Epilogue Chapter Four

I landed in Massachusetts at seven in the morning Eastern time (four am my time), and called Grant as soon as I could. I got his answering machine again, so I left another message.

"I landed in Massachusetts. I'm coming to you. Be smart. Pick up your phone next time I call, and call me back for God's sake."

It took me another three hours to drive to Grant's family cabin. I'd found the earliest flight into the state, but it was still a ways away from where I needed to go. Finally, I found the dirt road that led to the Ward family home. I hid my car in a bush and started carefully walking up the path, scanning the trees on either side. A little ways along, a car was in a bush on the side of the road. One of the back windows was smashed, and the driver side door was thrown open.

"Dammit Grant," I muttered as I stopped and walked cautiously to check the car. Any people were long gone. Hopefully Grant was smart enough not to let the driver see him, but he was so mad I couldn't be sure.

If the driver had run out of here and called the cops, my timeframe just got cut in half. I couldn't let the police catch us.

I started up the dirt road again, now jogging, scanning the surrounding woods for any sign of Grant or his brother. Hopefully, Grant just wanted to scare Christian into leaving SHIELD alone, and everything would be fine when I found them both.

Unfortunately, I was getting more and more worried that my hope was just wishful thinking.

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After a few more minutes of searching, I heard voices coming from the woods just a little ways off the path. I tiptoed, trying to make as little noise as possible, and saw Grant standing in front of his brother, who was tied up sitting at the base of a tree.

I scanned the area first to make sure we wouldn't have any surprises, but the three of us were pretty much alone.

I was gonna go off.

"GRANT DOUGLAS WARD!" I yelled, storming over to him and completely ignoring Christian. His head snapped up and his mouth dropped open when he saw me.

"Samantha?"

"Obviously! What the hell do you think you're doing? I called you three times and you didn't pick up or call back once? Seriously? And you flew all the way to Massachusetts because your brother was talking crap about SHIELD? WHO CARES? This is insane!"

"Samantha, I didn't want-"

"Our lives to be messed up, I know, I know! But we're both in Massachusetts and not San Diego, so you've already made it a little crazy.

"Why the hell didn't you talk to me?" I asked, shaking my head. "If you'd stayed calm and told me about the problem, we could've figured out a plan together instead of this crazy mess. I mean, seriously Grant! Do you know how terrified I was when I came home and you were just... missing? Without a trace? With how many enemies we made at SHIELD? I almost had a heart attack!"

Grant was looking appropriately guilty, and I think he was about to apologize, but then Christian spoke up.

"So you're the girl that left Grant that phone message? Nice to see someone keeping him in check. You know, if you ever get tired of babysitting him and want a more mature Ward brother..."

Grant growled and started towards Christian, but I stopped him. I was seeing red, and I wanted to handle this asshole myself.

"What the hell did you just say?" I asked.

"I said-"

"No, absolutely do not repeat yourself you piece of human garbage. I know who you are, I know what you did to Grant. I know about the well. You're a piece of shit and I hope you rot in hell. I came here to stop Grant from killing you, but honestly, you're lucky I don't kill you myself as long as we're all here."

I turned back to Grant who had a grin plastered across his face.

"We are going to have a long conversation about the fact that you got my messages, shared them with your slimy brother, and didn't call me back."

The smile dropped off his face.

"I wanted to make sure he believed I'd really be willing to kill him," he mumbled. I ignored him.

I turned back to Christian and walked closer to him, glaring down at him tied to the tree.

"I don't know what to do with you right now," I said. Christian actually gulped, which made me happy.

"Let me go?" he asked weakly, his voice cracking a little.

"Hell no. At least not right now." I crouched down next to him, and he looked at the ground. "Look, I'd love nothing more than to kick your ass for everything you did to Grant. I'm not going to, but just keep that in mind.

"Grant and I both found you here, at your family's house, within a few hours of each other, and nobody on your staff knows about any leak. If we can find you here that easily, we can find you anywhere, no matter where you go or how hard you try to hide. Especially if you want to continue being a US Senator.

"So, here's what I'm thinking. You swear to leave SHIELD alone. Get off their backs, and vote against anyone who tries to take them down. You leave us and SHIELD alone, we'll leave you alone."

"And if I do that... you'll let me go?"

"Without a scratch."

"Deal."

"Awesome." I stood up and walked to Grant. "Let's go home."

He nodded. "That's a good idea."

I linked arms with him, and we started back towards the dirt path.

"Wait!" called Christian. "You can't just leave me here!"

"Don't worry, we'll send an aid or somebody in to get you," I called back.

Christian was too scared to complain.

After walking a ways in silence with Grant, I spoke up.

"I can't believe you seriously flew all the way to Massachusetts over this crap."

"I know. I'm sorry Slater. He was threatening SHIELD, and we said we'd go back if they needed us. I didn't want them to need us."

"I don't want them to need us either, but this is so not the way to handle it. We work better as a team."

"I know." Grant was hanging his head a little, and I could tell he felt extremely guilty. His brother was a hot button for him, and rightly so. I sighed.

"Just please promise me that you'll never do anything like this again."

"I promise."

"Okay then. We're good. But seriously, if you ever get three messages from me again and still don't respond, I'll kill you."

Grant grinned. "Noted. Sorry about that."

"You're forgiven. Now, you didn't let Christian's driver see you, did you?"

"Of course not."

"Alright, just checking. You went a little crazy. So what's our cover if we run into people?"

"What people?"

"The driver who wasn't in the car and anyone he might have called. Scared hikers? Heard voices yelling, got scared, ran out of the woods to get help?"

"Sounds good."

"Great, then get ready. It looks like we have company."

There was a small crowd formed at the end of the driveway. It didn't look like there were any police cars or news vans, but a crowd of aids had noticed us and started pointing, along with a woman standing off to one side.

"Who are you?" asked one of the aids, rushing up to us.

"Kayla and Derek," I breathed, trying to look shaken. "We were just hiking in the woods. We heard people, it sounded like they were yelling about something. We got scared so we ran."

"Did you see anything?" he asked nervously.

"Nothing," answered Grant, shaking his head vigorously.

"Good, good. Less PR. Where did you hear the voices?"

I gave the guy directions, then answered a few more questions before the team of aids hustled off into the woods. The woman stayed by her car.

"Well, that worked," I muttered to Grant. "You ready to go?"

"Just one more thing." He walked over to the woman by her car. What was he doing? "Hi, you don't know me, but I thought you should know: Christian is having an affair. He was going to meet her here. I'm sorry you had to find out like this, but you needed to know."

The woman was in shock and honestly, so was I. Grant walked back to me and took my hand, heading away from the woman, the driveway, and everything else.

I raised my eyebrows at him, silently asking for an explanation.

"Just one of the things Christian confessed in terror," he said. "Thought she needed to know."

"Yeah. Yeah, good call." I turned back to the road ahead of us. "Did you drive here or take a bus?"

"Bus and a walk early this morning."

"Great. My car's in the bushes a little way up."

Grant nodded. "Let's go home."