CINDERELLA Revisited
WARNING! TONY SUFFERING AND PAIN AHEAD WARNING!
Beta: Mike91848 Who steered me away from evisceration.
Chapter Eighteen
Every time he woke up, he was in pain. He heard the nurse say his temperature remained elevated, 102 or 3 but his lungs and heart were withstanding the stress adequately. Right! The two quacks had discussed decreasing the dosage of their poisons as he was obviously having an atypical reaction to their elixirs and potions, but so far, they were still pumping their garbage into his system.
He was in pain, nauseous all the time, chills and fever. He couldn't eat, not that they offered food; just some broth, which he promptly threw up, and his head hadn't stopped hurting. He estimated he'd been here five or six days, maybe more. Three nurses were a constant, day and night shifts. Two female and one male. He memorized their faces when he was coherent enough. He had even tried talking to one of the softer appearing, possibly sympathetic nurses.
"Please, can you release the handcuff so I can lay on my side. I can't go anywhere while I'm still shackled to the bed." He had gasped out in between the cramps and shakes. She had wiped his forehead and given him ice chips as she answered.
"It is imperative that you remain on your back so that the tissue has a better chance of regenerating. How about I place a pillow under your back? That might give you some relief."
"Why...pant...are...pant...you doing this...pant pant?" He couldn't take a deep breath or talk without panting through the pain. "What about your oath to do no harm? Nurses...have an oath...don't they, like doctors?"
"This is greater than any oath, Tony. All mankind will benefit from this miracle treatment. Your name will be glorified above all others as the renaissance of a new world health. Dr's Shue and Emerson will be considered gods among men."
He tuned her out after the 'glorified above all others' part of her Sunday go to meeting, zealot's evangelizing philosophy. No use there. Funny how birds of a feather in the medical field could always find birds to flock together. Why'd they generate to the field of 'helping' people as doctors and nurses when that was the last thing on their minds given the opportunity. Sick bastards!
The pain had eased up going on twenty minutes now. His cracked lips bled and his sore wrists and ankles throbbed from jerking at the restraints when the pain was at its worst. Asking for softer restraints with this group wasn't worth his hard to come by breaths so he didn't bother. Two years of this, much less two months and he wasn't gonna make it. Did Gregor DiNozzo even have that much time?
When the pain started up again, he went to the place in his mind that consisted of revenge and retaliation. Gibbs, McGee and David, and even Dorneget could dole out retribution to these scum of the earth, wannabe Nobel prize winning freaks. And they could take care of the torture cloaked as a cure all for humanity they were injecting into his veins too.
But he would be the one who was going to kill Angela the bitch DiNozzo. Once and for all. And he was going to beat Anthony DiNozzo, Sr to within an inch of his pathetic life as payment for the cruelty and evilness that he allowed his wife to subject him to.
Then, after his team did their thing with the two doctor's, he'd get his turn and would take great pleasure in injecting the 4ft midget and his porky fat associate a cocktail of acid, bleach, liquid fertilizer and 100% rubbing alcohol and watch them thrash and struggle through their pain with a shrug of disinterest and lackluster response.
These tactics he employed to get through the pain only lasted as long as they lasted, then he just opened his mouth and cursed and sometimes yelled until he was exhausted into passing out. Sometimes he was alone so no one heard his misery but sometimes a nurse was there, and sometimes a nurse and both doctor's. Standing back and whispering and watching.
One of the nurses had told him that the well-to-do patients were in another wing of this exclusive getaway from drugs and alcohol facility, and that this wing was closed down for renovation. No one could hear him scream.
And the phony doctors must have examined him while he was unconscious because they never came near enough to him when he was awake to get another mouthful of spit in their faces. That was all he could do in retaliation, spit at them to show his disgust.
The male nurse even asked once idly, not appearing to care one way or the other, "Can you prescribe something for the pain, doctor?"
And just as idly, he was answered by Dr Emerson. "No. Any drug might interfere with the regeneration process taking place." And the nurse shrugged and went off to have a smoke.
Tony would have welcomed an analgesic to knock him out sometime as the pain was so intense but he fixed it himself by passing out again in the midst of a loud scream.
Ncisncisncis
Margret was in the bull pen again and Ziva wanted her gone. Margret had taken a leave of absence from her job and would show up around noon with lunch or later with dinner for the team who never seemed to leave the building. Ziva would always make an excuse to disappear and no one seemed to mind that she wouldn't eat with them. Too many other things were on their minds.
Other Agents from the other teams always managed to be around when not working a case of their own to fill in; volunteering, researching leads, or just to be close by.
Now, Ziva and Gibbs had returned from yet another failed interview regarding the whereabouts of one Dr Henry Shue. Ziva found McGee, Dorneget and Margret sitting intimately at his desk as they ate dinner. Margret seemed to be the only one that could get Tim to stop for a break or a bite to eat. They were all looking pretty rough.
Ziva overheard them talking about the night Margret and Tony had double dated with McGee and his friend, and how they had plans to fly in a hot air balloon for a whole weekend without landing as soon as the weather got warmer. McGee liked Margret, so did Gibbs, welcoming her as part of their extended family, even more so than Ziva felt she had been welcomed.
"Food, eat." Margret shoved a white box food container at Gibbs as he walked by to his desk. That's what he liked about her. Straightforward and to the point. There was another box on Tim's desk and when Tim called to Ziva, "We got your favorite pasta salad, Ziva." Ziva couldn't be rude and that ungrateful to Tim to refuse the food, but she wanted to dump the box over Margret's head. Damn her!
Trying to get Gibbs to bar Margret from showing up proved futile.
"Why, Ziva?" He'd asked, blue eyes looking right through her.
"She's a distraction, Gibbs'." Had been her only explanation. And yet Margret was still allowed to come by whenever she felt in the mood.
They were now in the bull pen waiting for word from Fornell regarding the FBI's continuous search for Dr Shue. His history was not good. A surgeon, barred from practicing medicine in this Country after losing his medical license because of several deaths in the operating room, and at his private clinic where he performed illegal cosmetic surgery resulting in several patients bleeding to death. He had disappeared for a time and reappeared as a researcher in tissue regeneration and he was rumored to have a female partner, also a doctor.
She and Dorneget were keeping track of Mrs DiNozzo's phone calls and emails but she wasn't communicating with Dr Shue through that avenue. No correspondence at all to him in that way.
Gibbs had even stopped for hot coffee for everyone on their way back and was sitting at his desk going over everything Mrs DiNozzo had let slip during his interviewing of her or vice versus as Fornell was wont to say. He would not second guess himself because his gut was telling him they were on the right track, but he had McGee working on finding out if there was any chatter about one of DiNozzo's pissed off enemies, or any of the teams enemies or enemies of NCIS or...
Gibbs gratefully picked up his ringing phone that stopped the whirling thoughts and the churning stomach.
They all needed sleep, badly. He was going to have to force McGee, and Abby, to go home and get some rest. Dorneget was only supposed to be there part time but he couldn't get rid of the guy, either. He was just there. Hard to make them rest and eat when they were following his piss poor example since he was living out of his to-go bag and had run out of clean clothes today.
"Yeah, Gibbs?"
"Agent Gibbs, Steve DiNozzo here."
"Steve, glad you called. How are ya?"
"Injured but doing okay. Lost a man."
"Sorry for your loss, Steve, you and your team."
"Yeah. So, I got a message you called."
"Have you spoken to your brother recently?
"Tony? No, not since we were at your house."
"Well, he's gone missing. Snatched off the street six days ago. We're working on the premise that it has to do with Gregor DiNozzo and kidney harvesting."
"..."
Gibbs waited for the man to get his head around this latest in the ongoing saga of his highly disturbed family.
When Steve spoke again, his voice was hollow, passionless. His emotions were under deadly control. "It wasn't Anton. Tony put the fear of God into him if he ever came near him again and what would happen to mother if he did, and Anton believed him. He wouldn't dare go against that. If something happened to her, he'd be lost, no...
"It's Mother, Gibbs. Angela DiNozzo is behind this!"
"We know but no real tangible proof. We think she's involved with some charlatan name of Dr Henry Shue. Ever heard of him?"
"No. Damn her to hell! If you can't find him, he's probably shacked up with her at the mansion. The bastard! I'll kill them! I will go there and tear the place apart and when I find him, I'll kill them both after they tell me where Tony is..."
"HEY!" Gibbs interrupted. He hadn't heard the man use that many words altogether since he'd met him, but he did know that every deadly word out of his mouth was a fact not a threat. "They got you on pain pills?"
"Yeah, so?"
"How bad are you hurt. You in the hospital?"
"No, released couple days ago. Arm's in a sling. Had some surgery on it and it's dong fine. Why?"
"You need company when you storm the old homestead?"
"What'd you have in mind, Gibbs?"
Ncisncisncisncis
They'd removed the catheter. He heard them say that he had a urinary tract infection hence the fever. The cuffs had caused chaffing and eventual tissue breakdown so now he had oozing sores on his wrist but his arms were free. He had bed sores from lying on his back for a week. He had lost twenty pounds and couldn't keep any thing down due to constant nausea and continuous vomiting and diarrhea.
The ongoing cramps and headache had not abated, and the only constant seemed the bag hanging above his head with the clear liquid drip drip. He was wan and bleary-eyed and trembling when awake and shaking during his restless sleep. He was totally unaware of the two people in the room and what they were discussing.
"Dr Emerson x-rays show there is tissue growth present. We're not stopping now, do you hear me?
He actually reached out to shake her as he stood on tiptoe to get into the other doctor's face. Intimidated, she stepped back out of his reach but continued to argue. "No, this is not right. He could die here. I'll be ruined. And why is he in so much pain? The other subjects...they weren't like this. I want out, Henry!
She walked around him over to Tony and listened to his heart and took his pulse. She found a clean towel on the table next to the bed and wiped his sweat off her hands with distaste.
"Just, just... look at him! You were supposed to be here to monitor him and yet I find you have not been here most of the time and two of the nurses have stopped showing up. I have legitimate patients at the clinic and in the hospital and I can't take time to come over here just to find him in such deplorable condition. This is not what I signed on for."
Again, he got up close and personal, being small made him overcompensate with women. With men, he used his high intellect and big words to fool and a large bodyguard when all else failed.
"What you signed on for? Ha! You signed on for fame, glory, and more money than you could ever spend. You're not backing out now, Edna! Your daughter is having a baby, the first grandchild for your family, isn't that right?" Edna looked at him in horror. This could not be happening
"Am I making myself clear? Do I need to say anything else?" He continued pushing forward in her face as she stepped back almost tripping over an exposed electric cord attached to something under Tony's bed
She stared at him in disappointment and fear. "I believed in your research, Henry. This could have worked and we'd both be famous and call our own shots. Now your threatening me and my family? How could you? I'm leaving Henry. I won't say anything to the authorities but I won't be back here. You'd better think of something to do with him."
"Don't come back, fine. Just make sure the medicine continues to be produced in your lab and is brought here. And remember this, you're in this just as deeply as I am, Dr Emerson, so if he dies, you're in line for the gas chamber too."
Dr Emerson covered her mouth with her hand as she backed out of the room bumping into the male nurse just reporting for duty. She turned with a screech and ran in stark terror from the room unmindful of the helpless victim left chained behind to the bed.
"Get him cleaned up, and where are the other two nurses?" Dr Shue reached for his phone and dialed a number before walking out of the nurse's hearing. He laid in to whoever answered as he paced back and forth and gestured with his free hand.
The nurse started to clean the patient. He thought the little doc seemed mighty agitated but it wasn't his problem. I'm not paid to keep track of those other nurses. He thought as he started to strip the bed. He noted unconcernedly that this guy wasn't looking too good but at least he had stopped that godawful moaning and screaming. One thing for sure, as soon as he got his pay tonight, he wouldn't be coming back tomorrow, either.
This guy wasn't going to last long if he didn't get some real medical help but that wasn't his concern. The nurse looked up when the doctor finished his phone conversation and left rather quickly without any further instructions. The automatic swish of the doors drowned out the nurse's demand for his nights pay.
The nurse had no loyalty to anyone but himself. He stopped his nightly duties, repacked his dinner, murder mystery novel, and flask of Vodka in his backpack and left. Only to return and unshackle the guy's ankle to pay the doctor back for leaving him three hundred dollars short that he owed his bookie. Then he left.
Ncisncisncis
"My father came home last night. Mother always makes it a point to be there when he's there. Anton is probably there too. I suggest a team go in the front with the warrant to search the rooms. I'll take a team and sneak in the back. If Shue's there, I'll find the bastard."
Steve leaned against Tim's desk in the bullpen. He was dressed in jeans and a sweater, and his left arm was in a sling. The jacket he had slung around his shoulders was now on the back of an empty chair and the gun he wore in a holster at his hip was plainly visible for the first time.
As usual, several women were standing around gaping at the good looking hunk, who looked a lot like Tony but was free game and not off limits as he did not work for NCIS. They had their names and phone numbers on slips of paper ready to slip in a hand or pocket but a glare from Gibbs had the would be harem scattering resentfully back to their own stomping grounds.
Gibbs team, Balboa and Pierces' teams, Fornell, Sacks and a few of his men waited for Vance to give the go ahead.
"If you're right Gibbs and Mrs DiNozzo unwittingly gave up her secret, let's hope that Shue is there. Go! Keep me updated.
Ncisncisncisncis
Tony woke to a darkened room though he could see from boarded up windows some filtered light. Morning again. The pain in his abdomen was a little dimmer but still there, and he recognized he still had a fever plus his chest felt heavy. He also took stock of his festering wrists and back sores as he turned over and raised his legs to ease his stomach cramps. He figured he must have laid on his side for an hour before he realized his ankle was free from the cuff and the place seemed deserted. Usually, someone would be around changing the IV bag poison and offering him soup by this time.
Okay, whatever's going on out there, you're free in here so do something. He pulled himself to a sitting position and yanked out the needle in his elbow and ripped off the cloth covered elbow immobilizer. He shoved the empty IV bag, his mortal enemy, and pole it was hanging from as far away as he could and rejoiced in the clatter it made as it skittered across the linoleum floor and crashed into an unmade bed.
Tony's first attempt to sit up was disastrous as he lay panting on his back in pain and out of breath but he waited a moment and tried again this time getting his feet under him and practically throwing himself over the rails to thump painfully onto the floor. He rode out the pain the fall had caused and then attempted to crawl away from his recent bed of agony.
Obviously his team hadn't found him yet so it would be up to him to get the hell out of there on his own but on his own wasn't working as he shivered and sweated on the dirty floor and passed out.
He didn't know how much time had lapsed when he woke up this time but he knew it was get moving now for help or die ignominiously alone and naked. He crawled to a gurney and used the gurney leg to pull himself up gripping the edge with trembling hands. His feet and legs were on pins and needles but he managed to stand. The gurney had extra sheets that weighed a ton but he was able to wrap a couple around his hips and shoulders.
The gurney was given up for a smaller pushcart on wheels that he used like a walker as he started his laborious trek towards the doors. When he suddenly heard footsteps coming his way, he panicked and almost lost his grip, but determined that whatever happened, he would not be lying on that bed again hooked up to whatever they were forcing in him, he grabbed a pair of scissors off another table and bent as low as he could behind the pushcart hoping he would not fall over.
The doors swooshed and the person hurriedly entered the room and rushed towards his bed. This was his only chance and he had to make it count. As the person walked by his hiding place, he grabbed at an ankle and yanked, forcing the person down to the floor. He threw himself on top of the person and with every ounce of strength he possessed in his straining hand's, he plunged down with the scissors and heard a female's startled cry of pain and terror.
Ncisncisncis
Gibbs and Steve waited around the side of the mansion until the front door was opened and the army of agents invaded the house. Sure enough, Dr Shue's Mercedes was parked behind the 'shed' that was really a garage for the numerous expensive automobiles stored there.
"Bitch! My father's home and she has her lover staying here. Ah, what do I care? He's no better with his mistress sleeping in the penthouse in town. They deserve each other."
Gibbs recognized Steve's frustrated and conflicted emotions after all they were his parents, and the complicated issues that was family. But now they had a job to do. He followed Steve down a gravel path and to a door that was concealed behind a lion's head waterfall fountain. Water continued to spill from the lion's mouth even when the well-oiled door was opened and closed and they entered a long hallway leading to a stone staircase.
"Pretty medieval. How old is this place?" Gibbs questioned as he followed Steve up what appeared to be a circular route to the next level.
"Not that old, really. My grandmother's grandfather bought it and its been regularly renovated since. It really belongs to Tony and he can have it. I hate the place."
Steve left the staircase through a door into the interior of the house. He had told Gibbs that this was the abandoned side of the house where his mother had made Tony live, and his father was unaware or just didn't care that she had done that.
Through another door and a narrow passage that Steve had said led to his mother's own private Love Hotel. If Shue was here, that's where he would be, probably alone as his mother would be with his father.
Steve looked at Gibbs with raised eyebrows. They needed to find Shue here. He was their only clue as to Tony's whereabouts.
"Ready?"
"Let's do it." Gibbs grunted and stood to one side of the door with his gun raised while Steve tried the doorknob which was unlocked. He turned the knob quietly and pushed the door open. Steve raised his gun also as they stealthily entered his mother's boudoir to a sight which made Steve wish he had been born blind.
The nude couple was having sex on the bed and going at it pretty heavy. Gibbs walked around Steve who had come to a dead stop and turned his head away trying to desperately get that vision permanently erased from his mind. Gibbs was able to walk up to the bed without the couple noticing because of the vocally loud grunts and moans, and tapped Dr Shue on his straining shoulder with the pointy end of his gun.
"HEY!"
Commotion, entanglement, screaming and yelling, floundering, palpitations and heart hammering all happened together at that one yelled word. Dr Shue ended up on the floor tangled up in the very expensive Sateen sheet that he tried wrapping around his naked ass while, for the first time in his life, Steve saw his mother looking absolutely horrified.
"What the hell...who are you people, what do you want? Look, please don't hurt me. This doesn't mean anything..."
"It's alright, Henry, love. Leave everything to me. Is that you hiding over there Antoney?"
It seems Mrs DiNozzo had regained her cool as she fluffed up and adjusted her pillows and leaned back as she slowly covered her body with the remaining sheet.
"Are you taking me up on my offer of role playing Agent Gibbs? You could have called first..."
Disgusted, he yanked her out of her bed by her arm, sheet and all as she loudly squawked in complaint, and aimed her towards a pile of clothes in an armchair.
"Get dressed! Steve you got him?"
"I got him." Steve had recovered from his shock and manhandled Shue with his one good hand onto his feet. He held the five foot two man around the neck and shook him violently. "Where's my brother? Where's Tony DiNozzo?"
"Wait, just wait a minute." Shue pleaded as he tried to claw the hand away from his neck with one hand and keep a hold of the sheet with the other.
Steve released his throat and smacked him on one side of his face then the other with the back of his hand. "Where is he? I'm pretty mad right now after having to see your naked ass in the air, don't make me get any madder. You tell me where my brother is before I break every bone in your body."
Steve raised his hand to smack him again in spite of his mother's demands that he stop what he was doing immediately.
"Wait, wait, please. Emerson. He's at the Emerson Sanatorium in New Jersey. She's the one." He said pointing to Angela. "I told her it wasn't ready yet but she begged me to do it...She wanted me to..."
"Shut the hell up. You'd better hope he's okay." Steve pushed him towards the pile of clothes and the man tried to stay on his feet but failed as the sheet wrapped around his legs. Steve didn't wait for him to get up again but dragged him by the arm to the chair and threw him in it.
"You've got five seconds to get some clothes on or you'll be traveling in your birthday suit. Let's go."
Angela, who was now fully clothed walked up to Steve and slapped him hard in the face. He had no respect for this woman, didn't even like her. If she died, he wouldn't shed a tear but he wouldn't act on his feelings and commit matricide. She didn't know what he was capable of. So he just spat the blood from his torn lip on her shoes and walked away from her. While Gibbs handcuffed her for good measure.
"Let's go." Gibbs closed his cellphone after reporting to the other's that they were on their way down with Shue and Mrs DiNozzo and that Tony was at the Emerson Sanatorium in New Jersey.
"Where are you taking him?" Angela demanded as Gibbs forced her to move towards the other door into the hallway and down the stairs. "You are going to jail. We and shorty here are going to New Jersey, mother, and I'm warning you, we'd better find Tony in the best of health. Then Dr Shue will be joining you in a cell and this time you won't be getting out on bail."
"Your father won't allow it, Antoney. I won't spend one minute in jail." She bragged but was that a smidgen of fear in her voice?
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, DiNozzo Sr stood just behind Fornell and to the left of McGee. He stared, obviously stunned at the goings on. His wife in handcuffs accompanied by a strange man in handcuffs, his son Steve with a sling around one arm and a holstered gun on his hip, and another older man.
"What's going on Steve? What in hell is going on?"
"We've got to go, Father. They have Tony locked up somewhere in New Jersey giving him some crap to grow another kidney for Gregor."
"Tony? Grow a kidney? Angela, what in god's name are they talking about and who is this guy?"
"Never mind that, Anthony. Can't you see they have me in handcuffs? Aren't you going to do something?"
"Is that necessary, Steve? That's your..."
"We've got to go, Father."
Ncisncisncis
Tony crawled off the woman moaning under him. The scissors were protruding from a wound in her abdomen and she was bleeding out profusely. "Help me, please." She begged but he was in no condition to help her, was hardly even aware of her except as one of the people who had caused him so much pain. He was hot with fever, restless and jittery, suffering from delusions and incoherency of thought. His only goal was to get out of there and find safe shelter before they came back. He painstakingly started crawling again to a bed and pulled himself up and managed to walk to the doors which swished open. As he stumbled and staggered down the dim hallway hanging on to the wall on his right, he practically fell into an open door that turned out to be a supply closet. A pair of coveralls he found on a shelf he managed to get into. The towels, sheets and blankets he pulled off the shelves made burrowing under them easy until he was fully covered. He tried catching his breath as he lay there shivering until he passed out again.
Ncisncisncis
Anton DiNozzo had been present at the mansion with his father when his ancestral home was invaded by the pigs his pig of a half brother worked with. Men swarming all over in every room looking for their lost comrade in his father's home. His poor father bewildered like he had never seen him. His mother had had dinner with them which had been very pleasant, peaceful. But she had disappeared some time ago after he and his father had retired to the library for drinks.
But this? His mother and some doctor conspiring to kidnap and grow a kidney in his half brother? Preposterous! This was all science fiction crap so unbelievable he had to laugh in their faces. And as usual, Anthony DiNozzo, Jr was the cause of more strife in their family and the bane of his poor mother.
So when the lackey of his brother Agent McGee was on the cell phone with their boss and he mentioned the building waiting to be renovated at Emerson Sanatorium, he knew exactly what they were talking about. He had donated quite a bit of money for the project at his mother's behest. And on several occasions he had dropped his mother off for a two or three day stay for her health especially after some dealings with or encounter with Anthony DiNozzo, Jr.
If that half-breed Anthony was there, he would find him and deal with him once and for all. Otherwise, his mother, in her sincere attempt to help Gregor, could find herself in trouble, even in jail and he could not allow that to happen.
He left the house and walked to his car, though he wanted to run, less some of the agents standing around got suspicious and tried to stop him. The guard at the sanatorium knew him by sight when he arrived at the locked gates and let him drive through.
The building was dark but the front doors were unlocked. He turned on the lights and started searching in the rooms on his right as he walked down the hall. The large room that had been used as a day room was next and as he turned on the light, he noted smeared blood on the floor as though someone had crawled through it.
A woman he recognized as Dr Emerson was lying supine on the floor with both hands clutching at a pair of scissors protruding from her abdomen. She had no pulse or heartbeat. She was dead. This was not good. Where was that bastard? He had to protect his mother.
Anton ran back to the hallway only now noticing the blood trail of footsteps and bloody handprints on the wall. The trail of blood led to a closed and locked door. Dammit he needed something...he ran down the hallway to the fire extinguisher and raced back to smash the extinguisher again and again against the doorknob until it broke, just like he was going to break the head of the instigator and perpetrator of his mother's ongoing trials and miseries. The bastard, how he hated him.
And there he lay staring up at him like he didn't even know him, trying to hide under a bundle of towels. He hauled him to his feet and dragged him back to the room with the dead body and let him collapse into a chair. He was going to slit Anthony DiNozzo Jr's throat with one of the surgical knives he had seen on a table. Poetic justice. The man had sliced and diced his way through his family until there was nothing but shreds left in his wake.
Anton shook the man harshly until he seemed to come out of his stupor gazing up at him in semi-awareness.
Ncisncisncis
Anton. I should have known. So it comes down to this. I looked around and saw the woman lying on the floor in a pool of blood with scissors protruding from her stomach and I vaguely remember doing the deed. I guess she's dead.
Now Anton's hateful eyes are bearing down at me and I guess I should expect Angela DiNozzo next. Anton was shaking me again and yelling in my face; something about the dead woman being my fault like everything else gone wrong in his life. Same old same old.
My brain's foggy like I'm dream walking again and it's too hot to even try to respond to Anton's usual tirade about his poor mother, even if I wanted to. I could have passed out, I don't know but Anton was slapping me while holding me up. I guess he wants me to pay attention so I tried to listen in.
"I'm going to enjoy slitting your throat Anthony DiNozzo, Jr." He said it with such scorn I'm wondering if that's what it's all about, he coveting my name?
"Why?"
Talking proved to be harder than seemed right. My throat was dry and vocal cords probably damaged from all that yelling I had been doing. Yeah, I remember yelling a lot to distract me from the pain.
"Why, you bastard?" He was shaking me again, guess I keep passing out on his revenge. So, he lets me go and walks away, comes back and walks away again, running both hands through his hair like the frustrated bastard couldn't believe I could ask that question. As though it's something I should know, have engraved behind my eyelids to read ever time I blinked my eyes.
"You...it's all about you. You've caused the friction between mother and father from the day he married her..."
"How'd I do that? I was three years old."
"You've interfered and ruined everything in that house..."
"How? I lived in the kitchen, the basement, the closet, the dark side of the house. You guys never even saw me. What did I do to ruin your mother's life?"
I guess I was waking up some. But I desperately needed a tall glass of cold water. And a pizza.
"You taunted her every day. Made her feel inferior because father didn't love her like he loved that bitch of a mother of yours."
Ah, I was sick of the whole subject. He was never going to get off the merry-go-round his mother had him stuck on and I wanted to lay down.
"When are you gonna rip those blinders off... you stupid fool and admit... your mother is a psychopathic, delusional sociopath, huh? You know what the symptoms are, you're a doctor..."
It was really getting hard to breathe and talk at the same time. Plus there were black dots in front of my eyes and my stomach was starting to cramp worse than ever. The nausea was back but there was nothing to throw up. I just wish he would do whatever he was going to do so I could go back to the utility closet where I could lay down in peace.
I must have said that out loud because Anton furiously grabbed me around the throat and started to choke me.
"You think this is funny, something to joke about?"
I wasn't that out of it that I couldn't use my fist to jab into a man's most vulnerable spot so I punched him in his groin and he gave off a grunt of pain and let me go. And I promptly fell off the chair onto the floor.
And just like the old Anton, he took the opportunity to give me a swift kick in the side. Could my gut hurt anymore than it already did? He was on the floor with me trying to beat me to death.
"It's your fault, it's your fault, it's your fault, your fault, your fault, your fault." Over and over he said it crying and shaking me as though that would make it be true.
And suddenly, after all this time and all the missed clues, and when I couldn't even half think, I realized what his hate of me was all about. He had to hate me. Or hate his mother. Because he knew there was something wrong with her. He couldn't wall himself off like Steve had or physically escape like I had been forced to do. Or find other companionship, and leaving the home like his father had done.
His life had been so tainted by her since he was a little baby that his whole being depended on his belief that his mother was sane and whole and everyone else was crooked and lopsided. I looked in his tormented and defeated, even sorrowful eyes as I lay there on the floor and I knew that he knew, and that he felt there was no other options for him.
"You don't have to do this Anton."
"I must. I must save mother from you." He lifted me back into the chair and only then did I notice the sharp shiny scalpel in his hand. I couldn't fight anymore, no strength left in me to kill a fly. He had to hold me up to place the knife at my throat. I just closed my eyes and hoped it was quick.
"NCIS! DROP YOUR WEAPON, NOW!"
I jerked my head up, the scalpel nicking me and drawing a little blood. Anton was behind me scalpel to my throat and an arm wrapped around my torso keeping me in place.
The room was full of agents surrounding us and all pointing guns at Anton's head. Anton was going to be dead with fifteen bullets in him in ten seconds if he didn't drop the knife. I couldn't let that happen. I saw McGee with his left-handed rock steady stance both hands on his gun. Gibbs with his arm raised for a bullseye sniper shot. I couldn't see Ziva, probably behind us, her fingers twitching.
Steve stood there, arm lowered, gun gripped in his hand pointing to the ground. He couldn't shoot his brother, just like I couldn't have him shot.
"Anton. Let him go. These people aren't going to let you hurt him. They will kill you, please, Anton." Steve desperately implored.
"Gibbs, don't shoot him. Please don't shoot, McGee." I could hardly talk but I could plead with them. They would hold off as long as they could. Or make it a non lethal shot. Unlike Ziva. Or the other agents there that I had no connection with.
"We're not going to let him slit your throat, DiNozzo." Gibbs, voice steady and sure.
Anton tightened his hold. He was readying himself to die and take me with him. The room's tensed climate of anticipation ratcheted up by degrees until it seemed to vibrate, ready to explode.
"ANTON!" Another voice, I recognized it; someone else who did not want to see this man die. Even though I didn't matter to him and he wasn't there for me, he had rushed here to save his disturbed son from harm.
"Anton, son, it's me, father." He had come into a room full of people with guns so focused that they hadn't heard him slip in.
"Father? You shouldn't be here. Mother needs you at home. I'm going to take care of this, father. You should leave...not have to see this." He was crying again.
"Anton, my son. Listen to me." Anthony DiNozzo walked slowly up to his son. Back at the mansion, he had realized that Anton had disappeared and was heading for the Sanatorium. His driver had driven like crazy to get him here as quickly as possible and he was almost too late and they still weren't out of the woods yet.
"But, mother, they're sending her to jail...she..."
"I'm taking care of everything, Anton. Your mother is waiting for you at home. There's no need for you to do anything but go take care of Gregor. Now, come on, hand me the knife and let's get out of here and go home. You have my word, everything is going to be alright. Have I ever lied to you, son?"
"No, father." Anton hesitantly handed the scalpel to him and his father reached out to grip his shoulder and lead him away. No one noticed the quick caress to the head of his other son except perhaps Steve as Tony started to slip to the floor in unconsciousness.
Ncisncisncis
A/N: Well, we're down to the almost end, probably just two more chapters to go. I am overwhelmed by the faithful visitors and readers to this story, and gratefully accept each and every review and guest review and pm's I receive. Thank you.
"Dorneget!