A/N I apologise for the delay, those who don't know I have been away for work for a month and the notes for my other stories were here at home being guarded by my marine. Now I am back and ALL my unfinished stories will be finished on a rotating basis.

Thank you for your patience.

Disclaimer, Yeah...I admit it, these belong to Shane Brennan...but I will put all the bits back in the box when I'm done.


Chapter 4

Callen went back to the summer room in Hetty's house and carried on reading.

This summer has been a strained one for your son.

Reinhardt wrote to Nikita as Callen settled back in the large armchair he was sitting from and rubbed the bridge of his nose, he knew what was coming and wished he hadn't had to read this book. But if he wouldn't then the team would have to.

Callen has been unsettled since his last placement, he didn't want to go into a home environment, but all the group homes were full and they insisted.

I watched with an unsettled feeling as Callen grabbed that green bag that has become his lifeline of late and held it tight to his chest as he walked towards the house.

A large brute of a man opened the door to him. I was worried by the look in the man's eye as he opened the door, he was nice and polite to the Child Protection Worker, but every time her attention was taken by something else this man looked up and down your boy like he was a piece of meat. I am going to run and in-depth check on him.

My heart broke as I watched the worker drive off and Callen staring out of the window. The look on his face as a large hand grabbed his head and pulled him away from the window by his hair.

I waited, but heard nothing from inside the house, so I hoped that Callen had just been sent to his room, I was so wrong…

Callen threw the book down in frustration Reinhardt had been there, he could have stopped it.

He angrily swiped the moisture that was collecting in his eyes, he was right he couldn't read that volume.

"If you need some more time alone?" Hetty said to him standing in the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" Callen asked incredulously. It didn't seem that long since they had been talking on the phone.

"I assume you are just now reaching the time you were placed with Mr. Pike." She said.

Callen nodded, "I…I can't read this one."

Hetty nodded in understanding, "Yet you will have to. If you do not want the others to read it."

"You wouldn't!" Callen said looking shocked and surprisingly for him, scared.

"I do not want to anymore than you do Mr. Callen. But the evidence has to be read and the summary written into the report." She said.

"NO!" Callen snapped, "Not this…Not this one…" he shook his head and walked away from the book as Hetty picked it up and held it in her hand.


"Do you wish me to contact someone, Nate or Sam maybe?" Hetty offered.

Callen slumped down on the couch shaking his head, "I had almost forgotten about him." He said his voice the barest whisper.

Hetty sat next to him and reached out touching his hand, Callen grasped it like a lifeline.

"I knew something was wrong, he was shooting me looks as I was dropped off."

Hetty placed the book back into his hands and Callen opened the book, but told her about it anyway.

"As soon as the door closed, he grabbed me and pulled me back into the room." He said his eyes focused on the weave of the probably genuine Persian rug.

"John Pike?" Hetty asked.

Callen nodded, "There were no other kids in the house, I didn't see his wife, so I assumed she was shopping or at work." He said.

"And in reality?" Hetty asked.

"She had left him a month before, he'd been caught in…in bed with one of his foster kids and she left him."

"And the girl he was with?" Hetty asked.

"It wasn't a girl." Callen said flatly.

"Oh!" Hetty said as Callen grabbed the book and headed back to the chair in the summer room and opened it, Hetty was right it was better he read it than others.

It has been three weeks since anyone has seen Callen, it is summer vacation here, so he has not been at school and no one has seen him out, his social worker is on her own vacation and yet the feeling in my gut is that something is wrong, very, very wrong.

I tried calling at the house, in the guise of a utility worker, John Pike answered the door, turned out he really did have a water leak. The house inside was immaculate, but there was no sign of Callen, until I asked to go upstairs to check the pipes in the attic. I think that luck was with me as his phone rang and I was left to find the attic myself.

Obviously I started looking in the rooms; I got to a room on the end with a lock on the outside of the door. Picking the lock I walked in to see a sight that chilled me to the bone. Your son, beaten, battered, nearly naked chained to a bed by a manacle to his ankle. This alone should have scared me, but no, it was the glazed high expression on his face and the needle sticking out of his arm.

He didn't notice I was there and I backed out quickly and headed to the attic lest Mr. Pike found me there.

I called the police and made my report, by the time I was leaving the police were pulling up outside the house.

I pulled up down the road a little way and watched as Pike was dragged out kicking and screaming and Callen was brought out by the paramedics.

My blood ran cold as they stopped and had to resuscitate him right there on the front lawn, with the neighbors and police watching.


Oh Nikita, I have been to the hospital to see him, he is addicted to Heroin, watching him in the locked room crying and screaming for the drug is breaking my heart. He is in so much pain, when he's given his methadone, he did say he didn't want to take the drug; he had been forced to by Pike. The doctors say that the withdrawals should ease in time and eventually it will pass from his system but the poor boy is so afraid of needles now that he cries every time someone with a needle enters the room.

I have something else to report…but I really do not want to be the one to tell you, there are no words that I can use to express my regret at being the one to tell you this…they ran a rape kit on your boy, it came back positive.

I am so sorry.

There is something else; I am not sure exactly what when on in that house, but when I looked into Callen's' eyes, there was something…different. I was worried this had broken your boy, but no…it is different, he is harder, more determined…He has set his mind on something, I don't know what it is, but by the look in his eyes I think he will get it.

Callen sighed with relief; Reinhardt had got the bare bones of what had happened to him in there.

He himself did not remember it all except for the endless pain after he had been taken from there and his burning desire to bring evil to justice.

He found himself crying with the memories he did have and when he looked up, he was surprised to find it was dark and that Hetty had come in and draped a blanket over his shoulders.

"Are you alright Mr. Callen?" Hetty asked sitting next to him.

Callen nodded, "It was a long time ago Hetty." He replied taking the cup of tea she offered him.

"Sometimes, if you haven't dealt with something from long ago, it can create a rift in your future." She said to him.

Callen sipped the tea, "You know as well as I do I did extensive therapy from that time."

"I do know," she said cryptically, "But if there is anything else you'd care to share, between you and me, I am willing to listen."

Callen looked over at her, there was no malice nor was there any teasing in her words, just the desire to help out…a friend?

Callen looked at the few books left on the table.

"That was the worst of it," he admitted, "Pike was the worst foster father I ever lived with, what he did to me….what happened to me though shaped me into the person I am today, he gave me the determination to bring people to justice. I wasn't going to let his actions shape who I was, and…while I was…high…I…Hetty I saw my mother." He admitted, "She told me to hold on and that I would help people someday, I like to think I helped her dream come true." He told her.