A/N: Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews! I enjoy each and every one, even if working a cattle ranch and grain farm means I don't have as much time to individually answer them all. This chapter centers around Ayden, but Steve is a wreck and Danny is ...well ...

CHAPTER 9

Friday, 6pm – Harris Ranch pasture, calf shed. Mau'i

Chin realized his faux pas as soon as he registered the devastated look of horror on his friend's face, while silently kicking himself. Kono reached out to steady her boss with a hand on his forearm. "We found it on the ground in the corner, Steve," Kono quietly spoke into Steve's ear.

Wetting his suddenly parched lips, Steve mentally steeled himself to reach for the cattle prod. Taking it from Chin he forced his hand to only slightly tremble as he looked over the single most feared artifact of his regular nightmares. Wo Fat swam before his eyes. The memory of electric pain shooting across his chest, down his arms and legs, and the sizzling sound, and smell, of his own flesh burning ….

No! He didn't have time for this. This was not about him. This was about Danny! Suddenly, he knew why the bull had been so enraged as to run out of the shed and viciously attack the first object in its path – but it shouldn't have been Danny. In his unusually happy mood, Danny had taken point and waltzed, unsuspecting, right into an ambush. Pure and simply, he was heartbreakingly sure Danny was not the intended target – he was.

Never meeting his teammates' eyes, but with disgust and anguish dripping from his voice, Steve announced his opinion of what had happened in the barn, "Someone, probably our cowboy, was hiding here, waiting for us to arrive. When Danny went into the barn, he zapped the bull with a full charge on the cattle prod, fully expecting the beast to rage and trample whoever was in its way. This…this was no accident."

Steve could feel the trickle of tears starting down his cheeks, while a ragged sigh was audibly apparent. He couldn't… he just couldn't let his friends see his sorrow now. He needed to stay strong, get the job done and bring his brother to safety. Spinning around on his heels, Steve stormed back out into the gathering darkness. There had to be a clue somewhere to guide him to his injured partner.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++H50H50H50H50++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"SON OF A BITCH!"

Excruciating, mind-blowing misery emanating from every aspect of his being, forced Danny to awaken with a scream, followed by a wracking shudder of an exhaled cough. Arching his back involuntarily, he tried his best to crawl out of his skin. He was on fire, and there was no help for it. "Oh,God! Please! I can't …breathe!" Danny was overwhelmed with the pain. Never had he experienced anything like this. Not when he'd been buried alive, and ended up with a tie rod embedded in his side, not when Amber's ex had attacked him with a knife and given him a matching scar to the one from the rebar, and certainly not when he'd been shot.

A pair of hands roughly held Danny down so that he couldn't hurt himself any worse that he was. He felt his face being wiped with a cloth, and a voice close by telling him to be quiet.

"Steve?" Danny tried to open his eyes, but his lids were just too heavy. He didn't think the voice was Steve, though, so who was with him? Suddenly the fire in his body turned to ice, and he was unbelievably cold! He was too tired, and he hurt just too much, to care who was tending to him. He drifted off again into oblivion as another wave of pain erupted in his side.

"You have to slow down! Every bump you barrel over is closer to killing him!" Ayden screamed at Diego, who was sparing no change in his flight to get to the hunting cabin, tucked away a couple miles across the crater from the pasture they had vacated.

Paolo leaned over the seat to evaluate the injured man. "Maybe better now than later, Paniolo! He's gonna be begging to be put out of his misery when the infection catches hold!"

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++H50H50H50H50+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The torturous ride across the deep, hard ruts that marked a trail of sorts into the hunting reserves of the Haleakala Crater ended abruptly with the ATV bouncing into a suddenly revealed clearing. Trees and brush had very recently been cut down, making a 50 foot swatch of open space littered with hacked branches and roots of the native flora. As the ATV skidded to a stop, Ayden found himself peering out of the back end of the vehicle at an old, plywood-sided shack, complete with a corrugated tin door, and a small, single-paned window, set into each of the cabin's sides. It appeared that the south side of the shack was a solid wall backed up against tall brush. The site was an abandoned hunting cabin, built for hunters to sit inside, waiting for wild boar, or axis deer, to wander into range. It looked forgotten - moldy and decayed, and Ayden shivered with thoughts of what Montoya's two henchmen had planned for him and Detective Williams within those walls.

Just as Ayden was pondering his fate, the door scraped open, and two more Latino men appeared in the doorway.

"Everything's set here. Is it a go?" The smaller of the two men, holding a satellite phone in one hand queried, while curiously observing the stricken man in the back of the ATV. Pointing to Danny, he continued, "He alive? Montoya wants an update."

"Everything's just peachy, isn't it, hijo? Diego sneered at Ayden as he extricated himself from the ATV. Pointing to the larger of the new reinforcements, he barked an order, "Get him inside. You," Diego caught the attention of the phone-wielding henchman by pointing his rifle in the man's direction, and emitting a cocky chuckle, "tell the Boss we're just waiting for company. Keep hidden in the brush behind the shack, on the small chance I might need back up."

Ayden helped the nondescript, and silent, goon transfer the still unconscious detective to the interior of the shack, laying him out on the dirty, mildewed mattress placed haphazardly on the floor, with the minimum of jolting. Even with the care taken, it was obvious the man was in dire straits. A low, guttural moan now escaped his lips with almost every labored breath. His frame shivered uncontrollably even though a sheet of sweat covered his face and chest, and fresh blood re-stained the already bloodied tee shirt covering the open wounds.

Ayden was scared. He was sure he'd never seen a person this sick before, and he didn't know what to do to help him. Besides which, Diego seemed to be a hair's breadth away from completely losing his composure. As self-assured as he had appeared to be when they first arrived at the cabin, he was now on edge, angrily pushing the more mellow Paolo around the single room, moving furniture out of the way to open up floor space, turning an old kitchen cupboard sideways to create protection from flying bullets, breaking a hole in each of the windows, and - most upsetting to Ayden - pulling a stash of four semi-automatic rifles out from under the bed. Ayden watched in disbelief as Diego loaded each gun, and set one by each window ledge.

Catching Ayden staring at the hardware, Paolo slapped him hard on the side of the head with the palm of his hand. "Don't think about doing anything brave, Compadre. Diego will riddle your sorry ass faster than you can hop on one foot. Just give him a reason!"

"Why…why are we here? What are you going to do with us?" Ayden choked out. He was shaking so hard now he could hear his teeth chatter in his skull when he tried to talk. His head throbbed where he'd been hit with the shovel. He was sweating, but he felt cold, and he was more afraid than he'd ever been in his young life. He had been completely bowled over by the appearance of two more of Montoya's henchmen, realizing Montoya had never intended to "help" him, only to let him take the fall for killing the Five-0 officers, or if that failed, to do away with him as well.

Paolo shrugged, tossing Ayden a bottle of water, "Don't worry about it. Just fix that guy up, or shut him up! We're gonna be here awhile. Montoya wants us to be sure and finish off the whole Five-0 team."

Turning around in time to see Ayden's stunned expression, Diego smiled a wide, toothy grin, although it did nothing to improve his countenance. His bald head and thick neck were encircled with tattoos, while his ears held large, round, black discs stretching the skin and cartilage of the lobes. He wheezed out a smoker's cough along with biting sarcasm, "Yeah, that's the plan, hijo! We set up a trap! Make it look like one of them has an "accidental" encounter with a bull - didn't matter which one, either one would do - then the other has to go back to get help – as well as the rest of his team – leading them here to our little surprise. We should have left enough crumbs for Hansel and Gretel to find their way here; then the fireworks start and the Governor's very special task force is finished!" Hefting one of the loaded rifles, Diego patted the gun's barrel, "All we have to do now is to wait for the party to start."

Diego sidled up to Ayden, stroking the side of his face with his gun. He tried to shrink away from the touch, but Diego grabbed his neck by one huge, roughened hand and shoved the gun barrel tightly under the boy's chin. "As far as you're concerned, if you can keep the cop alive long enough for his buddies to show up, I'll kill you fast and painlessly. If he dies, I toss you out the door and tell McGarrett you killed his cop buddy!"

Ayden was thrown down hard onto the wood flooring alongside the mattress. Diego, having lost interest in the cowboy, turned his attention back to the window facing the approach into the clearing.

Tears welled up in the young man's eyes. Bile rose in his throat as palpable fear overtook his body. He laid his head on his arms as he leaned onto the mattress, beside himself with panic, his body trembling helplessly. Slowly, Ayden became aware of a light rap on his arm, then a second tap, a little more insistent this time. Ayden finally made the laborious effort to raise his head and looked up into heavily hooded, light blue orbs, glassy with pain, but aware and intelligent.

"Shhhh…don't talk. I … heard enough. Are you … okay?" The officer actually attempted to smile at Ayden. It was more of a grimace as the man tried to clear his throat, leading into a wet, pain-wracked cough. Instantly, Ayden grabbed the bottle of water that had landed on the floor earlier and tried to get some liquid past Detective Williams' clenched lips.

"No. Just … pour some …on a cloth… Couple … drops… at a time…," Danny coached Ayden. Having a lot more First Aid experience than the younger man, thanks to his gung ho partner's frequent need for patching, Danny knew he had injuries to his torso, and was in shock. Consuming large amounts of water, even though his body craved it, would not be good.

Ayden did as he was told, ripping a swatch of his shirt off, balling it up and saturating it with water. He dripped some over Danny's parched lips, and then used the cloth to wipe dried blood, dirt and sweat from his face and arms. He could see the officer's chest heaving laboriously with each breath.

"I'm so sorry. I … I didn't know what Montoya planned. I just thought I was gonna make some fast bucks smuggling weed out of Maui! I'm sorry!" Tears started streaming down Ayden's face as he spilled his apologies to a beleaguered Danny.

"Wait…what? Weed…drugs? How…oh, that…damn…cow," Danny finally understood what had happened. At least, he had an idea how the sick cow fit into the picture. But…why did Ayden lead Steve and him to the barn? Obviously, it was not to talk to the old rancher.

Danny's short period of lucidity was quickly waning. His head was getting fuzzy again amid waves of nausea, and spikes of red hot pain emanating from his belly. The edges of his vision diminished into pinpricks while the will to simply breathe was taking away any ability he had to think clearly. But he had heard enough of Diego's rant to understand that somehow Five-0 had gotten caught up in some drug scheme gone south, and were now about to pay the price for the governor's decision to drop the ball into their park. He didn't need to waste precious breath to know instinctively that Steve, Chin, and Kono would soon find the shack, and he feared that in their haste to get to him, they would let down their guard and walk into another trap. After all, Steve didn't have his "back up" with him this time.

Scrabbling to get a hold on Ayden's shoulder, Danny tried to convey to the younger man just how dire their situation was. Forcing what was left of his reserve strength to see him through, and banking on the willingness of the boy to right the wrong he'd done to place the detective in this current situation, Danny pulled the boy's head down to his lips and whispered, "Aikau, my team will come…they'll get us out of … of this. Trust me…but you have … have to …help…them," and with that last immense effort to grind the words out, knowing it wasn't nearly enough but all there was, Danny simply lost the ability to fight oblivion any longer. He dropped his hold on Ayden, exhaled a wispy, soft breath, and lapsed back into a pain-wracked unconsciousness.

Ayden desperately tried to shake Detective Williams back awake, silently crying out, "No! Don't leave me alone! I don't know what to do! What do you want me to do?" Looking wildly around for a way out of this situation, the boy's eye caught the faint gleam of metal peeking out from underneath the corner of the man's shirt. Shell shocked from everything that had recently transpired, Ayden could do little more than stare at it. He remembered the gun he'd felt earlier, but he was too frightened to touch it, afraid that Diego or Paolo would find it on him and kill him outright.

"I won't do anything to make them mad at me. I'll just ride this out. It's not me they really want it's the Five-0 team. When they get them, they'll let me go." With those delusional thoughts running through his overwrought brain, a brain that was also suffering from a shovel-induced concussion, Ayden plopped back down onto the floor, drew his knees up to his chin, and wrapped his arms around his legs. He laid his throbbing head, and tear-stained face, on his knees and allowed himself to shut down.

*************************************TBC***********************************

A/N: So, how many had figured out the cattle prod? It's all Irene Claire's fault, remember? Well, actually, I guess I fulfilled my own story prompt: "Use a cattle prod to whump Danny."