Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or any of it's characters.

Chapter 1

It was Saturday morning and Taylor was sitting cross legged on Jason's driveway. Gibbs was working today, so Jason's mom was watching her until he got home.

"So what are we gonna do? You're not gonna waste all day on that flamin' skateboard are ya?"

Jason sat down beside her. "Nope." he said with a smirk.

"What are we doin' then?" hopeful he had something good in mind.

"We're not doing anything. I am. You can't come."

"Why not?"

"You're not old enough, and besides, you'd probably just tell someone."

Taylor was beginning to get annoyed.

"You're only a year older than me and you know I wouldn't tell anyone!"

"I don't know………." he was teasing her now.

She punched his arm. "Jason!"

"Ok, ok you can come, but you gotta swear you won't tell anyone."

Raising her hand in the air, she tried to look serious before uttering "I swear."

"So where're we goin'?" she asked excitedly.

"You'll see."

Taylor trailed along the sidewalk after Jason. They had been walking for a good twenty minutes now. The houses they passed now were much larger than their own, set well back from the road in perfectly maintained gardens, all except the one at the end of the row. The place looked abandoned, the garden was overgrown and the first floor windows were boarded up. When they turned the corner Jason took a quick look around, before pulling Taylor through a small gap in the fence. Following him along the small path of trampled grass he stopped when he came to a basement window at ground level, whose cover had been removed and now lay to one side. He looked at her before tapping the window gently with his foot. The window swung open.

"After you."

Lowering herself into the basement she waited for Jason to do the same.

Leaving the basement they made their way through the dark first floor and on up to the second where the windows weren't covered.

"How come all the furniture is still here? Shouldn't it be empty."

"That's what makes this place so good to hang out in. The guy who lived here committed suicide. You can even see blood on the bedroom wall."

"That's just gross!" she shivered at the thought.

"Not scared are you?" he taunted.

"No!"

Jason opened one of the bedroom doors, "this is the safest room, it's not overlooked by any of the other houses." The floor was strewn with empty cans, bottles and overflowing ashtrays. Kicking his way through the mess, he sat down in one of the large armchairs that had obviously been taken from another room and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

"Smoke?"

Taylor shook her head. "So how come no one else is here?"

"It's too early, we normally just come at night." He flicked his cigarette ash into an old coke can. "You wouldn't believe how easy it is to sneak out when everyone is asleep."

"Isn't it a bit creepy in the dark?" she was checking out the walls to make sure it wasn't the one with the blood.

"Yeah but that just makes it even better. You could always come with me tonight, you never know you just might bump into a ghost."

"Don't think so."

"What you're scared of a little ghost?"

"No." It wasn't the ghost she was worried about.

"What then? You snuck out before didn't you?"

"Yeah, and it didn't exactly end well."

"So you get grounded for a while, big deal!"

Yeah right. Taylor shot him a dirty look. "You have met my dad haven't you?"

"Come on, you know you wanna."

He was right, she did want to. Thinking back to the night she had super glued Patricia's locks she realised that it had been easy to get out of the house and back in again later. If it hadn't been for the glue no one would ever have known, and her dad hadn't actually said not to sneak out again. She caved.

"Ok, but I'm not walking here on my own, you can wait for me."

"I can do that, just don't wuss out!"

"I won't. It just better be worth the risk."