They were finally at the summit. Margaret was right, Charlie realized dimly as his eyes swept the scenic view in front of them. Mountains that stretched beyond the eye's reach, their summits piercing the clouds high above the valleys they guarded. The valleys sweeping long and low, rivers winding their course in ribbons of blue as they cut through the greens of the valley floor. Greens and yellows and oranges dotted the trees that made their way up the foothills, leading into the dark, dark green of the mountains' lower sides. The summits, themselves, dusted with snow even in the warmest of months as they reached for the endless sky. It was beautiful; stunning. Unforgettable.
"Come, Charlie. Now we go down, into the valley and to the place that time has forgotten. Follow, and hurry. Our time is short." The she-cat whispered, her tail lashing the air as she leaped from the rock on which she perched, her massive paws barely finding purchase as she slid through the shale and stone. Charlie, startled by her leap, scrambled after her, and they began a rapid descent down the mountainside. He followed in the big cat's footsteps, leaping when she did, and sliding when she slid. The journey was quick but perilous, and Charlie swore he was falling for more of the time than he was actually running. But Margaret's paws were sure and her stride did not falter. Together, they charged on.
Ian was back at the Bureau, studying the maps Charlie had created with narrowed eyes as David and Colby dug through all of the case's previous victims, running new background checks in a valiant effort to find a connection between them. Ian sensed that his initial thoughts were correct, that the murderer had only used the house that they had raided as a stopping point to throw Charlie's calculations off. That was why he stood in front of the whiteboards where the maps and probable locations were pinned. Even though Charlie's first choice had been wrong, it didn't mean that he didn't have the right one on his maps. Ian knew Charlie well enough to know that the mathematician never put all his eggs in one basket. His math was too far-reaching for him to narrow his focus that much.
With that thought in mind, Ian stood before the maps and simply let his gaze roam, studying the various hot zones that Charlie had identified when he had done his initial calculations. He didn't really have any idea what he was looking for. He was simply looking, his dark eyes lazily tracking from one colorful spot to another, to another, to another…then he saw it. It was so quick, he was sure that he was imagining it, and he blinked and shook his head, glaring at the map before relaxing and starting to scan again.
When it happened again, the sniper's eyes narrowed, and he carefully moved his gaze back a few inches on the map before scanning carefully one last time. This time, he consciously registered that he was seeing a pattern when for the third time, one particular location on the map seemed to leap out at him, suddenly so glaringly obvious that he wondered how it had been missed originally.
"Colby, David. What is so unique about this location? Why did Charlie highlight it?" Ian asked, pointing to the map as the two agents got up and came to his side. The two men studied the spot he was pointing at, then Colby returned to the files as David googled the area. A few moments later, a hunch-turned-pattern turned out to be something significant.
"There's a restaurant there, and a non-profit homeless shelter, and a few other small business fronts." David said, still studying his phone when out of the corner of one eye, Ian saw Colby freeze, a look of stunned disbelief on his face as he flipped from one file to another, and back again.
"Colby? What do you see?" The sniper's voice snapped the agent out of his stupor and he turned to look at Ian, the folders still held in his hands. David looked up at the other agents continued silence, his gaze concerned as Ian stepped closer to the obviously stunned agent. Before either Ian or David could speak, Colby finally did.
"The restaurant…I don't know how we missed this. It's the restaurant, that's the link. All of our victims have eaten there recently, and eat there frequently. It's owned by the same guy that rented out the house we hit." Colby's words sent David scrambling to find the file on the building as Ian picked up the phone to call Don.
"Don. Any word on Charlie? He's what? No, no…I refuse to believe that. He'll be fine. He'll get through this. Anyway, I need to ask you something. How often does Charlie eat at a restaurant called The Rosebud Bar and Grill? Wait, what? When did you last eat there with him? No, don't worry about it, Don. Just some research I'm doing with Colby and David. We're good here, just stay with Charlie. Gotta go." The sniper snapped the phone shut just in time for David to come back with the building's architectural report and building plans in hand.
"Got it! The entire first floor is a restaurant, half the second floor is a bar and the other half is a dance floor. The third floor is a fully furnished living space, small kitchen, half bath, the works. He lives and works there. He's been right under our noses the whole time." Ian's eyes hardened instantly, and he turned and strode briskly to the elevators. He heard the hurried footsteps of the other two agents, and knew they weren't letting him go alone.
Run, vermin. Hide. Do what you will. I will find you. I will kill you. You will pay for what you have done.
The second Margaret's paws had touched the valley floor, she had really taken off, her white coat flashing in the sunlight as Charlie raced after her. In the back of the mathematician's mind, he knew he was running too fast, far beyond what should be the maximum running speed of a human being. However, he couldn't bring himself to be too concerned. He was not in a natural, normal place. He was somewhere so far from normal that it wasn't even funny. With that thought in mind, he sucked in a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and ran on.
The stop was so sudden that it was all Charlie could do to not trip over the big cat and fall on his face. As it was, he slithered to a stop in a less than elegant manner, barely managing to avoid smacking straight into Margaret's hindquarters as her tail twitched erratically. He opened his mouth to speak, but her voice cut him off.
"Step forward, little one. Look down, and see the truth. See what choices you have at your fingertips, and decide your fate." Suddenly worried at her grim tone, he looked into her golden eyes, but they revealed nothing as she nodded firmly at him. He hesitated, uncertain, before slowly stepping forward. He halted when his feet had nowhere left to step, and he looked down, finding himself staring into a clear pool of water. All he saw was his own reflection, so he turned to look at Margaret in confusion. Her eyes met his, stern and unyielding.
"Keep looking, Charlie. All will become clear shortly." The mathematician swallowed thickly, nodding uneasily and looking back into the water. The sudden change in its surface made his eyes widen and his breath catch in his throat.
There was a hospital. He saw a waiting room, and his jaw clenched when he saw his entire family seated in the chairs. His brother, his wife, his father, his best friend. His eyes narrowed, and he found that he was confused. Just as he was about to turn back to the snow leopard and demand answers, something flickered at the edge of the image, and he focused on it. Charlie gasped when he recognized the sinister features of the murderer that had gunned him down. His wide eyes filled with tears when the light flashed off of a familiar gun, and then it fired. Blood splattered across the image, and then it faded into the depths, leaving Charlie shaking as tears ran down his face. The whisper of big paws through the grass alerted him to the fact that Margaret was at his side once more. He turned to her, unable to halt his tears as he asked a question.
"What does it mean?" His voice shook, yet another indicator of how badly the image had rattled him. The big cat sat slowly, her tail twitching once before curling around her gracefully as she studied him intently.
"It is a prophecy, one possible path the future may take. It is only a possibility, and it can be…altered, if you will, depending on what action you should choose to take from here." At the same time as her words reassured Charlie, they worried him as well, and he roughly wiped away his tears before staring at her again, his eyes dark with worry.
"What are my choices? What can I really do from here?" His voice was rough but no longer wavered, and her eyes softened in the slightest. She knew how badly shaken he was, but there was no avoiding it. The words she spoke next were destined to shatter him from the very beginning, no matter how she phrased them.
"You have two choices, Charlie. The first is to do nothing. You will stay here until your body has healed enough that it is safe for you to wake up naturally. However, if you choose this, what you just saw will come to pass. One of your loved ones will die. Which one, I do not know. Only the fates know that answer." The snow leopard paused to take a deep breath, and Charlie steeled himself, wondering how the second choice could be worse, but somehow knowing that it was.
"The second is to fight. You could wake up sooner, you would be able to warn them of the danger and allow them to prepare for it. None of them will be injured. None of them will die. However, there will be a cost…to you. Your injuries are very serious, Charlie. Your brain went without oxygen for four minutes. For a normal human being, that amount of time is not usually enough to cause permanent brain damage. But you…you are not a normal human being. You are exceptional; your brain is exceptional, hence why you have your beloved numbers. If you choose to fight, to wake yourself up before enough time has passed…the part of your brain that holds your talent with numbers, that which makes you so unusual? It will not heal. You will lose your numbers…forever."
A/N: I'll admit, a small part of me is glad that I lost the original plot I had in mind for this story three years ago, because this? The end to this chapter? OHMYGOD...I got SO excited when I got this idea! It gave me so much plot bunny fodder that the little buggers went crazy! I've been sitting on this thought for three or four days, trying to decide how to write it. I finally sat down today, and voila! Chapter a la plot bunny!
I'm sure you hate me now, dear readers. Totally not sorry. I'm loving this.
Thank you, as always, to my readers and reviewers! Your feedback is always appreciated and is the greatest reward a writer can get!
As always, love if you will, hate if you must. I will take anything that you care to dispense.
Until we meet again...
Kani