The lights inside the house were still on, a yellow glow filtering out from the windows as Booth and Brennan pulled up. Angela and Hodgins pulled up next to the curb, waiting to pick up Michael. Booth smirked at the sight of all the lights, it had gotten considerably dark since they left the Jeffersonian, but he figured the lights had been on even when the sun was shining. No matter how many times Brennan lectured Christine on conserving electricity, it never seemed to get through to her.
He bounded up the steps, hearing nothing as he stepped closer to the door. No voices, no music, no TV. Maybe they had fallen asleep? It had happened more than once, both kids had been studying for a test the next day, and had fallen asleep on the couch with their books still in their laps. He had taken a picture of that, he still had it, even though Christine had asked him to delete it from his phone.
As he opened the door, a chill ran down his spine, the hairs on the back of his neck standing. Booth frowned slightly, feeling a draft that seemed to come from the kitchen. An open window? The thought didn't calm his nerves, but bundled them tighter. He took a tentative step further inside the house, before moving towards the living room. The couch was empty, only small wrinkles in the fabric as evidence that Christine and Michael had been there.
Brennan had looked around the kitchen, finding their backpacks and textbooks lying on the table along with a half empty yogurt container. She glanced almost nervously towards Booth before looking towards the staircase. She stepped towards the base of the stairs, and called for their names.
"Michael? Christine?" She asked, not necessarily yelling, but loud enough to hear through the house. She counted to three, waiting for a reply, but got none.
Booth shoved his hands in his pocket, following the source of the draft to find the back door was wide open, "Bones."
Brennan looked towards him, "You think they could be out in the forest?"
"The door's open," He answered simply, "Get me a flashlight."
She rushed towards one of the kitchen drawers and pulled out a heavy duty flashlight and extra batteries. Booth had always insisted on carrying extra batteries ever since the first time a flashlight had failed him. He had been so embarrassed by loosing a suspect in the dark because his light died and swore that it would never happen again. Brennan found that this was unnecessary, the batteries took up more space than needed.
Booth took the light and batteries gratefully, flicking it on and traveled down the patio and towards the back gate that led into the dense trees. He ran the light across the trunks, to see if he could catch a glimpse of anything shiny or human-like. He found nothing. Booth gave a heavy sigh, he was definitely going to talk to Christine about staying out in the woods after dark. Brennan followed from behind, carrying her own, smaller, flashlight.
It was easy to find where they had gone, Booth could tell that Christine and Michael hadn't even tried to hide their being there. What Booth couldn't understand was the less noticeable trail, almost invisible in the dark, and compared to the tracks that Christine and Michael had left, it looked like a small animal's. But when the paths merged almost perfectly, the one disappearing completely, Booth's pace quickened. He prayed Christine had been practicing "treading lightly" as she would put it.
"Booth?" Brennan's voice grabbed his attention, stopping him in his tracks.
"Yeah, Bones?" He called back, flashing his light over in her direction.
She held up a pair of broken glasses with the tip of a pen, "Are these Michael's?"
Something caught in his throat but he forced it down, "They look a lot like the ones he wears."
As Brennan took out an evidence bag to put the glasses in, Booth almost cussed but instead asked, "What are you doing?"
She looked up, "This doesn't look like an accident..." her voice faltered.
Just as Booth moved towards her, a glint on the ground caught his attention. He flashed the light over the ground again, seeing shards of glass sparkle from the reflection. Specks of blood and some sort of fabric clung to the glass, giving an eery look to the entire area.
He was about to say something, say anything to break the silence between him and Brennan, but the buzz from his phone kept him from doing so. He pulled it out from his pocket, "Booth."
"We have your daughter and her friend. If we don't have four million dollars in locker 307 at Capitol South Metro Station in eight hours, they both die. You will hear from me in two hours."
The voice was distorted, an all too clear reminder of the Gravediggers messages.
"Booth?" Brennan asked, stepping closer, she looked concerned, "Who was that?"
He let his hands drop to his sides, "Someone has her. Bones... someone has Christine and Michael."
It was dark, almost impossible to see. Not much different from what Christine remembered from her earlier predicament. She tried to move her arms and legs, only to feel the uncomfortable pinch and sticky residue from duct tape. Both her ankles had been taped to the chair legs, making it impossible to stand or kick, and her hands had been pulled behind her back, taped at the wrists.
Christine looked around, trying to decipher where she could possibly be, but with no visible windows or lighting, it was extremely hard. She closed her eyes, just because she couldn't see didn't mean she couldn't figure out where she was. She had learned that from Hodgins, he had always told Michael and her that you could get a basic idea of your location just by the objects around you. Namely bugs, slime, and dirt.
Sucking a deep breath of air, she got a taste of her location. A damp, moldy room. That was it. Christine gave a puff of breath, groaning. How would that help? Unless she knew what type of mold and could see the bugs that were crawling up her legs, there was no way of telling where she was, and even then, that wouldn't really help. Maybe she was underground. Or above ground. But then how could it be so dark? She agreed with herself, definitely underground.
Mumbling came from in front of her, too low and muffled to be from inside the room. A man was talking, possibly into the phone, but as far as what he was saying, she couldn't tell. The thought of Michael popped into her head after a few seconds of listening. He had been with her when they were attacked. Was he in the room?
"Michael?" She asked, her voice gravelly and hardly recognizable.
No answer.
"Michael!" She called again, only to hear the ear splitting screech of a door opening.
She must be somewhere with a lot of water. With all the mold, possibly rust, and that musty smell, it would be unlikely she was in the desert. Light filled the room, a painful shock to her eyes as a tall, dark figure stepped inside. Christine squinted up at the man, it was too dark to see what he looked like, her mind was reeling with information she could get. He was the same height as the man from the night before... or whenever that was exactly, the same build, the same everything. It was extremely likely that this was the same man. Her captor.
"Where's Michael?" Christine asked, trying to sound harsh, only to hear her voice crack. She was terrified.
At first, she gained no answer, as she opened her mouth to ask again, a booming voice replied. "He's somewhere else."
Christine bit her lip, glancing at the room. Rust, metal, the walls and floor were damp, something looked like blood smears, piping ran across the ceiling, and a drain sat in the middle of the floor.
"What do you want from us?" She asked, warming up to using her voice.
She heard a chuckle, "What do you think?"
"Money, revenge...? I could go on if you'd like," Christine searched for where his eyes could be but felt as if she were just staring at his forehead.
There was a long pause, causing her eyes to shift to the floor. He towered over her, even more so when she was sitting down. It was hard to look at him, even though she had no idea what her really looked like. If she got out of this, she wouldn't be able to say what he looked like, just what his voice sounded like and that he was tall. The latter was pretty useless, DC was a large city, and with all the men that were 6'4'', that type of information wasn't helpful in finding a specific person. Christine glanced behind him and into the hallway. From the greenish blue hue that filtered into the room, she could guess there was florescent lighting, everything else looked the same as inside the room she was already in.
"If your parent's listen to the warning, you and your friend will be out in a few hours." He said after a while.
He stepped back out from the room, his hand on the steal door, about to close it with an ear piercing shriek, Christine called out to him, "What if I have to go to the bathroom?"
She heard a laugh, "That's what the drain's for, sweetheart."
Booth slammed his key card into the machine, jogging up to the platform at the Jeffersonian, the others close behind. When he had told Hodgins and Angela about the call, they collected all traces of Christine and Michael before heading to the lab. Cam was on her way to meet them. Hodgins slammed his fist against the table and let out another cuss, his face bright red. He was flustered, just like everyone else. They had all dealt with kidnappings before, but this time it was their children. This seemed to cross an invisible line even worse than harming a partner.
"Dammit!" Hodgins yelled even louder then before.
Angela placed her hands on his shoulders, "Jack," she said quietly.
He stared at her incredulously for a few seconds before cooling down, "I-I just feel so useless."
"I know..." She said calmly, "I do too, but we'll find them." The comment seemed to be more for herself then for her husband, but it seemed to comfort everyone in the room.
There were a few moments of brief silence, no one wanted to look at the evidence, at what this could all mean. It seemed so unreal, all were hoping it was just another nightmare. But they all knew it wasn't, they needed to find whoever was doing this within the next eight hours or else their children would die. Bones opened her mouth, ready to jump into action but was cut off.
Cam charged through the sliding glass doors, "Alright, what are we up against?"
Booth rubbed the back of his neck, "They want money. That's all I could tell, and they sounded pretty serious."
She exchanged looks with the rest of the team, "Then why don't you give them what they want? Pay the money, get the kids."
"Because," Booth sighed, leaning against an examination table, "We don't know if they'll kill them anyways. It's happened before."
Brennan stepped forwards, motioning for Cam to look, "We gathered some evidence, once we test the blood samples from the glass and Hodgins tests for any particulates, we can get a better idea of what we're dealing with. Maybe even find out who was on the other side of that call."
From what everyone else could see, Bones seemed undisturbed by the the matter at hand, but underneath it all, she felt like screaming or even crying. A mournful glance at Booth was just enough to get her through this... this... whatever this would be considered. As a defense, she was shutting herself off. Only facts and results would be expected from her. There was no room for frustration and idiocy, her child's life was at stake, and if she wanted to see Christine again, she would need to be strong.
To pass time, and to keep her mind off of the fact that her life was in danger, Christine began whistling. At first, the sound was strained, the notes short and cut off, as if making noise was a taboo in this room. But as time passed, and no one seemed to notice the sound, her whistling grew louder and transformed into songs. One came after another, one ending and another starting a few seconds later. It kept her focused on something, drowned out the world around her and the embarrassing fact that she had soiled herself several times. The smell of urine was present, but that didn't keep her from whistling.
The door scratched against the concrete as a smaller, frailer figure stepped into the room. Bright light flooded into the prison, blinding Christine for a few seconds. Again, she was only able to see his silhouette. She watched how this man carried himself, how he limped with every step he took, how every movement seemed almost painful. Christine narrowed her eyes once she noticed a bucket.
"What's that for?" She asked, not as frightened by this particular captor.
"Water," He answered skittishly.
Then it dawned on her, "Osteoporosis..."
Her captor stopped in the middle of the room before pulling out a ladle, water spilling over the sides, "Drink."
She hesitated as the spoon was pressed against her lips, but decided to drink. Suddenly, she was desperately thirsty, and when the water was drained from the ladle, it wasn't enough. He didn't offer her any more and she didn't ask.
Christine watched him turn and begin to leave the room, "Hey."
He turned, giving her a glance of what he looked like. Golden hair and dark eyes. From the shadows, his cheeks were shallow and his skin an unhealthy green, most likely due to the poor lighting. It was enough to get an ID, especially when he had a disease like Osteoporosis. He stared expectantly, waiting for her to speak.
"Is Michael okay?" Christine asked.
"Yes."
She looked to the ground, "My parent's are gonna come after you... you know that, right?"
"Is that a warning?" He sounded nervous, as if she were the one threatening his life.
"Yes."
He shifted in his position, "Things wont be complicated unless they make it complicated. No one will get hurt if your parents do what we say."
Christine smirked, "Things wont go as smoothly as you plan."
"We have you. Your parent's will listen to us."
"Then you don't know my parents."
Sorry if some parts seemed a little fast paced or out of character. :p Hope you like it and thanks for all the comments :) I really hope Christine doesn't sound like a Mary Sue XP I'm trying to make her into a mixture of Booth and Brennan, cause you can't expect their child to be not like a mix between them XD So I'm making her have some skills in science and have the ability to protect herself because I really doubt Booth wouldn't train her on kicking someone's ass.
Again, thanks for the support and the comments!