Chapter 12
Castle awoke suddenly with a half-snort, half-gasp. Slightly confused, he blinked rapidly as he looked around the room. It was pitch black and he could hear the familiar hum of the HVAC in his apartment, which meant nothing initially seemed out of the ordinary, other than the fact that he had awoken in the middle of the night, which he typically did not do. As the fogginess of sleep dissipated, he realized the probable reason why he was awake: his head was throbbing.
Groaning, he gently touched his fingertips to his forehead as he forced himself to sit upright. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he saw the clock on his nightstand read 3:12 a.m. That certainly explained the darkness, but not his headache, which felt much like a migraine, of which he'd only had two in his life to date.
Knowing he needed pain pills—and quickly—he pushed himself off the bed, but as soon as his left foot connected with the rug beneath his bed, his knee buckled and he stumbled forward with a grunt. He managed to not completely fall down, but his legs felt confusingly shaky, and as a result he used his hand on the end of the bed as a guide as he made his way towards the bathroom.
By the time he was groping for the light switch, Castle's pounding headache and shaky legs had been joined by nausea and a general unwell feeling. Still attributing it to the migraine, he skimmed his hand across the light switches until he found the one attached to the bathroom ventilation system, which would be duller than the lights at the vanity and thus more preferred for the state of his head. With that on, he made his way towards the toilet and made the call to sit rather than stand as he had zero faith in his accuracy when he could barely open his eyes.
Sitting there, suffering from the pain in his head, Castle skimmed his fingers across his temple, behind his ear, and down the side of his neck, as though he would be able to feel the source of the pain. Of course, he didn't actually believe he could, which was why he was shocked when he found a tender spot on his neck just about an inch below his hair line. Confused, he touched the spot again and, yes, it was definitely sore. Very sore, in fact.
Once finished on the toilet he made his way to the sink where he finally opened his eyes for the first time. As he washed his hands, he tilted his head to the side in order to see the sore spot on his neck. Due to its location, it was difficult, but when he finally managed a glimpse, adrenaline immediately began coursing through his veins.
"Fuck! Tyson!" he cursed out, for the wound on his neck looked exactly like the puncture of a needle and if that was the case, he knew only one culprit.
The pain in his head momentarily forgotten to the terror ripping at his chest, Castle rushed out of the bathroom, calling out, "Kate?!" as he stumbled forward on his wobbly legs. He turned on the light switch but discovered her side of the bed only had rumpled covers. This was not an immediate cause for alarm, because for the prior week she had been so uncomfortable sleeping that she occasionally moved to the couch. "Kate!" he called out, louder that time. He hurried through to the office, pushing his hands against the doorframe to propel himself forward more quickly. He bumped into every piece of furniture on the way to the living area, but when he crossed the next doorway, his heart sank. Though the room was mostly dark, the nightlight in the kitchen illuminated the couch enough for him to tell there were no large shadows on it.
"Kate!" he called again, that time yelling.
Hoping against hope, he made his way towards the stairs, thinking maybe, just maybe, she was up in the rocking chair in the nursery—he'd found her taking a nap there a few days prior. He gripped onto the banister with both hands in order for his shaky feet to make the upwards journey. He must have been calling out her name without realizing for his mother met him at the top of the stairs and scared him so much he nearly tumbled back down them.
"Richard, what on earth is going on?"
"Kate—Kate she's… oh god."
"What? What is it? Is she hurt? Should I call 911?" his mother asked, her tone distressed.
Castle managed to shake his head and only when he tried to speak again realized he was hyperventilating. "Gone…she's…gone."
Horror displaying in Martha's expression, she gasped. "Gone? She's dead?!"
"Missing," he corrected, still panting. He managed to regain enough composure to push past her and stumble into the nursery. She wasn't there, and all his strength momentarily evaporated as he collapsed down onto his knees. "Tyson…he took her…he drugged me and took her…"
"What? Oh my god! What…what should I do?"
"Call…call Alexis; make sure she's okay. I'm going to call Gates…and Ryan…and everyone else," he said as he felt his heart shatter inside of his chest. His biggest fear—their biggest fear—had come to fruition and not in the way that he thought. He'd been so focused on Tyson taking the baby he had not even considered that he would take Kate before the baby was born. He cursed himself as he clambered back to his feet and made his way back downstairs as quickly as he thought he could. Why hadn't he considered this as a possibility? He'd been so focused on creating the most intricate alarm system one could put on a baby bassinet, he hadn't once thought… and now—now Kate's life was in danger too and it was his fault for not protecting her.
Forty-five minutes later, Castle sat on a chair at his kitchen table, still dressed in the t-shirt and boxers he slept in, as an EMT drew blood from his left arm. Captain Gates, who had arrived just moments earlier, looked impeccably put together given the hour. She was directing the CSU techs, but had taken—much to Castle's dismay—a shockingly neutral approach to the entire thing.
"Don't you understand," Castle said to her, the frustration in his voice evident, "He's going to take the baby and kill Kate."
"Mr. Castle," Gates began, her voice edged with annoyance, "there is absolutely no reason to believe that is true. We have no evidence of anyone else being inside this apartment—nothing that would show that Mr. Tyson is responsible here."
"SERIOUSLY!" Castle barked. He stood up so swiftly after his blood draw that he stumbled, but fortunately caught himself with a solid grip on the back of another chair. "Are you kidding me right now? Have you not been paying attention for the last nine months?"
Gates' nostrils flared. "You will watch your tone or be removed from this investigation."
Castle practically growled at her. "So what? You're going to stand here and tell me that my thirty-eight-weeks pregnant fiancée who can barely roll herself out of bed to go to the bathroom three times a night just waddled her way out the door of her own accord leaving no evidence behind when she has given absolutely no indicating of anything being wrong or out of the ordinary. Oh! And she's a police detective."
Gates stared him down. "No, Mr. Castle I do not think Kate Beckett left here of her own accord, but we need to do things by the book if we hope to catch the person who did this—who, yes, is likely Jerry Tyson—and make sure he pays for his crimes."
Castle said nothing, but instead clenched his fists as he walked back toward the kitchen, where his mother was keeping herself busy brewing pots of coffee and filing mugs for anyone who wanted some. He'd been working along with Kate long enough to know that when it came to serious criminal investigations, protocol needed to be followed to the absolute minutest of details, lest a guilty person get off on some sort of police-related technicality. He knew that and respected it but living through it was something different entirely. Besides, he still firmly believed there was no conceivable way of Jerry Tyson going to trial for his crimes.
In the weeks since their island getaway, Castle and Kate had several discussions and one outright argument about his plans for Jerry Tyson. She remained fully entrenched on the side of the law and continually reiterated that it was not okay for anyone to be hunted down and killed, even if that person was a serial killer turned kidnapper. Castle agreed with her in all cases except when it came to Tyson. The Triple Killer was the one exception to the rule and, though he never wanted or intended to become one of the dark people that he wrote about, the imminent threat to the woman he loved, and their child had awoken something in Castle he hadn't fully known was there—something primal. He wanted Tyson dead as he believed it was the only way for them to be truly safe, but of course acting on that was a whole different problem entirely.
With the developments of that night, however, Castle's view had shifted. Tyson was an even bigger threat now, but Kate's safety weighed out. They could not go in guns-blazing and risk hurting her or the baby. Surely Tyson would except such an assault and be appropriately prepared to defend himself—and Castle had to assume he wasn't as caring about Kate's safety as he would be his own. They had to be methodical, they had to be smart, but by God they had to be quick—time truly was not on their side.
"Yo."
Esposito's voice pulled Castle from his thoughts, and he whipped around to face the detective asking frankly, "What did you find? Did you get the time?"
"Cameras went out at 12:07."
"Fuck…it's already been over four hours." The writer whimpered at the realization. Four hours was so much time. Tyson and his partner could have already taken the baby and left Kate for dead in that amount of time.
"But Kate's only thirty-eight weeks along, right?" Espo asked.
When Castle heard the lack of urgency in his tone, he felt something inside him snap. "You…you think he's going to keep her and let her go into labor naturally?" he asked, and Esposito gave a shrug-and-nod combo. "No—that's—he's… Tyson doesn't leave anything to chance! It's calculated. It's measured to the point where he knows without question what the result is going to be before he does anything. He got Kate pregnant in one night when she was still taking her birth control, for Christ sakes! He's not—he's not going to wait for her to go into labor at some point in the next two to three weeks. The longer he waits, the longer he risks getting caught and he's not going to risk that. He'll use Pitocin to start her labor or-"
The words caught in his throat as they were too horrible to say. For the first time since he started speaking his eyes left Esposito's face and Castle realized that the attention of Gates, Ryan, his mother, and several other CSU techs were on him. Evidently, he'd been speaking louder than he realized.
"What, Mr. Castle? What do you believe will happen?" Gates asked, her tone indicating curiosity more than anything.
"He'll…" His voice broke on the word, so he cleared his throat and sniffed back some tears before continuing. "That he'll have that doctor cut the baby out of Kate and…and they'll take Jake and leave her behind to bleed out. Then…then when they're a safe distance away, he'll send us a clue—something that lets us find their hideout so we can get her back, only…only it's too late."
Though he'd only had about an hour to think about all the scenarios that could happen when Tyson kidnapped the still-pregnant Kate, his writer's mind really only needed a fraction of that time. When he wasn't killing, Tyson had proven he enjoyed psychological torture not to mention outright cruelty and the scenario he'd just voiced was the worst Castle could think of. Was it possible Tyson would keep both Kate and the baby for an indetermined amount of time? Sure. It was also possible Tyson would kill them both out of spite, but he didn't think that was as likely.
The room remained silent for several moments after he spoke before Ryan gently asked, "Jake? Is that what you decided to name him?"
"Ah," the writer began, his voice hoarse, "Yeah…yeah we decided a few days ago."
"Well, that's a really good name. A strong name," Gates said positively.
"Thank you," Castle responded, though he didn't feel much gratitude, only a gnawing ache in his chest.
Several minutes later, Castle had just sat down beside his mother on a stood at the kitchen counter, when he heard his daughter calling out to them from the hall. "Dad! Dad!"
"Alexis?" Confused, he looked at his mother who said, "I told her she didn't have to come." Castle's eldest child had returned to live in school housing for the fall semester of her second year of college and he hadn't expected her to come rushing home at four in the morning to be with them, but he couldn't say he was disappointed to see her. In fact, it was a relief to see his child was safe (not that he'd been overly concerned for her welfare; Tyson's target has always been clear) and caused quite an upheaval of emotions in his chest. "Alexis…"
"Are you okay, Dad?" she asked, rushing into his arms and giving him a firm hug.
"I…yeah…I…He took them, Alexis. He took them."
Tears welling in her eyes, the young girl nodded and sighed, "I know; I'm so sorry, Dad."
Castle could say nothing more; he merely gathered her in his arms, hugged her tight, and silently prayed the investigative teams would find even the smallest of clues that could lead them to find Kate and Jake—before it was too late.
Kate awoke with a gasp, opened her eyes and saw nothing but bright, blinding light. Her eyes began to water and she blinked several times, but still she could see almost nothing except the light shining directly towards her eyes. Confused, and uncertain if she was still dreaming somehow, she mumbled out, "Cas'l?"
"He's not here Kate," a feminine voice said, and Kate immediately felt her body flush with panic. Her hand shot instinctively towards her belly, but they could not move; she was restrained across both forearms with such force she could not lift her arms even a millimeter above the surface on which they rested. Terror coursed through her veins and her breathing rate began to increase as her brain fought a battle between her police training and the instinct to protect her child at all costs.
"We left him behind this time," the woman continued. Kate tried to lift up her head but found it difficult due to a tightness in her neck. She did her best to look around the light in her face and she finally saw a figure come into focus: an auburn-haired woman wearing a surgical mask.
"You!" she croaked in a tone barely audible. "You're the woman. Who are you?"
"Dr. Nieman," the woman said pleasantly, using a tone that made it sound like Kate had voluntarily come in for an appointment. "But you can call me Kelly."
"Doctor," Kate echoed, thinking of the child still growing inside her.
"Yes. Technically, I'm a plastic surgeon, but for my first year in med school I planned on going into gynecology and obstetrics." The doctor lay a hand on Kate's belly and despite the fact that it was covered in a purple medical glove, she could feel heat searing through onto her skin as thought she'd been touched with a red-hot poker that had just been removed from a burning pile of coals.
"No," she whimpered out, yanking her arms up with all the strength she possessed, but it was no use; she was tied too tightly.
"Oh no there's no need for that," the doctor said with nauseating sweetness. "You don't want to leave. We're the ones who are going to take good care of your baby."
Kate's mind was foggy and the words the woman said were barely registering or making sense. Despite the adrenaline coursing through her, she knew that she had been drugged somehow in order for them to get her out of her apartment and to whatever placed this was, presumably some sort of medical facility. This was it, she thought as the gravity of the situation settled over her; Tyson's endgame. It was the situation she had feared, but one she had mentally prepared for. She would not go down without a fight. She would do everything in her power to keep her baby out of Tyson's evil hands.
"No…no, no. My baby." She grumbled out. Her tongue felt thick, and she found forming words difficult, but she would still protest with every ounce of strength remaining inside of her.
The woman let out a chortle of laughter that could only be described as psychotic. She laughed for more than twenty seconds before looking Kate directly in the eye and saying, "Oh, Kate, haven't you figured it out by now? He was never your baby."
She fought against the restraints again and spat, "No. You can't…have him."
"Don't worry, Kate; he'll be in good hands."
"No! No! Cas'l—Cas'l…'ll find…y…" She grunted and dropped her head back against the table she was strapped to, she could feel a warmth spreading through her veins and the relaxation of her body was beyond her control.
"Don't worry Kate; we'll be sure to send Castle a picture of him once he's here…" was the last thing she heard before she drifted back to unconsciousness.
A/N: Thanks for reading!
