Disclaimer: Do not own Hawaii Five-0. No copyright infringement intended.
Authors Note: As ever … Enjoy!
Chapter 2
Steve pulled the cell away from his ear to make certain.
"Shit." Danny's name still appeared at the top of the screen with the time stamp underneath. Seven seconds had passed. He crammed the phone back against his ear. "Danny? Danny, what's wrong?" He could hear his partner struggling to breathe. "Danny, where are you? Are you at home?" He'd already grabbed his keys, shoved his feet back into his boots, unlaced, and was scrambling out the door, slamming it behind him. His own breath was coming fast and hard as he jogged towards the Silverado, laces whipping against his pant legs and dragging through the dirt. Still trying to block out all the ambient noise, he waited for a response. Nothing. His throat tightened as he slid onto the seat of the truck, hit speaker and thumbed a quick message to Chin to meet him at Danny's, Kono too. He even managed to get the key in the ignition and turn it over, though his hands were shaking so hard he looked like a junkie desperate for a fix. "Okay, Danny. I'm on my way. Just hang on … hang on, buddy …"
The rattle of his partner's breathing filled the cab. He set his phone on the console of his truck, careful not to disconnect the call and then ran his free hand through his hair as the Silverado barreled down the H1. Danny's breathing sounded as if he'd been water boarded. The hair on the back of Steve's neck stood on end as his imagination of what was happening now paired with the unwelcome memories of the past, so he shoved them aside.
"Almost there, Danno, hang on. Almost there …" Nonsensical words, that he couldn't keep track of, spilled from his lips then, followed by pleading, a growl of anger, and shouts of frustration at everyone still on the road at this hour of the night. When he finally turned onto Danny's street, he was ready to run over the next thing that got in his way and not feel a damn bit sorry for it.
He leaned forward, peering out the windshield, his knuckles turning white from the death grip he had on the steering wheel as he got closer. The Camaro wasn't there. He slammed his foot onto the brake, almost standing on it, and shoved the automatic gear shift into park, fuming. He popped the door open, giving himself enough room to finally tie his boot laces so he could check the house anyway.
"Where the hell are you?"
"Danny, where …" The ring tone of Chin's incoming call interrupted him. He added the line so he could still keep track of his partner's, but he never gave his teammate the chance to get in a greeting. "He's not here! Where the hell is he, Chin?" The question was rhetorical. Chin wasn't Danny keeper any more than Steve was.
"What happened?"
"Danny called me, but he's not responding now. I can hear his breathing. Barely. He sounds like shit. But I don't know where the hell he is!"
"Hang, on. I picked up Kono. She's pulling up GPS."
Steve could hear the murmur of Kono's voice and then Chin swearing before he added...
"He's still at the rink."
"What? What the hell's he doing at the rink? Gracie didn't have a game tonight. Why ..." The questions were rapid fired. Chin seemed to ignore the anger and confusion behind them, cutting him off.
"Meet us at KIHA. You remember how to get there?"
"Yeah, but why's Danny at the rink?" He'd already closed the cab door, thrown the truck back into gear and was heading that way. It was thirty minutes to Kapolei without sirens.
"We can talk about it later, Steve. Just go. We're not far behind you." He heard Chin hesitate and another mumbled question from their teammate. "Kono asking about EMS."
He'd no idea what was happening or what they'd find when they got there. But his partner sounded bad and he'd rather get his ass chewed for swatting than be sorry that he'd waited.
"Do it. HPD, too. They'll get there sooner than we can. Make sure they know they're looking for a black Camaro. I don't think he's inside, Chin. The sounds are all wrong for being indoors. And have them contact me as soon as they find him. Let them know I've got a line open to him still. Give HPD your line as well. I want them contacting you before they touch anything."
"Got it. We'll see you there." He let Chin disconnect the call. He'd kept the sirens off up until now so he could hear Danny better. Not anymore. He punched the button. Getting there faster was more important.
"Hang on, Danny. Just hang on ..."
H50
It was ten grueling minutes of listening to nothing but his partner struggling to breathe, his vehicle's announcement to get out of the way, and the sound of rubber against asphalt before Steve finally heard them. Distant sirens. Then nothing. The wail of help arriving had been cut, which wasn't unexpected when the emergency vehicles, either HPD or the ambulance, had likely pulled into the 182 stall parking lot. KIHA's complex was massive in comparison to some of the other buildings within the isolated commercial district. The concrete footprint of the two inline rinks alone was 42,000 square feet, the land it sat on 128,000 square feet, all of which backed up to hundreds of acres of abandoned agricultural ground. So as emergency services searched through the parking lot for the Camaro, Steve expected some silence before they located his partner. When the quiet extended into minutes though, he frowned, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel with impatience.
"Come on, come on. Where are you?"
Still nothing.
He was another ten minutes out—less if he pushed the engine harder—from where Danny was. They'd gotten the right location. He'd heard them arrive. So what the hell was taking them so long to get to his partner? He should be right there … somewhere.
Chin's incoming call broke through the oppressive silence in the cab, outside of the racked breathing still filling it. He added the call again, still maintaining Danny's line. As far as he could tell, his partner was holding his own … for now.
"What the hell's happening?" This wasn't the first time Steve appreciated his teammate's unflappability when it came to his tendency towards the abrupt.
"They found the Camaro. Danny's not there …"
"No! He's there, Chin. I heard them arrive. He's there."
"He's not at the Camaro, Steve. The doors were unlocked and they've located the keys underneath it. I've got Kono calling in Charlie." Chin hesitated. He could hear Kono speaking on her own cell. "There's blood, Steve. On the driver's side door and the ground. HPD's starting to fan out and they've called in Search and Rescue."
"The ag fields behind KIHA?"
"Yeah, more than likely."
"He can't be too far off, Chin."
"Let's hope not. How far out are you?"
"Another six or seven minutes."
"Alright, we're about double that. We'll find him, Steve."
"Yeah, okay. See you there." This time it was Steve who cut the call, his mind racing. "Hang in there, Danno. Almost there …"
He was still listening for either emergency services or some change in his partner's awareness when he exited the H1 onto Hwy 95 heading south. KIHA was 7.2 miles from the H1. Steve made it there in less than five minutes. The Silverado took the turn into the parking lot hard, tires squealing, the knock from the undercarriage audible when the truck jumped the gutter onto the ramped entrance. Steve headed to the far west end where HPD still had their lights flashing, the blue and red eerily bouncing off the nearby warehouses. Floodlights were also bathing the blacktop in silver. Another screech, tires burning rubber into a skidded halt, and he grabbed his phone off the console before throwing the driver's side door open and not bothering to close it. He never heard the repetitive ding, ding, ding for the key left in the ignition after he'd cut the engine. He was too intent on sprinting towards the closest officer that looked even remotely like they knew what was going on.
"What've you got? Who's in charge?"
The officer, his name stitched over his right front pocket—one Steve had never heard before—took a step forward, his hands raised as if to ward him off.
"Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett, Five-0. That's my partner's vehicle, Detective Danny Williams. Who's in charge? I wanna know if you've located my partner." Steve was in the man's face so fast, the guy was forced to take a step back or they'd be touching noses.
"The Sergeant's over there, Sir." The officer pointed to a police rig, a halo of floodlights surrounding it, and a map spread over the hood with other officers hovering around it. At the sound of his title, the Sergeant looked up and walked over to meet Steve half way.
"Sergeant—Awakuni." Steve had ducked slightly to get the name off the uniform, and then stuck out his hand.
"Commander." Steve raised his eyebrows. "Lieutenant Kelly let me know you'd be the first to arrive." The sergeant grasped his proffered hand and then began walking back towards the squad car. Steve glanced over his shoulder for a brief look at the Camaro, also bathed in flood lights, and then turned his attention back on the man who'd already begun speaking.
"I've contacted S&R for a couple of area search dog teams, but they'll likely not show up for at least an hour, maybe more. HPD tracking canines have about the same ETA."
Once they'd reached the front of the rig, the map splayed across it gave Steve a better idea of the area that had to be covered. He set his cell on the hood beside him, still on speaker.
"I've already got officers grid searching here and here. Those areas are the easiest to get to on foot, and if your man's injured …" The Sergeant's voice trailed off as he indicated the cell with a lift of his chin, the sound of Danny's rattled breaths still coming through the line. Then he pointed to the yellow highlights to the south-west of the Camaro, not waiting for Steve to confirm his statement. "We can at least knock out some acreage before the dogs get here."
"What about this area over …?" Steve stopped to look up at the sound of another siren coming closer before it was shut down. Chin and Kono were piling out of their rig and heading over as soon as they saw him.
"It's harder to reach on foot, thicker vegetation, but we've got enough officers with the arrival of your team to cover more ground. So yeah, I can get that organized."
"Alright. Work on it while my team and I look over the Camaro." The Sergeant nodded, barking off commands to the officers still within ear shot. Steve signaled to his teammates to follow him before Chin or Kono had even gotten to the patrol car. He'd already picked up his cell. When they'd pulled up alongside him, he handed the phone to Kono.
"I'm still connected to Danny. I'm on speaker. Talk to him. See if you can get him to respond to your voice, alright? Listen for anything that might help us figure out where he is. Take it off speaker if you have to."
"Yeah, sure Boss."
Kono strode to the edge of the parking lot where the fields began, bringing the phone to her ear. One hand cupped her other ear, her head bowed in concentration, her voice a soothing murmur. Chin was already bending down by the Camaro's driver's side door when Steve joined him. He stood up, looking out to the west, just past the hood of the car.
"You said you could hear the sirens arrive, right?"
Steve nodded, joining Chin as he moved to the edge of the blacktop, studying the ground around them with his flashlight.
"If Danny was taken from here, wasn't put in a vehicle and dropped somewhere nearby, we might be able to track him before the dogs get here. No one's spotted any signs of entrance into the fields directly in front of the Camaro, but what if they took him through that parking lot?" Chin pointed with his light to the adjacent lot, another behemoth that was the same size or bigger than the rink's. "KIHA keeps the vegetation cut back as a fire break, so it's harder to pick up a trail. They don't. Might be easier."
"Start checking it out. I'll let Kono know. I want her to stay with Danny and coordinate with EMTs once we find him." Steve's long strides ate up the blacktop back to Kono. She startled when he placed his hand on her shoulder to get her attention. The liquid brown eyes, that turned to face him, forced him to swallow several times before he could get the words out.
"Anything?"
"No." Her voice cracked on the single syllable.
"Keep on it. Keep trying. We're …"
"Steve!"
Chin's shout whipped Steve around. The Hawaiian was studying the ground in front of the adjacent parking lot, waving him over at the same time. There was just enough light from the floods to still see him. Steve spun back to Kono, pointing at her as he began backpedaling.
"Stay with him. Let him know we're on our way."
She nodded, her eyes welling as her hand went back to covering the ear not pressed against the phone. Steve turned and sprinted back towards Chin, skidding to a halt, almost barreling into the man when his teammate unexpectedly stood and began to disappear into the eight to ten foot mature field of abandoned sugar cane.
"What …"
"Come on. I think I've got him. Look …" Blood had been smeared sporadically along the broken cane stalks and crumpled tassels that created a narrow path they could enter. "Someone pushed through here."
"Go! Go, go, go." Steve patted his teammate on the shoulder, almost shoving him forward in his haste.
"Danny!" Every few minutes Steve called out as they weaved through the maze of abandoned ground, knowing damn well he wouldn't get an answer, but not able to stop himself. By now, the flood lights were no longer useful. They were already too far into the field, several minutes from the parking lot. "Danny!" This time it was Kono's ring tone on Chin's phone that cut through the silence.
"Kono?"
"I can hear Steve. Through the open line with Danny, Chin. I can hear him."
Chin spun around to face Steve.
"Keep calling out. Kono says she can hear you. We're getting closer."
His teammate turned back around and picked up the pace, Steve's holler becoming more frantic. More minutes passed until their eyes fell upon the bloodied, crumpled heap of his partner, tucked underneath the shimmer of silvery tassels.
"Jesus. Danny," Chin whispered, the first to see him.
The Hawaiian stood stock still, the beam of his flashlight wavering before Steve pushed past him, turning Chin sideways. The SEAL was down on his knees, sugar cane stalks rolling under his hands as he pressed his chest onto the ground, his head turned slightly towards his friend. His fingertips gently traced Danny's cheek while he gathered the courage to check his friend's carotid for the strength of his pulse. There was no mistaking the slow, rattled breathing that he'd heard for what seemed like eternity. Their detective, thank God, was still fighting.
"Danno. Hey, we're here." Steve pushed up to his knees, looking around his partner's body until he found what he'd been searching for. His friend's phone. He picked it up, reaching out towards Chin to hand it to him, not taking his eyes off Danny. "Have Kono get EMS started this way. Make sure they know the distance in here and the limited space to work in. I want them hoofing it." Once the phone disappeared from his hand, he was all Danny's.
It was the brutality etched across his partner's face that brought Steve's feelings of retribution hotly to the surface, made him want to retch, or scream, or punch something … no, someone. Maybe kill them. Danny's eyelids were swollen shut and already blackening. His nose was split across the top and looked displaced, likely fractured. Blood was smeared across his cheek, spattered throughout his tangled hair, and from what Steve could tell, had dripped down his neck until the collar and chest of his white t-shirt was soaked and clotted with it. With all the streaks and smudges marring his partner's features, or at least what he could see of them, it was hard for Steve to differentiate all the damage done. But he'd seen enough, heard enough, to know that Danny had taken a beating. When Steve went to rest a palm onto his partner's back, he felt a rib shift from the pressure.
"Sorry. God, sorry, buddy." Steve's hand hovered then, his chin resting against his chest, his gaze locked on his fingers, because he was afraid to touch his friend, anywhere. "Just hang on a bit longer, Danny. Help's coming …" More apologies and reassurances fell upon the dried and decimated tassels littering the ground. He knew the only moisture that had leaked into the abandoned field from that night had come from his partner. And he raged inside because of it.
Lost in his own thoughts, he'd been unaware that the drone of Chin's voice had finally stopped. The stalks beneath Steve's knees shifted when his teammate dropped down on the other side of him.
"What the hell did he do to him?" Chin reached out to touch Danny's fingers. "Steve, he's freezing."
The SEAL growled in self-castigation, ripping off his outer shirt. He'd been so caught up in his own emotions that he wasn't paying attention to what his partner needed. The measly cotton button down was all he had to keep Danny warm, though. Their sole focus had been on finding him, so they hadn't brought any medical supplies with them. It would take the EMTs longer to get in, too—having to hump their equipment—so his friend couldn't afford them to botch his basic care. Especially something as simple as keeping him warm.
"Come on, McGarrett, pull it together."
Another second of making sure his long sleeved shirt was covering as much of his partner as possible and Steve carefully trailed his hands down his friend's torso, only pulling his fingers away when he got to Danny's knee and then ankle.
"Busted?" Chin had been watching him.
"Ankle's either busted or dislocated. I don't know about his knee. Couple ribs broken, his nose …"
"Steve, Danny did not look this bad after his game this evening."
The SEAL frowned as he looked up, moving a hand to rest gently on Danny's shoulder, about the only place that seemed safe to touch. Without knowing it, Steve's thumb began rubbing back and forth across the shirt when he hesitated, trying to wrap his brain around the brief conversations he'd had with Chin since Danny had called him.
"He didn't look this bad … What game, Chin? Danny doesn't play …" Steve shook his head. "Wait, wait, wait. Chin, he? You know who did this?" Steve's hand clenched onto his partner's bloody tee, an automatic reaction when he zeroed in on what was most important, even if all the conversations hadn't clicked into place yet.
Chin raised his hands, palms facing Steve as he shook his head 'no'.
"I didn't say that. Look, all I know for sure is that one of the players of the other team was going after Danny pretty hard tonight. More so than usual. And when Kono and I left, all Danny had was a bloody nose and a cut across the bridge of it. That's it. He hadn't been worked over like this. We never would have left him if he had."
"You left him …"
"Steve …"
"Wait." Steve held up a hand to stop his friend. He had to take a minute to gather his thoughts. "This is the first that I've heard about Danny playing hockey. And now you're saying that you and Kono watched him play, that he'd been injured, and then he got … what? Jumped after he left?" Steve shook his head again, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose with his free hand, letting out a breath. "Look, I was out of line, Chin. This isn't your or Kono's fault. Just … I didn't know Danny was playing hockey."
"He was planning on telling you. He wanted to get a couple of games under his belt …"
Steve waved him off. "It doesn't matter." Chin frowned at him, but he kept going. "That's not what's important right now. You think it's the same guy from the game?"
"It's a place to start."
"Okay." Steve slid his fingers underneath the palm of Danny's right hand, lifting it slightly.
"Did you see the bruises on Danny's knuckles here? Looks like he might have thrown a punch. Was there a fight during the game?"
Chin leaned over Danny's body to look and shook his head before he leaned back.
"No. Those weren't there earlier."
"Alright. When the EMTs get here, let's make sure we protect this hand, see if any of this blood belongs to someone else besides Danny." Still afraid to move his friend while he was holding his own, Steve bent over placing himself inches from Danny's motionless face. He was getting anxious to get his partner out of there. "Chin, call Kono. See how much longer." He didn't bother to look at his teammate, or listen in on the conversation. He knew Chin was on it. Danny meant as much to the cousins as he meant to Steve.
"A few more minutes. No more, Steve."
He nodded, stroking his fingers gently across his partner's forehead to just past his temple.
"Hey, Danny. Hold on just a little bit longer. Helps almost here."
"Steve …"
Chin had hesitated until Steve turned his head to look up at him, though the SEAL never moved away from Danny.
"This is more than just some poor loser looking to make a point. It takes a lot of rage for a beat down like this."
"Yeah, I know …" Steve's hand trailed to the nape of his partner's neck before he lightly squeezed there. A couple more minutes passed with both men lost in thought. Steve broke the silence with a thoughtful chuff.
"Hockey, huh. He any good?" The love of a brother and a knowing pride were wrapped around the words.
"Better than." Chin's lips turned upwards slightly as he placed his hand on Danny's bicep.
"Good, I hope he kicked the other team's ass, then."
~to be continued~