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Em x

Screaming everywhere. The smell of burning rubber – tyres against tarmac. Brass could feel something warm and sticky running down his forehead as he blinked himself back into reality. He reached up and gently touched his wound. Flinching, he removed his hand and saw the blood on it. Had the kids got away? He pulled himself up into a more upright position, ignoring the searing pains up his back. His head spun and he screwed his eyes shut to rid them of the flashing spots. What had happened? The gunshot – it must have got the car, probably a tyre. He had not been able to keep it under control. There had been screaming. Screams everywhere. Sara – oh God, Sara. Brass forced his eyes open and turned to his passenger.

"Sara!" he cried out. "Speak to me – are you alright?" His chest felt compressed and he could barely catch his breath. Sara's head was covered with blood like his own. Her eyes were shut and her face looked drained of blood. But it was when he looked down her body that his heart missed a beat. Where her right leg should have been was a tangle of metal, where the car had been crushed by the blows it had suffered, and blood. "Oh, shit," Brass murmured. "Sara, wake up," he begged. Looking past her and out of the right hand window he saw crowds of people. Some had their heads in their hands, shocked; others were staring with grim fascination.

"Call an ambulance!" he yelled. "Now!"

I I I I I

Grissom had pressed redial on his phone ten times now but he kept being told the number he was trying to reach was unavailable. He could not rid his stomach of a horrible sinking feeling.

He noticed Nick walking past his door and called out for him.

"Hey, Griss, I was just on my way out."

"I won't keep you. Have you heard from Sara recently?"

"Yeah, I just spoke to her."

Grissom's heart leapt. "Is she alright?"

Nick look puzzled. "She was a bit fed up with doing overtime but otherwise, yeah," he replied. "You can see her yourself – she's just down there in the lab."

Now it was Grissom's turn to be puzzled. "When you say 'just seen her', what do you mean?"

"I don't know – maybe thirty minutes ago?"

That horrible feeling returned to Grissom's stomach. "Right."

"Why? Anything urgent?"

Grissom took a deep breath to calm himself. "No," he replied. "Nothing urgent. See you later."

Nick shot Grissom a confused glance. "Sure."

As he left the room, Grissom picked up the phone one last time.

I I I I I

Brass' head was pounding by the time he heard the approaching ambulances. "Oh, thank God," he murmured, before turning to Sara. "Hear that, Sara? They're coming to help you. You're going to be fine." There was still no response.

Suddenly Brass became aware of a phone ring tone. He looked out the window but quickly realised the sound was coming from inside the car. He looked over at Sara. Her eyelids were flickering, as if the sound of her phone had prompted something inside her to wake up.

"Sara?" Brass said, gently. "Can you hear me?"

A small groaning sound rose from Sara's throat as her eyes slowly blinked open.

"It's ok," Brass reassured her. "Everything's going to be ok."

"My phone," Sara whispered. She lifted a hand cautiously, as if testing what her body could manage.

"Don't move, Sara," Brass instructed her and she returned her hand to its original position, startled by the mixture of fear and concern in his voice. "I'll get it."

"It's in my left pocket." Her head was swimming now and her body felt wrong; something was not right. She felt Brass remove the phone from her trousers and glanced down at her legs.

By the time Brass answered the phone she had lost consciousness again.

I I I I I

Grissom had not been able to believe it when the phone rang on his eleventh attempt. It rang for what felt like forever but he did not dare hang up. Eventually his patience was rewarded.

"Hello?" The voice was weak, unclear and Grissom could hear ambulances – oh God, ambulances – in the background. Yet he still recognized the sound of his friend speaking.

"Jim?"

"Gil?"

"Where are you?"

Brass gave a simple answer to a simple question. Grissom hardly dared ask anything else but he knew he had to.

"What happened?"

He heard Brass draw a deep breath. "Stupid kids. They shot at the car. I swerved. The car went over."

It was a much abridged story but Grissom did not want or need to hear more right now. "Are you alright?"

"The ambulances are just arriving."

"That's not an answer, Jim."

"I'm talking, aren't I?"

"And Sara?" The million dollar question, blurted out because Grissom could no longer hold it back.

"I think you better get down here." Wrong answer.

I I I I I

The sound of footsteps approaching the car window, still open from his and Sara's attempts to cool own, drew Brass' attention from the phone call. A paramedic's head appeared as he crouched down beside the door. "Hello, sir, what's your name?"

"I'm Captain Jim Brass, Las Vegas Police Department." In times of trouble, revert to formality.

"Ok, Jim, we're going to get you out of here as quickly as possible."

The immediate use of his first name annoyed Brass but he did not have the energy to protest. "Help her first." He signalled to Sara.

"My colleagues are just about to help her, sir."

Seeing a group of paramedics arrive at Sara's door, Brass decided to give in. "My head hurts but other than that, I think I'm fine."

"You stay still whilst I open the door and we'll be the judge of that."

I I I I I

By the time Grissom arrived at the scene of the accident the crowds were thinning. He still had to push his way through, however, to reach an ambulance into which Brass was being led. Dried blood on his forehead and looking extremely pale, his eyes betrayed pain beyond that of his wound.

"I'm sorry, Gil."

Grissom's stomach did a somersault. He thought he might throw up. No, surely not. "Sara-" he stammered. Brass pointed towards the car. The passenger side was dented and battered, but there were still paramedics crowded around it. That had to mean there was hope. "What are they doing?"

"They have to wait for the fire services."

Grissom's brain struggled to keep up. "Fire?"

"They have to cut her out, Gil. They think she's going to lose her leg."