Thanks for the replies.
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"Oh, God," Greg gasped, eyes wide. "What is that?"
"It's a truck!" Nick felt his heart leap into his throat as he watched the blaze. The truck was fully engulfed, small explosions still continuing to rock the frame, causing bursts of heat.
Warrick grabbed his cell phone and called dispatch, requesting a fire truck be sent out to their location to battle a vehicle fire. He gave them the co-ordinates. He increased the excelleration of the SUV, driving dangerously fast. If there were any stray debris on the road, and they hit it, they could blow a tire and loose control of the vehicle.
After what seemed like hours, but was actually less than a minute, they came to a screeching hault at the inferno. Everyone, including Gil and Catherine, as well as Brass and Sophia, jumped out of their cars, racing towards the fire. More black and white units were hot on their tails.
"SARA?!" Nick called, getting dangerously close to the flames. The hair on his arms started to sear from the heat. "SARA?!"
Most of the people stood back, inspecting the the fire, trying to see through the flames. If there were any bodies, they weren't visible. There was no way someone could survive that.
"MOM!" Lindsay was running out of the brush as fast as she could, but the noise of the police sirens, and the sounds of the cackling inferno that had ripped through the truck proved to be too much. She'd been sobbing in dispair since the car had sped away. Not knowing what to do or where to go, she's remained in the bushes, staying hidden incase the crazy guy came back. "MOM!" she yelled again.
Catherine whipped around, and was shocked to see her daughter running towards them, covered in dirt from the brush.
"What? How? Lindsay?!"
"He's . . . got . . . her," she choked out . . . "in . . . the . . . trunk . . . of . . . my . . . car."
"She's alive?" Nick asked, whirling around to meet Catherine's distraught daughter.
"What happened, Lindsay?" Warrick questiong the girl, whose breathing was starting to return to normal.
"I was coming home from looking at colleges because I heard about Sara being taken," she looked at her mother who nodded her head, "and I saw this explosion. It came out of no where. It was just black and then everything was lit up. When I got closer, I saw a man and a woman in the ditch. I thought they were hurt, so I jumped out of my car to help them. Then I saw Sara. She was pretty banged up, and her clothes were ripped . . . . She was looking at me like I needed to stay quiet and not mention her name. Like she didn't want him to know that we knew each other. I think she was believed he was going to kill me. Then he pulled out a knife and started talking about how he had two of us . . . she kicked him or something and yelled at me to run, so I did. I went and hid in the bushes," she pointed to the brush that she'd just come out of, tugging on the dirty hem of her shirt. The tears started to fall again, "I watched him . . . "
"Watched him what, Linds?" Grissom asked gently, closing his eyes tightly, trying to rid himself of the images that threatened to take over.
"She couldn't even fight back," she said through her tears. "I think she hurt her arm, but besides that, he was hitting her so quickly, one after another . . . and then he pushed her in the trunk and closed it. He looked back where I had run off to, and then he got in the car and drove away." She pointed in the direction they had sped off in. "It all happened so fast."
"How long ago?" Nick asked quickly, looking in the direction she was pointing.
"Fifteen minutes, I think . . . "
Nick bolted back to the still running Denali, jumping in the front seat. Warrick took off behind him, jumping in the passenger side. He grabbed onto the handle of the door and held on for dear life as Nick immediately punched the pedal to the floor, tires smoking as they took off like a bullet from a gun.
"Go!" Catherine yelled at Grissom and Greg. Sophia and Brass had already taken off in the Charger.
"I want to go with," Lindsay said firmly. Catherine was about to protest, but Lindsay held up her hand. "I'm an adult, Mom. I have to see that she's OK. Please."
"Fine," she said, exasperated, knowing there was no time waste. "Jump in the back!" She jumped in behind Greg, while Lindsay jumped in behind Grissom.
The girl gasped, getting everyones attention. "MY CELL PHONE!" Her hands flew up to her mouth. "It's in my car. I dropped it under the drivers seat and couldn't get it out."
"The GPS," Catherine whispered, rolling her eyes, uncertain as to how she hadn't remembered before.
"I'll call it in," Greg said, reaching for the radio to call dispatch for the information.
"Woah, wait," Catherine said . . . "Weren't you driving the Tangiers courtesy car?"
Lindsay nodded.
"Grissom, there's an anti theft mechanism in the motor."
"I didn't realize that Sam had equipt those cars."
"Not all of them," she shook her head, "but the point is, we can have them activate it and he won't have a getaway vehicle."
"But is that a good idea? Who knows how far they've gotten. If they have enough miles between us, he can get her out of the trunk and they can disappear into the night pretty quick . . . at least with the GPS, we can track them. What if we cut the engine and he car jacks someone who doesn't have that?"
Catherine ran a shaky hand through her hair . . . "What're the chances? No one is even out here!" she surveyed the desolate highway and the surrounding areas. The only people out there were looking for Sara . . . and it was dark as far as the eye could see.
"I guess we cut the engine, then," Grissom sighed, praying that that was the right decision.
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"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!" Kevin screamed as the engine made a grinding noise and then stopped dead. He tried the hood release, but it seemed to be stuck. "GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!" he kicked the car violently. The frame shook and he heard whimpering coming from the trunk. It was a noise that only served to anger him further.
He walked to the back of the car, hearing some slight noises from inside, and popped the button to release the trunk. What he didn't expect was for the medal to recoil back as Sara jumped out at him, with a tire iron in her hand as she swung violently at him, ignoring the searing pain that shot through her arm any time she moved it.
The iron, which she'd found in the trunk of the car, pushed to the back of the trunk, struck his side and he immediately dropped the knife that was in his hand. It hit the pavement, clattering and echoing in the silence that surrounded them.
He groaned in pain, cursing he fell to the ground with a thump. His eyes went wide as he saw Sara struggling to get out of the trunk on her feet, iron still clutched tightly in her fists. Winded, he stood up, and took a few tentative steps towards her, wabbling slightly.
"You little bitch! You're going to pay!" he declared, lunging for her.
Sara screamed not only in terror, and pain, but surprise as well as she swung again, on instinct. "You think I'm going down without a fight?" When he didn't answer, she swung again, rage taking over her whole body. "You're a bastard!" She pulled back after the second swing, and took a step back from him. He wasn't worth murder. She looked down and saw the knife laying at her feet. Carefully, she bent over to pick it up. Once she had the small, sharp object in her grasp, she flung it as far away from them as she could, but the searing pain shot through her whole body and she cried out in agony.
"AHH!" he suddenly charged her and she landed on the pavement once again, him straddling her and fighting her for control of tire iron.
One of his hands left the tire iron and started to apply pressure to her injured arm, which caused her grip to faulter, giving him an edge, but she was quick. She ignore the pain, heat radiating up and down the length of it, and retained her grasp, not allowing him to have control.
"You'll never win," he said, his face turning red with anger and excertion.
She moved her leg from beneath him, ignoring her bodys screams to stop. Her knee, which was now free from under him, socked him in the side, causing him to faulter. Grabbing the iron with all her strength, she yanked it from his hands, and swinging as he fell to the pavement beside her, taking every opportunity that presented itself to incapacitate him.
She scrambled to her feet and stood over him, preparing to hit if he tried to stand up.
"YOU THINK YOU'RE SO BIG AND TOUGH?! HUH?!" She yelled. "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" She kicked him. "Oh, so now that you don't have anything to threaten me with, and I have the power, you go quiet? Some big tough man you are!"
Kevin tried to sit up using both his hands as leverage, but Sara didn't want him moving, so she hit him with the iron on the shoulder. Immediately, one arm came up to grip the tender shoulder and he lost his balance, falling back down to the pavement with a grunt.
Sara could hear sirens wailing in the background, getting steadily closer.
"It's over," she said, finally allowing herself to feel relief. Relief that she had control of the situation. That he wouldn't make her a victim again. At least, not in the way that he'd wanted . . . she was not going to die. Not here. Not like this. Fatigue started to set in as she struggled to remain standing. The injuries that she'd sustained, coupled with being ill were just making her tired. A single tear slipped down her face.
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"Oh, Thank God!" Nick said, seeing Sara's form in the distance. He was still leading the way, most of the others behind him. Some of the uniforms had stayed at the Gas N' Go collecting evidence, while a few had stayed with the burning wreckage of the truck.
Brass, who was in the Charger trailing behind Nick's Denali, spoke into the speaker phone as the whir of the sirens cut through the silence of the night air. "LVPD! DO NOT MOVE!"
Once again, the Denali left tire marks as the SUV skid to a stop. Nick and Warrick both jumped out and went straight for Sara.
He reached out to gently touch her, so not to scare her. She turned slowly, grimacing at the pain still coursing through her body. Her eyes met his. And he finally got his first good look at her.
"Oh, God," Nick wanted to vomit. The bruises that lined Sara's face, the cuts on her skin and the way she held her arm tightly to her body told a silent story as to how she'd been brutilized. The clothes she wore left him wonder just how far he'd gotten in his quest to 'finish what he'd started.'
"Looky here," Kevin spat, glaring up at Nick, "you're Knight In Shining Armor is here."
"Shut up," Sara flinched, turning her gaze from Nick's warm brown eyes, to the dead orbs of the man on the ground. "You're a piece of dirt."
"Looks like you got in some nice shots," Warrick said, giving the man they all hated a once over. He gently took hold of a part of the bar that Sara still held in her hand, but she tightened her grip and tried to jerk it away from Warrick. "Hey, hey, it's OK," he said and she finally looked at him, recognizing that she didn't have to be concerned about why Warrick wanted the bar. Nick was there. He was there. They were all there. She was safe.
"You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law," Sophia started to read him his miranda rights as Brass yanked him up, off the ground, slapping the cuffs on him.
He focused on Sara, and the rest of his world disappeared. "You're never going to be rid of me. I'll be everywhere you are. Haunting you."
Nick stepped forward in a protective manner, but Sara's hand grabbed his arm, silently begging him to stop.
"Candy ass," he spat at Nick. "Do everything the little girlfriend tells you too?"
"A real man would never do anything to make a woman uncomfortable," he said, taking a step back, wanting to take Sara in his arms and take all the pain away.
"A real man would know when a woman is asking for the man to take charge, so that's what I did," he answered. "I took charge, and boy, that beauty . . . and that body . . . you'd think she'd do more than just lie there, and -" he stopped talking when a sharp jab to his nose sent his head flying back.
"If you ever say anything like that ever again, I will kill you," he hissed.
Kevin's eyes met Nick's, but he spoke with authority to Brass. "I want to press charges. Police brutality."
Brass glanced at Sophia, both obviously in silent agreement with the other. "I didn't see anything. As far as I'm concerned, you're injuries are because Sara had to protect herself."
Brass and Sophia nodded their heads sympathetically at Sara as they led Kevin to one of the waiting officers.
"How're you doing?" Warrick was the first to break the silence.
"Lindsay. Did you find her?" she asked. "We have to find Lindsay!" She was starting to get hysterical.
"I'm right here," Lindsay said as she, Catherine, Greg and Grissom approached them. No one really knew what to say. Each wanted to reach out and hold her, but given what had just happened, physical contact probably wasn't the best idea -- one, to preserve the evidence, and the second, even more so, it might be too much . . . if he'd raped her . . . a lot of victims just didn't want anyone touching them, even if they knew the other person wasn't posing a threat.
"Oh, Thank God," she saw the young woman who was becoming more and more like Catherine everyday. Her legs started to tremble as she had difficulty keeping herself standing.
Nick's arm instinctively went around her waist, preventing her from falling. "Sara . . . did he . . . did he . . ." he couldn't bring himself to say the word. He didn't want too, anyway, but the words just wouldn't form . . . "Did he hurt you?" he decided on. They had to know.
Sara looked up at Nick, fear in her eyes. There was the time between his grabbing her in the apartment, and her waking up in the truck that was a complete blank . . . and she didn't know how long she'd blacked out after the truck had flipped in the ditch . . . "I . . . I don't know," and with that, her body went limp, and Nick's strong arms kept her unconcious form from hitting the ground . . .
TBC . . .
