The Arrangement | Jay Halstead

Chapter 28 | Hot Head

Part 28

Inspired by season 6 episode 2 part 2.

"Chicago PD!" Kevin shouted and broke down the door. Letting Anna take the lead, as she pushed past Jay who was trying to go in first.

Anna secured the rooms, with the guys behind her, she felt Jay's anger from a mile away. Then as they were about to accept the apartment was clear, the lights turned on.

Machines powered up and Anna looked around feeling exposed and unsafe. "What the hell" Anna cursed, her voice shaky. "Woah– everybody stop. Do not key your radios" Voight called out, Anna saw the cameras and looked panicked around.

Anna blamed Jay for this, his carelessness was affecting her judgment. The entire team's.

"The cameras are motion-sensored?" Kelley asked the team when they had gotten back outside. "Yeah, motion-sensored and hooked up to Daniel Mendoza's cloud. As soon as we moved in, cameras recorded and sent images digitally" Anna explained to him.

"That's smart. I mean, this apartment's gotta be his contingency plan. He set it up as a fail-safe. If his plan failed and the cartel came for him, the apartment would alert him" Antonio added.

Severide pulled Anna aside. "Hey, are you okay?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. "No, honestly, I'm not. But I have to be till this case is over" Anna said.

The team got confirmation that there were no explosives in the apartment and Jay spun out. "So, we're waiting for nothing. He's probably in the damn wind. We basically just told him to run" Jay snapped.

Anna looked down and Kelley looked at her. Sensing just how much Jay's anger was affecting her, he'd been updated by Hailey and Adam how Jay had treated her while grieving and he wasn't a fan of it.

"All right, so we get ahead of him. Get out a BOLO, investigative alert, emergency ping" Hank said. "All right. You got it, Anna?" Jay called out, nodding his head towards the car they drove in.

"Jay?" Kelley called out, making Anna look up at him. "Yo, I've been meaning to tell you, I'm–""--Don't. Don't. Kelley, honestly, man, you're like, the only guy that hasn't given me some half–ass sympathy speech. So you don't have to, all right?"

"No, I wasn't going to. I was gonna say I wanna be here when you find him. We pulled bodies out of that fire. I watched Stella almost lose her life. For a cartel hit? Anything I can do to help, anything, I'll help" Kelley said.

"All right, thanks man" Jay said and shook Kelley's hand. "Oh and Jay– make sure this one walks out of this alive, no matter how clouded your mind is" Kelley called out, squeezing Anna's shoulder. The exhaustion was clear on her face as well as the mental stroll it'd taken on her.

"Always" Jay said exhaling deeply, his eyes became vulnerable and Kelley nodded before side hugging Anna. "Be careful" Anna said and the firefighter nodded his head.

Anna went with Jay and the two drove in silence. Jay went in and got the two a coffee to keep going, he let Anna stay in the car, to relax for just a few minutes.

-

Back at the district the team tried to break it down to find Daniel. Jay ended up convincing Hank to let him and Voight talk to Carlos.

Anna watched as Jay put his gun on his desk, opposite of Anna's. "Man, Jay is on fire" Atwater muttered. Anna remained quiet and began to attempt another way in.

"Anna?" Hailey called out, but Anna typed her life away on that computer. If someone asked her if she was okay, she'd break. So, she ignored Hailey, which made the blonde back down immediately, she knew her well enough to know.