AN - Hello! I thought the NOLA-site looked a bit slow and figured I would give you an early Christmas present. Be aware - English is not my first language, I'm not only bilingual, but penta-lingual, if that's a word. Maybe you'll see some grammar mistakes, but I'm fairly sure, you wont see any spelling mistakes. If you don't feel Persallish, this is not a story for you, so, kindly, hop along. If you are a Persaller, then please read. We'll start out with at a run - more like a sprint, to get you guys hooked and then I promise the next chapter will be up before next year. Read, enjoy and leave a review with your comment. The more reviews, the faster the next chapter will be readable. Good night! /K.
"We gotta wait for backup, LaSalle!" Sonja hissed behind him, even though she knew it was like talking to a wall. They were already making their way up the stairs to the abandoned three story mansion. It had been only ten minutes, since Pride had called them with the location of the navy lieutenant's nine year old daughter and the kidnapper. Chris had stopped the car outside the old iron gates and after seeing the sturdy chain and new padlock tightly locked, they had climbed the eight feet tall stone wall, surrounding the place, and dropped into overgrown bushes. Now, in cover of the dark in the night and the shadows of the trees they were sprinting along the badly maintained gravel driveway leading up to the house.
"You know we can't wait, Percy," Chris replied quietly when he raised his weapon and trained it on the front door they were approaching. Sonja mimicked, staying only a few feet behind him, her gaze travelling through every corner and window that might pose a threat for the two agents.
"Damn it," she muttered under her breath when her partner took the front steps two at a time and she followed him. The old mansion had been painted white, but it was peeling off in big pieces all over the front. Overgrown shrubbery and weed were covering the aging façade
"The door is open…" Chris whispered over his shoulder as he pushed the heavy door in. The two of them cleared the grandiose hallway and Chris was heading to the stairs in the corner when Sonja put her foot down.
"Hell no, LaSalle, remember what happened last time you went up the stairs?" Sonja hissed and headed up in front of him. "I'll check upstairs, you'll go down," she continued and before her partner could make any objections, she was already half way up the stairs and he swore under his breath and turned around to clear the next room. Methodically moving through each room he passed took longer than he anticipated and Pride shouldn't be far away with Gregorio by now. The impatience was starting to tear at his edges as his worry for the little girl was growing by the minute.
Likewise, on the second floor, Sonja had nothing but a lot of dust on every surface. The air in the mansion was moldy and stale and a sick smell of rotting flesh came closer for every room she passed. It was probably just an oversized rat or a bird, Sonja thought, hoped, as she cleared another bedroom and moved on to the next and last floor.
Chris had moved through the whole ground level and the basement, all of it empty, as he straightened up and looked around in the sun room. He lowered his weapon and sighed, confused. This was the address Pride had given him. This was the address Triple P had traced the kidnapper to. But nothing was here, Chris thought and looked out of the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the garden. He almost turned around to head up the stairs to help out his partner, when he caught a glimpse of a dim light in the back of the garden, cornering the patch of forest. The light flickered and Chris pushed through the door and started running the small distance to the cover in the trees. As he came closer to the white painted pavilion, a shadow began pacing inside on the ground floor. The silhouette looked to be about a foot taller and twenty pounds heavier than Chris himself and as the figure moved away from his line of sight, Chris advanced to the door and entered quietly. The pavilion was almost round and windows gave the structure a full three-sixty-view of the surrounding forest and garden, the soft, dim lights came from candles placed around the room. He trained his weapon around the chairs and tables as he headed for the spiral staircase in the center of the room. Softly, he tiptoed up the steps and peered across the landing. The top floor was designed like the ground floor, but with a better view through the full-sized windows. The figure he had spotted only a few minutes earlier was on the other side of the room, looking out over the lawn, a gun in the hand by his thigh. He was muscular enough to have a huge bull neck.
"NCIS! Drop the gun!" Chris said aloud as he walked up the last few steps and came in closer. The man held his hands out from his body, holding the gun by the trigger guard with his index finger. He turned around, slowly, and then leaned down to the floor, letting the gun drop the last inch. "Slide it over here and keep your hands where I can see them," Chris ordered and put his foot out to stop the sliding gun. He kicked it further away and moved closer. "Hands behind your head," he continued, as he warily circled around the man and positioned himself to cuff the guy. He did as Chris ordered. The man was clad in black, the only color on him would be the blond, almost white hair and the sharp blue eyes, exactly like the photo of the girl they were searching for.
"She's not here," the man said, matter-of-factly, as if it was just another day at work for him.
"Then where did you put her?" Chris asked as he fished out his cuffs with his left hand, still keeping his weapon on the man. This was too easy, he thought. When he moved the last few feet, the man suddenly spun around, using his left elbow to knock the agent's weapon out of the way and before the gun had clattered to the floor, Chris felt a sharp pinch in his left shoulder, only a million times worse and caught a flash of a box cutter blade protruding from his shirt. The pain made him growl as he lashed out with his fist, hitting nothing but thin air as the man rammed his shoulder into Chris's chest and both of them went flying to the ground. The man in black seemed to have almost fifty pounds on Chris, not the initial twenty Chris had despised, as the two of them tumbled around on the floor. Chris almost took more punches than he could throw himself, and was surprised by the agility in the large man, just like the quick reactions almost left him dumbfounded. With the pain rummaging along in the back of his mind, he was able to land a solid kick to the man's head with his knee, only to be on the receiving side of a thrown ashtray as the heavy, compacted steel connected with his ear and instantly made him dizzy when he scrambled for his gun. Chris had spotted his weapon only a few feet from his hand and when he grabbed it and spun around he fired of three shots, aiming for the center mass.
Sonja instinctively ducked and flinched when she heard the three distant pops echo in the house. She was halfway through the top floor and her heart began racing when she realized what she had heard. She forgot all about the last rooms as she sprinted through the house, almost tripping over her own feet when running down the stairs. She had to grab a tight hold of the railing, so she wouldn't collide with the landing.
"Chris!" she yelled, when she stopped at the bottom, panting nervously and listening hard. She ran to the back of the house and when she spotted the open door in the sunroom, she looked out and caught a glimpse of the dim light a few hundred yards away. She ran through the door and straight across the lawn, sprinting as fast as her short legs could carry her, carelessly ignoring the yells and the sound of pounding feet behind her.
Pride hastily stopped the car next to Chris's truck in front of the old gate and both he and Gregorio jumped out of the doors. A couple of NOPD cruisers came to a halt, effectively blocking of the road. Their lights were flashing, but the sirens had been muted. Pride shook the padlock and the chain and cursed under his breath as both he and the FBI agent looked around.
"There," the younger woman stated and pointed to a spot in front of the wall, where the grass had been trampled. The two of them hurried over but froze when they heard the secluded cracks of three gun shots. They rushed over the wall, both of them needing a run-up before making the climb.
"It must've come from inside the house," Pride commented as they hurried up the driveway, guns drawn and ready. They had to force themselves into going slow, to look around every corner, to make sure, they wouldn't run into the path of another bullet. The three shots had sounded in quick succession and then followed by silence, which was normally a good thing if the perp had actually been wounded. If someone would be stupid enough to open fire on his agents and they hadn't fired back, that would be bad. That would mean the perp was smart enough to get the drop on them, before they had the opportunity to react, which made this a very dangerous situation. Pride and Gregorio were almost at the front door when Percy's scream echoed in the nerve-racking silence.
"LaSalle," Gregorio whispered, trying not to run up the stairs and get a look at the horrifying scene that was awaiting them. She wasn't sure when and why it had happened, but she had grown to care for the NCIS team. Percy's feisty attitude, LaSalle's southern charm, Pride's intelligence, Loretta and her motherly figure, Sebastian and Triple P, even though she had never thought she would go that far. Back in the reality, she followed the older agent through the doors and caught a glimpse of Percy running fast through the house.
"Sonja!" Pride called but the small agent didn't notice anything. Seconds later, the two of them were following her through the sunroom and they quickly spotted the pavilion in the dark.
Not only did he miss, all three bullets went wide to the left and Chris fleetingly thought about his inner ear and if the ashtray had busted his balance. The man, surprised by the misses, dived at the agent and tried to wrestle the gun out of Chris's hands. When it was pushed out of reach again, Chris was able to place another couple of hard blows to the man's kidney. He hardly flinched and Chris realized that nothing short of a magazine full of bullets would stop the man. Using all of his remaining strength, he was able to push the man off him with a growl and turned around to launch himself through the air. He grabbed his gun and was about to whirl around, when the total weight of the blond man hit his back and the two of them nose-dived down the staircase. Their limbs were tangled as they tumbled over each other and crashed into the ground floor with an unattractive cacophony of grunts and groans. The two men didn't move for a few silent moments, both of them dazed by the series of somersaults. Chris wasn't sure, if there was a part of him that didn't hurt right now. He pushed the man's lower leg off his chest, rolled around and pushed himself up on his knees and elbows and took a moment to cough and splutter until the floor in front of him was stained red with his blood in small drops. He didn't seem to be able to make a coherent thought at the moment as his body screamed for attention, loud enough to make his ears ring. Sluggishly, he reached for his weapon and a moment before he could brush his fingers against the butt of the gun, an arm was wrapped around his neck and yanked him back. Finding a renewed strength in the panic of not getting any air, Chris fought and wrestled, only to find the grip growing tighter. He clawed at the strong muscles in the forearm underneath his chin and could feel how the lack of oxygen made his thoughts even more incoherent. Calmness rushed over him and, distantly, his eyes fell on his gun in front of him. Reaching for it, stretching the best he could his fingers closed around the barrel and he pulled it closer. It fit perfectly in his hand as it wavered in the air. With no air left, Chris lifted the gun, pointing it past his ear, aiming at the man's head or chest or something in between, he didn't know. He didn't care. He couldn't breathe. He pulled the trigger once before everything went dark.
AN - Hello, again! So... how do you like it? Remember, leave a review! /K.
