Spoilers: Up to IOTH

Summary: Part four of the Labyrinth Series.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters and am just playing around with them.

Miss Parker’s stomach turned at the thought. How in the fuck could the Centre ever expect her to do this? She shook her head. Imagine! Her, a mail order bride? She would blow up the Center before she would marry a member of the Triumvirate to benefit it.

At least that was how she’d felt when she was initially told her next assignment. Even now, over a month later, the words still tasted sour in her mouth. But what could she do? Nothing. Her father, who she thought was her father, was dead and no one could protect her. Her choices were to marry someone she didn’t know but still despised, or something far more sinister.

She wiped her cheek as Debbie came in the room. She’d grown into a beautiful young woman and looked very lovely in the lilac dress she wore. She wasn’t old enough to sign the papers but Miss Parker had insisted she be her maid of honor. Debbie sat beside her and Miss Parker carefully put some of her stray hairs into place. Miss Parker saw a lot of herself in Debbie and hoped that she would never have any of the rest.

Her wedding day. Somehow she never thought it would be like this. She’d been allowed to plan it, it was all she had to do after she was taken off the hunt for Jarod. That had stung hard as well.

She’d always thought that she would marry a handsome man she’d fallen madly in love with and who would whisk her away from her life at The Center. She’d even thought that perhaps Thomas would be that man. That was never going to happen.

And on top of it all, Jarod hadn’t even taunted her about any of it. She hadn’t had one clue, one phone call, or one package from him. Nothing. He’d disappeared off of the face of the Earth and her world. Perhaps it was for the best. She’d been removed from the hunt after that and anything from him would have made the whole situation that much more unbearable.

And it wasn’t because she cared.

Lyle peeked into the room and then stepped in and closed the door behind him. He approached Miss Parker’s sneer and grinned.

“Yeah, that’s the look you want in all of these pictures.” He said smiling. She fought it, but then ended up laughing at the thought of the menacing Bridal photos.

“Are you ready?” He asked. She rolled her eyes and thought of the conversation she’d had with her mother. ‘I hope someday I’ll meet a man I’ll love as much as you and daddy.’ Not for her.

“I’ll go back out. Sydney and everyone from The Centre came.” He said excitedly as he closed the door behind him. At least they would all have a good time at her wedding. She looked in the mirror and straightened her veil.

One last chance. You have one last chance to come and rescue me Prince Charming. She sighed at the thought. There was no Prince Charming in the cards for her.

She hugged Debbie and they gathered their flowers and their nerves and headed out the dressing room door. They were walking down the corridor when she remembered that she’d forgotten her something old, something from her mother. She quickly returned to the dressing room.

“Miss Parker!” Debbie cried as she followed her back into the room. Miss Parker held up her mother’s lace handkerchief, which she tucked into her bodice. She took Debbie’s hand and they walked out once more.

Miss Parker forced a grin as she passed the groups of happy-looking people. Caterers, florists, etc. Then she saw him. He wore a tux and his hair in his eyes. Their eyes met and she stopped walking.

“Jarod.” She said in a near whisper. She read the alarm on his face but did not hear what he shouted. She saw him start to run toward her and felt someone take hold of her free hand. She looked toward the person holding her arm and Jarod’s words began to register.

“Run, Miss Parker, run!” He cried as he reached her and lunged upon the man who pulled her down with him. Jarod swung and hit the man’s face and looked up at her, breathing hard.

“Go! Get out of here!” He said and saw she didn’t understand. He grabbed her and pulled her to her feet and began to run with her. Debbie ran with them, holding Miss Parker’s hand.

They ran out of the corridor and outside the chapel. They took off into the grass and rounded the corner. Miss Parker heard people cry out behind them and shouting.

“Jarod!” She yelled, tugging her hand away from him. He stopped and looked at her, his expression was desperate.

“I have to get you out of here, it isn’t safe.” She looked at him with a wry and worried expression.

“I’m getting married.”

”No you’re not! They’re going to take you!”

“Who?”

Their pursuers caught up with them. Jarod grabbed her hand and started to run again but she was pulled away by two large men. He whirled around and saw the two men and another grab Debbie and shove them into a limousine that had driven up the grass behind them.

“Jarod!” Miss Parker screamed. Jarod looked at her, defeat on his face and began to run until the sweepers caught him.

“How could this have happened?” Johansen Amaru hissed at the room of people. He was tall, deathly pale and threatening as he leveled his cold blue eyes at the others. “I want her found, alive! I want the people responsible brought to me, alive!”

He dismissed the roomful of Sweepers and Centre Operatives with an exaggerated swing of his arm. His gaze fell upon Lyle and Raines, the only others left in the room. They all still wore their tuxedos.

“Jarod’s behind this, I know it!” Raines hissed.

“I’m not so sure. It doesn’t seem like his style.” Lyle replied.

“His style?” Amaru said cocking an eyebrow.

“Jarod is the type who leaves a taunting message, not a ransom note.”

“Ah, if I might interject...” Sydney said, walking into the room in his tux as well.

“What?” Raines growled. For a moment Sydney smiled at the thought that Miss Parker had acquired that trait from her natural father.

“I don’t believe Jarod is responsible either. He also wouldn’t hurt Miss Parker.” They had found her blood at the scene of her abduction with the ransom note. “If you remember, Jarod was once caught trying to aid Miss Parker after she was shot.” Sydney finished shooting a glance at Lyle. “He was caught again trying to run off with her today.”

“Okay, suppose Jarod wasn’t involved. Then who was?” Amaru growled.

“I have no idea, but we’ll find out!” Lyle back-pedaled.

“I want you to work with Sydney and Mr. Broots on this. Find Miss Parker.” Sydney made a face at Amaru’s remarks. Work with Lyle? This was only going to further complicate the matter.

Sydney and Broots walked into the small, dark cell on SL-23. Jarod glanced up at them. He was sitting on the bunk with his hands drawn around his knees and resting his head on them. Sydney studied Jarod’s face. He looked profoundly saddened under a hard expression. His long hair hung in his eyes and he brushed it away.

“What do you want?” He asked in a near growl.

“I, we wanted to talk to you, Jarod.” Sydney said carefully looking toward Broots. Broots face was drawn long and saddened as well.

“Why? So I can help you find Miss Parker.”

“And my Debbie.” Broots blurted out then backed away.

“So you know about her abduction?” Sydney feigned ignorance.

“I know I couldn’t stop it.” Jarod said looking between them.

“Sydney!” The man behind him cried. They both looked at him in horror. Lyle had stepped into the cell.

“Jarod is going to help us find Miss Parker!” Sydney cried out. He turned to Jarod. “Right?”

“I don’t have her!” Jarod snarled.

“I guessed as much. Help us find her and I’ll let you walk, this time.” Lyle said.

“I’m sure; right until she’s in your hands and then you double cross me.”

“I can understand your mistrust, but I want to see my sister safe at home again.”

“Not to mention save your own sorry ass from the wrath of the Triumvirate. I’m sure they weren’t happy that Amaru’s bride was so easily taken from under the noses of her own people.”

“That too.” Lyle said calmly. “Please, Jarod.” Lyle got to his knees. “Help me find my sister.”

“Your laying it on pretty thick.” Jarod sneered at him.

“Please Jarod.” Sydney said with a begging expression. Broots nodded. Debbie had been an innocent bystander who’d been dragged into the mess. Jarod looked between the three men for a few long moments before agreeing.

“On my terms.” He said.

“He’s playing right into our hands.” Amaru smiled. Sydney frowned at him and Lyle.

“He’s going to help us find her only if we’re not working against him. He’ll disappear if he suspects you’re working against him.” Sydney said.

“He won’t walk away until he knows Miss Parker and Debbie are safe.” Lyle grinned and clicked a button and an image projected onto the screen. “We had security cameras installed everywhere the last time we caught Jarod on Carthis. Look what we caught on candid camera.”

The screen displayed Jarod and Miss Parker in the backseat of the Centre transport car. They were discussing something. Jarod reached out with his manacled hands and took her hand in his. They looked deeply at one another and then Miss Parker shook her head and pulled her hand away. The screen changed to the Centre lobby two months before where upon his capture, Jarod lunged on Miss Parker and kissed her.

“I’m no shrink, but if I had to guess I’d say Jarod has a crush on Miss Parker.” Lyle grinned as he surveyed Amaru, Raines, Sydney and Broots’ grim expressions. “What? This is good stuff.”

“I have some work to do.” Sydney said as he rose. Broots followed him out the door but not before flashing a glare at Lyle, Raines and Amaru.

Miss Parker sat on the rollaway bed against the concrete wall with her arms wrapped around her legs. She rested her chin on her knees and felt her surroundings. She was in a room a little bigger than a walk in closet with no windows, still wearing her bloodstained wedding gown. Her captors had given her a couple of wet-naps to clean up, but that was all. She was occasionally escorted to a bathroom where big men in ski masks watched her.

Her captors had separated Debbie from her. She didn’t know where she was or if she was okay or alive. She’d wept for the first few nights about Debbie. She was too young and innocent and it was her fault she’d been dragged into this.

“They’re going to take you.” Jarod’s voice and face still as clear in her mind as they were to her that day. He’d known. He’d come to rescue her. Prince Charming.

In here alone though her mind could soar. Concrete and steel could not repress her Inner Sense and she knew he was coming for her. She’d known on that day three weeks before, but hadn‘t known why. She’d stopped fighting long ago and now ate their prison food and focused her mind. She would bring them, him to her. The words to a song rang in her head. ‘If I go, I don’t want to go alone.’

“Oh with you, I could never be alone.” Lyle said to himself quietly. Broots and Jarod looked at him curiously.

“What did you say?” Jarod asked.

“Nothing.” Lyle said shaking his head. He rose from his seat and stepped over to a bookcase and pretended to find something very interesting.

“Lyle?” Sydney asked, but he knew the answer.

“I have these dreams. I don’t know what they mean.” Lyle said quietly.

“Of what?” Sydney asked.

“I see Miss Parker sitting in this small, dark room on a tiny bed.” Lyle replied.

“Miss Parker has the Inner Sense. She may be trying to help us find her.” Lyle looked at him.

“What, Inner Sense?” Lyle asked looking at them.

“This is harder on her than it is for us. If she is using her Inner Sense then it could help us tremendously.” Sydney persisted.

“Can you just stop with the psychobabble for five minutes!” Lyle shouted.

“Maybe we should consider all avenues if we’re going to find her.” Jarod snapped.

“I don’t have visions or hear voices.” Lyle stammered. “I’m not any crazier than anyone else is here.”

“I could argue against that.” Jarod sneered.

“There is a connection between twins. Maybe Lyle is just experiencing what Miss Parker is because of their connection.” Sydney said.

“It’s funny that she's trying to connect with me now.” Lyle sighed.

“Especially since you’re not the kind of person anyone should have connections with.” Jarod said before he stalked back to his desk and sat back down in front of his laptop. Back in his old room at the Center again.

“I know how you feel.” Lyle said.

“What the hell does that mean?” Jarod said glaring at Lyle.

“About Miss Parker, you know.”

“What?”

“You’re in love with her.” Lyle said pointedly.

Jarod looked at him furiously.

“What?” He stood.

“I know what happened in the car when we were bringing you back from Scotland.” Lyle teased. Jarod narrowed his eyes at him. “I even know about the time that she spent with you the last time we had you here.”

“What’s wrong, Jarod. Did you make an advance on the Ice Queen and get shot down? Is that why you were at the wedding? Trying to talk her out of marrying the wrong man?” Lyle continued. Jarod lunged at him and swung. He connected with Lyle’s jaw sending him to the floor. Sydney and Broots grabbed Jarod and Lyle rubbed his jaw and got up.

“That’s a good swing you’ve got there. Too bad you couldn’t save your sweetheart with it.” Lyle taunted before leaving the room. Sydney and Broots let Jarod go and he slumped on his bed. He looked up at the two men.

“Could you leave me alone please?” The two men exited.

“I don’t see the point of upsetting Jarod like that.” Sydney pleaded to Raines who’d listened to the three men describe the incident with raised eyebrows.

“Neither do I.” Broots said sternly. “My daughter’s life is in the balance here.”

“As is mine.” Raines glared at Broots who took a couple steps back. “I knew it was a mistake to ever let them meet.” Raines sighed heavily.

Raines remembered the DSA of Jarod kissing his daughter all those years ago. It had all led to this. He’d always wondered if Miss Parker’s feelings had gotten in the way of bringing Jarod back to the Centre. Yet it was those very feelings he’d used when he and the Triumvirate had set up the ruse of the wedding to catch Jarod. He’d seen the way they looked at each other in Scotland. He knew something had changed between them.

That was why he’d taken Miss Parker off the search for Jarod. He couldn’t expect his daughter to catch and bring the man she’d possibly slept with back to the Centre. He’d hated the notion, the very possibility that Jarod had defiled his daughter the way that carpenter had.

The ruse had backfired; someone had used it to abduct his daughter. Only he and the Triumvirate knew this of course. Now, who were they and what would it take to get Miss Parker back.

“Have we received the ransom request yet?” Raines wheezed.

“Nothing since the first note three weeks ago.” The note had said the ransom request would be made in a later contact. It had been dripped with Miss Parker’s blood and stabbed into the ground by the very knife used to let it in the limousine before it had sped off that day.

“Find her. The longer it takes, the less likely she, they will be unharmed.”

Jarod was standing in the Chapel. It was empty and he smelled the scent of the flowers from the wedding on the soft breeze.

“Jarod.” The soft voice behind him spoke. He turned to see Miss Parker dressed in her wedding gown. It was bloodstained and tattered. Her hair was down and unkempt as if she combed it with her fingers. She wore no makeup and looked very plain and sad. Her blue eyes shone in his dark ones. He wore black from head to toe.

He reached out to her and she looked at his hands before taking them in hers and looking into his eyes again.

“Jarod, I don’t know where Debbie is.” She said, tears welling in her eyes. Jarod brushed them away and held her face in his hands.

“Marion, where are you?” She shook her head in his hands.

“I don’t know.” Jarod rubbed her cheeks with his thumbs. He felt her arms slide around his waist and up his back. He leaned down and kissed her gently then felt he was being pulled back.

“I’ll find you.”

“I know.” She whispered.

The news they were waiting for arrived. A ransom. The box had arrived at the Centre that morning. Jarod opened it with Lyle and pulled out the wedding gown. It was damp and smelled of seawater. On it in indelible ink was written...

Jarod sank into a chair and he looked up at the others.

“If it’s me they want then why the hell didn’t they take me in the first place!” He yelled at no one in particular.

“They wouldn’t have gotten you at the wedding.” Raines wheezed.

“Why not?”

“Because it was all a set-up and they knew it. The wedding was a ruse to catch you, Jarod.” Lyle admitted.

Jarod stared at him blankly then stood in anger.

“You mean you made all that up and now Miss Parker and Debbie’s lives are in danger for it?”

“For you, Jarod.” Amaru smiled. “Unfortunately, I will not be here to watch the rest of this...” he paused “drama? I have business to attend to back in Africa.”

Jarod looked and felt visibly relieved as Amaru then headed toward the door.

“Thank God.“ Lyle’s whispered response came beside him.

Lyle looked over the dress and the note from the kidnappers. He ran his fingers over the words. He recognized the handwriting.

He pulled the note he’d received a few months ago out of his pocket and unfolded it. The one about his parents that Broots and Sydney had pieced back together. He held it beside the kidnapper note and saw the writing matched exactly.

He knew then who’d sent it. He wasn’t surprised that it was him. He was surprised that Jarod didn’t know.

Jarod had known about the abduction plans though.

A few hours later they received a videotape. The men sat in stone silence as they watched the horror unfold.

Miss Parker’s image came on the screen. The camera panned back and she was on a vacant beach. A gun was shoved into her back and she lifted the front of her wedding dress as she walked into the water and was pulled into the boat by masked men.

The boat was steered into open sea and when they were far off the shore one of the men grabbed Miss Parker by the hair and shoved her over the side. He held her hair and they saw her splashing and screaming in the North Atlantic water. The man held her head under and they could see her thrash about under water. He pulled her up for air and then pushed her back under about fifteen or twenty times. The man pulled her hair and another grabbed her arms and dragged her back into the boat.

When they were back to the shore the men drug her out of the boat, through the water and dumped her on the sand. They cut the gown off of her up the back and pulled her clothes away. The last shot before the screen went black was of Miss Parker lying shivering and naked in the sand. The camera panned in on her face as she cried.

Jarod stalked down the hallways followed by the sweepers with a piece of Miss Parker’s dress in his hand. He stormed into the room occupied by Angelo and thrust the fabric into his hand.

“Where is she?”

Angelo contorted and cried at the touch of the fabric, feeling Miss Parker’s terror and pain. He cried and mumbled as he drew pictures of places he saw in the memories of the dress.

Jarod snatched them up and stormed out of the room and back to his own.

Angelo blinked after him.

“Jarod wants revenge.” Angelo said quietly to himself.

Jarod turned a corner and ran into Lyle. The two jumped back from each other and leveled their gazes.

“We’ve received another package from the kidnappers.” Lyle said. Jarod only nodded and followed him back to the sim lab.

Miss Parker pulled the sheets around her tightly. She’d seen Debbie before, before... Debbie was all right. She was safe. There wasn’t a scratch on her and Miss Parker would take all the abuse to protect her. Not that it was her choice. She thought she would die in the ocean. Thought that the last time she would ever see Jarod was at her wedding when he came to save her.

He was always saving someone and now he would save her. Unless the Centre had him. She shuddered at the thought. If the Centre had him, they may never even bother to look for her. And he couldn’t look for her.

She thought about when it had all changed. It wasn’t by the warm glow of Ocee’s fire. It had been long before. When she’d seen his image in a photograph for the first time since they were children. The image she showed to people in her search for him.

He’d grown into a very handsome man. She’d been surprised by his appearance. Tall, dark and handsome. The kind of man any woman would pursue, but by her in particular. And he was such a wonderful man. He’s a genius. He cares about people. Altruistic. He cared about her. She’d had to show a tough face but she knew that he knew his gestures of kindness to her had hit home over the years. He loves her.

She brushed away the tears that started down her cheeks. The only person alive who really loves her despite herself.

Three days after the beach, the door to Miss Parker’s prison opened and a man stepped inside. He was tall and Miss Parker recognized him immediately.

“Alex.” She breathed.

“Your memory is sharp, Miss Parker.” He sneered. He was dead once. A dead Pretender. Nobody at the Centre stayed dead; she should know this by now.

The door closed behind him and he sat down on the bed beside her. He reached out and stroked her face and ran his fingers through her hair as she pulled away. He snickered and grabbed her and kissed her as if he were grinding his face into hers. He slapped her when she only cried out and wouldn’t accept him. She touched her face where it began to darken.

“Bitch! You always were such a tease!” He sneered.

“What do you want?” She cried. She’d given up the Ice Queen long ago.

“I want to destroy Jarod. You are the best possible way.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you know by now? He LOVES you! You are the Center of his Universe! If I destroy you, then I destroy Jarod!”

Tears streamed down her face at his madness. It wasn’t until that moment that she was certain that she would die there. At the hands of this madman.

“Don’t.” She shook her head and whimpered. “Please don’t.”

“I wonder what they would all think of you at this moment. A broken woman, a mere ghost of the Ice Queen. Weak. Helpless.” She sobbed harder at each word. He turned his head and spoke as if someone was standing behind him.

“You’ll never see her alive again, Jarod.”

The second tape arrived with the exchange location. The Baltimore Aquarium at midnight. The men watched this tape in growing dismay. Jarod only glared at the screen. He and Lyle were the only ones who didn’t look surprised. Lyle turned to him when it was over.

“Angelo told you it was him, didn‘t he?”

Jarod closed his eyes and clenched his hands together. He was shocked at the feelings within him. He had never so wanted to hurt someone in his life. To murder someone. Regardless of the outcome, Jarod promised himself that Alex would perish.

Miss Parker walked up to the pane of glass that stretched from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. A six-foot by six feet by six foot cell with a view. She could see Alex sitting in a chair, smiling smugly at her. She barely noticed how cold she felt. How naked she was. At the end did it matter? When she was dead, no one would ever hurt her again.

She would drown. Alex had chuckled before locking her in the display. A new exhibit, something he had seen in a movie. She also knew that Jarod would arrive in time to see her die. To watch helplessly as she thrashed and convulsed as her body stopped working. As she passed into sweet oblivion. And she wouldn’t see him.

Lyle stared at the road and suddenly the windshield glass seemed to distort to that of a curved surface. He felt cold. He saw two hands touch the glass from the other side and saw the pale lifeless stare of his sister.

“Stop the car!” Lyle suddenly cried out. Willie, Raine’s prized sweeper did as he was told and the car lurched to a screeching halt.

“What’s wrong?” Willie asked. Lyle grinned as his hand came down on Willie’s head, smashing his temple with the butt of his gun.

Broots gasped in the back seat and Jarod merely grunted as Sam’s mouth dropped open in dismay. Lyle tossed a set of keys and a gun back to Sam.

“Un-cuff Jarod and give him this.” He ordered. Broots and Sam exchanged open-mouthed expressions before returning their gazes to Lyle. “He’ll cooperate.” Lyle nodded at Jarod who merely leveled his gaze at the man.

Sam did as he was told and Lyle ordered Broots out of the car. The tech reluctantly aided him in dragging Willie out of the vehicle and depositing him in the trunk.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be all right.” Lyle grinned at Broots before they climbed back into the car, Lyle at the wheel.

“We’ll go forward with the plan, except for Willie.”

The icy water was about her chest. The cold was penetrating and she was losing the struggle against shivering. She saw Debbie sitting beside Alex, she was crying. Miss Parker once again placed her hand against the glass and smiled at her. She would die, but the girl would be safe of this she was certain. Jarod would make sure she got out of this and back to her daddy all right. She would remember though.

She hoped that Jarod would help Broots and Sydney escape the Centre. He probably had it all worked out. She thought back to him at the cabin in Canada. Thought of Goofy and how he’d kissed her. She should have accepted the offer and let him lie with her before he’d disappeared.

He’d told her that he was in love with her and she wished she had told him the same. She’d convinced herself that it was as he’d said sweet talk to get away. That was the only way she’d gotten past the feelings of loneliness and abandonment.

Now he would watch her die. Probably with Broots and Lyle with him. She doubted they would bring Sydney. She wished she could take it all back, but then again, didn’t they all in the end.

“Oh my God.” Lyle whispered as they stared through the opening at the scene, which lay before them. They had looked over the building plans of the aquarium and Jarod had figured out where Alex would be holding Debbie and Miss Parker. What he hadn’t figured out was how they would be holding them.

Lyle looked over at Jarod and for a moment was locked on his eyes. So many emotions played out there. Fear, love, hatred, revenge, misery. Then they all disappeared and his face set into a hard expression. He looked back at Lyle.

“Go.” He whispered. The four of them briefly wished they had brought more people maybe even Willie. Then Lyle stepped into the room with Jarod being led at gunpoint behind him in cuffs.

“Hello, old friend.” Lyle grinned and Alex returned his smile. Alex stood and glanced over Lyle’s shoulder at Jarod, who stood staring at Miss Parker.

He could only imagine what Jarod was thinking. What he was feeling. He glanced at Miss Parker who was clawing at the ceiling of the cell and kicking furiously to breathe every last ounce of air before there would be no more. He could barely hear Debbie crying beside him as he held her hand.

“Now, Alex. I thought the agreement was one life for two?” Lyle held his sternest poker face but he was actually screaming inside. He could feel her fear and desperation. He was dying with her.

“So how are you going to kill me?” Jarod spoke flatly. All eyes were upon him as he took his from Miss Parker.

“He’s good!” Alex laughed. “Of course Jarod reaches the correct conclusion when it’s too late. I’ll give you Debbie, unharmed of course.” He wrenched his hand away from Debbie and she ran to Broots and grasped him around the waist and he collapsed to the floor holding her and they both cried.

Jarod walked to the tank and stood beside the glass. He put his hands against it and stared up at Miss Parker. Alex wondered if she could actually see his soulful expression.

Alex returned his attention to Lyle and the sweeper.

“I gave you what you wanted. You may leave now.” He said sweetly.

“I can’t let you have Jarod.” Lyle replied calmly.

“Don’t worry. I’ll send him back to the Centre with Miss Parker. After I’ve reunited them in the Great Beyond.”

Suddenly two shots rang out and Jarod jumped back from the tank, his free hand holding a gun. Alex looked toward him in shock as another shot rang out from Lyle’s gun. Alex looked at Lyle, dismayed as he stepped forward and fired two more shots.

Jarod fired three shots and there was a loud scratching sound as the glass began to give way. Sam and Lyle returned fire to Alex’s henchmen and the ones who weren’t cut down were knocked off their feet when the glass shattered and spilled its contents.

Jarod was washed aside by the freezing water and sloshed back to his feet to find Miss Parker lying on the floor. He rushed to her and turned her on her side and held open her mouth before placing her on her back. He leaned over and held his fingers to her throat and his ear to her mouth. She still had a pulse. He held her face and pressed his mouth to hers and breathed into her lungs.

Lyle and Sam killed the few of Alex’s men who hadn’t run off. They then joined Broots and Debbie beside Miss Parker and Jarod. Miss Parker started coughing and Jarod rolled her to her side where she vomited and coughed up ice water.

Jarod glanced up at Lyle who knelt beside him. Lyle smiled at him and looked around and then at Sam.

“Where is Alex?” Lyle asked. They all looked over to where he had stood and saw nothing. Jarod returned his attention to Miss Parker.

“Let them be.” Lyle ordered. He stood and began to walk toward the door.

“What?” Sam asked bewildered.

“You heard what I said.” Lyle looked at Jarod. “Take care of her.”

“I will.” Jarod said as he pulled off his leather jacket and slid one of Miss Parker’s arms through it noting the broken glass on the ground.

Sam, not fully grasping what was happening followed Broots and Debbie. The four began their exit as Jarod zipped Miss Parker into his jacket and lifted her from the ground.

Jarod touched her face lightly. He could feel her drawing on his energy in this dark fifteen dollars an hour room. A dark place where no one gives a second glance to someone carrying in a scantly clad, unconscious woman.

He’d taken supplies from an ambulance. Just what he’d need to help her. Now he waited, and held her in this tiny bed. What would she think when she awoke and found them like this?

In his office, Lyle sat at his desk and thought of that evening a week before. Being dressed down by Raines and the Triumvirate hurt right up there with getting his thumb sliced off by the Yakuza. But somehow he really hadn’t minded.

No one but the five of them really knew what had happened that night. Sam would want to protect his job. Broots would want to protect himself and Debbie, and Jarod was free. Lyle smiled to himself at the last. He’d upheld his agreement that Jarod had thought was a lie.

He wondered how Miss Parker was. Jarod had heroically whisked his sister off to an undisclosed location. Sweeper teams had been dispatched however no one had noticed a man of Jarod’s description with a woman like Miss Parker. Nor of Alex’s description.

Sydney and Miss Parker had both spoken of the final straw that would finally make Jarod break his ties with the Centre and disappear forever. However, he didn’t believe that this was the one. He wasn’t the type who would so carelessly run away with a ladylove, riding off into the sunset.

Lyle had seen it before, but never so clearly as that night in his eyes. Jarod had changed. It had been gradual, but he was far from the innocent avenging angel he was when he had first escaped the Centre. He had become a relentless creature. One who preyed upon the truth with each pretend and unsatisfied returned to his lair to wait for his next opportunity.

Jarod had become someone who Lyle understood very well. The others hadn’t seen it. But he knew, and so did Jarod.

When Miss Parker regained consciousness nearly a week and a half after Jarod had rescued her from the aquarium, he knew something was still very wrong. He saw it in the blankness of her stare, the look of absence.

“You’re awake.” He said, trying to sound cheerful. She shook her head and shied back, pulling the covers up around her.

“Who are you?” She asked timidly. Jarod’s face fell and he felt as if all his strength had drained from him.

“You really don’t know.” He stated. He found the seat before he fell onto the floor. He sighed as if all his breath was escaping him.

“My name is Jarod; I’m here to help you.”

To Be Continued …

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