Chapter Eight ;

The Little Hope We Have

Dani opened her eyes slowly, surrounded by darkness except for the light that came through the ripped drapes of a window that was near the ceiling. She knew that she wouldn't be able to get out that way. Dani looked down, she was sitting in a wooden chair. She tugged on her hands, and as she expected, she was tied up.

Dani looked around, and didn't see the guys that broke into her apartment. She tilted her head back and saw the back of Adam's head. He was also sitting on a chair, and tied up. Dani had no clue what they were going to do. She looked around and quickly realized they were in a basement of some building, not a house, but a relatively large building.

Adam lifted his head slightly, and he looked around. Dani turned her head and noticed he was conscious. She moved her hands to see how much she could move them, from what she could tell, her hands were tied to two separate pieces of the chair, which was on either side of her. Which was a bad move on the kidnappers part, because now, Dani could reach her cell phone that was in her pocket.

"Adam?" Dani asked.

Adam turned his head and noticed Dani behind him. "Where are we?"

"I think a basement, but I can reach my cell phone," Dani whispered.

"No one's going to hear you if you call anyone, you'll have to yell into the phone," Adam said.

"That's why text messaging was invented," Dani whispered. She got her cell phone out of her pocket and turned her head so she could see it. She scrolled through her phone book and found Sara's Cell. She texted as fast as she could, she was scared half to death that the kidnappers were going to walk through the door.

We're fine, my phone is on silent, text me back, I'll try to figure out where we are.

Dani put her phone back in her pocket, and looked around again. She didn't recognize the place they were in. What was there to recognize? It was a room with two chairs in it. Dani tried to think, but her mind was scattered. She was too scared; tears fell down her cheeks.

What if she never left this room? What if the kidnappers just left them here to die and decompose and rot into corpses? What if years later, when Sara and Grissom found them, all they found were rotting corpses? What if Adam fell into the mind deepening, thought threatening nothingness that death was first? Dani would just be talking to him one minute, and then his stomach would begin to eat itself until the life was taken away from him, slowly, and he would feel every breath leaving him as it escaped his dry throat.

Dani would be left talking into the silence and his rotting flesh until her own stomach ate away at itself, and her organs finally gave up and shut down for good. Then her flesh would slowly decompose into a skeleton with the help of insects that would later be analyzed by Grissom.

Dani shook her head and pushed the thoughts away. She looked around again, trying to find some way to get out. Or at least find something that would help Sara, who could freely move.

--

Sara broke down into painful sobs. Catherine had just showed her the cell phone. Grissom had his arm around her waist, as Sara cried into his shoulder. He didn't have to hide it anymore, and no one had the right to judge them at a time like this. Catherine could feel tears pricking the back of her eyes as she thought about what would happen if it was her daughter that was kidnapped.

Once Sara had stopped crying, Catherine handed her the phone and Sara opened her inbox and read Dani's message. She let out a light sigh of relief as she read it.

We're fine, my phone is on silent, text me back, I'll try to figure out where we are.

She handed the phone to Catherine with a slight smile on her face. There was still hope, it was a small hope, but big enough to be seen. Grissom hugged Sara, hoping it would help some, but it didn't. You can't help your girlfriend's sister being kidnapped without finding her.

Catherine let out a small smile to Sara, as if to tell her without words that they were going to get the guys that took her sister and her sister's friend.

"Where are Adam's parents?" Sara asked suddenly.

Catherine shrugged, "I don't know, Jim told me he called them an hour ago."

Grissom got a confused look on his face, why didn't they come to their son's rescue? Sara and him had practically ran out of the building when they found out.

"You should probably text her back," Catherine said.

"I know, but I don't know what to tell her," Sara said, pain in her eyes at the sudden loss of hope she felt. She didn't know what to say, what to do, or how to help. Her mind was scattered, and anything she thought of didn't make sense.

"Just tell her that we're working on finding her, and that if she figures anything out, tell her to tell us," Catherine said with another shrug. "She's smart, I have a feeling what she tells us will help us a lot."

Sara sighed, then smiled at Catherine's compliment. Catherine handed Sara the cell phone, and Sara began writing a text message to Dani.

--

"Adam, what if we don't get out of here?" Dani asked, her voice was weak because of the subject of the conversation.

There was a pause, then Adam spoke, "Do you want the scientific version or the non-scientific version?"

Dani let out a laugh, an actual laugh. A time like this and she was actually laughing. "I know the scientific version, probably better than you."

"You'd like to think that," Adam said. They both stopped talking and became serious. Dani took her cell phone out of her pocket; she had one new message. She flipped the phone open and read it.

We're trying our best to find you. Tell us if you figure anything out. Sweetie, stay safe. I love you.

Tears fell down Dani's cheeks. She tried to push them away, but it didn't work, they still came anyway. There was noise outside of the door to the room they were in, and Dani put away her cell phone as quickly as she could. She didn't know what to do, it might have been a good idea to pretend to be knocked out for a bit longer, but it might be a better idea to not.

As the door to the room they were in creaked open, Dani noticed the wall past the door, she had seen the paint before, the colour, the design. It looked like the wall and the room they were in connected to a hallway to a building. Dani's eyes went wide.

She knew where they were.