Author's Note: This was ready this morning but the site wasn't working so I couldn't post it
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Beckett's voice rang out into the hallway before the last echoes of the shots faded.
"NYPD!" She turned, scrambling for the cover of the entrance, pulling Castle back with her as well as she could considering one hand held her gun. No more shots rang out, but she gestured for Esposito to go around to the front of the building one direction, while motioning for Ryan to go the other. They both nodded and took off, while Beckett knelt on Castle to hold him down and covered the exit to keep their gunman from escaping through their door. There was no way she was going to risk going into the corridor again until she knew it was safe.
A few minutes later – much sooner than she expected – she heard Esposito's voice from the other end of the hall.
"Clear!"
Ryan's followed almost right after.
"Clear!"
She looked down at Castle, concerned that he hadn't tried to struggle out from under him. "Are you okay?"
He nodded.
"You?"
"Yeah."
Castle levered himself upright, and Beckett saw that he hadn't made it through completely unscathed. Red flecks of blood smeared his neck and there were a couple of spots on his shirt that were ripped. She reached out before he could turn toward the hallway and pulled his shirt up.
"Hey! Not without a nice dinner…"
Beckett rolled her eyes, but ignored the banter in favor of checking the bloody marks on his chest.
"You don't hurt?"
"I already hurt," he reminded her, looking down at his chest, too. "I didn't get shot…" He was sure he'd feel a lot worse than he did if he had a couple bullet wounds.
"No, they're ricochets," she told him, looking at the walls. "Either the bullets themselves or most likely concrete from where the bullets hit. You're sure you're okay?"
"Yeah." He reached out and touched her cheek, and then showed her his finger, which was also smeared crimson. "Looks like you got hit, too. You're sure you're okay?"
She nodded.
"I'm fine. Let's-"
"You guys okay?" Esposito asked from the doorway down at the end of the hall.
"Yeah."
"Then you need to come see this."
They walked down the hall to the door, and Esposito moved out of the way. As they passed him, Castle saw his face had been bloodied a bit by flying concrete as well. Beckett frowned, a silent questioning glance asking him if he was okay, and a very slight nod told her he was fine.
"What is this place?" Castle asked, looking around.
The room that opened to the hallway door was something like a cross between a living room and a storefront – which looked to specialize in pottery of all sorts. Many of the vases and bowls and flowerpots, however, were knocked from their displays and shattered. Three doors led off from this room; one went outside to the street and two went further into the building. There were two shop front windows, both of them were shattered, and people out on the street were looking in curiously, but in deference to the fact that there were three police officers in the main room, none of them tried to enter.
"Here," Ryan said, beckoning to them from one of the other doors.
Castle moved first, not noticing that Esposito had caught Beckett's eye once more. She couldn't read the expression on his face, though, she just recognized it as one of his more serious ones. He turned toward the other room and Beckett followed Castle to see what Ryan had found.
This new room was a bedroom. There was no doubt of that, since there was a bed dominating most of the small space. The place reeked, though, of all sorts of things better left unmentioned, and worse, sprawled on the bed was the naked and very still form of a woman. Her eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling, and the small trickle of blood that had trailed down to the bedspread from the bullet hole in her head was testimony that she wasn't going to be able to tell them what happened to her.
Beckett walked over, careful to not touch anything.
"She hasn't been dead very long," she decided, looking at the body.
"Probably shot by whoever shot at us," Ryan said. He was already on his phone, calling it in and asking for backup in order to help canvass the crowd outside the store. He looked over as Castle looked down at the woman, and then around the room. "You recognize her, Castle?"
The writer shook his head.
"I don't know. I don't think so…." He walked over to the other side of the bed, to the wall. It was white and covered in odd pictures, but he wasn't looking at the pictures, he was staring at the wall, intently. "I know this…"
"The wall?" Kate asked, confused. "What do you-"
He reached out and nudged a small spot on one of the pictures, and part of the wall sunk inward. He pushed again, this time against the wall itself, and it opened further, now a space plenty large enough for a person to walk through.
"Castle…" Beckett wasn't going to risk another shooter hiding in the room. She moved to stop him before he could head into the dark space, pulling her gun once more. Ryan was right there with her, his gun in hand as well, and he got hold of Castle's shirt and pulled him even further out of the way.
Beckett looked over at Ryan, who nodded to tell her he was ready, and then she walked through the entrance. It was dark – the only light came from the opening – but she could see that it wasn't very large, and it smelled terrible.
"NYPD," she announced into the silent darkness. "Is anyone there?"
Ryan walked in behind her, his gun pointing the opposite direction from hers, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dark.
"I don't see anyone."
Castle came up behind them, and without even realizing what he was doing, he reached out blindly and slapped a wall panel. Instantly the room lit up, and Beckett and Ryan both stepped back, stumbling over Castle, who hadn't moved, but was forced back by their actions.
"Oh, God…" Ryan murmured, looking around, aghast.
"What is this?" Kate asked, putting her gun away, since there was no way anyone was hiding there.
"This is the place," Castle said in a faint whisper. Beckett looked back at him, and found that he was as pale as she'd ever seen him, with beads of sweat on his upper lip and his expression suddenly bleak. "This is where I was…"