Disclaimer: While MS-13 is a real gang, the characters and actions depicted here are fictional. As to our boys: if we owned them, there would be hella more shirtless crime solving.
SPOILERS/Timeline: Takes place during season 6 between 'A Bullet Runs Through It' and 'Daddy's Little Girl'
UNDYING GRATITUDE: To Cristina who supplies all our Spanish translation with amazing insight and skill.
He's trying to concentrate. He really is - leftfootrightfoot - but his stupid brain keeps bugging him: 'Hey! When have you ever felt pain this bad before? Try to remember.'
So he's TRYING to help Warrick – leftfootrightfootleftfootrightfoot – because he knows they need to run and everything, but GODDAMN, it hurts. It hurts, hurts, HURTS.
He can feel the knife inside him, can feel the SHAPE of it with his flesh. His blood knows its edges. There's even a difference in temperature between the hardcoldness of the blade and the warmth inside his chest.
He knows it's getting harder to breathe – rightleftright – and he hopes that's from the running because – GOD! We gotta keep running, Rick. Far away. Straight to a hospital, okay? 'Cause they gotta get this knife outta me, man.
They stop.
What? No, no, no…
And then Warrick's saying something. Saying things like 'down' and 'come on' and 'drain' and 'we have to' and 'gonna hurt', and Nick doesn't like the sound of ANY of it, even if only half of it's getting through.
"Come on, Nicky. You can-- We gotta do this, bro."
Warrick leans him up against a chain link fence – There's a fence. Of course there's a fence. Why is there always a fence? – and a moan spills from his lips. He tries to keep his knees locked, twines his fingers through the gridded steel and hangs on for dear life.
Warrick's pulling and groaning at a hole in the chain link along the ground, and Nick wants to LAUGH because a little window opens up in his brain, allowing in a breeze of clarity. You want me to shimmy under a freakin' fence? With a knife stickin' outta me? You gotta be outta your mind.
Nick sucks in a few short breaths, hisses them out, and tries to expand his narrow focus. He can hear gunfire. Knows that's why they're headed in this direction instead of the other. He presses the right side of his face against the fence, strains with his good eye to see what he can see.
Just desert.
Just desert, and Warrick kicking down on the dirt with his boot heel, attacking the spot under where he's bent up the chain link.
There's a drop off in the landscaping; a foot or so beyond the fence, the ground angles sharply from the elevation of the warehouse lot to the desert floor about ten feet below.
Nick feels dizzy, sick to his stomach, as he listens to the gunshots and Warrick's exertion, and the dry, brittle echo of loosened soil hitting hardpack. His stomach starts to revolt – I'm not in that box – and then his partner's hands are on his shoulders, pulling him away from the fence.
The Mapquest directions turn out not to be needed, as the familiar green highway signs on the interstate helpfully guide travelers in the direction of Nellis AFB. Sam points a finger through the dusty windshield at the exit coming up, and Jim eases the Taurus onto the off ramp, braking as the end comes up way the hell closer than he expects. He'd been holding at an even 100mph on the interstate and is barely down to 70 as he hits the exit.
He California rolls through the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp, hooking the unmarked into a sharp left and mashing down on the accelerator again. He reaches over and pulls down the gumball that had gotten them through traffic on the highway, but would now possibly give a heads up to their approach.
The street is heavily potholed, suffering under the bulk of thousands of trips by heavy trucks, and Jim swerves expertly around every divot. Sam flashes him a tight smile as they almost risk losing the right rear tire in a hole roughly the size of a widescreen TV.
Jim just grunts at the concern. "You should see Jersey streets after a tough winter."
The radio on the dash squawks to life as they pull into the connecting road that links the industrial buildings. The dispatchers voice reads out the address they are heading for, and the code is 'shots fired'. Sam hits the express down on the window, and the cool air sucked into the car brings with it the distinctive POP POP POP of gunfire not too far away.
"Fuck," Jim bites out as he sallies around another pothole.
Sam picks up the mouthpiece. "Dispatch, this is Victor Echo Golf 3-1-1. Car Thirteen is at that location. Requesting backup. Caution silent approach," Sam says into the radio mouthpiece, then shrugs at Jim. "Wouldn't want anybody feelin' like they need to make desperate decisions."
"Roger that, Victor Echo Golf. Unit 68 is in your vicinity- will redirect."
"Where have I heard that before?" Jim mutters as he stomps on the gas. The two men are thrown back in their seats as all two hundred plus horses under the hood rev to life.
The road is smoother here, but he's going so fast he fails to negotiate a vast shallow gravel lake that covers both lanes. The front of the Taurus dips into the hole and the front undercarriage makes a horrendous growlscrape as the V8 pushes the vehicle up and out.
He pulls into the parking area in front of the Vegas Tapiceria and slams the brake down, coming to a smeary stop as the car's rear slews over the gravel covered blacktop.
The gunfire is louder now; Sam and Jim thumb the snaps open on their holsters.
Sam takes a second to lift the radio once more. "Dispatch, this is Victor Echo Golf, requesting SWAT presence and medical personnel ASAP at our location. Multiple shots fired. Repeat, multiple shots fired."
"Roger that, Victor Echo Golf," comes the placid voice of the dispatcher. But a heartbeat later the call goes out for an ambulance and tactical team to respond. Sam throws the mouthpiece down and looks at Jim. "You ready for this?"
"No." Jim shakes his head and sighs. "Getting' real tired of this shit. C'mon."
Chingado. Motherfucker.
His eyes blink rapidly, open full, and then Jeff rolls onto his side and vomits. It takes him a second to catch his breath, to grab onto his surroundings, to rid his vision of the hazy gauze, and bring Alex's dead face into sharp focus.
He scrambles back from the gang leader's body, from his own puddle of puke, cursing and moaning and trying to find balance on the wildly tilting floor. There are still gunshots pinging and popping off in the warehouse, and he reaches for his own gun; metal hard against his belly.
The two cops are gone, even though Jeff knows he got the white one. His hand and arm still hold on to the sense-memory of the knife piercing the man's chest. And then nothing. Then black.
He rolls up onto his knees, steadies himself against the tumble of cardboard boxes nearby, and forces himself up. Everything flares and fuzzes for a second – flickers like a flame – and pain lashes like lightning behind his eyes. Claps thunder across the back of his skull. Motherfucking cops!
The side door is opened. Jeff knows it's the only way they could have escaped. And he's not letting that happen. Oh, FUCK NO. He pushes himself up and weaves his way drunkenly across the storeroom. His tennis shoes smear and slip in the red blood that slicks the concrete floor.
By the time he's to the door, his vision has settled for the most part. He's got his gun in his hand and a mission on his mind:
There's too much gunfire, and it's too unpredictable, for Warrick to take them around the front of the shop. So, he heads toward the desert. If nothing else – if he can't risk going straight for the closest civilization – at least he knows Nellis is within cross-country distance. It's been a long time since he ran track, but all his brain is screaming - between Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! - is Run! Run! Run! And if he has to, he knows he can do it.
He hadn't remembered the fence - Of course there's a fence, there's always a fence – from when they'd arrived in the produce truck. He'd been looking past it, farther out, away. So it takes him a second they probably don't have to recalibrate the plan in his head.
Frantic as he is, Warrick hasn't missed the distress in Nick's breathing, and resting against the fence hasn't helped his partner even out his shallow intakes of air. Warrick may not be a doctor, but he's learned enough through the years to be running the possibilities in his head: low BP, blood loss, maybe early stages of hypovolemic shock. Maybe pneumothorax. There's no way – please let there be a way – the knife hasn't hit something inside his partner's chest. And with the weed and the running and the other injuries on top of it – Warrick's desperate to get things under some kind of control.
About twenty-five yards to the left of where his heel is digging under the chain link like a hound dog, a foot and a half of steel culvert juts out of the side of the elevated lot; industrial-sized, corrugated spiral steel, a good eight feet in diameter. Warrick can't tell from this angle, but he's hoping there's no grate cover. Knows there probably is, because who needs a fucking coyote or something nesting in their rain run-off system? But if he can get Nick somewhere - under some cover, still and away and SAFE for a minute - then Warrick can go for help.
As soon as he's got a good two feet of clearance between the kicked away furrow and the turned-up chain link, he – gently as possible – gets Nick down on his back. Tries to ignore his friend's wallow of pain. He gets Nick's feet pointed at their escape route.
Warrick will get himself halfway through on his belly, feet first, and then slide Nick through as smoothly as he can. It's not ideal, but nothing's been ideal about any of this; it's the best he can do.
"Okay, boss," he says, laying Nick's hands in place around the hilt of the knife. "You keep your hands on that packing, a'ight? Keep it as still as possible."
Nick gives a quick nod and Warrick squeezes his shoulder.
"I'ma do my best not to make this worse."
Warrick's got his legs swung through the hole, feet trying to find purchase, when he feels a hot sting across his left deltoid, and hears the delayed echo of gun report.
Jeff's halfway between the warehouse and the fence, swaying on his feet, covered in blood, Glock at the end of an outstretched arm aimed right at them. He yells something in Spanish and rushes forward.
There's a tiny moment of satisfaction as Jeff stumbles and goes down, but then Warrick's left elbow buckles and his feet lose their toehold. As he slips forward, he grabs Nick by the boot and pulls.
His feet hit solid ground and his knees flop forward, and then Nick's coming down on top of his thighs, screaming like a banshee. Warrick has just enough time to straighten up and latch onto Nick's shoulders. He swivels him forward – all Superman adrenaline – and gets Nick's arm slung over his shoulder. They're off for the culvert as a bullet pings off the chain link about their heads, and Jeff slurs curses over both their names in Spanish. Warrick doesn't need an interpreter to figure it out.
The frequency of the pops lessens, leaving Jim to assume that the shooters are either dropping like flies dosed with Raid or running out of ammo. Or maybe running out on the fight like he'd witnessed that morning.
There's a single vehicle parked up close to the shop front, engine running. It's a gorgeous late model Lexus, black, with darkly tinted windows and expensive, but not ostentatious, rims and trim.
A window at the front of the shop splinters apart and both men duck instinctively. Shouts in Spanish mix with rapid gunfire as the two detectives creep up behind the Lexus.
Sam chances a stand from his crouch, Glock held at the ready, and looks in the front windshield, the only part of the sedan not too dark to see through. Sam gives a clear head shake and Jim sidles over, Sig in hand to take refuge in the bulky cover of luxury steel.
Jim's hand squeezes once, twice on the grip of his automatic. His heart is already in his throat and he's breathing like they've run a mile, not scrambled the thirty feet from their cruiser. FUCK! Not again. C'mon, Jimmy. Pull it together…
At a look he nods, and Sam begins mouthing a countdown. He's on the 'th' of three, tongue trapped between his front teeth as the sounds of fast approaching rescue greets their ears; a tactical unit and at least one bus, whipping through the gravel and pothole gauntlet.
"Thank God YOU called it in," Jim coughs out in a laugh. He wipes his sweaty hand on his slacks and leans against the Lexus, content to let the door busters do their thing.
The SWAT truck pulls up, a dozen Spartans spilling out, clad in Kevlar from head to crotch. A taller, bulkier form separates a few feet, then starts throwing his hand signals at the helmet and visor covered men. No words are exchanged as they form a phalanx around a heavily muscled SWAT carrying a battering ram.
Two men pull pins on canisters that immediately start spewing choking black smoke and they're tossed in through the front windows.
The gunfire lessens dramatically, then the battering ram hits home, throwing the front door in, over, toppling it, breaking it clear out of its frame. The SWAT team storms over the fallen door and within a minute Jim hears, "ALL CLEAR!" from inside.
"Coulda used you guys this morning," Jim mutters as he and Sam rise to enter the building.
The mouth of the culvert is dry, but a few feet in and they're sloshing through an inch or two of fetid water and muck. Warrick's plan had been to drop Nick just inside the drainage tube and head for help. He hadn't counted on Jeff coming after them. Hell, he hadn't honestly counted on Jeff still being alive.
"Shoulda…hit 'im…harder," gasps Nick, his head almost laying on Warrick's shoulder, breath hot in his ear.
"Yeah. I shoulda. How you doin'? Can we keep goin'? This'll lead out somewhere, Nicky. We're gonna get outta this."
They keep sacheting forward, Warrick the momentum for them both. After ten feet, there's no more dusky light from the open end of the culvert. Another twenty feet, and light and outside sound disappear altogether. Warrick's eyes start to adjust to the black, and he keeps moving, hoping at some point there's a swing off; that the drain system leads under another warehouse in what he's thinking is an industrial complex. He's hoping for something to come up and offer a route to safety and help.
Warrick's praying for a whole SLEW of miracles as he readjusts Nick's arm over his shoulder, hitches Nick higher up and more securely against his hip. His own arm is blazing, and he thinks the bullet just grazed him, but he's not sure. Doesn't have time to check. He's more concerned with the shallow wheezy breaths his partner's taking, more focused on listening for the splash and thudding echo of footsteps that will tell if Jeff's in pursuit.
A little moangasp joins the rhythm line of Nick's respiration, and Warrick just ACHES. He knows as bad as this is for him, as bad as this IS - it's so much worse for his friend. And – Jesus. Oh, fuck… Oh, Nick, I'm sorry… - because he's just realized he's pulled them out of one terrible situation and solved it by heading underground; probably the last place Nick Stokes wants to be when he's feeling scared and vulnerable.
He's kicking himself so hard over that, he almost misses the coolness of the cross breeze. He brings them to a stop. Holds them both still. And then he backs them up a step.
He feels it on his sweat-drenched skin, can even smell it. There's air passing through the tunnel they're in, so he knows there's a turn to take…a turn that has access to the outside. Which way to go is the question.
"Rick?"
Nick's voice is weak and dry-sounding. Makes Warrick tighten his grip on him. "Gonna change direction, boss. Get us to another lead-out tunnel."
He shifts them both facing left of forward, reaches out until his fingers connect with the cold, spiral steel. His hand brailles across the culvert wall until he finds the edge of the jointed turn. "This way, man," he says, and starts them in a new direction.
About 100 yards farther, there's another intersection of tubing, and Warrick turns them right this time because it seems…right. Another 150 yards, and the betting man wins the kitty; he can make out a circle of sweet, dusky orange, late November sky.
"Nick, man. Nick! We're getting' outta here."
Someone has turned on a few of the industrial sized fans the shop uses to keep its employees from keeling over in the Vegas heat, and the smoke from the grenades has mostly cleared.
Center ring is the body of the man Jim had seen talking to Arrué in the club. The 'salesman'. There's a bullet hole where his left eye used to be.
Officers wrestle with tattooed bangers in three corners of the room and a fourth officer is shaking his head over a fallen body. The blood around this one is still adding to the pool under his shoulders, but the SWAT picks up a ragged sheet of naugahyde upholstery fabric and drops it over the ruined face with a shudder.
Jim briefly considers what could make a seasoned SWAT guy wobble, but then decides he isn't really all that interested in knowing. Instead, he does a quick 360 of the room; everything is being locked down, everyone is being locked up. He nudges Sam and points at the three doors off the back of the warehouse.
"It's like Let's Make a Frickin' Deal," Jim mutters. "Which door we try first?"
Sam shrugs and splits off to take the leftmost, and Jim heads for the middle door.
A small office, metal desk with matching metal file cabinets. A PC more ancient than Jim's LVPD antique. An ashtray overflowing with a mixture of cigarette filters and roaches sits next to the mouse pad. The sharp, spicy smell of freshly burned marijuana fills the room.
Another door opens at the back but it's only a closet, cold weather coats and steel-toed boots. Jim slams the door shut against the nasty, mildewy odor that assaults his nose. Damn it!
The room is a bust, and Jim picks up speed, re-entering the warehouse, almost barreling into Sam as he exits his own door choice with a solemn shake of his head.
"It's a breakroom. Day old donuts and stale coffee. Little kitchenette – stove with two burners. Reeks a' grease and grass."
"How the fuck they get any work done, the amount of weed they're knockin' back?" Jim growls.
Fence, brick wall, fucking expanse of the Grand Canyon? Yup. There it is. As Warrick moves them closer, he can make out the horizontal and vertical lines of a metal grate across the mouth of the culvert. Son of a bitch.
He gets them five feet from the lip, scanning and praying and really just goddamned WISHING like a kid that there's a loose screw or a rusted nut. That the grate is going to fall away as soon as he touches it because this is so FUCKING UNFAIR.
He lowers Nick as gently as he can, but his diligence doesn't spare Nick any pain; he whimpers – shit – the whole way down and sucks back a sob as Warrick eases him back against the side of the metal tunnel.
"There's a grate, Nick. I'm--"
Nick coughs out a chuckle. "Hey, Rick. When we get to the hospital, you tell 'em t' check me for a head injury. 'Cause I swear we already had this conversation."
There's a tiny bit of solace in the fact Nick's lucid enough to joke. Warrick checks the makeshift bandage around his partner's chest and isn't surprised to find it soaked through. "Lemme check out the grate, man. I'm right here, okay?"
"S-sure, man," Nick shivers out.
Warrick's over to the opening in a flash, not thinking, just going straight with hope and faith; pushes against the gridded metal with both palms flat and his back behind it. His only pay-off is a scream of pain from his shoulder, and he's guessing he's been a little more than grazed.
He presses his face against the metal, trying to figure out how it's secured so he can figure out how to get it off. There are industrial strength L-brackets on the top and bottom of the culvert's lip, a flange and a nut and a big-ass screw connected to each. He knows the culvert has to be accessible to maintenance crews, and the flange is probably there to help with the swing; if he can get the bottom screw off, he should be able to slide the grating to one side with the top L-bracket as axis.
He kicks out with a booted foot, heel harsh against the metal. Little clouds of rust float up from, and down from, both connections, but nothing more. Warrick drops to his knees and shoves his arm through the grid. He practically peels off the skin on his fingers trying to get the screw lose. It doesn't budge. Fuck. FUCK.
He strains to listen over the raspy sound of Nick's inhales and exhales, doesn't think he hears any gunshots. But he doesn't know exactly where they are, and he doesn't know exactly what a cease-fire means. Maybe they all killed each other. Or maybe they've stopped to look for him and Nick. He can't risk calling out for help. So, what? You gonna sit here and wait for your best friend to die?
There's nothing to help, just garbage and twigs and a shoe over by the far end of the culvert's mouth. "Fuck." He's got no vest, empty pockets, doesn't even have his belt buckle to try.
"Lost your Superman strength, huh?" Nick says behind him.
He crawls back to his partner, legs soaked by the brackish water pooled along the bottom of the tunnel. "Two screws. Top and bottom. Think I could swing it to one side if I could get a screw out." He exhales with an angry huff.
Nick clears his throat, and it sounds like it costs him quite a bit for such a small task. "Knife."
And Warrick knows he heard him wrong. When he doesn't say anything, Nick says it again.
"Y' could try the knife."
Oh, Jesus, no, Nick… "No way."
"Could use it like a--"
"Shut the fuck up, man." He doesn't mean for it to sound so harsh, but Nick needs to get that idea right the hell out of his head. It's the weed talking, or the desperation, or the fucking weed and desperation and blood and tired and – no, no, NO. That knife is staying right where it is. They'll wait. "We wait."
But they don't wait long.
Not ten seconds later, they both hear a sharp whistle echo through the corrugated steel, followed by an angry shout: "¡CERDOS! Fucking pigs!"
"I'd rather bleed out than die with him, Warrick. Jesus Christ, please. I can't-- I-- Please."
Warrick's entire face pinches, every muscle clenches. What the hell am I supposed to do?
"Please, man…" Nick begs, and that's too much for Warrick to take.
He bends down, leans his ear as close to nick's chest as he dares. It's slight, but it's there, keeping an opposite staccato with every breath; air whistling through the torn flesh around the knife.
He straightens up, runs his forearm over his brow. He shakes his head and coughs out a laugh that's obviously effected, but he figures Nick's not picking up on nuances like that at this point. "Only you, you son of a bitch," he mutters under his breath.
"Whassat?"
As he speaks, he eases Nick forward and begins meticulously unwinding the upholstery strip wrapping around his middle. "My Great Uncle, Thurmond – my Gram's brother – was a medic in Korea. Used to tell us all these gruesome stories about field triage."
He piles the bloody strips of material on Nick's lap, maneuvers him until his back rests against the curve of the culvert again, and starts removing the damp reddened batting around the knife.
"Amazing what you remember from when you were a kid, huh? He used to run me and my cousins through these first-aid battlefield mock-ups…"
He's squinting through the last bit of light – come on…gimme somethin' – and then catches the flash of cellophane pressed up against the bottom part of the grate. He reaches back for it, lance of fire through his shoulder, and carefully peels it away. Makes sure not to tear it.
"He was a frustrated doctor wanna be, you know? Never had the dough for med school, felt too old for it once he got home from the war."
Warrick's telling no lies; the memories – and the knowledge – come flooding back. He checks for a radial pulse and can't get one, moves his fingers to Nick's carotid, and the beat there is irregular and thready. Shock. Circulation slowing down. And Nick's jugular is distended on one side, which probably means the knife's clipped a lung. Jesus fucking Christ. "Only you would have a fuckin' sucking chest wound."
Nick hitches, makes a little whine in his throat, but Warrick can see him trying to find a smile.
"Fuckin' suckin' Stokes luck," Nick says, and it sounds so contented and ACCEPTING Warrick wants to cry.
He sniffs deep, drops his eyes to the plastic in his hands. "Here's what we're gonna do, a'ight? I'm gonna take the knife out, and then I'm gonna put this--" He holds up the wrapper from a Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie that he's carefully torn down the seal and wiped as much grime from as possible. "Right over the wound, okay?"
Nick's tracking him in the dark, probably more by Warrick's voice than by the ability to see him – but either way, he's paying attention. He nods and coughs out a ''Kay'.
"'S called a flutter valve. Now, normally," he says, knees scooting him closer, "Normally, I'd tape down three sides. The cellophane's gonna cover the wound so air can't get into your chest when you breath in, and that open side's gonna help you push whatever air you got in there, out. 'S why you're gonna have to hold down three edges on your own, a'ight? Ain't got tape."
"Stokes luck," Nick says, and Warrick's laughter is genuine this time.
"Stokes fuckin' suckin' luck. Yeah, bro." Warrick reaches forward and gives Nick's leg a squeeze. "You sure about this, man?"
And just because the universe is working that way today, the sound of Jeff's voice – 'I'M GONNA FIND YOU, MOTHERFUCKERS!' - echoes through the maze of drains, leaving neither of them with much choice.
Nick's breathing immediately picks up. "Do it."
Warrick nods, bounces on his knees. "Okay. Okay… I'm… When I get the cellophane on there, you get your hands around three edges. I'm gonna wrap some of that upholstery around it, then lean you down on your side."
"M' cut side?"
Warrick hates the horror in Nick's voice. "Yeah, man. Sorry, it's…it's gonna help you breath better, Nicky. Get the good lung working harder for ya."
After two quick huffs of breath, Nick nods. "Okay, man. Okay."
Like pullin' a tooth. Pullin' a tooth with a hook on the end of it. "Nick," says Warrick gravely, "If you… When I… If you scream, man. Jeff's gonna hear that."
Nick swallows hard, and his muscles stiffen under Warrick's hand. "'M from Texas, 'member? I can cowboy up."
Warrick can't think about it another second. He doesn't even realize he's moved forward until the blade is almost all the way out and Nick's teeth show white in the dark where his lips have rolled back in a grimace. He's making a noise so high Warrick thinks a neighborhood dog is going to answer with a howl. And there's blood, more blood, and resistance at the very end that Warrick knows is the hooked tip snagging something, and then it's out. The motherfucking thing is out.
Warrick does just what he told Nick he was going to do; gets the wrapper over the wound, gets Nick's hand on three edges of the wrapper. He winds a few lengths of bloody upholstery around the jury-rigged flutter valve, binds Nick's hand right along with it to keep everything where it should be.
Warrick has to keep blinking, shaking his head; his vision is misty and his throat's all tight. Nick hasn't said a word since the knife's come out and Warrick just wants to hear him say it's okay. Say you're okay, man.
He does it all on auto-pilot, head snapping back and forth between Nick's ghostly pale face and the flash and glint of the bloody knife at work. The unsharpened edge of the blade slips into the slot on the head of the screw with millimeters to spare. Warrick pauses for a second to figure out the reverse righty-tighty/lefty-loosey from his perspective, and then throws every ounce of himself against the hilt of the levered weapon.
There's a terrible hopeless moment of nothing – No! No! Fuck no! – and then the irked shriek of rusted metal-on-metal as the screw gives way and turns. Fuck yes!
Warrick nearly loses his grip on the knife, but steadies himself, refocuses, and cranks the hilt all the way around, again and again, until the screw is holding on by just the last of its threads.
He wrenches the knife from the head slot of the screw, and works the last few centimeters excitedly by hand. He's turning to tell Nick, show Nick, save Nick when he freezes.
The tinny echo of sloshing footsteps – motherfucking Jeff – is approaching the far end of their tunnel.
"--find you," comes the banger's voice. "I'ma find you!"
And Warrick holds his breath until the footfalls stomp past the intersection and recede further into the drain system. He crawls back to Nick, finding his partner's free hand in the damp darkness, and presses Nick's limp fingers around the hilt of the knife.
"Nicky, listen to me…"
Nick gives a grunt and a weak nod.
"I'll be back. Soon as I can."
Nick nods again, and Warrick feels his friend's hand tighten under his own, gripping the knife like he understands.
"Soon as I can," Warrick assures. And then he's swinging open the grate ans scrambling through the weeds outside the mouth of the culvert.
The third door opens onto a storeroom that looks like one of those currently cool tortureporn flicks has been filmed in it. Heavy blood spatter - like someone's dashed a can of carmine paint - is sprayed over one wall and a set of metal shelves. The source of the rusty fluid is crumpled on the floor in a darker, thickening puddle.
Alex Arrué. He's been practically eviscerated, and his throat is slit from ear to ear.
Jim pulls the twice-folded printout of Jeff Carbonell's mugshot from his suit coat, and reacquaints himself with the thug's tattooed visage. Hands it off to Sam and while still staring at the lifeless form of Arrué points a thumb back into the warehouse. "Do me a favor, Sam, and go see if any of the mutts or corpses they have out there are our psycho?"
Sam nods and slips back out onto the shop floor while Jim scans the room for clues.
He steps carefully over the lake of blood and pushes aside a fallen box to find two sets of CSI vests, belts, and empty gun holsters. The shattered remains of two cells phones litter the floor along with the cut pieces of what Jim recognizes as zip-ties. Same ones his own force uses on riot duty.
More blood appears in drips and drops, here and there. A larger, more ominous looking puddle has multiple footprints smeared through it; the impressions of at least two different types of footwear showing on the grey-painted floor.
"What a fuckin' mess," Jim sighs as he pushes aside another box.
A standard issue fire extinguisher has been thrown down to one side of a door in the back corner of the room. The handle of the door has been smashed repeatedly, and now hangs from the heavy wood by a single bent screw.
The bloody footprints cluster in front of the exit, and Jim raises his Sig as he pushes the door open with his foot. It swings back to show a concrete pad, a standing ashtray with gravel in its bowl overflowing with butts off to the side for workers' smoke breaks. The prints are clear on the grey cement, then continue off into the ubiquitous yellow Vegas sand.
The expanse of the Mojave stretches out before him, and Jim allows himself a moment of panic. What the hell could drive two wounded men out into that? Then he gathers himself to resume following the prints.
Blood continues when the clearest footprints end. Someone is bleeding, and a hell of a lot by the looks of it. The prints at some places slur and the impression of two knees shows someone's faltering. Jim picks up the pace, his own feet slipping in the loose sand.
The dusty, bloody trail leads more or less straight to the fence, and Jim can see where the chain link has been twisted and pulled aside, the dirt underneath, dug up and disturbed.
To the left of the impromptu exit sluice, he can make out the lip of a culvert – the only kind of cover in the immediate area. Jim shakes his head at the prospect of the limbo he's going to have to do to get under the fence, but gamely scooches onto his back and begins to wriggle under. "Feel like Peter Fuckin' Cottontail trying to get away from Farmer Fuckin' McGregor," he mutters, but it's drowned out as a jet taking off from Nellis screams overhead.
He's halfway through, arching like a yogi contortionist, when the button placket of his shirt snags in the chain link. He tugs and wiggles and hears a rip. Feels a scratch across his stomach, and gets pinged in the cheek by a popped-off button. "Ah, Christ," he curses, and then jerks once more.
He drops, with an unceremonious 'hmph', to the hardpack below, brushes himself off, and eyes the contrail the jet's left across the cinnamon sky above. He absently rubs at the sting across his belly as he makes his way to the culvert.
From somewhere deep inside the tunnel, a lightly accented voice floats out:
"I'ma find you!"
Jim doesn't hesitate. Sig leading, he enters the culvert, stays off to the side to avoid the splashing his shoes would make in the water that covers the floor of the sewer. He leaves the last light of day behind; moving forward, swallowed by darkness.
Nick's trying to breathe as smoothly as possible, because every wavery breath he pulls in and blows out disturbs the water along the bottom of the tunnel; tickling his ear with wet and cold. He wants to sit up, wishes Warrick hadn't laid him down, but he can't. Can't move. Won't move. Hurts too much.
He's got this sort of funny feeling in his chest, behind his eyes…it's not PAIN and it's not… It's not pain. But it hurts.
It might be hope; he's just not sure.
He knows he's hurt bad. Knows Warrick never would have taken out the knife if he wasn't desperate. So, he knows he's hurt bad. That he might die. And THAT hurts. But it's not pain.
I was rescued…
He was rescued. He'd been rescued so many times and – oh, God – THERE was the pain. There was the pain and the ache and the HOPE.
I was rescued.
And Nick wants so very much to be rescued right now. He doesn't want to die. Not like this.
Please, not like this.
The whole right side of his body is going numb. He can feel the swampy water wicking into his clothes. Can feel the sun going down, and the temperature, too.
His left ear's facing up, open to the sounds of his own ragged breathing and the hollow drip and slap of water making tiny movement. His left ear's mostly submerged in the mucky sewer water, and it's kind of like listening to somebody talk underwater. He picks up gauzy reverberation every time his chest moves in and out, every time a little bubble of air pushes out past the open end of the cellophane on his chest.
He tightens up all his muscles and locks his jaw down on the giggle that wants to escape his lips because – Christ – if he gets through this? He's gonna be the only guy in the world who can say he's been saved from death by fire ants and Little Debbie, both.
And there's that ache again. That hope. Because, goddamnit, he WAS rescued. And he will be again. Please. This is bad, he knows it's bad, but Warrick's on his way. Warrick's going to save him again. And breathing gets a little harder because he's trying not to cry. He doesn't want to cry, he wants to be strong. He wants to be sure. He wants…hope.
Because for all the jokes about his luck, and – oh, shit – there are JOKES. For all the jokes, he really is a lucky guy. Because he should have been gone and done-with a couple of times by now.
The water vibrates around his left ear and splashes up near his nose. The smell is awful, but not as bad as the sound. Because he should have heard it. Should have heard him. Nick didn't even realize Jeff was there until he was almost on top of him.
"¿Que pasa, weto? Man, am I glad to see you." Jeff smiles and sniggers out a laugh, his teeth flashing white like the unbloodied patches on his t-shirt, socks, and shoes.
He looks like a ghost.
"You're a ghost," says Nick, and he wants to believe that.
Jeff's foot crashes into Nick's shoulder, forces him violently onto his back, and then Jeff's squatting down, leaning over him, swaying over him.
"Where's your friend?"
He says nothing, can't speak, can't breathe. Jeff moves like lightning, and Nick feels the cold steel of a gun pressed against his lips.
"You know how much fucking trouble you caused me, cop? How much money and opportunity? You and your fucking mouth?"
Even if he could formulate a response, the barrel of the gun is so tight against his lips he couldn't speak if he tried.
Jeff's other hand shoots forward, fists in Nick's destroyed henley. Nick's head is lifted off the ground, and his fingers involuntarily press against the wound in his side.
"Open your mouth, cop. So I can put a bullet in it."
All he can do is shake his head, but he doesn't. He won't. Won't give Jeff the satisfaction. Nick bites down hard, squeezes his battered lips tightly together. Not like this…
His defiance, for what it's worth, doesn't make a difference; the steel tunnel explodes with the sound of a single gunshot.