Thankfully, Booth didn't press Brennan or I to do something that we were opposed to, and he called for backup to bring the wife and her baby in for questioning. He must have made the connections - between knowing of how I grew up bullied and pushed around and seeing Brennan's hurt, pleading expression, he decided that the situation was meeting opposition from us because we related. No longer with the need to be morally enraged, we fell back into our normal rhythm with minimal tension between the three of us on the drive back to the Jeffersonian.

All outfitted with our beautifully sterile white latex gloves again, we were doing an inventory this time, looking for any signs of injury or disease that could help us with identify the latest victim. Brennan, Angela, and I all had our hair tied up in high ponytails, and the adults had long, light blue lab jackets with the strings tied around their backs. Angela stayed off a bit to the side, more interested in the sternal area than the lower body, where I was making sure there were no chips or signs of injury, while Brennan occupied herself with checking the cranium in extensive detail.

"Okay…" I looked up from the gentle arch of the fibula and to Zach in question. We'd been pretty content with the arrangement, if I did say so myself. "This is interesting."

Angela looked at Zach flatly. "Interesting, or horrible?" She attempted to sound apologetic but the smile was just uneasy. "Because sometimes, it's the same with you."

Zach didn't acknowledge that, even if there maybe was a kernel of truth in there. "This hole in the sternum… it's definitely not a gunshot wound."

I looked up at that. What we'd assumed was a gunshot injury was a small hole off-centered to the right of the sternum, less than an inch in diameter. Brennan was at Zach's side and looking over his shoulder in about two seconds. "It's a sternal foramen." She sounded half awed by the discovery.

"Wasn't there something like that on the female victim's sternum?" I asked, beginning to feel like something had been revealed. Hopefully, I'm not that far off, because we're in desperate need of some new, fruitful leads.

"It seemed at the time like a meaningless anomaly." Zach both explained the dismissal to Brennan and confirmed my question at the same time. Well, that's efficient.

Brennan looked over the table at me and I took that as invitation to move further up the skeleton and peer at the anomaly curiously. I'm grateful that while she treats me with the respect of an equal, she also keeps in mind that I wasn't professionally educated and allows me the opportunity to learn from the cases. "It's a hereditary condition," she informed. "The two victims were related."

I shrugged and moved my hands away from the table. "Well, who are we to argue with genetics?"

Hodgins stepped past, carrying one of his trays. "Based on the ages? Father and daughter," he remarked, setting down the stainless steel tray on one of the smaller tables with a microscope and its accompanying equipments.

"So, father and daughter buried next to each other?" Angela spoke with her head tilted towards the newer victim and I could practically see the cogs in her brain turning. The brilliant artists' mind was connecting the reconstructions of both victims, picking out the similarities of the bone structure, identifying the reflections of the father's face in the daughter's and choosing the most similar points to begin her second reconstruction from. "Then dug up, but the father is reburied. Why?"

"The gangbanger was probably taking the daughter to be reburied, too," Hodgins speculated.

"But the cops pulled him over during the drive," I finished, blinking. "Bet they didn't expect a double homicide."

Brennan sighed in barely-concealed irritation and I bet she would have crossed her arms, if her hands weren't covered in latex gloves that had touched a skeletal corpse. That would give many people pause, so I can't really blame her for the awkward transition her arms took between going up and then falling to her sides. "This is the stuff that Booth is good at, the murky ways of the human heart." There was more than a little distaste in her tone. Her futile attempts to stop her colleagues from hypothesizing are admirable in her perseverance.

"Yeah." Zach agreed with her but he didn't sound too happy about it. "We work the hard evidence."

Hodgins threw his head back in exasperation. "We've used up all the evidence!"

Brennan rolled her eyes at him and irately gave in. "Okay. Let's…" she gave up. "Alright, you know what? Let's pretend we're Booth, okay?" I could see the annoyance in her face, but no one really seemed to see past that she had caved.

I grinned to myself and clapped my hands, the pitch sharply attacking my ears. "I wanna try! Let me do it!" I stripped the gloves off of my hands with a snap, fumbling to hastily toss them into a waste basket before shoving my hand in my pocket and getting a quarter. I flipped it in the air and caught it. I grinned before talking, trying to throw off my normal, slight inflection and adopting the very suburban D.C. accent that Booth had. "The daughter got pregnant from the killer in El Salvador, then came here." I tossed the coin and slapped it against the back of one hand. "He catches up to him, they fight." I made a silly little boxing motion with my hands, pretending to punch the air.

Angela laughed, beaming. Apparently I was doing a very good impression. "He joins a gang and then kills her," she giggled.

"The father comes after him, seeking revenge, and the killer kills him." I tossed the coin up several feet, and when it came back down I snatched the quarter out of mid-air. "Oh!" I tossed my head slightly to the side and sent Hodgins a grin before clicking my tongue and winking at Brennan, staying in character to the FBI agent when he was in his cheerful mood and trying to charm his partner into giving him a homicide ruling.

Brennan peeled her gloves off and shook her head at me, but I could tell by the way she was biting at the inside of her cheek that she was amused and trying not to smile at me. "No, the father's death preceded the daughter's by at least six months."

Zach looked up from a bone with his microscope in slight alarm. "I found something. I can't get this bullet out of the pelvic bone." He sounded irritated, frustrated with his inability to do so on his own.

Brennan bent over and Zach moved aside submissively. "Oh, wow," she said softly after a moment.

"Did I miss something?" I asked, dropping Booth's persona and slipping the quarter back into my pocket. I brushed my bangs out of my face and adjusted the cuffs of my sweater around my wrists.

"The bone started healing around the bullet," Zach explained, looking at Brennan with resolute attention. "There's significant remodeling surrounding the gunshot wound."

"This wound healed…" Brennan had a temporary struggle to find the word for a moment due to the surprise of finding it. Although I couldn't see it from around the table, if we - they had missed it in the initial examination, it must be very healed, to the point of not being a normal issue in the man's life anymore. "Years ago. He didn't die by being shot."

Hodgins whistled, the bemused light in his eyes fading slightly. "Tough old bastard." He looked over the skeleton with pity. Occasionally I wonder if when he went to school to be an entomologist for this purpose; I wonder if this, solving murder, was what any of them had wanted when they chose their careers. Maybe or… maybe not, but it seemed a bit personal to ask. There's still no reason for them to tell me anything like that.

"How was he murdered, then?" I asked, crossing my arms like I could fend off the thoughts I didn't want to think of with body language alone.

Brennan slowly disagreed with me. "He wasn't murdered."

I blinked at the table. "Well… he's dead… so something happened."

"Metastatic carcinoma," Zach replied softly to the grave prospect.

"Cancer," I translated out loud. Even if Booth wasn't around it was sort of habit, and it simplified things for myself. I can do the technobabble and scientific speech, but when it comes down to it, there's a man who died of natural causes, a woman who was murdered, and there was someone responsible for the latter.

"Probably originating in the prostate," Brennan guessed quietly.

"So, he survives being shot, but then he dies of cancer?" Angela switched her notebook between her hands and rubbed her elbow with her free hand.

Hodgins shook his head with his eyes wide and focused on the skeleton, face twisted in pity and empathy. "Mega tough old bastard," he revised.

I fingered the visitors' badge attached to the plain black lanyard. It was simple, with the FBI crest on it with the word 'visitor' in bold text towards the bottom. Fairly simple, to-the-point, and unassuming. Really, it's not at all out of place.

Unless you're upstairs in the bullpen heading towards an office instead of down in the lobby, public relations, or anywhere with civilians.

I knew where Booth's office was, but it was pretty rare that I had gone there without the man in question. A few agents looked over at me and their eyes lingered until they saw the badge, but most of them had seen me there before and so they didn't pay attention. Still, I felt remarkably out of place, so I stayed in the main aisle and walked quickly, but not fast enough to be suspicious, and when I reached Booth's office I moved close to the door and knocked against it loudly before walking in.

I pushed the door open and stepped inside the narrow gap. Booth sat over his desk, one hand holding up his head while he stared at some papers. He looked up when I entered. There were a few seconds of silence as he looked back to the folder on his desk. "Anything?" I ventured, clicking the door shut behind me.

"Uh, yeah." Booth sat up straight, pressing his back to the back of the chair. "Immigration has the wife - she got a lawyer from the Salvadoran League, or something or other. And she's not giving us anything about Jose."

He didn't seem angry. And that's good - but I know that appearances aren't always correct, so I didn't want to make that assumption, especially when in my life, when adults were angry, it did not bode well for me. So I might as well ask, because if he is angry, then what the hell, nothing lost, and if he isn't then it's not like a stupid question is going to make him so. "Are you mad at me?" I cursed myself for the softness of my voice giving away the apprehension of the answer.

"Nope." He turned the 'p' into an idiosyncrasy. "But, you know, I could have gotten something back there, if you hadn't gotten all sentimental and mushy on me."

I knew that he was probably right, but at the same time, I had my morals and I was sticking by them. "I keep saying I'm not a cop." Nice way to start - not agreeing, but not blatantly disagreeing. "And you know what? That's why. I'm not really cop-material. I'm all for catching bad guys, but I refuse to become one in the process." I stabbed someone trying to help your case to rescue a child! I wanted to yell it at him but I held myself back. Keep the blood and gore and guilt to the night terrors. That's as bad as I want to go.

"It's okay." I was surprised Booth seemed genuine. "Don't worry about it. We're not going to need her, anyway."

"Really?" Good, she can be left in relative peace. "Why?"

Booth lifted his arms and folded them behind his head, leaning back against the chair and pushing with his foot so it rocked back. "Because I had the gang unit put a lean on Roberto Ortez. He's the head of Mara Muerte."

"Jose's gang," I stated, simply requesting more information.

"Yeah." He nodded slightly. "I convinced Ortez to bring Jose in for questioning."

"And why would he agree?" I took slow steps closer to the desk, to talk easier and quieter.

"Ortez's sister's in the can on possession charges," Booth explained. Paperwork forgotten. "I promised him I could make that go away."

I have no issue with lying to a killer, but at the same time, it seemed a bit dangerous to outright lie to the head of a feared gang with a high body count. "Can you actually do that?"

Booth shrugged, slightly modest for once. "I don't know," he admitted. "It's a local beef, and I'm federal. But hey, you know… I'm a cop, and thank God for bad sisters, huh?" He smiled at me slightly.

I knew it was meant as more than just a simple jest. It was an acceptance - he hadn't found many of my limits. I can put myself in danger for the good of others and I hold children in a high priority. I work well under pressure, although my temper gets short, and I can't handle being used as a tool. But he found one - I refuse to be anything like the monsters who had taken my custody and then who had yelled at, threatened, and beat me.

"Yeah." I nodded, returning the smile hesitantly.

Ortez did as he promised.

The next morning, I got up for work but then, instead of taking a taxi to the Jeffersonian, I took it to the FBI building. Call it a 'gut feeling' that Brennan hates, or the term 'intuition,' which I personally prefer. Or even reduce it to logic - Ortez is a gang leader with a lot of followers and Jose's not a freaking genius, he can't hide forever.

But my suspicion proved correct and about ten minutes after I got out of the taxi - when I was signing in as a visitor, Booth happened by and saw me. He got me to come over and when I joined him, we went to his SUV and drove right on to the hospital, where we met Brennan in her sleek silver car that her publisher had given her back when we found the boy in the bush, the little Charles Sanders who was crushed to death.

Jose laid in a hospital bed only five feet away from me, beaten to a pulp, his eyes half-open and his breathing labored. An oxygen mask was over his face and the O2 stats on his vitals monitor were in the low eighties. His pulse was slow and his heart rate was slightly sluggish. He had a black eye and a long, shallow cut over the other. Part of his head was wrapped in gauze from trauma and blood and his tattooed skin was black, blue, and even a sickening yellow before it was covered by the tightly-tucked in sheet of the hospital bed. There was a splint around his right shoulder and the other was in a cast over the sheet.

"He has a collapsed lung, several broken ribs, one arm is broken and the other is dislocated." The doctor, a dark-skinned woman with brown hair to her shoulders, spoke like the patient wasn't even awake.

"In other words, Ortez made a mockery of your request," I muttered, sure that Booth would hear.

"But can we talk to him?" Booth asked, his hands in his pockets. Brennan shot him a look, but Booth pretended not to notice.

"You can try," the doctor sniffed dubiously before turning and walking away as her pager lit up with a light blue glow.

Booth turned and Brennan followed just behind him to the side of the bed. I moved to the bedside, too, but while the adults stayed at the foot of the bed, I moved closer to the monitors and I picked up the chart hanging off of the side. "Wow," Booth whistled dramatically. "Your own guys - they did this to you?"

I raised my eyebrows as I looked over the sheet, notes written in medical shorthand with details pertaining to the prescriptions. I glanced over at the morphine bag hanging on the IV drip and my eyes followed the cord leading back to the needle secured to the man's arm with neon green medical tape. "Damn," I started sarcastically. "I wish I had my own gang."

"I don't belong to no gang." Jose told me coolly, keeping his composure as best as he could while lying beat up in a hospital bed. The oxygen mask over his mouth fogged up and his voice came out muffled. He watched me wearily as I touched the morphine drip, loosening it from where it was caught behind a knob on the oxygen supply. I guess he thought I was the vindictive type.

"Don't worry, buddy. I'm a bitch but I'm not that low," I told him with a roll of my eyes.

"I'm a gardener," he told Booth, looking away from me. I looked over the chart again before hanging it by the clip back on the metal rungs and instead picked up a sealed bag containing the set for nasal tubes for oxygenation, grasping the end and peeling it open.

"Yeah, a gardener with a Mara Muerte tattoo on his neck who can suddenly understand English and who likes to plant dead bodies." I could tell Booth was still a little pissed about the drive-by and the chase, and he further demonstrated that when he added, "Nice touch with the gunmen and the shoe."

"Yeah, man." I crossed my arms. "A shoe? Really?" I caught him glaring at the bag I held as I started to get out the equipment and I rolled my eyes again. "Come on, stupid. I'm not in the mood to play charades and it's hard to understand you with the mask. Don't be scared of a scrawny teenager, tough guy." I can't seem to stop the taunting… okay, so maybe I am a bit vindictive sometimes.

Brennan picked up his file from the edge of the bed and moved towards the wall to look over the x-rays. Jose objected almost immediately. "Maybe that stuff's private," he started spitefully.

I bent over and attached the tubing to the oxygenator, then worked my way back to the end to work out the tangles. I scoffed. "Not only are you an illegal immigrant, but we can prove you have gang affiliations and you're a suspect in a murder investigation. You no longer have any privacy from the government." I stepped to the side of the bed. "Lean forward and for the next thirty seconds, don't talk. It'll preserve oxygen and your current oxygen levels aren't looking too great."

He did as he was told and quite frankly, I'm surprised Booth took over with so much aggression. "You're under arrest for transporting a dead body in a stolen car." I pulled the oxygen mask away from his face and tugged it over his head, replacing it quickly with the nasal tubes before the oxygen levels decreased more than one or two percent. "You're under suspicion for murder. I'm going to call I.C.E. and have you and your wife deported back to El Salvador."

I fixed the tubes under his nose, prongs pointing upward. "There. Talk now, you're alright."

"I've got a son." Jose's voice sounded slightly raspy without the sound of the oxygen or the mask itself to muffle it, but the rewards of the short switch proved worth the time, because he was much easier to understand and it was probably much easier for him to talk.

"Forget it," Booth shot him down flatly. "We keep the son."

"That's my son," Jose glared at him, alarm rising in his eyes. "That's my only son. You got kids?"

"No." He bit it out quickly enough for most people to tell it was a lie.

Brennan's head snapped away from the x-rays and she gave Booth a bewildered look. "What? Yes, you do!"

Although he clearly hadn't meant for that to come out, Booth took it in stride. "Difference is, I'm a fit father!" I can tell from the fifteen minute window of time when I'd met Parker Booth. Brennan and I had joined Booth at Wong Foos' restaurant on Easter about five minutes before Sid brought Parker to see his father for the holiday celebration. Parker recognized me from when I'd gotten him Booth's attention and as a thank you, he wanted to sit on my lap while he babbled to his dad. I hadn't really thought it was an issue, seeing as he was just a kid and I trusted his father, so I let him and Booth ended up taking a picture. We'd stayed for about another ten minutes before I'd taken my leave, giving Parker a smile and an enthusiastic goodbye. "I'm not going around murdering guys and little girls, burying them, and then digging them up!"

"Booth…" Brennan interrupted him and I looked over at her. She had the same tone she had when she figured something out. She was staring at the x-rays pinned against the UV station on the wall. "I don't think he murdered those people."

There was a hole, less than an inch in diameter, off-centered on his sternum.

Booth half turned around. Apparently, even his beliefs were pushed by the x-ray claim. "You can tell if he murdered someone by looking at his x-rays?"

I looked back at the man in the hospital bed with narrowed eyes, scanning his face intently. Comparing the rough sketches Angela had made, and the prominence of the bones in his face… I tilted my head. "I think she's right," I announced, crossing my arms. A sort of familial resemblance persisted, even through the cuts and bruises and general misery of a beaten man in a hospital bed.

"He has the same genetic condition the two victims had," Brennan explained, simplifying things. I half smiled to myself. Whether she realizes it or not, she's getting more in the habit of explaining things in a way Booth understands clearer. "A sternal foramen. They were probably his sister and his father."

Booth snapped back to Jose with rapt attention, but he wasn't any nicer. "Is that true?" Jose didn't reply.

"C'mon, man." I shrugged. "You want to get on his good side, because he really wasn't joking about deporting you and keeping your child."

This made the deal. "Yes, it's my sister. It was my father." He admitted, before glaring at his feet defiantly in a weak act of mutiny.

"Your father died of natural causes, fine…" Brennan's shoulders heaved. She genuinely wants to find the murderer of the girl - I think that there is a tiny difference between our motives. We both want to find the murderer and that's our primary, mutual goal. But I want to find the murderer because of the act of murder. She wants to find him/her because of the victim. "But your sister was murdered."

Booth seemed to give up and threw up his hands. "You know what, forget it. The gang is the only family Jose cares about. You know," he shot at the immigrant sharply, "Enjoy your trip back home, and have fun explaining to your wife why she doesn't have a baby in her arms." Even I nearly flinched at that. Booth was a lot more cruel than I thought he would be to Jose, although I understand that he values America and what the country stands for almost as much as he values the meaning of his job. He probably feels as though the illegal immigration, the gangs, and the murder altogether are undermining the country and the devotion he showed to it when he was a veteran.

"Give us something," I reasoned with the man. "There's no one that you can protect. We have your wife and baby. Your sister and father are dead. You don't want to help us, fine, but someone killed your sister, and if you don't try to help then they might walk free of charges. Whether or not you're immigrants, the charges of murder aren't nulled because of it."

"Just anything," Brennan added near pleadingly. Of all of us, despite how she sometimes seems to not understand sentimentality, she seems the most easy to connect with people when Booth and I are being difficult. "At least you could tell us their names."

Jose sniffed disdainfully. Clearly, he was unhappy with the arrangement, but he's not a complete idiot and he got the position he was in. "You want their names, huh?" No one really had to nod or answer in the affirmative. "Duarte was our family name. Maria was my sister, and our father was named Augustine." He looked away and stared to the window. "That's all I can tell you."

Booth brought Ortez in for questioning, seeing as his boys had beaten Jose into a bloody mess. Ortez had to be displeased but he kept up a smooth expression and facade. I had no doubt that, like a snake, he'd lash out if we got too close.

Ortez is the leader of Mara Muerte. It stands to reason that he has the dark black tattoo on the back of his neck, but that's no excuse for the ink in his arms, shoulders, and face. His face was pale in contrast to the designs, a surprising thing considering that you'd figure he'd get a lot of sun. His eyes were brown but seemed closer to black - or maybe that was just perception? He wasn't muscled like a bodybuilder, but he would be a challenge in a fair one on one fight. And that's not taking into account that gangs don't fight fair. Either way, he reminded me of a snake with his looks, too, and I'd really rather stay away from him except my pride wouldn't let me do that.

"Jose's sister hated him." I eyed the gangbanger mistrustfully. I wasn't sure why he was offering answers, or even why he'd know about Jose's personal life. Gangs don't work like any civilized community. In a club or group you'd talk and at least know each other's name. Gangs aren't usually like that - they have a hierarchy, and stepping outside of it is either disrespectful or demeaning, depending on whether you're going up or down. They don't care about each other's personal woes unless they're friends outside of a gang life, too. And Ortez is not the type to care about a lackey.

Then again, I'm talking to one of the most dangerous men in my neighborhood, so it's entirely possible I'm just being paranoid and over-thinking things.

"Why?" I said quickly, biting it out and not giving him the time to relax. I'd go through everything later - it's not like I'm in danger of being killed if I annoy him. Thank God for metal detectors and body searches - Ortez isn't armed, and even if he was, Booth would shoot him if he attacked anyone. Or at the very least, let Brennan or I do a number on him.

"She didn't approve of his associations." No matter what was done or passed back and forth, Ortez seemed confident. His voice was smooth and not very loud, even though he did have a very noticeable Spanish accent to his English.

Brennan, who sat between Booth and I on either end of the table, had her elbows on the tabletop and her eyes narrowed at Ortez's phrasing. "You mean 'associations' like the leader of one of the most murderous street gangs in the country?" I know she's not an idiot, but the way her words were smothered in contempt made me wonder if she was trying to piss him off and get a hit placed over her head. Yep, people, this guy resides in my neighborhood. See what I have to deal with?

Booth started talking over her, getting the attention taken away from her and onto him instead. I sent Brennan a 'look' - yes, she's safe here, but as she said, Mara Muerte is one of the most murderous street gangs in the country, and they can make things extremely bad outside of the safety of a government facility. I understand her anger but I want her to be careful, too, or at least mindful of how her words might put her in danger later on.

"Look, if she hated Jose so much, why was he moving her body?"

"Her burial site was threatened." Ortez shrugged - he really couldn't care less. "He wanted to move her to a better place. And his father." An afterthought. "A real family guy, you know?"

I hummed. "Sentimentality is just a bitch sometimes, isn't it? Especially when it compromises your men." If he knew this then he could at least pretend to not be a cold bastard. He didn't have to sound like he was mocking Jose for respecting his family even in death.

"Hey, he wants to put himself on the line, he can go right ahead." Ortez chuckled. "I'm not the leader of the whole gang," he added to Brennan, cocking his head at her and smirking, correcting her earlier comment. "Just the D.C. chapter."

This really didn't make Brennan smile.

"You shot at us… so Jose could have a chance to get away?" Booth clarified suspiciously, his eyes narrowed.

Ortez raised a single eyebrow in response to his confusion. "The Mara Muerte takes care of its own. Even a throwaway like Jose."

Brennan leaned forward. She watched him calculatingly, like a hawk would its prey. She was trying to deduce him. I knew because that was the look she had when she was trying to figure out something she didn't like. "Can I ask you something?" She didn't sound as polite as the words themselves did.

Ortez smirked and leaned back, crossing his arms across his black-clad chest. "Go ahead."

I sensed already that he had a feeling of what was irritating her; if I knew anything, then he was going to goad her on until he had an opportunity to say something cold to stun her or something that allowed him to boast his own supremacy. While I doubted he could do the former to her, I was still a bit worried.

"Jose's all beaten up, so he won't tell us anything," the anthropologist stated, sounding absolutely calm, even if her detest was clear from her nonverbal language. "But you, you don't even ask for a lawyer, but you hardly stop talking."

That could be taken as a challenge.

I really wanted to just ask her what she was doing before I remembered that she'd been in El Salvador and dealt with the death squads and El Salvador's Ortezes before. Is she taking these things personally? I wondered.

"Bones…" Booth warned softly, with a slight groan.

"I'm the boss, lady, okay?" Ortez sounded condescending and full of contempt. "Jose's a sobrenado. That baboso is not as smart as me." He was haughty and arrogant, just like most gangbangers were.

"Yeah, well at least that slime, as you put it, had the knowledge that he shouldn't try to intimidate FBI affiliates," I spat angrily. So what if he's in charge of a gang? We are not his gang, and while I accept that he has power out on the streets, we are in the FBI, and he can't touch us so we are not scared of him. What does he think he gains from acting tough? Trying to undermine and intimidate Brennan into fear and submission was not his best move and did not go over well with me. "You threaten him into silence but then get interrogated in the FBI and your mouth just never shuts up."

"Look, all I need to know is who would have the guts to kill his sister!" Booth raised his voice and sent me a glance before focusing back on Ortez, ordering me silently to watch what I said before I ended up on a hit list again.

"Aw, who cares, man?" Ortez laughed at Booth's frustration. Gangbangers tend to see women the way that people did in ancient times; objects. Women used to be seen as items or possessions, good for doing the tedium of housework and meant to obey and honor the men around them. Aside from the whole 'gangbanging' part of how they imagine women to be, which I think is pretty self-explanatory, Ortez isn't intimidated by Brennan and I because he doesn't see us as equals. It must be amusing for him that the women on Booth's side are defying him.

Booth laughed with him, although it was forced. "Come on, Ortez. The sister of the Mara Muerte, the most feared gang in the city?"

"She wasn't my sister, man." Ortez shrugged carelessly.

Brennan looked over to Booth. "It had to be somebody else in the gang, somebody more important than Jose," she told him helpfully.

At this, Ortez turned back to her and his eyes flashed. The amusement left and was replaced with something darker. And when he talked to her he sounded much more threatening. "You know what, lady?" His accent thickened in repressed anger. "You think too much." His eyes moved past her face. "Maybe you need a man like me to get your mind off of things. You know what I'm saying?" Under the table, my hands closed into tight fists. "I can be your adoring Salvadoran." He made a kissy face at her.

I snapped my fingers irately, drawing his attention away from her chest. "Hey bastardo. Her face is up here."

It turned out to be a pointless shot, because the flirtations got the better of Brennan and she stood up, her chair screeching in protest as it was shoved back. Her shoes clicked as she turned her back on Ortez and stalked to the door.

Whatever she was thinking, it couldn't have been good if she took Ortez's bait so easily. I stood up more calmly to go with her wherever she was going and shot Ortez a look of absolute revulsion. "Have fun partying with your death squads and morons." I slammed my chair in against the table.

"Are you okay?" I asked Brennan. She stabbed the 'elevator down' button rather violently and did it again when it took a minute to light up.

"I'm fine," she answered. I raised my eyebrows at her in a really? expression, and when she saw, she sighed and pulled her arms to herself, crossing them over her chest. "I just… hate people like him."

"Join the club," I muttered, standing next to her and waiting for the elevator to come get us.

The footsteps behind us came at a leisurely pace; thinking it through, I didn't know anyone who would walk like that in an FBI building, with slow, languid steps. No one is that comfortable and also not busy. I didn't even have to turn around, because I heard the voice come from behind Brennan and I and tensed slightly.

"You've been waiting for me?" The footsteps stopped and he was so uncomfortably close - I saw Brennan's hair move from his breath and I turned my head away from him. "Push that button again, and we can all go down together, chicas."

I turned around on my heel and crossed my arms again, tilting my head at him dangerously. "Do you think you can just intimidate us into doing what you want by throwing some attitude?" I challenged. I know it's not a smart idea but I did it before I thought it through - and then I wasn't about to back down. It would only make him think he's right.

Ortez held his hands up in a gesture of faux surrender. "Okay, I'll push it myself," he grumbled, and started to move to shove Brennan and I apart and walk between us. In turn, the moment I saw his hand on Brennan's shoulder, I stepped towards the scientist and effectively blocked Ortez from the elevator controls.

I cocked my head at him when he seemed startled, but his leer quickly turned to a scowl. "What do you do when you meet someone you can't knock around?" I demanded.

"Just get out of my way." His voice got rougher. At the other end of the hall, Booth rounded the corridor and threw his hands up when he saw the three of us together - because obviously it wasn't going to go well. I just planted my heels further into the short carpet and met Ortez's glare with one of my own. It helped that I wasn't shorter than him. "'Said to move your ass, woman," the gangbanger snarled, reaching toward me.

Booth reached out to stop Ortez, but paused when the gangster's hand landed on my upper arm. "I wouldn't- Oh…"

His fingers dug into my skin painfully, nearly sure to leave a bruise, and I thrust my arm out, hitting him across the head with my forearm as Brennan reacted to the assault, too, and punched him in the face. Ortez reeled back.

"That's gonna hurt in the morning," Booth cringed and stopped several feet away to stay out of the inevitable fight. Eh, that's okay. Brennan and I can kick this guy to the curb.

When Ortez looked up, it looked like his nose was broken. There was some blood running to his lips. He growled in his throat and glared. "Bitch!" He lunged at Brennan and she ducked, his fist passing over her head harmlessly while she jerked towards him and kicked his shin.

I moved behind him swiftly and while he was leaning forward to attack the anthropologist, I leaned over him, slamming my fist down on one shoulder and wrapping my arm around his neck. I twisted so my heel was over his leg and pulled back, intent on sending him sprawling to the floor.

It didn't quite go as planned. His arms flew behind him and grabbed me as he fell and I tumbled down, landing half on top of him. I scrambled around and dug my elbow deliberately into his chest. He moaned and wheezed and I drew back before backhanding him across the face and rolling away so that I could stand up.

Brennan held out a hand to me and I reached up to her from my knees. She grasped my wrist and helped me to get to my feet before Ortez stood up - I pulled my arm away as soon as I could, and the elevator dinged to signal its arrival.

Ortez didn't even move.

I huffed, brushing off my shirt, and looked around the hall with its office spaces and met the eyes of every agent brave enough to look directly at me for a few seconds before nodding and fixing my hair back with as much dignity as I had retained before stepping backwards, over Ortez's unconscious shocked body, and into the elevator. Brennan kicked Ortez lightly with the toe of her shoe before stepping widely over him and through the threshold.

We both faced Booth, who whistled and looked at the gangbanger on the floor. "Feel better?" He asked in exasperation.

I inclined my chin and nodded slowly. "Yeah." I crossed my arms again after pressing the button for the ground floor.

"I really do," Brennan agreed with a satisfied smile and nod of her head before the doors closed and blocked us off.