Gabby
I'm not sure if it's planned or rather just some unspoken decision the firehouse comes to, but I'm never left alone after I broke down in Severide's arms. Even as Antonio pores over traffic cam footage and listens to the recording of my husband's kidnapper's voice over and over again, someone is always with me. Kelly takes first shift and then when squad is called out, Herman takes his place. Even Boden takes a few minutes out of his day to sit with me. And I know he's busy. He's down a Captain. His firehouse has been taken over by overzealous police detectives (but believe you me, that is not a criticism. I'd rather them be ruthless than civil at this point) and the place is in utter disarray.
It's been exactly… six hours, thirty-two minutes and seven seconds since Matt was taken. I know this because I've watched just about every single one of those seconds tick by on the clock bolted to the wall above the conference room whiteboard. It's one of those industrial strength ones that looks like it was forged in the fires of Mount Doom before being sealed in a steel cage. I wonder idly who put it there. Was the clock stolen at some point? What's with the cage? I've been at 51 for a while and I don't remember any shenanigans involving that clock. Yet there it sits, bolted to the wall and protected by bars, and standing watch over the ticking minutes like some forgotten cold war era soldier. It's funny the things your brain fixates on a crisis.
"I can't do this anymore," I say, rising from my seat and wringing my hands.
"What?" Otis asks. He's been sitting with me for the last half hour or so. Herman had to go pick one of his kids up from school.
"Sit around here and wait for something to happen. This is stupid. I'm going out to look for him."
"Where, Gabby? No one has any idea where he is," Otis tries to reason with me, also getting up from his seat to block my way when I start heading for the door.
"They found his truck over on the south side, didn't they?" I counter. "I can start there."
"Can you even hear yourself right now?" Otis says incredulously, eyebrows chasing up after his hairline. "I've got at least two good reasons for why that will never work." I scowl at him. "One," he says, ignoring me and holding up a finger, "south side. And two: don't you think that's the first place the cops thought to look?"
He's right. I know he's right and, judging by the smug look he's trying not to show, he knows I know he's right. It makes me want to smack the mustache right off his face.
"But what if they missed something?"
"I highly doubt that."
"But you said it yourself," I say, raising my own finger. "'It's the south side'. No one over there is going to talk to the cops. Maybe if I," but I don't get to finish my sentence. My brother crashes back into the room and if he wonders why I'm up and out of my seat with Otis barring my way to the door, he doesn't mention it.
"What is it?" I ask immediately, noting the look on his face. Whatever it is, it doesn't look good, and my heart jumps up into my throat.
"Some kid just dropped something off for you."
"And?" This is a firehouse, people are always dropping shit off
"And we're pretty sure it's from whoever took Matt."
Antonio holds the door open for me as I barrel through, hot on my tail as I practically sprint towards the kitchen.
"It was a flash drive with an audio file on it," Antonio explains, trying to keep up with me. "Some guy paid a kid a hundred bucks to bring it by the firehouse." As we near the swinging doors of the apparatus bay, I notice Ruzak talking to a terrified-looking teenage boy just outside. I wonder if this is the kid who brought the drive, but don't get the chance to ask, because I forget all about him a moment later when I reach the kitchen.
The place is unrecognizable. All the familiar furniture that makes this place home has been pushed up against one far wall and the CPD has set up tables of their own. Plain clothes police detectives and computer techs mull around with cups of coffee in their hands, talking quietly, but my main focus is the familiar group of people clustered around one laptop at the head table. Jay Halstead, Kevin Atwater, Hank Voight. They all look up and stop talking the moment I enter the room. Everyone stops talking, actually, and my stomach bottoms out. Oh god, this can't be good.
"What's going on?" Antonio asks, as surprised as I am by the silence. Jay Halstead jogs around the corner of the table and stops us from going any further.
"This might not be such a great idea," the detective says cryptically.
"You listen to it?" Antonio asks. I inch forward, trying (and failing miserably) to look like I'm not hanging on their every word.
"Yeah," Jay admits, glancing at me.
Antonio breathes out through his nose. "Bad?"
The detective doesn't say anything, but his silence speaks volumes. Antonio bites his lip and turns towards me.
"No." I tell him flatly.
"You don't even know what I was going to say."
"Yes, I do, and the answer is still no. I'm not going anywhere. Whatever is on that drive, I can handle it."
"Not this, Gabby. It's…" Jay begins, but the look i shoot him stops him mid-sentence.
"Don't you even start with me, Halstead."
Who in the hell do you think you are, anyway? I want to say, but don't. I can practically smell the misogynistic tendencies raring up in the room; all of the men here thinking they know what's best for me just because they're related to me, or a I dated them a million and a half years ago. It's bullshit. Maybe it's just the stress of the situation talking, but only I know what I can and cannot handle and I'll be damned if I'm going to let some overprotective ex or my asshole of an older brother make that decision for me.
"I don't give a rat's ass what's on that drive," I continue, ready for a fight – if it comes to that. "If it's about Matt, I want to hear it."
Antonio shares a look with Hank Voight who seems to not have an opinion on the matter one way or the other, judging by his silence and the one shoulder shrug he gives. This is obviously Antonio's rodeo. Everyone else is just along for the ride.
"Alright, then. Play the damn thing," he orders and the newest member of intelligence (I can't ever seem to be able to remember her name) hits a button on the laptop. I hold my breath as the sounds of a man clearly being tortured fill the room. It takes everything in me not to faint right then and there as his screams tear apart every hope I had of this turning out any other way than how I imagined.
It occurs to me then that maybe Jay Halstead was right. Maybe this wasn't such a great idea.
