The Rules Have Changed
part 1
Tahlia

Her legs ached as she pushed tired feet against the cold pavement. Her boots
were hardly ideal for running in the first place, much less with the variable of
the last night's rain. The residual moisture left the ground slick, and as she
skidded around the corner, she momentarily felt her feet lose themselves around
her. Her left hand (her gun lay nestled in her right) braced her against the
cold, wet brick of the alleyway, and she resumed the chase.

Behind her, a puddle splashed: Lyle. Again they were playing nice, pretending
to be the cordial brother and sister they were not. They didn't share leads
anymore, and Parker most certainly did not report to him like she once had. The
only reason he and his sweeper team were in close pursuit behind her was that
Broots had made the mistake of speaking a little too loud that morning in the
Centre lobby. Now they both new of Jarod's latest occupation: homicide detective
in New York City.

She managed to catch a glimpse of retreating black hair, and for a moment,
her mind wandered to the question of why. Why, of all places, had Jarod chosen
New York City? Sure, in the wake of all that had happened, it was a magnet for a
good Samaritan like Jarod, but with those tragedies also came a higher level of
scrutiny. Or so she assumed.

At the end of the alley, she noticed that Jarod could go either right or
left. He hesitated, she saw, and she wondered if both were dead-ends. She could
only hope she picked the right one, and found him standing innocently at the end
with his hands in surrender. That would be the day.

She had her personal safety to worry about, after all.

"Parker!"

Her head whirled at the sound of her brother's voice, her body still running,
but one of the occupants of the surrounding buildings took that moment to turn
on the dryer. In the cold dryness of winter, the steam vented into the alley,
filling the air with the smell of detergent and semi-thick cloud of white.
Lyle's form was lost in the sea of steam.

In the next instant, she looked back at Jarod, but found his body gone. Shit.
The last thing she needed was Jarod disappearing right in front of her eyes,
right in front of Lyle. She knew he'd jump at the chance, now more than ever, to
crucify her.

She slowed to a jump, looking side to side. It was her own worst nightmare.
Both alleys led onto busy Manhattan streets. Jarod had escaped again. Her eyes
lingered on the black catwalk, squinting and praying for a crouching figure on
them. No such luck.

A gunshot shattered the brick on the wall facing her.

Parker's first reaction was to duck, thinking the shot had come from above.
Why would Jarod shoot at her? Only as she moved did she feel the searing pain
shooting up her right arm. It was so intense that her fingers loosened their
grip on the 9 mm in her hand, and the gun fell to the ground, lying useless on
the pavement.

Her back pressed against the wall, she watched Lyle emerge from the cloud of
steam, gun in hand. His smile of satisfaction sickened her. She was gripping her
arm now, feeling the warm blood leaking through her hands. Her breath was ragged
as it puffed out in front of her.

"What?" he asked innocently, standing five feet away. He leveled the gun at
her, aiming straight between her eyes. "You're not going to plead for your
life?"

"Go to Hell, Lyle," she spat.

Instead, he chuckled, his composure calm. It was disgusting. "I really am
going to miss your wry wit, Miss Parker."

He frowned mockingly. "It's a shame you're going to die alone in some
alleyway in New York City. You deserve so much better." Adding, "but then,
that's the price you pay for not asking 'how high,' when the Centre said
'jump.'"

She knew she should have expected that Lyle would settle this contest between
them with a gun in a back alley. He moved, Parker flinched inwardly, but instead
of pressing the trigger, he continued his small speech. She wondered if this was
the worst part for all the women Lyle had crossed over the years: the waiting
before the end.

"You had your chance, of course, in fact you probably had one too many
chances for your own good. Always went crying to Daddy when you were stuck in a
jam. Except there's no one who cares anymore, Sis." He pursed his lips. "Poor
little Miss Parker."

Parker glanced up at the catwalk. Did she hear movement, or was that just her
imagination?

Lyle caught her. "He doesn't care, either." That brought her back. "Don't
look so shock, Sis. He's so close to his family you're slowly becoming useless
to him. Which," Lyle added with a smirk, "means you're becoming useless to us,
too."

Us. He included the Centre administration in his declaration before murder.
Which didn't make it murder. It made it-

"You got it," he replied. Realization must have dawned on her face.

His finger cocked the trigger on the 9 mm in his hand. Despite the icy facade
she had spent years perfecting, she couldn't help the breath she involuntarily
took in. She didn't want to die now, here, alone.

His question punctuated the city silence of the alleyway. "Any last words?"

Years seemed to pass between them. She couldn't find anything to say; hell,
she wasn't sure if she wanted to dignify his request. She simply stared, letting
time slow and lethargically pass them by. Each assumed the other would say
something, do something, to provoke the moment. Despite the turmoil of the
moment, both were surprisingly calm, as one faced murder at the hands of her own
blood. Well, maybe her own blood. For that Parker wasn't completely sure of, not
anymore.

"Guess not," he supplied for her.

Parker shifted a bit, and intense pain again shot up her arm. There was
simply too much pain for the bullet to have simply grazed the flesh, and she
feared that there was a discarded scrap of metal now embedded in her upper left
arm. But then, she thought objectively, that was the least of her worries at the
moment.

Lyle straightened his aim, correcting the angle slightly to compensate for
her slight lean now that her pain had returned. He gazed into her eyes, and
Parker wasn't surprised to find not an ounce of compassion in his icy stare.

He opened his mouth to speak, possibly wishing her farewell and promising to
meet her in the afterlife, when the gunshot cut him short. Instinctively,
Parker's eyes flew shut and she ducked, and thought she felt the scrap of metal
enter between her eyes. She froze, waiting to feel her lifeless body slide down
the cold brick wall. She suddenly wondered if the bullet entering her frontal
lobe would cause instant death.

It was so cliche: it took a moment for her mind to register the fact that no
pain had been inflicted. Cautious to open her eyes, Parker wondered if this was
what death felt like, to sudden go from instant peril to an atmosphere of zero
pain. She was afraid to open her eyes, afraid she would have some godforsaken
out-of-body experience. Dead or not, the last thing she needed was the image of
her bleeding corpse sliding lifelessly down a wall.

She moved an inch and for a third time was greeted by intense pain in her
arm. Either she'd entered Hell, where pain was like oxygen, or she wasn't dead.
Her mind voted for the latter, and made a mental note to go ease on the injured
limb.

"Parker!" A second voice, a familiar voice.

Her eyes slid open and she heard the metal rungs of the catwalk scrap against
the wall as Jarod bounded down them. A .38 hung loosely from a free hand. Lyle
was lying lifeless on the cold asphalt, his blood spilling out and mingling with
a puddle of water and city grim. A fitting end, she surmised.

He was on street level now, advancing towards her. "Parker," he called to her
again, but she didn't respond. No matter how much she disgusted the man he was
and the things he had done, she couldn't pull her eyes from her brother. He
looked like a piece of discarded trash.

"He's..." she began.

The corpse groaned. Perhaps not a corpse after all.

"...still alive," Jarod finished. His hand gripped her elbow, jarring her
hand from its position as emergency bandage and causing slight more pain.
Neither noticed. He was pulling her down the alley he had earlier retreated
down. "We've got too move quick."

She glared at Jarod, trying to find some signal that he was lying to her,
that this was some elaborate trap. That, or a very bad albeit real dream. But
she couldn't find anything, only the unchecked compassion and worry in his eyes.
Despite what Lyle had said, he actually appeared to care.

Both could hear the footsteps of Lyle's sweeper team -- or was it hers? --
making their way down the alley. Parker could almost make out shapes in the
clearing laundry steam. Apparently, someone had heard the gunshots. Oh, she
thought, what a surprise they'll stumble upon.

"Miss Parker," Jarod warned.

Taking one last glimpse at Lyle - whose wound hadn't rendered him completely
immobile, and who was begin to move lethargically against what she assumed was a
hole in abdomen - Parker let Jarod lead her down the alley. Her footsteps were
labored, each contact with the asphalt sending small shoots of pain through her
entire body. Amazing, she thought, at the amount of pain a small hole in her
upper arm could cause.

There was a small black sports car waiting at the entrance to the alley, and
Parker hardly waited for the gentleman in Jarod to open the door before she
bounded in. As they peeled away from the alleyway, and Miss Parker glanced
around to see sweepers -- Lyle's sweepers -- skidding to a halt where the alley
met the busy Manhattan street, she suddenly realized why Jarod had picked New
York City.

In rush hour, you could disappear.