Thank you for the reviews! This was supposed to have been a one-shot, but you guys asked to stretch this one out and I'm glad I did. Here is the final Chapter. I had previously written a different ending, but after a certain rumor (it still hasn't been confirmed guys!) starting going around, it just didn't feel right. So, I re-wrote it. I hope you guys like it.

I own nothing.

Erin's POV

I can't remember the last time I felt this helpless. Despite all the shit that I've lived through, I've never once thought: this is how I will die. One moment I am immersed in all things Jay, the next I'm being pummeled and beaten to a pulp. I don't have time to understand what's happening before I am dragged by one of King's men and punched repeatedly. He hits me me over and over, and over again, until i feel something snap in my face. Everything goes numb. The next time I see him pulling his fist back it is covered in blood, spraying everywhere, the floor, the walls, and all over his clothes. For a split second I think his hand is cut. Maybe It is his blood. But it isn't. It's mine. Then, two hands clasp around my neck; squeezing and squeezing until my head feels like it is going to explode and I pass out.

When I come around, I'm gasping – can't breathe, can't move, can't scream because there is no air in my lungs. My heart gallops in my ears. I feel my body being dragged once again. I dig my nails into the wooden floors, desperate to get away. I ignore the blood and searing pain in my fingertips. My endorphins are set into overdrive and I grab onto what I think is a metal post, but it turns out to be a floor lamp. It crashes to the floor and small shards of glass scrape and dig into my body as I'm swept me across the floor. I shrieked and they yank harder. I try to fight them off, but they stab a needle into my arm, injecting a white milky liquid; instantly my head turns hazy and my body goes weak.

The next thing I know my body is being flung into the middle of the main room like a rag doll. My vision is blurry. I can feel my left eyesight narrowing, tightening as it swells up. I pan my eyes as best I can around the room and I see Jay. I blink twice as I feel tears running down my face. Not sure if it's out of fear, pain, or utter happiness. There's an eerie silence, like the build-up in a horror film, and then I see Jay pushing his way towards me only to be barred by two big, burly men. I take a deep breath and try to not lose control of my emotions.

Jay says something unintelligible to my ears as he tries to claw his way to me, but King appears in my periphery and I see his lips moving, but I can't follow what he is saying either. They exchange words and I'm only vaguely aware of what Jay's saying – a compromise? I think. King stops for a moment, then signals for his men to leave. One by one they filter out until it's just me, Jay, and King in the room.

I can barely keep my eyes open anymore. I feel helpless and pearls of sweat spread across the surface of my skin everywhere. Darkness envelops me and takes me like I'm buried up to my neck on the beach, and the tide is washing over my head. I take deep breaths between every coming and going wave. This lasts for a few minutes until I feel exhausted. I dream that water flows down my throat and fills my lungs.

x

I feel my body being shaken back and forth. Someone has their hands on my shoulders, shaking me. The sound of Seth's voice breaks through my slumber, jolting me awake.

"What the fuck? What did you do to her?" Seth's voice is muffled— impatient and angry— amidst the haziness in my mind. "She won't be able to work for a while now, maybe ever. Who's going to pay for my loss wages?" Seth shrieks.

"She'll be fine," I hear King's voice mutter.

"What about these fucking bruises and all this damn blood?"

"I already told you," King says more sternly. "She'll be fine."

I feel Seth's arms slip under me a lift me against him. I can smell the booze on him coming off in waves, but I don't have enough resolve in me to care.

"You can beat up your whores," Seth snaps, "But don't touch mine."

I feel my body being jostled as he storms out. Pain jolts down my spine like an electric shock and I swallow the moan in the back of throat. I open my eyes – everything is out of focus and fuzzy – and try to pan my head around to find Jay's, but Seth holds me tightly against his chest.

"J-Jay?" I ask in a low voice. My throat tightens. I squeeze my eyes closed and then open them again.

Seth looks down at me with weary eyes. "I don't know." His voice is low. He looks sad, guilty even, and it strikes me as odd because this look—this pitiful look—doesn't suit him at all. "I'm sorry," He tells me but then I hear him mumble, "I should've been there…I'm sorry—"

A burst of cold air hits me and I shiver. We're outside. I think my lips curve into a smile, relieved. I start closing my eyes again. I feel so heavy.

"Hey, hey," Seth taps my face, his voice tinged with urgency. "Please try to stay awake." With great difficulty I flutter my eyes open. I see him fish for his phone as he props me up. "I need an ambulance at the intersection of 2nd and 59th street," I hear his shaky voice say. "Erin, stay with me," Seth pleas. "Everything will be okay."

I detect uncertainty in his voice. I open my eyes, discover blackness once again, and let out a jagged breath. The pain in my chest worsens. I close my eyes, then open them again. There is no difference whether they are closed or not. It's all black. There is nothing. I see nothing.

x

I wake up in a haze. My whole body is sore, but the exhaustion fog I felt before has lifted. I realize I'm in a hospital. I look around and see that I'm only attached to an IV, so can't be that bad. Seth is in the room and as soon as he sees that I'm up, he quickly moves his lanky body from the place he's perched and approaches the bed. He stretches, yawns, and rubs the back of his neck as if trying to rub away stiffness. He looks worried, pale, and sweaty and the circles under his eyes are dark half-moons. His hands are shaking – probably hasn't had a drink in a while.

"Hey," he says. "Glad you're back."

"How long was I out?" I rasp and swallow, feeling the moist saliva ease off the back of my tongue and down my dry, scratchy throat.

"A couple of hours," he says. "You had a cocktail of benzo in your system."

I remotely remembered a needle pricking my arm.

"Where's Jay?" I ask, panning my eyes around the small hospital room.

"I'm not sure." Seth pauses and takes a deep breath. I can see him trying to put his thoughts into words. "Last I heard he was being debriefed by the DA's office."

"DAs? Really?" I ask incredulously. "Do we enough to finally make a case?"

Seth shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know. Maybe."

He offers me a faint, disappointed smile. An uncomfortable silence peppered with the sounds nurses and doctors filtering through the hallway fills the room for a few minutes before Seth says, "They got you good," he says. "But the doctor said you'll be good as new in a couple of days."

I smile faintly. "Thank you for saving me," I say. "I don't know what would've done if—"

"I didn't save you," he says, his voice heavy and thick with something akin to shame. His eyes shift from the floor to the edge of the hospital bed, and he appears to lose focus. "It was Jay. I was, uh… not there."

My memory feels a little hazy, but I'm pretty sure I remember him carrying me out. I frown. "I remember you carrying me out." I voice my thoughts.

"Yeah, I did that. But it was all Jay…" There's something he is not telling me – like he's dancing around the subject.

"Out with it," I tell him.

"Look, I thought you didn't need me." He rubs the back of his neck and shakes his head. "I was out of line—"

Before Seth gets a chance to finish and before I have a chance to understand what he is talking about, the door to the room opens, revealing an anxious Jay on the other side. His eyes pan around the room and land on Seth. Seth doesn't move, as if accepting whatever is dealt to him. Jay takes a few steps and grabs him by his blazer lapels and shoves him against the wall. Seth doesn't struggle.

"What are you doing here?" Jay snarls in Seth's face and shoves him hard against the wall again. "You need to leave," Jay orders.

"Jay," I try to intervene. "It's okay—"

"No," Seth shakes his head. "I-I have to go. Jen's waiting for me."

Seth straightens his blood covered blazer and marches out of the room with his head down.

I have so many questions swirling in my head, but I don't have the chance to ask because Jay's lips are suddenly pressing lightly against mine. His touch is tender and his hands barely stroke my face. This euphoric feeling suddenly fills me to the brim and makes my mind hitch. When our lips part and he carefully ghosts kisses over my cheek, then my forehead and down to the tip of my nose. He rests his forehead against mine, his eyes closed, perhaps just getting his fill of me as I am of him.

His soft eyes roam my face. "How're you feeling?" He places soft, barely there kisses across each of my knuckles. He doesn't seem to mind the caked blood on them.

"Like I was hit by a truck," I tell him. "What happened? Why did you kick Seth out?"

Jay releases a heavy breath. "He was your lookout. If he had been doing his job, you wouldn't be here," He tells me through clenched teeth.

"He pulled me out," I tell Jay. "He called the ambulance."

Jay scoffs. "Because I told him. He was half way to being plastered if I hadn't found him." He shakes his head. "I don't even want to think what would've happened had I not been there."

I know I should be mad, but for some reason I'm not. I guess I've been conditioned to never blame anyone, but myself. I place my hand on his face. He leans into my touch. Before I question what we're doing, I veer my train of thought elsewhere, "Umm, Seth said you were meeting with the DAs?"

"Yeah," he nods. A smile pulls at his lips. "We got King," he says. "We go him on everything."

I sit up a little straighter because I can't believe what I'm hearing, "Did we really?"

Jay takes as seat on the edge of the small hospital bed and explains that King took the bait and asked him to make a trail of paperwork that dealt with his sex trafficking operation disappear. And how amongst all those documents, they were able to find the names of the people who supplied the visas.

"The DA has all the evidence. All the paperwork." He smiles back, but it's sad around the edges. He slips his hand into mine and says, "This case is closed."

I smile, relieved, but then it hits me. My stomach clenches. "When are you going back to Chicago?"

He looks down and takes my hand in his. "Tomorrow." He let a sad smile play along his lips when our eyes meet, and I have to downplay what it does to me. "You should come back-" He pauses, then murmurs, "-with me."

The sincerity in his words freezes the air in my lungs. I take a minute to compose myself before I fall into the precipice of his deep blue eyes. "I can't," I blurt it out before I think it over, yet again. "I've got a good thing going here."

Jay releases my hand and reaches for the side of my face, brushing the hair off my bruised cheek. His fingertips barely touch my skin, yet send shivers down my back. "We have a good thing going too," he says timidly. "We can be good together."

My mouth turns up into the barest of grins. Hi hand slides down my neck, and brushes the bare skin of my arm, then curves around the small of my back and slowly, ever so slowly, pulls me closer to him. My head tucks under his chin and he continues to pull until my chest is pressed against his. I can feel the thud of his heart, the rise and fall of his ribcage as he breathes. Such simple, involuntary acts, yet they permeate my consciousness, draw me in with hypnotizing lull.

I pull away, just slightly –I can't let myself get lost in him. "I have nothing in Chicago," I tell him. "They took everything from me. This is all I have."

He pulls back a little more, looks me straight in the eye and says, "You have me."

The words leave his mouth because it's the most fitting response, but we both know it's more complicated than that. "Maybe this will be good for me, ya know?" I tell him. "Fresh start. Away from…everything."

By the way he looks at me he knows I mean my mother. He lowers his head in defeat and nods. He understands. This is the way it has to be. At least for now.

"Are you going to come and visit me?" He asks.

"As long as you come visit me," I tell him.

He nods.

There's this unspoken notion that hangs between us – that we rather have each other at any capacity than not at all. He knows Chicago, at least for now, is not the best place for me. Whether New York also falls under that same category… Well, that's too early to tell. But I should see it through.

"Maybe I will push my flight a few days..." He says with a real smile pulling at the corners of his lips. "Make sure you heal okay."

I smile too. "I think I would like that."

Thanks for reading! I don't know what S5 holds, but I'm holding out hope for some closure. Cheers!