Close Encounters 17
Inside their cover apartment, Castle picked up the vibrating phone and pressed it to his ear. He already knew, with a dreadful certainty, that something had gone terribly wrong. Beckett should have been on her way here by now. "Where are they?" he rasped. "What's happened?"
It was Mason. "The vehicle took off without the convoy. Inside is Beckett, one guard, and one driver."
"And where are you?"
"In fucking pursuit," Mason bit out. "I'm with McCord; she got to her car fast and we're tracking them. Kate still has the GPS locator I planted on her."
"Relay that to my screen," he demanded, opening up his secure laptop. It was the same one Ryan had been using back when they'd been forced to go mobile. He should have never left the site.
Castle pressed the phone to his ear with one shoulder, typed in his password. Esposito was on the other side of the wall working security for the apartment, so Castle pounded with his fist and gestured for him to come over. Espo would see Castle on the monitors.
Sasha came in from the bedroom, startled by his fist apparently, and Castle absently rubbed between her ears as the computer loaded.
"You should have it," Mason said over the line. "Do you have it?"
"Yeah. Got it," he breathed, watching the screen. The satellite image had the blue dot of Kate's tracker moving fast, above fifty miles per hour, and he traced the trajectory with his eyes. "Where are they going? Do we know who was in the car with her?"
"We're guessing it was Maine," Mason said grimly. "Agent Kerice said his supervisor took Maine off the case pending some kind of investigation - I'm assuming that's your fault - and that he wasn't supposed to be there. But he wasn't inside the building when they went looking for him."
"Where the hell is he taking her?" Castle stood quickly as Esposito came into the room; he gestured for the man to come closer.
"What am I looking at? Is that their route?" Esposito asked.
"Maine grabbed her," Castle answered. He was already grabbing his keys to the stupid cover car - at least it was a Charger with a hemi engine. That was something. "Mason, fill me in on what else you know."
"Before the vehicle pulled away, we saw one agent and Beckett in the backseat. A gun came from the front driver's seat. Security cameras at the exit show that Beckett and the agent are both - they are both slumped over."
"What are you telling me?" he croaked, hands going still as he shoved on his shoes.
"Blood on the rear window, a good amount, and both the agent and Beckett were down."
"Down," he repeated hollowly. Beckett was down.
For a second, nothing made sense, not the voice in his ear, not Esposito hissing questions at him, not the strange apartment. He sank against the wall and hunched over, gathering breath. One more, one more, and then he jerked painfully upright, striding for the door with knives in his guts.
"Mason, I'm on my way to meet this guy."
"Castle, I don't think-"
"I'm not sitting here while he drives to some secluded area to dump her body."
"We don't know that she's dead."
"She better not be," Castle growled. "Or I will torture him to death. For years. I will fucking take him apart, cell by cell, until he is begging me to end him."
Shit, Maine was racing through the streets; Kate could barely get her bearings. It was a struggle just to breathe.
Beckett leaned into a swerve and inched closer to the dead agent, using her fingers to feel along his thigh. The blood was strangely contained to the round hole in his forehead, but his body was so lax, so strangely warm under her hands.
She needed his gun; she needed to find a damn weapon.
Suddenly an arm came back and Maine's fist crashed into the side of her face. She grunted and was flung into the dead man, her ribs screaming.
"You stay fucking still," Maine growled. "I know what you're capable of, and you stay down."
She ignored him and fumbled through the agent's jacket, around his waist, searching desperately for that damn holster. Of course, he was right-handed so he'd have to draw from under his left arm, and that was the side pressed into the door.
"Fucking bitch. Stop it." The arm came back over the seats again and hit out at her; she hissed and recoiled, the pain scrambling her head. "I will fuck you up. You understand me? I don't care what he said, I will do it right here. You sit down."
She searched frantically through the man's clothes, felt the edge of the leather with her fingertips-
Maine snagged the chain of the handcuffs and yanked her forward; she yelped as her body smashed against the back of the front seat, arrows of agony piercing her ribs.
The car swung wildly again and Maine cursed, let go to grab the wheel. She felt her knee hit the floorboard but she forced herself to crawl towards the dead man, anxious to get that service weapon. She reached forward but here came Maine again, hooking his fingers through the cuffs and yanking her back, her body flung against the seat.
She was too damn restrained. She needed to - cuffs first. Get the cuffs off first, act beaten, get the cuffs off and then go for the gun.
Kate breathed shortly through her nose and let the car's jerky movement swing her into the door. But she pushed her fingers into her pocket and scrabbled for the key. She groaned for effect and stayed against the far door of the SUV, the bounce and sway of the suspension making her bruised ribs into shards of glass that were being driven through her lungs.
She had the key though.
She had the key.
Beckett curled her fingers up and tried to angle the key into the lock, but the rough passage of the car weaving through the interstate made it difficult. She gritted her teeth and pulled her knees up onto the seat, straining against the pain, against her muscles that were absolutely rebelling at even the idea of movement.
She'd just gotten her feet up when Maine slammed on the brakes; it jerked her back and then momentum carried her inexorably forward. She pitched over the seat and onto the floor, landing with a gasp as shockwaves vibrated through her bones.
Oh, shit. The key.
Fuck. Fucking hell, Beckett, keep hold of the damn key.
She panted against the scratchy carpet of the backseat's floor, inched her fingers around the surface for the handcuff key. She fucking needed her hands free and she wasn't going to let some smirking asshole like Maine be the one to finally get rid of her.
Black wasn't going to have it that easy.
She grimly ignored the still-sharp agony that came with every breath, and she searched for the key.
Maine growled and the car barreled through traffic. "You damn bitch. You are not fucking worth this. I am so willing to shoot you right here. I don't care what he said to make it look like - I will blow your brains out myself if you try anything. You hear me?"
She had no idea where he was taking her, or why he hadn't shot her outright, but she had an awful sense that it was to allow Black to do the job himself.
He'd want to see her afraid.
She wouldn't have been, usually. She would've fought like hell, gone done with her hands around his throat, but she'd have known, somewhere deep, that it had always been coming for her. She'd stolen a spy and she hadn't been willing to give him up. There were always consequences to a love like that.
But now.
Fuck. She didn't have the luxury of fearlessness. She had to find that damn key.
Esposito was stone cold silent.
Castle drove without speaking, without feeling, just drove. He followed the blinking blue light that indicated the tracker and he did not let anything out of him. Or in. Nothing.
Castle couldn't - there wasn't room for - there was this dark and hungry blackness in him, a mouth gnawing on his bones. There was only the slim, thin chance that they were wrong and nothing had happened, but he clutched it with everything he had.
She couldn't be dead.
Beckett is down.
He chased after the vehicle in his Charger, his speed going up and up, ignoring stop lights and maneuvering around the other cars. When they got to the Tunnel and crossed into Jersey, he had no idea why.
No clue about why or what was happening, only that Beckett was in that SUV and he was not letting her down. After everything they'd survived, for this to be how it ended - no. No. They didn't end.
He pushed the car to its limits, going so fast that Esposito actually clutched the door handle and held on. Castle didn't care, didn't let up, just took every obstacle as they came.
"There," Esposito hissed. "There he is."
The FBI's black SUV was nothing more than a speck in the distance of the tunnel, going around a curve now, more violently than necessary. Castle narrowed his eyes and pushed the accelerator; the Charger surged forward and the cars flew past him on either side.
He was fucking gaining.
He had to swerve around a delivery truck, neatly clipped a car going too slowly, the fender of his Charger scraping. He stomped on the gas to make up for it and narrowly avoided a tiny Miata who thought it was hot stuff in the fast lane.
"Whoa. Whoa, fuck," Espo breathed.
Castle was maybe a hundred yards back. The windows were tinted on the SUV, but the tint was bubbled and warped, peeling up in the back. He strained to see, flicking his eyes between the traffic and the SUV, inching closer.
"I can see inside," Espo rasped. "I don't - no visual."
"You're sure."
"I - yes. I'm sure. I see straight through to the driver."
Castle squeezed the wheel and fought to control the car. "We'll - as soon as we're out of the tunnel, we'll force him off the road."
"On the damn interstate?" Espo cursed.
"If that's what it takes."
"Castle. No. That is not a good idea."
"It will be controlled," he said grimly. "It won't roll."
"But how do you know Beckett isn't-"
"Beckett's fine. She's fine," he choked out. "I'm going to run that SUV off the road and force him out into the line of fire."
"I don't think that's such a hot idea."
"I didn't ask you."
Beckett found the key with a last desperate sweep of her hands, her body bowed so she could search, her ribs aching so badly she was shaking.
But she had the key.
She rolled her body carefully to prop up her arms against the side of the seat, still rocking on the floorboards as the SUV swerved in traffic. She had the feeling that Maine was doing it on purpose, trying to keep her off-balanced, but she concentrated on the trembling and bouncing manacles around her wrists and that small, tiny keyhole.
She dropped the key the first time, but it bounced against her abs and she trapped it there, grunting when the bruises made themselves known. She took a stuttering breath and leaned her head back against the side of the door, closed her eyes as she carefully picked up the key.
When she had it again, she tried this time instead to curl on her bad hip, giving her arms more stability, and even though her pulse pounded hard through her arm and side, it was at least a little more manageable.
Sudden light flared through the windows and she realized they'd been in a tunnel, had come out of it now. She fit the key into the lock in haste, jabbing it into the narrow hole and twisting desperately, her mouth filling with that choking sense of horror.
The car was slowing down. She was running out of time.
The SUV made a tight turn and picked up speed again; she let out a shaky breath and dug the key into the lock, felt the thin metal pressed tightly into her thumb. She couldn't get the lock to move, couldn't find the tumblers, and even though she knew Castle hadn't possibly known what kind of cuffs these were ahead of time, he wouldn't have given her the bump key if he didn't think it would work.
She could get it; she could do this.
Beckett twisted the key tighter into the lock, praying under her breath as it stabbed her thumb. She was about to take it out and try again when the SUV surged forward, the engine roaring under the strain. Maine cursed and the SUV picked up even as it swerved around another corner and popped up on three wheels with its speed. Kate was rocked sideways with the acceleration, her head spinning and her breath tight, the key cutting into her fingers.
And then a massive crash threw her sharply forward, her head smashing into the back of the seat and her body hurled into the tight space of the floorboards.
Another crash had the SUV being shoved from behind, tires squealing, knocking Kate backwards and the dead agent on top of her. She grunted in pain and tried to work her knees up, shove at the dead man, but the key was lost, lost.
The key was lost.
She bit her lip to focus, push past the agony that buffeted her body, felt again the horrible and sickening crunch of another car hitting the back of theirs. The body rolled and she with it, practically on top of the dead man, but then she felt it.
His gun.
Kate fumbled at the leather holster, moving too quickly and snagging her fingers on the strap, tangled in it. She cursed and heard the echoing curse from Maine above her. He cursed something violent and foreign - no language she knew - and she dropped her head to the dead agent's chest, desperate for that gun.
She squirmed and torqued her body, trying to get around the broad chest, and then she had it. She had it; she had the gun.
Maine screamed. It was her only warning.
The SUV crashed headlong into something massive and wide, and everything stopped dead, glass raining down around her, her body on the floorboards and tucked into the narrow space between the dead guy and the backseat.
Kate got her elbows under her and tried to lift up, but she felt like she was breaking in half.
From the driver's seat she heard Maine begin to moan.
She couldn't - couldn't stay here. She had to get out. Had to.
Clutching the gun now with both hands, glass and blood - was it her blood? - staining her fingers, Beckett kicked out at the body, tried to wriggle free. Her ribs were cutting her to ribbons inside, burning and tearing, but she had to get out of this damn car.
She couldn't get to her knees, but she used the edge of the seat to leverage her torso upright, gasping as the pain robbed her of breath. Her chest tightened and constricted, closing off her lungs, and she felt the muscle spasms as her body tried to quit on her.
Kate groaned and kept moving, kept moving, and then the back door was wrenched open. Beckett opened her eyes - when had she closed them? - and yanked the gun up to aim.
"Kate, Kate - whoa. Stop, Kate, it's me."
Castle.
He reached into the backseat of the SUV, hauled her out into his arms. The weapon clattered to the running board and fell to the pavement, and he sank against the frame of the car, holding her up.
"Castle," she said on a groan.
"Oh shit, your ribs. Oh, God, Kate, are you okay?"
Esposito had dragged Maine out of the front seat and the man had collapsed in a heap to the pavement. The engine ticked and pinged with heat and death, smashed in against the concrete divider that the city had put up around some construction work.
"You crashed the car?" she whispered.
"Yeah, I - yeah. I'm sorry, so sorry, baby. I - we couldn't see you in here. I thought-" He buried his mouth in her hair, jerking back when glass scraped him. "Let's get you out of here."
"I can barely move," she said tightly.
"Oh, love, I'm so sorry. I-"
"No, don't be - don't say you're sorry. I was - he was going to kill me."
"Is this guy dead?" Castle gruffed. He was trying to slide his arm under her knees, but he kept getting blocked by a man in a suit - an agent, a bullet hole in his head. "Never mind. Kate, let me get you out of here."
She wouldn't let go of the gun when he tried to take it, but that didn't even matter. Instead of forcing it, he wrapped his arm around her neck, careful of her ribs, and got his other arm under her legs.
"This gonna be okay?"
"I can walk," she said tightly.
"Baby, I don't think you can," he murmured. "You're shaking."
"I'm just - it was just close. It was close. Let me walk."
He carefully lowered her to the pavement and she gripped his shirt with both fists, swaying hard. Esposito had Maine cuffed on the ground and she spared the man a look, then cleared her throat and thanked Espo. Castle brushed broken glass gently from her shoulders, shook it out of her hair, his hands trembling. She swayed and gave him a look; he turned to Espo.
"Can you...?"
"Yeah, I'll stay here with him until FBI and Secret Service show up," Esposito told him.
"Good. Thanks. I'm taking her back to - I guess the apartment." He felt a flutter of apprehension and cupped Kate's elbows. "Do we need - should it be a doctor instead?"
Grimly, Kate shook her head. "No. No, that's - it's good. If we survived Bracken, then a car chase could hardly..." She stepped away from him, but her knee buckled and Castle had to grab her by the back of her jeans, just managing to catch her.
"No, not happening," he growled. "I'm carrying you."
"No," she hissed, her head turning sharply to him. She winced and closed her eyes. "Let me just lean on you. Being carried hurts, Rick. I can't - it hurts."
"I'm sorry," he rushed out. "I'm sorry."
He thought she hadn't been alive in that car; he had hoped - there was always crazy, wild, unfounded hope that she was - that she hadn't - but he'd thought-
"Castle, just get me out of here," she murmured.
"Right," he choked. "Of course. Anything." And he led her carefully away from the SUV towards the Charger, trying not to make things worse.
She leaned her shoulder against the back of the car's seat while Castle's unsteady hands worked the bump key into the cuffs. Her feet were on the pavement, Castle's body crouched in front of her, and she felt the desperate frustration rolling off of him in waves.
"It's okay," she murmured, splaying her fingers to stroke over his forearms. "It's okay, love. Take a breath and try again."
"I'm not crying," he growled.
"No," she agreed with him. His head was bowed over her. Esposito had found the key in the floorboards under the passenger seat and brought it back to them when Castle had settled her in the car. Even still, he was having a hard time of it.
She understood. It'd been too close.
"You sure we don't need a doctor?" he said, his voice rasping.
"I'm sure. Ribs hurt. That's all. The blood's not mine - it's from rolling around with that dead agent on top of me."
Castle let out a noise that she thought maybe he hadn't meant to, and she leaned carefully forward to kiss the top of his head. He gave up and sank his face into her thighs, an arm wrapping around her bruised hip. She cupped her cuffed hands and laid them on top of his head, stroking through his hair.
He wasn't crying, but he was taking a moment to get it together. She closed her eyes and used the same time to check herself over. Her body ached so fiercely she could - actually - start crying and never be able to stop. But already the pain wasn't flaring knives of agony; sitting down had quieted some of the worst of it.
She was tired and a little hungry and there were bruises on top of bruises, but everything else - beyond that - was okay.
She stroked the edge of his ear. "Wolf's okay too," she whispered.
She was so close that when he lifted his head, she saw the bleak cast of his eyes and how hard it was for him to struggle out of it. "I thought you were dead. I'd left you in custody and he'd gotten to you and I should have - I should have killed him years ago but you - but you-"
"I'm not dead," she said firmly. "I got knocked around a little but I'm fine, Castle."
His face twisted; he totally didn't believe she was fine, but - relatively? - yeah, she was. She was fine. Everyone was alive, and she didn't deserve that, but here they all were.
She stroked the side of his face and he turned, pressed his mouth in a kiss at her palm. "Let me get these off."
"You sure?" she murmured, using her voice to lull him. "Cause I can call Espo over here to do it for you."
"You're not funny," he growled, narrowing his eyes and sitting up straighter.
"He'd be happy to oblige," she went on.
"I really ha-"
He'd been about to say it, she knew. About to use their three little words. I hate you. But the joke died before it could ever make it out. Kate sighed and held her hands still for him; he worked diligently at the cuffs and finally they sprang open.
"You did promise you'd be the one to release me," she murmured.
His fingers caressed her wrists, took the bracelets off. She curled her hands around his and leaned in, ignoring the way it ripped at her ribs. She kissed him, her mouth pressed to his, almost chaste, soft.
She touched her tongue to his lips and he parted for her with a sigh, his fingers coming up to tangle in her hair, so reverent, so awed that it made her want to crawl into his lap.
But that would hurt. And it might make him collapse. So she only took what was offered and gave everything she could.
"I love you," he rumbled. "I love you so much, Kate."
"We probably shouldn't have left," she murmured to him when it was quiet.
Castle took the risk of glancing over at her, parking the Charger inside the underground garage. She looked so fierce in the harsh fluorescent light; he saw a bruise forming at her cheekbone and realized that he'd done that. Ramming into the back of that SUV.
"I don't care what we should've done," he said finally. "I let them take you into custody and look what happened."
Her shoulders dropped and she leaned back against the headrest. "Yeah."
"You ready to go up?"
"I don't - yeah. I'm gearing myself up for it."
He smiled because it hurt either way, so he might as well try. "Let me come around and help you out of the car." He got out on the driver's side and pocketed the keys, moving around the back of the car to open her door.
She only sat there, her hands in her lap and fingers curling at her torso.
He sank down to his haunches, touched her knee. She gave him a crooked lift of her lips and he leaned in, kissed her bare elbow, the crook of soft skin.
"You sure about the doctor?"
She sighed and her fingers unfurled at his neck. "Okay, love. You find someone for me to see, and I'll go. All right? Someone for the baby."
He tilted his chin down and pressed his forehead to her arm, a quick breath to keep it together, and then he stood up again. She lifted her hand to him and he took it gently, leaning in to grip the back of her jeans, helping her out of the car.
He heard the grunt she couldn't hold back, and it was just - it wasn't right. "Let me - how about a piggy-back ride? Like in Russia. I don't want you to have to walk-"
"I can walk," she said quietly. "I'm not half-dead, Castle. I'm just bruised."
"Half-dead," he repeated. It felt hollow inside him; he didn't know how to fill it up again.
"Poor word choice," she murmured. Her fingers wrapped slowly around his wrist and she came in against his chest. Her mouth laid a kiss to the spot over his heart. "But it's still true, love. Not half-dead, not dead, despite everything."
"I thought - thought you were," he croaked. It felt shameful to admit it, like he'd lost faith, like he'd given up on them.
She rubbed her cheek against his shirt and hooked her fingers in his pants pockets. "I assumed you had, since you rammed the car into a concrete divider."
He grunted and gripped the back of her neck, trying hard not to crush her. "Yeah," he rasped. "Would never have... never." He let out a long breath. "But we couldn't see you in the back; there was nothing on surveillance cameras. And blood on the passenger window and - and I-"
"Oh, I - was on the floor. I didn't have my balance and no seat belt on because he just took off and I fell over." She shifted against him and sighed. "Can we not do this here? I want to lie down."
"Shit," he whispered. "Yeah, let's go up. Sasha has been worried."
"Oh, my puppy," she murmured.
He let her go, not liking it, and even though she moved stiffly, she was making it. He followed behind her at first, but she kept giving him dirty looks, so he moved alongside her and thumbed the elevator button himself.
His phone vibrated and he dug it out of his pocket, read Esposito's text.
"What's it say?" Beckett asked. The elevator doors parted and instead of getting on, she looked at him.
He walked ahead of her so she'd come, and she did, stepping on with him, pressing the button for their cover apartment herself. She had that sharp spark back in her eyes, the way she could make him spill all his secrets with just an arch of her eyebrow.
"They're not happy. FBI is going to come over and check things out - the apartment - make sure they've got their asses covered. But you're officially under CIA custody."
"I'm in your custody?" she murmured, giving him a sly look.
He grunted and leaned against the back of the elevator, brought her body in slowly against his. He slipped his thigh between her knees to give her a place to rest and she did, laying her cheek to his shoulder.
"Yeah, love. You're in my custody now," he murmured. He dropped a kiss to the curve of her forehead, had to breathe around the jagged ache of how close that had been. How close he'd been to losing her, to hurting her himself in that car crash. Maine had been a worse driver than he'd expected and the SUV had gone straight into the divider, and he hadn't meant to. He hadn't meant to at all.
Castle slowly rubbed his hand up and down her spine, and then the elevator doors opened on their floor.
She didn't move.
"You ready, sweetheart?"
She stirred, finally lifted her head, turned to look. He didn't know what she saw past the empty hallway, but she stiffened her shoulders and still didn't move.
"Kate?"
"It's not home."
"No, love. It's not." He didn't try to pretend it was at all close to home either.
She didn't say anything more, just turned and walked slowly for the apartment door. He stepped off the elevator and followed her, knowing that some sleep would help them both.
He just didn't know if he could face his nightmares.
He was carefully touching her cheek with his fingertips, caressing the angle of her bone so that it made her even more drowsy. She was nearly asleep on the bed with him, lying on her back with her head in his lap, eyes closed.
"That was Maine," she offered. "I was going for the agent's gun."
His fingers swirled again.
"He was scared of me," she said, lifting her lips in a smile. "I scared him silly."
"That's my girl."
"Not your girl, Rick Castle."
"No, you're right. All woman." His fingers slipped back along her cheekbone to her ear, combing through her hair. "You falling asleep?"
"Getting there," she murmured. "But someone keeps asking me questions."
"Wasn't asking, just touching."
"You weren't asking kinda loudly."
She felt him huff a breath of laughter and she smiled to hear it, opened her eyes to look up at him. He was hovering above her, his fingers caressing her face, and he looked so sad. She raised her hand to his knee and stroked, turned her head to kiss that knee.
"After he got scared, he tried to keep me from getting to the gun. So I concentrated on unlocking the cuffs instead. That key you gave me."
"Fat lot of good-"
"It was hope, Rick." She wished he'd come down here with her, lie at her side so she could touch his face. "You gave me hope. I needed that. Plus, I almost had it. One more second. And then someone rammed the car and the key fell out of my hands."
She grinned up at him but he wasn't laughing. Kate sighed and made herself momentarily miserable to wrap her arm around his neck, pull him down. He grunted and his lips touched her forehead.
"Come down here with me. And call my dog. You two can be my pillows."
Castle kissed her again and slid down the bed, being careful of her - she appreciated that. He snapped his fingers and she heard the dog coming down the hall, quickly, like she'd been waiting for them.
"Don't let her jump up here," Kate said.
"I know. I got it." Castle was already leaning over the bed. He scooped up the dog and placed her right beside Kate. She petted Sasha's back and stroked her fingers through her fur, rubbed the soft ears, cupped her muzzle.
"My sweet puppy," she murmured. "Hey there. Love you."
Castle came down to lie at her other side and she turned her head, snagged a kiss before he knew it was coming. She grinned at him and turned slowly onto her side, her bad hip throbbing a little, so she could offer him her back.
"Come on," she said, pulling his forearm around her. "Crawl in with me."
"Already crawled," he chuckled softly. He sounded better, sounded more like her usual husband. She pulled a knee up and felt him sliding his behind hers, his arm slinging low at her thigh instead of around her waist.
He kissed the back of her neck and sighed, and she hoped he'd get some sleep as well.
"When are the FBI coming over?"
"Esposito met them," he said softly. "Showed them the cameras next door - CIA set up, right? He took them back downstairs."
"Already done?"
"Yeah, love. Already done."
She shivered and he curled at her back a little tighter; she dropped her hand down and laced their fingers together at her thigh.
His kiss came again to her neck, his other hand touched her spine, and she felt her body finally relax. "Think I'm falling asleep," she murmured. "You stay."
"Of course. Never leave you."