A/N: Thanks again for reading. Once again, I apologize for the extremely long delay in updating. I hope to have the next chapter up soon.

Chapter 19

"It's not like that."

"I think it's like that."

"It's not. We're just friends."

Warrick threw her a side-eyed glance as she adjusted herself in the seat. "Yeah. That why you drove him home—"

"He'd been drinking—"

"Uh-uh. And that lowered inhibition didn't play into you staying the night."

"I didn't stay the night." She glanced at the clock. "It's not even midnight yet." Sofia never was comfortable talking about her personal life, especially with other law enforcement. She didn't like everyone knowing her business and rumors knew how to fly around a police department.

"I'm not going to say anything—"

"There's nothing to say."

Warrick didn't believe her, but he finally let it go. Thank God. He was worse than her mother as he pried, trying to find out if she and Kevin had hooked up or not.

It was…a moment. One she would hope would turn into more moments and dinner. Kevin seemed to also want that as well. It's been a long time since she's been in a relationship, and the last one barely made it two months. Like most of them, it never got past the 'getting to know you' phase. Never into anything serious. The last serious relationship she's been in was in college. They got all past meeting the parents and into the maybe they should move in together before she called it quits.

For once it wasn't the guy, but the girl. It'd been too soon. He'd wanted the whole package. The American Dream. House, wife, two point five kids, and the white picket fence. Perfect for a family man, but horrible for a career woman. At least, that was her thought at the time. She wanted to be a cop. He was studying to be a prosecutor. They could've worked if not for the kid-talk. How could she be a cop if she was pregnant? He wasn't a stay-at-home dad, and she sure as hell wasn't a stay-at-home mom.

She could chalk it up to cold feet, but what she really was, was determined. Determined to chase her own dreams before the kids, before the family. She ran. Ran from him and Colorado. Went to Vegas and never looked back. She's had men come and go, but no one special. No one that made her rethink family with a house and yard, and a fur baby.

That was until Kevin walked into her life. Tall, handsome, southern draw and sharp blue eyes. Intelligent as sexy. Dog lover. And for some reason he had a thing for her. She had no idea if he wanted the rest or not, but she was trying not to imagine the ending before they even had a beginning. She was okay just being in the moment, for the moment, and the rest was something they could talk about later. If they made it later.

The cancer bombshell was just that: a bombshell. Kevin might not even have a later. All he was living for was the now that he knew he had. If he wanted her there with him for it, then she would be.

"You thinking about him, aren't you?"

She felt the heat on her face as she shook her head. "Shut up. You're worse than my mother."

Warrick started laughing as the radio cracked to life. "Charlie 22—" It was Detective Perez. "We have two dealers located south of Sahara Avenue, corner of State and Liberace—"

In the distance, she saw fireworks light up the sky over the occult club where Kevin was now, along with Grissom and Captain Brass. "At least we have premium seating for the fireworks show."

Warrick huffed a laugh as he leaned back in the passenger seat and hung his arm out the window. He grabbed his soda and took a sip. She heard the sucking of air at the bottom of the cup and ice shaking. "Need a refill—"

"Charlie-01, shots fired, shots fired—"

She sat up straight as Brass's voice cut through the silence. Her eyes looked south towards the occult club as fireworks continued to boom in the air. Holding belated breaths, they listened to the chaos over the radio as a mass shooting was reported.

"—suspect fleeing in a taxi. He has a woman with him—heading north on 6th, towards Canosa—"

Sofia started the detective's car as she said, "They're heading right for us—"

Warrick pointed out the window as the taxi blew through the intersection. "There." He grabbed the radio as he made the call. "This is Charlie 97, tracking the suspect's vehicle heading north on 6th."

She spun the car left onto 6th as she got right behind the taxi as it continued to fly down the residential street. The taxi spun left, and she shook her head as she made the left turn right behind it.

"Left on Oakey. Suspect vehicle is heading west on Oakey, towards Las Vegas Boulevard," Warrick relayed. Lowering the mic, he said, "I would've sworn he'd turn right."

"Most do," she said as they kept up the pursuit. "It's instinct to turn right. He must have somewhere in mind."

"Yeah. I-15. Clear," Warrick said as they approached an intersection.

She smiled at how well he was trained, calling out the clearance of an intersection as she approached it. Her eyes couldn't be everywhere. As they approached Las Vegas Boulevard, she had to slow down as the traffic got thicker.

The taxi didn't slow as it took a very sharp 90 degree right onto a main street along the strip of Las Vegas. Two cars collided at the intersection dodging the taxi as it jumped the median into on-coming traffic before taking an immediate left into a parking lot and then out onto Wyoming Avenue.

They weren't so lucky as the tires squealed as they slid into the median. The car rocked to a stop, seatbelt catching against her chest as she tried to keep the car from flipping over. It rocked back onto all four wheels as she heard metal hitting metal and glass shattering.

Looking around, she saw Warrick in the passenger seat. All the windows were intact and they were still breathing. "You okay?"

"He turned left on Wyoming."

She gave a nod and hit the gas as she steered the car around stopped vehicles and pedestrians standing stunned on the sidewalk. By the time they were heading west on Wyoming, she spotted the taxi up ahead in the distance, speeding towards Industrial Road. On the horizon she saw the mountains and I-15.

Warrick was already calling it in as the siren blared and lights lit up the desert road. "Suspect's vehicle heading towards I-15." Luckily, the road wasn't as busy as the boulevard with most traffic heading east not west. "They turned right on Industrial," his voice broke through the sirens. "North on Industrial."

She saw the approaching deputy cars from the west and south, converging at the I-15 on-ramp only for the taxi to make a sudden right turn. The taxi was speeding up the street, blowing through the lights as she gained on it. "He can take it all the way around to Main or turn around at the Government Center." As they approached the Government Center, she saw the roadblock in place.

"He's not going anywhere," Warrick said a moment before the taxi skidded over the sidewalk and into the sand lot to bypass the roadblock. "Son-of-a-bitch."

She followed as sand and dirt kicked up around them as she drove over the sidewalk and into the sandlot and around the patrol cars. She had to dodge a boulder and shrubs before the car hit pavement again. "He's desperate."

"Left! Left!" Warrick called out.

She focused her eyes north and saw the taxi disappear down Symphony Park Avenue. A parking structure blocked her view as she hit the gas and wavered around the winding road and made a sharp left onto the avenue and then hit brakes. Up ahead, under the I-15 overpass was the taxi. It was stopped, lights still on, and doors closed.

Jumping out of the car, she had her gun out as she heard Warrick on the radio calling it in. Sirens neared from the west in front of them and the south and east right behind them. Warrick was out of the car, gun in hand, as she called out, "Driver, you're surrounded! Roll down the window and show your hands!"

There was no movement in the car.

Warrick asked, "They still in there?"

She had a decision to make. Go check the vehicle or wait. "Follow my lead," she told him.

"I'm right behind you," he shot back.

Her heart was hammering in her chest as she tried to calm her adrenaline as she approached the taxi from behind. She didn't see any movement in the car. They could have been ducked down, weapons trained at the windows to shoot the moment someone approached. As she got beside the trunk, she reached out to touch it with her right hand before continuing on to the back driver side window.

Peering into the taxi, she found the rearview mirror and didn't see any movement in the car. No one in the backseat. And as she made a wide angle around to the front, not a single person in the front. Her eyes shot up and around as she took in the area. She heard the cars racing by on the interstate, saw the swirling lights of the police cars, and the vast openness of the parking lot and open desert across from the hotel.

Lowering her gun, she shook her head. "Where the hell did they go?" Warrick's head was also on a swivel as he searched around the street under the overpass. He started back towards the road as she yelled out to the deputies, "We'll search this way, you take the west—"

"Over here!"

Warrick was standing by a chain link fence that blocked off the Vegas Creek so people didn't fall down into it. It wasn't an actual creek, but an aqueduct of sorts for when Vegas got rain. It didn't take much to flood the desert streets seeing how there wasn't any topsoil to soak it all up.

She looked down into the concrete "creek" and saw the trash piled up including an old mattress, clothing, and a lot of fast-food cartons. The tunnels under Vegas had become homes for the homeless, and she was currently looking at an entrance to the tunnels. "You gotta be shitting me."

Warrick glanced at her and said, "There's about 600 miles of tunnels under Vegas. The tunnels are here to capture and redirect rainwater if we ever got a flash flood—"

"Yeah, and they house plenty of innocent bystanders," she said as she heard someone running up behind her. She turned and saw both Captain Brass and Detective Perez coming to a stop.

"Where are they?" Brass asked.

She gestured to the entrance of the tunnel and said, "We think they went in there. I don't know how they could be anywhere else. If they continued west on foot, they would have been spotted. They didn't go east. Can't go north or south. Who's the female with him? Hostage or accomplice?"

Brass wasn't looking too good as he said, "We don't know. But…possible accomplice. It's, uh…It's Ellie."

"Damn," Warrick spoke her thoughts out loud as she took a deep breath.

Brass pulled his radio and called it in as he walked around the fence to find an entrance point.

Perez said, "I knew a dealer who dealt out of the tunnels. He had this elaborate scheme set up where he met the buyers at different grates all over the city. He'd take the money through the bars and pass the drugs back through. Disappear into the tunnels, never to be seen. Actually pretty brilliant. Until it rained heavily one night, scattered everyone like rats. He got trapped and the only way out was up through a grate. He clung onto that thing, screaming out for help until a cop arrived. You know what the cop did? Cuffed him to the grate, let him hang there until the water subsided."

She asked, "Who was the cop?"

Perez smirked as he said, "I was. He was my first bust as a narco cop. He was so thankful I saved his life, he became my informant."

She shook her head as she started for her car. She needed a ballistics vest and her shotgun if she was going down into the tunnels under Las Vegas.

Blue, red, and white lights swirled and twisted around the interior of the church. Blanketing the floor and decorating the walls was blood splatter. Littering the floor in and around the blood was glass from the shattered chandelier that dangled from the ceiling, candles and melted wax, plastic cups, spilt liquor, shoes, jackets, purses, jewelry, dried tears and shell casings. Bullets from both a rifle and a 9mm handgun had ripped through the bodies of the dead.

And the dead was what filled his head as he stood in the middle of the room as shadows in the lights moved all around him. He could see every single one of them with their bloody bodies and lifeless eyes staring at him. He was surrounded.

"Earth to Grissom," Catherine's voice filtered through the dark. A hand landed on his shoulder, "Are you okay?"

He shook his head. No. He wasn't. He failed them. Closing his eyes, he pushed the guilt down. The EMT's rendered medical aid to those still breathing and took them to the hospital while the coroners collected the bodies of those who weren't. Once everything settled down inside, he and Catherine, along with Nick, started processing the scene. It'd been hours. Nick had left not too long ago.

He'd been so lost in what he was doing that he didn't know what had happened beyond the walls. "Did they find them? Nathan and Ellie?"

"They found the taxi under an overpass. They're searching the tunnels. Apparently, there was an entrance to one right off the road. Sheriff's here. So is the press."

He gave a nod but felt numb like he couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. His breaths coming in short gasps almost had him hyperventilating. When he'd been processing, he kept his mind off it as he focused solely on his job. He hadn't let it in. Hadn't let his mind think too much about the dead. Now with most of the work done, it was all he could think about.

"Grissom?!"

He heard Catherine's panic voice but all he saw were the eyes of the dead staring back at him. They held blame that he felt in his chest, squeezing his lungs in a vice grip as his own body grew so cold until he himself felt just as dead. One of them. One of many. An army of the dead, and standing in front of all of them at the front of the room, hands raised to the sky—

"Dad? Hey, look at me!"

Kevin appeared in front of him, blocking the sun. He sucked in a deep breath as he felt his body rock hard against the struggle to breathe. He was grabbed around the shoulders and led out of the church into the real morning sun where he stood and closed his eyes against the warmth and took in a deep breath. Nathan and Ellie were gone. They were in the wind. Gone. They had nothing.

Kevin kept his hand on his shoulder as he said, "Wanna tell me what that was about back there?"

"I didn't figure him out in time."

"Who? Nathan?"

"He's so erratic. Usually…someone like him, they, uh, commit mass suicide along with their followers, not mass murder of their followers."

Kevin gave a nod as he looked towards the building. "Why kill them at all?"

He knew the answer. It had settled into his head the moment he realized last night that Nathan was on a suicide mission. "He's teaching a lesson." He saw Kevin's confusion and said, "What's the one thing that every ruler needs in order to rule?"

Kevin looked around, thinking, before saying, "Supporters. True believers." He dropped his hand as he said, "An army."

"And Nathan believes that those who he kills, that the dead, are his army. In death, they'll follow him." They were losing. He knew it. They both did. All that was left was the spiral down until everyone involved was gone. Nathan and Ellie. His mind kept coming back to the two of them. "If we don't find them soon—"

"They're dead. Along with anyone else they decide to take with them." Kevin started pacing as he thought. Instead of helping him, he let Kevin work it out himself. "That means anyone taking the Dagon drug. The last batch he cooks up is going to be lethal to anyone who takes it. Testing stage is over." He agreed. And he had no idea how to stop it. "Maybe we can put out a warning—"

"You honestly think any addict would heed the warning? Every time they put a needle to their arm, they're accepting the fact that they could die. Some will probably welcome it."

Kevin eyed him and said, "Oh, so you're just going to give up? What's your problem?"

"My problem is, it's their choice. They made their beds. Let them sleep in it." He blinked back as he realized what he'd said and let out a breath as he shook his head. He had no idea where that came from. "I'm sorry. You're right. We should get the word out that Dagon is lethal and should be avoided."

The way Kevin was eyeing him made him nervous. It was like he was seeing something in him that he didn't like. Quite honestly, he didn't like it either. He's always had a problem with those who dealt death to kids, but whenever he came across a case involving addicts there was a numbness that settled over him. It almost felt like indifference.

What he understood of that need scared him to the point of numbing it all away. There had been a time when he had drowned himself in alcohol. And with being able to empathize, he didn't want to feel that aching need for a drink ever again. So, yeah, he had a problem, but it didn't come from anything they did, but from what he had done.

"Is there anything else," he asked Kevin as he tried to move away from the sudden unease that they both felt growing between them.

"Yeah," Kevin said as his voice strained from the tension. "I was wanting your help with something, but now I'm not so sure you're up to it—"

Gil glanced around the desert lot as he ensured they were still alone. "I'm fine."

Kevin didn't believe him. "I don't think you are."

"Listen, son, it's been a long day. We've got fifty dead bodies—"

"You don't have to remind me what we have," Kevin sternly said.

He stilled as he eyed Kevin. His anger was spurring his own and he had to reel it in before it exploded. It was in his chest. A fist pushing into his ribs. "What do you need my help with—"

"Forget it."

"Kevin, I'm still the lead CSI on the case."

His son paced around some more, working his jaw as he tried to expel his anger. There was a battle within him, he could see it. A war raging and at the center of it was trust. He didn't know if he could really trust him. They've been making so much progress in their relationship, but recently it seemed to be crumbling.

A wedge came between them, and he knew the source. The abandonment, the unpredictable anger, the whiskey and silence. Kevin had known him during the worst time of his life. He saw him at his most vulnerable when he was so broken he thought he was going crazy. It was no wonder his son still found it so hard to trust him.

He said without thinking, "'And never have I felt so deeply at one, and the same time…so detached from myself…and, so present in the world.'"

Kevin stopped pacing as he glanced up at him. "Albert Camus. Is there a reason why you're quoting a man considered to be the father of 'absurdism'?"

One of the reasons Kevin kept distancing himself from him was because he didn't understand him. Kevin had a hard time putting himself in someone else's shoes. He couldn't feel others the way he could. And since he was so close to him, yet so far, he had a hard time knowing his mind. And for Kevin, the unknown was what scared him the most.

He told him, "You want to know how I am. How I'm feeling right now, and what I'm thinking. Well, that's it. Whether it's me or Nathan, I don't know, but…what I feel is at one with myself, but also detached, and yet…so present in the world. It's surreal. It…"

"It sounds like an out of body experience," Kevin said. "Or you're in dreamland again."

It felt like he was constantly walking through a dream, even when he knew he was fully awake. "The philosophical theory of absurdism is basically stating that the universe is irrational and meaningless; that trying to find meaning leads people into conflict with a seemingly meaningless world. There are three responses to deal with it: suicide, religious belief in a higher purpose, and rebellion against the absurd."

"Okay," Kevin said with a nod. "Are you saying you think Nathan is fighting against this absurdity in the universe? He's trying to find meaning in the meaningless and he's having all three responses?"

He shrugged, saying, "Could be. There's a painting by Franz Stuck called 'Sisyphus'. In Greek mythology, he was a tyrant who killed visitors solely to show off his power. He was punished by the Gods as they forced him to roll a boulder up a mountain, only for it to roll back down again before it reached the top. Doomed to repeat that futile task for eternity. All I feel like we're doing is pushing a boulder up a hill and we will never reach the top. We can't win this."

Kevin's face fell, and, in his eyes, he saw something. More guilt but also a lot of pain as he said, "Alright, I can take you getting inside of him and feeling him, for a moment, but now you have to get yourself back out. This isn't meaningless. Our work, your work, now's the time to pull yourself together and get this guy before—"

"People kill each other every day. They've been doing it since the dawn of man, and they will continue to do it. Over and over, until we're all gone. And this isn't him, this is coming from me. I understand humanity's flaws. This is our worst one. It can't be fixed. And it's also why you can't trust me." He pulled off his gloves as he walked away from his son. "I've done all I can here. Catherine's in charge of the scene now."

He started across the parking lot, ducked under the yellow tape, and was nearing his truck when he heard Kevin coming up behind him. "You can be such a smug bastard, you know that?"

Stopping at the truck, he turned to face Kevin as he said, "What did you just say?"

"Your attitude. That's what I said. Misanthropic, know-it-all, asshole. You know what I wanted? I wanted your help to see if both killers crossed paths at other scenes."

He had two options and right then the logical part of him was taking over as his anger quickly subsided. It took him a moment to fight the anger down before he could speak. Then what came out was, "You think I'm an asshole?"

"You certainly have your moments."

"Okay…" If Kevin wanted his attention, he certainly got it. He was no longer sulking in his head, but back to thinking. "And what makes you think our two killers crossed paths—"

"We know that they know each other."

"We don't know that."

"Yes, we do. From the audio of the 9-1-1 call."

The 9-1-1 call? "No one told me it'd been examined."

Kevin let out a breath and said, "Catherine examined it. Before the police arrived on scene, another car stopped. The driver got out of the car. Archie isolated a voice. Male. He said, 'You'."

"Who did? The driver or Nathan?"

"We don't know. I guess Archie couldn't do any more enhancements. He said that it would alter pitch and tone."

Gil took that all in as he said, "I think I know a guy who can give us a definitive answer. He hears in perfect pitch, so he might be able to say if it's Nathan's voice or not. Anything else I should know about?"

Kevin shook his head, but he could tell there was something else.

It can wait. He heard the unspoken words from Kevin as if they had been spoken. Again, the distrust. "Sounds like I'm not the only one who's a misanthrope, at least when it comes to me."

Kevin looked away in guilt but didn't say anything else. He just slid on his sunglasses and walked away. Gil got into his truck. He radioed it in and headed towards the lab to drop off all the collected evidence. And then, he was going to pick up Sara and go home.

He hadn't slept in over a day.

TBC…