Chapter 1
Callen emerged from the warehouse in a sort of dazed stagger, his arms full of trembling redhead. He was bleeding from a gash on his left arm and a smaller cut on his forehead, and his lips were a dangerous shade of white. In his arms, clutched tightly to his chest despite his wounds, Nell Jones held onto his ripped and dirty t-shirt for dear life, her grime-streaked face sporting two clean trails where tears had washed her skin, exposing her freckles to the sun. Callen squinted in the bright light, too harsh on his blue eyes, and at first when he saw the team rushing toward him he seemed to shrink back, trying to cover Nell with his own body. But whether he eventually recognized them or just became too exhausted to care, he finally allowed himself to drop to his knees onto the pavement, though he still kept the petite woman close to his heart. He held her on his lap, one hand pressing her head against his chest as he murmured softly into her ear.
Sam Hanna stopped and dropped into a crouch before his partner, dark chocolate eyes full of concern.
"G?" It was a single word - a letter, really - but within it Sam had managed to convey every thought, question and emotion inside himself.
Haunted eyes full of pain stared back at him, and then Callen shook his head slowly, as if in a dream. His tongue darted out to wet his dry, pale lips, but either he forgot to speak or lacked the will to do so.
The visage before him frightened Sam in a way he'd never thought possible. The man kneeling there had been through terrible things, situations that Sam would never in his worst nightmares have imagined - and that was saying a lot for a Navy SEAL - but somehow, Callen finally looked well and truly broken. And that was something Sam never wanted to see again.
Reaching out his large hands, Sam said, "Let me take her, G."
Callen blinked, and then as Sam's offer sank into his dehydrated brain he suddenly twisted away from his partner, violently shaking his head.
"No!" He shouted, startling everyone there. "No, you can't take her!"
Sam looked up at the EMT who had come near and gave a terse shake of his head, and the man grew wide-eyed and wisely backed off.
"G," he tried again, his voice even softer than before, "Nell needs help. Please."
The sound of her name made Callen start, and he glanced down at her face before once more meeting his partner's gaze.
"It's my fault," he said, his voice a harsh croak that sounded very unlike him.
As Sam assured him it wasn't, Deeks and Kensi shared a look of concern. Nell was very still, though they could see that her eyes were open and she was breathing, so that at least was encouraging. But the way she was holding onto Callen, so tightly her knuckles were white, was so completely opposite of her independent nature that Kensi was afraid to find out what had happened to her.
To them.
The sun beating hot onto his tired body must have sent Callen over the edge, for at last he let Sam pry Nell from his arms and carry her to the back of a waiting ambulance. Kensi walked up to Callen and handed him a cold bottle of water, but he simply held it in his hand, his fingers denting the plastic making a crinkling sound every time they flexed. Concerned, she gently took his bicep and pulled him to his feet, and he leaned heavily on her to stay upright. She looked down and saw that the bottom half of his jean-clad right leg was soaked with blood. He was leaving a dark red trail across the parking lot, and she began to fear that he was losing a significant amount of blood, so she began to steer them toward a second ambulance. Callen picked up on her intention immediately, and defiantly pulled away to head for Nell instead. Unwilling to leave him on his own, Kensi silently went along with him. Injured or not, he was still their team leader, after all.
Their diminutive analyst lay huddled on the gurney, blankly staring at the wall of the ambulance over the EMT's head as he took her vitals and recorded them on a chart. Sam stood on the ground outside; his body was still, but Kensi could tell that his very soul wanted to tear something apart. He hated seeing Nell like this. She was usually so cheerful, but now she was sullen and silent, constantly on the verge of tears. And Callen wasn't much better, he thought as the shorter man limped over to them, held up mostly by Kensi. He avoided Sam's gaze, dropping his blue eyes in what could only be described as guilt. The former SEAL thought back to the words Callen had spoken before: "It's my fault."
What was his fault? Sam wondered. What had occurred inside that building? He could tell that both Callen and Nell had been beaten; was that what his partner was talking about? Was he feeling guilty for not being able to protect her? Sam looked at Callen, who had managed to climb up into the ambulance and was now holding one of Nell's hands in both of his. They said nothing, only stayed there with their eyes locked onto each other's face, and Sam thought it made the most heartbreaking picture he'd ever seen.
Finally, Deeks spoke aloud the thought on everyone's mind.
"What happened in there? What'd they do to them?"
Kensi slipped her arm around her partner's waist and he squeezed her closer, dropping a casual kiss on her head. He knew how close she was to both Callen and Nell; seeing them like this - in some kind of shock and badly injured - had to be hard on her as well.
"G," Sam called again, and finally Callen dragged his head up to stare at his partner. His lips moved to say, "Yeah," but no sound came.
"We'll meet you at the hospital, okay?"
He gave a single nod, just a ghost of one, but it would have to be enough. Then, his eyes darted around and he rasped, "Hetty?"
"She'll be there," Kensi told him, resting her hand on his knee. He looked down, studying her fingers as if determining whether they were a threat, and she quickly withdrew them. "She had an emergency meeting with Granger."
"We gotta move," the EMT told them then. "They're both in shock."
Sam nodded. To Callen he said, "Take it easy, G."
Doors slammed shut, blocking their view of their teammates, and the ambulance started off toward the hospital. Sam turned to the junior agent and her LAPD-liason-slash-partner. Her eyes were glossy as she said, "We need to find out what happened in there."
Sam nodded his agreement. "I've never seen G like that before. Not even when he was shot five times."
"Why don't you go ahead to the hospital? Deeks and I will check out the scene."
He paused a moment to look around. Police vehicles made a semi-circle around the warehouse, parked haphazardly in the officers' rush to secure the building. That very moment, the coroner's van doors were opened, waiting to receive the four corpses the final standoff and shootout had created. A large black SUV idled beside that, and they all watched as the lone survivor - beside the two NCIS agents, of course - was unceremoniously shoved into its back seat, his arms handcuffed behind him.
"Okay," Sam finally agreed. "Be careful and thorough. We can't afford to screw this up."
She nodded. "We'll be there as soon as we can."
Kensi and Deeks watched as Sam drove off in the Challenger, and then she looked up into her partner's face, her dark eyes clouded with sadness. He lightly touched her nose with his finger, his own blue eyes mirroring hers.
"I know, Fern," he said softly. "I know." Then, taking her hand, he led the way into the warehouse, ducking under the police tape already criss-crossed over the doorway. He stopped just inside the building and turned to study her face. The sunlight streamed through an upper window in just the right way that a single beam struck her face, and he bit back a smile as the dust particles swimming through it reminded him of sparkles, haloing around her as if she were a saint, or even an angel. Despite the horrors that had undoubtedly occurred here, he couldn't help but see the beauty of the space, the ivy that swirled down each pillar so lush and green, the glass on the floor reflecting the sunlight like the gentle waves of the ocean...
Tossing his head to clear the image, he said, "You sure about this? We don't know what we might find in here. It could be..."
She nodded vigorously. "We have to. We owe it to both of them."
"Okay," he conceded. "But what if whatever we find is something they don't want us to know about?"
Kensi stared up into his face. "We'll have to take that chance. You saw them, Deeks. They were so..."
"Broken," he finished for her in a whisper, and she nodded.
"We can't let them face that alone."
She was right, and the nod he gave showed he knew it. Taking the lead once more, he walked further inside, down a narrow corridor and finally into the main storeroom. It was mostly empty, the usual stacks of boxes long ago shipped to their respective owners, only the slowly rusting rows of metal shelving left behind, the broken windows letting the elements and all kinds of creatures inside.
Along one wall, secluded by thick plastic tarps that billowed in the ocean breeze, they found the crime scene. Attached to the wall itself was a strong metal ring, and from it dangled two chains that ended in handcuffs. A few feet away, another tarp lay spread out on the ground. Splattered on its surface were dark red spots, some larger ones denoting the places where blood had been allowed to pool and the smaller speckles reminiscent of cast-off from a weapon. Deeks stood surveying the scene for quite a while, his hands on his hips. He'd be lying if he said that looking at the place his friends had been tortured didn't affect him, but out of necessity he pushed his emotions to the back of his mind and focused on the job.
"Looks like they had Callen over there, he said, gesturing to the long handcuffs. "So they would've had Nell..."
"Over here," Kensi said, clearly having a harder time masking her feelings. "There are a woman's bare footprints here, in the blood. Small enough to be Nell's." Her hands shook as she snapped pictures of the prints for later comparison.
"Okay, so Callen was chained up with a direct view of her. Which means that whatever they did to her, he'd be forced to watch," Deeks deduced.
"And vice versa." Kensi stood up and brushed her hands off on her pants. She took a few steps away, looking down at the floor, and then stopped.
"What?" Deeks asked.
She knelt down again, and he moved to join her.
"What is it?" He asked again.
"These marks here, in the dirt on the floor."
"Yeah?"
"Tripod," she said, and he understood immediately.
"Video camera?" He asked.
She nodded. "And see those marks over there?" She pointed to a spot a few feet to the left.
"Yeah," he replied, his voice strained. A deep pit was beginning to form in his stomach, making it turn sickly in his gut.
"A table, probably. Something to hold more equipment. Like a computer or laptop."
"You think they recorded themselves torturing Nell and Callen and uploaded it to the Internet?" He asked. "Can you even get Wi-fi in here?"
Kensi shrugged. "That's a question for Eric. But I once went undercover in Germany and found a market for this kind of movie."
"What, like snuff films?"
"Sort of. They weren't always pornographic, though."
"Like that makes a difference," Deeks growled, and she nodded in agreement. "We should call Hetty and fill her in."
"And see if Eric can find this footage," Kensi put in.
"And let's not forget, we still need to have a chat with our only living suspect."
She shuddered, clearly not looking forward to that. "I'd rather put a bullet in him. But we need to know what he knows, so..."
"Trust me, I'm with you." He took a step away from the gruesome scene and held out his hand. "We're done here. Let's get to the hospital and check on Callen and Nell."
Grateful that her partner understood her limits, Kensi took his outstretched hand and let him pull her to her feet. As they walked outside and back into the bright sun, Kensi shaded her eyes with her hand and felt an inkling of what Callen must have experienced less than an hour ago. Being shut in the gloomy warehouse so long would have made the sunlight seem like a ten-thousand watt bulb shining right at his face, and paired with his shock and blood loss would have sent him into the kind of panic a wild animal felt when cornered. She was glad he'd had the presence of mind to recognize them and realize that he was finally safe. Otherwise...well, she would rather not ponder the alternative outcomes.
Deeks' voice calling her name finally seeped through her haze, and she blinked and stared blankly at him. He gestured to the car they stood beside, keys dangling from his hand. Her keys, she realized, though she could not recall ever giving them to him.
"I'm driving," he stated flatly, and she nodded.
"Good idea," she said. "Thanks."
As she got in and buckled her seatbelt, she stared out at the place Callen had dropped to his knees with Nell in his grasp, his face a mask of horror, fear, and guilt.
Don't worry, Callen, she said to her vision of him. You're not alone.
TBC...