Emily held her breath as she felt the soldier cock the gun pressed into the side of her head. Praying hard, she closed her eyes to block out the pain and the explosion that she knew would soon come.
Funny how things can change. Two years ago she had wanted to die so desperately she had taken a razor and sliced open her wrists.
Now all she wanted to do was to live.
An instant later she heard the gunshot and braced herself for the impact.
And never felt it.
Almost afraid to believe that she was still alive, she opened her eyes again and saw the crumpled body of the soldier who had held her at gunpoint just a second ago.
She looked up and found herself staring into deep brown eyes that were gazing at her with an intensity that heated her from the inside out as he stood silently, a still smoking pistol in his hand.
“Jagger.” The words came out in a whisper but Lucky caught them as he stared at the stranger who had been able to save Emily when all he could do was beg.
He should be grateful to whoever it was, but it wasn’t gratitude that burned hot and he refused to name it as anything else.
“Jagger.” Emily took one step forward and then another until she found herself in front of him, so close she could feel the warmth emanating from him. She moved to throw herself into his embrace but then stopped, clenching her fists together to keep her body still as she remembered their last encounter.
She didn’t look away. Couldn’t look away.
“I knew you would come.” The words were spoken with a quiet conviction.
He wanted to tell her that he would always come when she needed him, but the words were trapped in the layers of guilt that hit when he had seen the fear in her eyes and the fear ithat shook him when he had seen that gun aimed at her head.
She had almost died and it would have been his fault. His fault she had been dragged into this whole mess with Kosokov. His fault she’d had to endure God knows what. His fault that the darkness of his world had tainted, even temporarily, the brightness of hers.
He loved her. The last few hours had shown him that beyond any doubt or ability to delude himself that it was just a temporary attraction. But that didn’t mean he was any good for her.
Emily watched the play of emotions across his face and wanted to scream in frustration. In those first few unguarded seconds as their gazes had locked she had seen something in his eyes, something very real and very tangible. But now it was gone, a detached look deliberately and firmly in place.
“We have to get out of here.” Jagger’s voice was cool and utterly businesslike as he looked around. “That shot is going to attract attention.”
“And here I was planning on hanging around to get some decorating tips myself,” Lucky mocked as he looked at Jagger with an open hostility that left Emily puzzled.. Suddenly his eyes widened. “Get down!” Even as he yelled the words, Lucky pulled Emily down as the shots began to ring out.
Jagger looked around and with a single well placed shot was able to eliminate a sniper on a look out tower even as Lucky and Emily scrambled for cover behind some wooden crates.
“This is not good,” Jagger yelled to make himself heard over the sound of gunfire. “We have to get out of here.”
Lucky turned to Emily. “Does pretty boy over there have any other use besides stating the obvious?”
“Who the hell are you?” Jagger swore as a round of fire turned the corner of the crate into toothpicks.
“Do you guys mind holding off on the macho Alpha male posturing until we get out of this mess?” Emily asked smoothly as, shrugging off both men, she aimed the weapon she was holding at a soldier and watched him fall. “What?” She looked at both men who were staring openly at her. “Oh please you don’t think that I learned nothing hanging out with bodyguards all those years.” She shook her head. “Didn’t I hear someone say something about getting out of here?”
Jagger grinned at her. “We need to get to that truck over there. It’s not that far.”
“You mean that truck with the flat tire?” Lucky allowed himself a smirk as Jagger groaned with the realization that bullet fire had torn the tire into pieces.
“Damn.”
“There’s that jeep over there.” Emily pointed out the older looking vehicle sitting alone and off to the side, father away than the truck it looked almost abandoned.
“I don’t suppose those bodyguards taught you how to hotwire a car?” Jagger asked.
Even as Emily shook her head, Lucky smiled. “Did I mention the time when I was ten and I had to steal a car in Paris?”
“So I ask again, who are you?” Another round of gunfire came closer and Jagger pulled Emily further behind the rapidly disintegrating crate. “Forget it, we can get through the niceties when we get out of here. This is what we are going to do. You and Emily make a break for the jeep and get the hell out of here.”
Emily felt a panic growing in her. “What about you?”
Jagger looked her square in the eyes. “Someone has to stay behind and cover you.”
“No!”
“She’s right man.” Lucky spoke up evenly. “You take Emily and make a break for the jeep. Something tells me that you can hotwire your own jeep. I’ll cover you.”
“No!” Emily shook her head. “I’m not going to stand by and let either of you get killed.” She turned to Jagger. “I know you think I’m someone you have to take care of, but I’m really not and you don’t. I don’t need you to play hero for me Jagger.” She turned to Lucky. “As for you, I spent five years of my life believing you were dead and missing you like crazy. I’m not going through that again.” She took a deep breath. “We’re getting out of this together, all three of us so if either of you have a plan I’d like to hear it.”
“Em....” Jagger’s voice was gentle. “It may not be possible for all of us to get out of this alive and I need to know that you are safe.”
Emily bit back the urge to cry. “I will be. We all will be. All we need is some kind of distraction.”
“Emily there are at least a hundred men in this compound heavily armed. This may be our only chance to get you out of here.” Jagger looked over at Lucky who nodded. “Emily....”
“I said no!” Emily looked around frantically. “We need something to distract them so we can make a break for it.”
Almost as if on cue, a loud explosion rocked the compound and they all turned to see a heavily fortified lookout tower crumble into a cloud of dust and debris. The soldiers who just seconds ago had been zeroing in on their position, were now scrambling themselves as a second explosion joined the first.
“Bingo!” Emily cried jubialently. “ There’s our distraction, now we just have to get out of here.”
“Right.” Staring at the fallen tower, Lucky felt more hopeful than he should have under the circumstances. They were far from safe, but he was beginning to believe that maybe they would make it.
Maybe.
Just outside the compound
“What is that?” Jason asked as Sarah reloaded the small device in her hand.
“This?” Sarah brushed a twig out of her hair as she focused on the task at hand.
“It looks like a missile launcher.”
“It is.” Sarah answered without looking up. “It does what a missile launcher does only on a smaller scale, but since the grenade is packed with a highly concentrated form of of plastique it doesn’t have to be that big to blow up buildings. Or towers. This is a prototype design.” She paused to launch another grenade. “The Consortium was working on a series of them but then abandoned the project when they discovered it had a small flaw.”
“A small flaw?”
“Because the plastique is so highly concentrated it’s really unstable, the slightest jostling can sometimes cause the grenade to blow up on its own. You know, running down a flight of stairs or climbing rocks...”
“Or jumping out of airplanes?”
“It’s been known to happen.” Sarah looked up at him and grinned when she saw him pale. “Don’t you trust me?”
“You? Yes. A grenade filled with stuff that can blow me to pieces? No.” Jason took the binoculars and looked over at the compound as the fourth grenade hit. They’d cause quite a lot of damage, but he could see sure signs that control was being regained and that someone over there was still in command enough to issue orders. A smile lit his face as he could see a small jeep carrying three figures make its way out of the compound.
“Jagger has Emily.” He paused, shook his head, and took another look. “And he also has Lucky Spencer?”
“Lucky? He died didn’t he?”
“Either he never died or he has a twin no one knew about it, either one of which is a distinct possibility in Port Charles. Cpme on, let’s head down to the road to meet them and get the hell out of this hellhole.”
Sarah pulled a flare gun and a small transmitter out of her bag. “You go. Take this. The Consortium has satellites on us as we speak and either a visual or an electronic signal will get a plane sent to the rendevous point. Jagger has the coordinates and he’ll be able to guide you.”
Jason fought back the panic that was beginning to sweep him. “Where are you going?”
Sarah didn’t answer him, concentrating instead on picking up a small automatic pistol. Anything larger would be too bulky and pointless anyway.
“Sarah!”
Sarah turned. “I’m going in.”
“Why? Jagger got Emily out. You don’t need to go in.”
“He’s in there.”
“You won’t get within ten feet of him. You yourself said the place made Fort Knox look like a playpen.”
“All I have to do is get in.”
“And do what? You won’t make it out alive.”
“Maybe I don’t care about that.”
“Jesus, Sarah.” Jason grabbed her shoulders frantically. “I know he hurt you but you’re still alive. You go in there and you won’t be for much longer.”
“Neither will he.” Sarah said pointedly. “Neither will he.”
“So that’s what this is about. Revenge? Kill him for something that happened years ago.”
“He raped me.”
“Lots of women get raped Sarah. You above all should know that. Is that what you would have wanted for Liz? To hold onto her hatred until it consumed her? Should Liz have sacrificed herself to get revenge on TOm?”
“Leave my sister out of it.”
“You mean like you have?” Jason looked at her intently. “Why did you never tell Liz that your parents died? Why pretend that they were alive all these years?”
“To protect her. So that she wouldn’t hurt like I did.”
“Right. I forgot. No one has ever been hurt like Sarah Webber has. She was raped, not just once but over and over again. And her parents died. First her father in a hail of bullets right in front of her. Then her mother of hunger and starvation and disease in a prison camp. Poor pitiful Sarah.”
“Shut up Morgan. You don’t know what the hell you are talking about.”
“I know that you hold onto your pain like its some kind of shield that you can use to keep the rest of the world away. God Sarah you were never alone in any of this but you shut the rest of the world out. You had a sister who deserved to know that her parents were dead, who deserved to know that you were hurting so that she could help you. You had friends and family who would have bent over backwards to help you. But you didn’t give them a chance. You didn’t give anybody a chance to help you. Do you want to know why?”
“No but I have a feeling you plan on telling me since you’ve suddenly decided to add pop psychology to your list of marketable skills.” Sarah’s voice drenched with sarcasm.
Jason ignored her. “You held onto the pain of that night because you felt guilty.”
“I was raped.”
“You were raped,” Jason agreed softly. “But you survived. You didn’t die. Your mother. Your father. All of those people in that village. None of them survived. But you did. You lived through hell and the most ironic part is that you’ve hated yourself for making it through every second since then. For survivng what they couldn’t. For being stronger than they were. How could you be alive when they weren’t? How could you move on with your life, find happiness, take comfort from others, when they were dead in the ground? The answer was you couldn’t. So you shut yourself off from your family. Your grandmother. Your sister. Your brother. Everyone who would have helped you get through your pain, because you didn’t want to get through your pain. You wanted to hold onto it. You wanted to keep it alive so that you never forgot, not for a second, what had happened to you. Because you needed that memory, that hatred, to burn bright if you were going to have your revenge. And that was pretty much all that you had to hold onto, your revenge. It was okay to be living and breathing if that living and breathing was all about killing the man who had done this to you. The man who killed them.”
“Are you done?”
“No. damn it. Sarah don’t you see that reclaiming your life is the only way you are going to truly beat Kosokov. All of the dreams he took from you, take them back. Go to college if that’s what you want. Live a normal life if that’s what you want.” A pause. “Let yourself fall in love with someone. Don’t let Kosokov destroy your life. Don’t let him take from you now what you managed to hold onto that night.”
“Which would be.....”
“Your future Sarah. Your future. That’s what you fought so hard to hold onto when those men were hurting you. Don’t throw it away now. It doesn’t have to end here.”
“Damn you Morgan. What do you know about what I’m feeling? Nothing. You know nothing so don’t begin to preach to me about guilt and pain and all of that because you haven’t a clue what either really is.”
“I killed my brother.”
Sarah’s head shot up. “What? AJ died in a car accident, you weren’t anywhere near the scene.”
“I killed him.” Jason repeated. “I was at Luke’s doing the books as usual. AJ came in drunk and soon got drunker. Luke wasn’t there, so Claude asked me if he should call a cab for AJ. I told him no, let AJ find his own way home.” A pause. “AJ never got home. He wrapped his car around a telephone pole. I could have stopped it. I could have, should have, called him a cab or taken him home or even let him pass out in the back room. I could have done a dozen things differently that night and AJ would still be alive. Lila would be alive. My parents wouldn’t be racked with guilt over their failure to save AJ from himself. Em might not have started using again.” A deep breath. “And Michael would have still had his father. But I let my stupid anger get in the way of doing what I knew was right and everyone got hurt as a result.”
“Jason...”
“Don’t go after Kosokov. Emily’s safe. You’re safe. Let it end here.”
“I can’t.” Sarah closed her eyes. “I can’t.” She repeated the words softly. “I can’t let him live. I can’t let him hurt anyone else.”
“Tell me that damn Consortium of yours can’t find another way to kill him.”
“I don’t know. All I really know is that I need to do this. I can’t walk away knowing that he’s alive.”
Sarah stared at Jason for a moment before shaking her head. “I wish I could, but I can’t.” Without saying another word, Sarah turned and headed in the direction of the compound.
After a long moment of silence, Jason gave an exasperated sigh and turned to follow. End of Part One. Coming In Part Two: The confrontation with Kosokov leaves someone dead and someone else dying.
