We're almost finished with the initial arc! This chapter is about resolution, but I need to warn you that it gets dark. There's no bypass for it, but there is a warning for when the darker stuff starts. It's all tied up into Ellie's capture, so you may need to just skim through it if that's not something you can handle. Thanks for the reviews! They keep me on task.
Chapter 13
Ellie had showered for the second time since coming to Ziva's apartment. She kept thinking about how Jake had talked about making love to her all night while thinking about the torture video, and it made her feel gross. The thing was, she knew what night it was. She remembered the almost three weeks of celibacy and how she'd thought that something was wrong, that maybe Jake was cheating on her or something similar. She never in her wildest dreams thought that it was this. When the spell broke and they did resume carnal pleasures, it was normal. Then one night it was like something had caught fire in him, and it was mind-blowing. She could even remember thinking to herself that she wasn't sure what led up to that kind of sex, but if abstaining for a week or two now and then led to a night like that, she'd have to offer it up as a kind of tantric experiment.
She was glad there was only oatmeal and tea for breakfast, because she turned around and threw up in the toilet as that thought crossed her mind. She almost jumped back in the shower but decided that wasn't going to help anything and went to make some more tea. With a fresh cup in her hand she curled up on the couch.
Ziva had woken her up from a nightmare at about 0500. She was calling out in her sleep apparently. She felt bad for the force that she grabbed Ziva's wrist when she snapped awake, but the other woman was very understanding. She sighed and silently thanked Ziva again for being there and giving her the space she needed at the same time. She was going to come pick her up at lunch and they were going to go to her apartment to get her things and stop to pick up some more food.
Ellie agreed that she wouldn't go further than the corner store without letting Ziva know. They both felt really uneasy about her safety even though Jake was locked up. And although this X was still out there, he was most likely focused on the Bright Jihad or whatever nonsense. It was like there was a dark tension in the air though, and she would blame it on the fact that her husband just turned out to be a sadist, but Ziva was feeling it too, and wasn't afraid to admit it. It was only Ellie's insistence that Ziva go take these pricks out that had gotten her new friend to leave her alone.
She decided she was going to go stir crazy if she didn't get out of the apartment and do something, which made the corner store seem incredibly inviting. She got up, set her mug of tea on the counter, and grabbed her wallet. Ziva had given her the key to her apartment with the promise that she would call before she came back home so she knew to be expecting her.
When she finally walked out of the front of the apartment building and breathed in the fresh air, she was suddenly overcome by a surge of paranoia. She looked around, taking in everything she saw. The DC street was busy with a number of people walking up and down the walks, getting into their cars, waiting for a bus on a bench across the street, and going in and out of buildings.
She took a deep breath and told herself it was fine, that she was just nerve wracked, and to get to the corner and back. Her steps were fast, but her heart was beating faster. Once the door to the minimart shut behind her she felt much better. There were people in the store, but she was out of view of most of the public.
She grabbed a few types of drinks she liked, a big bag of Cheetos, and some popcorn. Stopping down a household aisle she grabbed a toothbrush, toothpaste, and something for her headache. For good measure she picked up some gummy worms, and then her attention was caught by the rack of magazines. She grabbed a couple of puzzle books, afraid that she was going to be sequestered in Ziva's apartment for the next four hours with nothing to do since she didn't have it in her to turn on her computer where all her research on Crow- Jake- was waiting.
The exchange with the cashier was brief, thankfully, and she carried her new belongings out the door. Her paranoia got the best of her and she pulled her phone out and pretended to call someone on it when she was actually taking video as she walked. She watched everyone around her with distinct suspicion as inconspicuously as possible. She opened the bottle of tea she had gotten and took a drink, giving her the ability to hide the shot she had of the people getting on the bus across the street. As it pulled away, she noticed that a young man with light blonde hair was still sitting there. He hadn't gotten on the bus. She glanced up at the sign though and saw that multiple number busses stopped there, so she took a breath and calmed down while telling herself he was just waiting for a different bus.
He looked up right as she was about to look away and raised an eyebrow at her staring. Great, she thought. Now he thinks I'm the weirdo.
She made her way inside and up the stairs to the floor that Ziva's apartment was on. She was just turning off the video when her phone alerted her to low memory. She sighed and stuck the phone in her back pocket. You're losing it, she told herself. Then she heard the stairwell door close around the bend from where she just came. She felt a sudden panic and pulled out the key, shoving it into the lock on the door, eager to get inside where it was safe. She knew that it was probably just one of Ziva's neighbors, but she felt all of her defenses rise in her body.
She'd finally gotten the door open, but as she stepped inside the key got jammed in the lock and she couldn't get it out. As her panicked fingers fumbled with it, a hand pressed on the door.
"Need a hand?"
Ellie looked up, her whole being getting ready to take on fight mode. In front of her was the young man from the bus bench. Before she could even react, he had lunged at her, holding a cloth over her mouth. She struggled, kicking and clawing, but it didn't take long for the chloroform to do its job, and she was limp in the man's arms.
He smiled viciously as he held her small limp body over one knee and kicked the door shut.
"Just like you told me to, Crow. Just like you told me to." He stared at Ellie's limp body on the floor in front of him and smirked. He unlocked his phone and sent the message to have Michael bring the van into the alley. A few minutes later he got the reply.
AfternoonDesolation: Coming up. What unit?
UntamedFury: 3A
There was a knock shortly after and X opened the door to a young man of barely 18 who was carrying a large blue bin almost as tall as him. He let him in with a sneer.
"That's a beautiful sight," Michael said with a sigh at the vision of Ellie laying prone on the floor.
"Yeah, it is. I wish Crow could've seen it." He used his phone to take a short video of her lying there. Michael took the lid off the bin, and X sat the phone down for a minute so the two of them could lift Ellie into it. They took perverse care with arranging her petite body to fit into the container, folding her arms and legs so that they were bent comfortably.
"Careful not to hurt her while she's asleep- she won't feel it," X instructed. "We want her to savor any pain we inflict on her. How are you feeling?" He looked at Michael to see his pants were tented. "Looks like you're feeling good." He smirked as he looked at the younger man.
"My heart is pounding! The rush… it's amazing. The things I want to do to her…"
"And you can do them all as soon as we get her to the spot and prepped."
"Thank you, sir," Michael said with a grin. He brushed his dark loose hair out of his face. He reached for the lid and snapped it on the bin as if though he was putting the unconscious woman in storage like a Christmas tree in January.
"Ready?" X asked. Michael nodded.
They lifted the bin, one on each side, and headed out the door. They sat it down in the hallway for a moment while X wiped down the doorknobs. He'd made sure not to touch anything in the apartment, just like Crow had always instructed him. In warehouses and abandoned buildings there usually weren't any chances of prints being taken, but in clean spaces like this apartment it was certain that prints would be lifted.
He left the door open, enjoying the idea of the taunt. He smirked to himself as he turned to pick up his end of the bin, imagining that whoever came to the rescue would find it like that and feel their heart stop. He especially liked the idea of possibly giving someone a genuine heart attack and dwelled on it as they carried their prey down to the van waiting for them in the alley.
They were loading her into the back of it when they heard a noise coming from inside.
"Damn!" X said as they took the lid off. "Almost ruined the whole damned thing!" He took his time groping Ellie's body as he coasted his hand along it looking for the phone. As he pulled it out of her back pocket it started ringing again. He squinted at the name.
"Hey Michael. Look up a Ned Dorneget to see if he's NSA. It's D-O-R-N-E-G-E-T." He waited a minute, and then saw a confused look on his new protégé's face. "What?"
"He's not NSA, but what's NCIS?" Michael asked, looking up at X.
"I think they're part military and part feds? I don't really get it. Some kind of cops in the Navy. I take it he's one of them?"
"Yeah."
"Then we need to go, because if he knows what's going down, we're in trouble. The NSA pipsqueaks we can handle. I'm not about to deal with any feds today. We have our mission to fulfill." He wiped Ellie's phone down and chucked it the twenty feet into the dumpster. "Though it was amazing torturing those Marines. Talking about a rush! Would love to get to do a fed one day."
They got in with X behind the wheel. "I've never used chloroform before, so I don't know if I gave her enough. Be ready to jump back there and dose her if needed."
Michael smiled broadly. "Gladly."
"You're so eager, and it's so hot. My very own little minion."
"What are we going to do to her? Tell me what I can expect," Michael asked with a happy sigh as X pulled out into traffic.
"First, we're going to make her understand just how dark our beloved Crow really was, and who he really belongs to. He's not only one of us, but our dark master. He belongs to us, and us to him. Then, we'll make her scream for us. Make her bleed. Can you smell it? I can almost smell it… the metallic tang of her blood." Michael groaned and rubbed his dick through his jeans. "Then we'll use her body for our pleasure as the life drains out of her. Her last breath is mine though. I promised Crow I'd take it if he couldn't. A knife straight into the heart. Poetic, don't you think?"
"Fucking perfect."
X smiled to himself gleefully. "Break her heart, her mind, her body, Crow said. It's plan B. I promised I'd fulfill it, and I'm so glad I get to share this with you. You'll love it."
"Thank you for sharing it with me. I'm honored."
"Get ready to enjoy yourself in ways you've never enjoyed yourself before. Psychological torture is so much better than physical torture. The demented exhilaration is addictive. Breaking a soul is so much better than breaking a body. Though, in this case, we don't have to choose between the two."
They both laughed lightly as they drove down the road exchanging what they'd like to do to her.
********WDYG?********
Tim jumped out of the passenger side of the sedan before it was even stopped. Elly was out just seconds later. The second sedan was already stopped in front of the building and Ziva and Sommers were running up the front steps. The two men ran after them. They all caught up outside of Ziva's open apartment door.
"Shit," Elly whispered.
"Ellie?" Ziva called, using her toe to push open the door cautiously, not eager to see her apartment as a crime scene. She was met by a bag of snacks from the corner store on the floor, and a bottle of iced tea. They all flooded the unit, guns drawn, watching for any kind of trip wire that may have been laid, and cleared it.
"No sign of her, McGee," Elly said, his hands on his hips as he looked around. Tim was already trying to ping her cell phone. He saw it was nearby and started following the geo-tracker on his phone.
"Where you going?" Sommers asked.
"Her phone is close."
"You want us to come with, or should I start printing?"
"Go ahead and start printing. Elly?" Tim asked, looking up.
"Right behind you," he said, following Tim out into the hallway.
They headed down the hall and Tim saw the door to the stairwell with a grimace. He looked at Elly and Elly shook his head before biting his lip. This didn't feel good. They headed down the stairs and exited out into the alley. Tim looked at his phone, then looked up and spun around to go in the direction of the signal, then froze. Elly froze too when he saw that Tim was staring at the dumpster.
"Aw hell no," Elly said. "If her body is in that dumpster, McGee, I quit. I quit, and I'm going to go find these bastards renegade style, and you'd better not try to stop me."
"I'd come with you," Tim said as they made their way slowly towards the dumpster, both of their stomachs flipping and hearts racing. They were two steps away from being able to see inside when they looked at each other and both swallowed hard. They approached and looked over the side. It was almost empty except a couple of bags, and right there on top of one of them was Ellie's phone.
"OH, FUCK YEAH," Elly yelled. "Thank God! No dead Ellie. Okay. Phone. I can deal with phone."
Tim just swallowed time and time again, nodding his head severely.
"Here," Elly said. "I'll even jump in and get the damn thing." He used his arms to push him up over the ledge of the dumpster and jumped in, then snapped on a glove and handed the phone to Tim. Tim had snapped on a glove as well and took the phone from him. He immediately tried to get into it only to find it was password protected. He turned it on the side and pushed his thumbnail into a small slot. The tiny microSD card popped out of the side. He nodded, then pushed it back in.
"I can't get into the phone until I hook it up to my laptop to run the password cracker."
Elly nodded. "Let's go check on Ziva and Sommers. I bet she's feeling some kinda way right now."
"I'm just glad she doesn't really live here anymore. Can you imagine trying to sleep in a place that a friend had been kidnapped from?" They both took the steps two by two as they went back up to the third floor.
"Tell me you didn't find a body," Ziva said as they came into the unit.
"No! Just her phone," Elly announced with a smile, then realized that wasn't that big of a success after all in the grand scheme of things.
"Well, I may have something," Sommers said.
"What did you find?" Tim asked.
"The doorknobs are damn near spotless. I mean, not even a partial. Bastards wiped it down. But…" He opened the door the rest of the way so it was facing the group. "Someone's rather large hand and palm print is right here in the center of the door."
"I made her promise me this morning that she would not go anywhere but the mart on the corner, and I recognize this bag from there. She must have gone to get some snacks and been followed back." Ziva moved into the hallway, pulling the door partially closed on the team. "She was trying to get inside, kidnapper puts his hand on the door like this," she mimed a flat palm in the center of the door, "and then forces his way in. There are no signs of struggle other than her dropping her items. Key was on the floor with them."
"Bishop doesn't strike me as the kind that wouldn't put up a fight," Elly said, earning a look from each of them. He shook his head. "She's tiny, but she's spunky. She'd make a mess going down. They must've subdued her somehow."
"Quick blow to the head is possible, but probably would've left some kind of blood, and I don't see any," Sommers said. "Must've been some kind of drug or chemical."
"No needle or even needle cap, so they either cleaned up well, or they used something like chloroform or ether," Tim said.
"We can determine that later. Right now, we need to figure out how to track her down," Ziva said.
"Let's go down to the car. I'll hook this up to the laptop and see if it can give us anything. Elly, can you run the cameras from around here and see what we can get?"
"Absolutely," Elly said, heading for the door.
"We will canvass the neighborhood," Ziva said, "starting with my neighbors."
"We'll see you downstairs," Tim said. He and Elly headed down for the car where their laptops were waiting for them. They set up a workstation on the trunk and got to work. Tim had Ellie's phone cracked in a few minutes, and about the same time Elly was into the traffic system trying to see what he could find.
"We've got a large white van disappearing around the corner to this block about 65 minutes ago, and it was here for about 20 minutes before it left back out the way it came. I have plates. Stolen from a catering company, but now unmarked. Putting out BOLO now."
"I'm into her phone. Tying into GPS. Confirmed that she just went to the corner and back. Checking most recent activity. No social media checks or email."
Tim was startled when his own phone chimed in his pocket.
Ziva: Can you get a photo of Ellie sent to me and Sommers? We need it for canvassing.
Tim: Sure. I'm in her phone. Let me see if there's a recent selfie.
"Ellie, I really hope you're not the type to send naked selfies to your husband, otherwise this is going to get really awkward."
"What are you doing?" Elly asked, realizing after a moment that Tim was talking to the other Ellie.
"Finding a photo of Ellie to send to Ziva and Sommers to use while canvassing." He opened the photo gallery and scanned quickly for a photo. He found one of her and Jake all dressed up before a night out and forwarded it to his team. He was about to exit out of the photos when the first one caught his eye. It had the triangle on it that meant it was a video, and he clicked it. The video went full screen and began playing. He realized right away that it was of the street they were on.
"Oh, you brilliant woman!" Tim cried out. He pulled the video up on the computer screen.
"What?" Elly said, looking back and forth between the two screens as he tried to track the van's movements from security cam to traffic cam and back.
"She must've thought someone was following her, because she video taped her walk home from the store!" Tim said excitedly.
"No fucking way!" Elly said, pausing in his search to look over Tim's shoulder.
"Yeah way. Look!" They watched the video together. They got to the part where Ellie was watching the guy on the bus bench, her phone pointed directly at him, and they saw the eye contact she made.
"I bet that's him!" Elly said.
"I bet it is. He would fit our very broad description of this X. He's a young man. She obviously felt uncomfortable about him enough that she spent time looking at him directly. And you can tell that she's running up the stairs after that."
Elly shook his head and moved back to his search. "You running him?"
"Oh, yeah. He's already going through our facial recognition right now. It's going to take forever though because we have no idea where he's from."
"Set priorities for DC, New York, and Los Angeles. That should help speed things up a bit."
"Yeah, I did," Tim said, typing in the parameters milliseconds before Elly suggested them. "How's the traffic hunt?"
"I have them getting on the Beltway at 0942. The next camera is five exits away, and I'm not seeing them on that one yet. So, either I'm missing it or they got off on one of those five exits."
"Keep looking. We'll find her."
********WDYG?********
Ned burst into the observation room to find Greg, who pulled his headphones off and looked up at him.
"What's up?" he asked.
"You and I are about to re-interrogate Satan," Ned said, every nerve in his body ready to do battle.
"Whoa, you're really pissed. Sit down and tell me what's going on," Greg said, gesturing towards the chair next to him.
"No, I need to be angry for this," Ned replied. "That bastard's little demon has slaughtered everyone local in The Children, and now he's going after Ellie, who we can't reach."
"What?!" Greg asked, getting to his feet.
"Yeah. She's not answering her phone, and Andy just called me in MTAC saying that he had been tracking The Children and it lead him to an old factory on Mango that currently has the bodies of eight slaughtered young adults lying in it courtesy of X, who left a lovely message for us in his favorite way. "He's mine" was carved into one of them."
"What the hell? How does Andy factor into this?" Greg asked. He shook his head and gestured with his hands saying, "Nevermind, we'll talk about that later," at the same time Ned was shaking his head and saying, "Long story!"
"All I know is that Ellie is missing, and McGee just said for us to get whatever information possible out of Jake and he doesn't care how we do it."
"I care how we do it!" Greg blurted out. "Ned, if you go in there as angry as you are right now, you're going to do something that's going to cause this jackass to walk free. You saw how he just shut down yesterday when it came to X. He's going to protect him with everything in him, and if that means pulling lawyer tricks, he's going to. He was going to kill Ellie himself. We can't let him know that he's got her. He'll thrive on that."
"Or we can get him talking about it and he'll trip up and give us something we can use," Ned said, frustrated.
"You're not going in there with that angle. He'll smirk at the wrong thing right now and you'll deck him. You're way too angry right now."
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!" Ned said with a growl, sitting down in the chair.
"He's a manipulative sadist who had plans to torture his wife, and then he was going to let X torture him and kill him. You tell him that his final wishes were being carried out and you're not going to get anything else out of him."
"So, what do you suggest?"
"We need to come at this as if though X has slipped up and we're going after him. Don't mention Ellie at all. Just X and the other kids. Not the message left or anything that could tie back to Ellie."
Ned took a deep breath and let it out. "Okay. I can do that."
"Are you sure?" he asked.
Ned shook his head no. "No, but we don't have any other choice. I have to try."
They were interrupted by the guards in holding bringing Jake back into interrogation. They shackled him to the interview table and then his chains to the floor under the chair.
"He looks… intrigued, but… harried," Greg said, observing him. "We need to act somewhat happy about the slip up. What's it going to be?"
"Let him stew a minute. I have an idea. We haven't looked at the SD card yet we found in his apartment. Let's go see if this X is on that."
Greg pointed at him with wide eyes. "Let's do that," he said. They both headed out of the room and turned to run down the steps at the end of the hallway. They busted into Abby's lab and startled her.
"Abby! We need to look at that SD card." Ned announced. "X has Ellie."
"What?!" Abby asked, turning to look at them in shock from the soldering she was doing on the tech pieces.
"Where's the card?" Ned asked.
"Um, in the box on the back table," she said. Ned rushed and got it, then came out and asked Abby what computer to put it into.
"The one on the far right is set up to protect from any virus it may have on it. Put it in there."
Ned bent over and slipped the card into the slot on the front of the desktop. He typed his password in to unlock the computer and pulled up the files on the card.
"Damn, this is a big file. It's probably hours…"
"Do you want me to do this without you two?" Greg asked.
"Hell no," Ned said. "It's not like you're impervious to this kind of stuff either. We're just looking for a face." He double-clicked the icon for the video and it came to life on the screen.
"I'm not watching this," Abby said, moving to go seek sanctuary in her back office.
Ned fast forwarded through it but stopped after only a few seconds. Two men appeared on the screen, a third hanging from shackles in the ceiling in the background.
"There he is," Greg said.
"Yeah," Ned said, screen-capping the image and sending it to the rest of the team and printing it out so that they could take it upstairs with him. He closed the video and left the screencap up. He tapped on Abby's door and she came out.
"Is it safe?"
"Kinda. I left a photo up. Can you do facial recognition on the guy on the left. He's X."
"Definitely. I'll get right on it."
"Thanks! If you get a name, please text it to us all right away." Ned said. He pulled the photo off the printer and he and Greg turned around to run out to the elevator again. They collected themselves as they waited for it and rode up.
"We gotta act smug and happy, like we've unlocked the key to the puzzle."
"Should we go at it like we're doing this to rub it in his face?"
"We could try," Greg said as they walked down the hall towards interrogation. "But what are we actually trying to find out?"
"What other hiding spots they have lined up in the city. We're focusing on location."
"Hold up, my phone is vibrating," Greg said. As he said it Ned's chimed. They both looked to find a text from Elly.
Elly: Ellie is missing. We have a handprint, and a license plate. Unmarked white van, used to belong to a catering company who reported it stolen a couple of weeks ago. Very little sign of struggle. Van last seen somewhere between exits 31 and 36 on the Beltway. Ellie took video of her walk home from the mini mart. The guy you sent us a pic of was on the video. We believe it's X.
"Confirmation at least," Greg said. "That's good. We don't have any loose variables. We know it's him."
"Yeah, I guess that's a positive," Ned said as he typed a text back to Elly.
Ned: We're about to go into interrogation with this jackass. We took the pic from the SD card and we're going to taunt him with it. Wish us luck.
Elly: Luck and love. Be careful. :-*
Ned saw that and smiled. He shook his head and held up the phone with Greg to see.
"He's good for you," Greg said softly. "You just went from being enraged to smiling with one text." Ned tilted his head as he looked at him. Greg's eyes were sad, though he was smiling. "I remember those days."
"You'll get them back in a few months," Ned said quietly. "She'll come around."
Greg nodded, and Ned gave him a firm pat on the arm. "Let's do this."
They turned, put on smiles, and entered the interrogation room. Jake looked up eagerly to see who had come in to see him. He'd been changed into an orange jumpsuit in preparations for his transfer to prison. A couple more hours and he'd be on a bus and off the property.
Neither said anything, both waiting to figure out who was going to take point and lead the discussion. Jake beat them to it. "What's going on?" he asked. "Why am I here?"
"Oh," Ned said with a malicious smirk. "We're just waiting. See, our team is tracking your beloved X. We want to see your expression when we get the call that he's been captured."
"What are you talking about?" Jake asked, looking from Ned to Greg and back, a bit of panic showing in the way his eyes shifted back and forth and he resettled in his chair.
Greg sat the photo on the table, then stood back and crossed his arms. "Facial recognition picked him up on camera getting into a white van near where your soon-to-be ex-wife was staying."
That made Ned think about whether or not Tim and Elly had told the NSA about what they'd found yet. He casually pulled out his phone and smirked to himself as he scrolled through the text messages and sent one to Elly asking what they'd told Hadley's team. Maybe they could pull some kind of strings to track X with facial recognition in a much faster way than NCIS had access to. He made sure his volume was turned up so he could use the chime of the text message as a weapon in the war with Jake's paranoia.
It only took a second for one to come back.
Elly: I just got off the phone with Hadley. They're throwing everything they got at this. I'm getting linked into their facial recog software now. This won't take long now that they're on board.
Ned's smile was genuine. He forwarded the text to Greg and slipped his phone in his pocket.
"I have to say he's loyal. Willing to take the fall for you like that," Greg said without checking the phone.
"What do you mean?" Jake asked, unabashed concern on his face now as he leaned forward.
"Cleaning up your mess," Ned said with a shrug from his position against the wall under the camera.
"Yeah," Greg said, shaking his head. "Those kids weren't just killed. They were obliterated. The problem with sloppy kills like that is that there's an abundance of evidence left behind. He's going to be right there in prison with you."
Ned felt a flash of understanding come over him at what Greg was suddenly angling for. He moved to sit down with him in front of Jake.
"He wants to be with you badly enough he was going to let himself get caught. Just had to finish your final mission for him," he said with a shake of his head. "A shame he's going to let you down. We got him before he got to Ellie. He'll have to tell you all about it when you bump into each other behind bars. Maybe in your death row support group." Ned let out a sardonic chuckle.
The crestfallen expression on Jake's face was satisfying.
"Doesn't matter," Greg said with a shrug. "He's probably going to… let's say… conveniently do something stupid to get himself shot and killed before you're ever reunited. So, I'm not worried. You'll both get yours."
"Don't hurt him! He doesn't know what he's doing!" Jake blurted out. "He wasn't supposed to do anything stupid. I told him not to try to come after me."
"Please," Ned said with a toss of his head and roll of his eyes. "You know you wanted him right there with you in prison. Probably even imagined sharing a cell with him. Probably another one of your sick, dark fantasies."
Ned had meant it as a joke, or a way to press him, but Jake slumped back in defeat.
"Another fantasy you'll never see lived out," Greg said softly so that he was barely heard by the others at the table. His eyes bored into Jake's with a cold threat. He poured all of his anger and resentment into that stare, then let the corner of his mouth turn up in a smile.
"What are you doing to track him?" Jake asked, and both men could see the gears turning in his head.
"All of the NSA and NCIS's tech is going after this guy," Ned said. "Facial recognition, cellular profiling and geolocation. Dozens of agents, LEOs, and Highway Patrol. It's over. Once that van is spotted, he's a goner."
"What if I-" Jake turned slightly in his seat, calculating and crossing his legs as his shackles clanked. "What if I were able to give you a way to track him down easier? Would you be able to ensure he wasn't hurt? Assuming he doesn't fire the first shot, of course."
Greg laughed.
Ned raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. "You know Hadley's out for blood," he said quietly. "First Piper, and then he was trying to go after Ellie? I don't think there's anything you're going to be able to do to stop them."
"Plus, once he's cornered he's going to defend himself. You and I both know it's going to go down ugly," Greg added. "So ugly."
"No! He's not usually a… he doesn't prefer guns. He prefers to break bones and stab and slice. Those are his go-tos."
"But he's shot someone before. That kid in the warehouse. No dice." Greg crossed his arms and leaned back, continuing to give him the stare.
"Look, he's probably heading for the place he was supposed to take Ellie. It's a-"
"Oh, so you had this preplanned?" Ned asked. "You're admitting that you had it planned that if you didn't take Ellie out, your boytoy would?"
"I think we've already established this," Jake said, trying not to look annoyed and failing. "It's an old meat packing plant. I don't have the address. It's in my phone that you confiscated. X found the location, he was supposed to be the driver, it's just saved in my favorites on my GPS."
"Don't care," Greg said. "It's going to be well worth replacing the catering company's van that he stole when we shoot the hell out of it."
Ned tried not to raise an eyebrow at the dark tone Greg had, but he tried to match it. He was saved by a text message from Elly. He opened it. He quickly texted him.
Ned: She's is an old meat packing plant.
He read Elly's message and his face lit up.
"Ohhhh! Oh, oh, oh! This is good!" He smiled a cheshire grin at Jake, then turned to Greg, and back to Jake. "I know something you don't know!" he said in a sing-songy voice. He took his phone and showed it to Greg, who smiled and laughed and put his hand over his mouth.
"That's great!" he said, looking at Ned. "Oh, so gross, but so great! I wanna be the one to tell him! Can I tell him? Please?"
Ned shook his head. "No, why don't we let him stew on it a minute."
Jake rolled his eyes like he wasn't interested. "I don't care about your stupid games! All I want is for X to remain safe. Please, I'm begging you! Just… just tell them to track him through his kik screenname and bring him in without hurting him. He doesn't deserve it! I dragged him into all of this! It's my fault! I corrupted him and turned him into this. He's- he's-"
"If you even fucking try to tell me he's innocent right now I'm going to let Agent Dorneget here come across the table and kill you like I know he's dying to do," Greg said, voice as cold as ice.
Jake swallowed as Ned's expression suddenly fell and all of his true feelings about their situation shone through. Ned leaned forward on the table. "Give me a fucking reason," he said softly, his voice even colder and darker than Greg's.
Jake instinctively sat back and looked up at the camera. Greg shook his head.
"That won't help you any," he said with a smirk. "It's not recording. I conveniently forgot to hit record on my way out."
Jake rolled his eyes. "Oldest trick in the book."
Greg's mouth turned up in a malicious smile. "No trick. I wanted to make sure there was no evidence if Dorneget couldn't keep himself in check. See, this wouldn't be the first time a suspect was killed in this room because of him."
"Ouch!" Ned said, turning to Greg. "Low blow! Way to bring up a soft spot!" His kneejerk reaction was genuine, and it fed the ominous tone Greg was setting.
"Maybe, but it's true. You're responsible for his death. I wanted to make sure if you did something like that again it wasn't on camera. That way I could take the blame this time and we could even the score."
"You two are almost as screwed up as me," Jake said with the shake of his head. "Look, all I want to know is that X is safe, and that your goons aren't going to shoot him as soon as he steps out of his vehicle."
"Oh, his name isn't X," Ned said with a smirk, and Greg's eyes lit up. Jake's attention was easily captured with that statement as well.
"Well?" Jake finally asked after a long silence. "What is it?"
"Christian," Ned said.
"Don't tell him the last name," Greg said with a smirk. "Let him wonder. Can I tell him the best part?" He looked at Ned with sinister and hopeful eyes.
"Sure," Ned said, nodding and turning to watch Jake's expression as Greg told him the most disturbing part of all of this.
"He's only 18."
Jake's mouth opened and his eyelids batted. "Wha-a-at?"
"That's right. Which means when the two of you started hooking up, he was only 17. And if my calculations are correct, he may have actually been just about to turn 17. You're not only a creepy sadistic serial killer, but a pedophile."
"But he told me he was 19 back then, and he's always looked even older than that! I thought he was lying about his age and saying he was younger to fit in with The Children! You mean to tell me this whole time he was actually….?"
"An actual child. Yeah. But he's not anymore! So, he'll be tried as an adult, like he should be." Greg shook his head at him, though his eyes were bright. He knew he was having way too much fun with this, especially now that they knew about the meat packing plant, but he couldn't help it. This jerk deserved to be destroyed.
"You truly corrupted him," Ned said, shaking his head. "You turned a kid into a torturous serial killer. How does that make you feel? You once said that kids and Ellie were off limits to you. Now Ellie isn't off limits. Does that mean kids aren't off limits anymore either? How old were the kids that Christian killed? 19? 18? 17? Angry, scared kids with no place to put their hatred of the world. And you took them in, gave them a cause, and told them they'd be able to take that anger out. Instead you tainted one of them so bad that those kids all got murdered."
"Slaughtered," Greg corrected.
"I wonder if he lied to them before trapping them in that room. And if he took on eight people, he's probably not alone. Which means he's taken his own minion, and you're not just responsible for one, but two, torturous serial killers. I wonder if his new fuck buddy is a child, like him."
Jake shook his head. "It wouldn't be. It's either Michael or Michael, probably Michael. They're both 18."
"Or so you think," Ned quipped.
Jake shrugged and sighed. "Yeah, or so I think."
"Too bad you'll never know," Ned said, getting up from the table.
Greg looked at him in surprise, then shrugged, smiled at Jake, and got up to join him as they headed towards the door.
"What?!" Jake exclaimed. "You-you're just going to leave me in here and not tell me what happens?!"
"Oh, if I have my way, you'll never know what happened," Ned said, then shook his head and headed into the hallway. Greg closed the door behind them.
"Now that is sadistic," he said with a smirk. "Get him all riled up, then leave him with all these questions? You couldn't be fucking with his head more right now."
"I know. Serves him right. We're not necessarily done with him though. I just couldn't take not getting an update from Tim and Elly. I need to know what's going on."
"Let's go to the bullpen and call them," Greg said, his hand on Ned's shoulder as he pushed him lightly in the direction of their desks. He was glad to get away from the sniveling sadist, and was even more eager to see if Ned calmed down once he separated them. It's not that he didn't like this version of Ned, it just wasn't a Ned he was familiar with, and that made him unpredictable, which made him almost as dangerous as the man they were walking away from.
********WDYG?******** [WARNING- GRAPHIC MATERIAL AHEAD]
Ellie started to come to in confusion. She could hear multiple voices around her, and she could swear she heard Jake's. Something about that wasn't right. She tried to swim to consciousness and realized she could barely move even though she was sitting up. Her head hurt, and she didn't want to open her eyes, but then there was the sound of a man screaming in agony being added to the mixture of sounds around her and they snapped open.
In front of her was a laptop, and playing on that laptop was a video of a man being tortured by Jake and X. It suddenly all flooded back to her and she looked around frantically to find out where she was and who she was with. She saw two young men, boys really, sitting on crates nearby. Unfortunately, her sudden movements drew their attention.
"Oh, look. The bitch is awake," the one she didn't recognize said. His dark greasy hair hung to his shoulders and down in his face. She made a mental note to pay attention to try to catch his name.
The other man she assumed was X. He gave the appearance that he was the one in charge, leading the other to where she sat. She looked up at him and set her jaw. He sneered back.
"We're going to have so much fun with you," he said as he used a pair of scissors to cut up the center of her borrowed t-shirt, exposing her stomach and her bra. "So much fun. But first, you're going to watch some of the fun I've been having with Crow. My Crow."
"His name is Jake, and you can have him," Ellie spat out.
"Oh, I did," he said, crouching so he was right next to her ear as she spoke, circling behind her to talk first in one ear, then the other. "Over and over and over again." He came back around to stare into her eyes from only inches away. "And he loved it. I loved it. We loved every minute of being together. If our hands weren't being used on our prey, they were on each other."
Ellie tried not to think about that, and instead focused on her freedom. She twisted her tiny wrists slightly and decided if she worked at it she could get free, but she would need to do it discreetly so that neither of these goons saw the slack in her restraints.
She thought about the interrogation with Jake, and how Greg had told Ned not to show any emotion as Jake started telling his story. She decided that was the best course of action this time as well. Don't feed the fire, she told herself.
X moved back behind her and grabbed two handfuls of hair on each side of her head painfully, and forced her head up, aiming her line of sight at the laptop. She couldn't help but look, and just at that moment, she saw Jake stab the man behind his kneecap from the side. She saw his smirk as the man screamed and heard his words encouraging the sound. The man was begging between his sobs, asking what he'd done to deserve this and what he could do to make it stop. She then saw X start breaking all his toes with a hammer. She tried to close her eyes, even though she couldn't close her ears, and prayed that this would distract them long enough to let Ziva find out she wasn't at the apartment when she went to pick her up at lunch, and then she knew, she just knew that the NCIS team would come find her. She just had to hold on.
"She's not looking at the screen," the brunette said with a sneer of his own.
"If you don't open your eyes, we'll cut those pretty little eyelids off and you won't have a choice but to see," X said in her ear, jerking her by her hair again to look at the video.
She fought down her emotions as she watched Jake and X start cutting on the man. X even started nailing nails into the man's body at random places. What really made her sick though was that Jake was encouraging it, loving every bit of the dementedness. She reminded herself that wasn't her Jake. That was Crow. And she tried to compartmentalize while she needed to.
There were lots of cuts across the man's body causing blood to run down his legs and drip on the floor. At one point she couldn't tell if Jake had gotten close to sniff it of lick it and her stomach rolled. She didn't have anything in her to throw up except a few drinks of tea, and she managed to keep that down.
The video in front her jumped. It had cut off and when the man came back on the screen he was unrecognizable. There was blood over his entire body. His clothes had been completely cut away and he no longer had a penis. His stomach had been cut open and Jake had his hand in the man, who was now unconscious.
"It feels so good," Jake said with a sigh. "Nice and warm."
"You know what else will feel good and warm?" X told him, his own bloody hands going around Jake's ribs.
"Oh, I do," Jake replied as he pulled his bloody hand out of the man's body and wrapped it around X's bicep as he leaned in to kiss him. Ellie was horrified. She watched as X pulled him down to the ground with him, laying directly in the puddle of blood with Jake on top of him as they started disrobing one another, kissing each other and taking in each other's bodies.
When Jake unceremoniously plunged into X's ass, Ellie closed her eyes again. Then she felt it. X's dick was hard and pressing against her shoulder from where he stood behind her. She froze. She tried to calm herself because X was interested in Jake. The likelihood he'd be planning on raping her was lower, because he liked to bottom for his co-torturer, right? She tried to comfort herself with that thought and let her mind drift elsewhere instead of the video of her husband taking this boy in a puddle of blood in front of her.
She wanted to cry but she forced it down. Now was not the time. Don't let them see how it's affecting you, she told herself. She was somewhat worried though when she watched her husband scream out his climax into X's body. If the video was over, what was coming next for her?
She didn't have to worry for long though, as the video blipped and now she was watching the two men take their dead man down from the ceiling. They tossed his body over some kind of conveyer belt in the old building they were in. X smacked his ass, and then she started coughing as she gagged so hard at how the two men took turns fucking his dead body.
"Damn, X," the brunette said. "Are you going to let me do that to this one when we're done?"
Ellie's eyes moved to look at the young man and saw that he was rubbing his crotch while looking directly at her. She felt filthy and suddenly terrified that the team wasn't going to find her in time.
Her hands had been gently twisting back and forth to try to loosen her knots behind her back. She was almost able to get her thumb through, and if she could, it would all come undone. But then there were the knots at her ankles tying her to the chair. She thought maybe she could stand up enough to turn and smash the chair against the pillar off to her side and break it apart so she could pull the legs of the chair from the rope and run even if the ropes were still around each individual ankle. That may also give her a piece of the chair to use as a weapon.
She'd never be able to do it though with the man standing behind her pulling her hair and rubbing his dick against her shoulder.
She started to think of ways to distract the two and each one was more disturbing than the next. She decided she would rather die than play along and pretend to be interested in their… cause. She was almost certain it would work though if she tried.
She wanted to say something to them, but everything she thought of sounded like it would make them angry, and they were planning on torturing her anyway, so she didn't want to do anything to speed that up. The video stopped, and Ellie felt two surges: one of relief, and one of fear. Her body went slack with relief though, and it was when she relaxed that her thumb finally went through the rope. She stopped breathing for a moment in surprise and then forced herself to take controlled breaths again.
Time. She needed to buy time. Even if it meant giving a little. She swallowed. "That's not my Jake," she whispered.
"What was that, bitch?" X said as he circled to the front of Ellie, a handful of her hair still in his hand as he jerked so that she had to look up in her eyes.
She let some of the tears loose that had been waiting for permission to fall. "That's not my Jake. What did you do to him?"
"To him?" X laughed. "It's what Crow did to me! He was doing this before I met him."
Ellie knew that was the truth, but she needed to buy time, and so she swallowed and knowing what it would mean she'd have to do for the next few minutes at least, said, "I don't believe you."
"Oh? Is that right? Well I have the proof, you dumb twit. How about you see what I saw when I was introduced to him? Why don't I show you what he was doing before I came along?" He thrust her head painfully back before he let go, then turned around and started shuffling through files on the computer. The brunette went to look with him, and this gave her the opportunity she needed. While both of their backs were to her, she tested to see how much she could stand up. It was surprisingly easy. She wasn't sure if she'd get another chance, so she backed up, pulled her hands out of the ropes behind her, and started shuffling towards the pillar.
It wasn't until she had slammed the wooden chair against it that the two idiots turned around. She slammed it again, and it broke one of the legs free, even though it bruised her shins. She was able to pick up a small piece of the leg, knowing it wasn't a very good weapon, but something none the less.
The two men lunged for her, but she slammed the chair against the pillar again, then took off shuffling across the room, shaking her leg to see if she could shake the chair off it. It was turned to her left side now, so she grabbed it and yanked, pulling it up and free of the ropes around her leg. She turned just in time to swing it hard and hit X across the face. He stumbled backwards and took the brunette with him.
"Fuck!" he yelled. "Get that bitch, Michael!" He muttered, and then they scrambled to their feet. Ellie was already running as fast as she could across the warehouse. There was a rusted and crumbling metal staircase ahead that lead her to the ground level. She took it in jumps, tumbling when she got to the bottom and doing a summersault. She could hear the creak of the stairs behind her as she got up and ran. She saw an opening to the street and realized it was a loading dock. She wasn't sure how far down of a jump it was going to be so once she was through the doors and onto the platform she took a sharp left turn and saw a small set of concrete stairs. She jumped those, using the metal handrail as a launch, and then hit the pavement running. She made it to the end of the alley, and as she did she heard the crunch of vehicles over the gravel driveway that led to the alley.
She broke down when she saw it was two dark blue cars with lights flashing from the dashboards, and an NSA SUV with lights flashing on the roof. She collapsed to her knees as they grew closer. One car flew past her, most likely to go after the two cretins that were running away from her now that her people had found her.
She felt a surge of so many emotions flood her, and she couldn't hold it back. The sobs broke loose, and they wouldn't stop. When she felt warm arms come around her she leaned into them and knew that they belonged to Ziva. "I knew you would come. I knew you would come," she chanted through her sobs. "I knew it."
"We gotcha," Hadley said, kneeling next to her as well, afraid to touch her since she was only half dressed.
A moment later, there were multiple gunshots across the complex. Everyone stopped, including Ellie as she wiped her eyes, and they all looked towards the sounds. It felt like the world held its breath until Ziva's phone rang.
"McGee?" she answered. She sighed deeply. "Okay. What would you like me to do?" She got to her feet and reached to pull Ellie up. Sommers was suddenly there and put an NCIS jacket over Ellie's shoulders. Ellie smiled sadly at him, who gave her a small smile back. She slipped her arms into the jacket and zipped it up to cover her exposed chest and stomach. Ziva hung up the phone.
"Both men are dead," Ziva said, resting a hand on Ellie's arm. Ellie took a deep breath of resolution and nodded.
"They, um, they have a laptop upstairs on the second floor with video on it of previous murders." She felt like she was in a fog and wasn't sure what to say.
Ziva nodded at Sommers, and he opened his phone to call McGee with the info.
"I'm going to take you back to NCIS," Ziva said.
"Please," Ellie said, trying to keep from collapsing again. Nothing could've sounded better than to be in the only place she felt safe right now.
"Are you hurt anywhere?" Ziva asked her calmly, looking her over.
"My shins and calves hurt," she said. "They were tied, and I had to break the chair to get away. Used it to hit them. I don't know where the ropes went. Probably some bruising. Then I jumped down some stairs and scraped myself up a little."
"Sounds like you just escaped like a badass," Sommers said with a sideways smile for her.
Ellie raised her eyebrows and scoffed. "Something like that. I- I wanna-"
"Yeah, let's go," Ziva said. "Sommers, you're with McGee and Elly."
"I'll be right behind you," Hadley said to Ziva and Ellie.
Sommers moved to the trunk of the car as the others got in and pulled out his kit. He tapped the roof of the car on the way by to let Ziva know he was clear, and then Ziva started to back up. Once she was heading the right direction again, she turned to Ellie.
"How are you really feeling?" she asked quietly.
Ellie shook her head, the tears slipping over again. "Horrible."
"What did they do?" Ziva asked.
"They didn't get very far. Just made me watch videos of Jake committing his… crimes." She sighed. "And having sex with X. And then… violating their victims once they were dead."
"That will not be easy to digest," Ziva said. Ellie shook her head and then looked out the window. They were silent a long moment, and then Ziva spoke again. "I am sorry, Ellie. I should not have left you alone."
"I told you to go," Ellie said.
"But I knew in my gut that something was wrong. Gibbs has always told us to trust our guts, and I didn't listen, and you were taken, and I feel responsible. I am truly sorry. We protect our own around here, and I feel like I have failed you."
"But I'm not really one of your own," Ellie said, even though doing so hurt in the depth of her chest.
"Yes, you are. You have worked this case with us from the beginning, and you belong here."
They were quiet for a long time. They were almost to the Navy Yard when Ellie started talking again. "I knew you guys would come. I knew it. I didn't doubt it. I just knew that I had to hold on until you did. I knew you'd find me when I wasn't there for lunch, and then you'd just… be here. All of you." She was quiet as they pulled into the Yard and Ziva showed her credentials. Once they parked though, they sat in the car for a minute together, not getting out. "I took my chance when I had it, but I was trying to buy time more than actually escape. I didn't think you'd realize I'd been taken until lunch, and I had no idea what time it was when I came to. I just hoped… I just hoped…" Ziva reached over and put her hand on Ellie's forearm.
"You are safe now. Let's get you inside, get you cleaned up, have Abby help clean up your abrasions and we'll look at your legs."
"I want to see Ned and Greg," she said.
"Okay, we can do that too."
"I want to do that first," she said.
Ziva nodded. "Not a problem."
They got out and made their way slowly towards the elevator where Hadley was waiting for them. Ellie was feeling the pain in her lower legs from her escape. Once the elevator door opened to the bullpen, Ellie choked back another sob. Nothing had ever been so beautiful as those orange walls. She stepped through, and Ned looked up from across the room.
"Ellie!" he said, getting to his feet. He met her in the middle of the aisle and they wrapped their arms around each other. Ellie started crying again and Ned held her tightly. "Oh, thank god you're safe!"
"They came," Ellie whispered again and again. "They came."
"Of course they did! I told you we got you!" Ned said quietly but fiercely. Greg was standing next to them and he started running a hand comfortingly up and down Ellie's back.
"We got you," he reaffirmed.
"You got me," she said, shuddering as the tears fell silently. "You got me."