Ouch.

Thank goodness she was wearing a vest. A bullet shot at that close of range would have killed her on impact. As is, it would leave some nasty bruising. She took a quick cursory glance around the storage unit she had unwittingly entered with Jasper.

Jasper… Jasper had been shot too. She had shot him. It was an accident, but when you shoot somebody, it's not like you can just apologize and be done with it.

Belsamo crouched over her. Her eyes were closed, but she could feel him hovering over her, checking to make sure she was dead. She stopped breathing.

"Good." Said Belsamo. "Nicely done.

"Shut up!" There was another man there, an angry one by the sound of him. "Shut your mouth!"

Oh no. There was going to be a fight between two serial killers, and she and Jasper – a seventeen-year-old boy – were going to be caught in the middle. Forcing open her eyes, she tried to make eye contact with Jasper, but he was busy looking at her back. He must think that she's dead.

"You're not supposed to be here." Belsamo said with an almost autistic precision. "The rules clearly state that unless told to, we are not to be here at the same time—"

"Shut up!" The other man shouted, and Morales held back a flinch at the anger in his voice. She was a seasoned FBI agent, but the crazy going on in these guys' heads was enough to make her a little crazy.

"Just shut up about the rules! Do you have any idea what's happening here? Do you? You just had to be sloppy, didn't you? Had to leave your tributes to Ugly J everywhere. Idiot."

She took small, even breaths, and tried to think up a way out of here. There was no way Jasper was getting left behind, and he had a bullet in his leg. There were two armed maniacs, angry at each other, and they knew that both she and Jasper knew their names and faces.

Morales had recognized the voice the second the second man had started talking, but it had taken her until now to place it. The man was Duncan Hershey, the first man they'd talked to.

She heard Jazz's voice, and felt a surge of protectiveness for the boy.

"You're the other one. You're Hat. We had you." He sounded disappointed in himself, and upset that they hadn't recognized that he was the other killer, but it wasn't anywhere near Jasper's fault.

"You had nothing. A ghost, a vapor. Nothing more. Quite possibly much less. And by the way, I'm not Hat. Not anymore. That was just my name in the game. The game is over now. I won."

"The game isn't over." His voice was again emotionless. "It's still my move. I still –"

"This has nothing to do with you! Don't you get it? You were never in contention. You were just there to temper me. Anvil to my blade. Nothing more. A tool. Used. Used up. Discarded. Do you really not understand this?"

Oh no. Belsamo wasn't going to like that; no serial killer like getting called useless by their competition.

She heard Jazz moving across the floor; he was quiet, but not quiet enough. Morales started praying for the first time in years. She prayed first for Jasper, then for herself.

"What do you think you're doing?" Hershey had noticed. Her prayers had gone unanswered.

If she hadn't been playing dead, she would have sobbed.

"I'm going to check on her." Jasper's voice was amazingly confident. She begged for him to stop silently. "She's FBI." No. Don't tell him that. I'm dead Jasper. Just say I'm dead. "You don't want a fed's death on your rap sheet, man. Trust me. Even Billy was never stupid enough to-"

"Oh." Hershey paused for a minute. "She's still alive?"

Morales heard him move slightly.