here somewhere–

A figure appeared between the caravans. Running towards them.

Keith tensed, fists rising automatically… Then their face came into view.

"Acxa!" Lance called, off the ground now too. As if on cue the sirens pierced through the air, loud in the quiet dusk, the area flooded in blue and red light as the rest of the back-up squad skidded into the caravan park.

The officer – the same one that had been with them at Sendak's crime scene – scanned them both over as she slowed to a halt in front of them, doing a double-take at the blood still trickling down Lance's face. "Are you okay?"

Lance touched his temple gingerly before giving a nod. "Superficial. I think."

"Haggar," Keith cut in. "Did you see her?"

Acxa's hand flew to her holster. "See her? Where?"

"Right here!" He thrust an arm towards the caravans, emotion leaking into his voice. "She was right here a minute ago! You must've seen her when you came in!"

But Acxa shook her head. "I didn't see anyone. She might've fled before we arrived."

"No. No, she's still here– She has to be hiding here somewhere, I–"

"Face it: she's gone." Lance snorted bitterly, the next few words almost drowned out as Acxa stepped back towards the police vehicles, ordering the other officers to search the perimeter. "Wonder whose fault that is."

The words sliced through him like a hot knife. Through every wall, every defense, every feeling he'd tried so hard to keep down.

Shiro. His eyes crinkling in that way they did when he smiled.

Blown wide as he pushed Keith out of the way.

As

Keith clenched his jaw, something sharp and ugly rearing in his chest. "So it's my fault? Even though you didn't take the shot when you had the chance?"

"I almost had her," Lance said, tone just as steely, "but you didn't trust my call. No, you just had to be an idiot and try to punch your way out. Again."

"Are you kidding? Of course I didn't trust you."

Lance frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Because we're not a team, Lance! We never were and we never will be. You think I wouldn't have gone after Haggar on my own if I could? You think I wouldn't have ditched you in a second?"

Something akin to a flinch crossed Lance's face, but the words kept pouring out, as unstoppable as a tidal wave.

"The only reason we're working together is because we were ordered to – I never wanted to and I know you didn't either! And obviously," he threw a hand out towards the cliff, "for good fucking reason. So you can stop talking about trust, because we both know it means shit."

A beat passed, both of them glaring at each other. Keith waited, fists clenched, for Lance to yell back, to throw his words back at him like those times before… but he didn't.

Only scoffed quietly and walked away.

:::

7.05 PM

The next half-hour passed in a haze of EMT:s prodding and poking and asking questions. Keith had tried to wave them off at first, but when no one seemed to buy his "I'm fine"s he resignedly let them check his ribs over (none broken). He drew the line however when they tried to give him some painkillers – he was not getting meds for something as insignificant as a few bruises.

And maybe he wasn't ready to let the pain – the failure – go yet.

Lance hadn't talked to him since their blowout. Hadn't said much at all actually while the EMT:s cleaned and taped up his head wound with a butterfly strip. If he hadn't still felt so angry – so raw – Keith might have been worried. Right now he couldn't care less.

Check-up finally done, he got in the backseat of the closest cop car on the scene. The officer only took a quick look at him in the rearview mirror before intently focusing on the road ahead. Probably for the best; if he sucked at pointless small-talk on a regular day, a foul mood would not make things better.

With a quiet sigh he stared out the window, the glass cool against his forehead, car and city lights flickering by in a monotonous blur. Doing nothing to stop those last few moments in the caravan from replaying over and over in his mind.

She had been right there. Right there. Breathing down his neck for a solid minute as Lance droned on and on and on. And she'd still gotten away. Just like at Venice Beach a few hours – forever – ago.

Keith closed his eyes. Twice in one day. That must be a record.

Shiro wouldn't have let that happen.

As they pulled into the precinct garage, Keith rubbed a hand over his face. He didn't have time for a pity party. Not with the forensics team waiting, wanting every little detail he and Lance could give them. Every little detail of how badly they had screwed up.

Clenching his jaw, Keith slammed the car door shut behind him and headed for the elevators. Well. Better get this shitshow over with.

Lance was already in the forensics office when Keith came in, barely giving him a glance from where he hunched in a chair next to Pidge. He seemed to have found his voice again though as he threw the papers in his hands on the desk and said, "Oh look, Rambo's here now. Let's get started."

Matt sent him a look. "I thought his nickname was Mullet?"

"Well, things change. Especially when people act like idiots."

If he had been a bomb, Keith knew his already short fuse would be burning even shorter. He was not in the mood for this again. He was so not in the mood.

Pidge loudly clapping their hands together made everyone jump. "Okay," they said, glaring at both him and Lance, "I don't know what happened between Venice Beach and now, and right now I don't care. We have a job to do. So leave whatever lovers' quarrel you got going on outside, start acting like the professionals you are and give your forensics team some fucking forensics."

A stunned silence filled the room. Then Coran cleared his throat.

"That was… astutely put, Mx. Holt."

"Could've used a few more swear words though," Matt added jokingly.

Pidge ignored their brother. "Thanks. I thought so too." They sent Coran a smile, before narrowing their eyes at Keith and Lance again. "Are we done?"

Keith glanced at Lance, who met his gaze for the first time since he came in. A quiet agreement passed between them and they both nodded. For now, they had a truce.

But if Lance so much as breathed the start of another snide comment his way–

Matt leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. "So, you said you found some stuff for me?"

"Yeah." Lance reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out Haggar's ruined notebook. "There's a few pages missing."

"Hm," Matt said as he pulled on some latex gloves and flipped through it. "As a forensic expert I have to conclude… it's blank."

Keith rolled his eyes. No shit.

Judging by Lance's huff, he'd had the same thought. "I know. But since she's violently ripped those pages out, she's probably a violent writer too."

"That would make sense," Coran agreed.

"And if she was writing hard enough…"

"... it might've left indentations on the page underneath," Matt filled in, tapping his bottom lip in thought. "That's definitely possible. Maybe if I coat the page with… and then use the scanner to…" Getting to his feet, he headed over to said machine sitting in a corner, the notebook in one hand. "Give me a minute and I'll see if I find something."

Lance nodded. "Thanks."

As Keith watched Matt take out the necessary tools, a thought struck him and he reached into his back pocket. "We found this too." He handed the photograph over to Pidge. "Her family, possibly, or one of her old gangs."

Pidge turned it over in their hands. "Interesting. I'll cross-reference it, see if I can identify any of them. Might give us a lead on who hired her."

The image of the open wardrobe flashed through his mind. "No one did."

"Yeah," Lance added at Pidge and Coran's confused looks, followed by a dramatic shiver. "She's here because she's obsessed with Bandor. I'm talking completely, full on creepy-shrine-in-the-wardrobe and killing-all-his-enemies obsessed. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she's diluted enough to think 'Defender' is somehow about her."

"'Defender'? You mean that stupid song Matt likes to torture me with?" Pidge made a face. "Great. Now he actually has a reason to play it."

Looking up briefly from the scanner, now whirring softly, Matt sent Pidge a teasing wink.

"Stalking behavior." Coran twirled one end of his mustache absentmindedly. "How curious."

"I think the word you're looking for is fucking disturbing," Pidge said.

"It's curious because I wouldn't have pictured her the stalking type. Not from her current profile."

Lance laughed without humor. "Well, you better believe it. That shrine speaks for itself. Did, anyway," he added, and Keith tensed for the jibe he knew was coming.

Strangely, it never did.

"Hmm. Seems our fugitive is quite an onion." Coran paused. "Get it? Because she has layers?"

Sighing, Pidge covered their face with one hand. "We get it, Coran. We always get it."

"Anyway, an update to her profile is probably in order. These new layers might be the key to understanding her coming actions."

And not fucking everything over again, Keith added in his mind.

"With the physical evidence destroyed, I'll have to rely on your memories for this one." Coran pulled a hardback notebook and a pen from one of his desk drawers. With flourish, he opened it to an empty page. "Alright. What were her living quarters like?"

Lance wrinkled his nose. "Messy. Not dirty, but like things everywhere. Guess cleaning isn't high up on a homicidal maniac's priority list."

"Hm. Either that, or the sign of someone with a propensity for impulsiveness or acting emotionally." A few swirly-lettered notes. "Any take-out boxes or the like?"

Had there been? Keith combed through the memories of their search, forcefully skirting around the ones where everything went to hell. Just a few more minutes. He just had to stay calm and focused for a few more minutes and he would be out of here for the night.

"No," he said. "No, I don't think so."

"I see. So she's taking some caution not to be seen." Coran pursed his lips in thought. "Either we're seeing a new careful streak…"

"Or?"

"Or she's biding her time."

Lance huffed, running a hand through his hair. "Well, that's not ominous at all."

A quiet moment passed.

"Oh, that reminds me," Coran said and abandoned the notebook for his stack of documents. Thankfully, the ones he was looking for seemed to be towards the top. "I spoke to the Texas Marshals again, who forwarded the official documents leading up to Haggar's escape. Besides the unwritten report, of course."

He handed out the two top ones to Keith and Lance, and Keith glanced down at it, expecting the standard forms and transfer requests… and froze.

'Prison transfer log,' the blocky headline read. And above the neatly filled-out form, in the same unassuming print:

'Transport driver: Chief Deputy Marshal Takashi Shirogane.'

The paper crinkled in his hurry to give it back, Lance's voice a blur of background noise, but he couldn't find it in himself to care as everything he had went to schooling his face into some semblance of neutrality because fuck, Shiro's log was the last thing he wanted to read right now and–

A jubilant cry startled him through the fog of panic and he spun around. Found Matt grinning back at them. "You were right," he said to Lance. "There's something here, alright. Man, I'm good."

Shaking his head back into focus, Keith followed the others as they crowded around Matt's computer. Well, almost all the others. As Matt opened the file sent from the scanner, he noticed Coran watching him, a wrinkle between his thick eyebrows. He rose however when he saw Keith looking, coming up on Matt's opposite side.

What was that about?

"Lara?" Lance said. "Who the heck's Lara?"

"Maybe an accomplice?" Matt suggested.

Forcing himself to slow his breaths and hoping his heartbeat would follow – just a few more minutes, just a few more minutes – Keith turned back towards the screen. With the inverse coloring the letters were easy to make out: an address. And above it… LARA, underlined several times.

Had one of Haggar's previous gang members been named Lara? He had no idea.

"Send it over, Matt," Pidge headed back towards their own computer, "and I'll see if I can find any…"

They trailed off as the office door opened and Keith, mouth dry, met Captain Holt's gaze. The same Captain who had given them orders to take the night off. Who had later ordered them to stay put and wait for backup.

Who when they last met had given him a final warning.

Shit.

"Detective McClain. Marshal Kogane. My office. Now."

:::

7.53 PM

"So. After deciding to disobey my direct order, you charged into the caravan park, caused immense property damage for the second time in twelve hours, let Haggar get away and to top it all off, put yourselves and everyone else in said park in unnecessary fatal danger." Captain Holt rested his arms on the massive oak desk between them, his face wearing the same stern expression as the portraits of the retired Police Captains behind him. "Have I missed anything?"

"... No," Lance said, looking down. "Nope, you pretty much summed it up. Except the property damage was mostly Haggar."

"Marshal?"

Keith tightened his hands around the arm rests of his chair. "No, Captain."

A part of him wanted to scream, yell at Holt to rip the band-aid off and just say it. Just kick them off the case and get done with it, because why the hell not pile another thing on this clusterfuck of a night?

Another… another was terrified. He couldn't lose this case. He couldn't. He couldn't.

"Look," Lance began, "I know we screwed up big time. No argument there."

We? Keith had to physically fight the urge to turn towards Lance and stare. Because the ambush, Haggar's escape, the almost-plummet-down-the-cliff… Lance had made it clear he blamed Keith for it. Multiple times. Last time not even fifteen minutes ago! So why…?

"We thought we had an honest chance of catching Haggar off-guard," Lance said, and paused. "Except she caught us off-guard instead."

Well, if Lance didn't throw him under the bus, then he damn well wouldn't either. "We," and the word felt strange in his mouth, "won't let it happen again."

A heartbeat of silence. Then Captain Holt sighed. "It doesn't change what happened, but I understand you acted with good intentions. And for that, Detective, I'm going to let you off with a warning." Keith's stomach dropped as their eyes met. Already knowing what the words would be. "I can't make the same exception for you, Marshal. You're off the case."

Off the case.

Off the case, off the case, off the case…

The words roared through Keith's ears, over and over and over like the wind of a storm. Leaving nothing but cold dread in its wake. Blowing right through the brittle foundation he had scrambled together after that night at the memorial, sharpened into anger and focus and resolve. Underneath nothing, nothing, nothing.

He thought he would be prepared. Thought being prepared, facing it head-on angrily, defiantly, would make it hurt less.

It didn't. It didn't at all.

"I gave you the benefit of the doubt," came Captain Holt's voice, "because I knew after you apologized to Mr. Iverson you had the potential to make it here. But my superiors were very clear: two strikes and you're out."

"I can't go back– Not without–" and he hated how his voice cracked, his eyes burned, "Please."

Captain Holt's gaze softened ever so slightly. "I'm sorry, but the decision has been made."

For a second, none of them moved. Then Keith stood up, the chair's screech loud and sharp.

"Keith," he heard Lance call after him, but he didn't stop.

He had lost the case. Lost… lost Shiro. He refused to lose his dignity too and let them see him cry.

The door closed behind him with a final thud.


As they say: what goes up... must also come down.

So. Yeah.