DISCLAIMER: I do not own Rizzoli & Isles nor any of the characters from the show. I am writing this purely for entertainment, not profit. Rizzoli and Isles are property of Tess Gerritsen and TNT.
Please find the full disclaimers in the beginning of Chapter 1.
Chapter 10
"What the h…?" the sentinel muttered.
It was a chilly morning, his breath freezing the moment it left his mouth. The sun had been up for a while, it was not even 8AM, when he saw a twisted shadow moving slowly from the other side of the border in his direction.
It has been a month since the war started. Not one person had shown up on that border, and he knew it because he had kept sentinel with the others day, after day, after day.
He alerted the others, and put his rifle at ready.
"Who goes there?" he yelled.
The twisted shadow paused.
He thought he heard something, but it was unintelligible.
"Halt." He ordered.
But the twisted shadow kept moving, slowly.
He had never seen an animal move that way.
But as the shadow approached, he could see it was a person, carrying a bundle. A weirdly shaped bundle. Arms, or a bomb, maybe?
The other sentinels brought the commander.
"Hold your fire. This seems to be one of the ladies that left here a few days ago."
"Help…" They finally were able to hear a feeble voice coming from the shadow.
"You need to cross the border. We can't…"
They were a few hundred yards apart now.
"Help…" the feeble voice husked again.
They could see the shadow moving in uncertain steps, stumbling on its own two feet, struggling to keep upright and to keep a hold on the bundle in her arms.
"Jesus Christ. She is carrying her friend…" the commander muttered.
"Kneel, kneel." The sentinels yelled the moment the shadow crossed the border, and all of them surrounded the shadow that fell heavily on top of her knees, careful only of the bundle in her arms.
"Help, please, help her…" Jane's voice was barely a breath.
The commander nodded at one of his men, who shouldered his rifle, and approached the kneeling form, trying to extract the bundle from the woman's arms.
"Please… help… her…" Jane raised exhausted weary eyes to the soldier who relieved her of Maura. "Please…"
Removing his glove and checking for a pulse before raising Maura bundled form, the soldier yelled. "She is still alive."
"Hands up…" another soldier ordered, now that Jane was unencumbered from Maura.
Jane tried, but she couldn't. Her arms were numb. She was tired, so, so tired. Her entire body felt stiff, as if made of stone or wood. If she could just close her eyes for one moment and take one deep breath, she was sure she would feel better. Jane closed her eyes, and toppled forward.
"Medic! We need the ambulance and the medics!" the commander yelled, kneeling by Jane's side.
But Jane already didn't hear it.
(…)
Warmth. Nice, sweet comfortable warmth surrounding her.
Her eyes slowly fluttered open. The lights where she was were dimmed, but she immediately knew she was in a hospital.
"Jane?" Maura tried, her throat too parched for any real sound to come out.
An older nurse showed up by her side.
"Jane?" Maura inquired again, her brows furrowing.
"Sh… Please don't try to talk yet…" the nurse instructed gently, bringing up a straw to Maura's lips. Tea. Warm tea. Maura sipped it thirstily.
"Slowly. There is plenty… We just need to go slow." The nurse spoke slowly and gently.
Maura felt the tea entering her body like a balm.
"How are you feeling?"
"Jane?" Maura repeated, stubbornly.
"Your friend is being taken care of, you don't need to worry. How are you feeling?"
"Weak… Tired… Hungry…"
The nurse nodded, and slightly raised the bed.
"Let's try something."
She picked a bowl of warm soup, and the simple smell of it made Maura's mouth water. It was then she realized she was so weak she couldn't even raise her arms.
"Don't worry. I will feed you for now. You will feel better soon." The nurse admonished, noticing Maura's concern.
She spoon-fed Maura slowly. It was far from enough.
"There is more where this came from. But you've been without food for too long. We need to go slowly. I will feed you more in an hour, I promise."
A doctor entered the room, accompanied by the commander from the base.
"Ma'am."
"Commander… Did you find us?" Maura could barely recognize her own voice.
He looked at her, puzzled.
"No. Your friend brought you back to the border."
Maura closed her eyes. That was impossible.
"Could you please tell us what you remember?" he inquired. "It will help us in the army, and it will help the doctor here to define the best course of action for treating you and your friend more assertively."
Maura nodded, wearily.
The nurse offered her another mug of tea, that she sipped through the straw before she began to speak, pausing after every few words, tired beyond belief.
"We reached my parents' mansion that first evening when we left… a little before midnight… We found the back door of the mansion unlocked… the mansion ransacked… my parents murdered..." She closed her eyes and could not hold back two fat tears that escaped her eyes and rolled through her face. "After assessing their bodies… I can say they were made kneel… and were then executed with a shot… to the back of their heads… with a handgun… 38 probably… And it happened… during the first week of the war."
She swallowed hard, before continuing.
"Jane… She offered to dig a shallow grave… so they could at least be put to rest… We got the gardening tools… and took the entire night… digging a three feet deep grave… for laying them both there… We were to stay in the house during the day… to start our journey back at night... Jane went upstairs to make sure there was nobody there… A deserter German soldier entered… from the back door of the mansion… and took me as hostage… Jane came back from upstairs to him gagging me… He wanted our food, that we gave him… He consumed the entire rations we had… planned for two people on the way in… four people on the way out… in one single sitting… without ever releasing my throat... While he ate… he mumbled things… he… he was the one who killed my parents…" Maura shuddered and closed her eyes. "He also said… all houses in all villages and cities of the border… had suffered the same fate…"
Again, the nurse offered her the tea, that Maura sipped thirstily before continuing her tale.
"Once he was done with the food… he decided he wanted to have some fun… with me…" Maura visibly shuddered, shaking her head. "But Jane had a pocketknife… and she attacked him… They fought… and although Jane had made a cut on his throat… he still dominated her… choking her with his bare hands… while he hit her head repeatedly against the stone wall… He was going to kill her… so I picked the pocketknife… that had escaped from her hand when the fight begun… and I… I sliced it through his back… from top to bottom… as deep as the blade would go…" Maura closed her eyes and shivered at the memory, her gloved hand covered in the man's blood, the man who killed her parents and who was about to kill Jane too. Jane slumped against the wall painted with her blood.
"He got what he deserved." The commander added, in solidarity.