Chapter 4
Nothing to Lose
Thanks to jerseybones, Sarali983, TV Angel 711, Gemrosa, GuestTypePerson, jade254, xX Melissa Xx, Splendid31, rae, Aria-wolfstar, and Rzappa for their reviews!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything pertaining to Bones. All rights belong to Hart Hanson, Kathy Reichs (whose books are awesome may I say), FOX, and their respective owners. No profit made.
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Three separate sets of footsteps rang clearly through the ionized air of the Jeffersonian Institute lab. The first, shy, almost unsure, with a slightly shuffled sound to them. They belonged to Zach Addy. A genius with a brilliant IQ yet disjointed social skills. He was Brennan's last student and he had made her proud.
The second step were heavier as was the man who possessed them. Jack Hodgins with a beard that could compete with Santa Claus only less white. He wasn't a tall man but he wasn't short either. He was interesting and that interest was what made him attractive. He was different and a nerd down to the core, but held his own in the world and could interact without overwhelming. He had his arm slung around the shoulders of the owner of the last set of light even steps.
Angela Montenegro. Brennan's best friend, now and forever, the one that most people would consider the 'non-geek' of the squint squad. She was an interracial beauty, with Chinese blood coursing through her veins and exhibiting themselves in her dark eyes and dark hair. She lolled her head against her husband's shoulder.
Cam noticed them for the first time in months from her place of watch on the railing. She ran down to meet them and they exchanged hugs, handshakes, and everything in between.
"Where's Booth?" Angela asked.
"In the field. We got a lead on a suspect's whereabouts." She said.
Zach raised his hand.
"We're in the lab, not in school Zach. You don't have to raise your hand." Cam said, tone exasperated.
"Well, we work with evidence. Not much of anything else." Zach started slowly.
Cam gave him an uncomprehending look.
"He means that how can we help when we don't have a body or anything." Angela said, shuddering at the world 'body'.
Cam's cell phone chirped. Three second conversation where the squints registered a widening of the eyes, a slight rise in breath rate, a narrowing of the eyebrows. The news was not good.
"We may have one."
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He had knocked politely on the first location only to find that the 911 call had been over a domestic fight. It had been a very uncomfortable conversation with a nearly naked woman and her husband both flushed and probably horny as well standing before him. He was determined to get answers and while the husband explained himself, Booth noted that the woman wore no ring. It was no doubt an affair and Booth felt like he had exposed something he would have rather not known. It was usually Bones who noticed these things, not him, but yet he found himself compensating for what should have been there with him.
He pulled toward his second stop. A white house with ivy growing along side of one wall. The lawn was overgrown and there was little doubt in his mind that the tall grass had become home to many critters that Bones would only refer to by their scientific names and translate them for his benefit. He almost smiled.
He knocked on the door and got no answer. Same process, same result. He shifted his weight, agitated. Then with as a sudden impulse, slammed his foot into the lock and forced the door open. Light streamed into the dark house.
He stepped back as he collided with a scent that he had come to know too well, too vivid, too strong for his taste. The smell of death and decomposition. The scent of dying and bacteria and insects taking over to turn your death into their life. Bones had become to used to it she hadn't even winced when she smelled it, but Booth, he was different. He could never get used to it.
Panic seized him. Forgetting that there could be people there, people that could hurt him, he surged into the house, ignoring dust, moths, and the darkness.
It was in the kitchen that he found it.
A skeleton, with bits of flesh clinging to the natural matter of calcium phosphate. It's head leaned to one side against the counter that had lost its natural sheen. Its arms hung limply by its sides with a red sash tied around the lower arm. It still had an outfit of jeans and a T-shirt. Flies buzzed around still, gorged after their dinner of human flesh.
"Bones." Booth whispered, tears threatening to fall, kneeing down beside her body. "Bones."
He looked away, unable to keep looking at her. Temperance Brennan, a renowned forensic anthropologist with three degrees, the one person that could give justice to the victims that were long denied retribution, reduced to this? Another corpse left to the insects in a deserted house. What if it wasn't? What if she was still alive? It could be the suspect he was looking for. Yet this could be her. It tore him apart that he could not tell.
Pinching himself to keep from giving in to tears, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Cam.
"We got a body." He said softly.
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Brennan stirred and found Kyra inches from her face.
"Kyra, what are you doing?" She asked, sitting up, wincing at the way the mattress pressed against her battered and bruised body.
"You asked me to warn you last time." She whimpered in reply.
"What do you mean?" Brennan asked, confused. She shifted her weight and peered at her daughter.
"Daddy always gives you this stuff after you two have a fight and the next morning you don't remember anything." She cried. "You found out last time and told me that when you forgot I had to remind you again. You promised we would get out of here!"
Brennan stared in wide-eyed horror. The girl broke down in hysterical sobs, falling into Brennan's arms. She patted her awkwardly on the back, but already her mind was searching itself. Rather searching what should have been there.
What was true and what wasn't? She didn't know. Kyra obviously didn't either or else she would have spilled. She was going to unravel this mystery but she couldn't if she kept getting interrupted.
"Kyra, do you know where he keeps the stuff that he uses on me?" She asked.
Kyra shook her head, her curls bouncing in every direction. She sniffled.
Brennan sighed and closed her eyes. She searched for ideas and then pulled herself to her feet. The stuff was probably a drug. She had to find it and replace it with some harmless substance before she was robbed of another chance of escape.
"What does it look like?" She coaxed Kyra.
Kyra pondered her answer. "It's little round white circles."
Brennan couldn't think of a drug that could do it. Many had the same side affects and properties. She couldn't narrow down on one. She had to find the stash.
"Ok Kyra, we're gonna find them okay?" She said. "Let's hurry."
Kyra obeyed without protest and the two of them divided and conquered, running around the house like their lives depended on it. In a way it did. To Brennan, life was freedom beyond the walls that she now called her prison.
"FOUND THEM!" Kyra yelled at the top of her lungs.
Brennan followed her voice and raced to find a bottle underneath the sink. It was half full with little white pills that taunted her as she tried to figure out what they were without avail.
Kyra looked at her for further instructions. Brennan shook the pills and thought about it. An idea began to form in her mind. She knew better than to expose pills to a five year old, but there was nothing left to lose. The child was already scarred and the only thing that Brennan could at least try to give her was a home far away from the unstable man she had called her father.
Scars heal. Death didn't and after an example of her husband's rage, she had little doubt that if either of them succeeded at angering him enough, he would kill them. The pills were an example of his quest for control, a dangerous example that gave them no time and nothing to lose.
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Author's Note:
Slight cliffie. Sorry. I like this story. It's fun to write so I'm hoping everyone's enjoying it.
