I stepped back into the lab, walking beside Booth to the platform where Zach was working, doing another analysis of the cleaned but cancer-ridden bones. Instead of going up the steps, we walked halfway around, the platform to our left. We had taken the ride here in companionable silence and it seemed we were both content to remain that way.

Upon seeing us, Brennan, Hodgins, Angela, and Goodman all moved away from the stairs leading up to the balcony offices and the loft. We waited and pretended to be patient, but I noticed Booth was tapping his foot.

"Did they know about the leukemia?" Hodgins called as he jogged, still several feet away.

I shook my head evenly. "No… he kept it a complete secret from his parents." Still, my blood bubbled. There were so many ways they could have found out but while their son put himself in danger, out trying to fight crime on his own, they sat on their asses in complete ignorance.

"Tough guy, huh?" Hodgins made a noise of sympathy in his throat as he stopped and Angela frowned in sadness behind him. She was the more easily affected, emotionally open of the team, and it showed in moments like this.

Booth nodded. "You were right on before about the kid knowing he was facing imminent death. This changes motivation."

Hodgins looked between Booth and I in an attempt to stay connected. "The killer's motivation?"

"No, Warren Granger's," Booth told the entomologist slowly, annoyed.

I laughed at Hodgins' frustrated expression, irked at being talked to like an idiot. "Come on, Hodgins," I joked lightly. "Keep up!" Hodgins gave me a mock dirty look.

Goodman looked between Hodgins and I with an eyebrow raised in amusement but he remained mostly focused on the case at hand. "You think he was emboldened by the knowledge that he was going to die?" Goodman's question sounded a lot like a statement.

"He went looking for a fight!" Hodgins' ego repaired itself rather quickly and he bounced on the balls of his feet, excited by the new theory.

"He went looking for the Twisted," Angela revised Hodgins' sentence with a little, sympathetic smile, still upset by the tragic storyline Warren's demise seemed to have followed.

"Wait," Brennan scoffed, holding up her hands in frustration and trying to get us all to focus. "No. Wait!" Hodgins and Angela shared a confused look before Brennan continued. "We are allowing the comic book story to generate too many hypotheses!"

Hodgins arched his eyebrows. "Uh, I only heard the 'go get the bad guy' hypothesis," he pointed out.

Goodman gave him an almost patronizing look at that. "Too general," he corrected with a stern look that suggested Hodgins really should have known that already.

"Yes," Brennan agreed, pleased to have Goodman on her side in at least this one aspect. "Perhaps the Opalescence represents Warren's better nature, and the Twisted was a reflection of his darker, sexual impulses." Brennan stared off in front of her but not at anything in particular. She was deep in thought. "A theme, I assume, is common in teenage fiction." She inhaled after talking for so long without breath. She quickly found another point to use. "And the drawings-" She stopped abruptly, like something was wrong. "The drawings," she repeated quietly to herself.

Booth glanced at me but I just shrugged. "Hello? Bones?" He waved his hand in front of her face.

"Warren wrote the comics, but there was no evidence in his room that he knew how to draw," she explained, her mouth open slightly in surprise as she looked back to Booth.

I concentrated on thinking back to Warren's bedroom and shook my head slowly. "She's right," I told Booth, surprised myself that we'd missed that. "There were no markers or drawing utensils."

I looked up to the railing of the platform as movement caught my eye. Zach leaned over the edge, his brown hair flopping in front of his face slightly, giving him an innocent, dorkish look. "Dr. Brennan, I found an extra piece of bone I can't account for," he reported uncertainly.
Brennan only spared one glance up to Zach before she finished our conversation, already making to move around the platform towards the stairs. "Someone else drew the comic."

Angela pulled the remake of the comic book from under her arm and flipped it over to the front page. "Stew Ellis," she read.

"What about him?" Booth asked, rubbing the back of his neck, recognizing the name of the manager of Karma Comicsbut not realizing that she was reading a credit.

"Look," Angela beckoned, moving so that she stood in between Booth and I. She pointed down to Stew Ellis' name in the bottom righthand corner of the front page. "Warren Granger wrote this comic book, but it was drawn by Stew Ellis."

Back into Karma Comics, Booth and I were both facing each other and leaning against the countertop on the other side of Ellis. Neither of us were particularly amused by his negligence to tell us about his relationship with the kid whose death we were investigating, and neither of us had hesitated in telling him so.

Ellis sighed in frustration and his head fell into his hands for a long moment. I don't think he expected us to find out that he'd been Warren's illustrator. When he finally looked up, he was resigned and frustrated. "Look. I told you I knew Warren from the store, okay? He was a serious investor."

"Did he owe you money, Stew?" Booth asked. He was ignoring the tangents and unimportant details that the manager was launching into.

"What?" Ellis blinked.

"Was it creative differences, or did you not get enough credit?" I demanded harshly, looking over by the register. A pale yellow post-it note had a sketch of a woman in a leotard, enough proof for me that he knew exactly what we were talking about.

Ellis shook his head after following my gaze to his drawing and he sighed. "No, none of that."

"Why didn't you tell us you were partners when we asked you earlier?" Booth asked with a bit more patience than I had.

"Because we had a big argument, and I didn't want you to think I had a motive," he admitted grudgingly.

I rolled my eyes. "Great job, idiot. Lying makes you more of a suspect." Without giving the fool time to make a suitably foolish reply, I continued. "What did you argue about? Abby Zealy?"

"No, man!" He shivered like he couldn't imagine arguing over Abigail. "Just merchandising."

"You argued about merchandising?" Booth repeated dryly.

"Yeah!" Ellis nodded insistently. "Warren thought he deserved seventy percent for the concept but I think, since I did the actual drawings, I-"

Blah blah blah. Diary of an idiot comic wannabe. I cut him off with a sharp interruption, bored nearly to tears already. "Do you have a publisher?"

"No." Ellis shook his head and threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "And now we never will. Look, if you-" the bell to the shop door jingled its high chime behind us and I swiveled for just a moment to see the teenager enter before deeming her not a threat. Ellis lowered his voice so he didn't spook the customer with his next words. "If you think that I killed Warren, I'm not that stupid, man."

"So who do you think killed Warren?" I do admire Booth for being able to keep his temper when interrogating little twerps like Stew Ellis.

"I don't know." He seemed to realize how useless this statement was to his case and he shook his head again. "Definitely not me, okay?"

I knew I shouldn't but I just couldn't resist from pressing his buttons. I leaned over the countertop. "You know, as of this moment, you're the prime suspect in Warren's murder," I lied. After talking to him, I decided there was no way. I'm not a psychologist but he really doesn't seem the type to respond with pure physical aggression. Petty passive-aggression, maybe, but not the type that leads to severing spinal cords of teenagers.

Ellis rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. "Why?"

"Why?" Booth echoed, his voice turning harsh. Even if he was irritated with me lying to the suspect, he at least backed me up. "Because you lied about your relationship with Warren. So if I were you, I would think really, really hard if there's anything else you haven't told me."

Ellis looked at the two of us for a long time and I thought that maybe he was sizing us up, trying to determine how easy it would be to dupe us. Whatever he decided, it must have been in our favor, because he sighed quietly. "Alright," he gave in. "Abby."

I set my chin in my palm, my elbow on the counter by the register. For a long moment, I just waited for Booth to say something before I figured it out myself and smirked at Ellis triumphantly. "Abby," I repeated. "You and Warren both wanted Abby."

Ellis half-nodded before he processed what I said and pulled a face of disgruntled frustration. "I hooked up with her a few times, but she was obsessed with Warren."

"Did you argue about her?" Booth asked, raising his eyebrows in interest at the new information.

"No, man!" Ellis scoffed, looking away from us as if he was remembering his own past complications. "Warren never wanted Abby."

"Did it make you jealous that she wouldn't look twice at you?" I suggested, listening to the music over the speakers while I listened for the answer. I had the information I wanted. What was playing? I think it's Spice Girls. Either way, it's a catchy rhythm.

"Look," Ellis tried again, dryly amused. "Abby's cute, in a chic geek kind of way, but she's definitely not that kind of broad you go to the death chamber for."

I rolled my eyes at the derogatory term for women. "Where did you get your vocabulary, eighties movies?" I asked in annoyance. "No one calls women broads anymore unless they want to get bitch-slapped."

"That's enough for now, spitfire," Booth said through a false smile. "Alright, Stew, you know what? You're just one of those people who's way too good at lying, among others." Was that look pointed at me? No, it must have just been a glance out the window. "So tell you what, just don't leave town."

Ellis held out his hands in a mock surrender. "I'm an artist. What do you want?"

I turned to go and glared at him as I pushed myself away from the counter. "A bit of honesty would be nice. See you when you're getting booked, John Travolta."

"So there was a bit of a one-way street on the love express. Basically, Danny wanted Fishy, who only wanted Citizen Fourteen," I finished, slightly proud of myself for the two nicknames I'd come up with on the spot. "But I don't think that Ellis would have the strength to sever the spinal cord. Warren was too near his height and I don't think he's strong enough anyway. So what's up with you?" I asked, reverting back to Brennan and Zach's side of the work.

After having paid attention to me, Zach spoke about his and Brennan's work. Brennan was too deeply absorbed in her examinations (she was preparing a slide for a microscope with a tiny bone shard on it) to talk but I knew from experience she was probably hearing us just fine.

"I found the extra piece of bone lodged here, in the odontoid process of C-2," Zach explained, his finger hovering over the bone near the base of the skeleton's 'neck'. "I went through all the chipping and damage again, but I can't find where it comes from."

Brennan looked up from her microscope, straightening her back. "Well, it's not from the cervical vertebrae," she said, her eyebrows knit together in confusion already.

"It's not?" Zach and I asked, looking to each other in surprise when we heard the echo accompanying our own voices.

"It's from a long bone," Brennan elaborated, already getting up and leaning over the arms of the anatomically-arranged skeleton, looking down the humeri with critical eyes. "Probably the deltoid process of the humerus."

"Arm bone?" I repeated in layman's terms, probably out of habit of translating everything for Booth so he didn't "need subtitles," as he'd put it during the Masruk case.

Brennan looked to Zach. "I need you to set up the microtome." Then she looked over at me like she was realizing I was there and I could do something useful. "And I need you to get me the paraffin and an embedding mold."

I blinked. I knew what they were but I couldn't quite be sure what she wanted them for. "Are you going to prep your own bone slide?" Zach asked, clarifying that for me without being asked.

"Yes."

Zach's expression was hard to describe; slightly hurt, like a kicked puppy, which suited the big brown eyes. "Usually I do that for you…" He seemed almost betrayed.

"This is a tough one, Zach," Brennan warned gently, apparently able to see her intern's upset as well as I could. "The piece is small, and I need to make sure there's enough left for a DNA sample."

I raised my hand half into the air. "Hang on. Point - Warren Granger's arm bones are complete. No nicks." I'd been doing examinations of bones with Zach and Brennan for nearly as long as I'd been working with them, aside from a few times when I was out with Booth in the field instead. Although I'm nowhere near Brennan's high qualifications, I'm pretty sure I know what real-life humeri look like. "Point two - logic dictates that the bone fragment didn't come from Warren Granger. Point three being you expect to have evidence to place another person at the scene of the crime?" I almost didn't dare to get my hopes up.

Brennan smiled slightly, nodding once in agreement. "Warren Granger was the victim of a violent attack. He fought back. It's possible that during the struggle, he struck his attacker with the same weapon that was later used to kill him."

"Which means that the piece of bone could have come from his murderer," Zach completed, his eyes brightening.

"Which means we can get a DNA match and arrest the bad guy!" I added, grinning before backing up, moving towards the door to go get the equipment Brennan had asked for.

After bringing Brennan her equipment, she dismissed me to the loft, suggesting I get some food from the vending machines. I wanted to protest at first but figured that with the tedious work she'd want to be alone in quiet and solitude, so I'd backed down and gone away long enough to curl up on one of the couches, eat some chips for dinner, and warm up before descending again.

But by the time I was outside the bone room, I could already hear quiet voices inside. I hesitated for a moment just outside before I recognized Booth's voice. After that I waited another minute in case they were having a moment, but that thought was quickly dismissed.

"This piece of bone you're analyzing - how did it get lodged in Warren Granger's neck?"

Yeah, definitely not a sweet, sentimental conversation.

I swung inside, my hand on the wall as I rounded the corner with ease. "It was probably deposited by the same weapon that cut the spinal cord," I said simply, remembering not to use big words no matter how fun it was to see him frustrated. "It stuck to the weapon and then when it cut through Warren's flesh it got knocked off." And I'd know how it feels, because I stabbed someone myself. I resisted a shiver with a lot of self control.

Booth tilted his head to us as I moved to the other side of Brennan. "That doesn't make it the killer's bone."

"A separate murder victim?" I think I sounded skeptical - I really didn't want there to be another dead person to find.

"Opalescence," Booth suggested with a nod. "The woman he loved."

Brennan very carefully lifted up the damning evidence from the solution that she'd created with a sterile pair of tweezers. "I don't think she's dead," she commented helpfully.

"Why?" Booth leaned over almost comically far so that he could look at Brennan's face while she leaned way down over her work.

I crossed my arms. "She's analyzing an arm bone. I suppose she could be dead but it's a leap." And we all know how much Brennan dislikes leaps.

Brennan leaned up suddenly, very gently pushing the slide away along with her other equipments. "Has anyone we've seen been favoring their arm?" She asked hopefully, going to the most rational means of finding the attacker.

I made a sort of exclamation in my throat and slapped my forehead with the heel of my hand. "Lucy McGruder," I pointed out, recalling what I hadn't thought much of before. She'd always kept her left arm to her side, not fully extending it like there was damage done to either her ribcage of her upper arm.

Booth chuckled, shaking his head slightly. "That's good," he had to admit.

Back in Capitol Bowl nearing six in the evening, we didn't exactly end up talking about America, sports, activities, or bowling. Brennan and Booth moved on either side of me, like they were keeping me within sight, and Booth moved closer when we reached the front counter. It only took a moment for Ted McGruder and his wife Lucy to come out. By how they seemed to be shepherding me, I wondered if they had actually noticed how untalkative I'd been last time. Then again, maybe they just didn't want me to wander off again.

"Oh." Lucy faltered slightly but she smiled politely. "Hello."

Ted wiped his hands on a raggedy hand towel before throwing it down on one of the shelves under the inside of the counter. "Any news about Warren?"

"We're still in the initial phase of our investigation," Booth lied smoothly, managing to stay cool and courteous at the same time - a skill I haven't quite mastered by any means. "Listen, Mr. McGruder, you didn't happen to keep that last payroll check for Warren Granger that you told me about?" Though it was a question, the command was subtle yet evident.

"By law I have to, yes." Ted answered but he missed the 'fetch' part of it.

Booth shoved his hands in his pockets again. If he minded that he had to say something again, he didn't show it. Then again, this wasn't about their manners. It was about getting Lucy alone. "Do you mind digging that up for us? I apologize for the inconvenience," he added.

"I guess." Ted didn't seem particularly thrilled. "It's probably in the file somewhere." He pushed away from the counter and moved towards the back office, leaving Lucy with us.

As I watched, Lucy's shoulders sagged and she visibly relaxed. "What do you need the paycheck for?" She asked curiously.

"It's technical," I lied, beginning to suspect why Lucy was so tense in her husband's company with a pit of anger in my stomach. "We're making sure all records are correct. You know, due diligence." It couldn't take too long to find the payroll so I delved right into it. "Lucy, what's wrong with your side?"

Lucy looked like a deer in headlights for a second before she blinked and smiled like I'd said something silly. "Why would you ask me that?"

I sighed. She was getting defensive. "I noticed how you held yourself the last time we were here," I explained as softly as I could. I didn't want to startle or threaten her. That was not the way to go. "I didn't think anything of it at the time, but now I'm beginning to think that it may be relevant to our investigation." Or to basic civility. "How did you hurt yourself?"

"You walk as though your left ribs are cracked," Brennan pointed out with a bit less tact. "Also, you favor your left arm."

"Oh." Lucy seemed stunned and it was clear that as she opened her mouth she was searching for a plausible lie. "Um, I, fell on the lanes. They're very slippery."

I smiled sadly at her, suspicions confirmed as her eyes flittered back to her husband's back while he rooted through a drawer. "I'm sure they are, but falling would injure a number of ribs and a more wide span of your arm. You're favoring only specific points, Lucy." I paused, giving her time to think about what I was saying so I wasn't attacking her with the force of a train. "The kind of damage done by a fist." A closed fist, one that means to do damage.

Lucy looked very uncomfortable. It wasn't what I was aiming for but I was sure that Brennan had to be at least growing wary of what I had already figured out. I know the anthropologist would have gotten there eventually but having been in Lucy's shoes - well, close enough, anyway - I knew that it was important to talk as soon as possible.

"Were you and Warren close?" Booth asked, almost as if he was trying to keep her from fleeing.

Lucy nodded faintly, her face flushed pale like she'd seen a ghost. "He was a nice kid. A really nice kid," she repeated.

Ted came back, brandishing the check in his hand. He handed it directly over to Booth. From the outside he seemed like the type of guy to go over and barbeque with on Saturdays, but the feeling that made me want to run sort of made me think that I wouldn't want to get anywhere near him if he had a fire or a stick. "Here it is," he announced pleasantly. "Would you three like to bowl a few frames? I've got some empty lanes," he offered.

I could see Booth glance wistfully over at the lanes in question but he looked back in a matter of seconds, knowing that his job was more important than recreation. Meanwhile, Brennan leaned over the counter, her eyes like chips of ice. "I'll see you in the comic books, buster," she growled lowly. Oh, yeah. She's figured it out.

Ted leaned back away from her in bewilderment. "What?"

"Thanks." Booth grabbed Brennan's shoulder and started to turn her around, saying a very abrupt goodbye. "I'll get this back to you," he added, referring to the check. He only waited until we were walking parallel to the lanes again before he looked to Brennan in mild irritation. "It's 'see you in the funny pages,'" he corrected her with exasperation.

"Okay, so I took a liberty," Brennan glared, shrugging his arm off.

I pointed back at them subtly, blocking the motion with my own body so Ted wouldn't see. If he got angry, he'd take it out on Lucy, something I wasn't about to help happen. "Her husband is beating her," I hissed, allowing the rage to slowly release itself into my practically boiling blood. I had to clench my jaw, teeth grinding together to not yell.

"Holly!" Booth cried, before moaning and rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "Alright, talk about multiple hypotheses," he complained.

I grabbed the sleeve of his jacket roughly before I even realized what I was doing. I couldn't just stand there while she suffered at the hands of her husband, a man who she wouldn't fight! That's just as bad as hurting her myself! Booth looked back to me in shock and I quickly let go, snapping my arms back to my sides in fists. "Go back and arrest him," I ordered.

"I can't-" he started to say.

"Booth!" I snapped. "Will you just listen?! Ted McGruder is beating his wife when he doesn't get his own way! Whether or not he killed Warren Granger, it's not something I'm going to just ignore, I won't wait until a neighbor calls in reports of domestic disturbance! I know what it looks like, I know how it feels! Lucy is terrified of fighting back because he's so much more powerful than she is! He has broken her!" Both of the adults were shocked and speechless but Booth's eyes held understanding. "You both know I can tell this sort of thing!" They'd both seen the proof when we'd been quarantined that I had taken the brunt of a lot of domestic disturbance issues.

"It's just not enough, okay?" Booth tried to keep his voice down so that we didn't attract any attention. "I trust you, I believe you. But for that we need something just a little bit more real."

"Evidence," Brennan specified, eyeing me with sympathy.

I watched them both. Neither were going to budge. There really was nothing they could do about it - but that was them. As I'd been reminding myself, I'm me and they're them. We is divided into two separate units, and while they can do a lot that I can't, there are some things that work vice versa.

I took a large, decisive step to the side of them and just shook my head. "I'm sorry," I apologized, although I remained firm in my decision. The apology meant more in courtesy than in meaning. "But I'm not leaving. I know he's beating her and I'm not just going to leave while that happens. You go get the killer, but I'm going to protect Lucy from her own demons."

Booth took two steps to where I was and he clapped my shoulder softly. I stiffened but I let him touch me for the two seconds it took to do that, because I knew from him it was a sign of approval. "You're a good kid," he told me.

"If it goes wrong, call someone," Brennan advised. My heart warmed a bit that I could see the sincerity in her eyes. "Even the local police will make an arrest if you get attacked." I neglected to tell her that I don't have a cell phone, knowing that the solemnity was the point. Something like this would either work or go horribly wrong, and if it went wrong, well. Then Lucy and I were both in trouble.

"I will," I nodded, before taking several steps back, watching them and almost waiting for them to stop me, before turning around and walking back to the counter where Lucy was staring at her hands. The lanes were beginning to shut down and Ted was making a walk down the remaining ones, reminding the bowlers that it was nearly six thirty and time for the alley to start to shut down.

Lucy looked up when she saw my shoes. "Oh," she said softly. "Holly. Shouldn't you be going?"

I leaned over the counter, ignoring her subtle plea. "Lucy," I said quietly, glancing behind me. Ted was still out of earshot. I looked back to her. "Please listen to me. I know you're scared but you don't need to be anymore. All you have to do is come with me to the police department."

"I can't leave Ted," Lucy gasped, bewildered, chancing another look to her husband. I cursed under my breath.

"Lucy, he's hurting you," I reminded her, just in case she'd forgotten. "And I know there are all sorts of excuses you might be making for him - stress, exhaustion, emotional issues. But he is beating you, and please don't try to deny it, because I've been there. My fathers in the foster system used to hit me, too, and I know it seems impossible but you don't have to live with it."

Lucy looked at me for the longest time before backing away from the opposite side of the counter. "I don't know what you're talking about," she breathed.

"Lucy," I urged desperately. "Please. There is no excuse for taking out anger on another living thing. He's hurting you on purpose. You don't deserve that. If he really loved you then why would he put you through this?"

Talking to her was like talking to a brick wall, for all the good it did.

Domestic cases tend to be pretty weird, and I know from experience. Most of the time, to get out of an abusive home, I had to get whoever was hurting me particularly pissed off so he'd leave marks. Then I'd run away to the police and prove it. You know, if a wife is getting beaten, too, or another member of the family, you'd expect for them to be on the cavalry's side, but it's like a twisted version of Stockholm syndrome, if not the actual thing itself. I've seen people get violent trying to defend their assaulters.

This might take a while.

Booth hadn't exactly been thrilled about leaving Holly alone with Lucy and Ted McGruder. Lucy didn't seem like she would be able to seriously hurt Holly, but Ted was another story entirely. On some level, he still recognized Holly as the heroic teen he'd been in charge of protecting, rather than a moonlighting barmaid. But he'd also known her well enough to see that she hadn't been about to back down and he respected her enough to let her make her own decision.

At the same time, he was proud of her for picking her battles and trying to protect someone she knew was in trouble. Holly didn't have a completely straight moral compass - did anyone, really? She had demonstrated her skewed judgments when she'd practically dared him to let Howard Epps be executed, and again when she disobeyed his orders to get out if she was put in too much danger in the rescue mission of Donovan Decker, instead fighting with a skilled mercenary, stabbing him, and somehow managing to come out on top.

But make no mistake, the first chance he got, he'd be driving by to pick her up and if she'd been assaulted, there would be a lot of trouble coming in the McGruders' paths.

When they went into the Jeffersonian again, Zach practically ambushed them in their tracks, flagging them down just inside the doors and then inviting himself to follow them. "Dr. Brennan, based on your histology and the DNA, the bone chip found in Warren Granger's neck came from a Caucasian male, mid-thirties."

"McGruder," Booth exclaimed and then groaned when Brennan sent him the look that was usually followed by a lecture about not jumping to conclusions. "What? How does it get more specific? Great, we left Holly with a wifebeater and a murderer."

"We need the weapon," Brennan determined stubbornly.

"I can get a warrant," Booth promised. "You can search the McGruder house for whatever you want."

"That's the problem," Brennan shook her head in frustration, her steps quickening so that both males had to speed up. "We don't know exactly what we're looking for."

"We hit a dead end trying to reverse engineer it from the mark on the neck. Too much damage and fragmentation," Zach sighed in regret that he'd failed to figure it out in that means.

Brennan stopped abruptly in her tracks and Booth nearly ran into her, stopping just in time as she spun around. "Wait. You said that in books, you could find the real-world version."

"Yeah." He agreed. "Well, I mean, if you know you, it's pretty obvious."

Brennan crossed her arms and shifted most of her weight to one leg, eyeing him. "Give me an example," she demanded.

Booth rubbed his hands together and smirked. "Okay. Well, in your book, your partner's a former Olympic boxer who graduated from Harvard and spoke six different languages. In real life, you've got me." He winked playfully and grinned.

Brennan's face formed a sly smirk and she leaned in close to him. "So, what you're saying is that reality falls far… far short of the fictional."

Booth's grin turned into a scowl and he withdrew, offended and stung. "Yeah. Thanks a lot, Bones," he spat.

"Lucy, please," I begged, nearly ready to get on my knees - my knees!- as the lights over the lanes turned off. "Just come to the police and report him!"

The blonde woman took a particularly fast step backwards and a hand landed abruptly on my shoulder. I wanted to hit myself for not hearing the footsteps over my own voice and the blood rushing in my ears. I might as well have been sprayed with a hose of cold water.

The pad of his thumb rubbed over the back of my neck, exposed due to my hair being tied up. I could swear he pressed harder just over the center of my neck, right where he'd stabbed Warren Granger. Lovely.If I hadn't had such firm resolve I think my knees would have buckled at the unwelcome but sickeningly familiar atmosphere of the contact.

"Who's going to report who?"

Booth could see Angela through the orangey glow of her holograph producer. It hummed lowly, warmed up and ready for use. "Warren Granger's spinal cord was severed by something sharp, but not a knife," Angela started the moment the lights were dimmed, just as eager to get the evidence needed to get McGruder as Booth was once she heard that Holly had stayed behind to help Lucy.

"Okay. If it wasn't a knife, what was it?" Booth questioned.

Angela winced regretfully. "The closest match I could find would be a corkscrew or a Tibetan skull knife, but neither of them explain how foreign bone was left lodged in the vertebrae."

"Pull up Citizen Fourteen's weapon arsenal," Brennan requested, motioning vaguely to the holograph grid.

Immediately, half a dozen sort of weapons were sketched into a glowing, three-dimensional half reality. A foot-long, three-sided knife, two types of weird, futuristic guns, a thing built like a boomerang, something that Booth did not know how to identify, and a sort of shield with Citizen Fourteen's crest on the center.

"That's a boomerang thing, like a sonic gun," Booth pointed to the one that he recognized first. "I don't think that would work."

Angela joined in, happy to help eliminate. "Or the laser cutlass. That thing that allowed him to hear through walls."

Brennan leaned forward, her nose nearly touching the edge of the holograph grid. "We're looking for something that has a drabber, more… banal version in the real world," she established.

"Why would he be killed with his own weapon?" Angela asked, giving Brennan a look of confusion.

"Convenience?" Booth suggested with a shrug. "He probably had it on him the night he decided to confront Ted McGruder."

Brennan nodded to herself before reaching through the holographs and pointing to the three-sided knife. "What's that?"

"That's his main weapon," Angela explained, having gone through the entirety of the comic. "It's a three-sided throwing knife that returns to him. But none of them make the wound that resemble the one that severed Warren's spinal cord."

Brennan sighed and leaned back, although Booth tilted his head, recognizing the shape and sighing as he figured it out. "It's just an idea," Brennan crossed her arms.

"Bones-" Booth started.

"No!" Brennan shook her head fiercely. "I fell into the same thing I warned you about; developing too many hypotheses not grounded in fact."

Booth interrupted her again. "No, Bones. I know exactly which drab, real-world thing was used to murder Warren Granger."

Angela's eyes widened and she pointed sharply to the door after shifting her stylus to the other hand. "Go!" She ordered. "What are you waiting for? Arrest the bad guy and get the girl back from the Twisted!"

I'm not going to lie to myself - if Booth and Brennan happened to come back, it couldn't happen too soon. At the same time, I didn't regret my decision to stay here.

Even if I am tied to a chair with my arms and legs restrained with a maniac for a captor and a beaten wife who's freaking useless.

It had happened pretty quickly. Ted McGruder was good with knots and he was good with threats. While he'd had one hand tightly around my throat he'd done a body search, making sure that I wasn't armed. He did end up finding my pocketknife and he'd held it to my throat while he forced me into the chair from his office and ordered Lucy to tie me to it. Now my ankles were bound to either side of the piece of furniture, my legs uncomfortably pressed to the wood while my wrists and arms were bound behind me and around the back of the chair. I managed to get myself into a bad situation with a lot of ease.

Not that I had done it without smart talking. Aggravating the aggressor is generally discouraged but hey, if it works, it works, so I maintain that it was worth a try, even if it did end with a thin slice of the blade across my temple and my hair yanked.

"Do you really think you're going to get away with this?" I asked coldly. At least I hadn't been gagged. I think that would have been as far as I could go without melting into terror. No matter how calm I manage to stay, nothing's going to change that I'm back in a situation I swore to myself I would never let myself fall into again.

McGruder tossed tools and papers around, trying to get everything together. "I can get away with anything," he maintained stubbornly. "You didn't have to do this. You didn't have to get hurt but you wouldn't leave us alone, you stupid bitch!"

I didn't flinch. I've been called worse. He was panicking and it was clear he intended to go somewhere and run. That just posed the question of what he would do to me - probably kill me, which I wasn't particularly looking forward to. "Lucy, you can't say this is right," I pointed out, looking up to the wife who hid behind the counter. McGruder hadn't gone after her yet but I figured it was only a matter of time before he attacked the people around him. I tugged pointedly on the ropes over my upper arms, keeping me pressed to the chair.

Lucy didn't reply, just looked fearfully between her husband and I.

I sighed dramatically and leaned back. Might as well make myself comfortable. "Well, you know what?" I didn't wait for anyone's consent to continue. The aching sting on my cheek and the metallic tang of blood on my lip were enough to make me angry to not care. "This is just sad. At least I can say I didn't have a fair fighting chance. Only a coward ties their victims to chairs first while they freak out." I sneered. "What's the matter? What's the difference between killing me now and later? Have you got cold feet or are you just that pathetic?"

"Shut up!" Damn… that backhand is going to sting later. If I'm still alive, that is.

"All this kid wants is to feel like a hero. Suddenly, he's facing a damsel in distress," Booth explained hurriedly to his partner while he drove about twenty miles over the speed limit, his sirens blaring just under his voice. The scene was eerily reminiscent to both when they'd rescued the CEO of K.B.C. Systems from Carl Decker and when they'd rushed to rescue Donovan Decker from the mercenaries, aside from the missing seventeen year old.

"Lucy McGruder is ten years older," Brennan pointed out.

"It's not the damsel part that matters." Booth barely thought as he spoke, too focused on getting to the right place before Holly and Lucy both ended up hurt or killed. "It's the distress that appealed to the kid. It wasn't about the sex, or the romance. It never was."

Brennan nodded slowly, the side of her face alternating from blue and red in the darkness, punctured by the lights. "He wanted to make a difference in the world before he died." She glanced sideways at him. "I told you he was more like you than me."

"2-2-7-0-5, dispatch," a woman's broken-up voice on the radio intoned.

Booth reached forward and grabbed the radio quickly. "2-2-7-0-5."

"Unit sent to suspect's residence reports the domicile is empty."

At this, Brennan looked at Booth, worry mounting in her expression. Booth didn't have time to soothe that at the moment. "There's no one there? What about the wife?"

"Negative. Search team in inside the house. It's empty."

Booth nodded slowly to himself, processing and accepting that. "Affirmative. Dispatch." He hung the radio back in its station.

"What?" Brennan cried indignantly now that the call was over. "He beats her, but she'll take off with him anyway?"

"Spousal abuse syndrome," Booth replied shortly. He changed his mind quickly and pulled on the wheel roughly, switching lanes on the street to make a sudden right turn. "Dispatch, 2-2-7-0-5," he called loudly, picking up the radio once he was driving straight again.

The radio crackled before he got a reply. "Dispatch."

Booth's mind raced as he recalled the address. "Can you send a backup unit to Capitol Bowl, 1-1-2-3 Sea Bolt?"

By the time her husband had set even Lucy on edge, I'd managed to acquire another slap on the face. I eyed my pocketknife on the counter edgily. I really wanted it.

Then I heard the creak, slow and deliberate. I figured that either it was the cavalry or an unfortunate delinquent who decided to break into a closed bowling alley for some reason, so I decided to try to help them out by talking over the sound of their approaching footsteps. I winced to myself, knowing what I was about to bring onto myself.

"Where are you going, Ted?" I taunted loudly, eying the stacks of bills he shoved back in his backpack. "Ooh. You naughty boy. Are you robbing from your own alley? Is that why Warren tried to stop you?"

Ted froze in place, as did the footsteps.

I had my answer, despite the situation I'd gotten it in, and I continued bitterly. "Hey, Lucy. Do you know why Warren was so nice? He wanted everyone to think of him as a hero. He had leukemia, Lucy." I heard her take an intake of breath and I continued. "It was advanced. Too advanced for treatment. By the time he went 'missing,' he would have been dead in two months. But your husband just couldn't wait that long."

"What are you talking about?" Her voice cracked.

I continued, glaring at Ted with fire in my eyes. "Warren was stabbed in the neck. It severed his spinal cord. He would have died instantly. You know he had his own comics? He idolized you as a damsel who he called the Opalescence. Your husband was the Twisted, a monster, not even human."

"Shut up!" Ted roared, jumping to his feet.

"He hits you, Lucy!" I yelled over the furious husband as he grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked back, trying to shut me up. "Look what he's doing to me! He killed Warren Granger because Warren wanted him to act like he had a scrap of decency and humanity and stop beating you! To have and to hold? How much did those vows mean to him, do you suppose?"

"Let her go!" Lucy pleaded, her voice shaking. She was crying. I couldn't bring myself to feel guilty. "Ted, why are we doing this?"

"Shut up!" He yelled at her.

"Shut up! Shut up!" I mimicked shrilly, yelping when he kicked me in the shin with one of his boots. I refused to back down. Pain is a mental response, I reminded myself stubbornly. "Is that all you can say? 'Shut up?' Your intelligence is blowing my mind!" I snarled.

"You didn't do anything!" Lucy shrieked.

Ted grasped my hair in one hand, keeping my head tilted back and leaving my neck uncomfortably exposed. "Lucy, I swear to God, if you don't shut up-"

"What are you going to do, Ted?" I prompted tensely, swallowing the bile that rose in my throat at my own fear. It had been months since I'd been manhandled this way and I hated it even more now. "Strangle her? Beat her, just like you're doing to me? Well, I'll tell you what, you'll have to kill me before I let you attack her again, you pathetic, impotent son of a bitch!"

"I know you wouldn't hurt Warren!" Lucy yelled. I heard something she was holding clatter to the ground and a fist slammed into my stomach at my fierce insults. I grunted. I was lucky he'd aimed at my stomach instead of my ribs or I'd be in trouble. Pain is a mental response. Something inside me broke. Oh, please, someone help.

Yep. Never call a man impotent, I thought to myself wryly as a sort of joke.

"Of course he would!" I growled, coughing slightly and nearly choking, unable to lean forward with the force being used to keep my head back by my ponytail. "He killed Warren because he couldn't get his own shit together and deal with life! Lucy, for once since he started using you as a human punching bag, stop being so goddamn blind!"

"He likes to beat up people weaker than him," a new, achingly familiar voice added. Booth. Brennan was at his side and slightly behind him.

"We are closed," Ted sneered.

"Well, you left your door unlocked," Brennan pointed out with a shrug. "Probably an oversight due to your state of panic. You should really let go of her hair."

Although the last remark was obviously meant in reference to me, I growled to myself. "Don't try to come near," I warned. "He's got my knife." I'm frankly astounded that Booth hasn't confiscated it from me yet, but I'm not going to complain. Although it sure isn't very useful in situations like this!

"Say, do you have a bevel knife?" Booth asked, seemingly at random, although I heard the anger under his calm tone.

"A what?" Lucy repeated quietly.

"It's a triangular, three-sided knife," Brennan explained.

"You know, to clean out bowling ball holes," Booth pushed. "Say, I used to have one back in the day. You wouldn't happen to have one around here, would you?"

"You need a warrant!" I felt sick when I felt the cold blade pressing against the skin of my cheek again. Ted was using me as a sort of leverage over them - one wrong move and he'd cut my cheek, and from there it's not far to my throat.

"Lucy," I rasped, feeling the pocketknife nick my skin when my jaw moved. "They need a bevel knife. Give them that and this whole disaster is over."

"Shut your mouth!" The knife slipped down, cutting my skin further. I whimpered slightly but kept my mouth shut as he'd ordered, not giving him the satisfaction of hearing my pain. When his hand pulled back from my face I could see the red of my own blood on my own self-defense weapon. This time it really backfired.

"If you don't let her go now, I'll shoot," Booth warned, something dangerous coming to the edge of his voice. "And I'm an excellent shot."

Gradually, my hair was released and I bent as far forward as I can, my neck aching from strain. A drop of blood slid down my jaw and dripped onto my jeans. I looked up. Ted was moving towards Lucy instead of me now. "Don't you fucking dare," I threatened.

Lucy inched closer to the counter, eyeing Ted in plain fear. "We- We keep one in here," she whimpered, bending down to the shelves under the counter.

"Shut up, Lucy!"

"Why don't you smack her around a little bit there, Ted?" Booth suggested scathingly. "Keep your woman in line. You've already done a fine job on the seventeen year old that you legally kidnapped."

Lucy lifted the toolbox to the counter and set it down, her arm shaking with the strain of the weight. She stepped back quickly and moved away from Ted, who was dangerously close to her.

Brennan pushed some of the other tools out of the way with the metallic ringing of the other metal tools. She lifted a narrow but deadly knife with three edges that reflected the dim lights overhead. She weighed it in her hands for several seconds. "Yeah," she finally decided coolly. "This could have done it."

"Say, kid." I looked up slightly at Booth when I heard him call for me. I instinctively tried to pull my arms around, only to wince when I found that it only hurt my wrists to try to tug from around the chair's wooden back. "That bone chip. Second victim or murderer?"

"For Warren's sake, I hope it was the murderer's," I grumbled, shooting Ted a lethal glare. If looks could kill… Wishful thinking.

"What are you talking about?" Ted tried to deflect in vain. "Just get out of here."

"It would be his left arm," Brennan stated, her voice drifting slightly like it did when she grew focused. "Warren was right-handed, so the wound would be on his left arm." She took several steps closer to him.

"Oh my God," Lucy gasped, her hands raising to cover her mouth in horror.

"Knife," I cautioned her again, heedless of the slowly-growing stain of blood on the thigh of my pants.

I watched, hating myself a bit for being uselessly tied to the chair, while Brennan went way too close to Ted McGruder for comfort. Very suddenly, she jutted out her elbow and struck his upper arm. A red stain of blood blossomed from under his shirt and he moaned, doubling over, while Lucy screamed.

Ted lunged suddenly. "Watch out!" I snapped, but I shouldn't have bothered. Brennan blocked him with a swift movement before grabbing his injured arm in a vice grip and throwing him, twisting her body and tossing him over her shoulder. He landed on a pool table and groaned pitifully, trying to roll up into himself.

Brennan nodded to me, breathing heavily after slinging his weight around. "The flip was for you."

"I appreciate it," I said, eyeing the pained bastard distrustfully.

"I've got him," Booth muttered, moving to the pool table and forcing the man to his feet, slapping handcuffs on his wrists. "Aw, hell, Bones. Looks like you opened up an old wound there. Alright, let's go." He seized Ted by his shoulders and jerked him along. "Attacking that girl was a big mistake, buddy. You're under arrest. I really hate a wife beater, I really do. Almost as much as I hate someone who abuses a kid and kills a dying one. Bones, help Holly," he called over his shoulder, already hustling Ted towards the doors.

Brennan moved over to me and I didn't even hesitate to let my eyes slide closed. I was spent and exhausted and hurt. Damn, I'm going to be so sore tomorrow…

Brennan produced my pocketknife from under her sleeve and smirked. I grinned at her, nodding. "Thanks." If she hadn't lifted it then it probably would have been confiscated, and she'd probably known that. "I think the main knot for the ones around my arms is behind me, near my wrists."

It took her a minute to saw completely through the ropes, but once she did I sighed in relief and stood up for about two seconds before my knees gave out and I crashed to the floor.

I huffed, raising my hand to my face. I rubbed the majority of the blood off of my face with the sleeve. I probably looked dreadful. "Okay, maybe I need a minute before I can manage walking," I grudgingly admitted.

The moment I limped into the lab, I was practically assaulted all over again, but at least this time it was from attackers with good intentions. Angela had ignored my protests and blatantly ignored my (probably false) claims that I could walk up the stairs on my own at this rate and had helped me get up, while Hodgins had gone to get the first aid kit from his station and Zach had recounted what had happened. Goodman even came to check on me and told me he'd call the FBI and tell them to add charges of assault and kidnap on my behalf.

I was right about being dreadful. I had a large bruise on the shin of my left leg and another growing just under my ribs where I'd gotten socked. No bones were broken, although it took nearly five minutes for me to get my hair untangled again. I had a bruise on the right side of my face when I'd been backhanded and an additional, smaller one on my jaw when I'd gotten punched. I had three cuts on my face. One was small, and hadn't even been really intended to happen. Another was just over my temple. Luckily it was shallow and thin. The worst was still solved by some hydrogen peroxide and a bandaid, and the thin slice ran from just under my cheekbone to my jaw. I could tell that concealer would be my best friend for the next week, until the thin cuts healed over and the bruises faded. In the mean time, though, band aids. (Zach had even stocked the first aid kit with patterned ones, so now I have tiny Daleks on my face!)

None of that stopped me from finishing out Lucy's interrogation with Booth, although Booth had flinched back when he saw me and offered to let me just go home and sleep. Of course I declined.

I sat down across from Lucy and leaned back in the chair, stretching my hands out in front of me. She didn't meet my eyes and I immediately figured out what I had to say. "It's not your fault that your husband beat me," I said mildly. "You helped but you were afraid he would turn on you. I know what it's like. I've been there. So just answer my questions for me and call it even."

Lucy nodded faintly so I began although she didn't want to look at my face. "Warren knew what Ted did to you," I urged. She nodded simply, meek, looking down at her lap. "Did you tell him?"

"I didn't have to," Lucy murmured. "He saw one night. Ted hit me and Warren… Warren ran away."

"Why didn't you go to the police?" I asked with a sigh. I already knew what was coming next.

"Because it's not all the time, I mean, it - it's when things go bad and he's under a lot of strain. Ted has a bad temper." She gave me a watery smile.

"Warren wanted to rescue you," I explained sympathetically. "He never meant for anyone to get hurt. He probably just wanted to intimidate Ted, scare him out of assaulting you." Lucy blinked rapidly and I knew she shouldn't be expected to talk much more, so I continued quickly, trying not to give her the time to cry over her husband. It was better if she focused on Warren. It was a healthier kind of grief. "But things escalated. Warren stabbed your husband in the arm with the bevel knife. Ted took the knife away from Warren - it wouldn't have been hard. Despite appearances, his leukemia was killing him. And after that, it's like you said. Your husband has a bad temper," I murmured the ending because I could already hear her choking on her sobs.

The funeral was a simple, quiet affair, but I had the feeling that if Warren were there, he'd appreciate it. The preacher from his church said some prayers for his spirit and led the group that had attended in a ceremony while the Jeffersonian team and I stood to the side, away from the chairs. Arlington National Cemetery - it was almost ironic that it was where this had begun for me and now it was marking Warren's end. Still, the flora provided a nice scene.

I looked watchfully over the proceedings as the people closest to Warren gave their blessings. Religion has never been my thing, but I understand the sentiment behind this. Even Ellis and the Doomsday guys had attended and set memorabilia from Warren's favorite comics by the casket, and Warren's mother and stepfather sat in the front row while they cried.

Though it wasn't incredibly formal it did warrant black dress, so I'd gone to the store and bought myself a plain black sweater to wear with darker jeans, and while I was out I bought a bouquet of white carnations and chrysanthemum, as well as several holly flowers woven in. And no, that's not meant as a pun. I'd asked a florist, having never been actually involved in a funeral's proceedings before, and I'd found that the chrysanthemum meant truth, symbolizing that Ted McGruder had paid for what he did. The carnations meant remembrance, which was the basic theme that everyone attempted to convey at a funeral. The holly flowers actually represented domestic happiness. Not only had Warren died trying to create that for Lucy McGruder, but it was something that he, with his disconnection from his parents, hadn't been able to have for himself.

Once everyone else had seen to the casket, giving their bearings to be buried with what remained of Warren Granger, we went. Booth hovered over the oak casket for a moment and though I tried not to be invasive, I watched him unpin something from his shirt and set it down.

Booth came back to join Brennan and I again. "Look," Brennan whispered, nodding her head back behind us.

Abigail Zealy had dyed her hair completely, solid blue and I could see the sun glisten in the tears that tracked down her cheeks. She stood away from the Doomsday group. I hope that means this is a wake-up call for her. Most of what had annoyed me was that she'd been insistent on their club being a way of life, and her forced disconnection with the real world around her. I don't care if she loves her comics, but it's good for her if she takes Warren's death to heart and uses it to realize that it's better to live in reality, as Warren had begun to.

I looked back towards the casket, returning my attention to the funeral.

Angela arrived a little late but in time for the endings of the ceremony. She carried a comic at her side and moved to show it to Brennan, who rifled through the pages gently before smiling. Brennan handed the comic book to me and I glanced at it curiously. It was the finished and colored recreation of Citizen Fourteen. I looked back at Angela and she nodded towards Lucy, who sat, alone, in one of the chairs.

I nodded and quietly moved away from their group and sat down next to Lucy, the bouquet in one hand and the comic in the other. I handed the slightly-startled woman the finished comic book and gestured silently towards the casket meaningfully.

I truly didn't blame Lucy for helping her husband to hold me captive. She'd been terrified and confused and all that mattered right now was that Ted was arrested and prosecuted and Warren's death was solved. Besides, a funeral is really not the place to start a scene.

When it came our turn, I let Lucy walk up first. She folded the comic book open to the last page and set it on top of the coffin. While she hid her face in her hands, I switched the bouquet over to the other hand and laid it down gently, the holly stems facing up while the flowers of the carnations and chrysanthemums cushioned the rest.

I looked over the casket. Booth had left his sharpshooter badge and Angela had added a page to the very end of the comic - the Twisted, growling and snarling with bared teeth from behind bars, while the Opalescence spread her arms, free, and a speech bubble said 'thank you.'