Well well, I guess it's time, but a bit of housekeeping first.

First, many mentioned the glue factory thing in the previous chapter so here it is: I remember seeing and reading that glue is (or used to at leat) made with dead animals parts, usually horses. That is why Gillian went with that over the riding school, because Cal specifically mentioned dead animals, more likely to be found in a glue factory rather than a riding school.

I am explaining this here because there is no more mention of it: I honestly thought that it was common knowledge, but I guess not so much LOL.

Then, seems like the 100th review went to… (drum roll please) Yodarth! I am a woman of my word, so Yodarth if you fancy a sneak peak of the the next story drop me a PM!

Tori: thank you, working on the clues and the 'investigative' part of the story was the hardest part, I really wanted it to be as plausible as possible.

Guest: 'we are so glued to this' LOL, pun intended?

Right, time to move on, we are entering the last stretch. Now they know, or think they do, where Warton is hiding, but can they get to him and keep Cal's safe?

Grab your popcorn…and some patience...

He had made that mistake once already, to put the brakes on a good lead, and he wasn't going to do it again. The first mistake had caused pain and troubles to two good friends, as well as enough regret and blame for himself to last him a lifetime. On a rational level, he knew there was still a chance that the glue factory wasn't the place, and that even if it was they might not get there in time, but at that point he'd much rather try and do something for nothing than stall and add even more regret to his load.

Once he had embraced Foster's latest epiphany, Reynolds had moved fast and efficiently. They had run checks on the glue factory, easily finding that it had closed down more or less a month before. The location already matched most of their criteria - isolated, allegedly empty and unlikely to attract attention - and further digging brought up the interesting news that despite being shut down the place still had running electricity and internet connection due to a prepaid and non refundable contract. That explained how Warton was able to access electricity and get online going virtually undetected, and most importantly it had allowed them to match the outgoing signal to the location.

It also allowed them to prepare some much needed countermeasures. While plans on how to approach the factory in the most efficient way possible were being made, Niko was coordinating a little operation of her own. The moment the strategy to get to the factory was going to be ready, the FBI forces camped inside the Lightman Group offices were going to leave and make their move, but they had to still be ready in case Warton would call again. They couldn' ttake the risk for him to notice things have changed and potentially understand something was coming his way, therefore while preparations were being made and they waited for it to get dark, thinking a night approach would have been a better option, Niko had been filming Foster, Loker, Torres, Reynolds and others "reacting" to a new call. The plan was to use those images as a front in case a new video came through, hopefully fooling Warton and masking the fact that they were no longer there. If he was indeed watching them watching him, he'd still seen them sitting around the monitor and witnessing his work while instead they were on their way to get to him.

Not all of them of course. The on-field operation was mostly for armed agents to attend, but Reynolds didn't even try to mention to Gillian that she should have stayed behind. There was no way in hell she would agree to wait in the office, he honestly thought she'd resort to physical violence towards him if he'd tried to suggest anything of the sort, or at the very least finally break down for good. In all honesty, he felt that he owed it to her: he had taken him too long to follow Lightman's hunch, he had kept telling Foster to stop obsessively watching those videos and yet all the steps forward had come from that, and it had been her latest epiphany the one potentially breaking the case wide open.

That was why she ended up in the car with him when they were finally ready to move, sitting on the edge of the passenger seat and leaning forward as if the position of her body could make the car go faster. Gillian hadn't said much after he had agreed to let her have a front row seat for the operation, perhaps worried saying too much would have changed his mind, but the fact that she was silent didn't mean that she wasn't all over the place. Reynolds easily noticed by the way her hands fidgeted with each other on her lap, how she kept glancing at her watch as if she was late for an appointment, and the tension all over her face. He knew that silent feeling, he'd been there before countless times as an FBI agent; it was the feeling of knowing the chase was nearing the end but with the uncertainty of the final outcome.

It was a dark evening, with clouded sky menacing rain, and they couldn't have been happier; when planning to surround a place sitting out in the open, darkness was definitely their friend. The glue factory consisted of two buildings, the main and bigger construction where the product was made and a smaller one hosting the offices. The signal they had managed to track went straight there, it had become a lot easier to follow once they knew where to look and the internet provider contract only applied to the offices premises. It was fair to say that Warton was keeping Cal there, which worked out well for the team planning the incursion. The office only had three rooms and a small storage, and the main building offered them a convenient barrier to approach reasonably undetected.

When they arrived, still at a safe distance, the scene immediately reminded Gillian of what had been waiting for them at the Wagners' residence and she really hoped that, unlike that time, they hadn't gotten there too late. She was soon struck by the overall silence, despite the number of people and vehicles around her, and was relieved when she saw a couple of ambulances at the ready. She got out of the car and followed Reynolds as he made his way to the improvised control centre, where the SWAT team was looking at the blueprints of the property, which according to their records had never been fitted with security cameras on the perimeter. The plan was a pinching move, the bulk of the agents would have gone in from the side covered by the main building, while a second group would have approached the offices from behind.

Gillian heard them going through the plan again, discussing detail and equipment and possible scenarios, but she didn't hear much of it really. She was looking at the smaller building, sitting there seemingly empty and silent in the darkness of the night, and every fibre of her body screaming at her to make a run for it and everything else be damned. She wasn't going to, of course: she had made it that far, keeping her mind together had been the one thing preventing her from losing it entirely, and she couldn't afford to let go now that she was so close.

"Gillian." The familiar voice came from afar, and she needed to blink her eyes and focus to realise it wasn't the case. "Gillian?"
She turned around and saw Reynolds, who had ditched the jacket despite the cold air and was putting a bulletproof vest on top of his shirt. She had seen him like that before, casually going through a change of outfit while preparing for possible deadly activities, but that time instead of worrying about the outcome she decided to find relief and comfort in his readiness.

"We're going in," he said, as if it wasn't clear enough already, then he handed her a radio. "You can listen if you want, but I need you to stay here. Don't make me cuff you to the car, ok?"

Despite everything, she smiled slightly at him. She wasn't Cal, never doing as told, but she understood where he was coming from. As much as she wanted to end it, possibly with Cal being rescued alive, she wasn't looking forward to going through that kind of experience. Again, she wasn't Cal and she didn't have experience on the field nor his familiarity with firearms, let alone enough awareness to recognise if she was getting in the way of the professionals, and she knew her presence with the incursion team would have only been a distraction, for Reynolds in particular.

"It won't be necessary," she promised while taking the radio. "Just…"

Just find him, bring him back alive. Promise Ben, promise me that you will bring him back to me.

She wanted to say that, to plead with her friend to do anything he could to save Cal and restore their world as she knew it, but in the end she didn't. She saw he was expecting her to say something like that and he immediately panicked, and Gillian realised she'd better not put that kind pressure on a man who was about to walk into a possible gun fight. In addition to that, she didn't feel it was fair to put him on the spot: if she had asked him to commit to it and promise to save Cal, Reynolds would have probably felt forced to promise something he honestly didn't know if he could deliver.

After a silent minute of knowing looks Gillian just nodded and affectionately squeezed the man's shoulder, then she went back to the car and sat inside. Reynolds sighed, honestly relieved, then mentioned to one of the agents staying behind to keep an eye on her. He didn't expect Foster to pull a Lightman and crash the operation, but he felt much better leaving her with someone close by.

Just in case.

Gillian watched the FBI agents spread out into the night and disappear out of her sight as if it was something out of a movie, despite the fact that she could have touched most of them as they passed by with tactical gears and assault rifles. As she sat inside the car with the door open her babysitter - oh yeah, Reynolds's move hadn't gone unnoticed - came by to offer her a jacket. Not that she was cold, or even remotely aware of the temperature in general, but she welcomed the gesture and tried to find a comfortable position.

The radio in her hand crackled and she recognised Reynolds' voice, giving direction and asking for the various teams to check in on their position. Listening to the operations unfolding step by step without seeing any of it, despite the fact that it was all happening not that far from where she was, felt like an out of body experience to Gillian. Trying to keep a steady breathing and stay calm, she closed her eyes and brought the radio closer to her ear, gathering what she had seen on the blueprints and maps to try and visualise how they were proceeding, building images as the voices on the radio spoke. She "saw" them spreading out in the terrain around the building, approach the wall and stay put for a few seconds, listening for any signs Warton might have been alerted by something. Then they split, one team going for the back of the building while the other, led by Reynolds, carefully approached the main entrance. Covering the back was a precaution, there were no doors there but a couple of windows which could have provided a way out, which reminded Gillian that while her priority was to get Cal back, catching Warton was also an item on the list.

They were moving in, she could tell by the whispering voices and some of the background noises, a creaking door opening and faint echoes of steps in an empty space. The hand around the radio was sweating, her whole body warming up and not thanks to the jacket as the tension of the moment overtook her. The lack of verbal communication meant there was nothing for her to go on at the moment and she couldn't take it anymore, standing up and nervously pacing the space by the car throwing anxious looks to the far away building she could barely see. There were no lights, they hadn't used any flashlights while approaching for obvious reasons and she could just about make out the shape of the building in the darkness but couldn't fully trust her own eyes.

Still nothing on the radio, Gillian had completely lost track of time and would have not been able to tell how long ago the operation had started and that didn't help. She looked over at the few agents left to monitor the situation from the outside, like her waiting for any kind of feedback, wondering if maybe she could try to get any closer and see if they had other means to get in touch with those inside.

And that was when she heard it.

It wasn't a sound or a voice coming from the radio, that was still eerily silent in her hand. It was something else, distant and weak but strangely easy to detect in the dead silence of the night. It was a creaking sound, sort of high pitched, almost wailing. It was a prolonged one, more like a repetition of short intervals, regular. Gillian forgot all about the radio and the other agents, something stirring inside her as her ears tried to focus on the noise. Voices were her thing, not random noises, but there was something about that one that caught her attention. The fact that she was hearing at all, in a situation where everybody, including the agents left behind with her, was going out of their way to keep it quiet. And then there was the direction the sound was coming from, behind her, the complete opposite of the building where the action was unfolding.

A shiver ran through her, her mind protesting that she was too tired and likely paranoid and jumpy about anything at that point, but her body going in a different direction. Gillian turned around and looked at the agents, focused on following the silent actions and seemingly forgetting about her, then she turned again looking into the darkness, listening. It was definitely there, she wasn't making it up, so she decided to do two things. Leave the radio in the car and get her bag.

She needed to put the radio down because it might have given her away. And she needed her bag to get the gun.

It was one of Cal's, which she had lifted from his safe before leaving the office with Reynolds. For the life of her, she didn't know what possessed to take it then but she was extremely glad she had followed that instinct. She was about to venture into the night to follow a suspicious noise, thinking about a few possible scenarios in her head, and even though she had never fired a shot in her life she felt so much better feeling the heavy and cold metal object in her hand.

Gillian took a deep breath, one last look at the agents who were not paying attention to her, then she started walking toward the noise. As she did so she realised it was moving, slowly, but certainly moving. The more she stepped away from the more illuminated spot where she had been the more her eyes started to adjust to the deeper darkness, her feet finding solid ground underneath. There was a bit of a slope on the way down and she tried to remember what she could from the blueprints and images of the property as she found herself proceeding towards what could have been, according to her recollection, a small tool shed out in the back. Except it wasn't so small, not when she saw it.

With what looked like a van parked right next to it.

Her first instinct was to gasp but she held it in, her brain furiously screaming that she had to be stealth. Gillian swallowed her tension and moved forward carefully, the gun pointed ahead, trying to see what else was there. Then, when she least expected it, a light came on. It was a small deem light, the kind that goes on and off automatically inside vehicles when the doors are opened or closed. It wasn't much, but enough to see the silhouette of a man moving around the van, hastily manoeuvring something big and heavy. The noise was now louder, as expected since she was closer, and Gillian could tell it was coming from the big and heavy object the man was moving about. It was a bit different, the sound, not regular anymore but it seemed to match every time the man moved the object.

Wheels, she thought, and perhaps it was because of that thought that her eyes started to morph the object into the shape of a wheelchair. A wheelchair with someone on it, a wheelchair that the man was trying to load into the back of the van.

Gillian didn't need any more detail, and not even any explanation as to how it was possible that with a small army of FBI agents on the premises nobody had noticed the shed or the van. She didn't want to know how Warton had seemingly managed to evade the raid and leave the office building, taking Cal with him: all she needed to know was that she could stop him.

She stayed low and kept approaching carefully, getting rid of her heels and felign the cold wet grass under her bare feet the gun drawn. While approaching she heard a voice, Warton's voice, grumbling and cursing as he struggled to accomplish his task. Then a second light came on, a bit stronger, clearly a flashlight. Warton was using it to take a better look at what he had to do and when he moved it around he accidentally pointed it at the man in the chair. Gillian already knew it was Cal, on an irrational and hopeful level, but to really see him was quite the shock. He wasn't awake, and since from there she couldn't see well enough Gillian had to hope that was all of it. It had to be, Warton wouldn't have gone through the hassle of moving him like that if he was already dead, would he? It was a terrible thing to hope for but it was what she had, then she took a deep breath and moved even closer.

There wasn't much further she could go, not without having a plan. With terror, Gillian realised she didn't have one and it was probably too late to come up with something. She couldn't shoot, the risk of missing or God forbid, hitting Cal, was too high. She couldn't go back to call for help, she could have lost precious time and allowed Warton to escape. And she didn't know what weapons Warton might have, if he had a gun on hand or anything else he could have used on Cal if given the chance.

Grasping for ideas, Gillian also realised that she didn't have all the time in the world. No matter how frazzled Warton was at that moment, any minute now he could figure out what to do, get Cal in the van and drive away. And she wasn't going to let that happen. She watched for another couple of minutes, hoping he could unknowingly provide her with a small window of opportunity and thinking that she might recognise it when she saw it. Then Warton stopped fidgeting with the chair after one last hasty push, Cal's unconscious body flopping around in a way that suggested to Gillian he was partially tied up to the seat, and he put the flashlight down on the inside of the van before fishing in his pocket. With the light pointed directly on what he was doing, she could see that he took out a pen knife and used it to undo the ties around one of Cal's wrist, possibly having decided to untie him and move him into the van like that.

Gillian saw it, her window. Warton was distracted and Cal was about to be able to move…assuming he could, of course. She had no hesitation, not anymore, thinking, as she quickly covered the distance between her spot and the van, that any noise loud enough coming from the confrontation would have likely gotten the FBI attention. In a few running steps she reached the shed, then took one last deep breath and turned the corner of the small structure. Briefly, when she stood there still in the dark and pointing the gun, Gillian realised she didn't know what to say. About a million scenes from movies and TV came to mind with regards to what to say, but she wasn't a cop or anything remotely similar. Then she snapped out of it, realising how stupid it was and that she wasn't going to let something like that get in the way.

"Stop!" She yelled, intentionally louder than necessary. "Hands up!"

The surprise on Warton's face was something to behold. He had probably already gone through quite a lot of that when he had realised he had been busted, but clearly seeing her there, pointing a gun at him no less, was not something he had seen coming. Gillian was grateful for the light close to him, she could see him and she doubted he could see her as well, but she knew she had to leave the protective darkness and come closer.

"I said hands up. Now!" She barked at him when he didn't comply, waiting for him to do so before taking a few steps forward.

Her legs were weak, her whole body was trembling but her hands were solid, her eyes steady on him. When she was close enough she glanced at Cal and saw that he was breathing, and once established that she waved the gun back at Warton.

"Step back," she instructed. "Slowly."

"Look who's here." Warton smirked, but his voice betrayed him. "Nice of you to join us, Doc."
"Shut up and step away from him."

Gillian knew her voice betrayed her too, but she was counting on the fact that Warton didn't know it, and on the persuasive power of the gun pointed at him. He could probably see that she wasn't used to having a weapon in her hands, but she was doing her best to show him that she was ready to use it if needed. Eventually he stepped back, his hands up, and she kept approaching until she was within reach of Cal. With her good hand still on the gun, a finger on the trigger, Gillian used the other hand to check his pulse, realising she had been holding her breath only when she caught the beat of his heart through the veins of his neck.

"Cal," she called out then, needing to be fairly loud and assertive even though her instinct was to be soft and gentle. "Cal, wake up."

It seemed to be working, slowly and painfully but working nevertheless. She called him out a second time, a little louder, her eyes fixed on Warton, and Cal's head gave a little wobble upwards. Gillian didn't see his eyes open, she had to keep hers on Warton, but soon she heard him take in a deep breath and some creaking noises coming from the chair as he moved around on it.

"Cal?" This time her voice was broken by painful hope and a wishful touch of relief. "Cal, can you hear me?"

"F-Foster?"

There had been many moments over the past days in which she had been on the verge of tears, but that was by far the one that nearly broke her. He sounded terrible, unsure and weak…but to hear his voice was the best thing she could ask for.

"It's me Cal, it's ok." She went on. "The FBi is here, it's gonna be ok."

"You really think so?" Warton smirked.

Hearing his voice seemed to have a powerful effect on Cal, although for opposite reasons than Gillian's. He looked up, his face suddenly more vigil, and his eyes widened when they started to focus on the scene: the chair he was still half-tied to, the van, Gillian with a gun pointed at Warton, and his brain kicked into the highest gear he could reach. He tried to move, to use the right hand Warton had already freed to undo the restraint on the other wrist, but the simple gesture seemed too much for him.

"Untie me Gill," he croaked, wondering why talking was so difficult.

"What do you think you can do, Lightman?" Warton chuckled evilly. "You can barely move."

He wasn't wrong on that, when Cal had lifted the right hand a shock wave of pain generated from that simple movement. He knew he could hardly be of help, that he probably wouldn't have been able to walk with the broken ankle and everything else, but he needed to get free.

"Gillian," he called out then, begging for her attention.

"Hold on, Cal." Using one hand she tried to help and untie him, but after a few seconds of tugging and pulling she shook her head. "I can't, I-"

"You might need this, Doc," Warton teased, waving the knife still in his raised hand.

Gillian's jaw clenched, and she tried not to think about how heavy the gun was becoming for her untrained hand. Could she shoot if she had to? Yeah, that son of a bitch could push her that far. Would she be able to hit her target? That was a very different question.

"Cal, how's your hand?" She asked then, worrying when he didn't respond. "Cal?"

"I'm here love, just-just a bit tired."

"I know but I need you to stay with me, ok?" She was back to a sweeter tone of voice, trying to lull him and comfort him into listening to her. "If I give you the gun can you hold it?"

"I don't know." He tried to move his fingers, flex them a couple of times as if to pull the trigger."I think so, yeah."

Gillian nodded, then stared at Warton.

"Put the knife down, inside the van. Slowly."

"You shouldn't play games you don't know, Doc." Warton warned her, but still showed signs he meant to comply. "You might get hurt."

"Down," she instructed again. "Then step back."

Slowly as being told, Warton moved the hand holding the knife and placed it on the plan of the van, then took a step back. Gillian tried to ignore the growing cramp in her hand, the sweat on her palm; the last thing she wanted was for Warton to see her hand shake and misread her fatigue for hesitation. Once he stepped back she reached for the knife with one hand and went back to Cal, trying to cut the ligature around the other wrist. It was a goofy movie, the ligature was tight and with her non dominant hand she couldn't put enough force to it.

"Cal, I'm gonna give you the gun and cut the rope, ok?" She glanced down at Cal, who nodded. "Keep it on him, shoot if he makes a move."

"With pleasure," Cal hissed, barely thinking of the irony of what she was asking him to do when she had been so worried about him doing precisely that.

Slowly, always pointing it at Warton, Gillian moved the gun to Cal's hand and waited to see how well he could hold it. It seemed steady enough, she watched his fingers close confidently around the handle and his index finding a familiar way on the loop of the trigger. He looked up at her and nodded, mumbling 'I got this' before looking back at Warton with deadly eyes, and Gillian let go.

Immediately she went to work on the rope with the knife, finding it harder than what she had thought. That was when panic took over, her mind racing, her eyes going back and forth from what she was doing to Cal and Warton. It hit her then, that it might not have been the best of ideas, that maybe she should have just shot a couple of rounds in the air knowing the echo of the shots in the night would have immediately alerted the FBI squadrons nearby. But she wasn't a woman of action, she didn't have that kind of experience and the one next to her who did was not in a sharp enough mental state to fill the gaps for her.

And as she had done shortly before, Warton took advantage of the window she provided him to make his move.

He didn't make a sound, nothing to give himself away; he simply launched forward and jumped them. Cal did shoot, or at least he tried: he could hold the gun alright, but having enough strength to pull the trigger proved to be something else altogether. Before he knew it, Warton slapped the firearm away and hit him in the face with one hand, knocking him out, then swiftly reaching out for Gillian with the other. She saw him coming in the corner of her eyes and tried to pull away but it was too late, his hands found her and took hold of her shoulders pushing her backwards. Gillian screamed as she hit the ground, Warton collapsing on top of her and immediately holding her down by her wrists. The knife had been dropped, she had nothing to fight back with but her own body and as she kept screaming she desperately tried to wiggle out of his hold, waving her trapped hands and kicking blindly, even more frantically when Warton started laughing.

She had heard it before, the laugh of a man whose mind didn't necessarily know what was going on, a laugh that terrified her beyond reason. She screamed even louder, not just random noise but bellowing 'help' to anyone who could hear her. Warton kept laughing and quickly covered her mouth and nose with one hand, smirking with pleasure at the way her eyes opened wide when she realised she was suddenly struggling to breath. That wasn't how he had planned it, there was so much he still wanted to do to them, but he was willing to lower his expectation under the circumstances-

Hands grabbed him, hands and arms too powerful to be Lightman's, and yet when they pulled him away from Gillian to toss him away and he turned around it was indeed the scientist the one hovering over him. Gillian immediately sat up and started to catch her breath, scared out of her mind as she watched Cal descending on Warton, sitting on his chest and pounding the man's face with every bit of energy he had left. Sadly, it couldn't have been all that much after what he had been through and soon Warton started to fight back, rolling Cal on his back and landing a couple of punches of his own. Cal howled in pain, Warton didn't have to guess where to hit to cause maximum damage and pain, but when the scientist still tried to fight back he decided the man was a major nuisance and it was time to cut him loose.

The men kept going at each other, rustling on the ground in a way that gave Gillian big and horrifying deja-vu vibes. The fact that Cal was even remotely able to put up a fight was nothing short of remarkable: Warton was a violent psycho with no care for anything, but Cal was likely fuelled by adrenaline, rage and somehow his own pain and that was a powerful mix not to be discounted. She thought about intervening, but she had just discovered she probably wasn't really good at it. She thought about screaming for help again, maybe running back to the agents or at least closer hoping they would hear her. Then she thought again that a gun shot would have done the job, especially since they were all on alert for something like that, and she looked around in the badly lit area around them looking for the gun that had been dropped. She wasn't the only one doing that, Cal and Warton were still tangled in a goofy fight and they were both trying to reach for the firearm abandoned on the floor not too far from the wheelchair. So she went for it too, thinking if she had it Warton wouldn't be able to use it on Cal, and that once she had it she was indeed going to shoot up in the air in a Hail Mary.

And shortly after gunshots echoed into the night.