by Lee Sau Woon
There was this persistant ringing, and then a lot of noise, and smoke. Not forgetting that terrible nagging pain somewhere on the left side.
"You okay, Vanessa?" A voice asked from somewhere on top. Jim's.
She opened her eyes, found it too glaring, and shut them tight.
"Can someone turned off the light?" She moaned.
A pause. "There is no light." It was Jordan.
She opened her eyes again. A little bit at a time. It took her a full five minutes to get accustomed to the normal lighting.
"God, what happen?" She asked Jim and Jordan, who were around her, protective. Vanessa looked around, and found that the fire alarm was still ringing.
"God, that's noisy." She commented, as she placed her hand on the left side of her head. It touched something cushiony. Bandage. She swore. She could almost heard the man's voice mocking her. "Little kitty."
"There was a man. He burnt all the evidence, and knocked me out." She told the two men.
Jordan nodded his head, as if knowing it all along. "Cleaning up," he said.
"We lost all the evidence, didn't we?" She asked them.
This time, it was Jim who replied. "I'm afraid so. The whole room was almost burnt down. Borden was dead."
"Zenya still had that file. We might be able to savage something from it." Jordan offered the information as consolation. Just then, one of the firemen came in, and he was distracted.
"Are you able to sit up?" Jim asked Vanessa, as he held her hand to steady her.
She tried to sit up, and it was only then that she realised that she was no longer in Borden's room, nor anywhere near it.
"Where am I?" She asked.
"Its the school's sick bay. Jordan saved you and brought you here. For a while, we thought that you're gone."
"Obviously not, a kitten had nine lives after all."
"What kitten?" Jim asked, curious. That reminded Vanessa that he did not know of her conversation with the stranger in the room. She told him.
"Does that mean he don't want to kill you?" Jim asked.
She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. Or maybe he just like cats."
Just then, Jordan came back.
"Newest report - everything inside that room was burnt to a crisp. Your friend there is obviously a professional arsonist."
For some unknown reason, Vanessa found that funny, and she laughed, and then the laughter turned into coughs, and panicked her teammates.
"I'm all right. *cough* I'm definitely *cough* all right." She ward off their helping hands.
"Maybe you should go to the hos - "
"No. I don't want to go there. Don't mention that word. End of topic."
The two men shook their head in disbelief of her stubborness.
"I wonder how is the rest of the people," Jim asked, as he took out his cellphone.
"I'll call," Jordan offered, as he took out his. Just then, his phone rang. He answered it on the first ring, frowned at the voice, knitted his eyebrows together (and managed to look disguisted at the same time), before unknitting his eyebrows, and answering with a "yes, I understand." and then a "Hmm, all right. We'll be right there."
He snapped his cellphone shut, and told the two agents. "Let's go."
"Where are we going?" they asked.
"Martin, Leo and Zenya lost the rented car."
"Lost?"
"Someone bombed it."
Ten minutes later Jordan, Jim and Vanessa showed up in the other Suzuki. Martin scratched his neck. "How are we all gonna fit?" he asked retorically.
"I actually think there's a joke in there somewhere," Leo said with a grin." How do you fit six FBI- agents in a Suzuki Swift?"
"I have no idea, but I guess we'll have to try."
"Don't worry," Jordan said, "we're dropping Jim and Vanessa off at the hotel. It's only a five minute ride. I think we'll manage."
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Five minutes later, they reached the motel, they dropped Jim and Vanessa off. One simple glance at Leo and Zenya told the two of them that they need not ask Zenya to come along. As the car drove off again in the direction of the hospital, Vanessa asked Jim,
"Is that love, or am I seeing things?"
Jim answered with a grin, as the two of them walked into the motel.
They went to their individual rooms, and the moment Vanessa looked into the mirror, she wondered why no one commented on it. Most probably they are too courteous, she thought. Her face was full of soot, her hair was all messed up, and there was this big bandage on the left side of her head that was unable to cover up the even bigger swell on her head. She tore off the bandage, and found that there was blood inside.
"Damn you, whoever you are." She spoke to the mirror. Turning on the tap on the sink, she washed the soot and blood off her face, and then combed her hair straight again, tucking it behind her ears. After she had freshed herself up, she changed her dirty clothes into something clean, and then went in search for Jim. While not in action, do some thinking.
NRPG : I know this is abit short, and non-mission-related. All the action seems to be on the other side. 8P 8P ;P