7.
Still do not own Bones (never sure if the disclaimer goes with every chapter or just the first one).
More violence ahead. You've been warned or promised, depends on your preference! ;)
Recap 6: Sweets gets offered water only to be sucker punched when he drinks it. He throws the rest of the water at Joe who reacts by putting bleach in Sweets eyes then leaves. Sweets finds water and washes his eyes out and also discovers there is no escape though he attempts to alert a man below only Joe returns and beats Sweets then forces him to eat moldy bread.
The five stood looking at the cigarette butts trying to phantom what had happened to their sixth member. Who took him? What did they want with him? And worst, what had they done to him?
Booth's phone rang pulling him from his thoughts and teeth grinding that all could hear in the penetrating silence.
"Booth." Booth answered. "Where?" The others felt hopeful the question meant that Sweets was found but Booth's face remained non-committal. "Check security tapes, I want to know when…you did? What!? Friday? Yeah, call me if you know more."
The others awaited to be filled in.
"Sweets car wasn't in his spot this morning, they just found it in visitor parking. It's been there since Friday." Booth said while they gathered what that meant.
"So Sweets didn't leave work Friday?" Hodgins asked.
"No I walked out with him, someone grabbed him after we parted ways." Booth felt guilty though he had no direct reason to, he had no reason to walk Sweets to his car that he knew of, but still, the guilt was there.
"So someone has had Sweets since Friday night?" Brennan asked and looked back at the cigarettes.
Angela looked at her tablet and turned her head to one side and looked at Booth puzzled. She shrugged her shoulders and tapped on a link.
"We don't know anything for certain." Cam reminded them. "This could be some sick prank, maybe they had some DNA of Dr. Sweets…"
Brennan missed the notion of aiming to keep the others calm. "No Cam, this flesh is …"
Brennan stopped as Angela gasped and dropped her tablet.
"Whoa Angie" Hodgins said coming close to her. "What's the…oh God!" Hodgins said seeing the image and clutching at his hands.
"What is it?" Booth asked seeing their faces not in horror but in pain, he thought he could take it until he saw a hand with a series of needles protruding from under the fingernails.
"It was posted to Booth's LinkedIn Page." Angela said.
"What? I haven't been on that in months, I just did it because I kept getting invitations."
"Yeah, well, I saw a notification pop up that 'Seeley Booth posted a new photo' and I was like, that's weird because he's right here. And then I clicked on it." Angela explained.
"But we don't know that it's Sweets." Cam confirmed, the image was only a hand.
"It was posted from Sweets profile, someone has his phone." Angela said suggesting it was.
"We don't know for sure." Cam tried again.
"Agent Booth?" A security guard asked.
Booth had a feeling he knew what was coming in the brown Kraft envelope he was handed.
"This just arrived for you." The guard said and left.
Booth removed the package of pins inside and threw them on the table.
"I think we'll know now."
Sweets eyes fluttered open and pain shot thru him in all directions. He was on the bed again, his wrists zip tied again but this time at his sides and to the metal frame. His feet felt strange and as he became more aware he felt the stinging sensation set in.
"Good you're up!" Joe announced sitting by Sweets feet which were bound separately by several zip ties to severely limit movement. "I didn't want you to get a full hour's rest."
Sweets felt exhausted and knew once again he had had little sleep. His interest was drawn back to the occurrences and stinging on his feet. Joe looked to him and saw his curiosity and held up his paring knife again. Sweets stomach turned at the sight of it and then churned with the belly full of mold.
"Yeah we can't have you running around making messes." Joe declared. He went back to making cuts in Sweets feet and now that he was awake he made them deeper. Sweets seethed in pain.
"I tell you what, you start crying like a baby and I'll stop." Joe offered.
Sweets considered the notion for a moment, he would need his feet to run. He would need his mind to stay alive. He weighed the two as Joe began to cut deeper. Sweets sensitive feet would normally have just been subject to tickles but now the soft skin wanted to jump at every touch and cut, pulling and ripping skin against the restraint. While Sweets was fading from exhaustion and pain he wasn't gone yet. He bit his bottom lip and concentrating on the lathe and plaster cracked ceiling and tried to imagine what was going on at work for a distraction.
"I step out for just a moment to give a package to a man and you run around." Joe said shaking his head making more cuts as Sweets gripped the mattress as he did so. "Yeah, no more pins but I guess we'll find other things to make do with."
Sweets was relieved for a moment that the pins were gone but realized the man he had seen was merely a delivery man waiting for Joe, he wouldn't have done any good to alert anyway. That caused Sweets a query…Wait, who did the man deliver the pins to?
"What do we have?" Booth asked pacing back and forth like a caged animal over the large table of pins.
"What we have here Seeley…" Cam began in an irritated tone. "Is about 500 straight pins." She went back to sorting.
"Were they all used?" Booth asked trying not to bite his nails.
"No, I'm not getting DNA off everyone, only one so far." Hodgins said.
"Well, we need to know how many." Booth knew that wouldn't be important till a trial, what he was really saying was I need to know how many.
"It's going to take some time to test them." Brennan warned.
"Can I help?" Booth asked hoping to expedite the process.
"No Booth, if this goes to a trial we don't want to jeopardize the evidence." Brennan warned him with words but also a look that suggested he let her work.
Booth turned to bother Angela.
"What about the photo?" Booth asked. "Can you tell anything by it?"
Angela sighed, she had been working but she knew she didn't have the answers Booth was really looking for - 'where is Sweets and is he okay?'
"I can tell you that this photo, based on the time stamp was taken Saturday morning." Angela said. "And before you ask, yes Sweets phone is on but I can't track it, the signal is bouncing all over the place. Ten minutes ago Sweets was in Barbados and a half hour ago he was in Canada."
"I'm sure he wants to be anywhere but where he is." Hodgins mused.
"Isn't there something else in the photo that can help?" Booth asked painfully looking anywhere but at the metal fingertips.
"There's a wood floor, I can see it past the hand. But I don't think that's terribly unique." Angela said. "Otherwise all I can tell you is that there is what you would expect, some cuts and minor bruising on the hand, mostly likely from a struggle but I think we knew that no one would most likely subject themselves to this."
"Cigarettes and pins." Booth said rubbing his face. He turned to look at the pile of pins. From the photo he knew at least a dozen had been used, DNA had been found half way up the needle. Booth didn't want to imagine the pain that would cause. He choose not to focus on that but instead something that would help.
"This guy doesn't want to kill Sweets, he wants him to suffer, he's doing just enough to hurt but not to kill." Booth said thinking it thru.
Hodgins smiled. "You sound like Sweets."
"We need someone to so we can find him." Cam said swabbing another needle.
"I need to locate anyone who would be angry at Sweets, blame him for something." Booth reasoned.
"Like the dozens of criminals we have put away?" Hodgins asked.
"The possibilities are quite extensive." Brennan agreed.
"No prints on the envelopes or the pins and cigarette butts." Cam reported.
"He's covering his tracks." Angela noted.
"Yeah, but how did he know to get an interdepartmental envelope into my office?" Booth pondered. "You'd have to know the system."
"Whoa, don't fall asleep just yet." Joe said slapping Sweets on the face. "Whew, it's been a few days in those clothes. We don't want you to start to stink!" Joe announced and left for the smaller door in the room. He opened it and Sweets heard water rushing, a bathroom Sweets thought and then began to wonder if there was anything in the room he might be able to use as a weapon.
Sweets ankles and wrists had been set free after Joe was done with his carving. Sweets rolled to one side and pushed himself up to a sitting position, the motion made him nacreous and he felt the sudden urge to vomit, surely food poising setting in from the moldy foods. Knowing the bathroom was ahead he considering running forward to it but as soon as he stood on his feet he gasped and sat back down, the pain of so many cuts made it impossible to stand.
Sweets threw up a pile of bread and water on the floor. Joe came running back in and placed the trash can for vomit this time which lasted several more minutes.
When the vomiting changed from solids to liquids to dry heaving Joe took the can away. Sweets fell back against the cot in exhaustion, famine and pain when Joe pulled him back up by his arm. As soon as Sweets rose to his feet he fell back to the ground and Joe looked to see the bloody feet on the ground.
"Oh right." Joe said pretending he had forgotten. "Well let's go." Joe said pulling Sweets behind him by the arm. His arm and chest pulled tight as he was being dragged but the distance was short. Joe propped Sweets up against the old claw foot bathtub in the old room. Joe pulled off Sweets dress shirt and tee shirt with great anticipation Sweets noticed, it was like he really wanted them. Joe set them aside and looked at the rest of Sweets that he was not as interested in.
"Alright, time for bath!" Joe said with a smile. Sweets was suspicious, Joe didn't do things to be nice. "I don't want to see your junk so you can just keep those pants on." Joe lifted Sweets up since he couldn't do it on his own and dropped him into the tub, his back slamming against the porcelain basin. Sweets seethed at the pain but realized it wasn't coming so much from there but everywhere, but specifically everywhere - everywhere there was a cut.
"Nothing like a warm bath, get the blood flowing. Oh, and they say the salt water is really good for you." Joe left with the shirts.
Sweets wasn't exactly sure where every cut was before but now he knew exactly where they all were as the salt stung into every wound.
Joe was whistling in the other room with sounds of going thru bags for something. Sweets knew as long as Joe was busy and enjoying himself then he was alive. It was when Joe lost interest. Sweets knew even if he had to keep prodding Joe along, talking back it gave Joe a challenge, and bought Sweets time to be found.
He looked down at his chest with the cuts and burns on his chest. He raised a hand out of the water and eyed the dark red lines and purple bruises around his wrists. He wondered how long he could hold really out.
Booth left the Jeffersonian to speak with the director and inform him of his suspicions of Sweets disappearance. Without solid evidence or a ransom note the director was reluctant to move on it except for the fact that Dr. Lance Sweets was not the type of guy who missed work combined with the fact he could tell Special Agent Seeley Booth was greatly concerned. He went with Booth's gut that something was wrong and expended him manpower. Both men agreed that if deliveries were making their way into the FBI, then they needed to keep this on the down low until they could uncover what was going on.
Booth assembled a small team of four people, people he could trust with the life of one of his people. It was late in the night as they poured over files, cases Sweets has worked on, criminals in prison with ties to the outside, criminals out of prison. Still with each file Booth didn't think he was headed in the right direction. Sure they had enemies, Pelant - dead, Gravedigger - dead. Random cases, no this seemed personal Booth reasoned. And the evidence is being sent to me, he wants me to be involved, to suffer. Well jackass I am, you don't mess with my people, especially…
"Everything okay Booth?"
Booth looked up to see Brennan standing over him with a bag of food in hand. He looked around to see the day had passed into evening and most people had gone home except for his team working away.
"You looked like you were thinking about something, something angry." Brennan explained.
"Yeah, I just don't know. I feel like I'm missing something." Booth said looking at the folders as though what he wanted wasn't in them.
"I brought you some food. Max is at home with Christine." Brennan explained and began on a few stack of folders.
"Bones, you can go home, it's late and…"
"It's late and Sweets is still missing." Booth noticed a strain in Brennan's expression. "The DNA on the pins was Sweets. I'd like to keep working." She flipped open a file folder and Booth didn't deny her.
How much time passes Sweets wasn't sure. The water had grown cold and he had begun to shiver. The shuddering kept him alert and away from slipping into the deep tub and drowning. He was about to drift off again when he felt a small prick in his neck and looked up to see Joe walking away with a syringe.
"What…." Sweets asked but quickly found he couldn't rub his neck where the prick had come. In fact, he realized all of his body wouldn't move, it was completely frozen in place.
"Wow, what water sure is cold." Joe said touching it. "Better let some out." Sweets watched as the water, slightly tainted with blood and salt went down the drain but Joe dropped the stopper and turned on the water again.
The water level rose recovering Sweets chest though this time he didn't denote the same high level of salt in it. What's he up to his mind begged to ask. Sweets got an idea when the water covered his chest and rose past his chin. He closed his mouth and breathed thru his nose as the water level rose to a deadly level.
Joe again raised the stopper letting an inch of water out and Sweets breathed a relief again. Once he did Joe dropped the stopper and the water rose again. Sweets forgot about how cold the water was as his body now refused to budge in order to shiver. He felt panic rise but he could do nothing to move. The water reached his upper lip and he wondered if Joe would pull the plug again. Sensing he was not going to Sweets sucked in a quick breath of air thru his nose along with a little water. He held it in, his eyes watching Joe as he sat on the edge of the large tub with his snide little smile. The air wasn't enough and Sweets squeezed his eyes shut trying to hold onto the last few reserves of oxygen but began to sputter and opened his eyes to see the water was up to his eyes.
Joe let the water out though Sweets still sucked in water instead of air a few more times. As the water level dropped he coughed the water out in search of air instead. Once the air was back he looked at the train of the tub and saw the overflow was caulked off with plaster. The top of Sweets head was even with the top of the massive old tub. Joe dropped the stopper and smiled.
"Just once more."
