Breakdown

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Prompt: In 4x09 Beckett has a breakdown after a sniper-victim grabs her arm. What if Castle ran after her when she disappears?

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Kate Beckett ran towards the building's doors when she suddenly had a feeling of someone watching her. Without saying anything to her partner, who continued rushing to the doors, she stopped in her tracks and started looking up at the high buildings around them. The sniper could be anywhere, and Kate's eyes roamed the windows. Her eyes snapped to every little light that was out of place, every glitter that could be from a sniper's weapon, and she felt her heart pounding in her chest. She could feel the panic attack long before it really came to the surface. She felt her breathing picking up, and not from the running they'd done. Her hands started shaking and her eyes started darting back and forth faster.

"Beckett?!" her eyes snapped to her partner, Richard Castle, who looked at her with worry in his eyes. "Grace." The reminder had her feet moving again, and she tried taking calming breaths.

She had to keep it together. They had a killer to find. She needed to find her strength to keep. It. Together.

"How many people are dead?" her voice was stronger than she thought possible but she could still feel her hands trembling. Fidgeting with the ends of her shirt. Her scar in between her breasts was burning and she tried push away the feeling as she focused on her job. She had a job to do.

"None." the paramedic pushing the bar with an injured woman said and she felt a relief fill her lungs. She hadn't noticed how hard it had become to breathe.

"Thank God," Castle exclaimed beside her. They hadn't lost... yet.

"Yeah, sniper opened fire through the window of a conference room, on the 15th floor," the paramedic told them and Kate clenched her jaw for the next question she needed an answer to.

"Is anyone else injured?"

She held her breath as she waited for the answer, even if no one was dead, yet, there could still be a lot of damage that had been done.

"No, just her. Her name is Emily Reese, and he only shot at her."

Another pre-meditated victim. "Emily, my name is detective Kate Beckett," Kate tried to keep her voice as calm as she could. "I need you to tell me what happened." If she had been chosen the sniper must've met her.

"Why me? What did I do? Why is somebody trying to kill me." The woman on the gown asked, her eyes filled with panic and Kate could feel her own heart speeding up again.

"Emily, have you seen anybody watching you lately?" Her voice was beginning to break too, her scar burning as if it was opening up again.

The woman shook her head, her eyes looking everywhere but nowhere. "No. I-I don't know. I don't know."

"We gotta get her to the hospital." The paramedical tried moving the bar but the woman grabbed Kate's arm, crying hysterically.

"No!" she screamed, hysterical and Kate's breathing picked up. "Don't let them take me outside. He's still out there."

He's still out there. "No, you're gonna be okay, Emily." Not like me. She felt her heart picking up in speed faster than it already was.

"Please don't do this. He's out there. He's going to kill me. Please." The panic in the woman's whole being was bringing out the panic Kate had been trying to smother. The panic of being shot. The panic of feeling her life leave her body. She needed to get out of there. She needed to get distance. She needed to...

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