good/right/real

Chapter 19: Where Are You?

51 searches for Brett and Mills.

The first thing Matt does once he's certain Brett and Mills have been taken is call Kelly. Severide then, in turn, tells him about the danger Baby Boden is in. Together they decide taking the house out of service is best, but that Boden should under no circumstances be brought in on Brett and Mills kidnapping. He has enough to worry about.

Matt stays with Halstead and leaves Herrmann in charge of Truck. He sends them all back to the house to meet up with Severide and get the latest information on Baby Boden.

Meanwhile, Matt loses his mind in Halstead's passenger seat as they drive away from the scene. They identified a black towncar taking Mills and Brett away from the ambo so now they're following the path it took -- hoping for any sign of them anywhere.

"Jesus, I should have checked on them hours ago," Matt says with a shake of his head. "They were gone too long and I knew they were gone too long--"

"Hey," Jay says giving Matt a sideways sympathetic glance. "Don't beat yourself up about it. We both know how crazy any given day can be with our jobs. It wouldn't be unusual for them to be gone for a few hours, would it?"

"Two to three hours possibly, but five? Without checking in? That's the very definition of unusual."

"From what I've heard about Boden and the baby it sounds like you had a reason to be distracted--whoa," Jay says as he suddenly slows the car and points to a hole in a junkyard fence. "What's this?"

He pulls the car to a stop and they both get out while sharing apprehensive glances. The second they walk through the fence the black towncar comes into view, but his stomach plummets to his feet. It's been crashed into a flatbed truck with the top of it basically chopped off at the windows -- like a twisted up convertible.

"Christ," he curses as he does his best to stay behind Jay while they approach the vehicle.

If there's any sort of powers-that-be controlling the universe then he hopes they've decided to be kind to Firehouse 51 today. Please do not let Brett or Mills be inside that car. An accident like that could be deadly. Once Jay gives the all clear, Matt carefully approaches the driver's side and yanks open the door.

He's both relieved and panicked all at once. No one is in the car.

The flip side of that is that no one is hanging around the crash site either which means whoever grabbed Brett and Mills still has them. They're not dead and that's the only comfort he can take from what they uncovered.

"Let me get my guys here," he suggests. "We'll get this pulled out of here so we can get a better look at it."

Jay nods. "Make it quick."

Matt calls 51. He sends Herrmann to the hospital with Boden and then requests Truck and Squad on scene. The guys are there faster than Casey imagined. When they tow the car out, Severide finds blood. One of them is hurt. It's on the driver's side so hopefully it belongs to one of the thugs who took them and not either of their paramedics.

When Jay sees that, he thinks maybe they haven't gotten too far from the crash. They're instructed to create a perimeter and search the area.

"If Lullo has them," Matt says quietly as he searches beside Severide. "Then he's had them too long. Sev, what if they're--"

He shakes his head adamantly. "No. Hell no. That's not happening, Casey."

Casey scoffs dryly as his bitterness outweighs his fear. "How can you be so sure? We don't exactly have the best goddamn luck."

"I'm sure because our luck's been rotten lately," Severide tells him. "We've had too much bad shit go down. There's no way the Universe deals us another blow so soon after--there's just no fucking way, man. I'm telling you."