Stand In The Rain

Eight

Terrified wasn't actually too far off in describing JJ's mood at that exact moment, actually.

Not long after she got Hope and Vivian to fall asleep while she told them the story of Robin Hood again, Baylor crept into the room and forced her to follow him, but to also hand over her gun to him. Everything about that demand was a bad idea, but JJ was already on her third strike and as a result, even more determined to get herself, Hope, and Vivian out of the house alive.

"What are we in here for, Baylor?"

He had brought her into what looked like Madalyn's bedroom and forced her to sit on the bed. JJ did as she was told, silently wishing and hoping that he wasn't going to do to her what he had done so many times in the past five months.

"Have you figured it out yet?"

"Figured what out?" JJ asked blankly. "That you're the reason my team even came to New York? Yes. Why you're doing what you're doing? No."

"Then let me educate you, JJ, but there is one thing that I need to say first." Baylor sat on the bed, smirking when JJ immediately scurried to the other end. "If you'd just been good from the start and taken my money to get an abortion, then things would be fine, and you wouldn't even have a broken arm."

Baylor pointed to JJ's cast.

"That is your fault."

"What can I do to make this up to you, Baylor?"

JJ hated that she could feel her sinking back into the realm of fear in her life that Baylor occupied, but then she remembered that Emily and the others had to realize by now that she was missing, which meant that right at that moment, they had to be working around the clock to look for her and the girls.

"I'll think of something." he said as idea after idea began pouring into his head. "But you know, if our talk at your place had gone the way I wanted, then I would have been able to tell you something very important, JJ."

"What might that be?"

"Not only is my firm downsizing, they also let a bunch of people go, including me! Do you know how long I worked at that place?"

Baylor was a touch older than JJ's thirty years, so the number that Baylor was thinking of was very significant.

"Since you were eighteen, right?"

Baylor nodded. "And the severance check that they gave me was worth pennies! After all those years, and number like that was a slap in the face!"

"And then you came back home to start killing? Baylor, why?"

He flashed her a dangerous, crazed smile, akin to the one Madalyn had given her earlier.

"Because I wanted to, and once I started, it felt good. I really didn't anticipate the kids being in the car when I took it, but when Maddie called to say that your people were at her precinct and figuring out how to catch me, I just knew that I had to have you."

JJ said nothing because now she was thinking even more about how all she wanted was to be safe in Emily's arms.

Unfortunately, that was when an idea popped into Baylor's head, but it was more about how to mess with JJ. This was going to be fun.

"Of course, now that those people from the park are dead and my sister are dead, I have to go and round things out." Baylor continued. "I've decided to make things interesting by going after one of your own, but we both know who I mean."

"You leave Emily alone!" JJ cried. "She doesn't even know you!"

Baylor ignored JJ. "I wonder if she'll be as easy as you are... or if she'll bleed like a stuck pig. I'll have to see when I find her."