THE POINT OF NO RETURN
A/N: Two things. First, I do not own ER or the characters. They are solely the property of NBC, Steven Spielberg, John Wells, and the late Michael Chrichton. And second, I did my best to match the dialog in the story with that of the episodes "21 Guns" & "Bloodline". If there are any continuity errors, I apologize in advance.
"Choosing a way to die, that's easy.
It's choosing a way to live that's the difficult thing to do."
—CLINT EASTWOOD
The Outlaw Josey Wales, 1976
"Be sure of this: the wicked will not go unpunished, but those who are righteous will go free.:
—PROVERBS 11:21
"They say you are not punished for your sins;
you are punished by them."
—ANONYMOUS
CHAPTER 1: Sam
"Steve, just go! STOP! JUST GO! THINK ABOUT ALEX!"
"I already did!"
When Steve threw open the back door of the van, my heart came to a screeching halt. There, tied up in the back with a strip of duct tape over his mouth, was my baby. My flesh and blood. My reason for living. His tear-filled eyes were frozen wide open in sheer terror. In that instant, I knew exactly what he must've been through, and what I had to do now. I had no choice. As if I were on auto-pilot, I jumped into the back of the van to untie Alex.
I barely had time to start before Steve jumped in behind me and slammed the door. "DRIVE!" he shouted frantically. The next thing I knew, we were screaming out of the ambulance bay at what must've felt like 100 miles an hour as gunfire exploded outside. Both back windows shattered, littering the back of the van and my hair with tiny shards of glass. My ears rang incessantly as I ripped the tape off Alex's mouth and struggled to undo his bonds, all while trying to maintain my balance.
As I untied my son, I briefly glanced over my shoulder at that fucking bitch in the driver's seat. She was the one who lured Alex out of school and kidnapped him. The one who fooled us all into thinking she was an EMT trainee. The one who injected Luka with veck and would've undoubtedly killed him if I hadn't intubated him. I wanted nothing more than to grab one of those ropes and strangle her until her eyes popped out of her skull, but I knew I couldn't. My first priority was to protect Alex; and dammit, I would keep him safe no matter what.
"This is on you, man!" Steve's other accomplice accused him—Rafe was his name, as I recalled.
"Just shut the fuck up!" Steve shot back. "Keep driving!"
"Where to?!" the driver demanded to know.
"I dunno, just put some distance between us! We'll figure it out later!"
Ha! I bet they would! After all the shit they did back at the hospital, did they really think they'd get away with it?
"You probably killed someone back there, Steve," I snapped. "One of my friends. I thought you said you were turning yourself around."
"I've been praying, Sam," Steve said, a little calmer than before. "I asked God to make me a better man. I mean, it took awhile, but He finally started talking back."
Were it not for the extremely scary and potentially life-threatening situation Alex and I were in, I would've laughed in Steve's face for saying that. Instead, I shook my head and retorted, "That's not God." And there was no mistaking the icy tone in my voice. I don't think I ever hated that bastard any more than I did now.
"He said losing you was where I went wrong," Steve continued, oblivious to how pissed I was at him. "Everything will be right once I get my family back."
"Did He tell you to do it with guns?" I challenged him. I simply could not, for the life of me, make sense of all that incoherent claptrap that was spewing out of him. And I knew Steve was bad news, but I sure as hell never imagined that he was capable of this.
"It's okay, you guys," Steve murmured as he scooted over to us. I don't know about Alex, but I thought I was going to be sick from being that close to him. Now that I thing about it, I'm surprised I didn't barf all over him when he put his arms around me. "We're gonna be okay now, I swear. As soon as Rafe and Mary get us to the trade-off point, they'll let us go, and we'll..."
"SHIT!" I heard Mary yell. "We got trouble!"
"What? What's wrong?"
"It's the fuzz!"
Yanking myself free from Steve's grasp, I darted over to the back doors and looked out what was left of the windows. And sure enough, there was five or six cop cars gaining on us, lights flashing and sirens wailing. It was such a beautiful sight.
I don't know what possessed me to do what I did next. Sure, it was a dangerous move on my part, but I didn't give a rat's ass. All I wanted was for this nightmare to end. I stuck my head and arm out one of the windows and started screaming at the top of my lungs, "HELP! SOMEBODY HELP US!"
All of a sudden, I felt a sharp pain rush through the back of my head. Steve had grabbed me by my ponytail, and before I could process what was happening, I was yanked back inside and flung to the floor. In no time flat, Steve's hand snapped shut around my throat, and his face was less than an inch away from mine. His blue eyes burned with rage as he growled through clenched teeth, "You do that one more fucking time and I will gut you like a fish."
"What do we do now?!" Rafe shouted.
"Don't worry, I got this," Steve answered as he let go of me.
"Yeah, sure ya do! I knew we shouldn't have trusted you!"
"JUST SHUT YOUR PIEHOLE AND KEEP DRIVING!" Steve exploded. "Rafe, gimme your piece, quick!"
"Wh..."
"GIVE IT!"
Hands shaking, eyes wide, and sweat pouring down his face, Rafe passed Steve his gun just as a voice blared on a loudspeaker from outside, "Pull over to the shoulder right now!"
"Ah, pull this!" Steve shouted as he made his way to the back of the van. He leaned out the window and, with both guns, started firing at the cops. There were other cars out there, all of which had innocent people in them, and I guarantee you that he didn't care who he shot. That's how far off the rails he'd gone.
In the meantime, I kept myself as low to the floor as possible, shielding Alex with my body and praying that neither of us would get hit with a stray bullet. My eyes were squeezed shut. I could feel the wetness on the heels of both my hands, so I knew that I'd cut myself on the broken glass; but my adrenaline was pumping so hard and so fast that I couldn't feel any pain. "I love you, Alex," I somehow managed to whisper.
Just then, I heard the loud squealing of the brakes, combined with an equally loud scraping noise coming from the passenger side, and felt the van shaking violently. The next thing I knew, we were being flipped around like clothes in a dryer. And that's when I knew that we'd gone over the guardrail and were tumbling down a hill. This is it, I thought in anguish. We've bought it. You killed us, Steve. You killed your family, who you supposedly love and care about. I hope you burn in hell for eternity, you fucking coward son of a BITCH!
Then, just as quickly as it began, it stopped. Except for the horn blaring, everything was still. I opened my eyes and started to pull myself up and off of Alex to check on Mary and Rafe. Even though these people had kidnapped us and put us through hell, my nurse's instincts told me to see if they were okay.
Which, of course, they weren't.
The first person I saw was Mary. She was slumped against the wheel, her face was mangled beyond recognition, and her eyes were half-open. I knew she was dead, but I checked for a pulse anyway, found none, and gently closed her eyes with my thumb and index finger. That was bad enough, but nothing could've prepared me for what I found next.
There was a huge watermelon-sized hole in the windshield, which told me that Rafe had been thrown out of the van as it was crashing. But when I dared to look in the passenger seat, all I found was the twisted, broken, blood-drenched bottom half of his body. He'd been decapitated from the waist up. I wanted to scream, cry, throw up, anything. But I couldn't. Nothing I saw felt real.
And not only did the van not have airbags, but also, neither of them were wearing their seatbelts.
Somehow, I managed to tear myself away from the gruesome carnage in the front of the van and check on Alex. He was unconscious, his face was bruised, and there was a big gash on his forehead; but when I put my ear next to his mouth, to my amazement, he was still breathing.
I then looked over to the left, and saw Steve lying in front of me with his back against the door. Both his legs were clearly broken, and he was bleeding profusely from both temples, his left ear, and his nose and mouth. I could also see a few of his ribs poking through his shirt, and the stitches on the right side of his stomach were torn open. He was obviously in serious need of medical attention, as were Alex and me. What's more, not only was he going back to jail, but I also knew that this time, they'd throw away the key; and rightfully so.
Steve knew that too, because the next thing he did was pick up one of the guns. I immediately threw myself over Alex, absolutely certain that his so-called "father" was finally going to kill us both. Instead, he raised the gun to his head, grimacing in pain all the while. "They'll never take me alive," he muttered.
And that was the last thing he said before pulling the trigger.