A/N: okay guys, here you go! I hope you like it, please let me know what you think, I'm always open to suggestions, or criticisms, or people who just want to say hey. Thanks for reading my darlings,
Solomynne.
Disclaimer: I told you, they're not mine, so let's all just move on, shall we?
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We could be heroes.
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"Fools."
My heart stopped.
The door to the room remained closed, Grissom and I poised behind it with our make-shift weapons, and yet Devlin's disembodied voice sliced through the tense silence as though he were right beside us, making my blood freeze in my veins. I jumped at the sound of his voice so close and whirled around to look behind me, but there was no one there.
"Where…" I began, taking a step towards the middle of the room.
"Sara don't, stay close to me," breathed Grissom, his eyes flicking to the ceiling. I looked up as well, thinking that perhaps Devlin had some kind of venting system that allowed him to travel from room to room without letting his captives know. I stared at the ceiling, heart pounding, waiting for his decent, but nothing happened.
"He's toying with us…" I whispered, backing up against the wall. Suddenly I felt movement behind me, the wall I leaned on swinging inward. I fell backwards, too surprised to even cry out as I landed on my back, staring up into a pit of darkness. I felt a hand on my mouth as I was speedily dragged farther inside the wall, regaining my composure enough to struggle and thrash against Devlin while he wrenched me by the waist and tried to close the hidden door behind us. Just as the door was almost closed I saw Grissom spin around, his face twisted in rage at the sudden realization that I was being pulled out of sight. He ran towards us, shouting my name as I fought tooth and nail against Devlin. I hooked my foot on the door frame and stopped him from dragging me any further, his grip slipping at the sudden halt. Using that to my advantage, I elbowed him in the ribs and wrenched free of his grasp, flying forwards and flinging the door open. I instantly felt Grissom's strong grip on my wrist, pulling me back out into the room. I looked up at him in relief at my narrow escape, but the look on his face told me it wasn't over. The cold steel being pushed into my temple only confirmed that.
I felt an arm snake around my waist and pull me a few steps backwards, forcing Grissom to release his grip on me.
"I'm sick of this cat-and-mouse routine, you two," Devlin hissed in my ear, his breath hot and fetid. "It was fun at first, but now I'm cutting to the chase. Grishom, your girlfriend's coming with me. If you have a problem with that, I could always just shoot her right now, in front of you."
Grissom's face was full of a raw, desperate fury, the "I'm-so-mad-I-can't-even-speak" kind of anger. And here I thought I was the only one that could make him that mad. Devlin saw the rage coursing through Grissom's veins, and fed off of it like a parasite. "Yes, you'd like that wouldn't you Sara, my darling?" he crooned in my ear, stroking my hair with the butt of his gun. "Wouldn't you much rather die now, with your lover, than all alone? Hmm?"
I ignored him, staring straight into Grissom's eyes, letting the cool blue calm me. "I really think it would be best," he continued, "After all, it's a clean death now, or a very long, very messy death later, my love. Wouldn't you rather just cut your losses?"
I continued to look only at Grissom.
"Speak up now, dearest," he said through gritted teeth, obviously annoyed that I wasn't participating in his little drama.
After a moment, I heard myself speak, surprised at the calm in my voice. "Yes," I whispered, watching Grissom's eyes widen in horror, "I want to cut my losses." I heard Devlin start to giggle maniacally, triumphantly. "So," I continued, cutting his laughter off, "if you wouldn't mind letting me go, I'll get out of here. Because, dearest, the only thing around here I need to lose, is you." The broken look that had washed over Grissom's face changed slowly into a little, secret smile. He said nothing, but I knew exactly what he was thinking. "That's my girl; I knew you wouldn't give up on me."
Devlin's voice dropped to a dangerous, predatory whisper, "Bad move, little girl, bad move."
He started backing me towards the hidden door again, every lurching step taking me a little further away from Grissom, and with that, a little further away from freedom. "Say goodbye Grishom," Devlin hissed, "the next time you see her, she'll be on a slab."
Grissom took a step forward, "I'll see you before that happens Sara, I promise." The love and determination in his eyes made me believe him.
"Don't make promises you can't keep," Devlin retorted," even if you get out of the room, you're in the middle of Goddamn nowhere, by the time you reach anyone, we'll be long, long gone, amigo."
At that point a question fleetingly crossed my mind, "Why is he letting Grissom live?" Of course the last thing I was going to do was voice the question, but it still made me wonder. With those last words, he closed the distance between us and the wall, pulling me back inside, and kicked the door shut with his foot. Just as it closed, I heard Grissom yell something. It sounded like "I love you" but the slamming of the door drowned it out.
So I can't be sure.
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We had been driving for hours.
The eerie orange glow of the streetlights along the lonely back road cast Devlin's face into sharp, frightening shadows. Big hollows appeared under his eyes and along his cheekbones, and then his whole face would get swallowed into darkness as the streetlight passed, only to be re-illuminated with the next one.
I sighed and leaned my head on the passenger window, the handcuff that bound me to my seat rattling as I readjusted my position.
"Quit fidgeting!" Devlin snapped, "That clanking is driving me nuts."
"I think it's safe to say you're already nuts," I muttered.
"What was that?" he asked suspiciously.
"I said you could release me and then you wouldn't have to hear any clanking anymore," I recovered.
"Nice try."
"Worth a shot."
I glared at the dim outline of Devlin's profile, and then turned my attention to the starry horizon stretching before us. I stared at it in awe, and it made me think of sitting with Grissom at Jennifer Kostuik's crime scene. The thought of him sent pangs of sorrow and longing through my chest; I was worried about him all alone in that awful house with the smiling cartoon walls. I hoped that he could figure out the lock situation like I had. But then, this was Grissom I was thinking of, he can figure anything out.
Allowing that to comfort me, I settled myself in my seat, making sure the handcuff didn't clank again. It seemed like it had been forever since I last slept, the gentle hum of the tires on the road, and the soft up-and-down of the car rocking me to sleep. I was about to drift off when Devlin's voice snapped me awake again. "You want to listen to the radio?"
I looked out the window at the passing trees, looking like guards standing at attention in the dark of night. "Sure," I answered quietly. It's surprising how civil we could be with each other, considering. Still, it wasn't about to turn into a case of Stockholm syndrome, I still very much despised him.
He flipped on the radio and a Patty Griffin song came on, my heart lifting a little. It always surprises me how much hope a good song can instill in you, and Patty is one of my favorites. Her soothing, smoky voice wavered in the silence, wrapping around my soul. I stared out the window and relished in the few moments of peace the song gave me, trying hard to keep Devlin from noticing how much I was enjoying it. He seemed to delight in taking away the things that make me happy.
I knew I should be watching the road, keeping a careful note of which way we turned and what roads we were on, but my eyelids seemed so heavy. I pinched myself and forced my eyes to stay on my surroundings, but in the dark it all looked the same. We had been driving the same stretch of road for what seemed like forever; a wire and wooden fence lining either side of it, with power lines routinely placed in front, and trees sporadically scattered beyond.
The evenly spaced white lines of the road began to hypnotize me, each one just the same as the last. I felt my chin drop, my head coming to rest on the windowsill, and just as I was about to drift off a very morbid thought crossed my mind. I had wondered when he first shoved me into the car at gunpoint why Devlin was allowing me to ride in the front seat, unbound and completely conscious, and then the answer hit me: He doesn't care whether I see where we're going, because he doesn't think I'll be living long enough for it to matter.
Suddenly I wasn't tired anymore.
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"Get out."
"What?"
"You heard me."
We were at a gas station just off the I-95 in the middle of the Mojave. At least that's where I guessed we were, but I did eventually end up falling asleep, giving in to the demands of my exhausted body, so we really could have been anywhere. The thing about deserts is that they look the same wherever you are; there's no telling one part from the next.
The gas station looked like it got maybe one customer a day. There was an old man in overalls sitting out front in a wooden chair beside a battered screen door, a crackling radio blasting. Wearing a cowboy hat and a stained t-shirt that I can only guess might have at one point been white; he looked like he had walked straight out of a cliché.
I stepped out of the car, my legs feeling weak from misuse, and my bladder feeling like it was ready to burst. Devlin came up stealthily behind me and pressed the revolver into my back. "Don't even think about saying a word to anyone right now, you got that? As of this moment, you don't speak English, understand?" I nodded, my heart pounding as my brain raced with all the possible escape routes. The thing was, even if I did get away from Devlin somehow, I had nowhere to go. I was in the middle of the desert with no car and no phone.
Somehow, it just didn't seem like the odds were in my favor on this one.
Wait…no phone? A memory flashed into my mind; in slow motion as though I were watching a movie: just after I hung up on Palmer, I remembered hearing a thump, and as I left to investigate, I had slipped my phone into my back pocket. My palms began to sweat as a wave of hope rushed over me. No, it couldn't possibly still be there; Devlin would have seen it, right?
I casually slid a hand across my backside, making as if I was brushing something off. A solid, hard object brushed against my fingers and my heart soared.
I still had it.
Thank God for technology; my new phone was so thin and sleek even I hadn't noticed it in my back pocket. We walked up to the old man who stared at us silently without standing. "Afternoon," said Devlin, instantly transforming before my eyes to the harmless dunderhead that I had once known him to be. It was like he had just thrown on a mask that changed every aspect of his features until they were smooth and innocent; completely unremarkable in every way. Which was, in and of itself; remarkable. I had to hand it to him; he was one Hell of an actor.
"Afternoon," the old man rasped back. It sounded like he had been smoking since he was six years old, his voice gravelly and hoarse.
"My lady and I are on our way to Seattle," Devlin beamed, putting his arm around me. Seattle? I thought. Chances were that if he felt confident enough of the fact that I was going to die within the next couple of days; he was telling the truth. He tightened his grip on my shoulders and I stiffened, repulsed by his touch. I remained silent; I wasn't supposed to be speaking any English, and I didn't trust my Spanish enough at the moment. The man looked to me as if for some sort of conformation, and still I said nothing, so Devlin leaned on my foot, hard, and I began to nod enthusiastically, grinning like an idiot.
"Would you mind filling 'er up while we use the facilities kind sir?" he added.
The old man nodded brusquely and stood so slowly I thought I heard his bones creaking. Devlin escorted me inside the dusty convenience store and shoved me towards the women's washroom. "You have sixty seconds." I glared at him and brushed past, shutting the door behind me and flipping the rusted lock into place. A small, dingy window cast filtered sunlight onto the years of grime that layered everything as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and unzipped my pants to use the toilet. I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone.
Flipping the phone open, I saw that being in the middle of the desert isn't exactly ideal conditions for making a phone call. Go figure.
"Damn, no signal," I muttered. But, there's always text messaging. You don't need to be within range to send a text message; your phone will save the message and send it when you get a signal, provided it isn't turned off. Realizing I had maybe thirty seconds left, I typed in HES TAKING ME TO SEATTLE and sent it to Grissom, Brass, Catherine, Nick, Greg, and Warrick, and prayed that that's we were really going.
I flipped my phone shut and went to put in back in my pocket when I noticed an engraving on the back. Squinting, I made out the letters GPS. My eyes widened.
I had forgotten that all the new phones have GPS technology in them. Grateful tears springing to my eyes, I popped the back out and took out the GPS chip. I didn't want to run the risk of Devlin finding the phone and tossing it. I stuffed the chip in my sock and put the phone away, praying the battery would last long enough to send the message.
I zipped my pants back up and washed my hands, taking the tip of my wet finger and writing in the dirt on the wall. I drew a heart with G + S in the middle, a small breadcrumb for my teammates to work with. I figured by the look of the washroom that it didn't get cleaned often –or ever for that matter – so the chances of the attendant washing off my message were slim to none. But the chances that Devlin would come in here and make sure that I hadn't been writing any SOS letters in lipstick on the mirror were pretty good, so I hoped that this would be subtle enough that he wouldn't take any notice of it.
Grissom on the other hand would figure it out, I knew he would. It was just a matter of assuming that he would somehow realize that this is the direction we were going to be driving in, and that this is the gas station we would be stopping at. That's a lot of assuming, but at the time, it was all I had to cling to.
I opened the door and Devlin was right there, standing inches away from my face. I gasped in surprise and took a step backwards; he grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me up close to him, our noses practically touching. "That was seventy-nine seconds," he growled. "I'll let it slide this time."
"How generous of you," I hissed, staring straight into his eyes.
He yanked me out of the bathroom by the wrist and pushed me into the wall facing the bathroom door. "Back against the wall," he commanded. I obeyed as I saw a glint of gunmetal coming out the edge of his coat pocket. He waited to make sure I wouldn't bolt and then poked his head into the bathroom, taking a careful look around to make sure I hadn't left anything behind that I shouldn't have. I held my breath as his eyes lingered over the spot where I had left my message to Grissom, but he passed over it after a moment and turned around to face me. "Let's go."
He bought a couple of sandwiches and paid for the gas. The attendant, face streaked with grease and dirt, barely glanced up at us. It took all my strength not to burst out and grab him by the coveralls, shouting "Help! Please, help me, I'm being held against my will! This man is a murderer!" Or something along those lines, but I knew all that would get me was a bullet to the brain and possibly a matching one for the attendant.
Devlin turned to leave and I lagged slowly behind, glancing over my shoulder wistfully at the oil-caked elderly man; wishing he could have helped me. Devlin grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me along, waiting for me to strap in before he walked around the car and got in himself.
The old man returned to his seat on the porch and kept his eyes trained on me as I sat miserably in the front seat, waiting for Devlin to start the car. Just before we pulled away he nodded at me once, smartly, and raised a grubby hand to wave to me.
I bit back a sob, feeling as though this was some kind of last goodbye, and raised my hand to bend my fingers, once, before we drove out of sight.
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Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.
We had been driving for what seemed like forever.
I stared at the endless, sun-bleached road before me and it looked about as barren and bleak as my future. My phone had died hours earlier, letting out one final chirp of warning before it shut off. It had been a quiet, technological warble, but not quiet enough to escape Devlin's notice. It earned me a busted lip and a black eye, the shattered pieces of my phone skittering across the highway and under the tires of the semi-truck roaring along behind us.
Now, surrounded by cars and people on all sides, I had never felt more helpless or alone. If just one of the people in the cars merely three feet away from me could have known what was happening, or if I could have somehow signaled to them and let them know what was going on…instead I was forced to watch as hundreds of people who could have potentially saved me drove past without a second thought.
I crossed my arms, running my tongue across the thin cut on my lower lip. I caught a glimpse of myself in the side view mirror, and barely recognized who I was. My already pale skin looked practically transparent, the dark red of the dried blood standing out stark against my face. The bruising under my eye was minimal, a dark purple half moon resting just beneath it, and there was no swelling at all. I stared at my reflection and tried to remember who it was I reminded myself of, and then I realized whose likeness I was thinking of, and it felt as though the world had come crashing down around my shoulders.
I looked like my mother.
I looked like my mother used to look after my father had taken a strip off of her, bruised and humiliated, and broken.
Feeling as though I might throw up, I tore my eyes away from the mirror and forced myself to stare out the window and not at my broken features. A large sign that said "Seattle, 10 miles" flew past, and I felt that faint bit of hope well up inside me again; at least they would know where to start looking for me.
I did the calculations in my head. Even though all the cities and gas-stations and stretches of highway had managed to blur into one in my mind, the one fact I held onto was that Devlin had not yet slept, which meant we couldn't have been driving more than two days, if that. That would put Devlin's "house" at about a day and a half's drive from Vegas. I sank down in my seat a little. At almost four days of driving, any hope of a rescue seemed a long way off, and that was assuming that someone had received my message before my phone was destroyed.
I just prayed I had that long left.
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"I grew up here, you know," Devlin shared quietly as we took a sharp turn.
I snorted, amused by the fact that he thought I cared anything about knowing who he was or where he was from, but other than that kept my thoughts to myself.
It really is the Emerald City, I marveled as we continued to wind through the busy streets of Seattle. It was so green and lush, a striking contrast to the monochromatic dead-brown color of life in Nevada. This time Devlin actually had made me crouch down in front of my seat, so the top of my head was just under the passenger side window, rendering me invisible to passers-by. I had protested to sitting on the floor at first, informing Devlin I wasn't his pet German Shepard, but surprisingly all that got me was a smack upside the head and a death threat. I figured Grissom wouldn't have been too impressed if he somehow managed to find me only to discover that I had been killed because of my inability to keep my damn mouth shut, so I decided to play the role of the strong silent type from then on.
I wondered why it mattered now whether or not I sat in plain view, guessing that he either didn't want to get recognized by someone he knew and end up being seen with me, or he just didn't want me to know the exact location of where we were going. The back of my head smacked into the glove compartment as he took a hard brake, making me wince and grit my teeth. "Almost there," he said by way of an apology, and sure enough a few minutes later the car stopped.
He pulled me back into my seat as he gathered together a few things from the car, giving me time to take in my surroundings. We were in some back alley in what looked like a shady area of town that gave off an industrial, nostalgic feeling. The brown stone buildings surrounding us on both sides looked mistreated and abandoned, and the sky that hung above us was a mournful grey, with darker clouds in the distance threatening rain.
Drooping, melancholy power lines hung limply above our heads like a sort of inverted, somber rainbow, and the smell of fresh rain and fried foods hung in the air. "Home sweet home," I muttered, eyeing the broken down building beside us.
"Not for long, my sweet," Devlin added ruefully, looking at me the same way I imagined I had looked at my old dog Atticus when I decided it was time for him to be put down.
I shivered at this, and said bravely, "Can I ask you something?"
"Anything."
"If you care about me as much as you say you do, why hurt me? Why kill me?"
He stared at the grey sky above us, the clean, white light that only clouded weather can provide making his face seem clean, real; human. "That is a good question," he answered at last. "The thing is, I just don't know the reason for sure. I had a good childhood, loving parents, no traumatic events to speak of, and yet…" he trailed off, "and yet I am capable of such evil. I get pleasure out of such heinous crimes, and the closest thing I know to love is when I see the light in my victims' eyes go out for the last time. I have thought about your question time and again my whole life over, Sara, and the only answer I have been able to come up with is this," he turned to me and smiled with an apologetic, innocent shrug, "some people are just born bad."
I went over all the possible responses he could have provided to my question, and concluded that this answer was by far the worst, and most soul-chilling that he could have given. I sent a silent prayer to Grissom to hurry the Hell up and find me already, and the look on my face must have given me away.
"You have such determination in your eyes," he mused, "I suppose you think your Mr. Grishom will rescue you, is that it?"
"Something like that," I answered calmly.
He laughed, low and mocking, and said nothing.
"What, you think that's funny?" I asked defensively.
"Oh, little girl, can you really be so naïve? I would think in your line of work you would know better." He glanced at me briefly before looking back out the front window. "I rigged every single one of those doors, excluding the one we left through, which I doubt he'll ever find, to decapitate anyone who tries to open them." He shook his head. "I didn't kill him in front of you because the idea that he might save you was the only thing that was keeping you compliant. Think about it Sara, would you really have been so accommodating if you knew the one thing you were depending on to save you was gone?"
I felt as though the sky was falling. As though up was down, and black was white, and everything I ever knew or ever thought I knew was wrong or never even existed in the first place. It was like dying, or what I thought it might be like to die.
He watched me as all of this went through my mind, and I could tell that he was drinking in every moment of it. The look in his eyes was one of ecstasy; near-orgasmic pleasure. I watched him entertaining himself as my world fell apart, and realized that he really did live for this.
It wasn't the killing, or the torture, or the rape; it was the product of those things, that one moment when he realized that he'd taken a strong, good person, and broken them beyond repair. But the joke was on him. I knew in that instant that Grissom was alive. If he wasn't I still wouldn't have this feeling deep inside of me, the only thing that Devlin really wanted from me, but also the one thing I was clinging to the hardest:
Hope.
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Thanks again, and don't worry I won't be dragging this out much longer :)
