In The Belly of a Shark

The blast of the gunshot rings in Mia's ears as she kneels by Jake's side. The blood from the fatal wound to Blue's head seeps across the floor of the barn like an oil slick, staining her skirt and soaking her knees through her layers of petticoats.

She feels pain in her hands, and she looks down to see that she's clutching the sleeve of Jake's jacket like it's her only tether to sanity, clenching the leather so hard it creaks under the strain of her grip.

The stallion goes still and she has the nauseating thought that her daughter has already met the same fate. She wonders if Lizzie is scared, if she's cold, if her final memory of her little girl will be her reaching out for her mother with tears in her eyes.

Leanna Harper is the Pied Piper of Hamelin, commanding an army of enraptured rats. All she had to do was play a tune on her proverbial flute, and Elizabeth would take her last breath.

Mia's lower lip quivers and she peers over Jake's bowed head to Isabella, crouched on his other side. The other woman's jaw is tense with unbridled anger, teeth clenched behind a sneer, but tears stream from her wide brown eyes.

"You're not gonna get away with this," she snarls at the guards left behind to watch over them.

The taller of the two is a mountain of a man, broad-shouldered and clad in a stained white union suit peeking through the open lapel of his coat. He leans over with his hands on knees, condescending to her like she was a petulant child throwing a tantrum.

"From where I stand, sweetheart, it looks like we already have."

His counterpart pushes himself away from the wall he'd been leaning against and twirls his index finger in a circle. "All right, let's wrap this up."

Mia protectively coils her arms around Jake, placing herself between him and them like a human shield. "For God's sake, give him a minute!" she protests, her voice quavering.

The tall man's eyes sear at her through the holes in his mask. "Tell me what to do again, and you'll bleed out on this floor just like that dumb animal next to you. Get up."

Sniffling, she kisses the back of Jake's head and whispers into his hair. "I'm so sorry."

He was lost in grief. In some ways it was like the pain of losing Sara all over again, because Blue was one of the last pieces of her he had left. The horse had been an engagement gift that he'd given to her alongside a pretty diamond ring, and the memories of that day were some of his most cherished.

Losing Blue seemed to make all of it fracture, like she was slipping through his fingers a little bit more. Further away, as if he would forget her entirely if he lost everything.

He wasn't much for sobbing. But amidst the threat looming over them and the guns pointed in their direction, the tears come anyway. He can't stop it and can barely bring himself to try. Cradling the head of his beloved friend, hand still feebly covering the wound. Useless and futile. If she'd wanted to rip his heart out, Leanna had done a fine job.

He hears Mia, feels her hands on his back desperately trying to comfort and the voices of the men demanding they leave. The feeling was so heavy in his heart, he wasn't sure he could. But eventually he's left with little choice as Mia an Isabella are shoved aside and two big pairs of hands grab his arms, yanking him away from the horse.

He staggers to his feet, looking one of them in the eye through the swimming mist of tears. "What are you gonna do with him?" he asks, his voice thick and hoarse.

"What's it matter? just a dumb animal." The captor grunts through the featureless mask.

"It matters." Jake grunts.

"Well I don't think Leanna gives a rat ass what you want. We'll put it out for the wolves.." the other one pauses, then muses cruelly, "or maybe we'll just serve him up on our plates."

Jake lunges, and the sound of revolvers being readied fills the room.

Mia and Isabella shout, somehow forcing themselves over to him. Isabella puts her hands on his chest as they're surrounded.

"Please.. don't.." she implores him.

Meeting her eyes, he seethes through his pain.

Mia takes his arm, resting her forehead against his shoulder. "They've got Elizabeth.." she reminds, her voice trembling.

One of the men gestures with his gun toward the doors. "Lets go, do as the little lady says, tough guy."

Covering his face with his hands for a moment, he lets out a long, low growl of frustration and anger. Then they drop uselessly to his sides and he takes one last look at his old, faithful friend.

The trio is herded out of the barn like cattle, encouraged to put one foot in front of the other by way of gun barrels pressed against their spines. Mia trips over a rock hidden beneath the snow and falls to her knees, but a fist seizes a handful of her coat and yanks her back to feet just as quickly.

"Keep moving," a voice seethes in her ear, shoving her forward.

She stumbles and nearly loses her footing again, but obeys and forges ahead. Her legs feel like they weigh a thousand pounds each, her skirt and petticoats dragging her down like an undercurrent roiling beneath the surface of a lake.

"Where are you taking us?" Isabella dares to ask.

The taller of the two men gestures at one of the rotting structures with his gun, slowly decaying under the harsh elements of north Ambarino. "Big one in the middle."

"And then what?"

"I don't remember givin' you permission to ask questions."

His partner breaks away from the crowd to hold open the door of the building, the captives chased inside by a gust of wind and snow. The walls protect them from the biting wind, but it's just as cold and uninviting inside. Looking around the room, Mia deduces that a family used to live here a long time ago -- there's a dormant fireplace and bedrooms stemming off the main area, rusty metal bedframes contained inside and encased in tattered linens.

It had been a home once, warm and welcoming and full of life; now it feels more like a tomb.

"In there," one of the men grits out, pointing to the bedroom on the right.

Following orders, Mia, Isabella and Jake do as they're told and file into the tiny room.

As the men turn to leave, Isabella holds out a hand that pleads with them to wait. "Hold on, where are the others?"

The taller man steps forward, looming over her like a hungry predator staring down its prey. She takes a step back but bumps into the wall behind her, cutting her escape short.

He grabs her by the chin, thick calloused fingers digging into her jaw. She claws at his wrist and pulls with all her might, but it's like trying to uproot a tree with her bare hands.

"Keep runnin' that pretty little mouth of yours..." he rumbles, growling like a cougar about to strike. He stinks of cigarette smoke and like he hadn't seen a hot bath in weeks, and it makes Isabella's eyes water. "... and I'll give it somethin' else to do."

The threat chills the snowy cabin a little more, but salvation from it comes in an unexpected form. The heel of a boot on aging wood behind them, her voice drifts across to them like a sinister song.

"Now now, Theodore. You know I don't allow that kind of behavior."

Leanna appears beside the man looming over Isabella, a bright smile on her face but eyes filled with shards of ice. She twists a thin blade in her hand and taps the tip of it against her chin. "There are enough ways to strike fear in to a persons heart, without reducing ourselves to nothing more than animals."

The hand around Isabella's jaw releases it's grip on her, and the man takes a step back, bowing his head in obedience. Leanna switches hands with her blade, and rests her palm gently on the head of her loyal guard. "Be a dear and fetch them some food, will you? And blankets, we don't want them to freeze before they make us all rich."

"Yes ma'am." The guard bows away in servitude, and Leanna watches him go for a moment with a pleased twinkle in her eye.

With a blink, those frozen blue's flick back to Isabella. Bringing her lips together, she tuts and coo's and reaches a hand out to touch Isabella's cheek. "They can be a little uncouth, I apologize."

Staring wide eyed, Isabella swallows and nods, rubbing her throat with her hand and eyeing the door the guard slipped out of. Three more men remained, armed and leaning against the shabby furniture left in this abandoned place. In the tiny room, Jake sits on the edge of a broken cot with his head in his hands. Mia trembling and running her hands over his shoulders in some small attempt to soothe.

The way Isabella stares at her makes Leanna grin. "I know, but you see he created a monster with integrity. Frightening isn't it. I don't believe we've met, and yet I feel like we've been face to face before."

She steps closer, almost breathing Isabella in. Like a predator sniffing it's prey. Her fingers drift upward and creep spider-like around the plait that fell over Izzy's shoulder, curling the braid around her hand for a moment or two as her eyes snap between Jake and Mia, and the dark haired beauty before her.

"A sister.. perhaps?" she purrs, wisps of her breath like poison dissipating in to the room.

Isabella swallows. "Sara.. Sara was my sister. You just killed her horse."

Leanna's brows raise and then her laughter knife's them all in the heart. She releases the braid and brings her fingers to her chin, biting the tip of a nail.

"Oh my. I have put a dagger through his heart. Here I thought he was just being a sentimental drip." She sighs haughtily and sneers. "I remember Sara. The poor fool that thought she could lie in bed with a snake unscathed. I remember her screams too.. the night we burned her alive."

The reaction doesn't come from Isabella or Jake this time. It comes from Mia, who stamps her foot on the ground in anger and shouts with her hands curled in to fists. "Stop it!" She snaps as Leanna blinks in surprise. "You've got us here, we'll do as you say. Just STOP. They're hurting enough."

Leanna's lips purse. She tuts like she's scolding a child. "Oh my dear I decide when he's hurt enough and we are far.. far away from that point."

Isabella moves beside her and Leanna's dagger finds it's way beneath her chin in a heartbeat. A bead of blood drawn from delicate skin, gathers on it's tip. "Ah ah, pretty."

"You were one of them?" Isabella asks through clenched teeth.

"As though I had a choice." Leanna sneers back, she pulls the blade away and leaves a nick in Izzy's skin. Gesturing the blade toward Jake, she snarls. "Take it up with him. He's why you are all here, if not for him your sister would still be alive. He's poison to all of you. He couldn't even fight for the life of his own child."

Mia instantly moves closer, fear written all over her face. "What have you done to my baby?"

Leanna smiles at her, cruel and unforgiving. "Oh no, honey. I'm not talking about Elizabeth. That little button is alive and well.. for now.. somewhere far from here. No.. I'm talking about the one he let burn." Her attention slithers back to Isabella.

Jake lifts his head, his broken heart bleeding heavily in his chest. "Don't.." he manages. The single word encompassing everything he felt in that moment. "Please."

The vicious blonde feeds on his plea's like a drug, her head tilting back almost in ecstasy as he says it. Isabella's eyes flick between them, her breath quickened again.

"What..?" she manages.

Cackling laughter fades to a bright grin and Leanna pouts, mocking their pain. "Your dear Sara was pregnant when we locked her in that sweet little house and burned her alive.. wasn't she, Jake? I saw the crib." The smile becomes a mean scowl. "For a moment I felt sorry for you." She says softly, then breaks in to a demented smile again. "But then I got over it."

Isabella's eyes widen and fill with tears, and she wills herself to ask the question she isn't sure she wants the answer to. "Jake...? Is that true?"

He returns his head to his hands, unable to hold her pleading gaze.

"We'd only known about it for a couple of weeks," he manages after a long and arduous pause, forcing out the words like they caused him physical pain.

Bile rises in the back of Isabella's throat. She can picture Sara's grave in her mind with perfect clarity, recalls the grim and grisly task of digging the hole and covering her sister's charred remains with dirt, and how the only way she could tell it was Sara at all was by the engagement ring on her finger. She had no idea she had buried two people that day.

When she locates her voice, it trembles and threatens to break. "Why didn't you ever tell me that?"

Jake's fingers curl in his hair, tightening like he wanted to rip it out by the roots. "I'm sorry."

Her knees give out from under her and she slumps to the ground, robbed of the energy and motivation to hold herself up. Eyes boring holes into the wooden floor, she freckles the dusty, decaying slats with tears.

"Doesn't it feel good to be honest with one another?" Leanna sing-songs, stroking Isabella's hair like she's petting a house cat. "You know what they say: the man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he's not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep. Isn't that right, Jake?"

He doesn't answer.

Leanna turns to the door, lingering momentarily in the threshold. "Clean your bowls when your meals arrive," she instructs. "Got to keep your strength up."

She leaves them to wallow in their shared pain, her exit punctuated by the squeak of rusty door hinges and a clatter as it swings shut behind her. Mia sits next to Jake on the bed and gently coaxes his hands away from his hair, resting them in his lap instead.

Covering them with her own, she squeezes and attempts to rub some warmth into his frigid fingers.

It's been a very long time since Mia has wielded a gun; even longer since she had pointed it at another human being with intent to do harm. She'd left all that behind after Alexander died, determined to reinvent herself and abandon every last trace of the person she was forced to be.

But here in this derelict house on the outskirts of civilization, suffocating with worry for the well-being of her daughter, the man beside her, the people she called her family, she wants nothing more than to blow Leanna's head clean off her shoulders.

- - x - -


The next handful of hours pass in a kind of haze, at least for Jake. The weight of grief he felt in his heart seemed like an impossible burden to bear, with old wounds torn open again, bleeding and raw. Amidst the cold, it was hard to balance his thoughts. Hard to find his footing again and see through the fog to focus on the situation they found themselves in.

In the wake of Sara's death, he'd never really had the opportunity to mourn. With his throat sliced and so near to the end himself, his recovery had taken up most of the strength left in him. He'd just missed her, and vowed bloody vengeance on the men he'd once called friends.

His grief had been a kind of ongoing process, still clinging to her memory and looking back on what they'd had almost like it was a dream. By the time he'd emerged from his hideaway in the mountains, it had seemed like another lifetime.

He'd sought his revenge. He'd looked the man responsible in the eye as he'd driven a blade in to his gut over and over. The blood on his hands had felt satisfying and even as lawmen dragged him away, he'd felt a weight lift from his shoulders.

Sara's passing had been a moment in time, one he'd never truly dealt with. One he'd never entirely mourned. Now, with Leanna ripping open the stitches he'd so carefully sewn, he felt the pain of it more heavily than he could remember before. It stole his breath and turned his stomach, an empty hole inside where she had once been.

The child he never got to meet.

Isabella's tears just poured salt in the wound. He knew she didn't intend for them to, but they did.

Eventually, a while later, the three of them find themselves sitting cross legged on the floor, shrouded in blankets and picking miserably at a fairly good stew none of them had the stomach for.

Jake shivered, but it wasn't from the cold. Beside him, Mia kept a close eye. Holding his hand or stroking his back. It was unusual for either woman to see him so defeated. It had to be disconcerting.

Across from him in their little seated triangle, Isabella barely manages a bite, then clutches the blanket around herself and gazes in to the bowl.

"I wish you'd told me." She whispers in to the quiet room.

Jake blinks, barely registering the statement for a moment or two. After a minute, he finds his voice. It's raspy and barely above a croak.

"By the time I found you it seemed.." he searches for the words, licking his dry lips, "it seemed like it'd just be pourin' salt in to a wound. I guess I wanted to protect you from it."

His shoulders sag and he brings his hand to his temple again. His head thumped and his eyes felt full of sand.

"She's right." He murmurs after a few more moments of heavy silence. "I'm poison to all of you."

Mia's eyes snap to Jake, and she draws his hand into her lap. "That ain't true. Don't talk like that."

He laughs at the absurdity of her protests, dry and bitter and humorless. "Look where we are," he counters, gesturing around the dilapidated room and the moth-eaten blankets draped around their shoulders. "Never would've wound up here if it weren't for me."

"We ain't here because of you," Mia argues. "We're here because of Leanna."

"Because she wants to get back at me. Getting her revenge makes all of you collateral damage."

Mia squeezes his hand, a gesture he doesn't reciprocate. "You didn't know this was going to happen."

"Maybe I should have."

"How could you have possibly predicted this?"

"Because she told me this would happen! If I had taken her seriously, none of this ever--"

"Stop!" Isabella interrupts, massaging her temples with her fingers. "Stop blaming yourself for everything! Mia is right -- you didn't bring us here."

Jake scoffs, gazing out the lone shattered window in the room. "Might as well have."

Isabella scrubs her hand over her face, groaning into her palm. "You can't just lie down and die over this. Those kids are out there somewhere, and they're counting on us to bring them home."

Laying a hand on the side of his face, Mia gently turns his head towards her. "Listen to her, Jake. Our baby girl needs us." Stroking the scar on his cheek with her thumb, she manages a faint smile of reassurance. "It don't matter how we got here or why, we just need to do whatever we gotta do to make sure no one gets hurt."

Extending her leg, Isabella nudges his knee with the toe of her boot. "We need to let the past stay in the past," she says, as much for her own benefit as it is for his; a reminder that wallowing in the what ifs could-have-beens was a perfect recipe for heartache. "We've all done things we wish we hadn't. But we've done some good, too."

Mia bows her head in a nod. "You gave me my life back the day you killed Alexander."

"You helped me bring Leon home from Saint Denis," Isabella adds. "The antidote is always in the poison. You turned your past into something good."

Maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe some part of him thought he deserved to drown under the weight of this. After all of the things that he had done, could he really blame Leanna for wanting to destroy him? While it was true he hadn't been the one to inflict her misery upon her, he'd been Alexanders willing hellhound and had burned her home to the ground. Murdered her parents for nothing more than Kilgrave's amusement.

Why should he get to live a peaceful life now? With a family and love and the loyalty of his friends?

Leanna was right.

But his thoughts drift a little, for the first time since Blue's knee's hit the dirt. To his conversation a while ago with Leon, sat around the campfire back at the old ranch. He'd told the man sometimes it was simply us against them, and all that mattered in those times was protecting family.

He couldn't save Blue, and he sure as hell couldn't go back in time and save Sara. But here and now his baby girl needed him, those kids needed him. It might be his fault they were all here and Leanna might be justified in her rage, but he couldn't let them down.

Leon tore apart Strawberry to protect them and save Elizabeth. Jake would lay down his life to do the same.

It wasn't much of a plan, but if he could get them out of this even at the cost of himself, he would.

Drawing a breath, he lifts his eyes back to them, looking from one to the other and back again. He offers a small nod.

"We'll get through this." He says quietly, "I promise. We just.. have to play it smart. Do as she says. It's me she wants, so you and the others just have to go along with whatever this crazy plan of hers is. I'll keep her attention on me."

He looks to Mia, swallowing down a dryness in his throat. "We'll get our baby back. I swear it."