Disclaimer: I obviously do not own CSI: NY. I just own my car, my laptop and my crazy muse who seems to want to write 4 different stories at a time. I also do own any characters that you do not recognize. You can borrow them if you ask permission first!

A/N: Okay. Thanks to everyone that read and reviewed! Here's the next chapter!!! Many thanks to Aphina and Axellia for the beta. I don't own the chapter title either. That belongs to P.O.D. Also, Hathaway Prep belongs to Axellia, so I don't own that, but I am very grateful to her for letting me use it!

Chapter 18.

Youth of the Nation

Cory felt her heart in her throat and a rolling feeling in her gut as she made her way into the school. She knew, deep down, that it was unlikely that any of the hostages were alive, but was holding out hope that she was wrong. As they walked through the deserted halls, she caught a glimpse of the amenities that a private school had and wondered for the first time in a long time why her parents had put her into public school.

Shaking thoughts from the past out of her head, she stepped quietly down the elegant hall, Lydia and the rest of the team steps behind her. As she reached the door to the auditorium, she held up her hand to stop the team and turned to look at each one of them. Her team returned her gaze, understanding that they were probably walking into a blood bath.

Cory drew in a silent breath as she nodded for Lydia to open the door. As she walked in, her eyes scanned the room automatically, taking in the sight of three bodies in pools of blood. She knelt next to them, feeling for a pulse and shook her head when she found none. Rising, she lifted her gun in front of her, her anger building at the senseless deaths of the three students. She carefully stepped over the bodies and purposely strode towards the door to the locker rooms. Remembering the floor plans in her head, she stopped at the final door and steadied herself. She nodded to her team and then opened the door.

When she saw the bodies inside, she took a breath, holding back tears at the sight of the remaining twelve bodies of the hostages lined up in a group by the wall and the lone body that must have been Preston Lords III. God, why did this happen?

----------------------------------

When Danny walked into the small room, he saw Cory leaning up against the wall, her face downcast. As much as he wanted to go over there and comfort her, he knew that they had to keep in professional. He studied the room instead, taking in the blood spatter that covered the room. He was suddenly glad to have Lindsay with him.

"Jesus," Lindsay breathed from behind him. "This was a massacre."

Danny turned and looked at her, making sure that she was okay. "I know. I need you to study the blood patterns and see what they tell you."

Lindsay nodded as she sat her case down and began to photograph all of the patterns. She progressed through the room silently, motioning for Cory to move to show her the wall.

Cory looked at Lindsay. "I picked the one clean wall in the room," she said lowly.

"I know, but still, if we need to recreate the scene, then I can with pictures of everything," Lindsay responded.

Cory just nodded as she turned to walk out of the room, her heart heavy with regret. Lydia followed her, knowing that she was probably beating herself up. "You know you couldn't have prevented this," Lydia told her boss.

Cory bit her lip. "My mind knows that, but my heart is telling me something different." She sighed again, before deciding that she needed to talk to Mac and Flack to see what had happened at their scenes. She quickly reconnected her earwig. "Mac? Flack? Either of y'all there?"

Mac answered her first. "I'm here. None of the hostages survived," he said with a quiet anger that mirrored Cory's own.

"Same here," Flack confirmed with a bite in his voice.

Cory sighed as she rubbed her hands on her shoulders, trying to release the tension and prepare herself for the press conference that they were going to have to have. "Okay. I'll meet y'all at the lab. This is connected somehow and connected to me more importantly. I think we need to rehash all the evidence that we have so that we can find out what caused this," she said, the calm in her voice belying the fact that she was furious.

"It's going to be a while before we are finished processing the scene," Mac confirmed.

"I've already sent detectives to the houses of the shooters," Flack informed them. "Once I get their notes, I'll head over to the lab."

"Make sure that they get the kid's computers. I'll send Lydia to my shooter's house to do the same. We've got to find the connection." After Flack and Mac agreed, she took off the headset, giving herself another chance to calm herself before she had to face the parents. Exhaling deeply, she walked out of the school, a determined look on her face.

----------------------------------

Six hours later, everyone had finished processing their scenes and had reconvened at the lab. Cory, still shaken from her meeting with angry and upset parents, was sitting quietly in the AV lab, waiting for Adam. Since the meeting had ended an hour prior, with a multitude of angry questions and accusations from the parents of the murdered children, she had gone over all the information in her head, but still didn't see how she could have prevented this.

When the young man finally walked into the room, a somber and disturbed look on his face, Cory felt sorry for him. She knew he had very little experience in the field and if Mac's scene had looked anything like hers, then Adam was probably much shaken.

Adam was still trying to put the images of the massacred teens out of his mind, when he looked up to see Cory sitting in the lab. He studied her and realized that his job wasn't nearly as hard as hers. "Hey," he said softly.

Cory smiled. "How are you?" she asked, wanting to make sure that he was okay.

"A little disturbed, but I'm okay," he answered honestly. He looked around at the computers that the three groups had picked up. "I guess I'm going to be busy for a while."

Cory nodded. "Probably, but I want you to look for any electronic communication between the three shooters. Emails, chat rooms, IM's. Anything. This was too well coordinated to have been random and they must have planned this."

Adam nodded. He and Mac had discussed that very possibility on their drive back. "Mac warned me. Anything else?" he queried, eager to get to work.

Cory nodded. "Yeah, check for any research into Columbine or the 1966 shooting at the University of Texas at Austin. They may have been interested in that." Cory turned to leave, eager to see what else evidence the teams had brought in.

Adam just watched her walk away briskly, knowing that she suspected something else going on. Sighing, he put his ear buds in and began to work.

----------------------------------

Danny, Mac and Stella were in the ballistics lab, cataloguing the guns from the scenes. Danny shook his head. "Jesus, there's enough weapons here to arm a small country," he quipped.

Stella just shook her head. "How did three high school kids get their hands on all of this?" she wondered aloud as she gestured to the table where all the weapons were lying. There was a variety of semi-automatic handguns, assault rifles and shotguns. All in all, the final total of guns was forty-two. "I mean, these are not your normal guns that you can just buy off the street."

"I agree," Mac said. "We need to fingerprint them and then study the striations on the bullets." Stella and Danny nodded as they each began to process the weapons.

As Danny studied the AK-47 that had been at the feet of Preston, he noticed a glint. Squinting a bit, he withdrew a cotton swab and ran it over the slide on the top of the gun. He placed the swab aside and then moved to place the guns in the fogging case for fingerprints. He hoped that he found more fingerprints than just those of the shooter.

He had just processed the third gun, this time a semi-automatic shot gun, when Cory walked in. He glanced at her and smiled. "I don't have anything for you yet," he informed her.

"I know," Cory said with a return smile. "But, I just need to feel productive and there's nothing that I can do right now. Lydia's interviewing my perp's friends and family and the NYPD has the other two covered."

Danny sensed her frustration. "Why don't you grab some clothes from the locker room and go work out for a couple of hours. That'll give us time to try to make heads or tails of all the ballistics." He saw her hesitate. "We do have treadmills and I know that you love to jog. Go. I'll call you if I get anything."

Finally, Cory nodded. "Fine. I could use an hour on the treadmill, especially if I want Georgie to make my wedding dress." She put her hand on her stomach. "I've gained weight the last couple of months."

Danny just laughed. "Really? I can't tell; you look beautiful, bella."

Cory rolled her eyes. "What ever. Call me if you find anything."

Stella and Mac shared a glance as they watched the interaction between the couple. As Cory left, Stella shot Danny a smile. "How's the wedding planning going?" she asked as she placed another gun in the fogger for prints.

"Ya know, pretty good. I think we've got all the major things taken care of, but I've never done this before, so I don't know for sure."

Mac grinned. "Cory's organized, so I'd bet that it is all taken care of." He paused to look at some trace on the gun he was processing. "I wonder what the substance is on the grip of this gun."

"I've found it on most of my guns, too," Stella interjected.

"Me, too," Danny responded, holding up the cotton swabs that he had used. "Once I get all of these printed, then I'm going to see if the mass spec can tell us anything."

Mac looked at Danny. "Why don't you go do that now? Stella and I can take care of printing and then test firing all of these. And then start to help Lindsay with the clothes of the perps. Hawkes is downstairs helping Sid right now."

Danny nodded as he walked towards the trace lab, nodding to Lindsay, who was sitting on a stool while she pulled trace from the clothes. "How you doing, Montana?"

Lindsay smiled. "My back hurts, my ankles are swollen and I feel like a beached whale. Other than that, I'm good," she said sarcastically.

"Geez, Lindsay," Danny said, holding his hands up in surrender.

Lindsay sighed. "Sorry, I'm just really tired."

"It's fine," he said as he clipped off the end of the cotton swab to begin the process.

Both of them dropped into silence as they were engrossed in their work. After about thirty minutes, the mass spec started to kick out the results. He picked up the paper for trace that he had pulled off the gun and began to read. "Boom!"

AN: Okay. So here you go! My muse went on a rampage this week, so I'm updating again (there when the 2 days I had to sleep!). Hope y'all enjoy and please review! I love to here y'alls thoughts!

Nienna Tinehtele - Thanks! I try really hard to keep everything straight (I have a notebook with all my story ideas for this story), but it's a lot of work. To tell the truth, I do a lot of rereading to make sure that I'm keeping everything together! You really should read Deja Vu. It pretty much sets everything up with Etienne, there's a lot of background in that story! I'm glad that I kept your attention and it makes me happy to welcome a new reviewer!!!!

Maddy - Girl! Did you really have that much fun at Mardi Gras? Makes me almost jealous (not of the broken foot because that's just gotta hurt!), but this time of year it's always uber busy at work and I never get to party. :( Hope your feeling better!

Axellia - I swear, when you are writing reviews for me something always happens! lol. Don't be jealous of my hours, I've pretty much been dead on my feet for 2 weeks, but I actually left work at my normal time today! I just couldn't stay, I would have slept at my desk. I think that the actual reasons behind the shootings will be a while in coming (since you know part of what is happening). It's too tied together at the moment for me to see clearly what actually happened. The funny thing is, I have no clue that those small details end up coming into play most of the time! My muse just latches on to them and then it all makes sense! I want more WTECS!!!!

Soccer - Why are you packing???