Arc of the Curve
Chapter Ten

Richard rubbed the back of his neck with his good hand as the lift doors opened. 'I still can't believe I've been shot.' He said with a grin as they headed down the corridor to Kate's apartment. They'd spent a good part of the morning and most of the afternoon at the FBI offices downtown being grilled. They didn't have the first clue what was really going on, so Castle played dumb. Telling them about the bombing, artfully dodging the question of how they knew the device was there. Taking them through talking with Rodger Nelson and realising who was after them. Ryan and Esposito's search though the security footage. When the question about his daughter came up and how she just happened to be there he bluffed. Using the idea she was helping as dispatch and just happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time.

He knew Kate had done the same and he could trust Ryan and Espo not to put his daughter in danger.

'Are you sure your alright?' Kate asked him. 'When I saw you…' She trailed off. The FBI had pulled an old trick on him. Promising medical treatment just as soon as he answered a couple more questions. If it wasn't for Alexis he'd have been screaming in pain. As it was it just hurt like hell. He raised his other arm against the sling and hid the wince. 'It hurt, but Alexis did a great job.' He laughed her concern off.

'She really did.' His wife to be half laughed.

Richard looked at her from the corner of his eye. 'You're taking this whole psychic daughter thing really well. I thought you'd be the first one to deny it. Saying she was imagining everything.'

Kate took a breath. 'I thought she was, at first. Now, with everything that's happened? She's either the best actress I've ever seen or she's telling the truth. Really Castle I'm shocked you're not punching the air and high-fiving passing strangers celebrating at the idea. Your daughter, the superhero.'

Richard offered his cheesiest grin. 'Just wait. When this is all done I'm going to party.' But he could tell she wasn't buying it. 'Alright I'm scared stupid. I'm supposed to help her, protect her. That's my job. How the hell can I be a dad when I don't have a clue what she's going through? I'd take a hundred bullets over feeling like this. This helpless.' he admitted. He hadn't had a chance to before and wished he could just suck the words back in.

He couldn't let Alexis know. That was what she was afraid of, he couldn't, mustn't let her realise she was right. 'Kate…'

'It's okay, it's already forgotten.' she touched his cheek before getting back to business. 'We've already wasted half a day with the FBI. I'll go inside and get my files, we'll got back to your place and see what, if anything, we missed.' He kissed her.

'I'll wait here. Keep an eye out.'

Kate nodded and unlocked her door. No sooner had she gone in than there was a voice behind him. 'You really love her don't you?'

He only half recognised it, but he knew it was bad. Richard spun, only to get an elbow to the side of his head. Seeing stars he felt himself bounce off the wall, only to get caught and punched in the gut.

Gasping for air Richard tried to call out to Beckett, but before he could breath he'd been thrown into the opposite wall. Feeling like a broken toy thrown into the trash it was all he could do to lie there and not heave.

He had to get up. Kate needed him to get up. It was easier said than done. The corridor was moving like a ship at sea and he only had one good arm to pull himself up with. Looking up he saw Kate, she had her gun drawn and was sweeping the hallway. 'Castle?'

'Watch out!' he gasped at her, but was too late. His attacker just seemed to materialise beside her. Coming out of the shadows themselves. Faster than he could see a hand wrenched the gun from Kate's hands. She tried to hold on but it was no use, it landed with a thud just out of Richard's reach.

Pushing himself off the floor he finally got a look at who was attacking them. It was Toni Hennesly. The woman who tried to blow them all up. The woman they'd tracked down, shot, dropped out of a fourth story window and had still been able to walk away. She easily blocked Kate's wild punch, slipped down and under her arm and trapped Richard's fiancée in a sleeper hold.

Half leaping, half throwing himself at it Richard went for the gun. 'Don't even.' Toni warned him. She was closer to it and, still holding the struggling Kate, kicked it down the hall. Leaving Richard, like a fish out of water, on his belly grasping at something long gone. 'Sorry you had to see this, handsome.' she smirked as Kate slumped in her arms, 'But if it helps any; this was never personal.'

With that she kicked him, hard, in the side of the head. Pain exploded in his temple and then all he knew was darkness.

Alexis felt like she had know Jade and Adrian all her life. In a way she had. She couldn't read them the way she read others. Instead it was like they were a part of her. As soon as they started to describe something she could see it, almost as if she was there herself. She felt like she knew the others just as well as them and could tell they were the same.

She only had to start a thought and they could follow. Whole conversations took only a couple of moments. There was no fumbling for words or vague descriptions that only sort of made the point. She knew exactly what they were trying to tell her and at the same time they followed her logic without trying.

Right now they were back at her Father's loft apartment. Grams was trying to take it all in, but Alexis could tell she was taken aback by the whole thing. Without needing to say anything the three of them were careful to include her in everything they were saying and not just fly off on tangents.

Grams, playing hostess, brought them a pot of tea. 'So, all over the world?' she asked for what felt like the hundredth time.

'Yes. There's about two dozen of us. Mrs Rodgers' Jade admitted.

'And what do you, I mean urm…'

Adrian smiled. 'We call ourselves the Tomorrow People, because that's what we are. The next stage in human evolution.'

'I see.' Grams lied, but that didn't matter because Alexis didn't understand either.

'Hang on, how are we the next stage?' She asked. 'Sorry but mind reading, telekinesis and psychic healing? That feels like a massive leap forward. Shouldn't it, you know, be more gradual than that? A little bit at a time?'

Jade threw her hands in the air. 'You'd think, but that's not what happened.'

'Alexis, you and I have always been telepathic, but it wasn't until I practiced that my other abilities began working.' Adrain admitted and she nodded. Since this all began she'd been doing things she never thought possible.

'For me it was different. There was… well never mind.' Jade waved it away, but Alexis got a strong image of some sort of seed the size of a basketball, music and something horribly alien. 'I was a normal, today person then his thing happened and boom I was a Tomorrow Person. Adam has this theory that everyone has the potential to be one of us, but unless something happens they'll never quite reach it.'

Alexis could understand what they meant, but it all seemed too easy. Then, out of nowhere, she felt a headache. It was like a dull thudding just behind her eyes. 'Whoa.' She sat back and saw he new friends were looking around. 'You feel that too?'

'Not like you, but yeah we got it.' Adrian admitted as Jade stood up.

'What's happening?' Her grandmother asked, a hint of panic in her voice.

Alexis tried to shake it off but she couldn't. 'Something's wrong.' She announced. 'I, it feels like something terrible has happened.'

'Alexis, whatever it is it's connected to you. Trust your instincts, they'll tell you what it is.'

'Right.' She closed her eyes and rather than shake off the feeling she embraced it. Like switching on a light she knew instantly what was happening. In a flash she was on her feet 'Dad! Something's wrong, he's hurt!'

'Again?'

'Oh my God Richard! Is he okay.' Alexis blocked out her grandmothers concern and reached out again.

'He's alive, but badly hurt. Outside Detective Beckett's apartment.' She told them.

Jade took charge almost on instinct. 'I'll get him, make some space. I'll be right back.' With that she closed her eyes and concentrated. With a flickering of light and snap of energy the young woman was gone.

Alexis blinked in shock. 'What the…'

'It's kinda hard to explain.' Adrian shrugged, but she already had the answer.

'We… I can teleport?' she gasped. Life as a Tomorrow Person was full of surprises.

A moment later Jade reappeared the same way she had disappears, only this time with Alexis's Father beside her. Quickly, with a low cry, her grandmother ran to his side. 'Oh dear God, call a doctor. Please, Alexis hurry.

'He'll be okay.' Alexis told her, knowing what she had to do. Between them Jade and Adrian laid him down on the couch and gave he space to work. Remembering what she had done only that morning Alexis focused on helping her dad, again.

She waved her glowing hands over him, taking time to hover over his head and the nasty gash that was there. As she did it took all her strength to stay calm. He was going to be okay. She was going to make sure of that. All the times he'd been there for her, all the times he'd been right trying to protect her. She owed him everything.

Slowly, all too slowly, the cut on his head began to close. Alexis could feel the pain draining away and then, at last, his eyes fluttered awake.

Kevin Ryan was about to knock when the door opened. It was Alexis. 'How is he?'

'Better, now I don't have a psycho bomber tap dancing on my head.' Castle shouted around the door. 'Get in.' He'd looked better, there was a massive bruise on the side of his head and his eyes were bloodshot.

'You sure you shouldn't be in the hospital Bro?' Javi asked.

He glared back. 'Yeah, and five minutes later the FBI would be back and they'd be more interested in questioning me than finding Beckett. Any luck with my phone?'

When Castle called, telling them what had happened, the first thing Kevin had done was get in touch with his friends in CSU to track the phone Castle had lent her. 'None. they think it's been smashed, or the battery's been pulled. How about you guys? Can't you do something?'

Alexis and her two friends looked at each other before shaking their heads. 'We wouldn't know where to start. If we just opened up to everyone it would be like having the whole city in our heads.'

'Or worse, the entire United States, even the world.' the boy told them. 'We have to be very careful or we could have seven billion different voices in our heads, all at the same time.'

Kevin shuddered away from that thought. 'Castle, did she say anything that could help?'

The writer shook his head and winced. 'She said she was sorry, that it wasn't personal and that was it.'

'Think Bro, anything you saw or felt…'

'I felt her foot Espo, everything else is kinda blurry.' he snapped back. 'She was wearing black, could barely make her out. I didn't see her until it was too late. Any luck getting through to Captain Gates?' he asked.

Mrs Rodgers put the phone down. 'All I get is a busy signal, when I'm not being bounced around from switchboard to switchboard. Richard there was nothing you could have done.'

'I was there mother, there should have been.'

'Mr Castle.' the English girl said seriously. 'I know that this doesn't mean much but when I brought you here there was no way you could have helped anyone.'

'She's right dad,' Alexis agreed. You've gone over it so many times I've seen what happened too. She blindsided you and there was no way you could have known Toni was there.'

'I should have.' Castle insisted. 'She was waiting for us, she knew Kate's phone number, we should have guessed she knew were she lived.'

'That's not helping anyone Richard.' his mother told him. 'Now you're sure Katharine's still alive, there's hope. Remember that.'

'She's right.' Kevin agreed. 'Let's think about this. We know when and we know where it happened. So all we need to do is check any security or traffic cameras around the place and then we can follow them. We're going to need your computer.'

It didn't take long to access the camera network, or to find Beckett's apartment complex. It wasn't a shabby part of town so while there were lots of cameras that meant there was a lot of footage to scroll through.

'Got it, silver cruiser.' Javi cried out eventually. 'Got a good shot of the plate too.'

'Give it to me, I'll trace it. You follow on the cameras' Kevin offered. That didn't take long, after a brief word with this contacts Kevin hung up. 'Car's registered to a dentist lives near Queen's. Stolen this morning. It was low-jacked, but they found the tracer in a deli trash can just around the corner.

'This Toni chick knows the city.' Javi told him, 'She's taking routes I didn't think were possible. Taking back alleyways, dodging traffic like was never there. I lost her somewhere near the warehouse district.'

'Damn it.' Castle swore. 'It's been two hours. She could be anywhere by now!'

Kate woke up and it felt like someone had tried to rip her head off. Before she had even opened her eyes she struggled to move. She was handcuffed and tied to a chair that had been bolted to floor.

Blinking she realised there was a small but powerful spotlight on her. next to it was a camera. 'Let me go!' she ordered, trying again to pull herself free with no more luck than before. 'Show yourself!' Abducting a Police officer is a serious crime, let me go!' She pulled so hard Kate could have sworn she dislocated something. the cuffs were left biting into her skin.

Gasping in pain and effort she looked around again. She was in a vast open space but couldn't make out any details. The light was blinding her. 'I want you to know I respect you Detective.' the assassin said, inviable in the darkness. 'It's not easy being a good looking woman in a man's profession. I can relate. They're always so jealous when we do it better than they ever could. Poor darlings, I swear no matter how old they get they're all just children inside.'

'You don't have to do this.' Kate warned her, she didn't need to be a rocket scientist to know what was going on. She was about to be killed, how wasn't important. 'They'll never stop looking for you.'

Toni stepped into view and behind the camera. 'No offence detective but they'll never find me. Besides, what's the worst they can do? Arrest me, shoot me? The man I'm working for is a lot more frightening.'

'Bracken.' Kate ground out between her teeth.

Toni shrugged as she walked back into shadow. 'That's what he calls himself, today at least. When I first met him it was Thorn. Whatever the name he's still a sadistic bastard. You got under his skin detective. Being on his bad side was never a good idea. With luck if I remove you he might just forget about my first failure.'

Kate struggled again, trying to guess where the killer was hiding. 'What are you talking about.'

'It's a secret Detective, one I'm not going to burden you with.' Toni appeared again, Kate's gun in her hand. With professional detachment she chambered a round and looked down the sight at her. After a beat she lowered the gun and pressed a button on the camera. 'I'm not a monster Detective. Have you any last words, a good bye to friends and family?'

She did, she had a thousand things she wanted to say. To plead with the professional killer, a final message to Richard, one more joke with Espo. There was no doubt in her mind this was it, Toni was a professional. She'd do it without blinking an eye. Keeping her voice clear and level Kate looked directly into the camera. 'I don't need to say it. Everyone already knows.' With that and a deep breath she faced her killer. 'Go to hell.'

End Chapter Ten