I'm going to be nice and update before I go on a retreat this weekend since everyone wants to know what happens! I got more reviews on that chapter than normal, and it would be GREAT if you all could do that again for me? I don't own any of them, as hard as I wish it still hasn't happened.
Silas Edwards knew the CBI was on their way here. He wasn't stupid. He had, after all, been a professor of criminal law. Which is why it was quite ludicrous he was being chased by the police. He knew he had gotten a little rough with his student, Carissa Baker, but damn, she was hot. They had been making out and she had pushed him away. He had proceeded to choke her until she blacked out.
Then Miss Hero Teresa Lisbon had come along and arrested him. Prison hadn't been as bad as he had chalked it up to be, but then another bitch, Grace Van Pelt decided to play hero like her boss when he had tried to withdrawal some money from his savings account, and pulled his gun when they wouldn't give it to him.
The sound of a car outside made him jump up, and in his haste he knocked a vase over. Silas locked the dead bolt on his front door and ran down to the Dungeon, or his basement as everyone else he knew called it.
In his rush, he forgot to lock the backdoor.
--
Rigsby and Jane pulled up to the small house that bordered the secluded edge of the desert. The UPS man was walking away from the front porch, checking something off on his clipboard. Jane studied him to make sure he wasn't their guy walking away literally right by their faces.
Rigsby waited impatiently for Jane to stop staring at the delivery man. As Jane sized the UPS man up, Rigsby took in his surroundings. The house was at one point, white. Now, however, it was more of a brownish-gray, from desert sand and freak rainstorms. The curtains were all tightly closed, and they were all dark green. The front door was white, with a black metal screen on the outside. It was a one-level ranch style home, but if this was where he was keeping Grace and Lisbon, there had to be a basement.
"What are you waiting for?" Jane asked as he stepped up onto the small cement porch, with a green welcome mat adorning the center. Rigsby rolled his eyes and joined Jane on the small attachment.
"Mr. Edwards!" Rigsby shouted as he banged his fist into the door twice. When there wasn't an answer, Rigsby knocked three more times.
"He isn't going to answer." Jane whispered as he reached forward. The screen opened with a creak, but the white front door was locked. "Back door."
Rigsby obediently followed Jane around the back of the small home. Jane stopped by a window that was half covered in dry dirt and held one finger up to silence him. Rigsby leaned a little closer, trying to understand what Jane was doing. Then he heard it, the all too familiar sounds of a struggle, and things being thrown around.
Rigsby pulled his gun, and then pulled his spare one out too, and handed that one to Jane, just in case. The two men silently ran to the back door, and when it swung wide open, they slowly made their way inside.
-
Silas Edwards walked into the room he was keeping Grace van Pelt in. She was lying unconscious on the floor. He didn't want to hurt someone who wasn't even awake to experience the ecstasy with him, so turned and went into Teresa Lisbon's room. Lisbon was slouched against the wall, breathing irregularly. She was barely conscious, but it would do.
Edwards crossed the tiny room and knelt in front of her. He reached one arm out and tucked a lock of brown hair behind her ear. She shied away from his touch, and he frowned. With the same arm, he struck her across the face. When she didn't show any signs of appreciation, fear, or any other emotion, he continued to smack her. Still Lisbon maintained a stony expression. He slipped the knife out of his pocket and gently dragged it along her calf, making streams of blood trickle into the already stained mattress underneath her.
-
The pain in her calves was excruciating. He wasn't even cutting that deep, but Lisbon assumed it was all her old bruises that were hurting so much. She was too weak to even show emotion, which meant she was running out of strength. Teresa Lisbon knew her limits, and she was already outside of them.
The sound of a door closing upstairs could be faintly heard through the floor, and the man stopped what he was doing and froze. He recovered within five seconds, and pulled Lisbon up by her hair. He kicked one foot out and pushed the door open. She was vaguely aware of being lifted in the air by her hair, which made everything ache. She closed her eyes when she got dizzy standing, and allowed herself to go slightly limp in the man's arms.
-
Rigsby mentally shot himself when he heard the backdoor slam. Great, now Edwards knew they were in the house. Jane was rapidly walking towards a door on the far side of the home. It was in a weird location, if the door opened into a bedroom, the bedroom couldn't exist. It would be in the desert. Jane pushed it open with his foot and they cautiously crept down a dark staircase.
Awaiting them at the end of the stairway was a dark hallway with several doors on each side. The door on the very end of the right side was open, but there was no noise coming from anywhere inside.
-
As Rigsby carefully made his way down the hall, stopping in every other door frame for protection, he figured he looked something like a ninja, a ninja on his way to save the damsel in distress. As he peered in the open door, his heart momentarily forgot to pump blood. His body temperature probably dropped a few degrees, and he almost lost his grip on his gun.
Silas Edwards was standing in the far corner of the tiny cell, with Lisbon in his arms. Boss was limp in Edwards' embrace, and her face was ashen. She had blood staining her legs and bruises covered her face, chest, stomach, arms, and legs. Lisbon was only in her underwear, if one could still refer to it as that, since it was dirty, bloody, and ripped.
"I see you." Edwards snapped as he adjusted his grip on the knife he had to Lisbon's throat. Rigsby and Jane stepped in the doorway, with Jane more in the room than Rigsby.
Jane scanned Lisbon, she was alive at least. For how much longer was anybody's guess. Jane had Rigsby's gun in the pocket of his suit, hidden from Edwards' view. Jane slipped his hands in his pant's pockets and attempted a smile.
"How about you let Agent Lisbon go?"
Edwards scoffed at the idea, and instead pressed the knife tighter to her throat. Lisbon didn't make any sign of being aware of what was happening, or even of being conscious. She was fading fast, and this negotiation may take longer than she had left. Jane was too busy assessing the situation to notice Rigsby slip away.
-
The last door on the left was locked. All the other doors on the right side were locked. Rigsby agitatedly slapped the soft dirt wall in frustration. Where the hell was Grace?
He stepped across the small hallway and tried the first door on the left. It opened right up, revealing an empty room. Rigsby gave up and silently went back to check on Jane before continuing through the last of the rooms.
--
If this had been any old victim instead of Lisbon, Jane was positive he couldn't kill Edwards. But this was Lisbon, and it was Van Pelt, and Jane cared for them almost as much as he cared for his wife and daughter.
Edwards' became twitchy. His hand started to quiver as he tried to keep a steady hand to hold the knife to Lisbon's throat. His eyes were bloodshot, and they darted all over the place. This wasn't a stress induced panic attack, or a seizure. Jane waited another minute before quickly glancing sideways at Rigsby.
"He's high. Higher than a kite." Jane stated as he took a step forward. The sudden movement made Edwards jump, which in turn made the knife to Lisbon's throat nick her skin, causing a small trickle of blood to stain her porcelain neck.
"Rigsby, do you have a clear shot?" Jane murmured out of the side of his mouth. Rigsby didn't say anything in response, just aligned his gun, squeezed the trigger, and prayed Silas Edwards stayed still for a millisecond.
-
Jane watched as Silas Matthew Edwards fell to the ground in a pool of his own blood. The dead weight of his arms around Lisbon caused her to tumble down with him. Jane leaped forward and caught her before she landed in Edwards' blood. He wrapped his arms around her small, broken body and gently laid her against the wall by the door.
Jane slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and called Minelli to say they had Lisbon, and needed an ambulance right away. Jane shrugged out of his suit jacket and draped it over Lisbon's shoulders. After making sure she was warmer and had stopped bleeding, Jane noticed that Rigsby was gone, presumably to find Grace.
No updates until Sunday at the earliest! Review!