Disclaimer: I don't own Psych, To Kill a Mockingbird, Iron Giant or Storage Wars.

A/N: Surprise! I'm updating early this week because I've got the entire day tomorrow planned out and devoted to spending time with my wonderful boyfriend, so I don't know when I'd have time to update, so you're getting it tonight, even though it's just 10 p.m. where I'm at! Yay! Thanks for all the reviews, favorites and follows! As always, see anonymous review replies and the extended author's note after the chapter, and if you're interested in another early update this week, check out the last paragraph of the A/N at the bottom of the chapter! :) Enjoy, and please review!

The Finch and the Mockingbird

Chapter Four: Nuclear Iron Giant vs. Shawn and the Magical Spinning Coat Hanger

Adrenaline took over as Shawn was dragged violently into his darkened apartment. With a wild burst of strength, he slammed his elbow deep into his attacker's gut. The assailant folded slightly under the hit, but Shawn had felt what seemed to be the very semblance of solid steel when his elbow had connected with whoever had grabbed him.

Shawn didn't take time to dwell on it, though, because his attacker's grip had loosened the teeniest bit when Shawn had elbowed him, and he used the opportunity to wrench the hand away from his mouth and slam the bad guy's other hand down with with his own other hand. Shawn heard the clatter of his iPhone hitting the ground right after he knocked the guy's arm aside, and he winced. Whoops. Oh, well. He could worry abut his phone later.

Right now, he was more concerned with the fact that his new pal had already recovered from the blow and was reaching for his prey once again. Shawn dove to the side. He hadn't even gotten a chance to get a good look at his attacker because of the darkness in his apartment and the fact that he'd been busy trying to escape, but now, as he jumped aside, he saw in the dim light coming from the closed blinds that he was wearing a ski mask. Well. That wasn't very helpful in identifying his attacker at all. And he was freaking huge.

Unfortunately, Shawn's attempt at evading his attacker wasn't one hundred percent effective, and even though he missed getting his face smashed in by the giant, gloved, meaty fist that had been barreling toward him at an alarming speed, it didn't miss him completely. The fist grazed the side of his head, not enough to knock him out, but definitely hard enough to stun him.

Shawn dropped to the ground, the back of his head smacking against the not-so-soft floor of the old dry cleaner's. He let out a short yelp of pain, but somehow managed to come out of his stupor when he saw a foot coming for his head. He rolled aside, barely avoiding being kicked in the temple by a heavy looking boot. This guy wasn't playing around.

Clutching his aching head and trying to clear his vision - which hadn't been that great to begin with either, since his lights were off and the blinds weren't letting too much outside light come in - Shawn realized that he had wound up on the ground next to his Magical Spinning Coat Hanger. At least, that's what he liked to call the rotating machine to hang clothes on that he had gotten with the dry cleaner's. With the hand that wasn't cradling his pounding head, Shawn struggled to claw and pull his way to a standing position using the Magical Spinning Coat Hanger as a crutch. Thankfully, it wasn't spinning right now, because he didn't think his head - or his stomach, for that matter; he was feeling really sick all of a sudden, probably something to do with getting punched in the head - could take it.

He made some semblance of getting to his feet and was about to turn around when he realized that his attacker had definitely had enough time to launch another assault on him by now. An eerie tingling tickled the back of his neck, and he turned to face the direction he'd last seen, and evaded, the bad guy.

The silent, violent attacker was just standing there, studying Shawn as he tried to regain his feet. Shawn couldn't see his face, but he had a feeling by the relaxed way the man was holding himself and the way his head was cocked slightly to the left as he watched Shawn that he was slightly amused, and not at all worried about the outcome of this fight.

Shawn blinked heavily several times, trying to clear his head. "What... What do you want?"

The man cocked his head to the right, still too quiet for Shawn's liking. When he could engage the bad guy in conversation, he had a bit more control, more time to stall. But this guy was super-quiet, super-violent, and seemed to be made of metal.

Shawn decided that until he knew for sure who his attacker was, he would be Iron Giant, from the part of the movie where the giant's war-mode was turned on and he went all Terminator. Which made Shawn Eli Marienthal and the other guy an angry, crazy Vin Diesel. That made his dad Jennifer Anniston. That was just messed up, not to mention creepy. No, he'd just be everyone else who was threatened by Nuclear Iron Giant, and that way, Gus - who he really hoped had figured out that something was wrong and was on his way to rescue him, preferably with the police in tow - could either be Marienthal or Harry Connick, Jr.

All of these thoughts flew through Shawn's head in a matter of seconds, and then he shook himself out of this line of thought when he saw that Iron Giant was slowly moving toward him.

"Look," Shawn said with more bravado than he felt, "if this is about the mockingbird thing, let me assure you that I'm in the process of planning very elaborate funeral services for our three mutual friends." He staggered to the side, away from the Magical Spinning Coat Hanger, backing up the best he could. It soon became apparent, however, that he was being herded against the wall, toward the back corner of the room, whee there would be no escape. Come on, Gus, Jules, even Lassie! Where are you?

He was in the corner now. Shawn tried to give himself a little mental pep talk, reassuring himself that "nobody puts the fake psychic in the corner," but apparently, Iron Giant had done just that. Shawn attempted to duck as the man's massive hand reached for him, but his dizziness and pain made his reaction time more sluggish than he'd expected. He braced himself for a fist to the face, but instead, there was suddenly a choking pressure on his throat as the giant wrapped one huge hand around his neck and started to squeeze.

Shawn choked and spluttered, and released his aching head so that he could desperately pull at the beefy hand - oh, wait, make that hands now - that were intent on squeezing every ounce of air in his lungs and guarding his airway so that no more could get in. The corners of his vision were going black. He wheezed, his hands starting to go numb as he beat vainly at the hands choking him, each hit weaker than the last as he started to lose consciousness.

Right as he was about to give into the darkness, he was lifted by his neck and tossed across the room, crashing against the wall and causing something - was that his portrait from the Lodge? It better not get messed up! - to crash down on his head. He landed in a pile of limp and tingling limbs, trying his best to suck precious air into his starved lungs. His throat hurt, even more than it had after getting his tonsils taken out in the third grade. His head was pounding, his vision foggy. He had absolutely no strength in his body. He couldn't even manage to lift his head as Iron Giant came forward. Shawn couldn't see him with his blurred vision, but he could hear his footsteps.

Shawn allowed his eyes to flutter closed as the man approached him. He'd fought. It might not have been a great fight, or even a good one for that matter. But it was a fight. And now... Now...

Now...

What about that?

Now, there was nothing.

Henry checked the trap again when he got back from the grocery store. Still no cat. However, it seemed that a raccoon had found its way into the cage and had eaten every bite of the cat food, and now it was glaring at him with yellow eyes from behind that black mask. It hissed. He thought about letting the critter go, but he needed to see his son's face when he saw what his cat-trap had caught. Shawn had an unnatural fear of raccoons, and this was one golden opportunity that he couldn't pass up.

He was about to turn around to go into his house when he saw that the flag on his mailbox was up. That was odd. He hadn't tried to send anything, and anyway, the mail had run several hours ago.

Inside was an envelope that simply said, Henry. Eyebrows furrowed, and the beginnings of an icy claw worming its way into his gut, he opened the envelope, making sure to hold his breath in case it contained any powdered poison.

It didn't.

But he probably would have preferred it if it did.

I trust you found my mockingbird
And now my gift for written word.
I'll be the Ewell to your Finch,
And Baby Bird is in a pinch.
His wing will break, but still he'll sing
Melodies of misery...
Be forewarned:
This is not the last you'll hear from me.

He didn't know what it meant, but he did know that the included pictures of Shawn setting up the cat trap just that morning, chatting with Gus in front of the Psych office, and getting off his motorcycle at the station were very real, very serious, and meant that his son was in very real danger. Someone had been stalking his son, and he hadn't even noticed!

Fury welling up inside of him, he read the note again, but it didn't make any more sense than it had the first time. This killer was obsessed with birds... mockingbirds, finches... but what the hell was an Ewell? He could assume Baby Bird was Shawn, which meant that Henry was a Finch. He'd watched those funny little feather-balls on numerous occasions during his bird-watching excursions, and he was proud to say he was nothing like them. They were flighty, chipper, and fluffy. Henry was grounded, gruff, and balding (as much as he hated to admit it). But there had to be some significance, he just wasn't getting it.

At any rate, he didn't like the sound of broken wings and melodies of misery. He immediately pulled out his phone and dialed Shawn's number.

Straight to voicemail.

This wasn't good. He called Gus, hoping Shawn was with him.

"Gus, have you talked to Shawn?"

"I was talking to him about ten or fifteen minutes ago," said Gus, sounding irritated. "I was seriously in the middle of a sentence, and he just hung up on me for no reason. And then he started ignoring my calls."

Not good at all.

"Did he say where he was when you talked to him?"

"His apartment. Why? You don't think something's happened to him, do you? Because I'll be honest, I just thought he was being an ass."

"Oh, he was definitely doing that," Henry agreed dryly, already racing to his truck, pulling his keys out of his pocket. "It's kind of a given with Shawn. I need to get off here and call the chief. We've got a problem. It looks like Shawn could be in some serious trouble."

He hung up before Gus could respond, and then he was dialing another number, even as he sped down the road in the direction of Shawn's apartment. "Karen? It's Henry. I've got something that you'll want to see, and I think Shawn might be in danger. Can you have someone meet me at Shawn's place, the old Mimi's Fluff-n-Fold? I've got a really bad feeling about this."

Shawn woke up slowly, his body limp and weak. He wondered blearily what had happened, why his arms hurt and his head throbbed and he couldn't feel his hands. As a matter of fact, with the exception of his apparently AWOL hands, his whole body was aching. What the heck had he gotten himself into?

He peeled his eyes open, even though his eyelids suddenly seemed to be made of iron, way heavier than they should be. Once he'd opened them, however, he found that even though his vision was swimming, he had an easier time keeping them open than he had had prying them open in the first place. He blinked slowly several times, trying to clear his blurred vision so he could better see where he was and what kind of predicament he'd found himself in. His head was still very fuzzy, and he was only getting disjointed flashes in his memory of somebody in his apartment, and maybe something about Harry Connick, Jr.

When his vision finally cleared enough to make out his surroundings, he saw with surprise and a considerable amount of confusion that he seemed to be in some sort of abandoned courtroom. Or a semblance of one, anyway. He was standing - well, hanging, his feet brushing the surface below him, but once he got his legs in some sort of working order, he'd try to get them beneath him to relieve some of the pressure from his screaming arms, back, and shoulders. Coarse rope was wound tightly and painfully around and then between his wrists, and the end of the rope seemed to be wrapped around or tethered to some sort of a support beam about six feet above his head. From what he could see of his hands as he squinted up through the dim lighting of the windowless building he was in, they were stark white, save for the flesh bordering the rope that was digging into his skin, which was bright red and swollen. There were small streaks of blood coming from beneath the too-tight rope and trickling down his forearms, toward his shoulders.

Well, that explained why he couldn't feel his hands.

Grunting with the effort, his chin flopping to land on his chest as he looked down, Shawn struggled to get his limp and uncooperative legs beneath him. They, too, were sore and tingly, but finally, he managed to get them underneath him so that he was balancing on the wooden surface beneath them. He almost dropped back down then, because the act of removing the strain from his arms was even more painful than his hanging by the wrists. "Gah..." He gasped loudly at the sudden surge of pain and nearly unbearable pins-and-needles that immediately sprang into his hurting arms. He bit his lip and kept his feet steady beneath him despite the sudden wave of dizziness that washed over him, and after a couple minutes of panting from the pain and exertion, he got another, clearer look around where he was being held.

It wasn't a courtroom like he'd initially thought. It seemed to be some kind of storage building, not big enough to be a warehouse, but much bigger than the kind of storage units you usually saw on Storage Wars. Not that he watched that show. Gus had a strange obsession with it, though, and also a nearly debilitating fear that his own storage unit would someday be victimized by the TV show, which was stupid, and he'd told Gus as much, but his best friend could be quite stubborn and exceedingly paranoid, to the point of ridiculousness.

So Shawn had done what any true and clever best friend would do – he faked a phone call to the show, tipping them off to a Mr. Burton Guster's storage unit, which he had assured the unimpressed dial tone of their office phone was packed with all kinds of goodies, even though it really just contained Gus's precious comic book collections that he'd not had room for in his apartment, some crappy college books that no one, not even Amazon buyers, had been interested in taking off his hands, and a few other odds and ends from childhood that Gus refused to give up. All in all, it would probably be valued at less than fifty dollars, although Gus claimed his comic books were mint condition and valuable, or some such nonsense. Gus had nearly had a heart attack when he heard Shawn's faked phone call, and had threatened to kill him in his sleep even after he found out that it was all a ruse.

Wait, what was he thinking about? Crap, he was drifting. His head pounded. He thought he might have a concussion, because he had been thrown against the wall pretty hard, hadn't he? And he'd been punched in the side of the face by the Iron Giant.

And with that memory, everything about the case and his kidnapping came crashing back to him, and he swallowed heavily, knowing that he was in a great deal of trouble. As if he hadn't figured that out already, what with his being kidnapped and subsequently strung up from the ceiling.

And if he was right – and he was almost positive that he was – this all had to do with his dad, which meant that Shawn himself was just a pawn in this. That revelation didn't make him feel any better. In fact, he thought that it actually made him feel worse, because pawns were generally the first to be sacrificed. And if this guy was after his dad... His heart pounded. His dad was in danger, and Shawn hadn't even been able to warn him.

Blinking heavily, breathing hard from pain and exhaustion, with his own heartbeat drumming loudly in his ears, he returned his attention back to his prison, the storage building playing dress-up as a courtroom.

The walls were made of heavy wood, as was the ceiling and its support beams. The lack of windows, the one large room and the shape of the roof above his head was what had told him that this wasn't a house. He might have thought shed, but it was too large and sturdily built for that. So he concluded that it was a storage building, but one that was privately owned, which was bad news for him, because it meant that he was probably well away from anyone who might have been nearby in a storage complex. Of course, the lack of gag over his mouth probably should have clued him in to that right away.

Oh well, a concussion and probably some oxygen starvation from being strangled would probably do that to a person.

What looked like stands for a jury were in front of him. Shawn might have just thought it was a small set of wooden bleachers, but there was a judge's podium to his right, complete with a heavy-looking metal gavel – who had a metal gavel? – and some file folders labeled "EVIDENCE." His feet were balancing on a raised platform that was situated in such a way in relation to the jury stands and the podium that he knew it was supposed to be a witness' stand. The floor of the stand beneath him was raised at least a foot from the ground. He noted with no small amount of apprehension that there seemed to be the outline of some sort of trapdoor in the center of the platform right beneath his feet. He wasn't sure what it was for, but he didn't think it could be anything good.

There were also two long tables set up between Shawn and the jury's seats. One heavy wooden chair sat behind each table, and there were more file folders, these blank and therefore useless to Shawn's analysis of the room. A single bared bulb hung from the ceiling in the center of the room, illuminating the dull light over the interior of the building and casting strange shadows on the walls.

There was a door with no handle across the room, only a round silver plate where the doorknob would normally be, with a large keyhole in the middle. The only way anyone could get in or out of this building was with a key.

Shawn almost full-on panicked then.

Whatever was going on, whatever twisted scenario he'd found himself in, there was absolutely no way out. None. He was trapped in a box, hanging like a puppet from its strings, and the only way to get outside of the box was for someone to open the door from the outside, cut him down, and send him on his way.

And as his abductor was almost certainly the only person with the key to open the door, he had a bad feeling that that wasn't going to happen.

Shawn almost always had a plan. His quick mind and quicker mouth had always found him a way out of the worst situations. Or at the very least, stalled long enough for help to arrive. But now, he was in an impossible position, his limits stretched further than they'd ever been before – literally and figuratively – and there was no one here to talk to in order to stall, no help on the way. There was a chance that Gus had realized that something was wrong, but it was equally as likely that he might not, considering Shawn would often simply cut off a call with his friend if he got tired of the line of conversation, or of hearing Gus lecture him. Shawn vowed to never hang up on his friend again.

If he ever stopped hanging from the ceiling in this windowless, doorless box, that is.

The point was, even if Gus realized something was wrong, no one had any idea about what was going on. Shawn cursed himself for keeping so much of this case to himself. He should have told someone about his theories long before he'd called Gus. He wasn't even sure why he hadn't. Maybe it was his pride, wanting to have the one-up on the case for a more spectacular vision, or just sheer stubbornness.

And on top of that, if his theory about this case was right – and he was almost positive that it was – his dad was going to get drawn into this too, and because of Shawn's stupidity, he had no idea of the danger he was in. Shawn should have told him what he'd suspected when his father had demanded to know what was going on earlier in the day.

Shawn let his arms sag as much as they could – which wasn't much, there was barely any slack in the rope connecting him to the ceiling – in an attempt to relieve the pain and exhaustion from having them held above his head for so long.

Hopelessness spilled over him in buckets of despair, and the pain continued to rage through his body.

With nothing else to do, with no help coming and no chance of escape, Shawn closed his eyes, defeated.

He waited, but for what, he didn't know.

He found that he didn't really want to know what he was waiting for, because he had a terrible foreknowledge that he didn't need to be a psychic to see - that when that doorknobless door opened and his captor stepped in, his already suck-tastic situation was only going to get worse.

Much, much worse.

Reply to Anonymous Reviewer:

To H: Thanks so much! I hope that it lives up to your expectations and that you continue to enjoy it! You are awesome for taking the time to review! Thanks again!

A/N: Thank you SO much to everyone who reviewed chapter 3: Leahelisabeth, ChucKelise, fantomfaire, mushushy, PhantasmicFire323, Feather32, Clara Brighet, mamapranayama, Final Precipie and ChutneyMarie! And thanks to Clara Brighet for pointing out that I put "jacked" instead of "jacket" near the beginning of the chapter! It's been fixed! Also thanks to the new reviewers of chapter 2: special agent Ali and H! And big thanks to everyone who followed and favorited this story!

Things are really about to pick up now... Poor Shawn... *grins evilly* And I realize that "Iron Giant" is an animated movie, and it was made in 1999, not the 80s, but something tells me that it's a movie that Shawn would have on call in his mind, lol. And if not - poetic license, haha. What can I say? I was born in '91. :D

A little bit of shameless self-promotion here: If you haven't already, I'd be very appreciative if you'd check out my new one-shot, "A (Fake) Psychic and a (Real) Warlock Walk Into a Bar" - it's a crossover between Psych and BBC's Merlin. :)

About last week's episode. I bawled. It was pathetic. I was curled up on the couch at the end of the episode, hands over my face, and tears in my eyes thinking, "WHYYYY, Juliet, WHYYYY?!" I won't give any spoilers in case anyone hasn't seen it, but I will say that it was hilarious, odd, silly, goofy, clever, witty, and heart-wrenching in the last 5-10 minutes or so. I died a little inside, I think. If you want to discuss it with me, or just fangirl(boy) or freak out about it, PM me. I never pass down a chance to gush about Psych. :D Tonight's episode looks awesome too!

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN AN EARLY UPDATE, PLEASE READ: Thanks again to everyone who's reading, reviewing, favoriting and following this fic! Chapter four will be posted by next Wednesday! But... I'm thinking that if I get enough reviews, I may very well go ahead and post it on Friday, just this once, as a birthday present to you all, since Friday's my 23rd birthday! (And I know that's not exactly how presents and birthdays work, but hey, I'm a generous gal, LOL!) Seriously, though, if you'd like me to update this on Friday for my birthday, let me know in a review. And don't worry, you'll still get another chapter on the following Wednesday, too, and then updates will go back to normal. Just let me know, I guess. Thanks, and I love you all!

~Emachinescat ^..^