Chapter Four:

Disclaimer: I do not own Bones.

The day had been a long and grueling one. At this point after all of the excitement October could barely drag her booted feet up the stairs to her apartment. She sleepily jammed the key and turned it; pushed the door handle down and began to walk through but ended up smashing her nose painfully into the door.

She tried again, and still the door did not open, at this point October was in no mood to deal with tediousness; fed up and too tired to get the land lord, she took out her pocket knife and began fiddling with the lock until she managed the force it open.

She entered the apartment and noticed that a small collection of mail had been pushed through the mail slot. With the mail stack now in hand she began reading the return addresses while closing the door and locking it (though the lock was a bit more difficult to use now).

The mail was mostly an assortment of various bills. Uninterested; she had been about to simply toss them onto the nearby coffee table when something caught her eye.

A figure loomed in the shadows; October quickly threw her bag and the pile of mail onto the ground and walked closer feeling as though she were in one of those old-fashioned horror movies, the thought might have made her laugh, if the object of horror in this movie hadn't made itself gruesomely clear.

There, to the left of the marble island in the kitchen there was a rope that hung from the now mangled lamp. This rope was tied to form a noose and the noose encircled the neck of a limp body.

A strong gust of wind blew through the window October just noticed was open; it made the mangled lamp quiver as the body shifted directions. She might have tried to believe that this was a movie; there should have been haunting music in the background if this were truly a movie, but it wasn't and that fact was making itself abundantly clear with the horrific scene before her.

The face of the victim was now turned towards her; was it just her, or were the lifeless eyes of the victim glaring eerily at her? Half of its face looked as though it had been clawed away by some vicious animal, as did a few other parts of its body, there appeared to be a few bones missing as well, the right shoulder pad of what at one time might have been a very nice suit drooped downward, as if there wasn't any shoulder inside at all.

A scream caught in her throat and her feet took on a life of their own as they dragged her protesting body closer and closer to the bloody body, another gust of wind blew through the window; the body shifted again and the wall behind it caught her attention.

The wall behind the body had at one time held her degrees, framed and hung on the wall as her mother had insisted, but now the frames were in pieces and strewn across the floor, October heard glass crunch beneath her shoes as she continued to walk closer.

In the place of the degrees, written in what for now October decided to believe was red paint, there was a message, it took a few seconds for the words to register in her mind but as their full meaning sunk in the scream she had been holding in let loose from her throat.

Involuntarily she glanced towards the window; backing up slightly when she realized that someone was staring at her from the apartment across the alley; the light cast a shadow concealing the person's face and identity; but she knew who it was.

The figure threw their head back with laughter, he was laughing at her terror, mocking her. October watched at him raise his hand in her direction, the light glinted silver off of the gun he held pointed directly at her.

She barely had time to react, she ducked downwards just as a bullet came whizzing through the window, it hit the glass cabinet in the kitchen sending pieces of shattered glass across the room.

October reached into her pocket and yanked out her cell phone, she had been about to dial Agent Booth's number but more bullets whizzed through the window and shatter the remaining cabinets. She crawled out from under the island into the hall that led to the bathroom, she felt her hands come into contact with something wet; peering down the hall she saw that a light was on in the bathroom, the door was shut but water poured out from under it.

Though October was not in the direct line of view from the window, she could still be seen from where she sat. Her fingers were numb with the cold making the task of dialing Booth's number even more difficult. She jabbed at the buttons madly; she had to redial the number twice before she got it right; all the while casting nervous glances towards the window.

After three rings she heard an answer "Booth here"

"Hi, Booth-" she began but was cut off by the sound of another bullet shattering glass.

"October? What's going on?!" Booth nearly screamed into the phone, his voice took on a new aura now, one that projected seriousness.

"Yes, well it seems we had a bit of a problem-" she was cut off yet again by another bullet.

"Where are you?"

"I'm at my apartment"

"I'll be right there"

"But Booth, there is something else-" a beeping sounded, signaling that he had hung up.

October tucked the phone back into her pocket; she looked up searching for a better hiding place. If she were to go down the hall he could easily hit her just by angling the gun properly (and he seemed like he had quite a good aim; having been able to shatter each and every glass item visible in the kitchen), she glanced towards her original hiding spot, perhaps instead of hiding in front of the island she could hide behind it. That is if she could get behind it without getting killed first.

She sucked in a breath then leaped across the floor towards the area behind the island, more shots rang out through the air, her heart leaped with joy when she saw that she was nearly there; she only had a foot more to go. But she was a bit too slow in the end it seemed, she let out a gasp as she felt a searing pain in her left leg.

October scrambled behind the island then rolled up her left black pant leg; for once in her life she had been lucky; the bullet had only grazed her leg. She let out a sigh of relief then leaned back against the island, but her relief was short lived because the very next moment the apartment door flung open, hitting the wall with a loud bang.

October chanced a glimpse at who it was; a gasp caught in her throat as she took in the sight of his pale blonde hair greased back with too much oil and his drooping, dull, watery blue eyes that had somehow managed to project a glare heated enough to match the malicious sneer on his face. Smith had found her.

The words on the wall flooded into her mind; your degrees won't help you now, sweetie…

He was going to kill her. The idea couldn't seem to form properly in her mind; various voices took the place of reason, each stating a different protest against it;

I'm not going to die. I can't die. I'm too young to die!

Panic began to take hold of her, how was she supposed to get out of this? She quickly scrambled down the hall into the nearest room; but not before reaching through the now broken glass cabinet door and getting the chili pepper.

Her stomach leaped as the sickly sweet sound of his voice filled her ears.

"Hello, sweetie…I know you're in here….come out, come out, wherever you are!"

His footsteps sounded in the hall; he was getting closer. October frantically searched around the room- which had turned out to be the bathroom-for a way out; but there was none. Her only options were the door and the small window just above the shower, neither of which sounded appealing considering that she was on the eleventh floor and the locked door was the only thing that rested between her and a most gruesome death.

The doorknob rattled signaling the arrival of Smith at her door.

"Aw, you think that a locked door will save you? You poor sweet naive thing…"

She heard the door knob rattle violently; he was fiddling with the lock, trying to force it open. She searched frantically for something she could use; she grabbed the shower hose just as the door flung open.

He came towards her, his mouth twisted into a sick smile as he said "Oh how cute, you're going to try to defend yourself, aren't you?"

Her response was flinging the shower head in the direction of his groin as hard as she could.

He doubled over and she darted (as best she could with a limp) past him, she was about to run out the door when the sight of another man-this one much more bulky and tattooed- standing in the doorway sent her to a screeching halt.

"Careful, Luey. This one's a fighter" Smith croaked from the bathroom.

The man Smith called "Luey" smiled the same sick smile at her before he lunged at her, he grabbed her, wrapping his sweaty and smelly arms around her, she kicked and fought her way to face him, he looked as though he were about to say something but he was cut off by October as she reached in her pocket and threw a hand full of chili powder on his face.

She wiped the chili powder residue from her hands on her pants as she limped as fast as she could to the stairwell, she was almost there when someone jumped from the nearest window saying "Gotcha!" and collided with her sending them both hurdling to the floor.

Now she was trapped, with Smith lying on top of her. He was heavy; so heavy in fact that she could hardly breathe. She had never been gladder in her life then when she saw Mrs. Crawner, the little old lady who lived across the hall from- who was known for being quite the potty-mouth- stagger out of her apartment cursing loudly about all the ruckus that "kids these days" make (no matter how many times she went over it with her the old lady still believed that she was a "kid "in high school and was only living alone because her parents were on hiatus, October supposed it had something to do with her own small stature).

But October's relief soon turned to dread as the realization of how dangerous the situation was sunk in. She had been about to call out to the old lady, to tell her to go inside and lock the door, to tell her she needed to get out of here, but she was too late. A squinting "Luey" hobbled out of October's apartment; gun in hand, with just enough time to pull the trigger as the word "NO!" echoed loudly through the hall.

The gun had a silencer but that didn't mean that maybe October's call hadn't awakened someone, maybe someone was calling the police right now; maybe she was going to get help. These were the sad bits of hope that rang through October's mind as she was carried outside, bound, gagged, blindfolded, and thrown roughly into the trunk of a car; her attempts at defending herself futile.

She didn't know how long she was in the trunk or how far they had driven out side of the city, all she knew was that by the time they opened the trunk she was drenched in sweat and wishing desperately that she had her inhaler with her.

They removed the blindfold once she was in a standing position, then dragged her roughly along a dark field of grass until they came upon what appeared to be an abandoned barn; the door stood ajar and the building leaned slightly to the left; looking as though it might topple over at any moment.

Right before they entered October glanced up towards the sky, in the distance she could see a group of tall metal towers, she hoped and prayed they were phone towers and as she did and idea popped into mind.

Once inside the barn Smith told Luey to throw her in the back stall because they had to "get everything ready" first. She was almost literally thrown into the farthest stall that was so far away from the entrance that not even the bright florescent light above the door was close enough supply even the slightest illumination.

She quickly dug her hand into her left pocket; right before Smith had entered and all Hell had broken loose she had had the good sense to stuff the phone hastily into her pocket. She quickly turned down the volume until it was on mute then dialed Booth's number, which had not been an easy task considering that with how her body was contorted by the ropes that bound her she had to do all of this with her pinky.

She stared at the screen hoping that Smith and Luey were too busy to notice the slight illumination that the phone supplied, she could hear them moving something around, most likely a large metal object by the way it clanged loudly against the cement floor, October tried not to think about what it might be, though something told her that whatever it was it was most likely along the lines of a skewer.

The image on the screen changed and by the timer that shown in the right hand corner she assumed that Booth had picked up, she might have considered simply speaking to him especially since her assailants were quite far away, but the gag and the fact that she wasn't willing to risk it restricted her from talking.

She had seen this once on a TV show one lazy Sunday when she had been too tied to do anything more than sit on the couch and eat cookies, she only hoped that she had remembered the sequence of taps correctly. Using the ring that had been on her right thumb she drummed against the concrete floor, tap, tap, tap, she paused very briefly in each of the next three taps; prolonging them, tap, tap, tap, then tapped again; three short taps.

She continued with the sequence that she hoped was indeed "SOS" until she saw a large silhouette moving towards her, she quickly turned off her phone; she didn't have enough time to put it in her pocket so she swept it as fast as she could into the nearest pile of hay.

As soon as the figure opens the door she fell limp against the wall behind her, deciding that "playing dead" might be the safest route for her. The man whom by his bulkiness appeared to be Luey walks over to her and hastily took off her gag and replaced it by tying a handkerchief lightly around her mouth and nose.

The handkerchief smelled funny and something told her that holding her breath was probably the better option at the moment; she glanced around frantically in hopes of finding some way out of the impossible situation, but all she could see was hay and then a strange contraption hanging from the ceiling and a very large amount of hay.

Wait a minute…

While trying to ignore the way her lungs were beginning to ach she looked more closely at the contraption; there appeared to be a series of ropes that controlled the contraction and retraction of what looked like a giant bed sheet, after looking more closely she could see that he "bed sheet" held more hay. The old farmer that had owned this farm must have been feeling inventive one day when thinking of a place to store his hay because he had made it so that unless you pulled on the rope the "bed sheet" would stay taut by the ropes pulling it so from each corner, if you were to pull on the rope that hung down just outside of the stall October was locked in then from what she could see one side of the ropes would give way allowing the hay to fall in the space below it; the space where Smith now sat next to a small fire that was casting eerie shadows on the wall behind it.

She felt her lungs constrict, she had been holding her breath too long, just as she began to writhe in pain an Idea popped into her mind, she didn't have time to think through the details because at that moment Luey unlocked the door of her stall, he walked over to her and began to pick her up, she gasped loudly, her lungs giving way to the need for oxygen.

"What the-" Luey began, but October didn't let him finish, she kicked him hard in the shin then darted for the entrance of the stall.

So much for playing dead….

She raced towards the rope, it was just in her reach when something latched onto her leg, she lost her balance and plummeted face-first into the hard, concrete floor.

"Not so fast!" Smith said dragging her up from the floor, she felt a hot liquid run down from her nose; she looked down in time to see her own blood drip onto the floor.

She screamed as he grabbed her hair and pulled her to face him "Thought you could get away, did ya?" he said through clenched teeth, clearly he was tired of her high jinks "did ya?!" his voice grew louder and she let out another scream as he pulled harder on her hair.

She reached into her pocket and yanked out the last of her chili powder, she whirled around, grimacing as the movement pulled harder on her hair and threw it in his face, he immediately let go and let out a screech as he reached up to rub it away from his eyes with his hands "You little bitch!" he screamed after her, but she ignored him, and the searing pain in her left leg, she just kept her gaze locked on the rope, but the world began to spin; the corners going black.

Dammit!

She yanked the handkerchief off of her face but it was too late, the world was fading away. She reached to the rope; she pulled down as hard as she could.

The last thing she remembers was the faint glow of red and blue lights and the hazy sound of police cars in the background of the searing pain from the flames licking at her body from all directions.