I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.

NOTES:

H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O

Steve stared hard at Danny, willing him to do something or say anything. Lying on his side, bound wrists limp, Danny looked dead though and Steve heaved in a breath that ended on a shattered, windless cough. He was covered now in a dusty sheen of sweat and breathing hard from stress and exertion. Hands still fisted high over his head, his shoulders had begun to burn, but he didn't have time for the physical pain.

"Come on, buddy. Hear me," Steve pleaded quietly. "Open your eyes. Say something." His wrists were bleeding too, but Steve didn't notice as he focused all of his attention on the rumpled shape of his friend. Danny was badly injured. They were in real trouble and Steve was desperate for an option - any option to level the playing field and get Danny the medical attention he needed.

"Dammit, Danny. Come on pal," he whispered softly, knowing too well that there was some sort of communications device planted either near or on his partner. A link to the outside world which was allowing their captor not only to hear the two of them, but also directly taunt and toy with his friend. Steve had practically shouted himself hoarse, begging for help and no one had shown up. Not a single soul had made a move from the upper floor to help and there was no way that he hadn't been heard; the sad truth of the matter was that no one cared.

Whomever had managed to abduct both he and Danny with such finesse, was evidently done with his partner since he now had Steve firmly in his grasp.

Danny had quickly become expendable and that fact tore at Steve's heart.

But something else was incredibly wrong – someone else other than Gibbons was in charge and calling the shots because the felon simply didn't operate in this manner. He was powerful enough to have come after them alone. Angelo Gibbons didn't need a business partner, nor did he send lackeys to do his bidding. The entire concept of the man teaming with someone was unfathomable. Without the right intel in hand though, Steve was completely in the dark and at a significant loss of what to do next. Conversely, Steve was unable to come up with any single person or entity who'd willingly team with Gibbons on such an elaborate scheme, but his mental ramblings ended when he heard the faintest of sounds.

"Danny," Steve hissed the name, the urgency in his tone begging Danny to be all right when he heard the soft moan and saw the feeble turn of the blonde head. "Please ... Danno," he muttered through gritted teeth. Completely frustrated, Steve closed his eyes briefly when Danny didn't respond and ceased his weak movements. Except for a body-wide tremble, there was nothing.

With all the strength he could muster, Steve wrapped his bruised fingers once more around the short chain connecting the handcuffs to the eye-bolt. He yanked hard, even pulling himself off the ground in an attempt to leverage all of his weight against the metal fastening. When that failed to do more than bring down yet another puff of stone dust upon his head, he pushed upwards, grunting in pain as he tried to loosen the big bolt.

He repeated the strong tug and push multiple times, adding bruises to his palms and causing fresh rivulets of blood to seep down his wrists until Danny made another sound. Though it was faint and hardly more than a whisper, Steve heard him and immediately stopped what he was doing. Using the side of his arm, Steve swiped grit from his eyes and squinted through the dim light.

Danny's fingers were moving. Scrabbling weakly across the dirt and muck of the floor, his fingers were moving and his breathing - though erratic - had increased.

"Danny ... Danny!" Steve whispered loudly, with an ear tuned towards the staircase should their attackers decide to show up again.

"Hmmm," Danny murmured weakly into the air, his chest heaving in response to his inability to breathe normally. With the flux of pain and his breath now nothing more than a series of shallow pants, Danny was barely conscious as his blurry view of the ceiling twinkled in and then out. He couldn't keep his eyes open for long, but he had to at least try as Steve called out to him again.

"Say something ... anything," Steve pleaded. "Danny ... can you hear me?"

"Yeah," Danny eventually pushed out, entirely depressed when he realized where he still was. "Steve." He squeezed his eyes closed and opened them again, staring upwards, only slightly mollified that he could see a bit better because his head was pounding mercilessly. He drew in a careful breath and tried not to cough when his chest flared through a wave of agony. "Steve ... m'here."

"Danny … thank God," Steve practically smiled in relief when Danny finally answered him. "Talk to me. What's wrong? Where are you hurt?"

Danny opened his mouth, his voice so soft, that at first, Steve thought he'd said nothing at all.

"Head," Danny repeated softly. "Chest ... somethings not right ... hurts ... all the time."

"Okay. All right," Steve replied quickly as he mentally catalogued the likely causes. "Just take it easy ... try not to move. What else, huh ... anything else wrong?" He'd gotten a good look at Danny's face and general condition; all of that made worse by the last round after his arrival. Concussion was a sure bet and Steve also assumed broken ribs as another part of the problem. What he was beginning to fear the most though was an internal bleed.

"Can't see ... right," Danny offered on an exhale. "Migraine ... feel sick. Don't ... don't wanna .. move. M'cold, Steve." His voice faded then until nothing came out as his simple store of energy waned. He was bone-tired and incredibly sick. His head and back were on fire, along with the never-ending creak and groan inside his chest. As shivers wracked his body, he found any last lingering hopes fading away. He just couldn't do it anymore and he almost willingly closed his eyes.

"Hey ... hey, hey. Don't do that ... Danny. No!" Steve's voice was tinny and receding further as Danny's hearing tunneled merrily along to play games with his shaky state of awareness. For a very long time, Danny couldn't reply as his head lolled limply from side to side. Too slow to recover from a dead faint, Danny simply couldn't get himself back together enough and he had no choice at all except to lay where he was as everything flowed around him on a discordant wave of sound.

Steve was there; as was the sound of the voice in his ear. But everything lacked substance. Even his mantra was nothing more than a buzzed memory now. Yet its portent lurked in the back of his mind as a terrible reminder. It teased him like the voice, but it wasn't strong enough to force him from his fugue.

"Danno, come on buddy ... talk to me. Try to stay awake ... you've got to try," Steve coached persistently from the opposite side of the room. Danny's description of how he was faring was plain terrifying. Adding in his lapses of consciousness and the fact that the admitted to being cold, and Steve felt his sense of desperation grow ten-fold. He needed to find a way out for them. He absolutely needed to get Danny to a hospital. Frustrated, he glared upwards towards the ceiling when he thought he heard footsteps, wary and on guard. His mind raced as he readied for anything, however, after a time, nothing happened. No one came down the stairs.

Danny murmured uncomfortably, his brow lined heavily with tension. Someone was talking to him; close and much too loud.

"Trouble?" The sinister voice asked inside Danny's head, the ghostly smile more than evident at his plight. "Having some problems ... some trouble down there, Detective Williams? How are you and Commander McGarrett holding up?"

Steve.

Danny roused more as the intent of the words sank into his brain, the voice growing stronger in his head as he came around with a start. With a soft whine of protest, he dug his fingernails into the filthy dampness of the concrete floor to assure himself that the room wasn't really spinning crazily out of control. He was positive that his eventual grunted sound of acquiescence did very little to provide Steve with any confidence about his well being. It did even less for the man inside his head based upon the coy announcement which intimated a frightening change in plans.

"This senseless waiting ...when I don't have to. So ... yesssss ... I don't think I'm going to wait," the man whispered as he dramatically verbalized his personal ponderings for Danny to hear. "Why wait when everything is now so neatly in place? I have what I want ... I've the means ... and I've waited far too long already."

"Stop," Danny murmured in distress. "No ... please ... please just ... stop. No."

"Danny?" Steve practically growled his name out from the opposite side of the room. His voice was deadly calm now. Yet he was seething on the inside and growing increasingly leery of Danny's odd one-sided mumblings. "What is he saying - what does he want?"

"No," Danny didn't know which man he was talking to and he choked as he inhaled sharply, eyes wedged tightly closed as he fought to garner a volume of air into his straining lungs. He wanted to tell Steve. He needed to say something. He needed to warn him. Inside his head though, the phantom-like chuckling increased two-fold and Danny's mouth slammed closed as his heart thundered in his chest.

"Were you going to say something, Detective? Do you want me to wait?" The voice was full of a sardonic pride, a pleased chuckle only adding to the ongoing insults and providing the challenge which Danny needed to rally. "Other than for my own personal enjoyment, what is the use in prolonging the inevitable?"

"What … what the hell do you want?" Driven by fear, Danny's breath hitched as his voice rose. He coughed again, squinting his eyes in pain as another helpless moan broke free to bubble up from deep inside his chest. The laugher in his ear re-doubled and he knew he'd lost entirely to whatever sick experiment he'd been made part of ... along with Steve. His chest burned with the most subtle of moves and Danny needed to control his emotions as he fought to stay centered and he heard another ruthless chortle of sound.

"Stay with me now Detective. You're not sounding very coherent," the man chided lightly.

"Just … fuck. Who the hell … who are you?" Danny stammered, his pretense of remaining calm falling to the wayside. He honestly was scared now; the tremor in his voice testament to his struggle to maintain some semblance of self-control. "We can talk ... just ... talk it out ... if I understood what you ... what you wanted. We could ... talk."

"Talk? No," the voice rudely interrupted. "This will play out ... my way."

"Danno," Steve pressed on all too quietly, oblivious to the content of the quarrel and yet knowing that Danny was being driven to extremes. In his opinion, there was only one method left to manage what little they could of the situation and he demanded that Danny listen and obey him, just this once.

"Don't engage him, Danno ... don't talk to him. Don't let him get to you. Stay with me, buddy. Just me. Take it easy ... breathe and slow down. Come on, you can do this."

"So ... touching how much he cares. The two of you ... I'd no idea of this ... loyalty. It makes my plans so much the more satisfying to know. To know that he will value what I'm taking from him ... that your value to him rivals what was taken from me."

"Please," Danny whispered plaintively as the man's hatred layered each worsening threat. Bound tightly and too weak to protect himself, he was beginning to panic at the helplessness of their situation. He was in pain and yet forced each word out on a panted puff of air. "You … you can't ... do this with ... without telling me ...what ... what it is you want. What ... who was taken ... from you?"

"Danny, stop. Stop and listen to me," Steve demanded more loudly, a metallic clang proving his ongoing fight to break free. He could hear the strain in Danny's voice. Petrified of quite literally losing his partner, he couldn't help raising his own. "If you can, ditch the link! Do not engage him! Danny ... knock it off and listen to me, dammit!"

"Ah! So smart! He's figured some of this out, hasn't he? Yet, he still has no idea of what's to come ... and neither do you." The voice whispered relentlessly into Danny's ear, before changing cadence entirely. The switch was stunning in its intensity and Danny felt his hopes at any negotiation, crash to earth.

"He cares ... he cares so much like my ... my own ..." And the voice trailed off with what sounded like a pained sob until it returned a few seconds later, stronger than ever before. "His fault ... what happens next ... is entirely his fault!"

Stricken by the futility of his predicament, Danny ground his aching temple into the floor in abject denial. He lost no matter what he chose to do. Talk. Not talk. Argue or negotiate. He had zero places to go and nothing to offer. He only had trouble made worse by his own growing list of woes that prevented him from thinking straight and concentrating. He was so incredibly tired by that point, he groaned wearily to himself, his shoulders visibly sagging in defeat.

"Danny, I swear to God ...," Steve ground out angrily when he saw the change worsen in his partner. "Don't listen to him!"

"He ... he wants to kill you," Danny interrupted breathlessly. Eyes wedged shut and with the damp coolness of the concrete leeching into his forehead, he spoke almost into the ground.

"Says ... what's going ... to happen is your ... your fault." He paused his incessant argument with the faceless voice, no longer caring about the threats because he had no leverage. Nothing at all to ask or beg for; nothing to learn. He could only warn Steve of what might be coming.

"It doesn't matter, Danno," Steve spat out angrily, a modicum of relief for finally having Danny's attention evident by a subtle shifting of his stance. But he was upset and worried, and it took all his strength to find a neutral place. He was decidedly more calm when he did and his voice fell to a more natural level as he focused solely on Danny's well-being. He was practically vibrating though, his stores of pent-up energy were thrumming into his muscles on an adrenalin high.

With a ragged inhale, Steve kept his next words level and sensible. "Stop thinking so hard ... breathe and try to relax. Listen to me, Danny ... can you ditch that damned link?"

"But .. I don't know ... who he... is. Not sure." Danny swallowed hard before he barked out a laugh which ended on a sharp groan for the pain which rattled through his chest. He panted heavily through each word as he argued the fear welling up inside. "He stuck a comm link in my ear ... he's ... Steve ... I don't know."

"I see you understand now. You have nothing left," the man taunted quietly. There was laughter in his voice before he pantomimed Steve's words with a rude sneer. "Can you ditch the link? Really ... so naive. You'll soon know who you're both dealing with! This is gong to be so easy in the end ... too easy. But I daresay, just as satisfying."

"Danno, I need you to listen to me," Steve coached, teeth gritted to keep his voice quiet even though his temper was blatantly showing. "It's going to be okay. Just breathe, buddy. Nice and slow; try to calm down and relax."

"An eye for an eye," the pleased words echoed threateningly into Danny's head before he could respond. "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

"Steve ...," Danny rasped out distractedly, a tingle of fear now growing exponentially as a religious verse was cited to him. He didn't entirely know what it meant, but it clearly indicated one thing. Their time was up.

"He's ... coming."

He shivered uncontrollably and suddenly couldn't stop. Lying on his side in a filthy puddle of stagnant water, Danny began to shiver badly as he squinted though the gloom, just able to make out the hazy outline of Steve's profile. Thankful at least that Steve was standing, albeit chained to a wall, and seemed relatively unscathed except of an occasional hiss of pain. But that certainly wasn't going to last.

"He's coming," Danny whispered brokenly. He was pale and shaking so badly that his voice quavered on the few syllables.

"Danno, please ... you need to calm down," Steve said, his tone clearly communicating a mix of anger and worry as his friend slowly unraveled just a bit more. "One thing at a time, okay? Breathe. Calm down ... it's okay."

"Not okay," Danny's voice was scarcely above a whisper now as his body shook from head to toe. He was cold and maybe even going into shock. He didn't know, but it hardly mattered. "So ... so not okay. He's says ... it's your fault. He says ... I don't know."

He stopped trying to talk then, his energy depleted and all of his remaining attention unwillingly focused on the urgency of the hatred being whispered into his ear. No matter what Steve said, Danny couldn't stop listening.

Retribution. Payback. Whatever the man believed Steve had done to him, he was steadfast in his goal.

"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

He moaned as the verse took over everything else in his head. Scarcely able to breathe, Danny muttered unintelligibly into the floor, his voice shattered by fatigue and pain.

"Danny, ditch the fucking link! Don't listen to him!" Steve hissed as quietly as possible. "Stick with me, buddy. Focus on me!"

With a start, Steve realized then that he could hear the faint shuffling of booted feet on the floor above them. If he listened hard enough, he could hear the sounds of their voices. They were coming closer; the men were coming back. He glowered at the odd sound his partner made as way of reply. As mix of helplessness and sarcasm, it bespoke of physical pain and the trouble they were in. Steve glanced towards the low ceiling, anger crossing his face as he heard the tell-tale sounds directly over their heads now.

Danny didn't answer Steve as a vein of light fell down newly opened door from above. A moment later, three men came down the stairs in rapid succession, the one in the lead sneering at Steve before rounding immediately on the downed Detective. The second positioned himself near Steve, a sly look of satisfaction on his face, his hand on the butt of what looked to be a revolver. Looking on with trepidation, the well-armed third remained nearest the base of the staircase. Fidgeting and undeniably anxious, it was obvious that he no desire to be there.

"Get the hell away from him," Steve warned them.

"And just what are you going to do about it, McGarrett?" Harrison answered back sarcastically as he turned his attention towards Danny.

"Miss me?" Harrison asked the injured man. There was a dangerous glee to his expression as he interlaced his fingers together to give a meaningful crack and pop to his knuckles. He glanced back up towards the staircase and laughed happily when the soft patter of footsteps began their descent. A fourth person was coming.

"I told you to stay away from him," Steve ground out. "Leave him alone ... whoever the hell you all are - you wanted me and you got me. He's had enough."

"Oh don't you worry, McGarrett. We'll be taking care of you next. But right now, the fun's only starting for him," Harrison promised over his shoulder while he chuffed an amused sound. Their eyes met briefly before he crouched down just inches from Danny's side.

"Hey, wake up," Harrison said as he poked Danny hard in the shoulder until Danny managed to focus on his face. Totally ignoring Steve's volley of threats, Harrison hunkered down even closer. "You don't look so good," he said when Danny managed to peer up at him, pain literally emanating from his eyes.

"The boss has something special for you first ... and hell, I can't wait for you to see her."

~ to be continued ~