TW for presence of a gun (not fired)/GSW, blood
Melinda was often right about things. She had a knack for it, really, and most of the time she took great satisfaction in being correct. This, however, wasn't something she had wanted to be right about. The plates came back on the van, confirming that it was registered to Calvin Johnson, of Milwaukee. As soon as she got the confirmation, she was on the line with Idaho, letting him know that they needed a warrant for everything they could find on Cal Johnson.
"He's become a person of interest in a missing persons," she explained quickly. "It's time sensitive, so rush it as much as you can."
"No problem," Idaho promised her. "I'll let you know what I find, and I've got a guy in Milwaukee I can reach out to, set him on the trail, too. You sent me the plate number, right?"
"It should be in your inbox now."
"Perfect," Idaho chirped. "Hey May, can I ask, who's the missing persons? Why the rush?"
"Kids," May said softly. "We think he's got two kids."
"You don't think one of them's that mystery baby from our earlier puzzle, do you?"
"I think that's a real possibility."
"And the rush? Is there something special about the kids, or–?"
"They're mine."
She and Phil spent the next hour doing all they could to keep busy and make headway, but without much information to go on, there was little they could do. May ran searches on Cal's name, found out he owned buildings in Milwaukee and Sheboygan, plus the van. She wondered if he had taken the girls there, and the thought made her want to jump in a cruiser and zip over there in an instant. She reeled herself in, though, remembering that the departments in Milwaukee and Sheboygan could handle that themselves, and that Idaho, for as laidback and chatty as he was with her, was certainly thorough enough to pay a visit to their suspect's property.
Phil called Victoria while they waited, too, and filled her in on everything that was happening. She arrived less than twenty minutes later, looking grim.
"May, Phil, I'm so sorry," she said as she swept over to them. "I don't know what to say. I had no idea that Skye's father existed, much less was in contact with her. If I'd known—"
"None of us knew," May shook her head. "She's good at keeping secrets, and her father knows how to stay off most radars, it seems."
"I've notified the authorities from here to Milwaukee, plus Izzy for good measure," Victoria said, all business. "They all have Skye and Jemma's descriptions, plus the van's make and model. We have lots of eyes out for them."
The phone rang, causing them all to jump a little. May answered it.
"Hello?"
"May? Idaho. I think I found something."
May hit a few buttons and switched him over to speaker, returning the receiver to its cradle. "You're on speaker Idaho, go ahead."
"We got the usual hits on Johnson, addresses, arrest records, same stuff as you found I bet. We checked out his place here in Sheboygan, nobody home. My guy in Milwaukee did the same, but that place was empty, too. Thought we'd struck out big time, but then I got an idea. I went back through his arrest records, found the names of some guys he's shared a cell with over the years. One of them's still in custody, just down the road from us, a guy called Wendel Levi, so I pay him a visit. Turns out, Johnson didn't like to go by Johnson around his illustrious colleagues. Went by Zabo. Got himself quite a reputation among the city's lowlife. Apparently he has quite a racket doing off-the-books surgeries, washing cash, running guns, all kinds of stuff. People do not mess with him, according to Levi. So, anyway, I run a check on Calvin Zabo—"
"And?"
"And he's got a space owned under that name, up in Two Rivers. Some big commercial warehouse that hasn't been developed since he bought it almost two years ago."
"I'll let Izzy know," Victoria said, whipping out her phone and sending her fingers flying across the keyboard. "Maybe she can check it out for us."
"Thanks, Idaho," May said. "I owe you one. Or twenty."
"Don't sweat it," Idaho told her, sounding sincere. "Just bring those kids back safe, okay? That's all the thanks I need."
May hung up the phone and rose from her seat, grabbing her keys.
"Where are you going?" Phil asked.
"Two Rivers."
"But we don't know if—"
"I have a feeling, Phil," she said. There was a determination in her voice, and Phil must have heard it too, because he didn't question it further.
Just then, as if on cue, Victoria's phone lit up in her hand, and she glanced down. Her eyes went wide.
"Izzy. She said they got a hit on the plate. Some beat cop found it on patrol, parked outside an industrial building, and he called it in."
May raised an eyebrow at Phil, gave him a half shrug. At least this time she was happy to be right. Phil nodded. They both knew she needed to go.
"I'll call you two as soon as we know something," she promised, heading for the door. As much as she knew Phil and Victoria wanted to go with her and help, they all knew that it was for the best if a history teacher and a social worker didn't try to enter a potentially active crime scene. "Vic, tell Izzy that I'll meet her on the scene in ten. I'm going to get our daughters back."
The flashing lights on May's car allowed her to make it from Manitowoc to Two Rivers in record time, and she managed to pull up in front of the warehouse at almost exactly the same time as Izzy. There was already a police cruiser parked on the street, plus a car that looked oddly familiar.
"Ms. May? You're Bobbi's foster mom, right?" Melinda looked around and saw Hunter, the scruffy friend of Bobbi's who she went to soccer games with. He looked pale and shaken, putting her senses on even higher alert than they already were.
"Hunter? What are you doing here?"
"I came with Bobbi. She figured out that Skye and Jemma might be here, and we came to check it out, but—"
"Bobbi's here? And Skye and Jemma? Are they here, too?"
"I think so," Hunter nodded. "But Ms. May, you've got to get in there. We heard a gunshot."
The blood drained from May's face. "Where's Bobbi now?"
"She went in," said Hunter numbly. "I tried to stop her, but she went in, told me to call the police. When I did, they said they were already on their way. That was just a couple minutes ago."
Izzy, who had been listening from a slight distance, spoke into her radio, informing dispatch of the gunfire. May heard her radio for medical too, and she felt her heart skip a beat. She couldn't think about that right now. Couldn't think about the girls, injured, bleeding, dying… No. She had to focus on getting in and getting them out. If she happened to run into Calvin Johnson as well… Well, she wouldn't turn down a chance to put him behind bars again.
"We should move, May," Izzy said stoutly. May nodded, and Izzy spoke to the young cop who was standing nearby. "Maguire, you stay back with the kid, watch the perimeter. May and I will go in, try to extract the girls. May, you're ready to go?"
"I got my vest on before I drove here."
"Then let's do it."
They inched past the big white van wedged in front of the entrance – the same one from the security footage at the park, May noted – and cut quickly across the gravel lot in front of the building.
"That Hunter kid said there was a door around back," Izzy said quietly, as they drew closer to the building. "That's where Bobbi went in."
"Copy."
Izzy cleared the corner of the building, and they found the door exactly where Hunter had said it would be. There were several shattered locks on the door, the broken pieces littering the ground in front of them. May couldn't help but be a little impressed that Bobbi had managed to dismantle them all, but she didn't have much time to linger on the thought. She kicked the door open and stepped inside, giving the dim hallway a quick sweep. Izzy was right on her tail, covering, but there wasn't a soul in sight.
"Any idea which door might be the right one?" Izzy whispered. May shook her head and strained her ears. Surely someone would be making noise, unless… no, she couldn't think like that.
"I think we need to announce," May muttered, and Izzy nodded. "Police! Come out with your hands up, Mr. Johnson. Nobody needs to get hurt."
Skye wasn't sure how long she crouched over Jemma, trying to keep her best friend, her sister, from bleeding out in her arms. Long enough that the front of Skye's t-shirt was soaked with blood and Jemma's face had gone a frightening, chalky white.
"You have to help her," she told Cal, for what felt like the hundredth time.
"I'm trying," he insisted. He sounded nervous, and he kept moving from one part of the room to the other, like he couldn't decide exactly what to do. "She's not stable enough to get up on the table, and I can't see well enough to know if it's safe for me to get in there and remove the bullet. Just… just keep applying pressure."
"We should call someone," Skye suggested desperately. "An ambulance. They can help."
"No!" Cal erupted. "They'll just make things worse."
Skye couldn't imagine things getting much worse than their current predicament. She opened her mouth to tell Cal exactly that, when the sound of loud banging drifted up to her ears, coming from somewhere on the other side of the door, maybe down the hallway.
"Do you hear that?" Cal asked, blanching. Skye nodded. "Stay here," he instructed. As if she had any other choice. Cal picked up the gun from the table and crossed to the door. Just as he was about to place his hand on the doorknob, the handle turned on its own and the door banged open revealing, to Skye's immense shock, Bobbi. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were wild, but she had her batons gripped tightly in her hands and she was standing taller than Skye had ever seen. She looked like a superhero.
"Bobbi!"
"Skye, oh my god. Are you—oh my god, Jemma. What—"
The unmistakable click of a cocking gun stopped Bobbi short, before she could make a move towards Skye and Jemma. Cal stepped out from behind the door, where he'd ducked when it had flown open. He had the gun pointed straight at Bobbi's chest. "Don't move."
"Don't!" Skye cried. "She's my sister, too. Don't shoot her."
"How did you find us?" Cal asked. Beads of sweat were starting to pop up on his brow, and every so often a muscle in his face or hand would jump, giving him a twitchy look.
Bobbi looked nervously over to Skye and Jemma, staring hard at the awful redness that was marring Jemma's sweater, coating Skye's hands. She looked like she was deciding whether or not she should tell the truth.
"Raina," she finally said, her eyes never leaving Skye and Jemma, despite the gun that was trained on her. "I made her tell me. I came here as fast as I could."
"You came alone?"
"Yes."
Skye knew that had to be a lie. Bobbi couldn't drive, and the buses were too slow to get Bobbi here as quickly as she suggested. Someone had driven her here, the question was who? Probably not May or Phil, Skye reasoned, since there was no way either one of them would have let Bobbi come in alone or, more likely, at all.
"Does anyone else know you're here?"
"No." Something regretful flickered in Bobbi's eyes, and Skye wondered if that part was true. She hoped not, because if no one knew Bobbi was here, then they were still stuck in the same, unfortunate, inescapable circumstance. The only difference was now Bobbi was in just as much danger as she and Jemma were.
"Go sit on the floor," Cal instructed, gesturing with the gun. "Next to Daisy. And put those big sticks away. No funny business."
Bobbi's jaw tensed, like she wanted to do the opposite, but she must have thought better of it, because she obeyed stoically, with almost glassy eyes, shoving her batons in her coat pocket and crossing slowly over to where Skye and Jemma sat. She slid down the wall into a crouch on Jemma's other side, and she stretched out a hand to brush some loose strands of Jemma's hair off her face.
"Jemma… is she…"
"She's still breathing," Skye murmured.
As Bobbi's hand landed on Jemma's forehead, Jemma shifted slightly, and her face scrunched up, although Skye couldn't say if it was more akin to pain or confusion at this point.
"Bobbi?" Jemma rasped.
"Shh," Bobbi soothed, blinking back tears. "Try not to move. Hold on, Jemma. It's going to be okay. Okay. Okay." One of Jemma's fingers twitched, like she was trying to move it. Bobbi wrapped Jemma's hand in her own, then used her free hand to tap gently on Jemma's elbow. A simple, steady beat. Skye felt a sob threaten to rip through her ribs, but she managed to choke it back as she watched the tender way Bobbi held onto Jemma. She had ruined so many things, put so many people in danger, but to be confronted so viscerally with the image of everything that was at stake right now, everything that was at risk because of her actions… it was almost too much for Skye to watch.
"This… this could work," Cal mumbled. Skye looked up to see him studying the three of them.
"What do you mean? Are you going to help Jemma now?"
"She is," Cal said, pointing to Bobbi. "She's going to apply pressure, that way you're free to move, Daisy. She'll keep your friend from bleeding out, while you and I will leave. I'll call for an ambulance to come and help your friend, but we'll be long gone by the time they get here."
"What?" Bobbi's mouth fell open, and she glared hot daggers up at Cal. "You can't be serious."
"It's okay, Bobbi," Skye muttered. "I'll do what he says if it means Jemma can get help."
"It's not okay," Bobbi shot back. She turned her attention on Cal. "This is insane. You have to let us go."
"Bobbi, don't—"
"I don't have to do anything," Cal snarled, brandishing the gun. "This thing in my hand means I'm in charge, and I say that Daisy and I are going to leave, and you're going to be responsible for saving your friend's life until the paramedics can arrive."
"Why do you keep calling her Daisy? Her name is Skye—"
"That's not her name!" Cal bellowed. Skye screwed her eyes shut tight, afraid of what might happen at this outburst. The last time someone had gotten her name wrong, that person had ended up with a bullet in her side. She steeled herself for the worst, when a new sound caused her eyes to fly back open and all of them to freeze instantly.
"Police!"
The voice that called sounded far, maybe from the far end of the hallway, and if Skye hadn't known any better, she would have said it sounded vaguely familiar. She chalked it up to desperation though, and relief that, by some miracle, someone had found them.
Cal looked petrified, and for a moment Skye was gripped with the fear that he was about to something drastic. Before he had a chance to do something they would all regret, Skye opened her mouth and shouted, as loud as she could.
"We're in here! We're in here!" The sob that she had been swallowing down all night raked across her words, causing her voice to break as she shouted. Maybe she shouldn't have done that, maybe she had just made Cal so mad that he would shoot them all, right then and there. But before he had a chance, though, the sound of thundering footsteps approached, and two women stormed into the room, guns drawn. One of them was a white lady around May and Phil's age, with shoulder-length, choppy brown hair, who looked like she could punch Cal's lights out if she wanted to, and the other one was—
"May," she gasped, another sob – this time, one of relief – wrestling its way out of her chest.
"Skye, Bobbi, Jemma… oh my god." May moved across the room in a flash, planting herself between the three of them and Cal. "Stay away from my kids."
"Drop the gun, and stand against the wall," the other woman ordered, her voice like a bark. Cal didn't move, except for his eyes, which darted back and forth between the two women. His hand on the gun twitched, like he was considering his odds against the two of them.
"I said drop it, now!"
He still didn't move, and Skye could suddenly envision everything ending in the worst possible way. She had come on this doomed mission with the intent of keeping her family safe, and if she didn't do something soon, Cal was going to do something that would negate all her efforts. She couldn't let that happen.
"Please," Skye begged. "Just do what she says, Dad."
She had found the magic words. At the sound of her voice, Cal's entire demeanor shifted. His muscles slackened, and his attention was fixed fully on her. A cautious, almost hopeful smile flickered across his sweaty face. He lowered his arm and set the gun on the table in the center of the room. "Okay," he said softly. "Okay, Daisy."
"Turn around and face the wall," instructed the woman, and as soon as Cal did as she said, she crossed over and grabbed his arms roughly, locking him into handcuffs and guiding him down into a kneeling position. Her radio crackled with something that Skye couldn't understand, but it must have made sense to the woman, because she spoke back. "Copy. 10-24, suspect is detained. Send in medical. Third door on the right. Looks like at least one GSW."
"Are you all right?" May asked anxiously, checking each of them one by one. Bobbi nodded, a little shell-shocked, but when it was Skye's turn, all she could do was start crying.
"Jemma," Skye choked out around her tears. "Jemma's hurt. She needs help."
"Help's coming," May assured her. "Help's coming. It's going to be all right. Just hold on."
A few moments later, after the other woman had marched Cal out of the room and out of sight, a pair of men in matching uniforms arrived carrying medical bags and wheeling in a stretcher, which they left in the hall. May backed away as they approached, giving them space, and she coaxed Bobbi to join her.
"You too, Skye, back up so they can help Jemma."
"I can't," Skye whimpered. She hunched over Jemma, ignoring her aching muscles and her still throbbing arm.
"She's right, kid, you've got to let us get to your friend." One of the paramedics put a hand on her arm to pull her away, and Skye lost her head completely. It was as if all of the stress and anxiety and terror of the last eight or nine hours had all compounded into this one moment of collapse.
"No!" she shouted, wrenching her arm away from the paramedic and aiming a kick at the other one. "No! I can't leave her. I can't let go. I have to stop the bleeding." She was crying even more now, hard, jerky sobs that shook her whole body. "I have to make sure she doesn't die. I can't let her die."
"That's our job, too," said the other paramedic, the one who hadn't tried to grab her. He knelt down beside her, but kept his distance. "We're all trying to do the same thing. We want to help your friend. You've been doing a great job so far, but now it's our turn. I promise, we're going to do everything we can to make sure she's okay. Can you help us with that?"
Skye nodded slowly, tears still falling hard and fast.
"Great," the nice paramedic smiled. "First thing we need you to do is slowly pull your hands away from your friend. I know you've been keeping them there a long time, and you were right to apply pressure, but we're going to take over for you now. Just pull your hands back, and I'm going to come in right behind you and do the same thing until my partner can get some gauze to pack the wound with. Okay? On the count of three. One, two, three."
In a daze, Skye pulled her red-streaked hands away from Jemma, who let out a pitiful little sound that shattered Skye's already fractured heart into a million tiny pieces. As soon as she had taken her hands away, the nice paramedic replaced them with his own, just like he said he would.
"Nice work," he said kindly. "Now why don't you scoot back a little so my partner can fit in here. We're going to stabilize your friend, and then we'll move her onto our stretcher so we can get her to the ambulance, and then the hospital." Skye obeyed, scooting backwards across the floor until she bumped into May's legs. She reached up with her good arm and wrapped herself around May tightly, shaking and crying like a toddler. She was too scared and relieved and twisted up to care much about acting her age.
Jemma looked so small on the stretcher, so pale, but the rapid rising and falling of her chest as she lay there, taking shallow little hummingbird breaths, at least reminded Skye that Jemma was still hanging on, still fighting. People always underestimated how tough Jemma could be, because she was sensitive about certain things and she had a hard time with the stuff that came naturally to other people. Even Skye was guilty of it herself, sometimes, but Jemma always gave her reasons to remember.
Jemma was quiet and unassuming, but she was a fighter. A survivor. She'd survived the car accident that killed her parents. She made it out of monstrous foster homes, endured teachers and nuns who refused to understand her, let the hurtful words of bullies roll like water off her back. She refused to put up with Skye's nonsense most times, too. That display of toughness had gotten her into this mess, Skye's mess, and now all Skye could do was pray that Jemma's toughness would remain steadfast and see her through this next part.
"Let's get out of here, okay?" May asked quietly, once the paramedics had taken Jemma off down the hall and towards the ambulance. "We don't need to stay in this place."
Skye felt like she was floating, or maybe like she was drifting underwater, as she trailed behind May, looping her good fingers on her left hand into May's, desperate to hold onto something, someone, who felt real and secure. They walked past the closed doors that lined the corridor and out into the thin, morning sunlight. It was bright outside, much brighter than it had been inside the warehouse, and Skye squeezed her eyes shut at the light.
"Skye, all that blood on your shirt," May started to ask, "is it…?"
"It's Jemma's," she said flatly. "I'm not hurt."
"What about your arm?"
"Oh." Skye glanced down at her right arm, still strapped tightly to the cardboard splint with gauze and tape. Her fingers looked a little puffy, and it ached like it was being whacked by a bunch of bee-infused hammers. Stingy and pounding and sore all at once, and throbbing every time she tried to move. "Yeah. Cal said I broke it. I landed on it funny when I dropped out of the window. He tried to fix it."
"When you…" May trailed off. "Skye, we need to get that looked at."
"It's okay, it's not that serious. Jemma needs—"
"Skye," May said firmly. "Jemma will get the help she needs, and that doesn't mean you can't get the help you need, too. There are plenty of doctors at the hospital. Enough to go around. You need a cast on that arm."
Skye didn't answer – her attention was stolen away by the paramedics, who had lifted Jemma's stretcher into the back of an ambulance nearby and were getting ready to close the doors. "They're taking her."
"To the hospital, yes," May confirmed.
"She shouldn't be alone. It's a new place. She'll be nervous."
"We'll be right behind them," promised May. "Nobody will have to be alone right now. We're sticking together from now on. Okay?"
Skye thought for a minute. She didn't really want to go and get her arm looked at; it didn't seem important right now, but at least that would keep them all at the hospital together. "Okay."
May led them away from the warehouse, across the scattered gravel and around Cal's big white van. Out by the street, the policewoman who'd taken Cal away was leaning against her car, chatting with Hunter, whom Skye was surprised to see, until she realized that he was probably the way Bobbi had managed to get to Two Rivers.
"Bob! Bobbi!" he shouted, when he spotted them drawing near. He ran over to them and almost wrapped Bobbi up in a big bear hug before thinking better of it and stopping himself awkwardly. "Thank god you're all right. I can't believe I let you go in there, you're absolutely mental, do you know that? Are you okay?"
"I'm okay."
"Scared me half to death, I hope you know," Hunter tutted, shaking his head.
"I… I was pretty scared, too. But I'm all right. I'm not hurt."
"Good," he smiled. "I… I don't know what I would have done if you…"
"Well, now you don't have to think about it," Bobbi said, returning his smile shyly. She leaned over and bumped her shoulder into his, then slid her hand into Hunter's, giving it a squeeze. "Try not to worry so much about me. Jemma's the one who needs it right now."
"Yeah, I saw them loading her into the ambulance," Hunter said darkly. "She going to be okay?"
"We hope so," said May. "We're heading over to the hospital now."
"I'll see you at home," Bobbi murmured to Hunter pointedly, giving his hand one last squeeze before letting him go. "I'll keep you updated. Thank you. For everything."
"I'll see you," Hunter agreed. "Tell Jemma to hang in there for me."
"We will."
They watched as Hunter climbed into his car and slowly began to drive away, followed shortly after by the ambulance.
"I'll drive you all over to the hospital," the policewoman offered, once it was just the four of them remaining.
"Izzy, you don't have to—"
"Don't be ridiculous, May. You've got kids to worry about, you don't need to be driving. Plus you can call Phil and Vic on the way if you're riding."
"All right," May conceded. "Thank you."
"Hop on in," directed the woman. Izzy, Skye figured. She wondered if this was the same Izzy who was May's friend and Miss Hand's wife. May helped Skye up into the back of the car then, and when Skye refused to let go of her hand, climbed in after her. Izzy held the door open for Bobbi, who slid in last.
"We've got to stop meeting like this, Bobbi," she joked. "I always knew you were tough, but you keep finding ways to prove it to me."
"Thanks for coming to help us, Detective Hartley," Bobbi said bashfully.
"I think you can probably call me Izzy by this point," she smiled. "We've been through a lot together."
"Detective—Izzy—was the police officer who helped me when my dad put me in the hospital," Bobbi explained once the car door was shut, seeing Skye's confused look.
"That's how Bobbi came to us in the first place," May added. "Izzy met Bobbi and called Victoria, who called us. All sorts of little dominoes falling into place to help us find the people we need before we even know how much we need them."
"Like fate?" Skye asked quietly. Jemma didn't believe in fate or destiny, Skye knew. She wasn't sure where she herself landed on the issue, and her brain was too scrambled at the moment to try and parse it. Was she destined to be left at St. Agnes, to be tossed from home to home, to find Jemma, to find Cal, to be rescued by Bobbi and May, two people who she now never wanted to let out of her sight? Or was it all just random coincidence?
"Maybe," hummed May. "Maybe fate. Or maybe sometimes the universe just manages to get things right."
They're safe :) Not totally out of the woods yet, of course, but they're safe :) A humongous thank you to you all for reading and for all the kind folks who have left reviews - I'm so grateful for you all!