"Wait," Tony said, looking down at everything he had written. "I don't have everyone's ages."
He frowned slightly, and looked up at Shadow.
"Oh, sorry," she said. "Uh, Skull and I are roughly the same age. He's still sixteen, but his birthday's coming up in a month or two. Mine's another five away. Uh, Raven's a year and two months younger than me. The twins are also fifteen, but that was a recent development. Felony is also sixteen, but she turned that a month or so ago. Necro and Dusk are the oldest, seventeen, but I think Necro's older. I dunno. Um, Vlad's a few months younger than me."
Tony wrote all this down, and then glanced over at Gibbs.
"Alright," Gibbs said. "Assignment. McGee -"
"Track down the parents, yes, sir," McGee said and quickly started typing.
"Tony, get down to their base and bring all of them over."
"ALL of them?" Tony asked, staring at him.
"Yes, all of them," Gibbs said. "They're of no use without every single one here."
"Necro's a fighter," Shadow piped up. "Good luck getting him to come along with JUST yourself."
"Ziva, would you like to come?"
Zive nodded, and Gibbs approved.
"Have fun!" Shadow called as they stepped into the elevator.
"Now, you're going to talk to Abby to try and figure out where Skull could be," Gibbs said. He got up and started walking. "Come on!"
Shadow jumped up and ran after him. They went downstairs and entered an office with blasting rock music. Shadow smirked and tapped her foot against the floor.
"Abby!" Gibbs called over the music.
Abby was much younger than Gibbs, wearing her black hair in two pigtails with straight bangs. Her eyes were rimmed in black, her mouth covered in black. She wore large combat boots, making her seem even taller. Over her black and red skirt and white button down shirt, she wore a lab coat. It amused Shadow highly to picture a Goth as a scientist.
Abby picked up a remote and turned off the music.
"Aw, I liked that song," Shadow said in fake disappointment.
Abby ran up and pulled Shadow into a tight hug.
"You poor girl!" she said, squeezing her.
"Uh," Shadow said. "This is weird."
Abby let go, and said, "I can't believe what he did!"
"I'm okay," Shadow said. "Besides the fact that I hurt just about every time I move, and that I'm scarred from where he would put out his cigarette. But you know, other than that, I'm fine."
Abby wrapped her in another bone crushing hug.
"This hurts my ribs," Shadow said.
"Sorry!" Abby said, letting go again.
"Abby, work with her to try to figure out where Skull could be," Gibbs said. He left the room, and Abby glared after him.
"Normally he brings me Caf-Pow!" she said, walking into her office. Shadow followed after quickly. "Sit!"
Shadow pulled up a chair and sat before Abby.
"Okay, so where do we start?" she asked.
"Tell me about Skull," Abby said.
"He's a jackass," Shadow said instantly. "That count for anything?"
"Not really," Abby shrugged. "What I meant was, tell me about places you know he went to as a child that could hold significant details."
"Couldn't you have said that in the first place?" Shadow asked.
Abby laughed.
"Where'd he grow up?" she asked.
"Um, I'm pretty sure it was Anacostia," Shadow answered. "At least part of them time. But I know that's where he sold a lot of Mary Jane."
"Would he ever go back to his family, the place he lived?"
"Hell, no. He hated his family, his brothers, his dad. And he has no Mary Jane plants left, so it'd be pointless of him to go back to sell that. I don't think he'd ever go back to Anacostia. He hated it there, anyway."
"Well, what about his mother?"
"Oh, she left when he was little. I don't know anything about her, really."
"Other family, maybe?"
"Nah, grandparents are in nursing homes, aunts and uncles hate him, no one likes him - at all. And he has no friends. None of us would help him, as far as I know."
"Any places he ever talked about?"
"He always mentioned these woods he liked to be in. But I really don't know WHERE. Around here, Virginia, and Maryland, there's quite a few places that could be."
"Good point. Was there anything special about what he said?"
Back upstairs, Tony and Zica had arrived back with the rest of Shadow's new gang. Necro had been the one who wanted to come least.
"Where's Shadow?" Raven demanded, clenching her fists., popping the joints in her thumbs. "I want to see her right now!"
"She's fine," Gibbs said. "She's downstairs with Ab-"
Raven ran and soon disappeared.
"We'll get her later," Gibbs said. "Necro and Dusk, come on. The rest, you get to stay here."
Gibbs started walking to the interrogation rooms. Dusk followed after Gibbs. She was calm, and shoved her hands in her jacket pocket. Necro got a little shove from Ziva for not immediately following. He glared at her. When they had arrived, he had refused to go, and only after fighting with Ziva for a few minutes and getting a black eye, did he cooperate. But he was most definitely not pleased.
Ziva followed as well, leaving Tony and McGee - who was still typing furiously, researching for their parents - to watch the twins, Vlad and Felony.
Gibbs pointed into one room, and Ziva and Necro entered. Gibbs went into the other with Dusk. He sat down in front of the mirror-window, and she leaned against the wall. Gibbs registered the smell of cigarette smoke on her.
"Do you smoke?" he asked.
Dusk shook her head. "No, that's Skull, Vlad and Necro. Sometimes I'll catch Felony holding one, but I've never seen her smoke. But when you're around them a lot, you start smelling like it. I hate it."
Gibbs nodded. "Sit."
"No, I'm good," she said, shaking her head again. She raised her leg, resting her foot on the wall. "Hope you don't mind."
"What do you know about Skull?" Gibbs asked.
"He's a bastard," Dusk replied. "Don't know his first name, last name, anything much about him. Just that he's a jerk, especially to Shadow. We've all been hurt on occasion, but only because we say something."
"Has he ever talked about...going away somewhere?" he questioned.
"Not to me," she said, scratching a spot on her arm. "He could have to one fo the others, but as far as I know, he's never said something about it. But he and Felony were close. You might want to talk to her."
"Alright," Gibbs said, making note of this. "Now, tell me about yourself."
"What?" Dusk said, slightly startled. "Um, Vlad and I grew up in a military family. My mom was in the navy, a chief petty officer. My dad didn't do much but write. He's never published a single book, but he tries, far as I know. We came her back in '02. Mom got put on a ship somewhere and went out. And didn't come back. We're still not sure, but we know she's not dead. Dad got pull benefits, that he wasted on a new computer. Vlad and I started to drift away from him, until he just left too. Yeah, it's screwed up.
"So we wandered around until we found Skull, Shadow and everyone else," Dusk said. She pulled the chair out and sat down in front of Gibbs. "We quickly learned Skull was an ass, but there was no going back."
"What do you mean by no going back?" Gibbs asked.
"Once you're in, you're in," she said. She looked over to a spot on the wall. "Skull wasn't about to let us leave."
Gibbs nodded.
"Tell me about your relationships with everyone else."
"I hate Skull. I hate him. Shadow's...Shadow's actually pretty fun. Vlad's my little brother, and I share that family love with him, but he still gets on my nerves. Raven's fiesty. She's okay, I guess. Felony's...eh. I don't really like her much. The twins are cool if you ever get to talk to them. They're really quite. And Necro...He's kind of an ass as well, but it's just 'cause of how he's grown up."
Gibbs copied this as well, and then held up a picture of the dead bodies of the Halls. Dusk visablly flinched, and looked away.
"I didn't want to," she said. "No one wanted to. Skull did that on his own. We didn't even go with him."
"I see," Gibbs said. "So absolutely no one went with him?"
"No one," Dusk assured. "Necro and Vlad were smoking in the back. Felony, Raven and I were sitting inside, playing a card game, and the twins were on the roof doing soemthing artistic."
"Right," Gibbs said. "That's why all of you were there when I came to the hospital."
"Exactly," she said. "Can I go now?"
"Back upstairs and stay where everyone else is," he said. "But I'll come with you."
They started up, but stopped when they heard the door creak to the other room. Gibbs pulled Dusk inside and looked into the room. Ziva had Necro shoved up against the door, both glaring at each other.
"What happened?" he asked.
"The kid's not cooperating," the man sitting at the desk said.
"That's Necro for you," Dusk muttered.
"Tell me what you know about Skull!" Ziva shouted.
"I told you! I'm not helping this damn investigation!" Necro shouted.
"You will help if you don't want to go to jail!" Ziva screamed at him.
Gibbs shook his head.
"Come one, Dusk," he said. "Or do you prefer Macy?"
"I don't really care," she replied. "But Dusk is what I'm used to."
Gibbs nodded, and they went up.
He brought down both of the twins, and questioned them. They didn't know anything either. They weren't really talked to much, and only took care of the things they painted.
Gibbs had to pull Raven away from Shadow, and didn't learn anything from her either. Just that Skull liked to be in the woods, or abandoned or unfinished buildings. This was the biggest lead they had.
Ziva finally finished with Necro while Gibbs was talking to Raven. She went up and brought Vlad down.
"Before you ask, yes, I do like Shadow," he said, plopping down in the chair.
"I hadn't planned on asking," Ziva said, sitting across from him.
Vlad shrugged.
"What about how you feel towards the others?" she asked.
"I hate Skull. Necro's...decent to me. We smoke in the back together. Felony's okay. Raven's fun. The twins are pretty cool if they will talk to you. Dusk's my sister - there's that family love there. Shadow...I already told you about her." Vlad blushed and scratched the back of his head, looking down.
"Has Skull ever told you anything about places he'd go to get away?" she asked, making note.
"No," Vlad replied. "He only talked to me about plans and that was with everyone else. I mean, I guess Felony or Shadow would know something, since he's always pissed at Shadow, and Felony's like his secretary or whatever. But I doubt Shadow knows anything."
Ziva nodded.
Back with Gibbs, Felony was sobbing hysterically.
"I didn't want to know!" she screamed. "He just told me and said if I told anyone he would kill me!"
"Where is he?" Gibbs asked firmly and loudly.
"Appalachian Trail," she stuttered, wiping furiously at the tears. This blew away what they had learned earlier.
"Why?" Gibbs shouted.
"That's where he always wanted to go," she sobbed. "He-he just never got the chance, so he went now."
Gibbs stood up and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He entered the room Ziva and Vlad were in to find them laughing. He stared at them for a second.
"Road trip," he said. "Come on."