…..

I got several private messages telling me how frustrated you were after the end of the last chapter and I just have to say… me too! But that's how it has to work out. Sorry! But don't you love me for once again updating on a Friday?! At least… I tried to, but FanFiction seems to be having a lot of problems at the moment. I think the crazy is over and I'm finally back on track!

Thank you all so much for reading, reviewing, favoriting, or following the story (and me!). And also to those of you that have sent me private messages. I appreciate you all very much and I hope that you know that.

Reminder: I only use the characters and the premise of the show, not the actual storyline. I'm sure that you remember after all this time, but better safe than sorry.

Happy Reading!

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Chapter Twenty-Six: Lost But Not Forgotten

Allie

"Go!" I said to Gideon, and he took off faster than Steve and I could run. We followed behind at an intense, but slower, pace.

And then we crashed into a small clearing and found Gideon on top of a man, wrestling, while a little girl stood nearby, crying and trembling.

"Get her!" I said to Steve and called for Gideon to get off of the man but hold his arm. He obeyed immediately, and the man began to kick out at him. There was a gun nearby, and I grabbed it and pointed it at the man. "Don't move!"

He looked up at me with dark eyes full of anger, but stopped kicking out at Gideon.

"Release," I said in Dutch, and Gideon let go of the man's arm, leaving bleeding marks behind. Then, he backed up just a few steps, keeping eyes on the man the whole time, just in case he tried anything. Not likely, while I was holding a gun, but it was what he'd been trained to do.

"Toss me your backpack," I said to Steve, who held the sobbing girl in his arms. He managed to get his arms through the straps and passed it over. I dug through it until I found the nylon rope and then I kept my gun trained on the man as I moved behind him. "Make one wrong move, that dog is going to be on you in less than a second and you'll have a bullet in your back."

Wisely, he didn't move at all as I tied his hands securely behind his back. Once I was certain that he wouldn't be able to go anywhere, I moved back in front of him and tossed the backpack back to Steve. "Who are you?"

He stared at me with more than just anger in his eyes – there was hatred there, too. Whatever Steve and I had interrupted by finding that little girl, it had meant a lot to him. I began to feel sick to my stomach, so I distracted myself by observing him.

He was dressed in a plaid shirt, jeans, and boots, all stained with dirt and grass and mud. There wasn't much to see about his face beneath the thick salt and pepper beard that matched his thinning hair. There was dirt under his fingernails and the rest of him was filthy, too. Something about him gave me the creeps, and about a million different emotions raced through me as I thought about what that little girl might have gone through at his hands.

"Who are you?" I asked him again, rougher this time, but he said nothing.

"His name is Hank." The girl that Steve had been holding had finally stopped sobbing, though she still had tears running from her big brown eyes. She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "That's what the other guy called him."

"What other guy?" Steve asked her.

"There are two of them," she said, voice breaking. "They take turns watching us."

Steve and I exchanged a look. Likely, there were more kids out here in the woods somewhere, and another man watching them.

"Here, sweetie." Steve took a bottle of water out of the backpack and opened it for her. "Are you thirsty?"

She drank the entire bottle in the span of a minute, but declined more. But her eyes were hopeful as she asked, "Do you have any food in there?"

"There's some snack bars," I told Steve, even though I knew that he remembered. He got one out and opened it for her, and she eagerly began to eat, acting like she hadn't eaten in days.

She probably hadn't. She was skinnier than she should have been – the pink dress that she wore practically hung off of her thin frame. I looked her over to see if I recognized her from any recent missing children cases – thin brown hair, light skin, freckles across her nose – but couldn't place her.

She ate the bar that we gave her and then one more, and then she drank another half bottle of water. When she was finished, Steve straightened up and looked to me. "We need to get both of them to the trail. Do you have signal?"

I took out my cell phone and nodded. "Barely. One bar."

"Give me the gun," he said as he stepped forward, but the girl screamed and ran to him, clinging to his leg. "No! Don't leave!"

He knelt back down in front of her and smoothed the hair away from her face. "Hey, it's okay. I'm not going to leave."

Tears began to stream from her eyes again. "He'll hurt me."

"We won't let him hurt you, sweetie," he said. "What if we have the dog stand right by you? He's a very special dog; he protects people."

She must have remembered how he had taken Hank down, because she thought for only a moment before nodding her agreement. "Okay."

I commanded Gideon to go stand by her and he did so immediately, allowing her to pet him for comfort. Then, I handed the gun to Steve and put a call in to Danny.

He answered on the third ring, sounding more jovial than I would have thought he'd be on a Saturday without his daughter. "Congratulations!"

"Congratulations?" I asked him, confused. "No, Danny, listen. We need you and the rest of Five-O out here now. And call HPD on the way and have them send a few uniformed officers."

The joviality left his voice immediately. "What's going on?"

"We're not entirely sure yet. We found a girl off the trail being chased by a man. She said that there's another man and some more children somewhere in the forest."

He spat out a curse and I heard him grab his keys. "Okay. I'll call everyone and get them there as soon as I can. Can you guys meet us at the trail head or do we need to come find you?"

"No, we can meet you. The guy is tied up and we have his gun and Gideon. We'll be fine. Just hurry; we need to find those kids."

We hung up and I nodded at Steve. "He's on his way with the cavalry. I told him we'd meet him in the parking lot."

"Okay," Steve said. "Let's go, then." He handed me the gun and then walked over to the girl. "I better carry you, sweetie. It's a bit of a hike to the parking lot."

She nodded and put her arms around his neck as he scooped her up. Meanwhile, I called Gideon over to me and jerked the man to his feet, pressing the gun into his back and threatening him in a low voice. "Make one wrong move, and I'm going to put a bullet in your back."

He didn't resist, but he did sneer at me as we started walking. "You'll never find those kids." His voice gave me the sensation of bugs crawling all over my skin, and it was all I could do not to throw up. I didn't even want to imagine what that little girl must have gone through.

Up ahead, Steve was talking to the girl as he walked, probably trying to get any information out of her that he could. Name, date of birth… all of that could be helpful for identifying her. Hank looked like he wanted to say something, but the gun jabbed into his back was a pretty good deterrent.

There was no one around once we reached the trail, for which I was grateful. The hike back was only a little rough and Hank started to complain, but I told him I'd be happy to have Gideon grab his arm and help drag him along. That shut him right up.

One HPD car was pulling up as we reached the parking lot, and one of the officers came forward to take Hank and cuff him properly. Gideon watched until he was stowed away in the back of the police car.

"Alex Copeland," Steve was telling the other officer as I approached. "She's six years old."

The officer nodded. "I'll run her name through our system real quick. Hold tight."

Steve spoke to the other officer. "We need to begin clearing this trail. Do we have SWAT incoming?"

The officer nodded. "ETA is five minutes."

"Good."

A female officer arrived on the scene and, with a little convincing, Alex agreed to go with her after extracting a promise that we would get the others.

"There's four of us," she told me and took the macramé bracelet off of her wrist. "This is Suzy's. She said that if I got away, I should give it to her mommy."

I took the bracelet and forced myself to smile at her. "We're going to do everything that we can to get Suzy and the others, okay? But do you think you can tell us anything about where they kept you?"

"It's close to where you found me," she said, which actually was helpful, as it cut out a lot of the forest. "There's a cave – a really deep one – and that's where they keep us."

And that was extremely helpful, as there actually weren't too many caves in the area. Tourists were encouraged to keep away from them, as wild boars sometimes sought them out for temporary homes. But, apparently, these two men had staked their claim first.

"You've been very brave, Alex," Steve told her with a smile. "Everything's going to be okay now. Go with this nice officer, okay?"

She nodded and allowed the officer to lead her away.

Danny pulled up moments later, already geared up and ready to go. As we approached, he popped the trunk and gestured to the extra gear inside. "Good thing my apartment is close to HQ. I swung by and picked up vests and a few guns."

"Good thinking," Steve approved as he handed me a vest and then grabbed one for himself.

We secured the vests and then grabbed a couple of the guns. Chin and Kono pulled up moments later, already geared up and ready to go. Once they were all gathered around, Steve filled them in on what had happened, as well as what the plan was going to be moving forward.

SWAT arrived minutes later and they were given orders. Then, we were ready to go.

"Are you sure you want to let Gideon come along?" Steve asked when my dog ran out to the front to lead the way.

"He's combat trained," I reminded him. "And let's not forget who took down Hank in the first place."

Our perp was Hank De la Cruz, and he was wanted in five different states on the mainland for a variety of crimes, all of them involving children. He was lucky that I hadn't known that before I'd tied him up, or I would have made the ropes much too tight.

"I don't want you keeping too close of an eye on him," Steve told me. "You need to be focused."

"Trust me, he'll be the one keeping an eye on me." I smiled at him. "Don't worry. Everything is going to be fine."

He nodded and veered off the trail, leading the team to the spot where we'd found the girl.

Allie

We found the cave and sent a picture to the officer with Alex. Moments later, she sent back a text saying that Alex had confirmed that it was the right cave. She recognized the notches in the cave entrance.

Steve nodded to signal that it was time to go in, and we all followed his lead, guns at the ready. The cave really was deep, and we walked for about a minute before Steve held up a hand to stop us. I peered around him to see that there was a hole in the floor – it had started as a natural hole but had clearly been widened. A rope ladder was hanging down.

"Cover me," Steve told me and I nodded, pointing my gun down into the hole as he began to climb down. Once he was down, I motioned for Danny to go next. One by one the rest of them climbed down the ladder, until there was only one SWAT member left. He said that he was going to remain up top as a lookout, so I ordered Gideon to stay with him and keep watch.

Then, I descended the ladder as the others finished clearing everything.

What I saw was going to haunt me for a very long time.

The cave was damp and cool, despite the heat and humidity outside. Against one of the walls, there was a large storage cabinet, which Kono had opened to reveal a stockpile of food and toiletries. Beside that, there was a table with a couple of chairs. There were a few buckets, some cleaning supplies… But most haunting of all was what was against the wall opposite all of that.

There were four cages – like the kind that you would put large dogs in for a road trip – and all but one of them had a child in it. They were locked in like animals, cowering against the back of the cages. A couple of them were crying.

All that they had in their cages was a bottle of water, a single, dirty blanket, and one toy each. There were two boys and one girl. Alex would have made it even.

"Get those locks off," Steve ordered, and the members of SWAT moved forward to do just that, trying to reassure the crying kids as they did.

"Radio it in," Steve told Kono, and she did so, asking for paramedics to be waiting for us when we returned.

From up top, there was a gunshot and then the member of SWAT that had stayed up top called down to us. "I got the other guy! Want me to walk him back to the others?"

"Yes!" I called back and then explained to Steve. "I think it would be best if the kids don't have to see him. We have no idea what they've endured at his hands."

"Good thinking," Chin agreed.

One by one, the kids were let out of the cages. It took some coaxing, but they finally came to us and realized that we were cops, here to rescue them from the hell that they'd been living in. One of the little boys latched onto me, the other onto Steve. Danny took the little girl, easily able to gain a rapport with her when he started telling her about his own daughter.

Climbing up the ladder was rough with a kid hanging onto me, but I did it and so did the others, until we were all out of that hellhole and back out in the sun. Gideon was waiting for us, and the little boy that had been hanging on to Steve seemed to open up a little bit more when he saw him.

Before long, the kids were walking on their own as Gideon ran around among them, enjoying all of the attention and pets that he was getting. The rest of us trailed behind, somber in the face of what we had discovered – Chin had found a file cabinet with all manner of child pornography in it. Those young kids were never going to be the same.

Once we were back in the parking lot, paramedics began to examine the kids, finding all kinds of minor injuries, as well as signs of dehydration and malnourishment. As they started to work on them, an officer approached us and told us that they'd found out who all of the kids were.

"They've all been missing for over a year," he told us. "Alex was the very first one taken – abducted while her family was hiking here a year and a half ago. They were on vacation from California, and Alex was considered dead after a year."

"Did you contact them?" Danny asked.

The officer nodded. "They're on their way. We've also contacted the parents of the other three victims, and they're also on their way. In the meantime, the children will be taken to the hospital and treated. Social workers will be there to oversee everything."

"I can't even imagine what those parents went through, thinking that their kids have been dead all this time," Danny said sadly. "And now… I mean… is this any better?"

"Alive is always better," Chin said. "But they're going to have some tough times ahead of them."

Kono just walked away, tears in her eyes.

"It's been a rough day," I said quietly and began to take off my vest. "Let's go home."

"Yeah." Chin clapped Steve's shoulder. "Happy birthday, buddy."

"Hey, nothing I'd rather be doing than helping those that need it," Steve said and also began removing his vest.

As I was putting everything back into the trunk of Danny's Camaro, I saw that he and Steve were having a whispered conversation from a few yards away, just soft enough that I couldn't hear. It seemed pretty intense, though, as Danny was waving his arms all around and giving Steve some crazy looks.

"Everything okay?" I asked as I approached.

They both clammed up instantly.

Suspicious.

"Fine," Steve said, and Danny gave an odd smile as he nodded his agreement.

I didn't believe them for one second, and the look that I gave them communicated that clearly. "Yeah… seriously, what's going on? What were you two over here whispering about?"

Danny looked at Steve, and then looked back to me.

But, as he opened his mouth to speak, Steve said, "Don't you dare," in a warning tone.

Danny appeared affronted. "I was just going to compliment her training of Gideon."

"You were not."

"Okay," I said, stopping their argument. "Seriously, what's going on? Nothing else has gone wrong today, has it?"

Danny's eyes lit up. "Well, actually, now that you mention it, something else did go wrong today, sadly."

Steve's eyes were shooting fire at Danny.

I looked between them for a few moments and then asked, "Well? What else went wrong today? Is Grace okay?"

"Grace is fine," Danny assured me and looked to Steve.

"Steve?" I asked.

"Not now," he said, more to Danny than to me. "Not after all of the shit that we had to see today."

"Actually," Danny argued, "all of the shit that we had to see today is exactly the reason why now is the perfect time. End the day on a positive note."

"I will," Steve assured him. "Just not right now. And you're really pissing me off, so unless you want to spend the night in the hospital…"

Danny held his hands up in surrender and began to walk away. "Okay, okay. Have a good night, you two."

I looked to Steve. "What was he talking about?"

"Come on," he said and put his arm around me. "I'll tell you once we're home and we've showered."

So, we headed home and took a long shower together, but he distracted me immediately afterwards and I forgot to ask him again until we were at the restaurant for dinner.

"Not now," he told me with a smile. "After dinner."

I gave him a look to tell him that I would hold him to it and then ordered my lobster.

"You know, I can handle bad news," I told him as we walked out of the restaurant.

"I hope it's not bad news," he laughed and pulled me away as I began to head for the truck. "Let's walk on the beach for a bit."

"Then what is it?" I tried to figure out what it could possibly be, but I was drawing a blank. It was a mystery.

"Patience," he teased me. "I know it's not your strongest attribute, but just wait a few more minutes."

I huffed in frustration but allowed him to lead me closer to the water.

And it was there, on that beach, that Steve turned to me and knelt as the sun began to set.

Everything sank into place as he took a blue velvet box out of his pocket.

"Oh, my God," I said, or maybe it was all just in my head. Either way, my whole world was spinning.

"I'm not good at big speeches," he told me, and I could tell that he was nervous. "So, all I'm going to say is that I love you more than I've ever loved anyone. And if there's anything that I've learned about relationships in my life, it's that you have to hold on tight and never let go. So, will you let me do that? Will you marry me?"

I choked back tears and nodded, throwing myself into his arms as he rose to catch me.

And in that moment in time, everything in my world was perfect.

For a little bit longer.