Chain of Darkness
Chapter Seventeen--
.
**********
A/N: Just to let you all know, I had written the following crash scene before the season finalle and was very suprised that they were similar at places--Didn't rip anything off ;) Thank you to everyone that reviewed!!! I love you guys!! Enjoy!
***********
Sully opened his eyes a crack, his head a bit fuzzy. His eyes warily roamed around the room, unsure of where he was, before realizing he was in his own apartment, laying across his well-worn sofa.
He groaned, sliding his feet off the edge to rest on the wooden floors with a soft thud. The light from the afternoon sun filtered in through the drawn blinds, casting bright streaks across the floor and furniture. His thoughts were hazy as he struggled to remember the last few hours.
Something had happened. Something bad. What was it?
His hands reached up, first rubbing his face, and then traveling through his hair. A sharp pain from the lump on back of his skull forced his fingers away. He frowned, trying desperately to remember how he'd gotten it.
Little bits of the last day or so were coming back now. He saw Davis, his expression pleading with him, 'Sul…let's go.' Where had he been? A bar? That must be it.
He saw Boscorelli; he was up close, his face right in front of him. Bosco was screaming something and jerking him back and forth, banging his head against something hard. Why? What had he done to him?
He saw Doc; a disappointed look, a tense shake of his head. Doc was driving him somewhere. Here.
He remembered waking up, needing another drink and immediately finding a full bottle of vodka, then drowning out everything chug after chug. He must have fallen asleep again after that.
Sully closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, trying to put the small pieces together. An instant later everything came back, flooding through his head, a monstrous hurricane of horror.
"No…" he whispered, shocked. Intense guilt and revulsion replaced any incredulous feelings that he'd felt just moments ago. He tried to catch his breath as it became more and more difficult to breathe.
What had he done?
***********
"Hey! Let's keep it movin'!" Bosco yelled at another rubber-necker.
He scowled. People were such morons, just didn't get it. They were only making things worse by driving past as slowly as possible, straining for a glimpse of the bloody scene. Their inquisitiveness was morbid, appalling. Did they have no decency?
Bosco shook his head, disgusted, then knelt down to peer under an overturned SUV. "Hey, just hold on. We're gonna get you outta here real soon, okay?" he told the driver, a well-dressed businessman in his late fifties.
The man, hanging upside-down but strapped in by his seatbelt, only nodded mutely. Blood from a bad head wound was running freely down his face, collecting in his hair before dripping into the pool of crimson fluid that had collected underneath him. That head wound didn't look good at all. Bosco gave him a grim smile, trying to act reassuring, but he knew if the paramedics didn't get here soon the guy might not make it.
Bosco grabbed a clean handkerchief from his pocket, needing to help. "Hey, buddy, I'm just gonna put some pressure on this cut okay?" He was lying about the wound only being a cut, it was more like a cavernous gash, but there was no need to upset the guy.
He looked up, surveying the intersection. The five-car pile up was hard to miss. Besides the SUV, an old, eggshell-blue Chevy had been rolled over and a white Lincoln was off to the side, totaled, the hood of the car crushed beyond repair. Shards of broken windshields and windows littered the street and large pieces of the vehicles were scattered everywhere. As usual, a few curious people lined the sidewalk, watching but not offering to help.
As far as he could tell, the driver of the Lincoln was to blame for the mess. Looked as if he'd been driving a little to fast and ran a red light. Probably was in some kind of hurry to get somewhere. Everyone always was. Damn idiot.
"Faith! Where the hell are the medics?" he yelled impatiently, his arm tiring from the pressure he was applying to the guy's wound. They should have been there by now. Typically, the buses were here quickly and they had called for them over ten minutes ago.
His partner was busy with another car; a small, red compact. Compact is exactly the word he'd use to describe what the once sleek and sporty sedan now was. The front and back ends had been crushed up, nearly meeting each other, pushed as far towards the cab of the car as possible. Two young kids were pinned tightly inside, and Faith was being motherly and comforting them.
"Three minutes out!" Faith called back. "They got stuck in traffic."
"Figures." Bosco muttered under his breath before lashing out at another inquisitive driver. He could hear sobbing coming from the Lincoln, but from their initial check, knew the driver was okay and didn't bother to offer his sympathy. He really didn't have much pity for people that, out of their own carelessness, create these ugly pile-ups.
The guy in the SUV was coughing. "Hey..." he weakly called out.
Bosco ducked his head down again. The guy didn't look so good anymore. Well, he didn't look good before or anything, but now he looked really bad. His face was ashen, despite being hung upside-down for so long, and his lips were turning blue. From the cold or lack of oxygen, Bosco didn't know, but he knew the icy air that was blowing in through the shattered windows wasn't helping any.
"You okay?" Bosco started to remove his coat to cover him, but realized that because of the way the guy was inverted it wouldn't stay on him. Instead he moved his body around to shield off some of the frosty gusts.
The man's lips worked as he struggled to speak, "Please...tell my...wife that...I love her."
Tears started to pour out of his eyes, clear and glistening in the soft dusk light. They rolled down the bridge of his nose, stopping to caress his brows before trailing swiftly across his forehead through the wet blood, swirling softly as they mixed.
"Hey, hey, don't talk like that. You're gonna be okay, you can tell her yourself," Bosco assured him, then watched the older man draw a shaky breath and shake his head miserably.
His expression was one of complete agony, not only from the intense pain he was feeling, but also from knowing he was going to die. He knew it and Bosco knew it, but Bosco didn't want to accept it as an option. This just wasn't right.
"No..." The man's voice was barely discernable, the pain in his eyes glazing over, replaced with a blank, faraway look; one Bosco had seen too many times. The look of death.
Bosco didn't know what to say, his emotions were catching in his throat as a massive lump. Blood was seeping through the soaked hankie, the sticky, wet rivers chilling his very core as they ran between his aching fingers before dropping down, joining the growing pool below.
He felt so many things at that moment as he sat there, crouching down on his knees, feeling the man's vital fluid seep through his hand, and watching in silent despair as he hung there, dying. And he couldn't do anything for him, nothing.
Suddenly, he realized that this is what all of the murdered cops had been put through; having to think their last thoughts about their loved ones, their last words of love and sorrow, never to be heard from them.
He saw their faces; Barry, Jacobsen, Moretti, Gusler, Davis... all of them pleading, begging the killer and God to spare them, needing to live, or at least have closure. Cruelly, none of them were granted it, their families forced to live with the last words that had been spoken between them, however good or bad they had been.
Bosco squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to rid himself of the awful thought. He couldn't even imagine how horrible it would be to die like that. This man was pleading with him to make those last thoughts and words known to his wife. It was the least he could do.
"I'll tell her." His choked voice wasn't recognizable, even to himself.
He watched the guy slip slowly away, his eyes getting cloudier and cloudier until finally he stopped breathing and went limp. Bosco was unaware of anything else but what was directly in front of him. He didn't react, just sat there staring, his bloodied hand falling away from the wound. The man was all of the officers that died, an innocent victim.
55-Edward and a bus finally pulled up, their lights flashing brightly in the twilight. They were too late.
Bosco settled back on his heels, clutching the blood-soaked handkerchief, completely lost in his thoughts and emotions, still unable to tear his eyes away from the blood, the body, the face...
"Hey, what you got here?" Doc's voice was loud as he crouched down behind him. "He okay?"
Shaking his head furiously, Bosco stood abruptly and paced small steps back and forth, his body not knowing where to go, what to do, his whole being crawling with an unseen agitation.
Doc took a good look at the guy, and noting the considerable amount of blood that had pooled on the ground and the bad head trauma, he backed off, heading over to another car, another victim. They would worry about extracting the body later, after all of the remaining surviving people had been cut loose from their cars.
"Okay. Carlos! Got a DOA over here," he shouted to his partner, letting Carlos know not to waste any valuable time checking on the passenger of the SUV.
Bosco, cringing at the harsh reality of the relay, balled up his fists around the handkerchief, ringing wet blood onto the pavement. The sobbing from the white Lincoln was loud, reaching his ears, a strong reminder of who had caused all of this to happen. His attention focused on the man who had done this, this cruel act of malevolence. In his mind, twisted and strained from lost sleep and the intense last few weeks, he saw the man and then the killer. When he compared them, they were the same person, senselessly murdering people.
His anger was acute and his fuse short. Bosco marched over to the car, and slammed his fist against the cracked doorframe.
"Shut up!" he yelled at the trembling man. He flexed and unflexed his fingers, aching and itching to hurt the whimpering man. God, he just wanted to kill the guy right now. The guy that had just taken the life of an innocent man and was only sitting here crying about his own pain. Not the pain of the other man's family, his friends, his co-workers, but his own physical pain.
Bosco stepped back, fighting with his inner demons and resisting everything that screamed for revenge. Revenge for all of the deaths, all of the needless pain and all of the fear.
"Just...shut up," he said again, his voice flat.
He looked past the man and could see Faith watching him, concerned. She would probably send him to that shrink again for this. He didn't care anymore.
**********
Doc gabbed a large bandage from the bag and started wrapping it around his patient's bleeding arm. The young man was moaning, and Faith sat to the side holding his hand, soothingly giving him encouragement. The kid would need at least two-dozen sutures to patch up his lacerated upper-arm and shoulder. The girl in the passenger seat was all right; she just had a few cuts and scrapes, remarkable, considering how badly their car had been mangled. The flashy sports car looked like it had been crushed easily, as if it were only a tin can.
He heard a hard thud behind him and whirled around. Bosco was standing over the Lincoln, the car that caused the accident, yelling something at the driver, his fist raised. Sounded like he'd told him to 'shut up' or something.
Doc frowned. What the heck...? The guy was in pain and only crying. He watched for a second, perplexed. Bosco looked as if he were struggling not to kill the guy, his hands balling in and out of fists, his breathing ragged. Then he stepped back and muttered something before looking up at Faith, his eyes dull and void of emotion. He looked so defeated, so vulnerable for a moment before he slowly shuffled back to his squad car.
Doc raised his brow to Faith, but she seemed just as puzzled. They both seen Bosco lash out at Sully the other day, but now he was going after strangers?
"I'm gonna go talk to him, okay?" she said softly.
He nodded. There was no reason that either Faith or her partner needed to be here anymore. The fire trucks were here and additional ambulances had just pulled up. Jimmy and Lieu were working on getting the older lady out of the Chevy. Walsh and DK were on their way over with the 'Jaws' to free the kids that he was tending to.
Carlos jogged over, his hands grasping his stethoscope as it flopped around, slapping against his leg. "Hey, Doc! I need some Morphine for the old lady over here."
"Yeah, in the bag," he pointed, "Just make sure you don't give her too much."
"I know, I know." Carlos rolled his eyes while kneeling down and selecting the correct syringe. "Hey, what's up with Bosco? He was acting kind of weird."
Doc just shrugged. He didn't know exactly what was wrong with Bosco but he had a good idea. The last couple of weeks were getting to him, taunting him and reminding him endlessly how much danger he was in and how helpless he was, picking away steadily at the hard exterior he had created.
Doc sighed. Poor guy.
**********
Sully stuffed his hands into his pockets nervously, hesitating in front the large, plate-glass doors. Doctors and nurses perambulated around inside, all busy checking and comparing charts, chatting amongst themselves about their last save or worst-off patient, unaware of the lone figure that decorated the empty hall outside.
Sully swallowed hard. Through those doors lay the result of what had happened, what he saw as a terrible, but worthy consequence of his lack of responsibility, his lack of care. Everything in him told him to run, to go drink this away, but he didn't. Looking in the mirror every morning was already hard enough, but if he ran he would never be able to live with himself.
Forcing his lead-filled feet to go, Sully shuffled ahead and the doors parted automatically with a soft 'whoosh', the bold, black 'ICU' lettering sliding gracefully to the side.
Keep walking. Just keep walking... he kept up a constant patter of encouragement in his mind, willing himself into that dreadful ward. The smells of rubbing alcohol and antiseptic immediately assaulted him, strong and sweet, urging unwanted tears to spring up in his eyes.
The young nurse at the front desk smiled slightly at him, tapping her highly glossed fingernails against the desk to the rhythm of a nearby heart monitor, her white uniform almost blending into the drably colorless walls behind her.
"Can I help you, sir?" She sounded sickeningly saccharine, as if she had rehearsed that line over and over until she'd erased all traces of boredom.
Sully cleared his throat around the lump that had formed inside; choking back the looming tears, "Uh, yeah. I'm here to see Ty Davis."
The nurse cleverly replaced the alarm that immediately lit in her eyes with a blank look, half-smiled again and checked a paper. Sully knew she had been warned about the impending killer and how he could very well come back to finish his job. She obviously was told not to allow anyone in. "I'm sorry, sir, Officer Davis is in critical condition and only immediate family is allowed to visit. Are you family?"
He could run now, he had a good excuse… No, he had to do this.
Sully tried again, his will to see his partner overpowering any urges to flee. "You don't understand, miss. I'm his partner. I need to see him," he stated cogently as he slammed his badge onto the counter before her.
The firmness of his tone must have compelled her, but she still faltered slightly before reluctantly nodding. "Just a second, sir."
She picked up a phone and spoke softly into the receiver, calling the uniformed guard to the desk to check his credentials. The beat cop recognized Sully right away and stepped out of the way, giving him permission to clear his post.
The young nurse motioned for him to follow, her shoes clicking softly against the gray linoleum. Sully silently trailed her; his hands, stuffed again in his pockets, were sweaty now and clenched tightly with trepidation. He could feel his fingernails digging into his palms but he ignored the stinging sensation, his focus entirely on the nurse's path as she wove through the hall.
She stopped at a curtained-off 'room' at the end of the hallway and her hand reached up to grasp the partition, "He's right in here, Officer. Five minutes, okay? Then you have to go."
She offered no other words of comfort, no warnings of what she was about to unveil, just a curt nod at his mumbled agreement to adhere to the allotted time. She dramatically pulled the ugly, blue and white pinstriped cloth aside, revealing Sully's worst nightmare.
Sully felt his breath leave his lungs as a heavy sigh, a soft moan. Never in all of his years as a cop had he ever seen anything that disturbed him so greatly, the sheer magnitude of the situation slamming into him like a freight train, taking away his breath and his thoughts as it broke forcefully into his heart.
His young partner, once healthy and robust, was a tangle of tubes and wires. Bandages and monitors covered his upper-body, half of his handsome face peeking out from behind heavy gauze stretched across his forehead. The tube running into his mouth and down his throat parted his lips slightly; his eyes closed peacefully in a comatose sleep. No movement came from him, save the rising and falling of his chest that was entirely generated by the ventilator.
Sully's lungs were tight, void of any air as he felt himself walk up to the metal-framed gurney. The humming and beeping of the many machines chanted a symphony of death, a stirring reminder of the gravity of his partner's condition.
The tears that Sully had so painstakingly suppressed were freely falling down his cheeks, stinging and hot. He grabbed onto the bed's cold, metal side-rail to steady himself before his trembling legs gave out on him.
"Ty…" he whispered, unable to say anything else before his body succumbed to soft sobs of grief. This...Oh, God, this was all his fault…
He carefully slipped his hand into Ty's lifeless palm and squeezed it slightly, wincing at the terrible limpness. The squeeze was a small token of all of the words he couldn't choke out, all of the words he so wanted to tell Ty.
I'm here for you...
**********
He smiled at the array of weapons that lay on the table in front of him. Guns, rifles, switchblades, knives, rope... even an axe. His tools.
He prided himself at the creativity that went into his kills. He never killed the same way. That was too easy. No, he liked to come up with cruel and unusual ways to knock off his prey. Like the last time, he used a car. The victim's own vehicle…
Davis hadn't died but he would worry about that later. He could weave that little detail into his altered plan, no big deal.
He shook his head, smirking. He was so great, so smart.
His hand stroked the 'tools', lingering on the long-bladed knives. He loved the feel of a knife, the way the hand-carved handle felt in his palm, the way the razor-sharp edges gleamed before they were marred by sticky blood. His knives were so beautiful.
He picked one up, its cool blade shining in the low light. He pictured thrusting the steel into a body, the feel of their muscles tensing around the foreign object, the look of painful shock on their face.
He would save this for someone special. He smiled again. He knew just the person...
***********
TBC... Tell me what ya think :)
Chapter Seventeen--
.
**********
A/N: Just to let you all know, I had written the following crash scene before the season finalle and was very suprised that they were similar at places--Didn't rip anything off ;) Thank you to everyone that reviewed!!! I love you guys!! Enjoy!
***********
Sully opened his eyes a crack, his head a bit fuzzy. His eyes warily roamed around the room, unsure of where he was, before realizing he was in his own apartment, laying across his well-worn sofa.
He groaned, sliding his feet off the edge to rest on the wooden floors with a soft thud. The light from the afternoon sun filtered in through the drawn blinds, casting bright streaks across the floor and furniture. His thoughts were hazy as he struggled to remember the last few hours.
Something had happened. Something bad. What was it?
His hands reached up, first rubbing his face, and then traveling through his hair. A sharp pain from the lump on back of his skull forced his fingers away. He frowned, trying desperately to remember how he'd gotten it.
Little bits of the last day or so were coming back now. He saw Davis, his expression pleading with him, 'Sul…let's go.' Where had he been? A bar? That must be it.
He saw Boscorelli; he was up close, his face right in front of him. Bosco was screaming something and jerking him back and forth, banging his head against something hard. Why? What had he done to him?
He saw Doc; a disappointed look, a tense shake of his head. Doc was driving him somewhere. Here.
He remembered waking up, needing another drink and immediately finding a full bottle of vodka, then drowning out everything chug after chug. He must have fallen asleep again after that.
Sully closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, trying to put the small pieces together. An instant later everything came back, flooding through his head, a monstrous hurricane of horror.
"No…" he whispered, shocked. Intense guilt and revulsion replaced any incredulous feelings that he'd felt just moments ago. He tried to catch his breath as it became more and more difficult to breathe.
What had he done?
***********
"Hey! Let's keep it movin'!" Bosco yelled at another rubber-necker.
He scowled. People were such morons, just didn't get it. They were only making things worse by driving past as slowly as possible, straining for a glimpse of the bloody scene. Their inquisitiveness was morbid, appalling. Did they have no decency?
Bosco shook his head, disgusted, then knelt down to peer under an overturned SUV. "Hey, just hold on. We're gonna get you outta here real soon, okay?" he told the driver, a well-dressed businessman in his late fifties.
The man, hanging upside-down but strapped in by his seatbelt, only nodded mutely. Blood from a bad head wound was running freely down his face, collecting in his hair before dripping into the pool of crimson fluid that had collected underneath him. That head wound didn't look good at all. Bosco gave him a grim smile, trying to act reassuring, but he knew if the paramedics didn't get here soon the guy might not make it.
Bosco grabbed a clean handkerchief from his pocket, needing to help. "Hey, buddy, I'm just gonna put some pressure on this cut okay?" He was lying about the wound only being a cut, it was more like a cavernous gash, but there was no need to upset the guy.
He looked up, surveying the intersection. The five-car pile up was hard to miss. Besides the SUV, an old, eggshell-blue Chevy had been rolled over and a white Lincoln was off to the side, totaled, the hood of the car crushed beyond repair. Shards of broken windshields and windows littered the street and large pieces of the vehicles were scattered everywhere. As usual, a few curious people lined the sidewalk, watching but not offering to help.
As far as he could tell, the driver of the Lincoln was to blame for the mess. Looked as if he'd been driving a little to fast and ran a red light. Probably was in some kind of hurry to get somewhere. Everyone always was. Damn idiot.
"Faith! Where the hell are the medics?" he yelled impatiently, his arm tiring from the pressure he was applying to the guy's wound. They should have been there by now. Typically, the buses were here quickly and they had called for them over ten minutes ago.
His partner was busy with another car; a small, red compact. Compact is exactly the word he'd use to describe what the once sleek and sporty sedan now was. The front and back ends had been crushed up, nearly meeting each other, pushed as far towards the cab of the car as possible. Two young kids were pinned tightly inside, and Faith was being motherly and comforting them.
"Three minutes out!" Faith called back. "They got stuck in traffic."
"Figures." Bosco muttered under his breath before lashing out at another inquisitive driver. He could hear sobbing coming from the Lincoln, but from their initial check, knew the driver was okay and didn't bother to offer his sympathy. He really didn't have much pity for people that, out of their own carelessness, create these ugly pile-ups.
The guy in the SUV was coughing. "Hey..." he weakly called out.
Bosco ducked his head down again. The guy didn't look so good anymore. Well, he didn't look good before or anything, but now he looked really bad. His face was ashen, despite being hung upside-down for so long, and his lips were turning blue. From the cold or lack of oxygen, Bosco didn't know, but he knew the icy air that was blowing in through the shattered windows wasn't helping any.
"You okay?" Bosco started to remove his coat to cover him, but realized that because of the way the guy was inverted it wouldn't stay on him. Instead he moved his body around to shield off some of the frosty gusts.
The man's lips worked as he struggled to speak, "Please...tell my...wife that...I love her."
Tears started to pour out of his eyes, clear and glistening in the soft dusk light. They rolled down the bridge of his nose, stopping to caress his brows before trailing swiftly across his forehead through the wet blood, swirling softly as they mixed.
"Hey, hey, don't talk like that. You're gonna be okay, you can tell her yourself," Bosco assured him, then watched the older man draw a shaky breath and shake his head miserably.
His expression was one of complete agony, not only from the intense pain he was feeling, but also from knowing he was going to die. He knew it and Bosco knew it, but Bosco didn't want to accept it as an option. This just wasn't right.
"No..." The man's voice was barely discernable, the pain in his eyes glazing over, replaced with a blank, faraway look; one Bosco had seen too many times. The look of death.
Bosco didn't know what to say, his emotions were catching in his throat as a massive lump. Blood was seeping through the soaked hankie, the sticky, wet rivers chilling his very core as they ran between his aching fingers before dropping down, joining the growing pool below.
He felt so many things at that moment as he sat there, crouching down on his knees, feeling the man's vital fluid seep through his hand, and watching in silent despair as he hung there, dying. And he couldn't do anything for him, nothing.
Suddenly, he realized that this is what all of the murdered cops had been put through; having to think their last thoughts about their loved ones, their last words of love and sorrow, never to be heard from them.
He saw their faces; Barry, Jacobsen, Moretti, Gusler, Davis... all of them pleading, begging the killer and God to spare them, needing to live, or at least have closure. Cruelly, none of them were granted it, their families forced to live with the last words that had been spoken between them, however good or bad they had been.
Bosco squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to rid himself of the awful thought. He couldn't even imagine how horrible it would be to die like that. This man was pleading with him to make those last thoughts and words known to his wife. It was the least he could do.
"I'll tell her." His choked voice wasn't recognizable, even to himself.
He watched the guy slip slowly away, his eyes getting cloudier and cloudier until finally he stopped breathing and went limp. Bosco was unaware of anything else but what was directly in front of him. He didn't react, just sat there staring, his bloodied hand falling away from the wound. The man was all of the officers that died, an innocent victim.
55-Edward and a bus finally pulled up, their lights flashing brightly in the twilight. They were too late.
Bosco settled back on his heels, clutching the blood-soaked handkerchief, completely lost in his thoughts and emotions, still unable to tear his eyes away from the blood, the body, the face...
"Hey, what you got here?" Doc's voice was loud as he crouched down behind him. "He okay?"
Shaking his head furiously, Bosco stood abruptly and paced small steps back and forth, his body not knowing where to go, what to do, his whole being crawling with an unseen agitation.
Doc took a good look at the guy, and noting the considerable amount of blood that had pooled on the ground and the bad head trauma, he backed off, heading over to another car, another victim. They would worry about extracting the body later, after all of the remaining surviving people had been cut loose from their cars.
"Okay. Carlos! Got a DOA over here," he shouted to his partner, letting Carlos know not to waste any valuable time checking on the passenger of the SUV.
Bosco, cringing at the harsh reality of the relay, balled up his fists around the handkerchief, ringing wet blood onto the pavement. The sobbing from the white Lincoln was loud, reaching his ears, a strong reminder of who had caused all of this to happen. His attention focused on the man who had done this, this cruel act of malevolence. In his mind, twisted and strained from lost sleep and the intense last few weeks, he saw the man and then the killer. When he compared them, they were the same person, senselessly murdering people.
His anger was acute and his fuse short. Bosco marched over to the car, and slammed his fist against the cracked doorframe.
"Shut up!" he yelled at the trembling man. He flexed and unflexed his fingers, aching and itching to hurt the whimpering man. God, he just wanted to kill the guy right now. The guy that had just taken the life of an innocent man and was only sitting here crying about his own pain. Not the pain of the other man's family, his friends, his co-workers, but his own physical pain.
Bosco stepped back, fighting with his inner demons and resisting everything that screamed for revenge. Revenge for all of the deaths, all of the needless pain and all of the fear.
"Just...shut up," he said again, his voice flat.
He looked past the man and could see Faith watching him, concerned. She would probably send him to that shrink again for this. He didn't care anymore.
**********
Doc gabbed a large bandage from the bag and started wrapping it around his patient's bleeding arm. The young man was moaning, and Faith sat to the side holding his hand, soothingly giving him encouragement. The kid would need at least two-dozen sutures to patch up his lacerated upper-arm and shoulder. The girl in the passenger seat was all right; she just had a few cuts and scrapes, remarkable, considering how badly their car had been mangled. The flashy sports car looked like it had been crushed easily, as if it were only a tin can.
He heard a hard thud behind him and whirled around. Bosco was standing over the Lincoln, the car that caused the accident, yelling something at the driver, his fist raised. Sounded like he'd told him to 'shut up' or something.
Doc frowned. What the heck...? The guy was in pain and only crying. He watched for a second, perplexed. Bosco looked as if he were struggling not to kill the guy, his hands balling in and out of fists, his breathing ragged. Then he stepped back and muttered something before looking up at Faith, his eyes dull and void of emotion. He looked so defeated, so vulnerable for a moment before he slowly shuffled back to his squad car.
Doc raised his brow to Faith, but she seemed just as puzzled. They both seen Bosco lash out at Sully the other day, but now he was going after strangers?
"I'm gonna go talk to him, okay?" she said softly.
He nodded. There was no reason that either Faith or her partner needed to be here anymore. The fire trucks were here and additional ambulances had just pulled up. Jimmy and Lieu were working on getting the older lady out of the Chevy. Walsh and DK were on their way over with the 'Jaws' to free the kids that he was tending to.
Carlos jogged over, his hands grasping his stethoscope as it flopped around, slapping against his leg. "Hey, Doc! I need some Morphine for the old lady over here."
"Yeah, in the bag," he pointed, "Just make sure you don't give her too much."
"I know, I know." Carlos rolled his eyes while kneeling down and selecting the correct syringe. "Hey, what's up with Bosco? He was acting kind of weird."
Doc just shrugged. He didn't know exactly what was wrong with Bosco but he had a good idea. The last couple of weeks were getting to him, taunting him and reminding him endlessly how much danger he was in and how helpless he was, picking away steadily at the hard exterior he had created.
Doc sighed. Poor guy.
**********
Sully stuffed his hands into his pockets nervously, hesitating in front the large, plate-glass doors. Doctors and nurses perambulated around inside, all busy checking and comparing charts, chatting amongst themselves about their last save or worst-off patient, unaware of the lone figure that decorated the empty hall outside.
Sully swallowed hard. Through those doors lay the result of what had happened, what he saw as a terrible, but worthy consequence of his lack of responsibility, his lack of care. Everything in him told him to run, to go drink this away, but he didn't. Looking in the mirror every morning was already hard enough, but if he ran he would never be able to live with himself.
Forcing his lead-filled feet to go, Sully shuffled ahead and the doors parted automatically with a soft 'whoosh', the bold, black 'ICU' lettering sliding gracefully to the side.
Keep walking. Just keep walking... he kept up a constant patter of encouragement in his mind, willing himself into that dreadful ward. The smells of rubbing alcohol and antiseptic immediately assaulted him, strong and sweet, urging unwanted tears to spring up in his eyes.
The young nurse at the front desk smiled slightly at him, tapping her highly glossed fingernails against the desk to the rhythm of a nearby heart monitor, her white uniform almost blending into the drably colorless walls behind her.
"Can I help you, sir?" She sounded sickeningly saccharine, as if she had rehearsed that line over and over until she'd erased all traces of boredom.
Sully cleared his throat around the lump that had formed inside; choking back the looming tears, "Uh, yeah. I'm here to see Ty Davis."
The nurse cleverly replaced the alarm that immediately lit in her eyes with a blank look, half-smiled again and checked a paper. Sully knew she had been warned about the impending killer and how he could very well come back to finish his job. She obviously was told not to allow anyone in. "I'm sorry, sir, Officer Davis is in critical condition and only immediate family is allowed to visit. Are you family?"
He could run now, he had a good excuse… No, he had to do this.
Sully tried again, his will to see his partner overpowering any urges to flee. "You don't understand, miss. I'm his partner. I need to see him," he stated cogently as he slammed his badge onto the counter before her.
The firmness of his tone must have compelled her, but she still faltered slightly before reluctantly nodding. "Just a second, sir."
She picked up a phone and spoke softly into the receiver, calling the uniformed guard to the desk to check his credentials. The beat cop recognized Sully right away and stepped out of the way, giving him permission to clear his post.
The young nurse motioned for him to follow, her shoes clicking softly against the gray linoleum. Sully silently trailed her; his hands, stuffed again in his pockets, were sweaty now and clenched tightly with trepidation. He could feel his fingernails digging into his palms but he ignored the stinging sensation, his focus entirely on the nurse's path as she wove through the hall.
She stopped at a curtained-off 'room' at the end of the hallway and her hand reached up to grasp the partition, "He's right in here, Officer. Five minutes, okay? Then you have to go."
She offered no other words of comfort, no warnings of what she was about to unveil, just a curt nod at his mumbled agreement to adhere to the allotted time. She dramatically pulled the ugly, blue and white pinstriped cloth aside, revealing Sully's worst nightmare.
Sully felt his breath leave his lungs as a heavy sigh, a soft moan. Never in all of his years as a cop had he ever seen anything that disturbed him so greatly, the sheer magnitude of the situation slamming into him like a freight train, taking away his breath and his thoughts as it broke forcefully into his heart.
His young partner, once healthy and robust, was a tangle of tubes and wires. Bandages and monitors covered his upper-body, half of his handsome face peeking out from behind heavy gauze stretched across his forehead. The tube running into his mouth and down his throat parted his lips slightly; his eyes closed peacefully in a comatose sleep. No movement came from him, save the rising and falling of his chest that was entirely generated by the ventilator.
Sully's lungs were tight, void of any air as he felt himself walk up to the metal-framed gurney. The humming and beeping of the many machines chanted a symphony of death, a stirring reminder of the gravity of his partner's condition.
The tears that Sully had so painstakingly suppressed were freely falling down his cheeks, stinging and hot. He grabbed onto the bed's cold, metal side-rail to steady himself before his trembling legs gave out on him.
"Ty…" he whispered, unable to say anything else before his body succumbed to soft sobs of grief. This...Oh, God, this was all his fault…
He carefully slipped his hand into Ty's lifeless palm and squeezed it slightly, wincing at the terrible limpness. The squeeze was a small token of all of the words he couldn't choke out, all of the words he so wanted to tell Ty.
I'm here for you...
**********
He smiled at the array of weapons that lay on the table in front of him. Guns, rifles, switchblades, knives, rope... even an axe. His tools.
He prided himself at the creativity that went into his kills. He never killed the same way. That was too easy. No, he liked to come up with cruel and unusual ways to knock off his prey. Like the last time, he used a car. The victim's own vehicle…
Davis hadn't died but he would worry about that later. He could weave that little detail into his altered plan, no big deal.
He shook his head, smirking. He was so great, so smart.
His hand stroked the 'tools', lingering on the long-bladed knives. He loved the feel of a knife, the way the hand-carved handle felt in his palm, the way the razor-sharp edges gleamed before they were marred by sticky blood. His knives were so beautiful.
He picked one up, its cool blade shining in the low light. He pictured thrusting the steel into a body, the feel of their muscles tensing around the foreign object, the look of painful shock on their face.
He would save this for someone special. He smiled again. He knew just the person...
***********
TBC... Tell me what ya think :)