Thank you all for your comments on the last chapter :).

A Tangled Web (24)

A sound from up ahead made him startle; his grip tightened around the gun as he took another cautious step.

There was silence.

"Hello?"

His voice echoed a little.

Another muffled rustle. And then sudden metallic clanging, like objects falling together – Andy jumped, adrenaline pumping as he brought up the gun, "LAPD! Who's there!"

And there was more silence, and then–

"Andy…?"

– his heart leaped in his throat.

"Sharon! Captain!" Flynn rushed up the narrow tunnel, his heartbeat and footsteps echoing in his ears. Damn it, why had he lost his flashlight? "Sharon, can you hear me? Keep talking!" The ground was uneven. He couldn't hear her anymore, and all he could see in the light from his phone were the same grimy walls, no room, no – "Sharon! Where are you?"

"Andy –"

Her voice sounded more distant now. He skidded to a stop, turned back around – had he run past her? "Hold on – keep talking!" He started back down the tunnel. "Hello?"

He heard her again, some indistinct words that he couldn't quite make out. It sounded maybe a little closer now that he was running back – "I can hear you!" – but no matter how much he looked there was no room, no door, how the hell was there no door, where was she?! "Captain…!"

Another rustle came from the same vague direction, but from where exactly, Andy couldn't tell... Her voice had sounded muffled, like from a distance, but no matter which way he ran, it seemed that he was only getting further away and why was there no door…!?

He slapped a frustrated hand against the wall. "Sharon, can you hear me? I think I'm on the other side of the wall from you!" How was that even possible? There must've been another entrance, another tunnel– "I need you to keep talking, so I can find a way through, alright?"

Dashing down the tunnel again he nearly barreled over Rusty. He turned away at the last second, averted his weapon; the shoulder he'd injured in the fall taking the brunt of their near-collision. "What the hell are you doing –"

The boy just shoved not one, but two flashlights at him and didn't even let him finish. "I heard you – shouting, did you – " He glanced desperately up and down the murky shaft. "Did you find her? Sharon!"

"Damn it – cut it out –" Flynn fumbled with the flashlights, and finally a bright white beam cut through the darkness. "Hold the other one," he instructed the boy. How had Rusty even gotten here? The ladder –

"I jumped, okay? You said to bring you the flashlight!"

"I meant drop it down, not follow me –"

"I – you weren't there! I tried, okay? You were – I just… I heard you, and – where's Sharon? I thought..."

And then they both heard it, dimly, distantly –

"Rusty…?!"

The boy froze.

He didn't think he'd be able to get the word out past the sudden knot his throat. "…Sharon?" A second of silence that stretched on too long was enough to send him into panic, and this time his voice came tumbling out, frantic, loud – "Sharon!"

Lt. Flynn had advanced all the way to the wall. "Captain! Can you hear us?" He shushed Rusty so they could hear better. "Hello?"

"Sharon!"

"Keep talking!" urged Flynn. Shining the flashlight over the wall, he found it riddled with cracks; finally they discovered a narrow opening that seemed to go all the way through to the other side, like it might have once held a small pipe or something. Maybe that was how her voice carried... "Captain!"

It felt like forever before they heard her again. "I'm here." It was barely above a whisper. The lieutenant placed both hands against the dry rock.

"Okay. Okay, we're on the other side of the wall," he told her. "There's some sort of crack, it might widen further up… can you follow my voice?"

"Sharon…" Rusty breathed. He hadn't processed a single word of Flynn's. When the silence stretched on again, he prepared to call her name once more, a hundred times more if he had to….

"Is there a way… through?"

His hands clenched into anxious fists. She sounded awful. But – but she was there…! It… he didn't understand what was happening, this felt like one of his nightmares, dark and narrow and cold and – was it even real? – his heart pounded frantically in his ears, but – Sharon was there…

"Is there a way… through?"

Flynn continued to light and feel his way up along the wall, renewed urgency to his movements: "There's gotta be, hold on…"

Finally the beam reflected off a surface different from the grimy, root-infested shaft walls. A slab of rusty iron at the base of the left-side wall, reaching only about three feet or so up from the ground, it was no wonder that he'd missed it the first couple of times around.

"Okay – Sharon, there's a grate or something over here…it looks like it might connect to the room you're in." It was narrow and solid, years of dirt caked between the thick bars to the point where it was hard to see the grating at all. Maybe the engineers had meant to connect the old and new tunnels with it, maybe it was some sort of vent, who knew? Who cared? "I'm gonna get it open, alright?"

There was no reply, but he didn't wait for one, either; gripping the edges, Andy grunted with the effort. "Kid, get over here and – push," he groaned as he put all his strength behind it. "Rusty!"

The boy snapped out of his desperate preoccupation. He kneeled by the grate, his breath shaky, "Okay… okay what do I do?"

They both tried moving the damn thing, gripping it at all angles and pushing until they were out of breath and rust and dirt caked their hands, but still nothing budged.

Flashlight steady, the lieutenant studied the grate for another long moment. Thick and heavy, it was set into an uneven niche in the tunnel wall. Beyond it, he could see nothing but darkness. "I think there's something jamming it from the other side." He leaned forward, called out, "Captain. Can you hear me? Is there something blocking the grate on your end?"

Each time, the silence that followed their questions felt heavier, scarier. Rusty yanked at the grimy iron. "Sharon!"

"Hold on." Her voice sounded as faint as before; from beyond the wall they heard some sort of metallic scraping, then scuffle sounds. The wait seemed to take forever...

"Sharon…"

The murmur from the other side was unintelligible, but they could hear more bangs and scraping noises... then suddenly her voice reached them more easily, louder, right through the grate, "I see it. There's a…large… cabinet. I didn't realize…"

She trailed off, and they heard an effortful grunt, followed by more scuffling. Rusty's fingers curled anxiously around the thick iron bars.

After a few seconds Flynn said, "We're gonna try again," and they both pushed with all their strength once more. Still to no avail. There was a tired sigh from Sharon's end, and again the sound of metal scraping against rock, but the grate wouldn't budge, stuck and rusted in place as it was, impossible to wriggle with not enough room on the other side...

The lieutenant's hands pressed against it in frustration. "Sharon, try to shift that cabinet just a little further. We need more leverage on the grate, then we might be able to push the whole thing better from our end."

She didn't reply, but they could tell that she was trying to do exactly that, as there was more shuffling and shifting, punctuated by the same little grunts. Andy tried not to think of what would happen if she couldn't do it. They'd have to find another way around… there had to be a door into the room that she was in, of course, but – how long would it take to find the entrance to the adjacent tunnel? How would they even get out of this one? And his damn phone wouldn't dial out…

He nodded to Rusty, his voice low, tense: "Again. We're trying again!" he warned louder, and this time, their combined efforts managed to move the grate a little. "Almost there."

They could hear her breaths, faltering, heavy, then there was more banging and the next time they pushed, the grate gave way even more. Sharon coughed, a tired, painful sound; she choked a little at the end, like she couldn't catch her breath properly.

Andy turned to the boy. "You gotta try to squeeze through. See if you can move the cabinet from the other side, so we can push this all the way and I can follow. Hang on –" Rusty hadn't even waited for him to finish talking before he'd put one shoulder through the narrow opening they'd created; the lieutenant paused him with a hand on his arm, his expression serious. "Be careful."

It was an effort that left his arms scraped raw and his ribs feeling sore, but the thought of Sharon waiting alone on the other side was enough to make Rusty push through the discomfort and the claustrophobia. In less than a minute he'd managed to squeeze through the grating and the short narrow passage beyond, although once he was through he couldn't even tell where he'd ended up. The light was barely better than in the tunnel.

And then he spotted Sharon a few feet away, slumped against a large metal cabinet, and he didn't even care what the place was anymore.

He'd rushed over without fully realizing what he was doing, and suddenly he was kneeling at her side, hands wavering frantically in the space between them as he had no idea what to do with them, and with himself, and – "Sharon! Sharon – you're... are you – what's wrong?" His fingers were trembling when he finally dared lay them on her shoulder, but as soon as he felt the contact, they tightened instinctively.

She patted his hand, still breathing heavily, head tipped back to rest against the wall. Rusty tried not to wince at how cold her skin felt against his.

"Are you okay? What do you need? It's…You're..." He swallowed hard, his throat closing up. "Sharon…" His hand on her shoulder was shaking. All he wanted was for her to tell him what to do. Anything –

"I'm fine," her voice was raspy, almost devoid of inflection, "help him."

"Yeah! Okay!" What...? Him...?

"Rusty – the cabinet."

Only then did Rusty remember Lt. Flynn; he looked back over his shoulder to the narrow opening in the wall.

It took a lot of willpower to get up and walk away from Sharon, even a few steps, but he did because there was no choice. Putting all his strength into it, he moved the cabinet another few feet, until it was out of the way enough to remove the grating entirely so the lieutenant could squeeze through. He pulled at the man's arms then, trying to help him out of the still-too-narrow space. And then they were both stood silent for a second, panting from effort and anxiety, the beam of one flashlight coating their surroundings in an eerie grey glow.

Sharon had used the edge of the cabinet to pull herself to her feet, but she wasn't doing a great job staying upright and she leaned heavily against the metal doors. As soon as Lt. Flynn got through, he took one look at her and rushed over as well, slipping an arm around her to support her weight. He lowered them both to a sitting position on the floor.

"Take it easy. Where are you hurt?"

She shook her head. "We need to get out. If Jensen comes back… Andy – I think he killed the boy… he's... he might be armed..."

Flynn and Rusty exchanged a worried look.

"I couldn't get the door open…" she murmured, and Flynn nodded to the boy:

"Get the door."

"No!" Her sharp protest changed his mind. Gripping Andy's jacket in a tight hold, Sharon tried to push herself up and stop Rusty, but the lieutenant immediately backpedaled:

"Alright, you're right – hold it kid," he told Rusty. "I'll get the door. You keep an eye on her." He gently pried Sharon's fingers away from his jacket, and shifted out of the way so Rusty could take his place. The way her body sank heavily against theirs sparked renewed panic in the boy's voice.

"What's wrong with her?"

"I don't know." He wasn't sure he wanted to know. "Sharon – what… what did he do to you?" The fact that she only shook her head again wasn't much help. "Where are you hurt?"

"I'm not… I don't think…"

That obviously wasn't true. Andy looked at her more carefully, as much as the dim light permitted – she winced and averted her eyes if he got too close with the flashlight. He noticed her heavy breathing, the way her eyes couldn't focus and she was having trouble sitting upright by herself. "Sharon – did he drug you?" At her slight nod, he only grew more worried. "Do you know what…?"

"No." She squeezed her eyes shut to ward off dizziness, and murmured something that sounded a lot like 'stupid'.

Damn it. There was nothing to do but squeeze her arm as reassuringly as he could. "Alright. Okay, I'll get the door. Just hang on. We'll be out of here in a minute."

Wincing, Sharon shifted in place and tried to stay more or less in a sitting position without Rusty's help, but even that was giving her trouble. "Back-up?" she inquired softly.

"Working on it. Provenza's probably on his way by now."As he stood up, Andy nodded to the boy. "Keep trying the phones. We could use that back-up sooner." He grabbed the flashlight again. "I'm gonna find us another way out."

Flynn left Rusty to keep an eye on Sharon and explored the room with his flashlight until he spotted the dingy lamp hanging from the ceiling. Its one light bulb was dim and unsteady, but made it easier to see the whole space at once: it looked like the inside of an old untidy workshop – not unlike the control room they'd found at Sixth Street or in Commerce, only a couple of times bigger. A wooden workbench sat in one corner, a few boxes and crates were strewn about, there was a table by the far wall, and all sorts of metal, wires and assorted gear cluttered everywhere.

The door was rusted metal and locked from the outside. With no option to kick it down, he began to study the hinges and look around for any tools that might help get it open.

Across the room, Sharon had let her head rest against the wall again, leaning a little more heavily into Rusty who was trying to hold her upright. She studied his face, blinked heavily and shook her head. "God… how did you get here…?"

"It's a… a… long story," he said shakily. "Sharon… just…I thought..." He took an unsteady breath and swallowed hard. "I…" He – he couldn't – "I…"

A painful knot closed up his throat. A tear tickled its way down the side of his nose, and Rusty breathed in again, forcefully. He didn't understand what was happening, but he needed something so badly, and he was so, so...so... Sharon – Sharon… A strangled little noise bubbled out of his chest.

She frowned and blinked again, lips pursing as she made an effort to focus on him. But the sudden sound of Lt. Flynn banging on the door made them both turn their heads.

The lieutenant was obviously still trying to get the door open, but the lack of success was frustrating him. He swore under his breath.

Rusty swallowed, tried to get his pounding heart back under control. "I can…" He hesitated and glanced at Sharon, who was clearly struggling to keep her eyes open. "I can try to like, pick the lock or something…maybe…it looks like one of those old ones…"

But Flynn waved him off. "It is. I've got it."

Under different circumstances they might've have been surprised to learn that Lt. Flynn could pick a lock, but Sharon didn't seem to have really processed what the man had said, and that was kind of terrifying Rusty even more… But at least she was there, and she was real and alive and – and – his fingers clenched anxiously around her jacket – and he couldn't believe that they'd found her, just when it had all seemed so hopeless, when he'd thought they'd given up, but now she was here and – and he just…he couldn't… he…

"Damn it, I can't see anything," came Flynn's frustrated mutter. The boy startled, then looked over again, his eyes wide, his breath unsteady.

He exhaled shakily. "Seriously. I can do it… like… I've done it before, I –" another hesitant glance at Sharon, "I used to break into old warehouses to sleep in, sometimes… there were a lot of doors that looked like this one."

He saw her frown and shake her head, but it was hard to tell if that was in response to his words, or an attempt to clear it. She looked so tired and out of it…In a way, he was almost grateful that the light was so poor because he didn't know if he could've really handled seeing her too well at the moment.

"Give me another minute," Flynn replied, and so Rusty just turned his attention back to Sharon, and he also tried again to dial the phones, even though his previous three attempts had failed. Reception down there was so poor that actually getting a connection was a long shot, but Lt. Flynn was right, they really, really needed help, and back-up, and…

Sharon let out a raspy breath, her eyes drifting shut. "The mall – "

Rusty grip around her shoulders tightened. "What…?"

"Going – to the mall –"

The boy gritted his teeth, painfully. "Sharon – I – don't worry about that right now, okay? I'm … we can… talk about it later, please?"

She frowned, looking faintly displeased. "No," she murmured, eyes blinking open again. "He's going to the mall."

Rusty just kept his hands on her shoulders, silent, a tormented look on his face, but she shook her head and tried to push him off.

"Not you – Rusty…"

Andy glanced back over his shoulder. "What?"

She turned her head to look at him. "He's going to try again…to get into the mall… somehow… he's got a way in, I think…"

That prompted the lieutenant to stand up and walk back over to them. "Okay, go give that lock a try, kid," he instructed Rusty. "Careful." Then he lowered one knee to the floor and said quietly: "Sharon – tell me that again."

She shifted back into a better sitting position, but she was clearly losing the battle to stay awake. "Danny mentioned something… I can't…" She shook her head. "I can't remember exactly what… "

"We've got eyes on the mall," Andy assured her, "every entrance and exit's covered. Don't worry –"

"No… Jensen had another way in. It's how he got out after the … bomb…" Sharon grimaced, shifted her position again. "It's not one of the mall entrances…I think – something about the delivery passage…"

"It's working! It's – it's working!"

They both looked up at Rusty's cry. "Door?" asked Andy. A little surprised, because that had been fast.

"Wha – no, there's a call going through to Lt. Provenza, I – hello? Hello! Lieutenant! Hello!" The boy continued to shout into the phone, asking for help, but after a few moments he gave Flynn a desperate look: "I can't hear anything!"

"Leave the phone on," Andy instructed. "If there's a connection, they'll track it. Sharon – no, Sharon…!"

Rusty turned, panicked.

Her eyes had closed again. Leaning heavily against the lieutenant, she let out a slow breath and winced. "I can't… Andy, I'm sorry, it's just…" Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"It's okay – everything's fine," he reassured. "You know Provenza's gonna have SIS swarming this place in minutes." If they found it. If they could get in. If, if.

"I've got it!" With an almost desperate grunt, Rusty pulled the door open.

"Andy –" Her soft murmur was at the same time a warning, an urging, an order. It wasn't hard to understand what she meant.

"I know, don't worry," he said quietly, even though he wasn't even sure that she could hear him anymore. "Kid, get over here. Get away from the door." Sure, Jensen was probably nowhere nearby – but they didn't know for sure, and they didn't know what was out there.

Letting Rusty support Sharon again, he checked his gun and grabbed the flashlight. Then he took a crowbar from one of the tool crates and handed it to the boy. "You hear anything, you figure out a way to bar that door from the inside," he ordered, "and keep it that way until you hear otherwise from me or Provenza, got it?"

"Lieutenant –" Rusty's eyes were wide with fear.

"Nothing's out there," he said calmingly, "trust me, the guy's gone, and the other one's dead. But…just in case." When Rusty nodded, Andy glanced at Sharon again. Her eyes were still closed, the same slight frown creasing her brow. "Check her breathing. Make sure…" He sighed."Just… keep an eye on her."

That frightened the boy again. "Okay," he answered anxiously, and he proceeded to do just that, measuring each breath Sharon took, and they were slow enough that each time her chest fell he was afraid it wouldn't rise again, but it did, every time, regularly, and after a few breaths he even felt brave enough to shift slightly so he could support her better.

Lt. Flynn returned a couple of minutes later, even though it had felt like hours. "Alright, here's what we're gonna do," he said with no preamble. "There's a staircase to the surface, so we're gonna get outside, make it easier for the cavalry to find us. You hang on to this – " he passed the boy his phone, "as soon as you can, dial it again. Might get better reception once we're out of this hole."

With a shaky nod, the boy looked to Sharon, who had barely moved at all. "What do we do…?"

The lieutenant thought for a moment, then put a hand on her shoulder. "Sharon."

Her eyes fluttered open, and she tilted her head back fractionally to look at him.

"We gotta get up to the surface, okay?" he explained slowly. "I need you to listen to me for a second." Her brow furrowed slightly as she tried to focus, and Andy nodded. "Okay… I'm gonna help you up, alright? But you need to tell me if I'm hurting you." The last thing he wanted was to exacerbate any internal injuries she might've had – and sure, she'd said that there were none, but… "Okay? Sharon, you'll need to say something if you're in pain, alright?"

He wasn't sure that he was getting through to her, but she gave a brief sort of nod, exhaling shakily again, said, "It's fine," in a soft whisper and reached a hand up, fingers curling around his upper arm for support. That had to be answer enough; carefully, Andy passed an arm around her shoulders, and pulled her up. Sharon's eyes squeezed shut and a displeased murmur escaped her lips as soon as they were anywhere near vertical, but with a little effort he managed to keep her upright.

"Okay… take it easy." Already he felt that he was taking on most of her weight; he had no idea how they'd get up that staircase, it didn't seem that she could easily make the climb on her own. But…that was a bridge to cross later. Andy crouched slightly to keep a better grip on her, and tried to ignore his protesting back and the twinge in the shoulder.

"Take the flashlight," he instructed Rusty. "And keep your eyes and ears open."

The boy looked terrified, but he did as told, though the beam from the flashlight jittered slightly in his trembling hands. Andy sighed.

"It's fine," he reassured. "We're fine. Come on. Stay close."

The next minutes were a blur. Rusty could mostly remember his panic, the way he couldn't take his eyes off Sharon, his pounding heartbeat in his ears…

There was a memory of them walking at a slow, careful pace, Lt. Flynn breathing a little more heavily, but his grip on Sharon firm. The way she'd tiredly rested her forehead against his arm whenever they'd stopped, her eyes closing again–

–the flashlight beam had hit a grimy wooden railing and Rusty had been so grateful to see a real staircase, rickety and narrow, yes, but at least it wasn't a ladder because they'd never have gotten Sharon up a ladder…

–he'd opened the trapdoor and winced at the light, which even after sunset had seemed too bright compared to the impossibly dim tunnel–

–helping Sharon out the trapdoor, and he hadn't known how to touch her, what to say, what to do… he remembered how she'd looked so, so much worse in the light of day…

– the rush of panic at the sight of dried blood on her arms, then the anger – right on the heels of his overwhelming anxiety, this tearful, railing anger that had taken him by surprise, and then more fear and –

– something had happened to her hand, it looked red and swollen underneath some sort of makeshift bandage, and she looked so terrible…

– his heart thumping painfully against his chest – Sharon, Sharon –

"She's gonna be okay, kid."

Lt. Flynn's tired voice didn't fully bring reality back into focus, but it did call Rusty's attention, somewhat. The lieutenant had moved Sharon's hair out of the way and seemed to be feeling for something – her pulse? wasn't that how people did it? – with his fingers.

"This looks worse than it is."

But he didn't sound entirely convinced, and how would he know, anyway? Lt. Flynn had no idea what had happened, neither of them did!

"Get the phone, we need that back-up, now. We gotta get out of here."

He'd totally forgotten about the phones! Desperately, Rusty dialed Lt. Provenza again, and it was with a wave of relief that he finally, finally heard the voice on the other end, sounding out of breath, urgent, serious, and oh so reassuring–

"Lieutenant! We're – you need to send help! Please! We're in the park – it's Sharon – "

– he didn't even know what to say first, his words falling out over each other, his panicked thoughts all jumbled together–

And then Lt. Flynn took the phone from him, and said something, directions, something about an ambulance and birds – Sharon's eyes were fluttering open again, and – help was on the way, okay? His fingers had clenched around the scuffed sleeves of her jacket again. Lt. Provenza was sending an ambulance…

"Rusty!"

His head snapped up at Lt. Flynn's sharp tone. The man was pointing to a cloud of dust somewhere far down the trail. "Go signal them so they know where we are!"

And Rusty scrambled to his feet, ran through the underbrush toward their incoming back-up, and stopped in the middle of the trail, waving his arms wildly and calling out as loud as he could, until two cars skidded to a stop in front of him, and Lt. Provenza jumped out of the first one, a radio in his hands and a concerned look on his face.

Rusty had never been so happy to see him.

Hm, I'm not sure I remember how this thing works without a cliffhanger. So confusing, guys!

Anyway. We're slowly moving toward the conclusion of all of the angst. The next couple of chapters should resolve most of what's left of the case, and get Sharon that medical attention that you all agreed is necessary, and also some of those hugs that you all REALLY agreed are necessary :D. Basically, things are looking up! But you know - Sharon still needs to process what's happened to her, and also find out what's been happening in her absence, so... don't return ALL of your antacid bottles to the pharmacy just yet ;).

Thank you all for reading.