InsaneJournal

In Spite of Herself
[Takes place before the final thread.]


While this wouldn't be Jill's first time in a courtroom, it would be her first time sitting in the witness' chair. As the FBI's lead investigator in the case of Travis Dunegan, a Springfield, Ill. native who was overseeing an international human trafficking ring with the help of a vampire cult just south of the Loop, Jill was to give a deposition making the prosecution's case for the harshest penalty possible.

The shift in roles made Jill nervous, and she sat alone in a room adjacent to the courtroom with her left leg bouncing up and down. The silence of the room made the agent even more uneasy. She stared at the mahogany table in the center of the room, she stared at the window with half-drawn blinds, barely letting in the July sunshine. She stared at the painting across from her of a Chicago judge from days gone by, whose name she didn't know.

Jill was also on-edge because she knew who represented Travis. Not only was Wolfram & Hart doing everything it could -- probably literally -- to make sure Travis never saw the inside of a jail cell, the firm was probably also in on the trafficking network. The agent had no proof of this, but her experience as a former attorney with the firm was enough to give her an educated guess.

She fiddled with the small silver cross hanging around her neck. She'd taken every precaution to make sure the judge and the jury and the prosecution would protect themselves against whatever tactics Wolfram & Hart would employ. The FBI never explicitly said this, but Jill had a feeling they considered her invaluable because of her experience with and knowledge of that law firm. Considering how many dirty pies Wolfram & Hart had its demonic fingers in, it made sense.

Still, the sooner she got this deposition over with, the better.

Elise blew into the room in a flurry of movement, briefcase being deftly tossed into a nearby chair as she slammed the door shut behind her.

"So much left to do, and so little time left to do it in!" she announced with a broad smile.

She had never been the average Wolfram & Hart employee; they sent her where she was needed, orders in hand and ready to carry out whatever the Senior Partners desired. Elise had traveled the world over at their behest: Lima, Las Vegas, Pripyat, Cardiff, Mumbai, New York, Auckland... and, of course, Chicago. Often she went with little instruction, the final plans being sent along at the last moment after she had filed reports on just what had been happening at that particular branch.

After all, every firm needed to keep tabs on its branches.

Elise had arrived in Chicago with little knowledge of her main directive, but the pieces had slowly fallen in place over the course of a year and new orders had arrived that morning, sending her to Rome for an extended period. Her flight left in a scant six hours - and there was just so much to do!

"Now. Ms. Andersen. Jillian. I suppose I should be on a first-name basis with you at this point, shouldn't I?" she asked with a brief, tittering laugh. "My my, Jillian, but haven't you become quite the little thorn in our side as of late."

Jill laughed, in spite of herself. Of course they would've sent Elise; any way the Senior Partners could add a personal touch to their machinations, that was just icing on the incredibly evil cake. Even with the cold chill running down the agent's back, the bemused smile never left her pale features as she shook her head.

Hell, if Jill had to guess, she figured Elise probably asked for the case, just give to give her a hard time.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," the agent replied with surprising confidence. Then again, seeing as how run-ins with Elise were becoming somewhat of a pattern in the Windy City, Jill felt more comfortable each time they crossed paths. Not that she'd ever be completely comfortable in the presence of someone who probably wanted to scoop out her eyeballs and pick at her brain -- literally -- but her own self-confidence and inner faith kept the agent from flying off the handle, even when she felt her blood pressure rising.

"Someone's gotta put down the dog ... why not someone who used to scratch it behind the ears?"

"Strange you should phrase it just that way," Elise replied, nodding in agreement as she stripped off the white linen suit jacket that she wore over an immaculate sleeveless dress. That was definitely something on her to-do list: weed out the wardrobe and delve deeper into a bit more color - or at least darker shades. The dry cleaning alone was beginning to cost a small fortune, even though most could be written off as business expense.

Inwardly, she wondered what the Senior Partners would think of being presented with a request for reimbursement. The thought alone was enough to make her smile and give a short chuckle. Imagine!

"You see, my work here in Chicago is just about complete," Elise went on, folding the jacket neatly and placing it on the far side of the table before heading back for her briefcase. "Of course you know, I've worked on a bit of a per diem basis at each firm I've been assigned to with Wolfram & Hart... just as when we'd met for the first time in Las Vegas," she explained, searching into the dark recesses of the leather briefcase before her fingers closed around something hard and cold. "There are always loose ends and vulnerabilities and loopholes that need to be cut off and closed."

Turning, a hunting knife that had been hidden as the handle of an umbrella grasped in her hand, she smiled. "And you're an awfully big loose end, my dear."

Elise moved quickly, the business end of the blade sinking into Jill's abdomen with a soft, pleasant squelching noise before she jerked up the handle, tearing the other woman open to the end of her sternum.

Being stabbed was surprising, but it wasn't at the same time. Gritting her teeth, Jill covered her wound with both hands, feeling the warm blood soaking her skin and staining the sleeves of her navy blue business coat. She grunted at the pain, her body straining with effort to keep itself in a seated position; her legs wobbled, and Jill felt as if she were about to fall to the floor.

She didn't want to, though. She wouldn't give Elise the satisfaction of that. She glared up at the attorney, the right corner of her mouth curling up into a small grin. It was ironic, in a way ... not that someone from Wolfram & Hart attacking her, but knowing that for all the effort Jill put into protecting the jury and the judge and the prosecution, she'd neglected to protect herself.

"What," she began, hissing when a sharp pain coursed through her as she cradled herself to cover the wound more, "what took you people so long ...?"

There was fear in her voice, but not as much as Jill expected. She couldn't tell why in the immediacy of the moment, but the prospect of bleeding out and dying like this at the hand of her sworn enemy and former employer didn't scare her all that much.

"You people must've ... must've gone soft since I left."

"I suppose on one level, there was some hope you'd take a turn for the better, come back to the fold," Elise reasoned aloud, enjoying a conversation during her work for a change. The blade came out and deftly went in again, this time lower and more to Jill's right side; piercing an appendix or gallbladder and letting the bile seep into the woman's bloodstream would provide an added bonus for a much more painful death. Warm blood pooled at their feet, tainting Elise's white heels, though the lawyer had expected as much and didn't mind it.

Elise cocked her head to the side, focusing her unblinking gaze to watch the other woman's face with deep curiosity. It was always so terribly interesting to watch people die.

"It's a pity, really," she went on. "I imagine you could have done wonderful things with the firm, if you'd had the stomach and the stamina to keep with it." She twisted the knife, smiling softly as the blade tore deeper into the gore of intestine.

That was ironic, talking about how Jill didn't have any guts as the knife twisted and tore its way through them. Jill bit on her lip to keep from screaming, so hard her teeth punctured her lower lip. Blood began to trickle down her chin, and even with the pained grunts, the agent still wasn't going to scream. Not even as the pain in her midsection grew and began to spread throughout the rest of her body.

Jill knew how this would end. Her goal now was to be as dignified as possible. Wolfram & Hart didn't just want to kill her; they wanted to embarrass and humiliate her at the same time. The agent would have none of it. This might've worked over a year ago, when Jill was new to the FBI and trying to find her way. But now? With how comfortable she'd become in her own skin?

It just felt right.

"Only pity," she wheezed, pausing to cough. She could feel the blood beginning to rise in her throat. "Only pity is ... you'll never break me. Sure, just ..." Another violent cough, blood splattering on the floor. "Just gut me til I bleed out, but ..." A hiss of pain, Jill falling to her knees on the floor.

"But you'll never break me."

Elise's head twitched, cocking to the opposite side, much like a movement from an animal transfixed by some human spectacle before them.

"Break you?" she echoed curiously. "Why on earth would I want to do that?"

The knife had slipped from its place as the other woman fell, and Elise held it aloft, reached down to take Jill's chin in her hand, staining her face with blood as she tilted it up to gaze down into the dying woman's eyes.

"I think you misunderstand your importance here, Jillian," she said softly. "There's no breaking of spirit. It's not even the case. The fact of the matter is that I'm leaving and I don't like to leave little messes like yourself behind to potentially cause problems in the future. There's no grand design, no great order handed down from the upper ranks. You're really nothing, dear. Nothing at all but my own whim."

Elise brought the tip of the blade to Jill's face, slashing first into her left cheek, and then her right. She smiled as the blood seeped down the other woman's face.

"I just like to play with blades."

Jill hissed as the blade cut either side of her face, shivering. She could feel her body going into shock. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, hoping to hold off the inevitable for just a few more moments. The agent really didn't want to make this easy for Elise. That Jill was going to die was becoming an inevitability; she just wanted to draw this out as long as possible.

Not to show how brave she was, but to prove her spirit was strong, even if her body wasn't.

"You say," she coughed, blood dripping onto the floor, "you say nothing like it's ... like it's a bad thing. I actually like it -- beats being a puppet of the Senior Partners."

The agent coughed again, violently and to the point where her sides hurt as blood and bile spilled from her mouth to the floor. Consciousness was starting to fade.

"They'll find you," she whispered. "You can't hide from them."

"I'm never going to hide from them, Jillian," Elise replied, grabbing the other woman's hair, already tangled and matted with blood, to hold her aloft just a moment longer. "Eventually? I'm going to be one."

She marked her words with a flash of the blade, slicing open her former co-worker's throat and letting the body drop to the floor.

The shock of Elise's words overrode the flash of pain striking Jill's neck when the blade sliced through. Jill made what sounded like a sudden hacking noise, her hands reaching up to grab her neck before her body just tumbled fully to the floor. Blood pooled below her, beginning to dry and mingle with the mahogany hardwood. Jill felt her legs twitch, her eyes beginning to roll up to the back of her head.

She forced herself to stare at Elise for a few seconds longer, wanting desperately to say something, to get that last word in. But she couldn't find the breath; even as she opened her mouth, nothing but blood and the last bit of air in her lungs came out.

One last shudder, and Jill went rigid. Everything went dark. The last of her blood seeped from the wounds in her throat and stomach.

Jillian Andersen was dead.