And we're back!
Chapter Seven
Barry hated that he couldn't just burst into CCPD, but he forced himself to stop in the back alley behind the station so he could enter as himself and not the Flash.
"Joe? Eddie? Where-" he started, skidding through the doorway and beelining for their desks. Joe still held his phone.
"Barry," Eddie's hair was rumpled, like he'd been finger-combing it in anxiety, something Barry knew he rarely did.
"Joe said they found her car, did they find her? Is she hurt? Is Cisco with her? What happened?" Barry had to fight to keep his words from blurring into each other.
"They didn't find her, but-" Eddie shook his head. "It's bad."
"Was there a wreck, did she crash, did someone hit her?" Barry winced. "Should I go-I can search the park, I can-"
"No, Barry. The car-her car's intact. No crash. They found-it's their jurisdiction, their case unless we can prove- but they're sending what they found." Eddie was hiding something, Barry was sure of it.
"What did they find?"
"Barry," Joe's voice was low and level, and he glanced pointedly at Barry's shaking hands. His vibrating hands, all but sparking. Barry gripped the edge of the desk.
"Joe?" he asked again.
"There was a note, in the car," Joe started
"A ransom note?" Barry blinked. Snart had made a video, but that was before the Flash and the police were known to be on good terms…" Ok ok, then we have a place to start-"
"No, Barry. I haven't seen it yet, maybe it's just-that the officer's confused, misread, or maybe it was forged, but it's…" Joe let out a heavy breath. "They think it's a suicide note. They think she jumped."
"No." Barry said it flatly, without hesitation. "No, it has got to be fake, had to have been forged or something, she didn't-she wouldn't-How can you even think-?"
"We know," Eddie said. "But it doesn't look good. We're going to get the car and the note-they're emailing a scan- we'll see if we can find something there. I cashed in a favor to get an interview with all of the gate-people that've been on shift for the last two days. Someone has to remember who she was with."
"Or a car following her," Joe said. "Unless it was-what did Caitlin call that Metahuman? Poof-go-bye?"
"Peek-a-boo," Barry corrected out of habit. "But she was never violent…"
"Except the time she tried to kill Caitlin," Joe said.
Barry gripped the edge of a chair. "I need to get back out there. They may be in the woods, she might have-I'll be back, call me as soon as you know anything."
"Barry, wait," Joe stared. Barry did not.
Joe figured he should have been glad that he hadn't left a scattering of papers, taking off at mach two right there in the station. Eddie looked up at Joe. "This could be a trap. If they're both missing…"
"I know. Make those calls. We've got to find a lead, and fast."
The air was hot and stale inside the bag they'd forced over Caitlin's head, dark, heavy cloth. Her hands still gripped Ronnie's, and they pressed back to back. He'd murmured assurances to her until she had felt someone move closer and heard the guard do something to knock the wind out of him. Touch was the only comfort left, the feel of body heat through thin shirts, the moving of lungs and the familiar heartbeats. Her hands felt halfway numb, a bad sign given how tight the restraints were. She squeezed gently, one pulse, two. He squeezed back, his hands so much warmer than her own.
They'd been in the van for what felt like hours, days, and she was almost grateful for the dehydration headache pounding in her head-she didn't have to pee. Not that they would have stopped, she was sure. Her throat was dry, and it felt less like bravery that she didn't cry, and more like she simply couldn't. Where were they going? The old base, she remembered, where Eiling had taken Professor Stein, had been over 300 miles from the city, but there was no way to tell if that was where they were going now, or if they'd been in Central city to start with. Not that that mattered. Barry would find them all, sooner or later. She only hoped the sooner part came before Eiling could do whatever he planned. He'd been ready to murder Ronnie and Stein last time, would have if Barry hadn't intervened. So why all this trouble of moving them? Her mind raced, but any answers she might have come up with were lost as each jolt of the van sent her scrambling to keep any kind of calm.
Everything was muffled. Caitlin was used to having to go on what she could only hear, or see represented through readings from Barry's suit when he was out in the field, but none of that compared to this. Still, she thought she felt a change in the road, a curving turn and then somehow, the bumpy road got worse, jostling her from side to side. Still, no one spoke, though she knew there had to be two or three of Eiling's people in with her and Ronnie. There wasn't even the crackle of a radio, or if there was, she sure couldn't hear it. Her pulse beat all the harder in her neck, and honestly she doubted she could hear anything over the sound of her own blood in her ears. The rattle of the van got worse, and suddenly Ronnie's hands over hers tightened.
It was a few moments before she understood why. The ground under the truck had smoothed out again, and it was slowing to a halt. She screwed up her eyes as she heard a door open, but no light reached her, not hooded like a captive bird, or a condemned prisoner making their way to the gallows. Bad thought, bad metaphor, stick to birds.
"Move," a voice, unfamiliar, commanded. Getting to her feet after so long spent half kneeling, half sitting, was hard. If her hands were partly numb, her lower legs were entirely pins and needles, and she stumbled back against Ronnie. The two of them managed to rise blindly, with all the awkwardness of newborn giraffes, but there was some small pride in doing it under their own combined power. They weren't beaten, not yet. Barry would come, they were smart, they could figure a way out of this, they had to.
Someone grabbed her arms above the elbows, hauling her out of the van. Ronnie's hands were ripped from her own.
"Caitlin!" he screamed, and she fought desperately, trying to dig her heels into the smooth floor uselessly.
"Ronnie!" she called back, swiveling her head to try to pinpoint where he was.
"Cait!" he screamed again, and then she was through a door that slammed shut behind her and whoever still had a firm grip on her arms, still dragging her forward.
Ronnie fought as best he could, kicking, writhing, but with his hands bound and the sack still over his face, tight at his neck, there was very little he could do. Even as he struggled toward the sound of Caitlin's terrified cry, he was hauled backward, no match for his captors without his powers. Powerful hands on his shoulders herded him blindly away from Caitlin's voice, from the van, hardly giving him time to do more than stumble. He was shoved through doors, twisting through a veritable labyrinth of hallways, and he could feel the chilled air through his sweaty shirt, against the exposed skin of his arms and hands. "What are you doing to Caitlin?" he demanded. "Where are you-"
"Shut up." Something heavy, not a fist but the butt of a gun, or something similar, struck him in the ribs. He coughed, trying to breathe through the dark cloth that was sucked tight to his mouth and nose. For a moment, he had to rely entirely on his captors/guides to support him, unable to keep his feet. In return they paused, ripped the hood from his head, then shoved him bodily through another door, alone. He hit the ground with his knee and left shoulder, grunting in surprise as much as pain. Behind him, the door closed with the heavy clunk of several locks sliding into place.
Ronnie looked around the room-the cell- as he regained his feet. He wasn't expecting an open window or a weapon, but there had to be something useful, anything at all. There wasn't much. A pallet on the floor, not even a metal frame, no blankets. A small toilet tucked into the corner. Two thin vents at the top of the back and side walls that would give even a rodent a difficult time getting through. Spinning, he saw that while three of the walls were the same dingy concrete as the floor, one was see-through, glass or plastic embedded with heavy wire mesh. Through it, he could see a similar room, and sprawled on the ground was Martin Stein, stone unconscious.
It wasn't hard for Barry to find Caitlin's car, already towed to the local police station. He smiled at the receptionist, flashing his ID.
"Hi, I'm a CSI with CCPD?"
"You got here fast," someone commented. "I'm Detective Hagen."
Barry nodded at the woman. "I was in the area, one of our detectives called, asked me to take a look, since, you know, I was in the area."
"Well, there's not much to see. We're still looking for a body, but depending on the timing…"
"Right," Barry said, pained. "Detective, um, West mentioned a note? May I see it? In case there's something overlooked-"
"It seemed pretty straightforward, but no harm in checking. Sent a scan of it down to your people already. C'mon." She led Barry back to her desk. "We're waiting on our CSI to get prints from it, after he's finished with the car, and handwriting samples and such."
Barry's heart dropped when he saw the note in its evidence baggie. "No," he said. "That's her handwriting."
"And how do you know that?" Detective Hagan asked, but Barry ignored her, scanning the letter again. He let out a sigh of relief, almost a laugh. Ronnie's death, Dr. Well's accident, too much to bear-
"What?" the detective demanded again, but Barry was already pulling out his phone. Joe answered, but Barry interrupted any greeting.
"Did you read the note? Did you see it? Joe, you know what it means, you know-"
"I read it. I saw. Where the hell are you?"
"Piedmont?" Barry offered. " Joe, you know it was duress, she never-"
"Excuse me," Hagan demanded. "What exactly is going on?"
"I gotta go, Joe," Barry hung up. "Sorry, Um, it's just that I knew her. Caitlin. Dr. Snow. She was my doctor, and this is her handwriting, but it's not her words. It's just not."
"Look, kid-Allen?" Hagan nodded to the ID Barry still held. "Maybe you just didn't know her as well as you thought. But you of all people should know, if this was something bigger, we'll get to the bottom of it. You should probably go, if you're emotionally invested-conflict of interest. Sit this one out. It's our jurisdiction."
"No, I can help, I-" Barry stopped. It would be better to search the woods as the Flash. Let the cops do what they could, and he could do what they couldn't. "You're...probably right. I'll-I'll just see myself out…"
"I'll walk you out," Hagan insisted. Barry waited until he was outside before taking off in the direction of the Falls.
Sorry it's a bit short this week just how it worked out. See you next week!
please feel free to comment.