Taken
by Eris
Kensi Blye
She's on a date with a really cute travel agent when she sees them—two men in civilian clothes that are way too casual for the restaurant she's in. Kensi moves her phone out of her bag and onto her lap, but makes no other move. She knows she's become more paranoid since Dom, but it really is better to be safe than sorry.
It's when her date excuses himself to the restroom that she's struck with the epiphany that he's fucking in on it, and she activates her 'Agent Needs Assistance' code, hoping that the others would receive it in time. She sends the restaurant's name to Eric, too, and manages to slip her phone into the folds of her dress right before the men reach her table. One of them aims a small gun at her, and demands that she stand up and follow them before they start shooting at the civilians in the room.
He says it in Mexican, says a name she'd responded to for all of two months, and it doesn't take a genius to realize why she was targeted.
Kensi obeys, fighting for confidence even as her mind is flooded with flashes of Dom, of finding his car and seeing the blood smears in his interior and the bullet holes in his windshield.
They lead her out of the restaurant and into a blue Tahoe that's clearly waiting for them. She spies a surveillance camera by the restaurant doors and looks directly at it. She knows Eric would find it, would find this moment eventually, but right now, she doesn't have the time to give them a clue. She hopes her eyes convey the thoughts running through her head anyway.
Come find me.
Please.
Eric Beale
He's with Nell, the both of them just exiting the hacienda, when they receive the alert on their phones. Seeing her picture next to those words was like a punch in the gut, and it brings back memories of an agent that Eric knows he can never ever forget.
He's rushing inside before Nell can finish the involuntary, "Oh my God," that escapes her, and he's bounding up the stairs like he was just as fit as his field agent friends. He's not really as physically fit, so he's already panting heavily by the time he drops gracelessly into his seat, but that doesn't deter him from letting his fingers fly across the keyboard, focused on finding where the hell Kensi was.
Nell arrives, breathing just as heavily, but he pays no attention to her because he's got to find Kensi. He hadn't found Dom, back when he went missing.
He doesn't know if he can live with not finding Kensi.
He doesn't want to find out the answer to that.
His determination to track her down makes him almost miss the message that arrives on his phone, but he's glad that he decides to see it now, rather than later. Kensi has sent him the name of a restaurant, and he doesn't think twice about finding it and hacking into their security cameras.
He finds her almost immediately. She's being led away from the dining hall, moving from camera 2 to camera 1, then to camera 6, which shows the driveway of the restaurant. It's there that she finally looks up, and he's struck with the idea that she knew he would find her.
He's humbled and elated and terrified at the thought.
And then she's pushed into the car—a blue Tahoe—and it drives away.
Suddenly, his phone rings, and he doesn't even think twice about answering it, because it's Callen name that's on the display.
"Eric," Callen says, and already he sounds stressed. "Tell me you haven't left yet."
"I have her," he responds. "She was taken from a restaurant by two guys. They have a getaway driver too. Blue Tahoe driving down Melrose Avenue."
"She hurt?"
His throat clenched at the mere idea of it, remembers the bloody seats of Dom's car. "No," he answers. "Not when I last had visual."
"I'm headed to her now. Keep an eye on that car, Eric."
And then Callen cuts their connection. He's not upset at that—Callen's the best operative he's ever met, and he cares about Kensi a lot.
Callen will save her.
He knows that.
G. Callen
He's with Sam when he gets the alert, and he's instantly reminded of Dom. But this time, it's Kensi who's been taken. And despite how despicable it is, he can't stop the realization that blooms in his head.
Losing Dom, who'd been with them for less than a year, had been tragic.
Losing Kensi, who's been with them for over five years, would be devastating.
Sam is stomping on the break and making a wide turn after he announces what the message was, and Callen's also pressing on his speed dial for Eric. Thankfully, Eric is still at the hacienda and already has eyes on Kensi.
After hanging up on Eric, and he leaves Deeks a message, more to calm him down than anything else. Deeks is currently undercover for the LAPD, so he can't really be reached at the moment. Neither can he help in recovering Kensi, because Callen won't let Kensi stay with those bastards for too long.
With Eric's guidance, it doesn't take them long to catch up with the blue Tahoe. Sam's charger is already tailing them to the warehouse district, which was just so typical of the bad guys. When it rolls to a stop in front of warehouse 16, Eric assures him that backup is coming their way and informs them that the warehouse had just recently been rented.
By Carlos Del Rosa.
Callen knows this name, remembers that just a few months ago, Kensi had gone undercover to shut down a fairly new drug cartel in Mexico. Pablo Del Rosa had been the leader of that cartel, and it wasn't long before Kensi found evidence to put several key members in jail. With those men and women put away, the cartel failed and was effectively shut down. Carlos Del Rosa was Pablo's son, and he disappeared before Kensi had even infiltrated the group.
Apparently, he was back, and he had targeted Kensi.
But why? And how did he find her? Kensi was an expert at spotting tails and keeping a low profile. She didn't stick to one route going and leaving home, and she wasted gas just so that she didn't visit one particular coffee shop or club, to avoid creating a fixed routine.
He should know, he'd taught her everything he could to keep her safe. (To keep her alive, too.)
When Kensi emerges from the Tahoe, she's being dragged, clearly unconscious. The man who emerges from the back of the driver's seat is touching his eye, swearing loud enough for him and Sam to hear. Apparently, Kensi tried to take him out, and Callen feels a lot proud of her for it. The man and the driver takes her in, leaving the other guy in the passenger's seat to lug a fourth guy, who's out cold as well.
"Three guys," Sam states. "Maybe more inside."
"Plus Del Rosa," he adds, his gut telling him that the man was sure to be there.
"Can't take them on by ourselves," Sam sighs. "Where the hell is that backup, Eric?"
"They're five minutes out," Eric reports.
"She might not have five minutes," Callen snaps, already pushing open his door and sliding out of the car. His heart is pounding furiously, and he hears the blood rushing in his ears. Adrenaline floods his system, and his gun is out and he's hurrying along the perimeter, heedless of whether Sam is behind him or not.
He's got only one thought in his head.
I'm coming, Kens.
Sam Hanna
He's been scared a lot of times. As a SEAL, he's faced many instances that could mean either life or death for him and his team. He's had almost as many instances as an NCIS agent.
He's terrified now. He is, and he can't deny it.
Kensi, one of his teammates (and to be honest, she's not just G's favorite agent), has activated her distress code.
While off-duty.
Just like Dom.
He knows Dom would haunt them all forever. They failed to save him, failed to even suspect that something was wrong until it was too late, too damn wrong that it couldn't be undone or corrected. Sam knows he's not the one who carries the most guilt—it's Kensi who took it the hardest, because Dom had been her partner, her friend—but he knows he'd been Dom's mentor, that Dom had looked up to him the most.
It had reminded him of G and Kensi during her first few months in OSP. G's her mentor, the one who plays mind games on her as training, the one who rides her hard when she makes mistakes. Sam usually supports his partner when he's right, but always has Kensi's back when G was being too hard on her. In hindsight, he'd done to Dom everything G had with Kensi.
And damn, he hated himself for realizing it all too late.
So while G was talking to Eric, Sam was praying that his partner wouldn't have to experience the same things he had after Dom.
They follow the Tahoe to the warehouse district, and it's not long before they finally catch sight of Kensi. Sam sees the damage she's done to the men who'd sat beside her, and he takes perverse satisfaction in knowing that their girl had gotten a good set of licks in.
She's in the warehouse for all of two minutes when G, having been informed that their backup was still five minutes away, finally snaps and gets out of the car. Sam doesn't argue or object, merely follows his partner as he rushes along the warehouse.
He's not surprised that G has found a good entry point—one that he hadn't even known was there—because when G was in the zone, he was in the zone. From somewhere in his mind, he remembers someone saying, "He can turn himself into anyone, at any time, for any reason." It's a pretty good description of his partner, and this moment reminds him that while G is his friend, is his best friend, he still hovered between the lines of man and legend.
And right now, the G. Callen in front of him was more legend than man.
And he—Sam Hanna, NCIS agent and former Navy SEAL—finds this scary, all the way down to his fucking bones.
Kensi Blye
The first thing she remembers upon waking is that she was in danger. Four men, blue Tahoe, Mexican cartel. She's got no idea how Pablo Del Rosa had gotten hold of her when he was supposed to be behind bars, but she'll get herself out of trouble and find out. Her attempt to escape had been negated when the guy on her left shakes off the faceful of elbow she'd shoved at him, and she deduces that he knocked her out as pay back.
Which brings her back here, to a big empty room—that might be a warehouse—surrounded by around twenty men (or perhaps just ten, because surely not all of them can have twins, right?) with guns.
Two of the faces—oh wait, it's just the one face (she had been seeing double, and ow, her head really hurts now)—is familiar. It's not Pablo, after all, but his son Carlos.
Son of a bitch.
"Hola, chica," he greets with a sickly sweet smile. "We haven't had the pleasure of an introduction."
"Pleasure's all yours, I'm sure."
Carlos laughs, looking delighted at her retort. "Oh-ho-ho, Señorita Santos. They warned me you were feisty. Tell me," he adds, "my father—why did you turn him in to the police? Did he give you the wrong flowers? Call you the wrong name?"
"Is that why you kidnapped me?" she deflected, because clearly, he didn't know she was an undercover agent if he was referring to her by her fake name. "To ask questions about your daddy?"
She almost doesn't hear his response, having spied movement at the far window. She doesn't even see anything else but the blue of his eyes, but she knows it's Callen who's out there. Carlos rambles on about thanking her for taking down his father and letting him take over the 'family business,' and that for her services, her death would be quick and painless.
"A simple bullet between the eyes," Carlos assures her.
"You could've had me killed in the restaurant," Kensi tells him.
"Si. But then I wouldn't have been able to thank you," he replies, and it makes sense in a twisted kind of way.
He takes a gun from one of his lackeys, and swiftly aims it at her. She's still lying on the ground, limbs heavy and head still throbbing. There's two feet between them, a distance short enough to ensure that he doesn't miss his target, a distance long enough that she can't lunge for him and avoid getting shot at.
She hates admitting it, but she knows that there's nothing she can do anymore.
Her life doesn't flash before her like she thinks it should, and a voice at the back of her head points out that she's faced death so many times she's probably become numb to the idea of certain demise. She does, however, think of her father, and Kensi closes her eyes to savor the clear image of his face that she suddenly remembers. She wonders if he felt this way—if he thought of her—before he died.
Two shots ring through the air, and she flinches before she feels the pain. It encompasses her, reaching from the center of her body and spreading swiftly through every nerve she had.
Carlos lied. Hell, the idea of a bullet between the eyes is a lie, because it's not quick, and it's definitely not painless.
Her ears ring with gunshots and screams and her lungs burn with each breath she takes in. It's not long before her name is yelled through the sudden silence that falls over the room.
And then it all faded away.
Sam Hanna
G takes the shot when Carlos Del Rosa aims his gun at Kensi. There was no hesitation, because quite frankly, there was no time to waste, and Sam's grateful for the legend that is G. Callen, because G. Callen doesn't miss. Carlos jerks back at the impact of the bullet, but he's already squeezed the trigger, and in some sort of karmic irony, he wounds Kensi in the same spot that G does him.
The rest of the men open fire on them, and he and G are forced to take cover. It's a rush of adrenaline, of fear and determination fueling him to return fire when he can. It feels like an eternity has passed before backup arrives and helps take down the hostiles.
G is instantly gone from his side, running to Kensi. Sam isn't slow to follow at all, and he can't stop himself from calling her name, from saying, "KENSI!" in a high, panicked voice. Right after her name escapes his mouth, he's gripped with a throat-clenching, heart-stopping horror when he sees the blood that's seeping through Kensi's white dress.
And now, it's not just Dom's ghost that haunts him, but G's as well. His partner had been in white, too, that day he'd been shot in the street right in front of Sam.
It's two of Sam's nightmares put together, and it's over and done with in less than five minutes.
And it happened to Kensi.
G screams at one of the officers, telling him to call an ambulance. His hands are over Kensi's wounds, and it's bloody and slick within seconds. Her eyes are closed, her skin is pale, and Sam can't tell if she's still breathing.
It's Dom all over again now, and G is determined to defy all the known laws of life and science and keep Kensi from bleeding out. Just like Sam had been with Dom.
With a morbid sense of curiosity, he presses two fingers to Kensi's neck, to where her pulse points should be.
He feels nothing there.
G. Callen
Two years ago, he'd been gunned down, earning five bullets to the torso. It scarred.
And now Kensi will have one too, high on her chest, uncomfortably close to her heart.
She's bleeding out too fast for him to stop it, and already there's a sea of red forming underneath her. And while her eyes are closed and she's clearly unconscious, the pain she felt still etched on her face. He can't feel her taking any air into her lungs.
G almost snaps when someone pressed a hand to her throat, but he looks before he speaks and he can't yell, because it's Sam who's touching her, and he's got this expression on his face that G doesn't like at all.
Sam shakes his head, his lips forming a silent, "No," as he repositions his hold. G pressed his palms harder, to lessen the blood that's leaving Kensi's body.
"No" wasn't a word he wanted to hear in that moment.
"No" was bad.
But Sam keeps saying, "No." He repeats it five more times before his vocabulary expanded. "C'mon, Kensi," he says. "Don't do this to us."
G doesn't want to ask what's wrong. He knows exactly why Sam was panicking.
He knows exactly how Kensi feels right now, too.
Marty Deeks
He's exiting the station, having just submitted his final report, when he checks his voicemail and hears Callen's message. From there, it takes him less than ten minutes to get to Pacific Beach Medical. As he runs into the hospital, he thinks, I hate this place, because the last time he was here, Kensi would have been taken or almost killed too, if he hadn't dragged himself out of his hospital bed to go after her.
Callen and Sam are already there when he arrives, and so are Eric and Hetty. At the sight of Callen, Deeks actually freezes mid-step, swallowing heavily. Whereas Sam had always intimidated him with his physical presence alone, Callen was typically the one Deeks preferred to speak to because he looked easy to talk to.
Right now, he'd take a burly, pacing and upset former Navy SEAL over the furious-looking and dangerously unmoving G. Callen.
"Mr. Deeks," Hetty greets, having spotted him first.
"Hetty," he gets out, forcing his eyes to leave Callen and look at his petite boss. "Any news?"
As if his words summoned him, a doctor in bloodied scrubs hurried out of the ER doors. "Family of Kensi Blye?"
Callen's out of his seat and in front of the doctor before he can blink, his badge in hand. "Special Agent Callen, NCIS," he says. "What's the word on Special Agent Blye?"
The doctor blinks at him in surprise. "Ah— Okay," he stammers before clearing his throat. "Ms. Blye—sorry, Special Agent Blye—is in critical condition. She had a mild concussion that worsened after she got shot. Her brachial artery was nicked, which is why she lost a lot of blood in such a small amount of time. If she got here any later, there would've been nothing we could do."
Eric falls back onto his seat at the words, taking off his glasses and covering his face. Deeks doesn't blame him—his legs felt a little wobbly too. In fact, only Callen is the one who doesn't flinch or visibly react to the doctor's words. Deeks doesn't know whether to admire or resent him for it.
"We have to move her to the ICU for close observation."
Suddenly, a cacophony of alarms and screams ring out from inside the emergency room, and the doctor rushes back inside. Callen's right behind him, which has Deeks and everyone else propelling themselves after them.
"What happened? Where is she?" Callen's yelling before they even get past the doors, and Deeks sees that a few people in medical scrubs were lying unconscious, a terrified-looking woman was standing in the corner with the doctor they'd just been speaking with, and there's no Kensi in the room.
There's no Kensi in the room. He needed a few more seconds to process that, before spying another set of doors to his right. It's pure gut-instinct that has him running, that has him pushing open the doors in time to see someone with long, sleek brown hair jumping into the driver's seat of an ambulance.
His gun is out faster than he'd ever drawn it, and he's telling the person—a woman, if the hair was anything to go by—to, "Freeze!" but it's too late. She's driving away, tires squealing, and he can't bring himself to shoot because what if he hits Kensi? What if he kills Kensi?
"KENSI!" Callen's screaming again. He wants to scream her name too, but it's stuck in his throat and won't come out.
He wants to scream her name, but he can't.
On a private jet, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean…
She wakes up to darkness and an annoying beeping sound.
Her body aches deeply, sharp twinges sizzling through her, and there's a heavy throb coming from somewhere in her head. Her mouth feels dry from sleep, but she doesn't feel like she's slept at all. When she manages to think in spite of the pangs running through her body, she thinks, I hurt, because it's true. All she knows now, all she feels now, is pain.
The beeping sound suddenly disappears, replaced by a soft voice. "You can go back to sleep. It's safe here."
Okay, she thinks, grateful for the instruction. She feels herself closing her eyes, but there's no difference to be seen because it's still too dark.
She goes back to sleep.
Author's Note
Hope you guys enjoyed this!
xoxo,
~E
Disclaimer: In my dreams, I totally own NCIS: Los Angeles. Booyah!