HOUSE OF BROKEN SOULS Part 45
Warnings: This Chapter: Graphic violence (sort of) Overall: Slash, sexually explicit content, graphic violence
The fiction includes a mental illness storyline. I am not qualified in mental health, everything I know about it is googled. It's fantasy folks, please don't shoot me though helpful criticism is always welcomed.
*Not real. The folks aren't mine. No damage intended.
Lia (Cheebles) is still there with me helping - thanks Lia.
Colored lights blinked lazily on police cars scattered about the perimeter of the old asylum. A rush of cold wind accompanied the steady whooshing of rotor blades as a helicopter descended.
Chad dragged his hand through his hair and over his eyes, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. A man in a fluorescent orange jacket approached him warily. “Detective Murray?”
“Did you find it?”
“I’m sorry. According to our records the duct remained open. We’ve found what should be the entry but it appears to have been sealed in.”
“Can you unseal it?”
“It’s been filled with concrete.”
“Like rubble? Can it be dug out?”
“No, you’re misunderstanding me. Someone has pumped it full of wet concrete and let it set. It’s no longer viable to use at all.”
“So the drawing we have is accurate then?”
“As far as we can tell.”
“Goddammit. Why in hell would they seal themselves in without an exit? They must have known we would come.”
Doc Carver arrived at his side, windswept and out of breath. “I suspect Laing and Emma don’t know there isn’t an exit and don‘t know we’re here.
“Plain English please Doc.”
“It’s likely Kate filled the duct after she killed Emma and James. I‘m guessing it’s where you’ll find the bodies. If Kate is still somewhere in that complicated mind, she isn’t expecting to get out. She wants Laing and her Emma to die.”
“I said plain English.”
“Is suicide by Cop, plain enough for you?”
“Shit!”
He turned back to the man in the orange jacket. “Is it likely they know we’re here? How easy is it to see or hear in there?”
“It’s a basement, there’s no windows. Ceilings are solid. It’s soundproof. It was an asylum, it’s underground.” the man spoke with just a hint of sarcasm and Chad overlooked it. He had larger concerns.
“How long?” he barked at a young cop manning the radio, who leaned on the car behind him. “Three hours and four minutes. Sir.”
“They told me Jensen asked you to wait four hours?” the doc queried.
“He left a message, told us there was no sight-line for SWAT. He was right. He thinks he can reach Kate. What do you think?”
Ben Carver looked at the horizon and back at the Texas detective. “Honestly Detective Murray, I‘m not sure if reaching Kate is going to make things any better.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s likely that it’s Kate who killed three people and injured two others. The last time Caitlin was in session with me she expressed some fairly ugly anger at Jensen which she was unable to explain.”
“Why would she be angry with Jensen?”
Doc Carver rolled his eyes a little, dug his hands into the comfort of his pockets and bounced to keep warm. “As far as you can tell she disappeared at least three days before Jensen, who was the detective in charge of finding Laing. She was carried into Johns Hopkins, covered in blood, the day after Jensen was rescued. In the meantime she was tortured and sexually assaulted. It is likely she watched on HD, big screen, as Tom and Jensen denied she existed, even as she took punishment for them. She’s probably aware that she killed three people, so she knows she is at least guilty of manslaughter. One of those was a friend and it was forced on her. She walked back out of Johns Hopkins before she was treated and no-one ever went looking for her, not in ten months. No-one rescued her. Jensen was a part of the investigation. Now you tell me why she might be resentful.”
Chad closed his eyes slowly and shook his head. “We didn’t know. We just didn’t know.”
“I’m not in the business of blame Detective, it’s just my professional opinion. Who am I to judge? It’s my signature on her hospital discharge papers. I sent her back to an unsuspecting Jared.” Worry was etched into Doc Carver’s face as he spoke.
Two FBI officers approached Chad. The younger, a blonde lady, flipped her mobile shut and spoke to Chad. “Sir. SWAT are ready to go.”
“We give them four hours.”
“but Sir..”
“Are you formally taking charge?” Detective Murray glared at them.
No, but..”
“Then we wait.”
Doc Carver nodded “Damned if we do, damned if we don’t, but we should give them a chance.”
“Three hours fifteen.” called the young cop by the car.
***
Jared gave a short, nervous laugh. “Kate?”
Kate continued to Jensen, she crouched by him, turning her knife in her hand with a far away look in her eyes. Her voice was calm and hush-quiet with an edge as cold as the steel of her knife. “Why?”
He couldn’t form any words. His eyes were wide with shock, his mouth still forming a gaping ‘O’. He watched as a single drop of blood slid down a strand of her hair and fell to the floor in a crimson teardrop. Blood continued to pool and thicken on the rough floor below Laing.
“Umm Kate. You need to untie us now.” Jared smiled at her with false bravado.
Kate stood and approached him. She spoke, barely a whisper, by his ear as she reached to retie his gag. “I’m sorry Jay.” He wanted to ask “For what?” but the rough fabric tightened in his mouth and he became mute once more.
She didn’t return to Jensen, she adjusted Laing’s body in the chair. She cut the shirt off and tied the body with a coil of rope to prevent it falling to the floor. She worked with care and precision, her features relaxed as she became absorbed in her task. The corpse oozed pink as the blade sliced firm and even into it.
Jared fixed his eyes on Jensen in a terrified appeal for him to do something, say anything and it was enough. Jensen buried his own fear. If there was a chance to save Jared he would try it all, anything. He wouldn’t lose again, he’d lost enough and Jay had suffered too much.His tongue darted out of his mouth, he licked his lips and cleared his throat. His voice shook as he started but it gained strength and timbre as he continued.
He started at the beginning, the psychiatrist and his patient and that first deck of cards. He described every aspect of the investigation, the despair and the camaraderie, the heated arguments, the small discoveries and the mistakes they’d made. He told her about Chad and the Chief, the original profiler and about his Tom. She spared him the barest of glances as she continued weaving the intricate pattern into dead flesh, no indication she was listening or reacting to his tale.
Jared wasn’t expecting this. This wasn’t any rescue he’d been anticipating and his own glance at Jensen spoke only of “What the fuck dude?” He kept his own silence as he stretched at his ties. His skin chafed and began to bleed as he worked at the rope in an attempt to loosen the knots.
Jensen faltered slightly as he described the day he returned to the home he and Tom shared, to find Laing already there. Kate stopped and placed her knife carefully on the aged work bench. She leaned against the worn wooden surface and examined the pattern of gore on her hands. Black inked figures remained, just visible, J2 and remember. The detective continued, voice cracking in pain as he recalled the days with Laing. He was so focused on his narration he almost missed Kate’s quiet query “Did you love him very much?”
“He was my everything.” He ground his teeth and fought against the tears that spilled from beneath the thick lashes.
“Would you have done anything to protect him, even if you had known about us?”
“I don’t know, it was an option, we didn’t have.” he found himself unable to lie “I might have."
"You wanna' know why I did it, to Jake?" she collected her thoughts. "I knew your Tom couldn't. Besides, we'd both been here, in there, for days" she inclined her head to the next room. "We had the chance to talk about it. We agreed we'd do it, if that was the only way out, and you were a cop, weren't you? They were going to come for a cop, you were going to be rescued and when you were, you'd let them know, about us, about whoever was left and then they'd rescue us. Anyway. In the end, it wasn't hard. That was a surprise. Maybe it shouldn't have been. I was born to it, it's in my blood." She picked her blade up again and drew one last curved line on the pale carcass. Jensen recognized the pattern to be complete. She stepped back to survey her sick art.
“You asked me why?” he raised his voice, aware that time was becoming short. “So I told you why we didn’t rescue you, back then, but I‘m not sure if that was the real question. You want to know why here? Why now?”
She stepped behind him. She turned the cold steel in one hand while the other rested gently on his skin. “You can’t save me. You can’t even save yourself.”
Jared shook the chair with effort to escape it and shouted, a desperate noise behind the fabric gag.
“I thought that. I lived, I didn’t survive. I ran from it , drank the days away and waited to die. I wasn‘t looking at it right. I didn‘t consider all the solutions. Jared made me see more clearly, he does that. He did it for you too. I know he did.”
She softly traced her hand in a pattern over his back, down his spine, over his chest and up to his shoulder. Her mahogany eyes fixed on the tall architect and he stilled from his struggles. Somewhere within him he managed to find the strength to see his Caitlin and his eyes were everything she remembered, full of compassion and love.
Jensen didn’t let himself pause. “Everything you’ve done so far, in law it’s understandable. There are terms for it, under duress, temporary insanity. No court would consider you for anything other than a hospital order and there is hope of recovery. There is public sympathy. Take this a step further, kill me or kill Jared and you lose that. You think that ending it here will end the suffering? You’ve forgotten Megan, our families, the cops who will have to deal with the crime-scene. Everyone is affected. The risk assessment has to include everyone here Kate. Protect yourself, protect the ones doing the task, protect the public. How can you do this to Jared? To JD? Have you even considered JD? You go through all of this and find the person who fits with you, who loves you unconditionally and you‘re just going to throw it away and let him suffer?”
“I’m not Caitlin. It suited me to leave her there awhile. Maybe I gave her a little backbone. Gave me time to watch her, Emma, you. See how it was. See Laing and let him string along. The fool.”
“No, but you remember her.” She was still listening. “Caitlin is a part of you, just like Jane and Emma and it’s not hopeless because it was always that way and before the Painters you made it work. Caitlin deserves to be loved. You do. It‘s not too late.”
“Would you put Jared before everything else. Before me? ”
He locked his gaze on Jared. This was the man who had rescued him from his own descent into self-destruction, the gentle giant who fitted him, the one who was his world. He didn‘t hesitate. “Yes.”
***
“Three hours and 47 minutes, Sir.”
Chad’s brows met in a frown, his hands fisted at his side. “We go in 10.” He offered an unspoken prayer up to whatever God might be listening.”
***
Kate stepped behind Jared looking at Jensen. She clicked the clip into Jensen’s gun and flipped the safety off. Jared flinched at the sound, his eyes opening impossibly wide. She raised her arm and pointed the pistol at Jensen. Jared twisted, trying to see behind him.
“S’OK Baby, she’s not pointing it at you.” Jensen reassured, as calmly as he could muster. Jared breathed out, then tensed again as he understood the implication in that statement.
With the other hand Kate reached to Jared’s wrists. She slipped the knife point under the rope binding and sawed upwards then flicked the knife under the head of the nail in his hand and pulled it out, fast and hard before he could register the agony and scream. “You untie your ankles and leave Jay. You don’t look back and you don’t try to stop me or I shoot.” She tipped her head at Jensen. “Tell him Detective Ackles.”
“Leave Jay. Please, just go. We‘ll be fine.” he tried to smirk, it was a sad, lopsided grimace.
“Just you and me.” she said softly.
The last knot came free on his ankle, he rubbed at it and stood shakily. Jensen was shaking his head at him. “No heroics.” he mouthed.
Jared patted at his pants pocket, his eyes were glistening with tears. “I got him a present. Can I? I want him to have it.” he asked Kate.
She nodded. “Don’t do anything stupid.” she firmed both hands on the gun.
He took a small silver disc from his pocket and placed it on Jensen’s lap. Jensen looked puzzled. It’s a St. Christopher medal. It’s to protect you, bring you safely home wherever you travel.”
“Home to you, to Madison House.” Jensen added.
“Yeah.” Jared bent down to kiss him short and sweet, on the lips, his damp hair brushing on Jensen’s cheek.
“Leave!” warned Kate.
“Go Baby. It‘s an order.” confirmed Jensen.
There was a faint scrunching sound at the wide opening to the old nurse’s station. They all turned as the old basement suddenly exploded with noise and action. The spotlight shattered into darkness with a pop and the crackle of broken glass. Footsteps echoed in the spaces beyond, there was shouting and movement. Thin beams of torchlight swept into the space and in the confusion Jared saw Kate turn to Jensen and stretch her arm out, adjusting the gun in her hand. The sharp crack of gunfire echoed heavily as Jared threw himself over her, his huge frame falling to the ground with her.
It was all over in minutes. Chad bent to untie Jensen and left Baltimore PD to process the scene. He supported his friend as he insisted on staying by Jared‘s side. Jensen’s green eyes appeared huge and freckles stark against his ghost white complexion. He sat quietly with a blanket wrapped around him watching as the paramedics hooked up an intravenous line for his unconscious boyfriend. He reached out and stroked the brunette hair from his face. “Hang on Baby.”
***
The ward was a bright clinical white and smelled of disinfectant. Jensen curled in the chair at Jared’s bedside, watching him sleep. Misha poked his head around the door and tiptoed in, proffering a mug of thick black coffee. “You should get back to your own bed.”
“I’m OK. I want to be here when he wakes up. They said it’s just a flesh wound, no permanent damage. He should wake up soon.”
“Apparently alpacas hit the floor hard enough to knock themselves out eh?”
Jared opened one eye, squinted and managed to croak a short question “Mish. What the hell is this alpaca thing about?” He shut his eye again and added “Man it’s white. Did they bring me to Jensen’s?”
Misha retreated. “Alpacas. Nothing of the sort Jared. You banged your head. Imagining all sorts.” he tapped Jensen on the shoulder as he left. “They found all three bodies. All have their throats cut. Emma and James had the same pattern carved after death. I have to go hook up with Chad. Look after the fluffy llama-type creature for us.” Jared glared as hard as he could but the painkillers gave him effect of a cross-eyed bull dog and Jensen laughed.
“Wha‘?” grumped Jared.
He shook his head and took Jared’s undamaged hand in his own splinted palm. “Nothing. Just happy to see you. Dude, I said no heroics.”
“She wasn’t going to shoot. She put the safety on. I saw her.”
“I know, but they saw what she wanted them to see.”
“Is she, did they?...” Jared couldn’t bring himself to finish the question.
“Kate’s alive. Heavily sedated and on suicide watch but Doc Carver’s gone with her. She’s a tough cookie. She’ll come through it. JD got a flight. He’s there for her.”
A nurse came in carrying flowers and a colorful box with ribbons. There was a note on each. The nurse grinned at Jensen and flicked her hair. “There’s some by your bed too.”
There was a note on the flowers from Donna Ackles and Beth Farra. Jared peered into the box at an assortment of Gummi bears and candy laces. He turned the card over ‘Be seeing you soon. Megan xx’
Jensen offered him a sip of water and he brightened a little. “Hey! What day is it?”
“You haven’t slept that long. It’s Thursday.”
“Where’s my turkey?”
“What?”
“You haven’t forgotten it’s Thanksgiving?”
“I don’t need a turkey, I’ve got my alpaca and a lot to be thankful for.”
“Mmm.” Jared’s eyelids were getting heavy again. “I want you next to me.” He patted the bed.
Jensen climbed under the covers of the small hospital bed and they fell asleep, tangled together with Jensen‘s head on Jared‘s chest.
Epilogue is here: anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com/13424.html
The fiction includes a mental illness storyline. I am not qualified in mental health, everything I know about it is googled. It's fantasy folks, please don't shoot me though helpful criticism is always welcomed.
*Not real. The folks aren't mine. No damage intended.
Lia (Cheebles) is still there with me helping - thanks Lia.
Colored lights blinked lazily on police cars scattered about the perimeter of the old asylum. A rush of cold wind accompanied the steady whooshing of rotor blades as a helicopter descended.
Chad dragged his hand through his hair and over his eyes, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. A man in a fluorescent orange jacket approached him warily. “Detective Murray?”
“Did you find it?”
“I’m sorry. According to our records the duct remained open. We’ve found what should be the entry but it appears to have been sealed in.”
“Can you unseal it?”
“It’s been filled with concrete.”
“Like rubble? Can it be dug out?”
“No, you’re misunderstanding me. Someone has pumped it full of wet concrete and let it set. It’s no longer viable to use at all.”
“So the drawing we have is accurate then?”
“As far as we can tell.”
“Goddammit. Why in hell would they seal themselves in without an exit? They must have known we would come.”
Doc Carver arrived at his side, windswept and out of breath. “I suspect Laing and Emma don’t know there isn’t an exit and don‘t know we’re here.
“Plain English please Doc.”
“It’s likely Kate filled the duct after she killed Emma and James. I‘m guessing it’s where you’ll find the bodies. If Kate is still somewhere in that complicated mind, she isn’t expecting to get out. She wants Laing and her Emma to die.”
“I said plain English.”
“Is suicide by Cop, plain enough for you?”
“Shit!”
He turned back to the man in the orange jacket. “Is it likely they know we’re here? How easy is it to see or hear in there?”
“It’s a basement, there’s no windows. Ceilings are solid. It’s soundproof. It was an asylum, it’s underground.” the man spoke with just a hint of sarcasm and Chad overlooked it. He had larger concerns.
“How long?” he barked at a young cop manning the radio, who leaned on the car behind him. “Three hours and four minutes. Sir.”
“They told me Jensen asked you to wait four hours?” the doc queried.
“He left a message, told us there was no sight-line for SWAT. He was right. He thinks he can reach Kate. What do you think?”
Ben Carver looked at the horizon and back at the Texas detective. “Honestly Detective Murray, I‘m not sure if reaching Kate is going to make things any better.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s likely that it’s Kate who killed three people and injured two others. The last time Caitlin was in session with me she expressed some fairly ugly anger at Jensen which she was unable to explain.”
“Why would she be angry with Jensen?”
Doc Carver rolled his eyes a little, dug his hands into the comfort of his pockets and bounced to keep warm. “As far as you can tell she disappeared at least three days before Jensen, who was the detective in charge of finding Laing. She was carried into Johns Hopkins, covered in blood, the day after Jensen was rescued. In the meantime she was tortured and sexually assaulted. It is likely she watched on HD, big screen, as Tom and Jensen denied she existed, even as she took punishment for them. She’s probably aware that she killed three people, so she knows she is at least guilty of manslaughter. One of those was a friend and it was forced on her. She walked back out of Johns Hopkins before she was treated and no-one ever went looking for her, not in ten months. No-one rescued her. Jensen was a part of the investigation. Now you tell me why she might be resentful.”
Chad closed his eyes slowly and shook his head. “We didn’t know. We just didn’t know.”
“I’m not in the business of blame Detective, it’s just my professional opinion. Who am I to judge? It’s my signature on her hospital discharge papers. I sent her back to an unsuspecting Jared.” Worry was etched into Doc Carver’s face as he spoke.
Two FBI officers approached Chad. The younger, a blonde lady, flipped her mobile shut and spoke to Chad. “Sir. SWAT are ready to go.”
“We give them four hours.”
“but Sir..”
“Are you formally taking charge?” Detective Murray glared at them.
No, but..”
“Then we wait.”
Doc Carver nodded “Damned if we do, damned if we don’t, but we should give them a chance.”
“Three hours fifteen.” called the young cop by the car.
***
Jared gave a short, nervous laugh. “Kate?”
Kate continued to Jensen, she crouched by him, turning her knife in her hand with a far away look in her eyes. Her voice was calm and hush-quiet with an edge as cold as the steel of her knife. “Why?”
He couldn’t form any words. His eyes were wide with shock, his mouth still forming a gaping ‘O’. He watched as a single drop of blood slid down a strand of her hair and fell to the floor in a crimson teardrop. Blood continued to pool and thicken on the rough floor below Laing.
“Umm Kate. You need to untie us now.” Jared smiled at her with false bravado.
Kate stood and approached him. She spoke, barely a whisper, by his ear as she reached to retie his gag. “I’m sorry Jay.” He wanted to ask “For what?” but the rough fabric tightened in his mouth and he became mute once more.
She didn’t return to Jensen, she adjusted Laing’s body in the chair. She cut the shirt off and tied the body with a coil of rope to prevent it falling to the floor. She worked with care and precision, her features relaxed as she became absorbed in her task. The corpse oozed pink as the blade sliced firm and even into it.
Jared fixed his eyes on Jensen in a terrified appeal for him to do something, say anything and it was enough. Jensen buried his own fear. If there was a chance to save Jared he would try it all, anything. He wouldn’t lose again, he’d lost enough and Jay had suffered too much.His tongue darted out of his mouth, he licked his lips and cleared his throat. His voice shook as he started but it gained strength and timbre as he continued.
He started at the beginning, the psychiatrist and his patient and that first deck of cards. He described every aspect of the investigation, the despair and the camaraderie, the heated arguments, the small discoveries and the mistakes they’d made. He told her about Chad and the Chief, the original profiler and about his Tom. She spared him the barest of glances as she continued weaving the intricate pattern into dead flesh, no indication she was listening or reacting to his tale.
Jared wasn’t expecting this. This wasn’t any rescue he’d been anticipating and his own glance at Jensen spoke only of “What the fuck dude?” He kept his own silence as he stretched at his ties. His skin chafed and began to bleed as he worked at the rope in an attempt to loosen the knots.
Jensen faltered slightly as he described the day he returned to the home he and Tom shared, to find Laing already there. Kate stopped and placed her knife carefully on the aged work bench. She leaned against the worn wooden surface and examined the pattern of gore on her hands. Black inked figures remained, just visible, J2 and remember. The detective continued, voice cracking in pain as he recalled the days with Laing. He was so focused on his narration he almost missed Kate’s quiet query “Did you love him very much?”
“He was my everything.” He ground his teeth and fought against the tears that spilled from beneath the thick lashes.
“Would you have done anything to protect him, even if you had known about us?”
“I don’t know, it was an option, we didn’t have.” he found himself unable to lie “I might have."
"You wanna' know why I did it, to Jake?" she collected her thoughts. "I knew your Tom couldn't. Besides, we'd both been here, in there, for days" she inclined her head to the next room. "We had the chance to talk about it. We agreed we'd do it, if that was the only way out, and you were a cop, weren't you? They were going to come for a cop, you were going to be rescued and when you were, you'd let them know, about us, about whoever was left and then they'd rescue us. Anyway. In the end, it wasn't hard. That was a surprise. Maybe it shouldn't have been. I was born to it, it's in my blood." She picked her blade up again and drew one last curved line on the pale carcass. Jensen recognized the pattern to be complete. She stepped back to survey her sick art.
“You asked me why?” he raised his voice, aware that time was becoming short. “So I told you why we didn’t rescue you, back then, but I‘m not sure if that was the real question. You want to know why here? Why now?”
She stepped behind him. She turned the cold steel in one hand while the other rested gently on his skin. “You can’t save me. You can’t even save yourself.”
Jared shook the chair with effort to escape it and shouted, a desperate noise behind the fabric gag.
“I thought that. I lived, I didn’t survive. I ran from it , drank the days away and waited to die. I wasn‘t looking at it right. I didn‘t consider all the solutions. Jared made me see more clearly, he does that. He did it for you too. I know he did.”
She softly traced her hand in a pattern over his back, down his spine, over his chest and up to his shoulder. Her mahogany eyes fixed on the tall architect and he stilled from his struggles. Somewhere within him he managed to find the strength to see his Caitlin and his eyes were everything she remembered, full of compassion and love.
Jensen didn’t let himself pause. “Everything you’ve done so far, in law it’s understandable. There are terms for it, under duress, temporary insanity. No court would consider you for anything other than a hospital order and there is hope of recovery. There is public sympathy. Take this a step further, kill me or kill Jared and you lose that. You think that ending it here will end the suffering? You’ve forgotten Megan, our families, the cops who will have to deal with the crime-scene. Everyone is affected. The risk assessment has to include everyone here Kate. Protect yourself, protect the ones doing the task, protect the public. How can you do this to Jared? To JD? Have you even considered JD? You go through all of this and find the person who fits with you, who loves you unconditionally and you‘re just going to throw it away and let him suffer?”
“I’m not Caitlin. It suited me to leave her there awhile. Maybe I gave her a little backbone. Gave me time to watch her, Emma, you. See how it was. See Laing and let him string along. The fool.”
“No, but you remember her.” She was still listening. “Caitlin is a part of you, just like Jane and Emma and it’s not hopeless because it was always that way and before the Painters you made it work. Caitlin deserves to be loved. You do. It‘s not too late.”
“Would you put Jared before everything else. Before me? ”
He locked his gaze on Jared. This was the man who had rescued him from his own descent into self-destruction, the gentle giant who fitted him, the one who was his world. He didn‘t hesitate. “Yes.”
***
“Three hours and 47 minutes, Sir.”
Chad’s brows met in a frown, his hands fisted at his side. “We go in 10.” He offered an unspoken prayer up to whatever God might be listening.”
***
Kate stepped behind Jared looking at Jensen. She clicked the clip into Jensen’s gun and flipped the safety off. Jared flinched at the sound, his eyes opening impossibly wide. She raised her arm and pointed the pistol at Jensen. Jared twisted, trying to see behind him.
“S’OK Baby, she’s not pointing it at you.” Jensen reassured, as calmly as he could muster. Jared breathed out, then tensed again as he understood the implication in that statement.
With the other hand Kate reached to Jared’s wrists. She slipped the knife point under the rope binding and sawed upwards then flicked the knife under the head of the nail in his hand and pulled it out, fast and hard before he could register the agony and scream. “You untie your ankles and leave Jay. You don’t look back and you don’t try to stop me or I shoot.” She tipped her head at Jensen. “Tell him Detective Ackles.”
“Leave Jay. Please, just go. We‘ll be fine.” he tried to smirk, it was a sad, lopsided grimace.
“Just you and me.” she said softly.
The last knot came free on his ankle, he rubbed at it and stood shakily. Jensen was shaking his head at him. “No heroics.” he mouthed.
Jared patted at his pants pocket, his eyes were glistening with tears. “I got him a present. Can I? I want him to have it.” he asked Kate.
She nodded. “Don’t do anything stupid.” she firmed both hands on the gun.
He took a small silver disc from his pocket and placed it on Jensen’s lap. Jensen looked puzzled. It’s a St. Christopher medal. It’s to protect you, bring you safely home wherever you travel.”
“Home to you, to Madison House.” Jensen added.
“Yeah.” Jared bent down to kiss him short and sweet, on the lips, his damp hair brushing on Jensen’s cheek.
“Leave!” warned Kate.
“Go Baby. It‘s an order.” confirmed Jensen.
There was a faint scrunching sound at the wide opening to the old nurse’s station. They all turned as the old basement suddenly exploded with noise and action. The spotlight shattered into darkness with a pop and the crackle of broken glass. Footsteps echoed in the spaces beyond, there was shouting and movement. Thin beams of torchlight swept into the space and in the confusion Jared saw Kate turn to Jensen and stretch her arm out, adjusting the gun in her hand. The sharp crack of gunfire echoed heavily as Jared threw himself over her, his huge frame falling to the ground with her.
It was all over in minutes. Chad bent to untie Jensen and left Baltimore PD to process the scene. He supported his friend as he insisted on staying by Jared‘s side. Jensen’s green eyes appeared huge and freckles stark against his ghost white complexion. He sat quietly with a blanket wrapped around him watching as the paramedics hooked up an intravenous line for his unconscious boyfriend. He reached out and stroked the brunette hair from his face. “Hang on Baby.”
***
The ward was a bright clinical white and smelled of disinfectant. Jensen curled in the chair at Jared’s bedside, watching him sleep. Misha poked his head around the door and tiptoed in, proffering a mug of thick black coffee. “You should get back to your own bed.”
“I’m OK. I want to be here when he wakes up. They said it’s just a flesh wound, no permanent damage. He should wake up soon.”
“Apparently alpacas hit the floor hard enough to knock themselves out eh?”
Jared opened one eye, squinted and managed to croak a short question “Mish. What the hell is this alpaca thing about?” He shut his eye again and added “Man it’s white. Did they bring me to Jensen’s?”
Misha retreated. “Alpacas. Nothing of the sort Jared. You banged your head. Imagining all sorts.” he tapped Jensen on the shoulder as he left. “They found all three bodies. All have their throats cut. Emma and James had the same pattern carved after death. I have to go hook up with Chad. Look after the fluffy llama-type creature for us.” Jared glared as hard as he could but the painkillers gave him effect of a cross-eyed bull dog and Jensen laughed.
“Wha‘?” grumped Jared.
He shook his head and took Jared’s undamaged hand in his own splinted palm. “Nothing. Just happy to see you. Dude, I said no heroics.”
“She wasn’t going to shoot. She put the safety on. I saw her.”
“I know, but they saw what she wanted them to see.”
“Is she, did they?...” Jared couldn’t bring himself to finish the question.
“Kate’s alive. Heavily sedated and on suicide watch but Doc Carver’s gone with her. She’s a tough cookie. She’ll come through it. JD got a flight. He’s there for her.”
A nurse came in carrying flowers and a colorful box with ribbons. There was a note on each. The nurse grinned at Jensen and flicked her hair. “There’s some by your bed too.”
There was a note on the flowers from Donna Ackles and Beth Farra. Jared peered into the box at an assortment of Gummi bears and candy laces. He turned the card over ‘Be seeing you soon. Megan xx’
Jensen offered him a sip of water and he brightened a little. “Hey! What day is it?”
“You haven’t slept that long. It’s Thursday.”
“Where’s my turkey?”
“What?”
“You haven’t forgotten it’s Thanksgiving?”
“I don’t need a turkey, I’ve got my alpaca and a lot to be thankful for.”
“Mmm.” Jared’s eyelids were getting heavy again. “I want you next to me.” He patted the bed.
Jensen climbed under the covers of the small hospital bed and they fell asleep, tangled together with Jensen‘s head on Jared‘s chest.
Epilogue is here: anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com/13424.html