Fair warning—the events that are about to take place create sighs and gasps. Perhaps other negative emotions. (But it's not the end!)
Chapter 10. The Implications of the Behaviors
"The emotional implications are something that he has not been trained to feel.
His whole life has been about separating himself from these sorts of actions."
-Atom Egoyan
The day had been too long. With effort, Brennan arose from the ground and walked to her living room. With a look toward her bedroom, she deemed her bed to be too far of a walk. The couch, laid out just beside her, invited her in, coaxing her to rest.
Brennan looked at the plush cushions and complied. She lied down with a sigh and fell asleep with her hand gently resting on her abdomen, reminding her of her constant companion.
…
Booth exited his SUV, slamming the door a little harder than necessary. The events of tonight had been all wrong. He hated that Brennan sat alone in her apartment, hating him. Why didn't he just explain his worries for her? Why did their damn anger have to screw everything up?
With a scowl, Booth pushed his repetitious, criticizing thoughts from his mind. Or, rather, he tried to. But, try as he might, they always stumbled their way home again.
'Sweep the area,' Booth thought to himself, trying to focus on the task at hand. He needed to get this job done so he could go grovel for forgiveness from Bones. He needed to stay with her, with his child. He needed to know that they were O.K., that Brennan would—could—move past his outburst. He didn't know this Brennan well; he didn't know her capabilities.
The area was clean. Daniel Monroe was nowhere nearby.
Cautiously, keeping himself aware of his surroundings, Booth walked his way towards the abandoned phone booth.
The outside of it was normal. No outstanding markings set it apart from any other; a couple carvings and graffiti marks were scatter here and there, but nothing truly set it apart.
Booth went to the front and pulled on the door. It was stuck, unwilling to budge. With close examination, Booth noticed that the door had a small keyhole towards the bottom of the door. It had been locked closed.
Not wanting to break a glass phone booth open in public, Booth fished out some lock-picking tools. He quickly picked the lock, finding no bolts that hindered his desired achievement.
Then, he pulled it open.
Despite his expectations of a bomb going off, or an alarm to sound, nothing out of the ordinary occurred. It opened. There was nothing more to it.
Booth stepped inside, searching for a piece of paper to be tucked away or a number to be written on the inside. Nothing. It was abnormally pristine when compared with its outward appearance.
Booth sighed. If it hadn't been for the out-of-place lock, he would have deemed this 'lead' as a bust. Still, there was nothing to go on. Perhaps Chris had given this number to pacify Booth and get him off his case.
Booth stuck some coins in the slot to see if it worked, calling a number to double check the lead.
"Hello?" Chris asked warily. His tone was an odd shift from that at the town house.
"Hello, Chris," Booth responded casually. "You know, I'm in the phone booth you told me about, and you know what? There's nothing here."
Chris's voice took on a new edge. "You're in the phone booth now?"
"So what'd you do Chris?" Booth questioned, ignoring the question. "Give me a faulty number? Why didn't you just stick with your first story?" He had to admit, it was a little unconventional to be interrogating someone over the phone.
"He knows," Chris hissed desperately. Sounds of objects moving and dropping from his end of the phone line resounded to Booth's ear. "You just signed off on our deaths, Agent Booth!"
The line cut off abruptly. Booth looked at the phone before hanging it back up. It was now that Booth questioned the validity of Chris's words. Why would he sound so desperate if he was lying? Or was it all a ruse, just part of the larger lie?
Booth exited the booth, deciding to go double check on the squad car he had assigned to the Lancaster's residence.
But on his way to his SUV, the pay phone did something uncharacteristic: it began to ring.
Booth scanned his area, but he was the only one nearby. An elderly couple sat on a bench, waiting for a bus, and a boy of seventeen rocked his head to the music of his iPod, but no one else was around.
Again, remaining cautious, Booth reentered the telephone booth and picked up the ringing phone.
Booth was unsure of how to answer. Rather than state his name or call out one, Booth remained silent, listening to the voice at the other end of the line.
"Hello, Agent Booth," the man breathed. His voice was deep, a sweet eloquence to it. The words… the words flowed with one another, despite their casual meanings. He had a calm tone, knowing all. Booth had worked enough cases to know the voice of a sociopath when he heard one.
"Monroe," Booth stated, shading his surprise with a cooled tone.
"Tell me, Agent Booth," the voice chanted, "how does it feel to have taken Christian Lancaster's life? Does it give you a thrill?"
"I wouldn't try it if I were you," Booth threatened. "That house is surrounded. We'll catch you before you can step a foot into that house."
A smile was audible in Monroe's voice. "My presence is unnecessary, Agent Booth. Everything will fall into place, as expected."
Before Booth could demand clarification, Monroe continued his stream of words without a rush. "Tell me, Agent Booth. Have you ever heard Dr. Brennan scream?"
Booth's blood ran ice cold at the threat. Threatening Brennan was now threatening two members of his family.
"When you created your child, did she scream your name?" Monroe pressed, his pleasure becoming more audible through the phone. "When a killer pulled a gun to her temple, did she beg? How was the thrill, Agent Booth? Do you relive those moments, remembering the rush of adrenaline running through your body?"
Booth's grip tightened on the phone as he prayed to every saint that Brennan would stay out of this bastard's hands. He wanted to rush, to sprint, to break every traffic law to reach Brennan right here, right now. But he had to stay on this damn phone. He had to stay and listen to this bastard's only communication to the government in fifteen years.
Monroe took Booth's silence well. He chuckled and murmured, "I've been waiting years for today, Booth." He moaned with anticipation. "But it will all be worth it."
"You lay one finger on her," Booth threatened, his voice never so razor sharp in all of his life, "You set your pervert eyes on her, I will hunt you down and fillet you alive, Monroe. Bet on it."
Monroe chuckled. Those words were only a child's joke to him. He had done his homework, timed this perfectly. He would win. "You're the gambler, Agent Booth. But I've become an expert player in the game of Bullshit. And I call your bluff."
Booth moved to slam the phone against the cradle, but something stopped him. The sound… the familiar voice…
"Scream, Dr. Brennan," Monroe laughed.
"Booth…" Brennan moaned, her voice lost somewhere on the other end of the phone line.
"Bones," Booth said, his world blurring at the edges. He lost feeling of his body. Nothing was real. "Bones, where are you? What happened?"
"Dr. Brennan can't talk right now," Monroe laughed, coming back onto the phone line.
"I swear to God, if you hurt her or even touch her, you'll be wishing you were only rotting on death row," Booth spat, venom coating each individual word.
Monroe chuckled that disgusting laugh. "Bullshit."
The line went dead before Booth could hang up.
…
Dreams. Swirling dreams. Brennan woke with a slight jolt, falling out of her dream.
With a confused look around her living room, followed by a sigh, Brennan leaned forward and rested her pulsing, racing head in her hands. She tried to push off the dream, but it was too fresh in her mind to push away just yet.
Images of Booth being blown up, images of him bloodied and broken, images of him in the hospital, images of him in the hospital, images of him in the hospital. She was never able to reach him. She could only watch him, pained, over and over from a single frozen perspective. A wretched entanglement of emotions that battered her soul overwhelmed her completely in the dream, and now reality.
Perhaps that was why Brennan heard nothing as Monroe stealthily crept through the hallway, silencing F.B.I. agents for eternity. His methods varied. If possible, he slashed their throats with his hunter's knife from behind, but, once, he was forced into using his silenced gun.
It didn't matter much; he progressed towards Brennan's apartment, all the same.
Only at the slight clicks from Brennan's door did she look curiously towards her door.
The lock slowly began turning of its own accord.
'Booth?' her mind hoped, 'though a dim part of her remained angry at him for leaving her behind. The alternative was too frightening.
So, of course, the worse of the two was what Brennan received.
In a flash, she raced towards the door and dragged the deadbolt across it. With a look towards the peep hole, she noticed Monroe's aged and dark face grinning. Behind him, the floor was littered with bleeding-out F.B.I. agents.
Brennan hurried away from the door, forcing herself to think of where a gun would be.
No recollections appeared. Just more fear.
Her only option—the apartment's phone. She pressed a button and waited for a dial tone, but only a busy signal reached her ear.
She slammed it back into the cradle as she searched her nearby purse for her cellphone.
She was forced into listening to crackle as her door burst open.
Monroe stood in her doorway, an apologetic grin plastered to his face. In his hand, he held up a small black object. "Signal jammer."
No options. No other options. Brennan's genius brain saw no other way out of this corner, other than the basic instincts of flight or fight. With a baby to protect, her maternal instincts automatically chose flight.
With a small shout, she scrambled towards her bedroom.
Monroe smiled, enjoying the chase. He was on a euphoric high, enjoying each and every planned moment. Everything was going according to plan.
Brennan slammed her bedroom door and locked that, too. Maybe it would buy her a minute or two. A second or two?
The latter was more correct. She only had enough time to thrust her bedroom window open and begin to wedge herself to the fire escape before the door was busted inwards.
Brennan shrieked and thrashed against her attacker. She grabbed onto the window, earning bleeding splinters and a broken nail in the process of being dragged away from the sill. Brennan used her karate training, but that only bought her a second to fall to the floor and stand up again. But Monroe was too strong, and he had the advantage. He had been kidnapping women long enough to expect every move.
Why did no one hear her? Were they too frightened? Were they women alone home as well? Or was it the bystander effect all over again. The why was irrelevant at this point; they weren't coming.
"Just breathe it in, Dr. Brennan," he cooed, a slight laugh in his voice as he placed the chloroform over her mouth and nose. He sounded more like a man relaxing at the park with a friend than a serial killer kidnapping its victim. It was sickening—that ease that was so sadistically evident on his face.
Brennan struggled, but what could she do now? All escapes, all offenses were shut down. She held her breath for a good minute, but she and her baby needed oxygen.
"That's it," Monroe celebrated, stroking her hair. "Just inhale."
The world shifted to that of blackness in a matter of seconds for Dr. Brennan.
Thriving off of euphoria, Monroe lifted Brennan with a smile. As he carried Brennan to his car, he decided that it was time to make a phone call to Agent Booth…
…
Despite the sirens and overly-illegal speeding, Booth arrived at Brennan's apartment in just short of ten minutes. He could speed up time, but he was incapable of shortening the distance.
In a mad rush, Booth flew up the stairs of their… or, rather, Brennan's apartment complex, taking two steps at a time.
It wasn't until he reached the hallway outside of Brennan's apartment door did a heart-sickening, anxiety filled emotion, an unnamable emotion, spread over every cell of Booth's body.
The human and protocolled agent stepped next to the lifeless men and searched for the absent heartbeat.
The emotional, wheeling, and irrational man then rushed in through the open door with a gun drawn. His training noticed that the door's frame was splintered at points, the telltale signs of a break-in.
He wanted to scream out for her. He wanted her to turn the corner with a smile, remembering exactly who she really was. He wanted a fantasy.
Stealthily, Booth rounded the kitchen, hopes diminished with her absence.
Not a single form of Brennan rounded the corner.
He crept silently through the hallway, the office, the bathroom, then, finally, the bedroom. A lamp was shattered against the floor, the cliché sign of an attack. The dresser had been shoved towards the bathroom, the pillows were scattered throughout the room, and the window was wide open. Upon a desperate hope that Brennan might be hiding in the fire escape, Booth moved closer and leaned out the window.
She wasn't there.
Upon closer inspection, dark streaks glinted in the moonlight, signaling for his attention. Booth leaned closer to it, careful not to disturb the crime scene.
Blood. Splintered wood and blood; Brennan had tried to claw for a grip, to escape this bastard's harsh clutches.
And Booth had failed her. He hadn't reached her time. He had destroyed Brennan's life for the second time in that week alone.
In a daze, Booth dialed the Hoover building and reported to his superior.
After a few minutes on the phone with Booth, never getting any descriptive details, Andrew sent a team of tech and field agents.
Booth waited in the dimly lit apartment, his mind continuously conjuring up horrible images of Brennan and their child.
The two, battered and broken.
The guilt was suffocating Booth. It was charging his mind and muscles until they reached the point of determined dedication.
Booth would find this bastard; his and his family's lives depended on it. His sense awoke with new energy, all bent on locating Brennan, and then Monroe.
All the while, the overwhelming guilt remained undisturbed as it welcomed the fiery resolve.
Aw, poor Booth.
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