Family.
A concept far more comprehensive than a mere DNA connection or a signed paper. A primordial identity that showed its beastly head mostly at times of need, one that would stop at nothing until put to rest.
There is something to be said about the power of family. Of how it can become a force of Nature in its own right, one strong enough to rival the most vicious of hurricanes. How it can morph into a bizarre natural phenomenon that defies gravity itself, mass and velocity losing all meaning and valor in the face of this powerful force, a fact that not even Newton would dare to dispute. Because he had family too.
-0-
For someone who had been with the police department for close to thirty years, Gil Arroyo had been all too quick to throw out the window all thoughts of police procedure or even common sense, his mind solemnly focused on finding Malcolm. The Lieutenant had paid no mind to security protocols as he stepped right into the face of a dangerous serial killer to get the answers that he so desperately needed. There had been no consideration about how the whole situation could be a trap, a devious machination carefully planned by a murderer who was mostly known for his carefully planned devious machinations. That and the people he had killed.
Gil wasted no time waiting for Dani and JT to return from their wild goose chase through the woods, even if he did remembered to call for backup before bursting through the Whitly's home. He did it, not because of the knowledge that John Watkins was a very dangerous man and protocol mandated it, but because he was afraid of his own reaction when he got there. If Gil arrived at the house to find out that he was too late to save every single member of that family, he was sure that he wouldn't be able to control himself to fully act within the law.
He couldn't honestly call it a crime of passion when already he was imagining emptying his gun into the Watkins' chest. Gil found the idea all-too appealing for his liking.
Fortunately for the seasoned Lieutenant, that was not the night when he would find out if he was capable of murder.
-0-
By all conceptualization of pain and blood loss, Malcolm Bright should be unconscious, if not dead. And yet, he walked and talked. He fought, like his body was not his own, control stripped away from his brain and delivered in the hands of someone else. He felt like something other than human, a bewitched rag-doll, controlled by dark magic at the command of a sorcerer's will.
His brain, free from the troubles of controlling his actions, was left to wonder aimlessly, conjuring up fragmented images and visions of people that should not be there.
His therapist had been waiting for him on the other side of the fireplace secret opening, casually reminding Malcolm that in the eyes of the law, and in his own conscience, vengeance and self-defense were two very different concepts. He should clear his mind and decide before hand for which one of those was the crowbar in his hands intended. Vengeance. Or self-defense.
The profiler stopped, leaning heavily against the wall of the corridor that led to the main floor, his good hand wrapped around the crowbar like a claw, muscles spasming in a string of tidal waves. It was getting hard to breathe.
Vengeance.
Self-defense.
Two sides of the same coin that ended with John Watkins dead at Malcolm's hands.
His father was leaning against the stairs' handrail, a knowing smirk on his lips as he pulled a pair of surgical gloves over his hands, the elastic material snapping against skin over and over again until the sound became an endless pounding inside Malcolm's head.
Bright did his best to ignore his father's proud look. He had spend the last twenty years trying to prove to himself and the world that he was nothing like his father, that he was not willing to take a human life. Capable, but not willing.
Bright had been a special agent with the FBI for nearly ten years. During that time, he had discharged his weapon exactly five times outside of the shooting range, two missing their target and the rest resulting in minor injuries to the perpetrators. He had killed no one.
The first John Watkins that sprung in front of Malcolm was killed with a crowbar to the head, his brain splitting open like ripe fruit to the sound of Martin Whitly's applause and cheer. There had been no faltering energy, no tremor to his hand. No hesitation.
The surge of euphoria that suddenly cursed through the profiler's veins was overwhelming, nearly stealing away whatever remaining strength he had left. For that split second it took for his mind to realize that he wasn't looking at the real Watkins, but rather at a figment of his imagination, Malcolm had felt a primal sense of blood thirst that could be traced all the way back to the first Homo Habilis, defending his food and mate. His family.
It scared him how good it felt. More than being taken by a serial killer, more than being chained to the floor and left at his mercy, even more than the threat on his family, that taste of blind violence and pure revengeful power had left Bright shaking where he stood, unable to take a single step forward. The murderous beast inside of him was breaking free of its carefully placed chains and Malcolm knew that he could not afford to stop it from happening.
He needed that beast's strength.
"Stop being so afraid of it, my boy," Martin chipped in merrily, twirling a scalpel in his fingers. "Psychopathy isn't really a disease as it is more a part of being a genius... the next step in human evolution!" he added with a satisfied smile, like the thought had just occurred him. "Embrace it, son!"
Malcolm closed his eyes, pressing the fingers of his mangled left hand into a fist, hard enough that white spots of light exploded behind his lids, his lips parting in a silent scream.
It helped him focus. More than being pain-free, Bright needed to be able to tell what was real and what was a product of blood loss and stress induced hallucinations. When he opened his eyes again, broken thumb throbbing in tempo with his galloping heart, Martin Whitly was gone. So was the gory corpse of John Watkins.
Taking a shaky breath, Malcolm pushed forward. The silent house felt like a strange domain, rather than the place where he grew up. When he was a kid, Bright had climbed up and down those steps to the basement more times than he could count. Now, with his side on fire and his body slowly giving up, those same stairs felt like an alien environment, menacing and uninviting. His home didn't feel like home at all when there was a serial killer on the loose inside.
As he finally reached the main floor, it took Malcolm a second to realize that the sound beating inside his head was more than just his heartbeat roaring against his eardrums. It was the sound of chopping wood.
Coming from the second floor.
The profiler looked at the second flight of stairs, leading up to the rooms upstairs, with the same amount of disheartenment reserved for facing a compact crowd of people walking in your direction.
Like with a compact crowd, he could try to push his way through, but it would sap his last reserves of strength and make him waste precious minutes that his family did not have.
Even in the dark, Malcolm could see the telltale signs of what had happened in the short time since John had left him behind in the secret dungeon behind the fireplace. A part of his mind was cataloguing everything, like he usually did in a crime scene.
The smear of fresh blood on the sliding door leading to the foyer, traces of long blond hair hanging from the split wood.
Fragments of a broken lamp all over the floor, glass breaking into smaller pieces under his bare feet as he walked across.
The scratching on the floor from a missed hit.
In his mind, he could see it in perfect clarity, his mother and sister chased like animals in their own home, running for their lives, putting up a desperate fight despite the terror and panic.
The profiler's stomach rebelled at the thought that his home was about to become a bloody crime scene.
Frustration fueled anger and anger erupted into bloodlust. In a moment of sudden lucidity, Malcolm realized what he had to do. "WATKINS!" he yelled out, his already raw throat protesting at the abuse. "I know you're here... this is my house, my family!" Come down, you bastard, and meet me on the battlefield of my choosing, he thought feverishly, knowing that his family was as good as dead if the murderer didn't fell for his baiting.
Malcolm's eyes landed on the large wooden trunk in the hallway. An ugly thing that his mother refused to throw away because it had been in the family for over two hundred years. Despite the dizziness and pain, despite the anger and desperation, the sight of that ugly thing made him smile. Watkins was going to get a taste of fear of his own.
-0-
Gil Arroyo had always considered himself a man with a moderate, sensible amount of courage. He never asked his detectives to put themselves at risk unless he was there to lead the way and from the few -thankfully- shootouts he had been involved in his career, the Lieutenant knew he could keep a cool head on his shoulders when it mattered the most.
There had been only two situations in his whole life that had left the seasoned man paralyzed by fear, unable to think straight, unsure of what to do or how to act.
The first one had been when the doctor told his wife that she was dying. Jackie, who had always been much braver than him, ended up being the one to comfort him.
The second time was when he stepped inside the Whitly's house and heard those screams.
The Lieutenant had been to some messed up crime scenes in his long career, but one of the worse he could remember hadn't even involved any human victims. It had been a joint bust on a illegal dog-fighting ring, long before he'd become a commanding officer. The desperate and agonizing sounds those poor trapped animals made, some of them injured beyond recognition, others nearly dead... it was a sound like he had never heard before, a sound that he would never be able to forget.
The screams inside the house sounded a lot like those dogs, a beaten and brutalize noise that was born from a level of agony that surpassed physical pain. It made his blood freeze inside his veins.
The entire place was plunged in darkness, cut occasionally by the white beams of their flashlights. Other than the screams, it sounded empty. Dead.
Gil silently directed two of the officers to the left, motioning the third to join him in searching the right side. Two others had been left at the door, just in case.
In a house that big, sound bounced off walls with ease, making it all the harder to pinpoint from where exactly the screams were coming from.
The screaming seemed distant, muffled, like it was coming from behind the walls. Haunting.
Heart pounding against his ribs, Gil forced himself to move slowly, carefully watching every dark corner and assessing each room for danger before moving forward and allowing his current partner to do the same. In his mind, he was trying to convince himself that screaming was good, that screaming meant being alive. But every time that horrible sound came again, he couldn't help imagine the state a person had to be in to be forced into such animalistic, primal sound.
He couldn't help imagine Jessica or Ainsley -because luck would have it that her damn car was parked just outside!- making that sound. Broken beyond repair.
And Malcolm... that boy had already been through so much in his life. If he was the one screaming, Gil was sure that this would be the final crack on the profiler's battered mind.
There was a large, wooden trunk sitting the middle of Jessica Whitly's living room. One that the Lieutenant didn't remember being a part of the decoration before. Also, the drag marks on the once pristine floor was a dead give away that it had been placed there recently.
The screams were definitely coming from inside.
A crowbar had been shoved between the locks, keeping whomever was inside trapped. The Lieutenant stiffened at the sight of the thing, both ends showing clear traces of blood.
Gil tightened the grip on his gun and aimed carefully, signaling the officer to pull the crowbar on three.
One.
Two.
Three.
Metal rasped against metal as the crowbar slid free and for an endless second the two men waited, neither daring to breathe, guns steady and aimed at the trunk.
Another scream emerged from the wooden box, but that was the only thing coming out of it.
As it became clear that, whomever had been trapped inside, was incapable of getting out on its own, Gil reached for the lid. He stole one look at the other officer, Morales as his name tag identified him, to make sure the man had his back, before pushing the lid up.
Please God, not Malcolm, Gil found himself silently praying.
The large man inside was most definitely not Malcolm. Which, in a household of women, meant that he could only be one person. John Watkins.
"NYPD! Freeze! Do not move or we will shoot you!" Gil blared, violently breaking the heavy silence that had settled over the house, blind anger clouding his vision for a moment. Had it not, the Lieutenant would have seen right away that there was no point in telling the murderer to not move. He couldn't.
John Watkins was a shivering mess, curled on himself, tears and snot covering the side of his face that they could see. His hands and feet had been tied with what looked like a TV's cable wire and his right shoulder blade was covered in blood. A bloody Christmas present, all wrapped up for them.
"Gil?" The voice was barely audible, but clearly belonging to Jessica. "GIL! Upstairs, hurry!"
The Lieutenant's satisfaction at seeing the serial killer powerless and subdued was sucked away as fast as it had come. Jessica was alive, but there was still clear panic in her voice. He was racing upstairs even before his mind could decide what to do, fear once more taking over his heart and obscuring everything else.
-0-
Jessica was not one to openly displaying her emotions or affections. Lack of security, her therapist would call it; proper behavior for a lady, her mother would point out.
Hugging her children, knowing that they were both safe and alive in her arms, had been the most rewarding thing that she had experienced in a very long time, if ever. Jessica had no idea why they had waited for such dire circumstances to hug each other close like that.
They were all shaking, from the rush of adrenaline, from unspent fear, from sheer relief. So, it was no wonder that neither woman noticed when Malcolm, trapped in between their warm embrace, started shaking harder than any of them before becoming a dead weight in their arms.
"Mal!"
They fell like pieces of pilled up dominos. Ainsley, already unsteady on her feet, was all too easily dragged down by the weight of her brother, and Jessica, strong of mind as she was, was not as strong of arms and could not hold up both her children as they crumpled down. Her daughter, fortunately, managed to stay sitting up, sort of, leaning against the bed. Malcolm, however, had collapsed on the floor like there were no bones left inside his body.
"Malcolm?" the older woman called out, cursing that Watkins bastard for, not only having tried to kill both of her children, but for cutting off the lights too. It was so dark that she could barely see her son's face, other than the fact that his eyes were closed.
"Mom, what's wrong with him?"
Jessica had no idea if it was due to the vicious knock on her head or the serial killer that had been trying to kill them just minutes ago, but Ainsley sounded exactly the same as she did when she was five. It was both endearing and frightening. 'Mommy, where did daddy go?' 'A conference, my sweet... he's at a conference out of town. He'll be back soon."
Like then, Jessica wanted nothing more than to lie through her teeth and protect her little girl. But Ainsley was a grown woman now, and the lies would only fly as far her concussed brain would allow. "I don't know..." Jessica confessed. "He was fine a minute ago." No, her brain pointed out. He had said that he was alive, not that he was okay.
God, that absolute bastard had hurt her baby boy! "Malcolm... Malcolm, please say something," she was begging, she was perfectly aware of that, but there had always been a nanny around to help her with the kids and she simply didn't know how to deal with this. She needed him to open his eyes and tell her that he was fine. "Malcolm, baby, you're scaring your sister..."
Malcolm was scaring her, most of all. He had warned them not to touch his left hand, and they had both seen the bloody rag wrapped around it. Jessica refused to even imagine what could be beneath those rags. But other than that... what had that maniac done to her son? He had been missing for so many hours...
Ainsley and her had been forced to deal with the serial killer for just a few minutes and she felt devoid of all energy already; she could not fandom what Malcolm had endured in those twenty four hours. Jessica pulled her son closer to her, sliding her leg under him to support his head, her hands beneath his slack arms.
Her fingers brushed against his left side, and she could feel a disgusting, sticky wetness against her skin. As she raised her hand to figure out what had soiled her fingers, Jessica sobbed in despair. Even in the darkness, there was no mistaking the blackness covering her hand or the metallic smell that came with it. Blood.
Malcolm was bleeding. And Ainsley was barely conscious by her side. And she couldn't dare to leave either of her children, but someone needed to call for help. They needed help. God, they needed a hospital!
"Freeze! Do not move or we will shoot you!"
"Gil?" The voice had been muffled by the distance, but there was no mistaking to whom it belong. That man had been heaven sent! "GIL! Upstairs, hurry!"
Please hurry and help me save my babies, she silently begged.
Hurry.
-0-
Gil always told his detectives to compartmentalize, to distance themselves from the crime investigation and keep their emotions and personal opinions out of the job. He felt like like the world's biggest hypocrite.
Trying to prepare himself mentally for what he would find once he reached his destination was pointless. His heart was already racing out of control and his mind was well into imagining the worst. It was a terrible time to find out that he had a very imaginative mind.
"Jessica?" he called out as he reached the top floor. Three rooms to the left and four to the right and for a split second the Lieutenant cursed the Whitly's and their damn castle in the middle of New York City.
"In here!" she called from the left, first room.
It was easy enough to find them as the flashlight beam coursed through the room. They were all pilled up against the bed, the three of them huddled together like a single entity.
"Gil? Is that you?" Jessica asked, her voice shaky and unsure.
Gil cursed himself for not thinking clearly, quickly pointing the powerful light somewhere else other than the poor, traumatized woman's eyes. "I'm here... you hurt?"
Jessica shook her head, a sob escaping her lips. "My babies..."
She sounded heartbroken and the Lieutenant's heart skipped a beat. Neither Ainsley or Malcolm had moved since he had arrived. God, had he been too late after all? Were they...
Wasting no more time, he pulled out his cell phone and hit speed dial. "This is Lieutenant Arroyo, with NYPD," he spit out with practiced ease. "I need two ambulances at my location, now!"
"Gil... tell them to hurry," Jessica whispered in the dark.
Pushing the phone back into his pocket, Arroyo startled when the lights came back on without warning, silently reminding him that they were not alone, that there was a whole team of police officers spread-out through the house, doing their job. He needed to do his.
His eyes, quickly adjusting, took in everything at once, starved for information.
Jessica's eyes were red rimmed, her makeup too expensive to run down her face even if her cheeks were glistening with tears. She seemed distraught and utterly devastated, but physically okay. Until she got a glimpse of her kids and visibly paled.
Ainsley had blood on the right side of her face, a dripping faucet that could be easily traced up to a nasty head wound. Her eyes weren't quite closed, but she seemed disoriented and unfocused.
Malcolm was covered in blood, like he had taken his whole left side and dragged it across a wall freshly painted red. It was on his face, his pants and his shirt, right down to his hand.
Gil had never been more thankful for his training in his life. He could feel the frozen blanket of duty wrapping itself tightly over his emotions, locking them away and allowing him to think clearly. First things first, he needed to make sure that Malcolm was breathing, that he still had a heartbeat.
But first, he needed to get the kid clear from his mother's clasp. Jessica hadn't said a word since the lights had come back on, her face devoid of all color downright to her lips. Her only reaction, when seeing the state Bright was in, had been to hold him tighter, armwrestling Death itself for possession of her son, as if the power of her embrace alone could keep him from slipping away.
"Jessica, lemme help," the Lieutenant spoke slow and quietly, fighting every fiber of his body that told him to pull Malcolm away from her and so he could check his condition.
After what felt like an eternity, but could only have been a few seconds, Jessica looked up, finally acknowledging his presence and releasing her possessive hold. "Gil... He's so cold..."
"What happened here?" he asked, even as his fingers pressed against Malcolm's neck. There was a pulse there, thankfully, even if it wasn't one as strong as he wished for. And Jessica was right, the kid was too damn cold, his skin feeling like cake batter, sticky and wet. He quickly shrugged off his coat, wrapping Malcolm in it as best as he could.
"We were in the basement," Jessica started, turning her attention to Ainsley once she realized that her son was in safe hands. "That... man," she hissed, "came out from behind the fireplace-he had an axe!"
The Lieutenant resisted the urge to peel Malcolm's shirt away, to try and get a glimpse of the blood's source. The fabric was stuck to the kid's skin with mostly dried blood and he didn't want to risk provoking that wound into more bleeding. It looked like the kid had lost enough already.
"You're safe now," Gil informed Jessica, even though he knew that it took more than a simple word for people to actually feel safe again after such a traumatic event. "John Watkins is locked away and he will never be able to hurt any of you again."
"Malcolm said the same thing." Jessica Whitly snorted in a very un-lady like manner. "Feels like too little, too late."
"They're alive, Jessica," Gil reminded her. "They're gonna be okay."
Lord, he hoped he wasn't lying. Head injuries were always tricky and Ainsley looked like she had, at the very least, a concussion. It was even harder to figure it out with Malcolm, other than the fact that he had a head wound to match his sister's.
Malcolm's shirt looked sliced, rather than burned by a bullet, so Gil was guessing that the kid had some sort of stab wound on the left side of his abdomen. It was impossible to know how deep and wide it was, or how much damage it had caused. And then there was his hand, that huge bundle of fabric speckled with blood; Gil hoped that, underneath all of that, the kid's fingers were all still attached.
"I... wondered... when you would show up."
The voice was faint, barely a whisper, but it was enough to draw Jessica and Gil's attention.
"Malcolm..." his mother whispered back, her voice dropping two tones with heavy emotion. "Sweetheart, how're you feeling?"
"I'm sorry..." Malcolm whispered. "I- I couldn't save you... couldn't save Ains..."
Gil's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Had Malcolm forgotten all about the last few minutes? Was this some kind of pos-traumatic amnesia thing? "Kid... everyone's alive and fine. Don't worry yourself."
Lying on the plush carpet on the floor, Malcolm gave an aborted chuckle, only to hiss in pain as his stomach muscles complained. His eyes, wild and unfocused, filled with tears. "Yo-you would say that... just to make me... feel better. It's wha-what you do."
"Honey, Gil's right. We're all alive... John Watkins is gone," Jessica tried to assure him, her hands gently cupping his face, brushing away fresh tears with her thumb. "You saved us!"
Malcolm closed his eyes, turning away from his mother's touch. "'s not real. You're not real," he pressed on. "'s too bright... not real... the light's too bright... I need to save them!"
Chains dragged across the floor as Malcolm tried to move his right hand, pushing them away, trying and failing to get up from the floor. He gave up with a frustrated sigh, his eyes sliding to a point somewhere behind Jessica's head. "Yes, dad... I know... jus-just pathetic... they're dead already."
Jessica covered her mouth to stop a whimper from turning into a scream, bloody fingers leaving red lines upon her cheeks.
Malcolm was hallucinating, unable to tell the difference between what was real and what his mind was conjuring up. And in his tormented mind, John had succeed in killing Jessica and Ainsley.
"Malcolm," Gil called out, grabbing the kid's restless hand from the floor. "We're real, okay? Your father isn't here, but we are, and your mom and your sister, they're alive because you beat John and locked him in a trunk," Gil pressed on. "Do you remember doing that kid?"
"There's no trunk... no girl..." Malcolm rambled, his alertness weaving between not there at all and lost in whatever trick his mind was playing on him. The sound of heavy and numerous footsteps alerted Gil that help was finally coming. Suddenly, the room was filled with four EMTs, carrying two stretchers between them, and as many uniforms.
"Sir, we've secure the house and the prisoner has already been transported out," one of the officers informed Gil. Despite the professionalism of his words, the man's eyes were darting all over the room, taking in the two injured siblings and the shattered remains of what used to be a bathroom door. His eyes settled on Jessica, currently trying to compose herself. "Sir," he whispered, taking a step closer so that the owner of the house couldn't listen. "There's something you need to see downstairs."
-0-
Dani was furious with herself. She had been so sure that John Watkins had taken Bright out of the city that, when word came out that he had been a prisoner under his own home the whole time, she just wanted to punch something. Someone.
All the time they had wasted, getting the team organized, traveling to the cabin, setting a perimeter and finally invading the utterly empty cabin... they had pissed away so many precious hours down the drain...
JT had driven like a madman all the way from the cabin to the Whitly's house. Normally, she would remind him that their crappy police car was not NASCAR approved, and that the idea was to reach their destination in one piece; not that night though. That night she just wanted to frigging get there!
From the looks of things, they had been the last to the party. A party of frantic flashing lights, blue, red and white, in an all American festival. The street outside the Whitly's building was packed with NYPD cars and ambulances.
JT 'parked' -and she was using the term very vaguely- the car in the middle of the street, taking care only of not blocking the ambulances' route and she was out before the wheels had stopped turning.
They flashed their badges, bursting through the security line like a couple of bulldozers, only to come to an abrupt stop at the front door.
A stretcher was coming out, carried by two EMTs. From the high heels sticking out from under the blanket, they figured it had to be either Malcolm's sister or his mom. As they pass them by, the blond hair framing the woman's bandaged head told the detectives that it wasn't the Whitly's matriarch.
Jessica came out next, walking on her own, not even taking notice of their presence. Her eyes were glued to her daughter, following the progression of the stretcher carrying her until she disappeared inside one of the ambulances. She turned around then, looking back into the house, seemingly uncertain which way to move. "You're taking them both to Lenox Hill Hospital, yes?"
The EMT following close behind her, carrying a second stretcher, nodded with a empathic smile, a telling sign that this was not the first time she had checked that information with him. "Yes, ma'am," he reassured her, nodding towards one of the ambulances. "Now, you better hurry, or you're gonna miss your ride with your daughter."
Jessica threw one last worried look at the person on the stretcher being carried out before dashing away towards the ready to leave ambulance.
A second pair of EMTs started making their out to the second ambulance and Dani finally caught a glimpse of Malcolm for the first time in the past twenty four hours. An oxygen mask covered most of his face, but she could swear that she had seen a flash of blue behind his eyelids as he passed by. "Bright?"
There was no answer. He didn't even looked her way, the stretcher's wheels scrapping wildly against the asphalt as they hurried to carry him away. Dani was about to follow when she felt a hand on her elbow, holding her back.
"Gil's gonna need us here," JT reminded her, even though his eyes told her how much he wanted to follow their partner as well. They stood still, watching as the profiler was loaded up and the ambulance's door banged shut. "Come on," he sighed, "faster we get this thing over with, the quicker we can check up on him."
They found Gil in the basement, looking at an old, dark stone fireplace, like he was expecting Santa to put up an appearance. It was, after all, Christmas day.
However, judging from the tempestuous look on the Lieutenant's face, if Santa showed his ass now, he would probably find himself under arrest.
"Boss... you okay?" JT asked the question out of sympathy, even though it was clear to everyone that the older man was very far from okay.
"I was here earlier today," Gil whispered after a beat, his gaze still trapped in the fireplace. The folks from Crime Scene had already put up flood lights everywhere, literally flooding the place in light. The smudges of red on the dark bricks of the fireplace stood out grotesquely against the rest. "I was right fucking here and I didn't do a thing to help him!"
Dani startled. In the couple of years that she had been serving with Gil, she didn't recall hearing the older man cursing a single time. Weird as it was, especially for a bred and born New Yorker like the Lieutenant, it was, nevertheless, endearing. "You didn't knew," she reminded him. "You couldn't have known."
Gil sighed, his shoulders sagging. He looked every one of his years in that moment, weighted down by worry and frustration. "There's a whole section of divisions behind that fireplace, probably added during the Prohibition years," the Lieutenant informed them. "They found John's belongings in one of the rooms and the... cell where he kept Malcolm."
"We've got this, boss," JT assured him, his warm brown eyes saying so much more than his words. "Get out of here."
There were not many people inside the precinct -or outside, for that matter- that could escape unscathed with telling Gil Arroyo what to do. JT Tarmel was one of the few, and it had always been something that Dani admired about the other detective. He didn't talk much, but when he did, people listened.
Gil looked at them, the conflict evident in his gaze. He wanted to make sure that everything was done by the book, that nothing was left to chance and that every single one of them made it absolutely sure that John Watkins spent the rest of his miserable life in jail; but he also wanted to be there for Malcolm.
JT met the Lieutenant's scrutinizing look head on, unwavering, unbreakable. Dani hoped that she looked as determinate as her partner; she wanted to be there for Malcolm too, but she knew that the best way to do that right now was to make sure that the man who had hurt him was placed behind bars. She had failed at finding the profiler, but that much she could do now.
Arroyo gave them a weak smile, the best that he could muster under the circumstances. "Alright then," he agreed. "Keep me posted!"
"Sure thing, boss."
Dani just nodded, allowing herself a moment to prepare. She was pretty sure that she wasn't going to like whatever was waiting in line for them behind that damn fireplace.
-0-
Gil had a peculiar love/hate relationship with hospitals. Granted, there weren't that many sane people around who flat out liked to be inside one, but the fact was that the Lieutenant had made his peace with Medicine in general and hospitals in particular a long time ago.
He had gone through enough waiting rooms to know that whether you left a place like that happy or in grief was a monumental roll of the dice, always depending on how lucky you were at any given time.
Luck had not smiled upon him and Jackie the last time he had brought her to an ER. Jackie had died in an hospital bed, because she had made him promise that he wouldn't let her die home. His wife wanted to keep their house safe from sad memories, a sanctuary for the happy life they had lived together and a place where he could remember her has she had been.
Before.
Before he lost Jackie, and too many times after that, Gil had made his grand tour of waiting rooms in a number of different hospitals, waiting to know the fate of his detectives and police officers whenever one of them was hurt in the line of duty. Sometimes he could go back to the precinct with some good news, other times, he was the one who had to informed them that the NYPD family of brave men and women had lost one more.
Gil felt responsible for every single person serving under his command. Whether they'd been there for years or weeks, he cared about every one of them. He had seen many of them getting older, getting married, divorced, becoming parents, uncles and aunts, grandparents, he had been to the funeral services of a few. But there had been only one of them who Gil had seen growing up from a child into a man.
At some point in their lives, Malcolm Whitly had become the son that he and Jackie never had the chance to have. And sometimes, at the end of a long day and after a couple glasses of bourbon, Gil liked to think that he had been the father that the kid had lost when he was ten.
Jackie hadn't liked Jessica much. On the few times the two of them had interacted, they had been politely amicable with one other, but there had never been no warmth or true friendship between the two women.
Gil had always suspected that it had something to do with how Jessica treated her children, especially Malcolm. For most, it appeared as if Mrs. Whitly was keeping her kids at a distance, too trapped in social etiquette and family morals to actually allow them to behave like children. Gil suspected that her cold behavior it was mostly out of fear of making things even worst after the trauma of having a serial killer for a father.
If Jackie could see Jessica now, she would probably change her mind in a heartbeat. The usually composed and always stylish Jessica Whitly was standing in the middle of the hospital corridor, bare feet on the cold floor, high heels hanging loose from one hand, no purse in sight and looking frayed at edges, ready to fall apart.
"Jessica," Gil called out softly as he reached her. From the empty look in the woman's eyes, the Lieutenant was certain that she had yet to register his presence. "How's-"
Whatever else he was about to say was lost as he suddenly found himself with an arm full of a very distraught mother. "They won't tell me a damn thing," Jessica confessed in barely contained rage, her whole body shaking, the pain and frustration seeping from her words and sinking straight into Gil's heart. "They took them both inside hours ago, ordered me to stay outside and now no one tells me a damn thing!"
Gil could have point out that these things took time and that making a fuss would do nothing to speed things up. "I'll see what I can find out," he said instead, kissing the top of the woman's head before releasing her.
Unfortunately, he couldn't find anything either. The ER was packed full and when the person at the information desk finally managed to spare any attention to Gil and actually look up Malcolm and Ainsley's file, she could only tell him that they were both under observation and that someone would find them when there was any new developments... whatever the hell that meant.
It was very easy to understand Jessica's frustration.
"Family of Ainsley Whitly?" they heard after another long hour of waiting.
Jessica, who had been pretending to drink the coffee that Gil had gotten her, shot to her feet. "I'm her mother."
A short woman dressed in pink scrubs made her way towards them. Gil tried as best as he could to read the woman's expression, wanting to prepare himself for what she was going to say, but he was no Malcolm Bright and the lady in pink had a very good poker face.
"I'm doctor Davis, with the Neurology team," she introduced herself, a smile finally reaching her face. "Your daughter will be fine, Mrs. Whitly. So far, she has presented no neurological signs of intracranial bleeding and her first CT-scan has come back clean," she shot out, clearly intended on putting Jessica's worried expression to rest as quickly as possible. She was surprised to see her efforts fail as Jessica remained tense. "We'll keep her under observation for the next twenty four hours, but if her second scan comes back the same, she's free to go home tomorrow."
Gil silently thanked God. At least Ainsley was no longer a source of worry.
"What about my son?" Jessica asked, her worried expression barely changing despite the good news.
The doctor looked confused for a moment, looking at the chart in her hands.
"Malcolm Bright," the Lieutenant supplied. "He came in with a stabbing wound ."
Dr. Davis gave up on the papers in her hand. Stabbing wounds, unless there was a knife stuck in someone head, were clearly not her department. "I don't have any information on your son," she politely informed. However at seeing the wave of despair that overtook Mrs. Whitly, she quickly added, "but let me see what I can find out, okay?"
"That would be greatly appreciated," Gil voiced, because Jessica was clearly too consumed by worry to say anything. "Thank you."
When the petite woman returned, she didn't look as much at ease as she had before. "Apparently... there was some sort of bureaucratic mix up," Dr. Davis let out, trying to sound diplomatic but still coming off as slightly pissed. "It seems that your daughter is listed as your son's emergency contact, and when -for obvious reasons- she didn't picked up, no one thought to check outside and see if there was any other family present."
Jessica quickly waved aside that information as pointless. Any other time, she would probably want to know exactly who had screwed up and see that there were consequences. However, at that very moment, there was only one thing on her mind. "Where is he? Is he okay?"
"He's in surgery," Dr. Davis supplied. "He was taken there shortly after admission... I am sorry that no one came here to inform you of that," she said, sounding genuinely contrite even though it was no where near her fault. "From what I could gather, the blood supply to his thumb was severely compromised and they had to operate as soon as possible to prevent a possible amputation."
Jessica gasped and Gil grabbed her arm, pulling her close. She trembled against his side, grabbing the fabric of his jacket like a life line. "I thought the problem was the stab wound," she voiced, her words shy and lacking strength. Amputation was not an easy word to hear in any circumstance.
"Again, I cannot give you all the details, but the initial attending physician determined that the abdominal bleeding was mostly under control, so the finger took priority. The stab wound will be dealt with soon after that."
Jessica took a long breath, gathering her wits. "When can I see my son?" she asked, her voice barely trembling.
Gil could see that Dr. Davis wanted to give them the protocoled, usual answer. He had been in the waiting room of enough officers going through surgery to know that there was no seeing them until they were out of recovery and properly settled in a regular room.
Perhaps because she was feeling bad for the lapse in warning a mother about her son's condition, or perhaps purely out of the goodness of her heart, Dr. Davis took pity on them. "Come with me."
After an elevator ride and a few turns on the fourth floor, Gil and Jessica found themselves in a bridge between two buildings, walls and ceiling made of glass. Outside, the night wasn't quite as dark as it had been when they'd arrived, the sky a deep shade of indigo rather than black.
"The OR is on the other end of this bridge," Dr. Davis explained. "Your son will have to pass through here on his way to recovery. I can't promise much, but at least you'll be able to see him," she explained. "In the meantime, if anyone picks on you both for being here, just tell them that Maya said it was okay," she added with a wink.
Jessica reached for the other woman's hand. "Thank you," she whispered heart felted. "I won't forget this, Dr. Davis."
The smaller woman smiled. "It's the least I can do. I hope your son gets well soon," she said with a compassionate look as she made her way out.
It was a long while after the doctor had disappeared from view that Gil realized that she had been assuming all along that Malcolm was their son, his and Jessica.
-0-
JT's younger sister had twins. Two four year old boys with too much energy to spend, who couldn't sit still for more than one and half minute before devising some derange new way to drive his sister and his brother-in-law insane. Whenever he and Tally went to visit them, they would return to their peaceful and quiet house and rethink all over again their plans for having kids of their own.
One of the first things that Tarmel had learned about Malcolm Bright was that, compared to him, JT's nephews were very easy to manage. He had never met a grown assed man who acted more like a misbehaved child than the ex-FBI profiler that Arroyo had thrown into their team. If anyone told Bright to stay put in one place, odds were that, not only would he not stay there, but that he would also find the most dangerous spot to put himself in instead. Because, really... who the hell follows a serial killer into some shady subway access tunnel without calling for backup?
If it weren't for all the times that Bright had proven to be sharp as a tack, JT would've assume that he was downright stupid.
The second thing the detective had learned from the profiler was that you shouldn't judge a book by his cover, which was ironic because at first glance, that was Bright's whole thing with profiling people. Or maybe you should only do it when you know your profiling shit.
But the fact was, JT had done it. Twice. Neither of them with much success.
His first impression of Bright had been of a full-of-himself, annoying little prick, who thought he could just waltz in a crime scene and be better than everyone else just because he was a personal friend of the boss. JT had soon found out that he had been wrong about that one on both fronts, because Bright's know-it-all facade was all too easy to see through once you spent enough time with the man and his numerous insecurities; and the Lieutenant's deep sense of ethics would never allow him to bring anyone to team unless he was the absolute best at what he did.
His second first impression had been wrong as well. Being the son of a serial killer didn't necessarily meant that you're a serial killer too, just that you're very, very messed up in the head and carried around emotional baggage the size of the Titanic.
The third thing Tarmel learned about Bright was something he wished he'd never had the opportunity to know.
There was something gut-wrenchingly different about analyzing a crime scene and analyzing that crime scene. It was like going to the store to look at some random furniture and seeing that furniture in your house; it was the same furniture in both places, but one now had feelings attached.
Seeing the amount of blood on the floor of that dark room had set off a lot of feelings in JT, feelings he had neither expected or been prepared for. It was an odd place to figure out that the annoying little prick had become a teammate, a friend for whom he cared about.
There was no need to wait for DNA analysis for either him or Powell to figure out to whom the blood on the concrete floor belonged; it looked too fresh to be anyone else's.
She had been silent by his side ever since they'd found their way into that place, quietly blaming herself for something as they took in their surroundings. There had been little clues along the way about what had happened in there, evidence to be collected, proof of what that bastard had done to their partner.
Of what Bright had done to himself.
The little gravitational drops of blood that detailed every faltered step and fall of Malcolm's journey from that place to the main house.
A linear smear of red on the corridor's left wall around waist high, that could have only been made by him using that wall for support, dragging himself along the way, never giving up.
The bag of tools, casually set by the door, classical psychological torture to make the victim wonder what instrument would be used next to cause pain or kill. Classical, because that shit worked.
Victim. Despite the quirks and oddities of the profiler, despite knowing that his mind was such a dark place that the man slept in frigging chains, despite acknowledging all the damage that the trauma of being the Surgeon's son had caused the younger man, it was hard as hell for JT to picture Bright as the victim in that crime scene. Hard especially because it brought home the eternal knowledge that it could have happened to any of them.
In the middle of the largest pool of blood, there was a set of chains, shackled to the floor by a metal ring, with an abandoned hammer by the side. It was easy to see the blood stains on both ends of the blunt object, both on the handle and the striking part.
Dani looked at him, her eyes wide and glistening with tears she was too professional to shed in a crime scene. So far, they had been both working under the assumption that Gil had saved Bright; that the Lieutenant had used the information given by Dr. Whitly, arrested John Watkins and rescued Malcolm and his family. They had been assuming wrong.
The evidence was all too clear, staring them in the face.
Bright had set himself free from those chains by using that bloody hammer on himself. And he had done it after having suffered an injury bad enough to account for all the blood on the floor.
There and then was when JT Tarmel leaned that Malcolm Bright was one badass mother fu-
-0-
Jessica could not remember the last time she had watched a actual sunrise. Whatever long it had been, she didn't recall it being so intrinsically beautiful. The symphony of carefully orchestrated colors, the magnificence of something so delicate as light beating down the emptiness of darkness... it forced upon her a kind of hope that she did not dared to feel. Not just yet.
Standing beside Gil, both of them trapped inside that glass box of a passage, Jessica was slowly losing her mind. She could kill for a drink... or ten.
In the time they had been there, three beds had rolled past them, each of them surrounded by different hospital staff. With each one of them, her heart had done its best to jump out of her chest through her mouth; with each bed that failed to carry Malcolm, she had felt herself sink more and more into despair.
Somewhere in that hospital, her daughter was all alone, hopefully sleeping and unaware of her mother's inadequacy, because Jessica couldn't bring herself to move away from that bridge for absolutely no reason. Her hands were dirty, fingers still covered in Malcolm's dry blood, and yet Jessica had been too afraid to take even a short trip to the bathroom and risk missing the opportunity of seeing her son.
Her whole world had been reduced to the need to look at Malcolm and seeing him breathe.
The, by now familiar, sound of heavy metallic wheels alerted them to yet another bed coming out from the OR area.
As with all the others, there was a small army of people surrounding the patient, all of them in identical scrubs making it impossible to know who did what. Two sturdy men guided the moving bed, as a woman and a men walked beside it, the man taking notes in a pad in his hands.
Several bags of fluid hung from a support attached to the bed, two with clear liquid, one red. On the bed, a portable screen chirped away little beeps, its screen filled with information that was absolutely gibberish to Jessica.
It took her an embarrassing amount of time to recognize the patient being carted away as her own son. In her defense, Malcolm looked very little like himself. For one, he was absolutely still.
Her son was always in constant movement, even in his sleep. It was something that Jessica had learned to acknowledge and accept, no matter how much it pained her to realize that Malcolm was unable to let his guard down for even one moment, because when he did, the monsters he guarded leapt out of the darkness and attacked him in the most vicious ways.
With a warming blanket pulled all the way up to his chin and an oxygen mask covering half of his face, there really wasn't much of Malcolm to see in the first place. It was the hair that clued her in about the patient's identity.
Ainsley loved to make fun of her brother's hair, mercilessly poking her finger at how limp it always was compared to hers, hanging straight down the sides of Malcolm's face like wet spaghetti unless he used a handful of hair product.
It hung limp now as well, framing his pale face. "That's my son," Jessica let out as soon the realization hit her. "Malcolm?"
The two aids leading the bed were forced to stop as Jessica planted herself in the way, Gil closely by her side.
"Ma'am, you're not supposed to be here," one of them informed her, trying to make her move aside.
"I need to see my son," she insisted, brushing the man aside like he was nothing but an annoying fly in her bagel. Under all paraphernalia of equipment and IV lines attached to her son, she managed to find his right hand under the blanket. Even with the added heat coming from it, Malcolm's hand was cold as ice. "He's so cold... is he okay?"
The team surrounding Malcolm exchanged a couple of knowing looks between them, quite obviously reaching some sort of silent agreement to speed things along. "Both surgeries went very well and his vitals are stable," the man with the clipboard in his hands informed her with a kind smile. "For the moment your son is still under the effects of anesthesia, but I promise you'll be able to see him after recovery, as soon as we got him settled in a room, okay?"
Recognizing a dismissal when she heard one, Jessica reluctantly let go of Malcolm's hand, carefully replacing it under the warm cover. A sudden urge to hug him tight struck out of nowhere, but Jessica knew that now was not the time or place. Malcolm looked so fragile under that blanket, so breakable.
The very first time Jessica had seen Malcolm, he had looked so tiny and fragile that she had straight out refused to hold her newborn son. She had been so afraid that she might unintentionally break him if she held too tight, that her pos-labour exhausted body would just drop him and cause irreparable damage. The delivery room nurse had just smiled and ignored her. Jessica had never been more grateful to be ignored than in that moment, as she had pulled her son close to her chest and felt that tiny naked baby relax against her warm skin.
She would have given anything now to go back to that moment, to that perfect illusion of security and safety, that feeling of absolute certainty that she could protect her son from all the bad things in life. She had started failing him so early in his life...
Warm arms wrapped around her shoulders and Jessica allowed herself to sink into their warmth. It was long after Malcolm had been taken away from her sight that she realized that the saltness she could taste on her lips was from her own tears.
-0-
The precinct was empty.
Well, it wasn't obviously empty, not with all the detectives and officers milling around, chatting amongst themselves and giving her sideways glances as they saw her poking her head around.
Edrisa ignored them, as she usually did. Outside of when they needed her reports to solve a crime, none of them liked to interact with her much. The feeling was, for most cases, mutual.
Agent Swanson and her FBI people were gone. As soon as John Watkins was in their custody, they had packed their stuff and left as fast as they had set up shop. Like some sort of awkward one-night stand, all the special agents had left without so much as leaving a phone number. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am!
Rude.
The team's briefing room was definitely empty. Despite the fact that her medical examiner office serviced all the cases of that precinct, Edrisa had come to see Gil's team as her team. The fact that said team just happened to possessed the best looking man in all of New York City had been nothing but the delicious cherry on top.
Since word had arrived that John Watkins had been arrested that night, the rumor mill had been going all kinds of batshit crazy. No one knew exactly how John Watkins had been arrested, but everyone seemed to have a theory. Some more batshit-ier than others.
One theory was that John had been keeping the whole Whitly family hostage, holding Malcolm in front of him as a human shield; that Gil had taken the shot anyway, succeeding in putting John out of commission but injuring Malcolm in the process. Nonsense, of course, because Gil would never in his life be able to hurt Bright. Unless it was to save his life and he really, really had to, but Edrisa was pretty sure that hadn't been the case.
Another was that Bright hadn't been kidnapped by John at all and that instead the two of them had been working together; JT had shot Malcolm because one- he had been promising to do it for ages; and two- because he had refused to surrender. Again, preposterous! Bright was definitely one of the good guys, so there was no way he was working with a serial killer... despite the fact that he was the son of one and that some studies suggested that there was a genetical component to becoming a serial killer.
And of course, her favorite was the one of how, after twenty-four hours straight of having to listen to Malcolm Bright jabbering about, John Watkins had just stabbed him to shut him up before surrendering himself to Gil. When Edrisa heard that one, she had been truly sorry that she wasn't allowed to carry a gun.
What truly concerned her was that one little detail that seemed to seep into each and every wild theory that she heard. In some form or manner, all stories ended with Malcolm hurt.
Intrinsically, she knew that there was no way someone could escape unscathed after being in the hands of a serial killer for over a day. In fact, most would just be dead.
Dehydration causing serious havoc on the body, colossal levels of stress causing all sorts of nasty high blood pressure peaks, bruises and potential for infection from whatever forms of restrains used... the list was too long and way too depressing.
But she knew that Malcolm had been seriously hurt. That was the one thing that Edrisa knew for sure, mostly because the lab had quickly matched the blood type of the blood found at the crime scene with the one on Bright's file; it was only a matter of time until the DNA results arrived to confirm it.
It was killing her to know that Malcolm was hurt and to have no idea how serious it was, or even he was still alive.
She had hopped that someone from the team would be around by now to give her some answers, but none of them was in sight.
"Dr. Tanaka."
In a place where everyone was talking at the same time and most people were a lot taller than her, it took Edrisa a bit to get the attention of the officer calling her. He had an evidence bag in his hands. "I'm her... she," the medical examiner babbled. Coherent sentences were the last thing on her mind as she quickly recognized the expensive clothes inside the bag. "Is that for me?"
The officer nodded. "Lieutenant Arroyo told me specifically to deliver these to you, in person," the man added solemnly, taking his mission very seriously.
Edrisa took the bag reluctantly. Normally, fabric analysis went to the Crime Scene Unit, but she could understand Gil's need to play this one close to the vest. She was really, really not looking forward to examine the clothing that would tell the story of Bright's past twenty four hours. In fact, the only thing worse than doing that, that she could think of, was having to perform an autopsy on his corpse. But, for Gil and his team, she would do it anyway.
"He also asked me to deliver a message," the officer went on, blushing as he leaned closer to her.
Edrisa frowned and instinctively leaned back. Had Gil send her a kiss!?
"He said 'Our boy is going to be alright'," the man delivered quickly, somewhat embarrassed by the wording, beating a hasting retreat before she could react.
Our boy, Edrisa mouthed with a smile. Malcolm was going to be alright. Still, she needed details.
-0-
"You awake, Malcolm?"
Malcolm could feel himself sinking to the ground under the weight of the chains around his wrists. His head felt heavy and filled with stones. He could barely lift it to see where he was.
There was no need though. He knew where he was.
"Wake up, Malcolm."
The guttural voice sent waves of displeasure throughout the profiler's body, sharp nails scratching against hard board that made his brain bleed and his skin crawl.
"You're gonna want to be awake for this," the voice said again, a hint of sadistic amusement coloring his words.
Even with his eyes firmly closed, Malcolm could hear his mother softly crying, could hear his sister talking, jumbled words that lacked meaning in any language.
Despite knowing perfectly well what he would find when he opened his eyes, Malcolm had no choice but to look up. Not seeing would make it so much worse.
His family was kneeling on the floor in front of him. His mother, Ainsley, Gil and, to his surprise, his father.
"Time for that final trial," John announced, swirling the knife in his hand like this was nothing but a circus performance. The sharp blade caught the harsh brightness of the lamps, leaving traces of light in the air. "Time to let go."
"NO!" Malcolm surged forward, but he was too far away, the chains holding him back too strong and unforgiving. Powerless. Helpless. A failure.
"This is really for your own good," John pointed out as he grabbed Jessica's hair from behind and pulled her head back, exposing the fragile skin of her long neck to the blade in his hand.
Bright tried to look away but his neck muscles had stopped obeying him, invisible, ice-cold hands holding him in place so that he had no other choice but to watch as the knife slowly moved across his mother neck, a bloody waterfall gushing in its wake. Jessica silent scream never managed to escape her severed throat before the light left her eyes.
Ainsley was next. She looked at him in anger, cursing his existence until her final breath. She slumped on the floor, broken body landing on top of their mother.
Gil gave him a sad smile, a wordless 'It's gonna be okay, kid,' in his lips before blood bubbled up and he couldn't speak any longer. He fell with a thud to the floor, a blue rubber ball rolling from his lax fingers.
On the grey cement ground, their blood was exactly the same shade, making it impossible to tell where one stopped and the other begun. It was a river, slowly rushing towards him.
Malcolm felt like he was going to drown in the blood of his family. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
"My boy," his father called at him, drawing his attention away from all the blood and despair. Through the veil of unshed tears, Malcolm could see John, standing behind Martin, knife dripping red blood on his father's sand-colored cardigan.
Malcolm waited for Watkins to complete his task. However, instead of slitting his father's throat, John helped him up with a knowing smile.
Bright fell backwards, incredulity and fear fighting for possession of his heart, pain exploding on his left hand and side as he collided with the hard floor.
This wasn't happening.
Two killers stood above him, twin smiles of satisfaction turning each face from man into demon.
This couldn't be happening.
Two knives caught the edge of the bright light, cutting through space and time at the speed of cold hearts and passion for murder.
This wasn't how he remembered it.
Nailed frozen in place, Malcolm could do nothing but watch as both blades descended upon his exposed flesh, John and his father sinking their knives in until there was nothing left but the hilt, twisting and cutting him inside before pulling back out in a explosion of red.
He screamed. And they stabbed him all over again.
-0-
"Malcolm, wake up!"
Dani had been calling to him for ages now, but there was no amount of words or shaken shoulders that seemed able to pull the profiler from whatever nasty dream he was having.
She was lost on what to do to stop him from hurting himself. Gil had taken Jessica to see Ainsley and JT was downstairs on the phone with Edrisa because she wouldn't stop calling for updates and Dani couldn't dare leave Bright's side to call anyone.
All she knew was that someone who had just been through major surgery should not be pulling the acrobatics Malcolm was trying to pull in that hospital bed. She seriously doubted her spine could even bend that way in a normal day.
She had seen how lost and confused the profiler got whenever he had a really bad dream. In fact, it had been the first personal thing she had learned about him, in a sort of violent and very public manner as he had all but landed himself in her lap in front of the whole precinct.
Any other time, a situation like that would've made Dani feel both embarrassed and pissed off at the nerve of some guy wrapping himself around her like that. Instead, she had found herself drowning in a surge of protectiveness and worry that felt uncommonly right for someone she had met only a couple of hours before. And the fact that he had accepted that comfort and safety from a complete stranger like her only made it feel extra weirder.
A gut-wrenching scream filled the room, breaking the detective from her turmoiled thoughts and sending her heart racing even faster than before. Shit, Malcolm had one hell of a set of lungs!
Before she could process what was going on, she found herself once more with an armful of shaking profiler. The number of wires and IV lines made the embrace somewhat awkward, Malcolm's skin was cold and really sweaty, his right hand was grabbing a painful fistful of her sweater, there was probably snot coming out from his nose, but Dani couldn't have cared less for any of that.
All she could deal with at the moment was that Malcolm needed to feel safe and grounded in reality, and if he could find that in her arms, she was more than willing to provide it.
From the corner of her eye, Powell could see the hospital staff itching to come inside the room and check on the patient. Behind Malcolm's back, she held out a hand, fervently hoping that they understood just how bad it would be in that moment to have the room fill with unfamiliar people. It was the last thing Bright needed.
She could feel his heart beating against her chest, a fluttering of wings like a trapped bird. "It's okay... you're okay now," she whispered against his ear, hoping that the words would register somehow. "You're safe."
Slowly, ever so slowly, Dani could feel the tension ebbing away from Malcolm's taunt muscles. "You awake now?"
He nodded against her shoulder, refusing to let go. Even that small nod felt exhausted. "Sorry about that," he let out, his voice raspy and shallow, like sand through glass shards. Like that scream was only his most recent effort at tearing his throat open.
"There's a couple of people outside looking kind of anxious to figure out why your monitors are so angry," the detective informed, keeping her tone light. She was getting anxious too, but she was pretty sure he wasn't about to keel over and die, despite how hard the monitors screamed and flashed red. He had probably disconnected something that he shouldn't have. "Think we can give them some peace of mind soon?"
Malcolm nodded again, a second away from falling asleep on her shoulder. He should be sleeping. Instead, his head jerked up, straining to make himself more alert. Unfocused eyes searched her face fiercely, heavy lids blinking open with some effort. From that close, they looked like two idiots with eyes crossing at the bridge of their noses. "No more sedatives," he pointed out very clearly. "Please... don't let... I don't want any..."
Dani found herself nodding, words caught in the lump inside her throat. Deciding whether Malcolm needed sedation or not was something that was completely out of her hands, but still he trusted her wholeheartedly to make it happen. was something that was out of her hands, but still he trusted her wholeheartedly to make it happen. That she could make it happen, that she could keep him safe in his dreams.
It was overwhelming to be met with that level of unconditional trust.
Outside the room, through the looking glass, Dani could see Gil and JT, back from their errants, looking at them with concern in their eyes. Like the hospital staff, they were dying to get inside, but patiently waiting for her okay to enter the room. Trusting her to protect Malcolm in their absence.
The responsibility made her feel so small. And yet, not alone.
"Don't worry, buddy," she managed to voice, pulling Malcolm closer. "We got your back."
-0-
Even as he lost his grip on consciousness, Malcolm felt somewhat safe. He knew that, even if he wasn't strong enough to keep his beasts in chains, his family was there to guard the gates when he couldn't. And the beasts wouldn't roam free.