I had a slight plot change so make sure you reread the summary! I'm a little worried about how this is going to work out so please review and tell me how I'm doing. Pretty please? Thanks to my reviewers:

hotchner

1Styx and Stones1 (I fixed the spelling error, thanks for pointing that out…MAJOR booboo)

I didn't do this is the last chapter, but I'll have the snapshot at the beginning and the end of the chapter...just like the show! ;]

Snapshot: Tight shot of a gun with the letters Z.D. inscribed on the barrel.

"Uh- boss, I think you need to get in here. Now," Tony's voice echoed from the direction he had disappeared.

Gibbs didn't like the tone of his agent's voice. "Get those kids out of here," Gibbs called to the deputy that had only made it a few steps off porch.

Crossing the room in three swift steps, Gibbs followed Tony's footsteps into a room that might have been a family room at one time. The walls were crumbling in places with a fireplace full of debris dominating the center of the room while a large hole in the floor dominated the far corner…but Tony was nowhere to be seen.

"DiNozzo?"

"Down here boss, in the basement," Tony's voice echoed from the direction of the hole in the floor. "There's a girl down here, she's in pretty bad shape."

Gibbs pulled a flashlight from his pocket and shown it down to the sound of his agent's voice. The girl in question was curled up in the fetal position pressed against the wall; there was no sign of any movement. Tony was gently picking up her wrist and felt for a pulse.

As if someone had thrown a bucket of water on the girl, she gasped and, with surprising strength and agility, sprung backwards from Tony and backed into the wall.

Tony stood slowly, "Hey, hey. Take it easy. I'm not going to hurt you."

Looking closer at the girl made DiNozzo feel slightly sick. She was so skinny and pale…with only a dirty ratty t-shirt and grungy cutoffs covering her bruised body. One eye was completely swollen shut, with a massive mark covering the entire right side of her face. She was shaking and although he couldn't place what, Tony could see there was something else wrong with her other eye.

"Stay. Away. From. Me," the girl whispered, pushing herself closer to the wall.

"I'm an agent for the government, I'll help you. I won't hurt you."

The girl stood a little straighter but before Tony could say anything, a shout echoed from the back of the house, "STOP! FEDERAL AGENT!"

There was a short pause then what sounded like a shotgun reverberated through the empty house. Shots from a smaller sounding gun answered. As Gibbs darted for the area where the shots had been fired, the Ziva shouted into her comms unit, "Caucasian male, mid to late twenties, brown hair, small build retreating out the back of the house. He is armed, I am going after him."

"McGee, go with Ziva," Gibbs commanded into his comms unit.

There was no reply. The two men exchanged a look, "McGee, report!"

Gibbs' gut was telling him that something was off. "DiNozzo get the girl up here and call Ducky, I'm going after Ziva."

"On it, boss," Tony shouted from the living room. The girl hadn't moved and just watched silently as the agent made a short, one-sided phone call to Ducky informing him of what had happened.

Hanging up his phone, DiNozzo turned back to the girl, "Come on, let's get you out of here."

"Stay. Away. From. Me," she whispered again, leaning back against the wall for support.

"I want to help you but you have to let me."

Before she could protest anymore, the girl took a step away from the wall, swayed for a minute, then crumpled into a heap on the floor.

By the time Gibbs got to the back of the house, all the gunfire had ceased. An eerie silence descended and Gibbs carefully took a step onto the dilapidated back porch and surveyed the back yard.

Overgrown weeds and shrubs covered nearly the entire space; just a small path was cleared leading away from the house. From the size of the bullet holes in the doorframe, Gibbs deduced that his agent had been positioned there. Carefully, Gibbs cleared the porch and stepped into the yard. There was a strong gust of wind that swept down the entire yard and as the leaves scattered, something on the bottom porch step caught his attention; a dark red smudge that looked sickeningly like blood.

It seemed to take hours for Ducky to arrive at the old house with a deputy and a gremlin in toe. Tony had been pacing anxiously between the girl on the floor who was resting under his jacket and the hole that had once been the front door. He wasn't good at being the agent with a nice bedside manner, what the hell was he supposed to do when an injured person blacked out, his partners were MIA, and his boss had disappeared over…nine minutes ago now.

"Agent DiNozzo?" A familiar voice echoed through the old house.

"In here Ducky!"

In his recognizable hat and slightly slouched posture, Ducky was a sight for sore eyes. He took a look at the girl on the floor and set to work, for once skipping his long oracle. "What happened to this poor girl?" he wondered aloud.

"I found her in the basement," Tony explained, "she's in pretty rough shape."

"Indeed, she appears to be suffering from dehydration and malnutrition, not to mention she looks as if she has been physically abused."

The young Jimmy Palmer was setting out the gurney as the doctor examined the girl who was beginning to come around. She was mumbling and squirming under Ducky's gentle hand.

"Don't. Hurt. Her," the girl whimpered, "please."

"I'm here to help you, not hurt you. I promise," Ducky said as he motioned to Tony and Palmer to lift her onto the gurney.

The girl seemed to pass put again but as Tony carefully placed her head on the gurney, her eyes popped open and she grabbed at his sleeve, "Horror house. Upstairs, you have to go. Please help us," the girl began to cough so hard she convulsed on the stretcher.

"We need to get her to a hospital directly," Ducky said worriedly, waving Palmer and the deputy ahead. "Where is Jethro?"

"McGee wasn't answering his comms unit, Ziva went after a suspect, and Gibbs went to see what was going on. I'm going to go see what I can do to help.

Ducky nodded and without another word turned and hurried away. Tony turned and headed towards the back of the house, thinking that whatever was upstairs could wait.

On the porch, Tony noted the same thing his boss had just a few moments before; the bullet holes, the ragged yard, the blood on the step. He also noticed the small path that had been cleared through the brush in the back yard. Guessing that it was his best bet to find the members of his team, he stepped off the porch and took four steps then tripped.

Glancing down, Tony gasped put loud over what he had tripped over. Carefully, he grabbed the still-warm muzzle of a gun that looked eerily like the one that he carried. Flipping the gun over, Tony's heart sank another notch at the initials carved into the barrel of the gun: Z.D.

Snapshot: Tight shot of a gun with the letters Z.D. inscribed on the barrel.

This is a difficult story to write…so I hope you all liked this chapter, review please!

~Striker