So this would be Part Two. Enjoy. The suspense of not knowing what you think is killing me ;)
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CHAPTER 39
"I think… I think I saw Angela, Booth."
"What?"
He shoved me away firmly and looked. "I don't see anything."
"Let's just get this open."
He ignored me, squinting inside, trying to catch a glimpse of what I'd seen… or thought I'd seen.
"Booth." I said sharply. "Come on. There was a gunshot." My voice trembled a little on the last word. I didn't mention the scream, the sound of undiluted terror.
"Okay." He reluctantly pulled away and took out a knife from his boot. I raised my eyebrows but didn't comment, and he hacked at the white cloth until the entire door was visible. And the plant wasn't big enough to cover it all.
"Oh, God, Bones…"
The inside was enormous, even bigger than the outside looked, due to visual spacing and the readjustment to light our retinas had undergone. Neon shone from the ceiling, casting a strange glow down below in between bright and shadowed, the whites very white and the darks very black.
Rows upon rows of overgrown, rotting plants crossed the entire structure. Only five had been used in a very long time, the ones closest to us and the door. All blue, I looked away quickly.
But size was the last thing on our minds. At the very centre of the structure, between two rows of putrid, brown begonias, Angela was tied to a chair, eyes covered and mouth taped shut with green plastic tape. She still wore the clothes I'd last seen her in, but now they hung unattractively over her skin, clinging to bones more visible than ever due to malnutrition. She was filthy, and had been obviously crying, by the tear tracks on her cheeks.
It took most of my rational side not to wrench the door open, crash the horrendous blue plant to the side and run to my friend. Why didn't I do it? What prevented me from losing reason?
Frank Bram stood next to her, a gun in each hand. He was facing at her, too far away for me to read the expression on his face. He didn't see us, didn't realise his white heaven now had a dark door we could enter.
A whimper escaped me, that my friend was alive. There was no sign of Anne or Margaret Stoker.
"Booth, do we go in?" I whispered.
"Yeah, Bones. I go in."
"What?"
"I'll go-"
I spun around and kicked his knee so fast he fell to the floor. He obviously hadn't expected my sudden attack. I didn't give him time to stand up again, instead I slammed my body onto his and straddled him and pinned his arms to the floor, muscles fuelled by rage.
"Bones, wait-"
"No!" I hissed. He didn't try and knock me over even though he probably could have. There was nothing sexual about our furious embrace, nothing loving or beautiful, there was just violent, passionate, desperate fury. "No! You are not leaving me behind! You are not leaving me! I will come with you to protect you! To save Angela! To end Frank! You do not get to leave me!"
He kissed me fiercely, once, and then I let go, not for one second forgetting I was angry.
"Bones, I go in through here, gun in hand. You find another way."
At this I got off of him, and helped him up.
"If I distract him first you can be the secret weapon, he won't expect you. Splitting up here is the most logical, effective way to proceed. Let me go in first, I never said you had to stay behind, I'd never leave you… behind. Find another entrance. If not, create it, shoot the glass and you'll get a nice, easy way in."
"He'll hear me come in, then."
"It's about him realising you're there when it's too late. You'll have to decide when the best moment to help me is, if I've got the situation under control, you don't have to come in at all."
And finally I saw what he was doing. He was getting me out of the way so I was only in danger the minimum time necessary. But Booth didn't treat me like a damsel in distress, he knew I could fight by his side, so I had the option of coming in when I wanted.
"You trust my judgement on this?" I said, letting him know by my tone of voice that I'd figured him out, and forgave him because he was perfectly right, it really was better to separate. I'd do what he said because I knew it was the best thing to do, not because he'd said it.
"I trust your judgement always."
He took my hand and sprinted away from the door, the door I wasn't allowed to enter, not with him. To my surprise, tears stung my eyes as I stole another look at Angela and Bram, as the horrible thought that the gunshot had obviously not been aimed at my friend sunk in. Despite the guilty relief this thought brought, I was now afraid young, fierce Anne might be dead… or her mother, who no one had really seen in a month…
We reached the other side quickly, and he let go of me and left me there, panting for breath, crying. "Booth…" I was dizzy, I would fall if he let go…
He took my face in his hands and made me look deep into his eyes, and I saw them through fear and tears and anger, I still saw them because a part of me always saw Booth's eyes no matter what.
"I'm in love you."
He kissed me again and ran, away from me, without looking back or giving me time to shout back a reply he already knew, that I loved him too, oh Booth come back, don't go on your own, what if I can't come in to save you…?
He'd slid the knife in my belt while we kissed.
I stopped crying and pulled myself together, wiping the tears with the backs of my hands, straining to hear inside, shivering with terror that Bram might shoot again, this time at Angela, that Booth might be hurt…
I couldn't see anything through the cloth, but I walked to the left, imagining the layout from this new vantage point. I was a little to the right of the only door if I stood right… here. I stopped walking.
It was too easy to slide the knife into plastic sheeting and make an opening. Through the glass I could see Bram and Angela again, from my new angle. Still he didn't notice a thing. The place was too large to be sure Anne and Margaret weren't here.
Booth hadn't gone inside yet. Bram was talking to Angela, who shook in her chair. I felt a hatred explode inside of me, my body shook with it I was so furious. Not doing anything was slowly, very painfully corroding my insides. Like acid.
And then the door opened, and Bram shot once, twice, four times, but didn't hit Booth, who kept moving and rolled on the floor until he could use a gigantic vase for cover. The fourth shot embedded in the tough ceramic and didn't crack it.
I couldn't do it, I couldn't watch from the sidelines.
I tore at the sheet furiously, knowing Bram wouldn't see me. Suddenly I realised Booth hadn't fired a single shot at Bram, so I stopped for a moment to look again… and cried out, but no one heard me.
Bram had his gun on Angela's temple. She was screaming, I don't know how I knew this even though she had tape covering her mouth. Booth had stood up off the floor and his gun was pointing at Bram's head. I felt paralysed by fear, but not for long. I tore my eyes away from the horrific scene and focused on the opening I had made.
It seemed to take an infuriatingly long time, but finally there was enough space for me crawl into.
I aimed at an approximate centre and with a surprisingly soft crack the bullet went right through. But the glass didn't suddenly break and fall apart, like Booth had seemed to suggest. It left a miniscule entry-point with cracks around it like a spider's web. I pulled my hair back impatiently, urging myself to focus. Of course this would happen, Temperance. Go back to science, forget emotion, remember what you already know: in greenhouses glass has a laminated panel between the first and second glass layers made of plasticized polyvinyl butyral. That meant it wasn't bullet-proof, but it wasn't easily breakable either.
I knew what I had to do. I didn't look to see if Bram had heard my first shot, didn't even think about him or my friends in there. I shot four pressure points around the first one and kicked with all my might.
The crash was loud and obvious, and Bram would have most definitely heard that.
I ducked quickly and rolled on the floor, avoiding two bullets but not the third, which clipped my shoulder and caused pain to scream through my body. I ignored the bloody wound and scrambled up.
"Frank, come on! You can't end this way. You know hurting Angela will not help you!" Booth yelled, drawing attention away from me.
The worst thing was that at this moment, even now, Bram didn't look like an insane deranged man, he didn't look like a suicidal maniac. He looked angry but collected, still himself. Like we'd interrupted his daily shave, not caught him in attempted murder.
Except for the gun aimed at my best friend's head.
I didn't try and move toward them because Booth stayed where he was, and I was going to make no more mistakes tonight. Bram was still looking at me, having ignored Booth's shout. If you drew a line from Booth to me, Frank and Angela would be right at the middle.
"Temperance, why are you here?"
I didn't answer, and he carefully aimed the gun in his right hand (the one that wasn't on Angela's temple) at me.
"Why did you come with Agent Booth? He put you in danger letting you come, does he know?" He wasn't speaking very loud, and the room was large: Booth didn't hear him.
"Frank, what are you doing? Leave her alone!"
"You told him, didn't you? You made him let you come." A strange excitement tinged his tone, and I cringed. This time Booth heard.
"Frank, look at Angela! Leave Temperance alone! Angela is crying… look at her!"
But this only seemed to make him angrier, and the gun still pointing at me spat out a bullet that whizzed by my thigh.
"STOP SHOOTING AT MY PARTNER! Frank, listen to me!"
Finally he turned to look at Booth, and I looked around us, thinking about science, numbers, osteoporosis, osteomas, osteosyntesis, anything to keep me focused and not think about Angela, who was crying and whimpering in pain, whose wrists were bleeding from being bound for so long, red also trickling from under the green tape, she was practically choking…
"Don't pretend like you want to help me." Bram said. The instant I so much as shifted my weight, his head whipped around to check on me, then Booth, then me again. "Temperance… your eyes are bluer than ever, but your soul is dark. You are a mistake. You are different than the others, an aberration. You're not normal, you'll never be normal, never understand."
Just words, words without meaning to me. But the venom in his eyes hurt, hurt because I knew what it meant, how he used that hate to stab, to kill…
"Ennan?" Angela was sobbing. "Ooth!" And then she was crying, moaning, speaking in intelligible vowels through the gag.
"Shut up!"
His scream was so loud, in this space. I stood there, gun aimed at his head, wishing I could just pull the trigger. Booth mirrored me exactly, from his spot. But muscles spasm and react in ways unpredictable when the brain's neurons fire electric shocks with death… and there was a very likely chance his finger would squeeze the trigger if I shot him now. And the barrel was aimed at her… but I had to remain scientific.
"Let her go, Frank." Booth said firmly. "Of course I'm not doing this for you, I hate you." I flinched. Booth's voice really did reflect that hate. What was he doing? "I hate you but I love Angela. She is my friend, she is a good person, an innocent woman. And if I have to offer you the best deal there is to set her free, I will, because I love her so much."
"But you're not in love with her. You're in love with Temperance."
Booth didn't answer. I moved a step forward when Bram's back was turned, and this time he didn't seem to notice.
"Admit it, then. Admit you're in love with Temperance. Why won't you admit it? She didn't believe me, you know. When she was at my house…" and finally Booth's eyes flickered to mine for the quickest instant, and Bram aimed at him again and shot. Booth's reflexes were good, but not faster than a bullet. It grazed his already injured arm, blood spurting thick and red from the open wound. "When she was at my house…!" Bram continued loudly, and this time interlaced in his tone, tendrils of madness made it strained. "… she didn't know, I think she honestly didn't know! Poor Temperance, so innocent! It's difficult sometimes to know when someone is lying, but in this case I think she told the truth. She has this way of speaking to you, doesn't she? Vulnerable but strong, she's made of truths, she is truth just as she searches for it so desperately."
He was speaking in riddles, and contradicting himself. He'd been calling my soul black and evil seconds ago. He was losing it.
I ignored his words as well as I could, that didn't matter now.
Angela was still sobbing, but silently. I moved one step closer, and stopped abruptly as Bram turned away from Booth, back to me.
"Margaret lied to me. I didn't realise it then." His voice cracked, and it sounded like he was going to cry. "She pretended to love me for fifteen years… fifteen! Even after she married that bastard…"
"You knew Margaret fifteen years ago?" I couldn't help but ask.
"I've loved Margaret since the first day I met her, 13th of July, 1994."
"Frank! Where is she?" Booth shouted from behind him, bringing him back to the real world, to 2009. "Where's Anne?"
And suddenly I saw. At the far corner, Anne stood up from her hiding place behind two brown dead creeping plants. She was covered in blood, but her blue eyes were blazing. I took two steps toward her and a bullet exploded at my feet, so I stopped. My heart had leapt to my throat, choking me. "Anne…" I whispered, but she was looking at Frank.
"Where's Margaret?" Booth asked.
"She's dead." Anne said, voice hoarse and dry, lips cracked, parched, bleeding. "She's been dead for a while. I don't know where he hid the body, but she's dead. It's just me here. Crazy sicko talks to his blue flowers like they are her."
"No she's not! She lied to me, the bitch lied…!"
"Frank, you need to let Angela go." Booth interrupted.
"No! Margaret is not dead!" Bram screamed, tendons in his neck jutting out. Then he seemed to calm down, come back to himself.
"Here's what's going to happen." He moved the barrel of his gun from Angela's temple to right above her heart. I began to cry again, suddenly, without being able to control my bodily functions. Tension was eating away at my remaining, adrenalin-fuelled energy. "You will leave, Agent Booth. And you, Temperance. You'll throw your guns to me and you'll leave, and not just because I could kill your angel right now."
"What are you talking about, Frank?"
"I could kill all of us, in here, with one shot."
Anne had begun walking toward me but Bram ignored her completely. She looked dead, drained, empty. Her eyes were sunken, cheeks hollow, skin papery white. She looked like an anorexic, her clothes were too large for her body now that all she was was skin and bone. But I promised myself to find life in her, to bring her back if we left this place alive.
"You're bluffing, and it sounds desperate, Frank." Booth said. But suddenly I stared at Anne, then kept looking up. About three feet above her head, the final clue clicked in place and I knew Frank's threat was… true.
I remembered something, something very important… I clutched a nearby row of flowerpots to steady myself because… oh no.
Anne saw what I was doing and stopped walking to me. She looked up, above our heads, and then back at me. She must have realised I took Bram's threat seriously, and in her eyes the last vestiges of hope drained away. Now her dull, blank eyes watched me as I remembered…
Cam was explaining "They had a problem with the gas tanks and the place nearly blew up two years ago" I looked up again and there was, indeed, a criss-cross web of rusted pipes.
Oh no. Oh, by Booth's belief in his God, no.
This wasn't a bluff. One bullet to the central line and this place would explode. It was a miracle none of the previous shots fired had caused it yet, because we were directly below it.
"I see Temperance has already figured it out." Bram said gleefully.
"What?" Booth said, not daring to look up, to where I was looking, because his gun was still trained on Bram. "Bones, what have you figured out?"
"Booth, he's telling the truth." I spoke softly.
To his credit, Booth kept his face emotionless.
But as I looked I knew this wasn't all. The rust, the precarious positioning, the careless maintenance, not to mention the fact that there was obviously still some gas there, which there shouldn't be in an abandoned building. Had Bram re-installed all of those pipes himself, after they'd been taken down? It looked like a crude enough job, and that meant…
"If we don't get out of here soon, it won't need one bullet. This place will blow up on it's own."
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Part Three will be up soon, I promise, I absolutely promise. The end is so near... I'm taking my time with these, I know. Sadly, the funny has been sucked out of me today so no review-asking joke. Just an honest request, please?
The green button calls to you… it calls to you… calling… calling…