Disclaimer: I don't own Hawaii Five-0.

Author's Note: Finally, another chapter! I hope it's an entertaining read. :) Thanks for everyone who reviewed and put this story on story alert! I was blown away by how many was crammed into my inbox! Such things just make me smile and thanks for taking the time to read my story. Please review and let me know what you think. :)

2. Like a Ton of Bricks

Steve was frustrated. More than frustrated: worried, terrified, hateful. He was swirling with negative emotions, uncertain if he wanted to punch a wall, or fall limply into a chair.

Chin and Kono hadn't come back yet, and all Steve's initial efforts were beginning to look fruitless. Even in the flurry of the moment, he had caught the license plate number and immediately spread the word around HPD to look for the offending vehicle. It wouldn't be hard to spot the white junk car with a cracked windshield, but he wasn't going to make any assumptions. He'd hoped there'd be a reply to his BOLO in the first ten minutes, envisioning the damaged vehicle skidding across the roadway in a hurry. But, unfortunately, there were no responses. Yet.

He stared at the glass top of the tech table, snapping his gaze upward as the quick tap of footsteps pattered against his ears.

"Boss!" Kono exclaimed, practically jogging into the main room. Chin walked swiftly behind her, his expression grim and serious. He was probably running the worst scenarios through his mind, unable to suffocate the awful experiences of his career. Kono was still attempting to ignore the terrors associated with her job. She wanted to believe that Danny was perfectly fine, despite her cousin's grave countenance. Still, she was afraid. She was terrified that the situation was as bad as Chin implied.

"Boss, what happened?" she demanded breathlessly, leaning on the tech table with wide, frightened eyes. Steve looked at her with a dark expression, wishing he could keep her away from such an awful situation. He knew she could handle it; Kono was tougher than anybody suspected. But that didn't mean it wouldn't affect her. Steve sighed heavily as he prepared for a short explanation. Chin must've kept the juiciest details from the rookie.

"From what I could tell, someone hit Danny with a car and then took him. I already sent out a BOLO, but nobody's answered it yet." Steve replied flatly. He tried not to look at Kono, attempting to look busy while he messed with the tech table. But after a long stretch of silence, his eyes betrayed him. He glanced up at her for only a moment, yet he could easily see her shock and worry.

"Wait, what?" Kono said, trying to mull over the cut and dried facts in her mind. "Somebody hit Danny with a car…? A car?" Steve couldn't imagine what she was feeling. It just wasn't Danny's place on the team to get hit by a car. Despite how much Steve could get annoyed with him from time to time, Danny wasn't the type to have vengeful enemies. That was Steve's area of expertise. Besides that, it was unusual for Danny to even be involved in such dangerous situations outside of work. It was difficult to think of Danny getting a paper cut outside of Five-0, let alone being target practice for a car.

"Look, we have to realize this isn't the safest job on the island. We target major criminals and deal with more violent action than most other officers." Steve pointed out. "I think the question isn't really why this happened to Danny, but more of when this would happen." Kono nodded her head stiffly while Chin continued looking grim.

"We'll find him." Steve muttered, returning to his investigation.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Danny groaned as the mysterious liquid poked continuously at his face. His mind was muddled and his body felt like it had been compressed and dragged over gravel. Pain was everywhere: spiking through his head, jabbing at his ribs, cutting through his legs and worming its way through every other muscle of his anatomy. He wanted to curl up into a ball and stay still all in the same instant, although he was rather certain staying still would be the better option.

Where the hell was he?

He squinted his eyes, attempting to focus his blurred vision and investigate the dimmed world around him. He was a detective after all: he could figure everything out…maybe. He looked to be in a small, closet-like space, crammed between four brick walls, though one wall looked newer than the rest and was still in the process of being finished. He could see the half-done row of bricks a couple feet above his head, trying to understand why it was like that. It didn't make sense: why was he in a brick box and who felt like randomly building a brick wall and abandoning it? Whoever it was had a crappy work ethic. But, if they had finished the wall, he wouldn't have a way to escape. There were no windows and the other, older walls looked quite sturdy. The only light he had to see his surroundings was from the opening left by a lazy brick mason. Danny looked down at himself, trying to squint through the darkened space to see what his injuries were. It was more difficult than he thought it would be. Steve could probably do it. That guy probably had a portable pair of night vision goggles or something.

"Oh, good, you're awake."

Danny slowly turned his eyes upward, trying to avoid the pain in his neck as much as possible. The lazy brick mason must've come back, because there was a man staring at him from the top of the unfinished wall. The mysterious man had his head resting on top of his folded arms, smiling down to Danny with a suspicious aura. Danny knew he should be bothered more by this development. Something told him that all of these strange occurrences were part of one, big, terrible situation. But his brain wasn't working quite as well, trying to move his thoughts through the barrier of confusion and an awful headache.

"Who are you?" Danny's own voice surprised him, hearing an unrecognizable croak from his own throat. It wasn't that strong voice he remembered.

"You don't recognize me? I'm hurt." the man replied mockingly. "Perhaps it's darker in there than I thought." Danny squinted, trying to summon any memories that pertained to a creepy guy and brick walls. He had to admit that the man seemed familiar and he vaguely wondered if he should be flashing through faces of irritable neighbors, or mug shots. Through all the men he'd put away and all those neighbors that he just happened to get on the nerves of, how was he supposed to remember a single person? It was basically impossible, unless they were civil, which almost never happened with the people around Danny. And even then, who in their right mind would-

Wait.

"Davis Hewley." Danny mumbled as he stared at the man with surprise, holding a hiss of pain behind his lips. He was one of those somewhat civil people in his lifetime.

"Aw, Detective! You do remember me! I'm so flattered." Davis laughed, his voice holding something sickening behind it.

"Mr. Hewley…" Danny growled and paused as he struggled to get a hold of a steady voice. "would you kindly fill me in on what's going on here?" Danny was well aware that he was missing important segments of what had happened from when he was at the office to the present time. Besides that, he was rather certain that Davis Hewley was supposed to be in a New Jersey prison.

"Please, call me Dave, Danny." Davis corrected. "I mean, it hasn't been so long since we've last seen each other. Three years is hardly that long at all and there's no reason for us not to be on a first name basis." Danny was slowly gaining his regular composure and the irritation was quickly setting in.

"Okay, Dave. What the hell is going on here?" he asked angrily. If he wasn't pulsing with so much pain, his arms would be following the choreography of his speech.

"Well, Danny, you took away my life. So, I've decided to take yours." Dave sighed happily, tilting his head playfully to the side and rest his cheek against his arms.

"What? What are you friggin' talkin' about, you crazy lunatic." Danny's question came out as more of a command than a request.

"Lunatics have always been crazy, Danny. That's a known fact."

"Whatever, just tell what the hell is goin' on here!" Danny shouted, getting more and more frustrated with the nonchalance of this irritating man.

"I'm murdering you, Danny. I'm going to kill you." Dave drawled seriously, narrowing his eyes as his smile melted to a frown. Danny's mouth went dry as he contemplated Dave's answer.

"…What?"

It wasn't just the threat that made the horror settle into Danny's guts, it was because he knew it was coming true. Danny couldn't defend himself; he was injured and had realized the absence of his gun. He couldn't quite remember how he'd become so battered, but he was sure that Dave had everything to do with it. Dave had the upper hand and he was planning to kill Danny.

The worst of it was…

"I arrested you on car theft, Mr. Hewley, and you accepted the consequences of your behavior. How did I ruin your life? You were a good man, Mr. Hewley, and now you're going to kill me?"

…Danny never saw this coming.

"I said it's Dave!" Hewley shouted angrily, standing up straight. His furious expression immediately twisted into a smile, sending a shudder down Danny's spine. "I continued as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation."

Danny was sure he was in the hands of a madman.

"That's from Edgar Allen Poe's 'Cask of Amontillado.' Perhaps you've heard of it?" Dave asked calmly. Danny vaguely recalled the morbid tale, but continued to stare at his captor with a look between stubbornness and fear.

"It was only one time. I was having trouble keeping up with the bills and feeding my family, so I thought that maybe I could make a little cash on the side from stealing that old man's car. One time. One time, Danny, and you arrested me. I tried to feed my family and you arrested me." Dave related bitterly. "My wife left me while I was in prison and took the kids with her. Then I got out on good behavior, but nobody would hire me with a criminal record. You ruined my life."

"I was only doing my job." Danny replied quietly.

"Yeah, I was only doing my job as a husband and a father." Dave snarled. His darkened eyes lingered on Danny for a moment and his smile returned. "I'm going to kill you, just like Montresor killed Fortunato in the 'Cask of Amontillado' tale." His face disappeared from the opening of the brick wall, leaving Danny to wonder what was going to become of the great Detective Williams. But, there wasn't much to wonder about; he was going to die.

He heard some scraping on the other side of the wall, trying to keep his thoughts from lingering on how he was going out of this world. All he could hope was that it would be quick.

Dave returned to the opening with a brick in his hand and a trowel in the other, smiling that awful smile. Danny felt sick as he watched Dave spread cement over the top of the wall and carefully place a brick.

Danny was being cemented into this hollow cube.

"I was going to kill your lovely ex wife and your daughter, like how you took away my family. But then…I decided I wanted the satisfaction of murdering you myself." Dave explained as if they were discussing the weather. "It's too bad that my method of choice doesn't let me watch you die, but I wanted you to suffer. Who knows how you'll actually die. Perhaps by starvation, but I'm thinking more along the lines of bleeding out. You're in terrible shape from when I hit you with a car."

A car…?

Danny groaned as the memory of his violent collision shot through his thoughts. He had blacked out when Dave grabbed him roughly off the asphalt and he could only assume that his captor had shoved him in the back of the vehicle or something like that.

I wonder if Steve saw it. Danny thought. Steve…he was probably going crazy looking for Danny. Danny smirked at the thought of Steve hanging Dave off a building, demanding where his partner was.

"That partner of yours chased after me for a good block, but he wasn't nearly as fast as I was driving. It was still a close call; I mean, you're pretty heavy. Trying to haul you from that crap car to the van was a work out." Dave explained, continuing in his work as if it was the best job in the world. Danny groaned in his head, realizing that Steve would probably send out a BOLO for the first car. His partner couldn't know that Dave had a second vehicle for his escape plan.

The brick wall was getting higher and higher as Dave worked, the panic oddly fluctuating in Danny's chest as he watched. Maybe it was alright that he was going to die; Grace and Rachel were safe after all. But, then Grace would grow up without her real father. She would grow up knowing that her father was murdered and she may never know why. She'd be in the same situation as Steve; searching for the truth in any spare moment. He didn't want that for her. She'd told him she wanted to be a detective like him once, but he didn't want her to follow his steps. He didn't want her to see what people did to each other. To see how people destroyed each other's lives. Sure, as a doctor she wouldn't be completely shielded from the violence of life, but she wouldn't have to see all the ugly workings beneath the surface. She'd be saving lives, not condemning men like Davis Hewley to a life of anger and revenge.

Besides, if Danny died now, who would walk her down the aisle on her wedding day? Step Stan? No, that would completely inappropriate. He should've changed his will to leave Steve that important duty for Grace. He would feel much more at peace to have the partner he trusted walking his precious daughter to the love of her life. Not that lowlife Stan. Other than that, there'd be so many other things he'd miss: teaching her how to drive; her first boyfriend; her high school graduation; watching her go to college; hugging her at every important moment of her life; dancing with her at her wedding reception; becoming a grandpa. There was so much he was leaving behind. So many things he wouldn't be there for. All because he arrested a man for stealing a car. All because he did his job as a member of the police force.

No, Grace. Don't be a detective. Don't do that to your children. He pleaded silently as Dave was finishing up the wall, putting the last two bricks in their place.

"Goodbye, Detective Williams. It was a pleasure hitting you with a car." Dave laughed, sending a shiver up Danny's body and igniting pain all along his nerves.

The remaining bit of light choked on the last brick and everything went pitch black.

Author's Note: Oh dear. Poor Danny. :/ Reviews, please? :)