AUTHOR'S NOTE: sorry, can't write a rambling note today explaining why this is late....so much to do....no time to do it...this chapter isn't very long...but I promise another will follow soon!...thanks for all the wonderful reviews!!! Keep 'em coming! I love how happy they make me...seriously, they brighten up my WHOLE day!! Okay, gotta go! ENJOY!

CHAPTER FOUR

He watched with a detached and distorted sense of calm as the real world slipped silently farther and farther away from the soles of his feet. Like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland she dragged him away from reality into the deep underground of a bizarre dream world quickly filling with surreal horror. But unlike the young heroine of the children's books, he did not follow the white rabbit willingly. A drug had been produced: clear liquid in a clear syringe. And though he tried to struggle, his head had spun and his chest had burned with sharp fiery pain, resulting in him losing the fight before it had even begun.

A wash of desperation had filled him; the frustrating angst of knowing something terrible is happening, and knowing you are helpless to stop it. She seemed unaware of his despairing anger and smiled as she ripped his sleeve open up to above his elbow.

"This won't hurt a bit, I promise." She whispered as she held the needle up above her, pushing its end to see a droplet finally squeeze out of the tip.

"Please don't do this," He whispered back, his voice coming out harshly and riddled with emotion. His eyes flickered back to the now empty basement, the team having left it momentarily to assess the upstairs, and then work in a spiral down to the lower floors. He had wanted to scream out as Warrick helped Nick back up to the main floor. The words had been poised on his tongue, bursting to reverberate across the room,

"I'm here! Don't leave me alone! I can't do this alone! Please, help, somebody" But he had bit the words back, for the sake of his life, and for the lives of his friends. He didn't know how much damage she could cause before they subdued her, but he knew she was capable of murder, and he wasn't willing to risk anything right now- especially while he wasn't able to do anything to deter her. He looked back at the shadowed figure above him, took a breath and spoke the words more calmly,

"Please don't do this." She smiled again and slid the needle into his arm.

"It's for your own good." She said in an unnervingly tender way as he let out a small cry of surprise and pain at the sharp metal being pushed into his flesh.

Now he had become accustomed to the numb limpness of his limbs, and had stopped his futile attempts to move. Instead he watched as she slowly, yet steadily bricked up the hole in the wall that came between the basement, and the tunnel he now lay in. He had no idea what her plan was, but it was evident that she had been planning it for some time. Above him were support beams preventing the tunnel from collapsing upon them, and in front of him was a pile of cement, which she was spreading on each new brick she stacked up, closing the hole bit by bit, sealing them off from the real world.

With a twist of his stomach he watched as she put the last brick into place, and painfully observed that she had done a good job-unless under close inspection, no one would ever know a hole had ever been there. He could only hope that Grissom and the others would inspect every inch of the basement, and an odd flickering of his heart told him that maybe they would. Grissom was thorough after all....

His thoughts were interrupted when she crawled to his head and slid her hands under is shoulders. Again he felt himself filling with rage that came with the inability to do anything, but all he could do was lean against her hands like an oversized doll. She began to drag him for a bit, and he felt his body slide from dirt onto something made of cloth. She silently moved around him, adjusting the material underneath him, and when everything seemed to be to her satisfaction, she walked hunched over to his head again and began to pull the sheet he was on.

Things went surprisingly smooth after that. To his dismay, the sheet ran quickly over the unpaved tunnel floor, and the girl was unexpectedly strong. A couple of times, he hit a bump, and as his body slid over it he cried out softly in pain. He was sure now that some of his ribs were broken; he could feel them grinding against each other when the sheet went over a rough patch. Soon the combination of the drug, and the pain he was in, as well as the darkness that enveloped them, lulled him into an uneasy sleep.

He awoke sometime later to the sound of running water. He opened his eyes and immediately shut them again, the extreme brightness of the sun temporarily blinding him. When he was able to open them again, he quickly took in his surroundings, trying to get some bearing on where he was. He seemed to by lying in the end of a large sewer drain pipe, judging from the ribbed metal that semi-circled about two feet above his head. A trickle of water ran beneath him, slowly seeping into his clothes, as well as the sheet that was still beneath him. Rolling his eyes as far to the side as he could get them, he saw that the sewage water ran off the edge of the pipe into a small stream that ran away from him into a deep, fairly lush forest. Silence surrounded him, the only sounds being the soft trickle of water, the quiet breath of the wind through the trees, and the occasional call of a far away bird. If anything, the silence scared him more then anything. He couldn't hear any cars, planes, or human voices no matter how hard he strained. That meant no one was around to save him-or to hear his screams.

"If a paralyzed man screams in the forest and no one's around to hear it, " he mused to himself "does he make a sound?" There was no sign of the girl. All he could do now was wait and see what would happen next...

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ok, crappy last line, but I was a tad rushed for this, so please forgive me!! I know I said we'd find out more about the girl in this chapter...unfortunately that got pushed to the next chapter...but I promise that'll come soon with some time on my part and some reviews on yours---hint hint.....yes, I know I'm very subtle! :) YAY