Chapter 2


This is a city for not sleeping, the clocks are set by feel
at this moment from where I sit, none of it seems real

Pachuca Sunrise, Minus the Bear


Horatio sped north, with lights and sirens. He did not feel at all good about this. The uneasiness he'd felt when Speed appeared in his office seemed now to be justified. To be fair, however, everything having to do with Speed made him uneasy lately. He was very afraid for his colleague, his friend, very afraid he was going to lose him.

His cell phone rang, startling him. "Caine," he said, tensely.

"Horatio? It's me." Yelena's voice was usually a welcome distraction, but not today.

"Yelena, I'm in the middle…" he started, but she interrupted him.

"I know. I'm calling to tell you that dispatch is sending ambulances and backup to the warehouse. We received a screamer page from Tim's pager," she explained. "Frank was up that way and he is also on his way over there."

"Shit," he swore.

"Yes. Calleigh is telling Alexx now," Yelena added.

"Ok. I'm almost there," he said.

"Call when you know something, yes?" Yelena sounded very concerned. Well, she worked as closely with his team as he did, almost. And everyone knew how serious a situation would have to be for someone to use the emergency button on their pagers…

"Absolutely," he agreed, as he hung up. He could just now hear the sirens, coming up ahead.

Everything was chaos as he pulled up to the warehouse. He stepped out of the Hummer and took a moment to look around. A pair of EMTs was rolling someone into the ambulance; the quick glance he had of the patient suggested that it might be John Hagen. Horatio took a deep breath and started towards the fray when his attention was caught by a familiar voice.

"Need H…g'tta ell H."

Something sounded horribly wrong to Horatio as he spun around and saw Speed fighting with the EMT. Oh, God, he thought as he caught sight of his friend. Speed looked like he was covered in blood from head to toe.

"Speed! I'm here, I'm here, it's all right. Calm down, let them help," he called as he ran towards the gurney. "It's all right."

"Na! Not. G'tta…" Speed reached out and grabbed Horatio's arm. His hands were sticky and hot with blood and Horatio had to swallow hard as he moved closer to calm Speed.

"I've got you buddy," Horatio said. "I've got you." He had him, but the sight was horrifying. There was so much blood he couldn't tell how badly Speed was hurt, but it was fairly obvious that at the least his jaw was badly broken in some manner and that he had a deep gash across the side of his face.

"G'tta ell ou," Speed's voice was garbled and muffled and made the sick sensation in Horatio's stomach worsen.

"Tell me what?" Horatio said.

"Lue t'too. 'ad a lue t'too."

Horatio's mind whirled as he tried to decipher Speed's words. "He had a blue tattoo?"

"Ah," Tim said, nodding.

"Ok, buddy, I got it. Rest, ok? Let them help you," If they can, he thought. He was hoping that at least some of this blood did not belong to Speed, but that seemed by no means certain at the moment.

"Ait! E'ic idn't know…idn't know," Speed said frantically, squeezing Horatio's arm almost painfully in his insistence.

"Eric didn't know?" Horatio asked, to clarify. Dread filled his chest. Whatever this was, it was not good.

"Ah. Idn't know," Speed mumbled as he passed out. It was as though he'd held on long enough to give Horatio the information, but as soon as the urgency stopped driving him, he was gone.

"Speed?" Horatio said, concerned. Don't die on me.

"I drugged him," the ENT explained, gently pushing Speed's hands away from Horatio. "He might have lost a lot of blood but his vitals are fairly good," she continued.

"He'll be ok?" Horatio asked, half relieved.

"Too soon to tell for sure, but he's a fighter," she said. "We're taking them to Jackson."

"All right, thank you," Horatio said, vaguely, as he watched them roll Speed towards a waiting ambulance.

"Horatio," a voice behind him said. He turned and saw Frank Tripp standing there, a grim expression on his face.

"Frank," he said, warily.

"You're going to want…you need to see this," Frank said, slowly.

Horatio realized at that moment that he did not see Eric anywhere. Eric didn't know.

"Yeah," he said, "All right."

He followed Frank into the warehouse, careful to step around the blood trail he saw by the doorway. A large pool of blood nearby caught his eye. He didn't think it was possible for his stomach to tighten further, but it did. Frank led him silently towards a body covered in a wrap. Horatio took a deep breath and bent down to pull the wrap back from the head of the body. "Oh. Oh, Eric," he breathed. It was a shock, even though he was not completely surprised.

"It looks like he was shot in the back of the head," Frank said, tonelessly.

Horatio closed his eyes. Eric didn't know. An ambush, perhaps. How long? How long had they been here without help? He rose to his feet unsteadily. The blood on his hands caught his eye as he went to run a hand through his hair and he shuddered involuntarily. Rolling up his shirt sleeves to hide the blood, he turned to Frank and asked, "Hagen?"

"On his way to the hospital. He was unconscious, and, well…the EMTs were not optimistic. Speed was the only one standing," Frank said, as he handed Horatio a wet-nap packet. Horatio nodded his thanks and cleaned the worst of the blood off his hands before digging a pair of gloves out of his pocket. "There's something else you ought to see," Tripp said.

"What?" Horatio asked, as he followed Tripp away from Eric's body. There was another body wrapped about 50 feet away.

"They got one of them, at least," Frank said, pulling the wrap away from the body.

"Did they now," Horatio breathed. "Does he have a blue tattoo that you can see?" he asked.

Frank frowned up at him. "I don't see one, no. Why?"

Horatio shook his head. "One of the things Speed said was that there was a guy with a blue tattoo."

"There would have had to be more than one of them," Frank pointed out.

Horatio nodded. He looked back towards the blood on the floor. "The trail doesn't come out this way," he noticed.

"Does that mean something?" Frank asked.

"Maybe," Horatio shrugged. "Maybe not. It depends on who made that trail." He looked around. There was another, somewhat smaller, pool of blood near Eric. He cocked his head as he walked around to examine it. Some of the blood had pooled, but there were two handprints and a splatter of blood between them as well. "This was probably Speed," he said, indicating the splatter.

"Hm?" Tripp said, glancing down. "What makes you say that?"

"There's a bit less blood here, and the blood trail starts from here, it seems," Horatio said, his eyes skipping across the floor of the warehouse. "And I don't think those handprints are big enough to be Hagen's. Speed is smaller. This also looks like someone was spitting blood, and Speed's mouth was...injured." Smashed in, more like.

"Oh," Tripp said. "Why isn't there any blood by Delko, then?" he asked.

Horatio shook his head. "He would have been able to see the gunshot wound from here." Speed was well aware of what a fatal gunshot wound to the head looked like, Horatio knew. "There wasn't any need to check Eric." And probably no desire, either.

"But he wouldn't have been able to see Hagen," Frank said nodding.

"Right," Horatio said. He followed the trail across the floor to the larger pool of blood. "He rolled up onto his knees, and then managed to get over here," he said absently. "Then it looks like he went towards the door, and then back. Checking the scene, most likely."

"Then why isn't there blood by the other body?" Frank asked.

Horatio frowned, thinking. "Most likely, he wasn't thinking clearly enough to check more than the immediate area. Speed…is not a cop, in the same way that you and I are," he said, slowly. "His priority was probably more to keep Hagen alive than to secure the scene. Hagen would have checked everything, but Speed's not as trained on how to do that."

Frank nodded. "That's not his job."

"Right," Horatio said. He thought a moment. If Speed had been the one to shoot the other man, he might have avoided going over there as well. To the best of Horatio's knowledge, Speed had never shot anyone before.

He stared down at the blood. There was quite a lot of it; Hagen had obviously been severely wounded. But how long? How long had they been out here? And why hadn't Speed called for help earlier, if Hagen hadn't been in condition to do it? Because he was unconscious, probably, he realized suddenly. If Speed had been unconscious for some unspecified time…yes, that would make sense. He ignored the voices he heard behind him and bent down to examine what looked like a bullet hole in the wall near the blood pool.

"Horatio," a voice said, insistently, as though the speaker had been trying to get his attention.

He looked up, blinking. Manny Perez, the night shift lieutenant was standing next to him. He stood up unsteadily and said, "Manny."

"Horatio, you can't work this scene. You really can't," Manny said.

"I can. I'm fine," Horatio said, brushing Manny's concern away.

"No, Horatio, you are not, but the reason you can't work the scene is because IAB is on their way. They won't let you stay. It would be better for you to go before they get here," Manny said.

"Stetler is on the way, Horatio," Frank said, confirming this. "You really shouldn't be here at all."

"I am responsible for my team," Horatio began, but Manny shook his head.

"Horatio, the responsible thing would be to go. You can't do any more for Delko, and you've got the Kid on his way to the hospital all beat to hell. You've got to go take care of him. We'll take care of Delko, we'll make sure you're in the loop, but you've got to get out of here and take care of the rest of the team," he said.

Horatio stopped, closing his eyes. No one had called Speed "the Kid" in years, but the mention of the old nickname brought a flash of memory of Speed when he was very young and always scared. When had the fear gone away, he wondered. Or had it? He blinked and took a deep breath. "His...Speed's gun was clean. I watched him clean it not two days ago. You make sure…just make sure," he said.

"We will." Frank nodded. They may not know why it was important, but Horatio could see that they understood.

"All right. Call me," he said, sighing.

"We will," Manny said.

Horatio nodded and walked out to his truck. He climbed into the driver's seat and rested his head on the steering wheel for a long moment. Eventually, he sat up and started the car. He had work to do.