Chapter 3

Movement was the first thing Shawn became aware of, along with a banging headache so bad it made him want to peel back the top of his head and massage his own brain. He was in a vehicle, that much he could tell, but due to the brain fog it took him a moment or two for the events of the last few hours to come back to him, and even when they did the memories were only fragmented. The last thing he was able to remember however was the fear he felt as he caught a glimpse of his best friend's limp body beside him. Confused and disorientated, Shawn started to call out desperately to his best friend, his voice shaky and panicked. Then he started to call out to Lassiter and Juliet too as he rubbed at his blurred eyes to get them to focus, his fear for the three of them rising each moment he shouted out their names and got no response.

As his vison and mind became clearer he soon realised that he was no longer in Lassiter's car, but before he was able to make sense of it all his body was flung from one side of the van to the other as the vehicle took a sharp turn and came to an abrupt halt. With no time to recover, the doors to the back of the van were ripped open and Shawn felt fingers dig into his chest as he was dragged forward aggressively, the last thing he managed to see was a fist flying right for his face.

Shawn's head was still banging painfully when he regained consciousness for a second time, but the movement he'd been aware of before had now stopped. The position he found himself in was so uncomfortable that his body was crying out in pain, and upon trying to shift to a more comfortable position he discovered that he could barely move at all. As his eyes started to focus he noticed there were strange lines moving across his vision and it wasn't until his vision became much clearer that he realised the lines weren't actually moving and in fact weren't lines at all, they were bars, metal bars, surrounding him in the confined space he'd been awkwardly cramped into.

He was locked in a cage, and not a spacious one, this cage was obviously designed to hold something much smaller than a human, something that most likely walked on all fours. He took in his surroundings, or rather everything in his field of vision as the awkward position he was in prevented him from turning his head much. He appeared to be in a large basement of some sort, and one that had been abandoned for quite a while by the looks of it. There were pipes everywhere, the floor looked wet, the walls looked corroded, and the lighting was pretty dim. As far as Shawn was concerned, wherever he was, the place was definitely not up to code.

If it wasn't for the fact that he was cramped in so tight he could have made an attempt to kick the door open, but as he unfortunately discovered, trying to get one of his legs to untangle so he was actually able to kick out resulted in nothing but pain, and rocking his body back and forth did nothing to help either because something heavy had been placed on top of the cage. It was obvious that he wasn't going to escape without some help, unfortunately for him though help was probably going to take a while considering the last time he'd checked, aside from the high possibility that this was case related, they had no real leads on who his captor might be, which meant they couldn't even begin to know where to look. That was assuming that after the car crash the four of them had been in, Gus, Lassiter and Juliet would even be able to look for him at all. He quickly shook those thoughts out of his mind, deciding firmly that the others were fine.

Because they had to be.

The only option he really had left at this point was to scream for help, but considering his captor had gone through all the trouble to pack him into a cage sardine-style without gagging him, told Shawn that it was incredibly unlikely that there would be anyone even remotely close enough around to hear.

The sound of his attempts to escape the cage however had obviously caught the attention of his captor as the crazed maniac came into view.

Shawn looked up at the larger man, "This isn't gonna work, it's entirely too small. Look…" He started to wriggle about, "There's no elbow room in here at all. I'm gonna need a bigger cage." To his surprise the bad guy actually opened the cage. Less surprising however was the way he roughly pulled Shawn from it and started to drag him across the room with absolutely no regard at all for his already aching limbs which were protesting even more now, "So, am I here for palm reading? A séance? I gotta tell you, I'm not as proficient at reading tea leaves, but I'll give it a try if you feel that's what you need…" He rambled on, letting his mouth run out of nervousness. When they got to the other side of the room the large man bound Shawn's wrists with a strong rope and hoisted him upwards until he was dangling uncomfortably, his big toes just shy of being able to touch the ground.

Pain shot right through his arms and into his shoulders and neck as he hung from his wrists. Trying his best to hide that pain, Shawn calmly asked, "Would it be completely inconvenient if I was to change my mind about the ca-" His request to go back into the cage was cut short as the bad guy jammed a black hood over Shawn's head, preventing him from seeing anything. In the darkness, all the relatively harmless sounds that the rundown basement was making became unsettling and creepy, as did the heavy breathing coming from his captor, who still had yet to utter a word, "If this is some sort of weird psychic hazing ritual, then you should know, I've already been initiated." That one earned him a sucker punch right to the gut, and although he was unable to see a thing, Shawn shut his eyes tight anyway as he braced himself for any more blows that would likely be coming his way.

To say this was turning out to be a very long and stressful day for Santa Barbara's Chief of Police would be an understatement. One of her consultants had been kidnapped by some crazed maniac, another consultant, along with two of her best detectives were in the hospital because of said crazed maniac, and to top it all off she was having to deal with an understandably irate, but never the less trying, Henry Spencer, who had taken it upon himself to take over the whole case despite the fact of him being emotionally involved with it, and more importantly no longer an actual police officer.

She hadn't exactly invited him to take part in the investigation either, in fact she'd flat out refused to let him get involved at all, quoting those exact reasons, although she hadn't really tried that hard to dissuade him. Honestly, it was more of a formality than anything else, even Henry knew that, despite all the yelling he did to get his own way. Chief Vick knew how impossible it would be to keep the retired police officer from doing everything he could to find his son, and plus, if there were any two people with the capability of managing to pull some sort of a lead from out of nowhere, it'd be him or Shawn.

The sudden sound of her head detective's voice caught her attention, "…I still can't believe she's gone." Through the open blinds she could see Lassiter with Juliet and Gus in tow, walking gingerly towards her office. The three of them definitely looked the worse for wear despite their fresh clothes, but at least they seemed to be acting more or less like themselves under the circumstances, she was pleased to note, "Come on, we need to find the scumbag who destroyed my car and send him to justice!"

Juliet stared at him in disbelief, "And rescue Shawn…"

"Uh…Yeah." He replied absentmindedly, "That too."

"Really?" Gus glared at him, "My best friend has been kidnapped and all you care about is a car?!"

Lassiter's eyes narrowed, "This coming from the guy who was more concerned about filling his stomach than coming down here so we could actually make a start on the investigation."

"Hey, I was comfort eating, that's different!"

"Comfort eating?" Lassiter scoffed as they walked into the Chief's office, "If anyone should be… "

"How are you all doing?" Chief Vick interjected before their exchange could get any more heated.

Rubbing her aching neck Juliet answered, "We're all a little sore, but we'll be fine." She smiled warmly at the Chief.

"Speak for yourself O'Hara. My baby's been destroyed, it feels like there's a brass band rehearsing in my skull, and ever since Guster woke up he's done nothing but whine and complain because apparently a concussion turns him into a complete pain in the ass!"

Chief Vick sat forward on her chair, elbows on the desk as she started to massage her temples. She gave a heavy sigh; this long day was beginning to feel a lot longer…