Gibbs heard Tony when he muttered, "Shit," on the other end of the phone, and the muffled sounds of it dropping from his hands.
"Tony!" Gibbs called, several times, with no response.
Gibbs heard the sounds of the car doors, and Tony being dragged out, followed a little while after by a gunshot.
Fear gripped him now.
"How much farther, McGee?" he barked.
"We're about 3 miles from the storage facility." McGee saw the look on Gibbs' face, as he hung up the phone.
A chill went through him.
McGee said a silent prayer that Tony wasn't dead.
"DiNozzo," Kort purred with sick glee, the one blue eye, oozing malevolence at him. "I'm so glad you could join me."
Tony looked next to him at Tilson's body, and then up at Kort.
"Can't say I feel the same, Trent," Tony said with real hatred.
Kort had the gun on him now.
He started to notice, behind Kort, were things that made him suddenly mute with fear.
A metal chair, bolted to the cement floor. A generator, sitting off to the side, with a file on top of it. A table, with an array of knives, wires and bottles and vials of liquids, and syringes.
He looked along the walls. He looked behind him quickly. There were items stacked by the door. A portable stereo. Some metal rods, with pointed ends, varying in length. And a propane torch.
Trembling, his eyes widened, as he looked up and saw the chain lengths, hanging down from the ceiling. One, with a large meat hook on it.
He felt sick. These were all of Stratton's tools, meant to cut, and burn, and hurt him. His heart was pounding in his throat.
The whispers were starting up again.
"N-no...nonono, Tony shook his head, horrified.
"Oh, yes," Kort smiled maliciously. "I have a special use for you, my old friend. And we're on a time constraint, I'm afraid. We'll need to do this somewhere else."
Tony's body was shaking. He couldn't breathe, and started backing away crawling a bit on the floor, towards the door.
Kort took one of the syringes and filled it with one of the liquid vials on the cart. He put his gun down, knowing at this point, Tony was falling apart anyway.
"This will help me get you into the car more…willingly."
Tony's back hit the doorframe, as Kort approached him, smiling, with the syringe.
He was gasping, as his vision shifted.
He saw Stratton now instead, approaching him with it.
And looked down at his own naked body, covered in blood and burns.
The feelings also crashed into him, like a wave.
Anger, humiliation, pain, desperation...
Despair.
The whispers grew louder, and louder, as Stratton grinned at him.
Tears started to accumulate in Tony's eyes.
His hands blindly groped for something... anything, that he could keep Stratton away with.
And as the sick, joker-looking smile loomed over him, the syringe came down to his neck.
Tony screamed.
From outside the facility, Gibbs and McGee could hear the frightened, agonized sound.
Gibbs didn't even bother closing the car door. He took off, running, McGee after him, only glancing at Stern's body on the ground by the van.
Guns drawn, Gibbs pointed for McGee to follow him upstairs, where he heard something like an angry wail echo from the hallway.
They approached quickly, but carefully, seeing the open locker at the end.
As Gibbs slid up next to the door, he motioned for McGee to cover him.
They heard something like hitched gasping coming from the room.
Gibbs suddenly swung into it, and was immediately struck by the violence of the sight in front of him.
Two bodies were lying still on the cement floor.
One was a man with a scarred face, blood flowing, spread out like a dark red mirror underneath his head, eyes open, and hole between his eyes. Kort's hired...and fired help.
Trent Kort was a few feet away, face up and still, with a metal rod sticking straight up and out of the bloodied socket of his good eye. It was mangled and gorey, as if the rod had been stabbed in and out more than once.
Gibbs couldn't help but feel glad the slimy sonofabitch was dead.
A hypodermic needle filled with liquid was on the floor next to Kort's dead open hand.
And Tony, with a cut on his jaw, hands bloody, and tears drying on his face, sat rocking just slightly on his knees next to Kort.
"Clear," Gibbs said, swallowing down his nausea, "McGee, we need an ambulance. And Ducky. Call them. Now."
McGee was frozen in place for a moment, taking in the horrific scene, and the equipment in the room.
"Oh my God…" he breathed out, as Gibbs also took in the rest of the room.
"McGee," Gibbs said, softly.
"Ah…on it. O-on it, Boss." McGee worriedly looked at Tony and then turned to make the calls.
Sirens from the Metro PD backup were starting to wail from a distance.
Gibbs approached Tony, who hadn't moved, but was still rocking a little in place, looking down at Kort.
"Tony," Gibbs put a tentative hand on his shoulder.
He gasped and flinched, looking up suddenly at Gibbs.
"It's over, come on, let's get out of this room."
Tony allowed himself to be lifted up by the elbow, dazedly gazing at Gibbs.
"Boss?"
"Yeah, Tony," Gibbs put an arm around him, gently guiding him as he stumbled out into the hallway.
"I killed him… again…" he said, almost wonderingly, his green eyes glassy.
Gibbs let him back down carefully, to sit on the floor, not wanting to move him much more. The thought of letting Tony spend one more moment in that room, was unacceptable. Gibbs felt a little better having gotten him out of there.
"You what?" Mcgee asked softly, confused.
"Stratton," Tony whispered, rocking a little again, while Gibbs put a hand lightly to his face.
Gibbs frowned, knowing this was added trauma the younger man didn't need.
"I…I k-keep killing h-him…and he…he..." Tony was shuddering. His eyes became even more unfocused, and he was becoming extremely pale.
Gibbs took his coat off, and wrapped it around his friend.
Putting his hands on Tony and leading him carefully towards the floor, on his side, he said, "Lie down, Tony. Everything's okay. It's okay now. Stratton is dead. He is never coming back. It was Kort, Tony." He looked up at McGee who had grown very pale with alarm.
"He's in shock. Go down, and make sure the EMT's get up here right away." Gibbs looked at him only a moment before his eyes returned sadly to the tremor ridden form before him.
McGee nodded, giving Tony a deeply pained glance before running back down the hallway.
Gibbs was still squatting next to Tony.
He squeezed Tony's shoulder gently through the jacket.
"Tony, you did good, son."