Chapter 7: She is calling out for me

When Aimee came by again she was alone and it was dark. The room she was in was filthy and smelly. There was dust on the floor, it looked as if this room hadn't been cleaned since it was built. Aimee felt awful, there was a metal taste in her mouth, probably from her own blood and everything in her body was aching. The longer she was captured, the smaller the chance on survival. She had to drop a line, in case Calleigh or any other CSI came to find her.

Just when Aimee closed her eyes to rest, the sound of an explosion made her sit up. It wasn't the sound of a bomb exploding, but she knew very well what kind of explosion it was. She heard shouting and footsteps on the hallway. Things were going wrong here. As quick as she could she got of the blanket she was on and crawled to the corner of the room. She wrote some things in the dust on the floor, hoping someone would find it.

She figured with how things were going on the hallway right now she'd be moved again soon. A loud thud startled Aimee, a bullet hit the door. Not a second later the glass in the door shattered and she was able to hear the shouting. It seemed a couple of her captors were fighting over what had happened in the shooting earlier. Aimee wondered why they had to fight with guns nowadays; people are using them as toys.

Suddenly one of the men she had seen before came in and roughly jerked on her arm to make her come with him. She cried out from the pain but he didn't pay attention to it. Aimee couldn't move so the man called for help and two men ended up dragging Aimee out of the room.

Again she was shoved in the back of a car, this time it was a red Licoln Navigator. Aimee sat next to the man who had called her a bitch and hit her earlier, he looked at her with disgust on his face. She wondered what she had done to him to deserve that. The car sped off, and with that the men in the car started arguing. There were 3 men in the car with her, and all of them had something else to argue with the other about. And that's what they call a gang Aimee laughed to herself, she found the men pathetic.

The man next to her noticed Aimee was smirking.

"What are you laughing about?" he said in bad English.

Aimee mumbled something in Spanish just to mock the guy. She was tired of these games she was subjected to. She didn't even know why they took her. They still hadn't killed her and seemed keen on keeping her alive, so there must be a reason.

The guy, who had a goatee, got so angry with her. He started screaming at her about some guy named Eddie. She just looked at him and didn't say anything.

"That's it. Fuck Pedro" the guy said. He leaned over Aimee and opened the door of the car, which was speeding over a dirt road somewhere in the Glades. Aimee saw the dirt going by really fast, this looked nasty.

"Fuck you bitch" the man with the goatee said to Aimee "you're gonna pay for what you did to Eddie".

With that he pushed Aimee out of the car. He could hear the young woman scream. The driver pulled over the car and started arguing with him.

"What did you do you moron!" he said "you killed her! We were supposed to keep her alive"

"Just drive Angelo" the third man said.

Angelo looked at both men in the backseat and drove off, leaving Aimee to die, if she wasn't dead already.

Calleigh Duquesne and Eric Delko were responding to a call from dispatch about a shooting. Someone had called 911 and said there was a gang shooting going on.

Calleigh followed Delko into the building, both CSI's had their gun drawn, just in case. Delko entered a room on their right, Calleigh did the same with a room on the left. After clearing the room she started processing, as did Delko.

In the back of the room, near the wall was a blanket. When he examined it closer he found blood, he swabbed it and bagged the blanket. He examined the floor with his flashlight, taking pictures of dusty foot prints and what seemed a trail of someone being dragged. When he lit the corner of the room his eyes widened.

"Calleigh" he shouted "Calleigh, come here"

Calleigh rushed over to Delko, the room she was processing didn't hold much evidence and she was almost done with bagging the bullet casings she found. When she entered the room Delko was in she saw his face, his eyes showed a mixture of shock and excitement.

"Check this out" he said, shining his flashlight on the floor in the corner of the room.

Calleigh's eyes widened. "A message" she said. As she read it she felt a mixture of feelings.

"Aimee" she whispered softly. The message was from Aimee, the ballistics terms gave it away, and she recognized as much as was left from Aimee's handwriting.

"SOS MDPD. Glock 21 .45 ACP kB! Lucha. CD LY sis" Delko read out loud "what do you think it means?"

"Well" Calleigh started "MDPD is us, Miami Dade Police Department. God Eric, she is calling out to me" Calleigh whispered.

"She is describing what happened here isn't she?" Delko said, raising his eyebrow at Calleigh.

"There was a fight involving a Glock 21, .45 caliber Automatic Colt Pistol, one of the guns had an explosive malfunction, that's what we call a Kaboom or kB like Aimee wrote here. I have no idea what the last part means though" Calleigh said.

"I'll take some pictures and let one of the decoders figure it out" Delko said "I found blood on a blanket in this room, could be Aimee's"

Calleigh looked as if she was about to cry "God, I hope she is ok" she sighed.

Just when Calleigh and Delko walked out of the building Calleigh's phone rang, it was her boss.

"Duquesne" she said, wondering what her boss had to tell her.

"We found her" was all Horatio said.

"Is she ok?" Calleigh asked, her heart was beating like she just sprinted for a mile and her pals were getting sweaty. They found Aimee, they found her little sister.

"She is in a pretty bad shape, paramedics are taking her to the hospital as we speak." Horatio said, not wanting to upset the CSI too much.

"Talk to me Horatio!" Calleigh shouted, now was not the time to baby her.

"She is unconscious. Severe bruising, several broken ribs, that's all they could establish now. Alexx is with her, she will stay with her in the hospital"

"Where are they going, I'll be right there"

"Miami Dade Memorial" Horatio said before he heard Calleigh hang up the phone.

"Miami Dade Memorial Eric, right now" she shouted as she got in the car. She knew Eric was a good driver, especially when it came to emergencies like this.

Calleigh ran into the hospital. She met with Horatio in the waiting room, he was talking to Alexx.

"Where is she? I want to see her" Calleigh said.

"Are you family?" A doctor asked her. He saw the blonde woman coming in and actually already knew the answer to that question. There was no doubt this women were related, they looked like twins.

"Yes, I am her sister" Calleigh said.

"Come with me Miss Hayes" the doctor said walking down the hall.

"Duquesne, Miss Duquesne" Calleigh corrected him. The doctor raised his eyebrow at her but she didn't care, she had to see Aimee.

When Calleigh entered the IC room tears welled up in her eyes. She could hardly recognize her own sister, she was black and blue all over and covered in bandages.

"Oh my god Aimee" she whispered as she slowly walked to the side of Aimee's bed and took her sister's lifeless hand in hers. "I'm so sorry little one, I'm so sorry" she whispered while gently stroking Aimee's hand with her fingers.

She caught herself using the term little one for her sister again. She hadn't done that since, well a long time ago. Tears were streaming down her face, she had failed Aimee again and the poor girl ended up really hurt and in hospital.

"She's in a pretty bad condition at the moment. She has been beaten up pretty bad for the past few days, and today they threw her out of a moving vehicle. She is a tough one though, it's a surprise she survived all this" the doctor told Calleigh while she was whispering things to her sister.

When he realised Calleigh wasn't really paying attention to what he said the doctor quietly left the room. He decided to leave the two alone for a while.

"Oh little one, what did you get yourself into?" Calleigh said to the unconscious woman. "You are going to be fine, you're going to be ok"

"I promise you little one, I know I've said this before, but this time I'm going to be here to keep my promise, I will never let this happen to you again ok?" Calleigh said.

Alexx who was standing in the doorway overheard the older blonde's monologue and somehow the pieces started to fit together. She decided to knock on the door so Calleigh knew she was there and entered the room.

"Hey Alexx" Calleigh said, with a totally different voice than Alexx had just heard.

"Hey. I'm sorry I should've knocked before coming in" she said to the blonde who was still sitting next to the bed.

"It's ok. You would've found out anyway" Calleigh said. Something in her voice made Alexx worry, it sounded like the blonde CSI felt defeated.

"You can't always protect her you know" Alexx said, sitting down on the other side of the bed.

"I promised her that when we were younger. She needed me, and I just ran off to College. I don't even know what happened to her when I wasn't there, and you know, I don't think I ever want to know." Calleigh said, keeping her eyes on her younger sister.

"I should've been there for her more" Calleigh continued "only I knew how she felt, what it was like, hell maybe I only knew half, but I at least I understood" she paused to sigh "I never thought I'd see her again when I heard she left for Spain. And I don't think I ever would have realised how much I missed her if she hadn't applied for my job and if Horatio hadn't brought her up. When I saw her at the airport, I felt like I was dreaming, she is all grown up and she looks just like me. It made me smile, because when she was little she always said she wanted to be like me, and now look at her" Calleigh started sobbing "I can't even protect her, how could she ever want to be like me"

"Because you are smart, beautiful, determined and independent Calleigh" Alexx said. She was shocked by the confession she just got, she never thought Calleigh would open up like that to her. She also wondered if she had ever seen Calleigh cry before.

Calleigh looked up and flashed a faint smile at Alexx "Thanks" she said.

"She was always the unwanted one Alexx, she was always the mistake, the 'thing' that ruined it all for my parents" Calleigh said, stressing thing "As a kid I promised myself I would make Aimee feel wanted, because I loved her and I wanted her to know that. I can't believe I never followed up on that promise after going to College"

"It's never too late" Alexx said with a smile "she still looks up to you Calleigh, she still knows you love her"

Calleigh looked up at Alex again and smiled "I hope so"

"I know so" Alexx confirmed.