"Your vic bled to death-"
"-Kind of obvious, Doc." Nick chuckled but there was no laughter behind it.
"Let me finish. She didn't bleed out from these," he gestured to the multiple stab wounds covering her torso to her abdomen; a map of pain.
"What?" Nick asked astounded, "But there was blood all over her!"
"As I was saying she bled to death, but due to excessive vaginal trauma which caused her to hemorrhage."
Sara couldn't stop a strangled cry from escaping. She had been circling the poor girl; the circle of death.
She seemed so much smaller without her blanket of blood keeping her warm. There was no color anymore; all or nothing.
"Did she have any burn marks? We found a cigarette with blood at the scene." Sara whispered.
"I found these, definitely prost mortem," he had turned her on her side and was pointing to five dots on the back of her neck; a very sensitive spot.
"Like the side of a dice…" Nick mumbled.
"Well this girl was anything but lucky. She went through hell to die for some peace."
"Anything else?" Nick could barely push the words out of his throat, they came up raspy; caught.
As if this isn't enough?
"Nick! Sara!"
They turned to find their favorite lab rat Greg Sanders rushing towards them.
"Hey Greggo what's up?" Nick asked forcing a weak smile. Who ever said it took more to frown never experienced the horrors of life through a CSI's eyes.
Oh God. Greg's not smiling.
"After seeing the crime scene photos and then this…" Greg swallowed hard.
"Give it," Nick grunted, arming himself for another blow.
"Well the blood and skin cells at the end of your cigarette matched the vic but the saliva at the other end did not. But the DNA had seven alleles in common; female, probably the mother."
"That's not the worst part," Greg added hurriedly before they could fully process the information.
No.
"The semen we recovered also had seven alleles in common."
No!
"Oh God." Sara ran across the hall into the nearest bathroom.
She immediately dropped to her knees and started retching, didn't care there wasn't a toilet beneath her, didn't want to see anything, didn't want to know anything, just wanted to empty herself out until she went numb.
She knew it was far from over when she stood up on shaking matchstick legs; all burnt up and ready to give out.
Her sweaty palms gripped the sides of the sink. She was grasping; for the glue that could hold her jigsaw pieces together.
Her hair was sticking to her sweat soaked forehead at odd angles. Her eyes were surrounded by crescent moons the color of bruises. Her irises were swallowed up by black tunnels leading down into shadowed rooms. Rooms with memories that lined the walls. Pictures of hands crawling like bugs on my skin. Bottled up screams labeled neatly with dates. Screwed tight lids and unbreakable glass.
"Mommy!"
He turned on me, his favorite weapon of choice dripping with her blood. His fist was swinging back and forth like the pendulum tail of the cat clock in the Emergency Room of the hospital.
"Sar,"
What? He never called me that. It was always "birdie," a fragile newborn he could easily crush.
"Sara!"
That familiar voice pulled her out of the dark and into the badly lit florescent lighting.
It was Nick. She could feel his pity absorbing into her skin and sinking down into her veins. She hated that.
"Hey, Nicky."
He looked startled. She didn't use that name.
"Hey, Sar."
He placed one hand on the back of her neck and she realized he had wet it. The cold dragged through her body with a slowness she relished. She shivered. It was a sensitive spot.