Chapter Text
Persephone Carter bumps gently into her identical twin with a smirk as they walk out of another dress shop. “So, have you seen anything you like yet?” She asks teasingly.
Penelope gives her an unimpressed side-glance as she tries to hide the smile on her own face. “Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t… You’ll have to keep guessing, Seph.” It was Tuesday afternoon, and the twins had gone straight from school to the mall to try and find outfits for their Sweet Sixteenth.
“Mean twin,” Seph pokes her tongue out and then feels a hand wrap around her arm and pull her to a sudden stop. Seph frowns and looks at the strange man holding her as he smiles. “Who are…” She starts, her eyes glancing at the back of her twin now a few meters ahead before he cuts her question off.
“Don’t make a scene. I want you to call your sister over here, now.” The man says, shifting his other hand out from inside his coat. “This is the detonator to a bomb that is somewhere in this shopping center.”
Seph feels her stomach twist and looks from the device in his hand towards her sister, now looking at the window of a book store. “What if you just keep me?”
“Nope, job is for both of you. Call your sister back, now.” The man’s leery, fake smile turns into a threatening scowl, his voice a low growl.
“How do I even know that is real?” Seph tries to hide the shake in her voice as her heart pounds in her chest.
“Do you want to be selfish enough to test it and risk killing everyone in this mall?” His grip tightens painfully on her arm and she breathes in sharply.
She clenches her teeth and looks back to her sister. “Penny, wait, come back…” Her voice is shaking obviously now and she knows her sister will be able to sense something is wrong.
Part of her hopes Penny will see her fear and run to get help; they don’t know who this man is, or how serious his bomb threat is, but it’s taking all of Seph not to cry as she calls her sister back and into the danger.
Penny has barely realised Seph has stopped, but when she hears Seph call out her name, the tremor in her twin’s voice is unmissable.
She looks back with a frown and tilts her head as she takes in the scene surrounding Seph.
She doesn’t know the man holding her sister’s arm, and on top of the shake in her twin’s voice, there’s an unusual fear in Seph’s eyes.
Penny knows it means that she shouldn’t go to them, but she can’t leave her sister when her face is wearing such a terrified look.
She swallows a lump, ignoring the racing of her heart and walks to the stranger and Seph; as she gets closer, she sees the tight grip he has on Seph’s arm and the thing in his other hand.
“Good. Now, if you both do everything I say, nobody needs to get hurt.” The man raises his eyebrows and pulls Seph closer to him, she breathes in sharply and Penny can see anger beginning to mix with the fear in her sister’s face.
Penny’s stomach drops and she looks from Seph’s face to the man’s.
Their father has always told them to be careful; he’s made sure they know how to protect themselves, Seph has a reason for not taking any defensive action when the man grabbed her, but what was it?
“Why?” Penny asks.
“You want to tell your sister the problem as we walk?” The man starts to force Seph to walk in front of him and hesitantly, Penny follows.
“He says he has a bomb in the center somewhere, he’ll detonate it if we don’t do what he says…” Seph explains between her clenched teeth.
Penny takes a sharp inhale and nods; that’s the reason Seph hasn’t made a move to defend herself. “Alright, but loosen your grip, we’re coming with you, you don’t need to hurt her…” Penny tries.
The man chuckles and shakes his head. “You don’t give orders here, you obey them, and if either of you don’t, I’ll hurt the other one. Got it?” He digs his fingers into Seph’s bare arm, she bites back a cry of pain and tries to pull away. “I’m serious…” He pulls her face closer to his and Seph stops trying to pull away.
“Who are you?” Seph asks shakily as they start moving again.
“Doesn’t matter, all that matters are the lengths I’ll go to if you keep giving me trouble.”
There is a violent chill in his voice that neither of the twins miss.
Penny moves closer to her sister, wrapping her fingers around Seph’s free hand and they walk together, hand in hand, while the stranger grips Seph’s opposite arm.
Penny starts looking around at people they pass, trying to silently beg for help. People barely notice them at all, and she feels her heart sink.
Seph tries to ignore the ache of the man’s grip and is trying to figure out how she can knock the detonator from his other hand and give Penny the chance to grab it, but he has the device tucked back into his jacket now.
He hadn't been pushing anything on it when he had shown her, so it wasn’t one of the pressure type detonators that were in the action movies and TV serials she sometimes watches with their dad.
That at least gives them some good news.
Jay hates malls.
But he has less than twenty-four hours left to find the right present for his brother's birthday.
Why the hell is Will so hard to shop for?
He walks out of yet another store and on to the next. It's a dress shop and he bypasses it, knowing he won't find anything for his brother there.
But as he's about to turn into another hobby store, he makes eye contact with a teenage girl.
She's walking with an almost identical looking girl, likely her sister, and an older man.
But what catches his attention is the fear in her eyes.
Her eyes had been darting around the mall before landing on his and as she stares at him, a plea for help in her eyes, he glances over at the man, noting the dark anger in his face as he holds the other girl’s arm close to his body.
Moving away from the hobby store, he starts to tail the trio.
Before he does anything, he needs to know why these girls are walking with a man that at least one of them is so clearly afraid of.
Then he notices the other girl has her gaze fixed on the hand that the man has shoved into his jacket.
A weapon maybe?
The hand is the source of their fear; whatever is concealed in it is the explanation.
With that in mind, Jay springs into action, pushing past the girls to tackle the man with his hand closing around the man's right hand, jerking it from his jacket.
Shit.
Ignoring the rest of the man and the sounds around him, he focuses his attention on the detonator, hearing a crack as he forces the man's thumb away from the button.
As the small plastic device skitters across the floor, the man punches him in the face, and Jay dives back into the fight.
His opponent clearly has some training, and for a moment, Jay is losing.
And then he manages to deliver a hard elbow to the man's head, stunning him and giving him the chance to wrestle him to his stomach.
He gets the cuffs on and then sets his knee in the man's back to keep him down. "Are you two alright?" He asks the girls as he reaches for his phone.
They both nod silently with wide eyes, clearly shaken, and he calls dispatch.
"Detective Jay Halstead, badge number 51163. Valley Hills Mall. I need the bomb squad out here immediately."
Persephone gasps in surprise as she feels another body come between her and the bomber. The three of them tumble to the ground, Seph’s body jerked by the bomber’s hold on her arm, and her hand is ripped from Penny’s.
With her heart racing, Seph crawls backwards to get away from the two men as they fight and watches as the newcomer attacks the bomber.
Penny gasps as she watches the stranger tackle their threat to the ground. She bites back a scream as Seph goes down with them and starts to move away from the fray.
The little black remote device skitters across the floor, and Penny meets Seph’s eyes before she hurries after it.
She holds it tightly, moving back to Seph and helping her up from the floor.
“Are you OK?”
“Did you get it?”
They ask each other at the same time, Seph looking at the device in Penny’s hand and smiling with a small nod before she takes Penny’s spare hand and gives it a small squeeze.
Penny can feel Seph trembling slightly and lets her lips part as the newcomer wins the fight and pulls out some handcuffs.
“He’s a cop…” Seph breathes shakily, looking at Penny, feeling relief wash over her as he addresses them and calls for help. She looks at Penny for a few moments and then wraps her arms around her. “Are you OK? I’m so sorry I had to call you back… I didn’t want to, but…” She pulls out of the hug and looks her sister up and down, but of course, physically, anyway, Penelope is fine, except for the trauma from the incident.
Penny meets Seph’s worried smile and then looks to the bomber and their hero, swallowing a lump. She bites her lip and holds out her hand with the detonator towards him. “Thank you, he was holding this and threatening to set off a bomb in the center…”