A/N: Picks up immediately after Beckett is tortured in the hotel room scene in Veritas (6x22).
For the wonderful Nadia.
"You stand with your hand on my waist line
It's a scene and we're out here in plain sight
I can hear them whisper as we pass by
It's a bad sign, bad sign"
-I Know Places, Taylor Swift
The blood smeared on the wall is the first thing he sees when he reaches the top of the stairwell. Bile rises in his throat, dread clawing his insides like talons; he just knew leaving her alone was a mistake.
His worst fears are confirmed when he finds her, still and lifeless on the dirty ground, the crimson stream of blood draining from her skull, coloring the carpet.
"Kate," he whispers in horror, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to get to her. "Oh, Kate. No, no-"
Her eyes flutter when he hovers above her, her brow furrowing in a wince when he sweeps his fingers through her hair and encounters the hot, red stickiness staining her scalp. She groans, quiet and painful when he tries to determine the extent of the wound, so he forces himself to save the examination for later, for when they're safe.
Rick scoops her from the floor as gently as he can, trying his best not to jostle her, and feels her cheek press hard to his shoulder once he secures his grip on her, her fingers squeezing at his neck.
"Castle."
His name is no more than an exhale against the fabric of his coat, relief lacing the two syllables just before he feels her go limp in his arms.
He breathes his own quick sigh of relief as he tightens his hold on her. When he had seen the blood, he had really thought… he was sure he had lost her. They've been through too much for it to end like this, over Bracken and this godforsaken case.
Castle braces himself before he starts towards the open doorway of their temporary hotel room, but it doesn't prepare him for the sight he encounters. The floor is littered with bodies, the grungy carpet soiled with blood and alcohol, glittering with glass shards, and what the hell had they done to her? What had she done to them?
Rick pushes the questions from his mind and skirts around the bodies to drape Kate across the still-made bed and trapezes his way to the bathroom, noting the broken whiskey bottle and the little white pill sitting on one of the dead men's chest. He should have been here sooner.
He steals a handful of towels from the bathroom and snags the chain with her rings from the edge of the sink, shoving them deep in his pant's pocket. Her skull is still bleeding, soaking the comforter with red, turning the entire room into a bloodbath. He wants to care for her now, retrieve the emergency first aid kit that's tucked away in their shared duffel and try to pick the glass he can see littering her hair from her skin, but there's just no time. Bracken sent men to kill her, it had to be Bracken, and he'll just send more when these two don't return.
Rick hefts her up with a new sense of urgency, hauls the duffel over his shoulder, and hurries from the hotel room, managing to pull the door shut behind them.
The sedan in the back parking lot is still ready and waiting for them when he finally gets her down the flight of hotel stairs that are doing a number on his bad knee after so many trips up and down. They're in a sketchy part of town and he had half expected for the nondescript grey sedan to be missing when he returned from retrieving Kate, but it still waits, running and prepared to take them as far as they can go.
They don't have the luxury of lingering, but he takes the time to arrange Kate as comfortably as he can in the passenger seat once they're both in the vehicle, pillowing her head against the window with his coat, making another quick, unsatisfying check of her head wound. The glass shimmering amidst the blood has his stomach in knots, but when he attempts to remove a single shard from her hair, her whimper of pain has him retracting his hand with a wince of his own. But she doesn't wake.
Her breath reeks of alcohol, hard liquor that he knows she refrains from indulging in for a reason. He squeezes his eyes against the imagery his mind conjures up while he buckles her in.
As soon as they're out of New York, or at least far enough away from the city, he'll stop somewhere, clean up her head and check her for anymore injuries that may not yet be visible, maybe get something in her stomach that will help sober her up and ease the inevitable hangover to come.
For a split second, while he was picking the car up from his 'friend', he had thought this would be an adventure for them. A mission, like spies – a new place, new identities, new lives. It had helped soften the panic lacing with adrenaline in his bloodstream, but this isn't an adventure, it isn't fun. It's a nightmare. They're being hunted like foxes and there is no other option, no way to fight, to win. They can only run.
But it will be okay, she'll be okay, they will be okay. He repeats the words like a mantra for nearly two hours straight, but the tightness of his chest fails to loosen, the pounding of his heart fails to ease, and he fails to believe his own words.
He pulls over sooner than he would like, but he can't stand the blood oozing from her skull anymore, the way it continued trickling from her scalp, staining her ear, her throat, a sickening shade of crimson coloring his vision throughout their drive north.
He keeps her locked in the sedan while he rushes through a mostly empty convenience store, purchasing two of every essential item he can think of, his bundle of food and medical goods causing the teenage cashier to arch his brow in curiosity, but he doesn't ask any questions. Thank god for no questions. He doesn't think he could form a coherent answer right now if his life depended on it.
Dreams and whimpers of agony had plagued her through the near two hours he had forced himself to drive, mewls that caused his heart to splinter filling the car, but those pitiful sounds of pain were nothing in comparison to the cry of torment she lets out when he opens the passenger door, unbuckles and cradles her body in one of his arms, and gingerly begins extracting the pieces of glass from her scalp in a seedy parking lot.
He feels when she finally jolts awake, her body jerking against his chest, her hands curling into fists at his side.
"I'm sorry," he whispers against the clammy skin of her forehead, her body still tensing against the sting of pain, but relaxing just a fraction at the sound of his voice. He adjusts her slightly, using the dim shine of the car's dome light to see and the darkness around them to shield.
It takes at least ten minutes for him to feel satisfied that the glass is gone and his neck is wet with tears she blinked against by the time he's finally done and blotting her skull with a wet towel. After parting her hair, he can locate where the bottle struck her, where all the blood is seeping from, and an unexpected surge of anger floods his bloodstream.
"Castle," she rasps, forehead pressing harder against his chin, fingers tightening in his shirt.
"I know, love," he tries to soothe, rubbing her back, but she shakes her head, pushing on his chest.
"Castle," she gasps as he pulls back, panic instinctually flaring in his chest. "Rick - have to-"
He helps her lean forward from the seat just in time, bands an arm around her as she gags and chokes through the alcohol forcing its way back up her throat. Castle scrapes her hair back and keeps her from tipping forward as she heaves and gasps around the beginnings of a sob.
"No, shh, you're okay, Kate," he promises her, wiping her mouth with the clean edge of the bloodstained towel. "Just get it all out."
"Killed them," she rasps, coughing over the last of the vomit. "Wouldn't leave you. Wouldn't let them win."
Pride spreads in his chest as he guides her back into a sitting position in the car.
"They're not going to win," he assures her, digging in the plastic bag at her feet and unscrewing the cap from the bottle of ginger ale he bought from the store.
"Where're we going?" she slurs, nodding unsteadily when he offers her a sip of the drink.
"I know you don't want to run, but just for now, we're going away."
Her eyes are dark, hazy, and he doesn't expect her to comprehend much of what he's saying right now, but for just a moment, her gaze focuses on him and decision seems to settle in her eyes.
"For you, for this," she mumbles, brushing her hand over the fingers splayed over her knee. "I don't mind running."