It was the nightmare again. For some reason it had continued to plaque his dreams for the past five nights. And it always ended the same, with him kneeling down in front of a cloaked figure, others in similar cloaks surrounding them as the stranger is handed a chalice.
All that is revealed to him of the cloaked figure is a pale arm that holds the chalice down to him, he somehow knows that the stranger wishes him to take it and wait for his orders. He does not look at the contents of the chalice but he can smell its copper tang. Even with this knowledge he does not resist the stranger's next words.
"Drink my son, and you shall join your fellow brethren"
Without hesitation he lifts the edge of the chalice to his lips and greedily gulps down its contents. Immediately he knows what it is he's drinking, blood! But his lips do not pull away no matter how much his mind screams at him to stop! Not until the chalice is empty and the blood is sitting like lead in his belly does he finally pull away and take a large gulp of breath.
His release is short lived though as his body begins to tremble and the blood in his veins feel like fire searing through every vein in his body, burning him from the inside out.
The chalice clatters to the stone floor and his body collapses to the side, continuing to violently tremble and the fire increasing to his very soul. He was in so much pain that he doesn't even realize he's screaming but his screams soon become ragged coughs as his lungs begin to feel like their being filled with sand.
he could feel consciousness leaving him, but he knew that this was only the beginning. Before his eyes closed the hooded figure kneels down beside him and places a pale hand on his cheek, seemingly in a form of comfort.
"Rest now my child, when you awaken you shall be whole once more"
As his eyes slowly flicker close he manages to look up into the stranger's hood and see two glowing red eyes staring down at him.
And then his alarm wakes him up, doing its same job as the five days before today: stopping him from discovering who the red eyed stranger is.
Slapping the alarm off he collapsed back against his mattress and turned his head to look at the time, 5:00 AM, meaning he had 25 minutes to get ready for work and head down to HQ.
Pulling the covers off he sat up and placed his feet on the bare floor, running a hand through his sleep mused hair he swiftly pulls himself up and begins his morning routine of push-ups, sit-ups then finally his morning swim.
But as he was walking outside to his private little beach area a feeling of unease swept over him, cementing him in his tracks. Someone was here, someone he had no desire to EVER see again.
"Figured you'd be up at this time, always the same routine with you; like clockwork, it's one of the many things I like about you Steve" said the voice, approaching him from the shadows of the trees.
He finally turned in that direction and plastered a deathly glare onto his features, making it clear that she was not welcomed here.
She laughed at his expression.
"Wow, I haven't seen you look that intense since we were what...17? 18? It was somewhere along that timeline" the stranger commented, continuing to walk towards him until the rising sun revealed the hidden voice.
She looked the same as she had twenty years ago; same evil smirk, dark uncaring eyes, ivory skin that practically glowed, coal black hair pinned up with a cherry blossom and a walk that oozed sex appeal. Her clothing was that of a silky white sundress with red blossoms scattered around in the print. She was like a wolf in sheep's clothing.
If he didn't know of the evils she had committed, or what she was for that fact, he would probably be crashing his lips against hers and start grinding against her like a wild animal. But those feelings were gone and replaced by a deep underbelly of hatred
"Am I really going to do all the talking? Come on Steve, I came here so that we could talk, maybe have a few drinks, a swim and then maybe if you're feeling up to it a romantic dinner for two?, my treat" she smiled, her white teeth looking especially sharp.
He remained impassive.
Walking up to him she ran a hand down his bare chest, her sharp nails almost nicking his skin, but he didn't flinch, he wouldn't let her have that kind of control over him, not again.
She pouted her lips and wrapped her arms around his neck, she nuzzled his neck and licked a trail up his pulse point, but he still remained stoic.
"Come on Steve, don't be like this. It was twenty years ago! Don't you think it's time to put all that behind us and let bygones be bygones?" she sighed, her hands now resting at the nape of his neck.
This was when he finally moved.
Lifting his arms he firmly grabbed her by the arms and gripped them until he heard a bone snap; she hardly flinched, as expected, but he continued anyways.
"You listen to me, and you damn well better pay attention because I'm only saying this once: get off my island, now, and don't you ever come back because if I see you again I'm going to kill you and I'm going to take my time! I'll slowly peel each layer of skin off of that pretty little body of yours then I'll burn each area with my own little concoctions of various acids and by the time I'm done with you there even won't be a body" he threatened, his grip seeming to increase with each threat.
When he was done speaking he released her and she backed away from him, a glare now dominating her features.
With practiced ease she easily reset the bones in her arms, the cracking and pop of the bones going back into their places echoing in the early morning.
"I'll take that as a no then" she said, nonchalantly checking her nails.
He walked back up to her and looked her dead in the eyes, her cold stare staring deep down into the blackness of his own soul.
"You're not welcomed here anymore, so do as I say and get the hell out of here before my threat becomes a reality and don't think I'm bluffing cuz I've been dreaming of ways to kill you for many years now" she held his gaze for a few more moments before looking away and placing a stray hair behind her ear.
She sighed, then met his gaze again.
"Fine, I'll leave, for now anyways but before I go I should warn you that its almost time Steve and don't think that you can hide from them because they'll find you, just like they found your father. You've been having the dream haven't you? It's the sign that your initiation is about to start" she leaned up close to him,
"If I were you, I'd start preparing" before she pulled back she placed a kiss on his cheek that felt like acid had just been pressed forcefully against his cheek. When she did pull away she started for the screen door, turning to him one last time she spoke,
"By the way, your partner's here"
A loud knocking resonated through the house, followed by Danny's yelling to open the damn door or else he was going to break it down.
Quickening his pace he was just about to pass her when he stopped and coldly told her to leave his property. He made sure to add that she was to go back the way she had come, knowing that her path would not be seen by Danny.
Once she was gone he got closer to his front door and heard Danny counting down, probably counting down until he kicked the door in. Before he could destroy his door Steve unbolted the deadlock and swung the door open, freezing Danny in mid kicking position.
Dropping his leg and straightening himself out, he put on his usual scowl and crossed his arms.
"What the hell took you so long? Didn't you hear me yelling?" he demanded, impatiently waiting for an answer.
"Sorry I was in the back, didn't hear you until you threatened to, and I quote, "break my damn door down!" which by the way you would have paid for a replacement" turning, he walked into the living room and picked up the plain black shirt he had left out and slipped it on.
Danny entered the house and closed the door behind him, walking over to where Steve was picking up his badge and unlocking his gun from the safe hidden behind his father's desk.
Taking one look at the bags under Steve's eyes and his pale complexion he could tell that Steve had had another restless night.
"You look like shit" he commented, leaning against the bookcase.
Steve turned to him and sent him a sarcastic smile, "thanks Danny, hey you wanna insult my Navy training while you're at it?" he lashed out, really not feeling up to their usual banter today.
Danny held his hands up, as in surrender, and took a step back.
"No need to get testy! All I meant is that you look like you barely got any sleep last night" he lamented, wondering what had caused his partner/boss's bad mood.
Sighing, Steve closed and locked the safe.
"I'm sorry Danny, your right I didn't get much sleep last night and I apologize for lashing out at you. It won't happen again" he apologized, and when his apology was met by silence he looked at Danny and saw that he had a shocked expression on his face.
He was shocked, getting an apology from Steve was like trying to get blood from a stone.
"Your willingly apologizing? Damn you must be sick or something because the Steve I know would've just given me a sarcastic remark and acted like nothing had happened" he replied, still a little shell shocked at the way Steve was acting.
"Well don't get too used to it, I'll be back to my sarcastic crazy self once I get a good night's sleep" brushing past him he walked to the back of the house to change out of his shorts and into his cargo pants and laced up his shoes.
Danny waited until he returned to tell him why he had come down.
"We got a case, a big one; the governor's been reported to be missing and there were signs of a struggle in her office...they also found blood. The labs running a comparison now" Danny reported, knowing how close Steve was to the governor he knew that this case was going to hit him hard and he knew that it would be better to tell him face to face instead of over the phone.
Steve stood there in stunned silence. He couldn't believe what he was hearing, Governor Jameson was missing and it was likely that she had been kidnapped for some nefarious reasons, because only someone or a group of people would kidnap a governor with as much power as Jameson if they wanted something extremely big.
"You've been to the scene then?" Steve asked, his voice void of emotion.
"Yeah, just got back from it. Kono and Chin are looking for evidence and asking around for witnesses. Chin was going to call but I told him that I would tell you myself, I figured you wouldn't want to hear this over the phone" Danny explained, showing a caring side of him that he rarely let anyone see. But Steve was special, in so many ways.
There was a short moment of silence between the two before Steve made the first move and headed towards the door, Danny trailing behind him.
When they reached the camaro Danny wordlessly tossed Steve the keys and got into the passenger seat. Steve hopped behind the wheel and it wasn't long before they were cruising towards the governor's office.
The car was silent as they drove, something that at one time Danny would have loved but Steve was a talker, he was never quiet and this Steve sitting beside him was a shell of the man. He needed to do something. So he asked a question that he knew would get a reaction out of him.
"So, do you want to tell me about the dreams you've been having?" he asked, actually managing to catch Steve off guard.
Without taking his eyes off the road he replied, "and what dreams might those be?" he asked, anxious about the direction this conversation was going.
"Well its obviously nightmares or something because it's a common side effect in our line of work. Sometimes I have nightmares about people we've put away breaking out of prison and hurting the people I care about and sometimes it's just flashes of faces of the victims that I couldn't save. Just talk to me man, I know I'm not normally a touchy feely guy but I can see that it's really got you messed up and you need to let it out before it gets you or someone else killed" Danny was practically begging at the end, his own emotions trying to bubble up to the surface but he squashed them back down. He needed to be strong for Steve right now.
Steve was tempted, he really was, but he couldn't tell Danny about his nightmares. In a sick way he actually wished his dreams were about past arrests coming after the people he cared about or even flashes of victims but they weren't. His dreams depicted a scene that had yet to pass.
But for Danny's sake he would have to lie, because not answering would only make him even more worried about him.
"Like you said, I've been having some vivid dreams lately; almost like a walk down killer lane but don't worry about me, I'll be fine just have to let the nightmares run their course...thanks for the session by the way" he smirked, showing off that sarcastic witty part of himself.
Danny mocked glared at him but joined in on the laughter, he knew that Steve had purposely said that to take the tension out of the air and he was grateful for that. He wasn't used to having conversations like this with the people he worked with, especially not a male co-worker, whom he was slowly but surely falling for.
After that break of tension the car ride was a little more relaxed, of course Steve was still anxious about the Governor's potential kidnapping but his emotions were under better control now.
They pulled to a stop in a parking spot in front of the building where the Governor's office was located. HPD squad cars were parked haphazardly in various locations and a barrier had been put up to keep the reporters and onlookers back.
As they were getting out of the car Steve spotted Kono walking towards them, an evidence bag with something inside it. She stopped before Steve and handed him the bag.
"We found this lodged between a filing cabinet and a bookcase. There was some blood splattered on a few of the pages. We've collected some samples and they're being analyzed at the lab right now" she said, watching Steve examine the evidence.
It was an old bible, the pages looked to be worn with age and the spine of the book was slowly starting to fall apart.
"Be sure to look for fingerprints on the pages as well. It may be a long shot but maybe our perp. touched some of the pages" he handed the bag back to Kono and she nodded her head and headed for her car to bring the evidence to the lab.
Walking around the perimeter one of the officers nodded them on, recognizing them as 5-0.
"There's going to be a lot of suspects, especially since we're dealing with one of the most powerful persons on this island. Something tells me you're not going to be getting that sleep that you oh-so-desperately need" Danny held the door open for Steve and then walked in behind him, analyzing the area as they walked to the Governor's office.
They passed a few CSU's on their way and a few police officers who were there as backup for the CSU's as they worked.
Entering the office their eyes trailed across the wreckage of the room. The furniture was overturned, papers and various office supplies were scattered across the floor, the computer and hard drive looked like it had been smashed to bits and there was broken glass on the floor from a broken window. But what had caught Steve's eye was the blood splatter on the wall behind the officer's desk.
Danny had walked over to Chin to get some more information off of him while Steve walked behind the desk and took a closer look at the blood splatter. The amount of blood wasn't as much as he had originally thought but it was still enough that there was cause for some concern, turning he walked to the desk and scanned that as well but froze when he noticed something on the shattered screen of the computer.
He leaned closer and narrowed in on the screen and saw that the cracks in the computer weren't random, they made a familiar design, one that made his heart stutter.
The design was a calling card, to him from her, and suddenly he knew exactly who had taken the governor.
His phone suddenly started to ring, looking at the screen he saw that it was an unknown caller but he had a feeling he knew who was calling. Accepting the call he held it to his ear.
"Hello Steven, I'm sure by now you've figured out that I've taken the Governor and have found my little calling card so how about we get down to business?" she walked around the chair that the unconscious Governor was tied down to.
Steve noticed that Danny was looking at him so he quickly made up a lie,
"Mary, hey what's going on?"
he walked out of the room and out into the hallway, quickly walking until he reached a secluded part of the house.
"Let her go Dana, this problem is between you and me so let the Governor go and we can talk. All your doing is wasting the authorities time, so do the smart thing and let the Governor go, in exchange I'll meet you at the BluWater Grill in one hour and we'll talk" he bargained, making the meeting place in a public area so that she wouldn't pull something.
There was silence on the other end.
"Fine, BlueWater Grill it is. I guess we'll be having that romantic dinner after all. See you soon" she hung up and turned to face a now conscious Governor.
Strutting over to her she bent down until they were nose to nose, and spoke.
"You and I are going to have some fun" out of nowhere she produced a scalpel and hovered the tip in front of the Governor's left pupil. The Governor's eyes widened in fear and a muffled whimper escaped her.
Dana laughed.
This was going to be fun indeed.