Jane was bored out of his wits, and was currently taking it out on Lisben, who was ready to smack him. She raised her hand and stood, ready to beat Jane into the ground, " Jane stop goddamn poking me, you stupid son of a b-!" Halfway through Lisben's rant the phone rang, cutting her off, her face turned red as she grabbed the offensive cell and braced herself to yell into the thing when she read the caller ID and turned even redder, but this time with embarrassment. "Hello, this is Lisben." A murmur on the other end of the line made Lisben's eyes darken, and Jane craned his neck, curious. Lisben lowered the phone and sighed. "Jane, promise me that if you come with us to investigate this case you'll behave." Jane smiled, wiggling his eyebrows playfully,
" Don't I always?" As an after thought he added, "more or less?" Lisben nodded, and grabbed her coat,
" Not when it concerns Red John." Jane lept to his feet and Rigsby, Cho, and Vanpelt followed after him as he trotted to the bureau's van.
On the ride to the house, which was located just outside of town, Vanpelt looked up the family on their police records. "Well, it says here that the Birthdays moved in here a few months ago, after the father received threats from one of his colleagues at the bank he worked at." Lisben leaned over,
" What were the threats for?" Vanpelt nodded and read more,
" Someone kept saying that Mr. Birthday was embezzling money, and was going to kill him if he didn't 'fess up." Lisben grimaced,
" That's horrible, what a stupid thing to do. What about Mr. Birthday's family, kids, wife?" This time it was Rigsby, who had leaned over Vanpelt's shoulder, who answered,
" He had a wife, Maria Birthday, and two children, a boy, age 21, named John, and a younger son, age 16, named Beyond." Lisben blinked and Jane smirked, though there was an angry glint in his eyes,
" What an odd na-" before Jane could finish Lisben announced that they had arrived, and everyone piled out of the car, immediately marching up to the massive house. Cho was the first to speak,
"Dear lord!" The comment seemed appropriate, considering both the size of the house, and the fact that instead of a mail box, it had a large, bloody cross in the yard. Lisben ducked under the yellow caution tape, flashing her badge as she went,
" Rigsby, get DNA off of that thing." Rigsby nodded and broke off, the rest trekked inside, ready for almost anything, and yet, once they walked into the Birthday's living room, they all had to look away.
There staring at them was a gruesome site. He father, they presumed, was beheaded, and on the ground, his blood pooled around him. Next to him was his wife, or at least they thought, for her corpse was burnt nearly to a crisp. Finally, hanging from the wall was a young man, his hands and feet had large, long nails going through them, keeping him suspended, and a wreath of what looked like red roses, weaved into a grizzly crown, sat on his head. Lisben felt nauseous and Cho had to physically leave the room. Jane looked on, a cold look in his eyes, before he spoke to no one in particular, "This isn't the work of Red John."
After awhile everyone filed into the room, horror filled, and all looking more than a little green.
Lisben took a deep breath, and all eyes trained on her. She looked at the bodies once more, and said what everyone knew was coming, "This boy on the wall does not look sixteen, and I only count three bodies of the four that should be here, so..." Jane smiled grimly,
"So, we're on a body hunt, everybody fan out." Everyone did as they were told, and hesitantly wondered through the house, focused on finding the final victim. The lucky person was Cho,
"Lisben! I...found him." Lisben winced, all hopes that the boy might still be alive left her at the dull tone in Cho's voice. She walked up to find Cho and Jane(who'd trotted over) standing in front of a door, which had a large, red smiley face drawn on it, and underneath, in equally bloody letters were the words, "Come find me Jane." Jane snarled, and slammed his shoulder against the door, a whoosh could be heard from inside, and Jane froze, uttering only one word,
"Shit." Lisben and Cho glanced at each other, and Vanpelt walked up as well,
"Shit?"
"Yeah, shit. That whoosh was me setting off a trap, I hope it didn't kill who ever's inside this room." Lisben nodded, all seriousness,
"You better hope so, or you'll be next." Jane huffed, like a scolded child and shouted through the door,
" Anyone alive in there?" Vanpelt rolled her eyes,
"How very tactful of you." Jane smirked,
"Thank you!" As Jane spoke a boom echoed from inside and a bullet whizzed past his ear. Jane pulled away, then leaned back in to look through the whole the projectile had made in the door.
"Hey now! Don't shoot, we're police, we aren't going to hurt you." Silence was Jane's only answer, so he sighed, "Fine, we'll send a cop in," He glanced at Vanpelt who shook her head vigorously, and then Lisben, who glared, then to Cho, who looked at him with a "no way." kind of glance, and finally at Rigsby, who had shown up at some point. Rigsby mouthed "no." but everyone kept right on staring at him, and still he adamantly refused. "There is no way I am going in there."
A few minutes later, Rigsby was wearing a bulletproof vest, and heading into the room that held the killer/victim. As he worked the door open he dodged a piece of brick that had been lobbed at him by someone unseen. Rigsby shook it off with a sigh and kept going, closing the door behind him as he did, flicking on a flashlight as well, so he could actually see in the dank room. Rigsby heard a shuffle and cast his light in the area, earning a hiss from its occupants, an angry cat flew at him. Rigsby waved his arms around in distaste, he did not like cats. Finally scaring off his attacker Rigsby worked his way further into the rather large room, until he heard a horse voice rasp, "Stop!" The voice dissolved into a fit of coughing, but not until after choking out, "There's a wire!" Rigsby froze, and questioned the darkness,
" A trap." The coughing subsided and the voice replied,
" Yeah, it's super sharp, it'll cut you in half." Rigsby nodded, then realizing the owner of the voice probably couldn't see him,
"Okay, how do you know, seems to me like your still in one piece." The voice laughed weakly,
" Yeah, but it did give me a nice gash." Rigsby smiled,
" Very trusting aren't you, for someone who was trying to shoot my friends ear off a minute ago." The voice laughed again,
" Sorry, I though you were...him...that he came back." Rigsby could practically feel the person shiver.
"How do I get past this wire?"
" Cut it." Rigsby nodded, an pulled out a pocket knife, but then freezing,
" This wire is pulled taught, once I cut it, it'll go everywhere!" The figure paused,
"...True...I'll back up, when I say ready, cut the rope and run towards the door." Rigsby nodded, and waited, listening to the figure shuffle safely away, until he called out,
"Ready?"
" Uh-huh, go for it." Rigsby held his flashlight up, letting it hit the thin black wire, that was indeed right in front of him, one more step and he would've been...Rigsby shook his head and pulled out the scissors on his pocket knife and cut, running for his life towards the door as soon as he did. Rigsby sighed when he heard the wires hit the wall with a metallic clink, then make a softer sound as they fell slack.
"You alright over there?" Silence was Rigsby's answer, and he began to panic, when a quiet, gurgled,
"no..." reached his ears. Rigsby through himself forwards, flashlight in hand, "stop...I'm...okay...it's not the...uh!" Rigsby grimaced, was he really going to have to drag a dead body out of the room after all? He heard a sharp gasp and flicked his flashlight's light into the corner that the noise was coming from, only to see a small boy, maybe 13 or 14 seizing on the ground. Rigsby grabbed the boy by the shoulders, who in return latched onto him and nearly squeezing the life out of him, whimpering softly as he did, finally finding a voice,
"Not now...make it stop!" The boy shuddered in Rigsby's arms, coughing painfully as he did. Rigsby just held him throughout, rocking him slightly, humming.
Finally the boy fell slack against Rigsby and whimpered again, choking out his words so weakly that Rigsby almost couldn't hear them, "I'm sorry, I just have this disease..." Rigsby smiled sadly in understanding,
"It's alright, is it epilepsy? I'll turn my light off!" Rigsby shuffled, trying not to cause any disturbance in the steady stream of light from his flashlight, who knows what could cause the boy to have another episode.
"No, it's okay, it's not that, its some genetic...thing...sometimes, it just happens, if my bodies weak, which it always is, or if I'm overly tired, or if I get to overly anything anyway, it really suck and sometimes I just wish it-!" Rigsby had pulled the boy into an awkward hug,
"sh...don't ramble, just rest okay?" The boy nodded into Rigsby's shoulder and relaxed, tensing only when Rigsby scooped him up bridal style. The boy shrieked,
"What are you doing!" Rigsby rubbed the boy's back,
"Leaving this place, you need medical treatment, I can feel your blood seeping in through my vest." The boy nodded again, and the duo stepped out of the room and into the light. The boy grew even tenser as they were bathed in light, and Rigsby saw the telltale twitch of the boy's hand that, more than likely, another seizure was coming, her heard the boy whisper into his shoulder,
"Two in a row...this is gonna suck." A shudder wracked the boy's body and Rigsby held onto him tightly, lowering him to the ground, but never letting go. Paramedics crowded around him and the boy shrunk away from the foreign people, the shudders growing stronger, turning into full scale convulsions. Rigsby snapped bitterly at the paramedics,
"give him some air!" One looked on in confusion, and huffed superiority at Rigsby,
" He's clearly having a seizure, why not let us help him." Rigsby snarled and Jane helped him out,
"because scaring him further is a good idea!" the boy whimpered from the yelling, his spasms finally stopping. He looked up at the paramedics and they all gasped, red eyes glared daggers at them.
"Go away." the boy's voice was level and cold, and when the paramedics didn't retreat he bared his teeth, a completely different person,
" Fine, you've given me no choice, the boy cleared his throat and shouted loudly,
"Heimgang herfahren!" Everyone stopped, confused, until a large, black dog came storming down the stairs, snarling menacingly, the boy smiled at the snarling mass of fur as the paramedics backed away,
"Artig bube!" The dog, Heimgang, barked happily and licked at the boy's face contentedly, until Rigsby sighed, interrupting the two's reunion,
"They were just trying to help you..."
"Beyond, and yeah I know, but.." Cho gasped,
"You're Beyond! Beyond Birthday? But it says you're 16..." Beyond looked offended, and he stood, all menace and malice,
"I am Sixteen! So you can just..." At that moment Beyond stumbled backwards, and fell unconscious into Rigsby's arms.
