No One Else Dies
He wanted a shower. Damn, did he want a shower. D.B. Russell, head of the Las Vegas Crime Lab and current hostage, resisted the urge to comb his hand through his hair. It wouldn't help, and then he'd probably have to wash blood out of his hair.
He'd come in expecting a relatively quiet shift. Have a talk with Shawn, his young airplane spotter turned idiot. Try to talk him out of any more acts of stupidity, and out of doing anything that might result in actual jail time as opposed to a walk of shame and some time in interrogation. Then he'd planned to grab some coffee, get the shift reports and updates from his team, and possibly get some paperwork done.
Instead, he'd found himself dragging Shawn behind the table as gunfire erupted in the main area of PD. Followed shortly thereafter by becoming a hostage as the shooter ducked into the nearest room, his interrogation room, and slammed the door.
And now, he was standing by the door. 10 hours had passed. He was covered in blood, from Shawn, who'd been hit by a stray bullet in the firefight and required emergency field first aid. He was also covered in sweat, both drying and fresh, from the temperature and his own nerves. Being held at gunpoint multiple times would do that, whether the range was feet, as it had been when he'd retrieved the medical supplies, or point blank range, when Mark had taken him hostage while the medics took Shawn out. And hadn't that been fun, being pinned by a kid who was several inches shorter than he was. His back wasn't going to thank him for that.
He was also covered in tears and snot, along his front and the hollow of his collarbone. Not that he actually minded that, given how it had happened. Or given the result, which was that he'd finally convinced Mark to stand down and turn himself in.
D.B turned to look at Mark, standing behind him and shifting from foot to foot. Then he looked out through the window. The view was the same as before. Several dozen cops with high powered rifles and body armor and shields. All tense, and probably still pissed as hell.
He looked back at the boy who'd spent the last half hour sobbing in his arms and all over his chest, then again at the police officers outside. He could understand the officers being both trigger happy and angry, but there was another problem to consider. Mark.
Normally, he wouldn't worry about a shooter. Especially one who'd shot up a police station. But Mark was a child. A troubled, darn near suicidal child. He'd been betrayed, on top of whatever else was going on, whatever had prompted him to go through with this whole mad scheme.
He might not have had this particular experience all that often, but from the experience he did have, angry cops and suicidal culprits were a bad combination. As were trigger-happy cops and troubled individuals.
He ran scenarios through his head, then made a decision. Jim would take his head off for it. Barbara was going to tear strips off of him if – make that when – she found out. But it was the right thing to do, especially given the promise he'd given Mark.
The boy had asked him to shoot him. Even threatened him to try and get him to pull the trigger. He'd promised that neither of them were going to die. He had every intention of keeping that promise.
He waved Mark closer to him. "You just stay with me and follow my lead, yeah?" He got a wavery, wide-eyed nod. "Good lad."
He opened the door. "We're coming out."
Brass answered him. "All right. Move slowly."
He edged the door open, then stepped out, Mark trailing behind him. Several laser sights targeted them both and he stopped.
"Secure Supervisor Russell and get him out of there." Brass waved at one of his men. D.B. raised a hand and Jim stopped with a frown.
"I'm good here, thanks." He ignored the officer trying to pull him away. "Me and Mark here are just gonna walk this whole thing through together." He offered Jim a crooked half-smile.
Jim scowled at him. "You know the protocol."
"Yeah. Yeah I do. But I think..." He looked at the scared boy shaking behind him. "I think we can make an exception, just this once. Don't you?" He gave Brass a look.
"You stubborn..." Jim Brass gave him a look that was nine tenths exasperated fury and one tenth understanding. Then he snarled out a muffled expletive. "Fine, we do it your way." He waved the officer back. "But one wrong move..."
"Yeah. I got it. And I'm sure he does too." D.B. gave Mark a reassuring glance. "We're gonna do what he says, okay? You just follow my lead. You got that?"
"All right. You do exactly as I say, and only what I say." Brass issued the order, and D.B. nodded, checking from the corner of his eye to make sure Mark was doing the same.
"Put your hands over your head and interlace your fingers."
D.B. raised his hands, locking his fingers behind his head. "Mark? Come on buddy. Follow my lead. Hands above your head kiddo." He could see the boy was stiff with fear. Probably going into either adrenaline overdrive or shock, from the looks of it. Still, Mark responded to the sound of his voice, eyes flicking to him and copying his movement, interlacing his hands above his head. "Just like that. You're doin' great."
"Now get down on your knees. Slow. Nice and easy."
D.B. dropped into a crouch, lowered one knee to the tile, then the other. His knees protested and he fought to keep a wince off his face. He was really getting too old for this sort of thing. Mark copied him with clumsy movements, stiff and awkward. His face was nearly white in the floodlights.
"Now lie down on your face. Keep your hands behind your head."
D.B. complied, wincing as his joints creaked. He kept his head tilted, watching Mark.
Mark hadn't moved. He seemed to have completely zoned out. "Mark? Mark? Hey kiddo, come on. Down on the ground, with me." He tried calling the boy's name, but Mark seemed lost. All his attention was on the officers, the bright lights and the guns. "Mark...come on kiddo..."
"Down on your stomach, hands behind your head." Brass repeated the order, his voice sharp.
Mark flinched, his hands coming loose from their position.
"Get down on the ground and keep your hands behind your head! Now!" The snap of the words had no effect except to make the boy flinch once again.
Mark's right hand started to drop, and D.B. felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as he realized what was about to happen.
He'd seen the boy make this gesture dozens of times in the past few hours. Every time he was under stress, when he was being called on to make a tough call or when something upset him. Right hand, just inside the jacket, pick up the St. Christopher medal and bite into the edge. He doubted the gesture was even conscious at this point, doubted Mark even knew he was moving, given the way he was staring at the guns leveled on his chest and face.
He also knew, without a doubt, that none of the officers currently pointing assault rifles at them would understand. He knew they'd expect a weapon, and he knew what their response would be.
He heard Brass and Dolan both shouting and knew it would do no good. Mark was almost catatonic with fear and stress at this point. He wasn't hearing anything.
Mark's hand touched the zipper of his jacket/vest, and D.B. reacted. He whipped one leg out and around, slamming Mark's legs out from under him and bringing him down. He used the counter-motion of his other leg and a shove from his elbows to bring his upper body up and around. The move would have been easier from his back, and his muscles were going to tell him how stupid it was later, but he didn't have time for anything else.
His arms and upper body slammed into Mark and took the boy to the ground just as Dolan shouted "Gun!" and shots rang out.
Something punched into the back of his shoulder, driving him over and down with a grunt. He heard Brass shouting for a cease-fire, but by then he was lying over Mark, protecting him. Mark looked at him with wide, wild eyes, startled from his near trance by the shots.
D.B. took deep breaths and tried to ignore the fire blooming in his right shoulder. "You okay?" At Mark's nod, he rolled to his left, still shielding the boy. "Let me see that, yeah?" He touched the chain tangled in Mark's fingers. Mark let it go, and he pulled the medal free of Mark's shirt with a shaking right hand. It hurt, but he nudged Mark anyway. "On your stomach okay? Hands above your head. Let me handle this."
Mark rolled onto his stomach, hands shaking as he laced them over his head. D.B. heaved a sigh of relief, which turned into a curse as someone grabbed his injured shoulder and rolled him onto his back. "Son of a bitch..."
"That's my line." Jim knelt next to him, yanking a handkerchief from his pocket and pressing it to the back of his shoulder with what D.B. felt was unnecessary roughness. "What the hell were you thinking, you idiot?"
D.B. raised the St. Christopher medal, which had fallen from his right hand to his left when he'd been rolled. "He was reaching for this." He waited for Brass to see the medal. "Not a gun. Just a medal. A talisman, to calm himself down. Doubt he even knew what he was doing." D.B. met his friend and co-worker's eyes. "But you...you wouldn't know that. And I knew what you'd do. And I was thinking that a boy shouldn't be killed for something like this, and you don't want to be the man who gunned down a troubled sixteen-year-old who was reaching for a prayer medallion." He let the medal fall.
Brass huffed out a sharp breath, then seized his left hand and pulled it over to clamp on his right shoulder. "Keep pressure there." D.B. nodded. Brass leaned over him and snapped cuffs on Mark's wrists, then turned. "Suspect secure. Stand down."
There was a rattle as several officers lowered assault rifles and heavy-duty shields. Then a clatter as the members of D.B.'s team came through the barricade.
Nick was the first to reach them. "D.B. You okay man?" Sharp eyes looked over his shoulder. "Man, you're bleeding..."
"Yeah, yeah. Nothing major. I'm fine." He levered himself up with Nick's help, then dropped his good hand to Mark's shoulder. "We're fine. It's over."
***NOED***
Of course, it wasn't over. Mark had to be taken into custody, formally, a process D.B. felt honor bound to see through himself, if only to make sure none of the officers decided to 'punish' the boy. Then there was the matter of giving his statement. And the fact that he'd been shot in the shoulder. That required medical attention and a trip to the hospital. The bullet had hit just under his collarbone, a through-and-through, but it'd missed Mark. He felt it was a decent trade off.
Nick and Fin field-dressed the wound enough for him to take care of processing Mark, then escorted him to the hospital. Jim took his statement while waiting for the doctor, following his x-rays. After that, he was carted into surgery to be patched up. The bullet had cracked his shoulder-blade, and it had to be put back together.
When he woke up, his shoulder was bound tight and immobilized, and Barbara was sitting beside his bed. He blinked at her a few times, his vision blurry without his glasses. "Hey."
"Diebenkorn Russell…."
Uh-oh. He was in trouble. Barbara never used his full name. She knew he hated being called that. And in public too...yep, he was in trouble. He raised his free arm in an attempt at a pacifying gesture. "Honey..."
"You idiot. Jumping in front of a gun like that…."
"Hon, please, let me explain..."
"If you weren't recovering from surgery for being shot, I'd slap you."
"Yeah. Getting that feeling. Look..." He sighed and dropped both his hand and his head back. "Brass tell you what happened?"
"Fin did."
"She tell you that the kid was a depressed minor with suicidal tendencies who got tricked into what he did? Or that he was reaching for a St. Christopher medal when they shot at him?"
Barbara stilled. D.B. took the opportunity to reach for the side table next to his hospital bed. His glasses were there, and he fumbled them onto his face. Everything cleared, and he looked at his wife again.
She looked tired and stressed, tear tracks dried on her face and no make-up anywhere in sight. From the looks of it, she'd thrown on the first thing she could find to wear.
He sighed again. "I'm sorry I scared you. But I spent ten hours trying to save that kid's life. I couldn't let him die because of a stupid mistake and a prayer medallion. He was...he was just a kid. A kid who thought he was doin' something to set things straight, who got betrayed by someone he trusted. He wasn't a terrorist or anything...just a scared, misled, depressed 16-year-old."
"He shot up a police station and killed three people."
"I know. And there'll be consequences for that. And for the people who got injured, and for the hostage situation. But none of those consequences needed to be a kid bleeding out in front of the interrogation room." He paused, remembering some of the events that had occurred. "Or in front of his mother."
Barbara blinked. "His..."
"Yeah. His mom was there. Brass brought her in to try and talk him down." He met his wife's eyes. "She didn't need to see that. Her son dying that way. No parent should see something like that."
Barbara huffed, but some of the anger went out of her eyes, and the tension faded from her shoulders. She seemed to be thinking. Finally, she gave him a tired glare. "Don't you ever do that again."
"Do my best not to." He reached out his good hand. "Come here, sweetheart."
She leaned over the bed, and he tugged her down for a gentle kiss, then touched his brow to hers. "I'm sorry I scared you. I didn't mean to."
"I know." She smiled, soft and sad and resigned, the way she was when something happened that reminded them both of how dangerous his job was. "I know."
She kissed his brow again. "You rest. I'll go talk to the doctor about when you can leave." She knew he hated hospitals. And enforced inactivity.
"Thanks hon." He watched her leave, feeling weariness creeping up on him and turning the edges of his vision dark. Well, weariness and morphine.
He'd be out of work for a while, and he was fairly certain that both Jim Brass and Connor Ecklie were going to chew strips out of him for what he'd done. Still, he couldn't find it in himself to regret it.
He'd kept his promise. No one else had died. That was the most important thing.
Author's Note: I thought it sucked that the kid died, after everything DB did. And this just wrote itself. Because scared, suicidal teens shouldn't get shot to death, even if they are stupid enough to open fire in a police station...and especially not when they were set up.