Hello! Sorry this update comes one day later than I had originally planned. Life interfered, you know how it is. A special thanks goes to Covalent Bond. You know why.

On with the show!

In the following days, Bones and her team worked hard to identify one skeleton after the next. They made very good progress, only the remains of Dira - of all people - caused problems. The left index finger was missing.

"Maybe you missed it," Zack said. Then he realized what he had said and he quickly added: "Which of course would never happen because you always work very carefully."

"Well learned how to kiss ass," Hodgins said and patted his shoulder. The expression on Zack's face changed to one of confusion.

"With a teacher like that he had to improve," Booth interjected, who had been walking around the lab for an hour without asking any concrete questions.

"I never kiss ass," Hodgins defended himself. "I work with slimy stuff. There's a difference."

"We've got a crime victim here. Could we maybe take the jokes elsewhere?," Bones snapped at them both.

The three men looked at her in surprise. Booth went to stand next to her and lowered his voice. "I'm sorry, but you know how we are. Just because we tease each other doesn't mean we respect the dead any less." He lowered his head a little to be able to look into her face. She was pale and there were dark shadows beneath her eyes.

And she was very irritable. "Don't look at me like that."

Although he was not used to her behaving this way, he knew how to bring Doctor Temperance Brennan back down to earth. "Do you have any new information for me?"

She took a deep breath. "We were able to identify 35 people and complete the cleaned skeletons. All female and all were killed by a shot to the forehead. The gun was held to their heads in a downwards angle. They were all pregnant. They were abused, had broken bones, mostly fractures of the ribs and extremities."

"Extre... oh, right, you mean their arms and legs."

"Toes and fingers, the bones in their hands and feet. We were able to attribute the fetal bones to the mothers. There are only two victims we don't know the names of yet and they're also the oldest ones. They have been lying there for approximately two and a half years."

"And when was the last victim killed?"

Hodgins pointed at a few maggots in a jar. "About four months ago."

Booth turned to Angela. "How far are you with the faces? How were you able to match the names?"

She handed him a pile of paper. "I drew twenty of them and now I need a break. Sorry." She reached for a cup of coffee and sat down.

"Briggs, the director of the camp, talked to the people who were missing loved ones. In the past three years 74 people disappeared altogether. 37 of those were women. Those were the bones we found. According to him, the men, mostly brothers, fathers or other relatives of the women, fled. He supposes they killed the women themselves because they saw them as a burden if they were to take them with them."

"That's bullshit." Booth shook his head. "I bet he doesn't believe that himself."

"He is the kind of guy who likes to stick his head in the sand and not notice anything." Hodgins handed Booth a file they had compiled especially for the agent because he was so busy with his drug dealers. "We collected some information on the camp and he seems to be very restrained and leave the dirty work to his right hand, Giorgio Angeles."

Something rattled and burst into pieces on the floor. A cup of coffee. Bones looked down at the shards, then to her shaking hand. With a start, she turned around and disappeared into her office. "I have to go check on something," she called over her shoulder.

"Err ... where was I?" Hodgins was leaving through the file as Angela cleaned up the mess. "Apparently, the deputy used to work as a police chief in a small village in South America."

"Yes, we found that out, too." Booth waved a dismissive hand. "The guy used to live in El Salvador after his his father moved to his mother's home country. He was suspected of working with the death squads but nothing could ever be proven. And apparently no one was really interested in prosecuting him for that, anyways. He is known as a sadist and absolutely void of emotion."

"Maybe he ..." Angela pointed at the remains.

"Quite possibly. I definitely think he is capable of it, but so far we don't have any evidence. Keep looking."

"I'll go an talk to Bones, first." She looked at the agent. "Or do you want to ..."

"No, I'll leave you to it. Unfortunately, I've got an appointment." Booth felt bad about it but he had to return to the FBI HQ for an interrogation. His gaze landed on the glass door of Bones' office. He could see her back. She was sitting on the couch, her head propped up on her hands. "I'll be back as soon as possible."

The stinky sack on her head, the hands of the men who were dragging her away, out of the bright sunlight and into the deep blackness of the dark cell. When the sack was pulled off of her head, she felt the intense wish to have it back. That way she could have at least told herself the darkness was only due to the fabric covering her eyes and not the room surrounding her.

She pressed her hands to her face, but this time she could not stop the tears. Sobbing, she slumped onto the couch, heard someone open the door and wished with all her heart that it was not Booth. She could not talk to him about this.

"Hey sweetie ...," Angela said and crouched next to her.

Bones sighed with relief when she felt the soft hand of her friend on her cheek, which was wet with tears. She gasped for air and then slowly regained her composure. "I'm alright," she said in a weak attempt to somehow get out of this conversation.

"What's going on?" Angela poured a glass of water and handed it to her.

"Thanks. It's just this case. It somehow gets to me." She fell silent and lowered her head when she noticed the disapproving frown of her best friend who was now sitting down next to her.

"What on earth did you see in that camp?"

"I ..." She kept quiet. Talking was not her thing. Showing weakness was not her thing. Usually, she could cope with everything just fine. "It's just ..." But then again, Angela knew the story already, so she would understand. "I have ... in the camp..." She paused and raised her eyes. "He's at the camp. The man I once told you about."

Angela was confused. Okay, so that happened a lot when Bones talked, but she had a feeling she was supposed to understand this right here and now before her friend changed her mind. She thought about when exactly Bones had fled earlier. The Name Giorgio Angeles had been mentioned. The deputy director of the camp. But the name didn't trigger anything. Angela was sure that she had never heard it before. She did not know anyone from El Salvador, anyways ... "El Salvador," she murmured. Then her eyes widened in shock. "You mean that dirtbag from El Salvador? The cop who tried to stop you in your investigation? Who locked you up for three days?"

Bones nodded. "Yes. He is the deputy of the camp director. Can you imagine that?"

"My god, Tempe ..." She wrapped her arms around her friend and held her close. Bones was shaking ever so slightly. "That must have been a shock when you saw him again."

"Yes," Bones whispered, nodding. "I thought, I ... Angela, I'm scared. I am still scared of this man. Sometimes I dream about him and about ... my time in the dark cell."

"You told me he threatened to kill you."

"Yes. He came in, stood in front of me, pulled his gun and held it in front of me. He wanted to shoot me and then just dump me." Once more tears were running down her face. "He swore that no one would ever find me. After three days, they pulled a sack over my head, took me out of there and threw me out of the car without stopping. After I freed myself, I realized I was close to a small village. I borrowed a car, drove to the airport and flew away. I never went back and I never finished my work there." Still lying in Angela's arms, she gasped for air and realized how good it felt to talk openly.

"I'm so sorry about all of this, sweetie. But why haven't you told Booth about it?"

"Because he overreacts when it is about me. Imagine I told him I was hit and psychologically tortured by this man. He would want revenge. And he would lose his objectivity in the case."

Angela nodded and looked at Bones firmly. "It's not the desire for revenge that rubs you the wrong way, right? It's the person. You want to take revenge, go the whole hog. You want to convict him, preferably on your own. Lock him up, too."

She nodded slowly. "Yes. I don't want Booth to get involved in this. This is personal."

"But Tempe, what if he is the killer we are looking for? You keep him safe by keeping silent."

"If he is the killer, which I don't doubt, then we will convict him with unrelated evidence and Booth can arrest him. What happened between me and this man a few years ago doesn't have anything to do with this." Bones looked at Angela urgently. "You have to swear to me that you won't tell Booth. Please."

She fought with herself for a moment, but then nodded. "Okay," she sighed. "I will keep this to myself and you keep away from the camp, no matter what. Deal?"

"Deal." Bones hugged her. "Thank you."

"I'm always here for you. You can always talk to me about anything, understood?"

She nodded. "Yes. I finally understood that."

Angela was not completely convinced and nudged her side with a smile. "Let's see how long it will stay that way." She wiped one last tear off of Bones' face. "I'll go and take a break now before I get any lasting damage. I'm sorry, Tempe, but the faces of the dead are already following me in my dreams." She hesitated. "That's alright with you, isn't it?"

"It's okay. I talked it out now and I'll cope, don't worry. And as far as the case is concerned, we won't make progress quickly. We told Briggs there were no clues at the moment and still need a few weeks to identify the victims. Therefore, the killer should feel safe and not do anything stupid."

Angela stood up and went to the door. "Hopefully he doesn't feel safe enough to continue killing."

That's it for today. I hope you liked this chapter. If there are any typos or similar stuff that I missed, feel free to point them out to me.