A/N - This chapter is dedicated to PanicButton, my lovely sister with a brain cell undergoing mitosis – clever girl!!
Chapter 4
Through the Window
It was quite a squeeze getting through the window. When Dave was standing on the boxes in the room, he held out his hand to pull Reid in after him.
"These boxes may have been fine for a three year old," Rossi whispered, "but if we don't get down quickly, I think they will collapse!"
The two agents slid down onto the floor as the boxes gradually crushed under their weight. Silently they made their way down a corridor. There were two doors off the end.
They checked out the office first. Through the other door, they watched helplessly as Aaron was dragged to his feet by the hair and cuffed.
"They've beaten him, and it looks like his hand been damaged." whispered Dave. "We can't go in now. They'll kill him."
"We need to get in front of them." Reid said. "Maybe the other door?"
Dave nodded, and silently they went back to the corridor and through the other door. Reid was right. The door opened into a short passage with a small office on either side. The end opened out into a storage alcove between the foyer and the vault. They could hear Aaron try to reason with his captors as they moved towards them.
Aaron came into view. He was badly limping; his face was contorted in pain. They realised that he couldn't see, as he knocked into things as he walked unsteadily forwards. The front of his clothes was blood soaked, and his face was pouring blood from his nose and between his eyes. He was saying something, but they couldn't hear what. Suddenly one of the men smashed the butt of his gun across Aaron's face, and they heard Aaron gasp in pain, and fall forward onto his knees, coughing and choking and vomiting blood.
For a second, Aaron was not in the line of fire.
"Now!" signalled Dave.
"FBI! Freeze!"
He ducked behind a desk as the UnSubs opened fire.
Dave fired at one of the UnSubs who fell dead with a neat hole in his forehead. Reid saw Aaron drag himself out of the way, as the UnSubs fired back. Rossi ducked behind the desk, Spencer shot from behind a stack of copying paper. A bullet whizzed past his head, and he fired again. One of the UnSubs fired just as Reid took aim. The bullet embedded in his shoulder joint, and his grip on his gun loosened. He fell backwards into a rack containing brochures, pulling it down on top of him with a crash. Papers and pieces of metal clattered around him.
He laid very still, blood pumping out of the wound. He was breathing heavily.
"Reid!" Dave yelled. "Reid!"
Reid concentrated. He moved his left hand onto the pumping artery.
"Gonna...bleed out..." he gasped, trying to staunch the flow. "Artery..."
Rossi made a dash through the open space between their two hiding places, gun firing as he ran.
In the hail of bullets, one hit Dave in the side. He fell without a sound and didn't move.
Suddenly it was very quiet. Reid was sure that the sound of his blood being pumped out of his shoulder onto the floor could be heard. In his own ears, the thud of his heart and the spurting of the rich red blood followed a loud rhythm. He pressed down with his hand, trying to push his fingers into the hole. The thick scarlet liquid ran around his fingers.
He looked over to Dave. He was lying prone, his arms above his head. He was not holding his gun. There was a growing pool of blood at his side. His head was on one side; Reid could see that his eyes were closed.
So much for the rescue mission, Aaron. It's up to you now...
Reid heard the sound of something being dragged, then a voice.
"So is that the best you Feds can come up with?" and the sound of laughter.
"Please..." Aaron's voice. Broken by coughing.
"Shut up unless you want another whack on the face."
"The bastards have killed Tone!" Another voice.
"This one will pay for that mistake!" the first man said, a voice filled with malice.
He pushed Aaron who stumbled forward through the door into the vault room.
-0-0-0-
Spencer would have liked to lie there and slowly fall asleep. The blood loss was confusing his thoughts. He forced himself to move.
He let go of his shoulder for a second and pushed the shelving and papers off him. Pressing on the wound again, he crawled to Dave.
He still hadn't moved. The shot had hit below his bottom rib at waist level on his right side.
"Dave!" Reid felt for a pulse in Dave's neck, but his hand was shaking and losing feeling. He couldn't use his left hand; if he let go of the wound again, he knew he would die.
As carefully as he could, he rolled Dave onto his back. There was a large exit wound just above his navel.
Oh god no!
Spencer felt his chest. There was a weak rise and fall. He was alive at least.
"Dave, if you can hear me, please respond to me."
Rossi made a valiant attempt to open his eyes, but he couldn't. He groaned softly and lifted his hand to Spencer.
"Won't ...make it ...help...Aaron..." he gasped faintly.
"You're going to make it!" Reid said, tears in his eyes. He pulled off his blood soaked jacket and pressed it into the gaping hole in Dave's abdomen. "Just stay with me, Dave."
"Help...Ho...tch...ahhh..."
It was one of the few times in Reid's life that he really had no idea what to do. He attempted to straighten his thoughts.
Dave was likely going to die if he stayed or not.
Aaron still had a chance.
He looked down at Dave. He had got to know him well during the time of Aaron's recent recovery. They had grown close. He couldn't leave him. But he had to.
Gently, Spencer touched Rossi's face. Dave managed to open his eyes a little.
"I'll get Aaron, and come back for you."
Dave inclined his head in approval, and closed his eyes again.
Spencer stood up, using the stack of paper as leverage. He had to let go of his shoulder to do it, and arterial spray shot across the room again, over Dave's body. He looked around for something to tie around his shoulder. There was an overall hanging on a hook by the door. He leaned on the desk Dave had been crouching behind and pulled it down towards him. It was easy to rip, standing on a sleeve, and holding it in his teeth, he tore it up.
He was light headed now. He sat on the floor and glanced around trying to calculate how much blood he had lost. He knew it always looked more than it was, but he estimated about three pints.
"No wonder I feel dizzy..." he mumbled to himself, as he pushed a piece of the overall into the wound to staunch the blood flow. He tied a piece of it around his shoulder. It wasn't easy using one hand, but what was lost on neatness was made up for in efficiency. With a final glance over to Dave, Spencer made his way to the door that the remaining two UnSubs had gone through with Aaron.
Reid's head was spinning. He leaned against the wall in the dark corridor and fought to get his breath back. He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his good hand. His right hand hung uselessly at his side.
Come on, Spence. Move or you'll lose both of them. The two men who mean more than anything else. Move it or they both die...
He could see Aaron's blood in drops across the floor. At one point there was a pool as if he had fallen and laid there for a while. Spencer felt his stomach turn with fear. There was blood on the wall too. It looked like the imprint of Aaron's face where he had leaned on the wall.
Reid heaved and doubled up. He vomited onto the floor, and a blinding headache shot through his temples.
Low blood pressure, he thought. He didn't have long.
He pulled himself along the wall, wondering what use he would be even if he did catch up with them. The door at the end led into the vault room.
Reid grasped hold of the door frame, and he felt Aaron's blood. He felt his stomach churn again. He closed his eyes and forced the feeling away.
There was a hole in the wall by the vault. Spencer staggered to the hole. There was a lot of blood here too. Had Aaron fallen again?
As he stepped closer, he saw something that made his heart jump.
He turned and attempted to run but it felt as if he was in a dream and he moved in slow motion. He felt the wave of pressure before he heard the explosion and he tried to make it back through the door as the packs of C4 sealed the tunnel.
-0-0-0-
Emily Dickinson wrote, "Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me. The Carriage held but just ourselves and Immortality."
