Ready or Not

Poison and Wine

(I've decided Paul needs a better motive and more emotion than he does in the show so I'm going to flow with it. Sorry for the long wait, it took a while longer. Time in exchange for a longer chapter. I hope you enjoy. I recommend listening to "Daughter: All I Wanted" for this chapter. I feel the song's mood really conveys the feeling of this chapter. Language warning.)

Jo and Alex strolled through the parking lot to the car, Alex began hovering and glancing about nervously. Jo placed a hand on his elbow in comfort. She was still there and she wasn't going anywhere.

She had called a lawyer and the next day they were going to meet and hopefully, they would take it up. The only thing Jo needed was someone the cut the cord tying her and Paul together. She needed to escape his wrath once and for all.

The car lights flashed and beeped before they hopped into the car. Alex in the driver's seat noticed Jo was shaking in the passengers. He placed a hand on her thigh.

"It's going to be okay. You'll be free soon." She glanced up at him with tears in her eyes.

"I haven't felt this way before. In control over him. It feels wrong. Everything he tried to drill into my head is coming up again." She pauses and her breathing grew heavy. "I don't want to know what he'll do to me if he gets ahold of me. He almost killed me over breakfast Alex."

Alex turned towards her and placed his palm gently on the side of her face.

"I won't let him."

Jo collapsed in a puddle of tears leaning into his strong arms. Her breathing was sporadic and every once in a while a sharp, high pitched gasp would ring out through the car. She was leaning over the console, her head on his chest. The pain was stabbing and her body was racked with sobs. She knew deep in her heart that if Paul wanted to hurt her there was nothing Alex could do about it.

"You... can't..." she choked out between gasps. "He... will... always... find... a... way." Her shoulders heaved and her fingers dug into the fabric of his sweatshirt as she tried to fend off the tears.

"Breathe Jo... Breathe. We will fight this together." He lifted her head up to look at him and wiped the tears from under her eyes with his thumbs. Those hazelnut eyes were filled with a determination that she hadn't seen before then. Jo took in a long shaky breath and pulled back, leaning into the car seat and buckling her seatbelt.

"Okay. I'm okay. Let's go home, I want to go home." Alex nodded and started the car in response. She rolled down the window and let the wind wipe away her tears as they maneuvered their way out of the parking lot, which had been shadowed by the night.

Jo let her eyes skim over the street lights and the neon signs in the storefront windows as they passed. Alex shot Jo worried glances as he drove. Turning back to the road he reached the small intersection near the bar, Alex began to drive into the intersection at the prompting of the green light. The rev of an unknown engine screeched from the other road but Alex was too far into the road to back up fast enough

Suddenly the hood of the black Mercedes crumpled against the side of Jo's door, the glass window shattering in a blur all over her face. The momentum spun the car out of control, The Mercedes going most of the way with them. It was a blurry mess of sounds and lights before the entire street fell silent. Jo slumped over, bits of metal tearing apart her skin. Her face had been busted up and was beginning to swell from the force of the airbag. Alex grunted and sat up, his face having collided with the steering wheel, the airbag having failed him. A massive bruise was forming on his forehead and his nose was broken, his eyes already darkening.

"Jo?" He turned to her and shook her shoulder. She grunted but her right arm was probably broken and she couldn't move it. Suddenly a drunken man looked through the shattered window, he was tipsy and stumbling back Alex couldn't clearly make out his face.