Hello. So I hope things will mostly make sense after this. Thank you so much for reading. It means the world to me. Enjoy. -JF

Chapter 13 – The Traitor

One week ago, Calcutta, India

The two men sat opposite each other, each with their backs on opposite walls of the thin hallway. The taller and blonder of the two tilted his head towards the door of their charges to better hear the conversation going on within. The dark-haired man sat stoically with his eyes fixed on his motionless hands. He could not hear the quiet conversation behind the door, and had no interest in it either.

"Look, man, I don't see the point," the dark-haired man sighed for the fifth time that evening. "You know Marie. She's not into any heavy business. You've been listening in for weeks. They're just normal people."

"She said they were important, Nathan," the taller one spat. "And if they're important to her, they're important to me." He turned his attention back to the door, clearly dismissive of his partner's attempt at conversation.

"I just don't see the point," Nathan said again. "She's your sister, Shawn."

The other man slowly turned his head again. "Exactly," he said, his voice dripping with distain. "She tore my family apart. She ruined everything, and to this day doesn't see that she did anything wrong." He spat onto the ground next to him. "Prancing around with Joseph, happy as can be," he mumbled.

Nathan shifted uncomfortably, and Shawn pressed his ear to Weston and Tazara's door again.

After a few minutes, Shawn shot up from the dirt floor of the hallway. Nathan looked up at him, about to ask what was going on, but Shawn bolted out the door of the hotel. Bewildered, Nathan did nothing to stop him, but walked back into their room, which was a bit further down the hall. Sometimes Shawn scared Nathan, and the plan that Shawn had slowly been revealing to Nathan was one of the most frightening things he could have imagined his brother doing.

My name is Nathan Penner and I am a traitor. Traitor to my country, to my duty, to my family and to myself.

I turned my back on all of these things because of greed. I am ashamed of it, and I never expect to be forgiven. I was willing to sacrifice two innocent lives in order to get what I wanted. For money, I was willing to kill.

I was told by a kind old woman that what I had ultimately done was valiant. Dignified. She held my face in her wrinkled sun-browned hands and called me a hero. With tears in her soft eyes she told me I'd go to heaven if I died.

I should be so lucky.

I hope that what I've done will in some why partly atone for my greed and my selfishness. I hope you might some day forgive me because I stopped being afraid. I only hope it wasn't too late.

You trusted me. You told me that Weston Moore and Tazara Werner were very, very important to you. I am your family, and you should have been able to trust me. I should have known to do the right thing.

I followed orders because I was a coward. Shawn intimidated and threatened me into going along with his plan, but it is entirely my fault for not being brave enough to stand up to my childhood friend, my brother in every sense but blood.

Joseph Blanche, Shawn Kantar, and I were like brothers. But we began to fall apart when Joseph's little sister Katherine stole my heart. Joseph resented me a bit at first, but only because he was protective of his precious little sister and he didn't trust me with something he cared about so deeply. He finally accepted how much I loved her when I married her.

For some reason, though, the same situation with you and Joseph didn't have the same outcome. Shawn wasn't protective of you and he didn't resent Joe—he resented you and begged Joe not to pay you any attention. It was just so…weird. Of course neither of you listened to him, and Shawn always hated you for that. He felt betrayed, he was lonely, and he was jealous.

He always hid that from you. He thought it made him seem weak, and you know Shawn. All man, all the time. Couldn't show weakness.

So when you entrusted him with your friends a few months ago, he saw an opportunity. You said they were very important to you, and he figured it was just like Joe and I were important to him, once upon a time. He wanted to hurt you like you had hurt him. I have never seen a man so filled with hatred for his own blood. I have never seen a man hate his own sister so passionately.

My brother was always very unkind to Tazara and Weston. I never had the heart to be. He lied to them often, telling them that they couldn't go home and they couldn't make calls. Shawn could be very persuasive, even when it was a lady as smart and Tazara and a man so strong and so full of common-sense as Weston. Shawn basically held them prisoner without them knowing it and I was like the watch dog. Shawn kicked me around so much I might as well have been.

Shawn listened to Weston and Tazara's conversations when we went out into the city with them. I agreed with him that it always sounded like they were speaking in some kind of code. They never said much, and when they did it was always short and disjointed, like there was an entire conversation going on between their thoughts and we were just catching small parts that happened to slip through. Curiosity drove Shawn crazy and be began listening at their door to hopefully catch more of this silent conversation.

After only a few days of that, he finally heard something. A name. "Brennan". At the time, I had no idea what had happened. He just got up and left, and didn't come back until the next morning. I was afraid to ask what he had done because this man I was with was a much angrier and violent man than my childhood friend. I was afraid of what he was willing to do. Now I know that he had gone to his truck and researched the name he knew sounded familiar, and hit the jackpot.

It is my fault that Tazara is currently in the hospital. Through fear and the love of money, I joined Shawn in gaining some sort of revenge. Honestly, I didn't know what I was doing. But it's no excuse, I know that. He told me all about how the people we were protecting weren't who they said they were, how they were liars and that made them dangerous. And I believed him.

I paid a guy to hurt Tazara and make it look like a mugging because Shawn thought that putting them in a stressful and painful situation might make them indirectly give more information about who they really were. Tazara was stabbed in the leg and Shawn got the information he wanted. They were hiding from the gang, the gang that didn't have a name but was all the more terrifying for it. The next day, we went to the gang and told them who we had, giving them the real names of Doctor Temperance Brennan and FBI Agent Seeley Booth. They didn't believe us, they shouted at us in languages I didn't speak and claimed those Americans had already been killed. We were eventually able to convince them we were telling the truth and we settled on a price.

The next morning I couldn't breathe. I knew they were going to take Tazara and Weston and I knew it was wrong, no matter how much money I was going to get. I didn't let anyone on to my doubts because I knew I'd be taken out of the operation if they thought I had cold feet. So I put all the hatred I could on my face and fired shots into the air in the peaceful streets of Calcutta.

I knew we were there to capture them, but faking their deaths again was the only option. I ran inside and fired a few shots, nodding to the men there as I came back out. "They're dead," I assured them. Somehow they believed me and somehow they didn't care that I had gone against the plan. I don't quite understand that, but I'm grateful beyond comprehension.

We got only half the money we had agreed on, which was understandable. I was elated, but Shawn was furious. Once we were back in the hotel, he held me at gunpoint and I was very, very afraid that he would shoot me. But he was my brother, and even as filled with greed and hate as he was, he couldn't bring himself to shoot. When he had finally calmed down, I explained myself to him. I explained how selfish we were being and how nothing was worth the lives of two innocent people.

Shawn called me a traitor, which I must say was very fair.

Then he left again without explanation, and didn't come back. He had gone to the hospital, because he knew that Weston and Tazara, or Agent Booth and Doctor Brennan, rather, wouldn't be able to take care of her leg on their own. While he was gone, I explained everything to Lochana, the woman who runs the hotel because I had come into her hotel and fired two gunshots, and it had scared her. I told her everything. The two of you are the only ones who know everything.

She held my face in her hands and called me a hero.

I don't expect the same from you, Marie. I betrayed you and your trust, and I don't deserve your forgiveness. I just need you to know the truth. I hope it isn't too late.

Shawn does not know I am writing to you. He stands watch over Doctor Brennan and Agent Booth twenty-four hours a day. I don't know when or how he sleeps. Perhaps he doesn't. I've heard obsession can do that to you.

Doctor Brennan was in critical condition. The infection from the stab wound went as horribly wrong as it could have. They called it blood poisoning, but I'm no medical expert and if I ask questions, Shawn might try to kill me again.

I hate holding them prisoner, and I hate how we all got to where we are.

Please come save them again, Marie. I don't know how much longer Doctor Brennan has.

Dr. Jack Hodgins watched Marie Blanche carefully as she opened the mail she had just received. She was trying to ignore his presence and go about her business to keep her mind off the pressing matter at hand, but it certainly looked much harder than it sounded. She looked incredibly stressed and worried, probably about making a wrong move and getting slammed against the wall again. Feeling a very small amount of pity for the woman, Hodgins began to walk away from the doorway he had been hovering in.

"Dr. Hodgins?" he heard from the doorway he had just left. He turned around, and Blanche was holding a letter very nervously in her hand. "You might want to see this."

Just so you know, this stroy is NOT almost over. Please keep me going. You know what to do :) -JF