Thursday, September 30, 2010

Chapter 31: In Trouble

When it is darkest, men see the stars. – Ralph Waldo Emerson


In Trouble

25 NOVEMBER 2007
CAR TRUNK
07:38 PST


Sarah Walker had many modes. There was Mission Mode Sarah, which wasn't as fun as the others but could be both badass and professional at the same time. Valley Girl Sarah, perfect for freaking out Chuck's ex-girlfriends (well, okay, Chuck amended, the one ex-girlfriend). Coworker Sarah, always willing to help out and pick up the bureaucratic pieces. Friend Sarah, forever willing simply to lend an ear.

Now he discovered his least favorite Sarah of all: Trapped in the Car Trunk Sarah.

The lid had slammed down on them maybe twenty minutes before. Chuck didn't know exactly how long, mostly because he didn't have his watch. Fulcrum had taken that, not that it mattered. It would have been impossible to see said watch with his hands bound behind his back anyway, but he hadn't thought to start counting for what he estimated to be about five minutes after the trunk lid had shut. And fifteen minutes had passed since that point.

One thing about Trapped in the Car Trunk Sarah was that she squirmed. A lot.

"What are you doing?" Chuck hissed at her. He couldn't see her since they'd stuffed her in first, putting her nearer to the passengers and him nearer to the back, but he could feel almost every inch of her writhing against his back, and it was starting to freak him out. "Why do you keep moving so much?"

"Shut up," she hissed right back.

Trapped in the Car Trunk Sarah was also kind of testy.

"Fine," Chuck said, biting off his words. "Shutting up. Geez. Though quit moving, will you? You're freaking me out."

"Don't tell me what to do," Sarah said pretty loudly, considering that his ear was about three inches from her lips.

Chuck frowned and used whatever leverage he could get from the back of the car to turn himself over. It pinioned his hands somewhat uncomfortably between his back and the back wall, but he didn't care. He glared. "What's your problem?"

"What do you think my problem is, Chuck?" She kept her eyes dead center on his even though she kept squirming, only now it was up against him.

Maybe turning over had been a bad idea.

"You're always getting into trouble and poking your nose into things you shouldn't," Sarah went on, and the words hit Chuck like a punch to the gut. They were also still too loud. Before Chuck could reply, Sarah dipped her head forward, almost bonking him in the nose with her forehead. "Sell it," she whispered under her breath, and jerked her head toward the main body of the car, where their captors were riding along, accompanying them to their deaths.

Her shampoo smelled really good.

The trunk was a little too warm.

He was probably going to get motion sickness from riding without windows.

His ex-girlfriend was being used by Fulcrum.

Chuck didn't want to sell a damned thing. He wanted out of the stuffy trunk, he wanted Jill safe, but mostly, he wanted to curl up in the fetal position and rock back and forth for a few hours until normalcy reinserted itself into his world.

But Sarah's eyes promised grim things if he didn't go along with her.

"I wasn't poking my nose where it didn't belong," he said. "As clearly, I was right about something."

"And you were going to tell me when?"

"When I had more information!" Chuck's eyes cut around the trunk. He couldn't see any way to escape, but apparently Sarah could. Either that or she was just naturally squirmy while stuck in the car trunk. "Which I do now!"

"Oh, good. Now that we've both been abducted?" Sarah rolled her eyes and squirmed harder, her shoulder popping up and knocking him solidly in the sternum. He felt a stab of annoyance. "Good work on that one, Chuck!"

"Hey!" Real aggravation laced his tone. "Back off a little, will you?" In an undertone, he added, "And quit moving around so much!"

"I'm trying to get my shoe off," she said through gritted teeth. In a louder voice, she continued, "No, I will not back off, not when you're about to get us both killed. What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking maybe I had a friend in danger!" Desperately, since she had yet to stop writhing against him and he could feel blood heading southward, he hissed, "Please? Please quit moving around so much?"

"Why?"

Chuck gritted his teeth and tried to think of his ugly, fat nemesis from the third grade. "Because!"

Sarah gave him a confused look for approximately five seconds before the implication struck her. "Oh. Right. Um." She immediately went still, her eyes wide. She looked almost panicked. "You know what, you turn over, I'll turn over, and you can grab my right shoe."

"What?"

"I need my knife."

"You have a knife in your—of course you have a knife in your shoe. You're Sarah Walker." Chuck, crisis averted, managed to roll over again, though he banged his nose rather painfully against the back of the trunk. His swear this time was at least real.

It was a study in physics and kinetics to get Sarah's shoe off of her foot with bound hands, but through teamwork, arguing inanely the whole time, they managed. Perhaps Sarah thought Chuck's falsified arguments were getting absurd, for she let out a huffing noise about two minutes after they'd gotten her shoe off and declared loudly that she was never speaking to him ever again.

Chuck replied hotly that that was fine by him.

Silent now, Sarah cut his hands free, keeping the rope mostly intact. He could still feel her moving behind him, but it didn't seem quite as frantic as it had earlier. And she didn't whisper anything at him, though occasionally he felt her shoulder nudge his shoulder blade, or her knee fit in along the back of his. The movements were probably accidental, though they were comforting just the same.

He wasn't alone in the darkness.

There were two of them now.

Two of them, he thought, using up all the oxygen, while outside, Jill was in danger. Had they killed her? Had they stuffed her into a trunk, too? Or was she unaware, going about her everyday life, with this constant threat hanging over her head?

Oh, God.

"Chuck?" Sarah whispered, probably hearing the catch in his breath. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Chuck swallowed hard. This wasn't the bunker. For one thing, it was far too hot, and he had Sarah behind him, weight and warmth pressed fully against him. "Trying not to think about suffocation."

"Suffo—Chuck, you don't have to worry about that. Car trunks aren't airtight." Something pushed briefly against the exposed skin on the back of his neck: Sarah's forehead. She'd head-butted him. "And I've got my knife now, and my hands are loose. If it's too much of a problem, we'll get the trunk open and fight our way out."

"Fight our way out?" Those were not very comforting words, especially since he had yet to convince Casey or Sarah of the value of martial arts lessons. Casey's response had been, "Why? So you can punch yourself in the face? Pass."

It was a valid point, but the lack of self defense training, outside of what he'd learned in the Army, was not really helping now.

"Trust me, Chuck," Sarah said. "They're taking us out into the desert to shoot us, which means—"

"You're really not doing well at this comforting thing!"

"Shh! Which means," Sarah went on, "that we still have a chance, okay? If they'd have been really smart, they would have shot us already."

"Oh, yeah, that's also real helpful."

"We still have a chance," Sarah repeated. "So keep your cool."

It was hard to do that when he could feel the temperature in the trunk creeping up, slowly, torturously. He already regretted having worn jeans and long sleeves. The musty air didn't cycle, letting him breathe in his own scent, mingled with Sarah's. The air felt hot and lay heavily against the back of his throat, which meant every breath only made him thirstier. His world was absolutely confined to what he could see around him—black walls, three inches in front of his face, over his head, pushed up against his knees and shins and toes, and Sarah.

He took a deep breath, forced it out, tried not to think about it.

With his eyes closed, he discovered that it was almost calming. He couldn't see, so the lack of space didn't bother him, and it felt almost like being in a cocoon. He could feel the road rumbling through the arm and shoulder that were pinned by his weight, jouncing both him and Sarah every couple of seconds or so. The fact that it was relatively smooth told him they were on some major highway. He let it soothe him as best he could, trying not to think about a multitude of things: Jill, his own fear, Sarah's words, Casey's anger when he found out what had happened to his partners, getting shot by Mr. Matching Pocket Square, who scarily hadn't said a word as he'd had both Chuck and Sarah bound by Fulcrum agents. Chuck had flashed on a few—they all definitely worked for the government, but none of them seemed benevolent—but he hadn't wanted to reveal that information in front of them. And he had no idea how it would work to his advantage now.

It was probably an accident that he even heard Sarah's breath hiccup.

"You okay?" he asked lowly.

"I'm fine."

"Okay." He let the silence fall again.

Sarah eventually sighed. "I don't like small spaces," she said, and he had to strain to hear her.

"You're claustrophobic?" Automatically, he moved closer to the back of the trunk—and nearly bashed his nose when the car hit a particularly large bump in the road.

Sarah, however, only kneed him in the back of the thigh. "Don't do that. You're fine. And no, I'm not claustrophobic. Not precisely. I…don't like small spaces. But I'm okay right now."

"If you say so," Chuck said, his voice dubious.

"I say so."

"Want to play a game?"

"What?"

"If I lay here and think, I'm going to keep thinking until I start panicking again, and then you'll have to put aside your weird pho—not-phobias and deal with mine, and I don't really want to feel like a burden today. So let's play a game."

"Um." There was a long pause before Sarah answered. "What do you suggest?"

"Ever play Grandma's Attic?"

25 NOVEMBER 2007
CAR TRUNK (NEAR DELANO, CALIFORNIA)
10:21 PST


"Dolphins, Captain Awesome's cleverly creative codename, beeswax, and the atrophied Adam's apple of Anthony Anderson," Sarah finished, still whispering, though her voice was triumphant.

Chuck rolled his eyes. "I get it, I get it," he said. "You have a damn near photographic memory. I should never have taught you about this game. I think I've created a monster."

"It's nice that there are games in this world I can actually win."

"Oh, yeah, because you wouldn't kick my ass at football, baseball, soccer, rugby, tennis, or anything physical."

Sarah pushed against his arm, a light touch since the temperature had risen to uncomfortable levels in the trunk. Chuck had retreated to the back of the trunk and Sarah to the front. An expanse of space existed between them, though he could make out the outlines of Sarah's body, matte black against the dimness. "I meant smart people games, but don't put yourself dow—do you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"The car's slowing down."

When Chuck concentrated, he could feel it, though he wondered what kind of training normal CIA agents went through to be able to sense that sort of thing. The change was minute at best. Still, he rolled over so that his back was facing away from Sarah again, and let her loosely bind the ropes around his wrists. He imagined that she was sliding the knife in along her wrist, and hoped she didn't cut herself.

Who was he kidding? She was Sarah Walker.

Nerves began to writhe and claw and bite as the car slowed down, jostling over rough terrain. The side of Chuck's head slammed a bit painfully into the floor of the trunk, and he grunted. "What kind of road is this?" he grumbled at Sarah.

"Abandoned, probably," Sarah said.

"That's real comforting."

"Not a situation for much comforting, Chuck. You remember what we talked about?"

"I'll follow your lead," Chuck promised, as Sarah had drilled the plan into his head multiple times between games of Grandma's Attic, Buzz, and one very limited game of "Eye Spy" ("I spy something blue." "My eyes." "Damn it!"). "You want to start, or should I?"

"I'm curious to see what you'll come up with," Sarah said. She was stretching out her limbs as best she could, even if it meant driving a knee into Chuck's back, or an elbow against the nape of his neck. He didn't mind so much, not if it could save both their lives. "You go ahead."

Chuck took a deep breath, braced his knees against the bottom of the trunk, and let out a shrill warble of terror. "We're slowing down, Sarah! Oh, my God, oh, my God. They're going to kill us. This is it!"

"Crank it down a notch!" Sarah hissed.

But Chuck was already going full steam. "I'm too young to die!" he wailed, rocking back and forth. "I'm too young, and you're too pretty, and it's too soon!"

"Quit being such a baby!" Sarah said at regular volume. He could feel her shaking with suppressed laughter. It spoke a lot about their lives that either of them could find anything at all funny about this situation. Or maybe it was the hysteria talking.

Either way, he kept up the mostly-incoherent stream of babble, admonished often by Sarah, as the car slowly rolled to a stop, jouncing and bouncing and jostling them every foot of the way. Panic made him sweat harder. The driver turned the engine off. Chuck began to pray. Four car doors opened and slammed. Chuck prayed harder. He felt Sarah rub her whole body against his back, just the once, even as she scolded him for being a coward.

He hoped it was an act because he genuinely felt like wetting his pants. It probably didn't help that he'd had to pee for the last hour.

The light, when the trunk opened, seared his eyes so badly that he yelped. The world grew indistinct, blurry red with gray shapes marking what he thought might be people. He yelped a second time when something grabbed his shoulder and dragged him out into the light. They set him on his feet, and his unused limbs nearly folded. He considered the fact that he only dropped to one knee a triumph, and kept blinking hard against the sand and the grit and the light. It was much cooler outside the trunk: there wasn't a breeze, but there was at least air.

"Finally!" Sarah complained as she was yanked out of the car. "Three hours is far too long to be penned up with that dork."

"Hey!" Chuck tried to squint at her, but she looked like the rest of their captors, a gray blob among other gray shadows. "Watch who you're calling a dork!"

"You. You're the one I'm calling a dork," Sarah replied immediately. Chuck saw one gray blob turn to the others; that one must be Sarah. He kept his eyes focused on her until features and characteristics began to filter in: the deep mauve of her shirt, her blue jeans, her boots, the sunny color of hair. "Seriously, are you guys trying to torture me? Three hours with him? Lame-ville!"

Lame-ville?

"Shut up," a familiar voice said. Mr. Matching Pocket Square had indeed come along to do his own dirty work. Chuck squinted, and he could make out the other man, urbane in a black sweater and charcoal-gray trousers that would no doubt pick up the grit of central California desert. It gave Chuck a tiny modicum of satisfaction. Until enough detail filtered in to inform him that Mr. Matching Pocket Square was holding a gun pointed straight at Sarah. "I want to know everything you know."

Sarah's smirk came over loud and clear. "I know you guys don't know how to treat a lady."

"Lady?" Chuck heard a voice ask. Oh. That was him. He forced a caustic laugh, and nearly stumbled sideways with the effort. When his side hit the cold barrel of a gun, he froze. Mr. Matching Pocket Square wasn't the only one armed among their guards. "You? Ha. You're joking, right?"

"Watch it, jackass!" Sarah lunged toward him. One of the thugs grabbed her by the shoulder to haul her back.

Chuck saw a little red that had nothing to do with seared corneas. He took a deep breath.

"See!" Sarah went on, looking at Matching Pocket Square with indignation. "Absolutely no idea how to treat a lady!"

He merely cocked the gun, a revolver of some type. "Everything you know," he said.

"All I know is you stuck me in a trunk with some loser for hours," Sarah said.

"Hey!" Chuck protested.

"Shut up," Sarah told him.

"You shut up!"

"I told you to shut up first!"

"Yeah, well, I meant it more!"

"This is what I have to deal with all the time," Sarah told Matching Pocket Square, rolling her eyes.
The leader merely pinched the bridge of his nose. He gestured with his gun to two of his flunkies (of which, Chuck had finally discerned, there were five, plus the leader). Something grabbed Chuck above the elbow, making him jump. Thankfully, he didn't scream or yelp or even squeak particularly loudly as the nearest thug hauled him away from the car. Sarah was tugged along right beside him by a matching crony.

"And what the hell is this even about?" Sarah went on, deliberately raising her voice.

"It's not cool," Chuck chimed in. "Three hours in a trunk! What the hell, man?" He said the last bit to his guard.

Sarah glared at him. "Did I give you permission to speak?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, when did you get elected queen of the universe, again? I must have missed it!"

"Buster, you wish I were queen of your universe!"

Chuck forced another laugh. "As if," he told Sarah, and his voice didn't sound nearly as certain now. He deliberately put more anger into his words, but he knew he sounded lame. "In your dreams!"

"Ha!" Sarah's laugh sounded a great deal more authentic than his. "As if you were ever in my dreams, freak!"

The guards kept pulling them away from the car, tugging on their arms to make them walk more quickly. Sarah and Chuck, of course, made it as difficult as possible, though they hid the obvious movements by shouting names at each other.

"Charlatan!"

"Freakazoid!"

"Hussy!"

"Hussy? Dweeb!"

"Doxy!"

"Loser!"

Chuck gasped, and as he did so, noticed the second car. It was about a hundred yards away, black and boxy like the car he and Sarah had been stuffed into, but this time, a passenger stared out from the front seat, white-faced with terror.

Jill.

They'd brought Jill here to witness Chuck and Sarah's execution. Chuck's stomach hit his knees.

Sarah's toe, on the other hand, hit his ankle. "Ha," she said, drawing his attention sharply back to the matter at hand. "Not even going to try to deny it, loser?" Her eyes conveyed that she, too, had noticed the other car.

Chuck made his sluggish mind keep up. "Who are you calling loser, demon from hell?" he managed, somewhat lamely.

The guard holding Sarah's arm grumbled. "Can't we just shoot them, boss?"

Matching Pocket Square glowered him into silence. "On the ground," he said, pointing his gun at first Chuck, then Sarah. "Kneel. The first one to talk gets to live longer. Who do you work for?"

The guard holding Chuck's arm tried to force him down. He pretended to stumble sideways, but kept his feet, secretly grateful that all of those years of being clumsy helped him sell the act now.

Sarah made a noise somewhere between "Tch" and "Ugh." Like Chuck's, her guard tried to force her to kneel. She didn't move.

The woman had the core strength to rival pro-wrestlers.

"Working for?" she demanded, flicking an unimpressed look at her guard. "What the hell makes you think we're working for anybody? My loser of a boss is a stalker, that's all. I don't see what the big deal is."

"The big deal," Matching Pocket Square said as the other guards ranged around Chuck and Sarah in a loose circle, "is that you're lying to me."

Sarah's smirk was sunny and sarcastic. "Am I?"

"Hey, here's an idea," Chuck said sourly. "Let's stop annoying the guy with the really big gun, all right? Geez, you can be such a bitch, you know that?"

Sarah flicked an annoyed look his way. "Shut up, douche-bag."

It happened like lightning. The instant the word left her lips, Chuck dropped. His knees slammed into the sand in a painful collision, and he threw himself forward just in time. Sarah's leg passed so close over his head that he felt it ruffle his hair.

His guard wasn't nearly so lucky. The man dropped Chuck's arm and received Sarah's boot to the gut. He flew backward into his buddy as Sarah whipped around, using the momentum to whirl and take her own guard's feet out from under him.

Chuck didn't pay attention to the flick of Sarah's arm, the wet thud of the knife landing in the third guard's throat. Matching Pocket Square's arm flew up, the gun swinging in an arc to aim toward Sarah.

Chuck hit him below the ribs with a tackle that would have made Casey proud. The tackle didn't have quite as much force as he'd hoped, as Chuck had leapt from a crouched position, but Matching Pocket Square still stumbled backwards, Chuck's mass and velocity forcing him off of his feet. Both men hit the dust with a grunt. Chuck scrambled—pin his arm, Sarah had said, get the gun away from him—but Matching Pocket Square was pretty spry for an older gentleman. He forced his arm out from under Chuck's, the gun rising.

Chuck, the sight of that gun looming, did the only thing that came to mind. He slammed his free fist into Matching Pocket Square's side, under the ribcage.

Matching Pocket Square groaned and dropped the gun to curl up like a shrimp.

Chuck didn't have time to freak out. Sarah's instructions had been clear and simple: run. Get out of the line of fire, and save yourself, I don't care what kind of trouble it looks like I'm in.
He snatched Matching Pocket Square's gun from the dust and started to sprint.

Run. Save yourself.

Get out of the line of fire.

I don't care what kind of trouble it looks like I'm in.

Trouble.

Chuck stopped running.

Sarah hated how much he didn't listen to her, anyway. She could hate him for this, too. Chuck swung around, the gun already up and in the firing position Casey had drilled into his head.

It proved unnecessary. Even as he turned, Sarah's arm shot out, and she fired three silenced shots.
The last two guards hit the sand with a thud, new bullet holes decorating their shirts.

Sarah, gun at the ready, spun around to assess the situation. She lowered her gun when she saw him standing there, ready to charge to the rescue. "What are you doing here? I told you to get out of the line of fire!"

Chuck, about to protest that he couldn't leave her alone, instead pointed. Behind Sarah, unseen to her, Matching Pocket Square lurched to his feet. "Sarah, look out!"

She whirled and put a cluster of three into Matching Pocket Square's chest. He stood there, a shocked expression on that urbane face, before he, too, dropped to the sand like his buddies. Sarah, threat officially neutralized, turned back to Chuck. "I'm not kidding. What are you still doing here?"

"Are they dead?" Chuck asked, venturing a couple of steps closer.

Sarah scowled and tucked the gun back into her waistband, where it would be within easy reach. "Some of them," she said. "I knocked a couple of them out, though."

Chuck had to appreciate the honesty, even while his stomach pitched.

Sarah closed the distance between them in a few steps. "Chuck, those men were going to kill us. You understand that, right? They were bringing us out here to shoot us in the head."

Feeling dizzy and numb, Chuck nodded. Or at least his head jerked up and down. He wasn't entirely sure what he was actually doing.

"I'm going to search them, find out who they are," Sarah said, her tone even and almost clinical. "I want you to go to Jill, Chuck. If they were using her, they were probably bringing her out here to watch us die as a lesson. She's scared, and she needs you. I'll be in the car in a minute, okay? I need to get some intel."

Chuck swallowed hard. Put like that, so pragmatically, everything seemed to make sense. Until, he thought, it didn't. Like, people driving him out into the middle of the desert to shoot him in the head. Why hadn't he put that together before? He was, after all, really quite fond of his head. It did things like think and eat for him.

"Chuck?" Sarah's whole demeanor softened. All at once, she didn't look like the hardcore blonde who had almost single-handedly taken down six men. She looked like his friend Sarah, who would share Thanksgiving picnics on his bedspread and play inane road trip games with him to keep his mind occupied. She laid a hand on his arm, and her skin against his was so warm it felt feverish. "Chuck, I need you to focus for a few more minutes. I need you to be strong for m—for Jill, okay?"

Jill. The look of terror flashed across Chuck's mind. He felt his head nod. "I can do that," his voice promised, and he cleared his throat. "I can do that."

"Good. Go check the first car for water or anything interesting, and go help Jill."

"Will you be okay?" Chuck felt the need to know before he left.

Sarah's look softened to match the rest of her. "I'll be fine, Chuck. Go."

It felt strange to walk, as if his legs were controlled by puppet strings, his body upheld rigidly, like a soldier at attention. He held up what he hoped was a pacifying hand to Jill as he headed to the first car, the one he and Sarah had been stuffed into.

He checked the glove box. Other than a gun, there was nothing interesting, save vehicle registration. Chuck grabbed both anyway. He also took his laptop from the backseat. He'd entered the Destroy All Data failsafe upon seeing Matching Pocket Square's gun, but it was better to leave as little evidence as possible. He knew for a fact there was nothing in the trunk, at least, so, juggling the new gun, Matching Pocket Square's gun, his laptop, and the registration, he headed toward the car with Jill inside.

She cowered back against the opposite door as he fumbled with the passenger door handle.

Chuck popped his head inside. The car was already picking up the day's warmth. "Are you okay?" he asked, which he knew was a stupid question. Jill's face had gone roughly the shade of wax paper, and she looked nauseated, which was fitting. He felt the same way. He swallowed hard, ignoring his dry throat. "Jill, are you okay? They didn't hurt you, did they?"

Her eyes were also wide and glassy, a sure sign of shock. "H-hurt me? Why would they hurt me?"
He gave her an odd look. "So they were trying to scare you?"

"Scare me? Chuck, what are you—"

She broke off with a frail scream.

A second later, Chuck saw why. Sarah popped open the driver's side door and dropped into the car. She looked over at Chuck. "Get in."

He obeyed and closed the door. In the backseat, Jill shrank, as if she were physically trying to put as much distance between herself and Sarah as possible. Even though the motion was absurd, Chuck almost didn't blame her. He'd had a couple of months to get used to Sarah's lethal ways, and he still sometimes wanted to cower.

Sarah glanced at Jill in the rearview mirror and ignored the fear. "You okay?"

"Wh-what?"

"You hurt?"

"N-no," Jill said, looking mystified. "They, ah, they didn't do anything to me."

"Good." Sarah started the car. She tossed a handful of licenses, credit cards, and car keys on Chuck's lap. "Gathered these off the men. Go through them, see if you…" She trailed off with a glance in the rearview mirror at Jill. "Recognize any of them."

Chuck lifted the first one automatically, but Jill, from the backseat, exploded into motion. "What the hell?" she demanded of Chuck and Sarah. When nothing else seemed to come to mind, she repeated it again, one word at a time. "What. The. Hell?"

"Relax," Sarah said, pushing on a pair of sunglasses she'd found on the dash, "we're the good guys."

"You'll excuse me for not finding that the least bit comforting after I saw you kill six men!"

"Four," Sarah corrected, peeling out as she swerved the car back onto the road.

"Oh, that makes it better," Jill snapped.

"Technically," Chuck said, "it does."

"Not right now Chuck," Jill told him.

Sarah's glare in the rearview mirror was ferocious. "Hey!"

"No, it's okay, Sarah." Chuck twisted around in the front seat to look at Jill. She'd been yanked out of bed, it seemed, given that she was wearing pajama pants and her hair was in a messy ponytail, even though she'd had time to put in purple butterfly burettes. "They were going to kill us, Jill, but I promise you, Sarah and I, we are the good guys. You're safe now, okay? Sarah's gonna, um, save the day."

"What? Why?"

"Because it's kind of what she does." Chuck rubbed his hands over his face and looked at Sarah. "What is the plan, by the way? Are we going back to Burbank? And are we stopping at a bathroom any time within the next, oh, let's say five minutes?"

"You'll have to hold it for a little longer than that." Sarah handed him a cell phone—his. She must have grabbed it off of the guards when she'd searched them. "Call Casey, update him on what's happened, tell him we'll contact him in two hours, and toss that out the window. I don't want them tracking us, which means we're going to have to lose this car, and fast."

"Yes, ma'am." Still, Chuck couldn't resist turning to the distressed Jill in the backseat, rumpled ponytail and pajamas and all. He wanted to say something comforting. After all, he had dated this woman for years in college, and she had almost witnessed his execution. But all that came out was, "So, um, how's your day going?"

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