John pushed Fin out of his way, stumbling forward as though he was blind. The dry leaves that littered the ground were stained bright red. Several small pools of blood shimmered in the beam of John's flashlight and Fin's light illuminated a tree trunk with a red smear some five feet above the ground. A grey zippered sweatshirt lay tattered on the ground.
John dropped his flashlight but was unable to move away. The light came to rest with its beam pointing directly at the sweatshirt. "That's mine," John said, gasping for breath. "I mean, it's hers…I gave it to her…the NYPD one…."
He reached behind him for anything to support him and his hands found another tree trunk. He slumped against it, his eyes closing as he struggled to breathe. "Oh my God…oh my God," he said over and over, unable to calm himself. "It's so much blood…there's no way she'd be alive after losing so much."
He felt himself being led away from the horrific scene and back onto the path. "Take it easy," came Fin's voice, but he sounded almost as upset as John was.
John leaned over, his hands on his knees, trying to stop his head from spinning. He barely noticed the crime scene analysts going by him; he could think of nothing but Casey, his Casey, and he would have remained frozen there for a lot longer had one of the paramedics not approached him.
"It's Casey?" a man's voice asked, and John straightened up to find himself facing Philip Weber.
Weber had dated Casey for almost a year, and as such John hated the guy. He was not sure how they even met because a paramedic and an ADA did not cross paths often, but he knew that Weber asked her out. John did not know him at all, but from what Casey told him, he felt he had enough cause to dislike him. Weber sometimes drank heavily and he was prone to losing his temper.
Weber's eyes were filled with fear that John imagined almost matched his own. Despite the fact that Casey was the one who broke off their relationship, Weber told her he still cared about her and he wanted them to be friends. He looked absolutely terrified at the prospect of Casey becoming a victim.
"Yes," John said shortly.
"Oh God," Weber muttered, shaking his head. He then looked at John in concern. "You ok? You look terrible."
John rolled his eyes. "What else would I look like after seeing…that?"
Weber's medical side took over. "Come with me," he said, leading John to the ambulance and making him sit down. "You're pale." He gave him a glass of water and made him put his head between his legs.
John took deep breaths for a few minutes, trying to ignore the words from the analysts. He was aware of Fin talking on his phone, probably to Cragen, but he could not focus on what was being said.
"Was it…really bad?" Weber asked John.
John shuddered involuntarily. "Yeah." He did not know what he was feeling. Casey could not still be alive, and yet he did not feel the horrible emptiness that he would have expected. His entire body was in agony, but he was not empty. Not yet.
At that moment, Doctor Warner came up to him. John's head snapped up so he could look into her eyes. "Well?" he asked desperately.
Melinda sighed. "The good news is that all that blood is not Casey's."
John stared at her, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Fin stop talking to Cragen and listen. "What?" He hardly dared to believe it.
"It's not all human blood. We don't know exactly what it is yet…probably pig. Whoever did this wanted to scare you more than anything."
Anger such as he had never felt surged within John and he saw nothing but red. The bastard who was hurting Casey was torturing him too. He was a diabolical maniac who obviously had something against John. "What the hell?" he said to Fin. "It's like he'll do anything to Casey as long as it hurts me too."
He turned back to Melinda just as a technician approached. "You identified the sweatshirt, correct?"
John nodded mutely, relieved that Casey was most likely still alive but so afraid of what she would have to endure.
"Do you recognize this?" the man asked, holding something out to John.
He took it and held it up, recognizing it immediately. It was the necklace that Casey almost always wore- a simple silver chain with a small prism hanging from it. "It's hers too," he said, reluctantly dropping it into a plastic evidence bag.
"We'll get it back to you as soon as we can," the man said kindly. Everyone there was by then aware of John's connection to the victim. Their relationship was hardly a secret anymore, at least in the NYPD.
Fin finally hung up and came over to John. "Cap wants us back at the house."
John followed him without a word, walking away from the crime scene but taking every bit of the horror with him.