A/N – I would like to thank those of you have waited soooooo patiently for this update for said patience. Special thanks to those who kindlyencouraged me to get back to it rather than those who have been rude and aggressive about it. So many things have gotten in the way of writing – life, work, family, time….and I guess a bit of writer's block too – okay a lot of writer's block. Hard to say…., but apologies I do extend… they are sincere. I will endeavor to do better as I wrap up this story.

226 Miles

Chapter 29

Esposito and Ryan reflexively sought cover when the report reached them. The silence fragmenting reverberation of gunfire - its unmistakable footprint - swallowing any intention they might initially have had of ferreting out a way inside the fort surreptitiously. All thought of self-preservation was lost to retrospect as they clung tacitly to the most negligible thread of hope that rescue was still possible for two people who had somehow become more family than friends.

Espo faltered, physically stumbled into the wall of the structure where he clawed at it brutally with his free hand. His fingers tightened painfully around the grip of his weapon; a ghostly pallor waving its way through him as he struggled to keep his feet under buckling legs. A single, solitary word was siphoned from him delineating the moment like no other could, "No…!"

Vexing incongruous imperatives blitzed Ryan; one stipulated the need for careful consideration and planning of his next move, while the other demanded instantaneous brash recklessness. A square peg dilemma jamming against a round hole solution; a conflict that was never going to resolve itself, but would not allow him to stop trying. Flush against the stone barrier, shoulder to shoulder, he emitted his own strangled response, one grated across vocal chords taut with paralysis and vehement emotion, "Javi, this is not over…"

Vague, stilted light afforded them little in the way of guidance, but failed to keep them from taking measure of the situation and one another. Kevin observed eyes alight with the primitive urgency and impulse of a cornered animal - an enraged cornered animal. It was clear to him that Javi was deeply embedded in a state that ensured only that subsequent actions would be impulsive, risky and even alarming in their malignancy.

Espo's staccato heartbeat rushed blood to his extremities readying him with stores of adrenaline. Sweating profusely despite the coolness of the early morning air caused a chill to spasm through him. His finger pulsed on the trigger as he forcefully angled his gaze away from the door to the edged profile of the man beside him. A militarily precise assessment of Ryan's shadowy countenance confirmed that he stood not only beside Javi but with him; that there would be no reversal today, no second guesses as to the most prudent path. There would be only the fight to get back what was on the precipice of being irrevocably lost.

Wordlessly the two men shoved free of the modicum of safety the fort walls had allotted. Flanking the door, Espo snaked his hand around the heavy iron handle while Kevin provided cover from whatever was waiting for them.

The door banked open easily – too easily - jarring Javi into the wall; stunning him briefly. Kevin arched forward attacking the abyss on the other side braced for the impact of retaliation for this unsolicited intrusion.

Ryan saw them first, sprawled, still figures in the center of the space. Loyalty driven disregard propelled him and Espo forward, inconstantly scanning for additional threats, alert for any adjunct motion. A negligible morsel of it slowed them intangibly, urging eyes to usurp every scintillate of light cast by the single fluorescent bulb swinging apoplectically in the breeze.

They drew closer absorbing details, trying to provide answers for themselves to the multitude of questions sledging against their fear and resisting reality. Four bodies lay face down, one atop the other as though felled unexpectedly; inexplicably while engaged in intimate conversation. The bodies, three men and a woman, faces either turned away or obscured by shadow. Panic simmered beneath stoic facades as the boys strained against the emotional bonds responsible for the current vertices of events, covetous for any sign of life.

A plaintive, thrilling resonance of sirens still a good distance away from the fort emboldened them – backup was coming. They rushed forward all but abandoning protocol and any vestige of common sense that might have still remained. Kicking aside a sole handgun resting guiltily at the perimeter of the scene, their focus was resolute and clung fiercely to a wisp of hope that what they saw before them wasn't what it looked like.

Frantic calls went unanswered, "Castle! Beckett! Answer damn it!"

Each of them grabbed a limp form; Espo rolling a male body over from where it had fallen, sprawled, limbs splayed apart and pinning what he was beginning to believe was Beckett's body underneath. Rapid assessment of both men indicated that neither was Castle and that their respective bodies were beyond unconsciousness, and far outside the realm of any rescue or aid available – a single GSW to the head for one and the chest for the other had seen to that.

Having cleared the first two, they could see that the remaining two victims were bound with zip ties. Kevin searched out Javi's gaze as relief and foreboding, a bittersweet concoction, pulsated through their veins. Just as each was about to turn one and get the answers they so desperately sought, a sound no seasoned cop could ignore or mistake assailed their ears – a telltale metallic grind and double click; the slide of a handgun.

Their training and friendship as much a part of them as anything else, the partners relied on intuition and muscle memory to simultaneously launch them into evasive action. Javi pushed off the ground hard, leaping left and then executed a perfect shoulder roll that brought him up on one knee facing the direction from which the sound had come, his aim scouring for a target.

Kevin had gone right aware that they would be harder to mark the further apart they were from one another. The lack of available cover in the open space led him to crouch low in the shadows that offered themselves as a viable option to him only when he moved further away from the center of the space where the only light still burned.

As the wail of the sirens closed in on Castle Clinton and the first flashes of oscillating red and blue rollers illuminated its outer walls, Detectives Ryan and Esposito fired their service weapons not only in self-defense, but in defense of Castle and Beckett. They dropped their individual targets with precision and prejudice that was fueled by gut twisting malice, frustration and ire aimed at everyone and anyone who had anything to do with routing them all here to face an impossible juncture that would exact from each of them a deeply personal premium - that should they survive - would undoubtedly change them and their relationships with one another forever.

Espo drew himself to his feet wrestling with each breath as it caught in his throat upon intake. Ryan stepped from the shadows, a tremor vibrating through fingers still laced with his weapon. Before they could make another move, each sensed a subtle shift in the air as reinforcements for the other side showed themselves. At first, all the boys knew was that they had been flanked; that the new arrivals had the drop on them, as they had come through the back entrance, the one that led to the docks.

Kate and Castle were still down, bodies flush with the stone, but far worse, they were squarely in the eye of what most assuredly would devolve into a deadly storm between Ryan, Espo and those newest to the party. Stealth movements of three figures cloaked by shadow caught Javi and Kevin's peripheral forcing them to move quickly. They were outnumbered, out in the open and out of position for any offensive play. Left with anemic alternatives and only time for a quick glance back toward their friends, they slid back into the darkness prepared to fight, to hunt, to prevail.

The fluid, calculated actions of their adversaries clearly illustrated that they were not random street thugs. They were professionals, most likely with military backgrounds, and that knowledge brought discernment to Ryan and Espo – this attack was not motivated by any personal agenda or ire toward their quarry. It was simply a game of predator versus prey. They were a target to be acquired, a mission to be accomplished –nothing more, nothing less. There was no time to consider the implications of this new development as more gunfire erupted; they split up into the enveloping gloom.

The battle raged with an intensity that left the center of the courtyard free of surveillance enabling Castle – who had regained a semblance of consciousness during the tumult- to attempt the only thing that was still in his power to do; get to Kate; to shield her - and if possible - to save her. During the scant seconds Castle cashed in traversing the mere feet that separated them, Ryan and Esposito continued to engage the men in the shadows. He stayed low trying to avoid being the victim of stray lead. Positioning himself with his back to her, but where his still bound hands could reach hers, his heart froze, refusing to beat for several gulps of breath when his hand slid across hers. The wetness, thick and tacky, stuck to his finger tips with the unmistakable texture and metallic aroma that could only be one thing, blood. He knew instantly she had been shot; struck by a bullet, stray or full of intent, the result had been the same; she was hit and likely bleeding out. As panic seized him, the realization that there was nothing he could do persecuted him, but didn't mitigate their situation. Days without food and water had left him bereft of the physical strength needed to sit up without the use of his arms and the dizzying buzz in his head told him that even if he managed to complete the daunting task, the chances of staying upright and accomplishing anything remotely helpful were pretty much nil. So he did the only thing he could do, he cradled her hands in his and called to her softly willing her to answer him; needing it more in this moment than any other they had ever shared, "Kate…"

Unable to see her from their back to back position, he swiveled his head hard in the direction of the firefight. Castle found that he couldn't see much. The swelling of his face, in and around the eyes, had worsened to the point that his sinus cavities had slammed shut making it hard to breathe through his nose forcing him to pull air in through his mouth. Each intake was labored and shallow and saturated with scarcely enough oxygen to keep him conscious as he suffered through wave after piercing wave of knifelike pain emanating from the vicinity of what he was certain were multiple broken ribs.

A muzzle flash startled him forging fresh ripples of agony that washed through his chest resulting in his grip slipping from Kate's for a second time. Through the slit in one eye, he could barely make out the silhouette of one of the gunmen barricaded in the protection of the darkness. Realizing that if he could see the man, then he could be seen himself, Castle rolled back onto his own awkwardly fastened wrists as desperation drove him to reconnect with her. Almost simultaneously, she groaned weakly and shifted her own position forward and slightly further from Castle's reach. Clawing blindly for her, the sinewy hand eluded him. The bones in his hands crunched against the aged stone and he grimaced through assailing spasms of pain still cogent enough to know that silence was the only defense he had left.

"Castle, take it," Kate's faint, effete, voice carried to him though it was only as a whisper graciously lifted to him on a gust of iced morning air.

He could hear her moving, pushing, urging something dense and leaden across the time wearied surface toward him. Working his hands feverishly against the stones, he tried desperately to find whatever it was that she was trying so ardently to give him. Exhausted, sweat drained from him as though from a wound, and lacking the stamina only a cocktail of adrenaline and deep breaths could give him, he found himself on the precipice of losing consciousness yet again. Grayness pulled on him, he felt no choice was left other than to acquiesce to his body's demand for respite from the search. Allowing his muscles to slacken and his head to rest on the cold stone, he cut his eyes toward the shadows where he had last observed the man. Castle couldn't see him, but he felt him, sensed his continued presence with every pulsing cell in his being. He was still there - mercurial and malevolent - watching and waiting. That understanding prodded his spent, battered body back to work. Within seconds, the very tip of his middle finger scraped across something coldly smooth and ridged with familiar curves and sharp angles. Cramping fingers grasped, its form took shape in the palm of his hand and he instantly knew – Kate had somehow given him a gun.

Hope tempered the cool down that had begun inside his pummeled form. Muscles twitched helplessly as synaptic misfires brought on by dehydration set his teeth chattering and extremities contracting and relaxing at intervals that made each new assault more intense. His body was shutting down; he was losing the fight, but he had come so far – they had come so far, too far, to lose it all now. Harnessing the last – the very last- of his reserves, Castle somehow managed to compress the butt of the gun between his palms. The zip ties chewed systematically into the skin of his wrists as he twisted his arms counter clockwise and then back the other way trying to position the weapon where his finger could find the trigger. Before he could take aim, mentally flailing somewhere between determination and desperation, the other shoe dropped, the bottom fell out, and in his mind hell froze over.

Castle would never be able to fully process the events of the sixty seconds that followed, at least not well enough to tell exactly how it all unfolded, but he had recognized that the vortex of a terrible storm had suddenly descended upon and held everyone present firmly in its vise. The shouts of the men engaged in the firefight were at a crescendo as he continued rocking himself into position to take a shot at the shadow man. Curse laced threats erupted from both sides too muffled to make out, but there was no mistaking their tone – there would be no surrender, no withdrawal into the tendrils of darkness that the coming dawn had yet to usurp for either side. In this place, on this morning, death would come and leave with his spoils. All that remained to be seen was who would be going with him.

After a sudden and inexplicably brief and disconcerting lull in the mayhem, the battle resumed with a vengeance. The shots came from all directions lighting up the front, sides and back of the building with an incandescent pinball ricochet of muzzle flashes. A flurry of activity near the back entrance signaled the arrival of more reinforcements and Castle closed his eyes trying to absorb the ripple of fear that traveled the line of his jaw as it clamped off his pharynx making it impossible for him to warn Kate that their situation had just taken a turn, a final turn, for the worse. His severely hindered vision and the blood caked in his lashes kept him from taking the shot. Yes, his enemy was there; in the shadows; far enough from him that he might as well have had the power of invisibility. A blind, poorly aimed shot in the dark; a risk he could not justify taking. He could not put from his mind that Ryan and Esposito were also a part of that darkness and that at this point he could not be sure exactly who it would be aligned in his sights. Neither had asked to be here, had done anything to deserve being here; he would not sacrifice them to save himself. She wouldn't want him to. With that understanding, hope emptied from him and he released the gun and took her hand one last time.

When he saw her, time slowed her approach in a fashion reminiscent of the Matrix. Her weapon flashed a double tap, a triple and another double before a fluid slide of her thumb ejected the emptied clip and she locked in another. She was coming straight toward him; toward them. Blue eyes ablaze with an icy fire that locked on him and didn't let go; never seeking cover; never faltering, never flinching.

She knelt beside him resting her hand on his chest. Glock in her right hand and a rifle slung low across her shoulders. Only then did she affect a defensive stance, he watched her squeeze off several more shots into the darkness as everything went silent, but only for him. It was quiet, finally, except for the roar in his ears; one he had become way too familiar with over the last few days. Castle fought slipping away again. There was nothing he hated more than missing the end of the story. This one was out of his hands; he would not be able to orchestrate the finale. For a change, he would have to wait and see how it all turned out, just like everyone else. But there was something more, something his fractured consciousness registered in the final seconds of awareness, he wanted to ask her, needed to know, but this too would have to wait.