Thanks to all who reviewed and to my beta. Here´s the next chapter - enjoy.

Trapped

by Nicol Leoraine

Chapter 3

It was no good to fight, but Sara was far from giving up. She let herself be led away, but her mind was still trying to realize just what was going on.

Her captor was strong and whatever move they were taught in thr courses of self-defense, he knew them all. There was no way she could win in a straight fight with him and come away from it unscathed. She could only hope her friends would find her in time.

At that, her thoughts turned to Jenkins. Now she knew it was his body falling on the floor that made the noise, but she still didn´t know if the man was alive.

"D-did you kill him?" she stuttered, more from the grip on her neck than from fear. The man gave her a nasty grin, then reminded her to be silent with a nudge from the gun. Sara gritted her teeth and tried to calm down. She didn´t know the building, but she was sure they were going through the hall. She frantically looked around, realizing that Brass and Kevin should be still there, looking for the body or the killer. Well, she had the killer just fine, and if Jenkins didn´t survive, they had also the body. Sara shivered at the thought and her captor chuckled.

"It won´t help you even if you scream. Your friends won´t hear you. And if so, well... they´re safely tucked away, looking for me."

Something in the voice made her flinch. Was it the coldness or the unspoken threat?

"W-what do you want from me?" she asked despite the previous warnings, but this time the captor didn´t reprimand her. He simply didn´t reply.

They arrived to the elevators and Sara was surprised to find them working despite the electricity outage. She was pulled inside one of the smaller cars, and pushed against the wall. She felt the car moving down, heard it announce that they were on the second floor in the laboratories. Then she was unceremoniously hauled out of the elevator.

Sara was trying hard to distinguish her surroundings, but everything was black. The man didn´t had a flashlight and she was starting to get dizzy from the pace he chose and from the constant turning around the corners. It looked like he was trying to make her lose orientation as much as possible and Sara almost chuckled. She was having trouble staying upright, let alone knowing where they had come from or where they were going.

Finally satisfied, the man turned the last corner and stopped. He silently fumbledwith something in his pocket and Sara tensed. Should she make a move? Or was it too big a risk? The man obviously knew the building from top to bottom He had no trouble orienting himself in the blackness. But Sara had trouble with the simple act of standing straight and not bumping into a wall. She wouldn´t stand a chance. But she had to try.

"I wouldn´t do it," the man spoke all of a sudden, stopping his fumbling and tightening his grasp around her body. "If you run, you´ll get hurt."

"Why? Why are you doing this?" she asked and was angry hearing her own voice tremble.

The man snorted and opened the door, pushing them both inside. The door clamped shut and Sara heard a click that made it clear they were locked in.

She didn´t had time to ask another question. The man forced her down to the chair and grabbed for some tape that was ready on the desk, probably put there just for this purpose.

With swift but precise moves, the man tied both her hands to the chair, then proceeded to do the same to her legs. When he finished, he stood and looked at Sara with a glint in his eyes that she didn´t like. She opened her mouth to ask what was he doing when he leaned over her and taped her mouth shut.

Sara´s eyes went wide, first from fear, but it quickly changed into anger. Somehow, making her shut up was far worse than taking her hostage. It was an insult she wasn´t likely to forget. Though her captor didn´t seem to mind it a bit as he turned his back on her and made himself comfortable behind the keyboard.

Taking as deep a breath as she was able to, Sara finally took a good look around. The room really wasn´t big, maybe 12 square feet total. Most of the place was taken up by the equipment on the wall. She counted at least ten monitors and two computers. Then there was the small table in the corner with a coffee pot and a little refrigerator. She also noticed another door. Seeing the universal sign on it, though, she came to the conclusion it ledto the bathroom. She would´ve liked to take a better look around, but the room was fairly dark and she also couldn´t look behind her back. So for the time being, she settled for watching her captor.

It was an older man, in around his fifties. She didn´t see much detail of his face and he was turned away from her, facing the monitors. Feeling safe for the moment, realizing that the man had momentarily lost interest in her, she straightened her neck so she could see what he was watching.

At first she blinked, not really understanding what was happening on the screens. Then her eyes widened and she could hear the man´s crazy giggles. Suddenly he started typing on the keyboard and the images stopped.

"Oh, perhaps I shall rewind the tape and look at what happened to the others while we were otherwise occupied?" He pushed the button and the images changed, replaying the events of the last few minutes and as Sara watched, her hands clenched into fists while her eyes teared up with fear for her friends.

xxxx

The doors on the first floor weren´t equipped with a simple locking mechanism. There was a slot for the ID card right beneath the handle, but there was no power and when Nick pulled at the handle, the door slid open easily. No ID, no password and Nick grinned slightly. At least something was good about that power outage, he thought as Grissom followed him to the office. They were on the first floor, checking out the offices. Even in the light of the flashlight they were able to see that the hall was empty. No bloody trail, no body laying across the floor.

Maybe it should´ve been encouraging, but it wasn´t. Sometimes it was easier to just deal with the scene. The simple act of searching brought on much more risks - even more when the killer was possibly still in the building.

Before stepping through the door, Grissom checked out the nameplate still apparent on the door. It read that the office belonged to one Dr. Jaroshi, specialist in Genetics. Grissom wondered if it was one of the new employees or the old ones.

It didn´t came as a surprise that they found the room empty. Turning around with the flashlight in one hand, the other still grippingthe gun, Grissom had to admit there was not much to look at.

He pointedly looked at Nick and nodded toward the doors. Even though they didn´t find any evidence that the killer was still in the building, they needed to be careful and both men fell into silence. It almost become a routineto check out the rooms - Nick came to the door and put his hand on the handle, and Grissom was covering him from the other side, while Nick pushed the door open and quickly looked it over with a flashlight. It was more a jobfor cops than for criminalists and Grissom started wondering if this wasn´t some kind of a joke.

The hall was silent as they proceeded through it. They could already see the elevators at the end of the corridor.

Another room, another door. Nick´s hand froze in the air, then shot up to shade his eyes. The light came on abruptly, blinding him.

"I could´ve used a little warning," Nick muttered. White spots danced all around his vision but he was quickly recovering. He looked at Grissom who was squinting, a frown already apparent on his face.

"Grissom?" Nick asked with concern.

"Jenkins said he couldn´t repair the generator and Brass wasn´t going that way. So how is that we have power?"

"Maybe Sara took a look?" Nick offered, but Grissom´s raised eyebrows was all that he needed to dismiss that idea.

"Don´t know then. Maybe the problem was somewhere else, not in the generator."

Finding that as a plausible answer, Grissom nodded. Finally able to see without squinting, he turned around. As far as he could tell, the hall was clear. Maybe they were only wasting time, but they still needed to check out the whole floor.

As if in silent understanding, Nick turned back to the door he was about to open before the lights came on. It was different from the others, there was no nameplate, and also there was no window on it like with the previous ones so they couldn´t see inside.

Nick´s hand reached for the handle, expecting to feel the cold steel under his fingers. Instead he felt a hot burning. It gripped his arm and enveloped his body in white flaring pain. He couldn´t scream, he couldn´t breath, couldn´t think. It could be a second or a year, it didn´t matter. One second he was standing, the other he was flying through the air as his body was thrown away. He lost consciousness before he connected with the floor.

xxxx

Jim Brass once again cursed the lights that went berserk. It was bad enough that they turned on whenever they wanted, but now they were blinking in a crazy rhythmthat made his head hurt.

At first he thought maybe Jenkins repaired the generator. But now he wasn´t so sure of it. They were already at the other end of the storage room that was now positively empty and he was about to turn and walk out, when the lights came to. Brass and Kevin exchanged surprised glances, then headed for the exit, when they were once again surrounded by darkness.

Brass automatically stopped but his younger charge wasn´t so smart and he stumbled into the first pile of boxes that came his way. Brass cringed as he heard them crash down and only waited for the chain reaction, internally preparing to skin the young rookie. He was all too aware of the liability of boxes and crates piled up in the room.

To his surprise, there was no other crash following and he let out a sigh.

"Kevin?" his voice was all but a growl. He knew the rookie must´ve been scared but he never anticipated the shriek.

"Oh shit!" the boy yelled and scrambled to his legs as fast as he could, with some of the boxes lying on top of him.

"What the hell´s wrong?" Brass asked, shining the flashlight on Kevin. All he could see were the crates and Kevin´s form covered in dust and dirt. Brass almost laughed at the scared look on Kevin´s face. That is, until he saw the trail of blood on Kevin´s shirt. And on his hair.

"Are you hurt?"

Kevin simply shook his head and pointed toward the mess that was on the floor.

"N-no, not me. But that guy looks bad..."

"More like dead," Brass muttered as he saw the bloodied body of one of the security guards. Brass didn´t feel the need to kneel down and check for the pulse, the widely open eyes staring vacantly at him were enough evidence the man wasn´t alive.

"Congratulations," Brass spoke to Kevin, his voice all but cheery, "you just found your first body."

Kevin shot him a pained look, before getting on his feet and hastily stumbling away. A second later Brass could hear him retching.

Shaking his head, the detective pulled out his cell phone and dialed Grissom´s number. But there was no dialtone. Brass looked at the phone and frowned.

"No signal?" he asked, incredulous.

"Kevin, get your ass back here and get me Jenkins on the radio!"

The rookie walked back, the embarrassment all but forgotten. He was trying in vain to get through to Jenkins, but there was no reply. Brass was waiting impatiently and Kevin mustered the courage to speak.

"I am sorry, detective. But he isn't responding."

And as if that weren´t enough, the lights started blinking.

TO BE CONTINUE

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