Catherine had little time to absorb his words as chaos renewed its assault on her senses. There were multiple dull thuds as Warrick threw open doors, rushing from room to room to clear the house, and at the front door Sofia barely glanced at Sara before dashing back outside. There was a clatter as she snatched up a bike and moved it quickly into the dark hallway, and a second clatter as Nick followed with the other, and then, face hard, she shut the door and threw the deadbolt, removing any trace of their presence from the street.
Darkness fell in the room, the few strips of light from around the boarded up windows falling like jail bars across the carpet. Catherine snapped on her pen light, shining the beam down on Sara. The fresh blood glowed under the beam, the spatter covering Sara's torn blouse, bra and white skin beneath.
"It's all clear," Warrick said, holstering his weapon as he returned.
"Seal the back door," Sofia ordered, nodding behind him.
Her voice carried such a natural tone of authority that Warrick immediately complied. Catherine returned her attention to Sara, her mind racing.
"Was she raped?" she repeated, eyes digging into Grissom. "Yes or no?"
He stared at her blankly.
"Yes or no?" she repeated, firm.
"No," he capitulated. "He tried, he had her pinned, but … I – I stopped him."
"Good," Warrick said viciously.
"How far did he get?" Catherine asked. "Did he get her underwear off?"
"Was there any contact?" Sofia asked, looking equally worried.
"No," Grissom replied. "He had her pinned, he was unzipping himself … I heard her screaming …"
Catherine nodded, and put a quick hand to his arm to stem him from staying the rest as she saw his distress rise. She looked back to Sara, examining her under the penlight, but couldn't see any lacerations to explain the blood.
"I don't think the blood's hers," she concluded, knowing it must be spatter from the victim.
"She looks badly beaten, though," Warrick observed. "She must've tried to fight him off."
"And lost," Catherine agreed. "But it doesn't look as though anything's fractured. She should be okay to move."
"She can't, Cath," Grissom interjected. "She's hurt –"
"We'll help," Sofia quickly assured. "We have to move, we can't stay here."
"We've got a gang of them on our tail," Nick told him. "They're gonna be here any second, guns loaded –"
Grissom's eyes suddenly honed in on the blood trickling from Nick's temple.
"What happened?"
"There's no time," Catherine cut in, reaching for Sara. She put a hand to her face. "Sara? Can you hear me?"
"I hear you," Sara replied weakly.
She did not open her eyes, and her head lolled against Catherine's hand.
"We have to move," she told her. "Can you sit up?"
Sara cringed, and reluctantly opened her eyes. They were clouded with pain and disorientation.
"Put your arm around me, I'll help," Catherine said, leaning down.
Sara's arm fell around Catherine's neck, and sliding her hands underneath her, Catherine pulled her up. Sara's head fell against her shoulder, wincing with agony.
"Hold on, you'll be fine," Catherine assured gently.
She held her as Grissom quickly buttoned her torn blouse, and zipped up her jeans. Sara weakly reached for his hand, and he gripped it with his own.
"Just try to stay conscious, we'll do the rest," he told her.
"Here, I'll take her," Nick said, moving forward to take her from Catherine. "I can carry her."
Footsteps sounded outside, the sound of someone running up the street toward them.
They froze.
"Shit," Warrick declared.
"Fucking little punks," Nick said. "Didn't take 'em long –"
He let go of Sara, ripping his weapon from its holster.
"We've gotta get them before they get us –"
But his hands shook, his face white and expression unhinged as a murderous panic swept his features. Sofia swiftly headed him off, immobilising him with a hand to his shoulder.
"Stay with Sara," she ordered. "Take cover out back, we'll meet you there."
"You think I'm leaving you with these dickheads?" Nick countered angrily. "Leave you to end up like her?"
He gestured to Sara, who was looking on with an expression of wild incomprehension. Catherine felt equally perplexed, but had no time to decipher it.
"Just do it," Sofia ordered. She nodded to Grissom. "Take them."
Grissom complied, and moved to quickly escort Sara and Nick to the back of the house. Once gone, Sofia hurried to the window to join Warrick and Catherine.
"What the hell was that about?" Warrick asked her.
"Just keep him away from them," Sofia replied, voice low. "I'll explain later."
Catherine felt a stab of worry, wondering what on Earth it was that Sofia and Nick had encountered on their search, what had caused them to flee in such a state of panic. But she had no time to think about it. Outside, the two men had paused by the mailbox, and her heart began to pound with fear.
"Have you ever shot someone?" Warrick asked.
"Yes," Catherine replied. She held her gun steady, having no qualms whatsoever. "You?"
"First time was ten minutes ago."
Catherine nodded. "That's probably a good thing. First time's the hardest. Good to get it out of the way."
"Yeah," he replied. "Right now I just hope we have enough ammo to make it out of the city."
It was a dire thought, but Catherine did not let herself ponder it, forcing herself to focus only on the present. Sofia moved to stand beside the door, gun ready in case they entered, and Catherine locked her gaze onto the men outside as they paused. One spat on the ground.
"Just keep walking," Warrick urged. "Keep moving …"
The man spat on the ground again, clearing something from his mouth. He turned on the spot, and his eyes fell on the house. A furrow appeared between his eyes.
Catherine gestured to Sofia, who nodded, ready.
And suddenly, as lightning quick as it had been before, all hell broke loose. The man pulled a handgun from the waistband of his jeans, and Catherine, realising in a split second what was about to happen, ducked back from the window just in time. A shot cracked through the air, and the bullet narrowly missed her, flying over her shoulder. Warrick's panicked eyes flew over her as he whirled to retaliate, rapidly firing back, and across the room Sofia threw open the front door, bursting out to challenge them. She felled one with a shot straight to the heart, and as the second changed aim toward her, Catherine opened fire, emptying her magazine into his chest.
He fell with an audible thud, lying dead on the sunny concrete.
Suddenly silence fell, the only noise in the room that of her and Warrick breathing hard.
"You okay?" he asked, glancing her over.
"Fine," she replied.
Seeing that he too was okay, she moved outside to join Sofia. She found her standing over the bodies, a pool of blood already forming underneath them.
"They both dead?" Catherine asked.
"Yeah," Sofia replied.
Catherine stared for a moment, feeling her pounding heart rate relax again. It was hard to know how to feel – it all felt so surreal – and she had seen too many dead bodies in her life to feel much of anything now. But their bodies held clues to their state; both were middle aged men, their clothes dirty and rank from months of wear, their faces unshaven and hair tangled, and she knew they had evidently been living rough for quite some time.
"They've probably lived like this for a while," Warrick said, reading her thoughts. "Must be some kind of animal instinct thing – it's like we trespassed onto their territory."
"I'll say," Sofia replied. "We've stirred up a nest of cold-blooded, deranged, drug-addled killers."
"Yeah, well, don't expect me to feel sorry for them," Catherine added bluntly.
It was impossible to feel sorry for a group of thugs who had just tried to kill them, and her blood boiled with anger – anger she could barely control anymore. She had first felt it days ago when she had first heard Nick's account of their attempted hike out, and it had grown to bursting point since. She had felt scared for Sofia, isolated and made helpless by their situation, terrified of what lay in store for them, and above all else, a powerful maternal devastation at being isolated from Lindsey. Grissom had known, and it was his statement to her that Lindsey would want her to keep a clear head, and do all she could, which had kept her sane and on her feet. Yet somewhere, in their home world, she knew Lindsey would have been told by now, and would be crying in her bedroom. It was a pain which she could no longer carry.
"You okay?" Warrick asked.
He put his hand to her shoulder, rubbing. She took a deep breath, struggling to hold it together.
"Don't give in yet," he said. "We need you."
Catherine didn't know if she had much strength left – but the others were all down, and she knew she had to find it. As she pulled herself together she saw Sofia slip another two pills from the pocket of her jeans, swallowing them down. She knew none of them could hold it together much longer, and they had to make the city limits before they fell apart completely.
"Let's just get the others," she said. "We need to keep moving."
They found the others in the backyard, Sara propped up against the back of the house, crying, and Nick next to her, pale and silent. Grissom looked relieved when Catherine returned with the others, unharmed.
None of them had the energy to ask questions, or to care about answers.
"Just start walking," Catherine said, wearily holstering her weapon. "One foot after another."
They helped the trio up – Sofia loaning Nick a hand, and Warrick lifting a shaking Sara – and minutes later, they had all disappeared over the back fence.
XXX
It was by far the worst day of Catherine's life. She had not appreciated how far they had come into Las Vegas until they had to struggle out again, injured and utterly drained. They climbed wearily over the back fence, and out to the quiet residential street on the other side, and then began the tiresome walk out. Catherine felt exhausted beyond belief – physically beaten from the hours of hiking and cycling they had already done that morning, and mentally shattered from everything that had happened since. They were stuck, abandoned in a world which was unrecognisable and unwelcoming, with what seemed like no hope of ever going home. That was bad enough, but then they had been chased and nearly killed, Sara assaulted, and all of them traumatised, and now had to somehow find a safety which she doubted she would ever feel again.
The pain of it all grew stronger as her adrenaline subsided into numbing nothingness, and soon she felt the tears of hopelessness hot in the backs of her eyes. She walked on autopilot, her mind picking a direction to the edge of town, and blindly following it, and the silence around her told her every one of her friends was feeling at least as bad. Grissom walked beside Sara, a weary arm around her shoulders, Sara's sniffs still audible from her crying, and yet none of them had much energy to comfort her. Nick walked alone, having shrugged off a caring hand that Sofia had tiredly placed on his shoulder several blocks before, raising a hand and telling her irritably to just leave him alone, and Sofia, rejected from her offer of kindness, did not bother to give it again. Catherine was faintly aware that she was popping the painkillers like candy – her hand slipping into her pocket every few blocks - and knew she was hurting bad from a journey they had been irresponsible in ever letting her take in the first place, but it was far too late to do anything about it now. Even Warrick was hurting, tiredly putting one foot after the other, shaking his head silently at Catherine's query as to whether he was okay.
They walked until Catherine thought her legs would drop off, and then beyond until she thought she would collapse altogether. They reached the edge of town and kept going, following the road back up the hill which they had first come down hours before, and then past the abandoned car to the deserted highway. The sun set, but Catherine paid no attention to it, the power of nature now seeming so menacing and taunting, playing carelessly with their lives, isolating her from her family and her happiness which she would never see again. When night fell the miles of straight desert highway stretched out before them, and they walked in darkness. Catherine was aware at some stage that she was crying, the pain of all of it on top of her physical exhaustion breaking her, Lindsey's face flitting in and out of her mind. No one comforted her, and she didn't think they even noticed in their own haze of defeat. They stopped mutely once when Grissom silently drifted off to a salt bush to urinate, but no one spoke, and several miles on Warrick cracked – breaking a low lying branch off a dead tree as they passed, and snapping it to toothpicks before throwing it violently out into the desert. Sara's eyes jerked up at this behaviour, and there was a cold distrust to her expression that made Catherine glad that neither had any energy to voice their thoughts, but somehow, they walked on.
The miles passed in silence until they finally, hours later, reached the turn off and descended into the small town they had left that morning, and feeling at last a vague semblance of safety, Catherine sat down outside the pharmacy, utterly spent. She heard a tingle of the bell as Sofia went inside, and faintly sensed Sara head in with Grissom a moment later, but did not care. Across the street Warrick and Nick headed into the dark grocery store, and she was just drifting off into a mental oblivion when it was snapped by a cacophony of noise; it sounded like a shower of tins were being thrown across the store, and was joined a second later by a smashing of glass. The front window of the store was shattered in the corner. Catherine could not see which of them it was, but her mind fell somehow onto Warrick. She had no energy left to feel sympathy, was powerless to relieve him of the pain which she felt too – the devastation of being robbed of the rest of her life in the Vegas she knew, robbed of everything she loved.
The glass smashed again, and she felt a hand on the back of her shoulder. It was Grissom, tugging at her shirt.
"Come inside," he said, eyeing the guys' behaviour with concern. "Leave them be."
She forced her aching body up, and let him escort her indoors. Sara was already settled on the carpet, leaning against the counter, a box of painkillers clutched in her hand, and nearby at the shelves Sofia was tearing a fresh syringe from its wrapper. A vial of an injectable narcotic was open ready before her.
"Let me do that," Grissom said, taking it from her. "Give me your arm."
Sofia wearily opened a few buttons, tugging her shirt down to offer him her upper arm. Grissom put the needle in, injecting the painkiller into the muscle. Sofia barely reacted, utterly dead on her feet.
"Get some rest," he said, putting the needle aside.
Sofia seemed to have no energy to re-button her shirt, and instead sat down on the carpet where she was, head in her hands. Catherine sat with Sara, who gave her a tired look.
"Cat, stay away from Warrick, okay?" she said softly.
And without further comment, she moved to lay on the carpet, silent and asleep. Catherine lay down beside her, too tired to think or care, and wanting only to escape into her dreams.
Next - the CSIs continue to unravel. I have been known at times as the author who is not afraid of going anywhere with a fic, and this fic could easily be one of those. Drugs, sex, alcohol, orgies? In their devastated hypnotic state I think I just could justify any or all of those quite easily ... but I guess we'll see how far I want to take this. ;)
Thanks to those who've left reviews on the prior chapter, you've kept me writing. I had a terrible week and your kindness meant a lot.