So, at nine o'clock that night, I sat between Booth and Brennan on one side of a round conference table in the FBI. The case was going super fast – so much had happened in the last twelve hours. On the opposite side of us was Cullen, next to him the attorney Ken Weeks, and lastly, directly across from me, Carl Decker. We were all tired, as was evident, but we were all managing to stay awake, driven by different reasons.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't charge you with attempted murder, Mr. Decker," Cullen growled, his fists tightly clenched on top of the table.

"Do you think I went after Seward out of vengeance?" Decker cried out indignantly, shooting the director an irate, incredulous glare.

"Looks that way," Cullen returned sharply, glaring down the table to the would-be murderer.

"K.B.C. Systems hired people to kill my wife and kidnap my child," Decker persisted angrily. "Think rationally for a moment!" He banged the sides of his fists on the table and fell back into the chair, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring around in frustration.

I sighed, straightening my back and stifling a yawn. I raked a hand through my hair and set my forearm on the table. "He's right," I told Cullen with a little shrug. Although it wasn't exactly okay to try to kill someone, it didn't seem fair that Decker be arrested in the middle of trying to find his abducted, endangered child. Sure, arrest him after that, but at least let him see his son and make sure Donovan's alright first. That aside, the circumstances are extenuating, no matter how you look at them. "If K.B.C. Systems are behind the kidnapping, then Seward would be the one with the authority to call it off."

"A rational human being," Decker noted with a little surprised scoff. "How did you find yourself amongst these people?" He asked me with a pointed glare at Cullen and Weeks.

I sighed again, tossing my head back to look at the ceiling for a minute before I decided on looking back to the armor designer. "It is a really long story," I groaned truthfully.

"Sir, we're trying to help," Booth stressed to Decker.

"Excellent!" Decker held out his hands invitingly. "Hold a gun to Trent Seward's head and force him to let my son go!"

"Er…" I started awkwardly, looking between Booth and Decker uncomfortably. "No, Mr. Decker, that's… that wouldn't be helping so much as aggravating the aggressors, which I can assure you is not a good plan." I stopped for a moment, knowing that Decker wouldn't appreciate hearing that without facts. He was empirical, like Brennan, but more socially apt and more emotionally driven. "The evidence that Seward ordered your son's kidnap is circumstantial at best."

"I personally calculated the penetration tolerances for the combat flak jackets!" Decker snarled. I only blinked at his turn in hostility from semi-civility. "The company found my calculations to be excessively conservative. Thirty soldiers died! Trent Seward will do anything to keep me from testifying. He or someone working for him kidnapped my child and killed my wife!"

Weeks rolled his eyes and spun his chair very slightly so that he was facing Decker with his back towards Cullen. "If you want Seward, then go to the grand jury and tell them what you know," he pressured.

I sent a sharp, startled glare at the attorney. "He can't do that! Preventing his testimony was the entire reason his family was attacked! Do you think they need an engraved invitation to murder his son?"

Cullen sent me a 'shut up' look and leaned over the table, looking down past Weeks and to Decker. "In all due respect for what you're going through emotionally, Mr. Weeks is not wrong," he pointed out. I wanted to strangle him; he can't try to persuade Decker on what to do, this is his choice! I'm only making him aware of all of the consequences!

"This is my son!" Decker exclaimed, his eyes burning. "I love him! If there's a slight chance that I can save him by shutting up, then that's what I'll do – shut the hell up!" He stared challengingly at Weeks and Cullen, daring them to argue with him. I have to say, as far as fathers go, Decker is not too bad. He's got his priorities straight, at least.

"And what about the soldiers?" Weeks countered, exchanging a fast look with an irritated deputy director.

Decker took a deep breath and sighed, his hands fisting again on top of the table. "Analytically, I understand that many lives outweigh the one. But I cannot trade my son's life."

"Have you considered that by not testifying, your wife will have died in vain?" I seriously considered reaching out and punching the attorney in the face. He was pathetic. He knows where his client stands and he's actually urging him to do something that will get his son killed.

Apparently, Cullen was thinking along the same sort of wavelength. "Shut up, Weeks," he snapped. "If your people would have protected Mr. Decker and his family properly, we wouldn't even be here."

Weeks scoffed, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. "Let's go," he ordered Decker, standing up and grabbing his briefcase.

"You are acting incredibly like a brat," I observed with no small amount of distaste. "You get told something you don't like and now you're trying to leave. How childish and immature!"

Decker stood reluctantly after Weeks walked behind his chair and stood impatiently by the door, tapping his shoe. Decker looked over at me specifically and met my eyes. "The only way that I will testify is if I see you with my son."

I nodded silently, agreeing to those terms, because if I didn't then not only would it be harder to get Donovan but the people who killed and injured so many soldiers would walk free. Great. So now I have to rescue a child from ruthless mercenaries, otherwise the child dies and accessories of murder and mass injury won't be rebuked. But no pressure or anything.

"Mr. Decker," Booth started as the attorney and his client started to walk out of the room. They both paused and turned around to look back at him. "You and Donovan – do you have a code word? Something to let him know that you sent us?"

I was surprised that he used 'us' when Decker had specified with 'me', but then again, what did I expect? Booth wasn't the type to let anyone go into a dangerous rescue mission alone.

Decker looked down to the ground, his eyebrows knitting together for a moment in thought before he looked up again. "Paladin," he answered, nodding slightly faintly. "Tell Donovan "Paladin.""

I considered that. Paladin… defender of the faith, a protector. I smiled slightly to myself. I like that. The first definition fits for Booth and the second fits for me. Nice.

After the door closed and clicked softly behind Decker and his attorney, Brennan hummed with a sly little smirk. "You know, you tough people are all very sentimental," she noted, and I had the distinct feeling that she was playing around and trying to bother us. Booth and I shared an uneasy look. Damn. She's onto us.

"Hold on, Bones. I'm going to put you on speakerphone," Booth said into the phone, before setting the office receiver back down and pressing a button on the system. The speakers turned on and a light near the top lit up.

"Don't call me Bones," Brennan growled through the line.

"It's nice to know some things don't change," I laughed. I leaned forward in my chair across from Booth so that the speakerphone would pick up my voice with more ease and accuracy.

"Booth, Holly, the results came back from the ear in her mouth. We're looking for a one-eared South African," Brennan told us urgently, jumping right into it and disregarding my comment as I said, "I really hope that by 'her' you mean Paulina Decker, otherwise this whole case got a lot more weird and awkward."

"South African?" Booth asked, surprised. A look of grim frustration settled over his face as someone knocked at the door. I raised my hand to stop him and got up from my chair.

"Does that mean something?" Brennan asked while I opened the office door. A bureau employee was on the other side, holding a small package with Booth's name on it in black permanent marker. He leaned inside, saw Booth, and then decided that it was okay to give it to me. I nodded appreciatively and closed the door as he left.

"Well, yeah," Booth said to the phone with a frown. I held up the package and he nodded, so I went back to the desk and handed it over. "There are a number of South African security consultants that companies use to do their dirty work in the third world." And you call Hodgins a government conspiracy nut! "They're really just mercenaries."

"He might be a mechanic of some kind," Brennan offered.

Booth paused for a moment from ripping the paper around the tape. "You can tell that?"

"He had traces of what is probably brake pad in his ear."

"How'd that get in there?" Booth asked, frowning down at the delivery. He tilted it on its side, one of the ends undone, and a little brown velvet jewelry box tumbled onto the table, followed momentarily by a slip of hastily-torn cardboard. A bad feeling grew in my stomach; the package hadn't had an address, just a name, and no postage stamp, and who used pieces of cardboard instead of paper?

I took a liberty and completely disregarded that I had no business going through his mail. I reached over the phone to the cardboard and flipped it over. In the same black marker used to write on the package, the cardboard had the phrase "back off" written in sloppy, all-capital letters. Booth looked at it, then looked up at me, and we both glanced at the jewelry box, suddenly wary of it. "We just got a present from the kidnappers," I whispered so that Brennan didn't hear me interrupting her.

"Well, any number of ways," the anthropologist was saying, answering the earlier question. "Most likely, his hand comes in contact with the asbestos and then he scratches his ear."

Booth wasn't actually paying attention to Brennan anymore. He held the jewelry box down and pulled open the top, and I set my hands on the desk, leaning over to see. The bottom of the box was padded with red-stained gauze. My eyes widened and I reeled back, pushing away from the desk in alarm.

There was a finger in the box.

"Hello? Are you still there?" Brennan asked after there was a moment of silence, during which the tension in the office rose off the charts.

"Yeah," Booth answered tensely after a moment, snapping the lid of the box shut. "We're on our way over."

"What's the matter?" Brennan asked, now concerned as she detected the note of anger and dread in his rising voice.

"Someone just sent Booth Donovan Decker's finger," I snarled before Booth slammed his hand on the button to disconnect the call. How could anyone do that to a child?! I fumed internally, and if I hadn't been hell-bent on rescuing Donovan and jailing his captors before, then I sure as hell was now. "This is beyond kidnap. Now they've reached torture on an eight year old!"

While Brennan looked at the severed finger under a microscope at the Jeffersonian, Booth couldn't seem to stop pacing behind her, rubbing his hands together and taking tense, small steps. I sat on the opposite end of the table as Brennan and was disassembling and reassembling my gun repeatedly. It was an exercise that would not only make me better at handling it, but the repetition eased my anxiety, sort of like a compulsion is eased by performing the action.

Twenty-two. Twenty-three. I finished the final click, counting the seconds in my head, and flipped off the safety, holding it in my hands quickly like I was about to shoot. I flipped the safety back on and set the gun on the table. "Twenty-four seconds," I murmured, not sure whether I was proud or unsettled that I was so familiar with the firearm.

"An eight-year-old boy," Brennan whispered to herself, looking up from the microscope. She blinked and shook herself out of it, looking over to me. "That is consistent with what I'm looking at. You should really send this to an FBI pathologist," she added to Booth.

"They'll give me fingerprints and DNA," Booth argued, waving the suggestion away quickly. "We already know who the finger belongs to. We need more."

"Like what?" Brennan turned, her feet moving from under the table as she sat sideways on her chair.

"What?" Booth repeated. "You gave me a South African mechanic from a chunk of burnt ear! Do it again! But do it better, and do it fast!" Brennan stared at him in weary confusion for several long seconds before Booth noticed and stopped pacing long enough to urge her to work. "What? Start! Come on, do what you do!"

"You're kind of worked up," she told him uneasily.

Booth took a deep breath, more than 'kind of' worked up, as Brennan had put it. "What you see is a bunch of facts. I see a terrified little boy with his finger cut off. Now, is he even still alive?" He asked, trying to usher her forwards into her work.

Brennan turned herself back to the table, shuffling her legs back underneath while she looked through the microscope again, doing as he asked even though I know she doesn't like to be talked to with that kind of sharp voice. "Blood saturation levels in the surrounding tissues are high," she reported after a few seconds. "His heart was still beating when they removed the finger."

"So he's most likely still alive." I sighed in relief, looking down at the assembled gun in my hand. "That's good. That's something."

"Who does this?" Brennan demanded, shoving the microscope back in a sudden fit of frustration. "Cuts the finger off of an eight-year-old boy?"

"Mercenaries," I said with a disgusted look at the severed finger under the microscope. These people are sick. "Professionals. Experts at war games. People with psychopathology issues, like Howard Epps and the Unabomber and Jack the Ripper, who kill for sport and recreation. We see a frightened, vulnerable, innocent child. As I said in Cullen's office this morning, all they see is a tool, an instrument – a brand new instrument that needs to be broken in." I shivered at my own metaphor, realizing just how cold I sounded.

"I feel things," Brennan said, frowning and looking like she'd been told something cruel.

My eyes widened. I'd used the term 'professionals' in my description. "That's not what I meant, Dr. Brennan."

"I'm a professional, too," Brennan persisted. "I do better work if I only see the finger and not the child. It doesn't mean I'm like them!"

"I know that, Dr. Brennan," I assured her, wishing I could take back what I'd said. "I also know that they seriously screwed up by sending us that finger," I added, trying to revert the conversation away from the dangerous emotional territory.

"Why?" She asked. "Because it made you mad?"

Booth whistled. "That is something to look out for."

I glared at him over Brennan's shoulder and resisted the strong desire to stick my tongue out at him. "No, because we're going to use it to catch them," I stated assertively, standing up and holstering my gun. "This is the best lab in America, at least, and we've got the best forensic scientists available. We're going to get to work and we're going to find where Donovan Decker is being held and then we're going to rescue him, take him to his father, and get his kidnappers what they have coming."

Hodgins, Zach, and I all waited for Booth to get off the phone. We weren't exactly patient, but Booth gave us the 'one minute' sign and judging by the tone of voice he was using, I could tell he was talking to his son. "Give him a minute," I muttered to the scientists on either side of me.

"Did you kick the ball?" Booth asked, with the half-excitement that adults reserved for enthusing children. "How far did it go?" He waited a moment and then chuckled. "Backwards?" I looked down so none of the three saw me smiling. "Yeah, I can kick a ball. Daddy's going to show you on Saturday." There was a moment where even I, several feet away, could hear the excited squeals over the phone. "I'm going to see you Saturday, okay, Parker? Okay, I've got to go, bud. I love you." A pause came here, presumably Parker saying his goodbye and 'I love you.' "I'll see you Saturday… bye." He made sure his phone was off of the line before he shoved it in his pocket and looked at the three of us. "What have you got?"

"May I first just say, I love mass spectrometers," I said, holding up my hand and making the O.K. sign with a satisfied smile. Zach, Hodgins, and I had spent the last half hour in Hodgins' lab running tests.

"Yeah, and I loved it when your promises to shoot us were empty threats," Hodgins complained, less than half serious. "Now you've actually got a gun, Xena."

"It's unsettling," Zach agreed from my other side.

That had been a very interesting moment when Hodgins had noticed the gun at my side. I'd been reaching up a shelf to some equipment that Hodgins couldn't reach – my sweater had pulled up enough for him to see the barrel, and he'd freaked out. Given the general hell theme that seemed to have accompanied my day since early morning, this was the highlight of the day for me.

I sent identical glares at the both of them. "Anyway," I growled, dragging it out and crossing my arms in irritation. "Dead mother, tortured son, psychotic mercenaries. Can we focus?"

"The finger was severed using a hatchet on a wooden surface," Zach told Booth, changing the subject back to business with a short, brisk nod.

"A cutting board?" Booth asked quickly.

"No," Zach disagreed, shaking his head. "Older, unsealed pine."

Hodgins and I exchanged a look before I took pity on Booth and looked back to him. "It's more likely a sort of work bench… from a mechanics or engineering shop," I explained.

"Why?"

"Why do you question me?" I replied swiftly, irritated. It's not like he's going to understand all of the chemicals and their symbolism when put together, so why does he want me to explain? "Sorry," I added, rolling my eyes at myself. I know I'm a little touchy, and my mood is swinging around, but I'm tired and more than a little stressed. "Traces of lead and methyl tertiary butyl ether showed up in the mass spec on the bone."

"The nail was bitten to the quick, by the way," Hodgins added with a little frown.

I nodded sideways at the entomologist, still looking at Booth. "But that's not a mystery. The kid bit his nails because he was nervous. I do it, too." That's why my nails are so short. "And I bet you'd be a little freaked out, too, if you were in his place." Hodgins half-nodded towards me in agreement.

"M.T.E.B.'s have been added to gasoline since the seventies," Zach said helpfully, looking away from Booth and down our little line towards Hodgins.

"But there's lead here as well," Hodgins argued.

I held out my hands in either of their directions. "Cool down, keep your voices from getting all loud and squeaky," I said with a roll of my eyes as Hodgins got competitive and short-tempered. That there's a kid who actually depends on our results and our speed is straining everyone's patience. "Stay calm. You're both pretty."

"Lead gasoline was phased out between seventy-five and eighty-six," Zach contributed after giving me an odd look, trying to find out what I meant by that. I just shook my head at him, telling him silently not to worry about it.

Booth resumed the pacing and I followed him with my eyes as he speed-walked about five feet in one direction, turned, and speed-walked another five feet the opposite way. "Asbestos from brake pads, leaded gasoline, mechanics bench," he muttered to himself, trying to piece it all together.

"Paulina Decker was electrocuted by electricity from a generator," I added, biting my lip.

Booth stopped in his tracks and looked up to me, pointing at me in excitement. "We're looking for an abandoned gas station or mechanic shop!" He chuckled and got his phone again quickly, stepping past Hodgins and clapping the entomologist on the shoulder. "You know, you guys are geniuses!"

Zach turned to look after Booth as he walked away. "How do we find that?" He called.

Booth chuckled, shaking his head as he raised the phone up to his ear. "I work for the FBI, idiots!"

Hodgins stepped out of the line to glare at Zach sharply, crossing his arms. "Way to go, Zach," he praised sarcastically. "We went from geniuses to idiots in three seconds!" Zach winced.

I threw my weight to one leg overdramatically. "And the IQ in the ionosphere is brought back down to the stratosphere!" I snickered, raising my hand and snapping my fingers, the sharp sound echoing very softly in the room.

"Paulina didn't make any calls from her cell phone after she was kidnapped."

Sirens echoed in my ears, turned up as loudly as possible outside. I sat in the backseat, Brennan was in the front, and Booth was driving at twice the legal speed down the rural highway. The stars shone above us, little white dots in the coal-black sky, the moonlight glowing on the pavement as we raced to the location fixed in the GPS. Booth was talking, his words leaving his mouth about as fast as they passed through his mind, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. None of us were wearing seatbelts, but I really don't think any of us cared.

"But nobody turned it off, either. When she left the coverage area, the cell phone was automatically assigned a new routing tower," Booth explained rapidly.

"You can triangulate her position?" Brennan asked hopefully, looking over at him from the passenger's seat.

"Yeah, to within seventy-five square miles," Booth specified. "There are six abandoned gas stations in that area. Five of them were urban, and one's rural. SWAT teams are going to check them all out, but I think it's the rural one, and that's where we're going." He looked in the rearview mirror at me for a moment before going back to the road.

"Why?" Brennan asked.

Booth exhaled sharply and deliberately looked away to the side mirror that he'd only just looked away from. "Because I used to do this kind of work."

"What, rescuing people?" Brennan asked, looking at him in earnest confusion.

"Or… being the person they needed to be rescued from." Booth's voice lowered to near inaudible at the end and I stayed silent on the topic, respecting that he clearly wasn't proud of it and most likely didn't want to talk about it.

Brennan didn't know how to reply. She looked away from him, down to her lap. "Oh."

"Well, if I were going to kidnap and torture someone I'd get as isolated as possible," I said, averting the subject even further from Booth's life history. I know that sometimes good people do bad things; all it takes is being in the wrong place at the wrong time or being misguided. As long as you set yourself straight or don't truly believe that what you're doing is morally correct, then I don't think that you can't be considered a good person.

"Exactly. Holly's right," Booth muttered. He didn't seem bitter about the fact that I was right, but more about what I was correct about. "It's an abandoned truck repair depot. A SWAT team will meet us there."

"Thermal imaging?" I asked, leaning forward in between the front seats.

"Yeah. It should give us an idea of how many people we're going up against," Booth nodded.

"Why don't we ever take my car?" Brennan asked with a scowl, reaching for the air conditioning and pausing, unfamiliar with the different controls and irked that she had to take a few seconds to figure out the diagrams on the dials.

"Do you have bulletproof vests in the trunk?" Booth countered rhetorically.

"No."

"Hm. Well, that's why."

Outside the rundown gas station, big black vans had the back doors swung open. An entire team of SWAT members were swarming around and they covered Booth's car, ushering Brennan and I out and over to the trunk, where Booth met us there.

They popped the trunk and one of the SWAT men started dressing Brennan with a dark blue vest. Another did a double-take when they saw me. "What is a kid doing here?" He asked, turning and demanding Booth's attention as he started to buckle the straps of his own vest.

"Hey!" I protested. "I can talk for myself, you know!"

"The kid's authorized," Booth said quickly, fastening the last part. "Get her suited. She's allowed to carry but she'll be staying out here with SWAT."

"Excuse me?!" I yelled in indignant disagreement. "I'm going in with you!"

"Holly, you're seventeen," Booth started, completely serious.

"Am I? Hmm. Funny, I could have sworn I was twenty." I held out my arms as the SWAT man shook his head but started adjusting the vest to fit me snugly.

"We don't know what's going to happen but they're mercenaries. Chances are, bullets are going to be flying," Booth argued against me firmly.

The man moved behind me, pulling the straps from the front around to tighten them securely. I lowered my arms and dug into my pocket, retrieving my knife and flipping it open to make sure it wasn't jammed before shoving it back in my left pocket on the opposite side of my sidearm.

"I'm aware," I shot back to Booth sharply, being stubborn. But if there's one thing I can say about me, it's that I'm determined. "But I'm far from defenseless. I've got a gun, a knife, and you know I'm good at hand-to-hand. Do you think I want to be shot at?" I demanded, but went on before he could answer. "I know the dangers and I know that it's incredibly dangerous to go in but I'm not waiting out here."

"Holly, I can't let you-"

I interrupted him again, the flashing lights lighting up the side of my face. "I know you think you can't let me go in but you have to know that I'm not doing it for myself. Decker isn't going to testify if I don't get his son myself, he said so. I care more about the kid than I do the already deceased but it doesn't mean I'm okay with criminals walking away after sending faulty armor to American soldiers in the middle of a war ground. Please," I added, nearly begging. I'd used up all of my reasons. "I'll be careful. I won't try to negotiate because I know it won't work. I'll focus on finding Donovan and I'll get him and get straight out. We don't have time to argue!"

Booth just stared at me and we had a sort of competition to see which of us would back down first, but I wasn't going to give in. I mean, how bad could it be? We walk in, I get the kid and get out, and if necessary shoot someone in the leg so they can't follow me. Then the SWAT guys cuff the mercenaries and drag them out. Simple enough. And I'm wearing a bulletproof vest! I know that doesn't make me invincible, but it does give me a fair amount of protection from stray gunfire.

The SWAT man handed Booth a gun, holding on by the longer barrel. A small viewfinder was attached to the top; it was meant for serious shooting. "The F.L.I.R. imagery gives us three adults within the structure."

"The boy?" I demanded, rounding on the man and crossing my arms. The vest was heavy and made it difficult to breathe quite so easily, but I'd deal with it, considering the circumstances.

The man blinked and leaned back from me, so surprised by me that it came out as a question when he replied, "No reading?"

"It's probably because he's small," I told Booth quickly. I have to prove to him that I can think quickly enough to go in! "Hypothermic. Then he's probably made himself as small as he can so that they won't touch him again."

"Entirely possible, Miss," the man, now designated SWAT Man Number Three, said with a nod. "What's the play?" He added, looking over at Booth.

I did the same, turning on my heel and crossing my arms and looking at Booth pleadingly. He can't just expect me to wait out here while he goes and does the hero thing! Cullen said it himself; they need all the help they can get!

Booth gave me a long look, his eyes darkening before he looked back to SWAT Man Number Three and spoke quickly, making a split-second decision that I think he was trying to voice before he changed his mind. "I go in first, then Holly – that's her – goes in behind me and she goes straight for the kid. In and out, get Donovan and only fight if you have to," Booth said, locking eyes with me as a warning. "If you get hurt, get out. Don't put yourself in any more danger than you already are."

I nodded, breathing a quick sigh of relief and reaching to my gun in the holster, flipping off the safety so that I could draw and fire quickly.

"What about me?" Brennan asked. She reached up to her neck and flipped the end of her ponytail out from beneath the collar of the bulletproof vest.

"Wait outside," Booth ordered flatly.

"But I don't want to miss anything!" Brennan protested loudly over the sounds of the SWAT team getting ready to storm the building.

"Bones, Holly is armed enough to take out around a dozen people and I don't even want her coming in," Booth tried to urge Brennan, pulling at the straps on his vest to make sure it was tight enough to stay on. "These guys aren't like anyone you've ever come up against, so please, just be someone you aren't for the next ten minutes and hang back. Please."

A chill ran down my back. Take out? We're aiming to subdue and arrest, right? He made it sound like we're planning on killing them. But Booth glanced over at me and I didn't want him to see that he'd spooked me, because I need to go in there with him to get Donovan.

For me, I know how dangerous it is, and I know that Booth is capable of finding the boy and getting him out, and he can always pass Donovan off to me before Decker gets here. In fact, if I asked him, he'd probably be more than willing to do that, just because it kept the silly, self-destructive seventeen year old from walking into the dangerous rescue mission. However, I feel a compulsion to get Donovan myself. I'd promised both of the boy's living caretakers that I would get him back, and now I have to own up to the promises I made, suck up my own anxiety, and live up to my words.

But still, I don't want to kill people, even if they do sort of have it coming…

I don't have to worry about that, though. My job is to go in and get the boy and the only reason I'm armed is so that I can defend myself and Donovan in case someone comes after us.

Of course, there's also the adrenaline. Something about rushing into a building with SWAT teams and mercenaries armed to the teeth just makes the rational part of my head go out the window. It's like putting myself in danger is experiencing the ultimate high – I'm risking everything I have, and because I don't have much, that doesn't give me pause.

We stuck to the plan. Brennan stayed outside with a team of paramedics that were on the scene in advance, while Booth ignored that I don't like to be touched long enough to tug on the straps of my vest, making sure it was secure. Booth moved to the side of the door going into the old gas station, holding out his gun, while I flattened myself to the wall next to him. Taking his lead I got my sidearm from the holster at my side and held it in front of me with the safety off.

Booth raised his hand to his forehead in a salute to one of the SWAT members and I heard a yell from around the station. That was apparently the cue, because Booth ducked and rushed in the door after kicking it open.

I followed quickly behind him and a shot rang out sharply, the noise echoing in my ears. Then the gunfire was much closer as Booth fired. I looked up – there was a man shooting at us from behind the checking counter, holding a small handheld. Several people shot at the same time – the SWATs and Booth while I moved out from behind the FBI agent and went toward the back of the store, keeping my back to the wall. The man behind the counter crumpled, half a dozen crimson stains growing on his shirt before he stumbled, his hands dropping the gun and scratching at the counter before he fell.

I swallowed, blinking against the water suddenly clouding in my eyes – I need my vision clear. I cursed under my breath. I don't want to cry over the man's shocking death (half a dozen bullets – overkill, anyone?), and I knew that I wasn't grieving at all. I was… shocked. At the brutality. If someone shot at me, I'd shoot them in the leg or the arm or even the abdomen, but not fatally. None of the injuries on the mercenary had been anywhere but packed around the chest, and now I know why Booth wanted me to wait outside. We aren't here to seek justice. We're here to literally take out the mercenaries.

I didn't give myself a reprieve, instead advancing along the back of the store. They wouldn't keep Donovan out here in the front – he would be being kept in back. About a dozen more men swarmed out of a door at the back end of the store and quickly spread out, and the room filled with the sounds of gunfire once again. Since Booth had ordered me to not put myself in unnecessary danger, I waited for a moment to give the mercenaries time to move away from the door so I wouldn't have to get so close to them in order to get the child.

I watched as the mercenaries toppled, falling over with blasts of light as the gunpowder in the barrels exploded. They fell lifelessly and seconds later their clothes were stained with crimson. I swallowed and my hands shook, my knuckles turning white as I held onto my gun shakily. I really, really don't want to join this. This isn't seeming so much of a rescue mission as it is a slaughter.

When there were only a few left, and they had gotten smart and taken up defensive positions, I moved from behind the aisle and to the old beer cooler that was no longer working. Pressed against the glass, I let the SWAT team distract the kidnappers while I snuck behind them and to the door in back of the station, slipping inside.

My eyes landed on the shaking boy hiding underneath a table. The blonde-haired eight-year-old, although twice Parker's age, made me think of Booth's child. He was crying and covering his ears, trying to shield himself from the gunfire in the next room, and one of his hands was wrapped heavily with blood-stained gauze.

Next I saw another mercenary, one that I hadn't counted on. He shot at me and without time to raise the gun, I dropped to the floor to dodge the bullet, which implanted itself in the wall behind me with a loud cracking noise. I rolled over onto my back, holding up the gun and aiming a shot at the mercenary, a man with African features and a scowl.

I fired quickly but the man moved faster. Shaken from the deaths of so many people who hadn't even had time to make a defense strategy, I was easy for him to reach, the bullet from my sidearm moving harmlessly past.

He grasped the barrel of my gun and yanked it up to the ceiling, throwing his down onto a table. I was unwilling to relinquish my weapon so when he tugged, the considerable strength in his hold pulled me up to my feet. Damn, who does he think he is, the Incredible Hulk? The moment he had me on my feet I let go of the gun and pushed forward, hitting him in the chest with my shoulder. He was pushed back and caught off guard, so I used his shock to my advantage and turned slightly, kicking him in the stomach. He doubled over but grabbed my ankle before I could pull back and I ended up falling over with him.

I landed hard, hitting my head on the concrete, and scrambled for the gun in his grasp, taking it back, and then I pushed myself away, rolling over. It was much harder for me to fight in such close quarters with the heavy vest strapped so tightly, not only making it harder to breathe but also changing up my center of balance. While he was down, I did a very stupid thing that I thought was a good idea.

I started pulling at the straps of my vest, loosening them.

I jumped out of the way of the mercenary as he rolled over onto his stomach and reached for my legs to pull me back down. I got one of the buckles undone and then started tugging at the bottom, lifting it over my head while constantly moving to keep myself out of reach. I threw the vest down onto the ground and took a deep breath, relishing in the ability of easy breathing.

Booth is so going to kill me for this.

The man stumbled to his feet and charged at me again. Seeing as he didn't have his gun, I clenched my fists. I hope I'm actually as good at combat as I like to think I am. At the last moment I lunged to the side and reached around, hitting the guard in the neck, sending him reeling and stumbling. I wanted to go after him but he was really too strong for me to safely be on the offensive.

I waited for him to turn back to me, and to his credit, he got smarter and didn't try the same move again. "Come on, buddy," I taunted. "I'm seventeen. Are you going to be beaten by a teenage girl?" Damn the adrenaline.

He didn't speak, but he ran at me. I tried to do what I had done before, but as I ducked to bolt around him, he swiped at me, hitting me with a stinging blow, and picked me up roughly while I was dazed. The gun in my hand clattered to the floor. He was way too strong to be normal! I struggled and he dropped me onto the ground. I flipped so I landed with my hands bracing myself from the fall and rolled just before he kicked at me, avoiding a bunch of fractured ribs.

I scrambled forward on my elbows before getting to my feet, reaching for the pocketknife in my pocket that the psycho didn't know that I had. I needed to end this quickly. The gunshots in the first room were growing less frequent, meaning that it was almost over, and I need to get Donovan out.

The next time he came after me, I ducked quickly, which he predicted, and he kicked at me. I jumped over his leg and on top of him, sending the both of us sprawling out onto the floor. Before I gave myself the time to think about what I was doing, I raised the knife above my head and brought it down in the man's shoulder, away from vital arteries and organs.

It was sickening. Blood burst from the wound and sprayed over my arm, making me flinch back. I felt the blade pushing the tissue away and ripping the flesh that didn't move, and I closed my eyes against the mercenary's yowl of pain.

I pulled my knife back out and snapped it closed – I'll boil it in hot water to clean it later – and let him writhe on the floor, feeling guilty but grim. If I hadn't done that I wouldn't be able to take care of Donovan now.

Donovan was still hiding under the table, watching his kidnapper lay on the floor and moan, turning pale while and sweating as the crimson blossomed over his shirt. I picked up my vest from the floor and studied it for a second. It was thin enough to fit a child for a few minutes. "Donovan, don't look at him anymore," I instructed softly, kneeling down by the child, who only shrank away from me in fear. I should have thought about that – he just saw me stab someone. Of course he's frightened. "It's okay now, you're safe, I promise."

I reached under the table to him, bending down. "No!" Donovan yelled, his eyes shutting tightly. Tear tracks marked his red cheeks and when I touched his shoulder he turned and bit me.

"Ow!" I cried indignantly. "Hey, Donovan, really, stop. You're safe! I won't hurt you!"

"Just get away!" He cried.

"They're not going to hurt you anymore," I said again, trying to reassure him that I was safe, and that it was okay to come with me.

"No, go away!" He kicked me and I flinched back.

I growled before the thought occurred to me. His safe word. "Paladin," I told him, inching towards him again, this time holding the vest. "Donovan, paladin." Donovan sniffled when he heard me but he stopped yelling. "Paladin," I repeated, easing close enough to him to touch his shoulder. "Come on, Donovan. Paladin. My name's Holly. I'm going to take you to some doctors and then you're going to see your father. You're safe now."

Donovan whimpered but he didn't push me away and I took that as a good sign. I pulled him gently out from under the table and quickly wrapped the bulletproof vest around him before standing up and lifting him into my arms protectively. He cradled his injured hand against his chest and leaned back against mine as a last bullet echoed.

"Come on," I whispered, looking around the back room. I pushed the back door open with my foot and slipped through, holding Donovan Decker, the kidnapped child, protectively to me while he tried to shield his eyes from seeing anything else.

I was horrified to learn of what had happened in the station after I'd left the front room. The line of gurneys seemed never-ending. The dozen mercenaries that had jumped in to help the first had all been killed. It wasn't a mission for justice. It was more like a massacre. And maybe they deserved it, maybe they didn't. I couldn't be the judge of that. But my stomach twisted uncomfortably every time I heard the zip of a body bag from the coroner's van. I had been a part of that ruthless slaughter, and knowing that made my blood feel like sludge.

I stayed near Donovan, proud of myself for getting him out before he'd been hurt any more than he already had been. He was sitting up on a stretcher, his hand rewrapped with hospital gauze, and I'd helped the paramedics by checking his vitals. He was fine, but his heart was racing, which was due to the stress. I'd have been concerned if he was completely normal.

Donovan held my hand tightly and I wasn't about to pull away until his dad got here, both because Donovan was traumatized and because to be truthful, I might be, too. I hadn't anticipated it being such a… bloodbath? Does it qualify as a bloodbath? Maybe not, but it was definitely mass murder. A black-and-white squad car pulled up a little bit away, and when the back door opened, Carl Decker was escorted up to the police tape and his son was pointed out to him.

The older Decker's eyes lit up when he saw his son and his hand moved down his face to his chin, his face glistening with tears in the sirens' lights. "Is my dad crying?" Donovan asked me, looking from his father up to me curiously, sounding a bit disappointed.

I sighed softly, understanding why he felt that way. Hey, dad, guess what? I'm safe and alright! What?! Why are you crying about that?! I squeezed his unharmed hand softly. "I think he's just crying because he's happy that he's got you back."

With the hand Donovan wasn't holding on to, I saluted solemnly to Carl Decker. I'm not an American soldier but it seemed symbolic and fitting; this all happened because Decker was defending the American troops against K.B.C. Systems for selling faulty armor, and even though Decker and I were on opposite ends of the spectrum in some ways, we both wanted the same fundamental things. No more wars, justice for criminals, liberty, and safety for children. Maybe it was just because I'd saved his child from the middle of a slaughter, but Decker saluted me back before I brought my hand down again.

"Well done," Weeks praised Brennan, Booth and I, lacking in sincerity. He was going through the motions because it was his job, not because he really felt relief that the chaotic mess was over and done with.

"Yeah," Booth said shortly, low in patience. With narrowed eyes, he continued with, "I hope you're really good at your job, Weeks."

"Why is that?" Weeks asked with an irritated roll of his eyes.

"Because otherwise, you've got nothing going for you," Booth finished coldly with narrowed eyes before walking roughly past, knocking the attorney back with his shoulder as he went by.

Brennan bit her lip as she watched Booth's back while he retreated, pulling at the straps and shrugging the jacket down his arms as he went back to the SWAT van. "He's a father himself," the anthropologist offered as a weak means of explanation.

Weeks snorted. "Thank God I always had the sense not to let that happen to me."

I surveyed him stonily for a moment. No, of course I don't want children of my own – at least, not now and not in the foreseeable future – I mean, think about it. I'm seventeen, with no family, lousy insurance coverage, and a job working in the bar while I moonlight more often than not with the FBI and Jeffersonian Institution on murder cases. I have no means of supporting and raising a child, nor do I particularly have the desire to live with pregnancy or be a single parent in the slums of D.C., but children aren't curses. They can be irritating and spoiled sometimes, but kids are worth fighting for. It was because of a child that I subjected myself to hell today, entirely of my own free will. People lucky enough to have children of their own should cherish them and hold them in the highest priority.

So, with my mind made up, I lunged forward quickly before Weeks could even blink. I punched him in the face, relishing in the dull sound of skin hitting skin as his head snapped around and he reeled back. I huffed and ran off to catch up with Booth. Brennan just smirked at the attorney before following me.

"Do you think K.B.C. hired the mercenaries?" I asked Booth curiously. All day, our only priority had been finding Donovan Decker, not finding the motives of the kidnappers, so once we'd found the more than likely possibility that K.B.C. was behind it, we'd latched onto that and used it as driftwood in the figurative ocean.

"We'll let the grand jury figure that out," Booth told Brennan and I as we fell into step beside him. "We did our jobs." Booth looked down to me in particular as I stepped beside him, keeping up with his relatively speedy pace. "Great job, kid. You really didn't have to go in." He paused for a minute like he was having trouble with his words. "We found another guy on the floor. There was a stab wound in his shoulder where Donovan was hiding."

I caught onto the question and raised my shoulders sheepishly although as I looked away and in front of us, my gaze turned dark. I stabbed a man. I actually, literally stabbed someone. "Hm. Yeah. That was me. Sorry." Thankfully, Booth didn't ask in further detail.

Brennan held her head high proudly. "It's not often I get to help save someone before they die," she stated with no small about of satisfaction.

"Bones, every time you catch a murderer, you save his next victim," Booth rationalized, looking to the side at her.

"Hmm," I hummed in contemplation for a moment before shaking my head. "No, I get what she means. It's different this way."

"Yeah," Booth said noncommittally with a nod. "Still glad you don't have any kids?" He asked Brennan.

Brennan looked up to him, tilting her head, not understanding why he was asking. "Yeah. Why?"

"Looking at that boy and his dad," Booth explained with a half hearted shrug. "I just thought you'd change your mind."

"No," Brennan and I denied at the same time, shaking our heads. We smiled at each other around the FBI agent.

"Still glad you do have a kid?" I asked Booth seriously.

Booth smiled ahead of him, most likely thinking about Parker. "Gladder today than yesterday," he answered.

Brennan sighed, crossing her arms. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Yeah," Booth agreed with a nod. "It's complicated."