Wow, it's been a while. Thanks for reviews on the last chappy peeps! I hope this one is good enough for five or six reviews.

This chapter may be a leetle unrealistic, but I call it dramatic license. :P

Thanks for reading!

Read. Enjoy. Review.

Chapter Forty Seven # Breaking Out, Breaking Down #

The first few ants had started to creep through the cracks.

Nick moaned softly, shifting slightly to plug the holes further, but his legs were already shaking after twenty minutes of continuously pushing his feet against the holes.

He was doomed.

Greg's grinning face filled his mind. "YOLO!"

He was doomed.

CSIVCSIVCSIV

"...Hope's Field Nursery? Okay, Bill... I love you too. Bye." Jillian whispered, hanging up the phone.

"Hope's Field Nursery, is that where Nicky is?" Ethan jumped up, grabbing his key to the family car.

"Don't you dare even think about it, Ethan Rory Stokes, you stay right here!" Jillian roared at her son who sat down, looking shocked. "They think he might be there. But the people who took him, they could be there to."

"Okay, mom." Ethan murmured at the clear distress on his mother's face. "But we can't just sit here and-"

"Yes you can!" Jillian yelled. "Give those keys to Sara. Now. She won't go anywhere. Let the police do their jobs, for once, just stop!"

"I can't take this anymore." Someone whispered, though no one knew who. No one cared, either.

They were all thinking the same thing.

Tali screamed quickly as someone started rapping on the door.

"I got it." Ethan sighed, desperate to get out of the room. He'd take an annoying salesman over watching his little brother in a glass coffin any day.

Sara dropped her head onto Tony's chest, yearning for the support she knew his strong arms could give.

Suddenly Ethan cried out in pain and the room froze. Jillian raced to the door, and the next thing anyone knew the Stokes' mother started screaming bloody murder.

"Get out! GET OUT OF THE HOUSE, NOW!"

"Mom?" MJ cried as someone shoved Ethan towards her.

"Guns, they have guns!" Ethan gasped, turning back. "Mo-"

"Ethan, leave, now!" his mother's voice screamed.

A gunshot sounded and Tony snapped into action, wrenching open the sliding door and practically throwing Sara out.

A man pushed Jillian into the room, jamming his gun into the back of her head. "Nobody move!"

Jillian thrust her elbow back into the man's groin, ducking as she did. "RUN, NOW!"

Later MJ realised that it wasn't just the fear of the men that chased them out of the door. Her mother's strict orders were enough to ensure that they didn't remain frozen.

She felt Ethan behind her, herding her out of the door.

"Hey!" The shooter yelled angrily, firing two shots.

MJ's shattering world broke in those who seconds.

Ethan pushed harder and she tumbled, turning in time to see her twin fall to the floor.

"Ethan?" she whispered, pausing in spite of the bullets before screaming. "ETHAN!"

Tony raced back, grabbing her arm, freezing at Ethan's motionless body.

"Ethan!" Jillian choked, still struggling with the gunman. "MJ, run, Tony get him out of here, run now, now…"

Tony pulled his screaming friend out of the room and towards the seven seater car that Tali, Ziva, Sara, Morgan, Greg, Ryan, and Archie were clambering into. He pulled MJ into the trunk with him, screaming at Ziva to go.

"Move, Ziva, move!"

The Israeli who had somehow found her way in the front seat thanked god for keyless entry and smashed on the pedal, tearing out of the driveway.

"Who has the keys?"

"What?" Archie asked from the front seat incredulously.

"Ziva, you're talking in Hebrew!" Tali mentioned shakily. "And Sara has the car keys, remem-"

Gunshots sounded towards them and a chorus of screaming filled the minibus.

Ziva swore, twisting the wheel and turning a corner.

The teens tumbled around in the back of the car without the seatbelts.

After giving most CIA agents a run for their money when it came from evasive driving, Ziva slowed down.

MJ broke down, sobbing hysterically. Tony put an arm around her, trying to calm down.

"Ethan!" she sobbed, "Mom, Nicky, Ethan Oh God!"

Sara's phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out of her pocket.

Bill Stokes calling

She accepted the call with shaking hands. "H-h-hel-l-lo?"

"God, Sara, are you alright where are you?"

Hearing the voice of her foster dad eased her nerves a little tiny bit. "We're in the car, what's, what's happening?"

"It's a gang, Sara, I'll explain everything later I promise. Is Mary-Jane with you, what about the others?"

"We're all here." Sara confirmed. "Apart from Ethan and Jillian…"

Greg squeezed her hand as her voice trailed off.

"The police found them." Bill whispered.

"Oh my god…" Sara covered her mouth.

"Cops tell me they're en route to the hospital."

Sara's body shook with silent sobs. "Are they gonna be okay?"

"I don't know."

"Is it the same people who…"

"Took Nicky? I think so. Sara, where are you?"

Sara peered out of the window. "I don't know!"

"Go to the police station, okay? The police, they can help you."

"Okay…" Sara whispered. "Okay…"

"Good. Sara, the police need to talk to me now, go to the police station and I'll see you soon."

Sara hung up and turned to Mary-Jane. "Ethan and your mom are on their way to hospital."

"And that's all he told you?" MJ cried. "No 'they're gonna be okay', no…no…"

"I don't know!" Sara cried back, sobbing.

"Hope's Field Nursery." Morgan called.

Ryan frowned. "That's where-"

"No, I mean it's just there."

"Turn in!" Mary-Jane cried. "Turn in, turn in!"

Ziva frowned. "But your mother said not to-"

"Please!" Sara and MJ begged in unison.

Ziva sighed and turned into the nursery's drive.

The car pulled to a halt by what seemed like a row of endless trees.

"Nick's here, isn't he?" Morgan moaned softly.

"How the hell are we gonna find him if he's buried?" Ryan groaned.

"Look for a transmitter." Archie said immediately. "From the camera. And ground that's been dug up recently."

They started stumbling through the trees, searching for loose dirt.

"I found something!" Morgan yelled. "Archie is this a-"

"Transmitter? Yeah!"

Everyone raced over and they began ripping up handfuls of loose soil.

Digging goes slow when you don't have a shovel.

CSIVCSIVCSIV

Nick was losing hope. Fast. The box was dark, hot and stuffy and he could hardly breathe. The ants were climbing over his lower legs, making their way up at a terrifying rate.

And lord above; he needed the toilet so badly.

His fingers twitched onto the gun, the cold metal burning his fingers.

Although it made him feel like a five year old, he couldn't help but whisper, even if only to the ants. "Fucking hell, I want my mom…"

It hurt so much…

Voices haunted him, teased him…

"Nick, we're coming…"

That was Greg's voice.

"Hang on…"

"We're on our way…"

Tali, Sara.

"We're coming to get you Nicky!"

"Hold on, hold on wherever you are!"

Ethan and MJ, their voices sung like in a game of hide and seek.

The voices swirled around in his head, taunting him endlessly until he finally had to call out.

The voices silenced, and a choked mix of a sob and a cry escaped his mouth.

"Nick?"

He groaned. The voices were back.

"Nicky?"

"Just END ALREADY!" Nick screamed, though at what he didn't know. The voices, the biting ants.

His life.

CSIVCSIVCSIV

"Nicky?" Tali called.

They'd heard something. A shout, a yell.

They began digging faster.

"Shh!" Archie hissed.

"Just END ALREADY!"

It was faint, but it was there.

"NICK, HANG ON!" Sara, MJ and Tali yelled, pushing aside more and more dirt.

By now it was stuck to their clothes, their hair, their nails, their faces.

But none of them gave a damn.

CSIVCSIVCSIV

"NICK, HANG ON!"

Was that fake?

"Hello? HELP ME!" he screamed. "HELP, SOMEBODY HELP ME, PLEASE!"

CSIVCSIVCSIV

"Hello? HELP ME. HELP, SOMEBODY HELP ME, PLEASE!"

"WE'RE COMING!" Tony yelled back. "HANG ON NICK!"

CSIVCSIVCSIV

"WE'RE COMING!" it was Tony's voice. "HANG ON NICK!"

Was it a real voice?

Or had he lost his mind?

His body overtook his mind in the race to his mouth. "I CAN'T…HURRY PLEASE, I CAN'T HOLD ON!"

He broke off into sobs. "I can't hold on…"

CSIVCSIVCSIV

"I CAN'T…HURRY PLEASE, I CAN'T HOLD ON!"

Several hearts skipped a beat as those muffled words escaped the ground. Greg was the only one who found the tongue to respond.

"YOLO, NICK! YOLO, YOLO, YOLO, YOLO!"

CSIVCSIVCSIV

"YOLO, NICK! YOLO, YOLO, YOLO, YOLO!"

Nick blinked. "Oh, hell no!"

"YOLO!" Greg sang, walking into A12.

"Ah, Greg, you're not into that YOLO stuff are you? That has to be the most annoying acronym on the internet."

"I know. It bugs the hell out of me, man, but it's so fun to say. YOLO!"

"Stop!" Nick moaned playfully, covering his ears, but Greg continued to make a song and dance about things, literally. "YOLO!"

And in the present, leaving his flashback, it didn't stop.

"YOLO, YOLO, YOLO!"

Something in Nick snapped. "GREG, I GET THE DAMN PICTURE GET ME OUT OF THIS FUCKING BOX!"

CSIVCSIVCSIV

"GREG, I GET THE DAMN PICTURE GET ME OUT OF THIS FUCKING BOX!"

Greg laughed a little, hollering back. "WE'RE WORKING ON IT! HANG ON, MAN, WE'RE COMING!"

With the last words the last of the soil was moved aside and Nick's face revealed. They clambered out of the hole, grabbing the glass top of the coffin and heaving it up.

Suddenly flashlights filled the area as the cops swarmed in.

"What the-"

"Do not open the box, there could be explosives underneath!" A cop roared, pulling the teens away.

CSIVCSIVCSIV

"NO!" Nick screamed as his friends were dragged away. "NO, COME BACK!"

He saw the fiery red hair of his sister bounce around her face as she fell on top of the coffin.

"Nicky!" she called through the glass.

"MJ!" he choked back, pounding on the roof. "MJ!"

"It's okay, we're gonna get you out!" she called back. "The police just think there might be some explosives, so you gotta lie still okay?"

Nick nodded, well used to trusting his older sister. The cops moved her off and pulled up the lid and he remained still, reaching out to grab her hand.

"MJ!" he sobbed, dissolving into tears.

"I'm here." She nodded.

A quick beeping filled their ears and they stared at the cops in terror.

Bomb.

With a rush of adrenalin that could make men move cars, MJ hauled her brother out of the box and dragged him towards the others, just in time as the box exploded.

CSIVCSIVCSIV

"We truly do have the absolute hardest high school life ever." Greg sighed. "This place is starting to feel like home."

"I'm glad you guys came." Nick smiled weakly from his hospital bed. His legs felt like they were burning every time the painkillers wore off, but apart from that he was physically unharmed.

Physically.

But no one spends eight hours buried underground without some trauma.

With his friends crowded around him and his Mom and Dad in the corner with MJ, he felt safe. He also felt scared.

Ethan.

They hadn't heard anything about him.

A nurse walked into the room and spoke quietly to Judge William Stokes, whose face crumpled.

The nurse sighed. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Thanks for reading, it means a lot! :)

Guesses or theories on the story?

Please tell me if this story is worth continuing, I'm considering ending it soon…