Note: Trigger Warning. If you've seen the episode, you know.
Y/n's POV
I sighed in annoyance as I couldn't sleep for the fourth night in a row. The thoughts from the night Roy Walton died plagued my thoughts every night, keeping me from going to bed. I tried drinking warm milk and tea, meditation, even watching tv into the late hours of the night. Nothing worked. I glanced over at Jay, who was sleeping peacefully, and let out a breath. I then threw the blanket off of me and got up to put on some clean clothes. After getting ready, I grabbed my keys and headed out to my car. Once I arrived at the district, I walked upstairs, and I was surprised to find both Hailey and Adam there.
"Hey, what the hell are you doing here?" Adam asked me.
"I couldn't sleep," I confess. "What about you guys? It's 2 a.m."
"I couldn't sleep either," Hailey revealed.
"I'm trying to finish these arrest packets from the drug case. Which, luckily for me, maybe you could help me with," Adam suggested.
"Only because you're my partner and I love you," I tell him. "Hand them over."
"Y/n, you just made the worst decision of your life. These files are gonna take forever," Hailey declared.
"Well, at least we're gonna suffer together then," I say and sit down at my desk.
"So, what's going on? Is Jay snoring? Please tell me he's got some sort of weird thing where he walks in his sleep or something," Adam pleaded.
I laughed. "Why are you asking about that?"
"Cause Jay comes across as perfect," Adam replied. "And no one can be perfect. I refuse to believe that someone can be perfect."
"Sorry to burst your bubble, but he does not have a weird sleeping habit," I inform Adam. "Once he's out, he's out. Dead to the world. This no sleep thing is all on me."
"Besides, Jay is far from perfect," Hailey put in.
"You are not wrong," I murmur. "But I love him nonetheless."
"Fourth request for any available area four detectives. Patrol is still requesting that assist at 53rd and Ada."
"Man, the Homicide dicks are lazy these days," I comment. "It's not that hard to go check out a scene. It should take like 5 minutes max."
"What do you guys think? You wanna go get some fresh city air?" Adam quizzed.
"I really do," Hailey admitted.
"Me too," I agree.
"5021 Ida, hold us down on that assist," Adam announced into his radio.
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I frowned as I went over the address in my head. "Why do I know this address?"
"I don't know. It's registered to a real estate LLC. Looks like it's abandoned," Hailey read from the tablet in front of her. Within seconds, we arrived at the house, and that's when I remembered.
"Holy shit. Adam, this is the death house," I exclaim.
Hailey raised her eyebrows. "The what?"
"53rd and Ada. In Canaryville we called it the death house. It was an urban legend. Something to do with soul sucking," Adam recalled.
"Yeah. Chloe and Ollie used to tell me scary stories about it all the time when I was younger. They freaked me out," I mutter and glance up at the house. The three of us then hopped out of the car, and we met up with an officer at the front of the house.
"You guys can go in for a minute, but I'll tell you what I found. The call was for reports of screaming inside the residence. We figured it was some nitwit teens trespassing, but when we got here, the front door was ajar, the place was empty, and we found this cellar with the locks open. It smells like death down there, and I found a small room with a mattress, food containers, and children's clothing," the officer relayed to us. "I think someone kept children in here."
"You guys go check it out. I'm gonna call the rest of Intelligence. I think we just found our newest case," I profess.
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"The boy's name is Christian Alban, nine years of age," Kevin started. "He was reported missing eight months ago. He disappeared out of his backyard."
"Judging by the look of the cellar, the debris, and from what Christian's vitamin D levels and musculature show, it's likely he was held in that crawl space since he disappeared. And doctors found signs of abuse, both physical and sexual," Adam added. "He's sedated right now over at Med."
"All right, get a DNA test from Christian," Voight ordered. "Confirm and get his parents over there. Okay, so who the hell was holding this child? We dig into every avenue, the original case file, every sexual offender in the city. I want every person in that neighborhood checked. Any human being who had access to that property."
"I've got one for you," Jay offered. "Jon Larkin. I just got off with the real estate firm. He's the employee in charge of that house. He lives downtown."
"Well, get his ass down here. Now," Voight demanded. As everyone went their separate ways, I headed into the breakroom to make myself some coffee. Jay joined me a few seconds later just as I was pouring myself a cup.
"Couldn't sleep again? It's been a few days," Jay pointed out.
"I know," I mumble and take a sip from my mug. "And I don't know what else to do."
"You know, physical activity before bed can make you sleepy," Jay told me. "Especially a certain action that involves-"
I cut Jay off by placing my hand over his mouth. "Jay! People might hear you!"
Jay shrugged and removed my hand away from his mouth. "Who cares? I'm pretty sure they all know at least something about our sex life. So was that a yes?"
"Oh it's a definite yes," I respond. "And as soon as this case is over, I will take you up on this offer. Thank you for your suggestion, Mr. Halstead."
"No problem, Mrs. Halstead," Jay returned.
Jon Larkin didn't look like our guy, but we wanted to keep him at the district just in case he was connected. And after that, we found out that Christian was awake, so Kim and Hailey went to talk to him. Christian didn't say much, but he did say that the man who kidnapped him always threatened to take him to the dark water where he would be killed. Christian described it as a quarry with a stone tunnel. And there was one other thing. Our offender had a new boy. Voight was able to find the quarry, and we all headed over to it along with other cops and police dogs to carry out a search. Everyone split up to inspect the shoreline, and I ended up walking alongside Jay.
"See anything?" I ask and shine my flashlight at the ground.
"Hold on a sec," Jay interrupted and picked up a rope on the floor. The rope led into the water, and with a quick tug, something floated up on the surface a couple dozen feet out.
"Oh my God," I let out and cover my mouth with my hand.
"We've got something," Jay called out to the others, who responded that they had found things as well. By the time morning rolled around, we had gotten a few bodies out of the water, but cops were still searching the water's edge to see if any more rope would be found. I pulled my jacket closer to me and hiked up the small hill to reach Jay, who was standing amongst a bunch of cops.
"Hey," I greet my husband. "Any confirmations yet?"
Jay shook his head. "No. Forensics is calling in FBI techs. With this many bodies and this amount of decay, they need help to make an ID. And none of them are recent enough to be our missing. Voight's briefing the brass. Listen, if you wanna go home and catch a few hours of sleep, I'll call you."
"No. Not on this one," I insist as my phone buzzed. I took the device out of my pocket to see that Voight had texted me. "Voight wants Hailey and I to head back to the district and check in on Jon Larkin, so I'll see you in a bit."
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"Is Jon still in the interrogation room?" I quiz and walk up to Hailey, who had just exited the locker room.
"Yeah," Hailey replied. "Why?"
"I keep hearing some strange noise coming from there," I confess. "Lets check it out." I opened the door to the interview room, and what met my eyes was not what I expected. There was blood everywhere, and on the floor, Jon was bleeding heavily from large, jagged cuts on his wrists. Hailey rushed over and slung off her zip up, wrapping it around Jon's wrists to try and stop the bleeding. "We need some help in here!"
"I'm sorry. I couldn't take it," Jon murmured.
"This is 5021 Union. Emergency, roll an ambulance to the 21st district, second floor. Attempted suicide," I relay into my radio just as Voight entered the room.
"I don't know what happened," Hailey admitted. "Y/n and I thought we heard something and....." A few seconds later, Platt appeared with a few patrol officers, who helped lift Jon up to get him to a different location. After the paramedics took Jon away, I waited in the bullpen, unsure of what to do. Finally, Jay arrived, and he pulled me in for a hug.
"Are you okay?" Jay questioned. "I heard what happened."
"I'm fine," I assure him. "You should go check on Hailey. She's in the locker room. She's probably freaking out right now, and she could use her partner."
"All right," Jay said. "I'll go check on her. I'll be back shortly." Not even a minute later, I went to sit down, but something interrupted me. "Y/n! Y/n!" At the tone of Jay's voice, I jogged to the locker room, and inside, I saw Hailey struggling to breathe. "I think she's having a panic attack."
"Hailey, I need you to sit down," I instruct and lead her to the nearest bench. "Now just put your head down and breathe." While I was more familiar with anxiety attacks, I have experienced a few panic attacks in my life, so I knew how to deal with them.
"I-I shouldn't have been there. I killed him, and it's destroying me, I can't...I can't live with it," Hailey cried out.
"Hailey, you're gonna be okay. Just stop talking and focus on your breathing," I request. I could tell that Hailey wasn't talking about Jon. She was talking about Roy. And Jay couldn't know what had happened because then he'd know I was involved, and then everything would just fall apart.
"You okay, Hailey?" Voight implored and leaned against the locker room entrance.
Hailey sniffled and sat up. "I'm fine." Voight nodded and walked off, leaving the three of us alone once again. "I need to go shower and calm down. I'll be back in a bit." As Hailey left the room, Jay turned to me, and I could tell that he suspecting something.
"What was that?" Jay asked.
I frowned. "What was what?"
"Don't act like you didn't notice Hailey tense up as soon as she saw Voight," Jay spoke. "Something's going on here."
"Hailey's gonna be fine," I reassure Jay. "She just saw something traumatic. We both did. She just needs some time. We uh, we should get back to the case."
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"I've been looking into Jon's background, and I think I found something. Bradley Larkin, Jon's youngest brother. He doesn't have any priors, and he's never been flagged for any kinds of misconduct or anything like that, but he was pulled out of three different high schools. Each time enrolled into behavioral programs at a local church. But it's hard to tell what those programs were about because he was still a kid. But I know he's had a hard-ass time holding down a job for longer than six months. And the only jobs he has had have been for his brother at his former firms. Right now this man is a freelance, part-time property manager, and every property he manages is right next to an elementary school, including Christian's," Kevin explained.
"So Jon knew what his brother was doing," Jay urged. "He didn't stop him, and maybe even helped him. He didn't turn him in. That could fit."
"All right, let's get his last known. Try to expedite a warrant. Nice work, Kev," Voight praised. With Hailey still taking a break, I ended up riding with Jay. The car ride between the two of us was dead silent, but finally, Jay spoke up.
"That moment between Voight and Hailey back there made me realize that something's up, Y/n. And I know you know that something's up cause you haven't been sleeping, and that could be because you know something or...." Jay trailed off. "You haven't been yourself ever since the night you asked me to have a baby with you. Did something happen with you, Hailey, and Voight that night?"
"What? No," I defend. "So, what? You think asking you to have a baby was me making a rash decision because of something that happened that night? Look, nothing happened, I just haven't slept. That's all, there's nothing else going on."
"Okay," Jay mumbled and focused on driving.
The house was clear, and Bradley was nowhere to be found. So, we issued an amber alert and split up property's Jon managed in the hopes that Bradley would be at one of them. By now, Hailey was back in on the action, so I rode with Adam and Kevin. We didn't find anything, however, Jay and Hailey did, and in a scuffle, Hailey had to shoot Bradley. He died almost immediately, but we saved the little boy, whose name I discovered was Joseph Calman. As the case was wrapping up, I approached Hailey, who was getting ready to head out.
"Hey. Want to come over for a bit? You look like you could use some rest," I offer to Hailey. "And maybe if you had someone keeping you company, you could actually get some."
Hailey smiled softly. "Sure. Now the guest room in your house will actually get some use."
"That it will," I confirm. Back at the house, Hailey went to the guest room to finally get some sleep, and as much as I wanted to do the same, I couldn't. Not until Jay got home. I sat at the kitchen counter with a glass of whiskey in front of me, and while studies had shown that drinking lessened chances of conception, I didn't care at the moment. This whole week had been shitty, and between the constant disagreements between Jay and I, I had a feeling this whole baby thing would be taking a pause. Finally, Jay came home, but I could tell something was up. He dropped his keys off by the door and joined me in the kitchen, pushing the glass of alcohol away from me.
"We need to talk."