Author's Note: This chapter is a little ... dark. The procedure desribed in the following chapter is real; it did indeed exist in China around 900 A.D. and was outlawed around 1905. Further information can be found on Wikipedia. This procedure is why the story is rated T. On a lighter note, thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed so far! I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Temperance drifted. She was unsure if she slept, or merely slipped in and out of consciousness. She had lain on the table for what felt like ages, immobile and alone. Every so often she could hear shuffling as Earl moved about in the adjoining room, but that was all. The air was still, suggesting that he had turned off the fan. She had stayed like that for an indeterminable amount of time before dozing off, and from then she had simply drifted. Memories played against her closed eye lids, bright memories of a park and a picnic with her family. Every few moments the memory would change, and she'd go from seeing her mother's smiling face to seeing Angela, then Booth and everyone at the lab. A distant, sleeping part of her stirred at the memories, sparked a response deep in her heart.
She blinked as the memories slid away, dropping her back into the waking world. She was disappointed that the memories had gone and left her staring once more at the drab ceiling. She had stopped trying to gather information awhile ago, sometime after her captor had told her where she was. None of it mattered, anyway, since it didn't look like she would be getting away. A voice chirped loudly in her head, reminding her that that was jumping to a conclusion, and she didn't do that.
Footsteps. She turned her head to the left, where the only door in the room was. Earl emerged from the hallway then, and even gave her a sick smile upon seeing her eyes on him.
"You asked for him, you know," He stated
"What?"
"You asked for him, in your sleep. You said his name."
"You must be mistaken," She said calmly, "I don't talk in my sleep."
"Maybe not, when you're sleep is natural," He agreed, then held up an empty syringe, "But you refused to sleep, so I had to help you."
"What did you give me?" She demanded
"Relax, Doc. It's just a sedative. I also took the liberty of asking for your office fax number while you were out. Turns out, you can be very helpful."
He grinned at her, a sick variation of a real smile. Disgusted, she turned her head away from him. She ran through a list of sedatives in her head that he could be using, but it was a long list. She thought for a moment longer, then narrowed the list. Whatever it was, it was widely available; once she had shortened the list with that assumption, she decided the most likely one was Phenobarbital.
"Do you have any children, Doc?"
The question caught her entirely off guard. She whipped her head around to look at him, ignoring the runaway train of thought in her head. Had she given away Parker's existence? Had she said his name while she was drugged? If she had given away the little boy's existence … she squashed the thought.
"No," She said tersely
"Not surprising, really. I don't imagine that Seeley would want children."
"I'm the one who doesn't want children," She corrected automatically
This was a dangerous conversation, and she needed to make sure that the focus remained on her and not on Booth. She could in no way insinuate that he had a child.
"Now that is a surprise."
"Why, because I'm a woman?" She challenged, feeling a familiar rebellious spark
"Of course. It's widely accepted that the maternal instinct is in many ways stronger than the paternal instinct."
"Widely accepted, you say. Meaning that there is no concrete evidence to support that statement as factual, therefore rendering it unbelievable."
"Well you're quite the logical one, aren't you?" He prodded, "Seeley must drive you crazy with the way he always jumps to conclusions."
"I'm learning to adjust."
Earl, who had come into the room and was moving about as he spoke, put his hands on something she had not noticed before. He shuffled to her side pushing a metal cart she recognized as one that was normally used to hold surgical instruments. Fear licked at her insides when she saw it, and her brain began to imagine what could possibly be on the cart. The cart was actually shorter than the table that held her, and as he got closer she was able to see for herself what it held. Various scalpels and drills littered the top, along with several sets of tweezers in varying sizes.
"My wife was destroyed by Steven's death," Earl began as he arranged the instruments on the cart, "She was a strong woman, but she just couldn't handle it."
"Steven … is that your son?" Bones asked, her eyes never leaving the cart
"Steven was my son. He's dead now, thanks to your lover. Lily - my wife - died thirteen months after my son, almost to the day. That's when I knew."
"Knew what?"
She was doing her best to control the fear boiling in the pit of her stomach, trying to keep her captor talking. She was unsure of what exactly she was hoping to accomplish, since logically speaking she was only trying to delay the inevitable. There was no way to know that her team was looking for her, or if they were that they would save her in time to stop this from happening. Whatever Earl was planning to do, she was certain that he would get away with it. A part of her wanted to ask him what he planned, but there was a smaller part of her that was too afraid.
How strange it was, how contradictory to her nature that Brennan was lying now on a table not so unlike the ones she rested her victims on. She was at war with the fear she found in herself at this moment. Many times in her life she'd been in danger, but then she had always had a way to fight back. Here, in this case, she was rendered almost completely motionless.
Earl's voice brought her back to the present.
"That's when I knew that Seeley Booth had to pay. I spent years trying to figure out how to do it, and then one day the answer just fell into my lap. I was working at a cemetery as a caretaker when I saw him about a hundred feet away. He was just sitting there, his head down, and you were with him. You put your hand on his arm, and he took your hand, and I knew. You were my answer."
"You were working at a cemetery? That's a little ironic," She jabbed, sounding braver than she felt
"I don't see any irony in the situation," He said sharply, angrily, "Now would not be a good time for you to develop a sense of sarcasm, Doc. Leave that to your lover."
She wanted to correct him, to tell him that she was not Booth's lover, but a lot depended on him believing exactly that. She had become so accustomed to correcting people when it came to her relationship with her partner that she almost did it without thinking now. She had gotten good at denying that there was anything there more than friendship; so good, in fact, that she could almost believe it sometimes.
Brennan would never admit it aloud, but she had had romantic feelings for her partner for some time now. There had been moments where she was almost positive that he, too, felt something more than friendship for her. Once or twice she had thought that he was even going to kiss her, and then something happened or someone interrupted them. She had started to think it would never happen, and then Caroline Julian had given her the chance. Kissing Booth under the mistletoe … that was it for her. That was when she had officially stopped trying to convince herself that she felt nothing for him.
"You said you've studied the ancient Chinese, Dr. Brennan?" Earl queried
Brennan glanced at him. He was asking her about the Chinese again, which meant that his mind had wandered away from the topic of children. She was thankful that Parker was still safe, that she had somehow gotten his mind off of that topic.
"Yes," She answered
"Extensively?"
"I have been invited to China on more than one occasion, mostly to identify the remains of what was thought to be several of the Emperor's personal guard."
"Fascinating. I, too, am quite fond of their history. Although I'm sure we view it in different lights. Tell me, Doc, are you at all familiar with the ancient's way of punishing their criminals?"
She did not like where this conversation was going. She was starting to panic, and her brain refused to bring up any information on what the man was asking.
"No, I don't think I am," She responded, trying to keep her voice even
"Then let me enlighten you. Beginning sometime roughly around 900 AD, the Chinese developed a form of torture they called Lingchi, or slow slicing as some called it. Reserved for the severest of crimes, they would tie the person to some variation of a table and then cut the flesh away from the body."
Brennan had looked upon death, had worked on bodies in various states and degrees of decomposition without ever feeling the need to puke. Now, harnessed to the cold metal table, hearing her captor lovingly describe what he was going to do to her … it was all she could do not to vomit.
"Now, I'm making a few changes to fit my purpose of course, but for the most part I shall remain true to history. In all likelihood, the whole process was quick, lasting no more than twenty or so minutes. That won't work for me, though."
He continued speaking, but Brennan didn't hear him. A thousand questions tumbled around in her head, rolling and colliding with useless information about the body's ability to cope with the massive amounts of blood loss that would certainly accompany such a barbaric act. Her extremities, cold from the lack of activity and slow blood flow, began to tingle as her brain flooded her body with adrenaline.
Her thoughts drifted back to her partner. Where was Booth? Why hadn't he found her yet? Surely she had been gone for days by now, surely her team had noticed her absence? Booth had always found her in the past, had always come to her rescue. He was good at saving people, she knew that first hand. So where was he now, when she was the one who needed saving? In the back of her mind, a nasty little voice whispered to her. That voice told her that he wasn't coming, that he had deserted her, just as her family had. That voice told her that all of her rationale and logic wasn't enough to save her now, that she was going to die here.
She began to squirm as best she could, tried to strain against the bindings that kept her still. Her efforts were futile, but still she tried. Her logic, always there to help her make decisions and do her job, turned on her then. Logically, there was no way she could break the bindings. Logically, she was stuck exactly where she was.
Brennan didn't want logic. She wanted hope, she wanted life. She wanted to find a way off this table before the crazy bastard next to her started slicing away portions of her flesh. She wanted to see Angela again, to tease Sweets for looking like an adolescent, to kiss Seeley Booth. Logic be damned, Temperance did not want to die.
"Now, lie still, Dr. Brennan," Earl instructed her, "Movement on your part will only make the process worse."
"Please," She began to beg, her voice breaking as the tears threatened to spill, "Please, Earl, don't do this."
"Shh. Quiet now, Doc. I need to concentrate."
She was horrified to feel pressure on her left leg, just above her ankle. She could feel the sharp edge of the scalpel as he put it to her flesh. All the other times he had sedated her, yet this sick and twisted bastard was going to leave her fully conscious as he ripped away her flesh. Her mind revolted at the thought; no human being could be this cruel. Logically, she knew they could because she had seen the effects of such cruelty time and time again.
Searing pain tore up her leg, poisoning her body. She could feel something warm and sticky running down the sides of her leg - her own blood. Her captor dug the scalpel into her skin, the pain setting fire to the rest of her body. She tried to shy away from the feeling, but the movement made it worse. Never had Temperance known a pain such as this.
Faces flitted through her mind in disjointed pictures, filling her vision. There was Booth, handing her a toy Smurf; her father, smiling at her as he came to hug her on the courthouse steps; Russ at the window, smiling and calling "Marco".
The world began to swim before her, the faces of her loved ones fading into a murky black pool of water. The last thing Brennan was aware of before slipping into unconsciousness was the tangy, metallic smell of her own blood.
