Storage Room Secrets (Part 5)
TITLE: Storage Room Secrets [5/?]
AUTHOR: *note, author uses alias, this is not her real name* Ambrose Chavez
EMAIL/FEEDBACK: agent47AChavez@hotmail.com
DISTRIBUTION: feel free to archive this work as long as you notify me of its location so I can visit the site!
DISCLAIMER: ALIAS is the property of ABC, Touchtone Pictures, Bad Robot Productions, and is the creation of JJ Abrams. Sadly, I have no part in it.
RATING: (this chapter) R
CLASSIFICATION: dramatic romance
AUTHOR'S NOTE: To all who take the time to read this: thank you.
Collision point. Panic set in immediately. It was like feeling the weight of an enormous waterfall cascade onto her body, one crushing wave after another. Her blood pressure level shot skyward, adrenaline manifested itself in her shaking hands, and her pulse raced against the clock, ticking faster than the fragments of seconds making up a minute.
Her brain went into lockdown mode.
Keys, keys, keys, her mind clamored incessantly. She found them on her dresser and sprinted to her bedroom door. Dashing past the mirror, she whipped around and threw open her closet.
God! She couldn't think! She couldn't just leave wearing her underwear! Tears began to cloud her view as she blindly ripped the closest shirt off the hanger and struggled into it.
Hurry! An inner voice screamed. Taking the pants she had extracted herself from only minutes before, she stuffed one leg in, hopped precariously on one foot, nearly toppled over twice before she managed to succeed in hiking her pants to her waist.
Disentangling her jacket from the chair she so carelessly tossed it on, she bulleted out of her apartment pants buttoned but not zipped, jacket swinging from one arm, and keys in unsteady hands.
Jamming her keys in and turning the ignition, she prayed against all hope that she would not be too late.
Her engine sputtered, then failed.
"Dammit!" she yelled angrily aloud. "Come on! Come on!"
Something was wrong. Dreadfully wrong. Her car never failed. Sydney's entire body flushed cold. Her nerves peaked and became aware of her surroundings. She had been trained to pick up the slightest abnormality in any situation, and she sharpened her skills to perfection knowing she was running against time.
She glanced at her watch, the indigo glow showed that it had taken her four minutes to get dressed and into her car. Quickly, she scanned her mirrors, taking care not to move her head. She watched the shadows for any movement out of the ordinary.
Suddenly, there was a flicker of a bright red light amidst the bushes that shielded her view of the stucco houses across the street. A series of three rapid flashes followed, and she threw her weight against the door, flinging it open.
Soundlessly, she leapt out into the night, curled into a ball and braced for the landing. Moments after she hit the dirt and rolled once, an explosion sounded behind her, sending her beloved car ten feet high, riding a stream of flames. The heat scathed her body and she covered her eyes from the blinding blaze. The roar of the blast rang in her ears, and her mind spun in dizzying circles before going blank.
She raised her head briefly, noted the debris of the remains of her automobile, and tasted blood mixed with dirt. She let out a short gasp and everything faded to black.
[~]
He had just entered his home when the phone rang.
Exasperated and wearisome, Jack snatched the phone off the hook and barked, "Bristow."
A short pause. Then, "Never leave your child unattended."
Click.
Jack slammed the phone back onto its base and picked up his cell, already on his way back to his car. He tried Sydney's phone twice with no luck. Giving up, he dialed another number.
"This is Devlin."
"Something's wrong." Jack's voice remained calm though his entire body was both shaken and guilt-wracked. There was no time to think of that now.
Alarm and worry had taken a death grip on his heart, squeezing into a tight ball that constricted his breathing and set his skills on autopilot as he expertly maneuvered his car in and out of traffic, nearing speeds of 120 mph on the streets.
"What now, Jack?"
"Something's happened with Sydney. I got a call. The voice was female. There was a slight accent in her voice, but she didn't speak enough for me to pin down her origin. She's spent considerable time here or she's an excellent linguist." His hold on the wheel was tight and his knuckles were turning white. He whirled his car around a sharp turn, mentally calculating how long it would take him to reach her apartment.
Roughly, seven minutes.
He frowned. Not fast enough. Stepping on the accelerator, the speedometer revved and jumped to 135... 140... 147 mph. He silently thanked the CIA auto dealers for making such dependable, speedy cars.
"What do you mean something's happened with Sydney?" Devlin's voice was commanding and angry.
"I don't know. There were no specifics. Only one sentence. I have to go. I'll call you when this is over."
"Jack!" Devlin reprimanded. "What are you doing? Let the agency handle this!"
"Sydney is my daughter," Jack infused his tone with possessiveness and protectiveness only a parent understood. "I'm not going to wait for the agency takes to go through all their bureaucratic bullshit."
"Just wait a minute, dammit! You aren't thinking clearly, Jack!" Worry broke through. "You can't do this alone! Jack - this isn't something you ought to deal with! Stop and think about what yo-"
The phone went dead in Devlin's hands.
Jack pulled up to the apartment and took in the scene while he emerged from his car. The pillar of fire had been reduced to a flaming ball and the initial explosion had thrown the car some distance from the apartment and into the street.
He noted that the fire department had not yet come, but neighbors were already climbing out of the comfort of their beds to see the commotion. He scanned the faces of those surrounding him, memorizing every feature. The call could have been from any of the women standing around with concern on their faces, pajamas and robes yanked tightly around them. And of course, the woman could be long gone.
His intuition forced him to accept the second choice.
He strode forward, his face a mask of steel, his heart in a vise. Everything in him writhed in agony at the sight of her body twisted in the grass, one arm flailed out, the other trapped beneath her, and her head turned away from him, and towards Francie who was kneeling beside her.
Guilt hinged itself onto his heart and held on. This woman was his daughter and he had never truly known her heart, her being... he was forced to admit that he didn't really know her at all. Pain wrenched into his gut like a knife, and twisted.
Forcing himself to look away, he surveyed the yard and heard sirens in the background. Francie was mumbling incoherent things, rocking back and forth, clutching Sydney's hand and smoothing her hair from her face.
Jack resisted the urge to lift Sydney from her distorted position, afraid that she might have broken something when she jumped from the car. Afraid he'd make the pain worse.
Instead, he leaned down beside her, scanning her body for visible bone fractures and then brushed her hair back from her face, gritting his teeth when he saw the blood at the corner of her mouth and the small lateral gash that ran just above her right eyebrow to her temple.
Fighting intensely for control, Jack Bristow gave into the dark vengeance that had been clawing away at him from the moment he learned the truth about his wife. It encircled him, embraced him, swallowed him whole.
His blood ran cold, his eyes emotionless. He wouldn't allow her to destroy the one great thing she brought into this world. Jack Bristow would not allow the woman he once believed to be the love of his life to eliminate his only daughter.
His phone rang shrilly once more. Reaching for it, he again answered in his usual terse manner.
"What?"
"It is good to see you again, Jack." Came the hauntingly familiar voice. "You still assume someone else will take care of Sydney, I see. Too bad her nanny couldn't be there this time."
"Why, La-" he stopped himself short. "Why?"
"Because."
"That isn't a good enough answer." Glancing at Sydney again, he remembered his words to her once.
What could she ever say that would satisfy you?
Nothing, he realized. Nothing.
The dial tone was the only response he received.
[~]
Alice swiped the mask off of her face and shook out her long sun-streaked hair. Blowing a few stray strands out of her face, she admired her handiwork.
Fire was always enticing. Turn up the heat and watch everything burn.
She almost laughed out loud. Beautiful, she thought. A car in flames, and that bitch burning in hell.
Her earpiece beeped once. An incoming transmission.
"Firefly, you missed." Spite filtered through and was sharp and painful to Alice's pride. Dammit, wouldn't this woman ever be satisfied with her work?
"I got the damn car, okay? She isn't coming after us." she snapped back.
"Not good enough. You didn't get Sydney."
"She was in the fucking car, what do you mean I didn't get her?"
"Didn't you see her fly out seconds before?" the voice was annoyed.
"No! She was in the car." Alice felt the blood drain from her face and pool at her feet as she quietly made her way around the yard and stood behind another car. She peeked and saw Sydney's body in the dirt.
"Get out, Firefly. You've got an estimated three point five minutes to leave that area. Papa Bear is on the way, our man spotted him on Sunset Avenue thirty seconds ago."
Gathering her things, Alice slipped behind the trees and replaced her mask on her head to cover her hair.
"Papa to the rescue... what else is new?" she muttered to herself.
"We succeeded in capturing the second target."
Alice stilled. "You mean Mike?"
"This is not a telephone conversation. Maintain coded speech."
"You have the 'second target'." She taunted sarcastically. Slipping into the shadows and making sure no one was following her, she ran for her car located on the other side of the apartment building. "Hey. Do me a favor, Espinoza, and get the stick out of your ass."
"Fuck off."
Another beep in her earpiece sounded, and Alice smirked. That prissy Anna Espinoza signed off. She was always rubbing in her experience and expertise into Alice just to piss her off and make her feel like an inferior agent anyway. God, she couldn't stand her.
Approaching her car, she threw open her door and dropped all her equipment into the passenger seat.
She glanced once into her rear view mirror, saw no one and turned the ignition.
Instantaneously, a hand slipped up and covered her mouth and the scream of surprise that followed it. She clutched at the hand, eyes dancing wildly with fear. Her head was pinned against the headrest, and her entire body stopped fighting when she felt heavy, cold steel pressed against her right temple.
When she looked into the rear view mirror again, the only thing she saw staring back at her were a pair of eyes.
[~]
His head was throbbing with a migraine, and his left cheek felt as if it was three times the size it was supposed to be. He couldn't move his legs, his muscles felt fatigued and painful, and his arms were bound together uncomfortably tight with thick rope.
He had yet to open his eyes.
"How long will he unconscious?" Anna Espinoza's voice pierced through the hazy darkness that had blurred his mind. "We need him awake when we get to the extraction point. Mr. Sark is meeting us there."
"Mac hit him pretty hard," someone replied. Vaughn didn't recognize the voice, but noted that he spoke with an American accent. "It's possible he won't come to for another half hour to an hour. Depends on how strong he is."
Someone stepped closer to him, and Vaughn feigned lifelessness as he felt the presence lean forward to inspect him. He felt the person's breath on his face, and Vaughn considered head-butting him, but decided against it. His head hurt too much already and he didn't know how many other men were in the vehicle with him.
Where the hell were they taking him? How long had been out?
"As long as he's alive." She was standing next to him. "My boss wants to question him before he's eliminated."
"I thought The Man wanted him dead immediately? Him and the girl."
"Mm." Anna ran one manicured finger down the length of his face, running over the swollen cheek.
Vaughn fought the urge to cuss, hit her, or flinch.
She continued, "If that were the case, I'd have told you to shoot him down in his house and make it look like a B&E. What exactly did you shoot?"
"Just the phone. He was talking to someone on the line, and I don't know who was listening or how much they might have heard."
She looked at him questioningly. "And shooting the phone alleviated that problem... how?"
"I just felt like shooting something."
Anna shrugged and said, "The Man's changed his mind about killing them. This man is knows something." She let her hand fall onto his chest and rest there. "The 'girl' is valuable. She's part of an elaborate plan that even I don't know the half of."
Something sinister was in her voice.
"But I do know the result."
"What is it?"
"Destruction."
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