A/N: I know, I know, you are probably thinking that I have vanished from the planet, well, now I can assure you that I'm still around, just being crazy busy lately...and super tired...

anyway, a new chapter below

DISCLAIMER: DON'T OWN THEM! DON'T SUE ME!

Chapter Thirteen

Unknown Place

Handcuffed, with black hoods, Gillian and Brennan were pushed into a place like an abandoned warehouse.

'Dr. Brennan, nice meeting you again, and Dr. Foster, what a pleasure to finally meet you in person.' Epps' disgusting voice almost filled the open area.

Turner took off their hoods, a sudden light made them lightheaded and close their eyes again, waiting for the dizziness to pass.

When they eventually opened their eyes, Epps was standing about one meter away from them, with that ever-lasting disgusting and sickening smile designed for perverts. It was the first time that Gillian saw him, face to face, but the smell of danger was unmistakable, which made her step back a little.

'What? Dr. Foster? You're scared of me? Don't be. I'm so much of a gentleman, right, Dr. Brennan?' Epps was truly shameless.

'Go to hell.' Brennan said with clenched teeth.

On saying that, she felt Turner's rock hard fist connect with her abdomen. Using her full force, she silenced a painful cry, but the pain made her almost double over.
'Stop it! Temperance, you ok?' Gillian asked with concern, hands still handcuffed behind her back, she could only crouch to see if Brennan's ok.

'I'm fine.' Brennan didn't want Epps to enjoy seeing her being weak. When she's about to straighten herself up, Turner grabbed her hair and pulled her up, with Epps' face right in front of her.

'You shouldn't have said that, Dr. Brennan, I honestly don't wanna hurt you, but you have to behave yourself.' Epps put his hand on Brennan's cheek, despite her effort to turn her head away, Turner's firm grip on her hair made her immobile, all she could do is shooting her angry gaze at Epps.

'Good girl. Let go of her, Michael.' Epps said lazily, 'I know you're a tough cookie, Dr. Brennan, but your friend here seems not, so you behave yourself or she gets hurt. Are we clear?'

Brennan nodded reluctantly and turned her head to look at Gillian, whose face was deathly pale and breath was shallow and quick, obviously she's in shock. Brennan moved towards Gillian as close as she can, whispering into her ear, 'Everything's going to be fine, Gillian. I won't let him hurt you.'

Gillian looked up to see Brennan's face, bloody yet absolutely firm, she felt a bit unease. She knew that she had to be strong, for Brennan and for herself, now what they had was each other. She also believed that Cal and Booth would definitely come to their rescue. She nodded to Brennan with a smile.

'Oh, that's touching.' Epps commented with a fake smile, 'Now girl time's up, let's get down to business.'

Cal's Office, The Lightman Group

Cal was pacing restlessly in his office, cursing himself for the thousandth time, 'I'm a bloody idiot…the stupidest bloody idiot…'

'Bang', his office door was slammed open, in coming a furious agent Booth. He grabbed Cal by his collar and punched him right in the face without any hesitation. You can't really blame Booth, he's been thinking about how to deal with this annoying, arrogant British bastard on his way over here.

Cal was knocked down by Booth's full force punch, hitting his forehead on the teapoy in the process, which started bleeding immediately. He wiped it carelessly, regaining his standing position, ready to confront this about-to-erupt-volcano FBI agent.

'I deserve that punch, really, I do. Maybe more. But can we do it after we save them? You can punch me all you like.' Cal said, breathing heavily.

Booth's rage was released a little bit with that punch, in fact, he was not sure if he's angry at Cal or he's angry at himself. It took an absolute idiot to let Bones leave his sight and stay with this British so called lie detector.

Cal could easily read remorse and regret on Booth's face, 'now is not the time for guilt and regret. Did you get the location?'

Booth was dragged back into reality, looking at Cal's bruised face, he could also see that what he's feeling was exact the same as himself. He hated to admit this, but Cal was right, their priority was saving Gillian and Brennan rather than getting into each other's faces.

'I've got the location, it's a basement parking garage. My people are on their way, let's go.' The professionally trained FBI agent was back on track.

Cal followed Booth to his car, praying for the second time that day that they'd find something useful.

Basement Parking Lot

Upon entering the parking lot, Cal recognized Gillian's black Carolla, which now made his heart twist painfully. He was with Gillian when she bought the car, he'd always liked Toyota cars, so he bought Pruis and talked Gillian into buying Carolla. He was thinking back then if it counted as 'matched couple car', and now, the car was silently parked in there, without its owner, his best friend, the woman he loved so much.

'Hey, you drifted off again?' Booth sounded more than a bit annoyed.

'No. I was just thinking…never mind, what did your people have for us?' Cal asked anxiously.

'Not much. We found Dr. Foster's cell phone under her car, and Bones' is in the car. Apparently, she left it there when they were having that stupid lunch.' Booth still couldn't suppress his anger when his thoughts came to Lightman letting them out for lunch alone.

'Ok, I get it. My fault! Can you just drop it for a second so we can focus on finding where the bloody hell they are?' Cal had been hard on himself since received Gillian's call, he didn't need Booth to remind himself of his damn fault every five minutes, so he yelled back, not sure he's angry at being yelled or at the fact they actually got nothing to work on.

'Fine. Just remember when this is all done, I wanna some time alone with you.' Booth barked at Cal.

'Agent Booth, you might want to take a look at this.' A FBI tech was calling Booth.

Booth and Cal walked to the place that tech pointed, feeling dread that they saw a pool of dried blood, which made their breath short and heart skip a beat.

'Whose blood is it?' Cal and Booth asked at the same time.

'We have to take a sample and run some test to find that out, but since it's a small pool of blood, there can't be much damage.' The young agent felt the murderous gaze from the men in front of him, so he tried to say something he thought would be a comfort.

'Oh, that's reassuring…' Cal said wryly and earned himself a angry look.

Booth's phone rang, 'Booth!' he picked up without looking at the caller's ID, rage evident in his voice.

'Hello to you too, agent Booth.' Epps' voice came from the other end, every muscle in Booth's body tightened, he would definitely twisted off the guy's head if he could.

'Where are they?' Booth didn't want to waste any time chitchatting with him.

Cal knew at this moment that who's calling, and he let the FBI tech trace the call. Though he knew the chance of it being traceable was almost zero, he had to at least try it, for Gillian's sake. He indicated that Booth put Epps on speaker so that he could hear what his words too, not that he wanted to, he didn't really have a choice.

'Well, you know I'm not gonna tell you that, otherwise, what's all the fun in it?' Epps' fake smile nearly made Cal throw up even though there's not much in his stomach right now.

'I swear to god I'll let you regret what you've done when I catch you, and I'll.' Booth was almost carried away by his rage.

Cal was relatively calmer, he asked, 'What do you want?'

'Oh, I almost forgot. Is this Dr. Lightman? Gillian said hi.' Epps deflected on purpose, and mentioning Gillian's name nearly made Cal lose control.

'Don't you dare call her like this and don't you dare touch her! You sick bastard!' Cal yelled into Booth's cell phone, fist clenching at his side.

'You two may not want to talk to me like this, or I'll hang up right now and you can say goodbye to them forever.' Epps threatened.

'Fine. What do you want?' Booth tried his best to let out a flat tone.

'Go get your computer and open this link.' Epps gave them a link to a website of some sort, hung up suddenly.

'What the hell…' Booth and Cal rushed to the back trunk of Booth's SUV, turned on the laptop, and typed the link in, finally what's showed on the screen made their blood run cold.