Second Chances

Jennifer turned toward the living room and froze, a look of intense concentration on her face, as if she were waiting for something, listening----for what?

Brian’s heart was pounding so loudly, it seemed impossible that she could hear anything over it at all.

“Jenny, do you think it’s….?” James Dixon. He couldn’t bring himself to say the name. It was impossible, anyway. How could he have found them here?

Jennifer unfroze, glancing first at Jenn, who tossed feverishly on the bed, then turning to meet his gaze. He knew what she was thinking. If it was James Dixon, she was virtually on her own. Jenn was out for the count.

“I don’t think he’d stop to ring the doorbell,” she said. But just the same, she held out her hand for his, hoisting him to his feet. “Help me move Jenn into the closet. I want you in there with her until I know for sure what’s…..”

On the other side of the room, a window shattered with a crash, as the figure of a man kicked his way through.

Jennifer pushed Brian down onto the floor. In a flash, she was up again, reaching for Jenn, pulling her off the bed and down, nearly on top of them, as the gunman opened fire.

The noise was deafening in the bedroom. Again, Jennifer covered Brian. The mirror on the wall above them shattered, raining shards of glass down on top of them.

But then the shooting stopped.

“I think that’s enough,” a voice said. “Don’t you?”

Jennifer shifted slightly, and Brian could see the leader of Merlin, James Dixon, standing in the doorway of the room, holding a gun. From his vantage point, he could easily kill them all. He must’ve come in through the front door.

He nodded a polite greeting, as if he were paying a social call. “Mr. Littrell. And the Doctors Townsend. You didn’t honestly think I wouldn’t be able to find you?” He smiled. “That bullet the elder Dr. Townsend has in her leg is part of a little pet project I’ve been working on over at the Merlin labs. It’s specifically designed to lose velocity upon impact and remain embedded in the recipient’s body, where it acts as a homing device. Clever, don’t you think, Mr. Littrell?”

Jennifer moved so she was directly in front of Brian. “You keep that gun aimed away from him.”

************************

“Take care of that weapon,” Dixon said to his hired gun, motioning with his head toward Jenn’s assault weapon hanging on the bedpost.

Jennifer pulled herself to her feet, carefully keeping Brian behind her as the gunman followed orders. Jenn still lay on the floor, caught in a feverish nightmare. Jennifer’s own nightmare was far too real.

“Where’s my bodyguard? What did you do to him?” Brian asked, worriedly.

“No need to worry Mr. Littrell. He’s fine. Knocked out in the hall. I’m afraid he’s going to have a nasty headache,” Dixon replied with a smirk.

Jennifer could feel Brian’s fingers wrapped tightly around her arm.

“Step away from him, Doctor,” Dixon said almost gently.

“I don’t think so.” Jennifer inched her hand down toward the hidden pocket in her dress. Jenn had been right. If she had to, she would use whatever means possible to protect Brian.

Brian’s voice was low and urgent. “Jenny, whatever happens, whatever he does, don’t continue with the Wells Project. It’s not worth it--- I’m not worth it. I know you don’t love me, you couldn’t possibly---you don’t even really know me and….”

“Move away from him, Jennifer,” Dixon said again as Jennifer slipped her fingers beneath the edge of her pocket. “You’re an extremely intelligent woman. No doubt you’ve figured out what I have to do to guarantee your continued participation in this project.”

“Just keep thinking about Harvard,” Brian told her fiercely. “If you give in and do what he says, he’ll use you for as long as he needs you and then he’ll kill you anyway. If I’m going to die, at least let my death mean something.” His voice shook. “Promise me, Jenny. Let me at least hold on to those pictures of you at Harvard. I have to believe you’ll get there----that you’ll be all right.”

How could he imagine she’d be all right anywhere without him? But then Jennifer knew. She’d never told him she loved him. And she did. She loved him.

“Put this one up on the bed.” Dixon nudged Jenn with his foot as he spoke to his gunman. “And rouse her. I want her to be awake.”

This was it. Jennifer knew this was her chance. As the gunman slipped his own weapon over his shoulder and bent down to lift Jenn onto the bed, Jennifer dropped her hand into her dress pocket, praying the handgun Jenn had given her hours before was pointing in the right direction.

It was.

She aimed it at Dixon and fired, right through her pocket, like some kind of dime-novel gangster.

It all happened so fast. The look of shock on Dixon’s face. The bloom of bright red on the white of his shirt. Brian’s hands pushing her away, pushing her down. The sound of Dixon’s gun as he squeezed off one final shot before his knees crumpled and he sank lifelessly to the ground.

And just like that, Dixon vanished.

The gunman staggered back with a cry of alarm as Jennifer scrambled to her knees, pulling her gun free from her pocket. As she aimed the handgun at the man she saw from the corner of her eye that Jenn, too, had disappeared.

“I have no desire to kill you too,” she told the gunman. “Just slowly put down your weapons.”

The man’s hands were shaking as he obeyed.

“The guy’s been hit,” he said.

The words didn’t make any sense to Jennifer. At least not at first. The guy’s been…?

But then she turned and saw the blood. Brian.

Jennifer dropped her gun, fear and anguish hitting her like a battering ram to the chest. Dixon’s final bullet had hit Brian.

“Call 9-1-1,” she shouted as she reached for him, searching for his pulse, praying he was still alive. But the gunman was already gone, out of the room, the front door slamming behind him.

The bullet had gone in his lower back, just below the ribs, as he’d pushed her down and thrown himself across her. Once again, he’d taken the shot that was meant to kill her.

She reached for the phone herself, dialing the emergency number as she worked desperately to stop his bleeding.

“Don’t die,” she told him. “Goddammit, I’m not going to let you die!!”

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