Chapter 20

A loud grumble breaks through the heart-wrenching sobs echoing in the tiny room. The noise and the strange vibration from her stomach surprises Brennan out of her tears. Chest hitching with shaking breaths, she sits up straight again, wincing as her injured ankle is jostled. She uses her bound hands to wipe her face, the dirt smoothing off to create mud tracks on her cheeks. Another insistent growl from her stomach reminds her that she doesn't know how long she's been held. Hours or days? She asks herself, the bitter taste of panic raising up again in her throat.

Panting now, she blinks through the quickly suffocating dark, straining to see anything but the blackness which surrounds her. She clenches her hands to her chest in a white-fingered knot, struggling to suck in enough air from the musky room. With each wheezy inhale the years roll back, speeding past the years of love and laughter living with Booth, past meeting her friends during her last year in high school, back and back until she's once again stuck in that horrible trunk. She's scared, so very scared and alone, so completely alone. No one knows that she's trapped, no cares; she's forgotten, unloved.

"No," she barks out in a whisper, raising her face up to the ceiling, eyes closed tightly as she forces her lungs to slow. She has to focus, to allow her body time to receive the air or she'll pass out. "Booth loves me. Booth...we're having a baby. I have a baby. I have a baby."

She holds in a deep breath, focusing her resolved into that one thought: her baby. The shaking, the tears, the horrible hitching breaths, slowly they all stop. Her hands lay over the life resting within her and protectiveness more fierce than she has ever felt in her life pulses through her.

She is not going to just in the dark and cry like a coward, putting her unborn child's life at risk. She is going to do anything she possibly can to get her child to safety. Though sluggish from her injury, her genius mind whirs into back into action.

The entire camp knows she is missing; it is a very slim possibility that everyone within the small detail digging group was killed and, even so, there is the larger group waiting for them back at the main site. The main dig was funded through a major university, a horrific event such as this would instantly attract national attention. So logic dictates that someone is searching for her and for any others missing from the dig. So her goal should be to get of the small room so that she can be found.

"Okay," she breaths softly, coursing her steps in her mind. First, she decides as her stomach rumbles again, she needs to eat.

With great distaste, she reaches for the small bag the soldier had tossed at her. With some difficulty thanks to the tight rope around her hands, she unties the bag and spills its contents into her palms: a revolting piece of hard–rock-bread surrounding a slimy, putrid piece of meat product. Grimacing with disgust, she peels the meat out of its cocoon and tosses it into the corner. Bracing herself, she clenches her teeth around the bread and pulls, quickly using any saliva she can gather to soften the stale bread. Resolutely she chews, eyes watering at the sour flavor of the bread. When the bread is soft and small enough to fit down her throat, she swallows and quickly reaches for the water canteen. The first quick swallow clears her mouth but the second has her gagging past the metallic warm liquid.

She forces her system to settle and then ruthlessly goes through the process again until finally all of the sour bread is gone. Still coughing from the wretched 'food', she starts wiggling her wrists. Pain releases in a hiss as the rope tugs at her soft flesh. Bending her arms awkwardly, she struggles to get her teeth onto the knot of the rope.

The minutes tick by as little progress is made and, slowly, the panic starts to sink in again. Brennan stops using her teeth and starts fruitlessly pulling her wrists. Every burn, every drop of blood that leaks out from the unforgiving rope eats at her determination. The warmth of the small room has beads of sweat rolling down her back and the "dinner" churning in her stomach. She twists and tugs but the rope stays firm.

"Come on!" she grits out between clenched teeth, feeling anger lurking just under her desperation. She latches onto it like a life saver: anger is useful; anger can make you stronger. She uses all her strength, savagely using her teeth to pull, her voice raising to a yell without her control. "Come on!"

"Hello?" a voice, full of fear and desperation, breaks through the darkness.

Brennan's head snaps up, eyes staring sightlessly in the direction of the door.

"Hello?" the tearful and familiar voice calls out again. "Someone there? Please."

I am sorry for the wait. The reasons are too numerous and depressing to explain. I want to thank everyone who reviewed or pm'd me about updating. Thank you to every single person still reading this now.

And major thanks to my friend and beta musicnlyrics for reading over this for me and for being there for me during the horrific past year, even when her life wasn't going any better than mine.

So, please review. Tell me what you think, what you wish will happen. Just please continue to be the nice, respectful reviews you have been. And as far as how often I'll update, I think I can promise at least one per month. But, as life is fickle, that could change. Be patient please