Through the night
Summary: They ran, but they were not fast enough, as the rest of their team has to find out. Angst. SaraGreg.
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI or any of its characters.
Rating: T
A/N: This is a sequel to "Unforeseen and Unnoticed". Nevertheless it is absolutely not necessary to have read that to understand what's going on here.
Actually I had planned to write a Humor story, but what comes out again? An Angst story. Anyway, here we go.
Chapter 1: A shot in the dark
A series of shots destroyed the silence that had filled the darkness outside.
They looked up, startled. Greg glanced at Sara terrified.
Then there were more shots, this time even nearer. This time they were inside the house.
Sara jumped up and ran towards the back door, almost stumbling over Greg on her way, ignoring for once in her life any evidence that she might leave behind.
"Get out of her," she called quietly, though barely able to keep down her voice, but forcing herself to speak quietly in hopes not to give away that the both of them were in this room.
She pulled the door open and pushed Greg out, who had come up to her.
"Run," she told him fearfully.
Greg seemed to swallow, but started into a sprint towards the gathering of trees that lay not far away from the house.
Sara hurried after him, knowing that running was their only choice. The number of shots they had heard and the fact that they had come nearer had told her that the officers that had been outside and inside the house had been overwhelmed, were probably dead or severely injured, and that it would be only a matter of seconds before the attackers, whoever they were, would enter the room that she and Greg had processed.
While running, Sara called for back-up, hoping whoever heard her, would hurry up.
She ran, seeing Greg nervously glancing back in front of her. She was happy to be in a comparatively good condition, so she could keep up the high speed. She ran and prayed that whoever had shot only a few seconds earlier would not step out of the back door, would not see them running. Flight was their only choice, as hiding would only have been waiting for them to find them.
She saw Greg disappear behind some trees and reached the spot, where he had disappeared, only two seconds later. She looked around and saw Greg cowering behind a large tree, looking horrified and panting heavily.
She hurried to him, "You okay?" she asked worried, herself panting.
"Not really," Greg answered. "What the hell happened?"
Sara crouched behind him and hugged him shortly from behind. "I don't know."
Greg was surprised by her unusual sign of tenderness. It was something she usually reserved for their time at home, something she did not show at work.
Work, Greg thought almost ironically. This was not work anymore, this was something distinctly more existential.
"So unprofessional tonight?" he joked, only trying to get rid of some of his fear.
Sara frowned sadly, "Please, Greg, don't."
Greg looked downwards. "Sorry."
"I really don't know what happened," Sara said again, "I only know that we had to run."
"Why didn't you use your gun?" Greg wanted to know.
It took some seconds before Sara answered. "They are several people, you could hear it. We had no choice." She looked at Greg.
"I think you made the right decision," he said encouragingly.
Sara hoped that the back-up she had called for would hurry up.
"What-", Greg started, looking at her anxiously.
"Wait. And hope that back-up comes quickly," Sara answered his unspoken question.
She hugged him again briefly, a sign of encouragement for him, but also of confirmation for her, before she stood up to look over the bushes in front of them.
Greg wondered how much she would be able to see in the only dim light that came from the house. It was new moon that night and as they were outside of Vegas there was not much light from the city reaching them either.
Suddenly Sara stepped back, only to crouch down again.
"Greg," she whispered anxiously, "They're coming. We have to go."
Greg nodded and jumped up. Sara pressed her hands on his back.
"Stay down," she told him. She crabbed away as fast as possible, trying not to make any noise. Greg followed her. They were heading deeper into the woods.
Some minutes later found them surrounded by almost complete darkness; Greg could not even see Sara anymore in front of him.
Suddenly he heard foot steps behind him.
"We are too slow," he called as quietly as possible.
Sara cursed. "Where's the damn back-up?"
Greg could hear the fear in her voice and he thought that his heart would stop when he saw the shine of a flashlight only a few feet away from them.
"They have to be here," he heard a male voice calling. After some seconds of silence, another male voice answered, "Shoot them when you find them. We don't need any witnesses."
Again a flashlight flickered only a little distance away from where Greg and Sara were cringing away slowly.
Sara stopped, jumped up and turned around. She dragged Greg to his feet and whispered, "Run, please run," and Greg could not miss the panic in her voice.
Sara let go of his hands and broke into a sprint like she had done only some minutes earlier, while Greg hurried after her as fast as he could, hoping not to stumble in the darkness, hoping not to be seen, hoping that both of them ran fast enough.
The person, to whom the voice that had spoken first belonged, let his flashlight wander in the distance. Trees, trees and some more trees came into his sight. He continued walking and let his light wander again.
This time he thought he had seen something, someone disappear behind some trees.
The man broke into a run and kept his flashlight steady in the direction where he had seen the movement.
Then he saw them. There were two people, a man and a woman, and they were running for their bare lifes.
They were quite far away and he could see them only vague in the shine of the flashlight, but he lifted his gun and shot once.
He saw somebody falling in the distance. "One," he counted. He shot again and the second person fell. "Two," he said satisfied.
TBC