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A/N: So Remember how I said I was gonna see you on Tuesday?! WELL I WAS WRONG! Over the weekend I hit our second milestone! I've officially written half a million words for this story! I KNOW RIGHT?! Take that in! Can you imagine? It's not all current chapters, I've written quite of a bit of matter for future chapters as well and possible spin off stories but let me tell you, this whole thing has been a wild ride! So to celebrate reaching half a million words, I'm going to post three times this week. Today, Wednesday and Friday. You guys are lucky! Two three post updates in two weeks! Are you happy? Tell me if you are! Also… JP… I put a line in there for you, tell me if you find it! See you guys on Wednesday!
Chapter 61
The man who took them was on the phone with Steve. He had called him from Catherine's phone. Rowan, who had not been gagged still chose to stay quiet. She wanted Steve to do this for Catherine alone, like he did in the episode. She thought it might help them out, you know, in the relationship department.
But she didn't like the hitting and the kicking this guy was doling out on Catherine. As soon as the phone was hung up, and the guy reeled back to hit Catherine again, Rowan had decided she had enough.
Catherine was already on the ground, she was coughing and gagging because he had kicked her in the stomach. He didn't need to hit her again.
"Stop it!" Rowan shouted. "Just stop it! We get it, you're mean. She's learned her lesson, now stop it."
This guy had paid very little attention to Rowan up until this moment. Now that his eyes were finally on her she was afraid, really afraid. She saw unbridled anger and insanity in his eyes and she officially regretted getting involved in this.
"I know about you, Miss. Pierce," he said in a low voice. "But we no longer work with Wo Fat, the traitor."
"You know, I got it the first time. You guys don't have to keep telling me," she snapped. She raised the hands that were bound in front of her. "Trust me, I got the message."
"We're not afraid of you, we're not afraid of Wo Fat. You're on your own. No one is coming to rescue you," he said. "So I would suggest you start giving me the respect I deserve."
"You want respect?" Rowan scoffed. "You're nothing but a violent little peasant."
That was the comment she would regret, that was the one she never should have made. Trevor had always said her sarcasm and her wisecracking mouth would get her killed one day, and judging by the look on his face today was going to be that day. He crossed to her and back handed her quickly. Rowan's eyes stung, she yelped despite trying to hold it back.
"Do yourself a favour and shut up," he growled into her face.
But Rowan was either incapable or not willing to shut up because she turned that glare up to him and said: "What happens to me will be done to you ten-fold, so you better be prepared for an ass whooping when he finds out."
The man scoffed at her but he took a step away and he didn't try to hit her again. She was, however, shoved to the ground beside Catherine. Then they walked away to talk about their plan.
Rowan hunkered down and scowled at the dirt at her feet. When Steve got here, because she knew he was going to get here, she was going to make sure this leader guy got shot. Then she was going to make Steve take her straight to Wo Fat so she could yell at him over this stupid network that barely fucking worked.
"I should have listened to you," Catherine whispered.
"Everyone should have listened to me. Wo, Steve, you, that asshole who's slap happy," Rowan growled. "No point in crying about it now."
"Does Steve… does he…" Catherine started but started coughing again.
"Does Steve comply with the demands?" Rowan asked. "Of course he does. He loves you."
Something akin to grief flashed across Catherine's features. "We both know he's coming for you."
"Steve doesn't know I'm here," she scoffed.
"I was with you, Rowan. I left with you," she reminded her.
Rowan shook her head. "Mr. Slap-Happy never told him I was here. And besides you could have dropped me off before I they took you," she offered. "Trust me. Steve's doing this for you and you alone. I know it."
Rowan didn't know who she was trying to convince, Catherine or herself.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
They had Catherine.
That meant, they must have Rowan as well.
They hadn't mentioned her during the ransom call though. He hadn't heard her on the call, but he had a feeling. This terrible jittering that was trapped under his skin.
So not only did they have Catherine. They had Rowan. She had been with her at the time. It was logical to assume that they had gotten the two of them together. The fact that Rowan wasn't mentioned was something that worried him. She had just humiliated them. They could have easily have just shot her and left her for dead. But he didn't have proof, so he had Duke looking for Rowan, and he was acting as if it was only Catherine that was taken.
This really was not his day.
He drove like a maniac. He argued with Danny. Yes, this was stupid. Yes, this made no sense. Yes, he had absolutely no proof that this guy would do as he said he would and release the girls once he got the prisoners released but he had lost his dad to people like this. He wasn't going to lose Catherine to this, and he sure as hell wasn't going to lose Rowan.
He chased down the SWAT van that had taken the prisoners and then stopped the Camaro in front of it so they had choice but to stop. Then Steve was out of the car calling for the new SWAT commander.
"Grover, out, out," he ordered and luckily the new guy, Grover, actually listened. Steve wasn't sure what he thought of the new head of SWAT, they hadn't had time to learn about each other, but after this he was certain Grover was going to hate him.
Hell Steve hated himself, but this was what needed to be done.
"What's going on, McGarrett?" he asked.
Steve internally winced but he needed to be strong. He pulled his gun out and pointed it at Grover. "Hands in the air. On your knees," he snapped.
Grover put his hands out in surrender, but it was clear he wasn't going to listen. Also, Steve was running out of time. This had a deadline, Grover needed to move faster. So he kicked the legs out from under him.
"Don't move, don't move," he ordered. He snuck in, snatched up Grover's gun and tossed it away. "All right, everybody out of the van, everybody out of the van right now!"
They too were moving slowly so Steve shot into the air twice. That got them moving. "Show me your weapons," he ordered as they disembarked the van. "Put them on the ground. Weapons in front of you on the ground, weapons in front of you on the ground."
God this was taking too long. Catherine didn't have this kind of time. Fuck. Move faster!
"Side arms too! Everyone over here, on your stomachs, hands behind your backs," he snapped.
Danny was closing up the rear, he too had his gun out, he looked hesitant and upset, but that was Danny's natural look. He didn't want to do this, he thought it was stupid, had said as much in the car during the chase, but he had Steve's back and had come as back up.
Steve would forever be grateful.
"McGarrett, what the hell are you doing, man?" Grover asked from his place on the ground as Danny began handcuffing the SWAT team.
"No time, I can't explain," Steve said quickly. He shifted from foot to foot, he was getting antsy. He needed to know if they had Rowan, he needed them to let Catherine go. Safely.
He left Danny to the handcuffing and rushed to the back of the truck. Once the door was open he ordered them all out and then cut the zipties around their wrists.
The man Rowan had called Ernesto had a smug grin on his face. "So nice to see you again," he said in the smuggest voice Steve had ever heard, and he had been working with Danny for three years. "Where's your little girl?"
Steve nearly hit him for that alone.
"If anything happens to Lieutenant Rollins, you're the one I kill first," Steve warned. "As for Rowan, well, I can't say anything for what Wo Fat will do to you."
Ernesto just smiled at him. "Can I ask you something?"
"What?"
"Are the keys in the Camaro?" he asked.
No. No. Danny would never forgive him if the criminals took his car. Steve would never hear the end of it. But there was nothing Steve could do, so he just stood by and let the guys take Danny's car.
From the ground Lou called out: "You know, you just lost your badge, McGarrett. You're all done."
"You might be right about that," Steve answered absently but his phone was ringing and that was more important to him right at that moment.
Catherine's number. But he knew it wasn't Catherine.
"All right, it's done," he answered.
"You're a smart man commander," El Condor said to him. Steve tried to curb his anger and his worry. The need to ask about Rowan rose to his lips but he shoved it aside.
"Where is she?" he asked instead. He wanted Catherine. He wanted her to be okay. He wanted Rowan back. Even if he had to go to that airfield and tell Wo Fat himself, he would be getting Rowan back. But El Condor wasn't being helpful. He was being a dick.
"History doesn't have to repeat itself," he said, his tone dripping with smug condescension. "I had a feeling you'd listen to reason."
"I did what you asked!" Steve shouted into the phone. Finally way past his breaking point. "Now you tell me where she is."
And this time he was given an answer.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Steve had taken the SWAT van and disappeared, which made sense because the idiot had let the terrorists take his car. He had also confirmed with Duke that Rowan was not at Alex's.
So they had a missing girlfriend. A missing psychic. A missing Camaro. And four missing terrorists. And on top of that the new Captain of the SWAT team hated them now. So, you know it had been a good day for them. But Danny couldn't bring himself to be sarcastic with Steve, the boy was about to have an aneurism. So he tried to be positive.
"They'll be there," he whispered. "Don't worry. They'll both be there."
But when they got to that stretch of jungle there was nothing and no one there. But that didn't stop Steve from jerking the van to a stop, throwing himself out of the van and screaming her name.
But there were no cries, and there was no Catherine. The two of them wound through the trees. Looking for any sign of movement. Steve continued to shout for Catherine, Danny did as well. It occurred to Danny that maybe they should have called for Rowan, but he was still holding out hope that Rowan was with Alex. They had sent Duke to make sure that was where she was. Danny was sure Steve wasn't going to panic fully until he confirmed that Rowan wasn't at Alex's.
And then Danny spotted it. Movement in the trees. He recognized the hair, the walk. It was Catherine. But Steve must have not noticed cause he wasn't running in her direction.
"Steve," Danny called and then pointed in the right direction. "Catherine!"
Steve turned. Saw her and took off. Sprinting to her, jumping over roots and rocks like a regular mountain man.
"Catherine, are you okay?" he asked as he cut her free of the ropes that were around her wrists. As soon as she was free she hugged him and Steve hugged her back.
This went on for a long time. Their embrace. To the point where Danny was starting to get a bit uncomfortable, like he shouldn't be witnessing this.
"Okay… uh… I'm gonna go wait by the Van. If anyone needs me… I'm gonna… I'm gonna be by the van" Danny said but they weren't listening. So he turned around and pretended to be interested something else. Anything else. Maybe he'd go looking for Rowan. "Oh, wow, look at that it's a giant Amakihi. I think there are extinct, no?"
"Are you okay?" Steve asked again, having clearly pulled Catherine away to get a better look at her. She had some bruising on her face coming in. Not a good sign.
"Yeah," She answered breathlessly and then they were making out. Secretly this made Danny happy. Steve had been nothing but conflicted over Rowan and Catherine since they had found Rowan. Maybe this meant that he was finally starting to finalize his decision and things could go back to normal.
Once they were done kissing, there were tears in Catherine's eyes. Danny wasn't sure if it was relief or because of the pain. "You shouldn't have let them go," she said to him.
Steve shook his head. "Come on, I'm not gonna lose you," he said. He looked her up and down. "You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, I'm good, but you let them get away. And they… they took Rowan," she told him.
Steve's eyebrows raised up in surprised. "Rowan… Rowan really was here?" he asked. "Rowan was with you?"
"Yes," Catherine said. Her eyebrows drew together. "You didn't know she was here?"
"We were hoping that you had dropped her off before you were taken," Danny said coming to stand beside them. They were done being mushy he felt like he could be around them now and not be interrupting anything.
"No, she was with me," Catherine said. "You really didn't know she was with me?"
Danny heard the implied question. You did all of this just for me? It was fair. Steve did over react when it came to Rowan. It was nice to see he was just as determined to keep Catherine safe as he was to keep Rowan safe.
Steve, however, now that he knew that Catherine was safe but Rowan wasn't, was heading back towards the van. "They didn't get away. Chin's following Danny's car," he said.
"Danny's car?" Catherine echoed as she and Danny followed after him.
"Yes, Danny's car. He let the terrorists take my car," Danny answered bitterly.
"We've talked about his, we no choice," Steve grumbled as he got to the van.
"Do you know why they took her?" Danny asked Catherine as he helped her into the back. Because he sure as hell wasn't riding in the back like a prisoner.
"No. To be honest I was surprised when he didn't mention Rowan at all. I'm pretty sure he didn't take her to get at Steve," she admitted.
Danny nodded and then shut the door. He rushed up to the front to find that Steve was on the phone with Chin. He nodded and then put the Van in drive and got them onto the road.
"What did Chin say?" Danny asked.
"He lost them," Steve said. The speed of the van picked up. "Rowan was in the back. The girl in red practically screamed when she saw her."
"Well… Chin mentioned she pulled some void shit on the girl," Danny reminded him.
Steve nodded. "Yeah, electrocuted her with her own two hands. That's new even for her," he agreed.
He seemed cagey about something. Danny assumed that it was about Rowan. Rowan and her ever changing powers. "Does it worry you that her powers seem to be evolving?"
"No. I think they're devolving," Steve said. "She can't open the void anymore and she's not having visions."
"Okay but she electrocuted someone today with her powers," Danny reminded him.
"She's been shocking people when she touches them and the get a vision. I think because she's not having visions as frequently she's got a pent up store of energy which manifesting itself with static shocks. Today she focused the energy, forced a vision to come and then used all that stored energy to electrocute someone," Steve explained. Danny turned to him with wide eyes of shock. How was he not freaked out that she did that? "Her powers are devolving but Rowan's finding more and more creative ways to make them work for her. I'm not worried about her powers, I'm worried about her."
"So what do we do about her?" Danny asked. He was thinking himself because Steve was supposed to be leaving Rowan alone. But he also figured that Steve would feel left out if he didn't include him.
"We gotta find her first," he said. "She's a password. She has the ability to contact anyone in Wo Fat's network for assistance. That's probably why they took her. To use her to get off the island."
Danny nodded. Alright that made sense. "Uh, there's something I haven't told you," Steve said. He sounded hesitant. Danny was immediately on edge. He didn't like the sound of that.
"What?" he asked apprehensively.
"Well… uh… there's…. something happened to your… car…" Steve said.
Danny just stared at him. Of course it had. Of course something had happened to his car. He wanted to ask how bad it was but if Steve didn't want to tell him it had to be bad.
"It kind of… blew up…" Steve admitted.
Danny tuned him out after that. His poor Camaro could not be burnt, it just couldn't be, because if it was he'd kill Steve with his own bare hands. But they got to the scene and there it was. His beautiful perfect Camaro up in smoke and completely blackened out.
He hopped out of the van and went to his car trying to keep his tears inside. It wasn't manly to cry over a car, but he loved that car even if Steve barely let him drive it.
"I always thought it would be your driving that killed my car," Danny snapped.
Steve ignored him and focused on Chin who was coming towards him. "Chin you okay?" he asked avoiding Danny's eyes.
"Yeah, they must have been expecting a tail," Chin said with a shrug.
"This is terrible," Danny said in referenced to the car. He noted Steve's rolling eyes and chose to scowl at him. He then turned to Chin as well "Did you see the other car they were driving?"
"Late model SUV, Black, no plates," Chin listed off immediately. "They had Rowan in the back. I could hear her shouting when they opened fire on me."
Steve took that in stride too. He nodded and then went about ordering everyone around. "Call Lukela, have him put out an alert."
"Or you could just tell him yourself," Danny snapped before Steve could get any more bossy. Steve turned around as the squad cars surrounded them, lights flashing sirens wailing. He seemed surprised as if he hadn't noticed them getting louder and louder while they talked.
As soon as they stopped everyone got out of the cars and drew their guns on them. Grover got out of one of them and had a shot gun trained on Steve immediately. "On your knees! Guns on the ground," he ordered.
Well isn't this a tables-turned situation? Danny turned to Steve to see what he was going to do about this, but he just looked angry and quite confused.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Steve cried as if he hadn't seen this coming. Really? He hadn't seen this coming? "I had no choice they had Catherine."
"And in exchanged, you released four terrorists," Grover snapped. Danny thought that was a little unfair. Most people would react the same if a loved one was in danger. Grover apparently didn't seem to care about his loved ones the same way the Five-0 family cared about theirs.
"Yeah, well, I had a plan," Steve snapped back.
"Oh, you had a plan" Grover mocked. "Well, where the hell are they then? Because all I see around here is an epic fail the size of Texas."
"Easy, Captain, before this gets out of hand," Duke ordered. Yes, Duke Lukela the voice of reason.
"Look around you. This has already gotten way past out of hand," Grover said. "McGarrett and his merry band of do-whatever-the-hell-you-want should have considered the repercussions before jumping me and my men."
"They have Rowan too," he added in a small voice and Duke's eyes widened and then he nodded as if it all made sense. Like Steve would go to hell and back for her. Not a good thing for usually passive onlooker to put together so quickly in front of Steve's real girlfriend. Wow, look at Danny, calling her the real girlfriend, as if Rowan was the fake one. Not good. He needed to get out of that mindset.
But Steve didn't stay on Rowan, luckily. Danny wondered if it was because thinking about it made Steve panic too much. He merely looked at Grover with a look of confident disdain and very cockily added: "Look, the only thing that got hurt was your pride."
Why was he provoking him? Really? He had a fucking shotgun. Navy Seal or not, one just does not provoke someone holding a shotgun on them.
"Immunity and means, my ass. I want you and all your people to put their weapons on the ground now!" Grover nearly screamed, clearly not digging that comment Steve had just made.
"That's not gonna happen. All right? This isn't the mainland, it's Hawaii. We do things differently here," Steve growled. "So, the more time we waste, the more time the NLM has to escape with their hostage. So, what do you wanna do?"
"Those guys escape, that's it on you," Grover growled poking Steve in the chest.
Danny immediately panicked. He had been in that position and it had not ended well for him. It hadn't ended well for Steve's face either. Still he didn't want a repeat of that situation so he stepped forward.
"You're invading his personal space which is a very bad idea," he warned. He felt for Grover.
"You know, see this right here? We can do this later," Steve growled, his voice low and dangerous
"Count on it," Grover growled right back. Great the two of them were caught in a pissing match now.
"Good. I'll be there," Steve snapped, throwing out some smugness himself.
"It's a date," Grover said before walking away, effectively leaving with the last word. Steve's eye was twitching, he hated it when he didn't get the last word. Danny put a hand on his arm to keep Steve from running after Grover to get the last word, or a round of goddamn buckshot straight to the chest.
"Duke, we're gonna need air support and roadblocks, now" Chin said clearly eager to get back to the problem at hand. Rescuing Rowan. Again.
"Let's also call the Coast Guard, all right? Anything up in the air or in the water could be our guys," Steve added, finally done glaring at Grover and turning back around.
Duke looked uncomfortable. "Duke what's the matter?" Steve probed.
"News chopper was reported stolen this morning. Didn't even register with everything that's going on until now," he admitted. "Also, I should have told you earlier. Alex said she wasn't at home. Her cellphone's off and he got a strange call from an even stranger caller looking for her."
"It's gotta be connected," Chin said ignoring the Rowan talk. At this point it didn't matter. What mattered was finding her.
"H1 on-ramp's two blocks from here right?" Steve asked.
"Yeah I'm pretty sure that's where they were headed?" Chin answered
"The NLM is planning on using the stolen chopper as a getaway and there's only one place I can think of around here where they could land and take off again without drawing too much attention to themselves," Steve said. Danny nodded that made sense.
"Yeah, but why take Rowan?" Duke wondered.
"She's the password," Chin, Danny and Steve answered at once. They then raced back to Chin's SUV, ready to go after her, with Catherine trailing after them.
"Yeah, but what does that mean?" Duke asked but none of them answered.
It was too hard to explain something that they didn't quite understand themselves. Instead they had to focus on the task at hand. Saving Rowan. For like the millionth time. Silently Danny added, and if she gets in shit again we're just gonna leave her.
But he knew that wasn't true. Steve wasn't going to let these terrorists take her now, and there was nothing anyone could do or say to keep him from rescuing her any other time she got into trouble. It was just his nature. Steve was a natural born hero, and it seemed like Rowan was going to forever play the role of his damsel.