Disclaimer: I don't own Psych or To Kill a Mockingbird.

A/N: Warning: some gore in this chapter.

Thanks for the reviews and favorites and follows! I want to implore you, if you are taking the time to read, please take the extra minute to review, so I'll know you enjoy! :) Anonymous review responses and extended author's note at the end of the chapter.

If you want more father-son bonding, Shawn whump and hurt/comfort, check out my newest one-shot, "No More Spencers Jumping on the Bed!" It's an AU episode tag to "Shawn and Gus Truck Things Up" - with much more h/c, angst, and whump! :D

Enjoy, and PLEASE review! :)

The Finch and the Mockingbird

Chapter Eight: Getting Vengeance 101: Rubric for Revenge

Gus used his key to unlock the office. Lassie and Juliet were behind him, guns at the ready. Gus tried not to think about what they could be risking if they were being watched and the bad guy thought Henry had involved the cops. He kept telling himself that they had no choice, that Henry had told them to check Psych for a reason, and that they had to take the risk.

Chief Vick had been informed of their predicament via a text message from Juliet, and her quick response had been, Be prepared, discreet. Let me know ASAP. Go from there.

The first thing he thought upon opening the door was that the Psych office looked exactly the same as it had yesterday evening. What had he expected? For Shawn to escape, plant a clue, and then jump back to his abductor before the bad guy even knew he was gone?

He flicked on the light switch, stepped in, and something crinkled under his foot.

"This wasn't here before," he said, stooping down to pick up the manila envelope that had been slid under the door.

"Mind getting out of the doorway, Guster? We're trying to be discreet here," Lassiter griped from outside. Gus quickly stepped in and then closed the door quietly after the two detectives had filed inside.

"Someone dropped this off," he said.

"The kidnapper?" Juliet guessed.

"No, Mr. Spencer said that Shawn hinted at it. Somehow he knew it was coming. It's a clue."

"Open it."

Gus grabbed a letter-opener from his desk, quickly sliced his way into the large yellow envelope, and pulled out a stack of papers about fifteen to twenty pages thick. On top was a hastily handwritten note on a scrap of college-ruled paper:

Shawn,

Must have just missed you. Here is the paper you asked about. Hope you enjoy. Let me know if there's anything else you need.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Jada Moore

"Who's Mrs. Jada Moore?" Juliet asked. Gus assumed it was a rhetorical question, but to his surprise, Lassiter answered.

"She's the head librarian at Santa Barbara Public Library. I'm a card-holder," he explained when the other two shot him surprised looks.

"Me too, but I don't know the librarians' names by heart," Juliet pointed out.

"I try to time my visits for when the fine red-head's working the desk," Gus informed them, flicking his nose with his thumb.

"She's Victoria's aunt," Lassiter explained. "The only one in that whole family who actually liked me."

"Ah," Gus and Juliet intoned. Everyone knew that his ex-wife was still a bit of a sore subject for the head detective.

"Shawn actually went to the library without my forcing him," Gus realized, astounded. "Whoa." He set the note aside and looked at the next page, which was typed, Times New Roman, twelve-point, doubled spaced, and had a header that Gus would know all too well. "It's a research paper."

"Let me see that," Lassiter said, snatching the stack of papers so quickly that Gus got multiple paper cuts.

"Ow!" Gus said, then moved in to look around Lassie's shoulders. The name on the top of the header was blacked out with permanent marker, perhaps for confidentiality's sake. As Lassiter quickly thumbed through the rest of the paper, Gus noticed that the librarian had neglected to mark out the last name on the top right of each page, however. Bless her forgetful old soul.

"This was written by someone named Stevens, 1981. Title: Revenge and Hate: Ewell's Slaughter of a Mockingbird. What is this crap?"

"This crap," Gus said testily, "is literary research on the greatest classic American novel ever written. But it looks like it's all about hate and revenge, which is not what most people focus on." He grabbed the paper back, much to Lassiter's annoyance, and started shuffling through the pages and skimming over their contents.

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many well-depicted and relevant themes, including racism, rape, and loss of innocence, and while many scholars focus on these and other prominent aspects, few have expanded on one of the less-subtle but incredibly important themes: Revenge.

Gus skimmed over a few more paragraphs, Lassiter and Juliet peering over either shoulder.

While Tom Robinson's arrest and death is equated with the killing of a mockingbird (Hill 41), or the destruction of something innocent, and while Sheriff Tate's sparing Boo Radley from the public's eye was the counter idea to Robinson's situation, Bob Ewell's thirst for revenge and his enacting of that revenge by attacking his adversary's innocent children is also killing a mockingbird (Roday 65).

Gus flipped through a few pages, reading intently now as the author of the paper expanded upon his theories, talking about Ewell's attack on the children and its significance not only in the novel, but its application to the real world as well.

Atticus knew that Ewell was angry with him, but he was convinced that the man would come after and confront him. He was both shocked and heartbroken when the villain went after his children instead. "This is the most serious of retributions, and Ewell knew that he would hurt Attics more through his children than if he were to hurt Atticus himself," Lawson states. This is a method that has been used in wars and disputes throughout the years, weakening your enemy by taking out someone or something they love most.

But what kind of person would stoop this low? Or is it stooping? "In Ewell's eyes, he was doing what he had to do. He had been humiliated in front of his entire town. Secrets that he never wanted exposed were out in the open. And how does he act? Out of desperation. Spite, yes, but he was driven to that point" (Omundson 131).

"Shawn had it all figured out," Gus said. "He knew early on that someone was targeting him because of something his dad had done." He flipped past the two-page bibliography and back to the second page, looking once again at the name of the author at the top left corner.

Coupled with what Mr. Spencer said in his note, I'd say that our kidnapper is Aaron Stevens," Juliet said. She pursed her lips.

"Looks like Spencer was really onto something," Lassiter admitted begrudgingly, but Gus thought he could hear a bit of respect in his gruff voice. "Too bad he didn't feel the need to share what he'd learned with the rest of the class."

Gus glared over his shoulder at the older man. "Well, he finally decided to share," Gus defended his best friend. "He was telling me in that roundabout way of his when he got taken."

No one had anything to say to that.

"I'm going to call the chief," Lassiter finally stated. "Ask her to have someone run a search on this Aaron Stevens."

"And then what?" Gus asked anxiously, wanting to do something – anything – to help his best friend.

Lassiter's response wasn't encouraging. "Then... we wait."

Someone had tried to call him twice. Henry had ignored the beeping on the other line alerting him to this fact, listening instead to the breathing of his son's tormentor, and the man's various driving instructions. Otherwise, he remained silent.

Henry still hadn't heard anything else from Shawn, and any inquiries about his son were met with stony silence.

One good thing about the long drive was that Henry had plenty of time to think. He put some things together, began to really focus on the bigger picture, realizing that it might not be someone he'd directly put in jail. Maybe someone "innocent," looking for revenge.

Like the innocent man thrown in jail and killed in that book this guy seemed so hell-bent on copying. Henry was inclined to think that whoever this kidnapper was, he'd lost at least a few of his marbles in prison.

He ended up pulling into an old abandoned truck stop, half burned down and so far from the main road that Henry never would have found it if it hadn't been for Aaron's directions. He did as he was told and parked, leaving the phone on and in the cab of the truck. He stepped out, placed his hands on the side of the vehicle, and waited.

He was weighing his options and wondering if he should try to jump the guy when he came for him, attempt to subdue him, and then force him to take him to his son (he decided pretty quickly that it was far too risky), when a hood was shoved over his head and he was grabbed tightly from behind by strong, hard hands. The inside of the hood was musty and smelled like mothballs.

"If you fight me, I promise you, your son will be the one to pay," the same voice that had spoken to Henry on the phone hissed in his ear. Angry at being so helpless but not willing to do anything to further hurt his son, Henry complies. His body was so tense and his muscles so ready to take action that he was quivering slightly.

His hands were roughly pulled behind his back and tied, and he was shoved forward. "Step up," ordered the kidnapper, half-guiding and half-hoisting him into the back of some sort of vehicle, most likely a van. Doors slammed behind him. Footsteps crunched outside. A door opened in at the front of the van, then closed. The ignition started.

They drove away.

Henry Spencer had been in no way involved with the Aaron Stevens investigation, which was why no one had thought of him when trying to come up with a plausible list of suspects.

He had, it turned out, given a testimony that had helped put the man behind bars for the murder of his girlfriend, Alicia Tyler. But he hadn't been the only witness to contribute to the man's sentence (though definitely one of the major ones), and his testimony had to do with an incident he saw on one of his nightly patrols. And Stevens hadn't made a peep since his arrest. Not to mention, almost everyone in the department had thought he was innocent, apparently, so there was that.

They'd tracked down Mrs. Moore, found out everything she knew about Stevens, which wasn't much, since she hadn't heard from or seen him since a few years before he'd been arrested. She was horrified to find out what had happened to Shawn, and she promised that if she remembered anything else that might help the investigation along, she would call right away.

Jim Morton, the detective who had been the lead investigator on the case and a good friend of Mrs. Moore, had apparently passed away a couple of decades ago in a car accident, so he was obviously no help.

According to Stevens' parole officer, whom they contacted immediately after confirming Stevens' identity, he hadn't shown any sign of aggression after being released, and he'd made all his parole meetings and had been open and polite. They checked the address given to them by the parole officer, but the apartment he was supposed to be living in was unoccupied, had been for days by the looks of it.

They did find an old article stuffed in the bottom desk drawer about about a truck stop that had burned down seven years ago about thirty miles away.

It was a long shot, and it could turn up to be nothing, but Henry's cell phone GPS was either in a dead spot or simply not working, and they had absolutely nothing else to go on.

A BOLO had been issued for Stevens, but it didn't look promising. He was tucked away somewhere, both players in this twisted game of his in his clutches.

Long shot or not, they had to take it.

And so they did.

Henry wasn't sure how long he was in the back of the vehicle, tied up and blindfolded. He normally would have been on top of this sort of thing, but he was so exhausted and spent because of this whole nightmare that he couldn't even adequately keep up with all the turns they made. All he knew for sure was that the latter part of the ride was incredibly bumpy, like they were driving off-road instead of on. Since he wasn't buckled in, he got thrown all over the back of the car, unable to get his bearings and probably getting some spectacular bruises at the same time.

When they finally stopped, he heard the driver's door open and close again, more footsteps, and then the back hatch was thrown open and Henry was yanked out. The sack was removed from his head and to his surprise, the ropes were tugged off of his wrists.

He blinked in the early morning daylight. His captor was behind him. A gun settled at the base of his neck. He wasn't afraid for himself; only for his son. Ahead, a large, windowless building made of heavy wood loomed. It's warehouse-esque roof sloped upwards several yards and then crested back down on the other side of the building. The door blended almost seamlessly with the dark planks that made up the walls. There was no handle, only a large keyhole, the key to which he heard jangling in the man's free hand behind him. The key was then thrust into Henry's hand and he gripped it tightly, the ridges digging into his palm. He wondered if he could whip around and stab this heartless bastard with the key right then and there.

But there was a gun at his back and his son was in jeopardy. So he walked forward at the kidnapper's not-so-gentle nudges. As they walked up the bumpy, unpaved driveway to the building, his captor started to talk, almost conversationally, which made Henry want to kill him all the more.

"My parents were a bit eccentric," he said, pressing the gun a bit harder into Henry's spine. "Super-paranoid, you know? My dad had this place built when he and my mom got married. He wanted a place to go in case of emergency, and to store all his stuff that he didn't want to lose. Tornado? No windows. Intruders? No door. Hurricane? This place is as sturdy as it can be. Think of it as a glorified panic room, if you want. It's multi-purpose, though. I was glad to see that it was still here, you know, after all those years in prison? I would've used my old house, but it was probably a bit obvious and it's falling apart."

Henry answered in a too-even voice, "I know your whole sob story, Stevens, and frankly, I don't give a damn."

They were almost to the door. Stevens froze. The gun jabbed harder into Henry's neck. "So you figured it out."

"Wasn't that difficult once I started to put everything together. The obsession with justice, you were a literature teacher, your first name's Aaron. I figured it out on the way here. Would've seen it earlier, but I wasn't on that case and I never thought you were guilty. And you know, you may not have been guilty back then, but you sure as hell are now."

Stevens shoved Henry forward violently, and the older man barely managed to regain his balance. "Open the door," Stevens ordered. With no other options, Henry slid the large key into the silver keyhole and turned. Right before he pushed the door open, heart pounding madly as he anticipated the horror he would see upon entering the storage building/panic room, Stevens spoke again. "I'm not guilty, Mr. Spencer. You are. You didn't stand up for my freedom, even when you claim you knew I was innocent. You killed the mockingbird. You turned me into this. You did this to your son." He shoved open the door.

Henry's knees went weak, he could have sworn his heart skipped several beats, and a chill of pure, undulated terror shot down his spine, and it had nothing to do with the pistol still planted there.

His voice was weak, bile threatening to climb into his throat. He had to force himself not to do something stupid and attack the man then and there. He wasn't going to risk Shawn's life. If he was even still alive. The thought made Henry sick, but he couldn't push it away. He'd seen corpses that looked better. "Shawn..."

His son was unconscious, deathly pale, and hanging from a rope that looped over a support beam above him and then was slung over the beam and tied tightly to what appeared to be a coat hook on steroids on the back wall. His hands were tied together, forced above his head, but he was only hanging by one. The shoulder was painfully out of joint from all of his weight being on it for so long, making his right arm look several inches longer than his left.

His left arm... Henry, who had a stomach of iron, actually felt ill at the sight. The only word that came to mind when he saw his son's left arm was mutilated. It had been broken brutally, perhaps more than once. The forearm was snapped, the bone having sliced the skin right open. At least an inch and a half of gleaming white bone was sticking out of Shawn's arm. Muscle and tendons were just visible in the gruesome wound, and blood trailed down his arm and trickled to the ground. It didn't look like he'd lost enough blood to be terribly worried about blood-loss yet, but that was a small, almost non-existant comfort. His upper arm was lumpy and oddly shaped under his t-shirt. His whole arm slumped limp and useless in its bonds, bloody and shattered. Thankfully there was enough slack in the rope that his feet touched the platform beneath him and offered him a cushion of sorts so that most of the weight was off the broken arm.

Henry wondered in horror if they got out of this, would Shawn ever be able to use his arm properly again? Even with extensive medical care, it was hard to imagine that ever working or looking the same way again. Then again, Henry was not a doctor, and he hoped fervently that he was wrong, and Shawn's arm would make a full recovery.

Shawn's face was bruised and bloody, and there was a small trail of blood from his head down his neck.

He let his weary eyes wander down his son's limp and beaten body, checking for any further injuries. When he got to the knees, his own knees went weak. The place where his right knee should have been was a bulging, grotesque mess. A layer of dried blood stained the material on and under the knee. Whatever was under the fabric was going to be massively misshapen, ruthlessly crushed, terribly swollen, and indescribably painful.

"You son of a bitch," Henry said, his voice low and angry. Looking up at his son's broken and bleeding body, hanging from the ceiling, something inside of him broke. Stevens' words echoed in his head. You did this to your son. Not that he actually blamed himself for this in the way that Stevens was implying, but it was something much deeper. Henry had always known the life of a cop and detective was dangerous. Every day he put on his badge, he was well aware that one day, he might not come back.

When it was his life on the line, that was okay. He'd signed up for it; he knew the risks. And despite how hard Henry had tried to get his son to follow in his footsteps, Shawn hadn't. At least not in the way he'd expected. And yes, Shawn had been shot and kidnapped, held at gunpoint, threatened and targeted and chased because of his own cases. And of course that had worried Henry sick, hard-pressed as he was to admit it. But Shawn was innocent in this.

Never had Henry thought that someone would go after his son because of him. Not like this.

In a sense, he supposed, he had done this to Shawn.

Desperation clouded over him. For the first time in as long as he could remember, Henry Spencer was at a complete loss of what to do. For the first time in forever, everything was out of his control. His son was severely injured, and there was nothing he could do about it without risking him even more.

Henry had never hated himself more than he did in that moment. Not when he'd let Maddie leave. Not when he'd realized Shawn had been in the gas station with Longmore the entire time. Never.

And he'd never hated anyone as much as he hated Stevens, and doubted that he ever would again.

"Done gawking?" Stevens needled. "Get inside, Henry."

Henry numbly crossed the threshold, not taking his eyes off of his brutalized son. Prison had surely turned Aaron Stevens into a mad monster, or maybe it had only helped him along. He was insane.

The door closed heavily behind them. Henry was guided forward until he was several yards from the horrible sight of his child. His feet nudged something soft on the floor and he looked down.

At his feet lay none other than a bruised, battered, and very dead Herman O'Dell, a man that Henry had hated for a long time for his ability to do whatever he wanted and get away with it scott-free because of his money, power, and influence. It looked like O'Dell had finally crossed with the wrong person. The sight before him gave him no satisfaction whatsoever, though. The way he saw it, O'Dell had gotten the easy ticket out. One shot to the head, boom, he probably hadn't even felt anything.

Henry was beyond grateful that Shawn was alive, and would do anything to keep him that way, but he'd already been through more agony than Henry could even begin to comprehend, all in a matter of a few hours, it seemed. And if Stevens had his way, he'd suffer unimaginably more before he died, because Stevens wanted Henry to suffer because of Shawn's suffering.

And right now, that twisted plan was working perfectly, as Henry felt like everything he had ever worked for, everything he'd ever truly cared for, was crumbling around his ears. All of those lectures he'd given about not sticking his nose in where it didn't belong, about staying safe, how do you escape from the trunk of a car, etc., etc... None of that had even come close to helping Shawn here. Shawn hadn't done some stupid, bullheaded thing to get himself into this situation. He was just the victim, the pawn.

Henry knew that nothing was going to change that, but he still said evenly, surprised that he was mostly able to keep the enraged shake out of his voice, "Your problem is with me, Stevens. Shawn's suffered enough. Let him go, and you can do whatever you want to me."

Stevens laughed. The gun disappeared from his back but stayed trained on Henry as the madman circled around in front of him, heavy steel-toed boots roughly kicking the lifeless form of Herman O'Dell out of his path as he moved to stand right next to Henry. Henry steeled himself and forced himself to look Stevens in the eyes, away from his son. Some dark, irrational little voice in the back of his head told him that if he took his eyes off of Shawn again, his son would be gone, dead. Stupid, but stubborn little voice. Henry had never been one to panic. He knew how to shove emotions into the back of his mind so that he could focus on getting a job done, no matter how haunting said job might be.

But this was his son, for crying out loud!

When he turned his gaze, he saw Stevens for the first time in over twenty-five years. The man had been reasonably fit when he'd been arrested, but he was now – there was no other word for it – ripped. His eyes were burning with hatred, malice, and hurt. Yeah, his situation had been unfair. And Henry had felt bad about the outcome, once upon a time. Not anymore, though.

"What happened to you, Aaron?" Henry asked softly. He'd never been one for the sentimental, trying to talk them down approach. But seeing as his son was hanging from the ceiling, beaten to a pulp, before him, he found he was willing to try new things. "You were a good man."

"Was, yes. Not anymore. Prison changed me, Spencer. You law enforcement stooges don't get it. Your prisons are nothing more than monster machines, taking people who might have done a few misdemeanors and turning them into real criminals. And I didn't even do anything to deserve going! I had to learn to adapt behind those bars, old man. I was a twenty-year-old kid who had a bright future ahead of him. Graduated high school and college early, with honors. Great teaching job at a local high school. Then I got unfairly thrown into the system, twenty-five years until chance of parole, and you see what it did to me."

"You–"

"No more talking. Not now. There will be plenty of time for that later when the trial starts." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle with a stopper and started to approach Shawn. Smelling salts. Oh, no, he was going to wake Shawn up, make him suffer through this conscious.

Then what Stevens said caught up with him. Trial? Henry had been so focused on Shawn that he hadn't even looked around the rest of the room. He hadn't even noticed until now that the interior of the building was set up to look like a small, makeshift courtroom. His stomach turned uncomfortably. He noticed briefly that there was a gun lying on what was supposed to be the judge's podium as well as one pressing into his back, but he quickly realized that he'd be able to move fast enough to get either right now. But he filed the gun in his mind, hoping he could find a way to get to the other one later and put a stop to all this madness.

For as bad as everything was right now, Henry knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever Stevens had planned next would make this look like child's play.

Reply to Anonymous Reviewers:

To Guest: You're welcome; thank YOU for reviewing, and I'm glad you enjoyed it! Hoping this chapter was enjoyed, too! :)

To Hope: Thank you so much! You are so awesome, and your review made me grin like a buffoon! XD I'm SO glad you're enjoying it, and that it's got you interested, because we're just getting started! Thanks for the review! :)

To Checkerz: Hi! :) Nice to hear from you! Thank you so much for reading and enjoying my story and taking the time to review! Also, I'll have to look up the song; I never say no to new inspiration! :D And painting outside and listening to music? One of my favorite things to do, although I haven't painted in quite some time, unfortunately. You've got me back wanting to finish the three or four paintings I've got in my room that I've started but haven't gotten around to finishing! Thanks! :D

To Guest: Thank you so much! I'm really glad you enjoyed this chapter, and I sincerely hope you enjoy the rest as well! :)

A/N: Okay, lots of notes for this chapter, but first off, a huge thank you to the people who reviewed chapter 7, Guest, Hope, Leahelisabeth, Liberty Hoffman, Clara Brighet, ChutneyMarie and Guest! And another huge thank you to Checkerz, who reviewed chapter 1!

Okay, now for the (mega) A/N:

(1) Please review! I know I say this a lot, and I probably say it too much, but I cannot stress enough how important it is for me to get input on my writing! I've been concerned this week, because the number of reviews was cut in half from the last chapter, a few of my regular reviewers for this story not present, and I'm left wondering if I did something that some of my readers didn't like... You know how it is. :) I just ask that you guys, if you have the time, let me know your thoughts! If not, well, I'm still EXTREMELY grateful that you're taking the time to read! :D So thanks!

(2) Yes, I went there with the research paper. If you're unfamiliar with the actors and actresses on Psych, then you wouldn't have gotten the joke, but in the excerpts of the research paper, the authors' names for the internal citations were all people from the show. Roday is Shawn, Hill is Gus, Omundson is Lassie, Lawson is Juliet. I couldn't help myself. And yeah, the research paper is written in MLA style... if anyone cares. Sadly, I just wrote the excerpts and made up the quotes and didn't do any real research for the "paper" but I would so love to do some research on this subject and write an actual research paper on it, just for the fun of it! (I'm a nerd, lol!)

(3) The reference to prison as a "monster machine" actually came from an amazing book by one of my favorite authors, Ted Dekker, called Sanctuary. It's a HARD book to read, deals with very sensitive issues, and is quite graphic, but it's a wonderful read that teaches a powerful lesson about forgiveness, grace, and also highlights the faults of the American justice system as we know it. It'll make you cringe and weep, but it's a fantastic read!

(4) The last episode... Let's just say the whole time I was watching it with my boyfriend, he was giggling like a maiden in love and I was covering my eyes, squealing, "I don't like it! I don't like it! Make it go away!" I. HATE. ZOMBIES. The deeper meaning to Gus's dreams, the bromance, etc. were great, but WHY DID IT HAVE TO ZOMBIES? Oh, right, because James Roday wrote and directed it, and for some reason he loves the idea of flesh-munching has-been humans feasting on the still living population. Ick!

(5) The next episode... the LAST episode... I am in shock. I don't want to believe it. It had better be a good ending that gives us happiness and romance and bromance and closure and dad/son-bonding and character development and beauty and rainbows and all things wonderful! But it also needs to be left open for a movie or continuation. If we get a good finale, I'll survive. If not, I can't promise that Steve Franks will survive... *laughs evilly* But seriously, guys, this is hard. But we'll be okay, Psych-os. *encouraging nod*

Sorry for the super-duper monster author's note, but I guess I had a lot to say. XD Thanks again for the reviews, please review this chapter, and stay tuned! Next chapter, we get Aaron's backstory, Shawn and Henry interaction, and more whump! :D

Love you guys!

~Emachinescat ^..^