Warning! Some mature language used in this chapter.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own NCIS: Los Angeles or any of the characters referenced in this story. Their names and likeness are used for fan fiction only.
CHAPTER 8 RECAP: Callen and Sam have raided all of King's and Laura Thompkins' properties in search of Kensi. Meanwhile, Hetty has just informed Deeks about Kensi's abduction. He is not taking the news well.
"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." -Aristotle
The drugs they gave Deeks were a combination of pain pills and a sleep aid. He was supposed to be knocked out not long after he took his meds, but sleep has yet to come. He's been lying on his bed, tossing and turning, and thinking about Kensi the whole time. He has no way of explaining it, but he knows that Kensi is badly hurt. He has been overcome by a deep sense of foreboding ever since he awoke from his coma.
He gingerly gets up from his bed and unhooks himself from all the medical equipment he's attached to. Even with the concoction of highly potent narcotics he just took, he still feels the sharp pain radiating from his chest, shooting through his back with every move. It's bearable, but nonetheless painful. He walks to the bathroom in search for a change of clothes. As he turns the light on, he sees a barely recognizable version of himself in the mirror.
This man looks gaunt, pale grayish white skin, dark circles under his eyes, and a golf ball size bruise on his forehead peeking out of the bandages wrapped around his head. He also has a thin layer of gauze around his forearms, and by closer inspection, it appears the hair on his upper arms have all been singed. He lifts his hospital gown to get a complete view of the full extent of his injuries. He has a large bruise, about the size of a soft ball, on his chest. Just five inches to the left of that bruise is another bandage. Apparently they had to cut him open to insert, then again to take out, the small chest tube used to inflate his collapsed lung. He stood there for a while just staring at himself. How in the world is a butt ass naked grown man, who looks like he just left the set of The Mummy, going to sneak out of this hospital unnoticed—he asks to himself. A knock on the door interrupts his thoughts.
"Sir, is everything okay?" the nurse just outside the bathroom door sounds worried.
"Are you alright in there?" she asks before he could even answer her first question.
"Yes-yes, I'm okay." he calmly answers as he opens the door.
"You really shouldn't be on your feet. And you really shouldn't have unhooked yourself from the machines. These let us know whether you're okay or not." the nurse says as she helps Deeks back to his bed and reattached to the monitors.
"I just wanted to freshen up. Is there any way I can get a fresh change of clothes, preferably something that's less breezy than this one?" he flashes his bra-unhooking smile, hoping that it'll still work despite his haggard state.
The nurse lightly giggled, clearly picking up on his concerns.
"I'll see what I can find." she says before she turns and leaves.
As he settles himself down on his bed, a sudden burst of sharp burning painful sensation on his right thigh knocks him down hard. Then there it was again, foreboding washing over him, making his heart ache. He knows there's nothing wrong with his thigh, but he checks anyway. The pain was gone just as quickly as it appeared. Though the sense of foreboding remains, this time more intense than ever. Something has happened to Kensi, something terrible, he knows it. Ugh, where is that nurse with my change of clothes!
How long has it been since she got here—she asks herself. She's lost count after day two, or was it day three. Damn, she's even lost count of when she lost count. The days have been progressively horrible, but she's now physically too numb to care. Still, she hasn't lost hope that her team will eventually find her. Except now she knows that Deeks is dead. That was probably the worst torture King could ever inflict. She silently sobs at the recollection.
She was dreaming of Deeks that night. They were on the rooftop of his apartment, under the small canopy of twinkling lights, a bottle of Rosè waiting for them. Then all of a sudden, they were on his couch. Her head on his lap, both of them mindlessly watching TV, their hands entwined. She looked up to him and asked, "If it were me, at what point do you stop looking?"
Deeks looks her in the eye and tightens his hold on her hands, "I will never stop until I find you."
That day she woke up determined to escape. There were so many things left unsaid between her and Deeks. If only she could figure out a way to get out these restraints. More than once, she's thought of breaking her feet so she can squeeze them out of the shackles. But the chain around her neck is the problem. She needs to find a way to get King to take this off. King drugs her every time he takes the chains off her. If she can get him to do it without the drugs, she might just get her chance to run.
King arrived with her usual meal delivery of stale bread and water. He wants her to live long enough to be tortured longer, but not strong enough to escape. He even treated her fingers after slicing the pads of it off. The bastard was afraid she'd bleed out, didn't want to cut his playtime short.
"I have a surprise for you when you're done." he says with a wink.
Oh god, she thinks she just vomited inside her mouth. The bile burning the back of her throat confirms it. She's wondering what other diabolical means of hurting her does he have planned for today. She thinks of all the torture thus far, there can't possibly be anything worse than what she's already endured.
As she was finishing up the last of her bread, King walks up behind her, syringe in his hand. She already knows what's coming next. But she doesn't want any more drugs, especially not today. Today she's going to escape. She struggles beneath him, trying but failing to get away from his grasp. He grabs a fistful of her hair and yanks it hard, pinning her head down onto the table. Then he stabs her with the syringe. She was lights out before she knew it.
She slowly fluttered her eyes open, a glowing blue light right in front of her blinding her slightly. Her head is throbbing and her mouth feels unnaturally dry. King must have given me a different drug concoction this time—she says to herself. She noticed her neck feeling lighter, as she reaches up to feel for the collar, it's surprisingly missing. The fact that she was able to reach for her neck with just one hand also surprises her. Her hands are no longer bound together, and so are her feet. She thought, this is it, this is her chance to escape. She quickly gets up off the chair, bad idea. Now the room is spinning and her entire body collapses to the ground, she can't move her legs nor can she feel. A loud guttural laugh reverberates from the dark corner of the room.
"It worked!" King exclaimed. Obviously proud of himself.
"While you were sleeping my dear, I injected your legs with some Vecuronium. Wasn't sure if it was going to work at first, you know coz it might stop your breathing and all, but it did!"
"You're a piece of shit!"
"Ouch! You didn't really think I was setting you free just like that, did you? You're mine Kensi and you're not going anywhere."
"Go to hell!" she spits.
"And to think I brought you a present..."
Now she sees the TV in front of her. Her brows furrow. What now—she wonders. The screen flickers to life and there he was, right in front of her, Deeks.
In the video, Deeks is seen entering a room very carefully, his gun already drawn. His facial expression morphed from cautious to horrored. Whatever it was he was seeing, it was clearly not good. Then he looks around whatever has him mortified, she's not sure what it is exactly, but it appears the camera is attached to it. A few seconds later, she sees him bolting out of the room, then...BOOM...static.
Kensi continues to stare at the now static-filled TV, it's taking her a moment to process what she just saw. It can't be, Deeks can't possibly be dead. He must have survived that explosion. He needs to survive that explosion. When was this. This has to be fake. Yes, this is fake. Jumbled thoughts of Deeks run through her mind like a movie on fast forward. King's voice brings her back to the now.
"Yeah I'm so sorry about your boyfriend. Told you, job has its hazards."
Like a crazed animal, she lunged at him with as much force as she could. With her legs still like jelly, she works with her entire body weight and gravity to knock King off his feet. All the anger has bubbled up to the surface and she's now running on pure adrenaline. Like a savage, she punches King in the face over and over, she tries to gouge out his eyes, reopening the wounds on her fingers. Her bandages now soaked in crimson.
King was clearly caught off guard. He didn't realize that Kensi even had any strength left to react so violently. Even after all the torture, all the drugs, this woman still had a lot of fight left in her. He manages to push her off of him. He grabs the gun he has tucked in an ankle holster, thankful that she didn't get to it first. Then he shoots her.
Kensi sees the gun aimed at her. The loud sound it made when King fired it echoed throughout the room. She immediately checked her torso and her arms to see if she was hit. No pain, no blood, he must have missed—she thinks to herself. But the smug look on King's face tells her otherwise. So she looks down to where King's eyes have landed, and there it was, just under her right thigh, is a small pool of her own blood.
"You try that stunt again and I will blow your fucking face off you little bitch!"
"Mr Hannah, it is coming out of your paycheck if you break this." Hetty says as her face suddenly pops up on the Nexorcis' monitor.
"I need you and Mr Callen up in Ops, immediately. There is something you both ought to see."
The raids on all of the possible places where Kensi could be were all busts. They've gone back to the Sun building four times, looking for any evidence that might have been missed or any possible lead, that too was unfruitful. Both Sam and Callen are beyond angry and frustrated. Sam is taking out his rage on anything his fist lands on. And Callen is taking it out on himself.
They still haven't visited Deeks at the hospital. They don't know what to say to him. Sam said that if it were him and G, he would probably choke out Deeks and Kensi, thinking they weren't trying hard enough. But they are, they just don't have much to go on at this point.
"What you got?" Sam asks eagerly.
Eric whirs away at his keyboard and displays several images on the big screen.
"I think we know where Kensi is." says Eric.
"Nell actually found them. When our initial search of just the U.S. came up empty, she decided to search internationally just in case." Eric continues as he looks at Nell with pure pride.
"Meet Karen Auster and Ervin Auster. Married in Canada a year ago. There's no paper trail besides these Canadian passports, their marriage certificate, and a deed of sale. Which made them that much harder to track, fake names, fake IDs, they even wore disguises in their passport photos." Nell explained.
"But it's them. Facial rec confirms it. It looks like they have a cabin deep in the Grotto Mountain, in Alberta. The deed of sale is dated around the same time they got married. Satellite images show that a truck has been in and out of that location in the past few days." Eric says as he points out to the map on the screen.
"The Red Team is already en route. Ms. Jones will send you the location of the rendezvous point. You two, wheels up in five." Hetty adjourns their meeting. Much time have been wasted, she wants to get this show on the road.
to be continued...
Hi everyone! Sorry this update came a few days later than normal. I'll be posting my next update by Wednesday (03/27/13). Follow me on Twitter via pinaycana to get snippets of upcoming chapters. Or if you just want to tweet me your thoughts, that's fine too.
Hope you all like this chapter. Please review when you can.
