Title: In Hell with Love

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or its characters. I'm just a fan

Author's note: Thanks for the reviews. Sorry for the delay. An error keeps popping up when I try to update. If you're reading this, that means the error has been resolved. Here's chapter 10. Hope you'll like it.

Chapter 10

First 24 hours after the abduction…

Locked in what seemed to be a damp basement, almost blinded from the obscurity of the dark, all she could see was a ray of a light from the door above her. Dazed and glum, confused and disoriented, she lifted her hand to touch her face, only to find that it fell short. Her right wrist was chained to the floor, leaving little freedom to move. She sat up and tugged on her chain, listening to the sound of metal bouncing off the walls of the oppressive room. She struggled to free herself, but soon gave up, knowing that the only thing she was achieving was the fruitless expenditure of energy she might need later.

Still unsure of where she was, the time of day or how long she has been held, her CSI instincts told her to explore, to find out what's going on. She sat up, her right hand laying on the floor near its chains, feeling its surface. She felt sand under her fingertips and suspected that she was somewhere near the desert. Her hands wandered some more, but she stopped the moment she felt something unusual and deviant, terrified of what it might be.

Time went by, she had sat where she was for so long, she couldn't tell the difference between minutes and hours. For all she knows, days could have come and gone without her even noticing.

She began hearing things at random. A ventilation shaft screeches and clangs whenever it wants. A pipe creaks in the dark. Sometimes she heard the doorknob jiggle. Once, she thought someone knocked on the door. She cried out for help, but no one answered.

Shadows surrounded her, making her feel vulnerable to imaginations of monsters that hid within it. She was alone, yet she felt things around her, scurrying to who knows where. There were times where something furry brushed up against her leg, making her aware of its presence. She tried her best not to focus on them, instead, she thought of other times – times where she could think without fear, times where she could move around without restraints cutting into the soft flesh of her skin.

She did not know how she came to be in this housing of an absurd dream. One moment she was walking in a blissful city of bright lights, only to wake up to find herself in a realm of never-ending blackness where even a glimmer of light hid from the shadows. Before this, she was with… wait! Wasn't Nick with her in the alley? Memories came flowing back. She panicked, will Nick be able handle this if he's in this place?

"Nick?" She uttered, afraid for herself and for him, "Are you there?"

She listened out for an answer. There was none, the beating of her heart was her only reply.

Suddenly, the door swung open, banging harshly against the wall. The bright fluorescent light instantly raped the room. She looked down squinting, unable to take the light completely. She watched his black boots move as he came closer. His shadow falling over her eyes as he inspected her.

The ventilation shaft was the most appalling thing he had seen in a very long time. They found it at the back of the house, grotesquely sticking out of the wall like a vessel protruding out of a human heart. It was either too big for the house or the house was too small for it. Nick stared, watching it suck the wind and sand from the desert, feeding itself, while howling in satisfaction. In less than a few minutes, he would have to slide down its awaiting mouth and hope for the best.

The ventilation shaft was slightly bigger than the box he was in a long time ago, but just as terrifying. The top of its opening was made of steel or whatever metal that had already rusted through out the years. He stooped down to examine the filthy shaft, the wheels turning in his head, processing his terminal predicament. Looking in, he could see the inside of a long rectangular tunnel, with its low walls, smooth and metallic. The rest of it sloped its way down towards an underworld. Nick took a light stick and threw it in, listening and watching its glow disappear into the abyss. He prayed that the metal slide would lead him somewhere other than hell. Only a few minutes left before it closes, and he's getting nervous.

Nick sat on the ground with his feet at the mouth of the shaft, feeling a minor vortex pulling on his shoes. Brass and Warrick had gone back into the house to look at the screen. He waited, listening to the "clanking" sound the shaft made, drumming his fingers to its rhythm. Why are they taking so long?

He looked at his watch. They have about a minute left. Nick stretched his neck out to look towards the back door. From where he was, he could see Warrick pacing back and forth with a phone to his ear. Where's Brass? Is he where the laptop is? Nick can't see the laptop from there. He was about to shout out to Warrick when the ventilation shaft suddenly became silence. Oh God! He thought, feeling the serge of adrenaline traveling into his gut. Time must be up. There'll be no other way in if I don't do this now.

"Warrick, I got to go! I got to get to Sara before it's too late." He said as he place both of his hands to his sides and took a breath. "Warrick! I'm going now, I'll contact you through the radio." Nick said, assuming Warrick had heard him, giving himself a push into the dark.

The last thing he heard was Warrick yelling for him to stop.

Days after the abduction…

Silence and isolation. Beautiful things. The days that were the quietest were her good days. The days that were the loneliest were her good days. She would give up anything to be left alone for hours, in the cold, dark room of wherever.

She still did not know where she was. The place would not have been familiar or identifiable to her anyway. Place and time, the anchor of sanity, were about to come unmoor. She's might as well be living in a new world, where every word, move and sensation would be observed and noticed; where things might be as they seem but are not; where there's no such thing as day or night, or normal patterns of eating, drinking, wakefulness and sleep; where hot and cold, wet and dry, clean and dirty, truth and lies would all be tangled and distorted.

At first, all she felt was overwhelming relieve and gratitude that she was still alive. She had no idea why that should be. She knew what he was capable of. She knew what he did. He made sure she knew what kind of monster he is. She knew that his previous victims had been missing for weeks before ending up, dump somewhere in Las Vegas. She was sure she was going to end up the same way. It was only a matter of time.

As more days pass, she tried to convince herself that they'd be coming to get her soon. They would never abandon her. They've saved each other on a daily basis. Cath, Gil, Warrick, Greg, Brass, Sofia, Nick...

Nick…What has happened to Nick?

For days, she has been calling out to him whenever she was left alone. She told herself that he must be held in another room. Maybe he's just a wall away. Often, whenever she was shackled to the wall, cuff to a pipe, tied to a chair, restrained onto a gurney or chained to the floor like the first time, she'll think of a way to contact him. She'll hit the ground or bang the wall, trying to capture his attention. Sometimes, she would slip in a word or two of encouragement, believing he could hear her. At one point, she thought she heard faint footsteps and a muffled conversation. But even as she strained to hear, the sound would fade and she'll be left wondering if it had all been a dream.

Why can't she hear him? Are the walls too thick? There must be a reason why she's incapable of hearing him. What if he's doing the same thing to Nick as he's doing to her? She prayed that he's all right.

The door swung opened again, like it did everyday. She squinted her eyes, forcing them to adjust to the light. She tiredly looked up from the chair she was tied to. What's he planning to do today?

He does this most of the time. Entering and leaving her room at random times of the day, making every moment between isolation and company an agony of anticipation.

The sound of metal echoed around as Nick finally came to a stop. He had his eyes shut the entire ride, waiting for his feet to make contact with a solid surface. He ended up in a sitting position, his body propped up by the slide, while his legs were stretched into the inner tunnel in front of him. A moment ago, he heard Warrick's voice fading away, as if entering another dimension. Now, it's just him and the deafening sounds of silence.

"Calm down, nothing will happen, everything's going to be ok." He told himself, wiping his clammy hands onto his pants. He looked up and shouted to Warrick and Brass. Nothing. He used his radio from his vest, only to be insulted by static. Warrick's right, there's too much electrical interference for a normal transmission. The silence continued to linger around his ears, as he pushed himself further down into the shaft.

The light stick glowed menacingly at his feet as he held on to the sides of the tunnel, pushing his way through. "You can do this, you can do this." He repeated to himself, listening to his voice of encouragement bounce back to him. The further he went, the closer the walls felt. He was beginning to feel sick, his mouth getting dry and his heart started pounding fast. His first mistake was sliding down the ventilation shaft legs first; his feet now obstructing his vision from what lies beyond the tunnel. The second mistake throwing down a light stick that was green; reminding him of his time in the glass coffin made by a madman. He cursed himself for not thinking this through, banging one side of the shaft with his fist. Dust from its low ceiling came settling down onto Nick's face. He coughed and choked, taking his cap off to shield his face.

As he struggled to breathe, terror began to slip through his bones like a knife. The reality he's been doing his damnedest to forget was slowly returning. He kept thinking of the shaft collapsing, trapping him. His supply of air being reduced down to nothing. Fear crept in. He was getting sweaty and breathless. His perspiration has soaked into his collar, spreading out, giving the shaft a humid feeling. He tried to get out of the tunnel as quickly as possible, pushing his weight by his hands, only to find out they were too damp to allow any friction.

Panic started to envelope Nick like a blanket. He started hyperventilating, and he felt his brain locking up. In a burst of hysteria, Nick started struggling in the shaft – pounding his fist against its ceiling. He pushed its top and side, only to feel it return to its normal shape once he let go. He thrashed and kicked within the tunnel, achieving nothing. More dust came pouring down, suffocating him. Shaking and dizzy, he flipped over onto his stomach and tried to make it back the way he came, his gasping dissolving into sobs.

His pleas were echoing into nothing. After all, who here, even if they could hear him, could help? Black slowly crept into the corners of his eyes. He begged to be let out. He felt as though he was about to pass out when something… something Sara told him a long time ago during a case, came back to haunt him.

------

"I hope you're right. But everything in our experience tells us they're dead…."

"Doesn't mean we just give up."

"No one's giving up. It's just that… you're acting like you're going to rescue a person, not recover a body. And on this job… that's just not the usually the case."

"I was rescued."

"It was not your day to die. When it's your day, it's your day, you know?"

-------

"NO!" Nick screamed, banging his knees against metal. His body trembled, violently shaking off drops of sweat. "I didn't mean to leave you, I didn't mean to let you die. I didn't…" He sobbed into his pale hands.

Weeks after the abduction…

Bone-tired, hungry, sore, uncomfortable and afraid, she closed her tired eyes tightly, trying to block out the sounds of unknown organisms feasting on the remains of food he gave her while she was unconscious. These creatures infested what life she had left, that she often wondered if they were feasting on more than just her meals. Painfully she crawled across the floor, both guided and restricted by the pipe she was handcuffed to and scratched little notes on the wall in the dark. Ever since she was put here, she scratched whatever was on her mind; she wrote clues of who she thought he might be, she wrote names of the victims he killed, those of whom he proudly mentioned. She wrote little messages to the handful of friends she had, hoping that one day, they'll read them and remember her, that she existed in this world once…

But she was still alive. As long as she was still alive, she believed that she could be rescued. The team will break down every door in Las Vegas if they have to. They knew what its like to lose one of their own, and there's no way they're going to allow that to happen to her.

She leaned against the wall, letting a few tears slip from her eyes. Weeks have passed, and Nick hasn't answered her yet. She had never been so afraid for someone in her life. Her mind was beginning to slip its gears, strange ideas were tumbling over each other in her head. Nothing made sense anymore. What happened to him? Is Nick still alive?

All she could pray for was Nick's safety and that the darkness would reclaim her once more. But, by now, the hope of such had vanished…

Alone in the ventilation shaft, lying on his stomach, Nick thumps weakly on the shaft's metal surface. He let out a loud sob as he cries, trying to calm down. As the initial wave of panic dies down, he wiped the tears of his face and took several deep breaths.

"Cisco, Cisco, Cisco…" He repeated it with a rhythm as he pushed himself backwards, traveling along the shaft using his elbows. After a certain distance, his feet felt something foreign, causing him to almost jumped out of his skin. His body tensed up, his muscles cramped, his brain twitched as he froze. Looking back, he saw a faint glow of light reflecting off the metal surface, which wasn't coming from the light stick. Using all his courage, he pushed himself back, repeating his safety word over and over again.

He felt his legs touching nothing as he fell…

Months after the abduction…

She lay where she was, closing her eyes, trying to shake off the heaviness that surrounded her mind. Isolated, confused, weary, hungry, frightened, tormented and injured, she realized to a sudden stark of clarity that this darkness will fill her for the rest of her life. It filled her body and mind and she was falling in a dark pit, one that she could not escape.

She has been oblivious to the outside world. Inside her prison, there was still no day or night, just an endlessly mute environment. She could not keep her thoughts under control anymore. She would think of something, only to have it slither away from her grasp. Memories started to disappear; she no long knew what people looked like, who her friends were. Sometimes, she could barely even remember who she was or how she got here. She had held on to the hope that someone would come for her for so long that she didn't care anymore. Once, she thought she was strong enough to be able to survive and wait for a savior. But now, she realized she had no choice but to wait, and her only savior would be the cold grasp of death's hands. That was her intended torture. He would never let her die quickly. That would be too easy.

Exhausted, she drifted in and out of an altered state that bordered sleep but never quite made it across. She sometimes wondered what happened to the kidnapped victims he brought some time ago. She wondered where her friends were and how they're doing. As the door opened slowly, she couldn't be sure if she was dreaming it. Ignoring the pain of the light, she looked up. She watched as a familiar shape came into view, holding out today's choice of weapon: a knife…

"You're not going to make this, easy are you?" He swirled the knife between his fingers as he inched his way closer. "Unfortunately, as much as I admire your spirit….Let's just say you better hope this "Pancho" saves you. After all, you did call out to him 3 times..." He said angrily before thrusting the knife at her…

Nick fell onto the ground, breaking a few wooden crates along the way. He had managed to make it through the ventilation shaft and ended up in, what seems to be, a large storeroom. He picked up his cap that had fallen onto the floor. Remembering where he was and what he was supposed to be doing, he stood up, grabbed his flashlight and looked around. The room was quite bare, with the exception of wooden crates that broke Nick's fall. The walls were gray and bleak, covered with a pattern of chipped paint and dust. There were no windows but the room was extremely cold. He shone his flashlight towards the ventilation shaft, noticing part of it as disappeared into the wall that was adjacent to the one he was inspecting. That particular wall was the only one in the room that had a door.

If he remembered the path they marked on blueprints, Sara should be behind those doors. He could think of nothing more than to save her. He slowly turned the knob, listening to the sharp, grating sound made by the door as it moved slowly upon its hinges…

TBC

FYI: Nick's parts are experienced in real-time, Sara's are in a form of a flashback...but I'm sure you knew that already --smile--.