This is a shift day [see above]. There was another upload this morning: You'll Find Wonder, chapter 16.

"A Dish Best Served Cold"

6. Sixth

On the road from New York to Lima

The ride should have taken something like ten hours, but with Beckett at the wheel they were estimating they could shave off about a third of that, more if they didn't run into any sort of inconveniences.

They were halfway through Pennsylvania before Ryan had finally managed to reach them. "We should be there in a couple hours, did you get anything more out of Bowman or…"

"How fast can you get to McKinley High if you really step on it?" Ryan cut her off, and he didn't even need to say anything else.

"He's got them," she stated, and she could see Castle's head had turned immediately.

"He's been boarded up in the choir room with eleven of them since just before you and Castle left New York, from what we got."

"Is he armed?"

"The woman who called it in said she saw a gun," he confirmed. Castle was motioning for her to hand the phone over so she could focus on the road ahead and on getting them there as fast as possible while he took care of the information. She tilted her shoulder and he caught the phone on the slide.

"How many's he got?"

"Eleven kids, nine who were involved in New York and two new additions. The other four from New York weren't in the room when Matheson locked it up," Ryan explained. Castle didn't want to have to ask, but he had to.

"Where's B… Ms. Pierce in all this?"

"She's in the choir room," Ryan told him, and he closed his eyes. At his side, Beckett passed on silent sympathy.

"Has he made contact?" she asked so he'd ask. Ryan must have heard, as he answered right away.

"They're still attempting to make contact. You need to get down there as soon as you can," he wouldn't embellish on it.

"On speaker," Beckett asked Castle, and when he did she addressed Ryan. "Put in the call, I want you and Esposito to join us on this."

"It'll be night by the time they…" Castle pointed out.

"Then get on a plane," she cut him off, and hearing the stress leak out of her voice wasn't encouraging. Ryan didn't have to be told twice and they soon hung up so the two detectives could find the quickest way to join them, while they tried to get there even faster. Neither Beckett nor Castle said a word at first. It was a good thing she had her lights on or else they would have been pulled over for speeding a long time ago. The car may have been cruising along, but inside it everything felt sluggish with concern.

"I should call Alexis…" he finally broke the silence. "I don't want her to worry more than she has to, but I promised her I'd keep her up to date if she stayed in New York." He stared at his phone. "Working with you, I do get into my share of dangerous situations, and I see her dealing with that, with the thought of someone that means so much to her being in trouble and being powerless to help. Now I'm going to call her and tell her that her friend, miles and miles away, is stuck in a room with a man that wants revenge and has a gun to make it happen."

"No," Beckett spoke after a moment. "You're going tell her that we're going to get her out of there," she spoke confidently. He looked to her, pulling hope from her, and finally he could dial.

"Dad?" the quickness in her voice told him she had the phone in hand already and he let out a breath.

"Yeah, it's me. Alexis, I have to tell you something, and let me just start off by saying everyone is fine, alright?" he could just imagine her face, those big blue eyes staring back at him, filled with concern.

"I promise," her voice was small.

"We're driving through Pennsylvania now, but we got a call from Detective Ryan." He paused here, looking back to Beckett again. "Matheson has made it to Lima, he's at McKinley High and he's got most of the club hostage."

"He's got her, hasn't he," she didn't even need to make that a question.

"We'll be there as soon as we can," he promised. "Beckett is just racing down this road now… When we get there, we'll get this taken care of, we'll get her out."

"Right, no, I know you will," she replied, paused. "Thank you for calling."

"Hey, I promised, didn't I?" he smiled like she could see him. After he'd hung up though, the smile didn't last too long. He stared at the phone for a while. "You won't make a liar of me, will you?"

"I swear," Beckett bowed her head. They still had a long way to go, but with her at the wheel it would be much faster than it could have been, that he didn't worry about one bit.

X

Lima, Ohio

Time already felt heavy on their shoulders, with each minute that went by, but somehow they had come to realize it had been hours already since they had been locked up in the choir room by the man with the gun. None of them really spoke, just watching him. Only Rachel had dared to speak – because they had made her – and it was only those few words before her throat had given out. But the hours were passing, and eventually they couldn't deny something.

"I'm hungry…" Brittany mumbled, getting looks begging for her to be quiet. But it had been said now, and it was impossible to ignore that they were kind of hungry as well, all of them.

"Don't they usually get someone to send in food after a while in these things?" Mike whispered. "I don't know, like pizza or something?"

"Oh, man, that'd be good right about now," Sam closed his eyes trying not to think about it.

"Rachel, you tell him we're hungry," Mercedes begged of her.

"What? No way, I can't, I…" she blinked, looking back to him – he was still pacing about. He'd stop after a while, stare at them, and then he'd start again. He wasn't completely lost though. Anytime one of them moved in any way that might indicate they were trying to make a break for it, he'd freeze and start lifting the gun until they'd sit back down, very still, and then he'd lower it again. He wasn't as absent as he looked. "Why should I have to? And don't say 'because you're the captain,' because I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the job description!" her voice screeched even still lowered in a whisper.

"This is ridiculous…" Quinn sighed. "Excuse me, Mr. Matheson?" she spoke up and he spun around, lifting the gun and making them jump. Quinn took a moment to breathe but then swallowed that up and forged on. "Just to point out that it's after lunch time and we're all hungry so… if you could just…"

"Don't tell me what to do," he held to his stance. "You'll get to eat when I decide, and right now that's a no. So sit back there and shut up!" he told her, and them by extension, before resuming his pacing.

"Great, that's just fantastic," Kurt sighed.

"I have a granola bar in my bag," Sugar frowned, staring at it on the ground by the piano. Matheson had just grabbed all of their bags and put them there, in case they had anything they might use to retaliate. "Tastes like cardboard but right now I'd eat the bar and the wrapper too if I could… What did you guys do to him to make him so angry?" she asked, clueless to the history of the club and Matheson.

"He was in charge of Nationals last year in New York. He killed someone, tried to frame Brittany for it," Artie started.

"We all got interrogated by the cops and Richard Castle," Sam added and both Sugar and Blaine reacted at that. "And then they figured out Brittany was innocent and being framed, so they used us to get the real killer to reveal himself."

"Then his secretary was going to take the fall for it, and she had Tina," Rachel continued the story, the girl in question shivering at the memory. "But it was just a diversion so he could get away, and they ended up catching him and putting him in jail."

"And then he escaped," Blaine recalled from the cop's visit. "And the first thing he did was… to come here…" he brought it home for them to reach the conclusion they had been trying not to put into words, and finally it was Brittany who said it.

"He's really going to kill us, isn't he…"

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)