Because Seven Eight Nine [4/7]

[windscryer]

Title: Because Seven Eight Nine
Rating: T
Characters: Shawn, Lassiter, Buzz, Team Psych, OFC
Warnings: mention of abuse of a minor, violence, gore, Shawn has a moment of stupidity . . . or lots of them.
Genres: Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Gen
Chapters: 7
Completed: Yes
Word count: 10,267
Disclaimer: See Prologue.
Notes: See Prologue.

Summary: The entire list of things that Carlton Lassiter liked about Shawn Spencer came into play on that otherwise innocuous Tuesday.

(Because of that fateful Tuesday, he has discovered he is willing to break the rules sometimes, and while the thought alarms him, he doesn't think there's anything he can do about it now that he knows.)

P 1 2 3 4 5 E

True to his word-though Carlton had expected no less considering who it was-McNabb was ready when he pulled up. Ready and waiting on the front stoop of his building in fact, his wife at his side.

When Carlton pulled up McNabb bent his considerable height down to give his petite wife a kiss, then took the insulated lunch bag she offered and headed out. His long legs were put to good use getting him through the rain quickly, though he had to bend almost in half to fit into the passenger seat of the car.

It helped when he was able to locate the lever and scoot the chair back from O'Hara's preferred close encounter with the dashboard.

To his credit he didn't ask where they were going or what they were doing. He didn't ask anything in fact, and that both annoyed and soothed Carlton who had been trained out of silent passengers by O'Hara. Not that he liked the chatter, but he'd gotten used to the white noise of it.

The entire drive passed in silence, except directions and the brief crunchy time when McNabb rooted through the lunch he'd been packed-a fact that required much effort on the part of Carlton to suppress the eye roll-and found some goldfish crackers.

Seriously? Goldfish crackers?

They were little rainbow colored ones too.

Maybe he should have come alone. Now he felt like he'd brought his neighbor's five year old along to play cops and frickin' robbers.

He smothered the sigh and glanced at his . . . at McNabb.

“The turn is at mile marker twenty-five?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” McNabb said after checking the map again.

Carlton nodded and began searching for the road since he knew the green spot in the dark up ahead was the mile post.

And there it was.

He made the turn and they began what would hopefully be their last stretch of road before reaching their destination.

“Go two-point-three miles and there's a clearing. The house is another five minute walk, but if you drive any closer they'll probably be able to hear it,” McNabb dutifully relayed. “Also, there seems to be some . . . grass or . . . or something that we can use to conceal the car.”

Carlton nodded. And then wondered if he would find Spencer's beloved bike hidden there to show them they were on the right track.

His eyes regularly flicked to the odometer to keep track of how far they'd come just in case this was the wrong road, but sure enough at two-point-three miles exactly there was a clearing with some tall bushes to one side and a single track that indicated a one or two wheeled vehicle had come this way in the not too distant past.

And since Carlton was pretty sure Spencer hadn't brought a wide-wheeled unicycle, that was probably his bike's trail. He maneuvered his car around and parked next to the missing-but-now-found motorcycle.

Well they were on the right track anyway.

“Okay, here's how this is going to go down,” Carlton said, pulling his gun and checking it. McNabb's eyes widened slightly at the reminder that he was supposed to be armed as well and not because it was part of the uniform he wasn't wearing.

He pulled it out and checked it as well, looking just a bit paler than he had two seconds ago.

Carlton hoped there wasn't going to be rainbow colored puke before the night was over.

“We're going to go in and take a look around. We are not going to draw attention to ourselves if at all possible. And if anything goes wrong your job is to come back here as fast as you can and call for backup. Understood?”

McNabb nodded and after a second for Carlton to vainly wish it wasn't raining, he opened his door and got out.

And instantly sank into a good six inches of mud.

Oh well that was just fantastic.

His suit was going to be ruined before the night was over. He just knew it. At least it had stopped raining-for the moment anyway.

He suppressed yet another sigh and looked over the car to see McNabb watching him closely, waiting to follow.

With a curt nod he set off, squelching and squishing his way through the mud to the thick woods that barely allowed the road to sneak through them. Walking along the road would have been easier-if muddier-but it was also riskier, so they were forced to break a fresh trail that paralleled the road, just close enough to make sure they weren't straying but far enough away to not be seen if it wasn't as deserted as they would want.

The 'five minute walk' turned out to be more like a 'forty-five minute hike'. Carlton was glad he hadn't left McNabb at the car with instructions to call for backup if he wasn't back in fifteen minutes.

They finally reached the second clearing where their final destination lay, a log cabin of some sort it seemed.

Now the question was, why had Spencer come here and what had prevented him from leaving again?

He studied the property for several minutes to get a feel for the situation.

There didn't seem to be any life, hostile or friendly. No vehicles, though there were semi-fresh tire treads in the mud of the road indicating that someone had been here. No way of knowing when, or if, they'd be back.

That made now the best time to go in, look for Spencer, and drag him back out by the ears if need be.

Carlton motioned for McNabb to join him, then leaned over and very quietly said, “I'm going to circle the perimeter, then take a closer look. Stay here.”

McNabb nodded, hands gripping his gun, but the expression on his face mostly steady.

Carlton turned and began his survey, his eyes flicking regularly towards the house to look for any signs of current occupation, but mostly on the ground trying to find any evidence of Spencer's presence.

Near the back he found it, a mass of churned mud from many footsteps, and his cell phone, open but drenched and half sunk into the mud. That explained the lack of reception when he'd called.

He looked at the house now and saw that there was an outside entrance to a cellar of some kind. The footsteps-and drag marks, he noted when he stepped cautiously out of the forest's cover-went straight there and then vanished.

Carlton gave the dark house one more look and then headed for the house in a crouched run, gun at the ready.

He listened carefully for any sounds, then regarded the cellar doors.

They were the big kind that opened upward, gravity keeping them closed as much as anything, though the thick chain and padlock linking the two handles helped them stay there.

With a grunt Carlton started around the house, eyes and ears open to any warning of company.

He had just stepped up onto the wide front porch when he heard it, the faint rumble of an engine.

Well crap.

Looking around, he was stuck between going in and hoping for a place to hide and hopefully to find Spencer and/or learn more, and the desire to run back to McNabb and call for backup.

Really, it would be smarter to do the latter.

But the drag marks out back that were mostly washed away wasn't giving him warm fuzzies. And if something went wrong McNabb would call for backup.

That might not get here in time, but still.

The engine growl was much closer and he could see lights on the road.

Well that decided that.

He went straight to the front door and hoped that no one had been left behind asleep on the couch to guard the prisoner, the door shutting behind him just before bright light strobed through the room's large picture window to his left.

There was, however, a single room to the place. And no immediately appealing hiding spots.

The element of surprise flashed briefly through his mind as a plan, but he didn't have a completely legal presence here.

He needed to find Spencer.

And that was when he noticed the rug.

The old battered couch in the middle of the room faced the east wall to Carlton's left, where the TV was perched on an ancient three-legged coffee table.

Behind the couch, in approximately the exact center of the room was a rug. The odd thing was, it lay partially under the couch.

Why would you put a rug in that spot? Why not move the rug or the couch a few feet?

A door slamming outside had Carlton hurrying forward and yanking up the rug.

Sure enough there was a second entrance to the root cellar, one that was flush with the floor.

He yanked on the handle, stifled a grunt at the effort required, then looked down into the pitch black hole that awaited when he finally got it open.

Oh goody. This ought to be loads of fun.

And there were footsteps on the stairs out front.

He holstered his weapon and sat on the edge of the hole, stretching to find purchase for his toes on the ladder leading down.

It wasn't until he stopped to reach back and close the door that he realized he could do nothing about the rug.

A silent but forceful curse and he decided it was too late now.

He grabbed the edge of the door and pulled, having to drop down to avoid being cracked on the head when it gave in to gravity and fell. An awkward attempt to keep it from shutting with a bang was mostly successful.

Just in time too it seemed because the front door opened and the footsteps echoed overhead.

The rest of his descent was blind and he wasn't quite expecting it when he found the ground under his feet instead of another rung.

He stepped off and carefully turned.

A glance upwards cautioned him against speaking too loudly, but he needed to know if he had just needlessly trapped himself in here.

“Spencer?” he hissed.

There was no response and he dared to take a shuffling step forward, using one toe to lead the way.

“Spencer!” he repeated and continued cautiously making his way deeper into the abyss. Please let him be down here somewhere and not already carted off to be buried in a shallow grave somewhere in the woods.

His toe hit something solid that gave a low moan of protest and Carlton said a silent prayer of relief.

“Spencer?” he asked, slowly lowering himself to a crouch, hands out in exploration.

“Lassie?” came the groggy reply.

“Yes. What were you thinking?”

“I need a light, sweet pea.”

Carlton blinked, despite the inability to see anything. Somehow that made even less sense than he was expecting.

“What?” he asked in shock forgetting to be quiet.

“Shh!” came the harsh response. Then in a more calm and soothing voice Spencer added, “It's okay, sweetheart. It's safe.”

The only logical response Carlton could come up with was, “Are you concussed? How hard did they hit you?”

“Way too hard,” Spencer said, sounding vaguely coherent again. “But, no, I don't think I'm concussed. My pupils were normal before.”

Yeah, somehow, that didn't reassure him.

Especially since, you know, Carlton couldn't even see Spencer's pupils, let alone him being able to do it himself.

“Good job, munchkin,” Spencer said right before there was a skritching sound and a light appeared in the darkness.

The fact that it illuminated a small face with large, sorrowful eyes made Carlton start and fall back on his butt.

“What the-” he said in shock. He was paid no immediate attention as she focused on touching the match she held to the end of a candle stub's wick. When it lit she blew out the match and then stubbed it in the dirt.

“Lassie, this is Bree. Bree, this is Lassie. He's the detective I told you about,” Spencer introduced in a halting-and occasionally interrupted by coughing-voice.

Carlton was then subjected to a rather thorough inspection from eyes that could not physically been more than five, though they could just as easily have been in someone who was one hundred and five for all of life they had obviously seen.

Spencer coughed again and the eyes left him to go to the injured man, a tiny hand touching his shoulder.

“I'm okay,” he panted when the fit had ended, but his eyes were squeezed shut and he was supporting his ribs with one arm wrapped tightly around them.

Bree looked up at Carlton again, though her eyes were not so much inquiring now as they were demanding he do something.

“What the he-” He glanced at Bree and hastily revised his words. “-heck happened to you, Spencer?”

“Bree's dad. And her uncle I think.”

Carlton scooped up the candle, careful to keep it at a slight angle so as to allow the wax to drip on the floor and not him, and took a closer look at Spencer.

A cut above his eyebrows had a trail of dried and flaking blood across his forehead. A couple of bruises were beginning to blacken his arms and matched the one around his left eye, as well as the distinctive finger marks around his neck. His eyes were indeed normal sized and reactive to light, though they didn't track as well as they should. The rest of him was clothed, but there were a few rips and tears that no doubt hid more injuries as well as a multitude of bruises. His left arm was cradling his ribs, the other lay out in front of him and had a particularly nasty looking spot that looked somehow wrong, though the immediate nature of it wasn't obvious.

“It's broken,” Spencer said, reading his mind as usual, his eyes closed. His whisper had more to do with the injury to his throat than any need to be quiet, Carlton now suspected. “Felt it snap. Puked up breakfast right afterwards too.”

Which explained the faint stench and the dark spot on his sleeve.

Ew.

“Why did you come here alone?” Carlton demanded.

“I tried to tell you,” Spencer said.

“No, you were cryptic and annoying, like always.”

Spencer huffed what might have been a laugh, obviously cautious about causing another coughing fit.

“Why didn't you just tell me?” Carlton asked.

“There wasn't time to explain,” Spencer said.

“Oh yeah, because going on your own worked out soooooo much better for you.”

“My plan did work.”

“Your plan was to have the . . . crap beaten out of you?”

Spencer's brow furrowed. “Um . . . kinda?”

Now Carlton frowned. “What?”

“Look, I didn't want to get beaten up, but it did accomplish my objective in coming here.”

“Which was?”

“To save Bree's life.”

Carlton jerked back at that.

His eyes went to the little girl and now he saw that she wasn't without her own physical problems.

They weren't as extensive or dark, but there were four-and-one bruises on her shoulders and some scarring on her arms that made Carlton wonder if his dinner would be joining Spencer's breakfast. She wore what was generously described as a sundress, though the flowers and sun embroidered on it had a pall cast over them by the dirt and blood that stained them. Her long hair was filthy and hung in greasy clumps and there were dark streaks on her skin that might have been more bruises or might have just been dirt. Candlelight wasn't exactly the best for visibility in this situation.

“But how did you . . . she's not in the missing children database.” Carlton knew those faces well, was haunted by them in his sleep.

Spencer snorted. “No, she's not. Her mother is dead. Her father brought Bree here after he killed her mom in front of her, but all of this happened while the family was supposed to be on vacation. No one's missing her yet. Not anyone that can tell the cops, anyway.”

“So how did you find out?”

Spencer cracked his eyes long enough to give Carlton a look that clearly said, “I'm a psychic. You're a detective. You figure it out.”

“Of course,” Carlton muttered. He wasn't going to argue the possibility that Bree's dead mother had sought out Spencer from beyond the grave to rescue her child.

“So you, uh,” Spencer said. “You didn't tell any of them, did you?”

“Your fan club? No. I left them sleeping the sleep of the blissfully ignorant.”

“Good,” was the softly breathed response.

“I brought McNabb.”

A sad smile curved Spencer's lips. “Good old, Nabby. Wish he could have stayed home too, but at least you didn't come alone.”

Carlton snorted. “No, I don't do that. I know better.”

Another huffed laugh escaped.

“So, what's the plan for getting out of here?” Spencer asked, releasing his ribs to push off the ground and try to sit up. He made it about half an inch before the pain leaked out in a strangled squeak and he went back down.

“Ribs?”

“Not broken. Maybe cracked, hopefully just bruised.”

“Hopefully,” Carlton repeated, trying to figure out what to do. At this point all they could do was wait for whoever was upstairs to leave again or for the cavalry that McNabb had hopefully called by now to arrive.

Just in case he hadn't thought of it . . . Carlton pulled out his cell phone, but the single bar of service he got outside was not present here in the cellar.

Crap.

“Let's do something about that arm,” Carlton suggested instead of answering the question he'd been asked.

“Do we have to?” Shawn asked.

“Unless you want to possibly lose the ability to use it ever again, we probably should.”

Shawn sighed. “Fine.”

With help from Carlton and under the close observation of Bree they rolled Shawn to his back.

A quick search of the cellar revealed that there wasn't much that could be used as a splint, so they improvised with Carlton's tie, using it to secure the broken limb against Shawn's chest. It was horrible, but possibly better than just letting it hang free.

“Now if we could just-”

The sound of the door opening had Carlton moving before he realized what he was doing, sliding back into the shadows in the corner.

There wasn't any place to hide down here really, but it would give him a few seconds' worth of surprise.

He pulled his gun and silently removed the safety, pulling back the hammer.

No one came down, however.

He blinked, then jumped when a glass bottle was tossed in their direction, the door slamming shut to echo the jarring sound of the bottle shattering.

“What the-”

“Oh no not again,” Shawn moaned.

“What? What is-” Carlton broke off and cursed, raising an arm to filter his breathing through his sleeve. He knew that smell.

“Chloroform,” Shawn said, sounding groggy already.

“Why . . .” he started to ask, but the fumes were getting to him. He couldn't go around it either because he'd have to go through it. His legs started to jellify, his arms following suit and he let the one with the gun drop. He leaned back against the wall so he wouldn't pitch forward as he began to slid down to the ground.

“Knows you're here,” Shawn mumbled.

Carlton tried to curse, but he wasn't sure if he managed it before the world went black.

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