I hope you enjoyed my last chapter even though it was extremely short- sorry about that. This chapetr's pretty long, so it should make up for the last one. I updated as soon as I could since last chapter, so I hope you enjoy this chapter and I also hope you don't hold any grudges against me for what happens...
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Chapter 9
"H, could you maybe speed it up a bit! Mini-vans are passing us and we are in a hurry!" Eric cried, exasperated at Horatio's careful- meaning slow- driving.
Normally Eric would have no problem with mini-van owning soccer moms passing them on the road, but Ryan's life was in danger- if he wasn't dead yet- and at this rate, Calleigh was going to beat them to the pier even though her drive was five minutes out of the way.
Horatio sighed as he realized how slow he was going and sped up.
Eric, realizing they were speeding up, let out an inaudible sigh of relief, but stayed at the edge of his seat.
He didn't want to think that Ryan was already dead, but it was a possibility, and he had to be prepared for anything.
Eric didn't like Ryan for one reason- he replaced Tim Speedle. To Eric, Tim was more than just a co-worker or a friend, he was like a brother, and Ryan replaced his brother.
Eric knew he shouldn't blame Ryan for replacing Tim, especially after he showed that he knew he couldn't replace him when he took the broken locker in the locker room instead of taking Tim's old one, but still, Tim was gone, and Ryan was here.
About a minute later, Horatio and Eric pulled up to the old, broken-down, factory and pulled out their guns.
"Ready?" Horatio asked Eric.
Eric nodded, his face grim, but determined.
Horatio gave a quick nod and walked slowly up to the door.
Horatio looked at Eric and mouthed one, two, three, and then kicked open the door.
Eric quickly scooted into the room, his gun out, ready to shoot at anyone.
However, no-one was there. All he saw was blood, and a lot of it.
Eric started to stand up only to realize Horatio was shooting at someone.
"Eric, get to the back of the building," Horatio whispered to Eric.
Eric quickly got out the door he had just come in and ran to the back.
When he got there, he saw a blood trail on the ground leading to a car about twenty feet away.
"Ryan," he thought as he ran over to the car.
Just as he got to the car, however, the back door opened and a man ran out, holding his arm where he had been shot.
He ran over to the car, causing Eric to duck out of the way so he wouldn't be seen by the man he did not know.
"George," Eric thought, his anger rising, realizing that the man who Horatio had shot in the arm was George.
The man started the car, only to have the engine stall for a few seconds, but then burst into life.
Eric knew that George was going to get away if he didn't do something quick. He shot the back two tires, and then hit one of the tires in the front.
When George realized that his tires were shot, he froze.
That split second in which he was frozen was all the time Horatio and Eric needed.
Horatio, bursting from the back door of the factory, ran over to the driver's side of the car, opened the door, and pulled George out while Eric ran to Horatio's side, except he opened the back door of the car.
On the back seat was Ryan, shot, bloody, but breathing.
Eric gasped at the sight of his young co-worker, lying helpless with a bullet in his stomach.
However, the shock didn't cause Eric to hesitate because a second later, he was on his cell phone, calling 911 for an ambulance.
About a minute later, Calleigh arrived, rushing over to where Horatio was holding George and handed him handcuffs so he wouldn't have to hold onto George until the police got there.
Directly after that, she rushed over to where Eric was applying pressure to Ryan's wound.
She bit her lip and asked, "How's he doing?"
"Not so good," Eric replied, not looking up at Calleigh, but keeping his eyes on Ryan to make sure he was still breathing.
"His pulse is weak, and his breathing is shallow. I wish that ambulance would hurry up!" He cried angrily.
As if Eric magically summoned the ambulance with his cry of anger, the ambulance showed up.
After about two minutes of stabilizing Ryan, the paramedics were finally able to get Ryan onto the stretcher and into the ambulance.
"Can I ride with him?" Eric asked the paramedic. Eric hoped that if he rode with Ryan in the ambulance, it would somehow get Ryan to forgive him for not accepting him into the team just because he replaced Tim.
"I'm sorry," the paramedic said sadly, "but we need as much room in the ambulance as possible. He's not in very good shape and we have to be prepared if he flat-lines or something before we get to the hospital," the paramedic said, referring to Ryan. "We'll be at the nearest hospital- St. Jude Memorial." Eric nodded, and the paramedics got into the back with Ryan and the driver drove down the road he and Horatio had just come from.
Behind Eric, there was a sad sigh.
He turned around to find Horatio looking sadly at the ground, holding his sunglasses, carefully cleaning them.
"H, what's wrong?" Calleigh asked.
"Nothing, Calleigh," Horatio said, watching George being put into a patrol officer's car, also being taken to the hospital so his arm would be taken care of.
"It's just that," Horatio said hesitating, "St, Jude is the patron saint for lost causes. What if Ryan's a lost cause?"
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I hope this is long enough to make you all forgive me for not updating! Once again, thanks for reviewing and tell me any stories you have that are about CSI, CSI: Miami, or Without a Trace so I can read them. If you wrote other stories, I would like to read them too, just tell me. Thanks!
Eric knew he shouldn't blame Ryan for replacing Tim, especially after he showed that he knew he couldn't replace him when he took the broken locker in the locker room instead of taking Tim's old one, but still, Tim was gone, and Ryan was here. This is shown in the third episode of the third season, "Under the Influence,"when Ryan first joins the team and he is in the locker room.