܀

The two-lane road was nearly deserted, uncluttered by traffic; it and the town were both windswept by the rapidly approaching storm. Several power lines were already aslant; beyond them, the sky was a severe, ominous shade of gray, nevertheless, she remained steadfast, her discerning eyes dutifully looking after the bus as it pulled away from the curb.

Foreboding tugged, twisted at her maternal instincts. She squinted with worry in the pre-dawn twilight, unable to articulate her fears, to name the thing she feared.

She was afraid of losing him, of existing in a world in which her son no longer existed. His demise.

It's the weather, came a suggestion conceived of logic, one contrived with rationale rather than truth, because the truth sounded too much like insanity for a sheriff. She had shattered the glass ceiling. Now wasn't the time for the walls to cave in on her. 

Meteorologists were predicting possible tornadoes. Her fears were justified. 

Yes, yes, it's the storm. Of course it is. She repeated, exasperated.

You hear about these kinds of things all the time, she added in her endearingly mercurial way of speaking that, at times, bordered manic and was heavy with hyperbole.

Cars upside down in ditches, twisted steel, sirens screamin' and people runnin' and cryin and bleedin all over the highway.

She spoke with a note of dread and dismay as if that particular scene were being accessed as she spoke. 

J.R. imagined an old movie reel—with its scratches and distorted audio—spinning on a battered projector in her mind.

Her son, of course, smirked at her accent, accused her of being one of those psycho copter-moms, always fretful, weeping into a tissue.

This, she prayed silently, her hands clasped tightly at her chest, will turn out like the day I found out he was trying out for the high school basketball team.

She'd dropped her bakery goods, sped to the school, and walked into the gymnasium and onto the court to severely admonish him in front of his friends, coach, and the other parents who were all sympathetic— stunned with their jaws unhinged, and eyes wide with disbelief, but sympathetic, nevertheless.

She'd been too late. The try-outs had already ended and he'd made the team, much to his mother's chagrin. One hurdle was successfully behind him, while a million more littered his path to all-star fame and glory.

They both knew that her fears were mostly illusory, unwarranted, and in some instances contrived. But possible. Yes, possible, the doctor had agreed with her. As possible as a meteor arbitrarily dropping through the ceiling and joining her on the sofa.

Her son was in as good as or to quote the good doctor, "hell, in better physical condition than the average young man that comes in here for an examination. His heart is strong, Marilyn- as strong as his will."

At an impasse, mother and son disagreed in circles, she with her proclivities, her reasons—with every concerned mother's reasons—and he placating and cogent, without a hint of animus or surliness, negating those well-intended maternal concerns in throaty baritone with the patience of a saint.

Little by little, she had relinquished her hold and observed, misty-eyed and proud, as year after year, achievements and milestones were reached; he was lauded by coaches and accolades were added to the mantel. He had chosen his battles wisely, skipped parties. He was pedantic, excelled academically.

He'd proved that he could juggle a part time job, school and basketball and she had finally conceded. An implicit concession at best but J.R. had hardly been in any position to complain. He'd only been a child then, fifteen with dreams of fame swirling about in his head.

"I'm a grown man now, Mother," he informed her often. A grown man indeed, and a freshman in college. Not everyone is drafted fresh out high school- he had gently reminded.

"We could drive up together," she said, ingratiatingly.

"I'll be meeting the rest of the team along the route," he explained, his voice tinctured with sympathy, his smile jovial. His eyes, however, distinctly conveyed to her the futility in attempting to sway him. He would not be hemmed in by her fears, confined in Dry River, where the economy was as dried up as the river the town was named for.

"Mom, I'm a grown man."

"You're always goin' to be my baby," she chided tearfully and observed as he nodded. 

She didn't stop waving until the bus made the left turn at the end of Main Street and turned onto the state highway, out of her line of sight.

Marilyn relied on her faith. She believed there was some greater purpose for her son; he was exalted. Why else had he been given a second chance, saved by an unlikely hero, a stranger among the several strangers who had entered their lives, entered their small town all those years earlier?

She stared for several moments longer, stared at the emptiness, noted her own emptiness, and blinked absently when the first tell-tale drops cascaded down her lapel. She looked skyward suddenly, her face twisted in revulsion at the stinging, cold rain.

With a final wistful sigh, she turned away.                                                                           

܀

The psychiatrist was lounging in his recliner with a book open on his chest, and his eyes half closed. He was nearing sleep when the mobile rang, jarring him to full alertness. If it's important, he reasoned mutely, lifting the book and finding the paragraph he'd been reading, they'll call back. 

When the ring continued to interrupt his reading, Sydney murmured angrily, "Damn persistant scammers," and, at last, answered.

"This is Sydney. Hello there," he added with knitted brow. "Hello, is anyone there?"

"It's a nice day for a drive," Jarod gruffly announced, and promptly ended the call.

Jarod. Sydney was both relieved and mortified. He collected coat, hat and umbrella, and drove for twelve miles, confident that he'd be contacted and instructed further by Jarod.

At a red light, he adjusted his rear view and noticed that he'd been joined by a blue compact vehicle that tailed him closely. 

Six years, Sydney mused. Presumed dead. And now he has returned.

The psychiatrist slowed the car when he came to a chaotic scene. Crews were working to remove a large oak from the highway while police officers directed motorists. Sydney tipped his hat to the young officer who waved him through the first leg of the detour. The smaller road was heavily congested and the inclement weather complicated matters further.

He was eventually forced to pull the vehicle to a stop alongside the orange traffic cones. Drivers behind and in front of him honked their horns.

As if that helps anything. Patience. Patience is key.
 

Sydney gasped when the driver's door opened. The phone flew from his hand with alarming swiftness. In the next instant, he was pulled from his seat. His mind was still registering those events when he was pushed into a large work truck.

And then, quite suddenly, was face to face with the Pretender.

"Jarod," exclaimed Sydney. "My god."

The Pretender floored the accelerator, and steered the truck into the tree line. Within minutes, they were on the empty highway.

Sydney was still gazing across the cab of the truck at his abductor. His abductor. How fitting.

"Mr. Broots' house is empty," Jarod said.

"Broots is at some sort of convention with Debbie."

"Centre mandated?"

"No." Sydney frowned at Jarod's distrust, felt his heart grow heavy with guilt. "It's a pleasure trip, I believe. Did you need to speak with him or Miss-"

"I can't reach Angelo," came Jarod's pithy interruption. "I've been completely locked out of the Centre."

"The Centre is upgrading the computer system as well as  security. Jarod? You seem troubled. Is this about your disappearance? Did something transpire when you were in Carthis? I ask because Miss Parker refuses to even allow me to ask a single question regarding-

Jarod shook his head, emitted a grunt of disgust, shook his head with, Sydney believed, the ferocity one might employ when one wanted a memory dislodged from one's head. The Pretender gestured dismissively, as if the subject in question never even crossed his mind.

Sydney was rather confounded— confounded because Miss Parker had reacted similarly: the dismissive wave, as if some trifling insect were flying about, perhaps pestering her with its incessant buzzing, and she didn't necessarily want it dead, she only wanted it to pester someone else— Lyle, perhaps. 

Something had transpired, then, Sydney surmised. But something else had transpired to bring Jarod back.

Jarod pretended that Sydney hadn't inquired about Carthis or Miss Parker.

"That's because I am troubled, Sydney," Jarod grumbled, casting a disparaging glance at Sydney. "And I need your help," Jarod confessed, adding with a forlorn exhaustion that emphasized his dark, haunted eyes, "A life depends on it."

Another life. Always another. One fire is put out, another ignites, a child abducted, a woman assaulted, a man killed. There was no shortage of tragedy, no shortage of people crying out for help, for justice. He was weary, wary. I can't save them all.

"Jarod, look out," Sydney cried.

Jarod jerked his gaze to the road, and the falling tree. Too late. The impact immediately filled the cab with the scent of pine, and Jarod would remember the smell more vividly in the coming years, more so even than the fissures spread out across the windshield or the one large limb that had split the cab of the truck in half, separating him from Sydney.

The engine knocked, scrubbed, and made a final odd grinding sound before shuddering to death, and Jarod was going to share some off-hand, and no doubt comical comment or anecdote, but when he turned, he came face to face with thick, wet pine bark.

"Sydney," Jarod stammered.

"I-I'm all right," Sydney said. 

Alive, at least, Jarod noted with relief, but the strain in the psychiatrist's voice had betrayed him.

"Where are you hurt," Jarod demanded when he reached the passenger side.

"E—everywhere," Sydney returned with a tight smile, adding with a shaky breath, "I'm certain I will be fine." He gestured vaguely at Jarod's face, the thin rivulet of crimson on the Pretender's cheek. "You're injured."

"A scratch," Jarod said dismissively. "Can you walk?"

He nodded, attempted to move. "I believe I-" The reply was clipped by a groan of agony, and punctuated with deafening silence.

"Sydney? Sydney!"

Quite suddenly, there was another life to be saved. And there was only one person who could help him.

܀

Parker returned the mobile to the coffee table and her attention to the photo album in her lap. Mom. God, I miss you.

The tears standing in her eyes had just begun to spill past her eyelashes when the mobile rang.

Again.

"Look, Judd," Parker asserted, "I don't want to hurt you, but we were getting too serious and-

And in my world, people die when that happens.

—I'm not looking for anything serious right now. Hello," she said, straining to hear amid the static and—was that thunder? And whispering?

"Hello?" Parker demanded.

"Parker."

"Sydney?"

"It's a—a lovely day outside, Parker, for a drive."

"Is it," Parker said, walking over to the window. She stared at the rain and rising water, and purred, "Riiight. If the ark docks close by," she remarked, "and delivers me to dry land I'd consider a dri-"

"Parker," Sydney interrupted sternly, his tone conveying more than his words had, more than his words could.

"I understand," Parker said slowly. She understood something was wrong. "I just—" don't understand what exactly is wrong.

When the call disconnected, she froze. For a single instant.

And then sprang into action, pocketing the mobile, and grabbing an extra clip for her gun.

He'll call back.

She wasn't wrong. When Sydney called again, she demanded, "Where are you?"

"You'll see a sign soon. Be- be careful, Parker."

Careful?

Careful means—

Caution, Parker mused when the large sign and flashing lights came into view on her left.

The following twenty minutes continued as such, a call from Sydney with the oddest directions—a corresponding sign, strange landmark substitutions, or initials of street signs or numbers that all seemed entirely random—cleverly encoded into his conversation. In case the Centre's listening.

When the mobile rang again, Sydney simply asked for confirmation. I trust you haven't been in an accident.

She didn't know how he knew, but just over the hill was a scene that appeared to be nothing short of apocalyptic. 

In the midst of the chaos was a car, stalled out apparently. "Sydney, my god."

Parker pulled her car to a ungainly stop, and went immediately to Sydney's car, which, aside from his mobile, was empty.

She stood, thoroughly scrutinized the area. Where are you, old friend?

She breathed relief when her own mobile rang.

"You're early," Sydney said.

"You can hear the—" sirens, she was going to say, but stopped herself.

"Tell me, Parker, what you would do right now if you needed to keep a low profile, and how would you get there?"

There? Translates to here in Sydney-ese.

She took another long, sweeping gaze around her, turning in a circle and saw it. The muddy path taken. It isn't even a road.

What the hell kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into now?

"Destroy our phones."

"But Syd, there's no reason- Sydney?" 

Parker groaned in frustation, and pushed in the car's cigarette lighter. She would never admit to anyone how much she cared about him. She had an image to maintain, after all.

Back inside her car, she drove parallel to the muddy trench, on the edge of an undulating expanse of dense trees and brambles, and enough poison ivy to keep every child on the eastern seaboard out of school for several weeks.

"What am I looking for? How am I even going—" She braked when she glimsped the truck in the distance, and climbed out of her car.

"Sydney," Parker called, stepping over pools of standing waters and patches of thorns.

"Parker? Parker, over here."

"Oh, my god, Sydney." She shrugged out of her coat, and  pressed it to his forehead. "I have to get help. I—"

"Listen, now," Sydney demanded, laying a restraining hand on her arm, "I want you to listen: someone is here."

Parker bristled, and started for the gun.

"No, no," Sydney chided gently. "A friend."

"Friend?" She asked with some incredulity.

"You do still consider me a friend, don't you," came the soft voice from behind her. Parker swiveled, observed the rather neutral expression of—

a friend?

Face to face at long last with the inestimable Miss Parker—  Jarod had missed her, and then again, hadn't. He had indeed been off her radar for years. In fact, she hadn't even searched for him, and he knew that because she had never been off his.

His knowledge, however, was limited. He knew she kept an eye on Lyle—just as she'd vowed she would—and that she was safe. Most everything else was a question mark.

For instance, he wasn't certain whether or not he'd have to physically subdue her, wasn't sure which incarnation of Miss Parker would rise to meet him and this challenge, or how hostile she'd behave.

All those years of dead ends, stagnation. Would she be like the hungry hunter now and pounce at the first scent of blood? Risk Sydney's life? Or could they find, and retain, a wee measure of comradeship, work together, save a life? Save two lives?

Jarod whispered her name, and asked, again, "Well, don't you?"

Parker blinked wide in surprise under his penetrating gaze, and somehow managed to keep her jaw from unhinging.

He looked like hell, from the tattered jeans and t-shirt to the stubble on his jaw and the nearly shoulder length—and positively manic—hair. He'd put on some muscle, taken some sun, and one jagged line of dried blood ran the length of his right cheek.

The vaguely menacing style suited the man.

Who knew?

Between them, in that fleeting second when their eyes met, there was a frisson of-- something.

They both felt it.

It was impalpable, a strong and steady pulse pounding against the walls they'd erected there in the empty space between them—just beneath the surface—where neither dared to tread.

And perhaps never would. They merely stood outside of each other, orbited each other, each at opposite ends of some invisible bridge, sometimes haphazardly dancing around the edges, but not too close. 

Parker averted her gaze, because someone had to, because she could, because she was Miss Parker. The façade didn't drop, her countenance never faltered.

She simply tossed a glance at Sydney and addressed Jarod in a strange, toneless voice, "Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to help me move him?"

Jarod nodded, searched his mind. He hadn't had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of this particular incarnation of Miss Parker. Had he? Or had he altered her personality, altered everything by simply addressing her in the manner he had.
Her name. Was this the little girl? The one who had run away to hide all those years ago and had gotten lost somewhere inside of herself?

He hoped—and feared—it was.

                  ܀                   

܀

Jarod squinted against the glare of oncoming headlights and, anxiously, peered into the side mirror, observed the vehicle until its tail lights faded in the distance.

They weren't being tailed, and if what Sydney had managed to convey to him were true the Centre had called off the hunt. And why wouldn't they?

Raines had J.R. Miller, and a Pretender's heart, and it didn't take a genius to guess the wheezing waste of skin's intentions.

Miss Parker hadn't commented on the Centre's newest acquisition, or Raine's latest sinister plan; Jarod assumed she was considering his proposition.

The memory, the pain, of his previous proposition was somehow still fresh, an old wound that continued to suppurate.

He wasn't certain where Parker's loyalties would lie when the dice finally landed on the table, was no more certain now than he had been in Glasgow.

After all, the woman was known for being intractable, even imperious; needless to say, he had anticipated flippancy, a scowl of petulance, perhaps a snort of disapproval or a decidedly serrated edged retort tossed in for good measure.

Jarod had exercised extreme caution, remained mindful of the pistol in his ankle holster, and prepared himself for overt hostility; however, he had soon come to the realization that his fears had been unwarranted, and Defcon 1 had been overkill.

Parker hadn't even lamented the ruin of her Chanel trouser suit, still damp with rain and stained with Sydney's blood, or the Manolo Blahniks, which were currently caked in thick, dried mud.

Nor, to Jarod's astonishment, had there been objections when he'd unceremoniously taken the wheel, no grand, operatic gestures to exert her dominance, no threats made at gun point. She'd simply climbed into the rear of the vehicle. Wordlessly.

Jarod peeked into the rear-view again. And again was presented with the back of Parker's head. She was still crouched on the floor of the sedan, clasping Sydney's hand.

Wordless.

Jarod believed Parker was studiously ignoring him. Longing to hear something other than the hard rain on the car's roof, and the swoosh of water beneath the tires, not to mention Parker's deafening silence, Jarod switched on the radio, and Glenn Frey was suddenly proclaiming, "it's those restless hearts that never mend."

Much better.

Jarod tapped a thumb against the steering wheel— at least until the lyrics began to reprove him.

There's so many things you should have told her

Perhaps there are.
Goodbye, for starters.

Jarod hadn't done that. During that final telephone conversation, he'd heard the pain in her voice, recalled her face crumpling in the cemetery on the first anniversary of Thomas' death, the tears standing in her eyes in Glasgow when he'd taken her hand.

He'd been asking for much, much more than an alliance against the Centre; after their intimacy in Carthis, he had no doubt she'd realized, precisely, what he'd been asking.

She had responded with a tremulous, liquid: "this isn't the different ending-" 

A moment of weakness? Jarod nearly scoffed. Aloud.

He had concluded that his presence was doing more harm than good. He had hurt her with the truth in the past, had done that for her, to help her.

But hurting her out of selfishness, because he revealed entirely too much of himself was, he believed, a misstep. He had failed her tremendously and decided that he'd rather walk away, regardless of how much it hurt him, than remain in her life and cause her additional pain.

And just as he had that morning in the cemetery, he had vanished from her sight.

For nearly seven years.

He believed there would be questions, recriminations, and had prepared his explanation in advance. He had been preparing the explanation for six years, and was rather disheartened that she hadn't even asked where he'd been. Or why.

She hadn't said anything to him, in fact, aside from asking him whether or not he intended to help her move Sydney. They'd done that, stabilized the psychiatrist's wounds, in silence, in a tedious peace, a rather tenuous truce, neither needing the other to make commands or requests, each careful to avoid physical contact with the other.

Jarod had then gathered supplies from the truck he'd borrowed— and had since destroyed—and transported them to the Centre car. Parker, meanwhile, dispensed antibiotics and a mild sedative, all while soothing Sydney sweetly, dutifully, like a daughter would comfort her father.

Sydney, of course, had succumbed to the sedative.

And then came the silence.

The familiar tense hush, the strange excitement. Nothing had changed.

Jarod's biggest fear was that perhaps nothing ever would change, that their fatalistic tap dance, the tedious orbiting, and occasional colliding, of each other's universe would simply continue.

He was still considering the future when he bypassed the highway and traversed several labyrinthine and deeply fissured dirt roads. He deftly slung the vehicle off the path, sped through a ditch, and drove straight into a broad expanse of brush and brambles. He pulled the vehicle to a stop under a small, and partially fallen tree where it could not be seen.

Inside the ancient, unpretentious lodge where meetings had once been called to order by a now defunct sect of Masons, Jarod observed as Parker remained steadfast at Sydney's side, clung to him in a manner that transported Jarod to their childhood, to the little girl.

He'd been quite certain that Parker would want to shower off the filth immediately upon arrival at the renovated lodge, and had retrieved some clean towels and a change of clothes in anticipation. Apparently, however, she was still tossing curve balls.

"He's going to be all right," Jarod assured her, pushing off the wall he'd been leaning against. Parker observed dispassionately as he entered the room and pulled a rickety chair to the opposite side of the bed. There, in the sharp rectangle of light that spilled in from the hallway, their eyes met for the second time in nearly five hours, the second time in six years.

"We've set the bone, stabilized him." He had intended to expound on those words. Instead he fell silent, and slowly shook his head. "You're angry with me."


Parker's gaze dropped to Sydney's hands, and then, without ceremony, she rose, launched a full retreat.

And very nearly made it to the washroom.

"You can't just walk away," Jarod said.

Parker blinked, started in disbelief at his poor choice of words, at the hilarity, his audacity. He had walked away. For six years. But I can't?

She observed the familiar, inquisitive tilt of head, the concern that creased his brow.

"Aren't you going to answer me?"

Parker heaved a sigh of exasperation, fashioned a smile- or rather, attempted to. The smile fell flat, was bitter, indignant.

"You've never seen me angry," came the pithy, cool answer.

"Oh, I believe I have," Jarod countered gently, a smirk tugging at his mouth, his brows raised high. "Enough times to recognize it. You're angry."

"Or I simply don't know what to say. What does one say to a dead man anyway?"

"I run, you chase- those were your words, the decision you made. It was a decision I couldn't live with. We both deserved something more."

"I deserved to believe you were dead?" She asked, swiveling.

"Wait," he called, solicitous and beseeching, on the verge of groveling, "Listen to me-"

"No," Parker snarled, sidling up to him. "You listen to me," she said, thrusting an angry, trembling finger at him, and then moved in closer as if to share a secret, "the next time you disappear, fake your death," she cooed sweetly, "you damn well had better be dead, or I swear to God, Jarod-"

He wasn't certain how it was even possible, but Parker drew closer, her lips not quite an inch from his ear, and whispered, "I will kill you myself."

She met his gaze, gestured slightly with her head as if to ask: are we clear? Jarod vigorously nodded his affirmation, and gulped.

He was still nodding when he caught sight of her hand coming at him. Manicured fingers curled into a compact fist that collided with his lower lip and jaw with surprising force.

And then she was on him, all over him, falling with him. He wasn't certain if the thud was his spine against hardwood or perhaps this was the sound of surrender, of two souls colliding- a whole other brand of falling.

The kiss was all passion, collision of teeth, gnashing and snarling and he was wide-eyed, shocked by her assault and still trying to process how this had happened and what, precisely, was happening but then, quite suddenly, his body was responding to hers and he was giving back as good—and arguably even better—than he was receiving.

He needed this, needed her, repercussions be damned.

She felt his fingers cupping her jaw, and in her hair, and pulling her mouth closer.

His other hand dropped to her hips.

Jarod let himself go, all the while severely castigating himself for not being stronger. He'd already made this mistake with her- although, to my credit, not to this extent.

Perhaps it was his surrender that had prompted Parker's resistance.

She pulled away abruptly, wiped his blood and their collective saliva from her mouth with the back of her hand and fashioned a brutal glare, and leveled it directly at him. She then pivoted, left him, shattered to pieces, on the floor.

܀

           ܀            

Jarod emerged from the washroom refreshed, and decidedly optimistic. He was still alive, after all- a bit bruised, but alive, and he was certain that the latter was entirely unrelated to his lifting Parker's gun while she'd been preoccupied with Sydney.

He immediately sought out his nemesis and childhood friend, a woman he wanted to trust implicitly, a woman whose trust he'd never tested, at least not to the degree he soon would, and found her sitting erect in an upright chair, wrapped snugly in his bathrobe, ostensibly waiting patiently, indifferently, for him.

"I trust you're comfortable," he announced.

Parker tossed him a petulant glare, folded her arms across her chest, and meaningfully swung her gaze to the several thousand dollars worth of apparel that had been haphazardly draped over a door to dry.

She had trashed the irreparably damaged coat, hand-washed the shirt and slacks, scraped the mud from her heels, and had eagerly searched every square inch of the lodge for her gun, all the while murmuring obscenities.

Jarod perceived her anger, endeavored to stoically trudge ahead all the same. 

"If you're cold-" he said, reacting swifty when she shuddered.

"I'm not," came Parker's brusque interruption, and another shudder.

"Are you sure?" Jarod asked, observing, with growing impatience, Parker pinch imaginary lint from the robe. His robe.

Jarod had vowed to himself that he would not, under any circumstance, apologize to Parker for walking away, which is why he was rather appalled to find himself doing precisely that.

"There are decisions," he said softly, dropping to a crouch, "difficult decisions that can feel right at the time. It's only later, in retrospect," he continued, his dark, doleful eyes boring into hers, "that we realize-"

"Sorry," Parker interrupted coolly, leveling a steely glare at him, "will suffice." With that said, she averted her gaze from him, or more specifically, from his hands, the tentative, conciliatory, gestures.

"I am. I am sorry," Jarod repeated with a single, nearly imperceptible, nod. "I am truly sorry if I hurt you."

Parker wanted to assure Jarod that he'd done no such thing, and maybe issue a threat, or, at the very least, fire off a caustic retort, but for some inexplicable reason, she felt that she might choke on her own inhalations. She felt empty and stripped bare without her gun, and felt a strange and persistent pressure in her chest, as well a sharp agonizing pain that was tantamount to a blade in her midsection. And she couldn't make any sense at all of the tears blurring her vision.

Her current emotional state, as baffling as it was to her, simply would not permit speech. But not because I was hurt, she assured herself, and gingerly pressed a discreet palm to her abdomen, and listened as Jarod continued, haltingly.

"Because," he continued, dropping his voice to a soft whisper, "because that's precisely what I was trying to avoid when I left. You made your decision and I wanted to respect it. I wanted to. I wanted to give you what you wanted, and I wasn't confident that I," Jarod paused, shook his head, and swallowed the knot of apprehension, "that I could adhere to the rules anymore, to-"

Parker moved suddenly, to no doubt eject herself from the chair, seek refuge at Sydney's side, and, Jarod opined, leave him alone and sulking.

He needed her help, as loath as he was to admit it, and had no desire to resume old games, fall back into worn patterns,  banter, limbo, nor did he have the time or inclination for lengthy explanations. Besides, words didn't carry much weight with Parker anymore.

Actions, however-

Jarod dropped his gaze to her right hand, noted the way she clutched the battered arm rest, and his resolve was solidified. He, unceremoniously, covered her hand with his, and observed her eyes widen. The rest of her recoiled. She threw herself as far back into the chair, and away from him, as she possibly could.

She hadn't forgotten the brief moment they'd shared in Glasgow. As fleeting as the moment had been, her hand still bore his touch— indiscernible to the eye, indelible as a scar.

Jarod thought it odd her rejection should still sting, that time hadn't healed all wounds after all. Not his, not hers. Especially not hers.

It wasn't anger staring back at him, and before he identify what, precisely, he'd seen, it was gone. Her features changed, the wall of indifference had gone back up. 

"This," Jarod said with a meaningful gesture-- not towards her, but rather the ever-present space between them, "is why I left. Your job was to pursue me. Have you ever asked yourself what would have happened had I stayed?"

She gaped at him in apparent confusion.

"Had I stayed and chosen not to run anymore," Jarod clarified with one dark, arched brow. "Chosen not to run from you?" He observed as realization touched her features, and slowly rose. "So, you see now," he said, "why I had to leave? Yes?"

Parker answered with a somber nod.

"I thought you might," he said with a slight smirk, and sat in an armchair. "Have you given any thought at all to my proposition."

"Feasibility of implementation is questionable at best-"

"Just let me worry about implementation," he interrupted, somewhat condescendingly.

"You asked for my help," she reminded.

"Yes, I did, not because I wanted to, but because I have no choice. This isn't easy for me either. Leaving my family, my life, coming back here-" He paused. "I had no intention of disrupting your life this way, yours or Sydney's. Asking you for help is the last thing I've ever wanted to do. I'm desperate."

"Indubitably," Parker said. "What you are proposing, Jarod," she purred, mingling in her voice her unique brand of overt arch-mockery with a rather deep-seated comradeship, "is madness."

She observed the change in him, the hardness take shape in his dark eyes.

"Am I to assume then your answer is no?" He asked, rising. "I should have known," he groused, "that this would be a waste a time. I was a fool to return to Blue Cove, to even consider asking you for anything."

"I don't object to saving the young man," Parker said.

"Then what is it you object to?" Jarod inquired, harsher than he'd intended.

"I don't mean to be the proverbial pin in your inflated ego, Jarod," Parker declared rather matter-of-factly, "but there's, invariably, more madness in your method than actual method. I guess some things never change," she said. "Some things, on the other hand," she continued, "have. The Centre has. Those old blueprints will no longer aid you in traversing the maze of vents, and you certainly won't be tunneling your way off the premises again, Mario, and getting in and out the way you always have. 

Not to mention your source," Parker added, and promptly fell silent.

"My source?" Jarod asked.

"Angelo has vanished."

"Vanished," Jarod repeated softly.

"You have no one on the inside now that Syd's out of commission, no exit plan-"

"I'll find a way," came his impassioned interruption.

"You won't be able to help yourself, let alone the young man, and that's why I must object to this lunacy. Have you given any thought to the repercussions if-"

"Raines has my brother's heart," Jarod choked on the words. "You know what that means. Perhaps you should give some thought to the repercussions if he is successful."

"If I am going to help you-"

"No," Jarod interrupted hotly, although, his heart soared at her words. If. She was at least willing, and Jarod was buoyed by hope, and yet, was still wary. "No, you will not insert conditions." 

"I know that I asked for your help, but I'm only asking you to help me to an extent, and I think you'll agree you have much to gain from this- this temporary alliance. Remember, I had no intention of even including you in this- well", he amended, "in part of the implementation, yes, but not in the planning phase."

"Why are you including me at all," she asked, coolly, still mentally retracing her steps and finally reaching the unpleasant conclusion that she'd left her gun on washroom counter. She was feeling anything but cool.

She couldn't recall removing the holster and placing the gun on the counter. In fact, she was confident that she'd last seen her gun when she was in the car

Damn him.

"There's no one else I can trust," Jarod answered earnestly.

"Oh," she said with a mirthless snort, "so you believe you can trust me now?"

"Your mother's voice," Jarod said softly, casually revealing Parker's gun, "is still inside you."

Parker blinked at the gun and then looked up into the face of her- captor, is it, now, Jarod? towering over her.

Parker found the idea comical. She stifled the laugh, studied her gun in Jarod's hand. His outstretched hand.

She was transported to another time, to her home.

Trust your inner sense, Miss Parker. I do.

Enough to give me the gun, to know I won't kill or return him to the Centre.

Jarod's confidence bordered smug, and piqued her anger.

Parker wordlessly accepted the gun.

"So, you'll help me then?" Jarod asked, wearing a look of consummate satisfaction.

"And just how do I know that I can trust you?" She asked pointedly.

Jarod hadn't considered that she'd have reservations about trusting him, but it was the Centre, after all, and her concerns were valid.

If he could prove her disloyalty, usurp Raines by swinging a deal with Lyle, he'd not only score points, he'd probably be handed the chairmanship. And Parker would no doubt pay with her freedom, possibly even her life because unlike Jarod, she was, presumably, expendable.

The stakes were much higher for her. They always had been.

"There's only one way to find out," Jarod answered flatly.

"And just what way is that," Parker asked, obviously dreading Jarod's answer.

"Trust me." 

          ܀              

܀

Parker had dreamed about it, fantasized about it. Striding through the Centre corridors, however, with Jarod cuffed, and at gun point—amid gasps and shocked stares, no less—was more exhilarating and surreal an experience than she'd ever imagined it'd be.

It was painfully obvious everyone had doubted her, from Roy in custodial services down on the bottom rung of the ladder all the way up to the boys in the tower.

They had doubted her abilities and loyalties, but to see the woman's blood red fingernails digging into the black faux leather jacket Jarod wore, her stoic carriage, head held high, gun in her right hand, the prowess, aplomb, the sheer magnitude of power emanating from Miss Parker-by-God, all doubts diminished.

 ܀

The isolation ward was frigid, dry, and smelled of formaldehyde and antiseptic in equal measures. The Pretender lay still, ostensibly unconscious.

He concluded his countdown from eight hundred thousand, and discreetly fondled the adhesive skin-tone communications device located behind his ear.

"Broots, come in."

"Yeah, I'm here, uh until they find out what we're doing anyway and then—and this should go without saying—I won't be here. I won't be anywhere. Because I'll be dead."

"There'll be plenty of time to soil yourself later, Mr. Broots," Jarod assured him gently. "Right now I need to know: how are you coming with the cameras?"

"Five minutes to showtime."

"And how is Miss Parker getting on with Dr. Cox?"

Broots keyed the handheld device, observed the footage, and frowned.

"She's smiling at him," Broots groused and then pouted quietly, "She never smiles at me."

"She's never deceived you either," Jarod reminded Broots warmly.

Broots brightened, declared gaily, "Hey, you know something? You're right."

"Well," Jarod said, "I am a genius."

"I certainly hope you are," Broots returned, dryly, "because my daughter needs her father. Okay, here we go. Cox is on the move. And Miss Parker's in her car."

"Tell her to pull over in a mile and check for bugs."

Broots obeyed, came back a moment later. "Uh, I can't repeat what she just said."

"Just tell me one thing: was she smiling?"

"Uh, that's a negative."

"Good." Jarod grinned. "Now: I want you to keep your eye on her until she rendezvous with Dad at the lodge."

"And then?"

"Keep me posted."

"Won't you be busy?"

"How are those cameras coming, Mr. Broots."

"You're clear."

"Finally," Jarod murmured, and with a groan tugged the painfully adhesive, self-resealing hazmat bag from beneath his jacket.

The particular item was as absorbent as it was uncomfortable. Extremely. Jarod was wearing some of Raine's drug despite Parker's impeccable aim with the needle. Not even a drop had entered his body, however, and there had been no damning pooling of the drug.

"The door should be unlocked now," Broots advised.

"Guards?"

"Everything is going according to plan, Jarod," Broots assured the Pretender. "You have a fifty second window."

"Left, two rights, maintenance access shaft. Correct?"

"We rehearsed this a thousand times," Broots berated rarely severely. His unease increased exponentially, audibly. "Please, don't screw this up, Jarod. Syd, Miss Parker and me- that's it, Jarod, that's all my daughter has."

"Have I ever let you down, Mr. Broots," Jarod said, playfully, rhetorically. Finding the door unlocked, he opened it, and slipped into the empty corridor. "Do you have Cox's twenty?" Jarod asked.

Broots feverishly pressed several keys, studied the red indicator on the map.

"Uh, yeah, I do. GPS is tracking him through downtown Blue Cove."

"Switch to channel eight, antenna cam. I want the real time visual."

"Done. He's in his car, just passing the old water tower, his window is down and he is uh- he's miming a song."

Jarod moved stealthily towards the shaft entrance. "Initiate interior audio. I've just got to hear this." 

"Oh no," Broots chortled. "It's Devo."

"Mm, I've always been curious about the musical preferences of sadistic assassins."

"Well, now you know," Broots said.

"And I wished I didn't," Jarod said flatly. "Okay, I'm in the shaft. If we lose the signal, give me twelve hours to re-establish contact before you call in reinforcements."

"Miss Parker will kill me if we deviate from the plan and I don't tell her immediately, Jarod."

"And they will kill her if they discover what she has done. And then they will come for you. Is that what you want?"

"Uh, no, it's not, but-"

"I'm nearing wing C. You still have eyes on lock up?"

"Yeah. The isolation ward is clear. Do you think you can hurry it up, Jarod. I- I feel sick."

"I'm on wing C. Is the cargo elevator clear?"

"Uh, yeah, you're all clear for lift off. Hurry, Jarod."

"How are things looking on sub-level twenty-three?"

"Sector eight, corridor eleven is uh, hold on. Two sweepers at the end of the hall uh, are- they are moving east, turning the corner."

"Seen any good movies lately?" Jarod asked, blithely.

"Very funny," Came the tech's dry reply. "They are stepping on the elevator. You're clear," Broots advised.

"How is our egress coming?" Jarod asked.

"First things first, Jarod."

"Door 1689. I'm here."

"Disengaging lock."

"Do we have eyes inside?"

"Affirmative. Thermal infrared. The hostage is alone. He appears to be sleeping."

"Let's just hope that he isn't sedated," Jarod said, stepping into the room.

"Please," J.R. exclaimed and bolted upright. "I don't know anything. I don't know. I-" The young man dropped his hands from their defensive position and then blinked in disbelief. "Jarod?"

"There isn't time to explain-"

"Don't bother. Let's just get the hell out of here."

·

"Sydney? Major?" Parker surveyed the lodge, and reached for her gun. "Sydney," she called again and flinched when the bathroom door opened.

"Back here, Elaine," Jarod's father shouted over the running water. Parker resumed her entrance, closed the door on a darkening cerulean sky, and came to an abrupt halt.

Elaine? Her mother's middle name.

Parker swallowed a harsh breath, knitted her brows. Unbeknownst to her, Sydney paused in his ablutions to frown similarly.

Jarod apparently felt it was safe to share her secret, her lie, with his father.

All the years and strong boxes, and wonderboy still doesn't know the truth.

The memory fled its too shallow grave, returned fresh, raw. Haunted her. Another game, lie, simulation. Mandated by her father.

The kiss. Questions. The lies she'd told.

What's your name? Your real name?

The Major's voice shattered her reverie. "Elaine, are you all right?"

"Fine," Parker returned with a reticent smile that didn't meet her eyes.

"Good. Uh, Sydney needed a hand with his sponge bath. We'll be right out. Oh, and I hope you brought food. We're starving."

The woman had brought a feast, and no one was more appreciative than Jarod when he arrived with a confused, but alive, J.R.

"Pizza, burgers, hotdogs, and uh, salad," Jarod scrutinized the carrots and grape tomatoes, and directed a frown at the latter, which seemed to cause his previous excitement to briefly wither.

He bypassed the greenery, as if it were instead poison ivy, and loaded a small pizza box with two of each of the former.

"I see that your return to the Centre hasn't diminished your appetite," Sydney observed with a smile of faint amusement tugging at his lips.

"I'm- mm- mmm- I'm starving," Jarod declared between large bites, turning to Sydney. "Is Broots planting my fingerprints in security?"

"Parker telephoned while you were showering. Broots is ahead of schedule."

"Good. I don't want any loose ends," Jarod managed between bites. "Did she remind him to upload the patches to the bug tracking systems in the library database and embed the codes into the mainframe?"

Sydney shrugged. "She didn't say."

"Did she have any new information?" Jarod inquired.

"Information?"

"Anything on Cox? Potential snags? Any hint of raised suspicions?"

"Son," Jarod's father answered, "she dropped off the food and the Vicodin, and she left. I'm sure if there were any issues, she would have alerted us."

Jarod frowned, rose, dialed her number. "This is precisely why I asked her to stay until I arrived."

"You also advised her to create a paper trail that puts her away from the Centre at the time of your escape," Jarod's father reminded, placatingly, and with a glance at his watch added, "which will occur in less than four hours."

"Ten minutes to brief me. That's all I asked of her," Jarod argued defensively. "Why the hell isn't she picking up the telephone?"

"There was to be no contact from us- that was your rule, Jarod," Sydney said, and observed in growing concern as J.R. Miller paced his way to the front door and back again. Jarod's father followed Sydney's gaze and addressed the young man: "Don't you want another slice of pizza?"

"I can't stop thinking about my mom. She's probably worried sick."

"She is," Jarod confirmed. "The FBI is working the case."

"Oh, God," J.R. erupted, exasperated. "I haven't even been gone that long."

"Your mother loves you," Jarod said.

"Yeah. And she's overprotective. And it probably has something to do with you and that brunette and this Cox person you speak of. Look, Jarod, I'm grateful to you for finding me a heart but I- I want to know more about the person it belonged to. Was it that man? The man who buried Mrs. Delmont in the desert? Is that why the Centre wants me? He worked for the Centre too, right? So it makes sense that-"

"I told you before, J.R.-"

"But you didn't tell me why I was shot with a tranquilizer dart and carted into that place with a hood over my head? What other reason could there be?"

Jarod retrieved a photograph from his black duffel, and offered it to J.R. 

"I don't understand," J.R. said haltingly. "Why do you have a photograph of Doctor Kyle with you?"

"Doctor Kyle," Jarod repeated, his voice colored with skepticism.

·

"Kyle," Parker breathed the name, shook her head. "Is alive?" Her brows were arched high in surprise, disbelief.

Jarod nodded. "He's been planning this since we were children," came the whispered exclamation.

"Planning what, exactly?" Parker asked, briefly dropping her gaze to the silicon face mask and blond wig Jarod held in his hand. He nervously toyed with the latter, and after some time, shoved it into the back pocket of his janitor uniform.

Parker continued to study the astonishingly life-like mask, intently.

She'd seen that face before somewhere, and wondered if he'd kept tabs on her? He could have been anyone, gone anywhere, walked beside her on a busy sidewalk, confidently, without fear of detection.

"He was rather vague with the details. He did, however, mention taking down the Centre," Jarod answered with a sympathetic smile.

"Excuse me," Parker exclaimed.

"I attempted to dissuade him."

"Tell me you succeeded," Parker remarked dryly, pressing the palms of her hands to her back.

Jarod observed in faint amusement as she pivoted around to face the mirror and make a quick adjustment to hair.

"No. No, I didn't. Not exactly," Jarod answered.

Parker's indignant gaze met Jarod's in the mirror.

"Your hair is lovely," he commented sweetly and offered her a rather urbane smile.

Parker managed an indulgent, tired smile, and thrust a finger at his reflection. "Flattery will you get absolutely nowhere, Mister," she informed him brusquely. "What does not exactly mean?"

To which Jarod shrugged. "He actually provided a cogent argument."

A burst of hilarity erupted from Parker's throat. "Perfect," she purred. "You ambushed me in the ladies room to tell me this?"

"Yes. And to thank you for helping me rescue J.R. I couldn't have done that without your help. Your mother-- she would be very proud of you."

Jarod observed as Parker pivoted, retreated, came to an abrupt halt, and tossed her head back in what many people would describe as frustration.

She folded her arms across her chest, fashioned an expression of malevolence, to no doubt mask her true emotions, and whirled around to face him.

"I've been appointed chairwoman," she announced.

"I know," Jarod said, softly. "And I imagine it's going to be difficult for you. You're not a child anymore, you're not naive. You know the truth about what they do, and your father is no longer here to pacify you with lies."

She knew. Jarod had poked large, gaping holes into her veil of cognitive dissonance. Parker swallowed the riposte, couldn't quite stomach the taste of denial, or the same old rusty but trusty, that's a lie and you know it, on her tongue.

She couldn't defend Mr. Parker. 

"They," Jarod repeated. "They. I've been grateful that, to date, the distinction has not become blurred," he explained, and then, as an afterthought added, "not so blurred that I can't see the real you. In time, I'm afraid that when I refer to the Centre, it will be impossible for me to distinguish you from your brother, from Raines. I don't want to lose a friend. And I- I can't help but to imagine what your mother would have to say about your chairmanship if she were alive."

"Don't," Parker cautioned tremulously. "Don't you dare use my mother to advance your argument. I am not her," she reminded sullenly, bristling beneath Jarod's rapt gaze.

"This isn't an agrument," Jarod assured Parker with a warm smile. He was pushing, maybe too hard, but didn't doubt the process he'd made.

Notwithstanding the lies, manipulations, and setbacks, he'd always been able to reason with her to, at least, a certain degree, either by employing his skills as a Pretender, or by sheer luck, or, by way of variation, sometimes an amalgamation of both.

"I know you often wish she were here to advise you. I know you did when you were younger, and it's obvious you still do. Don't you, and don't you wonder what she would say? Or- or how she would react to the news that you are Chairwoman of the Centre? I certainly do."

"And I think," he added with a wistful smile, "that she would laud you for helping me rescue J.R. and say you-" Jarod drew a breath, continued unblinkingly, "you've taken an enormous first step, and launched a true strike against the Centre.

I believe she'd ask you to take another step, and another, and see yourself clear of the Centre and the Triumvirate. She wants what all loving parents want for their children, what Broots wants for his daughter: security, happiness, love, marriage. A life. Something more- more than the Centre will ever allow you to have."

"Something more," Parker slung the words back at Jarod, twisting two benign words into obscenities. 

Miss Parker's perverted vernacular.

"You interrupted my date for this," Parker accused flatly, her voice liquid, anguished. "To proselytize." 

"I'm simply asking you to follow through. I'm asking you to do what your mother," he added with some reverence, "died trying to do. Finish it. Destroy the place before it destroys you."

"I don't know the details of her plan, Jarod," Parker blurted, deflated, and observed the inquisitive tilt of his head. "I don't know what she wanted or the unfinished work she was referring to or-"

"And so your answer is do nothing?" Jarod interrupted, his voice grainy, wheedling, filled with anguish, and his eyes both soft and hard, challenging and sincere. "To continue to do nothing? To devote your life to that place, to the people who killed your mother and killed Thomas?" 

Parker was clearly incensed by the accusations, the painful truth in his words. She felt her confidence wither and her anger deflate beneath the intense scrutiny of his gaze. "She died trying to rescue you," Jarod said. "You are the unfinished work. Nothing else could have been more important than saving her little girl. Nothing."

"What if you're wrong? What if it's something else? What if Raines knows the truth? What if-"

"What if I'm right," Jarod asked softly. 

"But what-"

Jarod shook his head, and, again, interrupted her. "What if her plan begins with you? What if the end of the Centre marks the beginning of her plan, the beginning of your new life?" He seized Parker's  bare shoulders, ignored her protracted gasp, and spun her around roughly to face the mirror.

She could do little more than sag against Jarod for support, and stare at herself in abject disbelief.

"What if the answer is right in front of you," Jarod continued, impassioned.

Their eyes met again in the insipid light of the ladies room. "What if you and Broots and Debbie, and Kyle- what if we fight and win and walk away to live a life of our own choosing," Jarod asked softly, and then, decidedly resolved, simply commanded:

"Let me help you."

܀

܀

Providence. Jarod believed it was nothing short of divine providence.

"It's no miracle," Kyle explained without being prompted by Jarod. "You weren't the only one they cloned, you know."

Kyle offered documentation, photos, surveillance footage- all of which had been authenticated by Jarod.

"The Centre employs the best of the best. Top assassins, shrinks, researchers, specialists. Their cryonics facility was state of the art. They weren't only preserving clones, either. They were also regenerating organs, limbs."

Regenerating.

Preserving.

Jarod dropped leadenly into a straight-back chair.

Preserving.

He was reminded of an old farm house he'd once taken refuge in, pantries and basement filled with hundreds of shelves of preserved fruits and vegetables in tight-lidded jars- to be taken down and opened when resources were low, when the opened jars were all used up.

"That's all we are to the Parkers, it's all we've ever been," Kyle continued gravely, "resources to be used at their discretion, to be replicated and stored away in the event that we are no longer viable. It's the only way they could guarantee their success, maintain their status. They will always need a Pretender, they will always need leverage." 

Kyle had considered stealing the clone, but considered the rampant paranoia that likely accompanied any position within the Centre. The boys in the tower were inherently suspicious. It would've been awfully convenient for Kyle's clone to vanish on the very evening that Kyle died in his brother's arms.

Furthermore, Kyle believed such a strike to be an extraordinary facile one. He wanted the theft and the death to be two separate incidents, intended to leave no room for doubt.

There had been one option, one chance to pull it off. And sixty casualties.

Kyle talked briefly about the events that had occurred behind the scenes, the friendships he'd developed, friends who'd helped him pull off the job. "Former Marines. I met them during one my shorter stints in the Corps when I was between prison sentences. They'd been court-martialed."

"And you cleared their names?" Jarod asked. "That's why they helped you."

Kyle nodded, disinterestedly. "When I called in the IOU, they didn't hesitate."

They approached stealthily, severed the facility's surveillance feed and communication, and jammed all mobile devices. The men entered and opened fire on employees. The clone was id'd, and transported to the hospital morgue where Kyle impatiently waited.

Following J.R.'s heart transplant, the corpse was returned to the facility. Kyle knew the Centre recovery team would comb the debris for charred bones and teeth. They had.

"Three days later, we reestablished communication with the Centre, looped old surveillance and security video, made a few vital edits, and had one of the hostages report an incident with the onsite crematory. A break in a gas line." Kyle said. "By that time, we'd already doused the place with an undetectable military-grade accelerant."

"The Centre suspected no foul play," Emily said, appreciatively.

Kyle nodded his affirmation. "The break was blamed on earthquakes. Off the record, the investigators believed that Raines was too greedy with funding to have the facility regularly inspected and maintained."

"And the hostages?" Troy, Jarod's clone, inquired, eagerly.

Kyle turned, stared out the window, and answered bluntly, "The two hostages attempted to escape. And were killed."

Kyle indulged questions, well into the morning hours, with sometimes vague answers, satisfying every curiosity. And Maggie had aplenty. She was the only member of his family to voice suspicions.

"If there's a clone- or was, how do we know you aren't the replica? How do we know that you aren't on their side?"

She believed he was a murdered. And he believed she was hypocritical and austere. Kyle shook his head and simply replied, "you don't," which prompted Jarod to intervene.

"The Centre would have been hard pressed to replicate scars and tattoos, especially scars and tattoos they weren't even aware existed. If he was an imposter, Mom, an enemy, we'd be in the Centre now, instead of discussing this."

"I still don't understand," Margaret declared irritably. She didn't believe her son was alive and well and standing before her. She was afraid, and angry- angry that he'd been alive all those years and hadn't sought his family, if he's really Kyle, and angry, too, that she could no longer trust in anything-- courtesy of cutting edge advancements in science. "Didn't you operate on him, Jarod? Weren't you on the transplant team?"

"I was only the delivery man," Jarod said.

"Was the clone alive," she blurted impatiently. "Or- or did you-"

"Mom," Emily exclaimed her objection abruptly.

"I have a right to know who he is," Maggie argued, and the voices returned to Kyle.

Who is he to decide who lives or dies?

Who are you to decide who lives or dies?

Who are you, Kyle?

Who?

Kyle snapped his eyes closed, drew a fortifying breath, and pivoted around to face his family.

"It's all right, Emily," Kyle said, fashioning a tight smile. "My clone, apparently, sustained some sort of brain injury."

"Brain injury," Maggie repeated fretfully, an expression of abject incredulity marring her features.

"Records indicate he'd been on life support for three months. His organs were viable. His brain- uh, not so much. Invasive behavior modification gone awry," Kyle surmised.

"Frontal lobe separation?" Jarod ventured.

"Or cortex deafferentation," Kyle answered, "or a number of other barbaric procedures," Kyle added with a dismissive wave. "That bastard Raines is a regular Doctor Ishii," he snarled and shared an expression of contempt with Jarod.

"But- well," Maggie stammered, weakly, "you didn't answer the question. Was he alive?"

"Mom," Emily decried once more with renewed pique.

Who are you to decide who lives or dies, you sniveling little piece of shit? You are nothing. 

Kyle returned to his attention to the window.

Who?

Who are you to decide who lives or dies? Who are you to decide who lives or dies? Who are you to decide who lives or diesWho are you to decide who lives or diesWho are you to decide who lives or dies

Shut up.

WhoareyoutodecidewholivesordiesWhoareyoutodecidewholivesordiesWhoareyouto decidewholivesordiesWhoareyoutodecidewholivesordiesWhoareyoutodecidewholives ordiesWho are you to decide who lives or diesWho are you to decide who lives or diesWhoareyoutodecidewholivesordiesWhoareyoutodecidewholivesordies

Shut up godamnit.

"Shut up."

"W-what?" Maggie asked, feebly, clutching her husband's hand for support.
 
"Kyle," Jarod said softly. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," Kyle answered gruffly, "Uh, for all intents and purposes, no, Mom. He wasn't alive when he was transported. He was on life support. He was never taken off the ventilator, because the heart had to be viable." Kyle watched his mother's face, reflected in the glass. She continued to gape at him uncomprehendingly. "He was already dead, technically," Kyle added, and then erupted angrily, "I'm not like you, like any of you, I'm certainly not like Jarod." Kyle pivoted, and yanked his leather jacket from the coat rack. "I've spent my entire life searching for you, Mom. I realize now that you didn't want me to find yo-"

"Son," His father emphatically interjected, "your mother is only concerned. She's suffered a shock. We all have."

"You were shot," Maggie exclaimed tearfully. "Jarod watched you die. He was certain you were dead. He said there was blood."

An irritated Jarod silenced his mother with a dismissive wave and pushed a cup of coffee into Kyle's hand - all the while gently coaxing the jacket from his brother's grasp. "Lyle could have killed you, Kyle," Jarod said softly. "You were taking a huge risk by stepping into his line of fire and taking a bullet that was intended for me."

"I had a few moments alone with his gun, if you recall."

Jarod nodded affirmation, and returned his brother's jacket to the rack. He vividly remembered his visit to Red Rock, remembered every detail. "You do realize that people have been killed with blanks, that even those wax bullets can be deadly, don't you?"

Kyle grinned. "You know, there were moments when I was certain you felt my heart beating, but I suppose you were in shock. The only thing that matters now is that we saved a life, and, more than that, we're going to end this war with the Parkers, for once and for all."

"That's something we need to discuss," Jarod said softly.

"You're damned right it is, big brother. It's time to make the Parkers pay."

"Not all of the Parkers," Jarod corrected and observed as his brother's eyes narrowed.

"Oh, let me guess: you've been bewitched by Miss Parker, fallen under the spell of the ice queen."

"Kyle-"

"The woman is bad news, Jarod."

"Just hear me out."

Kyle listened, however, he didn't believe, didn't want to believe.

Miss Parker.

Miss Parker?

Kyle shook his head grimly. Miss Parker.

The "get-Kyle" Miss Parker siccing the sweepers on him at the Dragon House. She'd been more wary than aggressive when she'd visited the hole he'd been thrown into down on death row. Kyle still vividly recalled the maximum security sector of ward thirteen; the place was a regular quacks-R-us, and Miss Parker had been afraid. And enraged. 

She was all emotion, wearing her feelings across her features. Kyle was convinced that aside from the incisive tongue and those cold blue eyes, she had nothing to offer; after all, wars were not won with dagger glares and rapier wit.



Those blue eyes were presently regarding the finger of bourbon swirling in a crystal tumbler, and filling with tears that she would not allow to spill past her eyelids.

It hadn't been a horrible plan. In fact-

No.

No.

"No," She whispered aloud.

Jarod was waiting for her, Parker knew that, waiting near an old tree, underneath a bowl of stars. Probably smiling up appreciatively. A lovely night, a good omen.

"No," She repeated. The sepulchral tick-ticking of the antique grandfather clock in the corner stabbed the silence, answered, admonished her.

Focus, Parker. Focus.

She hadn't.

Jarod's proposition had briefly distracted her. His dreams always had. She recalled afternoons wandering the Centre's labyrinthine sub-levels by his side, and listening intently as he romanticized about one elaborate adventure after another.

Leaving the Centre via teleportation, or hot ballooning their way around the world. Just like the book, except we'll never land.

We'll go to Capileira and sleep, he'd once suggested prior to a month long simulation involving sleep-deprivation.

Her father had since cautioned her against Jarod and recklessness, spontaneity. Capriciousness. And dreaming. She was to never behave erratically. There were rules. She still vividly recalled them.

I'd be fool to leave now, join Jarod in launching an assault against the Centre. We can't win.

It was far more logical to work from the inside, attempt to reduce causalities and iniquities, and over time, restore the Centre to its former altruistic glory.

To abandon the Centre was to abandon every chance of finding the truth, and, as if to punctuate that thought, the half hour tolled from the dark corner. 

I've worked too hard for too many years to walk away now, put Broots and Debbie in danger, risk it all on a scheme that sounded like every other fantastical notion Jarod had ever dreamed up: Too good to be true.

I've come too far to be swayed by the whims of Franken-boy and his criminally insane brother.

Jarod had anticipated Parker's second thoughts, knew there'd be doubts. He also knew the longer Parker remained at the Centre, the more difficult it was going to be for her to leave it behind. Nevertheless, he guesstimated she'd be no more than ten minutes late.

Or fifteen, he amended minutes later—with withering confidence—willing her headlights to appear on the horizon.

To his left, Kyle hissed a string of obscenities, continued staring off at the distance.

"This is insane, Jarod."

"What is?"

"This," Kyle said impatiently. "How do you know the black choppers aren't en route?"

"Call it a gut feeling."

"Are you sure that what you're feeling in your gut isn't hunger?"

Jarod laughed heartily and parked his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Kyle, we can trust her."

Kyle grimaced, shrugged off the hand. He continued to struggle with displays of affection. "Then where the hell is she?"

"I don't know," Jarod answered with a only a cursory glance at his watch. 

"This is the correct rendezvous point?" Kyle asked.

"Yes."

"Is it possible that she spotted me- I can understand how it might spook her to see a dead-"

"She knows you're alive. And Miss Parker isn't easily-"

"She knows? Wait a minute: you told her I'm alive? Jarod-"

"It's all right, Kyle. Trust me."

"Trust you?"

"Yes. She'll be here."

"Why? Because she helped you rescue J.R.?" Kyle eyes narrowed. "Jarod, she had everything to gain. She's chairwoman now, in case you hadn't noticed. Do I need to remind you just how many years that woman has been terrorizing our family?

She watched as I pretended to die in your arms, and she- what was it she said again, Jarod? What words of comfort did she offer you in your time of grief?"

"Kyle-"

"Time to come home, Jarod," Kyle mocked, cruelly.

"What was she supposed to say to me, Kyle, when Centre sweepers were present?"

"Oh, so you're telling me it was all a pretense?"

"No. I can't tell you it was all a pretense. Things are different. We can trust her, Kyle," Jarod trudged on resolutely.

"Stop saying that word," Kyle shouted. "You don't know that you can trust her. You don't even know her."

"I know her. I've always known her. I know her heart, I-"

"Jarod, you don't even know her name, let alone-"

"Of course I know her name," Jarod exclaimed incredulously.

Kyle crossed his arms, challenged his brother.

"Okay then, tell me: what is her name?"

"I'm not supposed to tell anyone- and, I've already accidentally told Dad. It's a- it's a secret."

"A secret," Kyle repeated. "Well, you're right about that- in fact, that may be the only thing you've gotten right where that woman is concerned. Since you're sworn to secrecy and I am not, I will tell you the name, the secret, she shared with you. Elaine. Catherine's middle name."

"How-"

"I've turned the Centre's records inside out. I have the transcripts and results of every simulation, including the ones your infallible Miss Parker participated in."

"Simulation? What are you-"

"No," Kyle said. "I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to show you."

Because seeing is believing. Or once was.

When the evidence had been viewed and the screen darkened, Jarod ejected himself from the leather chair, accused Kyle of altering the video, of demonizing an innocent woman.

Kyle stood patiently and listened intently while Jarod paced angrily and cursed. Finally, Jarod thrust a trembling hand into his shirt pocket.

He punched in Parker's number and paced the floor, up the hall and down again, growing more furious with each step.

A lie. It was all a lie. Everything she ever told me was a lie.

Jarod didn't give her the opportunity to answer the telephone in her usual rude manner. And who answers the phone like that anyway? What the hell is wrong with her?

"Wh-"

"Where were you," Jarod shouted.

"I-" Parker began coolly, "I believe you've dialed the wrong number."

Jarod assumed she was in a meeting, imagined Lyle sneering at her from across the table. "We need to talk," he said. "I'll be at the same location again tonight, same time."

"It's no problem at all," Parker said frothily, and promptly ended the the call.

It became apparent to Jarod at approximately half past nine that, contrarily, there was a problem. An enormous one. He found this whole being-stood-up-by-a-woman business infuriating.

He dialed her number again. Misdialed. Redialed. Snarled intelligibly. Jarod pocketed the mobile, which, to his surprise, rang.

"Yes," he said gruffly.

"J-Jarod."

"Mr. Broots?"

"Broots. Just Broots, okay? Because uh- well, it's a little strange to be addressed as Mister by someone older than I- and uh, eww, this phone booth smells weird. Geez, what the hell is that-"

"Broots," Jarod's voice thundered.

"Uh, yeah?"

"Where is Miss Parker?"

"She's still in a meeting with Lyle and the Triumvirate. And that creepy Mr. Cox."

Jarod digested that for a moment with a sneer of disgust curving his lips, and then swallowed his rage, and asked: "What kind of meeting?"

"The information-gathering kind. They aren't calling it an interrogation but every Centre employee was summoned, and Mr. Cox is asking a helluva lot of questions."

"Do they suspect her?" Jarod asked.

"Uh, no. I was afraid they would, but no they don't. They have zero suspects and no leads on J.R.- but they didn't actually tell us that. Tony did. Tony works in security and-"

"Broots," Jarod shouted. "I don't care about any Tony. If they don't suspect her, why is she still in the meeting?"

"Well, they were going to let her leave with me, but Mr. Cox believes she could be useful. She's Chairwoman now and-"

"Useful," Jarod interrupted. "Useful how?"

"Hey," Broots chuckled, "you gotta admit it: she can be intimidating- what with the gun and all."

"Yes, the gun. It can be quite intimidating. Does she have it with her now?"

"Ha," Broots laughed. "No. Of course not."

"No. Of course not," Jarod concurred, his voice and gut both filling with dread, and with an incomprehensible rapidity, "and I think you'll agree she's not terribly intimidating, not intimidating at all, in fact, without the gun. How do you know she's not in trouble, that she didn't walk into a trap? That she's safe?"

"See," Broots said with a grin, "I knew you'd ask, and I'm way, way ahead of you. I'm listening via communication device."

"You planted one on her. Very clever, Broots," Jarod lauded and could almost hear Broots' ego spike several degrees.

"Yeah, they are undetectable, skin tone. Uh- ooh, she's on her way out now."

"Then, I'll call-"

"No," Broots blurted. "Uh, well, what I mean to say is y- you shouldn't. I- how did she word it? She-"

"She's decided to stay on and run the place, hasn't she," Jarod asked, shirtily.

"Uh, well, that's not exactly what she said, but-"

"Damn it," Jarod growled.

"Whoa now, don't shoot the messenger," Broots exclaimed.

"Why not?" Jarod asked, dryly.

"She's going to contact you when it's safe."

"So, I should expect her," Jarod ventured, "never?"

"Huh?" A puzzled Broots returned.

"You know, she's not nearly as smart as I believed her to be, and Broots: you can tell her I said so."

Jarod believed he could goad her into an argument, at least make her angry enough to telephone him. He was wrong. And his parents were given the opportunity to see their oldest son brood, to see Jarod-the-sulky. It wasn't pretty. And they were certain he would have grown out of the temper tantrum phase by the age of forty.

He groused and murmured obscenities long after his family retired to their bedrooms, sleep rolls, and assorted cots. At the breakfast table, over a large glass of orange juice, he back-talked his mother and discovered what it was to be admonished by a father:

"Don't take that tone with your mother, young man."

It felt good in some ways. His father still loved his mother; years and miles apart had only strengthened their marriage, but, mostly, Jarod felt ashamed of himself-- and incredibly angry at Parker.

Jarod couldn't force her to leave the Centre— although a quick and tidy abduction did cross his mind on occasion. He wasn't above throwing himself at her feet and begging.

"Jarod," Ethan advised gently, "there is nothing you can do or say to change her mind."

Jarod agreed, and stormed off in a rage, locking himself in the tiny den for several days. When he emerged, he conferred with his brothers, and asked to borrow his father's plane. 

"Taking a trip?" Major Charles asked.

"Let's just say that I have some unfinished business," Jarod said.

"Don't do anything hasty, Jarod."

"I won't, Dad."

"Are you sure about this?"

"Positive," Jarod answered softly. "I've considered every contingency, and," he added with a toothy grin, "I won't be alone."

"What, exactly, are you going to do, Jarod?"

Jarod smiled, and answered, simply, "I'm going to make it impossible for her to ignore me."

Had Parker heard those words, she would have deemed them the understatement of the millennium.

But she hadn't heard his words, and wasn't given an opportunity to brace herself for what, or, more specifically, who, was coming.

Presently, she was in her new office sitting upright, with her eyes closed. Meditating. Breathing in positivity, breathing out stress. 

The intercom buzzed, interrupting her. 

Parker frowned, pressed a button.

"What."

"Mr. Lyle is here to see you."

Again?

"Send him in, Jane," Parker said, and displayed only boredom when Lyle entered.

"Sis," Lyle announced cheerfully.

"Twice in one day, Bobby," Parker purred. "You know," she said, "when I looked over the personnel records this morning, brown-nosing had not yet been added to your dossier."

Parker observed his quirk of lips. He was furious. And- and on the verge on soiling his Armani briefs.

Lyle shifted uncomfortably, and glanced over his shoulder suddenly, Parker followed his gaze. Sweepers?

No. Those were not Centre sweepers.

The Triumvirate.

"I'm here on business, Sis."

Parker bristled. "Right, and just what business do you have with the Triumvirate, Bobby?"

"I'm just the messenger."

"Oh?"

"An emergency meeting has been called. Another T-board. It appears the recent breach is a greater security concern than-"

Baby brother's explanation was cut short when the smallest of the Triumvirate goons stepped forward stealthily and brought the pistol down on Bobby's head in one swift fluid motion. Bobby emitted a single pained grunt and crumpled to the floor.

Parker, of course, referred to Daddy's advice. Survival. At any cost, Angel. She remained aloof, neither praised nor admonished the violence she'd just witnessed. One mustn't choose sides too early in the game- when the game is survival.

She studied the droplets of blood and simply said: "One of us should call house-keeping, preferably before that stains the floor."

Parker's words were ignored.

"I'm to escort you to the tribunal," the larger of the men informed her.

Raines. But who else? It's just like the sleazy son of a bitch to go behind my back like this. I will kill him this time. Painfully. A neat Colombian neck-tie.

If he doesn't kill me first.

"Under whose authorization?" Parker asked through clenched teeth. As if I don't know. The men simply stared. Waited. Parker frowned at the approaching footfalls, felt fear slip beneath her skin. She imagined Raines taking aim, murdering her in cold blood just as he'd murdered her mother.

It cannot end like this.

"Under whose authorization?" Parker shouted authoritatively, believing her urgency and rage would galvanize the men into some sort of action she could use to her advantage. But neither men so much as flinched at her outburst.

And time was up. She imagined the grandfather clock, a final tick. A concluding toll.

For me.

No. Not yet.

Not inside the Centre. I won't die here.

She reached behind her to retrieve the gun. That last ditch effort died a quick death. Parker found herself looking down the business end of a Glock 38, and was supremely displeased. Irate. She stilled her moments, brought her hands up slowly, and swung her gaze to the corridor.

There were murmurs outside. Raines- he was probably giving one of his pet idiots last minute instructions.

She observed as both Triumvirate goons stepped aside, and bowed graciously, obsequiously at the newcomer, Mr. Persona Non Grata.

Parker gasped.

Gasped.

Audibly.

She noted the black shirt and tie that paired perfectly with the black Caraceni suit that had set him back at least twenty grand, and the matching black shoes polished to a high shine. Her brows knitted, her eyes narrowed.

Her jaw nearly unhinged.

Instead, her lips formed a perfect circle. O.

O!


Parker watched Jarod dismiss the men, and close the door, and casually slip his hands into the pockets of his trousers. Jarod met her gaze then, and although Parker had forgotten the question, he answered her, simply,

"Mine."

܀

܀

Pacing.

Today is different.

Different?

Ha.

A fucking precedence.

Genius or not, Jarod was a man, human and fallible, and that, he supposed, was why he derived a certain amount of pleasure, a sick and terrible pleasure, from seeing Parker so confounded.

Power.

Control.

Such a slippery slope.

Jarod could imagine just how slippery a slope, how quickly one's  good intentions could be seized by madness, and particularly inside the Centre, where moral atrophy ran rampant, and humanity had deteriorated.

Men had lost themselves in macabre fascination inside these walls, traded their sanities and souls, and even their families for money and power. If a building ever could truly be evil, could harbor evil, surely, he thought, it was this building. 

I'll be careful, he vowed to himself. 

Parker turned, suddenly, midstride, and tugged her gun from its holster and leveled it directly at Jarod's chest.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you," She hissed, to which Jarod grinned roguishly and shrugged,

"I can't think of a single one." His answer was whispered softly and accompanied by a warm smile that Parker mistook as threatening and smug. A smug simper. And she wanted to blow it right off of his fucking face.

"If you've made up your mind to kill me, I doubt I could talk you out of it anyway." He gave her a moment to process his words and, continued, nonchalantly. "If you are not going to kill me," he added, advancing, "I suggest you put that," he said, his head dipping meaningfully at the gun, "away."

Parker was startled by Jarod's initial advance, and took a single step as if to--

What? Retreat?

No.

Oh, no.

Hell-fucking-no.

Parker shifted her weight, squared her shoulders, rooted herself to the spot. She "stood her ground"-- as certain trigger-happy Americans might boast.

Jarod noted Parker's ferocious scowl, and tension. She behaved as if she were a threatened, angry anima backed into a corner.

A cat.

A wild cat. And how much easier it would be if she were, Jarod opined. All he'd have to do is reach over, grasp her by the scruff of her neck, and she'd be paralyzed and at his mercy, dangling haplessly from his palm, dancing from strings he pulled.

Jarod shook the image from his head, and discreetly drew a deep breath.

"Why should I?" Parker snarled.

Back to this.

Jarod was hurt and angry, more angry at himself than her. I should have expected this from her.

Despite all of the work he'd done, all of the progress they'd made over the years, and their story's evolution, only the ending had ever been the same. 

Why did I think this time would be any different?

Their world was convoluted. A step forward always equaled two steps back— his and hers, respectively.

Clever woman.

Consequently, regardless of choices made, his or hers, there was always the single step, that empty space, between them. It existed to maintain status quo, and her precarious position, the perpetual equidistance from both Jarod and the Centre. This is the dance we do, a reticent, fatalistic waltz. She circumvented him at every turn.

Jarod's fury was somewhat tempered. She'd told him no lies, hadn't implied a willingness to leave the Centre. She hadn't even agreed to meet him again. 

She'd simply exited the ladies room, whispered apologies to her date, and had gone directly to the hotel. She didn't remember navigating traffic, ascending the steps, or even using the key card on the room's door.

Meeting Jarod in a hotel had seemed sleazy and verboten, but she'd entered the room, and observed him emerge from the darkness wearing jeans and a black tee, after evidently discarding the janitor uniform.

He'd suggested she sit, and she'd refused with a curt shake of head, and even then the wheels were spinning in her head, but he hadn't noticed.

Because I didn't want to notice.

He could only imagine her thoughts. She'd gotten caught up, her father's voice reprimanded, carried away. It was caprice or something as ordinary as stupidity, mispaced good sense.

She'd forgotten herself and familial obligations. 

And now she wants me to forget.

Just forget what happened, Jarod.

Forget what happened when we were children.

Forget what happened on that Island.

Forget what happened in the lodge when I punched you, and I kissed you.

Just forget, Jarod.

Forget.

He'd heard it all of before, knew the lines.

What am I suppose to do?

What, Jarod?

"What?" Parker hissed, "Cat got your tongue, boygenius?"

Parker realized, suddenly, that Jarod was standing close to her. Too close. She'd made this mistake before, and remembered all the well the consequences.

She took a single step back to correct a mistake that, in the face of any other adversary, would have been fatal. Jarod struck, seized Parker's wrist, ignored her cry of surprise. Parker felt her body being thrust forward, and watched the room blur when Jarod spun her.

He swiftly disarmed her, and enjoyed her protracted breath of surprise and dread a little more than he believed was appropriate.

Parker was still trying to wrest her gun from Jarod's hand when her back collided with his chest. 

"Why no, Miss Parker, the cat does not have my tongue," Jarod answered. "Your interest and concern, however, in that particular piece of my anatomy is appreciated, and has been duly noted for future reference."

It was then, only then that she realized that her desk was directly in front of her.

One sudden push forward and he- oh, my god.

She tensed when she felt his breath spill across her shoulder, and snapped her eyes closed when his lips touched her earlobe.

This. Is. NOT. Happening. It's not happening.

You can't allow this to continue.

She couldn't. Intending to attack, stab him in the leg with a stiletto heel, she lifted one Louboutin pump from the floor and-

Froze.

Her foot froze when Jarod grasped her hip, and, as if to confirm her thoughts, why, Grandma, what large testicles you have, he held her body tightly against his.

The boy has lost his fucking mind.

"Don't. Even. Think. About. It." Jarod whispered the words through clenched teeth, and Parker almost didn't hear, almost couldn't hear- couldn't hear over the voices in her head screaming at her to do something for fuck's sake, to do anything, to make him stop.

"I suggest you be very careful if you want to live," Jarod advised quietly. "If Jaha believes for one second that you are beyond my control, things are going to take a rather ugly turn," he cautioned, and then added, rather thickly, and rather angrily: "For you."

With that said, and no doubt comprehended by Parker, Jarod released her.

He turned away, and gave her a brief moment to compose herself, smooth down the skirt that, for some strange reason, suddenly felt entirely too short.

It was clear that Parker was shaken. Every muscle in her body trembled. And worse still, she'd apparently lost the use of her voice. Darn those tongue-robbing cats. 

Her legs felt liquid and unreliable, and had just enough strength to bend at the knee, and allow her to unsteadily half-fall into a chair.

Ever the gentleman, Jarod fetched Parker a glass of water and pushed it into her hand. He then sank into the chair opposite hers, and advised, authoritatively, "You are never to point weapons at a superior. Are we understood?"

"Superior," Parker repeated absently. "How?" 

Jarod smiled gently. Poor Miss Parker. The woman had been reduced to one-word replies and questions, and even that required a great deal of effort.

"Ah," Jarod said, "well, you see: all that matters here is that people believe what I want them to believe."

"I'm guessing you want the Triumvirate," Parker said weakly, and then reddened and bristled beneath his rapt gaze. She'd expended her oxygen entirely too soon, and was forced to draw another tremulous breath, "to believe that you- what?" She asked. "What am I missing?"

"Missing," Jarod repeated with a sharp laugh. He was laughing at her. The bastard. "You aren't missing anything," he explained with a look of incredulity, and then smugly clarified: "You know exactly what I want you to know."

"Nothing," Parker murmured.

"Very good," Jarod said. Bastard. How dare he patronize me!

"Good?" She hissed. "How is that good?"

"Come, now, Miss Parker," Jarod admonished gently, revealing pain, "Nothing was enough for you back when it was all your father ever gave you. Nothing was more than enough, in fact. I've watched you cling to nothing, to absolutely nothing, for years. By now, you should be accustomed to it, accustomed to nothing." He fell silent for several moments, and then added, wistfully, "I suppose we should both be."

"How long are you intending to masquerade-"

"I'm not masquerading," Jarod corrected her brusquely, and then rose and glanced at his watch. "Oh, but would you look at the time. Let's not keep the honorable gentleman waiting."

܀

܀

Gentlemen?

Parker scowled at Jarod, and then at the door he held open.

Gentleman, indeed.

He gestured for her to exit, and smiled sweetly when she acquiesced.

Parker averted her gaze, feigned disinterest, boredom Fuck him- yes, him and the white stallion he rode in on and surveyed the corridor, east to west. "Where is everyone?" 

"Exactly where I want them to be, Miss Parker," answered Jarod neutrally.

"Right," Parker drawled, sardonically. "Make no mistake, Jarod," Parker cautioned, "they will never allow you to walk out of here."

"No?" He inquired softly with a squint of skepticism.

Parker shook her head, gravely expounded, "They're going to ambush you."

"Hmm," came Jarod's guttural hum, "now that wouldn't be very nice of them."

"Nice?" Parker returned, piqued, "No, you're walking into a trap, unarmed, undermanned. This is your last chance to return my gun, and-"

"Contrarily, Miss Parker," he rejoined impassively with a soupçon of arrogance and a thick brow lifted in amusement- and in challenge, "I am armed and not only am I leaving the Centre," he continued softly, sidling closer to her, and fashioning a conspiratorial leer, "I'm taking you with me."

Parker drew a breath, pressed her lips together in a tight line. She shuddered in anger and revolved her eyes. "Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on or-"

"Or," Jarod interrupted brusquely, peremptorily, and then pulled open the board room door. "After you, Miss Parker." 

"Jarod-"

"After you, Miss Parker," Jarod reasserted sharply, pressing his palm lightly to the small of her back.

Parker shrugged out of the semi embrace, and entered the room of her own volition- that's what she told herself.

"I believe you know Troy, Ethan and Kyle. And this," Jarod said, indicating the Triumvirate's Chief Minister, "is Jaha."

"Sir," Parker said and observed warily the somber nod of head with which she was aknowledged and merely tolerated.

Little else could be gleaned by Parker as Jarod chose to communicate with the African in bastardized Cilubà and Swahili-Kikongo fusion. The meeting adjourned after a grueling four and half hours whereupon Parker's confusion increased exponentially: Jaha advanced on Jarod, came to an abrupt halt and bent fully and swiftly at his waist in an obsequious bow. 

"Where are they going?" Parker asked when he and his men left the room. "Africa?"

Jarod shook his head, answered impassively, "Into exile."

"That's what they want you to believe," Parker hissed. "You're insane if you believe this is over."

"Jarod," Kyle snarled, "if you don't shut her up, I-"

"You'll what," Parker hissed, and then wheeled around and sought out Ethan and Troy—potential allies—who were both listening intently to their wireless headsets. Suddenly, they turned and departed via a narrow egress that Parker hadn't even been aware existed.

"Enough," Jarod demanded, sharply. "Both of you. I want you to radio the jet, Kyle."

Kyle obeyed, grudgingly, and keyed his headset.

"Jet?" Parker inquired.

"Yes," Jarod answered, "we're taking a little trip."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Parker asserted, feinting to the left, and then turning suddenly-- only to come face to face with twin barrels of death, lethal infinity.

Parker thought it oddly ironic that a figure eight, infinity, was the last thing a person lined up in Kyle's sights would see.

"Kyle," Jarod snarled.

"Of course," Kyle said with a grin. "I have my own," he added, handing the gun off to Jarod.

Of course.

"Miss Parker," Jarod said with some urgency. At last, Parker met his impatient gaze, obvserved as he jerked his head to the side, indicating that she should walk. Or else.

To Parker's surprise, there was no ambush, not while approaching concourse twelve and not on the tarmac.

They weren't blown out of the sky, nor were they escorted by the Triumvirate's fleet of jets to an undisclosed location, and summarily executed.

What the hell is Jarod trying to prove? Why is Jaha eating out of his hand? And where the hell are we going?

Parker's cool indifference dissolved, was replaced with anxiety,  anger. Jarod was certain he could hear the pretenses drop. She wanted an explanation, demanded an explanation. Instead, she was issued an apology.

"I'm sorry." Jarod's voice was graveled baritone, wheedling, choked with remorse. "I didn't want it to come to this. I never wanted this."

"You never wanted to become the men who snatched you from your bed," she returned with equal measures of hostility and incredulity.

Jarod leaned forward, his hands stretched wide across his legs. "Miss Parker," he said, softly, "I didn't snatch you from your bed, and you're not a child. I intend to do you no harm. Remember, you are not innocent in all of this." He shrugged, and added with a frown, "None of us are."

"What, exactly, do you intend to do to me, Jarod?"

Jarod intended to hedge. He wasn't going to tell her that he'd read the scrolls. Mr. Parker's heavy panting had been rather distracting, the text had been reversed and upside down, and he'd been trying to escape his binds at the time, but he'd read them, and was haunted by them. The Chosen, a boy named Jarod who will reign-

Lunacy!

"Jaha wanted you," Jarod vomited the words, "did you know that?"

Parker's eyes widened in surprise.

"It would have been rather remiss of me to allow him to abduct you."

"Right,"  Parker cooed. "Instead, you abducted me. What aren't you telling me"

Jarod rose. "Try to get some sleep."

"Why?" Parker asked.

"It's late," Jarod said.

"No," Parker stammered, "that's not- - why did you stop him?"

Jarod frowned, his jaw tightened. "Why didn't I allow Jaha to take you?" Jarod asked for the sake of clarification, and observed Parker's nearly imperceptible nod.

Jarod averted his eyes. "Sleep," he said, irritably.

Parker glared at his retreating form in disbelief. She refused to take orders from him, refused to sleep; it was act of defiance, and as par for her usual course only she suffered the results of that defiance.

Parker slept through what she was certain would be her only opportunity to escape, and she only reached that conclusion when she awoke with a start in an empty nondescript sedan.

Jarod was paying for fuel and Kyle was returning from the adjoined fast food establishment with a large white paper bag that was already transparent courtesy of the splotches of fat seeping through.

"Hungry?" Kyle asked.

"No," Parker snarled. "I'd kill for a cup of coffee."

"I've no doubt you'd kill for less, Miss Parker," Kyle returned, and then whistled through his teeth. "Caffeine withdrawals are a bitch," He added, retrieving his mobile. "One extra large coffee," he sang, "to go. What? Fine, I'll tell her." Kyle tossed a glance over his shoulder, and addressed Parker again: "The cappuccino machines are in the back, near the restrooms- if you catch my brother's drift. If you don't, I'll speak plainly: you might want to take a leak now."

"Mm, a real charmer," Parker returned dryly, opening the door.

"Oh, I know," Kyle said. "Don't forget to flush and wash your hands."

She was enraged, positively enraged, was certain she might kill Jarod, and she might have had her attention and rage not been diverted.

The toddler had a contagious laugh, bouncy dark curls, and wore a sagging diaper and yellow sundress stained with what Parker guessed was grape juice. The girl was engaged in a game of peek-a-boo with Jarod and having a grand time, was- at least until a tall, stout, bespectacled woman with pinched features strode into the store screaming obscenities.

She was hunched in the shoulders and, Jarod opined, bore a slight resemblance to a caricature of Hugo's Quasimodo. Her brown eyes narrowed and disappeared into the deeply etched crow's feet gathered at her temples.

Her thick eyebrows were perpetually slanted and situated precisely one inch above the ebony squares that framed her field of vision.

The woman advanced rapidly, and unceremoniously grabbed a fistful of dark curls and lifted the toddler a good three inches off the floor. "There ya are! I tole you not to wunder off. Are ya stupid?"

Jarod was still processing. Parker was poised for battle, and across the room in three long strides. She captured the woman's left elbow, wrenched her arm high behind her back. "Let. Her. Go." Parker snarled, punctuating her words with a forward jerk.

The woman howled in pain, and released the toddler—who instinctively tottered across the room and into Jarod's open arms—and then turned and threw a punch.

Parker ducked, feinted to the right, threw a punch that connected with the woman's right cheek, and then pivoted, ducked. She grabbed a fistful of crunchy over-moussed hair a taste of the bitch's own medicine and kicked the woman through the massive store-front display.

The woman's body came to an ungainly stop near the plate glass window upon which a bas-relief Christ stared stoically at the comings and goings below, perhaps disparaging the unfavorable condition of the human condition.

There was a collective gasp, unhinged jaws, two manic voices murmuring their concerns to 911 operators.

No one was more appalled, or impressed, than Kyle. He leapt from the car when Jarod rang him. From the parking lot it was quite obvious that a fracas of some sort was in full swing and he could only wonder what sort of riot Parker had instigated. 

Kyle paused in the store entrance, observed the various cans rolling languidly across the floor, the dozens of boxes crushed beneath a rather heavy woman with a split lip and an expression of surprise etched upon her face. He saw Jarod, noted the sobbing toddler, and guessed the rest.

Kyle couldn't help but smirk when Parker dropped to a low crouch and addressed the woman. "People like you should be sterilized."

"She wundered off. I have to teach 'er a lessen."

"A lesson," Parker said with a snort of disdain. "I have one for you: it's her job to wander, it's your job to watch her." Parker shook her head, wheeled around, left the woman on the floor.

"I was watchin 'er! I always watch 'er. I tole 'er to stay in the car an' color."

The manager of the establishment shook his head. "In the car? She was in the car all that time? While you were inside eating? You left her in the car?" He asked again, his hairy gray brows furrowed over startling blue eyes that regarded road-weary travelers through wire rimmed spectacles. His eyes filled with tears. "In this heat," he said, drawing the sign of the cross and murmuring, "Pope on a pogo."

"She's my chile," the mother exclaimed, "I brought 'er into this world an' I can take 'er right back out again. I gave 'er life."

Parker whirled around once more, a neat pirouette on four inch heels. She leaned in close for the parting shot, thrust a trembling hand towards the sobbing toddler and with such fury that Jarod flinched: "She didn't ask to be born," Parker hissed, "not to the likes of you, not into a life of abuse," she added contemptuously, dragging her gaze over the woman, a scowl of disgust pinching her features. "I'd wander off too if you were my mother."

Kyle observed Parker's departing form, the nearly undetectable limp. He whistled through his teeth, shook his head. That one is hell in heels. "You know," he said, sidling up close to his brother, "your Miss Parker isn't half bad."

"No," Jarod agreed with an impish grin, "no, she isn't."

܀

܀

"Precious Paws Petuary and Crematory," Parker read aloud, glowering at the edifice's brick façade over the top of her sunglasses, noting the tall, mullioned windows as well as the lingering pall overhead. "Gee, Jarod, you've truly expanded your horizons."

"What?" Inquired Jarod solicitously. "You don't believe animals deserve the same love and respect as humans? You certainly used to," he added in low a whisper, alluding, no doubt, to the bunnies-- that he would most likely hold over her head until one of them succumbed to death. "Well?"

"I believe," snarled Parker, "that if this little field trip doesn't come to an end soon, I'll cremate you, Jarod, and," she tacked on, dropping her gaze briefly to his chest, "that bleeding heart of yours will still be beating when I stoke up the fire."

"Technically," he said, with air quotes, "we don't stoke up the fire. Now, I trust you won't mind waiting in the car."

"With him?" Parker seethed, alluding to Kyle.

Jarod bent at the waist, met Parker's gaze. "Had you behaved, Miss Parker, you would have seen for yourself exactly what it is that I do here."

"Speaking of which," Parker returned forcefully, prompting Jarod to bend once more and meet her gaze through the open door, "what are we doing here?"

Jarod simply walked away.

"Damn you," Parker hissed.

"Hey," Kyle said from the back seat, looking up, at last, from the whetstone and hunting knife, "be nice."

"And if I don't?"

Kyle straightened from his reclined position and leaned forward, draping his arms loosely over the driver's seat. "You know," he sang, spinning the knife nimbly in his palm, "I've seen some uptight women in my time, but you," he paused briefly, slung the knife's blade towards Parker and gave it yet another twist. "you are really something else, Lady."

Parker swung her indifferent gaze at Kyle, extended her left hand, and caught his knife in mid air.

"Yes," she agreed coolly, twisting the knife deftly in her palm. "I certainly am." She gave the hunting knife a light toss, caught the blade with her fingertips— all without breaking eye contact with Kyle— and then offered the knife to its rightful owner.

"Not bad, Miss Parker," he said, and launched directly into the tale of how he'd taken possession of the blade during a skirmish with Crimson Sphere.

Parker listened attentively, and contributed her own war stories when the conversation shifted to Raines and the Centre. Kyle inquired about her hand, which Jarod had assured her hours earlier she had fractured, the dreaded boxer's fracture,  during the now notorious convenience store scuffle.

Kyle smiled at Parker's easy, nonchalantm, "I'll live."

They played a single, benign round of scar show and tell, each indicating old injuries on their arms and Kyle lifting his chin to illustrate his narrative of a how a drunken, machete wielding guerrilla in the Congo damn near took my head off.

Apocryphal, perhaps; riveting, nonetheless. Kyle was besotted with danger, a desperado, and nothing at all like his brother. He'd had walked away from the Congo intact, the victor of the fracas after administering a coup de grâce to the guerrilla who had quite literally fallen on his sword.

The man had a plethora of tricks and tales, and very few weaknesses, in his repertoire, Parker discovered.

Onto their respective seats—as Kyle recounted tales he'd collected from various exploits in the South Seas, misadventures in Tijuana, and while stationed aboard a certain aircraft carrier—they collapsed into peals of laughter, both starting when the car door opened.

The pair straightened as if they were instead errant children, caught red-handed and elbow deep in an unsuspecting cookie jar.

"Good," Jarod drawled languidly as he slipped behind the wheel of the car, "I see no obvious injuries." He turned to Parker, who managed quite nicely to remain composed, "I hope you two weren't too nasty to each other," he continued, somewhat enigmatically, "while I was wrapping up a little unfinished business."

"Unfinished business," Parker teased with a snort of derision. "Right."

"What do you mean?" Jarod asked.

"You returned to this hole to exact revenge," She answered, decidedly.

"Revenge— that's not the word I'd use to describe what I do." He exacted justice, not revenge, he assured himself. Again.

"It's the word I'd use," Parker asserted loftily.

"Unfinished business," Jarod contended, offering her an envelope, perhaps as evidence of aforesaid business. Exhibit A, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Parker cast a sidelong glance at him and then examined the envelope's contents. "You expect me to believe that you drove here to collect your final paycheck?"

"A man has to eat, Miss Parker," was Jarod's pithy reply.

He didn't want to lie to her. Nor was he keen on explaining that her empty threats of living cremation she's a genius! had inspired him to alter his plans and accentuate the terror, or rather the justice, foisted upon the owner of the Petuary, a maniacal sociopath who, over the course of three years, had abducted and brutalized thirty-four career women, women much like Miss Parker, and then disposed of their corpses in the crematorium, his lair, this abattoir.

"Now," Jarod said, turning to face her, an expression of genuine concern etched upon his face, "why don't we get an ex-ray of that hand, hmm?"

Parker sat prim and silent, ostensibly contemplating his proposal.

We, no doubt, translates to Jarod playing doctor. 

"No, thanks."

"Miss Parker," he chided gently, "surgery could be indicated—"

Surgeon Jarod?

Mmm even worse.

"No," She hissed. "I'll see my own doctor in Dover. I meant what I said earlier," she continued, prompted by his absent stare, "this excursion is over. I know you delight in tormenting me—"

"What?" He interrupted with a measure of incredulity. "Tormenting you?"

"If you hadn't strolled into the Centre yesterday and abducted me, I wouldn't have fractured," she explained, dropping her voice several octaves, and mocking him, "my fifth metacarpal."

"If I hadn't strolled into the Centre, Miss Parker," Jarod countered angrily, "you would be in Africa now-"

"And I lied," Parker exclaimed indignantly, "when you examined my hand this morning: it did hurt. Your bedside manner, Jarod, is execrable."

"Bedside manner," Jarod repeated neutrally, tasting the word and finding it agreeable. "Why, Miss Parker," he intoned salaciously, "I didn't realize that you were so interested in my bedside manner."

"You bastard." 

"Christ, you two," lamented Kyle from the back seat, "get a room."

Kyle's words were comparable to frigid water and quite effective in dousing the sparks. Parker and Jarod returned to their respective seats, appalled to find that they'd gravitated towards the center of the vehicle, and towards each other.

"I can't take you home, Miss Parker."

"Why the hell not," she demanded tartly. "What possessed you to drag me this far?"

"I promised Ethan I'd deliver you safely to New Mexico. I'll be out of your hair as soon as I drop you off."

"New Mexico?"

"Taos," he answered with a curt nod, shifting into drive. "I know you have questions, Miss Parker. Ethan has your answers."

Answers? In Taos? Ethan could have told me everything back in Blue Cove. Why the trek across the country?

Those were all questions Jarod could have answered, but he refused to betray his half-brother.

Jarod, of course, had argued, cautioned Ethan. He suspected she'd connect the dots, and long before they reached their intended destination.

After all, why would the truth—the truth and the answers she'd been seeking—warrant travel?

Unless- Oh. Ethan isn't going to tell me the truth. He's going to show me the truth.

Parker believed it was odd and comical that with the truth a mere eight hundred miles away she'd have second thoughts about her quest for it.

I don't need answers. They're probably all lies.

The truth in her heart was enough and her father—

He'll turn up.

He always does.

Always.

But he hadn't, and there was no doubt now.

He won't.

Ever.

And she knew why.

Unfinished business, indeed.

܀

܀

Taos Puebla was unpretentious, wholesome. Had Jarod been traveling alone, he might have sought refuge there with its Native inhabitants, performed services in exchange for extended lodging. It would have been a simple life—that's all he'd ever wanted.

He surveyed the startling blue horizon, the contrasting looming mountain forests, the two Native men standing four feet away, and, inevitably, swung his gaze to his former huntress.

Parker seemed altered upon glimpsing the adobe structures, their azure doors, the Rio Pueblo de Taos. She'd seemed altered for at least three days, when she first discovered that she was to meet Ethan in New Mexico.

Thinking back, she'd been decidedly altered since Carthis—but only to a degree. The tale had invariably ended the same as each one before it. Granted, the surprise twists were becoming more intriguing.

Near kiss.

Kiss.

Hell, the painful endings, in some ways, were worth the closeness, no matter how brief.

Jarod wanted more.

We both deserve something more.

Jarod's neutral expression twisted into a grimace when his gaze fell upon her hand. She continued to refuse treatment, and, in addition to applying her own revisionist spin to the past, hadn't been too keen on eating or sleeping. 

Bereft of her possessions, she was disoriented, enraged that Jarod had razed her life, the only life she'd ever known. She felt misplaced, lost. It has to be frightening, mused Jarod, and he knew she'd never admit it to him.

Jarod wasn't at all alarmed by her discontent. He believed she couldn't find herself until she'd lost herself. And lost her job,  security, foothold in the universe.

Her assets had been seized, passport invalidated, driver's license suspended. He'd tipped her life on its head. She wore clothes that were not of her own choosing: jeans, a sleeveless, textured number the color of pale pink, sensible sneakers rather than gratify-defying heels.

Jarod imagined that her blood-red fingernails were desperately scraping the bottom of her seemingly endless stock of endurance. She'd been so certain of the Centre's perpetuity, its refuge. The thread of power, however, had been tenuous. Jarod had known precisely where to sever it.

And he knew eventually she would react, panic, perhaps attack. When the shock subsides.

Until then, he had no choice but to await her storm in the eerie calm. The gathering tension was already thick enough to asphyxiate them both.

Unspoken words hung between them.

Parker refused to speak to him, to even look at him, this woman who had punched him in square in the mouth and then kissed him.

Parker wanted her clothes and her life back, wanted to go home, wanted her father, and her mother. The longing was augmented by apprehension, and manifested itself in restlessness, and, refusing to be suppressed, had dealt its crushing blow while she'd slept.

She'd dreamed her parents were alive—a dream so vivid that she awoke with the taste of cocoa lingering on her lips, her fingers trapped in the past, tapping a forsaken game board.

Sim that, you son of a bitch.

To add insult to injury, Parker had opened her eyes to find Jarod standing over her, back-lit by the twisting splinters of blue neon that penetrated the dark hotel room. The rich hue suffused his face, accentuated his cheekbones and his height. All of those things, combined with Parker's unmitigated disorientation, lent Jarod an altogether intimidating aura.

It had taken an enormous effort for Parker to arrange and maintain a carefully blank expression. Her voice didn't betray her, but only because her throat was constricted with sorrow.

And fear?

She could scarcely draw breath, let alone cry out.

The man at her bedside looked positively deranged.

His voice, however, was soft.

The incongruity had shaken her to full alertness, Her eyes focused at last, her brow contracted, and it all slowly folded into comprehension.

Jarod. Jarod and intimidating? In the same sentence?

She wanted to laugh.

Oh, god, how she wanted to laugh. At herself. At him. Especially him.

"You were talking," he intoned gently.

Parker might have denied the tears on her face, and talking in her sleep had she and Jarod been on speaking terms.

She wanted to be reasonable, rational. Instead, she berated herself for her inability to control her tears and mouth while she slept, and for still craving a mother's embrace, a father's love.

Mama.

Daddy.

Don't leave, Daddy.

Jarod didn't know precisely how Parker knew her father was dead. He wasn't entirely surprised. She was quite adept at gathering missing pieces, completing puzzles.

Jarod believed in Parker.

She's Catherine's daughter, too, damn it—that had to mean something.

Everything means something.

It meant something that she hadn't stolen the car, yet, and fled to Mexico. 

Jarod watched surreptitiously, noted Parker's arms folded her across her chest. She appeared to be hugging herself. He wondered when she'd last been held, was tempted to walk over and take her into his arms.

The heat has clearly made me delirious.

Jarod couldn't avert his gaze, try as he might, and he couldn't stop thinking about different endings with her.

Parker's eyes never wavered from the rich earth that surrounded them. She felt the weight of Jarod's stare, nonetheless, felt that she might crumble beneath it. 

Her foul mood aside, she was looking forward to gaining her half-brother as an ally and sympathetic ear.

Jarod, as if plucking her thoughts from her mind, assured her softly, "He'll be here soon."

Not soon enough. The two cars that pulled to a stop yards away didn't contain her half brother. One was filled with too-tanned, road-weary tourists, cameras in hand, dream-catchers hanging from their necks, each "authentic hand-made" trinket bearing a small white sticker that read, Made in Bangladesh.

Parker was studying the enthusiastic summer vacationers when a woman approached Jarod. Svelte and dressed sharply in a tailored pantsuit, each movement was purposeful. The sun intensified the blond highlights in her auburn locks, which were swept neatly into a loose French twist. Behind expensive sunglasses, she squinted up at the scorching sun, worried her bottom lip.

Wordlessly, Jarod pivoted, grasped the woman gently by the elbow and steered her well out Parker's hearing range. Soft laughter reached Parker's keen ears, however, and she arched a brow in response, observed as the woman touched her hair, stroked her neck, pulled her bottom lip full into her mouth, worried the lip thoughtfully, thoroughly.

The pair embraced, leaned in to each other, stood much too close for the relationship to be anything approximating platonic. 

Parker's eyelids fluttered. She simply could not keep track of his lovers, and was quite relieved that it was no longer her job to do so.

She averted her gaze, and with a frown, flinched. Over the top of her sunglasses, Ethan, ever the Mirage, appeared in the distance, closing a turquoise door behind him. In the space of a week, he'd taken some sun, and allowed his facial hair to grow. He wore jeans, a white shirt whose top three buttons were loose; a breeze parted the diaphanous fabric. Whorls of dust rose beneath his feet with each step.

"He's dead, isn't he," Parker stammered hastily, forcefully, her voice strained.

Still at some distance, Ethan scarcely recognized her voice. Her words were unintelligible.

Ethan's stride briefly faltered, his face was blank with incomprehension. It was his heart, and not the frenzied chorus in his once-tangled mind, that provided him sufficient elucidation. She knows.

He drew to a halt at last, looked into her face.

"Isn't he?" She asked again, eagerly, her brow knitted.

Ethan grasped her hand, and then, upon noting the bruising, gently released it, and tentatively put his arms around her. "I'm so sorry," he said.

Parker stiffened at his touch, withdrew abruptly, shrugged off her half-brother's comforting hands.

Jarod, observing silently several yards away, flinched.

Kyle reacted similarly to touch, to affection. He hoped Ethan wouldn't be dissuaded from future attempts to reach out to Parker.

After all, it wasn't her fault that her mother had been murdered, and that Mr. Parker had been parsimonious with emotions.

Her father had given her just enough affection to whet her appetite, leave her craving more, foster the unwavering determination to please him. 

Jarod watched as Parker straightened, and drew a breath that shook her body. She was on the verge of tears. Had Ethan not relinquished his hold on Parker, Jarod was certain she'd be sobbing against his chest. 

"Where is the body," She demanded.

"Near the ruins," answered Ethan.

Parker drew another breath.

Don't let your emotions run away with you, Angel!

"Show me," Parker said.

"I can't. Not yet. I'm sorry," Ethan said, gently touching Parker's shoulder. "This is sacred ground. We're trespassing—"

"This is my father we're talking about," she argued, her voice lilting, falling, filling with tears, never completely breaking. She sucked in another breath. 

"It's out of our hands," Ethan said. "His body will be transported to the morgue tomorrow morning. You can see it- him then."

"What aren't you telling me, Ethan?"

Ethan opened his mouth to answer, and then lifted his distracted gaze several inches above, and to the left, of Parker's head.

Parker turned to followed Ethan's gaze, and nearly stumbled into Jarod.

"Sister," Ethan said softly.

Parker turned, met his gaze. She scrutinized both men, and demanded, "One of you better start talking."

Ethan and Jarod exchanged grave glances, remained resolute, silent.

"Now," Parker shouted.

"I've arranged to have a doctor look at your hand," Jarod said.

Parker lifted both hands suddenly, as if perhaps to strangle either Ethan or Jarod, or both of them, and then, perhaps not knowing which infuriating man to begin with, or how exactly to go about strangling either of them with one hand injured, she simply ground her teeth and drew a breath.

She deduced there was worse news, probably, she guessed, pertaining to the condition of her father's body, the manner in which he'd died, and Ethan preferred to tell her in private, after she'd rested, and after her hand had been xrayed.

Her half-brother; her half-brother's half-brother.

Both men extortionists.

Masters of the quid pro quo.

There were conditions she had to meet, and she had no gun with which to bypass aforesaid conditions. She was disheartened to discover it had been the gun all along, and not her, everyone had feared.

She intended to procure a weapon, illegally, if necessary, sooner than later, and rectify the tragedy. Respect or fear—she didn't care which it was that produced the results she desired.

In the meantime, she chose to make what she could of each situation, which wasn't a whole lot. She could do little more than sneer at Ethan's back, observe in consternation as he walked quickly to rusted '76 Scout, and waited for her. Parker grudgingly joined.

Jarod, clearly, had every intention of staying behind with the woman, presumably to wait for Kyle. 

Parker was silent during the short drive. She believed she'd made enough concessions.

Upon arrival at the hospital, the pair were immediately ushered into a small room by a man garmented in a black suit. Feds.

Parker observed, as if from some great distance, as her hand was examined, x-rayed. A doctor, later, informed her she wouldn't require surgery, and in the next breath chastened her for not seeking treatment sooner.

His words were firm and gentle, much like the deft hands that buddy-taped the injured digit and applied a splint. 

Back in the heat, Parker turned to her half brother. "Drive me to the airport, Ethan."

"Pardon?"

"I want to go home," she said.

"You—I—I'm sorry. You know that's not an option right now."

"The woman with Jarod—fed?"

Ethan nodded his affirmation, smiled broadly. "Rachel," he said.

"Jarod and his equally sadistic brother abducted me from the Centre at gunpoint, Ethan. If I'm carted off to prison, your brothers are damn well going, too."

"Jarod assured the feds that you've been cooperating with him, and your presence confirms it. You helped him rescue a young man from the Centre. Jarod's schemes aren't always—"

"Legal," supplied Parker, fastening her seat-belt, and looking into the side mirror to confirm her suspicions that they were, indeed, being followed. "Humane? Sane?"

"Apparent," corrected Ethan gently. "You've secured your freedom simply by being here, so you see now? Jarod does nothing without a valid reason."

"Mm, I see, he was momentarily denying my freedom to ensure my freedom."

"Exactly," agreed Ethan, brightening.

"Getting his rocks off," hissed Parker tartly, labeling Jarod's actions with neither restraint nor compunction. "Your brother is patently sociopathic, Ethan. This is simply a parting shot, a last opportunity for him to strip me of control." 

"I," stammered Ethan, concealing his unease with a cough. Parker's harsh words were wholly unexpected, and entirely unwarranted. The Jarod he knew was sedulous and compassionate. He was occasionally assertive, he possessed panache in spades, and Ethan could understand how Jarod's passion could easily be misinterpreted.

He believed Jarod had employed canny restraint, and had answered the Centre's gratuitous violence—and innumerable atrocities—with passivity, tact. Jarod had taken great measures to ensure that neither Parker nor her pursuit team were incarcerated. "That was never Jarod's intention."

"No?" Inquired Parker. "He could have simply told me—"

"Would you have believed him?"

"I don't know," Parker answered forthrightly, and then, before she could stop herself, revealed more than she'd intended, "I would have appreciated having the choice, for once, to believe him."

"Is that what you're really angry about?"

"Damn right it is," she snarled. "I put Broots in danger."

"You saved a young man's life."

"Debbie has one parent, Ethan. What the hell gives me the right to play god with her life? Broots has fought like hell to survive—not for himself, for her."

"You care about him, him and his daughter?"

"Mm, yes," she purred, "the malevolent Ice Queen cares about someone besides herself. Don't," she added, her voiced hardening, "keel over, Ethan."

"I—I didn't mean it like that—what I mean—"

"Sure you meant it," she said, and then clarified, testily: "Broots is as much a brother to me as you are, and his daughter is—she's special."

"Then, I'd like very much to become acquainted with both Broots and his daughter." He turned the ignition, pulled onto the highway. "Look, Sister, rescuing J.R. was the right thing to do. Jarod took a risk too, faced a lifetime of captivity."

"I'm willing to bet Jarod made arrangements with the feds prior to rescuing J.R.. If I'd turned on him or been killed, or had Broots or even J.R. been killed, Jarod would have walked, after ensuring the clone's heart could not be exploited. We were all pawns, tokens. That's all I've ever been to Jarod. It was a game for him, Ethan. Like a fool, I played right into his hands. Again."

"I'm sure that isn't true."

Parker shrugged noncommittally. She displayed no gratitude when Ethan carried her things—chosen for her by Jarod—inside the stately hacienda she'd be sharing with Kyle, Ethan and Jarod.

And Jarod's lover, no doubt.

Fortunately, the estate was spacious enough to accommodate additional guests comfortably. One week, she reminded herself.

She could endure anything, no matter how infuriating or hellish, provided that an eventual cessation to the torment existed.

Smothering a yawn, Parker chose a book from the sparsely filled shelf in the den, and sat on a squat, beige love seat that offered a view of the kiva fireplace in the adjacent corner as well as the mountain peaks beyond the glass doors—not to mention the ten or so Federal Agents beyond the doors who believed they were well-concealed from her.

She was engrossed in the novel when Kyle arrived just after five in the evening, with Jarod and Rachel trailing behind. The woman's laughter preceded her entrance into the den.

"It wasn't even funny," Kyle murmured as he passed the love seat, his words reaching only Parker's ears.

Parker was still processing Kyle's words when Jarod and his fed friend with benefits came into view.

Rachel tugged Jarod's hand, led him towards the den's entrance, placing herself and Jarod directly in Parker's line of sight. There, she nuzzled Jarod's neck, caressed his shoulder. Her hand lingered on the nape his neck. Coral painted fingernails were a startling contrast to Jarod's dark hair. Rachel tugged gently at his skin, angled her head, was poised for a kiss.

Feeling amenable, Jarod leaned forward, captured the woman's lips with his. The pair turned a half circle.

Parker observed, surreptitiously, as the woman drew closer still. Her fingers disappeared well below the collar of the jet black shirt whose top three buttons were already loose. 

They're going to make out?

Here?

Oh, for fuck's sake. 

Jarod's eyes opened languidly, met Parker's over the top of Rachel's head, and widened. He drew back suddenly, straightened, and began the process of removing incriminating stains from his mouth.

"Uh," he stammered uneasily.

"What?" Rachel asked, her voice husky and wounded.

"Miss Parker," Jarod said.

The woman's face didn't register surprise when she turned her head, and glimpsed Parker—a curiosity that didn't escape Jarod's attention.

"I didn't know," he stammered.

"We got caught up," Rachel explained. "in the heat of the moment—I'm sure you know how that is."

"Mm," hummed Parker casually, flipping a page, "I do, and the only heat I've seen this evening is in this dull murder mystery."

"Excuse me?" Rachel cried.

Parker met the woman's ferocious gaze, and with a noncommittal shrug, sang, "Tomato, tomahto."

"Look," Rachel began, and then yelped, and staggered backwards. Jarod's feet, too, jerked, instinctively, when something brushed his leg.

"Lucky," cried Rachel.

Lucky?

Parker was bemused, until the retriever emerged from between the pair of legs and bounded through the foyer. Its coral painted toenails clicked chaotically atop the adobe floor, its intent obvious. Parker stood just as the canine leapt into the air, and effectively avoided a lap-full of fur.

The dog landed on the love seat with a thump, and seemed rather disconcerted to have missed his target. Baffled that any human could resist his charms, he wagged his tail enthusiastically, and drew close to Parker, perhaps to persuade her to pet him, despite her apparent disinterest.

She glimpsed the approaching tongue dripping with saliva, and jerked her hand away. Jarod grimaced; he could certainly sympathize with the poor fellow. Parker then hissed in a tone that would have stopped most any man or beast in its tracks, "Down, mutt."

In her peripheral, Jarod averted his gaze.
.
"Oops," exclaimed Rachel jovially, turning to Jarod. Cupping a palm over her mouth, the woman whispered conspiratorially, tossed her head back, and laughed exuberantly. "You don't like animals?" Rachel asked Parker with a laugh of amusement.
 
"I like them," answered Parker crisply, "medium rare."

Rachel clamped her mouth closed, and mutely sought Jarod's assistance.

"Rachel," he interjected cordially, right on cue, "this is Miss Parker. And this," Jarod added blithely, indicating the retriever, is Lucky."

"He won't be if he touches me," Parker warned.

"Ah, now," Jarod chided gently, "Lucky here has been struck four times by automobiles—once by an eighteen wheeler, and—"

"Mm," hummed Parker, interrupting, "let me borrow your keys, Jarod. I can assure you the fifth time will be a charm."

Jarod simply smiled, and then, holding Parker's steely gaze, addressed Rachel. "Excuse us for a moment, Rachel."

The woman nodded, grasped Lucky's leash, and made herself scarce.

"Are you all right?" He asked amiably in genuine concern.

"Am I—" Parker fell silent, considered the cirumstances, and that she'd be identifying her father's remains in the morning. She was quite unable to stifle a burst of hilarity—a mirthless, one-note snort. "Never better, Jarod."

"Rachel agreed that we should stop by and invite you to join us for dinner."

"After what her mutt tried to do just now the least she can do is offer to buy me dinner."

Jarod lifted both hands in defeat, took a compensatory step backwards, "I know you're in pain—"

"Shut up," Parker demanded sharply, thrusting a finger at him. "You don't know anything."

Jarod lowered his gaze to the finger, and then lifted his sympathetic eyes to a face pinched with anger, blue eyes filled with tumult. "No?" He said.

Parker dropped her hands to her sides and her gaze to the floor.

"I don't know anything?" He pressed gently.

"You were going to leave after you dropped me off here—that's what you said."

Jarod recoiled as if he'd been struck. His eyes narrowed.

"You find my presence unendurable?" He ventured placidly, studying her face.

The silence widened between them.

"I'm sorry if you do," Jarod said suddenly. The inflection and odd wheedling prompted Parker to meet his gaze. "I'm afraid you're going to be stuck with me for a while longer, Miss Parker," he added softly. "I suppose, however," he continued, lifting a single brow as he spoke, "you're entitled to a reprieve tonight if you prefer to be alone. And I am truly sorry for your loss."

Oh, I'm sure your heart is just breaking, Jarod.

Jarod gave her ample time to change her mind, offer a rebuttal, demand he elaborate, or ask, how much of a while longer, boygenius?

Parker relapsed onto the love seat, making it plain that she wanted to be alone.

"You can't hide forever," he said in a voice tight with tension, thick with anger. "Whether you like it or not, we are going to have to talk."

Parker affected a smile—one that more closely resembled a murderous sneer than a smile, and swung her gaze at Jarod, "You've kept Rachel waiting long enough."

Jarod considered her words, measured the pain in them.

"She's a patient woman, Miss Parker. She's aware you and I have unfinished business."

Parker regarded Jarod with exaggerated scorn, arched a brow. "Business," she hissed, "that will mercifully end this week."

"Well," Jarod said with some solemnity, and decided, after a moment of rumination, to leave her on that cheerful note, and not correct her, although he was doubtful she could be completely ignorant of her precarious foothold with the bevy of officials he'd met with hours earlier. The girls and boys in the DOJ were not feeling particularly merciful, and at the close of the meeting had unanimously agreed there was plenty of blame to go around and punishment to mete out. A portion of the blame had even landed at Jarod's feet, much to his dismay. 

Jarod smiled warmly, attempted to loosen the tangle of anger and tension. "Goodnight," he said.

"You, too," she offered with all of the civility her aching heart could muster.

܀

܀

Parker eyes lifted expectantly when the door clicked open at eleven-fifteen, and slammed closed.

"Don't worry," Kyle assured Parker when he materialized in the archway, "he's not with me."
Parker shrugged noncommittally, regarded Kyle narrowly over the top of the book— after a double-take. Kyle wore Varvatos. Black trousers, matching shirt and tie. His neatly combed hair was slightly mussed. 

There had been something approximating an interrogation, the intention to cover bases, cover asses:

"How drunk are you?" Kyle asked, and Parker was only fractionally aware of reaching again for the bottle.

"Not drunk enough," came Parker's alarmingly coherent answer.

"Hmm, tell me something," he said, his voice unnaturally firm, sober, his hands unbelievably tender, impossibly soft. She'd seen the callouses, the scars. He pushed a sweat-drenched tendril from her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. His fingers slipped along her skin, came to rest beneath her chin. "if Jarod were here would you be doing this with me?

"And yet?"

"And yet casual sex violates your stringent moral code?"

"You do have a point there," Kyle said, kissing her again.

And there had been music.

Don’t get too close
It’s dark inside

Parker had felt the pulsing bass move through their bodies when Kyle captured her lips with his, and felt her own body humming to the melody. She caught only snatches of the lyrics, until, at last, the music, too, faded, receded into the distance.

And then there was nothing.

Only darkness.

܀

܀

Consciousness slowly returned to Parker, stabbed through the blackness in much the same way that the insipid gray outside filtered obliquely through the blinds.

Somewhere a door slammed. Shards of glass crunched beneath shoes. Parker became cognizant of unhurried movements in the Hacienda—the steady strides of one who has some idea of what will be discovered, and is in no rush to make said discovery.

The stairs creaked and suddenly heavy footfalls were advancing to the rhythm of a much older tune. The lyrics were clipped abruptly. The speakers fell silent.

Parker jerked awake, opened her eyes all at once. And groaned in disapproval. Wearing dark jeans, a black tee, and an expression of mild anger—mingled with vague disappointment—Jarod towered over her.

The radio's power cord hung limply in his right hand, a black bathrobe dangled from his left.

"Which one of you wants to tell me what happened here last night," he inquired blandly, and observed confusion wash over Parker's features. 

Last she'd checked, there had been only one of her.

But knowing that sniveling son of a bitch Raines—

Just then Kyle's arm moved beneath her neck and recollection fell upon her. Crushed her. Pinned her to the floor. Parker opened her mouth, moved her lips. It was much too soon to talk. Her throat was dry, sour with alcohol, her eyes were gritty. Her temples throbbed. She closed her eyes, wished Jarod away.

"Nothing happened," Kyle answered, stifling a yawn, and although Jarod's unbelieving and unwavering gaze remained riveted on Parker's pale face, Kyle added coolly, "We had a few drinks."

Jarod might have been convinced by his brother's explanation had it not been for the rather disconcerting state of undress he'd found the pair.

Oh, they just had a few drinks.
In their underwear.

Happens all the time.

Parker wore Kyle's shirt, and not much else, and she looked younger in it. In fact, she looked eerily childlike with only her fingertips protruding from the sleeves. All of which somehow made the discovery even more disturbing, especially when contrasted by the sharp angle of her hips, bare save for the black panties she wore.

"Mhm," The Pretender hummed, opening his left hand, allowing the bathrobe—his bathrobe—to slip through his fingers. Parker felt it drop across her bare belly, and grudgingly shoved her injured hand into a sleeve. "You're expected at the morgue in less than hour—you knew that."

Gee, the poor thing woke up on the wrong side of Rachel this morning.

Parker eyelids fluttered in annoyance. She sharped her vicious riposte to a fine point, and, prepared to slay the ill-miened beast, met Jarod's dark, measuring gaze. Her words were forgotten, lost. There was something proprietorial in his eyes, something vaguely menacing. She dropped her gaze to the robe—it was a rather lovely pretext. And she was grateful to Jarod for, unwittingly, supplying it.

Gathering her wits, and the robe around her body, Parker decided she'd been mistaken, and decided, too, that it mattered little either way. This was the final refrain, the final corte in their decades long tango. She was mere days away from life sans boygenius.

"I'm not going," she said testily, petulantly, tying the robe tightly around her waist, and Jarod cringed at her childishness. He felt ill, suddenly, and much too out of sorts to comprehend why.

"Miss Parker,"

"I've made my decision," she snarled, sounding—to Jarod's relief—more like herself, her adult self. Thank God.

"All right," he said. "I'll identify his body."

"No," she argued. "I'll do it tomorrow."

"Look," Jarod said with growing impatience, "I'm not going to argue with you. Okay? The DOJ is concerned only with their own itinerary, and neither you nor I are in positions to make demands," he explained and then, immediately contradicted himself by demanding, with more authority and grit than he'd intended, "Go upstairs and pull yourself together. I'll go identify the body. When I get back, you and I are going to talk."

Bastard.

Parker didn't care much for this particular incarnation of Jarod. He wasn't all that pesky when he was whining about his parents, marinating in his own woe and self-loathing, or begging for his life. But when boygenius has his shit together—No. Just no. Just fucking no. She could think of only one thing worse than taking orders from Raines, or Lyle, or Cox: taking orders from Jarod.

Parker narrowed her eyes at him, and began walking. When she was gone, Jarod's slid his gaze to Kyle, "Clean up this mess, cook her some breakfast and keep the coffee coming. Strong coffee, Kyle. I want her sober and clear-headed when I return." 

"You're angry at me?" Asked an incredulous Kyle. "I didn't get her drunk. Hell, if I hadn't been here she would've polished off the bottle."

Jarod regarded Kyle narrowly. "If you hadn't been here, she wouldn't have even touched the bottle. You brought it into the house."

"I didn't think she'd be awake when I got back."

"You didn't think at all, Kyle."

"Whoa," Kyle exclaimed. "What the hell is this about?"

Jarod glanced at his watch, said, "I can't be late."

"We were just blowing off steam, Jarod," Kyle shouted, defensively.