Numb3r 10

Chemical Revenge: Donuts and Textbooks

The sound of low, masculine voices woke Megan Russell up from a very pleasant dream about ducks. Just as she woke up enough to realize that the voices were probably cause for concern, a loud knock sounded on her front door.

"Megan Russell, FBI! Please open the door," someone yelled.

She hurriedly tugged on a robe and gazed through the peephole at the bizarre scene on her front porch. There was a swarm of people in suits and various uniforms, as well as someone in a hazmat suit holding a cardboard box.

Heart racing, she opened the door. One of the men in suits flashed her his shiny FBI badge. In the darkness, she could barely make out his youthful features, but even so, a moment of doubt flashed through her. He looked too young to be in the FBI. "I'm Special Agent Sean Green," he said, "and we have reason to believe that this box has been contaminated with phosgene gas."

"Like on the news?" Megan asked, gaping.

The FBI agent nodded solemnly. "Exactly so. We need to take the box, and with your permission, I'd like to leave a police officer with you for your safety until this case gets sorted out."

After a moment of stunned silence, Megan voiced her assent and as quickly as they came, the hoard of FBI and police left, save for one officer, who very kindly introduced himself as Dave. They hit it off and went on a few dates in the coming weeks, and last anyone in the FBI heard, were still going strong.

Throughout the course of the night, five packages were obtained by the FBI—three from residences and two from offices.

It was tempting to call off the search, but Owen's gut told him to keep looking. At his insistence, Sang gave him the names of the next four most likely targets. As the sun started to rise on the horizon, Kota and Nathan sped toward the residence of Aidan Nash, the eleventh most probable target.

They screeched to a stop in front of the quaint, one story house. Mr. Nash stood on his front porch with a package in his arms. Kota and Nathan both leapt out of the car and yelled frantically for him to drop it while running toward him. As is natural when two unknown men are shouting and running toward you, Mr. Nash flung the box onto the ground and ran back inside, locking the door behind him.

It took a bit of convincing for Mr. Nash to believe them when they said they were FBI agents, but overall, Kota and Nathan were happy. They had the box, everyone else who had even the smallest shred of chance of being a target was warned about accepting any packages, and Wallace was in FBI custody with ample evidence to convict him of murder.

And thanks to Owen's intuition, nobody else died.

***

Sang stood in front of the visitor desk at the hospital the next morning.

"I'm here to see Luke Taylor and Gabriel Coleman, please," she said. She readjusted the boxes in her arms. When she'd asked Kota how many donuts she should bring for the two of them, he'd said thirty-six. She thought that was a bit much, but he knew them better than her, so she went ahead and took his advice.

The tired-looking receptionist pointed her down the hallway. "Room 252," he said.

Sang thanked him and walked down the hall as fast as she dared. She could barely contain her nerves. Would they be mad at her? If she had worked quicker, they wouldn't have been hurt. Sure, there wasn't any lasting damage, but what if Wallace had used phosgene instead... she shuddered at the thought.

When she reached their door, it was already open, so she knocked twice and stepped inside. Both Luke and Gabriel lit up when they saw her.

"You came to visit!" Gabriel exclaimed. He beamed at her, making her heart fluttered. They must not have been mad at her after all.

That was when she noticed a very surly looking North slouched over in a chair in the corner. His dark eyes fell on the boxes in her arms. He opened his mouth to say something, but then snapped it shut. He sighed. "You get one pass, Lucian," he said.

Sang took that as her cue and gave them each a box of a dozen donuts. "I'm so glad you're okay," she said. Her voice trembled despite her best efforts to remain calm. Was this how everyone else felt when she got hurt on the last case? If so, she could understand why Owen was so reluctant to involve her again.

"I'm ready to go already," Luke whined. He stuffed a donut in his mouth and swallowed it whole (well, he might have chewed a little bit, but it happened too quickly to know for sure). "I'm feeling great, cupcake. I had a massive headache after I woke up but a few hours of sleep worked magic on that."

Gabriel nodded. "Same for me. Thanks for the donuts, Sang."

Luke echoed his sentiment. At their insistence, Sang took a donut as well, and despite the protests North so clearly wanted to utter (or yell), he remained silent.

Over the course of the next half hour, Luke and Gabriel managed to make it through thirty of the donuts. Just as they were finishing up, a nurse came in and said that all they needed were a few final checks, and then they were free to go. That elicited several excited cheers.

Sang used that as the chance to excuse herself, as she had a class to teach in an hour. Before she left though, she had one more thing to say. "You know, I've seen all of you at a lot of my classes," she said. "If you wanted to, I have some textbooks I could lend you that might help you catch up."

At that, the guys tried to keep the expressions of horror off their faces and politely declined.

In fact, out of all the guys, only two of them would take her up on her offer.

Kota and Owen both welcomed the chance for some extra reading. Kota actually did the reading, and ended up learning a great deal from Sang's class. Owen tried to do the reading, got massively confused, and used the textbook as a paperweight until Sang asked for the book back a few months later.

But even if he didn't learn anything from it, it still made him smile to see it sitting there on his desk.