FIC: Renegade (2/3); The Mentalist
Title: Renegade
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Rigsby stood before him, clutching at his chest with his red-stained fingers. His white dress shirt (also turned red) remained on his chest and nearly shredded in half. “I shouldn’t pick fights with squirrels, now should I?” Rigsby coughed and grimaced. “Why are you shirtless?” He ignored Rigsby’s question to glance at Lisbon, who stood against one of the trees with her eyes closed.
Lisbon’s shirt also remained in tatters and the entire light green shirt was soaked in blood of her own (he guessed, anyway). One of her arms hung at an odd angle, while the other arm was completely gone from her person.
“Lisbon?” Cho asked. Lisbon’s eyes opened, weakly. “What in the hell happened, Rigsby?”
He watched Rigsby sink to the ground, coughing again. “Where’s Grace? Is Grace okay?” It was a typical Rigsby reaction to ask for Grace, which made him feel slightly better.
“She’s missing part of her foot; I’ve left her just past the bushes, as I needed to know you both were okay.”
“Do we look okay to you?” Lisbon asked, dryly and Rigsby chuckled. “I’m missing my left arm and Rigsby has a giant gash across his chest. We’re the picture of perfection right now, aren’t we?”
“You both look like shit,” Cho commented, honestly. Lisbon met his eyes and grimaced. “I found a first-aid kit, and we have water over there,” Cho motioned past the bushes. “You need to wash the blood off you.” He had no idea how he was going to get the blood off Van Pelt, but he knew he’d figure that one out later.
Lisbon continued to grimace. “I’m not hoping into that water; especially not after having my arm blown off my body.” It was then; he took in the general states of their singed hairs and their soot-covered bodies, with a frown.
“No offense, man,” Rigsby commented also. “My chest is raw at the moment. Taking a swim is not something I want to do.”
“Do you want whatever attacked you to come back?” Cho asked. He watched Rigsby and Lisbon glance at each other in alarm, as if they had both discussed not mentioning whatever had happened out in the woods. “Then, go wash the blood from your clothing and I’ll join you with the first-aid supply kits shortly.”
He didn’t wait for them to say another word, stepping through the bushes again, to lift from Van Pelt from the ground. Cho watched her eyes open, slowly.
“I had the weirdest dream,” he heard her mutter. “We were lost in the woods, I lost my foot and something tried to attack us both.” She closed her eyes again and Cho said nothing. “I still have both of my feet…” He braced himself for the sounds of her sobs, but none came. “This is still a dream…”
“Van Pelt,” Cho couldn’t take listening to anymore of her delusions. “You need to remove your pants, and dip them into the water. You cannot smell of blood right now.”
Van Pelt’s eyes shot open and her breathing became rapid. “My foot…I really don’t have a foot?” He could feel her trembling against him and he brought her to the lake’s shore, before he lowered them both into the water without warning. Van Pelt hissed the moment the water hit her injury and she clutched onto him. “No-no more, please. I’m…I’m so sorry…I’ll…I’ll be better, I promise.” Cho frowned at her reaction.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Grace,” Cho said, gently, as he continued to hold her close. He didn’t normally do gentle, but he wasn’t about to distress her any further as he began to wash the blood from them both. “You’re going to be fine.” Grace continued to tremble in his hold, and he pressed his lips to her forehead. She stilled and he pulled them both, fully clothed, from the water. He placed her back on his discarded jacket, fetched the first-aid kit and returned to her. Quickly, he moved to pop a few painkillers in her system and wrap the injury to stem the chance of an infection from occurring.
“Thank you,” Grace muttered, softly. Cho nodded, watching her chest even out, until she had fallen asleep due to the painkillers coursing through her system. The sound of footsteps behind him caused him to turn to find both Rigsby and Lisbon soaking wet, which prompted him to hand over the space blankets he had found within the first-aid kit.
“How is she?” Rigsby questioned with his attention on Van Pelt as he pulled the blanket around his bare shoulders.
“She’s footless,” Cho gave, motioning toward her white bandaged leg. “How do you think she’s doing?” Rigsby had the audacity to look away from them both, while Cho rolled his eyes. He understood the need for most stupid questions, but the idea that Van Pelt could be anything other than in pain or terrified was a stupid suggestion.
“Both of you,” Lisbon chided, holding the blanket around her body with one arm, “knock it off. We all need to work together, especially now that two of us won’t exactly be able to do much.” Cho glanced at Lisbon. For the moment, he could tell, she was pushing her feelings away to view the situation with objectivity but there was only so much objectifying that could happen before she was forced to face the possibility that Bertram could take her job away from her for having one less limb now. “We’re lucky to be alive right now, so don’t do anything stupid until we know more.”
Cho cleared his throat. “I know enough. Jean Caribe is behind all of this; Jane’s disappearance, your injuries, the misinformation on the size of these woods.” He stared at them both. “She’s the owner of those things, which attacked us all in these woods.”
“How do you know this?” Lisbon asked. “Where is your proof?” He wordlessly brought out the journal and handed it to her, before he started bandaging her left upper shoulder. He finished bandaging her, before he heard her inhale sharply. “God damn it! Another crooked cop!”
Rigsby grimaced, as Lisbon passed the journal over to him. “It’s always the attractive ones too.” Cho didn’t want to burst Rigsby’s bubble by reminding him that Rebecca most certainly hadn’t been a looker. “Obviously, she needs to be arrested.”
“How?” Cho retorted. Rigsby blinked. “No cell signal, and we’re on her battlefield; Duncan, the scientist who owned these supplies, died here after a four week hunt. Caribe could keep us here for weeks and lie to Bertram about our whereabouts, as we didn’t tell him we were searching any woods for Jane.” He watched Lisbon grimace again. “If she tells him we left, he’ll put an APB on us all outside of this town and we’ll never be found. We’ll turn into mindless, undead creatures, only to obey Caribe.” Cho stepped over to Rigsby, who had finished reading the letter also, only to survey the man’s injury. “What in the hell did you two do? Fight with a sword and lose?”
They both continued to grimace, while Rigsby sighed. “We separated from you and went into the woods, only to realize my gun had been taken from me early on. We tried to call you, but there was no service and Lisbon handed me one of her off-duty weapons, as she felt something was off.”
“I hid in the woods as a child,” Lisbon explained, glancing at one of the trees. “I purposely separated from my father on different occasions to learn how to survive on my own; and no woods are this quiet.” He watched her shiver, as he continued to tend to Rigsby’s wound. “I prepared myself for many horrors in this job, but those things were not one of them.” Cho silently agreed with her.
“She had just given me her weapon when I took a step forward and boom! A bomb or landmine blew us both backwards; Lisbon and I hit a tree and a tree branch fell, severing her arm from her body.” Rigsby continued, glancing toward Rigsby with a frown. “I have never seen a tree branch do something so…ghastly before and I was taken aback.”
“In the midst of his distraction,” Lisbon added. “One of those things lunged toward me, its sharp fingernails slicing through Rigs’s skin.”
“It hurt like hell,” Rigsby commented, still frowning, before his eyes went wide. “Hey…you don’t think I’ll become one of those things, do you?”
Lisbon bit her lip. “You weren’t bitten.”
Cho shook his head. “It didn’t do anything, but give you a good-sized scar and a sight to cause enough therapy for years.” Rigsby relaxed almost immediately and Cho continued to wrap the bandage around Rigsby’s chest. “I’d be more worried about the chance of infection, to be honest.”
“So, no quarantine?” Rigsby asked with a chuckle. “Has mat suits give me the creeps.”
“Unless you begin to show signs of…” Lisbon paused and both men nodded. “We refuse to hold you down or murder you.”
“That’s comforting,” Rigsby said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I suppose.”
“It’ll be even more comforting if we all, Jane included, make it out alive,” Lisbon answered and Cho shook his head. “You want Jane to become a…?”
“No,” Cho interrupted. Jane was his “friend”, and wishing that upon any one seemed like an inhumane thing to do. Regardless of how many times Jane had endangered all of their lives, Cho wasn’t about to leave his in question. “The outcome is bleak.”
“Yeah,” Rigsby agreed. “But what can we do? We have to try and find him, otherwise he might become of those things.” He watched Lisbon roll her eyes.
“Not my point, Rigs,” Lisbon gave. “Jane is one of us and we’re a family.” Nobody said a word, and Lisbon spoke again. “Now, where do we go from here?”
“This is going to sound insane, but what if we stay here?” Rigsby offered, while he grimaced as Cho finished bandaging him. “We have a tent, some food,” Cho knew Rigsby’s eyes had gone to the can of beans, which they were most likely going to enjoy for lunch and maybe dinner, “and we have water. The living dead don’t like water, do they?”
“I wouldn’t know, Rigsby,” Lisbon’s scathing tone nearly caused Cho to chuckle. “I’ve never actually been chased by an angry horde of corpses before, and this wasn’t exactly taught to me in the academy.” He heard something splash the water. “If we stay in this clearing, we might as well be goners.” While they had perfect coverage, they were in an unknown territory with forests all around them. If anything snuck up on them, especially whilst they all were sleeping, they’d be easy pickings.
The warm, coppery scent of blood filled his nostrils again and he stepped back from Rigsby, who continued to grimace at the makeshift bandages across his chest. “Keep grimacing and your face might permanently stay that way.”
“You’re not the one with a giant gash across his chest,” Rigsby pointed out and Cho glanced to Lisbon, who rolled her eyes.
“I’m missing an arm. I somehow think you’ll survive.” At her sudden emotionless tone, Cho caught Rigsby’s eyes in concern. He had never lost any limbs before, but he knew from his old military friends that losing a limb could cause a variety of issues. Sargent Charles George, for example, had lost his left leg in combat and had spiraled into a deep depression. “What? I’m still alive, so no need for those looks.” Rigsby offered Lisbon a half-apologetic smile, before Cho glanced at Grace, who continued to remain silent.
“Sorry, boss,” Rigsby apologized. Lisbon waved his words away, while Cho moved to sit between the both of them. “So, what do we do from here then? If staying here is a dangerous thing, I can’t imagine what a second nightfall might bring.” Rigsby slowly glanced toward the brightening skyline, a frown on his face. Cho nodded in agreement. The previous occupant of the equipment hadn’t warned them against venturing out at night, but in the dark, they couldn’t see the traps that Dr. Caribe had set out for them all.
“We have water here,” Cho pointed out. “If we go further into the forest, there’s no guarantee that we’ll have enough water to survive.” The human body in full health could survive three days without water, while a human body with substantial injuries needed more fluids to replenish what had been lost. “Until daylight, we’re not going to see any of the traps and outrunning anything in the dark is nearly impossible.” Rigsby muttered his agreement.
“Someone needs to keep watch then,” Lisbon said, after a few moments of silence, and Cho nodded. “I’ll take the first shift.” He shook his head in response. “What? I’m not…”
“You need to rest,” Cho interrupted. If it weren’t for her injury, her taking first watch wouldn’t have concerned him; however, he knew she kept stifling yawns and her body was shivering. If the rapidly cooling air continued to wrap around her body, he had no doubts that she would eventually suffer from shock. “I’ll take the first watch.” Cho removed his weapon from his holster and moved away from the camp of three; from his spot against the trees, he could hear Lisbon and Rigsby arguing about taking watch and he shook his head. He knew it was difficult for Lisbon to step back and allow for someone else to take charge, but she had no other option. Lisbon needed her rest, as did Rigsby and Van Pelt. Regardless of what they all wanted to do, he was the only person who wasn’t injured or dealing with the shock of losing a limb.
Eventually, the arguing stopped and the unnatural silence returned. His eyes scanned the forested landscape before him and he steadied his finger close to the trigger on his weapon.
“Hey,” at Rigsby’s voice, he lowered his weapon. “I brought you something.” Cho eyed Rigsby, who presented a small Dixie cup of cold beans. “Lisbon said to share, so…” Cho accepted them with a nod of his head, and quickly shoveled the food into his mouth. The beans weren’t horrible, but they weren’t exactly good either. “I’ll leave you to eat in silence, okay? Do you need any water or…?”
“I’m good,” Cho answered, setting the cup aside. “Get some rest.” He watched Rigsby’s mouth move and Cho shook his head. “You’re injured too. I don’t care how many weapons you found within that tent; you’re not taking watch with me.” Rigsby’s actions weren’t much better than Lisbon’s, even if he could stifle his yawns a little bit better. If it weren’t for Rigsby’s shivering and the growing patch of red on his bandages, Cho wouldn’t have had a problem allowing the man to keep watch with him.
“I have this,” Rigsby removed the Browning Automatic .22 from the tattered remains of his white dress shirt, and Cho eyed him. “I’ve always been a fair sharpshooter, and sleep doesn’t sound appealing to me right now.” Sleep probably hadn’t sounded appealing to any of them, especially with the horrors that they had all witnessed hours ago, but sleep was something that would give them all enough energy to continue in the morning. “I’ll follow your instructions, I promise. Just don’t send me to sleep.” Rigsby’s bloodshot eyes told Cho that Rigsby had attempted to sleep, and more than likely, Lisbon knew nothing about the can of beans that Rigsby had used to weasel his way into keeping watch.
“Fine,” Cho answered.
“I wish we had a fire,” Rigsby commented, after another round of unnatural silence, as Cho heard the injured man settle down next to him. “It would have made those beans taste better.” Cho said nothing. The light dinner of cold beans hadn’t done anything for his nauseous stomach, but it had given him a little burst of energy. “I know I should be thankful that we had anything at all, but hey, a man can wish for a little more substance…” He said nothing again and Rigsby fell silent, the pale light from the moon casting shadows on his face. Twenty-four hours ago, he thought the most demonic creatures in the world were serial killers and rapists; now, they all had to deal with a new threat to their lives.
“You should be resting,” Cho told Rigsby, who merely shrugged his shoulders. “You’ve been cut badly.” He spared Rigsby’s bandaged chest a quick look. Even without being a doctor, he knew that the man was extremely lucky; a cut six inches over would have killed him instantly. Cho couldn’t even imagine working without Rigsby, who had become one of his closest friends on the job.
“And leave you to have all of the fun?” Rigsby asked, chuckling. Cho eyed him. No matter the circumstances, death wasn’t a joking matter. He had killed way too many in the army, and he wasn’t about to disgrace the dead. “I never thought any of this existed outside of video games, you know?” Cho watched Rigsby move his arm up to rub at the back of his neck. “Slow moving creatures, moaning about brains and blood; I never thought I’d be living in a video game.” Rigsby frowned. “Think we’ll make it out alive?”
For a moment, Cho said nothing. He appreciated bluntness and candor, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Rigsby the truth. Their outcomes looked bleak; little food, the injuries of both Van Pelt and Lisbon, and the lack of bullets to protect them all. Even if they all managed to survive, Van Pelt and Lisbon would be looking for new jobs.
“Your silence is reassuring,” Rigsby’s voice broke through the silence and Cho offered an appreciative glance. He didn’t want to think about their odds yet, he just wanted to survive until morning. “If anything does happen to me, and…” Cho heard Rigsby move, until he felt warmth on his earlobe “…I get bitten…”
Cho rolled his eyes. “They aren’t going to bite you.”
“But if it happens,” Rigsby answered and Cho stared at him. The idea that Rigsby was entertaining a plan in case one of the “living dead” bit him was purely ridiculous, if not a little imaginative. However, he also couldn’t bring himself to stop Rigsby’s rampant imagination. “I don’t want to become one of them.” He watched his friend shiver and Cho wondered what he was imagining. “If it happens, put a bullet through my brain and burn my body. Take care of Grace and Ben…” Cho glanced away from Rigsby, who seemed on the verge of a breakdown. “Tell them that I loved them and…”
“Tell them yourself; I’m not your messenger.” He heard Rigsby chuckle breathlessly and Cho blinked.
“What if you get bitten?” Rigsby asked, quietly. Cho continued to stare at Rigsby. He didn’t want to entertain the idea of any of them being bitten, but he had read enough post-apocalyptic undead stories to know Rigsby had a valid reason to make his last requests known; someone within their party of five wouldn’t make it out alive and whomever didn't had to be prepared for his or her death.
“Then I get bitten.” He had nobody, outside of the Serious Crimes Unit, that would toss up a fit over his “death”. “If it happens, do what you think is right.” Cho watched Rigsby nod, before his cumbersome figure settled back against one of the leafless trees. Within moments, he was sound asleep and Cho bent forward to remove the Browning Autoloader .22 from his hands. Rigsby muttered something about Grace, before Cho tugged his jacket from his shoulders and draped it over Rigsby’s shivering form to keep him warm throughout the night.
He wasn’t about to lose Rigsby to something as trivial as the elements, especially not after all the man had endured in the past sixteen hours. Fixing his eyes on the various shrouds of rustling bushes, Cho silently chalked both weapons and prepared himself for the long night ahead.
At the first light of dawn, Cho allowed himself a small yawn and glanced to Rigsby, who continued to sleep. The normally pale agent had regained a little bit of his pallor back during the night, which filled Cho with a small sense of relief; he had already buried enough friends to last him several life times, and the thought of burying Rigsby or Lisbon or Van Pelt sent waves of nausea throughout him.
The sudden sound of a fire crackling caused him to jerk his neck in the direction of the makeshift tent and prep his gun for fire. Daylight or not, he wasn’t about to let his guard down and ignore whatever was roaming around at the campsite. He stood from his spot and fired his gun into the sky, causing Rigsby to shoot up from his spot on the ground.
“I’m awake!” Rigsby muttered, incoherently and Cho rolled his eyes. “What are you shooting at?”
“I heard something,” Cho responded, before he moved toward the campsite. His eyes found the still-burning fire with nobody else in sight and he frowned; he doubted the creatures were complex enough in intelligence to create a fire, but anything was possible anymore. “I’ve got a gun.” He pointed the weapon toward the tent flap, which moved in the wind.
“Point the gun elsewhere or put it away,” Lisbon ordered, as she stepped from the tent. Cho complied with her orders. “I refuse to have another lost limb here, because Cho can’t keep from firing into the abyss.” He heard Rigsby chuckle at her response, and Cho said nothing; he knew they were all running high on adrenaline, but firing the gun was an excellent warning sign. If any of those creatures had been loitering around the campsite, his one warning shot might have saved them all.
He watched Rigsby glance around the campsite. “Where’s Grace?” Rigsby frowned. “I know I moved her inside the tent last night, before I found Cho.” It was Lisbon’s turn to remain silent and Cho eyed her, as she brought her only arm to rest against her chest.
“I have no idea,” Lisbon answered, grimacing. “I heard the fire crackling outside and had assumed one of you was helping her, only to hear the damned gunshot.” Cho bit back his retort. Was Lisbon suggesting that his warning shot had frightened Van Pelt off? The idea was almost laughable.
In all of the years he and Grace Van Pelt had worked together, he had never known her to be frightened of a gunshot. Grace had dealt with several homicidal boyfriends (and a fiancé), had dealt with a grumpy hooker for nearly twenty-four hours, and most recently, she had dealt with being held captive by Red John for almost two months. If she had gone through all of that and had come out still baring a smile, a little warning shot shouldn’t have frightened her away.
However, Grace’s odd behavior was certainly bewildering.
“Boss,” Cho addressed Lisbon, who glanced in his direction. “What’s wrong?” Lisbon’s lack of response was troubling to Cho, especially as the woman preached on and on about the importance of their “team being a family”.
“If something is wrong with Grace,” Rigsby added, “we do have the right to know.” Cho nodded in agreement, before he heard Lisbon sigh.
“After being held captive for two months, you both know she couldn’t remember any of it,” Lisbon explained, quietly. “Jane tried everything to help her remember, including a particularly bad hypnotism session.” Cho heard Rigsby scoff. After Jane had suggested hypnotism to Lisbon as a possible “therapeutic” release and had attempted the act on Van Pelt, Van Pelt’s moods had become bipolar. “Red John’s…treatment… had twisted her into something else. She became dangerous and her actions worried Jane and me for months after her rescue.”
Cho remembered the looks between Jane and Lisbon. He remembered Lisbon leaving her office door and blinds wide open, as the both of them leaned over her desk and discussed whatever kept them frenzied. It had just never occurred to him that Van Pelt was the reason for their constant exhaustion.
Lisbon continued. “Director Bertram wanted Grace in a psychiatric hospital, for constant surveillance; Jane and I disagreed. We thought we could help her best here and we did; we invited her out for lunch, we had her over at our homes, and we offered our ears.” Lisbon paused to glance at them both. “Last week, she approached me. She was having horrific nightmares about the things she had been forced to do in his hold, and she didn’t know how she was going to continue working with us.”
“That’s why you haven’t had her on the field lately,” Rigsby replied, quietly. Lisbon nodded. “You’ve been having her stay in the office, until you could discuss her future with the boss.”
“Yesterday, however, I needed someone to cover up for Jane’s absence. Director Bertram refused to send me coverage, so Grace was forced into playing the role of a “put-together” agent.”
“The gunshot startled her then,” Cho replied and Lisbon nodded. “I didn’t…”
“How were you both to know?” Lisbon asked with a frown. “She’s been flashbacking to her time with Red John quite often; and like Jane, she’s learned to mask what she can’t deal with yet.”
“If I had known…”
“Don’t,” Lisbon interrupted him. “You thought to protect all of us first, as you should.”
Cho said nothing.
“If Grace is lost out here…” Rigsby trailed off and Lisbon shook her head.
“She’s around here, somewhere.” Cho agreed with Lisbon’s statement. After all, how far could Van Pelt get with only one foot? He didn’t want to voice his opinion to Rigsby, as the man’s expression already looked quite thunderous. “She might return if we all act naturally, and begin to fix breakfast.”
Rigsby’s stomach growled at the mention of breakfast. “What are we having?” Count on Rigsby’s stomach to make everything “normal” for a moment, especially as the man hadn’t practically wolfed down two cans of beans last night.
“There’s not much in the canned food collection, aside from beans. I suppose though, I could find us some fish.” Cho glanced at her. How was she going to go fishing with only one arm? “Don’t look at me like that, Cho. I know my limitations right now, all right. I would like to believe I am still your fully-functioning boss, until the CBI or Bertram says otherwise.”
He blinked. “Sorry, boss.”
“Get over here and help me catch a fish.”
Without argument, he unbuttoned his cuffs and pushed his sleeves back to the nook of his elbows. After all, he wasn’t going to complicate things further by refusing to comply with her requests.
Lisbon moved to push the space blanket attached to her shoulders aside, before the both of them stepped into the chilled water and scanned for any sign of habitation. The good thing about her choosing him to hunt for fish, he quickly realized, was that he had done this many times before in the military. Of course, the circumstances of present and past were completely different; in the past, his hunt for fish had been a life or death circumstance. Presently, however, he could survive on the wild berries and water and know he’d be fine.
His three co-workers, on the other hand, needed all of the protein they could get. While Rigsby seemed more alert than last night, and Lisbon seemed to be more of herself; he still did not want to take a chance of any of them going into shock again.
“I’ve got one,” Lisbon’s voice interrupted him from his thoughts and he glanced at her. Lisbon had a massive wiggling fish in her one hand and she was attempting to fight the slight current in the water, so she could take the fish back to shore. Cho stepped over to her and gently took the fish from her hold, before wrapping his arm around her waist. “What in the hell are you doing?”
“Making sure you don’t fall, boss,” Cho responded, as he moved them both back toward the campsite. Rigsby stood feet from the fire and smiled at them both, especially at the sight of a fish in Cho’s hand.
“You caught some trout…”
“I caught some trout,” Lisbon corrected and Cho said nothing. Rigsby had the decency to look away, embarrassed at his mistake. “I can still do everything I did before…”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t, boss,” Rigsby tried to pacify her. Lisbon scowled at them both, before she turned away and Rigsby glanced at Cho, helplessly. “Thanks for the help on that one.”
“You’ve dealt with Van Pelt in her moods,” Cho replied, eyeing his friend. “If you can’t handle Lisbon, then how do you plan on marrying any woman?” Rigsby had plenty of good qualities, but none of those qualities involved being “marriage-ready”; his relationship with Sarah Harrigan, for example, had tanked because he wasn’t quite ready to commit to one single woman (and Jane’s plan of “killing” him hadn’t helped seal the relationship either.)
“I’ve had more dates than you in the past year,” Rigsby pointed out. Cho continued to eye him.
“Mine lasted longer,” Cho retorted and Rigsby grimaced. Elise and Summer had both been long-relationships that had ultimately failed, because of his bad choices in life. Elise hadn’t been able to take the idea of being attacked again and he hadn’t wanted to slap Summer again, as the woman didn’t deserve it. “Can you skin a fish?”
Rigsby shook his head. “Not a skill they teach in the academy, so no.”
Cho sighed, inaudibly. “Come on then. I’ll teach you.” He didn’t wait for Rigsby’s answer, as he stepped toward the campfire and grabbed one of the sharpest knives from the ground. Rigsby said nothing before Cho held the knife out toward him, which caused Rigsby to stumble backwards and press the small of his back into one of the sequoias.
“Sorry,” Rigsby apologized, softly, after a moment of silence. Without a word, Cho watched the younger agent reclaim the knife from a short distance with trembling hands; Rigsby’s behavior worried Cho slightly, although he had a feeling of what troubled the young agent. “I just see the blade and I think of their fingers again and…” Cho watched Rigsby’s eyes widen, before his breathing quickened and Cho moved closer to his friend.
“They’re gone, Wayne,” Cho replied, softly. “They won’t touch you again, okay?” Rigsby said nothing. In response, Cho merely pried the knife from Rigsby’s grasp and skinned the fish himself. “I’ll let you get the next one, I promise.”
-
Rigsby stood before him, clutching at his chest with his red-stained fingers. His white dress shirt (also turned red) remained on his chest and nearly shredded in half. “I shouldn’t pick fights with squirrels, now should I?” Rigsby coughed and grimaced. “Why are you shirtless?” He ignored Rigsby’s question to glance at Lisbon, who stood against one of the trees with her eyes closed.
Lisbon’s shirt also remained in tatters and the entire light green shirt was soaked in blood of her own (he guessed, anyway). One of her arms hung at an odd angle, while the other arm was completely gone from her person.
“Lisbon?” Cho asked. Lisbon’s eyes opened, weakly. “What in the hell happened, Rigsby?”
He watched Rigsby sink to the ground, coughing again. “Where’s Grace? Is Grace okay?” It was a typical Rigsby reaction to ask for Grace, which made him feel slightly better.
“She’s missing part of her foot; I’ve left her just past the bushes, as I needed to know you both were okay.”
“Do we look okay to you?” Lisbon asked, dryly and Rigsby chuckled. “I’m missing my left arm and Rigsby has a giant gash across his chest. We’re the picture of perfection right now, aren’t we?”
“You both look like shit,” Cho commented, honestly. Lisbon met his eyes and grimaced. “I found a first-aid kit, and we have water over there,” Cho motioned past the bushes. “You need to wash the blood off you.” He had no idea how he was going to get the blood off Van Pelt, but he knew he’d figure that one out later.
Lisbon continued to grimace. “I’m not hoping into that water; especially not after having my arm blown off my body.” It was then; he took in the general states of their singed hairs and their soot-covered bodies, with a frown.
“No offense, man,” Rigsby commented also. “My chest is raw at the moment. Taking a swim is not something I want to do.”
“Do you want whatever attacked you to come back?” Cho asked. He watched Rigsby and Lisbon glance at each other in alarm, as if they had both discussed not mentioning whatever had happened out in the woods. “Then, go wash the blood from your clothing and I’ll join you with the first-aid supply kits shortly.”
He didn’t wait for them to say another word, stepping through the bushes again, to lift from Van Pelt from the ground. Cho watched her eyes open, slowly.
“I had the weirdest dream,” he heard her mutter. “We were lost in the woods, I lost my foot and something tried to attack us both.” She closed her eyes again and Cho said nothing. “I still have both of my feet…” He braced himself for the sounds of her sobs, but none came. “This is still a dream…”
“Van Pelt,” Cho couldn’t take listening to anymore of her delusions. “You need to remove your pants, and dip them into the water. You cannot smell of blood right now.”
Van Pelt’s eyes shot open and her breathing became rapid. “My foot…I really don’t have a foot?” He could feel her trembling against him and he brought her to the lake’s shore, before he lowered them both into the water without warning. Van Pelt hissed the moment the water hit her injury and she clutched onto him. “No-no more, please. I’m…I’m so sorry…I’ll…I’ll be better, I promise.” Cho frowned at her reaction.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Grace,” Cho said, gently, as he continued to hold her close. He didn’t normally do gentle, but he wasn’t about to distress her any further as he began to wash the blood from them both. “You’re going to be fine.” Grace continued to tremble in his hold, and he pressed his lips to her forehead. She stilled and he pulled them both, fully clothed, from the water. He placed her back on his discarded jacket, fetched the first-aid kit and returned to her. Quickly, he moved to pop a few painkillers in her system and wrap the injury to stem the chance of an infection from occurring.
“Thank you,” Grace muttered, softly. Cho nodded, watching her chest even out, until she had fallen asleep due to the painkillers coursing through her system. The sound of footsteps behind him caused him to turn to find both Rigsby and Lisbon soaking wet, which prompted him to hand over the space blankets he had found within the first-aid kit.
“How is she?” Rigsby questioned with his attention on Van Pelt as he pulled the blanket around his bare shoulders.
“She’s footless,” Cho gave, motioning toward her white bandaged leg. “How do you think she’s doing?” Rigsby had the audacity to look away from them both, while Cho rolled his eyes. He understood the need for most stupid questions, but the idea that Van Pelt could be anything other than in pain or terrified was a stupid suggestion.
“Both of you,” Lisbon chided, holding the blanket around her body with one arm, “knock it off. We all need to work together, especially now that two of us won’t exactly be able to do much.” Cho glanced at Lisbon. For the moment, he could tell, she was pushing her feelings away to view the situation with objectivity but there was only so much objectifying that could happen before she was forced to face the possibility that Bertram could take her job away from her for having one less limb now. “We’re lucky to be alive right now, so don’t do anything stupid until we know more.”
Cho cleared his throat. “I know enough. Jean Caribe is behind all of this; Jane’s disappearance, your injuries, the misinformation on the size of these woods.” He stared at them both. “She’s the owner of those things, which attacked us all in these woods.”
“How do you know this?” Lisbon asked. “Where is your proof?” He wordlessly brought out the journal and handed it to her, before he started bandaging her left upper shoulder. He finished bandaging her, before he heard her inhale sharply. “God damn it! Another crooked cop!”
Rigsby grimaced, as Lisbon passed the journal over to him. “It’s always the attractive ones too.” Cho didn’t want to burst Rigsby’s bubble by reminding him that Rebecca most certainly hadn’t been a looker. “Obviously, she needs to be arrested.”
“How?” Cho retorted. Rigsby blinked. “No cell signal, and we’re on her battlefield; Duncan, the scientist who owned these supplies, died here after a four week hunt. Caribe could keep us here for weeks and lie to Bertram about our whereabouts, as we didn’t tell him we were searching any woods for Jane.” He watched Lisbon grimace again. “If she tells him we left, he’ll put an APB on us all outside of this town and we’ll never be found. We’ll turn into mindless, undead creatures, only to obey Caribe.” Cho stepped over to Rigsby, who had finished reading the letter also, only to survey the man’s injury. “What in the hell did you two do? Fight with a sword and lose?”
They both continued to grimace, while Rigsby sighed. “We separated from you and went into the woods, only to realize my gun had been taken from me early on. We tried to call you, but there was no service and Lisbon handed me one of her off-duty weapons, as she felt something was off.”
“I hid in the woods as a child,” Lisbon explained, glancing at one of the trees. “I purposely separated from my father on different occasions to learn how to survive on my own; and no woods are this quiet.” He watched her shiver, as he continued to tend to Rigsby’s wound. “I prepared myself for many horrors in this job, but those things were not one of them.” Cho silently agreed with her.
“She had just given me her weapon when I took a step forward and boom! A bomb or landmine blew us both backwards; Lisbon and I hit a tree and a tree branch fell, severing her arm from her body.” Rigsby continued, glancing toward Rigsby with a frown. “I have never seen a tree branch do something so…ghastly before and I was taken aback.”
“In the midst of his distraction,” Lisbon added. “One of those things lunged toward me, its sharp fingernails slicing through Rigs’s skin.”
“It hurt like hell,” Rigsby commented, still frowning, before his eyes went wide. “Hey…you don’t think I’ll become one of those things, do you?”
Lisbon bit her lip. “You weren’t bitten.”
Cho shook his head. “It didn’t do anything, but give you a good-sized scar and a sight to cause enough therapy for years.” Rigsby relaxed almost immediately and Cho continued to wrap the bandage around Rigsby’s chest. “I’d be more worried about the chance of infection, to be honest.”
“So, no quarantine?” Rigsby asked with a chuckle. “Has mat suits give me the creeps.”
“Unless you begin to show signs of…” Lisbon paused and both men nodded. “We refuse to hold you down or murder you.”
“That’s comforting,” Rigsby said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I suppose.”
“It’ll be even more comforting if we all, Jane included, make it out alive,” Lisbon answered and Cho shook his head. “You want Jane to become a…?”
“No,” Cho interrupted. Jane was his “friend”, and wishing that upon any one seemed like an inhumane thing to do. Regardless of how many times Jane had endangered all of their lives, Cho wasn’t about to leave his in question. “The outcome is bleak.”
“Yeah,” Rigsby agreed. “But what can we do? We have to try and find him, otherwise he might become of those things.” He watched Lisbon roll her eyes.
“Not my point, Rigs,” Lisbon gave. “Jane is one of us and we’re a family.” Nobody said a word, and Lisbon spoke again. “Now, where do we go from here?”
“This is going to sound insane, but what if we stay here?” Rigsby offered, while he grimaced as Cho finished bandaging him. “We have a tent, some food,” Cho knew Rigsby’s eyes had gone to the can of beans, which they were most likely going to enjoy for lunch and maybe dinner, “and we have water. The living dead don’t like water, do they?”
“I wouldn’t know, Rigsby,” Lisbon’s scathing tone nearly caused Cho to chuckle. “I’ve never actually been chased by an angry horde of corpses before, and this wasn’t exactly taught to me in the academy.” He heard something splash the water. “If we stay in this clearing, we might as well be goners.” While they had perfect coverage, they were in an unknown territory with forests all around them. If anything snuck up on them, especially whilst they all were sleeping, they’d be easy pickings.
The warm, coppery scent of blood filled his nostrils again and he stepped back from Rigsby, who continued to grimace at the makeshift bandages across his chest. “Keep grimacing and your face might permanently stay that way.”
“You’re not the one with a giant gash across his chest,” Rigsby pointed out and Cho glanced to Lisbon, who rolled her eyes.
“I’m missing an arm. I somehow think you’ll survive.” At her sudden emotionless tone, Cho caught Rigsby’s eyes in concern. He had never lost any limbs before, but he knew from his old military friends that losing a limb could cause a variety of issues. Sargent Charles George, for example, had lost his left leg in combat and had spiraled into a deep depression. “What? I’m still alive, so no need for those looks.” Rigsby offered Lisbon a half-apologetic smile, before Cho glanced at Grace, who continued to remain silent.
“Sorry, boss,” Rigsby apologized. Lisbon waved his words away, while Cho moved to sit between the both of them. “So, what do we do from here then? If staying here is a dangerous thing, I can’t imagine what a second nightfall might bring.” Rigsby slowly glanced toward the brightening skyline, a frown on his face. Cho nodded in agreement. The previous occupant of the equipment hadn’t warned them against venturing out at night, but in the dark, they couldn’t see the traps that Dr. Caribe had set out for them all.
“We have water here,” Cho pointed out. “If we go further into the forest, there’s no guarantee that we’ll have enough water to survive.” The human body in full health could survive three days without water, while a human body with substantial injuries needed more fluids to replenish what had been lost. “Until daylight, we’re not going to see any of the traps and outrunning anything in the dark is nearly impossible.” Rigsby muttered his agreement.
“Someone needs to keep watch then,” Lisbon said, after a few moments of silence, and Cho nodded. “I’ll take the first shift.” He shook his head in response. “What? I’m not…”
“You need to rest,” Cho interrupted. If it weren’t for her injury, her taking first watch wouldn’t have concerned him; however, he knew she kept stifling yawns and her body was shivering. If the rapidly cooling air continued to wrap around her body, he had no doubts that she would eventually suffer from shock. “I’ll take the first watch.” Cho removed his weapon from his holster and moved away from the camp of three; from his spot against the trees, he could hear Lisbon and Rigsby arguing about taking watch and he shook his head. He knew it was difficult for Lisbon to step back and allow for someone else to take charge, but she had no other option. Lisbon needed her rest, as did Rigsby and Van Pelt. Regardless of what they all wanted to do, he was the only person who wasn’t injured or dealing with the shock of losing a limb.
Eventually, the arguing stopped and the unnatural silence returned. His eyes scanned the forested landscape before him and he steadied his finger close to the trigger on his weapon.
“Hey,” at Rigsby’s voice, he lowered his weapon. “I brought you something.” Cho eyed Rigsby, who presented a small Dixie cup of cold beans. “Lisbon said to share, so…” Cho accepted them with a nod of his head, and quickly shoveled the food into his mouth. The beans weren’t horrible, but they weren’t exactly good either. “I’ll leave you to eat in silence, okay? Do you need any water or…?”
“I’m good,” Cho answered, setting the cup aside. “Get some rest.” He watched Rigsby’s mouth move and Cho shook his head. “You’re injured too. I don’t care how many weapons you found within that tent; you’re not taking watch with me.” Rigsby’s actions weren’t much better than Lisbon’s, even if he could stifle his yawns a little bit better. If it weren’t for Rigsby’s shivering and the growing patch of red on his bandages, Cho wouldn’t have had a problem allowing the man to keep watch with him.
“I have this,” Rigsby removed the Browning Automatic .22 from the tattered remains of his white dress shirt, and Cho eyed him. “I’ve always been a fair sharpshooter, and sleep doesn’t sound appealing to me right now.” Sleep probably hadn’t sounded appealing to any of them, especially with the horrors that they had all witnessed hours ago, but sleep was something that would give them all enough energy to continue in the morning. “I’ll follow your instructions, I promise. Just don’t send me to sleep.” Rigsby’s bloodshot eyes told Cho that Rigsby had attempted to sleep, and more than likely, Lisbon knew nothing about the can of beans that Rigsby had used to weasel his way into keeping watch.
“Fine,” Cho answered.
“I wish we had a fire,” Rigsby commented, after another round of unnatural silence, as Cho heard the injured man settle down next to him. “It would have made those beans taste better.” Cho said nothing. The light dinner of cold beans hadn’t done anything for his nauseous stomach, but it had given him a little burst of energy. “I know I should be thankful that we had anything at all, but hey, a man can wish for a little more substance…” He said nothing again and Rigsby fell silent, the pale light from the moon casting shadows on his face. Twenty-four hours ago, he thought the most demonic creatures in the world were serial killers and rapists; now, they all had to deal with a new threat to their lives.
“You should be resting,” Cho told Rigsby, who merely shrugged his shoulders. “You’ve been cut badly.” He spared Rigsby’s bandaged chest a quick look. Even without being a doctor, he knew that the man was extremely lucky; a cut six inches over would have killed him instantly. Cho couldn’t even imagine working without Rigsby, who had become one of his closest friends on the job.
“And leave you to have all of the fun?” Rigsby asked, chuckling. Cho eyed him. No matter the circumstances, death wasn’t a joking matter. He had killed way too many in the army, and he wasn’t about to disgrace the dead. “I never thought any of this existed outside of video games, you know?” Cho watched Rigsby move his arm up to rub at the back of his neck. “Slow moving creatures, moaning about brains and blood; I never thought I’d be living in a video game.” Rigsby frowned. “Think we’ll make it out alive?”
For a moment, Cho said nothing. He appreciated bluntness and candor, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Rigsby the truth. Their outcomes looked bleak; little food, the injuries of both Van Pelt and Lisbon, and the lack of bullets to protect them all. Even if they all managed to survive, Van Pelt and Lisbon would be looking for new jobs.
“Your silence is reassuring,” Rigsby’s voice broke through the silence and Cho offered an appreciative glance. He didn’t want to think about their odds yet, he just wanted to survive until morning. “If anything does happen to me, and…” Cho heard Rigsby move, until he felt warmth on his earlobe “…I get bitten…”
Cho rolled his eyes. “They aren’t going to bite you.”
“But if it happens,” Rigsby answered and Cho stared at him. The idea that Rigsby was entertaining a plan in case one of the “living dead” bit him was purely ridiculous, if not a little imaginative. However, he also couldn’t bring himself to stop Rigsby’s rampant imagination. “I don’t want to become one of them.” He watched his friend shiver and Cho wondered what he was imagining. “If it happens, put a bullet through my brain and burn my body. Take care of Grace and Ben…” Cho glanced away from Rigsby, who seemed on the verge of a breakdown. “Tell them that I loved them and…”
“Tell them yourself; I’m not your messenger.” He heard Rigsby chuckle breathlessly and Cho blinked.
“What if you get bitten?” Rigsby asked, quietly. Cho continued to stare at Rigsby. He didn’t want to entertain the idea of any of them being bitten, but he had read enough post-apocalyptic undead stories to know Rigsby had a valid reason to make his last requests known; someone within their party of five wouldn’t make it out alive and whomever didn't had to be prepared for his or her death.
“Then I get bitten.” He had nobody, outside of the Serious Crimes Unit, that would toss up a fit over his “death”. “If it happens, do what you think is right.” Cho watched Rigsby nod, before his cumbersome figure settled back against one of the leafless trees. Within moments, he was sound asleep and Cho bent forward to remove the Browning Autoloader .22 from his hands. Rigsby muttered something about Grace, before Cho tugged his jacket from his shoulders and draped it over Rigsby’s shivering form to keep him warm throughout the night.
He wasn’t about to lose Rigsby to something as trivial as the elements, especially not after all the man had endured in the past sixteen hours. Fixing his eyes on the various shrouds of rustling bushes, Cho silently chalked both weapons and prepared himself for the long night ahead.
At the first light of dawn, Cho allowed himself a small yawn and glanced to Rigsby, who continued to sleep. The normally pale agent had regained a little bit of his pallor back during the night, which filled Cho with a small sense of relief; he had already buried enough friends to last him several life times, and the thought of burying Rigsby or Lisbon or Van Pelt sent waves of nausea throughout him.
The sudden sound of a fire crackling caused him to jerk his neck in the direction of the makeshift tent and prep his gun for fire. Daylight or not, he wasn’t about to let his guard down and ignore whatever was roaming around at the campsite. He stood from his spot and fired his gun into the sky, causing Rigsby to shoot up from his spot on the ground.
“I’m awake!” Rigsby muttered, incoherently and Cho rolled his eyes. “What are you shooting at?”
“I heard something,” Cho responded, before he moved toward the campsite. His eyes found the still-burning fire with nobody else in sight and he frowned; he doubted the creatures were complex enough in intelligence to create a fire, but anything was possible anymore. “I’ve got a gun.” He pointed the weapon toward the tent flap, which moved in the wind.
“Point the gun elsewhere or put it away,” Lisbon ordered, as she stepped from the tent. Cho complied with her orders. “I refuse to have another lost limb here, because Cho can’t keep from firing into the abyss.” He heard Rigsby chuckle at her response, and Cho said nothing; he knew they were all running high on adrenaline, but firing the gun was an excellent warning sign. If any of those creatures had been loitering around the campsite, his one warning shot might have saved them all.
He watched Rigsby glance around the campsite. “Where’s Grace?” Rigsby frowned. “I know I moved her inside the tent last night, before I found Cho.” It was Lisbon’s turn to remain silent and Cho eyed her, as she brought her only arm to rest against her chest.
“I have no idea,” Lisbon answered, grimacing. “I heard the fire crackling outside and had assumed one of you was helping her, only to hear the damned gunshot.” Cho bit back his retort. Was Lisbon suggesting that his warning shot had frightened Van Pelt off? The idea was almost laughable.
In all of the years he and Grace Van Pelt had worked together, he had never known her to be frightened of a gunshot. Grace had dealt with several homicidal boyfriends (and a fiancé), had dealt with a grumpy hooker for nearly twenty-four hours, and most recently, she had dealt with being held captive by Red John for almost two months. If she had gone through all of that and had come out still baring a smile, a little warning shot shouldn’t have frightened her away.
However, Grace’s odd behavior was certainly bewildering.
“Boss,” Cho addressed Lisbon, who glanced in his direction. “What’s wrong?” Lisbon’s lack of response was troubling to Cho, especially as the woman preached on and on about the importance of their “team being a family”.
“If something is wrong with Grace,” Rigsby added, “we do have the right to know.” Cho nodded in agreement, before he heard Lisbon sigh.
“After being held captive for two months, you both know she couldn’t remember any of it,” Lisbon explained, quietly. “Jane tried everything to help her remember, including a particularly bad hypnotism session.” Cho heard Rigsby scoff. After Jane had suggested hypnotism to Lisbon as a possible “therapeutic” release and had attempted the act on Van Pelt, Van Pelt’s moods had become bipolar. “Red John’s…treatment… had twisted her into something else. She became dangerous and her actions worried Jane and me for months after her rescue.”
Cho remembered the looks between Jane and Lisbon. He remembered Lisbon leaving her office door and blinds wide open, as the both of them leaned over her desk and discussed whatever kept them frenzied. It had just never occurred to him that Van Pelt was the reason for their constant exhaustion.
Lisbon continued. “Director Bertram wanted Grace in a psychiatric hospital, for constant surveillance; Jane and I disagreed. We thought we could help her best here and we did; we invited her out for lunch, we had her over at our homes, and we offered our ears.” Lisbon paused to glance at them both. “Last week, she approached me. She was having horrific nightmares about the things she had been forced to do in his hold, and she didn’t know how she was going to continue working with us.”
“That’s why you haven’t had her on the field lately,” Rigsby replied, quietly. Lisbon nodded. “You’ve been having her stay in the office, until you could discuss her future with the boss.”
“Yesterday, however, I needed someone to cover up for Jane’s absence. Director Bertram refused to send me coverage, so Grace was forced into playing the role of a “put-together” agent.”
“The gunshot startled her then,” Cho replied and Lisbon nodded. “I didn’t…”
“How were you both to know?” Lisbon asked with a frown. “She’s been flashbacking to her time with Red John quite often; and like Jane, she’s learned to mask what she can’t deal with yet.”
“If I had known…”
“Don’t,” Lisbon interrupted him. “You thought to protect all of us first, as you should.”
Cho said nothing.
“If Grace is lost out here…” Rigsby trailed off and Lisbon shook her head.
“She’s around here, somewhere.” Cho agreed with Lisbon’s statement. After all, how far could Van Pelt get with only one foot? He didn’t want to voice his opinion to Rigsby, as the man’s expression already looked quite thunderous. “She might return if we all act naturally, and begin to fix breakfast.”
Rigsby’s stomach growled at the mention of breakfast. “What are we having?” Count on Rigsby’s stomach to make everything “normal” for a moment, especially as the man hadn’t practically wolfed down two cans of beans last night.
“There’s not much in the canned food collection, aside from beans. I suppose though, I could find us some fish.” Cho glanced at her. How was she going to go fishing with only one arm? “Don’t look at me like that, Cho. I know my limitations right now, all right. I would like to believe I am still your fully-functioning boss, until the CBI or Bertram says otherwise.”
He blinked. “Sorry, boss.”
“Get over here and help me catch a fish.”
Without argument, he unbuttoned his cuffs and pushed his sleeves back to the nook of his elbows. After all, he wasn’t going to complicate things further by refusing to comply with her requests.
Lisbon moved to push the space blanket attached to her shoulders aside, before the both of them stepped into the chilled water and scanned for any sign of habitation. The good thing about her choosing him to hunt for fish, he quickly realized, was that he had done this many times before in the military. Of course, the circumstances of present and past were completely different; in the past, his hunt for fish had been a life or death circumstance. Presently, however, he could survive on the wild berries and water and know he’d be fine.
His three co-workers, on the other hand, needed all of the protein they could get. While Rigsby seemed more alert than last night, and Lisbon seemed to be more of herself; he still did not want to take a chance of any of them going into shock again.
“I’ve got one,” Lisbon’s voice interrupted him from his thoughts and he glanced at her. Lisbon had a massive wiggling fish in her one hand and she was attempting to fight the slight current in the water, so she could take the fish back to shore. Cho stepped over to her and gently took the fish from her hold, before wrapping his arm around her waist. “What in the hell are you doing?”
“Making sure you don’t fall, boss,” Cho responded, as he moved them both back toward the campsite. Rigsby stood feet from the fire and smiled at them both, especially at the sight of a fish in Cho’s hand.
“You caught some trout…”
“I caught some trout,” Lisbon corrected and Cho said nothing. Rigsby had the decency to look away, embarrassed at his mistake. “I can still do everything I did before…”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t, boss,” Rigsby tried to pacify her. Lisbon scowled at them both, before she turned away and Rigsby glanced at Cho, helplessly. “Thanks for the help on that one.”
“You’ve dealt with Van Pelt in her moods,” Cho replied, eyeing his friend. “If you can’t handle Lisbon, then how do you plan on marrying any woman?” Rigsby had plenty of good qualities, but none of those qualities involved being “marriage-ready”; his relationship with Sarah Harrigan, for example, had tanked because he wasn’t quite ready to commit to one single woman (and Jane’s plan of “killing” him hadn’t helped seal the relationship either.)
“I’ve had more dates than you in the past year,” Rigsby pointed out. Cho continued to eye him.
“Mine lasted longer,” Cho retorted and Rigsby grimaced. Elise and Summer had both been long-relationships that had ultimately failed, because of his bad choices in life. Elise hadn’t been able to take the idea of being attacked again and he hadn’t wanted to slap Summer again, as the woman didn’t deserve it. “Can you skin a fish?”
Rigsby shook his head. “Not a skill they teach in the academy, so no.”
Cho sighed, inaudibly. “Come on then. I’ll teach you.” He didn’t wait for Rigsby’s answer, as he stepped toward the campfire and grabbed one of the sharpest knives from the ground. Rigsby said nothing before Cho held the knife out toward him, which caused Rigsby to stumble backwards and press the small of his back into one of the sequoias.
“Sorry,” Rigsby apologized, softly, after a moment of silence. Without a word, Cho watched the younger agent reclaim the knife from a short distance with trembling hands; Rigsby’s behavior worried Cho slightly, although he had a feeling of what troubled the young agent. “I just see the blade and I think of their fingers again and…” Cho watched Rigsby’s eyes widen, before his breathing quickened and Cho moved closer to his friend.
“They’re gone, Wayne,” Cho replied, softly. “They won’t touch you again, okay?” Rigsby said nothing. In response, Cho merely pried the knife from Rigsby’s grasp and skinned the fish himself. “I’ll let you get the next one, I promise.”