Save the Date! (15 page)

Harvey Steven threw the smile currently on his face in Gemma's direction. It was rather odd; he seemed to be smiling for no apparent reason, but Gemma forced a smile back, though hers was obviously more strained than his was. When Harvey noticed this, his lips curled up even more and he chuckled. The sound was awkward, almost forced, and Gemma felt a slither of dread slide down her body, though she couldn't explain why. Harvey was someone
Dixon trusted on a day-to-day basis with his entire life; there was no reason for her to feel uncomfortable around him, was there?

"You know," he began, breaking Gemma out of her thoughts. "My partner…" He let his voice trail off for a moment before looking back at Gemma from the corner of his eye. "He's…" He smiled, something Gemma wasn't aware of amusing him. "He seems, at least to, to have grown really fond of you."

Gemma couldn't stop the blush from seeping onto her face if she tried. "Oh," she said, her voice slightly hitched. If anyone knew Dixon, it was Harvey, but she had to wonder if what Harvey was saying was something she should be hearing. Maybe she was looking too much into it; Gemma was notorious for doing that. Or maybe what Harvey meant was that Dixon was growing fond of her in general. He could mean that, right? Of course he could. Dixon was growing fonder of her, like a friend. Then why did her stomach feel so disappointed at the sound of that? "Well, I've grown rather fond of him too."

"You know," Harvey said
, his eyes now completely focused on the road ahead of him. He cocked his head to the side. "If you
really
cared about Dixon, you wouldn't let him marry you. I mean, Dixon has a life outside of his work and it's not fair that he has to sacrifice that just for some job, don't you agree?"

"Well, I…" Gemma said, feeling that same sense of dread once again. Where was Harvey going with this? And it wasn't like Gemma hadn't tried to dissuade
Dixon from marrying her anyways, but he was insistent in seeing this whole thing through. "I can't really say…"

"Of course you can't," Harvey all but spat, his fingers clenching the steering wheel tightly as his foot pressed down on the accelerator. "You're an only child, Daddy's princess, right?
A spoiled brat who can't see anything past her own life." He shook his head, almost in disgust.

It was then that Gemma realized that they had passed the dress shop. They were too far down Main Street, and it wasn't like Harvey was going to turn the car around any time soon. Her body immediately went into survival mode; at least with her father being so protective, he had instilled in Gemma some tactics that might help save her one day. And she was glad she had actually paid attention too.

"Um, I think we passed
David's Bridal
," Gemma said, and immediately chastised herself for her voice coming out so soft and unsure.

"I know."

That was all he said. When Gemma turned to look at him, she saw the corners of his lips twitch up, into a smirk, and her heart stopped.

Suddenly, it all became clear. Harvey Stevens was the person after her. No wonder there was a shootout at the reception dinner – Harvey had been invited. No one would see a stranger go in and out because it was Harvey who had been shooting. Now that that had fallen into place, Gemma wanted to know why. Why was he after Gemma? Gemma didn't even know Harvey before this whole thing began. Why was he trying to harm her anyways?

"You know," he said, arching a brow as he threw a glance at her. "I really, really wish that out of all the people Brent could have assigned to watch over you, I wish it wasn't Dixon. I like Dixon. He and I, we made a good team. I nearly had to kill him in that shootout a few days ago. He was getting too close. But then again, Dixon was always the smart one. He's a brilliant agent. So I guess it really wasn't all that surprising when Brent assigned him as your bodyguard. It's just too bad…"

"
What
is too bad?" Gemma snapped, though she hadn't originally intended too. Suddenly, her face crimsoned once more at her outburst, and she tried to stay focused. Keep him talking – that's what her father always told her.

"Well, like I said," Harvey said in a conversational tone. "
Dixon's smart. He's probably figured out by now that I don't have you at that dress shop which would most likely mean that I am the person they've been looking for. Which I am." He smirked. "It's too bad that he had to be so deeply involved because despite where my allegiances lay, I respected the man. Sure, I knew better not to ask him to join my team, but I would never have gone after Dixon. Not by choice. But because he's so deeply involved, I might have to harm him. That's what's too bad."

"Why me?"
Gemma asked, turning her head so she could look at Harvey's profile. "Why are you doing this to me?
What
are you going to do to me?"

"As much as you would like to think it," Harvey said flatly, "this has absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with power."

Gemma furrowed her brow, trying to get her mind to understand what his mouth was saying but coming up with absolutely nothing. "I don't understand," she murmured, trying to keep her voice calm and stable. "How does this, kidnapping me, have anything to do with power? Is it money you want?"

This seemed to amuse Harvey to no end; he threw his head back and laughed as he slowed the car down at a red light. Gemma looked around. She wasn't familiar at all where she was and that fact caused her heart to beat incessantly.

"You stupid little fool," Harvey said, turning to look at Gemma fully with his dark, green eyes. "While I grant you, if one has money, one has power
sometimes
. But if one – if
I
– have knowledge? Knowledge is power, young lady. Let this be a lesson to you. Your father is head of an intelligence department in the CIA. The CIA is basically a club full of secrets, so imagine being in charge of keeping all those secrets. Sure, I know my share of them, but not so much as your father does. People would
pay
me for my secrets. Not only would I be powerful, but I would be wealthy, I would be free." He pressed his foot down on the accelerator. "That's why I need you, Gemma Harrison. You are somehow worth more than those secrets to Brent. Or, at least, that's what I'm hoping."

"My f
ather is head of the department," Gemma said through gritted teeth. "He's not going to trade highly classified secrets in exchange for me. That would be a threat to national security."

Despite the fact that they were driving, Harvey cocked his head to the side in order to catch eyes with Gemma. "You had better hope he does, girlie," he said, his tone lacking the amusement it once had.
"Because if he doesn't, you're dead. And I can tell you, I'm a man of my word."

---

Dixon couldn't stop pacing up and down his room, and when he got to the point of feeling sick of that, he started to pace up and down the living room. Every other moment, he was checking his cell phone, hoping she would call, hoping
someone
would call and say how this was all a big misunderstanding. But he knew that nothing like that was going to happen. Nothing like that was going to happen because he knew, deep down, that Gemma Harrison was in grave danger at the hands of his partner. If he wasn't so worried about Gemma, he would be damning himself for not realizing that it had been Harvey all along. His partner.

Dixon
glanced down at his phone and decided to call Brent once again, hoping for any sort of updates. "Sir?" he asked when Brent answered. Dixon could already tell that Brent was stressed, and he wasn't sure if his call would add to it, but at that moment, Dixon didn't care. He needed some sort of word. "Anything?"

"Not yet,
Black," Brent said, and Dixon could hear Brent shuffling papers on the other end of the line. "I have no idea where they are. He's not using his truck or else I'd be able to track him." Brent let his voice trail off, and Dixon could detect that his boss was trying to keep his composure, but that he was worried – as worried as Dixon was.

When
Dixon got off the phone, he tried calling Harvey's phone. Maybe Harvey would answer, and they could talk about everything. At least he'd be able to find out if Gemma was harmed. But nobody answered. It went straight to his voice mail.

Dixon
didn't know that upon hearing the phone ring, Harvey threw it out the window.

The first thing Gemma did was unbuckle her seatbelt and try and throw open the door. However, Harvey had locked it, expecting a stunt like that, and then had enabled the master lock so she couldn't unlock the car herself. Her attempt at escape caused him to laugh, and as he turned left, he made the turn sharper than it had to be, causing Gemma's body to slam into the passenger side door due to the fact that she didn't have her seatbelt on anymore. The wind was literally knocked out of her, and she grunted upon impact, her movement disabled for the moment.

A searing hot pain began to erupt into the right side around her ribcage, but for some reason, her determination numbed it out. She had to get out of this car as quickly as possible, but given the fact that she couldn't escape through the door, she would have to think of another way.
But what? As she thought about it, she slipped her seatbelt back on to guarantee that if she was going to do anything reckless, she would be protected to the best of the car's abilities.

"I have to give it to you," Harvey was saying, his eyes crinkling as he laughed at what had just transpired. "You're a wild little thing, aren't you? I would have never expected it."

Gemma ignored his attempt at trying to bait her into some kind of fight. Instead, her mind was racing, trying to figure out something, anything. Her thoughts started to shuffle ideas into three categories of plans – yes, she could do that; no, not possible; maybe, given the circumstances. Kicking out the window probably wasn't possible, so she filed that under no. Shouting for help
might
work, but if Harvey had the doors locked, it wasn't likely that the windows would be able to roll down. Who knew though, so she placed that one under maybe.

But she had to get out of there. She needed to escape. How, exactly, was she supposed to do that? Somehow, Gemma needed to get Harvey to actually stop the car. It wasn't likely he would be doing this of his own free will; he seemed intent to ensure that his plan at attaining knowledge and therefore attaining power
would go off without a hitch, which meant asking him, trying to plead with him, probably wasn't going to work. Okay, how else could she get him to stop the car?

Well, if the car crashed, he might be too distracted, even unconscious, to stop her. And if the car did crash, the car might disengage that lock ability, and she might be able to get herself out of there. The only downside to such a problem was the fact that it might cause her harm.
She
might be the one unconscious, not Harvey. But… But she knew that Harvey wouldn't kill her until he got to negotiating with her father, and as far as she knew, they hadn't talked because no one knew it was Harvey until now.

So was it worth it? Was risking Gemma's life, risking injury, was it worth to set this plan in action? To say Gemma wasn't afraid of the consequences would be silly. However, she knew that if she didn't at least try to get out of there, she would most likely be dead either way only because her father couldn't release such high class confidential secrets. He couldn't. And Gemma didn't want him to be put in such a position. So she had to do this herself. The girl that everyone mistook as silly, bubbly,
spoiled – she was going to take the reins and save herself because as far as she saw it, she was the only person who could.

Gemma breathed in deeply; the first thing she needed to do was calm her nerves so she would have control over her emotions. It took her a moment, but her breathing was steady and she felt an oddly serene feeling take over her senses. Whatever she was planning on doing, it was the right thing. That much she knew. Then, without warning, she reached forward and grabbed the steering wheel with the hope of getting him off the road. She wasn't worried about hitting any pedestrians or other cars; this road seemed to be deserted as far as she could tell.

"You little bitch!" Harvey exclaimed when he realized what she was doing. He tried to elbow her while maintaining his grip on the wheel, but she bent extended her leg and started kicking. Seven years of soccer paid off too, because before either of them knew it, the car was had veered off course and crashed into a telephone pole.

For a long moment, Gemma's world was black. She wasn't sure what happened exactly, but she knew she wasn't hurt – at least she couldn't
feel
hurt. It took another minute before Gemma opened her eyes. She suddenly realized her head was pounding, but she pushed that aside for the time being and moved her hands, her feet, her legs, her arms. Everything seemed to be working, and besides some scratches and bruising, she wasn't all that injured.

The next thing Gemma did was glance over at Harvey. There was a deep gash in his head and he looked unconscious. It didn't take her long to unbuckle her seatbelt, and after a few attempts, managed to pull it free. Then, she tried to open the car door, but found that she was stuck. Panic set in and she leaned down and started kicking at the windows while glancing continuously over at Harvey to make sure his condition didn't change. It took a while, but she managed to kick out the glass thanks to the damage that had already been inflicted on it due to the crash.

Without any hesitation, she crawled out of the car and started running down the street, screaming, crying, anything to get someone's attention. She managed to find someone walking out of a shop on a cell phone.

"Excuse me!" she exclaimed. What a sight she must have appeared to be; her hair was in complete disarray, her clothes were torn, blood was seeping from
her , open wounds, staining her jeans, a look of utter fright on her face. "Excuse me! I need to borrow your cell phone! Please! It's an emergency!"

---

Dixon had already been on the road when his cell phone rang. He had decided that while Brent and the agents were at Headquarters trying to figure out things from there, he was going to at least attempt a search for her. He couldn't stay at the house, pacing back and forth, causing a rut to dent the carpet from his treading. And his mind was too far gone to rationalize himself out of it. He needed to do something – anything.

The ring of his phone was like angels singing from heaven to him. He needed some kind of information. Maybe Brent found out where Harvey was heading, what he was up
to.

"Hello?" he asked, making a left so he had turned on Main Street.

"Dixon?" a familiar albeit very panicked voice called. Dixon felt his heart pound with emotion at the sound of her voice. "It's Gemma."

"Oh my God, Gemma, are you all right?" he asked her, and though he couldn't understand it, he was breathless. "Where are you? Where's Harvey?"

"Dixon, I'm on Main and Sage Street," Gemma said, her voice fast due to how scared she sounded. "I managed to get Harvey to crash the van. As far as I know, he's unconscious, but Dixon –" Before she could continue, she let out a screech of pain and suddenly, the line went dead.

It took
Dixon only two minutes to reach Main Street and Sage Street, and he kept his sharp blue eyes out for Gemma and Harvey. Within moments he caught sight of them, and he immediately stopped the car and threw himself out of it before reaching into his holster and pulling out his .45 caliber gun. What he saw stopped Dixon's heart, but he had to focus; Harvey was holding Gemma against him, his gun aimed directly at Gemma's neck.

"Harvey!" he called, trying to get a clear shot of his partner. "Let her go!"

For whatever reason, Harvey threw his head back and laughed, keeping his gun pointed at the column of Gemma's throat. "Oh Dixon," he said. "You are so, so stupid. Everyone knows it's the first rule of any sort of law enforcement; don't fall in love. Don't fall in love. And what do you do, Dixon, you fall in love with this, this,
brat
!"

"Harvey, I don't want to shoot you, but I will,"
Dixon said, his voice strained. "Now let her go."

"You really would, wouldn't you?" Harvey asked, perturbed by this fact. "You'd choose her over me, wouldn't you?"

"Harvey?" Dixon said sharply. "
Please
."

Gemma realized that
Dixon couldn't shoot Harvey from the angle he was holding her against him. She needed to do something again in order give Dixon what he needed. Pressing her lips together, Gemma reached out and elbowed Harvey in the stomach, catching him off-guard and causing him to release her. The only thing she saw was Dixon, and as she dashed over to him, she heard nothing but a lone gunshot ring through the silence.