Hey everyone! We're back, and the finale is finally here! If you're a returning reader, welcome back! I hope you're ready for this because honestly, I don't think you are. I'm not even sure I am. If you're new here, STOP RIGHT NOW, because this story cannot be read without first reading the following:
MURD 201: Syllabus by Haven126
MURD 201: Exam 1 by me
MURD 201: Exam 2 by me
MURD 201: Pop Quiz by me
MURD 201: Exam 3 by me.
Now with that out of the way, glad to have you all back here! It's the beginning of the end, so strap in, because this one's for all the marbles. As always, I have to give my undying gratitude to Haven126 for all of her truly invaluable help in this endeavor. This would not be getting finished without her, that's for damn sure.

Now, without further ado, the final exam.


The lock caught the moment the door closed behind him, and Mac deliberately did not react to the tell-tale click of the magnets re-engaging. That sound should have meant safety, needed to mean safety. Because this hospital was not like the last one. No bloody smears on the walls and floors, for one.

An ally at his side, for another. Bozer was deep into his 'cheerful best friend' schtick, and at least today, it seemed a little more natural.

"I can see why people never really seem to leave places like this," he was saying, oblivious to the flinch Mac had apparently successfully suppressed. "If I was depressed, there's not a damn thing in here that'd cheer me up."

Mac glanced around at the concrete walls. "Well, at least it's not cinderblock." Drywall wasn't a good idea, construction-wise, when the contents of each room were potentially ultra-violent humans. But care had been taken to make it seem less sixties-style horror hospital; the walls were smooth rather than block. There was more natural light, in the form of skylights that couldn't be reached without cherry-pickers or extension ladders. The paint wasn't all beige, more a mix of soothing color pallets, and it wasn't peeling. "And natural light has been proven to improve serotonin production in almost all mammals, not just humans."

The orderly that had escorted them into the 'visiting room' had already crossed the mostly empty space, for the door opposite them. There were a few wide sitting chairs, upholstered with rip-proof fabric and unremovable pillows, and a coffee table that Mac was pretty sure was bolted to the floor. On the other side of the room was a table that was much more familiar—a less metallic version of the ones in the Phoenix interrogation rooms. It was that table the orderly was staring at, before he turned back to them.

"You're sure about this?"

"Absolutely," Mac answered, without a trace of hesitation. "Benny won't hurt us."

The orderly was a massive guy, probably an inch shorter than Jack but had forty pounds of muscle on him, easy, and Mac squashed down a familiar ache in his throat at the unconscious reminder. That it was Bozer, here with him, and not Jack. He forced himself to focus on the present, while that massive guy shook his head to himself, but swiped his badge at the door, then pulled it open.

As soon as he was gone, Boze made a show of throwing himself into one of the chairs. His nose was scrunched up, clearly anticipating discomfort, but then his eyebrows rose. "Well, this I was not expecting," he muttered, almost to himself, and bounced in the chair experimentally, thumping his arms on the well-padded armrests.

"Yeah, well, it wasn't Benny's fault Murdoc targeted him. Or the other eleven."

Wilt's nose wrinkled again at the mention of the assassin. "Honestly, a dozen was enough." He shivered dramatically. "Not saying some of the homeless folks he crammed in there were any saner, but those guys did a lotta damage in a short amount of time."

Mac jammed his hands in his pockets and leaned against the far wall, so Benny would have as much time and distance as possible to recognize him. He wasn't dressed like a technician this time, he was in a henley with a flannel shirt thrown over just in case he needed it, but the room wasn't that chilly. Even the atmosphere in this place was different. Warmer.

Benny might have a shot at actually healing, in a place like this.

Mac's left hand pressed against his twinging hip for a moment before encountering something curved and smooth, and Mac pulled the object out of his pocket, staring down at it a moment. Technically it was plastic, so he hadn't set off the metal detectors, and a mostly undistorted reflection of his own face stared back.

Boze made an amused sound. "You know, I still haven't figured out where he got that idea. About the demon lore," he clarified. "I figured he musta caught a few episodes of Supernatural here and there, but that whole trapping demons in mirrors thing is more Constantine, and I doubt they let the patients watch anything that violent."

Mac shrugged, staring at his face. No more bruises, they were all healed up. The gash on his chin was still visible as a thin red line, but the stitches were long gone. The only demons he saw were in his eyes. "That came out in 2005, I doubt he's seen it." As far as he knew, Benny had been institutionalized after he killed his mother. He'd never even had a real job. His entire adult life had been lived in places like this. Like the one Murdoc had recreated for his sick game.

"Guess I should be glad it was that simple," Bozer continued, getting himself settled. "Glad he didn't try to pour a pound of salt down your throat, or tie you down on a pentagram or somethin'."

Mac had a feeling it was anything but simple. "Well, with any luck, he's back on his meds and getting the treatment he needs."

"That meds part is important." Bozer glanced at the far door, where Benny would be led in by the orderly. "Hope he still remembers you."

"Yeah." On the one hand, Mac hoped that Benny didn't remember that terrible place, but on the other hand, it probably hadn't been his worst two days in an institution. And they needed what was in his head. Any clue that could point to what Murdoc had planned next.

"Hey...you sure he's not gonna freak out if he does? Seein' as he thought you were a ghost?" Then he paused, cocking his head. "You think he'll think I'm a ghost? Like he did Riley?"

Mac shook his head, wrapping his fingers tight around the small, smoothly shaped reflective plastic. "Not unless we make it look like your throat's slit." Or he pulled up his shirt.

Wilt must have seen the thought cross Mac's face, because he frowned, leaning forward in the very normal-looking chair. "Hey. Riley's fine, Mac. And so am I."

He nodded, sucking in a deep breath and twisting his left wrist against the cuff of his shirt. The bare skin there still felt off; he'd been wearing that watch a long time. Now his wrist was naked, and his dad's watch was down in evidence in a Phoenix lab. As soon as Riley had told them Murdoc's hacker, Brandon, had miniaturized his passive bugging prototype, it had been all too easy to find inside the watch.

An item Murdoc knew that Mac would keep on him no matter which safehouse he hid inside. Mac honestly had no idea when Murdoc had planted it; the watch never left his wrist. Maybe back at the warehouse. Either way, it was the final bug Murdoc had been using to keep tabs on them. Stay one step ahead.

Overhear the fight he and Jack had.

Now it was gone, and every finger Murdoc had had inside the Phoenix was gone with it. The psychopath had been silent for the past three weeks, and every day Mac wondered how much longer it was going to be before Murdoc finally came for him. Him and Jack. Because it wouldn't be long. His right hand was still sore but it hadn't been broken, and his lungs were almost back to normal. He was healed, at least physically, so there was no more reason for Murdoc to wait.

"Listen, Mac—"

But Wilt didn't have time to finish; the door on the opposite side of the room clicked, and the windowless door opened to reveal a guy that made that muscled orderly look scrawny in comparison.

Mac pushed himself off the wall, trying to force his body language casual, but in the next second, an honest grin spread across his face.

The cut of Benny's uniform was familiar, but the fabric was a cheerful blue and yellow print that was covered with otters. And his hands weren't in restraints; they were clutching Seymour protectively to his chest.

The big man scanned the room, first noticing Bozer, who stood up a little awkwardly, then his eyes slid over to Mac. There was a spark of recognition, and the beginning of a smile, but then Benny immediately averted his eyes, and clutched his stuffed animal a little more protectively to himself.

"Hey," Bozer chirped, then cleared his throat. "You must be Benny, right? I'm Bozer." He then hesitated before sticking out a hand, even more awkwardly.

It wasn't like they'd been given any etiquette lessons. Most of what the staff had told them was a warning not to turn their backs on any patient, and not to give the patients anything. A rule Mac was absolutely going to break in the next ten seconds, given the way Benny was eyeing the hand Bozer was offering.

Boze saw it too; he made a throw-away gesture with it. "No worries, man. We got it from here," and this was to the orderly, who gave him a look that clearly said he didn't believe that for a second, but he put a hand on Benny's shoulder anyway.

"Alright, Benny, I'll be right outside while you guys talk, okay? Just knock on the door if you want to leave."

"Yeah, okay," Benny said agreeably, and he gave Bozer a wide berth before he decided to sit on the interrogation table, instead of one of the chairs. The orderly checked in one more time, and Mac dipped his chin. Then the guy badged out the door.

Webber's directions to the staff in this facility had been explicit. No one was to know what they were there to discuss, only that it was private and a matter of national security. Once the director of the facility was cowed, his staff had for the most part fallen in line.

But this had to be unusual for Benny, who was still getting used to his new routine. Mac tried to match Benny's easy tone. "Hi again, Benny. You remember me?"

But the man didn't react at all, like Mac wasn't even there. "I'm feeling a lot better, doc," he said instead, to Bozer. "Meds are really helping. So, uhm, where do you wanna start?"

Boze cocked his head to the side, then glanced over at Mac. "Uh...one, I'm not a doctor," and he looked back up at the massive patient, who was quietly stroking his stuffed otter. "And two, we just wanna ask you a couple questions about what happened a few weeks ago."

Benny adopted a confused look, glancing around the room again without acknowledging Mac at all. "...I don't get it, doc, what do you mean, we?"

And then it clicked.

Mac held up his left hand, displaying the round, reflective 'stone' in his hand. It was too small and too light for Benny to use as a weapon, or to reinforce his hand like brass knuckles would. It was a little too large for a normal person to swallow, and the rounded edges meant it would be hard to choke on. He'd made it fairly flat, so that Benny had half a chance of slipping it into a pocket and keeping it a secret from the staff, but it felt nice in the hand, like a river-smoothed pebble, only large enough to properly reflect a person's face back at them.

He walked over to the table, noticing Benny watching him out of the corner of his eye even as he pretended to be focused on Bozer. "I didn't forget," he assured the huge man. Then he sat the object on the table, right next to Benny's hip, and stepped back.

He barely saw Benny move; he was leaning casually on the table, and then he'd snatched it up and brandished it at Bozer. The agent flinched a little, the same way Riley had when Benny had thrust the toaster at her, but then he agreeably studied his reflection on the surface, going so far as to pick something imaginary out of his teeth.

The moment he did, Benny's shoulders sagged in relief, and he turned to Mac with a grin. "You're a lifesaver, Cas," he told him, nodding to himself. "Not a lotta bare metal, in this place. Was starting to think it was on purpose."

"Glad I could help," Mac told him sincerely, choosing to sit on the armrest of one of the upholstered chairs. It was well padded; probably for their safety more than their comfort. "How are they treating you? Everything okay here?"

Benny nodded, studying the plastic object a moment before slipping it under the stuffed otter's paws for safekeeping. "Yeah, nothing too suspicious. The food's good, and they always have a treat for Seymour."

Bozer made a halting gesture at the otter. "That's—that's Seymour there?"

"Yeah," Benny confirmed almost dreamily, staring down affectionately at the toy. "He's been pretty chill, so I knew there was no immediate danger, but this rock's really gonna help." Benny looked back up at Mac. "Lookin' good yourself."

Mac nodded. "Yeah, all healed up now." For some reason, a sad look crossed the other man's face, but it was gone almost as soon as it had appeared. "Listen, Benny, I was wondering if we could talk about...that other place. Where we met."

"The institution." The large man frowned. "They came and took us away before I could torch it." Then his eyes lit on Bozer. "Don't suppose you could...?"

Bozer held up both his hands. "Man, arson's not my thing, but for that place, I'd totally make an exception."

"It was evil," Benny agreed soberly. Then he leaned up off the table and walked right up into Bozer's face.

The agent blanched and started to backpeddle, but one of Benny's hands snaked out and caught the collar of his shirt, and Mac was at Bozer's side in a heartbeat. "Easy, Benny, he's my friend—"

The larger man loomed over Bozer, silently inspecting him for a few moments before a look of confusion crossed his face. "You're...alive..." he said uncertainly.

"For now," Bozer croaked, hands up and in clear surrender. "You wanna maybe...leggo?"

For a couple seconds, Mac was afraid Benny wasn't going to, but then his hand uncurled, and even smoothed out the fabric he'd bunched. "So..." As if nothing had happened. "How come you can see Casper?"

Bozer carefully straightened his shirt, and took a couple steps back from the much more imposing figure. "Uh, well, guess it's a side effect of this book I been readin'—"

But Benny was already nodding. "The Occultum," he interrupted sagely. "And you said he's your friend, right?"

Mac nodded. "Yeah, my best friend." Bozer had a little smirk on his face, like he'd just figured out some piece of the puzzle, and Mac struggled to refocus both of them. "Benny, I need to ask you a couple questions. About three and a half weeks ago, you were transferred from Bayside to the—institution." As good a name as any; the official name was Pleasant Peaks Mental Hospital, and that description had been as wrong as could be. "Do you remember who transferred you?"

The patient shrugged. "The usual guys."

Which checked out with their intel; two of the corpses used as 'ambience' in the hallways had been identified as employees of Benny's previous mental hospital, and the Phoenix analysts had dug up twenty thousand dollar payoffs in both their accounts. Made from, unfortunately, a forgotten but still existing account of Pleasant Peaks itself. Just one more dead end in a sea of useless clues Murdoc had left them.

"Did they say anything or do anything that seemed out of place?"

Benny shrugged again. "Not really. I always eventually get transferred." He went back to stroking his otter's face with a thumb.

His record had said that, too, and Mac hid a frown of his own by fishing his phone out of his pocket. "When you were there, did you ever see this man?" Murdoc's sadistic grin beamed up at him from his phone's screen, and Mac swallowed as he turned it around. Benny ducked his head to look, then drew back like he'd just gotten a whiff of something awful.

"Yeah, I saw him. Demon for sure." Benny actually took a step back, shielding Seymour from the image, and Mac quickly blacked the screen. "He's why I holed up in that room."

"You mean the telephony closet?"

Benny nodded, looking strangely guilty. "Yeah. I guess you missed him..." He trailed off, then shivered and cuddled his toy otter close.

"Where did you see him? Actually," Mac interrupted himself, "can you tell me everything that happened after you arrived there?"

Benny nodded, then picked one of the armchairs, managing to make the ample piece of furniture look small. "They always give us meds when they transfer us, so I slept most of the way there. Woke up in my room, but the door was unlocked, so..." He just shrugged. "Was lookin' for something to eat. A couple of the guys said some patients had stashed some food in the basement." Mac wondered briefly exactly how those 'conversations' had gone. There wasn't much footage on site from the cameras before the 'exam' started, and Benny hadn't been in any of it.

"After I got what I could, I was in the bathroom an'—" He looked up at Mac, guilt etched deeply into his face. "—an'...you know," he continued reluctantly.

Bathroom. The other 'technician', the blond actor who had had his head bashed in on the sink. Whose body had been concealing the master cell control module.

"I guess I never thought about it, maybe you were runnin' from him too," Benny added sadly. "Why you came bustin' in so fast. I'm—I'm really sorry about that."

Mac swallowed again. He'd been pretty sure that was what Benny had alluded to before, and considering the man had bashed in a fellow patient's head with the toaster in exactly the same way—

"I know," he told the sorrowful man gently. "It's okay. What happened after that?"

Benny stopped to wipe his nose, his guilty eyes flicking to Bozer before he continued. "Well, I kept poking around, looking for a good place to stay, y'know, and then..." Benny's entire demeanor shifted right in front of Mac's eyes. Gone was the sympathetic patient huddled up in a chair that looked too small; in its place was a weapon every bit as cold and deadly as Jack when he was in Delta mode.

"Then I saw him," someone who was absolutely not the Benny he knew continued. Now his tone and his eyes were cold and lifeless. The otter slipped forgotten into his lap.

"He was in a linen closet. He'd pinned a guy under him and was pouring some kinda drain cleaner down his throat. It had already eaten through some of his skin, you could smell it, and the demon was lapping up his screams." The sightless look shifted up to Mac's face. "He saw me come in. He looked right through me, and he liked what he saw. I couldn't move. Not until he told me."

Mac kind of knew how he felt; he couldn't seem to make his own voice work.

"What did he tell you?" Even Bozer's voice sounded choked.

Benny's head tilted in a mannerism that was frighteningly familiar. "Run along. I'll be sending you a playmate real soon." The inflection, the tone, even the lack of accent was an uncanny imitation.

"...what did you do?" Bozer whispered.

Benny's lips twisted up in an ugly smirk. "I ran along." He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. "I grabbed up the first shiny thing I could find and locked myself behind the only metal door there."

And then, just like someone had thrown a lightswitch, Benny blinked, then immediately gathered his toy back in his arms, checking under its paws repeatedly for the reflective plastic stone.

And Mac found he wasn't surprised. Wasn't surprised that Murdoc himself had murdered the man he'd found staged in that closet. That one look from Murdoc was enough to intimidate and terrify even someone like Benny. On his other side, even Bozer looked a little pale.

"So he told you that Mac was going to be coming."

Benny shrugged, not looking up at either of them.

And it made a lot of sense. Why Benny had the alternator in the first place; maybe Murdoc had intended to hide it somewhere else but didn't want to risk getting into a fight with one of the patients over it. Even if it was a patient he knew he terrified. Why he'd been just sitting in a pitch black room in the basement.

Unfortunately, it didn't tell them anything they didn't already know.

"Why did they do that?" Benny asked, almost plaintively. "Why did they transfer us to a hospital run by a demon?"

"They didn't." Mac said it firmly. "Your doctors didn't know about the transfer. Murdoc—the demon—he bribed those two men to kidnap you and the others. He kidnapped everyone there. The people dressed like other patients were actually just—just homeless people that he'd promised food and shelter. And the others—" Mac hesitated when Benny looked up at him, eyes shining. He didn't need to know that he'd killed an innocent actor. "The others he'd lied to. Promised them money. But it won't happen again," he added firmly. "This place, and these doctors—you can trust them. They want to help you get better. They're not going to just transfer you out of here, not unless you're well enough to go home."

But Benny didn't look convinced. "I...haven't seen any of the others. Since I was brought here."

That was almost certain to be intentional. Matty had sent them to interview all the survivors, he knew for a fact three of the other patients Benny had been kidnapped with were here, including Knife Guy. It wasn't an interview he was looking forward to. "They're here, the ones who lived," Mac promised him. "But...they didn't really seem like friends of yours, so I don't think they're in the same section."

"No, they were super rude." Benny seemed to be himself again, frowning in solidarity with his otter. "Seymour also didn't like the way they smelled."

"Well, otters have very sensitive noses," Bozer told him, also sounding more like himself. "So I don't blame him."

Benny tickled the otter's tummy. "He kidnapped you, too, huh."

Mac nodded slowly. "Yeah, he did."

"And Mrs. Casper?"

"Yeah."

"Is she...?" He trailed off, watching Mac out of the corner of his eye.

He hesitated. There was no way he could say she was 'alive' or 'fine' considering Benny thought they were both ghosts, but—

"She's good. Handling it a lot better than this one, if you know what I mean," Bozer winked, and Benny relaxed with a smile.

"He'll figure it out eventually." Benny said it like it was an inside joke, but also meant to be reassuring. "They always do, in the end."

"Well, this is my first one, so natch I'd get a problem child."

"Is the demon...gone?"

Benny looked so hopeful, Mac hated to take that away. But lying to him would be worse. And Murdoc had singled Benny out for helping him, so there was a risk, however small, that he'd come back to express his displeasure.

"...'friad not," Mac finally told him, watching his face droop in disappointment. "But he doesn't know you're here, and I am going to stop him." Mac refused to let his voice waver.

"...Casper..." It was almost pitying. "You're no match for him. You go up against a demon like that, he'll shred your soul like tissue paper."

Mac tried hard not to flinch. If he couldn't even fool a psychiatric patient who thought demons were real and he was talking to a ghost—

"Do you remember anything else about him? Anything that might help us find him?" Boze to the rescue.

Benny gave Mac an apologetic smile, then turned back to Bozer. "Nah. I stayed as far away from him as I could. You might find something in his car, though."

Bozer blinked. "His car?"

"Yeah. It was a black four-door. License plate said Fleet. Except with threes instead of ee's."

Mac glanced over Benny's head to Boze. FL33T sounded a lot like a vanity plate a hacker might choose. Surely Murdoc wasn't stupid enough to borrow one of Brandon's cars without realizing it could be tracked, but—

But maybe he'd had to, since his plans had been so nearly derailed. He'd have long ago ditched the car, but if they could track its movements beforehand—

"We'll—uh, look into that," Bozer promised vaguely, trying hard not to sound excited. "And you, Benny, you take care of yourself, a'aight?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we will." Benny stood abruptly, once again right in Bozer's personal space, and then wrapped the startled agent in a bear hug. "And any friend of Cas is a friend of mine."

"Uh—yeah, samsies," Bozer managed to croak, and then Benny gave him an extra shake and let him go. He turned to Mac with a soft smile on his face, apparently oblivious to Bozer staggering a little, taking deep breaths.

"I know you're gonna do what you're gonna do, just...be careful, yeah?"

Mac dipped his head, swallowing away a very different kind of lump in his throat. "Yeah. Take care, Benny. I'll let you know how things turn out."

"No you won't," Benny told him, a little sadly, then grinned a little, and gave his stuffed toy a conspiratory look. "Seymour says he'll act as a conduit, if needed."

"Uh...yeah. Th-thanks, little buddy," Mac told the stuffed otter, and then Benny surreptitiously rescued the reflective plastic stone from his toy and slipped it into his pocket. One knock on the door later, and Mac and Bozer were left crossing back to their door, doing the same.

The nurse on the other side badged it open, and out in the hallway, Aaron Dixon and Michael Reeves from Phoenix tac were standing just a few feet away. "You get anything?"

"Maybe." Mac quickly conveyed the information about the car, and Dixon nodded and stepped away a few feet with his phone to his ear. Reeves gave the nurse a nod, and she got the message and left them to it.

"Besides the car, anything else?"

"No, just a terrifyingly spot on impression of Murdoc," Bozer growled, crossing his arms defensively over his chest, like he was warding off a chill. "And confirmation that Murdoc did a lot of the wetwork himself."

The tall African-American tac agent frowned. "No surprise there," he grumbled. "Analysts have gone over the security footage here. No sign that Murdoc's been sniffing around, so either he knew these guys aren't gonna know anything, or whatever they know, he's okay with us knowing."

The second was probably closer to the truth, and Mac blew out a breath, hanging his head to rub at the tense muscles on the back of his neck. Even in this place, all he had to do was close his eyes and it was like he was right back in there.

He'd known that body in the closet was real just from the smell. Just like he'd known some of the bodies on the pile under the chapel floor had been real; he'd watched a now-dead patient put one of the actors there with his own eyes. A few of the actors had fled the 'set,' either because they'd been sickened by the 'scary-real fx' or because they'd been assaulted by either the homeless people Murdoc had had rounded up, or one of the real patients, but nineteen others had been rescued alive. Out of thirty.

All paid with cash. All responding to a call posted on reputable audition social media sites. Murdoc's hacker hadn't left so much as a breadcrumb. It didn't look like the patients that had been transferred with Benny were going to be any more help than those traumatized men and women had been.

Most of the other real bodies were the men Murdoc had hired to help him set it up, or homeless men and women who had been victims of each other or the patients—or Murdoc himself, apparently. Dead ends in every sense of the phrase.

Mac took a few cleansing breaths, then rolled his head on his shoulders and looked up to find Bozer and Reeves both watching him.

"You okay, Mac?" The second after he said it, Bozer frowned at himself. "Stupid question. You ready to talk to the next guy?"

The next guy was one of the patients he'd pulled off of Riley, and Mac set his jaw. "Let's get this over with."

It took the better part of three hours. The sun was still up when Dixon beckoned with two fingers, and Reeves shepherded the two field agents out of the hospital and into the pleasantly warm outdoors. The Phoenix agents weren't even trying to be subtle; they were far enough from LA and Phoenix headquarters that the two tac agents had preferred an actually bullet-resistant vehicle rather than security through obscurity. The big black SUV was parked right in front of the lobby awning, and despite the fact that there were no decent sniper positions or suspicious sociopaths in sight, Mac couldn't help but notice Bozer took long, quick strides, and hopped into the car immediately.

Suppressing a sigh, Mac climbed in after him, and Reeves shut the door firmly behind him. They were pulling away from the curb almost before Dixon had slammed his own door closed.

The four men were quiet while Reeves skillfully maneuvered them around the circular drive. Once he hit the main road, both tac agents were consumed with the task of transporting the younger agents safely home, and Mac let his head fall against the headrest.

It did nothing for his tension headache.

"Maybe the car'll be a clue. We didn't know it was missing from Yate's collection."

"There's a lot about that guy we don't know," Mac countered, before he could stop himself. "Not until Riley's up to—"

To taking apart the hacker who almost—

"—to absolutely shredding that asshole's entire online legacy?" Bozer finished, with more than a little heat. "Don't worry. She's good. I mean, she's tired of being tired, honestly she's a lot like you in that respect. You're both super grumpypants when you're out of commission."

"Anyway, pretty sure your boy Benny's got a whole kinda Supernatural-slash-Constantine-slash-Magicians vibe goin'."

Mac's brain parsed through without his permission. "...wait. How was any of that like the Magicians?"

Bozer gave him an almost perfect impression of Benny's pitying look. "Animals as conduits? Otters? ...dude, we lived in the same house, how can you not know this?" Then Bozer grinned widely. "He even called you 'Cas!' I gotta text Riley, she's gonna love that—"

Mac rolled his eyes, grateful for the excuse to hide his expression. So Riley was responding to texts.

Just not Mac's texts.

"I'm hardly an angel, Boze."

One of the tac agents in the front seat snorted. Loudly.

Bozer took the higher road, and used his now-free smartphone as a gesturing device. "One, you could argue that Cas was hardly an angel either. I mean, he kinda sorta thwarted God at every turn, and c'mon, there were plenty of humans he could have saved but didn't." Bozer actually stopped himself with a small frown. "I mean, usually that was for expediency of the plot, but—c'mon, man, the puppy dog look? The deep voice?"

"The five o'clock shadow?" Mac added dryly, earning another small sound from the front seat.

"The big blue eyes, the fact that no one really even knows what you're saying half the time," Reeves chimed in jokingly, earning a laugh from Boze. "But I think the better question is, if he's Cas, who does that make the rest of you?"

"Hmm...Well, Riley's Charlie, minus the whole being unnecessarily dead thing," Bozer mused. "Matty would be Jody...I'm probably Garth, which would make Jack Dean."

Up front, Dixon choked on the coffee he was drinking out of his travel mug, swallowing quickly as he dissolved into a fit of laughter. His partner reached over and smacked his arm.

"You Destiel-shipping little weirdo," he chastised. "We're not sayin' anyone's a perfect fit, here."

"Wow," Mac added, earning another snicker from Bozer.

"All right, all right, let's stick with canon here, no need to wander off into fanfic slash-land," and the phone came up again, this time in a gesture of placation. Then he paused. "Uh...just to be clear, does that mean that you—"

The phone in his hand started ringing, mercifully cutting off the question before their tac escort was put into a potentially awkward situation, and Mac almost missed the teasing joy draining out of Bozer's face. Before he could even ask, Bozer flipped the screen towards him.

Video call. Blocked number.

"Don't answer it," Mac said immediately, already pulling out his own to text the Phoenix analyst Matty had assigned their team during Riley's medical leave.

Reeves' eyes were in the rear view mirror, also no longer smiling. "What's up."

"Blocked number. Could be nothing." Bozer's voice was much smaller, and he made no move to tap the green 'Answer' icon. Dixon got on his phone before Mac could stop him, but he got back a 'trace running automatically' text from their analyst on his own phone. So they could run a trace, even from here.

Bozer hesitated, and the call rang through to voicemail.

No one in the car relaxed, and sure enough, after a few seconds, the phone lit up again.

"So much for nothing," Dixon growled, eyeing the traffic around them. "Voice or video?"

"Video," Bozer managed.

"Up to you, but if you answer it, make sure you cover both cameras."

"Yeah, we hear it," Dixon said, into his own phone, before he squirmed around in his seat to look at Bozer. "Webber says answer it and keep him on as long as you can."

"No," Mac ordered flatly. "He's not about to give us a clue, he's just calling to gloat. He must know we went to the hospital and got nothing. If we couldn't trace him before, we won't be able to now."

"Mac—" The tac agent hesitated. "That was before Riley took his hacker off the table."

"He's got the same equipment." And at the very least the assassin had learned enough to make that horror hospital scenario work just fine.

The hand holding the phone was starting to shake. "Somebody wanna tell me what to do here?"

"Webber—"

"I don't care!" Mac snapped. "Boze, don't. He's just gonna mess with you."

Once again, the call rang back to voicemail, and Dixon silently winced, then took his phone off his ear and put it on speaker.

"Bozer, if he calls you back, answer it." The voice was unmistakably Matty's.

"Matty, no." Mac made it an order even though he knew that meant nothing. "He wouldn't be dumb enough to call if there was even the slightest chance of being traced. We have nothing to gain from this. Don't you think he's put Boze through enough?"

"I think that's not your decision." the warning in the director's voice was clear. "That bastard is gunning for you and Jack right now. We're not in a position to turn our noses up at any semblance of a clue."

"There won't be a clue!" Mac snapped irritably. "You're not listening to me! All this will accomplish is giving him one more opportunity to get in Boze's head. You can't seriously think putting him through that again is justified!"

The phone started ringing again. Video call. Blocked number. Bozer's hand was trembling.

"Don't answer it," Mac ordered his friend with a protective growl.

"Bozer, make sure the cameras are covered and answer the phone."

"Matty—" there was real anger in the blond agent's voice, but he was cut off when Bozer suddenly slipped the phone into his other hand so that his palm was covering the back camera and his thumb was covering the front, and answered the call.

"Wilt! So glad I caught you. Is this a bad time?"

While Bozer had covered his cameras, Murdoc hadn't. A picture came up, like Murdoc was using the rear camera on his phone, and pointing it at the screen in a movie theater. The seats were empty, and the projector was clearly on, but no images were playing.

Bozer swallowed hard, but unlike his hand, his voice was steady. "There's never a good time. What do you want."

"It's not what I want, Wilt—well, okay, it kind of is. I was hoping to get your professional opinion on something I've been working on. It'll just take two minutes of your time," he added, as if that would be incentive.

"Not interested," Mac spoke up harshly, shooting his best friend a glare.

"Ah, Angus!" Murdoc sounded delighted, in spite of the obvious warning in the agent's voice. "I'm glad you're there; I do so want to know what you think, since you saw the original."

"Not happening," Mac stated darkly. His eyes flicked to Bozer's uncomfortable expression. "Hang up."

At that moment, Bozer's phone vibrated with a text from Matty. The preview showed the whole message: 'Don't.'

And like Murdoc could see the notification, he clucked his tongue. "Wouldn't you rather see it before the big debut? You won't get another chance before it's released..."

No matter how much Murdoc phrased it like it was a clue to the 'final exam', Mac knew exactly what was about to happen, and he simply reached for the phone. Bozer pulled it away, shooting him a look that was part fear, part question.

What if it's something that could help?

Mac gave his best friend one emphatic, pleading shake of his head.

And then the image on the phone got darker, as if the lights were going down in the theater, at the same time a deep, buttery voice boomed out of the speakers.

"All his life, he'd dreamt of creating on the big screen..."

It was a montage of Bozer. Seated in one of his favorite restaurants with a storyboard in front of him, apparently pitching to two people who simply shook their heads. Bozer, sitting on Mac's couch, chin in one hand and his film festival clipboard in the other, intently staring at something off-screen. Bozer in Mac's kitchen, dancing around in his 'Kiss the Chef' apron and delicately sipping out of a wooden spoon he'd just dipped into a steaming pot. Bozer standing on Mac's porch, ripping open an envelope before speed-reading what was apparently a rejection letter, as his expectant smile fell and his shoulders slumped a little.

One look at his best friend's face told Mac that Boze recognized every single one of those moments. None of them were recent.

"When a benevolent stranger takes him under his wing..."

"You want to play videogames?" It was Bozer's voice, a little stilted, and Mac could just see enough of the phone screen to catch what looked like surveillance footage of Bozer in some kind of bland, concrete room, sitting on a cot while Murdoc stood in front of him. His roommate was looking over his shoulder at an old TV sitting atop a stack of pallets. The next clip was a different angle of the same room, and showed Boze and Murdoc actually sitting in beanbag chairs, eyes fixed on the screen. Murdoc was laughing, genuinely so, and Mac felt bile rise up in his throat at the sound of it.

"I'm proud of you, Wilt! See, this is why I like you."

Bozer let out a bit of an unsteady breath at that. Mac felt rage flare in his chest. Why was no one listening to him?! Clearly this was not a clue—all Murdoc was hoping to do was hurt Bozer, and he was succeeding. The trailer's musical score took a darker turn as the voice spoke again.

"And finally gives him his chance..."

The sound of choking and scrabbling came through the speaker, played over a dark screen, followed by Murdoc's smooth voice. "You impress me. It doesn't happen as often as you'd think." His words were interrupted by a wet, sickening gasp that unmistakably came from Bozer. "So I'm going to help you."

The black screen came to life with a shot of anemic overhead fluorescent lights, one after another, as though someone were being pushed down a hallway on a gurney. The screen faded to black again, and Mac almost jumped at the sound of said gurney crashing through a set of double doors. The screen showed Murdoc wheeling Mac's shirtless best friend, strapped to the steel table, into position, from an angle that couldn't have been the camera Mac had seen. Boze looked unconscious. The next shot was a Dutch angle, looking up at Murdoc over Bozer's shoulder. The assassin smiled down at his still-unconscious victim, and patted his face a few times until he woke up. On the movie screen, Bozer jolted, drawing in quick, panicked breaths as he struggled to get away.

Until the large, gleaming carving knife came into view.

"...to show the world what he's made of."

The sides of the frame seemed to shrink in on Bozer's terrified face, and Murdoc's voice was gleeful. "Oh, don't worry too much, Wilt. Just enjoy the ride. With any luck, you'll be the survivor girl when this is over."

There was a quick montage set to the echoing sound of a ticking clock; Jack and Mac diving into the back seat of a car like bank robbers piling into a getaway vehicle. Jack and Mac warily letting themselves into a corporate-style waiting room. Jack and Mac staring at a TV screen as it came to life in slow motion, showing them Murdoc greeting his studio audience. The montage faded into blackness—then snapped onto a brightly lit, overhead shot of Murdoc slowly, almost lovingly, slicing into Bozer's abdomen and exposing the layer of muscle beneath his skin.

The scream that followed had had its volume artificially boosted, so much so that everyone in the car flinched, including Dixon and Reeves. Bozer almost dropped the phone, but he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from it.

The ticking sped up, mimicking a beating heart, and with each beat, the image shifted. Mac turning away from the camera, his right hand reaching out blindly for Jack's arm. Matty in the War Room, the view from their videoconferencing equipment, exchanging a glance with a concerned Riley. A closeup of Murdoc delicately slicing into Bozer's liver while his victim's body writhed beneath the knife.

Murdoc grinning at the camera, welcoming his viewers back. Mac getting nailed in the ribs by a beanbag and stumbling into the railing of the 'deck' set. Jack on the floor of the 'living room' set, sawing urgently at the lamp cord tangled around his ankle. The deafening sound of a barbecue fork getting tossed around in an angry garbage disposal.

Then, silence, save whimpering breaths. The screen stayed absolutely dark for a three beat count, before Murdoc's voice came out of the black.

"I know that was a lot, Wilt. I'll understand if you want to hit the reset button..."

Another shuddering gasp, clearly Bozer, before there was a painful-sounding swallow. Bozer's face appeared, lips ashy, cheeks and forehead covered in sweat and blood. His left eye was squeezed shut and twitching spasmodically even as blood pooled in the crevice of it before running down his face in a thick tear.

And in front of him, Murdoc's blood-crusted gloved hand was offering a syringe.

Bozer's lips parted, shaking with the effort, and just before he answered, the scene cut to Mac stalking through the 'kitchen' set, seeing the bloody metal table, and turning away.

"Mac...'ll get me out..." It was just a tortured whisper.

The ticking clock montage started up again, even faster than before. Shots of Mac and Jack fighting through the building. Jack going down from the paralytic. Mac dragging Jack past a pile of rubber ducks. Mac staring almost directly into the camera with a look of pure horror on his face.

"Mac...hurts...s-so co—" Bozer's voice cut off with the sound of a metal door slamming into a huge open space, and a couple seconds into the echo, Mac's voice; "I'm on my way; I promise. I'll get you out of there."

A shot from the ceiling, showing Bozer lying on his side shivering in the freezer, clearly in agony, whimpering. "I d-don't w-wanna die h-here, Mac..."

Mac stumbling into the freezer room. Mac running his hands through his hair in urgent indecision. Mac choosing a freezer and using his beer can opener. The clink of the lock popping. Mac dropping to his knees with the same heavy metal-door-slamming noise, the angle from the back of the freezer so Mac's face was perfectly framed as he looked in horror at the body he'd just rolled over.

Mac's voice, just a whisper. "No..."

The ticking soundtrack slowed and faltered. Bozer's voice came over it, sounding dreamy. "Don't come...after me...it doesn' hurt anymore..."

Mac collapsing, tears streaming down his face, before he lashed out at the freezer wall, then slid down it, coughing up blood. His head fell forward in defeat, forehead hitting the freezer wall with that same metallic clang sound effect.

"Sorry, Angus. Better luck next time."

One last, shaking breath, and then the trailer faded to black.

Mac did not let them wait around for Murdoc to gloat. His hand shot out and grabbed his best friend's phone, hanging up before either camera could have adjusted to the sudden change in light levels. Bozer didn't fight him, and his hand just kind of stayed in its previous position, as though he'd forgotten about it. The look on his face was absolutely heartbreaking. The car was silent for several seconds before Matty spoke up from Dixon's phone.

"No luck on the trace yet." she reported grimly, and Mac felt his stomach and chest tighten, his vision actually blurring for a second before he shouted back a reply, interrupting her when she tried to speak again.

"Yeah, no shit!" he snapped furiously, visibly shaking. "I told you it was pointless! How fucking dare you? You knew what that was! You knew what Murdoc wanted and you gave it to him at our expense! How fucking dare you make him see that? Where the fuck do you get off—"

"Trying to save your and Jack's lives?" Matty finished pointedly, the warning in her words obvious. It did nothing to soften Mac's anger. He slammed his fist down on the center console and shifted closer to the phone in Dixon's hand.

"You. Can't." he snarled. "How many times does that bastard have to prove that we can't stop this? Every time we try, we get burned! The only way out of this is through it! You had no right to subject him to that!"

The tac agents in the front exchanged an uneasy look, and a quick inhale on his left attracted Mac's attention. Bozer was staring sightlessly at the back of the driver's seat, his breathing fast and shallow, and Mac's fury bled away instantly, replaced only by concern.

"Easy, Boze—"

Wilt didn't seem to hear him, or to feel the gentle hand Mac put on his shoulder. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned away, towards the window of the car, his hands closing into shaking fists in his lap.

Shit.

"Boze, hey. Hey. Murdoc's not here. You're okay—"

He vehemently shook his head, and Mac wasn't sure it was to deny that he was okay, or an attempt to shake the images out of his mind.

"Boze. I need you to take a deep breath. Come on, just one."

Another headshake, and Wilt drew further into himself, wrapping his arms around his torso.

That he'd just watched get sliced open, in 4K.

"Boze—"

"We got a hit," Matty's voice cut through Dixon's phone, clipped and professional. "He's in LA. Hollywood 16. I'm deploying two teams and SWAT. Reeves, Dixon, your job is to get MacGyver and Bozer back to campus ASAP."

"Yes ma'am—"

"No."

It was Mac's thought, his feeling, but not his voice. This voice was small. Almost timid. Bozer didn't open his eyes, but he did turn his face more towards the front of the car.

"Bozer?" Matty's voice was cautious.

"...I have to go." His fisted hands twisted into his sides, where they were wrapped around him. "It's a movie theater. There'll be something there for me. The—the techs might miss it."

"Bozer." Mac's voice was sharper than he meant, and he toned it down instantly. "No you don't. You didn't have to watch that bullshit, and you don't have to do this."

Wilt made a scoffing noise, but it was barely audible over his still-rapid breathing. "You don't listen to yourself too well, do you?"

"Yeah, well, I'm hardly a role model for self-care, now, am I?"

"You're not going to the theater, Boze," Matty stated firmly, though not unkindly. Even though they were agreeing, Mac felt his jaw tighten. "It's far too exposed and there's no way to safely separate you from Mac at the present time. You can direct the techs from the War Room, but that's as good as you're going to get."

Bozer couldn't bring himself to speak again, just offering a nod, and Dixon mercifully responded for him.

"Copy that, Director. We're about twenty minutes out; see you soon."

After getting an acknowledgement from Matty, Dixon finally hung up. Mac put all his attention on his best friend, but Wilt would barely respond to him, cowering against his door. Eventually, the blond man fell silent as well, and as his anger finally subsided, exhaustion and crushing defeat took its place. Twice, now, he'd failed to protect Bozer. And twice, his friend had paid dearly for it.

It was very hard for his brain not to pick up on the pattern. It was even harder to not predict what would happen in the next exam. If he started doing that, he might as well just call it quits now. And if he thought that Murdoc wouldn't kill his whole team out of spite if he did so, then he would have done it already.

They were just pulling into the Phoenix parking garage when Bozer's phone chimed, reminding Mac that he was still holding it. The anger surged back into place until he looked at the lock screen and saw it was a text from Riley.

Hey what's the code red for?

Mac offered his best friend the phone, and Wilt glanced at it, then averted his eyes. "I can't...can you just hold onto that for me?"

"Yeah," Mac assured him quickly, pocketing the device and already planning on putting a new case on it, so the sight of it wouldn't just instantly put him back into this headspace. "No problem." Knowing the only thing worse than this news would be radio silence, Mac pulled out his own phone and shot Riley a text, trying not to notice that his last three to her were unanswered.

Murdoc sent Boze a vid. Traced it to a location, sending tac. Keep you in the loop.

He stared at the screen a moment, wondering if Riley would answer him this time, but once the car was parked he gave up on hearing from her and slipped it into his other pocket. The four of them headed straight for the War Room, where the windows were already opaque, and only then did Bozer seem to notice he had an entourage. He stopped at the door, staring at the floor for several seconds before swallowing loudly.

"Look, can I...I don't need an audience," he finally managed, and his hands balled up again into fists – to hide that they were shaking. "Just—if we find anything—"

"Sure thing," Reeves told him quickly, his tone full of understanding. "You get anything actionable, it would be our pleasure to handle it."

"Yeah," Bozer said, though his heart wasn't in it, and Reeves tapped his partner on the chest before the two agents turned and headed elsewhere. Mac stayed right where he was, ready to do whatever his best friend needed. But Bozer didn't push the door open; he remained staring at the ground, clearly trying to get up the nerve to go inside.

Mac took a breath, to give him encouragement, or maybe remind him he didn't have to do this right now, but Wilt beat him to it. "...you too," he said, then managed to raise his eyes to Mac's chest. "I—I can't—"

"Okay," Mac told him, even as he felt his heart breaking all over again. He made every effort to keep the hurt and disappointment out of his voice and his eyes. "Whatever you need, man. I'll, uh, be down in the labs. And give your phone to the analyst," he added quickly. He could still get a case on it before they gave it back to him.

Bozer was nodding minutely. "Thanks," he said, his voice raw, before he took a deep breath, tried to square his shoulders, and pushed into the War Room. When the door closed, even though it was only a single pane of clouded glass, it felt like a thousand mile chasm, and Mac stared at the foggy whiteness for a long moment before he dropped the act, and let his head hang low.


"Miss Davis."

It wasn't a question.

Riley looked up, not even pretending to feel guilty, while Nurse Tasha arched a brow at her. "Bedrest is a combination of two words. You've only got the hang of the first one. Go. To. Sleep."

Riley huffed a strand of hair out of her face. "See this braid?" Or what was left of it. "I slept."

"You did. Last night," the nurse agreed, crossing her arms. "I swear I would ask them to take your network credentials away if I thought that would slow you down."

It probably would, at least a little, but it was an empty threat and they both knew it. Riley had multiple accounts at the Phoenix, and most were undocumented. Which was the way she liked it.

"I'm tired of napping," Riley said instead. "I have done nothing but nap for three weeks. I get that my body needs the rest," she added in a conciliatory tone when the nurse took a few steps into the room, "and I agree to stay in bed, but I am losing my mind."

"That's what Netflix is for." The nurse gestured to the TV hanging on the wall, coming to stand at the side of her bed with her hand outstretched. "Cough it up."

In answer, Riley narrowed her eyes and flipped the top of her duvet over the laptop. Nurse Tasha's eyebrows rose fractionally. Riley thinned her lips in an attempt not to smile.

They stared one another down for about seven seconds before both women snorted with laughter. Unfortunately, that pulled the stitches on her back, and Riley couldn't hide the wince, or the hiss of pain.

"Okay, young lady, enough's enough." While Riley eased herself into a slightly more comfortable position, the nurse stealthily snatched up the laptop, closing it with a click. She tossed it gently to the foot of the queen sized bed and helped adjust Riley's pillow nest as the agent shuffled herself a little lower in the bed. Once she could take a breath without making a face, the nurse nodded her approval, and handed her the TV remote. "No news. Bad sci-fi only."

Riley wrinkled her nose. Tasha was unmoved.

"I know you're bored. Trust me, we all know you're bored. And I know you're starting to get your energy back. But you need to give your body time to heal, and stressing yourself out trying to work is only going to make this process take longer."

"I'm more stressed out not knowing." She wasn't sure why she admitted that. Maybe she was tired.

The nurse's eyes softened. "I know," she repeated. "Listen, if anything happens, we will be notified, and I promise you that I'll keep you in the loop. Jack will be by later and I'm sure he's bucking orders and telling you everything anyway."

Riley resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Not as much as you'd think.

"Put on an episode of DS9 and I'll bet you twenty bucks that you'll be asleep in less than ten minutes."

"Done," Riley agreed, and they shook on it. Then Riley frowned at the remote, and dutifully hit the power button. The nurse checked her thermos, made an approving sound, and picked it up, along with her laptop. "That's two liters today already. Let me know when you need to pee."

"You'll be the first," Riley promised idly, and then the nurse crossed the large room and tugged the door gently shut behind her.

Riley gave her a ten-count, then reached under the duvet for her phone. She had it linked to her laptop and mirroring the screen in seconds, and continued scrolling through the data. Then she blinked.

There was a new top priority problem effort. It was a trace, and she zoomed in to see the number.

Bozer's phone.

There was no active call, and the trace had already been successful, but the TOC board didn't tell her what happened, so she rapid-fired off a text.

Hey what's the code red for?

Two minutes. The damn nurse had distracted her for two minutes and something had happened—

Her phone vibrated silently in her hands, but the contact pic wasn't Bozer's smiling face. It was Mac's.

Murdoc sent Boze a vid. Traced it to a location, sending tac. Keep you in the loop.

Riley's fingers froze around the phone, and a shard of ice blossomed in her gut.

A video.

But—

Why send it to Boze? Why not send it to Mac?

Her thumb moved over to the text stream, to text him back, to ask if it was—

His last three texts were all there, innocent inquiries as to how she felt. All un-replied to. And she found she couldn't reply to this one, either. Instead, she minimized the text app and dug straight into the Phoenix system to get the copy and see for herself.

She couldn't talk to Mac. Not yet. Not until she knew what to say to him. And certainly not if the video Murdoc had sent Boze was—

Was what she was afraid it was.

But maybe that would be for the best. If he found out. Murdoc had ensured the Phoenix had every second of Mac's experience, from the moment he woke up in the loading screen until the cracked glasses had ironically fallen on the pavement in such a way as to almost artfully record the helicopter flying away, the perfect video game ending.

But they didn't have anything else. Not the footage of her fight in the parking lot, just the aftermath. And nothing from before Mac got there. All they had was the hotel room itself, where Brandon had taken her, and the staff dormitory that she'd already identified as the place Murdoc had held her until Mac was ready.

They didn't know what Brandon had done. What Murdoc did.

What she did.

And the odds that none of it had been recorded, that Brandon hadn't had a camera on her the whole time, that Murdoc hadn't been filming every second she was there—

It wasn't a file that Murdoc had sent to Boze—it had been a video call. Riley bit her bottom lip until it bled, and then she copied the recording down to her phone and let it play.

And—

It wasn't her. It wasn't the mental hospital. It was—

It was Bozer.

It was a goddamned movie trailer about what Murdoc had done to Bozer.

Her relief shifted quickly to anger and guilt, but it wasn't long before horror replaced them both. She could only bear to watch the first thirty seconds; the moment Bozer screamed she paused it and shoved the phone under the duvet, hoping the nurse didn't realize it wasn't the TV. Hoping she wouldn't be caught with tears streaming down her cheeks. Hoping that sound had been artificially created, but knowing it wasn't.

Oh, Bozer.

Riley sat there, silently sobbing until the ache of crying became too much, and she had to make herself stop before the physical pain overtook the emotional. Everything hurt, she was so tired of everything hurting. Her back. Her body. Her heart.

And here she was, being selfishly terrified that Murdoc had revealed her secret, when Murdoc was instead torturing one of her best friends. Riley almost threw the phone across the room. Instead, she curled up painfully on her side and dragged a pillow to her chest, hugging it tightly.

He was torturing all of them. And he was using them to torture Mac. Clearly Mac had been with Bozer, if he'd texted her so quickly. Somehow Murdoc knew they'd be together. Two birds, one terrifying stone.

At least she could be certain it wouldn't happen like that, when Murdoc decided to reveal her secret. She wouldn't have to see Mac's face, his expression when he realized what he was watching. Outside of Jack, who insisted on it, her visitors were extremely limited, in case Murdoc somehow followed them, and found her.

Riley closed her eyes against the empty excuse. That wasn't why she was keeping Mac at arm's length. She couldn't even text him, let alone talk to him. Not without her mind and thoughts taking her right back to that place. To choking as that wire dug deep into her throat. To the pain and the terror she'd felt. To those men clawing at her.

To Murdoc.

And she knew that if she saw him, she wouldn't be able to hide that. She knew that it would hurt him, and she didn't want to do that. He didn't deserve that. He saved her life and she was so, so grateful. She needed him to know that, she just couldn't—

Couldn't find the words.

So she was torturing him with her silence instead. Hurting him that way too. But surely it was better than the alternative. The lesser of two evils.

Hey Mac. How've you been? I'm great, I'm still weak enough I can barely go pee by myself and I sleep twelve hours a day. Did I mention I unlocked Brandon's laptop so that Murdoc could kick off that sick game he put us through?

Riley squeezed the pillow tighter.

Mac had gone through hell to get her out of there. Mac had killed for her, and she still couldn't bring herself to text him so much as a smiley face.

He killed for her. To save her life. Two of the three patients that had gotten into her room, Mac had killed them. Not accidentally, and not on a mission. They were mentally ill patients, not cartel thugs. And he'd taken their lives with his own two hands. That was how desperate he had been to get to her. To get them off her. To save her.

Murdoc had made him kill.

Then again, he'd made her kill too. There had to be footage of it, somewhere, of the fight in the parking lot. Of her pulling the knife out of her own back, using it to stab the patient dressed as a priest. Just as desperate and terrifying as the fight in the server room had been. Somehow even harder to live with.

She knew that Mac knew she must have done it; there was no one else in the parking lot, though she didn't really remember him finding her. Didn't remember the look on his face. Hated the fact that she was glad for it, relieved even. He'd tell her it was in self-defense, and it was—just like those two patients had been in defense of her life.

But he wouldn't see it that way. She wasn't even sure he knew; she wouldn't have if she hadn't looked them up after a nightmare, to reassure herself they were tucked away safe in an institution. Only to find two of them tucked away safe in a morgue instead.

Murdoc had made Mac do that for her. And she couldn't even bring herself to tell anyone that she was the one responsible for that exam getting kicked off. Couldn't say the words. Not even to Jack. Not even when she knew, she knew he was blaming Mac for it. For getting in the limo. For playing by the rules.

For what had happened to her.

Riley's phone vibrated silently against her stomach, where it had slid down when she'd curled up. She ignored it.

Didn't want to see Mac's face smiling up at her out of her phone again.

But—he'd told her he'd keep her in the loop, if they actually needed her—

Riley begrudgingly fished her phone out of the blanket and propped it on the pillow she was hugging, bracing herself as best she could.

It wasn't Mac who texted her.

It was a blocked number. And Riley somehow knew, she just knew that it was the same blocked number that had called Bozer.

I hope you liked the style of the trailer—the director's cut is even sharper.

Even as she absorbed the words, a second text appeared.

But it's nothing compared to yours. So many more cameras, it's taking me a long time to pick my favorite footage. I think Jack is going to love it.

Riley's thumb moved on automatic, pinning his words to the smooth screen, and when the option menu popped up, she tapped Delete.

And when prompted, she'd never been more sure of anything in her entire fucking life.

But deleting the texts didn't delete his words. He had footage of it. What she'd done. What she'd said. And he wasn't going to send it to Mac.

He was going to send it to Jack.

Nurse Tasha came in about five minutes later to find that her patient was not in fact asleep, but rather sobbing uncontrollably into her pillows, and no amount of consoling could get her to find out what had upset Riley so badly.


Mac slid onto the back bench seat with a frown, and sharp eyes peered at him via the rear view mirror.

"Problem?"

He couldn't even dredge up a smirk. "Ninety-nine of 'em, I think the song goes."

"Yeah, but is one of them in the vicinity of this vehicle?" Simmons pressed, and Mac gave the senior tac agent a quick shake of his head.

"No sir. Just wondering if I'm going to have to recertify on tactical driving when this is all over. I haven't driven my own car in..." He paused, a little stunned when he considered the calendar year. "Months."

The agent in the passenger seat—Jada Navarro—adjusted her firearm as she secured her seatbelt. "Good answer, MacGyver, because the next line of that song was about to get you into a world of hurt."

He smiled, because he knew Jada expected it, and the SUV pulled away from the curb. Even before they passed the Phoenix gate their attention sharpened, and it did nothing to quell Mac's own anxiety.

"They find anything at the theater?" he asked as casually as he could.

A quick shake of Grant's head was his answer. "Nothing useful, anyway."

"Surprise," Mac muttered under his breath, and transferred his gaze to the window, not really seeing the cars and headlights around them. The agents in the front seat exchanged a quick glance.

"Bozer's gonna stay on campus tonight," Grant added, even though Mac hadn't asked. "He's still a little shaken up, didn't like the idea of leaving Phoenix."

"I don't blame him," Mac's mouth said on autopilot, while his brain cheerfully explored all the things that Murdoc could have left his best friend that wouldn't be classified as 'useful.'

"We dropped Jack off at Riley's safehouse earlier, she's pretty upset too."

No surprises there either. He already knew Riley was logged in when she'd texted, she was probably helping Boze deal with whatever Murdoc had left him. And he was glad, in a way, that Jack was there to support her. Make her feel safe.

Safer than she'd been with him.

"...so that just leaves you," Grant finished, and Mac knew that if he looked up, he'd see the tac agent was watching him through the mirror again.

"I'm fine. The analysts are running down Brandon's old car but so far it's a dead end. We didn't get anything else actionable from the interviews." After all, he already knew how terrifying Murdoc could be, and Mac forced himself to take a deep breath, still staring sightlessly out the window.

There was quiet for a few minutes. "I meant about the shaken up part," Grant finally corrected. "You okay back there, Mac?"

That answer was self-evident, and given in his last statement, so Mac didn't say anything. There was no right answer. Was he shaken? Absolutely. But it was nothing compared to how Bozer had to be feeling right now. Or Riley, wondering when Murdoc was going to do something similar—or worse—to her.

And Jack right beside her, knowing it was a matter of when, not if, and knowing that he couldn't protect her from it.

Neither of them could.

None of them could.

There were two people in this SUV with him, but the truth was, Mac was completely alone.

"It doesn't matter," Mac finally responded, softly enough that he wasn't sure they could hear him, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "Tell Matty whatever you want."

The last time he'd been in the back seat of an SUV driven by Grant Simmons was the day he'd been picked up in front of that gas station, confused and clumsy thanks to the hypothermia and Murdoc's paralytic. They'd literally wrapped him in a warmed blanket. Protected him. Taken care of him.

Simmons' haircut was the same now as it had been then, buzzed low, so much like Jack's that a pang of loneliness shot through Mac's chest.

"...apparently you two had a hell of a conversation earlier."

The confirmation that he was right didn't surprise Mac in the slightest. He was sorry, if he'd made Reeves and Dixon uncomfortable, and made a mental note to apologize to them tomorrow morning. But not her. Matty should have known better.

She knew she couldn't protect Bozer and Riley either, but she was still desperately trying to find a way. And Bozer had paid the price for her attempt, just like Mac had known he would.

"MacGyver," Simmons tried, and the tone of his voice said it wasn't the first time he'd said it in the last few seconds. Mac tore his eyes off the window to meet the tac team leader's eyes in the mirror. Without the context of the rest of his face, it was hard to discern his expression. "Today sucked. Murdoc got in another hit. But don't keep pummeling yourself for him. I've known Dalton since his Army days, and I know he's being a huge dick right now, but he—and Webber—haven't given up on you. Murdoc's making mistakes, and the longer we draw this out, the more of 'em he's gonna make. Hang in there a little longer. We'll get him."

God, he wanted that to be true.

Mac cut his eyes back to the window, staring out at the city beyond. Murdoc was out there, somewhere, prepping his coup de grâce. It wouldn't be long now. Bozer, Riley, Jack, Matty...they might not have died, alone and terrified the way Murdoc intended, but Mac had lost them just the same. And the danger to Jack was only increasing, every day that passed.

"...I hope you're right."

No one else said anything, but Mac took note of the five detours Simmons took on the way to the safehouse. The SUV rolled into the garage almost before the door was up, and it started coming back down instantly. Mac knew the drill, stayed safe in his seat until it was down and then longer, while Grant and Jada cleared the house, even though it already contained two Phoenix agents.

Once he got the wave from Jada, Mac unbuckled himself and slid out of the vehicle, dragging his go-bag with him. This place had been in the rotation before, and unless they managed to capture Murdoc, it was burned. All of the safehouse Phoenix had been using to try to protect them would be. The sheer cost in dollars this was taking, the toll of their team being out of rotation—

This was not sustainable. And sooner or later Matty was going to have to make the call.

Mac wondered if that was the signal Murdoc was waiting for.

You and I both know that you'll lose them long before they stop breathing. And finally, one night, when you find yourself truly alone...that will be the night of your final exam.

Mac dropped his go bag wearily on the bed, barely remembering to nod to the agent in the hall before he pushed the door closed. Maybe he should tell her to do it. Murdoc would probably just shoot him again, calling it another 'pop quiz'. He closed his eyes and let himself collapse face first on the bed.

He had nearly drifted off when there was a jarring buzz on his butt, and Mac sighed into the sheets. Only the hope that it might be Riley gave him the energy to drag his right hand down his body, fish out the phone, and bring it up to his face.

It wasn't Riley. It was a text from a blocked number. Almost numbly, Mac opened it.

This time there were no words. Just an image, shot paparazzi-style of a shiny black SUV turning right around a corner. There was a face in the back passenger-side window, staring right at the camera without seeing it. Mac barely even recognized himself.

That was from tonight. He'd literally looked right at Murdoc and never even seen the man.

Instantly his brain tried to correct him. It could have been anyone taking that picture. An actual paparazzi who didn't know he wasn't some elusive millionaire.

Mac studied the image for a long moment. At this angle, his jaw and cheekbone looked especially sharp, almost gaunt, accentuating the weight loss. His eyes looked darker than usual, duller. He looked exhausted, but more than that—

Defeated.

It was too late now for him to do anything to prevent Phoenix from getting it, since his phone was mirrored straight to the analyst pool working the Murdoc effort, so Mac just dropped the phone back to the bed, face down, and closed his eyes.


Matilda Webber scrunched up her face for a few seconds in lieu of actually rubbing her eyes, a trick she had learned a long time ago to ease the tension in her face without smudging her makeup. Then she paused the video she was watching, flicking it offscreen dismissively before touching the bright green button in the right-hand corner of her tablet, effectively 'unlocking' the War Room. The windows remained frosted, but cellular and radio signals would now penetrate, and more importantly, the door was now unlocked.

It immediately opened, and one of her analysts timidly pushed through.

Matty turned and looked at her, and Liz simply looked back, apparently waiting for permission to speak. The director rolled her eyes. "My orders were clear, I was not to be disturbed unless one of our active ops was in jeopardy or Murdoc reached out to a Phoenix agent. If neither of those things have happened, you're fired, so spit it out already."

"Yes ma—yes director," Liz corrected herself quickly, covering the distance almost as fast. She handed her tablet over, and Matty flipped it around and stared at the image a moment.

MacGyver, looking at the camera from the back seat of an SUV.

Reminding her he had her agents under surveillance. Matty dismissed the image for the rest of the report.

He'd texted the image to Mac himself, about ten minutes ago. "Do we know when this was taken?"

"...tonight. The timestamp and GPS coordinates of the photograph were intact in the metadata."

Of course they were. Murdoc wanted them to know. Wanted *her* to know.

"Same burner phone?"

"Yes ma—director. We still can't pinpoint it, it's left the original fifteen block radius but it's still here in LA."

For all she knew Murdoc had tossed it into the back of someone else's pickup truck after he left the theater and was remotely turning it on just to forward things through it. "Still no idea what he sent Agent Davis?"

Liz shook her head. "Afraid not. Obviously we can't access Agent Davis' phone remotely. We passed your request to Agent Dalton that he ask her, but he hasn't responded."

Matty frowned at that. Not that he'd tell the analysts, but he should have at least had the courtesy to tell her. A quick look at her own phone revealed she had no texts, from a blocked number or otherwise. Either Murdoc had nothing he wanted to tell her directly, or he figured his other statements had been clear enough.

And whatever Murdoc had sent Riley, she either wasn't talking to Jack about it, or he wasn't going to share.

"Notify the agents in the safehouse. Have them confiscate Agent MacGyver's phone." Murdoc had gone to a lot of effort today to wind them all up, so she doubted the assassin was going to make a play for Mac tonight. No, he was trying to stress MacGyver out even more. Tonight would be a sleepless night for all of them, and Murdoc would use that to his advantage. Try to hit them tomorrow, or the next day, when they were exhausted and more likely to make mistakes.

"Yes director."

Still.

"Make sure they issue him a burner. If possible I don't want him alone in a room." Better to be safe than sorry. And better that he have a distraction than be allowed to spend another long night with nothing but his thoughts.

"I'll do it now."

"Anything else I need to know about?"

The analyst rapidly shook her head. "No, director. All current ops haven't changed status, and Agent Bozer is resting in the tac ready room."

Resting. Not sleeping. It would take a long time and a lot of therapy before he could do that easily again.

"Thank you, Liz. Please close the door on your way out."

The analyst bobbed her head and booked it out of the room. Matty barely waited the length of time dictated by common courtesy before she locked down the War Room once more, took a deep breath, and turned back to the big screen.

Resumed watching Murdoc's first statement of the day.

Bozer was aware they had found 'additional footage' but she'd put her foot down and had it brought directly back to the Phoenix and placed only on an airgapped device. She was fairly certain their techs couldn't keep Riley out if she was determined enough, without making it inaccessible except from the laptop that was currently sitting innocuously on the coffee table, beside an enormous bowl of paperclips. It was wired directly to the wall, bypassing the videoconferencing system entirely and going straight to the TV. The only way Riley Davis could see this footage would be if she could access the TV while the images were being displayed, hence the full lockdown.

No one needed to see this but Director Webber, and Matty was having a hard time keeping that hat firmly on her head.

She'd gotten through most of it. Bozer's vivisection, which the 'director's cut,' while still being a sampling of the video, showed that the experience was less...barbaric than Murdoc could have made it. What Wilt's surgeons had already told them months ago. The damage had been done at an almost biopsy level. The assassin's joy was less about Bozer's agony and more about what it would do to the people who loved him.

He hadn't even gone through any additional interrogation training. Just the basics from his four week class. Bozer had no idea what to do with this.

And frankly, neither did Matty. Any agent who had gone through what she was watching Bozer go through would be permanently benched. Knowing what she did now, she almost had a moral imperative to do it. Maybe mercifully, he had no context to realize just how bad this had been, and how lucky he was to still be alive.

Bozer thought this was on the level of what normal US covert operatives faced.

He had no idea.

Nor, Webber hoped, did Mac. Some of what Murdoc had made him 'sample' was actually from Bozer himself, but some of it was from the owner of the old studio—the original body Mac had found in the 'incorrect' freezer. She now had an agent who had been vivisected alive—and an agent that could detect human blood that had been taken specifically from the liver by scent. Something you might expect from an experienced coroner, with twenty years of autopsies under their belt.

Angus MacGyver was not even thirty years old.

She didn't need her own private text from Murdoc. He was telling her everything he wanted her to know. That her agents were his to play with. To damage, however he wanted, whenever he wanted, and he would do it in such a way that they would continue to take this damage, this pain, willingly. To defend the Phoenix, and to defend her.

It was completely irresponsible as a director to put an agent like Bozer back in the field, but if she didn't, she would crush him worse than the hell Murdoc put him through. And she was going to have to live with that knowledge when, eventually, Bozer's luck ran out and he encountered some other psychopath with a knife.

Just like she was going to have to live with keeping secrets from Riley, damaging their trust in an effort to protect an agent that Murdoc could access by sending one single text. When he wanted her to see this, he'd send it directly to her, and Riley would watch it.

Mac was right. She'd known it wasn't going to be good. She'd known the chance of success was low. She shouldn't have put Bozer through it. Matty wouldn't have. Director Webber was the one who made those calls. And Matty was going to pay the price for them.

Matilda couldn't help herself. She rolled her eyes. "We're not the same, and I can't even explain that to you in a way you would understand," she told the assassin aloud, even though she was watching footage recorded months ago. Even though she knew he couldn't hear her.

Murdoc's message to her was that it was impossible to be a boss and a friend. That she would hurt the ones she cared about, and that they would eventually always betray her for their own interests. As he felt he had been betrayed by his Collective.

The problem was, Murdoc was an anti-social lunatic, and his analogy didn't fit.

Also, her 'Collective' wasn't filled with assassins. Her agents were good people, and like a good agent, Bozer had tolerated what Murdoc was doing to him, still believed wholeheartedly in their mission.

Bozer wasn't her fault. MacGyver wasn't her fault. None of this was on her, but Director Webber bore full responsibility, and Matty ached for her agents. For the young black man shivering in a bunk bed off the tac break room, even though he had multiple blankets. For Riley, who she could only hope had been calmed enough by Jack's presence to get the rest her body and soul so desperately needed. And for Angus MacGyver, who hadn't even been bothered enough by the image of himself to tell anyone in the safehouse that he'd even received it.

Jack Dalton, however, she had zero sympathy for, and one way or another, the issue between the two of them needed to be solved. MacGyver was not invincible. He functioned best with a team, and Murdoc was stripping that from him one family member at a time.

And now Murdoc had the proof of that toll. Mac's expression, in that instant—

He was giving up. Screaming obscenities at her was just one of a hundred ways he was telling her that he couldn't do this. Director Webber needed him benched, because he was a threat to the Phoenix and to himself.

Unfortunately, Matty knew that too.

She grabbed her phone out of her pocket and wrote herself a quick note, to forward once she was out of the War Room and her phone was functioning again. Mac needed a win. Desperately. Something he could do and actually achieve results. Letting him work on footage of his best friend's torture wasn't it. Letting him interview the mental ill patients that tried to kill him and rape Riley wasn't it.

Mac needed to remember that he was competent. Capable. And trusted. She had just the project in mind.

If only Director Webber had one for herself.


"Morning, Dalton," Grant Simmons greeted him as he slid into the back seat of the car. Simmons' partner, Jada Navarro, was opening the door to the passenger seat after escorting the agent from his latest safehouse. Jack—and Mac—were going nowhere without at least two tac agents lately, and they were still getting shuffled around safehouses regularly.

"Morning," Jack grumbled in response, scrubbing his face and trying to properly wake up. Simmons chuckled somewhat humorlessly as he pulled away from the curb.

"Rough night?"

Understatement. He'd spent most of the last 48 hours with Riley, trying to comfort her after Murdoc had pulled that stunt with Bozer and followed it up with a message for Riley. Whatever that message was, it rattled her badly—so badly that she wouldn't even talk about it with him.

"Haven't had a good night in a long time," Dalton admitted.

"I hear that brother," Simmons muttered. "How's Riley doing?"

Jack felt his stomach tighten just a bit. One thing he knew for certain was that she was not alright. Not mentally. She was kicking herself for something, but Jack couldn't figure out what. Whatever it was, what Murdoc did to Bozer, sending him that video—it had only made it worse.

But this tac team, this particular team, didn't need to be worrying about her right now. Between their partially-paralyzed medic and his bedridden partner, they had other things to worry about.

"She's good. Mostly tired a lot, but she's okay. Gonna be a while before she's really up and around again."

"Well, I'm glad she's doing better," Jada chimed in. "She had us worried for a minute, there."

"How's Ramirez?" Jack asked. Since he was put on lockdown following the third 'exam', he hadn't had much opportunity to check up on him. Riley, he knew, was keeping tabs on him, but he'd forgotten to ask.

"Honestly? Better than we could have hoped," Simmons told him, casting a glance at the agent over his shoulder. "He came out of the actual coma after about a week, managed to keep his eyes open for more than a minute or two a couple days back. Seems like he understands most of what we're saying, even if he can't really respond much. They took the tube out last night, so we'll see how he is today."

"And Kyser?"

"Also better," Jada told him. "Making a lot of progress in PT. You know...when someone manages to drag him out of Ricardo's room to go to his appointments."

Jack scoffed and smirked. Sounded about right. "I bet they still think we don't all know."

"They're simultaneously awful and amazing actors," Simmons agreed, shaking his head. "I'm pretty sure the only people they're still fooling are each other."

The group laughed, and then they lapsed into comfortable silence for a few minutes, broken only by the radio playing softly, until finally, Simmons spoke again. "You talk to Mac at all?"

Jack's expression hardened. "Nope. Don't plan on it, either."

The two tac agents shot each other a look. Predictably, it was Simmons who spoke. "Jack..."

"Save it, Simmons; whatever you've got to say, I've heard it before, and it doesn't matter," he stated firmly. "Mac crossed a line. Can't uncross it."

"Okay, fine, then," to Jack's surprise, it was actually Jada who broke in, sounding bitter and upset under a thin veneer of false acceptance. "We'll all just sit on our asses, then, while you two assholes let the sick sonuvabitch that nearly killed two of our teammates steamroll right over you and then get away with everything he did. It's not like we have any stake in this whatsoever. It's not like Mark might be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life; it's not like Ricardo was put into a coma which he might never fully recover from; it's certainly not as though that bastard called my family by name or anything—clearly you and Boy Wonder are the only two affected by all of this. Honestly, it's so rude of the rest of us to think we get any say in this."

"Jada—"

"No, just FYI, Dalton, if you leave your big fat head up your damn ass for much longer, you're gonna drown in your own bullshit, so maybe you should get it the fuck together and realize that not everything is about you and Blondie's bromance!"

"J!" this time, it was Simmons cutting his partner off, and she glared over at him, but shut her mouth.

"Believe me, Navarro," Jack said slowly, evenly, "you and I are on the same page about what needs to happen to that bastard. For everything he did, not just to my team but to yours."

Jada scoffed at that, clearly not believing him—or at least not trusting him to get the job done. Jack decided against trying to convince her; there was only one way to prove that he knew what she was saying. They were quiet for a long minute, Simmons wringing the steering wheel before he glanced back at their passenger and spoke again.

"Jack, you know I love you, and you're like a brother to me, but Jada's right," he said slowly. "I don't know what exactly your deal is with Mac, right now, but if you won't do it for yourself or for him, then please, for our sakes, put your shit aside until we get the bastard. Like it or not, you and Mac are on the same team, here—No, do not." The team lead glared dangerously at him in the rearview when he opened his mouth to speak. "We all want that bastard to pay, Dalton. And it looks like you and Mac are the only two who can make that happen. So for our sakes, do it. Okay?"

He didn't really wait for a response, making a right hand turn onto a much less crowded street in an attempt to avoid the bulk of the traffic. "Now, what did Mac and Boze find out from their last round of interviews with the hospital victims?"

"Maybe something, maybe nothing," Jack grumbled after a beat or two. "'Cording to Matty, that guy, Benny, got us a lead on what Murdoc was driving at the time, not that that'll help us much in the here and now. Anyway, prob'ly the hacker's car; plate was 'FLEET' with threes instead of ees."

In the seat in front of Jack, Jada gave a quiet snort of laughter. The other two agents stared at her for a couple seconds.

"Sorry," she apologized insincerely. "Hackers just crack me up sometimes."

"What?" Simmons shot her a look, making another turn onto an even quieter street.

"Nothing, it's just—sometimes when I see them type it just reminds me of my little sister on tumblr when she was like twelve making this really long text post and typing like that to make herself seem badass or something—" she choked on a laugh, "—only to sign off the post with 'hear me rawr XD'"

In spite of themselves, Jack and Simmons both found themselves laughing.

"I can't wait to ask Evie about that next time I see her," Grant said with a grin, shaking his head.

"Oh my God, no, leave the poor girl alone!" Jada swatted his arm lightly. Jack felt the smallest pang under the lingering anger; he missed having this kind of easy banter, even though he had no regrets in his decision to cut contact with Mac. He missed having that kind of relationship.

"How can you give me such amazing material and then expect me not to use it?" Simmons sounded almost offended at the thought. Jada swatted at him again, laughing as she spoke.

"Grant Simmons, if you start bullying my little sister, I will actually shoot you," she teased. Grant looked over to give his partner a mischievous grin, and in that split second, any trace of levity evaporated from the car.

Jack almost couldn't keep up; everything happened so fast. The sound of the gunshot registered about the same time the blood spatter on the front and rear driver's side windows did. Both of Grant's hands came off the wheel, flying to his throat. Jada moved quickly, as though acting on pure instinct. Her seatbelt came off and she shifted in her seat towards her partner, lifting her left leg over the center console as she grabbed hold of the wheel to keep them in their lane. Her foot came down hard on the brake pedal as she steered the car off to the shoulder, trying to get them even the slightest bit of cover between the buildings. She threw the car into park, then put her full attention on her partner. Jack couldn't see the damage from his angle, but Jada's expression said it all.

"Okay," she breathed, kneeling on the driver's seat facing her partner and putting her right hand over Grant's hands, pressing into the side of his neck, while her left hand braced his head and neck on the other side. "Okay, it's okay. You're gonna be fine, Grant; just stay with me. It's okay. Jack," she flicked her eyes to their passenger, clearly trying not to look as panicked as she was, "I need you to get my phone and call Mark for me so he can tell me what to do while we wait for an ambulance."

At that precise moment, right as the words left her mouth, Jack's phone—which he'd taken out to use to call Phoenix—began ringing. The agent hardly glanced at the screen, ignoring the call and trying to get to his contacts so he could call for help, all while standing up and trying to fish Jada's phone out of the cupholder where she'd left it. But before he could even open his contacts, the same number was calling him again. He paused for a second as realization struck him.

"Jada," he said quietly, but the tac agent didn't want to hear it.

"Just call Kyser!" she snapped furiously. Jack quickly accepted the call before it could ring out—there was almost no one else it could be, and at the very least, it meant Murdoc had a sniper on them. Best not piss him off.

"I think it's—"

"I don't give a fuck who it is, Dalton! If you don't call Kyser right this second, Murdoc will be the least of your goddamn problems; do you fucking understand me?!"

Jack blinked, not quite surprised but definitely a little disturbed by the depth of the rage in her eyes, and almost numbly put his attention on Jada's phone. He pulled up the emergency call screen, selected Mark Kyser's contact from the preselected list, and placed the call on speaker as it rang. Then, he brought his own phone up to his ear.

"You could have just called," he said darkly as they waited for Mark Kyser to answer his phone.

"That hardly would have had the same kind of impact," Murdoc replied with a chuckle. His tone was lighthearted, like he didn't have a care in the world. Jack dropped his voice low when he spoke next, trying not to let his two companions hear.

"If he dies, you sick sonuvabitch, I swear to God, I'll—"

"Well, if you wanted so badly to protect your old friend, Dalton, then you should have sat behind him so I'd only have a clear shot at Agent Navarro," Murdoc interrupted, still laughing as though the blood gushing through his colleagues' fingers was some kind of joke. "Then, his life would be the one in your hands. As of right now...that honor belongs to Agent Navarro."

The call on Jada's phone went to voicemail.

"Jack, call him again," the tac agent ordered, her eyes still locked on her partner as he struggled to breathe evenly. She was doing her best to keep her voice steady, remain calm, ignore the blood seeping down her partner's neck, maintain pressure on the wound. Jack reached over and picked up her phone, hanging up and redialing the call to their out-of-commission tac medic.

As he leaned forward to put the phone on the center console, he saw it. A laser sight, trained on the back of Jada Navarro's head. Settling back into his seat, Jack made eye contact with her, telling her without words what was up. She nodded just slightly, her jaw tightening, and then her attention was back on her partner, trying to keep him awake and engaged.

"I think you know what I'm going to say next," Murdoc practically purred into the phone, and Jack glared in the direction the dot had to be coming from. Unfortunately the only four story building surrounded by two-story blocks. It didn't matter where Jada had pulled off, the psychopath was almost guaranteed to have a shot.

A very occupied, in use four story office building. Even with a suppressed rifle, it was only a matter of time before someone would notice Murdoc. And once they noticed him—

Yeah, I know. "You're very sorry and you already called 911," Jack growled, willing Kyser to pick up the phone. Getting the tac medic would get Jada immediate medical advice and tip off Phoenix, if the car suddenly pulling off to the side hadn't already. Almost as an afterthought, Jack felt along the case of the phone on his ear, depressing the 'option' button—and what the fuck it normally did, he had no idea. "Just get on with it already."

There was a put-upon sigh. "You really have no idea how often I hear that," Murdoc almost griped, though Jack could still hear the smile on his face. "I said the same to Angus—oh oh oh. I suppose he's not telling you that kind of thing anymore, hmm?"

"You already have him?" Jack snarled, instead of answering.

In answer, he heard a closed-mouth chuckle. "You don't know?" the assassin inquired, with heavily sarcastic innocence. "Can you turn off those guard dog instincts so easily?"

That was a no. Murdoc didn't have Mac. Not yet. Jack was the bait. The former Delta snorted in disgust. "So that's a no. If you really think he's gonna stick his neck out now—or that his own tac team'll let him—"

"Oh, I'm sure Boy Wonder will find a way," the assassin interjected sweetly. "I'm guessing Angus can't just flip a switch on his loyalty like you can. No matter how badly you've treated him, he'll still come running, to prove to anyone watching that he's a good boy." The last two words were said in the crooning tone of the doting owner of an overly exuberant spaniel puppy. "Come on, Jack. It won't hurt if you don't struggle."

A simple eye-flick from Jada told Jack louder than words that something was happening behind their car. Probably another vehicle had pulled up, and the odds that Murdoc was the driver were slim. He didn't get out of the car, and Navarro would catch a bullet in the head. He tried anything on the other car's driver, same. That sniper's dot wasn't going anywhere until Murdoc had him right where he wanted him.

And Mark Kyser had the worst timing possible. Jada's ringing phone finally connected. "Hey, J, sorry, in the shower," came Kyser's cheerful voice. "What's up?"

"Mark, listen, Grant's been shot in the neck, left side," Jada told him steadily, forcing herself calm. Jack could see tears threatening behind her eyes, but she kept them back. "I don't know exactly how bad it is, but there's a lot of blood. I'm trying to keep pressure on it, but I need to know what to do."

"Is Grant still awake?" Mark's voice instantly switched to full medic mode, and knowing Jada was getting the help and instruction she needed, Jack tuned out of their conversation a bit, trying not to get distracted.

In the field agent's ear, Murdoc continued, as if he hadn't heard. "You know I told Ms. Davis the same thing. Shame she didn't listen."

"You keep her name out of your mouth, you got that?" Jack snarled furiously. Murdoc chuckled, the sound low and cold.

"Did she ever end up telling you?" the assassin asked tauntingly. "What actually happened, when I had her all to myself?"

Jack said nothing, gripping the phone so tightly that it hurt, his teeth creaking as he clenched them. He refused to think about Murdoc's words, what he was implying—the bastard was a liar, so his words meant nothing.

If Murdoc was offended by the silent treatment, he didn't make it known. "She didn't tell you, did she? Hmm. Well that means no one told you; it would have been in her debrief. Don't feel too bad about it, Jack; I'm sure they were just trying to protect you."

"Get to the point, Murdoc," Jack snarled, fighting hard to keep his voice down. Jada's eyes darted to him momentarily before they came back to Simmons, and she pressed her lips together as she blinked rapidly, listening to Kyser's patient, soothing voice through the phone. "Tell me what it is you want."

"Oh, I think we both know the answer to that," the assassin chuckled. "Your ride is here, Jack."

"You goddamn son of a bitch, I—"

"Jack, if you do not get in the car behind you in the next ninety seconds, I will put a bullet in Agent Navarro's skull," Murdoc stated icily, all pretense of humor gone from him.

"Yeah? Then what's my motivation to get in the car at that point?" Jack challenged. "You won't shoot her."

As if to counter him, another bullet came through the windshield, but this time, it grazed Jada's left arm and lodged in the seat beside Jack. Navarro uttered a short yelp, her injured arm faltering for a moment as Simmons tried to speak, unable to muster much more than a pained wheeze. Mark's voice became urgent through the phone, demanding to know what was happening, but Jack's voice was louder.

"Jada—"

"I'm okay," the tac agent cut him off, looking over at him quickly before her eyes came back to her partner. "I'm okay; it's just a scratch. I'm okay."

"This time," Murdoc chimed in through the phone by Jack's ear. "You're right, Jack, killing her does take away your incentive to get in the car. And if you're so determined to be right, then you are more than welcome to explain all of this to Agent Navarro's lovely new little girl when she's older. Explain to her that she had to grow up without a mother all because you wouldn't get in a car. All because you had to be right. Think about it, Dalton. Either they can both die, or it can just be him."

Jack glowered in the direction of Murdoc's likely sniper perch, his teeth grinding furiously. He knew the assassin was not bluffing, but still, he couldn't make himself move.

"You have forty-five seconds remaining. I'd get a move on. Oh, and Jack, leave the phone."

Jack had no more time to waste and he knew it. He and Murdoc both knew it. So, with an angry huff, he ended the call and deposited his phone beside Jada's, moving to get out of the car.

"Dalton, don't you dare," Jada growled furiously, the anger at odds with the fear in her eyes.

Grant must not have been doing well, a theory that was supported by the fact that his old friend's arms were starting to go a little slack.

"I'm sorry," Jack told her sincerely. "I'll get him for this; I swear."

"Jack—" Navarro began, but Jack didn't give her the chance to finish. He reached up and squeezed Grant's right shoulder, willing him to pull off a miracle and make it out of there, then quickly got out of the car. There was a dark blue SUV waiting for him behind their own vehicle, as promised, with a nervous-looking man behind the wheel, and Jack didn't let himself hesitate before opening the passenger door and climbing inside. Right away he could see the earwig in the man's ear; Murdoc was using this guy as a puppet, just like the nurse, Annie.

"Wise choice," the man said shakily. He was probably early thirties, with his dark hair pulled back in a small bun on the crown of his head, and he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. He looked like he could have just come back from the beach. He swallowed. "You're going to have to get rid of all your weapons before long, but...but for now just...just buckle up and enjoy the ride."

His unwilling driver was actually trembling, and Jack stared at him for several beats before the man's fearful, pleading eyes actually settled on him.

"I said buckle up, Dalton," he ordered, and Jack guessed that when Murdoc said it, it was probably much more forceful than what his driver delivered. The former Delta scowled, but did as he was told, strapping on his seatbelt. Only when he'd done that did the man behind the wheel ease them back onto the road, and as they drove past the car, Jack looked into the front seat of his previous vehicle, barely having enough time to process the scene before they were on their way.

Jada was shouting something, her tears finally breaking through her defenses and rolling down her cheeks. Grant looked like he was barely, if at all, conscious.

Assuming, of course, that he was still alive.

Jack forced himself to face forward. He couldn't think about that now. Whether Grant lived or died was out of his hands. All he could do now was focus on getting the bastard who'd done this.


Whoo! Off to a great start. Well, not for Grant. Or Jada. Or Jack, really. Or Boze, or Riley, or...Y'KNOW WHAT I HAD FUN, THOUGH.

Anyway, sorry I was away for so long. As usual, life got busy. It's going to stay busy for a while, fair warning, since I'm moving and finding a new job and such. Life. Ugh. But besides that, thanks for sticking with this for so long, everyone. I give Haven a ton of credit every time (which she 1000% deserves), but I wouldn't still be doing this if not for you guys, either. Thank you all so much for all the love, and I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. I'll see you all again soon, and until then, don't die, because I hear that sucks. Bye!