A/N: So it's been a while. A LONG while. And I don't have any legitimate excuses but I have decided to go the long way on this one. Here's the next chapter, enjoy!
Chapter 12: Right On Course
"So he has contacted you?" Faber questioned the man on the other end of the phone. After an entire day with no word from anyone, someone had finally called him back.
"Uh, yeah. He was really brief, told us to head down and help out. He didn't say why." The man replied, uncertainty tainting his voice.
Of course. Saunders was always vague when he was in trouble, even though it never did him any good. "Well in that case, get the hell down there and help out, and remember what I said, keep the girl and agent alive. Do not under any circumstances bring the man, you guys can hardly handle two women as it is." Not waiting for a response, Faber snapped his phone shut and headed to his office. Now that things were seemingly cooling down, he had work to do.
"Peter, you've looked through all the papers at least twice! There isn't any more information on me!" Olivia fumed, watching as he tore through the bag another time.
"Fine." Peter said in a huff, shoving the papers back in the bag, except for the one with Olivia's name on it, "Let's go. We need to find that girl and get out of here." He was clearly worried about the implications of the paper they had found, but he knew Olivia would just blatantly deny any suggestion for caution. He'd be better off leaving the discussion for later.
"Where do we start looking?"
"Well think about it," Peter said thoughtfully, "what would you do if you found yourself in a city with people speaking a language you didn't know?"
"I'd find a phone." Olivia replied bluntly, not sure where he was going.
"Yes, exactly, and not many people in a small town like this would have much purpose to make a call to the U.S., which I'm assuming is the first place she would call."
"Okay." Olivia nodded, catching on, "I'll call Astrid and tell her to see if any calls were made to the U.S. in this area." walking away, she added over her shoulder, "Check on Saunders."
Saunders. Peter had very nearly forgotten about that guy. Letting his previous anger come back, he decided it was time to ask him about what was on the paper. Picking it up off the ground, Peter purposefully walked to the car, opening the door with force. Saunders had his head on the opposite window, sweat dripping down his face.
Not wasting any time, Peter reached into the car and grabbed Saunders by the collar of his shirt, tossing him out of the car, face first into the dirt. Saunders grunted as he made impact with the ground, spitting out dirt as he turned over, only to be met by Peters fist.
Fuck, he thought, his vision blurred, and before he could recover, Peter picked him up off the ground again, only to knee him in the gut. All the breath rushed out of his chest, and he was left wheezing on the ground as a mildly-satisfied Peter stood above him.
"You'd get more, but I'm going to stay on Agent Dunham's good side." Peter seethed, watching a frustrated Olivia walk back over to tell him off. "But next time you and me are alone, count on being in a world of hurt."
Saunders couldn't help but flinch. The blood dripping from his own nose was evidence enough that Peter was not kidding. If it wasn't for Agent Dunham, he knew he'd be dead already.
"What the hell Peter?" Olivia accused as she approached him.
Peter shrugged, "Couldn't help myself."
Bullshit. "You know just as well as I do that you can't punch a suspect." she stressed.
"Just say it was in self-defense." he teased. Turning to Saunders, his grin left his face.
"Hey now!" Saunders almost whined, sliding away from Peter and cutting up his hands on the rocks in the process, "You heard her! No more, no more!"
"I just have a few questions, that's all," Peter assured him menacingly, holding up the paper he had been holding in Saunders' face. "This look familiar?"
It did. It looked very familiar. "No." Saunders replied, but it was a second too late. Peter smirked, clearly not believing him, and next thing he knew, his back was pressed up against the car, Peter an inch from his face.
"What were you going to do to her?" he growled, venom entering his voice.
This time even Agent Dunham wouldn't save him. She stood directly behind Bishop, fully expecting an answer from Saunders. He would have to give one. "Fine," he relented, "We wanted to check the cortexiphan levels in her blood." There. That was a safe answer, he knew that Peter had heard him mention cortexiphan, there was no use in trying to hide it. He hadn't given anything away.
"Who's 'we'?" Peter pressed, giving him even less room to breathe.
Or so he had thought.
Cursing himself internally, his mind raced to every possible answer that they might believe. In the three seconds that Peter gave him before slamming against the car again, he got nothing. They weren't stupid, they wouldn't believe anything but the truth.
But he wouldn't give it to them.
"Gracias." Brianna said quietly, accepting the bowl of soup that the woman handed her.
"De nada." She replied with a warm smile, leaving the kitchen to attend to something else.
Brianna had spent a while walking around in a daze, unsure of what to do, and eventually ended up at this woman's door. Her husband was away at work, and she had three little boys running around like rabid dogs, but they had a phone. She had been allowed to use it, and tried calling her boyfriend, but he hadn't picked up.
Now she was just waiting and hoping that he would call back. The family had a limited number of minutes for out-of-country calls, and she didn't want to waste them. They had already done so much.
A screaming and giggling little boy ran into the kitchen, breaking her out of her reverie. Right on his tail came the other two boys, intent on catching him. The eldest boy, wielding a toy gun, shot it at the other boy, but hit Brianna instead, making her flinch.
She quickly recovered, smiling at the boy when he quickly apologized, but her smile disappeared when the edges of her vision began to fade to black.
It was happening again.
In a panic, she stood, the chair crashing to the ground in the process. She didn't have time, her head was already swimming with dizziness. "No, no, please..." she begged, even though she knew by now that it was useless.
Tears were forming in her eyes as she crouched to the ground, as though keeping her grip on something would root her in place. The little boy that had hit her screamed and ran from the room, calling for his mom. She squeezed her eyes shut, letting the tears stream down her face as she willed it all to end.
"How could she be gone again?" Peter groaned, following Olivia out of the local house they had just visited. She was on the phone talking to Astrid, and ignored his complaints.
The woman inside the house had seemed flustered when explaining the situation. She had described a girl that fit the description of Brianna that had came to her door seeking a phone. The woman had let her use their phone and had even given her something to eat, but when she left the room, one of her sons had come screaming. When she had checked the kitchen, Brianna was gone.
Something had clearly scared her, and when looking around the kitchen, Peter had found a Nerf gun on the floor, its' bullets scattered. That was most likely it, but now it was just a matter of finding out where she went. As Olivia closed the phone, Peter got in the passenger side of the car, Olivia entering on the other side. Not starting the car, she sighed, leaning deeply back into the seat.
"What's wrong?" Peter asked, concern filling his voice. "Didn't Astrid get a place?"
Olivia sighed again, "It's gonna be a while until she tracks down the spot, and Broyles still needs to organize our transportation back to Boston. We have some time to kill."
"Well I'm starving, how 'bout we grab something to eat?"
"Actually," Olivia said with a grin, "I was thinking the same thing, I saw this nice-looking restaurant on the main street."
Before Peter could agree, a cough brought their attention to the back seat, "And me?" Saunders questioned with a sense of superiority, "I'm assuming you're not going to bring a criminal into a local restaurant with you? I could go in the trunk..."
It was moments like these that made Peter regret not punching the guys face in on itself. He knew how to get to them, and did so in the best way possible. The trunk wasn't an option, considering that that was exactly how Peter escaped before. And Saunders knew that.
"You're making it tempting with that attitude." Olivia snapped, losing her patience with the man.
"No," Peter said, "That's how I escaped, there's a latch on the inside of the trunk to get out. I can get the food, you can just stay in here and watch him."
Olivia nodded, starting the car "Sounds fine to me."
"That's it, right there?" Faber asked, pointing at a blinking dot on the computer monitor.
"Yep," the technician replied, "but it hasn't been moving, which means they've most likely tossed the phone."
"Okay, that's fine." Faber said, taking out his own phone to make a call, "At least I have a general area."
Faber turned to leave the room as he held the phone to his ear.
"Any news?" the man on the other end asked, seeing that it was his boss.
"Yeah, I have a location of Saunders and most likely the Agent as well, how far are you from Peto?"
"Uh," the man speculated, "I'd say we'll get there around nightfall."
"Okay," Faber said, his voice grim, "I'll tell you where they are when you get there."
Hanging up, Faber left the tech room and headed towards the lab. He was rather proud of what he had accomplished so far. A fully functioning lab, a tech room, a small cluster of private "offices" for his higher-ups, and of course, the furniture shipping cover he had created, which took up the majority of the warehouse.
"Where are we?" he asked, entering the lab with returning confidence.
The lead scientist looked up from his work, "We're done synthesizing everything, nothing more can be done until we have the test subjects." he stated flatly.
"Nothing more? At all?" Faber questioned skeptically.
"Nothing."
Nodding to himself, he turned to exit the lab, "Okay, just make sure everything is correctly labeled this time around." he said pointedly to the man, "you've seen me mad, you don't want to see me pissed."
With that, he left the room, leaving a small framed woman near the right of the room terrified for her life and wondering what exactly she had gotten herself roped into.
"And here we are," Peter said with a grin as he entered the car, wielding two delicious smelling bags of food, "best traditional food in all of Mexico."
Olivia smiled, "Really? And you know this through experience?"
"Well, no, but that's what the lady said when she handed me the bags, and who am I to question it?"
Taking one of the bags from Peter, Olivia was beginning to realize just how hungry she was, and upon opening the bag, she sighed with content when the scents hit her nose.
Peter laughed, "And you claimed to have not been very hungry?"
"What, I can't enjoy the scent of real food without being starving?" Olivia responded, a dubious expression on her face.
"Fine," Peter relented, opening up his own bag, "but I still think you were downplaying just how hungry you were."
Olivia rolled her eyes in response, readjusting in her seat to have a better view of Saunders, who, as far as she could tell, wasn't paying any attention to their banter and had his eyes closed.
She turned back to Peter, "We have to give him something to eat."
Stopping mid-chew, he looked at her with mock disbelief, "I'm sure the guy can live."
"Oh I am too, but that doesn't mean I won't get in trouble if we don't feed him."
Crumpling up the wrapper of his finished taco, he tossed it aside. He then went digging around in his bag of food and eventually turned up with a roll of bread, "This will do, won't it?" he said, holding it up for Olivia's inspection.
Upon seeing her nod, Peter turned to Saunders and tossed the bread into his face. Saunders shook awake as the bread bounced off his body to the floor.
"That's your meal. Have a blast." Peter said coldly, turning back to the bag of food for his own meal as Olivia's phone rang and she answered.
Saunders blankly stared at the roll on the floor, his stomach growling, "And how exactly am I supposed to eat it?" he pulled at his handcuffs for emphasis.
Groaning in exasperation Peter grabbed the bread and held it in front of Saunders' head. Rolling his eyes, Saunders went ahead and grabbed the roll with his mouth and began to chew, trying to keep the bread in his mouth.
Smirking slightly, Peter faced Olivia, who had just gotten off the phone, "When was I relegated to hand-feeding criminals?"
Smiling, Olivia shrugged, "I don't know, but that was Broyles, we'll need to stay here for the night. He said to turn Saunders into the local police station while we stay at an inn or something. It should be dark soon anyway."
"Great, I'm exhausted," Peter said, stretching out his arms in front of him, "Let's get going."
Faber was silently working at his desk when his phone rang. Without even checking caller id, he answered, "Hello?"
"Sir," a man said, "we are a half hour away from Peto. What do you want us to do?"
Faber quickly checked the time before answering, it was nearly ten, "Okay," he said, leaning back in his chair, "the FBI agent and a man are holding Saunders. Drive around until you find them, which won't take long since it's a small town. When you find them, get Saunders and the agent, but leave the man, we don't need him. Just make sure he doesn't get in the way. When you get them call me again, I'll tell you more then."
"Sounds good, anything else?" the man said with a yawn.
"Don't mess up." Faber said bluntly, snapping the phone shut.
"Sleep! At last!" Peter exclaimed tiredly as he and Olivia walked up to the rooms they had checked out, "You're going to have to shoot your gun tomorrow to wake me up, I can assure you of that."
"That's okay," Olivia said, stopping at the door to her room, "I'm just glad I don't have to deal with Saunders."
"Same," Peter replied with a smile, stopping at the next door over, "Well, goodnight Olivia, see you in the morning."
"You too," Olivia said, just as she entered her room and shut the door. Tossing her bag on the floor, Olivia sat down on the bed and stared at the blank screen of the TV for a while.
She had told herself she wasn't terribly bothered by Saunders' apparent interest in her, but she was. She didn't want Peter thinking she needed any help, but now that she was alone, she needed answers. It was then that she made her decision to get them.
Quickly, Olivia hopped in the shower for a rinse. Less than ten minutes later, she was out again and had changed into fresh work clothes. Quietly, she holstered her gun and put her shoes on, checking the clock as she did so. It was a quarter past ten. Peter was long asleep by now.
Standing up, Olivia made her way to the door and quietly opened it. Without a look back, she shut it and confidently made her way to the police station.
A/N: I hope you don't hate me TOO much for not posting in a while, but it's understandable if you do, but please review! They seriously do motivate me! In fact, the only reason I got motivated to finish this chapter was because someone recently favorited and followed this story! :)