There's no food.
Jane pulls on the metal cuff that's around her neck so that she can lean all the way back into the refrigerator.
Nothing. Well, as close to nothing as there can possibly be.
Two cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, a half sandwich that has gone green with mold, and something that Jane wants to venture is an apple, though she can't be sure because the surface of the fruit is alive with maggots.
She pulls back, and the cord pulls back too, the sound like a zipper. "Shit," she swears under her breath.
She moves to the cabinet, pressing her hand flat against the door for a moment. If she was the type to pray, she would say one right now. Hell, if she were the type who'd read fairy tales as a little kid, she'd say a magic spell.
She pulls the cabinet door open. Three cans of beans, one packet of tuna and an empty salt and pepper shaker.
"Shit!" she lets the cabinet door fall shut with a bang, and then brings her hand down against the wood as well.
She is making too much noise to hear the 'thhhhp' of Madison's cord as she walks into the kitchen.
"Jane?"
The brunette jumps and spins, and the cuff around her neck tightens and pulls her backwards, the way it is programmed to. Her sudden move makes Madison jump too, and her neck cuff jerks back a little, making her cry out.
"Ow!" her hands fly up to it, to pull at it, but Jane get's there first, grabbing the child's wrists.
"No!" she says quickly, holding them both still. "No, Maddie, remember what I taught you? Remember the rule?"
Madison's pale green eyes stare up at Jane, and they sit for almost 30 seconds before the cuffs start to loosen.
"G-gentle steps, easy breath," Maddie says quietly. "You were making so much noise, Jane. Why are you upset?"
Jane takes a couple of deep breaths just because she can. "I'm sorry, kiddo. I got frustrated," she says, and she reaches out to rub the little girls back absently. "I just got frustrated," she repeats.
Madison nods wisely, but doesn't speak. She sits down at the dining room table, in the chair closest to where Jane is standing.
"What time is it?" she asks quietly.
Jane tries to hold in a sigh, but she is not entirely successful. She'd thought that they'd gotten over this. This asking of questions that she doesn't know the answer to.
"I don't know, kiddo," she says, like she always used to in the first few days. "You feel sleepy?"
Madison shrugs and dips her head. The cord pulls and catches, right before she can rest her chin in her hand.
"You can nap on me in the hall if you want." Jane says, moving so she can tug a little at the tie. It resists her, and retracts the way a seatbelt would resist impact, but she holds it firm until it gives a little, so as not to cause the kid any unnecessary pain. She looks down to see Madison looking up at her with heavy lids.
"I don't think he gets home for another hour or two, Maddie, and even then it could be another four before he changes our track to the upstairs one."
Madison looks back down at her hands, like she's contemplating. Then she lifts her arms up to the brunette, and Jane picks her up and carries her into the hall.
In her head, she refers to the hallway as homebase. It is neutral territory. They have the most give here, because they are directly under the set of pulleys that runs their cords around the downstairs of the house. If Jane sits, and Madison sits on her, they can both lean back against the wall and rest a little.
Now, Jane carries the girl into the hall, and kneels down slowly, resting the little head on her shoulder. She can feel Madison beginning to get heavier already.
"That's it, kid...take a nap. I'll be right here when you wake up."
Maddie yawns. "Tell me a story?"
Jane bites the inside of her cheek. "'Bout what?"
"Uhmmm," Jane feels her rub at her eyes, "The time you were a detective and you and Chilly saved that little girl from that bad guy."
Jane sighs. She wishes she hadn't told that story. It was one of their first nights together, back when Madison wasn't talking, and Jane was still optimistic enough to think they'd be out within 48 hours.
"Okay," she says, pretending to sound gruff, "first of all, his name is Frost. And second of all, you've heard that one about 100 times."
"I know, Jane," Madison says, sounding like she would laugh, if she weren't about to be asleep. "I just like it when you're grumpy."
Jane can't help but grin too. "What about the time I shut down an entire illegal drag racing ring?"
Maddie yawns. "Did you get to d-drive in a real race car?"
Jane is about to say no, that they just arrested some murderers and called it a day, but Madison pulls away from her shoulder, and looks up at Jane expectantly.
And Jane relents, "yeah," she says, rubbing the little back. "We went real, real fast."
Maddie grins, and her eyes fall shut. "Jane?"
"Yeah?"
"What's it like?"
Jane frowns a little. "What's what like, kiddo?"
"Being out there. Sometimes it feels a little fuzzy. When I remember. What's it like being out there...in cars and stuff?"
It is only because she has been wearing the neck cuff for thirty six days that she does not lurch forward, propelled by her anger and her sadness, and the resulting hopelessness that comes from those feelings.
"You're gonna find out, kid," she says, making sure she holds herself very still. "I promise."
She can taste blood in her mouth.
That is nothing new.
On the ground, with her eyes shut, she listens for him. Let him think that she's down. Let him think that she's weak and easily beaten, like every other woman he's probably kicked around. She lies very still and she steadies her breathing. She can hear his shoes on the concrete, circling her, and she prepares herself. It's been over forty eight hours, exactly one hundred and forty four, since the little girl went missing, and without a ransom note, or any contact at all, Jane knows she is probably dead.
The footsteps get closer, and Jane's hands flex automatically. At least she can kill the sick son of a bitch who destroyed a family.
He reaches down and grabs her up by her hair, pulling her to her feet, and Jane opens her eyes, ready to fight. Ready to end it.
She's facing away from him, and the first thing she sees is the concrete wall of the basement, the broken window that she climbed through to get here, and, in the corner, nearly obscured by shadow…
A small, very pale, very alive little girl.
"Jane! Jannne! Jane!"
The cry nearly levitates her off the floor, and before she's even fully conscious, she is picking her way carefully across the pitch dark room, feeling for the spot where she'd laid Madison down to go to sleep.
"Shh," she calls, and her fingers finally find the warm skin of a kneecap. "Shh, Maddie, you're alright. Shh, honey, it's okay."
She's never called anyone honey before, but the word slips easily from her mouth as the little girl scrambles into Jane's lap and throws her arms around her neck.
"I want Mommy!" Madison cries into Jane's shoulder, her tiny fingernails digging into her back "I want Mommy so much, Jane, please!"
Jane swallows hard, sitting back on her heels. "I know," she says, hoping that her voice doesn't betray her tears. "I know."
Madison sniffles, calming quickly now that Jane is close to her. In the beginning, it wasn't like that. Madison wouldn't come near her, wouldn't speak to her or sleep when she was nearby. She'd been mistrustful, and Jane couldn't blame her, that young and nearly six days on her own.
It had taken a beating from their captor, one that had been meant for the child but that Jane had taken instead, to bring her around. She can still remember waking up to Madison's tiny fingers on the cut underneath her eye. Those wide green eyes staring fearfully at her.
"It's okay," she'd said then, forcing herself to sit up, even though the world had still been spinning crazily underneath her. "I'm okay… Are you? Did he hurt you?"
Madison had sat back to let Jane right herself, and then had closed the distance between them again, moving to sit in Jane's lap, and though her body had screamed in protest, she hadn't pushed the girl away.
"You're bleeding," Madison had said quietly, tilting her head to look up at Jane's face. "Mommy says put pressure." And then, quite boldly, she had pressed her hand back to Jane's face, and the detective had forced herself not to flinch.
"Thank you," she'd said quietly.
Madison had nodded, just once. "Thank you too."
.
"Jane?" Maddie's voice pulls her out of her memories, and she realizes that the little girl is playing with some of her hair.
"What is it?"
"How long we been here?"
Jane hadn't started avoiding that question until they hit day thirty. She remembers that specific day as the one that broke something inside of her. She pulls the little girl closer.
"A while," she says quietly, and Maddie tugs gently on her hair, but doesn't ask her to elaborate.
"Past July seventeenth?"
This time, Jane doesn't have to lie. She doesn't remember what the date was when she got here. Late May? May twenty second? "I don't know, kiddo. Why?"
Maddie pauses for a moment before saying, "my mommy's birthday is that day," she sniffs and pushes a little closer to Jane. "Did we miss it?"
There is something about the way that Madison says 'we' that makes Jane's eyes fill up with tears.
"Listen, kid...are you listening?"
A nod.
"We might have missed your mommy's birthday. I don't know. I...I'm not sure." Jane feels Madison tightens her grip, and so she does too. It makes her feel less alone. It fills her with something that is like courage.
"But you know what? When you get back to her...when she sees you again, and sees how much...how much you've grown. How long your hair is...when she just sees you again. She's going to feel like it's her birthday a million times over. She's going to be so, so happy to see you."
"She's all alone without me," Maddie says heavily. "Without me who will help her give strawberries to Bass. Or go with her to see the new exhibits at the museum? Who will she talk to at dinner time?"
Jane knows better than to answer those questions. She tries to redirect. "Who's Bass?"
Maddie relaxes against her. "Our tortoise," she says, sounding almost happy. "Mommy got him when he was just a little tiny guy. A long time before me, even, and now he's pretty big…" she trails off, thinking, and Jane closes her eyes, trying to picture the little girl and the turtle and the woman who could be Madison's mother.
She does not think about what that woman, with her green eyes like her daughter, and her dark blonde hair, must be feeling, right at this moment.
"Jane?"
"Mmm,"
"What about you? Is your little girl missing you too?"
Jane blows out a puff of air to get her hair out of her eyes. "No, kiddo. I don't have any kids."
Madison straightens to look at her, and Jane can feel her gaze, even if she can't see it.
"No kids?"
"Nope."
"Why?"
Jane leans back against the wall, sighing deeply. The truth, which she cannot tell Madison, is that she'd never wanted kids. She'd always figured she'd be a horrible mother, wedded to her job, an inanimate object incapable of loving her back. And the thought of letting down a child by not caring for her as much as something that wasn't real? That couldn't love back? That frightened Jane to no end.
But she sighs again, holding these words inside. "I don't know," she says instead. "I work pretty hard, and...I guess it just...never happened."
"Mommy works hard too. She is a doctor."
Jane nods. "I remember you told me that. What kind of doctor is she?"
"She works on people's hearts. She wears a mask and touches people's hearts with her actual fingers. And after she's touched them, they are better. They beat right."
Jane finds herself smiling. She runs her fingers through Madison's hair, and the little head falls heavily against her chest. "Go to sleep kiddo. You know it's only a couple hours until we get put back on the track downstairs."
Maddie wraps her arms around Jane's waist and gives her a squeeze, before crawling off her lap, and over to the blanket where she sleeps.
"Jane?"
"Mmm."
"Will you lie with me until I fall asleep?"
Jane smiles and feels her way over to where Madison has curled up. She lies down on her side, and at once the little girls rolls into her, sighing.
"When we go home, Jane?"
"Yeah?"
"You should be a mommy. Okay?"
Jane bites her lip, draping an arm protectively over Madison's tiny body.
"Go to sleep, Maddie," she whispers.
"Say okay, Jane."
Jane closes her eyes, but one tear manages to escape. It drips down her nose and drops to the ground.
"Okay."
…
The first time the collar constricts around the detective's neck, it makes the edges of her vision go dark and fuzzy.
He's home. The man who calls himself Reagan. Their captor.
It's the first time he's been home in several days, and he's brought three grocery bags of food with him, and when Madison sees the bags she runs at him, unable to help herself, elated at the prospect of eating.
And as she nears him, and reaches for the bag closest to him, he pulls back and hits her, knocking her to the ground, and the combined blow of his hand and the tightening of the collar make her cry out and then start to cough.
"Don't hit her!" Jane yells, running forward too. But her own collar constricts and holds her back, her hands shooting to her neck.
She can hear him chuckling, even as she drops to her knees.
"You know," he says coming to kneel by her. "I would change my attitude if I were you...unless you like to go unconscious every few minutes."
She lunges at him, wanting to wrap her fingers around his throat, but the collar tightens more, and she drops to her hands and knees, trying to breathe.
"Stop moving," he says calmly, "and it will loosen. Didn't you ever have a chinese fingertrap as a child?" He waits, and when she does not stop thrashing, he stands up and kicks her in the ribs, knocking her to the side. "Stop. Moving," he orders again. This time, Jane has no choice.
She lies on her side, where he's kicked her, and gradually, she can feel the collar loosening.
When she is free enough that she can suck in a deep breath, she hauls herself to a sitting position and looks around for Madison.
The girl has crawled to a corner, is sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, head buried in her hands.
Jane stands on wobbly legs. It has been four days since her last meal...when Reagan disappeared, she began to give her portions to the child.
"She's hungry," she growls at him now. "She's barely had anything to eat in days. You just left us here. Barely any food, barely any water."
"You mean to tell me you don't like your new home?" he gestures around the little kitchen. "You have free roam of the place, as far as your collars will allow, that is. Can't have you too close to the doors or the windows, the cabinet where all the knives are...but surely...you have enough space to move about, within reason."
"This is not a home," Jane says, and she has no choice but to withstand the slap to the face. It is that or duck and be punished by the collar for the sharp movement.
"This is your home," he says lowly, "And the girl's. And we are going to sit down at the table and have a nice meal. As a family."
Jane stares at him. "What if I don't?"
He smiles then, a mean, malicious smile that makes her feel sick. "Then you listen while I beat the girl."
She blinks, and his smile widens. "I know all about you, Jane Rizzoli. I know all. About you. Now get her and sit down, so we can eat together. The way normal families do."
And Jane walks slowly over to where Madison is curled up, and lifts her into her arms.
"Jane," the whisper is small, right by her ear, and she just barely nods to show she is listening.
"Don't leave me, Jane. Please."
And under the guise of kissing the side of Madison's head, Jane turns and whispers back.
"Never."
…...
Sirens.
Jane registers the sound before she's fully awake. Police sirens. An ambulance. Fire truck.
Jane sits up quickly and the collar gives her a warning jerk. Just a reminder.
But Jane barely registers the pain. She sits up and looks down at Madison, still sleeping silently beside her.
Don't wake her, she thinks blurrily. Don't wake her until you know.
She tries to stay calm and rational, but the sirens are getting louder, not receding, and she can distinctly hear all three types. She tries to steady her breathing. How many days have they been here? Is it possible that they are going to be found?
She looks to the marks on the wall above Madison's head. She'd stopped making them days ago, maybe even a week, but a quick count shows that there are 72 little grooves in the wood. Seventy two days plus some...plus seven? Eight?
Jane's heart races against her ribcage.
That's nearly three months.
The sirens outside are blaring. They are not going anywhere.
"Maddie," Jane bends down to whisper in the little girl's ear. "Madison. Wake up, honey."
The green eyes open, but Madison stays still. She is now used to the slow movements that are needed in order to keep her from choking. She does as Jane has taught her: Open your eyes, assess the situation, act accordingly.
"Jane?" she looks up into Jane's face, her own expression slipping into one of fear and confusion. Jane knows she must look a little bit wild with hope, but she cannot help herself.
"Hear that noise, little girl? Hear that? Those are sirens. Those are police sirens. They are really, really close."
Maddie's eyes widen. "Help?" she barely says the word, and she stays still on the bed, waiting for instruction. "Jane?"
"I don't know," Jane whispers. "I don't know...but something. It has to be some-"
Downstairs, the front door slams, and both woman and girl tense and fall silent.
"Fucking shit!" she hears Reagan roar from downstairs. "No! God damn son of a bitch!" Jane hears him stomp through the house, still swearing, hears him stop at the foot of the stairs, hears the jangle of keys that signals he is going to come up and switch their track.
Or…
"Jane!" Maddie's panic whisper is loud in her ears, and she turns back to the bed and holds out her arms. Maddie moves forward.
"Slowly," she says quietly, "slowly...good."
She has just closed her arms around the child and ducked her head over the dirty blonde curls when the door bursts open and he storms in, looking furious and wild…and carrying a gun.
"Get up!" He bellows.
And Jane moves to stand slowly with the girl in her arms, but he reaches out and yanks her arm forward and she staggers.
The collar tightens.
"What...is-" she begins, but he rears back and back hands her hard across the face.
"Shut up." He hisses, dragging her towards him. "Hold still." He uses the hand with the gun to tilt her head away from him so that her neck is exposed.
In her arms, Madison whimpers.
"And you shut up too you little shit," he growls, fitting a key into the cuff around Jane's neck. "I don't know how they fucking found us. I don't know how they...I don't know...but we've got to get the hell out of here. We've gotta go."
Jane feels the collar around her neck release. She swallows, and the pressure of the metal against her throat is gone. She opens her mouth, but before she can say anything, the cold barrel of the gun is pressed firmly against her temple.
Madison grips her tightly around the neck.
"Listen," Reagan growls in her ear. "You move, and I blow your brains out. Then I blow the kid's brains out. Get it?"
She doesn't move. "Yes," she says, her voice hoarse. "I get it."
"You want to live," he breathes into her ear, "You live my way. With me. Understand?"
"Yes," she says, hoping that he can hear the hatred dripping from her voice. "I understand."
"Turn the girl," he growls, and Jane shifts Madison so that the back of her collar is within his reach.
He presses the gun harder into her skull for leverage as he fiddles with the key that will release the child from the cuff. Madison whimpers against Jane's shoulder, and the detective hopes that she can feel her fingers in the hollow between her shoulderblades. She hopes that there is some comfort there.
And then she is free. They are both free.
And Reagan grabs her by the hair, and sticks the gun up under her chin, and drags them into the hall towards the stairs. But they have not gotten halfway down the first flight when the amplified voice comes ringing through their walls.
"Reagan Whitehall, Boston Police. FBI...You have thirty seconds to come to the door with your hands on your head."
Reagan freezes on the stairs. In her arms, Madison cries out.
"Mommy! Mommy!"
"Shut Up!" He screams, and he throws Jane downwards by her hair, spinning to point the gun at her.
She rolls so she is on top of Madison, shielding her instinctively, and the edges of the stairs cut into her shins.
"Don't do this," she says. And she doesn't know if she's screaming, or if that was just a whisper.
"Reagan Whitehall!" the voice comes again, and the man turns and spins towards the bottom of the stairs, his gun pointing shakily downwards, at the front door.
"STAY AWAY!" He screams, "STAY AWAY OR I'LL BLOW THEM TO PIECES. I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL KILL THEM."
And in that moment, while he's facing away from them, his attention diverted, Jane gathers Madison up into her arms, and scrambles back the way they came, up the stairs.
She is nearly to the top when Reagan turns back towards them, and sees that they are gone. He raises his gun with a cry of fury, and fires twice, before starting after them.
Madison screams.
Jane feels one of the bullets tear through her shoulder.
The hallway in front of her goes dark for the space of a second.
"Jane!" Maddie is shrieking, and her shoulder is screaming with pain. She does not know how she manages to carry the little girl back into the room where they sleep. She slams the door behind her and then spins the lock until she hears the click, far away, like an echo.
"Jane!" Madison is hyperventilating, panicking, her hands are around her neck, and she bounces up and down on her feet, like she's waiting for the tightening of a collar. "Jane! We're free. You're bleeding! Jane! Is help here?"
Like an answer to Madison's question, the magnified voice comes again. It is deep and gruff, and so familiar that Jane wants to cry.
"Listen Reagan, we got you surrounded. You don't want to do anything stupid. You don't want to kill the only bargaining chips you got."
Korsak.
Jane's legs are shaking, but, she realizes dimly, that could be from bloodloss. She sinks to her knees, putting her hand up to her shoulder, and pulling it away dripping red.
"Maddie," she says, and the child is there, by her side instantly.
"Help is here," the little girl says tearfully. "Help is here, Jane."
Yes. two stories down, and probably convinced that they are dead. "Maddie," she says, but the rest of the words won't come. No plan will form in her head. Like the little girl before her, she finds her hand drifting up to her neck. Is it true? Is she free?
"M-Mommy...s-says to p-put pressure, Jane," Madison stutters, her light eyes full of tears. She moves forward and puts her hand against Jane's shoulder, and it hurts, but the pain is secondary, because no sooner has Madison pressed her tiny hand against Jane's wound, then there is a terrible thunk against the bedroom door.
"Jane!" Reagan cries, and his voice is furious and...scared. "Jane. You remember what I said. You come with me and you live. You stay here. You die. The kid dies. Game over."
Jane pulls her bloody hand through her hair and looks up, over Madison's shoulder at the boarded up window. It's a shoddy job, with cracks showing some of the light from outside, and one of the boards hanging from just one bent, rusty looking nail. But it doesn't matter, because their collars never let them get close enough to touch it anyway.
Their collars.
Their…
Another thunk sounds from the hallway, and the door behind Jane shakes as Reagan throws himself against it. He does it again, and she can feel the wood shudder and creak, starting to give way.
"I'll kill you!" He screams,and somewhere, further off, there is the sound of another door splintering. More shouting.
It could be a SWAT team, she thinks blearily. They could be coming in.
But Reagan throws himself against the door again, and she feels the wood against her back splinter, and she knows they aren't going to make it in time.
She stands, and Maddie stands beside her, looking up at her. Terrified.
"Jane?"
The window.
"Jane?"
They're free.
"Maddie, come here," she reaches down and grabs the little girl up into her good arm. "Cross your arms and tuck your head under my chin," she says, and Madison does what she is told without question.
Jane staggers across the room, and as Reagan throws himself against her door again, she throws her own body into the boards against the window. The pain nearly knocks her unconscious.
"Jane?"
Could she do it?
"Whatever you do, don't wrap your hands around me. Madison. Do you understand? keep your body on mine. Don't hold me."
She wraps her own arms around Madison's back, the wound in her shoulder making her tear up.
Could she do it? The time is now. Is she brave enough?
She looks down at the little girl, eyes shut tight against her. She thinks of the woman from the newspaper, her eyes bright with tears, holding the jacket Madison was wearing the day she disappeared. Holding a fluffy brown teddy bear.
She thinks of the way the woman had looked at the camera's, every emotion etched into her face.
"Keep tucked in," she says, and she feels Madison try to make herself smaller.
Is she brave enough? Can she do it?
Just do it.
"Jane!" Maddie's eyes are huge, and Jane looks where she's looking in time to see Reagan leveling his gun at her through the splintered remains of the door, his eyes wide and malicious.
"No!" Maddie screams tucking her head into Jane's chest.
And with one last push of effort, Jane forces them out through the second story window
and launches them into the sky.