Part Three Ramifications
The Catacombs:
Emily couldn’t stop crying. She didn’t remember running out of Luke’s and
had no idea how she had ended up here. She was cold, wet, and miserable.
She was also hiding.
From Lucky. From Luke. From her family. And most of all from herself. In
2 hours a bus would pull out of Port Charles headed for Minnesota and Emily
planned to be on it. She wasn’t headed for Minnesota and a plane would have been
more direct, but if you didn’t want to be followed it was a lot easier to switch
buses and lose a trail than switch planes.
Maybe she should write a book- 101 ways to stay in hiding. Or maybe she
should call it 101 ways to totally screw your life up. She should never have come
back to Port Charles.Now she couldn’t even take a chance on reaching Dallas and
picking up those fake ID’s- even if she thought Luke would go ahead and send
them. She had no way to get them out of the country. And she had the strangest
feeling that her luck was about to run out.
She curled up into a ball and tried to stay warm. She was tired. So tired.
She felt like she had been walking a tight rope for seven years but this morning’s
confrontation had sent the whole thing crashing. Like a house of cards.
She was so tempted to go home, to find Jason or Ned or even Sonny or
Luke and let them hide her. But she couldn’t take a chance on their lives. She had
done that once and it had blown up in her face. (Don’t think about it Em).
She wanted to go home.
But she no longer had one.
Lucky’s Penthouse (formerly the home of Jason Morgan):
Lucky was in the kitchen of his penthouse, testing his cooking skills which
seemed to have eroded with age. He had brought the penthouse a year ago from
Jason, somewhat because the location was convenient and Jason had sold it cheap.
But mostly he had bought it because the state of the art wiring that had once been
so necessary when it had been a mobster’s headquarters came in useful when you
wanted to install the latest in high tech equipment.
Besides, where did it matter where he slept or spent his days. The only home
he had had in the last decade had been the one bedroom apartment near campus
that he and Liz had shared.
He cursed mildly as the doorbell rang just as he was trying to salvage the
omellete (rapidly turning into scrambled eggs) that sat on the stovetop. It was
probably Jax wanting to know why he hadn’t been to work in the last two days.
The truth was that he had spent every spare minute over the last 48 hours
quietly and as discretely as possible looking for Emily. He had tapped into hotel
registration systems looking for young, single, women fitting her description.
There were 24 in the Portland area but none were Emily. He still couldn’t believe
that she had run away from him. Or that his father had been helping her all these
years.
Every minute he hadn’t been actively hunting Emily had been spenting
badgering his father for more information. He figured that he had spent more time
with his parents over the last two days than he had the last two years.
He should give up. He was more than likely making things worse for her by
looking for her. At least that’s what his father kept saying.
But he couldn’t shake this feeling that she was in danger. And he was
scared for her.
Lucky had lost too much in the last few years. He wasn’t going to lose
anymore.
The persistant ring of the phone call shook him out of his reverie. He
strode impatiently to answer it.
“Look Jax, I already said I couldn’t make it.”he began as he opened the
door and then stopped.
“Emily?”
She looked awful. She was covered with mud and wet, but it was her face
that scared him the most. It was pale white except for two brown eyes that burned
into him.
“Lucky?” she sounded confused and dazed, leaning heavily against the
door jam.
“What’s wrong?” he reached forward to grab her at the same moment she
fell forward and clutched his arms. She looked him straight in the eye.
“I....I failed,” she whispered brokenly. Before he could reply, she collapsed
at his feet.
“Em!” he yelled, reaching down for her and then stopped and stared at his
hand. It was covered with blood. For the first time he noticed the dark brown stain
that was slowly spreading over her chest. “Emily!”
Five frantic moments later, Lucky had carried Emily into the living room,
laid her on the leather couch, and was frantically trying to stop the bleeding with a
kitchen towel. With his free hand, he reached over and grabbed the cell phone on
the table.
Oh God. Please be there. I should be calling an ambulance. Or the police.
Why am I calling him? Because Emily trusted him Lucky answered himself. And
because you do to.
“Luke’s Place.”
“Dad? Thank God. I need your help. Emily’s here and she’s been hurt and
there’s blood everywhere and I can’t tell if she’s breathing and I can’t let her
die...”
“Lucky stop it.” His father’s command gave Lucky something to focus on.
“I need you to calm down. Emily doesn’t need you to panic.”
Emily. Lucky took a deep breath. Focus on Emily. He looked down and
could feel the pulsing warmth of her blood against his hand.
“Lucky!”
“I’m okay, dad. Tell me what to do. She needs an ambulance.”
“No! No ambulances. She’s too open a target in a hospital. Call Jason. You
have his new number. He’ll have a doctor that you can trust. But tell him to keep it
quiet. She’ll hate me enough for telling Jason where she is.”
“At least she’ll be alive to hate.”
“Remind her of that. One last thing, was she alone?”
“What?”
“Was she alone?”
“Of course,” Lucky was impatient. “I’ve got to call Jason.” He hung up.
Luke Spencer held the receiver for a moment. She had been alone.
He was afraid he knew what that meant.
And he prayed to God that he was wrong.
Thirty minutes later Lucky waited with Jason in the living room while the
doctor performed what amounted to surgery in Jason’s spare bedroom.
“This is crazy,” Lucky paced back and forth frantically while Jason
remained his usual self- calm and controlled, at least on the surface.
“Your father said no hospitals. He has his reasons. So does she. We trust
them both.”
“Still,” Lucky continued.
“Sit” barked Jason.
Lucky sat. He had always considered Jason a friend, but he had to be
honest- since Robin had left, AJ got custody of Michael, and Carly took off for
parts unknown- Jason had grown colder and harder than anyone could imagine.
There were only four people in this world that Jason could truly be said to care
about. One was Sonny. Another was Michael. The third they had buried two days
ago. And the fourth was lying in his bedroom with a gunshot wound.
How had the world gotten so crazy since high school?
Jason looked at Lucky again. “When Emily first disappeared, ran away
was what the Q’s called it, I had everyone I know, everyone, searching for her.
Between my contacts, the investigators the Q’s hired, Mac Scorpio, we searched
everywhere. One year went by and noone, noone, could find her. But I was
determined to keep looking. Sonny and I made it a priority. And I knew it was a
matter of time before we tracked her down.”
Jason reached into his pocket and pulled out a small tape recorder. “Then I
got this in the mail. I carry it with me. Just to remember.”
He placed the tape recorder on the table and pushed play. After a moment, Lucky
could hear Emily’s voice.
“Jason,” There was a break and then it began again. “ Jason. I’m recording this
so that you know its me. And that I’m okay. And that noone is forcing me to say
this.
I. I can’t come home Jason. Not to you. Not to the Q’s. Not ever. I made a
mistake and I’m in trouble, but its not the kind of trouble that even big brothers
can get you out of. I have to handle this myself. I want you to trust me and I want
you to do something for me.
Jason I need you to stop looking for me. I can’t be found- not by anyone.
And I need you to take care of the family for me. They are slightly, okay mostly ,
nuts but they are family. I need to know that they and you are safe. I love you
Jason.”
The tape ended. Lucky closed his eyes to fight back the tears.
“Even after that I wanted to find her. Even had the tape analyzed to see if
would give us any clues. Then Sonny sat me down one day and reminded me of
what I had forgotten. That Em wasn’t a kid anymore. She didn’t need my help.
She needed my trust. So I stopped.” He took a glance at the bedroom door.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have.”
There was nothing but silence for the next few minutes. Lucky couldn’t
stop thinking of the desperation in Emily’s voice on that tape. Or the hunted look
in her eyes at the bar. Had he done this? Had he by pushing her to trust him pushed
her into trouble? What in the hell had happened to Emily?
“I can answer that cowboy.” Jason and Lucky turned as Luke entered the
room. Lucky hadn’t even been aware that he was speaking outloud. “I have an
excellent guess as to who’s responsible for this mess.”
But before either Lucky or Jason could get an answer, the door to the
bedroom opened and the doctor followed by his assistant walked out
“Emily?” began Jason.
The doctor shook his head. Luke put his arm on his son’s shoulder. Lucky
looked at the doctor, his mind flashing back to another doctor three years ago.
Oh God. Not again.
