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[XFVCU 1x06] Skyland by Eodrakken Quicksilver Part 1 of 2
Summary: Krycek and Fowley are called in to investigate two murders at Skyland Mountain, dredging up old memories and resentments. Part of the XFVCU virtual series.
If you're not familiar with the XFVCU Virtual Series, get the details at http://xfvcu.deslea.com. Plus, watch for next week's episode, 1x07 Prism, a collaborative effort by Deslea, CindyET, Emily M, Eodrakken, Lara Means, Maidenjedi and Vanzetti, in which a killer with a penchant for mindgames poses a challenge to the entire team - and a crisis for one of their number. Skyland Part 1 of 2 X Files: VCU 1x06 By Eodrakken Quicksilver DISCLAIMER: Characters not mine. ARCHIVE: Yes, just keep my name and headers. RATING: PG13. SPOILERS/TIMEFRAME: Set 18 months after The Truth. CATEGORY/KEYWORDS: Post-series, casefile, XFVCU. SUMMARY: Krycek and Fowley are called in to investigate two murders at Skyland Mountain, dredging up old memories and resentments. VIRTUAL SERIES SITE: http://xfvcu.deslea.com AUTHOR SITE: http://www.morosophy.com/sun FEEDBACK: eo@morosophy.com The mountain sat curled up on the horizon, smugly watching over the countryside. The sun had gone down and the sky was smudged black and blue, like smeared charcoal, and the nighttime animals were coming out of burrows, out of the earth, out of the mountain. There were Canada geese, in rough formation. White-tailed deer with hard tense legs and melancholy eyes. Owls too, silent but *present* - and the field mice went to ground. It had been years since bodies burned on this mountain, but the animals could still smell the smoke. It smelled like fear, but it pulled them too, and made them never want to leave. At the mountain's foot, the boy stared up at what he could see of the stars. Cassiopeia - looked like she was dead sky-center, right above his auburn head, and she called to him - beckoned him. The queen and her subject. He could not refuse her. He could not get to her. He threw his head back and *wailed*. It echoed through the canyon like a lupine howl of unholy anguish, and the deer scattered. But they would be back. The boy dug into the dirt, getting it all over his hands and arms, jammed under his fingernails, soaking into his knees. He could feel an itch in the center of the mountain that he had to get to in order to scratch it. Beyond desperation and into pure need: he had to get *in*. "Hello?" A high, tentative voice, with an undertone of gravel. Confused, maybe frightened, but trying to suppress it. The boy froze. Such an effort - such a *push* to stop himself from scratching at the dirt. He sweated, pressing his body hard against the dug- up earth. There was a part of him that understood that if he was caught here, he would be taken away, and this would all be for nothing. Again. "Is someone out here?" she asked the stars plaintively. She stumbled slightly on a root and cursed under her breath. "Is anyone-?" Such desperate confusion in her voice. The moon broke through the clouds, and he saw her. The frizzed outline of her hair, the white- highlighted curve of her shoulder. "Hello?" she said again. "I don't-" Her voice trembled, and she broke off. "Why am I here?" she demanded savagely, suddenly sounding frustrated and disgusted with herself. She turned her back. The boy seized his chance. She screamed. She wouldn't be confused anymore. * Diana Fowley cut across the grass in front of the building, not because she was late for work, but simply because she couldn't wait to get there. There was an undeniable spring in her step - she no longer had to watch her back. The morning was bright (green, yellow, pale blue), and she liked that, and wished it didn't have to fade away into winter so soon. As she approached the door, she was not looking where she was going, and her toe caught and sank into the ground - she stumbled slightly, but steadied herself. It was a fresh gopher hole in the lawn. She pulled her foot out of the little mound of soft dirt, her brow creasing in annoyance. Standing on one foot, she tried to brush the dirt off, with moderate success. "Damn it," she muttered softly. "You okay?" She looked up quickly - it was Alex. He must have just walked out the front door. He was not wearing a jacket, and was holding an empty paper cup from the coffee shop across the street, half-crushed in his hand. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said, her voice a little muffled with embarrassment. She put her foot down and brushed her hands off against each other. "I just...stepped in something." Alex smirked unpleasantly. "I know the feeling." His tone was unusually dark, and she picked up on it instantly, half-alarmed. "Why, what happened?" He waved her off vaguely, squinting up at the sky. "Caught a double murder. Kersh wants me and Mulder." "You and Fox?" she echoed. "Why?" "Because of the location. It's Skyland Mountain." "Ah..." She chewed her cheek for a moment, considering. "I'll talk to Kersh," she said finally. He threw her a sharp glance. She'd expected that - he wouldn't want someone else to jump to his defense, as if he couldn't handle it himself. But they both knew Kersh would be unlikely to listen to what Alex had to say in this instance. And Diana privately thought that Alex's style of argument wouldn't help the odds. Maybe Alex was thinking the same thing, because his gaze softened, and he nodded. "Sure," he said. * Diana strode up the corridor to Kersh's office, and met Jeffrey coming out the other way, juggling several folders. "Hey, stranger," she said. He glanced up, and smiled - and oh, it was still good to see him smile, even if it was only a little bit. "Hey," he said. "Morning." "What kind of mood is he in?" she asked. Jeffrey shrugged. "His usual. I went in to ask a simple question, I came out with twice as much paperwork as I went in with." Diana grinned. "That's life in the surface world," she said lightly, gesturing at the slick, brightly lit offices around them. Jeffrey chuckled. "Why do you ask? Going in to ask for a raise?" "No, just going to...bring a couple of things to his attention." "Why, is there a problem?" Jeffrey asked, his face turning to slight concern. "I hope not," she said with a wry smile, holding up crossed fingers. Jeffrey still looked curious, but he nodded. "What do you want to do for dinner tonight?" She shrugged and shook her head. "I'm not sure I'll be in town. I'll let you know, though." She put her hand on his lower back with a smile as she passed. She paused in the doorway to Kersh's assistant's office. The woman was on the phone, and waved Diana in. Kersh was at his desk looking through some papers, and glanced up first with annoyance - then with a rare, flat smile when he saw who it was. "Agent Fowley. Good morning. Have a seat." He indicated the chair across the desk. "Good morning, sir," she said, returning the smile politely and sitting down. "What can I do for you?" "Sir...I understand you've assigned Agents Mulder and Krycek to look into the murders at Skyland Mountain." "The local authorities requested them by name. Evidently someone remembers them from the last investigation. Given that past experience, it seemed reasonable to grant the request." Diana nodded, but her brow creased, and she let out a small hum. "Do you think that's going to be a problem?" Kersh prompted. "I do, actually," she said. "I'd be concerned that the...difficulties between them would steal too much focus from the task at hand." "They're going to have to learn to work as a team at some point, Agent Fowley," Kersh said, turning up his palms. "I know that, sir. And I know them - I know they won't disappoint you. I trust them to work it out. But I also know that it's going to take time." She paused. "I'm afraid it's too soon, sir," she added bluntly. Kersh studied her carefully for a moment. She held his gaze without difficulty. He sighed slightly, and rubbed his left eye under his glasses. "All right. I trust your judgment in this. You'll go to Skyland with Agent Krycek. But be sure to keep in touch with Agent Mulder - I want you to have his input." Diana nodded and stood up with a brief, small smile. "Yes, of course. Thank you, sir." * Alex was in the passenger's seat while Diana drove them down the bright Virginia highway, yellow and green fields with occasional barns and lone, stunted round trees. Cows were grazing free-range, and it reminded Alex that there are horse farms out here. Or at least there used to be. He glanced over at Diana, wondering if she was thinking this too, if she'd met the Brit out here as many times as he did. But she was just gazing out at the road ahead of her, and tapping her fingers against the steering wheel in time to the muffled, staticky radio - *Very superstitious, writings on the wall...* They wound their way up the switchbacks. Musty, sun-stroked old forest on either side. When they were on a switchback facing one way, they could see the distant wires and cold black towers of the ski lift. When they were on a switchback facing the other way, they could see only trees. They turned onto a gravelly service road, the entrance marked with NO TRESPASSING signs. The radio really started to give out, and Diana switched it off. They drove what seemed like hours without seeing any forks, and just as Diana was about to wonder aloud if they'd gone up the right way, a short detective in a black jacket appeared around a bend and flagged them down. Diana pulled into a ditch by the side of the road, and they got out of the car. "Agent Krycek," the detective said with a quick, sharply curious smile, shaking his hand. "Good to see you again." Alex remembered this detective by her dimpled, rather doughy face and long, thick hair, but he could not recall her name. "I'm Agent Fowley." Diana offered her hand. "Detective Warsaw. Nice to meet you. Will Agent Mulder be joining us?" she added to Alex, with an undisguisable hopeful look. Alex coughed. Diana glanced at him askance. "No," she said simply. "Where's our crime scene? I only see trees." "It's a little ways up," Warsaw said, gesturing behind her. "I heard your car coming. Didn't want you to miss it." So they hiked further off the road, until they came to where the uniforms and photographers were doing their business. The body was half buried in the gentle incline of the mountainside, black dirt and mud scattered and thrown around all over the leaf litter. Her left leg and her right foot were in the open air, as were her left hand. The hand was stark white, with tightly-curled fingers. Flannel shirt, jeans, sneakers, dingy white tube socks. Everything scattered with dirt. "Do we have a name?" Diana asked, walking around to get a look at the burial from all sides. "Rebecca Austor," Detective Warsaw said. "Did you bag that wallet yet?" she asked a crime scene tech. "No, ma'am." "Give it here." She retrieved the wallet and showed Diana the driver's license. "Forty-two years of age. Resides right here in Skyland." "We were told this was a double murder," Alex said. He turned up his palms. "I only see one body here." Warsaw glanced aside briefly, clearing her throat. "Well, yeah, it's technically - the first body was found three days ago." "But the murders took place on the same day?" Diana prompted, puzzled. "Uh...no, it looks like not." "Then why did you-" Alex started in an irked, accusatory tone, but he cut himself off. "They're just similar crimes, then," he started again, in a lower voice. "Not the same crime." "Right. Maybe your secretary or whoever didn't understand the message. But, you know, it's good you came. I really wanted you to come." She suddenly looked embarrassed, as if she'd said too much. "Me?" Alex echoed, sounding non-plussed. He was squatting down to look closer at the excavation job. "That's flattering," he deadpanned. "I'm not in such high demand these days." "Where was the first victim found?" Diana asked. Warsaw gestured behind them. "Maybe...three hundred yards off." "Can we go have a look?" Warsaw nodded. "Sure thing. You got all the pictures you need?" she asked a photographer. "Yeah. The coroner's here, he's ready to take her. They had a hard time getting the van up the trail." Warsaw nodded. "Go ahead. Be careful. And put some of that dirt in a bucket, will you?" She beckoned to Diana and Alex and started hiking further up the hill. "I have to tell you, there's not a lot of physical evidence," she told them as they walked. "Only footprint we got was a size thirteen Nike. On fingerprints and fibers, we don't have anything at all. Look at this. I wanted to show you this too. We've got more of these dug-up holes, all over the area...There's a bunch of them. Over here, and here-" Warsaw pointed. "Some look older than others." They slowed down as they passed a hole that was partly covered over with forest debris, but did look very much like the hole in which Rebecca Austor was buried. "Is there any possibility that it's animal activity?" Diana asked. Warsaw shook her head. "Probably not," Alex said. "An animal doesn't just dig for no reason, and that's what this looks like. It's...ineffectual. Shallow. They're not getting anywhere." "Yeah, they are shallow," Warsaw nodded, turning around to walk backwards as she talked to them. "They're not big enough to have held a body. Even so, we dug a couple of 'em up. I sent the dirt out for analysis; they'll tell us if there's blood. But I don't think so." "You must know this area well," Diana observed. "What makes you say that?" Warsaw asked with a puzzled expression, stepping backwards over a tree root. "You can walk it without looking where you're going." Warsaw looked slightly flustered, and turned around. "Oh...well, we've had to walk back and forth a lot this morning." And she was quiet for the rest of the walk. "This is it." She'd stopped in front of another hole dug into the incline, this one deeper than the other ones they'd passed on the way up. "The victim was a male, twenty-five years of age. Jason Hankins. Also a Skyland resident, a native. He's waiting in the coroner's office for you, but we found him just like the other one. Half buried, head first in the dirt." "What was the cause of death?" Diana asked. "Had his head beat against a rock. That rock." She pointed to a large black stone a few yards off. "We found blood traces. He was also strangled, but I think it was the head trauma that did it. The coroner would be able to tell you more." By the time they returned, the excavation was done, and Rebecca Austor's grave was a crumbling black mouth in the side of the mountain. They could hear the coroner's van rumbling off down the service road, crunching the gravel. Crime scene clean up and the photographers were packing up their gear. "How did you find the bodies so quickly?" Diana asked. Warsaw hesitated, looking strangely startled. "What do you mean," she said flatly. "This is supposed to be off-limits to everyone but the park service, this area," Diana clarified. "Who found the bodies?" Warsaw hesitated. "I - I did." "You found the bodies?" Alex prompted, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Both of them?" She nodded. "I saw them when I was coming up on rounds." "You're city PD," Alex said. "You guys do patrols all the way up here?" "Sometimes," Warsaw said, stepping back from them and crossing her arms across her chest. "We get a lot of tourists, a lot of dumb kids. The park service, they're under staffed, you know, we've got to help each other out..." Diana frowned. "But the sites aren't visible from the service road," she said. "Yes they are," Warsaw shot back aggressively, before Diana had quite finished her sentence. "How else would I have seen them?" The scene was suddenly quiet, as everyone turned around to look. Warsaw bit her lip. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you," she said in a lower voice. "It's been a long week." Diana paused. "It's all right," she said carefully. "We'll catch up with you later today to give an update on our progress. I think we want to go down to the coroner's office now." She looked at Alex for confirmation. He nodded. "Let's go." "The bodies wouldn't have been visible from the road," Diana said in a whisper, when they got to the car. "We had to be flagged down and walked over to them-" "Agent Krycek?" He turned. It was Warsaw. "Can I ask you something?" He glanced at Diana. She shrugged, getting back into the car. "Yeah, sure." "It was real, wasn't it," the detective said, her hands dangling uneasily at her sides. "What?" "I mean, it...it was real. Duane Barry, what he said, what happened to him was real." Alex tensed, looking affronted for a moment. But there was no insult in the detective's round face - just worry and searching curiosity. It still took a moment for him to answer. It seemed strange, even now, to be *able* to answer, to have no reason to hide the truth. "Yeah," he said. Warsaw hesitated. "You just have to wonder...how many people are locked up somewhere, and they're not crazy, they're just..." She trailed off, waving her hands in a gesture of helplessness. "It doesn't accomplish anything to worry about it," Alex said curtly. Warsaw looked slightly disappointed, as if she'd been looking forward to talking about it, but nodded. "Yeah, I...I guess not." * "She's definitely hiding something," Alex said as they drove back down the service road. "She lied about how the bodies were found. And she misrepresented the nature of the crimes to make sure we'd take an interest and come out here." "Not we," Diana corrected. "You. And Agent Mulder, presumably. Do you remember her?" "A little, but we didn't work with her very closely." Diana hummed. She wasn't sure if she could see that dimpled face contorted in homicidal rage, or sadistic lust. Though it was never smart to rule a suspect out on appearances alone. "Do you think it's possible she killed those people?" she asked. "Anything's possible," Alex said, peering intently into the rear view mirror as if he could see the detective there. "But if she did, she's doing a shit job of covering it up. She called up down here, she admitted she discovered the bodies... I mean, there is such a thing as an incompetent murderer, but we just saw her doing her job, and as a detective, incompetent is the last thing I'd call her." "Then maybe she wants to be caught." "Or she could be covering for someone else, but she's having doubts about it," Alex added. Diana nodded. "We'll have to be careful. When you suspect local PD..." "Yeah, I know," Alex said grimly. "I'd say play it cool for now, keep an eye on her, see what she does. We don't want to have to question her directly." They passed a boy with auburn hair walking down the side of the road with his hands shoved in the pockets of his dirty jeans, kicking up the dust. He twisted around to look at them when he heard the car coming, and shuffled further over to the side. From his face, Diana saw that he was older than she'd first thought he was. Squinting against the sunlight, he kept his eyes on them as they drove past. His gaze was sharp, but strangely vacant. As they rounded a curve and he fell out of sight, he stumbled awkwardly over something in the road. * Rebecca Austor lay on a metal gurney next to the one belonging to Jason Hankins. Both were waxy, white, like they could be covered a thin layer of frost. They had similar crescent fingernail scratches and hand-shaped strangulation bruises on their necks. Hankins's face was skewed a bit off- center from having the back of his skull crushed. "No weapons," said the coroner in a neutral, businesslike tone, "except his own two hands. No sexual assault on either victim, no mutilation of the bodies post-mortem. They were both fully clothed when they were found." "Were there usable fingerprints?" Diana asked. The coroner shook his head. "Everything was smeared. That's a problem in bare-hands strangulation. I can tell you if your suspect's hands are the right size, but not much else. They're large hands, as you can see. Almost certainly a male. I'd say a tall male." Diana and Alex shared a glance. That ruled out their primary (and so far only) suspect. "I'd like for you to take some additional X-rays for us," Diana said to the coroner. "The head and neck area and the lower abdomen of each victim." The coroner nodded. If he thought this was a strange request, he gave no sign of it. Alex picked up Rebecca Austor's heavy white hand. There was black earth still jammed beneath the blue-white fingernails. "You got something there?" Diana asked, craning her neck to see what he was looking at. "Maybe," he murmured. He turned and stepped over to Jason Hankins's corpse, and picked up his hand, even heavier than Austor's. The crescents of black dirt were thinner under his nails, but still there. Alex placed the hand back down on the table and looked over at the coroner sharply. "Is there any chance these people were alive when they were buried?" The coroner shook his head. "No." Diana sidled over. "What are you thinking?" she asked quietly. "I'm thinking these people dug their own graves," he said. He pointed out the dirt. "By force?" Diana asked. He shook his head, gazing down intently at Jason Hankins's off-center face. "Maybe, but it doesn't seem likely. If he'd been holding them at gunpoint or knifepoint..." She nodded. "Then you'd expect them to have been shot or stabbed. But why would they be digging in the dirt with their bare hands, of their own free will?" He shook his head again, still not looking up. "I don't know..." Diana glanced up at the coroner and started to say something, but was stopped by the look on his face - tense and grave. The man was standing awkwardly, his weight all on his back foot, watching Alex uneasily, almost fearfully. She could well imagine what he was thinking. The FBI's killer agent - cracked, fascinated by violent death, a dangerous man only allowed back into the field by a pulled string, a pulled *purse*-string- Her face grew warm with indignant anger. "Thank you for your help, sir," she said, more abruptly than she'd meant to. Alex looked up at her in surprise, having no way to know where the sudden burst of rudeness had come from. They headed out into the corridor. "You seemed eager to leave," Alex observed, somewhat puzzled. But she wasn't about to tell him why. * They spent the afternoon conducting tearful interviews with the Hankinses and the co-workers of Rebecca Austor (who had no family aside from seven cats and a canary). Did the two know each other? No. Did they have enemies? Of course not, everyone loved- Involved in drugs? God, no - how dare you. Do you know of anything unusual that ever happened to them? Did they ever disappear for a few days? Complain of severe nightmares or seem to become confused and disoriented? No. Never. "Now *this* is police work," Diana sighed as they walked down the Hankinses' front steps and back to the car. Alex snorted. "Don't pretend you're not loving every second of it." She grinned briefly. "It is good to be back." "It is, but I wouldn't mind a solid lead right about now." They reached the car, parked by the weed-ridden, tree-lined curb, and Alex leaned against the hood, taking a second to think. The Hankinses' great black dog could apparently still see them from his yard, and his rough voice echoed down the otherwise quiet block. The mountain arched above the housetops, fat and mocking. "The only thing the victims have in common," he said, "is that they lived in Skyland, and had for a long time." Diana hummed. "I asked for X-rays to check for implantation," she said, "but it looks more like our *perpetrator* is an experimentation victim, or at least wants people to think he is - choosing to kill near a known abduction site." Alex nodded. "Trying to make it look like test subjects are dangerous." "If that's the case, then there may not be any connection to find. The victims could have been chosen simply because their deaths would elicit sympathy - a woman, a young man with his whole life ahead of him..." "But it's not big enough yet," Alex said. "Two murders aren't going to grab anyone's attention." "Except ours," Diana added as she got into the car. * They returned to the police station in the evening as promised, but they didn't have very much progress to share. Alex ran his hand through his hair. "There's no reason someone would want both of our victims dead." "Then this has got to be a psycho, right? A serial killer." Detective Warsaw almost sounded hopeful - and fearful, too, as if afraid the answer would be no. Alex shook his head mutely, looking grim. "No," Diana said, "I don't think so. With a true serial killer psychopathology, you see a set pattern or ritual - a set victim type or means of death - and escalating violence, not de- escalating." "But there is a pattern," said Warsaw vehemently. "It's the same spot, right there on the mountain. We've had two murders within a couple of hundred yards of each other, at around the same time of night. I want to stake out the area tonight, see if anyone turns up. If the killer is drawn to this place, he may not be able to help himself from coming. And the area's supposed to be restricted, so anyone who shows up can be arrested for trespassing on the spot." "But the two murders took place three days apart," Diana said. "If there's a pattern, we wouldn't expect another death until Friday..." Warsaw hesitated. "But you said it yourself, there might not be a pattern. We can't take chances." "Well, unless we're dealing with someone who's had a complete psychotic break, no killer is going to come back to the scene when he sees there are other cars parked in the road," Alex said irritably. "And even if they would, we can't just stake out the area indefinitely..." "I didn't say indefinitely," Warsaw snapped at him. "I just said tonight." At Alex's affronted look, her face immediately softened into surprised embarrassment. "I'm sorry," she said, "I don't know why I said that. It's-" "Yeah, it's been a long week," Alex finished evenly, watching Warsaw's reaction carefully. "I think you're right. I think we should do it. Let's set up the stakeout, it's not like we have other leads." Diana nodded, playing along. "When I'm on an interesting case, I can never sleep anyway. Let's do it." * They had dinner in a noisy local caf? - or rather, Diana had dinner, and Alex watched. "You need to eat, Alex," she said. He only shook his head. "I don't know what we're walking into here," he said, rubbing his hand over his face. The surrounding conversations probably covered what he was saying, but he'd learned to be careful through hard experience - background din couldn't always be counted on, and there was no sense in taking chances. So he paused, trying to think of the vocabulary, and then continued in his stiff Arabic. "I think that Warsaw *was* covering for somebody, but now she wants to get out of it. Now she wants him to be caught." Diana paused, taking a moment to register the switch. "Without his knowing that it was her who gave us the information," she continued in her smoother dialect. "Yes. It may be a friend or a boyfriend. And if she knows that he's a murderer, of course she would be afraid to come forward." Diana nodded, but frowned slightly. "But she had the courage to show us where the bodies were. It's possible she kept it a secret from him, but..." She shook her head. "I think there's more to it than that." "I guess we'll see," Alex said in English, and stole a French fry off Diana's plate. * And now they were sitting in the car a little ways off the service road, watching for - who knew what. Diana, sitting in the passenger's seat, was working her way through a plastic bag full of tangerines she'd bought earlier that day. "You're driving me crazy with those, you know that?" Alex remarked casually. "How many of those do you think you can eat before you get sick of them?" "I'd think you'd be used to it," Diana said, holding up her crumpled, orange- stained napkin to wipe the juice from her chin. "Marita's getting food cravings. You remember at lunch on Saturday? How many prawns she ate? And that was bad enough, but the *ketchup*..." "I know," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, already stiff from sitting in the car so long, "that's why you're driving me crazy; I don't need *both* of you losing your minds." "There's nothing wrong with a little food obsession. Just because *you* don't want to eat..." She waved the half-eaten fruit temptingly in his direction. He smirked and shook his head. "After tonight, you're never gonna want to see another tangerine again." "I already don't ever want to see another prawn again." He breathed a laugh. And they sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the black-green forest. Diana polished off the tangerine, and made the polite gesture of waiting a few minutes before starting another. It was the last one. Not needing to look at what she was doing, she dug her thumbnail in, getting the damp white interior of the peel bunched up against the tender borderline of the nail bed. Alex tensed, listening for something. "Did you hear that," he whispered. Diana set the food down on the dashboard and listened...but turned up her palms wordlessly. Alex opened the car door quietly and tilted his head to find the direction of the noise, like an animal searching for the sound of its prey. Thinking he'd pinned it down, he turned and looked piercingly into the tree cover. And there was something there...an animal silhouette moving delicately among the trees...deeper darkness intermittently blocking the moonlight. Now Diana could see it too, and silently reached for her weapon. But Alex was already out of the car and moving towards those shadows...slowly, silently, a wolf-like stalk. The secret to walking without noise is to place your foot down first, and then shift your weight onto it, as every animal and assassin knows. Each step was precise, perfectly balanced, carrying him forward smoothly, tensely. Every muscle under control, nothing left to chance. The shadow in the trees stopped, and Alex froze. Not more than ten feet away from each other, neither one breathing, each intensely aware of the other. Their heartbeats the loudest sound. And the shadow jumped, leaping up the side of the hill - and he bolted after it, cutting across the tall grass - and they were locked in pursuit, running flat out into the woods. Alex's rational mind cuts in with the information that there's no chance he's going to be able to run down a wild animal in the woods, in the dark. But as that thought hit him, he found himself grabbing onto slender legs and falling heavily to the ground with this warm body struggling frantically beneath him. Diana emerged into the clearing a few moments later, weapon drawn, breathless: "Alex - are you okay?" "Yeah." His breath was coming back to him, and he was holding the boy with auburn hair pinned down in the leaf litter. "We're federal agents," Diana said, brandishing her ID. "Identify yourself. What are you doing out here?" The boy kicked out uselessly like a trapped deer, still struggling against Alex's weight, and a *laugh* tore out of him, like it was tearing him to messes on the inside as it came. "I don't know," he gasped. "I don't know, I don't know. There's nothing *here*." * In the flickering red lights of the sedan into which the uniforms were stuffing their suspect, Diana walked back to the car. Alex stood there leaning against the hood, self-consciously brushing some leaf litter from off his sleeve. Left sleeve. He was rattled, and she knew it. She came up next to him. "I asked them to book him for trespassing first, so that we'll have more time to question him. So we've got an little while to wait." "Which I'm gonna need, right?" he said in a slightly acid tone. "Pull myself together." She started to object, but he went on: "I lost track of myself completely, back there. I didn't identify myself, I just - reacted." He let out a shaky, half-laughing breath, shaking his head. "This is just not-" "It is going to work," Diana said, placing her hand firmly on his shoulder. "I know it's not easy. But you've made it this far. This is not the hardest thing you've ever done." He looked at her, and with the flickering red light coming from behind him, his face was unreadable, eyes black. He smiled. "Not by a long shot," he murmured. * CONTINUED IN PART 2
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