Grissom shouted at the frazzled doctor, peeved at having to wait for the aloof man to get his wits about him. Finally the pencil pusher ran over, avoiding the wheelchair that had been brought in to haul Ivan out of the room, as the two guards met reinforcements in the hallway. Franco followed the entourage out of the room to oversee everything, before he turned back and to join the physician who now hovered over the criminalists.
The supervisor pressed down on the worst of the bleeding area of the wound. Nick hissed, grunting when the weight was added, as he tried to cradle his arm towards his chest instinctively.
"Let me see how bad it is," Dr. Idiot requested.
"Give me your lab coat so we can staunch this bleeding," Grissom ordered.
Nick stayed on his haunches, teeth gnashed together. He yelped when his boss prodded at his blazing arm; the slight inspection felt like acid bubbling inside the gash. Blood trickled beneath his palm, creating little trails of warm crimson stains along tanned skin. It felt like the angry teeth had sunk in and remained embedded in his flesh like burning lead spikes.
Dr. Stanfield removed his jacket; Grissom yanked it away without another word. He folded the garment a couple of times. The physician inspected the wound, shaking his head. "Looks bad, though you're lucky he didn't get an artery."
Nick missed the deadly dagger that his supervisor sent at the callous words, too preoccupied by the new waves of pain. Grissom wrapped his forearm with the fabric several times. Nick leaned his head back against the smooth brick. The now throbbing hot pulsation of his arm sent aches down his limb and into the rest of his body. Taking a few seconds to compose himself he looked over at Grissom who began barking instructions again, his words lost in a sea of fuzziness.
"You all right, Grissom?" he croaked, annoyed how his voice sounded.
The supervisor frowned. "A little worse for wear, but I'll live." He swallowed. "Thanks."
Nick wasn't sure what that meant, but he didn't get a chance to voice his thoughts, as his boss began harassing more people.
"I said, where's the ambulance?"
Dr. Stanfield shook his head. "That'll take too long; we can get him to the infirmary a lot quicker."
Grissom hesitated, but upon seeing the red stain slowly soak the white coat he acquiesced. "Okay, lead the way."
Nick was encouraged to his feet; his supervisor held the primitive bandage in place as they exited the room.
"Why the hell was there only one guard? I thought he was sedated!"
Grissom's demanding and angry questions made his head hurt, as he was hauled around like some freakin' injured puppy. The group bounded down the corridor like a horde of madmen, ironic since all the commotion was sure to agitate the cells of inmates as they passed. Nick managed to pry his arm away from his boss. He pressed down on the wound himself, able to manage the pain better, controlling the pressure. Grissom kept right by his side, still overcrowding, like he would just keel over or something.
They rushed down hallways at hairpin turns; a rolling cloud of angry thunder filled with arguing over who was at fault for the disaster. Nick loathed the entire situation.
Franco looked as if the weight of the world weighed heavily on his shoulders; wide eyed in horror and self-doubt over the circumstances. Obviously replaying how he could have handled the situation better.
'Aren't we all buddy,' Nick wanted to tell him. He knew that Ivan had some weird twisted fascination with Grissom, and this encounter was too good to pass up any jolly fun. Why wasn't the room more secured and how exactly did a sedated patient overpower three people like that?
All valid questions, lost to the throbbing of his poor arm. If his stomach had been tied up in fits earlier, it was doing somersaults now. He felt manhandled, corralled from one end of the wing to the other, no earthly idea where they were. Lost in a fog of pounding pain and the ever-growing arguing around him. Nick had to keep his wits about him; something set Ivan off with or without pharmaceutical aid. These weren't exactly the best circumstances to continue his theories about the case from before. A glance at Grissom told him two things.
His supervisor was letting his emotions drive him; anger, guilt, and fear...things he wasn't used to seeing from the normally stoic man. It only made him more annoyed he had no clue why. The other was his supervisor's failing ability to hide an occasional grimace and flinch from forcing his body into this maelstrom. Gil Grissom had been crushed against a wall by a raging bull of a man. Nick's worry overweighed his anger, even if his boss' attempt to hide his pain was some sort of hypocritical slap to the face.
Finally, they arrived like an angry herd, barreling through the infirmary. Nick was forced into a chair, while Angelo and a female nurse flanked him. Nick suppressed a groan when the soaked-through cotton was peeled away, the fabric irritating the wound.
Angelo let out a small whistle, swiveling a bright side lamp over the arm to inspect the injury. The heavyset brunette nurse grabbed a rolling stool and a tray, fussing with the male nurse. "Just keep the pressure on," she commanded. She turned Nick's arm at every angle with gloved hands to inspect the extent of the wounds.
The woman's embroidered name read Louretta; the middle-aged spitfire unfolded a cotton cloth under Nick's arm, throwing away bloodied gauze in a steady stream. "Looks worse than it is. Just keep that arm still," she explained somewhat gruffly.
Dr. Stanfield bobbled around the infirmary, running his hand though his brown, crazy curls, bouncing on his feet like some toddler who was about to burst through his britches. Grissom wasn't sure if he was glad the geek didn't have a hand in Nick's care or even more ticked off that the physician wasn't lending a finger to help. One more glance at the two arguing over his CSI's examination and he knew Nick was better off with the far more experienced nurses.
Nick now knew the exact definition of flambéed, since his mauled arm felt like an experiment by some mad cook. Sweat dotted his forehead; his right hand trembled just a bit from the strain of keeping his arm still as requested.
Angelo patted Nick's shoulder, winking at him. "You'll be fine, Dawg. Angry pit bull tried to make you his chew toy, but the fleshy part under your forearm bleeds real easily."
Nick nodded, relieved. "Hurts like a sonuvabitch," he admitted.
Louretta moved away, Angelo resuming the pressure on the wounds as she gathered a few supplies out of cabinets. Dr. Stanfield wandered over to speak with her out of earshot; Nick strained to hear what was going on, but was distracted when Grissom chose that very moment to come over. Instead of addressing his CSI he spoke to Nurse Angelo in his newly adopted curt tone.
"When you're done, I want you to draw a blood sample from Leon."
Angelo gave him a double-take for a second before the other nurse came back with a few items and laid them out on her tray. "Excuse me, Sir, but we need to work here. Why don't you take a seat in the corner."
Dr. Stanfield stood next to the entomologist who wasn't quite ready to be ordered around. "You have the right supplies to take care of his arm?"
Louretta didn't exactly glare, but her stern reply spoke volumes. "I'm a Physician's Assistant, on top of many years of being a nurse. I've stitched up more lacerations, stab wounds, and anything else you can think of over the years here. A ton more than most doctors," she said glaring at the geeky researcher. "We need to clean and irrigate the wound and he's going to need quite a few stitches, but your friend should be fine. This is kind of minor compared to some of the barbaric things I've seen inside here."
She ushered him away as Grissom glanced at the male nurse.
"I'll draw Ivan's blood when we're done here, all right?" Angelo asked.
Grissom nodded as he pulled up a chair. Dr. Stanfield didn't look like he knew what to do with himself. He pulled out a cell phone and spoke into it urgently. Grissom was about to pepper him with questions when the frazzled man flipped this cell closed angrily.
He held up his hand to quiet anything from the criminalist. "Seems as well funded as we are, we still don't have proper IT support. Got a call about some more power fluctuations with our system. I've got to take a look at it. Your colleague is in great hands, and I'll be back as quickly as possible if my staff needs me for any aspect of his care."
Grissom stood up, grunting from the effort, as he rubbed at sore ribs. "Wait," he protested.
"Franco will remain behind to escort you guys out, if I'm not back in time." The physician waved dismissively as he exited the infirmary.
The prison guard looked over at the supervisor, swallowing slightly. "You need to be checked out as well, Sir."
Grissom eased his battered body back down. "After Nick is taken care of," he replied despite the ache in his side.
Nick looked miserable, head rested on his left arm, his teeth gnashing down every few seconds from the sutures that were applied, his injured arm held firm, as the female nurse closed up the long laceration that began past his wrist and followed a ragged trail towards his elbow. The Texan's body was stiff with stress, his eyes closed at the painstakingly slow process. Grissom gave them plenty of time to get into a flow and meandered over to speak quietly as they worked.
Louretta looked up; the battle tank of a woman indicated with her eyes that she'd rather have Grissom sit right back down. "We numbed his arm with Lidocane while we close it up. The actual bite we injected with a needle since it was a bit of a nastier, deeper wound. Looks like he bit down then moved his jaw a bit. "
She didn't look at her patient with much sympathy as she spoke to his boss. "Any deeper, and he'd have been in a lot of trouble. I'm using tiny stitches to make sure there is less of a scar. So just keep sitting still." She addressed the younger suffering CSI. "Wouldn't want to leave a scar on this nice arm of yours; then you'd end up having to go to a plastic surgeon because you wiggled around too much."
"What about something for the pain?" Grissom asked.
Nick turned until the side of his face rested on his makeshift pillow, clearing his throat. "Something would be nice," he drawled.
Grissom frowned, knowing Nick didn't complain unless he was really hurting. The nurse didn't look up from her sewing. "You should be numb enough there, cowboy."
Nick chuckled. "Don't think an entire dentist office would help, Ma'am."
Louretta shared an annoyed expression with her co-worker. "Mr. Know-it-all left before writing a 'scrip, but I can do it just the same."
Grissom looked none too pleased. "What about antibiotics?"
Nick looked even unhappier at being talked about when he was right there. "Grissom, let them do their jobs."
Angelo helped clean up, eying both men.
Louretta got up when she was finished with her sutures and went to the medicine cabinet. She fished into her pockets for the keys. Patting down her lab coat she looked up perplexed.
"What the Hell," she swore as she began looking around the infirmary.
Grissom didn't like what he was witnessing and stood up to hover. "What's the matter?"
After a few minutes of turning the place upside down the older woman slammed her fist down, and looked up slightly apologetic at her outburst. She was definitely not a woman to get on the wrong side of. "Dr. Stanfield, that annoying man. Borrowed my keys a while ago and didn't give them back. Can't get into the drug lockup."
Grissom zeroed in on their security escort. "Track down Dr. Stanfield or take me to him. This is ridiculous."
Franco nearly fell over out of his chair from the angry command, blundering with the intercom system. He requested the front security post but got only white static. Puzzled, he tried several more ways to track down someone within the wing. He rubbed at his goatee. "Damn thing keeps cutting out. Like everything's all jacked up."
Nick forced his body into a sitting position, earning an evil look from his nurse who wasn't quite done with him yet. "Don't worry about it, man." He just wanted to get away from the smells of such a sterile environment. His head pounded from the light blood loss, and his rebellious stomach didn't take too kindly to the new shock to his body. Too much stress for one day, and all on less than four hours of sleep.
Grissom pulled out his cell phone. "What's his number? I call him myself."
"Griss," Nick warned, tired of being the center of attention.
Franco seemed mighty intimidated by the older criminalist's hostile reaction. The man had been under the command of a lab rat of a boss too long. He held out his hands passively. "No can do, sir. Cell phones don't work most of the time in here. Too many thick walls on this floor."
Grissom bristled. "What do you mean? Stanfield just took a call from someone about a power fluctuation."
The Latino guard shrugged, obviously confused. "Um, no one can get a signal in here. Try it yourself, you can't dial out."
The beating pulse of pain was ignored for a moment as Nick recalled being barely able to speak to Sara on his cell from the third floor of the prison the other day.
"Hey, I still need to wrap that up with a bandage," the nurse chastised.
Nick joined Grissom, both of them sharing an uneasy silence. The supervisor punched in a few numbers on speed dial; no bars, no signal.
Grissom felt a shudder run through his body. "You were telling me about one of your theories a little while ago?"
Nick cradled his arm against his chest, noting the blood stains on his jeans, shirt and the myriad splotches on his supervisor's clothes as well. All he could think about was how this was too reminiscent of some bad plot twist in a horror movie. Except they might be trapped in the belly of a metal labyrinth surrounded by some really scary, real-life zombies.
It might have been somewhat comical. Two criminalists discussing aspects of a case, hashing out theories while each of them were poked and prodded. Actually, Grissom sat on an exam table, Angelo asking him the same thing over and over again. "Does it hurt when I put pressure here?"
Grissom grunted at a couple particularly sore areas, as Nick sat in a chair while Louretta wrapped up his arm in sterile white bandages.
"That's all he said?" Grissom repeated again.
Nick tried to keep from snapping at the comment, doing his best not to let his injury taint his response. "Yes. Kincaid told Joey he thought the man was being used. This set up his new episode of his muteness. From what I gathered, Joey had a rough time with anything stressful."
Grissom was 'helped' to a standing position, snatching his shirt and carefully slipping it back on. The black nurse scribbled in a chart. "Bruised ribs, so you'll be sore for a while."
Grissom gave the man a nod, still hashing things out. "Are you sure Crane wasn't just telling you what you wanted to hear?"
Nick felt the now familiar flush to his face. "No. He had no clue what I was fishing for."
Grissom's drawn face spoke volumes; Nick could predict what was coming next.
"He's not reliable, especially given the opportunity to keep in contact with you. He'll feed you crumbs to keep you dependent on his information."
Louretta wrapped one final layer of stretched cotton, one eye focused on the task, the other drifting between the obviously tense criminalists. Nick hissed when she accidentally brushed over the area of the bite mark.
"It was a lead; a confirmation of my suspicions. Kincaid suspected something about those patients; so much so, he gathered them into a group for questioning. He'd been talking to Joey for a little while; whatever he learned or suspected was enough for him to take over as those men's primary care giver."
Nick had stepped closer with every harsh word to punctuate his meaning. Grissom's expression was enough to know he was acting out of line. Nick backed away and thanked the nurse, who still hovered near him, for her ministrations, .
Louretta broke the awkward silence. "Go see your own doctor in a couple days for follow up care. If you don't see Dr. Know-it-all, make sure to drop by the ER for antibiotics and some pain pills. You're gonna being hurting mighty bad if you don't get anything other than aspirin."
"Yes, Ma'am. Thank you." Nick drawled heavy on the accent.
Louretta shook her head. "Sweet talkin' me with that southern accent doesn't work on me, cowboy. Be careful with that arm, or you'll ruin all my fine work."
Nick wasn't too offended by her bedside manner. The woman dealt with vicious criminals every day. It must have been tough to work in an environment like this.
Grissom didn't hide his misgivings about the situation.
The definitely not shy nurse glared at him. "I'm not busting open my cabinets. You going to pay for the damages? I think your guy can tough it out for just a bit."
Grissom didn't retort after seeing Nick's eyes on him. Sighing, he leaned against the wall, deep in thought. "We're been speculating about Stanfield. We need to leave and drop you by an ER. Get Brass down here, maybe even some others. Find out if Sara was able to identify the substance in their blood. Get a fresh sample of Leon's to the lab if possible."
Nick looked incredulous, still disbelieving, even if it was his theory. "Murder by inmate, man?"
Grissom shrugged. "Happens all the times in prison; this time, our suspect might just be a bit more creative."
"Thinks he smarter too." Nick shook his head.
Grissom raised an eyebrow. "We need to be very vigilant about our surroundings."
"Um, you want to use our land line to call the Doc?" Franco came over trying to help.
Nick looked at his boss, but the supervisor addressed the guard."We should just leave." He didn't want to mention that tipping their hand to a suspect was not the best course of action.
Nick wasn't comfortable about turning tail, but deep inside he knew he'd feel a lot better back in the lobby and not within the confines of a maximum security mental ward.
Grissom allowed Franco to lead them into the hallway, still a bit wary of any staff member at this point. The two criminalists followed the Latino down the hall, the guard unsuccessfully trying to reach someone with a walkie- talkie. They walked for some time and the trio rounded a corner, when the two-way radio chirped.
"Franco, where the Hell are you? All Hell is breakin' loose here!"
The guard froze, the two criminalists almost bumping into him. Nick and Grissom stood by as the frantic security man hollered into the radio.
"I'm at the East Wing, near Row B. What's the problem?" The Latino asked, looking at both men.
"Power's out here on the West Wing; the computer's on the fuckin' fritz and all the gates are--"
Static garbled noise sputtered out. "Shit, now Row A! God damn it--"
The sentence was cut off, followed by a loud hissing noise.
Franco tried to change frequencies on the radio as Nick began to look around. "How much further 'til we reach--"
The lights flickered on and off, like a transformer gone wiggy. Shadows bounced around, the strobe effect like something out of a rock concert. Nick felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he stared up at the blinking illumination. His gut twisted as all three of them remained rooted like a pack of deer caught in the high beams of an on-coming car. Before he found his voice, the whole hall was cast in darkness, followed by a blaring alarm making them all cover their ears.
Nick could hear the frantic security guard try vainly to contact someone, anyone for information or help. The only noise was the crackle of dead air, and the blasting alarm that thundered in their ears.
Then everything fell silent. The pitch-blackness of the corridor was punctuated by those damn eerie red lights from the night the case started, five-second intervals of pulsating illumination.
"Can we find our way back to the infirmary, or are we near an exit?" Grissom's calm voice floated in the air.
Heavy breathing from the guard was the only response and the supervisor grabbed the man's shoulder to give it a light shake. "What are your emergency procedures for something like this?"
Grissom and Nick saw the cascading emotions flash before their eyes. " I dunno. I mean, if all the power's out is one thing. If there's a computer malfunction, then we're..."
"We're what?" Nick pressed for an answer.
"Then we need to get the Hell out of here."
Grissom felt the waves of fear from the young guard. "Why?"
The hall began to shudder from the sounds of metal doors clanking along rails. The echoes of scraping and low-pitched drone of old metal reverberated all around. The sounds of the building coming to life merged with the occasional scream and shouting off in the distance. Both criminalists strained to hear where the new sources of noise originated. The creaking of metal and the crashing of other objects closer by drew their attention a few hundred feet away.
"If the computer system went out, then all the key cards don't function anymore."
Nick felt his throat tighten. "Are there backup locks on all the cell doors?"
They could see the guard shake his head in a small, fearful gesture.
Nick swallowed. "Riiiiiight. Sedated prisoners are easy ones to control."
Franco wiped a droplet of sweat from his nose. "Yeah, I mean all of them have been given their nightly meds."
Grissom stepped closer, his face inches from the other man's. "So, what you're saying is that we better find a way out of here, before any of the inmates figure out that all their doors can be easily opened."
Both men heard an audible gulp. "Yes. Because if we don't hurry, a complete lock down will go into effect and we'll be trapped in here anyways."
Nick looked behind him, his paranoia Richter scale registering at its highest level. "Then let's move it, Boss, before any of the nice people here decide now would be a fun time to take a stroll."
tbc...