Eric and Calleigh greeted Ryan as they just arrived for work.
Frank pulled up next,then Jesse and Alexx soon followed a little later.
Walter showed up last,with Natalia in the passenger's seat since her car broke down.
They were all about to go into the building when they all noticed Horatio's car sitting in the driveway.
''How about that...H is early,''Ryan said as he looked at his watch.
''Too early,''Natalia stated. It was indeed far too early for Horatio to be at work.
Eric pressed his hand against the hood of the car. ''Engine's cold. This car hasn't been moved at all.''
''Eric,where was Horatio when you left last night?''Calleigh asked.
''He was examining the car from the murder. He said he had a lot of work to do.''
''If the engine's cold,then...''
''Oh no...''
Ryan bolted inside and began searching the lab for his boss. He started with the obvious;Horatio's office.
No luck. He bolted to every other part of the lab possible until he found the make-shift garage where the car was being processed.
Ryan didn't even have to step into the room to know that something was wrong. There was an overpowering stench that he recognized as blood.
He inhaled and held his breath and stepped into the room to find the car still parked,but the tools for gathering evidence were all over the floor.
Along with tools and pieces of evidence on the floor lay Ryan's redheaded boss,sprawled like a rag doll.
''...H...?''he asked softly. Getting to his knees,Ryan checked for a pulse,and he had a very good reason to.
Horatio's entire body was beaten. One eye was bleeding,there were multiple stab wounds,none of which were in vital areas,(to Ryan's relief)and the younger guessed there would be more injuries that would show up on an x-ray.
His arms and legs were no doubt littered with bruises,and someone had tried to strangle the redhead to death,and Ryan could tell this by bruises around the neck that suggested a pair of hands.
Ryan just barely relaxed a little bit when he found a pulse,but it was very faint.
He knew Horatio well enough,and he knew that to do the amount of damage done to his boss,it would take a whole group of maybe seven people to hold him down,and another three to do the beating. In short,it would take a lot more than one person to overpower his boss.
But the damage applied to Horatio's body expressed only one person.
Ryan parted Horatio's uninjured eye open and found the pupil significantly dilated.
Horatio was in no possible way an alcoholic,and Ryan searched the bloody body and found two small wounds that were separate from most of his body. In fact,they were near the middle of his spine. They looked almost as if two small prongs had been jammed into his back.
Judging by the spacing of the wounds,Ryan figured Horatio had been hit with a tasor.
''Oh my god...''Calleigh fell apart and Eric found himself trying to comfort her while Ryan and Walter attempted to stop the bleeding in some of Horatio's wounds. Natalia was in the bathroom puking her stomach out from the stench of blood,and Alexx was outside waiting for the ambulance to show up.
When the EMT's arrived,the team stepped out of the way and watched them give Horatio oxygen and various pain killers,other than morphine.
Ryan followed the EMT's out and joined them in the ambulance.
Ryan and Eric stood and watched from another room as surgery was performed on their boss. Apparently,there were broken blades jammed into some of Horatio's wounds.
Ryan was concentrated on something else,though. He was watching the almost unnoticeable movement of Horatio's eyelashes. Ryan panicked.
Horatio was still conscious!
But he seemed oblivious to the pain. Ryan's fingers subconsciously gripped his sleeves tighter as the doctors continued to perform surgery,oblivious to the fact that Horatio was still awake.
Eric followed his friend's line of sight and noticed the same thing. He gulped and waited for the flat-line,but it never came.
The doctors began stitching Horatio's wounds,and then one of them realized exactly what Ryan and Eric had realized. Then it clicked that he'd cut into someone who was awake for the whole thing.
Eric and Ryan guessed he'd told the other doctors,because soon there were more doctors than Ryan could count rushing in and out of the OR.
Eventually,everyone calmed down,but they couldn't figure out how the hell they'd just put a conscious man through two hours of surgery without killing him.
Finally deciding that Lt. Horatio Caine had just broken several health codes that,in all honesty,he really shouldn't have,the doctors finally lay the man down to rest in a hospital bed.
Eric and Ryan were simply staring at the sleeping figure.
''How the fuck was he awake for all that?!''Eric asked.
Ryan was too stunned to even try to come up with an answer.
''I don't know. His body works in strange ways. I wouldn't even be able to pull through something as severe as that. But Horatio did...there's just gotta be something wrong with him. It's impossible to be wide awake through surgery and live. The pain would kill you before the bleeding did.''
Eric shook his head in utter disbelief. Even the doctors that had performed the surgery couldn't understand it.
But Horatio was alive. That was all that mattered.
Sooner or later,Ryan would have to question the redhead on how he was even awake through the surgery.
The doctors had given him enough anesthesia to kill a small animal,and yet he had been awake for every cut and slice.
It. Just. Didn't. Make. Sense.
Please review!
Chapter 2 will be up soon!