End of Innocence

Chapter 21

Cabin, Cimarron, Colorado, after midnight

Shaw worked for nearly half an hour on a set of reminders for Reese to follow. She sent them along as a series of texts to his phone. And when that was done, she browsed the listings from the local airport in Montrose for open seats to Denver.

Most of the traffic seemed to be coming their way – people out of the East looking for fresh powder on the slopes out here. Surprising to find a few seats still open, heading back. But rather than backtracking all the way to Denver, Shaw decided to hop one of the direct flights between the small local airport here and New York. A quick call in the morning to confirm and she'd knock one more thing off her to-do list. Things were starting to come together for her trip home.

That left only today to keep an eye on Reese. He'd finished the IV antibiotics as of last night, so now he'd be on orals. If this was too soon to make the switch, and the infection was still smoldering inside him, the first thing they'd see would be a spike in his temperature. Pain and a change in color at the site could come along, next. Wouldn't be hard to see.

She wished she had more time to stay, but it couldn't be helped. If Reese spiked again, it'd be soon. But, if it didn't happen until after she'd left, he'd need to find someone here to treat him – and that was problematic for Shaw. No one she could trust to hand him off to. It felt like a loose end she didn't want to leave hanging. All her training made her want to see things through to the end. Finish what you start, and you can't go wrong. But this trip wasn't gonna end like that.

She needed to get back to New York. Reese wasn't going back. So it was up to him to step up and take over. As long as he stayed fever-free, he could get along with the plan they'd already made. If things hit the fan, though, he'd be on his own to find someone. Shaw cursed under her breath. The whole thing didn't sit well with her. Felt like too many things could go wrong.

But Shaw had to keep reminding herself: this was his choice; no one'd made him leave New York. If he'd stayed, this would have gone a whole lot better for everyone.

On the other hand, had he stayed, he might never have escaped the gravity field of Finch and the Machine. How many more times could he manage to survive the harm that seemed to find him? If he wanted to live, the best way was to separate from Finch and his Team. It'd be tough – for all of them – but people like them didn't get many chances at freedom. Best to take one if it presented itself.

Shaw'd already decided against forwarding her flight information to Finch. Didn't want him to know where she'd been. He'd probably already guessed why she'd left, and sending the flight details would lead Finch right to Reese. So far, Reese hadn't shown any interest in contacting him. Seemed strange to her, after all the history they'd had.

For another thing, Shaw didn't think Finch should know how close they'd come to losing him again. If she hadn't made it up to the cabin when she had, he might have been too sick to save himself. Sweating like that from his fever, and delirious, too – a night alone inside a freezing cabin like that could have done him in.

Still didn't know who'd texted her the message: 008/2720.10: 38-26-33, 107-33-24.

Had to have been someone on the Team, because that first set of numbers belonged to Reese. And once she'd recognized his id number, the other two weren't hard to figure out: latitude and longitude. Someone was clearly pointing the way to where she'd find him.

No sooner had she had the thought to look for him, then the exact information she'd needed to know had arrived. So, who'd been the one to send it? Didn't seem like Finch's style. Root couldn't care less about Reese. So that left Fusco, and Shaw didn't think he had the skills to pull it off on his own.

At the time, it'd been more important to get here than to solve the puzzle of who'd sent her the message. But once she was back, the truth'd come out. Wasn't the kinda thing to leave unsolved.

Truth be told, she'd had some lingering doubts after they'd finished his surgery that night – the night they'd found Reese ready to shoot Alonzo Quinn. He'd managed to survive the ambush with Carter, and then the hunt for Quinn, and even what he'd done to himself to get that far. When the bleeding hadn't stopped, he'd stolen some rags from the back of a Chinese noodle shop.

They'd found them stuffed inside his wounds, under a layer of duct tape to hold them in place. Shaw remembered the surgeon cursing a blue streak when he'd cut away the duct tape and found them inside. Clearly, Reese hadn't cared what happened to him after that. Once he'd found Quinn and used him to get to Simmons, the one who'd pulled the trigger, neither of them were gonna survive. That was his plan. And when he was done, he'd limp off and find a place to rest. Then, whatever happened, happened, after that.

Shaw could understand. She'd lost someone, herself. Woulda gone after them, too, like Reese – if they'd survived their own ambush. They'd started shooting through the door where she and Cole were standing. Just reflexes then – she'd shot back through the door with everything she'd had – until the shooting had stopped. Cole had fallen on top of her in the middle of all the shooting.

"Come on, get up. We gotta get outta here," she'd said, grabbing for him to move. Either those shooters were gone, or they were gonna find their bodies on the other side of that door. They had to get outta there. Now!

Shaw heard him moan then. Saw all the blood. When it played over in her head, she realized he'd stepped between them as the firing had started: he'd tried to shield her, and they'd shot him through the back.

Shaw lifted him up to see his face. Knew he wasn't gonna make it. All her training; everything she'd been taught how to do – useless to save him. Stayed with him until he was gone. He'd have done the same for her. He'd always seemed to know how to handle her. They'd argued some, but they'd stuck together when a lot of others didn't.

She thought about Reese, then. The only two partners she'd ever cared about – both of them cut from the same cloth. Neither one knew when to walk away – and the one had died there in her arms.

Shaw got up off her bed. Where was he?

The air had cooled in the room, cold on her skin now. She slipped through the door and into the hall – silently – down to the living room. All the lights were off out there; only the glow of the woodstove lit the space.

She found him sitting alone on one of the cushy chairs, facing the fire. He hadn't seen her standing there.

She watched him – lost in thought – eyes on the fire.

Usually not a good thing. In her experience, when he'd had to work that hard on figuring something, that's usually when things began breaking. It wasn't subtle, by then. More like brute force applied to whatever was about to happen.

Shaw wondered who the enemy was, this time.