Chapter Six: Vulnerability

Slowly opening his eyes, Greg felt cold tingles rushing down his spine, as his body came to life. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the light, but the sharp pain in his head gave him a quick reminder of what happened. Closing his eyes again, he inhaled a few deep breaths of the thick musty air, trying to recall what had happened to him; more importantly, who did it to him.

After another moment, he struggled to push himself up off the floor on his hands, realising that he was now inside the dark and eerie looking house, but he wasn't alone. By the window, he spotted a tall figure stood against the wall, peering through the tattered curtains at something outside. He turned towards Greg as he heard him moving, grabbing for the baseball bat he had set on the dresser, which Greg assumed he had already hit him with, from the feel of his head.

"No, wait." Greg blocked his attack with his arm, crawling away from him across the floor. "I'm not armed."

"So?" He spat at him. "What the hell are you doing here? This is my property!"

"I'm... I'm looking for Tayla." He leant back against the wall behind him, moving his fingers through his hair to feel the bump on his head. "Who are you?"

"As if I'm gonna be dumb enough to tell you that." The man glared at him, poking at Greg with his bat, trying to read the name off his vest. "Sanders, what are you a cop?"

"CSI." He corrected him, pushing the bat away from his chest. "I investigate crime scenes."

"Well this ain't no crime scene! I think you're lost!"

"I told you, I was looking for Tayla." He was trying to remain calm so the situation didn't escalate, but he was worried that he was about to suffer another beating, less than six months after the first.

"Stay there." The man warned him, setting the bat on the dresser, while he removed the curtain tie. "Put your hands in front of you." He instructed, kneeling down in front of Greg. He waited for the younger man to put his hands together in front of him, before he started to tie his wrists together, fumbling with the knot, as he dropped out of the scouts after the first night in the woods.

Greg stayed leant against the wall while the man restrained him, feeling a little dizzy from the blow to his head. Once the man had finished the loose knot around his wrists, he turned his head towards the door beside him, trying to look into the room across the hall from him.

"Where's Tayla?"

"The kid?" The man pointed out the room, making his way back to the window to keep a look out. "He said he'd be back by now. He said half hour, tops."

"Who said?" Greg asked, trying to keep himself awake.

"Bryan, that freakin' idiot cousin of mine. He asked me to watch the kid for half hour, while he took the baby to the hospital." He slapped himself in the head for blabbing, wishing he had never agreed to help his cousin in the first place. "Look, just shut up, before I smack yah again." He threatened him again.

Greg waited for him to cool down a moment, before he asked, "Where is the kid?"

"Are you deaf or som'ink?"

"No, I was just... I don't think your cousin would be too happy if he came back to find out you had lost her." Greg pointed out to him, raising his restrained hands to rub his sore head.

"What's a CSI doing here then?" The man slowly approached Greg, squatting in front of him. "Are you after Bryan? Is that it? Because I had nuthin' to do with this. He got them kids on his own. I never touched em."

"You're still aiding a murderer slash kidnapper." Greg reminded him, flinching as the man grabbed for his throat.

"I didn't fucking know that there was a kid here when he asked for my help. I had nothing to do with this!" He shouted at him, trying to prove he was innocent. "He's the one who tied her up. He told me to leave her like that. I haven't seen him in years, then he just shows up, asking for my help."

Once the man released his throat, Greg choked on the dryness burning down his windpipe, before he asked, "She's tied up?"

He pointed to the room across the hall, climbing to his feet again. "Damn. I'm in deep shit now." He leant against the window ledge, clutching his head in his hands. "Everything was going fine, until I saw you sniffin' round outside. He never told me that he was wanted for murder."

"And kidnapping." Greg added, adjusting himself against the wall behind him, wondering if he could stand up to grab the bat. It was only a few feet in front of him, but he didn't know if he had the strength to stand, let alone swing a bat.

"How could he be wanted for kidnapping? Them kids are his. You can't kidnap yah own kids!"

"One of them are his, the other one is the daughter of a friend of mine." As he spoke, Greg heard a whimper coming from the room across the hall. He knew Tayla was in there, but he didn't know how he was going to get to her or how badly she was hurt.

As he watched the guys playing football beside the lake, Bradley started to wonder if his younger sister had been found yet. His mother continued to update him on the news she got from his Aunt Kayla, but his father was avoiding his calls again.

When his father first married Miranda, Nick assured his son that he would always be there for him. And Bradley believed him, for a little while. But then Miranda and Nick had a baby together, paying more attention to her, then he was to him, making Bradley realise that even his own father couldn't keep promises to him.

Although Bradley got to visit his father around the holidays, it still wasn't the same. He felt as though he no longer had a father, especially now that his attention was completely focused on his daughter.

"Hey look, it's the rug muncher." A voice suddenly called over to him. Bradley immediately looked up, familiar with the nickname, since his cousin, Charlie had blabbed that his father was allegedly gay. "Whatcha doin' here, dyke? You here to check us out?" Ross asked him, taking a few steps closer to where Bradley was sat.

"A dyke is a girl attracted to another girl." The boy beside him, pointed out to him.

"I know that, dumb arse." Ross gave the other boy a shove away from him, before turning his attention back to Bradley. "I'm not even sure that Bradley is a boy though. Have you ever seen him in the showers?"

"Nah, he's afraid someone will make him take it up the arse!" Calvin laughed, backing Ross up with the teasing, even though he used to be best friends with Bradley. "Ain't that right, Brader's? Either that, or your afraid someone's gonna see your vagina."

Bradley instantly stood up, backing away from them, but the other boys had already joined in, surrounding him.

"You gotcha period yet, Bradley?" Ross shoved the smaller boy backwards, sending him straight into the open arms of his friend, Jake. "My sister's developin' faster than you, and she's ten."

"Get off me." Bradley struggled to pull away from them.

Grabbing hold of Bradley's arms, Jake forced him back towards Ross, before they dragged him towards the lake. "C'mon then Brader's, getcha kit off! Let's see that mangina of yours." Jake laughed with his friends.

"Get off! Leave me alone!" Bradley struggled in their arms, kicking as much he could to make them stop, but the other boys joined in, stripping his t-shirt off his chest. Once that was out of the way, they man handled his delicate body, stripping the rest of his clothes from his body.

"Whaddya know, he is a boy after all!" Ross chortled.

Seeing the boys swarming around something by the lake, Deacon hurried over, seeing the bruises on his former friend's delicate frame. He watched his friends forcing Bradley into the lake, before suggesting, "C'mon, let's get outta here."

"Yeah, we don't wonna catch any germs from the queer." Ross hissed at him.

"Goodbye, sissy! You better run home to change yah tampon!" Calvin laughed with his buddies, leaving Bradley in the lake, with no clothes on. He watched them dumping them in the trash can on their way out of the park, laughing together even more at his expense.

"At least you know that she's safe." Lori spoke softly, cleaning the cut to the man's knuckles. "He can't hurt her if he's here." She looked over her shoulder, checking that the man was still sat behind them, with his wrists restrained to the chair. "I'm sure they'll find her, Nick. She'll be back in your arms before you know it."

Nick gave her a nod, wishing he could get out of these restraints, so he could go and find her himself.

"Lori, don't you have other patients?" Her supervisor asked her.

"No, actually Trish," She checked the time on her watch, giving her supervisor a grin. "I'm off now, so I don't have any more patients."

"Could you check on that baby they brought in, before you leave?"

Lori looked at Nick, then gave her supervisor a nod, waiting for her to leave, before she said, "Would you like to see her? I know she's not your biological daughter or..."

"Yeah." Nick nodded, wanting to see if Willa was okay.

"Ron, can I take him with me?" Lori gave him a pleading look, smiling as the man gave in. She helped Nick to his feet, leading him towards one of wards, where Willa was lying on her back in one of the beds, covered with various tubes and wires across her tiny form. "Don't worry; it's not as scary as it looks." She assured Nick. "We've got her on some antibiotics. That's an IV drip to keep her hydrated. They're just monitoring her heart and lungs..."

"What's wrong with her?" Nick interrupted her, brushing his fingertip across her tiny forehead.

"Meningitis." Lori whispered softly, quickly explaining, "I think we caught it in time though. She still has a fever. She's only had one seizure, but she's stabilised for now. We've got her on antibiotics. She might be here a while, but she's a tough little girl."

"Bryan brought her in?" He looked round at her surprised.

Lori gave him a nod. "She was lucky too, any longer and she could have ended up brain damaged or something. She's okay for now. We're going to need to keep her in for a while. Social services are already sorting out her paperwork and things. She can't very well stay with a murderer after all, huh?"

Nick shook his head, gently brushing his fingertips across Willa's short strands of blonde hair. "She can't even crawl yet."

"That's pretty normal. Most babies don't start between the six and ten months mark. My youngest never actually crawled. He shuffled around his bottom for a couple of weeks, before he started walking." Lori gently tapped him on the shoulder, giving him a smile as he looked round at her. "She's going to be okay, Nick. I've seen lots of babies pull through this. Some younger than her."

"Do you... do you think I could stay with her? Just for a little while." He asked, turning to watch Lori giving him a nod.

"I'll let Trish know. You gonna stay with him too, Ron?" She smiled round at the security guard, still stood in the doorway. "I'll be back in a few hours for my next shift. Fiona will be taking my patients until then. You'll like her, she's not very chatty, but she has a big heart." Lori assured Nick, checking over Willa's monitors again, before she turned for the door.

Nick watched her leaving, then took a seat beside Willa's crib, watching her tiny chest quickly moving up and down, with each of her breaths. "You hold on there, little one." He whispered to her. "I'm not gonna let anythin' happen to you."

While the man holding him captive was trying to get hold of his cousin, using his stolen cell phone, Greg raised his hands to his mouth, trying to untie the ropes binding him with his teeth. The man who had tied it, really wasn't very good at tying knots, so it only took him a few tries, before he could easily slip his wrists free.

"Damn it!" The man threw Greg's cell phone against the wall, shattering it to pieces. Clearly, Bryan hadn't answered him, making him even more hostile in the situation he was stuck in.

Greg held the ropes around his wrists in his palms, giving off the illusion that he was still restrained, not wanting to be hit over the head with the baseball bat again. "It doesn't have to be this way." Greg spoke softly, trying to get through to him again. "If you let me and Tayla go, you won't be in a whole lot of trouble. Bryan's going down for murder and kidnapping, do you want the same sentence as him?"

"I didn't kill anybody." He protested.

"No, but you're still aiding a murderer." Greg pointed out to him, watching the man pacing the room in his anxiety. "I can give you the number of someone to call. They'll go easy on you, since you didn't know what you were getting yourself into."

"I don't need your help!" He shouted at Greg. "Just shut up!"

"Yes you do. I forgot to tell you, I already called someone outside." He explained, hoping it wouldn't make him angry. "They should be here any minute. They'll have the warrant signed in a matter of minutes. They won't care that you didn't have anything to do with this, they're gonna come in here, guns blazing." He tried to scare him, hoping that it was working, as he had no idea how long Catherine would take to get here.

"No." Grissom shook his head, unfolding the map again. "I think we were supposed to take a left back there." He pointed behind them in the car, making Catherine roll her eyes at him. "I'm sorry. There should be a SAT nav in this car. I told you I'm not very good at giving directions."

"And I hate those stupid machines." Catherine put the car in reverse, taking that left her supervisor forgot to tell her about. "This better be the right way, we've already wasted half an hour just trying to get there."

"You said that you told Greg to stay put."

"I did, but if he's anything like Nick, he's not gonna wait around for that little girl to die." She pointed out to him, wishing she were back in the city, as there were sign posts everywhere, while the country was just a big open land of nothingness. "And neither would I. I wouldn't let a little thing like a warrant stop me from saving a life." Grissom nodded in agreement, retrieving his phone from his belt, as it started to vibrate. "Who's that?" Catherine pried.

"Sara." He opened his phone, raising it to his ear to answer her. "Yeah?"

"Hi, it's me." Sara spoke softly, sat on the edge of a cold table in a paper dress. "I just wanted to know... how things were going? Have you found Tayla yet?"

"We've found a house." He nodded into his phone. "We haven't heard a word from Nick in a while, but I'm sure he's okay. Listen Sara, we're on our way to the house now. I'll call you later, okay?"

"Okay." She sighed, snapping her phone shut. She turned to look at the door behind her, smiling as her doctor finally stepped in.

"Okay, I've just got your tests back, Miss Sidle. You are definitely pregnant." The doctor nodded, setting the clipboard down on the side. "By my calculations, you're due July... the twentieth."

"That soon?" Sara gave her a surprised look, rubbing one hand across her flat stomach. "Okay, so... what do we do now?"

Her doctor smiled at her, taking a seat in front of her patient. "Was this an unplanned pregnancy, Miss Sidle?" Sara gave her a nod. "Well, most of them are, so you're really not alone. I can help you through this. Is this your first?"

Her patient slightly nodded again, before she asked, "How far along... is the... is...?"

"The baby?" Her doctor asked. "About twelve weeks. I'm surprised that you didn't notice before, but most women don't, unless they have heavy morning sickness, miss a period or if they were expecting to get pregnant in the first place." She chuckled softly, pulling some latex gloves on. "Can you lie back on the table, so I can give you your first scan? We'll see how the little guy or gal is doing in there."

"I don't wonna know the sex." Sara quickly warned her.

"Alright, that's fine." The woman gave her a smile. "We probably won't be able to tell at this stage anyway. It's too soon."

After giving her doctor a nod, Sara adjusted herself on the table, bracing herself for the cold device. Her doctor started pushing buttons on the monitor beside her, before she turned it towards her, so she could take a look at it.

"Alright, can you see the monitor from there?" Her patient gave her a nod, so she pointed to the roundish shape on the monitor. "There's your baby's head. You can just about make out the nose and eyes. Opp... and there's a leg." She smiled, as the little foot kicked towards the surface.

"What's that?" Sara pointed to something.

"That's an arm." Her doctor smiled at her. "We can't really tell the gender at this stage, but you've got a very healthy little baby there. Two arms, two legs, a pair of little hands and feet. There's nothing to... oh, wait a minute."

"What is it?" Sara leant up on her elbows, watching her doctor making a few adjustments. "What's that?" She asked, seeing another unusual shape on the monitor.

"That's another head." The doctor reported, looking round at her patient.

"Another head?" Sara felt as though she was going to throw up. "You mean, it's some kind of mutant baby?"

The doctor chuckled softly, shaking her head at her patient. "No, another head, as in someone's having twins."

"Are you sure? You're sure it's not... freakishly deformed or something? Because I saw this thing on t..."

Her doctor chuckled again. "I've seen a lot of these scans, Miss Sidle. Congratulations, you're having twins." Her patient looked at her open mouthed, wondering how she would ever cope. She was worrying about the one little life that she was going to be completely responsible for, but two!

"What am I gonna do?" She asked herself, touching her hand to her stomach.

"There's Greg's car." Grissom pointed it out, waiting for Catherine to stop her car, before he removed his seatbelt. "This must be the place." He looked around at the house, before he turned his attention towards Catherine, after hearing the familiar click of a gun. "Do you really think that's necessary, Catherine? I don't think we're going to help Tayla by going in there guns blazing."

"Maybe, maybe not. It's always better to be prepared." She smiled round at him, before climbed out the car, taking a look around for herself. "Did you call the Detective again? Maybe he got lost on the way too."

"He's on his way." Grissom assured her, following her towards Greg's car. He peered in through the window, finding an empty car. "Where is he?"

"I told you he wouldn't just wait around." Catherine reminded him, holstering her weapon. "I wonder if he found her." She looked around for any sign of him, spotting something moving inside the house. As she took a closer look, she realised that it was a man, but it wasn't Greg. "Grissom." She pointed him out to him, signalling him over to her with her hand.

Grissom looked in the direction she was pointing, unclipping his own holster, even though he had no intention of using it. "Is Greg inside?" He spoke softly, so the man wouldn't know they were outside. He clearly hadn't heard their car pulling up, as he was still shouting at someone else in the room, with his back to the window.

"I can't see him." Catherine shook her head, pulling her cell phone from her belt, calling in for backup. "Grissom, stay low."

"He can't see me." He hissed back at her, trying to see if Greg was in the house. "I have to know if he's okay."

Looking towards the window as Bryan's cousin continued to rant; Greg widened his eyes as he suddenly saw Grissom in the window. He quickly turned his head away so his capturer wouldn't see him, relieved that they had finally arrived, as he could barely keep his eyes open.

"Tell me more about... Nina." Greg tried to remember her name, distracting the man, while Catherine and Grissom called in for backup. "She was your wife, right?"

"Nancy!" He shouted. "She still is! She wants me to sign the damn papers, but then I'll never get to see my kids again." He peered out of the door as he heard a cough from the other room, wishing his cousin would hurry up and get back soon, because he didn't want to babysit his hostages any longer.

"Do you think that holding a seven year old hostage is the way to get her back?"

"Shut up! I'm gonna slap that smart mouth right off your face, if you say one more word." He threatened him, looking towards the door as he heard the child choking again. Against his better judgement, he left Greg alone in the room, while he went across the hall to check on her.

Greg struggled to his feet while he was gone, grabbing for the baseball bat that the man had carelessly left behind. He had no intention of the hurting the man, he just needed something to protect himself, so he wouldn't end up beaten to the ground again.

He didn't know if he could even protect himself. His head was pounding, the room was spinning and all he felt like doing right now was going to sleep.

Clumsily following in the other man's footsteps to the room across the hall, Greg grimaced as his sneaker squeaked against the floor. The man immediately turned to look at him, widening his eyes as he saw the bat in the younger man's hands.

Before Greg could swing though, the larger man gave him a shove against the wall behind him. In one clean motion, he pulled a pocket knife from his pocket, pressing the shinny surface against Greg's throat.

"Think you're a tough man?" He boomed at him.

Greg gulped hard, feeling the sharp edge of the blade tearing through his skin.

Prying the baseball bat from Greg's hands, he threw it across the room, keeping Greg pinned against the wall. "Do you wonna die, Sanders? Do you?"

"No." The younger man answered, staring into his capturer's eyes.

He steadied his breathing a moment, trying to think back to those self defence classes that his mother had forced him to take after his attack. He didn't know if he could take on a man twice his size, but he tried it anyway, not wanting the sharp edge of the blade to puncture his windpipe.

He raised his knee, kicking the man in the gut. While he was reeling from that pain, Greg grabbed his wrist, pulling the knife away from his throat. He launched himself forwards, forcing the man to the ground with him.

The knife slid across the floor, hiding itself away under the bed, where the man could no longer reach it.

Unfortunately, the man had some moves of his own, reversing their positions, so Greg was beneath him. A position that he used to be able to wrestle Nick out of, but this man was a lot stronger than him, and had every intention of hurting him, unlike Nick.

The man bashed his head against the hard floor, before reaching for the bat that had rolled across the floor, choking Greg with it. He pushed down harder on Greg's windpipe as the younger man started to squirm, feeling the his weak hands pounding into his chest, in an attempt to make him stop, but he was stronger.

After a few seconds, Greg weakly started push him away, fighting for breath. Just as he felt the last breath escaping from his body, the pressure from his throat was suddenly relieved. He felt the larger man's body collapsing against his side, just making out the dark shape of his supervisor stood over him, through his blotchy eyes.

"Hey, Greg. C'mon Greg, breathe." He pushed the body squashing him onto the floor beside him, taking hold of the younger man's hand to feel for his pulse. "Catherine, he's alright. Call the paramedics." He ordered, making sure she heard him, before he turned his attention back to Greg. "Don't try to talk. I've got you now. Just breathe, okay?"

Thanks so much for all of your reviews. And I'm sorry about torturing Greg, I hope you're not too mad at me for that :D More on the way soon.

Have a Great Weekend!

~ Holly