Title: Stone Cold
Email: The backstory, etc of NCIS is not owned by me… no monies were made from the production of this story…
She was cold. It was the one thing she could seem to wrap her brain around. She was cold but that was okay. At least it seemed to be okay. If nothing else, the cold would help to slow the bleeding.
Yes, that would be good. It would also help to preserve her body so that if she was found --
No! Her mental admonishment scraped against her bones like fingernails on slate. When she was found. Yes. When she was found, she would be more easily identified. Being found alive was not something she expected.
Her knees had long ago gone numb from the strain of kneeling on the frigid cement floor. Her arms had been tightly bound behind her and deprived of circulation even longer than that.
She did not want to be rescued, she knew. Rescue meant being unbound. Being unbound meant circulation returning to her extremities. Circulation returning was nothing more than another sincere promise of more pain.
She had endured enough -- she had no desire to add to what was already a nearly insurmountable mountain of agony. It wasn't a bout of suicidal tendencies, just plain common sense.
She didn't want to hurt any more. If she thought they would be the least bit accommodating, she would consider egging her captors into killing her and put a premature end to her suffering. But she held no hope they would be so gracious. They had proven far too talented at keeping her alive.
Every fiber of her being was focused on the task of remaining in the position in which she had been placed. The hood covering her head prevented her from seeing if anyone was still in the room and although she could not sense another presence, experience would not allow her to so much as waver. Experience had proven that no matter how silent and still her prison, she was never alone.
-8 days earlier-
"Gibbs!" Abby grinned broadly at the proferred Caff-Pow. "You shouldn't have."
She had taken her first sip before he had a chance to mention the reason for the bribe. She was a pushover for bribery, she knew, not to mention pretty damned cheap... but her chances to dash out on her own for a caffeine infusion were in increasingly short supply and her morning caffeine burst had worn off hours before. Bert's pillow abilities had been weighing heavy
in her thoughts.
"That sample we took from the crime scene."
Abby raised her eyebrows. "You mean that itsy-bitsy shard of plastic I'm supposed to analyze even though it isn't even big enough to be legitimately called a sample?" Her cheery tone did not mask her feelings of near-impossibility of her chore.
"That would be the one. I need the results in an hour." He leveled his gaze at her.
"You do acknowledge what I just said, right?" She took another sip of the Caff-Pow.
"An hour, Abbs."
"I'll try. But don't blame me if your resident lab rat blows up the lab trying to fulfill your request." She flashed a mock salute and winked conspiratorially.
"I will blame you. Don't blow up the lab, just evaluate the sample."
It had taken her more than an hour. It had, in fact, taken longer than her usual shift and she had not so much as looked up from her equipment until well after the long shadows of deepening evening had given way to the pitch of night and pools of light cast by the parking security lights.
She hadn't expected to be leaving so late and had therefore hot thought twice about parking her vehicle in the far corner of the parking lot that morning. She had been late arriving due to a train wreck of a fender-bender right on her exit ramp and someone had already taken her accustomed spot, so she had merely grabbed the first available space she had seen... the furthest one from the building where her lab was quartered and nestled in the midst of the only dark area of the usually well-lit lot. Had she left on time, she would never have noticed how dark it was in that area.
As it was, she was preoccupied with the happy memory of being able to drop the requested report off in Gibbs' in box for him to find in the morning. She had been half tempted to run it by his home and wake him up... Of course, she wouldn't be waking him up as he would more than likely be working on his boat.
The lack of chance for rousing him from his slumber had swayed her decision to just leave the report in his office. Her Gibbs-delivered Caff-Pow had long ago worn off and thoughts of her own home were beckoning with promises of warmth and unimpeded slumber.
She was smiling in anticipation of a well earned rest when all conscious thought was ended by a flash of bright pain. She didn't had a chance to so much as gasp before she had been tucked into the back of a linen service van. If anyone saw the vehicle or thought the van's presence strange, no one said anything when it slowly pulled through the parking lot and out through the main exit.
-to be continued-