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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
by Ice Queen1
Jarod had just come back from the men’s room with several paper towels in his hand when he saw the slumped form of Cade with Hobbes standing over him. "What the hell did you do?" Jarod demanded angrily, cautiously inspecting the deep gash across Foster’s temple.
"Oh, gee, I’m sorry. I just stopped a killer from getting loose again," Hobbes said sarcastically as he dialed up the Agency to come retrieve them.
Jarod ignored Darien and Michael as the wandered up from behind. "The man surrendered! And besides that, he was already wounded…because he saved me!" he shouted.
"Yeah, right. From who?" Hobbes scoffed.
"Loan shark from a while back. Has a grudge against me," Jarod replied quickly.
The black van belonging to the Agency pulled up behind the five-some and out jumped four others dressed in black, who put Cade in the backseat.
"Come on. We need to get back and with any luck, we’ll never have to see each other again," Darien put in, as he and Michael jumped inside.
Hobbes and Jarod glared at each other for a second, but they grudgingly complied with Darien’s suggestion and climbed into the back.
Claire, also known as Darien’s Keeper, sighed as she looked down at the unconscious Cade Foster lying on the large chair in the middle of her lab. The chair was usually reserved for Darien when he needed a dose of the counteragent. For now Claire was using it as sort of an operating table so she could remove the bullet from Foster’ s leg and stitch both the bullet hole and the gash across his forehead closed. She thought briefly about what she was going to do with him when he woke up, but realized that the only holding cell they had at the Agency was the padded white room. Well, he is crazy, Claire thought to herself, though not without regret. He was actually quite good-looking for a killer. She had already taken the precaution of restraining him with the leather straps that hooked across his chest, legs, and wrists that were originally installed to hold Darien when he went QSM.
Claire cautiously leaned over to check the straps on Foster’s opposite hand. When she straightened, she saw that his eyes were open, though they looked slightly foggy and dim.
"Mr. Foster? Can you hear me?" Claire asked patiently.
Foster stared back at her through calm, gray eyes. Eyes that couldn’t have been a killer’s, not matter what the press said.
"Can you please say something?" Claire urged.
Cade turned his head away and stared at the door with disinterest in his surroundings.
"You seem awfully calm for someone who is about to be sent to DC for a death sentence," Claire tried a different approach.
Cade was ignoring the woman that was asking the questions. His leg and his head throbbed painfully and he didn’t have a clue where he was. Cade was also aware of the fact that he was fastened to whatever surface he was lying on. He was soon to remedy that particular problem. Cade reached into his pocket, trying hard not to let the blonde see what he was up to. He almost smiled when he felt the pen in his fingers and waited for the woman to turn her back before going to work. He slipped the pen underneath the buckle and pulled it out so he could simply slide his wrist out from the strap.
The woman still hadn’t turned around and Cade was able to undo his other arm and chest and was working on his last foot when she turned.
Surprisingly, she didn’t do anything, which struck Cade as odd. That is, until the woman hit a red button on the desk beside her. A sudden, loud blare of an alarm rang through out the compound and Cade swore under his breath. He immediately dodged out of the metal doors and sprinted, well, as well as one could with a limp. Cade made it to the end of the hallway and when he turned the corner, he ran smack into a short, brown haired man with brilliant blue eyes.
"Michael! Stop him!" the woman shouted from behind them. Cade glanced behind him to see her loading a gun.
"No, Michael, don’t stop me!" he exclaimed as he faked to his left and dodged past Michael on the right.
Unfortunately, Michael was considerably faster than Cade was and he was snagged from behind in a bear hug, his arms pinned to his sides. "Let go!" he shouted.
"Sorry, mister, but you’re going to jail," Michael said confidently.
"Better er…men than you have said that and they still haven’t gotten me," Cade pointed out, trying to twist out of the man’s vice-like grip.
"I doubt that," Michael replied.
Cade coughed as Michael gripped harder. "I can’t breath…" he gasped, watching the black dots swim before his eyes.
"Michael! Stop! You could kill him!" Cade heard the woman’s voice ring out.
Michael immediately loosened his grip and Cade dropped like stone to the ground.
"Sorry!" Michael apologized, sounding truly sorry.
Cade coughed again. It felt like every single one of his ribs had been driven into his lungs. He accepted the hand that Michael offered to stand, but immediately swung his left fist at the other man’s head, connecting with his cheek. A large red cut appeared on Michael’s visage from Cade’s wedding band. The cut quickly healed and Cade recoiled in horror.
"GUA!" he shouted, and lunged at Michael, wrapping his hands across Michael’s throat.
Cade was so overcome with anger that he didn’t notice that the woman had come up behind him until a sharp pain hit him in the back of the neck. Cade vaguely realized it was a tranquilizer as he sunk into oblivion.
Michael pushed the unconscious form off him and sat up from the floor. A tasseled metal dart protruded from Foster’s neck.
"Nice shot," Michael complimented Claire.
"Thank you. Come on, I need you to help me get him to the rubber room," Claire replied, grabbing hold of one of Foster’s arms.
"Let me get him," Michael offered, easily lifting Cade into a fireman’s carry. "Where to?"
"How long has he been awake?" Jarod asked, sipping at a cup of coffee.
"About three hours. It was a light sedative," Claire answered.
The two along with Michael, Hobbes, Darien, and the Official were crowded into the observation room watching Foster. Apparently, he a rather violent temper which prevented anyone from going into the cell with him to put on a straight jacket to conduct an interrogation. For now, he had resigned to sitting in the corner farthest away from the door with his knees drawn up and his chin resting on his arms folded across them.
"You know, he doesn’t look that dangerous," Darien observed. "And he definitely does not look like a wife killer."
"Looks can be deceiving," the Official said.
"So can the press," Jarod put in.
"Are you saying he didn’t commit those crimes?" Hobbes countered.
"I’m saying there’s a possibility that’s being overlooked. First, why would he fabricate such a bizarre and outrageous story if he was guilty when he could’ve easily just have pleaded insanity? Further more, why would he keep it up after he had escaped? Or purposely come into the public eye time and time again if it was a charade?" Jarod asked stubbornly.
"He’s crazy," Hobbes returned.
"Well, so is he ever six days," Jarod indicated Darien with a nod.
"That’s a medical condition," Claire returned.
"So is mental illness. He just needs the right treatment," Michael took up Jarod’s side.
"Why are you defending him? He tried to strangle you while trying to escape," Hobbes snapped.
"Wouldn’t you try to escape if you were being held prisoner against your will? Besides, Foster was pretty lucid until he saw me heal," Michael protested.
"Whoa, what do you mean by that?" Darien asked.
Michael sighed. "It comes with the territory. When the Doc grew this body, he made sure that it could do anything and nothing could slow it down. I was shot at point blank range six times and I barely felt a thing. A day later, there was no evidence of it at all, no scars, nothing. Foster called me ‘Gua’, whatever that is."
"I’ll go ask him," Jarod offered and disappeared out of the room before anyone could protest.
Jarod opened the door slowly and took a cautious step inside the rubber room. Except for the two-way mirror, the entire cell was covered in white padding.
"Good afternoon," Jarod said.
Foster stared ahead.
Jarod cleared his throat. "Um, mind if I sit down?" he gestured towards a chair nearby.
Cade shrugged, staying in his position.
"You don’t talk much, do you?" Jarod muttered more to himself than to Cade.
"Why should I talk to you? You all think I’m crazy anyway," Cade murmured, raising his head to look directly at Jarod.
"Not all of us," Jarod answered, pleased to see that Foster was speaking to him.
"Sure. And who doesn’t? That creepy bald guy? If you ask me, he’s the crazy one," Cade snapped.
Jarod smothered a laugh. "I’m not very fond of him either."
"I bet that he didn’t hit you when you weren’t looking," Cade replied.
"I’m too tall for him to be able to reach my head," Jarod quipped.
"Lucky bastard," Foster answered. A small grin was tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Jarod laughed out right this time. "Speaking of luck, it was very lucky for me that you tackled that man in the alleyway. I still don’t understand why a killer would save the life of someone trying to take his."
Cade’s face became stone. "I’ll tell you right now, along with that bunch behind the glass, that I have never taken the life of a human being that wasn’t trying to take my own. I didn’t kill my wife. I loved Hannah too much. I couldn’t take a splinter out of her finger if I saw that it hurt her. I’ll bet the reports didn’t say that, did they? They also probably didn’t say that when they found me with her…body…that I was crying so hard that I could barely move away from her."
Jarod remained silent, hoping he would continue, but he seemed to shrink farther back into the wall. "Do you still miss her?"
"Whenever I see a flower blooming, or the sun come from behind the clouds. And every time I look in the mirror, I realize that if I had been someone else, that she would still be alive," Cade replied, almost inaudibly.
Jarod got up from the chair. "I’ll leave you alone, but if you need anyone to talk to, just ask for me."
Cade had his forehead down against his knees again and Jarod decided that it was best to leave him be.
"A poet," Darien mused.
"A penitent man," Michael added.
"That was beautiful," Claire whispered.
"A liar," Hobbes grumbled.
"You’re just mad that he was making fun of you," Darien replied.
"No, that’s why I’m mad at Spence. I still think Foster’s a killer, and a delusional, pathological liar," Hobbes answered.
"I disagree," Jarod said, entering the observatory.
"You would. What are you, some kind of criminal lawyer?" Hobbes retorted.
"Once. Nevertheless, that’s not the point. For a man that loves his wife like that, he couldn’t have possibly killed her. In addition, I know that psychotics can believe that what they have done is for the greater good, but that also means that they do not regret what they have done. Foster, on the other hand, obviously regrets it every day, like he said. I don’t believe he’s acting or lying and is firmly telling the truth," Jarod explained. He didn’t bother to tell them about his pretender skills and how he’d already witnessed the fugitive’s grief.
"Did you ask him what the Gua were?" Michael asked.
"No, I thought it was best to leave him alone for now. Sorry," Jarod apologized.
"No problem. I just like to know what people are calling me while they try to choke my second life out of me," Michael shrugged. He turned back towards the viewing window and noticed that Cade was standing and walking towards the chair that Jarod had left behind. "He’s moving," he announced.
The group huddled around the two-way mirror and watched as Cade flipped the chair upside down, as if looking for something. He picked it up and shook it as one might do to test its sturdiness. Cade nodded to himself and turned his head towards the window. In one fluid movement, Foster had grabbed the bottom of the chair, taken two steps towards the window, and heaved the chair at the glass. The reinforced plastic shuddered and several cracks spider-webbed outwards but did not break.
"LET ME GO, BASTARDS!" Cade shouted at reflector. He turned to walk away but attacked the mirror once again with his fists.
"Guards, secure him!" the Official ordered three men in suits standing behind him.
Foster’s fist had broken a sizeable hole in the glass, much to pain it must have caused him.
Cade didn’t care that his knuckles had deep cuts across them from the shattered glass and kept pounding at it. He didn’t even pay attention to the guards until he was slammed from behind like a hockey player. The guards had finally opened the door and one of them had just knocked him to the ground. Cade heard and audible snap and a shooting pain lanced up his left arm. He cried out in pain.
The woman doctor was back, this time with a hypodermic. Cade hated needles. He kicked out with his foot and caught her in the shin, sending her to the padded floor. Foster was rewarded with an elbow in the ribs. He grunted and attempted to reach around with his good hand and yanked the guard’s tie tight enough to choke him and refused to release his grip. The man pinning him must’ve outweighed Cade by almost a hundred pounds and he was not giving up, even though he couldn’t breathe. The man grabbed Cade’s broken wrist and twisted it around, pleased to hear the grinding of bones together.
Cade screamed, and in a surge of adrenaline yanked the man off of him by using his tie. The man landed heavily, and wasn’t recovering very quickly. Cade rolled away and glanced down at his wrist. The guard had exposed the bone and muscle when he twisted it around and the white bone was poking out of the skin. Blood was pouring down his arm in torrents and soaked into his shirt.
"Damn" Foster muttered, cradling his shattered wrist against his chest. He squinched back into the corner farthest from the door and sat with his back against it.
"Mr. Foster, I can help you…just let me look at your wrist," the woman said with a heavily accented voice. Cade couldn’t tell if it was British or Australian.
"No," he growled. He pushed himself back farther into the cushioned wall.
"Please, Mr. Foster. That wrist needs attention," she insisted.
"Then I’ll wait for a real doctor. Not some quack that shot me in the back with a tranquilizer dart," Cade snapped back. He eyed the hypodermic still in her hand.
The woman looked hurt. "If I bring Jarod in here, would you talk to him?"
Cade tried to remember who Jarod was. "Who’s that?"
The woman looked quickly at the mirrored glass. A few moments later, a tall, black haired man with brown eye in a leather jacket and a FBI special task force name tag attached to the lapel appeared in the doorway.
"Hello Mr. Foster. Remember me? The guy who’s life you saved in the alley?"
Cade nodded slowly. The pain in his leg and now his hand was beginning to increase. The lacerations caused by the bone were still bleeding heavily and he vaguely wondered if he should be concerned about slicing an artery.
"Will you let me help you?" Jarod asked, taking a step towards the con.
Cade shook his head defiantly.
"Why not?" Jarod questioned, genuinely puzzled.
"Last time I trusted you, I was bashed over the head and kidnapped. Forgive me for not wanting to repeat that experience," Cade hissed.
Jarod sighed. "I didn’t want that to happen. That was another…slightly over eager agent. The man has been dealt with."
Cade gave a short laugh. "And why would the FBI want to help me? You want me dead…just like the rest of the world."
Jarod waved for the woman doctor and the guards to leave. They exited and Jarod closed the door behind them.
Cade eyed him wearily.
"You won’t believe me, because that’s your instinct. But I don’t want you dead. I don’t believe you did what they say you did. You showed too much sadness when I asked you about Hannah…and a true killer can’t show that compassion, even if it is their alibi. You have to listen to me. It’s not your fault Hannah died," Jarod said quietly, sitting down a few feet from Cade.
Cade turned away.
"It’s not your fault," Jarod repeated.
"Shut up," Cade growled.
"Only if you say it. It’s not your fault," Jarod replied.
"Then how could she be dead when I was only a hallway away?" Cade snapped. "I was there, and I didn’t even hear her scream…"
"It’s not your fault…" Jarod reiterated. "It’s not your fault."
Cade covered his ears, despite the pain that flared up in his wrist. "Shut up!"
"It’s not your fault…" Jarod said again.
Cade couldn’t take it. He was losing blood faster than he could take in breath, his concussion was blurring his vision and his leg where he’d been shot was bleeding again. To top it off, he could no longer block the images of Hannah’s body in his arms from running through his mind. He jumped up and wrapped his good hand around Jarod’s neck.
"Never, ever, speak her name again!" Cade shouted. "NEVER! DO YOU HEAR ME!"
Jarod gasped for breath as Cade’s grip tightened around his throat. He grabbed the hypo that he had taken from Claire and jabbed it into Cade’s lower arm.
Almost immediately Foster’s grip loosened and he collapsed, unconscious, against Jarod.
"Jeez, the guy has a grip," he muttered to himself as he rubbed the bruise forming around his throat.
