Time Tracker

[DarkWarrioress]

She hadn’t been acutely aware that she had placed her hand on his thigh. At least, not until he squeezed it.

Thank you.

There was a pregnant pause and Sam suddenly was acutely aware of a lot more, right then. Letting her eyes fall away from his, the moment he released her hand she gently and leisurely, drew it away from his thigh.

"Lets...uh...let's get back to the game. I believe its your turn, Sam."

“Uh. Yes. Right. The cards. ”

Picking up her cards from the table, including the new cards he had dealt her way, Sam fanned them in her hand and forced herself to focus. As she leaned forward to draw two match sticks and toss them slightly forward, into the pile with their antes, she made sure to shift her thigh away from his on the pretext of being able to toss her bet in.

“I bet two.”

Two pair weren’t worth a very big bet and as subtly as she could, Sam shifted her place on the couch to put a bit of distance between them. She certainly didn’t want him to think ill of her. She had been trying to comfort him. Reassure Bennett that she believed he could do the job he was sent here to do.

But for an instant, you were acutely aware of him as a man, weren’t you?

If she could beat her mind’s whispers into silence, she would have.

It was only for a second. Besides, I hardly know the man and he won’t be staying around as soon as he sees to Henney. So just be a good girl and shut up, Samantha.

Bennett was right, however. In the morning, she was going to have to root out her parents laptop and do some investigating on Henney. See what the official news was on his web page. And she knew he had one. He had to. Every politician had a web site these days. The only thing she didn’t have was a plan. It was going to be harder to get to Henney now. He’d have a body guard by now too. More than likely, an undercover cop. Bennett was further right, he, they, couldn’t hide out up here forever. Henney was worked up and not likely to forget that his prey had gotten away from him.

“Bennett?” She looked up from studying her cards and glanced in his direction while waiting for him to bid, “ How likely is Henney to go after another unsuspecting female, since I got away? How deprived is he anyway?”

Sam wasn’t sure she wanted to know, even though she needed to. She needed to get inside Henney’s head so they could formulate a plan. Men like Henney were sly, clever and slick like a fox. They didn’t make mistakes often and when they did make one, they made sure it didn’t happen again. But then, men like Henney were egotistical and egotistical men always made a mistake again or they had a pattern and between Bennett and herself, they needed to figure out what that was so they could lay a trap.

 

[Veroe]

IC Bennett Kraft

His hand reached the one she had on his thigh, and gave it a gentle squeeze saying, "Thank you."

He saw her eyes widen as she realized where she had put her hand, and he let it go. She pulled it back eyeing him sideways. Sam was an attractive woman, in fact if she were from his time he'd even consider asking her out, but her being from this era....Bennett couldn't risk anything more than whatever they already were from happening. He and her developing some sort of greater relationship could be as much a danger to the timeline as Henney and the other fugitives were.

He cleared his throat and let go of her hand. With a gesture towards the cards on the coffee table he said, "Lets...uh...let's get back to the game. I believe its your turn, Sam."

“Uh. Yes. Right. The cards. ” She returned to her hand and looked through them again. She picked up two of those-what did she call them-oh yes, mitchsticks...munchsticks, and threw them in. “I bet two.” Bennett noticed she had purposefully shifted her thigh and scooted to as far away on the couch as she could giving them a nice area of neutral zone between them.

Good, seemed she was aware of how ill-advised anything more developing between them could be too. That was a relief.

If he drew a ten and a King he could have a royal flush. He discarded and drew two from the deck. He had a ten and another Ace. He picked up two of the munchsticks and carefully put them within the center of the table. If they truly ignited by friction he didn't want them to do so while he was still holding them. "I'll see your two."

“Bennett?” She looked up from studying her cards and glanced in his direction while waiting for him to bid, “ How likely is Henney to go after another unsuspecting female, since I got away? How deprived is he anyway?”

He looked up to see her eyes. "I suspect he'd be fixated on us." His eyes softened as his heart went out for her, "Or more specifically on you, Sam, but you're not really his type." He shook his head, "His tastes are younger and much more helpless women than you have proven yourself to be. I'd say if we stay up here where he won't be able to find us it'll only be a matter of time before someone else catches his attention."

"I'm no psych-technician, Sam. His disorder is-or was-or will be-still being studied, but in the future he chose the runaways and young girls that no one would report missing until we found their bodies." He leaned back, and rubbed his eyes trying to banish the first truly evil memories he had experienced when he had found the last victim's mutilated corpse. "He rapes his victims, but is careful. He doesn't leave DNA for the forensic scans to track to him. He also cuts them into pieces. Their breasts, their vagina, their faces, their hands. In the future he used laser cutting tools, they're very clean, again leaving nothing for the scanners to track to him."

He shifted his cards around not looking into her eyes. "Except the last one...for some reason he decided to use a relic steel hunting knife...something he probably is using this time too, but he got some of Geneveve Chunn's blood on him using it. The scanners led me to him, but at the time I didn't suspect him. He's really good at playing the innocent bystander. Then we found the body of Naomi Chunn, the younger sister, she was only fifteen, Sam. And he had been especially sadistic to her. Again I tracked the DNA back to him. That was when he ran, I chased after him. We cornered him in a synthetic food plant. I was told to wait him out, but I ran in after him anyway."

He looked back into her eyes, "I found him on the top floor he was trying to jump but was too much of a coward for it. For some reason he had taken his medicine for the first time in months and he begged me to end it, to kill him. For he couldn't bear what he had done, what he would do...if..." He looked back down at his cards. He couldn't make them out his eyes were watering. "You have to understand Sam, in this time you have killers who do such ghastly things regularly, but Henney was the first serial killer in fifty-three years for my precinct. I hit him, and I kept hitting him. All I could think of was the young girls' lives he had destroyed. The fear and terror he had sewn. But I didn't kill him, even then I couldn't. I should have...." He finished adding to himself, "...I should have."

 

[DarkWarrioress]

She was about to expose her two pair….

"I suspect he'd be fixated on us. Or more specifically on you, Sam, but you're not really his type. His tastes are younger and much more helpless women than you have proven yourself to be. I'd say if we stay up here where he won't be able to find us it'll only be a matter of time before someone else catches his attention."

Yeah. Just what she suspected but, Henney wasn’t going to forget about her. She had gotten away from him and men like Henney, insane or not, did not like their prey outwitting them. It tended to make them angrier. She was fearful of what he might do if he took another female and they couldn’t let that happen. Sam’s cards were forgotten as Bennett kept talking.

"You have to understand Sam, in this time you have killers who do such ghastly things regularly, but Henney was the first serial killer in fifty-three years for my precinct. I hit him, and I kept hitting him. All I could think of was the young girls' lives he had destroyed. The fear and terror he had sewn. But I didn't kill him, even then I couldn't. I should have...."

Sam idly chewed on her bottom lip. It must have been a shock for them, those in his time, to encounter a personality like Henney’s and having to experience it firsthand….

Sam folded up her cards, laying them on the table. The two pair totally forgotten.

“Bennett….”

She wasn’t sure what to say to him.

“What bothers you more? The fact you can be a violent person or the fact that you couldn’t kill another human being? Because if you ask me, taking the life of a person, no matter how evil they are, shouldn’t be taken for granted. A life is a life. Sometimes, they don’t give us any other way out of a situation. We have to kill or someone, including ourselves, could be killed. Do you know what I think? I think we’ve had a rough day and we should probably forget about the card game and get some shut eye, okay? Tomorrow we’ll figure this out. We’ll come up with a plan. Henney isn’t going to win this one, Bennett. We’re going to make sure of that.”