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Chapter 14:
Bump in the night
"What the hell happened Detective McKinley?" Chief Vick demanded as he, Lassiter, Juliet, Henry, and McNab were standing in her office. Shawn and Gus were listening on the other side of the closed door.
"I was pissed off Chief. I was having a bad day and I went inside BoBo's."
Barely containing his anger and hatred for the detective, Lassiter said through clenched teeth, "But you had to have heard a freaking car cash! Why didn't you go outside to investigate?"
"I don't know. I'm sorry we all can't be as perfect as you Lassiter."
"Detective McKinley you will respect his authority as second in command of this department. And as such you will answer his question."
Now through his own clenched teeth, McKinley said "I did answer his question. I don't know."
"Well that's not good enough McKinley. We're in the middle of a grisly series of murders and we have...had two people to protect. One of which was a child. You don't have the time to not know WHY THE HELL YOU COULDN'T DO YOUR DAMN JOB!" Lassiter bellowed as he turned a dangerous shade of red. The Head Detective's yell was so ferocious that it rang through to the front of the lobby. The occupants in the room, plus the two listening outside the door, agreed whole heartedly with the enraged Lassiter.
After a few moments in angry silence, the Chief spoke up, "Detective McKinley. Detective Lassiter is right. You're careless attitude not only has clouded your mind but also your judgement. For several weeks now I've seen and heard from others that you've not been holding your own in this case. But this particular incident takes the cake. So Detective McKinley, you are hereby suspended without pay until further notice. Hand over your badge and your gun."
"What? This isn't right! You can't afford to lose me! Especially not with this case."
"We've been managing so far," Henry tersely said.
After taking one last look around the room McKinley said, "You know what...fine." As he roughly handed his gun and badge to the Chief.
McKinley then shoved the door open and it crashed against Shawn and Gus who then tried to look as if they weren't there and didn't just eavesdrop. The suspended detective roughly shoved past them and out of the precinct.
Shawn let out a low whistle saying, "Wow that's one angry dude." No one responded and then Shawn spoke up again, "We'll find her Lassie."
"Mr. Spencer's right Carlton. Time is of the essence. Go!"
With that Lassiter stepped outside of the office and bellowed, "Listen Up!" All of the officers gathered around and paid attention to Lassiter. "As some of you know already, we've got a missing child out there right now. I want an BOLO on the car that sped away from the accident earlier at BoBo's donut shop. Canvas the area. For those of you who aren't doing those things, I want you on a search party! Unfortunately we can't spare everyone but it is a top priority. So let's go!"
As everyone dispersed to their new tasks, Shawn and Gus waited surprisingly patiently and then approached Juliet. "Jules what can we do?"
"Guys it'd help a huge deal if you could be out looking as well. And Shawn the moment you get a vision, a feeling, or anything about Mia you call okay." Juliet said as she glanced over at Lassiter as he starred at Mia's favorite bear Cuddles that was left at the scene. Looking back Shawn and Gus Juliet said, "Please guys."
Abandoned Factory...
In an abandoned factory on the edge of town, Mia sat tied up to a chair crying. She was hurt, scared, and hungry. Soon a big muscular man came in, "Hello Mia. My name's Grady. I'm going to make this real simple kid. You answer our questions and we don't hurt you. If you don't you will get hurt. Got it?" A shiver of fear shot through the little girl as she nodded.
34 very long hours later...
It was currently 2:30am a day and a half later, Lassiter found himself sitting in his bedroom alone going over the witness statements of Mia's kidnapping. Vick had sent Juliet and himself home for the night. After a devastating blow earlier that day, with Shawn having a 'vision' about a location and only to find no one was there, Vick really wanted them to get some rest.
But in the dark of this night, Lassiter got tired of waiting for the normal means of finding the little girl that he started to think of as his own. And Lassiter then made a drastic decision. The Head Detective was going to use his newly acquired powers to find his ward and bring her home.
As he stepped out into the night, Lassiter transformed into his new sleek black form in mere seconds. In this form, his already heightened senses tripled and took him a few moments to adjust. Once he had, Lassiter started running as fast as he could to the scene of the crime: BoBo's donut shop.
Once there the monstrous Lassiter sniffed the air and picked up on three smells: Mia and two men. Lassiter snarled and started back his on rescue mission. Due to the unusual business of this night, Lassiter decided against running through traffic. So instead, and at an alarming rate of speed, he ran across buildings and leaped over rooftops until he was finally out of the city.
Even though the scents were much harder to follow due to the kidnappers were originally in a car, the trail wasn't impossible to follow.
The monstrous Lassiter finally came to where he believed his Mia was. The scent trail stops at an abandoned factory.
With his mind still in Recon mode, Lassiter scaled half the building before landing on an open windowsill. As Lassiter crept inside, he made sure to be careful of any creaky spots in the floor. As Lassiter descended a metal staircase in utter silence noticed that in front of him were three guards.
At seeing that the three guards were armed with automatic weapons, Lassiter's arms turned into seemingly endlessly long, sleek, black tentacles and another of the same color tentacle shot out of his chest and grabbed the unsuspecting guards by their necks. The three guards were dragged back toward the monstrous Head Detective as they desperately tried clawing off the offending tentacles. By the time they reached Lassiter the three guards were knocked out due to lack of oxygen. Before Lassiter continued through the factory, he first propped the guards up in a janitorial closet. If I was any less of man...this would be funny.
After forty minutes of searching, Lassiter finally found his girl. Standing on a catwalk shrouded in darkness and shadows, Lassiter saw Mia blind folded and tied up to a chair locked behind bars. The Head Detective also saw four people standing around talking in front of the makeshift jail cell.
However his cover was blown, with a loud "Intruder!" And three armed men flanked the monstrous Lassiter on either side of the catwalk. Thinking fast, Lassiter jumped over the railing and allowed gravity to aid his descent on the four guards below.
As soon as he landed, Lassiter reached down immediately and grabbed the foot of the guard closest to him and start swinging the man around like a rang doll knocking down the guards. Then Lassiter started slamming the man into the concrete leaving a man shaped hole there. But as he approached Mia's cage, he felt the other guards shooting at him. In the back of his mind, Lassiter was surprised the rain of bullets being shot at his body only felt like a million small fingers flicking him. Thinking of Mia's safety, Lassiter shot a large portion of his gooey body over the bars to reflect the bullets.
As he turned around, Lassiter bared his two rows of deadly fangs at the guards and launched himself into the air aiming for the shooters.
With deadly precision, Lassiter chomped down on one guard's rifle and bit in two. Scaring the man previously holding as he pushed through his comrades and ran away.
And within mere minutes, Lassiter had disarmed and beat the other guards into the blissful rest of unconsciousness.
Lassiter jumped down from the catwalk again and absorbed the ooze protecting Mia's cage back into himself.
And with his deadly sharp claws, Lassiter sliced through the bars of the cage and lifted the crying girl into his massive arms. With the terrified Mia in his arms. Lassiter rushed out of the room; however, he had to duck into a small room as he heard more guards coming to capture them.
The room was pretty small and dimly lit, but it was going to serve them well as he tried to calm the child. Before bringing down the blindfold on Mia's face, Lassiter allowed his face to transform back to normal. He couldn't allow for the rest of his body to revert to normal due to the dangerous situation still lurking outside the room.
As the blindfold came off of her face, Mia blinked a few times as her puffy eyes adjusted to the dim light of the room. As her eyes finally adjusted, Mia heard the voice she'd been longing to hear.
"Mia…Mia it's me. Are you okay?"
Mia titled her head upwards to look into Lassiter's normal blue eyes. "Mr. Car!" she said in a shaky but excited voice. "Keep it down sweetie. I've got to get us out of here in one piece."
"Mr. Car…why do you look so different?"
Not in the position to explain the situation to a six year old, Lassiter partially lied saying, "I have a parasite. It did this to me, but I'm okay. And regardless of my condition, I'm going to keep my promise to you and get you home safe."
During his explanation, Mia felt the slightly moist and sticky texture of Lassiter's new form. She wasn't afraid of him at all. She said to him with confidence, "I told the bad men that you'd come for me and that they'd be sorry Mr. Car. They didn't listen."
"They should've listened," Lassiter said with a friendly smile that revealed his sharp canines. But then a bruise on her the side of her face caught his attention. Bringing his huge meaty claw to her face, Lassiter moved her face to the right so he could see the bruise more clearly.
A deep growl rumbled through the back of his throat, "Mia, did the bad men do this to you?" Mia simply gave him a shaky nod, which caused Lassiter's growl to become deeper and darker in timbre.
"Alright. Well I'm going to get you home. But I need your help. Can you help me?" Lassiter asked. Mia now no longer afraid nodded excitedly.
"I need you to not be scared. My face is about to change because of this parasite I've got. Okay?" "Okay Mr. Car." With that Lassiter's face immediately changed back into his reptile face full of sharp teeth. And much to his surprise and relief, Mia truly wasn't scared. The little girl went as far as to reach for his large clawed hand and wrap her tiny hand around one of his own huge talon like fingers.
"Alright Mia…sleep tight." Lassiter said as he tapped her forehead gently with the tip of a clawed finger and she immediately went to sleep into his waiting arms. The Irishman didn't know how he knew to do this, but it worked.
Lassiter then placed her on his back, and had the oozy substance of his body ripple over and engulf the child into himself. Yet again, Lassiter didn't know how he had done this but he felt the little girl being cradled gently inside of the obsidian mass that was his body. Lassiter shuddered a little bit because even though she was safe inside of his form, it still creeped him out.
Shoving the feeling aside, Lassiter then left the small room and jumped into the fray of guards waiting outside. At some point, Lassiter bared his fangs and lolled his long tongue out of his maw as he released a massive roar at one particular guard who shot him with a particularly large amount of ammunition.
Once the fight was over, Lassiter had the presence of mind to grab the phone of the only guard who died in the fight, due to a ricocheting bullet, and dialed his own home phone and desk phone. Before crushing the dead man's phone in his fist. That'll take care of how I found Mia. And because the fight was already over all I had to do was get the kid. Lassiter thought as he planned an alibi.
With that Lassiter ran home as carefully as he could with the precious cargo he was holding within.
Once Lassiter made it inside through his back door, his body released Mia from the dark confines of his viscid back and he gently placed her on the couch. Mia woke up from her slumber before Lassiter could transform back and she surprised him yet again by standing on the sofa and hugged what she could of his ginormous form.
"Thank you for saving me Mr. Car."
"Of course Mia," Lassiter rumbled in a very deep voice. As Mia released him, Lassiter transformed back and sat next to the child, who clambered into his awaiting lap.
"Mia…I want you to help me again." Lassiter seriously. "I'll help you!" Mia said.
"I need you to keep my…parasite a secret just between you and me for right now. Okay? Can you help me with that?" Lassiter knew his request was wrong on so many levels to ask this of a six year old but he still didn't have a complete clue as to what he, himself, was anymore. And until he found out he didn't want to cause an unnecessary alarm.
"Would you get in trouble?" Mia asked innocently.
"I didn't do anything wrong…but yes I think I would."
"Okay Mr. Car. I pinky promise to not tell anyone!" Mia said holding up her pinky to Lassiter. To which, Lassiter smirked and clamped his long, normal, finger around Mia's.
Early the next morning…
Lassiter explained to the chief and his colleagues that he had received a call from an unknown caller in the middle of the night about where Mia was. Once he got there though, there was a huge amount of unconscious guards on the ground. And as he went to get Mia an unknown person starting fighting the rest of the guards. Lassiter got a verbal reprimand and a warning given by the Chief but was given very little leeway because he hadn't slept in "Who knows how long."
Because Mia was found, everyone was able to get back to their other jobs of solving this serial killer case. Back at his desk, Lassiter leaned back in his chair taking a deep sigh of relief. Then he was approached by Juliet. "I'm glad that Mia is back. How is she?"
"She one tough little girl. She's okay…she decided to sleep with me last night. It reminded me of when Lulu was really little."
"That's nice! But how are you doing?"
"I'll be a whole lot better when the CSI crew comes back from that factory Mia was in. And I'll be downright ecstatic in having this serial killer behind bars."
But she still lingered by his desk and Lassiter could hear his partner's heart race with anxiousness. "Are you okay, O'Hara?"
"I just wished that you'd tell me what's really going on with you."
Lassiter paused and decided to soothe her worry for the time being. "O'Hara…I can't tell you what's wrong with me because I'm honestly not sure what it is going on with me. And it terrifies me."
"Carlton…you're not alone. Tell me and let me help you."
"Give me some time and I promise you…I will tell you."
Juliet was pleased by this and let it go for the time being. But as she retreated back to her desk, Lassiter thought, Oh O'Hara...Juliet...the secret side of me I never let you see. I keep it caged, but I can't control it. So stay away from me, the beast is ugly. I feel the rage and I just can't hold it. It's scratching on the walls, in the closet, in the halls. It comes awake and I can't control it. Hiding under the bed, in my body, in my head. Why won't somebody come and save me from this?! Make it end!
I feel it deep within, It's just beneath the skin. I must confess that I feel like a monster! I hate what I've become. The nightmare's just begun. I must confess that I feel like a monster. My secret side I keep hid under lock and key. I keep it caged but I can't control it. Cause if I let him out, he'll tear me up and break me down. Why won't somebody come and save me from this? Make it end! I feel it deep within, It's just beneath the skin I must confess that I feel like a monster. I hate what I've become. The nightmare's just begun I must confess that I feel like a monster. It's hiding in the dark. Its teeth are razor sharp there's no escape for me. It wants my soul, It wants my heart. No one can hear me scream. Maybe it's just a dream or maybe it's inside of me. Stop this monster! I feel it deep within, It's just beneath the skin. I must confess that I feel like a monster. I hate what I've become the nightmare's just begun. I must confess that I feel like a monster! I feel like a monster!
TBC
A/N: Lassiter's thoughts at the end are the lyrics to Skillet's song Monster. Continue to enjoy. R/R!