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A/N: Happy Wednesday my wonderful readers! Can you believe it? In only 8 chapters we're going to be in season seven! Are you guys excited? I know I am. So in this chapter we have the Five-0's returning and we have some of Rowan's hijinks. So, you know, all of our favourite things. Don't forget to leave me a review and I'll see you guys on Friday!
Chapter 281
Well shit was going to go down on Hawaii.
Michelle Shimoa was officially on the island. That was worrying. There was a rumour that Wo Fat was behind her move, that she had decided Hawaii was a safer place for her to hide from him. Though what she could have done to upset Wo Fat was beyond him.
Both of them had the exact same goal which was to kill Gabriel Waincroft. He was surprised the two weren't working together. Though, despite not having Rowan's wonder app, or Wo Fat's ruthless connections she was still managing coordinate one hell of an attempt on Gabriel's wife.
And Steve didn't need this shit right now. He was dealing with a deadly strain of crystal meth on the island that was dropping more bodies than Wo Fat ever had. But the latest crack addict missed the chance to OD and shot someone instead. 911 dispatcher had recognized Gabriel from his picture, had the call passed over to Five-0 immediately. Or well, to Steve anyway.
Yeah, Shioma and Rowan had him so decimated at this point that the poor man was living in a goddamn abandon building that crack addicts used to get high. That was his life.
They found Gabriel in that building, bleeding from his gut. Struggling to pull him self across the floor, like he was going to escape. They tried to call for help but they had no signal and nothing but static in their earpieces. What they got instead was a swarm of bad guys and Gabriel… Gabriel wasn't too hot either.
The man was jumpy. He jumped at every shadow. Yelped at every noise. And that was fair because a good chunk of those noises were death cries. If Steve had to guess someone, or more than one someone was picking off the men that had come into the abandoned apartment complex to kill Gabriel and anyone else in their way.
Steve had asked if this was some kind of turf war, but Gabriel didn't know. Gabriel wasn't really all that fucking helpful.
Well, they could tell one thing, the guys who were dying were Japanese. That's a lie, he also knew that they had bigger guns because they kept shooting at someone that wasn't them
"What the hell has gotten into you?" Chin snapped. He was trying to help keep Gabriel up, to keep him moving, to keep him alive. So he could arrest him, get him the medical help he needed, and then watch him rot in prison. But he kept shouting at every movement and trying to throw himself out of the way.
"She's haunting me man. I see her everywhere. Do you understand what that's like? She never fucking stops singing."
Steve had been herding them towards the roof. He had used a stolen a high-powered Walkie-Talkie, taken off a dead Yakuza's body, to get to the open HPD channel to link him up to Lou. Lou was gonna bring the calvary but that was at least 10 minutes away. But that hadn't stopped McGarrett. He had a plan, Chin could already tell that it was a crazy McGarrett kind of plan, but it was better then being sitting ducks until SWAT and Grover could get to them.
But the second Gabriel mentioned Rowan, that was it. Practical Steve was gone, and the Steve obsessed with finding Rowan had control. And he hadn't even mentioned her, he simply inferred that he had been seeing her. He whirled around. "Wait a second… do you mean Rowan?"
"Who else would sing creepy songs in the middle of the night, perched on the end of my bed like a fucking psychotic night owl?" he shouted. Yep. That most definitely sounded exactly like Rowan. "Yes, I mean Rowan, I literally see her everywhere. EVERYWHERE!"
"She's not on Hawaii. She can't be… I know, I've been looking… she's not here."
Except she had just been there, less than a week a go. Maybe he hadn't caught her leaving the island because she never left the island.
"She was literally just in here before you guys showed up. Who the hell do you think I was trying to crawl away from?"
She was in the fucking building?!
Everyone on the team exchanged glances and then looked to Steve whose eye had begun to twitch. They knew this wasn't good.
But it was Danny to the rescue. "Steve, you can hear that," he said gesturing down the stairs where yet another rattling death scream was heard. "We've got Shioma's men, and if he's right and Rowan's here, that's gotta be Wo Fat and Sin Nombre picking them off."
Steve shook his head. "No, no, see if that was the issue, that they hit the building with Rowan inside, they wouldn't have grabbed her and got her out. Whoever is in there picking off those men… they're following us."
Danny narrowed his eyes at him. "But you don't think they're here to help us?"
"No, cause they would have come to find us long before now. Made themselves known. No, I think this is still tied to that war. Unless Rowan called it off."
He aimed that last hopeful question to Gabriel to which he shook his head. Right, so the Waincroft-Pierce war was still going on.
"Steve, either way we can't stand in this staircase…" Kono reminded him and they started moving again.
Once they got onto the roof, they went for different tactics. Steve went about blocking the door. Chin got Gabriel to the ground and then tried to call for Abby. Danny was looking for a way out and when Gabriel got smart, Kono got aggressive with Gabriel.
Which, too, was fair cause the man tried to torture her and beat the crap out of Adam.
"There's still no word from Abby. We gotta go back."
"I wouldn't worry too much about her, Chin," Gabriel said, his tone dry but still taunting. "I'm sure she's fine."
"Hey! What did I tell you about talking?!" Kono asks that gun up in his face again. Yep there was the aggression.
Danny sighed. "I'll go back with you, Chin." Oh, how nice of him to sacrifice himself in that way. Chin was touched.
"I'm not risking Abby's life for his," Kono cried. Ah yes, she still felt guilty about Rowan, and though it wasn't an outright jab at Steven, he still winced at it.
"Nobody is. Nobody is, okay? But no one's going anywhere," Steve ordered. He was the boss and he had done very well at not chasing after Rowan's shadow. If he could keep himself from going after Rowan, then Chin could be strong for Abby.
"We gotta stay together. We're gonna stay on this rooftop. If we leave this rooftop, we lose the only tactical advantage that we have."
Yes, cause being trapped on a roof was a tactical advantage. Only Steve could see it like that.
"We stick together," he repeated. "We wait for Grover, alright?"
All he got was silence. And in that silence came the dying screams of more men and the popping off of more bullets. Hot damn, Sin Nombre must have been with her, and judging by the sounds he figured he was going at them with just a knife, or one hell of a quiet gun. That was ballsy. And if they survived this, Chin figured that they would be hunting both Sin Nombre and Rowan down for the next few days.
Steve shook himself free of any thoughts he may have been having about Rowan and her pet assassin and turned to Chin.
"Chin, I promise you, we're not gonna leave Abby behind."
Wow a McGarrett promise. That was worth it's weight in gold. That was enough for him. "Alright."
"Alright?"
Chin turned back to his com which had perfect reception now they were on the roof. "Grover, you copy?"
"Yeah, I copy!" came back to them.
"What's your ETA?"
"Bout five minutes out. Hang on, we're coming to get you."
But then Grover went silent for a bit until they heard a shout of: "We're taking fire."
Oh my god they had been ambushed.
"They knew help was coming," Danny said. Steve might have thought this was Rowan's app, but Sandy was down. And he didn't think Rowan was mad enough to do something like this to them. Not when Sandy had been programmed to take care of them.
Either way this didn't throw Steven for one bit. "Okay, alright, we're on our own. Check in, ammo report."
As they all told him they were low on ammo, Steve fiddled with the walkie-talkie in his hands and found their frequency. He listened to them for a bit and it was enough.
"They know we're up here."
"And we can't hold them back," Kono told him as if he didn't know that. But Steve was getting that look in his eyes again. Goddamn it. Now they were really in for a crazy McGarrett plan.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Abby had been blind-sided and cornered when that group of men all with heavy weaponry came around the corner. They had her dead to rights from the get go. One stayed behind with her, taking her ear piece and then making her kneel and face a wall, with her arms up and her fingers interlaced behind her head.
Now she was just waiting to see how she could get the upper hand.
She could hear Chin's frantic voice calling for her from her earpiece, he sounded so afraid, so worried for her. Unfortunately, he also gave away their position. They were on the roof.
The guy who had her relayed that information and got a: "Good. We're on our way," from the leader. Then he got secondary orders.
"Hold your position. Make sure no one gets out of the building. And tell me if you see the Rabbit! He's in here but no one can pin him down, I'm certain he's scaling the building."
"What about the girl?"
Really, not going to ask about the rabbit that was scaling the building and picking off these men one by one, with, by the sounds of it, only a knife? That would have been Abby's first question.
"Get rid of her."
Then he raised his gun.
"Uhm. Excuse me."
Abby couldn't see what was happening but in the silence after the interruption, the man must have turned. The man actually screamed and threw himself away from whatever it was that had crept up on him. Abby couldn't help it. She turned around.
All that was there was this little red-haired girl. She was in jean shorts and an off the shoulder green sweater. She looked innocent and normal and she was completely unarmed. What the hell could have freaked this guy out?
He went for his radio but the girl shook her head. "No. I wouldn't do that. Trust me."
Oh my god that voice. She knew that voice. That girl… she was Rowan Pierce.
He went for his gun and the girl shook her head. "Nope, wouldn't do that either. I tell my brother you pulled a gun on me and you're sooooooo dead."
The man just stared at her for a moment Rowan seemed to eye him up.
"Hi," she said waving to him. "So… you obviously know who I am. And you know I'm not here alone."
At that he turned to the building behind him and then turned his eyes back to her, that gun in his hand was shaking but he still raised it.
"Ohhh, not a smart move. Look, you seem nice, I mean, you're out here pointing a gun at my friend but you're not in there trying to kill my other friends so that's a plus… sort of."
Aww Rowan thought she was her friend? Her captor stayed quiet.
"Since you seem to be the nicer one of the bunch, I'm going to give you two options. Death or Dishonor. You can stay here and die with your friends, or you can run."
And then they were silent again. He was staring at her, no doubt weighing the pros and cons of just plain shooting her.
"Please pick run. No one ever picks run when we offer it to them, and then we have to kill them and just for once I'd like…"
From behind Abby a person appeared. The infamous rabbit that the leader was so worried about. He was just a man in a white Rabbit mask that was flecked with blood in large graphic slashes and blood splatters. Sin Nombre. He moved soundlessly up to the man who had his gun trained on Rowan and then just grabbed him and slit his throat.
It took less than three seconds and then the twitching body was dumped to the floor as if it were trash. Abby was shocked by it, but not nearly as much as Rowan who cried out a disgusted: "Oh my god!" and started to vomit.
Sin Nombre sighed. "Ro, there isn't time for this!"
Rowan hurled at least two more times before she straightened an angry look about her. "You slit his throat in front of me!"
"You said you were going to be good about this."
"I have splatter on my face."
"Okay, yes, fine, here, use my shirt to get it off."
Rowan moved forward to wipe her face on the white shirt he had on under all the weapons he had strapped to him.
"What happened to your jacket?"
"It's hotter then the surface of the sun Rowan and I'm running around up there trying to sneak attack these idiots. I've obviously ditched it. Why are you even here, I told you to wait at the drop point?"
"They were going to hurt her and I…"
"Do you even know that person? This isn't Catherine, right? Catherine didn't go blonde, did she?"
"What? No. Course that's not Catherine. I wouldn't save Catherine…" "—Yeah you would." "Okay yeah. Actually no, I haven't seen Catherine yet. IS she not with the rest of the team?"
That that the Rabbit went silent as he stared at her, he then quickly glanced to Abby before saying: "Seriously, Ro, who is this person and why do we care about her?"
Well that got Rowan back on track. "Oh! She's Chin's girlfriend. We haven't officially met… and you know, I didn't need you to come down here. You were supposed to be up there…"
"Ro, this was your idea. Your idea, and you are ruining it. Can you please, pretty please go back to where you were supposed to be and wait to grab Gabriel please? Cause if I went through all of this just to lose him again, I swear to god Ro."
"Oh calm yourself I have plenty of time," she huffed and then asked: "Have they hit the roof yet?"
Abby knew the answer to that. They had. Sin Nombre shrugged. "I unno."
"Mmm… yep. Yes, they are up there but… no… I can't tell … I wonder if they've jumped?"
"Ro you're the one with the strings in your head, okay. I don't know what's happening, now can you throw me back up there. Two floors, corner room."
"Oh yeah sure," she said moving past Sin Nombre and Abby to the door. She put her hand to it, Abby swore she heard a crackle and a pop and then Rowan let it go. "There you go have fun."
Sin Nombre went for the door. "Seriously Ro. Back to your mark."
Rowan nodded, Sin Nombre went through the door and then the two of them were alone. Abby opened her mouth, all she would have to do is say: "Steven McGarrett misses you," and then maybe Rowan would stop running around playing criminal and come home to him.
Instead Rowan said: "Hi. Are you Abby?" And that surprised her because… didn't she know that? Wasn't that why she was there? "Sorry I don't know why I said that like I didn't know that it was you. Sorry, we haven't officially met, though I'm sure you've heard of me, cause I cause a lot of trouble."
"You helped me with Coughlin…"
"Yes, nasty business but I sense that he's taken the hint and gone home," she said. "Anyway, SWATs coming, but they're going to be hit by an ambush. Pretty please with a cherry on top, run before he comes back down the stairs and shoots you."
Abby opened her mouth again to say it. Four simple words, three if she didn't say his last name. She had a feeling Rowan would know which Steven Abby was referencing at that time.
"No seriously, RUN! Grover's going to need help," she said pointing to the one beside the one they were in. "Take Chin's motorcycle, he won't mind. Don't you want to help Grover? He's going to be running out of ammo soon" she did, she did want to do that. "Then Run. For the love of god, be the first person that listens when I tell them to run!"
And she did. She had bigger things to worry about than this lost girl anyway. But she got to the corner of the building and changed her mind. Rowan was clearly not suited for this, even if she was pulling the strings, she should come with her, they could talk on the way. But when Abby turned around, Rowan was gone.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Steve went to the edge of the roof with Danny and Chin following, and Kono staying behind to watch Gabriel. Yeah, he was shot in the stomach, losing blood and getting weaker by the moment, but the asshole was just as much a cockroach as Victor Hess had been. The man could be lethal, could walk away from any injury like he was a rubber bouncy ball.
Steve took in the distance, looking for anyway down and saw none. Great he was gonna have to go with crazy and Danny was gonna bitch.
"Alright, we're gonna jump," he announced and then he waited for the complaining.
"What did you just say?" That was Danny giving him a chance to change his mind. "Excuse me?"
But Steve had left him to jog back to Kono. "Jump," he repeated. "We're gonna have to jump."
Did Steve want to jump? No. Did he want to leave this building when he was certain Rowan was in it? Hell no. But Rowan couldn't be his priority right now, his team was, arresting Gabriel was. Rowan had brought her assassin, she could be his priority.
"What do you mean jump? We can't jump, it's like ten feet across."
Yeah that was true, but they didn't have a choice. "It's the only way off of this thing, Danny!" When he got nothing but shocked stares from everyone else, and one angry glare from Danny he added: "Besides, this building is taller than that building. It's gonna cut the jump by three feet."
Not that seven feet was much better but that was easier to do.
Everything seemed great until Steven said: "It's gonna be fine," cause that was when Danny last it.
"Oh really? Oh really? Really? Doctor, Well I'm not so sure about your mathematics, Steven."
From the door came the sound of banging. They were trying to break it down. This was not the time for arguing.
"Will you just trust me, for once in your life?" he hollered.
Danny hit him with a sarcastic stare and an even more sarcastic: "Trust you?" and that was really hurtful.
Chin was the next to voice a concern. "Steve, we might be able to make that jump, but there's no way that he can." He gestured to Gabriel who had been sitting a little too quietly. Damn maybe he really was hurt.
"Well, he has to."
Gabriel nodded. "I can do it."
"Doubtful," Kono snapped still being petty.
But Gabriel didn't seem to care. "Look at it this way, I come up short, I die." His head swung to Chin. "You get what you want." He turned back to the others to add: "If I make it, take me to prison. You still get what you want."
The banging started up again, but this time it was paired with cries of panic and gunshots. Ohhh something was coming up on them, or they really, really wanted to get out.
"Alright, we gotta go, we gotta go right now," Steve said heading towards the edge of the building, his gun still trained on the door. "Chin ,on me. Guys we gotta go right now."
"Well, hey. Hey! Hey!" Danny kept repeating but Steve ignored him, being sure to look him right in the eye to shout: "Right now."
Both he and Chin got behind a raised area where a vent was coming out. It would be enough cover for the time being if those people got out. But Danny followed him.
"How about we don't commit suicide, and we stand here and we shoot all the bad guys when they come out? How about that?"
"Good plan, Danny. What about when your ammo runs out?" Because that was the big problem here. If they weren't all low on ammo that would have been his plan. "What do you got, four bullets left? Huh, what are you gonna do then?"
"And what if we just let the guy behind them take them out?"
Steve whirled onto him. "Yeah, and what happens when they get up here. You think Fat or Sin Nombre are going to keep us alive when we're looking for Rowan."
"Correction… you are looking for Rowan," Danny snapped.
Wow. That was hurtful. "Yeah, feel free to tell Wo Fat that when your ammo's out and he's boring down on you."
Danny winced, he looked afraid, really afraid, he clearly really didn't want to do this, but he was about to concede. "Fine. Steve, you win, but I hate it and it's a stupid idea, okay? It's a very stupid idea and you are going to apologize to all my family members at my funeral, you understand me?"
Yeah that was just like Danny. Steve was losing his patience. "Yeah, no problem. It'd be a pleasure, okay?" God, he had never wanted to punch Danny more than in this moment. "Kono, you and Danny go first. Let's go."
"No, you go. You go first. It's your idea, you be the guinea pig!" Danny cried and Steve nearly tackled him then and there. If he wasn't expecting that door to fly open any minute and he'd have to take on a barrage of bullets he might have.
"Danny!" "I'll hold the door!" "Danny!" "I don't wanna go!" "DANNY!"
Chin was done with them. "Kono! Go with Danny I got Gabriel!"
"I love you, buddy. Good luck."
Danny rolled his eyes but went with Kono, leaving Steve with one last: "I hate you, so much." The two of them jumped leaving Steve with Chin. "Pick your shots, conserve your ammo."
And just after Danny shouted: "We made it," to them the door flew open. It wasn't a steady stream, thank god, but they slowly picked off the men coming through the door.
"I'm going for Gabriel, cover me," Chin said and Steve nodded, he could do that. He had the most ammo left after all.
He heard Kono shout: "Gabriel's across!" and then he heard that Chin was across too, but he was still stuck and he still had guys trying to come after him. He shot at them a few more times, heard the sound of what seemed to be guns coming from behind them, and that was the distraction he needed.
Steve turned and sprinted, and then launched himself off of that roof and into the air. When he hit the ground he forced himself to roll, once he was back on his feet he turned. The landing had jolted him but he had to be ready, ready to fire back as they were about to be firing on him.
The last two guys ran for the edge, guns out ready to go, but it looked like they were running from something. And when the shots rang out and those two went down. Well… I guess that answered his unasked question. They really were running from someone.
And that someone was revealed when they walked towards the edge. Steve wanted to shoot but he couldn't because it was Sin Nombre in his white rabbit mask staring at them and he was the only link to Rowan that Steve had. He raised his hand, finger guns, aimed it at Gabriel and the mimed shooting him.
That would have been funny if the very deadly threat wasn't clear.
He was there to kill Gabriel and he had cut through Shioma's men to do it.
Behind him Gabriel let out a strangled yelp. "No, no, he's not getting me again!"
He got away from Chin and made a mad dash for the door to the other building. The man wasn't going to get far from them, the door was probably locked anyway. But then there was another surprise. The door flew right open, though Steve couldn't see what was on the other side, it clearly terrified poor Gabriel because he actually shrieked in terror and tried to shy away.
And he definitely heard the: "Hiya Gabriel!"
He tried to back away but with a high-pitched demand of: "Come here!" a hand grabbed him and yanked him into the building. They were only seconds behind them, but when they opened up that door there was no one in the stairwell and no where that he could have gone.
"What the fucking hell was that?" Danny cried but Steve didn't have an answer for him.
"My pistol's gone. He has my gun," Kono announced and Steve groaned.
God this wasn't going well. Gabriel was missing, he had a gun. Sin Nombre was on the loose and somewhere in all of it Rowan was there. He may not have known what was going on, or what their plan was but he did know that he was livid and he was going to get Gabriel back if it was the last thing he did.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Rowan came out of the jump with Gabriel in tow. The poor man was out of balance, something she had done purposely. She had been practicing with Con all morning, opening a door, and then transitioning to the portal. It no longer made her dizzy but it sure as hell disoriented Gabriel, which was what she wanted.
The man fell to the ground grunting in pain. Yeah, a bullet in the gut made everything hurt more. She had taken him back to the building she and Con had been using as a base. It was across the street from where he had been staying, with a good vantage point so they could see when all the drama had started going down.
"How did you…"
"Magic," Rowan cut off. "We made this room special for you. Can't get out. I'm gonna leave you in here until Con comes back."
"Why? Too afraid to finish me off yourself?"
Rowan should have left. That was the plan. Grab him, lock him up in prison room, then wait for Con to come back, or just pull Con back. No where in the plan did it say she anything about sassy arguments.
"I already have finished you. Look at where you are. You're nothing. You're dying. You're through. Me killing you puts you out of your misery. Kill you will be a mercy, and I'm all out of mercy."
She looked into those eyes and saw real fear there, proper fear. He knew she was right and so did she, but she also could see that monster she had become staring back at her. The person she said she never wanted to be, and she had become in, despite her brother trying to stop her.
She straightened and tried to calm herself. "Besides, Con wants to kill you. Something about avenging his perfect streak." She used her void sense to look at the strings. Con was still in that building killing people, she didn't want to pull him at that moment anyway. "It looks like he's having too much fun, I'll just let him kill a few more of those thugs and then I'll bring him back here."
But Gabriel wasn't waiting, he lashed out, kicking her feet out from under her. He didn't bother to stick around past that, he simply got up and run.
Yeah that was not good. And not part of the plan.
She quickly got up and chased after him, all the way down the stairs and to the street. That was where she stopped. She could have easily gone after him, he needed to be somewhere that Con could get to in order for Con to finally kill him.
But Rowan didn't need to actually chase him. She had the power of the void on her side. There was no where he could run that she wouldn't be able to chase him to. No hiding spot that she wouldn't be able to find. So, she headed down the street after him, skipping lightly. Yes, this time, everything would be easy.