Natalia was sitting in the chair with her head down, when Brian walked passed her. He set a file down the table, and started to thumb through it. A few moments later he stopped and looked around desk, before turning around and staring at Natalia.
Natalia kept her head down refusing to make eye contact with Brian. Her heart was pounding and her breathing was starting to get heavier. She felt nervous, as the two occupied the room in complete silence.
She didn't need to look up at Brian to see what he was doing. She could feel his eyes staring her down. She closed her eyes and prayed that she wasn't busted; she prayed that maybe just maybe she did enough hacking to let the team know where she was.
She felt the tension go away when Brian gave a sigh and turned back around to face is folder. He made on quick note before he got out his cell phone to make a call. "I can't believe you are making me do this" Brian continued "I'll meet you there in an hour... Yes an hour... Because I have some other business I need to take care of first... Well the day you actually pay me on time, is the day I will put you first on my list... See you soon."
Brian woke the computer up from its sleep, and turned on the video chat see Horatio and his team standing there.
"Mister Falco, what do I owe for this unpleasant surprise?" Horatio asked.
Brian just smiled as she chewed a little on his cheek. "Maybe I didn't give you a clear explanation on what qualifies as cheating in our little game."
Horatio just tilted his head to the side waiting for Brian to give his answer.
"The goal of this game is find Natalia on your own, not have her help you. I mean that's not fair."
"I don't know what you are talking about Brian, she didn't help us."
Natalia heart sank a little when she heard this. She figured she didn't make it far enough into the network for them to find her. But then again Horatio could be lying, put Brian at ease and buying them sometime to get to where ever she was.
Brian walked up to Natalia's side, "Don't lie to me Horatio, there are drag marks from back here." Brian said taking a few steps behind Natalia, "To the laptop."
Natalia closed her eyes in defeat and looked down, to she that she was not in her original position. Busted was the only word that seemed to in her head.
Brian was now standing in front of Natalia when he turned to face her. "Which means two things, you can untie yourself and I can't trust you to sit still. Do you know what happens to people who don't set still?" Brian paused "Wait, why am I telling you, I'll just show you."
In one fluid motion, he backhanded Natalia across the face. Which caused her fall over in the chair.
"TALIA!" Calleigh screamed as she watched Natalia disappear to the floor.
There was a loud crack, and the sounds of the Natalia whimpering as chair along with her body weight crushed her right elbow.
Breathing heavily from the pain she was able to maneuver her hands and feet out of their duct taped restraints. She watched as Brian came up to her, she used her leg to kick Brian in the chest causing him to fall backwards.
As Brian fell backwards his hand hit the web cam causing it to hang from the table, while also allowing everyone in the AV lab to see the fight between Natalia and Brian.
Brian got back up and started to make his way over to Natalia, who was positioning herself to kick him again. Brian was able to knock her leg out of the way, and before Natalia could make her counter move she felt Brian dig his fingers into Natalia shattered knee. This made her stop what she was doing as she gave a loud muffled scream.
Brian climbed her body, just when he got eye level with her, he saw out of the corner of his eye that she was starting to raise her elbow. He let go of her knee and took her hands and put them above her head holding them there with one hand.
This didn't affect Natalia as she continued to squirm under Brian till he took out pepper spray from his back pocket and held centimeters away from Natalia's eyes. Natalia stopped moving and just looked at the pepper spray with wide eyes.
"Glad I got you attention, now it seems that he hit a fork in the road. Now I'm going to be nice and let you choose which road you want to take, even though each road leads you being retied." Brian let go of Natalia's hands and grabbed the duct tape from the table. "Now we can do this hard way were I empty this whole can into your eyes melting them out of their sockets, or you can be a good girl and just sit there and let me retie you? Which will it be?"
Natalia lifted her head and pointed the duct tape.
Brian gave a soft chuckle, "Your not as dumb as you look."
Everyone in the lab just watched in disgust as Natalia was dragged out of the frame. All they could hear was the sounds of Brian taping up Natalia before the camera was picked up and they could see Brian's face.
"9 hours lady and gentlemen." Brain said with a grin as he ended their connection.
"I can't be here right." Calleigh said as walked out the room with two of the files.
"Cal..." Eric started say.
"Eric just let her go, she'll be okay," Horatio continued. "Walter is right it's going to be a long night. So let's get to work."
Natalia was back to where she started, lying on a bed with her hands and feet taped together along with her mouth. She was physically and emotionally drained, she couldn't muster up enough energy to wiggle her way out of her newly tied restraints.
Natalia was just staring up at the motionless ceiling fan, she heard as Brian walked out the door, and when he started up his car and drove away. This was it, this was her chance to retry at her failed attempt to help Horatio, but nothing happened, just laid there.
Maybe she did successfully get caught hacking into the network at the station, and Horatio was just waiting for the right time to come and save her from the hell that she was now living in. Natalia looked over at the door for a few moments, nothing happened.
A combination of ones and zeros were the only things that were keeping her from getting rescued. To any person who knew computers they weren't just any combination, but to her they were. Two numbers...two numbers were the only thing that was keeping her heroine from breaking down that door and making Brian regret the day he thought it was a good idea to kidnap her.
Her heroine, even though it was masked by duct tape a smile came to her lips. She could picture her now, long golden hair flowing freely in the wind, her emerald green eyes that always seemed to have a sparkle to them. Followed up with her smile, that had to be Natalia's favorite part of Calleigh, her smile. To the rest of the lab her smile was as rare as a murder-less day in Miami, but Natalia got to see it all the time, it was always so intoxicating to her. She was pretty sure that Calleigh could get away with anything all she had to was flash that smile. The worst part was Calleigh knew this and always abused the hell out it.
Then there was her accent, that southern drawl that made everything sound so innocent. Natalia could hear her voice in her mind, which made her smile even more. All she wanted to do was be with her again, but those damn two numbers were keeping from that.
Natalia could feel herself slipping away from reality as her mind went deeper into her memories. The memories of her and Calleigh, her sisters Christine and Anya, playing her nieces and nephews...
Choo-Choo...Choo-Choo...
A Spectrum Climax Clear Lake Lumber Co. 6 G was making it way around the track, looking like it was gain speed the more it went around.
"Help...Help...Someone help me..." a raspy voice said.
"Mwahahaha, looks no one is here to save you now!" said a young boy with tan skin, light freckles, brown eyes and caramel hair.
"Oh! Pepe how can you do this to me please let me go!" Natalia said pretending to be in distress, as she was lying on the toy train track lightly tied up.
"NEVER!" Pepe yelled.
"PEPE! Your time has come, I have come to stop you and save Tia Natalia!" a boy that was slightly older than Pepe but more or the less a spitting image of him yelled.
"Not this time Fernando, I have accomplishes" Pepe said with his head held high. Right as he finished his statement two other boys jumped out to join Pepe.
"Nicolas and Jorge I should have know" Fernando continued "Well I have accomplishes to." And with that two girls jumped out right behind him.
To anyone looking in they could tell that all six kids had to be brother and sister, and could very well be Natalia's children.
"Get them!" Pepe yelled as he dove behind the couch, and before they knew it Natalia's living room was being showered with yellow, orange and green Nerf gun bullets.
"I've been hit!" Nicolas shouted as he pretended to be wounded by the Christmas tree.
"Me too!" Isabel said as she tried to crawl behind the loveseat but failed when she got hit again.
"Uggggghhhhh" Gabriela said as she spun around and fell to the floor.
"Well Well Well Fernando, It's me and Jorge versus you, looks like I win again," Pepe said with a smile.
"I'm not going down without a fight," Fernando said as he lifted his gun and fired, but nothing came out. "Uh oh" he said as he looked at his gun.
Pepe and Jorge smiled at each other, before slowly coming out of cover. "Any last words?"
All Fernando did was just smile at them.
"What's so funny? Pepe has 18 bullets left and I have 6, you have 0." Jorge said with a look of confusion.
"I still haven't used my secret weapon" Fernando said.
"Oh yeah, what's that?" Pepe asked.
"Me!" a voice said coming from the office door away. There standing in the doorway dressed in dark blue jeans, a black button down shirt with the sleeve's rolled up and a black cowboy hat on holding two Nerf guns was Calleigh.
"Sheriff Calleigh!" Pepe and Jorge said in unison looking at each before looking back at Calleigh.
Calleigh lightly tossed one of her guns over to Fernando, and the two of them proceeded to fire upon Pepe and Jorge. Fernando rolled over behind the loveseat while Calleigh took cover behind the entrance wall.
Fernando hit Jorge, and Jorge went down yelling that he got hit before hitting Fernando several times himself.
The room was quiet expect for Fernando how was pretending to be breathing heavily because he was dying. "I've been hit Sheriff Calleigh" he said in a weak low voice.
Calleigh rushed to his side, "Don't you worry, we will get you fixed up and you'll be back on your feet in no time," Calleigh said.
Fernando shook his head, "Don't worry about me, if you go now we can still save Tia Natalia." He said before closing his eyes.
Calleigh stood up and rushed over to Natalia, right before the train made it her elbow Calleigh picked Natalia up.
She walked back to the hallway entrance with Natalia in her arms, when they heard Pepe's voice. " You may have won this time Sheriff Calleigh, but I'll be back!" Pepe said before running into the kitchen.
"Oh Sheriff Calleigh, you rescued me! How will I ever repay you?" Natalia said with a smile on her face.
Calleigh held back the witty remark because of the kids and just said, "It's all apart of the job ma'am" in a thick southern accent.
"Oh Sheriff Calleigh!" Natalia said again as buried her face in Calleigh's neck, before she leaned up and kissed her.
Natalia had kissed Calleigh on the lips; Natalia was about to pull away when she felt Calleigh initiate another one.
"EWW! Tia Calleigh that is how you get cooties!" Nicolas said.
"Yeah! Kissing girls is gross!" Fernando said raising his head.
"No, I think it's romantic. Tia Calleigh saved Tia Natalia from the evil Pepe, and in every romantic story the hero is suppose to kiss the dismal in distress" Gabriela said.
Fernando was about to say something when Christine walked out of the kitchen and into the living room.
"Who wants a Christmas cookie?" she said holding a plate.
"CHRISTMAS COOKES!" the five kids shouted in unison while rushing over to their mother...