"House?!"
Cuddy tries in vain to coax a response from the other end of the line, but the low drone of voices remains unintelligible, drowned out for the most part by the harsh buffeting of the wind.
"For heaven's sake..."
She hisses, but she keeps the phone pressed to her ear; something in her gut telling her that her old friend hasn't merely answered her call in error. For one, it would be rather fortuitous for him to have fumbled blindly with his cell at the exact same time as she'd tried to reach him. For another, she's certain she'd heard multiple voices; fairly sure she'd recognised them as belonging to House's old team.
Some of his old team...
Her brow furrows deeper; troubled by her conversation out on the roof and House's admission that he believes something might have happened to Cameron.
"What's going on over there?!"
She demands, but that indiscernible muttering from further away continues without paying her frustration any mind.
And then, she catches another noise.
An unsettling sound.
A metallic clanging carried by the wind.
"House, you-"
But she falls silent - eyes wide - as that ominous noise is replaced by one she recognises instantly.
A gunshot.
"That was a shot! That was a fucking gunshot!"
Chase cries as he meets Foreman's stare with the same wild-eyed fear reflected back at him.
"I know..."
Foreman grunts, before bringing the large chunk of rock in his hands down for a final time to break open the lock barring entrance to the warehouse. It falls to the floor in a rusted snarl; severely dented from previous assaults with similar intent, but neither man pays this fact any mind.
"Go! Go look in there."
The neurologist orders as Chase pries open the door.
"What?! What about you?"
"I'm going to go check what the fuck just happened!"
"But-"
"-If one of those old fucks is packing, he's not going to stop at one! If House is hit, we're next on the list, and running inside, away from any means of escape, isn't exactly wise! Go, I'll stick to the side of the building, and you better believe I'm calling the fucking cops. This is way above our pay grade."
"This is fucked!"
"It is."
Foreman agrees, wrestling his cell from his pocket as he hugs the side of the warehouse; bowing his head against the driving snow.
"Fuck..."
Chase mutters, his heart in his throat as he suffers a breed of fear he hasn't felt since he was a boy. Ducking into the shadows, that fear intensifies tenfold as he confirms that what he'd thought was the muffled sound of screaming is just that, and he hurries towards that terrible noise with dread snapping at his heels.
"Allie?!"
He shouts, following that hateful sound of pure, unmasked fear with a sense of nauseous empathy. He understands. Oh fuck, he understands the horror in those wails.
"Cam?!"
Running into a room that stinks of stale tobacco, old urine, and sour booze, he slams his palm against the light switch to cast a dusty yellow glow over his surroundings. The sound is much louder now, and he approaches a door marked Faulty Goods with his hands caught fretfully in his hair.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit...
Locks on the door.
Locks on the fucking door, and that shrieking is unbearable in its raw terror, and he experiences the brief half-thought that you never truly know someone until moments like these when it might well be your last.
The blood. The blood in her fucking tub. Her expression when I found her like that, trembling, bleeding, and my god, I was so fucking angry with her for acting like it was no big deal. For acting as though she hadn't scared the living daylight out of me that day and that I should just let it go. Let it go that she'd cut herself open and that there was blood - so much blood - turning everything around her red... It looked that way. It looked that way as it was smeared by her hands and mine once I'd pulled her out of the bath. It looked as though something had died in there because it was smeared thin; looking like more than there was... I knew that, but it didn't matter. It didn't make it any better. It was still horrifying, regardless of her attempts to pretend otherwise... It was still the worst moment of knowing each other.
Pulling the lock back with a grimace, he pulls open the door to be met with a terrible odour and a blood-curdling scream that sends his hair on end.
"Allie, oh fuck, Allie, it's me, it's-"
But he's cut off - emitting a winded gasp - as he's all but tackled to the floor; falling back into the control room to land in a sprawled heap beneath a young woman with a matted bob and dark circles beneath wide eyes glassy with shock. Opening his mouth to say something, he lets out a pained hiss as the girl drags her fingernails across his face in a shaky attack that lacks the strength needed to do him any real harm, and he swiftly catches her wrists and shouts to be heard over her breathless wailing.
"Stop! Stop that! I'm here to help! Please! I'm a doctor!"
He appeals shakily, breathing quickly through his nose as he strives to keep his composure; the girl stilling in her frenzied assault as she regards him with naked fear.
"Doctor..."
"Yes! Doctor."
Chase insists, letting go of her wrists with an apologetic wince as he notes the heavy bruising to her pale skin and showing her his palms in a display of truce before reaching down to wrestle his wallet from his pocket. Pulling out his ID, he assures her shakily
"Doctor. I'm here to help."
"Doctor."
The girl repeats, causing the blond to frown as she does so with a glance over her shoulder, before repeating the term.
"Doctor."
She points to the door she'd come flying through and informs him weakly
"Another one."
"Another?"
Chase asks as the young woman pushes herself unsteadily to her feet to let him up and he realises belatedly just how small she is; coming barely to his shoulder when he stands up.
"Another doctor?"
He pushes more urgently for an answer, trying to peer into the shadows of the foul-smelling room, but unable to see much more than the iron treads of the staircase.
"Yes."
The girl agrees, before flinching when the high-pitched wail of a siren approaches from outside.
"It's okay. Go. Go outside. Go get help."
Chase urges, watching as the woman staggers for the door before hurrying down the steps into the darkness while trying to remind himself to breathe.
"Cameron?"
He calls out uncertainly, sure that the blonde would have made herself known by now.
Another. The girl said there was another. It has to be her. It has to be Allie. It has to-
And it is. Chase comes to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, his hand clasped over his mouth partly in shock and partly in an involuntary response to the foul stench of decomposition that hangs thick in the air.
No... No, it's not been long enough for that. It's not been long enough! She can't be-... She can't!
He doesn't dare think the word as he takes several steps closer towards the blonde, glancing distractedly up at the lockers where bloody handprints form a macabre pattern on the dirty metal.
"Allison?"
Crouching over her, he swallows as he feels an overwhelming rush of relief wash over him; able to spy the soft movement of the blonde's chest as she breathes shallowly.
"Oh god... Fuck..."
He mutters beneath his breath, wiping at the cracked gore slicked beneath her mouth before checking her pulse. Her skin feels icy beneath his fingers, and he wrestles his coat off while shouting to be heard over the voices and footsteps that echo from one of the rooms above.
"Down here! I need help down here!"