A/N: Update! Huh? Huh? How's that for your apple pie! Thank you for all the reviews! I love them! Oh, and I think you'll like this chapter odeepblue. :-) And Chloe, this is the chapter you wanted! Lol And warning, this chapter changes POV's like Diddy changes clothes, so make sure you pay attention or else you're gonna get very confused.

Disclaimer: See past chapters. Pick a chapter, any chapter.

Chapter 22: Dealing With Eric & Godchildren

Sara's POV:

Storming back into CSI, I passed a very wary eyed Judy behind the desk and Nick Stokes who was talking to her about something or other. I didn't take the time to acknowledge either of them fully, in search of Brass now. I had stopped by PD when our search for Brooke and Taj reached a dead end and decided to take matters into my own hands. The receptionist at PD told me that Brass was at CSI and had only left about a minute ago.

"Hey Sara!" Nick called after me, catching up. "How was the visit? Is everything okay?"

"No Nick. Everything is far from okay." I claimed through gritted teeth, my anger peaking with Brooke.

"Sara, will you slow down for a sec?" Nick pleaded when I began to outpace him. "Hey!"

"I have to find Brass." I informed him, never slowing down. In fact, after I said that, I began to walk even faster in search of the homicide detective.

"He's in Grissom's office talking to him." Nick stopped in his tracks, knowing I wasn't going to stop.

"Thanks." I mumbled, turning the corner and walking to the end of the corridor to Grissom's office.

Calming down enough to not go barging in on their conversation, I knocked on the frame of the door and waited outside impatiently. Both men turned their eyes to me, Grissom behind his desk and Brass in the seat in front of the desk. Grissom waved me in, standing up on sight of me.

"Sara, what can I help you with?" Grissom greeted in his best supervisor tone.

"I need to talk to Brass, actually." I said, mirthless about my words.

"Sure kiddo..." Brass threw a look over his shoulder at Grissom before exiting the office. "What's wrong?"

"I need you to find the location of Brooke Waters, ASAP." I requested.

"Your friend?" Brass's eyes furrowed together. "I would've figured that you knew..."

"I don't, but I need to." I cut him off. "Please Brass, this is important."

With a sigh and a shrug, Brass nodded. Entering Grissom's office again, he told Grissom that he would be back later, promising to pick the conversation up again. "C'mon, let's go." He told me, leading me out of the building and back to PD.

Brooke's POV:

Even when I arrived at the Usual Spot and passed Justin at the entrance with a faint hello, I couldn't truly talk. The news of Blaze's death had me rendered helpless now, and I was dreading with each step interacting with Taj again. It was just like staring at Blaze.

Jen had dropped me off and told me to come back to the house whenever. She understood that I would need some time to process this and also knew that her house would be the first place for the police to check. Jen promised to call after the police left if I wasn't back before then.

Walking through the hallways which were elaborately designed and furnished with red velvety carpet and black with gold trim wallpaper, I found my way into the "meeting room". This was the room where we had our team meeting and planned our next move on D.I.S.'s crew. The long, polished wooden table had at least twenty chairs along its edges. Soft music played through the surround sound system, quiet classical piano music. Off to the right of the room was the bar, where I saw a lone person hunched over the counter with a beer in his hand.

Taj.

Our resident barkeep was cleaning a glass cup with his rag, tidying up around his station. I approached Taj carefully, my footfalls muffled by the thick carpet. How the Hell was I gonna tell him?

Resting my hand lightly on his shoulder, I rubbed it gently when he looked up at me. I was surprised when Taj shot up from his seat and enveloped me in a hug. Over Taj's shoulder, I saw the barkeep throw me a smug glance before he carried on with his duties.

"You're a'ight." Taj claimed. "I was getting worried about you."

"Nah..." I managed, clearing my throat. "I'm a'ight."

"What's wrong?" Taj pulled back, still holding me in his arms.

I couldn't even look at him for any longer than two seconds. The thought of Blaze ran through my mind like blood through my veins. "Blaze is dead." I whispered.

"What?" The response I got was as if I'd just committed blasphemy around an extreme Christian. "What do you mean, 'Blaze is dead'? How do you know? Who told you?"

Lowering my head and remaining silent was all I could seem to do. My mind still couldn't wrap around the fact.

"Brooke! Don't mess with me like this! Who told you?!" Taj raised his voice, shaking me slightly.

God knows how much of a bond him and Blaze had. Sure, they had their difficulties as kids, but what siblings didn't? Not all multiple children households are like the Brady Bunch. Especially not a third class colored family living in the ghettos of Brooklyn in the 1980s.

When I still couldn't find the words to answer Taj, he pulled me into another hug and held onto me like a life preserver. Never once in my life had I seen Taj reduced to tears until now. I even ignored the pain in my ribs when Taj clung to me tighter. Burying my face into his powerful chest, I wrapped my own arms around him, rubbing his back soothingly. Tears stung my eyes, but I held them back figuring I had to be tough for Taj who had been tough for me in the past – in our childhood.

It was only a couple minutes later when Taj was finished, ashamed that he'd actually spilled tears in front of me. I reassured him that it was all right, telling him that he had every right to cry. I eventually got out what Taj had questioned me about before his break down. I could see the fury building behind his glistening blue eyes, an uncontrollable fire burning inside. And when it was all said and done, I saw the resolution clear as day in his eyes. He was after the same thing as I was.

"C'mon... If we're lucky, we'll be there before he is." Taj said, downing his beer and slamming it down on the counter.

Sara's POV:

"Snakeback territory?" I said with a sense of shock. "Why is she living in the slums of Vegas?"

Brass gave an honest shrug. "Now listen... I'm not gonna have to send back up after you to make sure you're gonna be all right, correct? Please tell me you're gonna wait until sunrise to go after her."

"Brass, by sunrise, she could be all the way out of the US." I proclaimed, snatching the piece of paper he had scribbled the address on. "I need to talk to her now."

"Sara, you be careful out there." Brass gave me a deathly serious look and tone. "Snakeback land is not a place you want to go wandering about in the dark."

"I'll be fine Brass." I ensured the homicide detective. "Thank you again."

"Sure thing." I heard him call when I left his office.

It was a long shot that Brooke would return to her house, but it was the only thing I had to go off of for now. Hailing a cab, I blurted out the directions and saw the taxi driver visibly gulped, obviously knowing he'd be going through Snakeback territory.

I felt guilty myself now, driving off toward Brooke's house. I felt bad enough with Jay, who was now being held in an interrogation room. I had no choice in the matter. He wasn't cooperating and giving information. It was the officers that took him in, and were holding him there. I felt like I was betraying my family. I couldn't even look at Jay's pleading face when Officer Johnson took him away. And now Brooke and Taj were about to have the same thing done to them.

How the Hell do I chose?

If I don't report them, that's aiding a criminal and I'll subsequently lose my job. If I do report them, I'm betraying and killing the trust between my family, the only people that truly gave a damn about me for years now. Then again, it wasn't like they weren't already digging a grave for our trust by not telling me the truth.

That doesn't mean that I still won't feel guilty about it.

I blew out a heavy sigh, glancing out the window. It began to rain outside. Downpour after several minutes, but not a supersaturated rain that normally caused our mudslides and flooding. The rain echoed inside the car as it hit the roof of the car.

The sound of the rain soothed me, momentarily making me docile to the events in my life right now. Well... At least that was a bright spot about everything.

Brooke's POV:

Just as Taj and I pulled up to the house, it began to downpour with rain. And the first thing I noticed was Eric's car parked directly in front of Taj's car. My heart slammed into my chest faster and faster as I jumped out of the car, looking toward the house now. With my auditory sense heightened from adrenaline again, I heard the yells of Jen and Eric. And partially to my relief, the three children were sitting on the porch steps in a row, depressed looking.

Rushing up, Taj reached them before I did. I couldn't walk any further when I caught sight of Roxas and Alex. Alex sported two black eyes and was cradling his arm with care, while Roxas had red hand prints on his neck and had a small black eye of his own on his right eye along with a cut across his chubby cheek.

He better not have.

Kylie was crying, shaken up but physically fine. Roxas had tear stains of his own which had long since dried up, and Alex just had a pissed off look about him. Taj inspected the children in horror, asking them if Eric had done this to them.

"He snatched Rox by the throat and I distracted him." Alex told Taj. "Roxas fell and smacked his eye against the table and he shook me so hard he broke my arm and shoved me against the wall so that I hit my face and got these black eyes."

"Then Mom came up and shoved him back and told us to get outta the house." Kylie said through her tears and cracking voice.

Taj shrugged off his jacket and enveloped all three of them inside it, shielding them from the rain. I simply stood there dumbfounded for a moment more at the fact that he had even touched my baby. My fists shook as I clenched them closed, and all of my pent up hatred and fury toward the man in question – the man that was inside that house this very second – all exploded in one huge firestorm as I stormed up the steps and busted the door in.

"YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH!"

Grissom's POV:

I sat back in my chair, stretching my stiff limbs and heard the pop of my joints. I had been robotically working on my paperwork and I realized that I was going to finally get a break from it when Brass came walking in my office.

"Jim." I greeted. "What was it that Sara needed?"

"I think you might wanna follow her." He tossed a slip of paper with an address scribbled on it in front of me. "She's going after Brooke, and that is Snakeback territory my friend."

Eyes widened, I stood immediately and snatched the offending piece of paper. I read the address before I grabbed my jacket off of the hook and exited my office without a moment's hesitation.

I almost never used my authority figure to get through traffic beside the emergencies. In my mind, though, this was an emergency.

Sara's POV:

"YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH!"

That was the welcome comment and voice when I stepped out of the cab, paid the fare and watched him drive off as fast as he could.

"Taj!" I called out over the deafening rain to the man that was covering three small children with his jacket.

Jogging up to him and toward the house now which Brooke had just broken into seconds ago, I was quick to note the black eyes on the two boys of the children and a red hand print on the throat of the baby of the group. Something hitched in my throat, not only seeing the abuse these children had been put through, but the fact that when I locked eyes with the baby with the electric blue eyes, it was like I was staring at a male and infant version of Brooke.

Brooke has a child?

Taj lifted all three children into his arms and began carrying them off down to the street. His eyes met mine and seemed to take several steps back as if I would rip his head off like a starved lioness any minute now. The guilt came back double time, but I had no time to ponder over this. Brooke was about to do something that she would eventually regret.

Taj simply rushed pass me, opening the passenger seat to a black Porsche, he set the children down inside, whispered something to them and then closed the door. The sound of the door slamming shut was enough to snap me out of my trance and pull out my cellphone. Dialing for the police, I told them the residence and that I required assistance for a domestic violence call.

Inside, I heard the crash and thumps of Brooke's fight, but it wasn't long until the fight was brought outside, a man wailing in agony as he came crashing through the window.

Brooke's POV:

Barging into the house and turning into the kitchen, I saw Eric pinning Jen against the wall by her neck, transforming her into a purple plum from the lack of oxygen circulating through her brain now. Looking to my right, I noticed Jen had been boiling water for macaroni on the stove previous to Eric intruding.

Duly noted.

"Get off of her!" I shouted, rearing up my foot for a punt between his spread legs.

Both Jen and Eric collapsed to the ground, Jen coughing a fit and Eric squirming in complete and utter discomfort, to say the least. Jen managed to crawl into the living room while I dealt with the likes of Eric. He was now the one pinned against the wall, my hand wrapping around his neck with all of my strength fueled by epinephrine.

"Where do you get off by killing Blaze, and threatening to do the same to me, the kids, Jen, and Taj?" I growled menacingly. "And you put hands on my son, too? Along with your own kid?!" I slammed his head into the plaster wall, denting it with ease. "WRONG MOVE!"

This time when I slammed Eric's head into the wall, it broke a hole through it and he slid to the floor. What I didn't expect, as I was about to continue my assault on him, was for someone else to be creeping up behind me and helping him out by snatching me by the back of my shirt and throwing me backwards into a wall.

Forcing myself up, I lunged at the unknown man as I heard his footsteps growing closer in a tackle technique that football players would use. It hardly had an affect on the man when he seized me by both of my biceps and lifted me until my head banged into the ceiling. I writhed, trying to escape his iron hold grasp, but was gasping in pain when he began pressing my arms firmly into my sides, disturbing my broken ribs.

"LET ME GO!" I screamed, swinging my feet in his head's general direction.

My shoes made contact several times but just like my tackle, it barely affected him. He was inhuman!

I heard Eric laughing in the background as he finally came to, rubbing the back of his head tenderly. "Brooke, meet my sumo Negro! It's over for you now."

Where's Taj?

The light from the suspended light on the ceiling began to blind me, but I thanked God it was there. Hoisting my feet up, kicked the riggity light hard enough to have it collapse on top of my captor's bald head, making him sway from the heavy brass and glass that it consisted of. Stumbling to the floor and was greeted with the sight of Eric retrieving his gun from his waistline, getting a clean shot at my head.

Without even thinking, I reached over to the stove and grabbed the boiling pot of water and, in one swift move, I tossed the contents of the pot in the general direction of Eric. To my sick contention, it all landed on his face and upper torso.

He dropped to the floor in sheer agony, tearing at his face with his nails trying to get the water off of him to the point that he was tearing his skin apart. I took the advantage, after dropping the burning metal pot on top of my previous attacker's face, and seized Eric by the shirt, dragging him toward the window. Giving it all I had, I threw him out of the window and house face first.

Perching up on the now broken window, I jumped down and hopped over the porch's guard railing to get to the still wailing and burnt Eric. Just briefly and faintly, I heard Sara's voice calling out to me just after I punted Eric in the side to add onto the pain he is totally feeling.

"That's what you get for hurting my kid and godchildren!" I hollered at him, not quite finished with my revenge just yet. "And this is for Blaze!" Another blow was made to his stomach now. "And this is for Jen!" Stomping on his ribs, I was sure I felt at least three of them snap like twigs. "And this..."

I never got to finish before Sara came ramming into me, tackling me to the sopping wet ground and pinning me there. "Brooke! Stop!"

Easily knocking her off of me, not roughly but just enough to do the job, I jumped to my feet when I saw Eric trying to crawl away, gradually getting to his feet with great difficulty. Taj was thinking along the same lines as me when I noted that he was now going for Eric at a full force sprint. Easily catching up to his side, I body checked him into the oncoming freight train known as Taj who slammed a haymaker punch right into his third degree burned face, knocking him cold to the ground.

"And that's for all the times you hit and hospitalized Brooke!" Taj completed what I had immediately set out to say.

But my anger still wasn't finished on the beaten down man, or what once was one. I continued my hatred in the form of assault on him, but once more, Sara interfered by shoving me backwards and into the ground.

Rushing to my feet and getting so close to Sara's face that our noses were touching, she remained unflinching against my menacing self. "Sara! Stop defending this guy! He killed BJ and is a good-for-nothing wife-beater and child abuser!"

Her expression softened and she moved back. But something reinforced inside of her just as I was about to go at Eric again, and she shoved me backwards. "Then we'll get him with the law and have him locked up where he can get abused by the other inmates! If you keep doing this, then you're gonna be in more trouble than you're already in."

Even Taj had halted his attack on Eric and I tried to stare Sara down. It was a pointless endeavor. But just when I thought it would be all said and done, cop sirens off in the distance sounding off again, a sharp whistle came from Eric's body and then all Hell broke lose. As it turned out, three men were hiding in the woods across the street waiting for this signal to aid Eric. And one was coming up right behind Sara with a hammer in hand and ready to attack her. Shoving her aside, I stole the raised hammer away and reversed it on the attacker.

That's the way we remained, fighting and defending ourselves until the cops pulled up to the house. I had half a mind to run now, but I had a hunch that if I ran this time, it might not make it. One of the three guys that attacked us tried to make a run for it, but he was the first one apprehended.

Well, I didn't need them telling me what to do. I knew the whole routine, and I could already hear my Miranda Rights being told to me along with the feeling of cold metal clasping my wrists together, and the cops weren't even within arm's length of me. I got on my knees, hands behind my head and slowly lowered myself to the ground as the officers ran up to hand cuff me and Taj. Quick hands frisked me in search of a weapon and found my pistol in my waistline.

"Do you have a permit for this?"

"No."

A short investigation was held where everyone at the scene was interrogated. It eventually led to Eric being sent to the hospital via ambulance, along with the man who had the hammer and that sumo wrestler sized man inside Jen's house with a circular third degree burn on his face. The remaining man from the ambush was arrested before anyone else for assaulting the officer who arrested him, and Taj was put into the squad car before me.

I had no reason to lie to the officer, and when he found out that I was Brooke Waters, he pretty much read me my rights right then and there. I looked around the scene now under the lights of the sirens. In the doorway, Jen was being interrogated by another officer, looking as if she was about to pass out. Her eyes met mine and even through the heavy rain, I could see she was crying. Another officer had discovered the kids in Taj's car and was now trying to pry information out of them. Roxas continually called out for me, in unison with Alex and Kylie. And just a few minutes before my official arrest, another car had pulled up and out stepped Grissom. I saw his eyes sweep over the scene before he finally went to Sara's side, pulling her into an embrace.

I looked away with shame.

"You are under arrest for the possession of an illegal firearm, two counts assault, fleeing the scene, resisting arrest, and property damage. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say while under this right can and will be used against you in the court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, the court will provide you one for your trial." The officer began to lead me to his squad car. "Do you understand these rights?"

"Yes I do." I've been read them enough times in my life to fill out a collection of books with just that mantra.

I was forced to walk pass Grissom and Sara on my trek to the squad car. I told the officer that I needed to speak with Sara for a quick second, and with reluctance he granted me less than a minute.

"Sara... Please, don't let those kids go to DSS workers. That baby is your godchild, and those other two are my godchildren." I told her. "That woman up there," I nodded in Jen's direction. "is gonna hafta go to the hospital and the DSS workers will be all over those kids if someone doesn't take them. Please Sara. I'm begging you."

Sara seemed to hesitate at first but when she glanced over at the kids, her fears slipped away with ease. "I will, Brooke. I promise." Sara promised just as the officer announced my time was up and dragged me off.

"Watch your head." He advised, lowering me into the backseat next to Taj.

I watched out of the window as Sara walked over to the sitting children, gazing at me with a longing to be near me. I saw Roxas's eyes tear up once more while Alex already had his sister in his arms, rubbing her back comfortingly. Sara squatted down in front of the shaking children, soaking wet and muddy, and began talking to them. Probably to explain the predicament and that they were to go with her. Alex looked up at me, and I silently nodded, telling him she was a good person and to be trust.

Sara may be a cop, and probably called this in on me... I thought with a small hint of bitterness. But she just completely redeemed herself by taking my kids.

And with that, the squad car pulled off.

TBC...

A/N2: So, what'd I tell ya, odeepblue? How's that for action/adventure? And sorry Chloe, I couldn't kill Eric, but torture and forcing them to live is so much more sweet.

Peace out, one love,
MC New York