Hey guys!

I totally suck for not updating soon enough (sorry) but this chapter is crucial! Hope you like & review mucho! Seriously, it would make my day, and with finals coming up soon, I need everything that can possibly go well to actually go well. Chem will be hard enough to pass as is!

Without further ado,

CHAPTER 5 - MORE TENACIOUS

TEMPE'S POV:

I wake up to a pounding in my head. I realize I have no idea where I am, what I'm doing, or why my side and head hurt so much. At that moment my head bangs against some sort of carpet. Did I pass out? Am I hung over? I don't feel sick. I must be. Carpet doesn't move. Something clicks my foggy mind. Cars have carpets. They move. I must be in a car. I start to check my body mentally and realize something warm and heavy is lying on my bare legs. I have nothing on but a hospital gown. Did I get drunk and sleep with some doctor in his car? I sound like Booth. Wait…Booth…Doctors… gunshot…

I blink a few times into the black cloth covering my eyes that I just now realize is a blindfold, relive the past 24 hours. Booth and I followed the clues… we found one of the missing girls, beaten, raped, barely alive… She told us where he was… we went looking…backup never showed… He knew we would come…the gun… fiery pain in my side, doubling over… Booth's eyes, torn between me, at one end of the room, crouching behind a crate, hiding from both him and the man on the other, running away in a typical black ski mask, shooting randomly… I told him to go… he followed him half a step then came to my side, helping me stand…

Both of us running through the second door and down the earthy steps into a damp, dirt hallway with 3 doors… opening the doors to the left and right…seeing the faces of the girls, some looking no more than 13… The six skinny, frightened, girls… the seventh one in the corner, dead eyes staring at the others, seeing nothing, waiting to become just another piece in the sick puzzle the pervert had set into motion…the one that's still in motion… Booth slamming through the third door, leaving me with the girls with the haunted eyes… cursing when he got away… coming back, calling 911, checking the girls… checking on me… not seeing or not wanting to see the blood on my clothes… taking me to the Jeffersonian to pick up some notes on the way to the hospital to see the girls… locking myself in… the hospital… his promise to take care of me… waking up to Angela … The ruggedly handsome, tall blonde doctor walking in, taking Angela's phone… shooting her… and Jack… Ang's soft, white sweater soaking up blood and coffee… His dark eyes… blank as he smashed the butt of his gun against my head…

The vehicle hits a bump again and I realize what the warm, soft thing lying on me is. It's Angela.

"Hanhela! Hange! Rake up!" My head spins as I try to get the words out around the tape over my mouth. When that doesn't work I try to wiggle around, trying to wake her, trying to free my wrists and ankles from their bindings and my eyes from their blindfold. All I succeed in doing is making my wrists raw and making myself even more uncomfortable. Angela is still out cold She's bleeding freely and if I weren't so worried about her I might appreciate the irony of the situation; the person that most wanted me to go to the hospital for my gunshot would is now being driven away from the hospital where she received her gunshot wound. The thought along with the fear and the smell of blood sickens me and I feel bile rise in my throat. I choke it down and force myself to focus. No sooner have I brought my bound ankles up to my hands to try to loosen the thick chord wrapped around them than whatever kind of vehicle we're being transported in comes to a jerky stop.

I lower my ankles back down and lay as still as possible, feeling the stitches in my side tear and the bandage covering them grow sticky. My focus shifts to listening and I hear rain. I hear a click and the doors to what I assume is a van open, letting in a wet, earthy sent. I hear heavy breathing and am jerked forward roughly by my wrists, nearly dislocating my shoulders. Another tug and I fall out, slamming my shoulder hard on what feels like wet leaves. I hear a grunt and a moment later I feel Angela fall on top of me. Where her limp body doesn't cover I feel a drop of water seep through my thin gown. Then another. And another. They're sporadic but I can hear them hitting something above my head as I lie on my back with Angela once again pinning my legs. There must be trees somewhere near us, hence the leaves we're lying on. I hear footsteps move to a little way away, shuffling, and a creak that makes me want to vomit again.

I feel Angela being dragged off of me, her clothes pulling my gown until I'm almost completely exposed. I listen as he drags her to where the creak was and I hear a dull thump. I work on staying completely still as he grabs me by my wrists again and yanks me a few feet before lifting me and pushing me roughly forward. Before I think to try and catch myself I fall forward, and for a moment am weightless before I crash into lightly packed dirt. The dirt scrapes my arm and face as I slide a few inches and enters my nose. I snort, trying to dislodge it, now not caring if my captor realizes I'm awake or not. The fall pulled my blindfold down enough so I can see but at the moment I wish I couldn't.

There's a dim light coming from the opening I was just pushed through and the blonde man, still in his coffee and blood-spattered scrubs, is repelling down a rope. Angela and I have seen his face. Kidnappers don't let you see their face unless they're going to kill you or they want to get caught. With the look on his face, along with his M.O., I'm leaning toward killing. He's staring at me so he must know I'm awake. I struggle futilely to stand and he chuckles.

"Ah, Temperance Brennan. Pleasure to meet you finally! I was wondering when I would get to meet the woman that takes such good care of my girls after I'm done with them." He smiled pleasantly, as if we were discussing the weather. I rise on to my knees sharply in fury, feeling another stitch pop. He saunters over and carelessly rips the tape from my mouth before turning his back on me and strolling over to kick Ang. He is playing with me, showing me how much I do not matter and can not hurt him. He doesn't even consider me enough of a threat to watch his back.

"I 'took care' of Alyssa Jotson and Danielle Antoch after you left their bodies in the woods, so mutilated beyond recognition the only way to tell who they were was by asking the other girls you brutalized who else was with them before you murdered them! My partner and I found Emily Cleek in the woods-" My voice rises with each word, fury making my blood hot in the cold, underground room. His face barely changes as he wanders over to me, taking my stinging jaw in his hand and forcing me to look at him. He slowly pulls the blindfold all the way off so I can see him with both eyes. He leans down and captures my lips with his, pulling at my lower lip until he draws blood. I spit it at him when he pulls away.

"I've never been with a brunette before, Doctor. You seem to be a bit more… tenacious than I'm used to." He says as he wipes the bloody saliva from his cheek with a chuckle. Without warning his hand shoots out and he pushes back, forcing me from my knees onto my back, straddling me. I gasp for air and he runs a finger down my face, taking in my features. I buck, trying to get him off me but hurting my side as his thighs squeeze into me. I go limp, hoping he'll get off me if he thinks I've fainted. He loosens his grip and reaches around my neck to untie the single string holding my gown on. In a heart beat I know what he's planning to do. Before I can react he slumps over me, his grip relaxed. I open my eyes to see Ang lying beside me, eyes still blindfolded, her bound feet extended behind where our kidnapper was a second ago, hands pressed tightly to her bloody side. Apparently she's a much better actor than I.