Well, I would have had this up sooner, but for those of you who don't live in or around the New England area and/or haven't heard about the ice storm that happened here last week, there's still a chunk of people who don't have power nearly a week later. It's been fun. Really. Anyway, I just made it back to my apartment to pick up my laptop since leaving on Saturday after they cut the tree that fell across my driveway out of my way and I still don't have power. They're hoping for the end of the week for a restoration - maybe. And now there's another storm on the way in. So I'm staying out of the area until the school I work at starts up athletics again - they don't have school until the new year now. So here's the next chapter, originally set to Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
Enjoy.
Chapter 4 – Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Booth came to with a start and immediately wished he hadn't. Blood had poured down over his eye during his extended period of blissful unconsciousness and had since sealed his eyelid shut. The jagged gash just above his hairline was still seeping and the fiery pain that was emanating from it led to the dizziness and nausea that were now threatening to throw him back into the realm of darkness. Fighting through the haze, the Army Ranger tentatively worked on opening the injured eye so that he could size up the environment he found himself in. The room was small and the floor was broken down cement…concrete, Bones would tell me cement is an ingredient in concrete, so the floor is actually concrete. There was a flickering light bulb that provided the area's only light source, and from where he lay on the cold floor, Booth could see that the door looked to be a well-made solid door. He couldn't remember how long he had been in this place, couldn't remember seeing or hearing anyone in the surrounding areas, and couldn't remember the last time he had seen food or water. The chill from the floor brought awareness of the lack of shirt covering Booth's torso, and it brought back memories of the last time he had found himself in this predicament. At least when Gallagher had him that time, his shirt had remained intact. The metal dog tags that signified his identity were gone as well, and the lack of weight around his neck was startling.
When the door slammed open some time later, Booth idly wondered how badly he had been hit when the men threatening him with guns and shouting in one of those languages that he should probably know from his time in country was more comforting than frightening. He knew this game better than he knew the solitude game. He had been starting to wonder if someone had abandoned him in the small room just before his captors had burst in. He could play along with this game and continue to wait for rescue. The pain meant nothing to him as long as he wasn't alone with his thoughts anymore. It gave him little time to wonder if he was going to be able to set foot on American soil ever again, be able to tell Bones that he needed her with him more than anything, be able to see his son smile.
The circumstances were always different when you were caught. The people were different; the cell you spent most of your blissful unconsciousness in was different. Hell, the reason you were taken is never the same. Only they all are. The people want to hurt you as a means to an end; the cell is always a prison with little to no chance to escape. Unconsciousness is a sequele to your brain being unable to function properly…oh God Bones, get out of my head. The reason for capture was always to tell the American government to back off, only in far more vulgar terms. It was all part of a process that Booth wished to a God he hoped was listening he was never a part of again. After this, I suppose.
Unlike last time he was a part of this, however, Booth was all alone in his cell. His spotter was nowhere to be found and the military in him found it unlikely that he was still alive. It made the screaming men and the haphazardly placed kicks that were fighting for dominance in his head easier to ignore when no one he knew was watching. He could simply curl in around his vital organs and distance himself from everything that was happening. One of his drill instructors had told him it was probably not unlike a schizophrenic split, but without the long-term psychological effects. The man had never been quite up to speed with the whole politically correct thing anyway, but Booth had gotten the picture all the same. This way was better. Let them do whatever they wanted to him and keep them from getting frenzied at the sound of his screams.
Booth thought of everything he could think of that would distract him. He recited the Act of Contrition in his head as well as the Nicene Creed and any other long prayer he could think of. He tried to remember as many of the bones in the body that his college-level anatomy class had made him memorize. He almost didn't feel the rib cracking and then splintering as a heavy boot stomped down on his chest. He definitely didn't see or feel the boot coming for the side of his head that sent him back into the darkness.
When Booth awoke again, he was mildly annoyed to find that he was not forgotten. Apparently someone forgot to tell these assholes that soccer requires a ball, not a person. One of the men was yelling something at him, but he had no hope of figuring out what was being said. He couldn't place the language, never mind trying to translate what was being said. He couldn't really hear over the ringing in his ears for that matter. He did, however, pick up fairly quickly that the man yelling was in charge. His dress was better, for one thing. And whatever the word for stop was in this language, when it was commanded by this man, there was no hesitation. Booth would come to love that word in the near future. He took solace in the momentary reprieve that this word granted him and used the time to catalogue his new injuries. He was sure that would be important later. Something about filling out reports and debriefing. He would have to figure that out when he got out of this place. If only the searing pain would stop long enough.
Booth's hands were shaking in front of his face as he waited for the onslaught to begin again. When it didn't, however, he chanced bringing them down so he could see what was going on. As he did, a bucket of cold, rancid smelling water was thrown over him, sending his body into involuntary spasms as it reacted to the temperature change. The thin layer of dirt that covered the concrete turned to mud that caked his bare torso and pants. He almost moaned at the offensive reaction to the liquid but caught himself in time. There was no good to be had with letting his captors have even the smallest victory. They would exploit it, no doubt, and the soldier wasn't sure he could take the added price.
He suppressed another shudder instead and forced his body to remain limp as it was lifted from the ground and deposited into a chair. His hands and feet were bound and a table was placed in front of him. Blood continued to drip from his chin as it washed away from where it had been caked around his eye. As a basin full of the foul smelling water was placed on the table in front of him, Booth began to take deep breaths meant to increase the oxygen levels in his blood as much as possible. He knew what was coming next.
A fist tangled into the short locks near the back of his neck made Booth snark inwardly at military regulation hair cuts. Clearly, his lack of strict adherence to this policy of late was coming back to haunt him. Someone squatted down next to him and drew his gaze away from the gray liquid. It sounded to Booth like the inflection of the man's voice signified a question had been asked of him, but all he could do was stare cluelessly at the man. It was easy not to break under pressure when he couldn't even understand what was expected of him.
Booth fought against the increased pressure behind his head until he was completely immersed in the water. At that point, he relaxed all of the muscles that he could and concentrated on the hand holding him there. He was searching for a lapse in the force so that he could break free of this new prison and gulp in some more oxygen before being forced under again. The first three times that he was thrust under the water, he was able to maintain the presence of mind to conserve energy and oxygen as much as possible, but as the time periods under water increased and those out of the water decreased, he slowly began to panic. He thrashed more readily each time he was put under, and strained against his bonds when he was pulled out, but he could see the blackness starting to encroach upon his field of vision.
Must stay awake. Must not panic. Must breathe. Must fight. Must stay awake.
Spots of light exploded in front of him as he was pushed under once more. He knew that there was no chance for reprieve unless the man at his left deemed it necessary, and knew that there was little hope for kindness that this would happen before he was unconscious. Oxygen was becoming more precious as he began to drift between awareness and instinct, and he tried to calm himself down as much as possible. He was vaguely aware of the ire in his tormentor's voice increasing each time he was lifted from the water and remained mute, but there was nothing he could do to fix it. He wasn't sure if, at this point, he would have bothered trying even if he could understand.
He was coughing up water now and trying not to spill the rest of his stomach contents into the basin. Booth felt more than saw the man stand angrily and heard him shout something at another one of the men, but he was becoming more and more detached with the situation with each passing minute. It felt like hours since he had welcomed the company of his captors over the solitude, and had he been capable of educated thought, would have laughed at himself.
Someone was screaming at him again, and he turned his head lazily to face the voice. The man was making wild gestures and pointing at himself while trying to look important. Booth had seen it numerous times when interrogating suspects back home and read the language as if it was clear as day.
"I…don't…understand…you." He finally managed to choke out between gasping breaths, but it did no good and he was shoved under again. As he felt the back of his head explode in pain from being hit, the expression beating a dead horse came to mind as he succumbed to his brain's need to shut down.
The tranquility that surrounded Booth as he finally came to awareness for long enough to take stock of his situation comforted him. There was no one else around, nothing to prove to him that this was nothing more than a nightmare except for the feeling that his entire body was on fire. And cold. All at the same time. He began to systematically check off which body parts were functioning and which were currently useless and was dismayed at the results. He could barely do more than wiggle fingers and toes without having to force off unconsciousness. Breathing was an effort that he almost didn't want to waste energy on, and every time he did manage to inhale, he could taste the brackish water that had been all around him. The smell of bile somewhere to his left alerted him to the fact that this wasn't the first time he had woken since being dropped back in his cell, and he tried to roll further away from the stink. He could feel bones rubbing against each other throughout his body and wondered what Brennan would have to say about that clinically.
Bones…oh God, Bones. Help me.
But he knew she couldn't. This wasn't like when he was FBI and stolen away by Gallagher. This wasn't like when he found her and saved her from Kenton or the Gravedigger. She may not even know he was missing, definitely wouldn't be able to do anything to find him. There would be no clues for her to find this time, no faith to hold strong to that he just had to hold on a little bit longer for her to figure everything out and come to his rescue. She had even reconciled with her father the last time in order to save him. But not this time. Not in these foreign grounds where he was as lost to her as he was to himself. But damn it all if he didn't hope that she would come bursting through that door to bring him home anyway. The soldier in him wanted her as far away from this place as possible. He knew she had been kept in a room like this once upon a time, too, and hoped that she never saw the likes of it again. But the man in him hoped beyond hope that he could feel her comfort again. That she would be able to take him in her arms and wash away the fears like he had promised to let her do if he ever got scared. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
Booth was unaware of how much time had passed. He had dissociated himself from the daily beatings and shouts that he couldn't bring himself to listen to. The words grated on his ears, fighting through the blood that was pooling in the canals and assaulting his nerves. Nothing mattered to him anymore. Not the pain, not the sense of loss, not the fact that he was slowly coming to believe that this was never going to end. He wasn't ready to admit that he might die here, though he knew it was a possibility, but he couldn't see anything in his future other than more pain and misery. There was no one else around him to help him, no one to beat back the pervasive feeling of being alone. There was simply nothing to change the fact that he was a prisoner and was not serving a purpose.
But then the stakes changed. His captors unknowingly gave him hope. He heard the sound of newspaper hitting the floor by his head. He saw the flash of the camera bulb. He knew that a ransom was being asked and with that meant the possibility of rescue. It pulled him back from toppling over the edge into despair and gave him some fleeting grasp of strength to endure whatever else they had in store for him.
The next time Booth awoke, he was unsure of what was happening around him. The confusion of hot and cold was gone; the broken bones throughout his body were muted in their battle for dominance of his attention; the pounding in his head and the cotton mouth feeling were missing. The smell of his grandmother's soup was invading his space. His grandmother's soup, which hadn't been made since the woman died when he was sixteen. And it was that which broke through the dream and woke him from his cocoon of safety.
He had been hallucinating for sometime now, and was never sure when he woke up if he was going to be assaulted with the harsh reality that he was stuck in, or attacked with the thoughts of being safe once more. The brevity of those moments always made coming back to his current situation that much harder to deal with, and he found himself longing to break away completely. Even if it was only a ruse. Even if it meant that there might not be any coming back from the brink. But then an image of Parker would cross his mind, or Brennan's words would drift by his ear, and he would fight that much harder to hang onto his sanity. There was nothing for him here, that he was sure of, but he couldn't let the people that he loved back home down. He had to be strong so that he could get back to them and be able to protect them once more.
Of course that was easier to believe when he was being ignored. When he was all alone with his scattered thoughts and jumbled images of home. When his captors came in to drag him off to yet another round of horror, it was getting easier and easier to notice that the sound of his heart beating wildly in his ears would be the only thing to keep him company through the pain.
Another day, another photo. Another round of kicks and punches that were meant to hurt. But Booth was so far removed from the minor annoyances of bruising flesh that it was just another day. Just another break in the solitude that kept him grounded in his situation. But then he heard it. The last time he had been captured as a soldier, the crackling sound had intrigued him and he had turned to investigate the sound. But this time, the sound of the electricity that raced through the steel wool sent violent shivers coursing throughout his once muscular frame. The familiarity with this new form of torture set instincts of flight into motion and he fought with everything he had to free himself from the chair he was bound to. Thoughts of remaining detached and keeping any sense of victory from his jailers were long gone as he cursed and fought to get away from this new hurt. The smell of burning flesh assaulted his nose before the pain worked its way through to his brain. The guttural noises that he could hear were coming from his own throat, and the sweat that raced down his bare back and chest mixed with blood from other recent injuries.
His body was still wracked with tremors when he was finally deposited back in his cell and he pulled himself to the furthest corner from the door where he curled up in a small ball and tried to still his muscles. It had taken them three weeks to break him, and the tears that cascaded down his face now were stinging the cuts that littered his skin. He wanted to be anywhere but here, wished for it to a God he wasn't sure he believed in at the moment, and to a forensic anthropologist who he knew couldn't hear him. He wanted nothing more than to be caught in another one of his hallucinations, and to never come out of it. Even if it meant never holding Parker or arguing with Brennan again. He couldn't take it anymore. He was done. He was broken.
Nothing mattered anymore. Not the number of scars that were across his chest where the steel burned him. Not the fractures in his ribs and everywhere else. Not the bruises and lacerations and abrasions. Every time his captors came in to his cell, he started to shake, to beg, to claw and kick and pour every ounce of his strength into remaining in the safety of his corner. His actions were useless, as he was one beaten man amongst many, but the fact that he was starting to fight back snapped something inside of him. Special Agent Seeley Booth was not a man to be taken lightly, and he was not one who would go down without a fight.
They had begun to underestimate him, and as his senses came back, the Army Ranger in him started to catalogue the mistakes they were making. Before, they had come in with guns pointed at his chest and head to keep him from attacking them. Before, they had come in and tied his hands and feet before they dragged him from his cell. Now, they were cocky. Now, they were lax. And now, Booth had the chance to take control of the situation once more. He had the chance to reclaim his strong persona, to show these men that they may have broken his body, but they hadn't crushed his indomitable spirit.
Fists flew with calculated paths and the soldier blocked out the pain that every blow he was dealing was shooting through his injuries. He grabbed one of his captors around the neck and let a small smile grace his mangled face as he heard bones break. There would be time later to regret that he had taken human life if he made it through this. If he didn't, then he knew that his actions would most likely cost him his life. But there was no life for him inside of this cell, no way for him to make his amends, so he welcomed the chance he was taking. After all, he was a reformed degenerate gambler; what end could be more fitting for him?
Booth was lost and trapped in his own Hell as he tried to outlast his captors and claim some semblance of his own dignity back once more. As he was overwhelmed and beaten to the ground, he knew it was worth it. He was smiling at the sight of three dead men, knowing that while they were added to his balance sheet, he had dished out some of what they gave to him. Blackness engulfed him once more to the sound of familiar yells and loud noises, but there was still a smile on his face.
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