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Notes: thank you for the continued wonderful reviews!

Chapter Four

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Two people screamed when Mark disappeared from view. Simultaneously, Danny fell backwards into the sands and on the mental count of almost five long Mississippi-seconds of time, the soft out-of-place pop echoed in on the shore's breeze. One was Mark's own mother, Mrs. Paquin, who then roughly shirked free from Mrs. Anderson's restraining embrace with her only purpose being the rescue of her son. Her sandals were off without thinking as she entered the water to round the rocky outcropping while screaming her son's name the entire time. First knee deep, the swells rose quickly to her waist as she jumped and half-swam towards her goal, avoiding partially submerged rocks by mere inches.

The second person who screamed was oddly not Grace but the divorcee, Gina Montrose, who then literally fainted on the spot. To her future chagrin though, not a single person gave immediate notice. The rest of the large group was frozen in a tableau of stunned silence until the four HPD officers fled their vehicles to converge upon the beach. With that certain rise in hectic activity, a child sobbed and then two other parents had the wherewithal to follow Beth Paquin's wake in an urgent sense of terror. Yet, when they got to the shoreline, fear and uncertainty kept them from following her into the dangerous swells.

Hands fisted by her side in fear of what she had just witnessed, Grace watched her Danno fall heavily to the ground. It was as if a big invisible hand had swooped him from the rocks to deposit him harshly into the sands. No longer able to see Mark, she knew instinctively what had happened as her leaden feet drew her back to the beach. The gun hadn't been so broken after all. For a long moment, Grace's stomach was tied in knots as she helplessly stared at her father's downed body. Told to stay away but needing to move, her first tentative steps forward soon became more committed.

"Danno," Grace managed a whisper and then conquered a few more feet of sand to close the distance to her father. She was running by then with puffs of sanding flying in every direction, but her shocked yelp was for the unexpected vertical feeling as strong arms swept her skywards.

"Wait, keiki!" The familiar voice boomed virtually in her ear, yet Grace insisted upon fighting the restrictive hands.

"Put me down! He needs help... he needs... me!" Her tears spilled over in both fear and anger as her progress was duly thwarted by Sergeant Duke Lukela. He and the second unit had already parked and were on their way to the beach in order to help Danny when they witnessed the accident. Their combined sense of urgency increased as each reacted to manage critical tasks such as calling emergency services and then spontaneously deciding how to assist each victim.

With Lukela managing Grace, two HPD officers quickly bypassed the struggling pair as they ran towards Danny, while a third veered for the direction of the boy whom no one could see by that point. Rather than scaling the rocks, that one officer plunged past the gathered bystanders to unerringly enter the waters much the same way Mrs. Paquin had gone.

"Let me go!" Grace shouted while unable to break free from the iron grip. Pushing and pulling with all her might at Duke's arms, she panted breathlessly in a mounting sense of frustration. "No! Danno!"

"Grace, your father would want you to stay here with me. He has help... we're helping him. It's alright." Duke held her firmly, not at all surprised by her adamant demands or her strength as she fought his hold like an enraged tiger.

"Put me down. He's hurt and I want to see him!" Tears increased tenfold as she lost her argument with the older officer only to collapse into his embrace. Nothing was alright as their beautiful morning was turned irrevocably upside down. Her emotions floundered from fear to anger and then back to an overwhelming panic as she failed in understanding such a rapid change of events. Just a few minutes earlier everything had been fine; it had been blissfully perfect.

"No. No, he's hurt." Suddenly whispering, Grace's voice broke in shock. Sammi had listened so quickly to Danno and he had returned to his mother's side with a happy shout. He had been laughing and bragging about finding a real clue to a crime. She was sure that Mark would do exactly the same thing; that he would understand and do what Danno said because it was the right thing. She watched them talking on the rocks, confused by what was taking so very long. Finally, Mark had bent down and it had looked like he was putting the gun where Danno pointed. But then Mark had slipped and Danno... he had fallen, too.

Wending her arms around Duke's neck, she cried into his uniform as her father remained on his back in the sand and not even a finger twitched. Through her watery eyes and breaths only punctuated by sporadic sobs, Grace vaguely realized that Lukela's own partner was disappearing around the worst of the rocky beachhead. Bobbing and jumping through waves much as Mark's mother had done, the last thing she could see was his outstretched hands. It meant that he could see Mrs. Paquin and though he was sure to be badly hurt, both adults now had Mark.

"Put me down." Grace's pleading whisper was faint now. Her head hurt from the stress and her throat felt raspy and dry as it closed tightly like a fist. She glimpsed the other two officers by her father's side and Grace whimpered as Duke carried her back to the patrol car. It was the wrong direction and the chasm between her and Danno seemed as large as a desert. Panicking anew as she lost sight of him, Grace felt Duke gently stroking her hair, then her back as she uselessly tried see what else was happening. It was impossible though to see more than a faint outline of an arm or then a t-shirt for the bodies of the other two HPD officers urgently tending him. Dimly, Grace understood that Mrs. Anderson had shown up to walk along with Duke as he carried her, but she didn't care by that point.

"I want to see him. Let me go." Begging around shattered breaths, Grace allowed her tears to continue to fall as Duke used one hand to open the passenger door of the cruiser where he turned to sit so he could balance her on his lap. Slouching down, she hid her face from his constant and soothing chatter.

"No, keiki. You know I can't do that… but we'll get this sorted out. Don't you worry."

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Through slitted eyes Danny mutely looked at the blue of the sky wondering what had just happened. At such close range, the force of the bullet had taken him clear off his feet and then down the majority of the rocky outcropping as if he was nothing more than a rag doll. Sprawled, with arms flung out wide, his legs were technically elevated at the volcanic base, while the rest of his body lay in hard-packed, wet sand. Not a single portion of his body would have responded to an impulse if he'd thought hard enough to even try to send a personal command. Not a finger twitched nor a muscle trembled from the strain which his system had just experienced. In fact, his hearing had also gone with his sudden crash to the earth and all he seemed to grasp was the mere fact that he was laying stranded on his back.

The dark shadow which blocked the sky was sudden and he blinked slowly once and then twice in a useless attempt to focus his vision. Through the smear of colors, he didn't immediately recognize or understand that a uniformed HPD officer was looming over his head. Nor could he hear any simple sounds which should have been coming from rapidly moving lips. He missed the shared litany of the two HPD officers who were actively gauging the severity of the gunshot wound before finding the blood on the back of his head and then more from miscellaneous abrasions sustained from the volcanic rocks.

"Gut wound. Watch his head... anything else?"

Pressure came and went along his arms, then his legs. It skirted his chest, neck and then the back of his head. Almost partially blind in his shock, Danny lay unresponsive and allowed it all to just happen until the pressure settled determinedly on his right side. The pressure focused and then increased at an uncomfortable rate. It was then his fingers clenched, spasmed and dug into the sand as its culmination created an ember of pain which was driven relentlessly into his very bones.

"Can't find an exit. He's barely breathing... Detective?"

There was a faint hiss of sound which emanated from his own lips in refusal or even a request to stop, yet the pressure continued on with a terrible diligence. His slow blink crawled to a standstill as his eyes dipped shut against that startling blossom of pain which crept into his chest and abdomen before it dropped dangerously into the small of his back. Confused and helpless to prevent the solid mass which began to strangle the life from his lungs a millimeter at a time, Danny spasmodically tried to cough. The barely whistled tendril of air wasn't enough though as he failed to catch his breath adequately, groaning as true darkness teased his awareness.

"Hold him! Keep his neck steady!"

Stirred by panic, Danny convulsed then as the pain spasmodically counter-arched him off the ground while another blurred shadow assisted the first to hold his shoulders down and then keep his head in place; nevertheless, Danny still had no sense of what had happened. He was still deafened to either sound or speech; there was only the fire which sent flames to singe his lungs with each thinly attempted inhale of air.

"Detective, can you hear me? How far out is the ambulance? His breathing's all messed up... maybe a lung."

Writhing as he slowly suffocated from his damaged lung, Danny struggled under the only hands seeking to help him. He couldn't hear the overwhelming commotion taking place on the beach. He never heard Mark's mother screaming as she and Duke's partner carried her grievously injured son out of the waters. Danny could only feel the slicing agony that ripped downwards from his chest and into his back. With nowhere to go, the pain surged upwards once more to find a place where, no matter how hard he tried, Danny still couldn't quite breathe.

~ to be continued ~