AN: Alrighty well here's the next one. It's kind of short too, compared to some of my other ones. But oh well. You take what you can, right? Soooo, we're nearing the end and I'm kind of spreading them out a little.. Just to keep you guys interested. Anyways, thanks everyone for commenting and enjoy reading!
Warnings: Very little bad language. It's not bad, but it's there.
K, have fun!
Don slammed the door, not knowing what to think. There was no way that Ray Boree had died. No way possible.
Then he remembered what that guy with the accent had said: it was in the Tuesday newspaper. Don rushed frantically around his house, shoveling through papers mounted up on his desks and tables.
He always read the news papers… surely he would have noticed if the one man that he despised more than anything in the world was dead. He grabbed any newspaper he could find, checked to see if the date was Tuesday, then skimmed through the pages. Finally, he found a newspaper marked: Tuesday, January 2He skimmed it as he had done all the others, but his eyes froze on a headline that read: Criminal Dies in Prison Riot. And right there, staring him in the face, was Raymond Boree.
Don stood frozen with his eyes glued to the paper, reading it through multiple times. They were right. Ray was dead.
So what now, Don thought. Everything he had just done in the past couple of days were all for nothing. Now, he had managed to get himself so deep in a hole that there was no way of getting out of it, not that he had expected otherwise, but he had hoped to taste the sweet revenge when he took the life of a man so evil. The man that took his wife and his son's mother.
His son.
Don threw the paper down and then raced to Ben's room. What had he done? He ruined his son's life for nothing! He slung Ben's door open to find his son heavily sleeping in his bed. Don stopped and took in the sight. His son, the one last blood-relative of his beloved wife. How could he, the so-called father of this child, make him go through so much?
Ben had made it clear that he didn't want to go through with Don's plans, yet Don persisted. Told him that he had to do it for his mother. Eventually Don talked him into it, but then Ben had been desperately uncomfortable when it came to hurting the Sanders kid. He had begged for him to stop, but he didn't.
In fact, he went and knocked his son out. Gave him a concussion, for God's sake!
"Don Everett, we repeat! Come out with your hands up!"
The sound of the cop yelling on his megaphone snapped Don out of his trance. He ran into Ben's room and over to the bed where his son lay sleeping. He grabbed Ben's shoulders and shook them gently, afraid to further aggravate Ben's injury.
"Ben," Don whispered. "Benjamin, you have to wake up!"
Slowly, Ben moved a little then lifted his eyelids and was greeted by his father's terrified face. Ben's stomach froze.
Something was wrong. What?
His question was answered as he registered the blues and reds reflecting on his bedroom wall. The hunt was over. They knew what was going on in this house. Ben turned back to his father, horrorstruck.
"Dad… Dad no.. Oh my God dad… what," Ben fumbled through, sitting up.
Don shook his head…
"We have to get you out of here, Ben," Don answered, looking very upset at this realization.
Ben could not believe any of this. He knew that this moment was going to come eventually, but it was completely different not that it was actually here. He was scared beyond all reason, and the he knew that his life had been thrown away. Everything he had worked for, the pain he had to get over when his mom was murdered.. All of it was pointless now, and it was all because of his dad.
Ben stood up suddenly out of bed, and pushed his father away from him. He did not want to even look at the man that had ruined his life. Ben just walked out of his room, and let his feet carry him wherever.
He ended up in the one room that he despised. The room that he had watched a man get beaten so badly in. A man that did not deserve it. No person deserved what he had got, but this particular guy had already been through so much, and was still pleasant.
He rounded the corner into that room, and stopped dead in his tracks. Greg was now literally hanging from the ceiling in the chains that his father had promised him would only be used in an extreme emergency. That was even the beginning though.
Greg was now covered completely in blood. It dripped off his bare feet onto a growing puddle beneath him. He hung limply, not making any movement at all. The breath was knocked out of Ben instantly: He's dead!
But maybe not. Ben saw a tiny movement from Greg, so he rushed over to him and reached up to feel his neck. And he found what he so desperately wanted: a pulse. It wasn't very strong, but it was there.
"BEN!" Don screamed, bursting into the room! "Ben.. I… I had to Ben."
Ben looked at his father in disgust. The man was crying, it was a pathetic sight.
"You didn't have to do any of this," Ben said, his teeth grinding.
"I know," Don said quietly and hung his head.
Ben stared in disbelief. What? Ever since his dad had come up with the idea, he had had one reason that he stood proud on: to kill Ray Boree for his mother. What happened to that?
"What to you mean?"
Don increased his sobs.
"He's already dead!" He spit out, not looking his son in the eyes.
The words stumbled through Ben's head. That can't be right! That would mean everything… all of this was for nothing. He stared at his dead, completely shocked. Don looked up at him suddenly.
"We have to get you out of here!"
"No… no Dad, we have to get him out of here," Ben pointed towards Greg.
Don said nothing, so Ben continued loudly.
"He's not doing well, Dad! If he dies here, the charges change completely!" Ben yelled.
Don stayed still, thinking about everything. But mostly about what his son had just said. He thought very quickly about all of his options, and their consequences, and then made up his mind.
The waiting was killing them. Nick wanted so badly for all the officers to break the doors down, and run in there himself and get Greg. But at the moment, the plan was to wait a little longer to see if there was any other alternative. And Nick didn't completely disagree with this decision. The fact was, rushing in there like that might result in the kidnapper killing Greg in the heat of the moment. So now they had to wait.
The guns stayed drawn at the screen door, and some at the surrounding windows, just in case.
Sara had never felt so unsettled. She, like everyone else, did not want to wait. She wanted Greg out now. She would even settle for knowing that he was still alive. Anything other than this horrible waiting.
She stopped and corrected herself; at least they hadn't been told that Greg was dead. At least not yet, and hopefully not ever. The good news was that they hadn't heard any gunshots, meaning that Don might not have taken the news of Ray Boree's death as bad as they thought he might. The bad news was, they were still waiting and had no earthly clue what was going on.
"We got some movement behind the door!" Someone shouted, making Sara tighten her grip on the gun's trigger. Everyone was now staring expectantly towards the door, hoping something good was about to happen, but never letting their guards down.
The door opened up, and out came a guy being held in an awkward position by someone standing behind him. It definitely wasn't Don in front, but it wasn't Greg either..
"Benjamin!" Mrs. Mason screamed from behind the caution tape.
And then everyone realized that this Ben guy was being held from behind by Don with a gun pointing at Ben's head. It was obvious that Ben was in distress and was fighting to get away from Don.
"Stop! You can't do this! Just let him go! Let him go!" the boy screamed and put up a decent fight, but Don held on steadily.
"This boy is innocent!" Don screamed "Say he will be freed! Say it or you never see Greg Sanders again!"
Everyone's heart skipped a beat.
"He's freed, no charges! Now let him go, and come down here yourself!" Brass yelled back to Don.
Don lingered in the same position for a moment, then in one quick movement, he pushed his son down the stairs into the mass of officers below. Everyone gasped in shock at the sudden movements, and before any of them recovered from it, Don had entered the house again with the door closed.
Immediately, EMT's rushed to Ben's side and took him to one of the waiting ambulances. Everyone kept their guns steady, but exchanged looks.
Catherine didn't know what to think now. The boy was out, which left Don and Greg in there alone, Greg completely defenseless and in very bad shape. And here they were, practically back to square one. Waiting on this man to do something.
"Brass! Do we just wait again," she asked quietly.
Brass gave no response, jut kept his gun drawn at the house. Grissom did the same. He knew something was about to happen, and there weren't a whole lot of options. But he didn't know which road Don would take. All they could do was wait for some kind of sign or anything to give them a clue as to what road they should take.
Just then, a gun shot rang out through the house. Everyone gasped, some ducked. Grissom and Brass quickly looked at each other. Don had chosen his road, and now they knew what to do.
"Go, go, go!!" Brass screamed and dozens of police officers broke into the house and swarmed it's insides.
Following behind them was Brass, Grissom, Catherine, Nick, Warrick, and Sara, guns drawn and ready. However, they weren't sure they were completely ready for what they would see inside.
Outside of the house was a different scene. Ben had jumped out of the ambulance the gun had gone off. No, he thought to himself, there was absolutely no way. Other on-lookers stood shocked with their hands over their mouths.
Inside, shouts of "Clear!" could be heard from every direction. Something or someone had just been shot, but where was everyone?
Then, everyone froze when "Man down! Gunshot.. It's the suspect!!" was screamed out.
The suspect? That means….
A door was slung open, revealing Greg. Everyone gaped at the sight of him even though the CSI's had seen a tape of him like this already.
Although, it was completely different when they saw him in person. It was real. They had known that the tapes were real, but it was all on tv, which gave it a more surreal feeling. But seeing him live like this, just hanging there blood covering every inch of him, it changed everything.
And the biggest difference now, was that there was a fresh wound in him. A knife wound. It was in his side, and was bleeding freely.
"WE NEED A MEDIC IN HERE NOW!" Grissom shouted.
Right away a coupe of shocked and sick looking cops raced away, leaving the rest in here with Greg.
Nick slowly approached him, but did not touch him. Everyone else seemed afraid of him. Like they didn't want hurt him by just looking at him.
But a lump appeared in all of their throats when they saw him move a little.
There was the most peculiar sensation within him. It was very odd. What was even more odd was the fact that his side felt the weirdest.
Something had just happened, that much he was sure of. But everything else was just a blur. He could kind of hear voices. People talking in rushed tones, but it was all too hard to make out.
He started to feel uncomfortable. And then some pain made it's way into him. Then more. And then some more. It was all slowly coming to him, and it was not welcomed.
He felt so heavy. He felt like there were walls pushing in on him on every side. The feeling was horrible. He wanted out of it all.
"I… I think he just moved!"
That he had been able to make out. And the voice sounded so familiar. But who? He heard it say something again, and felt this immeasurable sense of joy shoot through him, though he had no idea why, or who this person even was.
Then he heard a completely different voice.
"Oh my God… Greg? Greg can you hear me? Greg!"
There was no doubt in him mind about that accent. Nick!
Everything rushed back to him all at once, but it was all ok now, because Nick was here! And by the sound of it, they all were!
He tried desperately to open his eyes. It was so hard. His entire body revolted against moving at all. But from somewhere deep inside of him, he found the strength and slowly opened his eyes to no more than slits.
And there they were, all staring at him. Some of their eyes were filled with tears, the others just looked like they were in pain. That was sad. He didn't want to see his friends like this.
He tried to say something, but found that he couldn't. He took a deep breath, but stopped suddenly at the amount of pain that shout through him as he tempted to take that breath. He moved suddenly at the pain, and felt even more pain dart through him again. He began to panic. Every move he made, more pain came. Then, he couldn't really breathe.
He was going to die.
He started struggling against his chains, even though the pain was unbearable.
"Oh God! No.. Greg it's ok! It's ok! We're here! There's a medic coming, just hold on!"
Someone was shouting but it was so hard to hear them.
"Where's the damn medic!"
The last sight he saw before fading out again into the dark abyss was two additional men rushing into the room, and to his side, saying things. He heard things like: "Major blood loss", "Stab wound major source", and "We need to intubate!! Get him down!!"
And then, he was gone.
AN: YAY!!! He's been found!! But will he be ok?? And what does 'gone' mean? Haha… we'll see. I hope you guys have liked it so far. The rest from here will all be down hill. There will at the very least be 2 more chapters, possibly (and probably) more. But we'll have to see. Sometimes I find great stopping places and go ahead and leave everything else for another chapter, and sometimes and just spill it all in one gigantic chapter. So, who knows? But I won't leave you all hanging. Much love readers!