A/N: Thank you so much to those who took the time to review the start of this story...I thrive on the knowledge that people are enjoying my stuff!
He managed to hold himself together long enough to exchange pleasantries with the metro detectives that were parked in his driveway. "My team will be here in five," he heard himself say. "Please report to them." Something about that didn't sound quite right; since when did he say please to cops? But he'd already passed the detectives by, and he certainly wasn't going to risk turning back.
The door was ajar, which he tried not to mind, but it was hard to think of the house as not his house, but as a crime scene. It was not hard, however, to imagine what had happened inside. In the eyes of Special Agent, husband, and father Anthony DiNozzo, the picture was all too vivid.
DiNozzo was turned away from the door when Sanders, Bowman, and Canton entered the house. The light of the late afternoon sun blazed orange across the curve of his back as he crouched over something the other agents couldn't see. They expected him to notice their presence, but he showed no sign of awareness, or of addressing them. Lena stepped forward hesitantly, opening her mouth, then quickly swallowing the words she'd been about to say. Just as she was about to try again, Tony spoke.
"Sanders, you're in charge. Don't waste time, we need this scene processed fast." He spoke without looking up, without shifting his position at all, an uncharacteristic stillness that made his agents uneasy. He did, however, look up when he noticed that his team had not moved from their positions. "What?" he challenged, straightening his body up as he turned to glare at them.
"Were they here, boss?" Lena asked.
"You tell me, Sanders," Tony half-shouted, but the anger in his voice was transparent and thin. He pointed across the room. "Ziva's cell phone," he said, "and her knife." Sanders followed his second gesture to the blood-stained knife that was only feet from where they stood, swallowing hard. "And I bet we find her bullets in those bastards. Ziva and Adina were here, and now they're not, so process this scene goddammit, and call me when you're on your way back."
"Where are you going, boss?" Lena called after Tony as he marched for the door.
"Office," he replied. "To start compiling a list of suspects."
"As in people who have a grudge against you and/or Ziva?" Bowman asked. "Boss, that list could be miles long."
"Yeah, Bowman," Tony shouted back, not slowing his departure. "I realize that."
***
He almost called a hundred different times between the crime scene and the Navy Yard, but he made himself wait, because this wasn't the sort of conversation one should have while driving. This wasn't really the sort of mood one should be in while driving either - the frantic, murderously angry, but scared stiff sort of mood - but there was nothing he could do about that.
The number was dialed and the call sent even before the engine of the car had fully stopped, and then Tony waited, trying not to hold his breath, while one ring followed another for what seemed to be far too long. Each passing second made him more impatient, and he was only an instant away from snapping the phone shut and leaping from the car when the answer he had been wishing for came.
"What, DiNozzo?" The voice on the other end was sharp, irritated; Tony had called only last week, and Gibbs liked to pretend that he didn't need his former team. His tone softened, however, when Agent DiNozzo did not reply.
"Tony?" Gibbs asked, shifting rapidly from annoyance to concern.
"Boss, I need you to come to D.C.," Tony managed to say. The first word out of his mouth had Gibbs even more on edge. Tony never called him 'boss' anymore.
"When?" Gibbs asked.
"Now," Tony replied.
"I'm on my way," Gibbs answered, but he didn't hang up, and neither did DiNozzo.
"What's going on, Tony?" Gibbs asked, when the silence between them had stretched on for several moments.
"Ziva and Adi are missing," Tony forced himself to say, leaning forward to press his forehead into the steering wheel as though the pressure would help to control his panic. He swallowed hard before going on. "And there are two dead men in our house." Gibbs didn't respond right away, so Tony continued on desperately.
"I need you, boss," he rasped into the phone. "I can't do this myself."
"I'm on my way, Tony," Gibbs repeated at last, pausing before adding, "Hold it together until I get there, got it?"
"Got it, boss," Tony confirmed, trying to give the words the same sharp enthusiasm they had once held, but failing dismally.
"Good boy," Gibbs murmured.
The call ended, but it took a full minute for Agent DiNozzo to drag himself out of the car.
***
"Momma."
The familiar voice was the first thing that penetrated the darkness in her mind. Ziva tried to grab on to it, she tried to follow it back to the surface, but the sound faded and slipped through her thoughts like silk ribbons, and she couldn't remember why she had reached for it in the first place.
"Momma."
Ziva's hands twitched after the intrusion this time, and she felt the dull bite of pain at her wrists. A soft groan crawled up her throat and she twisted in her partial consciousness.
"Adi?" she murmured.
"Momma!" The sudden urgency in her daughter's voice, in addition to the movement of the small girl shifting against her side, accelerated Ziva's return to awareness. Her eyes flew open, and she turned her head to the right to see Adi curled awkwardly against her, wide green eyes watching her attentively.
"Adi, are you hurt?" Ziva asked, simultaneously absorbing their situation as quickly as she could. Her own hands were bound behind her back, tightly, and around a thick concrete post that ran floor to ceiling behind her. She was sitting against the pole, her legs stretching in front of her across the dull grey carpet. Beside her, Adi's arms were also tied around the pole, but the girl was facing the pole, allowing her shorter arms to stretch more easily around it. Ziva's immediate scan of their surroundings revealed no one else in the room.
Adi shook her head in response to her mother's question. "Not hurt," she said.
"It's going to be okay, my love," Ziva assured her.
Adi just nodded in response, but Ziva could still see doubt lurking in her daughter's eyes. The Israeli's heart twisted painfully in pride at her daughter putting on a brave face, placing her faith utterly in her mother's words, and fighting back her fear.
"Adi, what happened?" Ziva asked.
Adi drew a deep breath that sounded halfway like a sob. "I was playing the piano..." she began, her voice trembling.
"Adi-love," Ziva interrupted her gently. "What happened after they hit me?"
Again, a long, shaky breath preceded the child's response. "We got in a van," she replied. "We drove."
"Good girl," Ziva said. "How long were we in the van?"
Adi closed her eyes for a moment, and Ziva could tell from the way the little girl scrunched her nose that she was trying to remember. "An hour," she answered. "I could see the clock in the van."
"What else did you see?" Ziva prompted.
"We drove West," Adi continued, her voice growing stronger as she gained confidence, "into the sun."
"Bravo, my love," Ziva said. "You're my brave girl. Did the men in the van talk to each other?"
Adi nodded.
"What did they say?"
Adi drew in another tremulous breath. "They said that if I didn't stop crying I would never see my Daddy again." Tears were filling Adi's eyes even as she said it, and she buried her head into Ziva's shoulder.
"Shh, Adi-love, it's going to be alright," Ziva whispered to her, her hands fighting helplessly against her binds, longing to touch her daughter's face. "Daddy's going to find us in no time," Ziva promised. "The bad guys don't know that, though." In response, Adi nodded against Ziva's side.
"Did the bad guys say anything else?" Ziva asked, not wanting to push her daughter any further, but also knowing how valuable every piece of information could potentially be. Before Adi could respond, however, Ziva heard the thunder of steps descending stairs, coming closer. Someone was headed in their direction.
Pulling her legs under her quickly, Ziva managed to push herself to her feet just as a door to her left swung open and two dark-haired men entered the room. Fighting the nausea and dizziness caused by the sudden movement, Ziva could barely do more than register the fact that the men came straight for her and Adi, one of them grabbing Ziva around the waist from behind and the other reaching for Adi. Ziva struggled futilely as the the other man cut Adi's hands loose.
"Hey!" Ziva yelled. "Where are you taking her?"
"In the back room," the man restraining her said, not in answer to her question but an instruction to the man whose hand was closed firmly around Adi's upper arm. As the apparently subordinate man pulled Adi away, the one who had spoken pulled his arms from around Ziva's body and stepped away - careful to move beyond the reach of Ziva's legs.
"Momma!" Adi cried out.
Ziva spun herself around the pole to face Adi. "It's going to be okay, Adi-love," she managed to reiterate before her daughter was pushed into the next room and the door closed between them. For a moment, Ziva stared at the closed door, and then she turned her eyes to the man who was still watching her. Hatred burned painfully in her chest, and she yanked at her binds again, not surprised to feel a trickle of blood start down the side of her hands as a result.
"Mother bear," the man before her said softly, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched her, "perhaps you shouldn't have been asking your cub such foolish questions."
"Who are you?" Ziva growled.
His mouth curled into a wide smile, and he thought for a moment before answering. "I'm Chris." Ziva jerked her arms again, almost relishing the pain it caused at her wrists; it was a sorry substitute for the pain she wanted to inflict on him.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Just the money I'll get for completing this job," he grinned, taking a few casual steps to the side and leaning against the wall. "And thanks to you there are two less men to split the pay out."
"What will it take to let my daughter go?" Ziva questioned. She couldn't not ask. She expected him to laugh, but instead he pushed off the wall, studying her carefully.
"If you just stay quiet and behave yourself, maybe she can go free when this is over," Chris said.
Ziva's eyes scrutinized him for a moment before she spat, "You're a terrible liar, you scum bag."
Chris laughed, which only made the fury inside her burn white-hotter. "Well I had to try, right?"
At that moment, the other man emerged from the room to which he had taken Adi, closing the door firmly behind himself. He nodded to Chris shortly, and passed in front of him, but well out of reach of Ziva, on his way to the stairs. Chris patted him on the shoulder as he went, but didn't yet take his eyes off Ziva.
"Well, Ziva," he said after a moment, her unfamiliar name sticking on his tongue. "Have a good night."
"Who's paying you for this?" Ziva called, but he had already started for the stairs, and he did not stop or even hesitate. He closed the door behind him, and then she heard his feet ascending the stairs rapidly.
Angrily, she gave her wrist yet another punishing yank, before turning herself to face the other door again - the door which separated her from her daughter. Leaning her shoulder blades against the pole behind her she pulled at the binds on her wrists until the pain made her knees weak, but she didn't allow herself to cry out, whether from anger or pain or fear. She would not give Adi any more reason to be afraid.
A/N: I heard that every time someone leaves a review, a fairy is born...