Change of course

"So where are we going tiger?"

Quinn grinned at her.

"There is a special place here I like to go. It has an amazing view. I talked Vincent into adding it to the range of the transponder."

He held up his wrist, showing her the device, grinning.

"You'll just have to trust me until we get there. It'll take us a bit of time."

He took her hand, leading her toward the woods.

"I trust you..." Her words trailed off as she looked down at her hand that he held and smiled bigger, following him where he led them. The night sounds always intrigued her, from the crickets to the owls. Snapping twigs beneath some of the larger animals of the woods, she could hear everything for miles and smell them too. "I'm surprised Vincent let you go out with me....alone...in the woods....considering the last time..." She looked down and let her words trail off as she thought about a few nights ago, still glowing from their shower fun.

"I'm surprised Vincent let you go out with me....alone...in the woods....considering the last time..."

Quinn chuckled...

"I didn't actually give him much of a choice."

As they walked through the woods, he kept his senses out. The guards should be keeping things clear but something felt off. The sounds...they were not the same as normal. He figured it was because Jessica was with him. As they moved through the path, they came to the clearing overlooking the lake. He smiled and laid out the blanket away from the edge.

"Here we are. The view is always amazing here."

She looked around and saw the moonlight reflecting on the surface of the lake, small ripples on the waters. It was almost silent out here, different smells...something felt off, but she pushed it to the back of her mind and turned to look at him.

"It's...It's beautiful."

Walking up to him she placed her hands on his chest and looked up into his eyes.

"So what brings us here?"

"So what brings us here?"


"I have never brought anyone here. This has always been my private place, but I wanted to share it with you."

He looked at her and smiled. He pulled her close, lowering her to the blanket.

"I wanted to bring you here because here we have total privacy. You can ask me about anything here."

Looking away from him, she thought for a moment. What did she want to ask him? What more did she need to know? Her back on the blanket as he sat next to her looking down at her thinking. She brought her gaze back up to his.

"How about we make this easier....and you just tell me everything I don't know."

"How about we make this easier....and you just tell me everything I don't know."


"Ok...let's start with the fact that I do not know how much you heard of the conversation with Grace yesterday. We stay in loose touch because I look after her and her brother. It is a debt I have to pay. They saved my life, literally. Her brother found me after Demona and Russell left me for dead. Hakim carried me twenty miles to his sister's lab. I do not know how she figured out what to do, but her treatment saved my life. The side effects were rather vicious...but over time I made it past those as well."

"Treatment, what kind of treatment? And the side effects? What were they?" She quizzed now curious as to what exactly Grace did to him to help, or hurt him. It seemed like it was a double sided coin, helped...but in the process affected him.

"Treatment, what kind of treatment? And the side effects? What were they?"

"The treatment consisted of a kind of body soak in a special mixture...the soaks helped me heal in ways I could not have done my own. As for the side effects, they were brought on due to the contents of those soaks. The lab she worked for helped with medicine to counter the side effects and eventually I was able to beat it...I thought."

"What was in the mixture you had to soak in? You still didn't say what the side effects were." She sat up at that and turned to look at him, now really curious why he hadn't said what side affects had troubled him, which made her wonder what the mixture consisted of and why he was so vague about it.

"What was in the mixture you had to soak in? You still didn't say what the side effects were."

He sighed and continued...

"Unfortunately, the answer to one question explains the other. There were several different enzymes added to the base substance. I do not understand the whole mixture. I've never had the head for chemistry. The base of the elixir had to, of course, be drawn from quite a few subjects to prevent ...um... unpleasantness."

He drew a slow breath before continuing...

"The base of the mixture was a blend of several types of..."

Quinned face twisted in pain as his arm snapped around, reaching for his lower back...

Jessica listened as he explained the basis of the elixir, or tried to. She looked away from him to bring her knees up as he continued to speak.

"The base of the mixture was a blend of several types of..."

Seeing his face contort to that of pain, she moved quickly to his side and looked down to see what he was reaching for. It was a dart that was now empty of contents.

"Quinn? What---what happened? What's--"

Her words were short lived by her distraction to his pain, as she felt the stinging sensation on her back. Quickly standing with her fangs down, braced for an attack she felt weak and her vision blurred. Shaking her head to regain her grounding, she felt her knees weaken and then the pain...an all too familiar pain of silver coursing through her veins. The stinging shards in her back, silver tipped darts with liquid silver. Dropping to her knees, she heard the sounds of approaching bodies. Her sense of smell alerted her to weres and vampires. Their voices muffled as the world around her came in and out.

"You get the tiger, I'll get the little red head bitch. Hurry we ain't got much time."

"What---Quinn...I--" She reached for him and felt another pain, grabbing at her face, her hands were seared by the silver chain mail over her face. The skin smoking as it burned through her flesh.

Quinn saw the group coming up through the rolling mist in the woods. He growled as he shook his head, trying to clear it. He looked around and let the scents tell him what he faced. Then he saw something he thought was a hallucination at first...but a familiar voice came from the mist.


"Well now...how convenient. Both out targets in one place. Today is truly a day of days..."


Quinn knew that voice. It was impossible. He was killed years ago. It had to be whatever was in that dart...he looked to Jessica...seeing her in pain, he tried to shift, finding he could not. There was something wrong....he could not focus. His vision was blurring...

She tried to focus on Quinn and not the pain, unsuccessfully. They bound her arms, hands, legs and ankles with silver causing her to scream and thrash about, only making it worse. Red tears streaked her face as she tried to see who was doing this. They all wore masks and looked like guards of some sort. Were they working with the guard who tried to kill her a week ago?

"QUINN!!"

She yelled for him, but saw him struggle to stand and fall back down. Words from a man who spoke as he looked at Quinn gave her a cold chill down her spine.

"Please! Let us go, please, I'll do anything."

She felt a kick to her gut and recoiled, spitting out blood from the pain her body was enduring.

"Please! Let us go, please, I'll do anything."

Quinn heard Jessica's pleading and growled, trying to rise. When that failed he tried to shift again...still nothing.

"You damn fools! Get the suppression collar on him before that toxin wears off. If he shifts, we are all screwed. You've seen the vids."

Quinn turned his head toward the attackers, watching as one pulled out some sort of restraint device. Ten men approached him, using clamps on poles to pin him down while another man fastened the collar of the restraint around his neck. He felt two needles pinch into his skin and something began to flow into his system. He felt groggy and could not get his eyes to focus. His last sight was Jessica being bound then nothing but darkness...

She just wanted the pain to stop, it felt like her whole body was now on fire and the slightest movement caused the highest pain. It made her stop struggling but the men thought it funny to kick her while she was down, literally. Crying out with each kick, she could hear them talking about Quinn shifting and heard a click of metal against metal. The smell of Quinn's blood...what was happening?

A needle went into her neck and her vision blurred and blacked out, causing her to panic then....

nothing.