Ho'opakele (2/2)
Part I
The truck bumps along the road for what feels like a long time, then turns sharply to the right, nearly knocking them all over again. This time the road is a lot bumpier than before, and Grace thinks they must be on dirt or gravel instead of pavement, like that time when Step-Stan drove them all the way up to that big ranch so she could ride the horses with Mommy. Her eyes prick a bit at the thought, because Uncle Steve never answered her text message, and the last time she tried to use the phone she could see that all the little bars were gone, meaning that there's no signal out here at all. They must be really far away by now, she thinks tearfully, and maybe they're so far away that even Uncle Steve might not be able to find her.
The truck comes to a halt after a really long time, and the men jump to the ground and pull down the ramp at the back so that everybody can get out. Grace gets to her feet, feeling wobbly from sitting on the floor of the truck for so long, pins and needles in her legs making her feel as though she has little bugs crawling under her skin. She stamps her feet to make the feeling go away, then grabs Tommy's hand so they can get out of the truck, blinking in the bright sunlight. Uncle Steve once taught her how she could tell the time of day just by looking at the position of the sun in the sky, but right now it's all really bright and she can't remember what he said about shadows and looking up in the sky and orienting yourself, and she really wishes he was here to remind her of how it all works. What she really wants, too, is for Danno to be here to tell Uncle Steve he's being ridiculous and to say that he'll get her a Mickey Mouse watch so that she'll learn to tell the time like a normal human being and not like some primate savage in the woods.
She stumbles a little when she walks down the ramp, and flinches when one of the men shoves her between the shoulder blades to get her to move out of the way of the kids coming out behind her.
"Keep moving, kid."
There are no buildings here, just a lot of hills. The truck is inside a whole bunch of fences, now, and she can see what looks like the entrance of a mine. It looks exactly like the haunted mines in Scooby Doo which always turn out to not be really haunted, and the Scooby gang always figures out that the bad guys are just pretending it's haunted so they can do bad things like smuggle jewelry. She heard Danno talking about the local gangs once, she doesn't remember the name except that it kind of sounded like Yahoo or Yahtzee, and that they smuggle all sorts of things like drugs and guns and stuff through Hawaii. She thinks Danno didn't mean for her to hear any of that, she knows he doesn't like it when she hears too much about his work. Maybe these guys work for the Yahoos, she thinks nervously, looking at them. They don't look Japanese, but maybe not everybody in the gang is Japanese, maybe they get people from all over the place so that the cops can't tell who they all are.
"Where are you taking us?" she asks, screwing up her courage.
"Quiet!"
The leader has gotten out of the front of the truck, and he slaps her hard with the back of his hand. The other kids all shriek, and Grace raises a hand to her cheek, eyes wide as she feels the place where he hit her begin to burn and sting. She promises herself she won't cry, but a minute later her eyes make her break her promise and spill tears down her cheeks.
"Quit crying," the man snaps. "Those are the rules. Don't talk, don't cry. You do as I tell you, you'll be fine. Do you want to get hit again?"
She shakes her head, scrubs at her eyes with both fists, trying to stifle the sobs that keep coming out. "I'm sorry."
"Don't talk," he repeats, but his voice is quieter now, like he's not trying to threaten her anymore. Grace trembles, keeps her head ducked as he raises his voice to be heard again. "Okay, kids, grab your buddy's hand. We're going inside, and you're going to be quiet or we'll make you wish you had been quiet, got it? Let's go, let's go, move!"
Grace hesitates even as all the other kids start filing obediently into the mine's entrance. It looks dangerous, and Danno always warned her not to go into places that were abandoned like that because she could get hurt or catch tetanus. Besides, if she goes in there where it's hidden, Uncle Steve might never find her and she'll be all alone with the bad guys and they could do anything they wanted to her. She looks back at the truck, then back over at the fences. They're too high for her to climb over, but the gate where they drove through is still open. It looks to her like maybe there should be a man in the booth by the gate to make it close, like in those big parking lots they had back in New Jersey―only there they didn't have fences, just those big yellow and black-striped barriers that went up and down. Danno used to let her press the button on the automatic ones, but sometimes there was a man in the booth who had to make them go up or down.
Uncle Steve wouldn't want her to go in the mine with the bad guys, and Danno wouldn't either. There's no way to signal for help inside, no getting away from them once she's in there. They might tie her up, or throw her down one of those big holes like in the movies. She's seen a lot of TV shows about people in abandoned mines, and they always get trapped by cave-ins because it's not safe. She wonders if she should tell the bad guys about the cave-ins, but she doesn't think they'd listen to her. No one listens to little kids except for Danno and Uncle Steve and sometimes Mommy, too, because Mommy is pretty cool even if she makes Grace do stuff she doesn't want to do. It's good for her, Grace knows this even when it means she has to eat brussels sprouts that are really overcooked. Mommy wouldn't want her to go in where it's not safe, either. The man told her not to talk, though, and her cheek is throbbing from where he hit her, and she doesn't want to get hit again.
Grace looks at the open fence, back toward the mine, back toward the fence again, and makes her decision. She drops Tommy's hand, edges away a little at a time while the men's backs are turned. They're keeping an eye on the other kids, making sure they're all going into the mine and not talking and not looking back at her yet, and she knows this is the only chance she's going to get to get away from them and somewhere she can signal to Uncle Steve. So she holds her breath, waits until she's sure they're not looking at her, then turns and runs as fast as she can toward the gate.
She clears the first set of gates within seconds, and for a moment her heart soars because she doesn't hear anything. I've made it, she thinks for a second, and then her heart leaps right into her mouth because the bad guys are shouting, and she knows there's no one else they could be shouting at.
"Stop! Stop right there, kid!"
She keeps running, gets past the second gate, doesn't stop even then because they're going to come after her and she really, really hopes that they're not just going to shoot her because she's sure that getting shot must really hurt. Danno's been shot before and he ended up in the hospital every time and Mommy cried whenever she thought Grace couldn't hear her. She doesn't want Mommy to cry because of her and she knows Danno would be really upset too, but she doesn't stop running, keeps going along the dirt road right up until she comes to a turn in the road that leads all the way back the way they came. She's sure of it, but she's sure that she shouldn't stay out here in the open, not when the bad guys are so much bigger and can outrun her or maybe even just shoot her because there's nothing to stop them. The road turns here, but that's because going off the road means going down a really steep hill, so she runs straight ahead, right into the bright green underbrush, arms up to protect her face from getting scratched by all the branches sticking out.
She can still hear shouting behind her, and that means they're still coming after her, still determined to catch her and bring her back, maybe even hurt her if they get their hands on her, but she can't stop now, definitely not now that she's broken all the rules they set out. You get punished if you break the rules, even if the rules are unfair and the people making them are bad guys, and she doesn't know how they're going to do it except that it won't be like at school or at home. Grace puts on a burst of speed, but she can't see where she's going, and she trips over something ―maybe a root or a rock, she can't tell― and she falls headlong down the hill, rolling over and over like it's one of those games she plays with her friends, except this time it's not a soft lawn she's rolling on. She feels every single branch and rock and protrusion she hits going down, jabbing and poking at her and ripping at her clothes, and she cries out in pain a few times before she finally comes to a stop about three-quarters of the way down the hill, completely winded.
For a second she thinks she won't be able to get back up, but the voices of the men coming closer forces her to her feet, shaking so hard she can barely make her legs move. They're going to catch her if she stays here, and she can't let that happen. If she gets away she can find somewhere there will be little bars on her phone again, and she can get hold of Uncle Steve and he'll come rescue her. He doesn't know where she is out here, can't possibly know where the bad men took her, and it's up to her to help him find her. She won't cry, she tells herself. Only babies cry when they're scared, and she's not a baby. She's not a baby and Uncle Steve would want her to be a brave girl and get away from the bad guys so he can come and save the day.
She takes a step forward, then another one, starts running again as soon as her legs stop shaking so hard. She can't run as fast now―there's a sharp pain in her tummy when she runs and her legs hurt from where she fell and it's harder to catch her breath―but she still runs as fast as she can. She can see a stream at the bottom of the hill, and she thinks maybe if she can get across the men won't be able to find her as easily. Or maybe she could just duck underwater and swim that way and they won't be able to see her at all. She keeps running, because she can't think of anything else to do.
The water looks a lot deeper than she thought when she first started running towards it. Grace is a good swimmer―everyone says so, and she loves going out into the ocean to swim―but she remembers Mommy telling her all about how fast currents can be treacherous and that it's really dangerous to go swimming when you don't know what's under the surface of the water. She hesitates on the bank of the river, and that's when the bad guys catch up.
A hand clamps painfully on her arm, and she cries out in pain as strong fingers dig into the skin and muscles. "Got you, you little bitch!"
Grace screams, then, struggles to pull away, but the man's grip is too strong to break. She kicks at him, tries to bite his other hand when he tries to grab her more tightly, struggles and yells and starts to cry even though she promised herself she wouldn't.
"Let go! Let go of me stop it!" she screams as loudly as she can, because that's what Danno and Step-Stan's head of security both agreed on: if someone's trying to grab you, then you struggle as hard as you can and you yell really, really loud so that people all around will hear you and come help you. "Help me!" she screams. "Help! Let go of me! Let me go let me go stop!"
She kicks and claws, reaches for anything that she can scratch at, and feels cloth come away in her fingers. For a moment both she and the man stand absolutely still, staring at each other in shock, his black mask dangling from her fingers. She can see his face in the bright light of day, and he kind of looks like he might be from the island, but his skin is pale and his eyes are grey instead of brown, and the expression on his face is murderous. She feels her eyes widen, then tries to twist away when she feels his grip loosen ever so slightly.
He's too fast for her, though, and as she turns his grip tightens again and a hand clamps over her mouth. "Shut up, kid, or I will make you shut up."
She spits over the hand, tries to bite him again, but he's so much bigger, so much stronger that she can't do anything now except wriggle uselessly in his arms, held pressed up close to the man's chest. He flips her face first onto the ground, then, pins her wrists behind her, and she feels something thin and hard being wrapped around her wrists. She thinks it must be those plastic handcuffs Danno sometimes uses, because it doesn't feel like metal. He ties her feet together too, then she feels herself being lifted off the ground and thrown over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. Danno sometimes carries her like this when they're playing, spins her around and around until she's dizzy and shrieking with laughter, but there's nothing funny about this. This isn't a game at all, and tears spill down her cheeks as the man carries her back up the hill.
She can't see where they're going now, but the ground quickly goes from green to brown, and she knows they're going right back to the mine. The man walks almost as fast as Gracie can run, and she cries harder, knowing that there's no way she was ever going to escape by herself. Steve and Danno don't even know where she is, and Danno is thousands of miles away and she's never going to see him again or Mommy or Step-Stan or the baby. The man carries her all the way into the mine until all the sunlight is gone and she can't see anything at all, can only hear the sound of his footsteps and his heavy breathing and her own heartbeat loud in her ears. When he finally puts her down they're alone and she can't even tell where the other kids are. By now her eyes have adjusted a little to the darkness, and she can still see his face even though it's partially obscured in shadow.
"Well, kid, you've just made my life a lot harder," he says, staring down at her. "You weren't supposed to see any of us, and now you have. Do you know what that means?"
She doesn't move. She shouldn't answer any of his questions, she knows that. Anything she tells him is stuff he can use later. "What are you going to do with me?"
"Well, what I don't want to do is kill you. This was supposed to be uncomplicated, and no one was going to get hurt. But you just had to go and play Pippi Longstocking, didn't you?"
Grace doesn't know who that is, but it doesn't appear to matter. "I'm sorry."
"I'll bet you are," he says, but it doesn't sound like he really believes her. "So here's what's going to happen. All your friends are going to get out safe and sound once we get our money. You, on the other hand, are going to stay here. My own friends and me, we need to get off the island before we can let you go. So you're going to stay back here, nice and tied up, until that happens. If you're lucky, when we're clear, we'll send a message to the authorities so they'll know where to find you. If you're not lucky, no one's ever going to find you again."
"What if I promise not to tell?"
The man gives her a flat look. "Can't take the risk. Besides, I don't believe you. You're more trouble than all the rest of them put together. So you're going to stay here, where I can keep you out of trouble."
"My uncle Steve is going to rescue us anyway," Grace tells him defiantly. "And then he and my daddy are going to put all of you in jail!"
"Sure, kid. I'm sure your dad's a superhero."
She glares. "My uncle's a Navy SEAL and my Daddy's a detective. Just you wait and see, you'll be sorry!"
The man pulls a bandana out of his pocket and dangles it in front of her. "Don't make me gag you too, kid. You going to be quiet, or do I have to stuff this in your mouth?"
Grace keeps glaring, but she closes her mouth, feeling her teeth click together. When Uncle Steve gets here, he'll need her to be able to yell so he knows where she is.
"Good girl. You make a single noise, and I'm going to come right back and gag you, so you sit tight and keep your mouth shut. Got it?"
She nods, scoots back until she's pressed against the wall of the mine, the hard ground cold under her bum. Her fingers brush against rock. Her wrists are bound tightly, but she can still wriggle her fingers and thumb and she's not getting pins and needles yet. The man strides away, and he doesn't even untie her ankles, just leaves her there in the cold and the dark. Even though she keeps promising herself that she won't cry anymore, she's not really surprised when more tears spill from her eyes and run, hot and salty, down her cheeks and over her lips.
Please come and get me, she finds herself praying again, fervently, even though Uncle Steve can't hear her. Please.
~*~
The school bus is in better shape than Steve could have hoped for. It went off the road and down a steep incline, and the fact that it's not totally mangled is a testament to the driver's skill. Unfortunately, that skill did nothing to help the poor bastard, who's lying face down on the ground next to two women. Steve doesn't touch them, leaves them to the crime scene techs to deal with, but from the overall descriptions he guesses one of them must be Grace's teacher, Mrs. Blake, and the assistant teacher who was accompanying the class on the field trip.
He flexes the fingers of his right hand next to his thigh to keep from forming a fist. The idea of Grace in the hands of these sons of bitches makes him want to find them, grind them into paste and then drop them at the bottom of the deepest pit he can find, never to be taken out ever again. Anger isn't a luxury he can afford right now, however. He hasn't heard from Danny in well over an hour, but he assumes that means Danny found a flight back and is returning at this very moment, as fast as the plane can take him. The thought makes him feel a little better, but he hates not being able to talk with Danny, to make sure he's okay, make sure he's holding up. He hates not having Danny here, right by his side, even if it means he'd have to deal with Danny inevitably freaking out because his baby girl is in the hands of kidnappers with no qualms about killing people to get what they want. For all that he and Danny rarely see eye-to-eye on anything, Steve has come to rely on him for an objective opinion when he gets too focused on a case, for a badly-needed smack when he lets his own obsessions get the better of him. Danny keeps him grounded, and he wishes he was here right now to call him a Neanderthal and then turn right around and threaten to carve out these bastards' hearts with a blunt spoon for ever coming near his daughter.
The kidnappers, whoever they are, have moved beyond kidnapping and right onto murder, which means a whole new playing field. In one sense, he can understand why they did it: frightened children are much easier to control than children who have authority figures they know and trust to guide their actions. Still, it's risky, what they did, which means they're not only ruthless and willing to kill, but they're likely also desperate. Murdering these people means the kidnappers know that they have no way out except to have their demands met and escape.
Kono jogs up to him, cell phone in hand. "We've got a ransom call," she says, a little out of breath. "The parents each got a call with a recorded message. They're demanding two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per kid, delivered at a location of their choosing at the end of the day."
Steve does some rapid math. "Grace's text message said four kidnappers. That comes out to about one and a half million dollars per man, supposing they split their shares equally. It's risky, though, demanding that high a ransom in such a short period of time."
"They picked the most expensive school on the island to target," Kono shrugs. "And they weren't wrong. All the kids' parents can come up with that sort of money, all but a few, anyway. There are a couple of kids in the class who are scholarship students, and there's no way their parents can come up with that sort of money, but a few of the other parents have offered to cover the ransom for them, too. I'll admit, I was surprised, but at least it's a good surprise, right?"
In spite of himself, Steve is impressed. It's not often people are willing to step up to the plate like that. He wonders if Stan is one of those parents. "Any word from Chin on tracking Grace's cell phone?"
"We've got a fix on the last location that picked up her transmission, and that gave us directionality. Chin's got a couple of different bearings, but there's been nothing for a while now. Either they took her phone or they're still using a frequency jammer."
Steve nods. "Okay, that's a start at least. I need you to head back to HQ, get started with Chin on more interviews, and set up a task force to get moving the minute we have a better idea of where they've taken the kids. The sooner we get an I.D. on these people, the better. If nothing comes up, then I want eyes on the drop-off point, see if we can't put a tracker in the bag with the ransom. I'd rather we not give into these people's demands at all if we can help it, though."
"Copy that," Kono agrees. Giving the kidnappers the ransom money all but guarantees that they'll just kill the kids and make a run for it. "It's a pity the calls were a recording, there was almost nothing we could get off them. The number they used was re-routed a bunch of times, but Chin traced it back to a burner phone. Useless."
"Damn it," Steve mutters, striding back up the hill, Kono right behind him. "I'm going to take a motorbike out, head in the direction we got for the signal. I'm going to see if I can't do some scouting on my own. I'll keep in touch. Update me if there's anything, all right?"
"You sure you don't want me to come with you?"
He hesitates. "No, I need you and Chin on point for the ransom demand. If the kidnappers get back in touch with any of the families, I want the best possible people there. I'll stay in touch," he repeats. "The minute I find something, I'll contact you. We're going to need back-up on this, make sure the kids stay safe." Danny wouldn't want him running in there on his own, guns blazing. 'You're not Rambo,' he'd tell him, poking him viciously in the chest, and then he'd roll his eyes and threaten Steve with bodily harm if Steve so much as tried to point out that Rambo was in the Army.
Kono doesn't look happy, but she nods, heads back toward her car, and Steve checks the coordinates that Chin forwarded to his phone. Gracie's cell phone pinged off two towers before the signal was lost, which gives him a direction to start in, at least. He knows the area pretty well―not as well as some, but well enough to serve his purposes―and he figures that the kidnappers probably found themselves a decommissioned mine to hide the kids, or maybe one of the outlying buildings, which would be safer but more visible and less easily defended in case someone did find them. He makes good time right up until he gets to the last location Chin was able to capture, and stops in his tracks. He's in the middle of the road still, watching it stretch out for what seems like miles ahead of him. There's nowhere to go but forward, at least―no turnoffs yet, nowhere that a truck could easily disappear along with twenty-five school-aged children.
He purposefully slows his pace, checks the time and sees that he's been travelling for nearly an hour. There are several roads that join up with this main one, all of them dirt tracks that show no signs of recent usage, and certainly no signs of a truck going by at all. It doesn't take much longer before he does find a turn-off veering sharply to the right where there's a distinct and fresh set of tire tracks. A sign that's looking significantly weather-worn warns potential trespassers away from the private property, but apparently that didn't stop the kidnappers from going in anyway. There aren't any cameras that Steve can see―any closed-circuit surveillance would be long gone by now, since the mine is no longer active―but there's no point in running the chance of attracting any kind of attention to himself, so he stashes the bike in the foliage, determined to continue on foot from here on in. First, though, he calls Chin for an update.
"I was about to call you, brah," comes the good news. "I got a location on Grace's phone. It's less than a mile away from your current position, actually," Chin says after a short pause. Steve can hear him tapping away furiously at his keyboard. "The signal's weak, but it's definitely the same phone. I'm sending the coordinates to your phone. I'm working on getting satellite imagery for the area, but it'll take a little while longer."
"Okay, good. I'm guessing they've got the kids in or near one of the mines around here. Can you send me a map of the area with the mines marked on it? I'm going to see if I can get a visual on Grace in the meantime. She might have been able to get away, or at least turn her phone back on."
"Sending it now," Chin assures him. "But those mines are really unstable, so I wouldn't go charging in there if you can help it. Anything could set off a cave-in."
"Duly noted. Okay, I'm heading out, setting my phone to vibrate so I don't attract any undue attention."
"Stay in touch, you hear?"
"I will."
Gracie's not in the same place as her cell phone. Even with all his tracking skills and the exact coordinates right to hand, Steve spends a frustratingly long time casting about in the underbrush with no sign at all of his friend's daughter. It occurs to him that the phone itself might have been dropped or thrown into the thick foliage, and he spends quite some time questioning his decision to follow the signal rather than simply continuing up the road and checking out the mine directly. He tells himself that if the phone isn't out here, then he's probably barking up the wrong tree. At least if he finds the phone then it means he's in the right place, and all he has to do is call it in. Chin's already promised to send back-up anyway, they're closer than Steve thought they would be. He blames Kono for that: knowing her she probably told them to follow him at a discreet distance―maybe a fifteen-minute remove, just to be sure he wouldn't be able to spot them or even hear them―and provide support the moment he needed them.
He finds the cell phone at the bottom of a hill next to a stream, half-hidden in the undergrowth. It's a good thing the phone is pink, he tells himself, because otherwise he would never have found it at all. He'll have to tell Danny about that when all this is over, because of just how loudly he complained about his daughter's having a cell phone with a Barbie-pink case with rhinestones embedded in it. Gracie loved it, of course, said it was the kind of phone a princess would have, and flat-out refused when Danny had tried to coax her into at least getting a Dora the Explorer case for it.
He picks it up, checks it for signs of damage or anything else that might point him towards his partner's little girl. Apart from a scratch all the way down the back of the phone, though―and that means they'll have to replace the beloved casing―there's nothing of use to be found on it. The hillside itself tells a different story, though: he can see where the leaves have been ripped and crushed when something―or someone―fell down the hill not too long ago. Something happened here, and by the looks of it Gracie herself was at the bottom of this hill not more than two or three hours ago. The footprints are difficult to read, partially obscured by the underbrush, but he can clearly make out two sets-one belonging to a child and the other to a man wearing heavy boots. The smaller set of prints goes in one direction, followed by the larger set, only to disappear after only a few steps. The larger set doubles back and leads back up the hill, and the deeper impressions tell him that Gracie's attempt at escape was short-lived. Assuming that the kidnappers have the kids in the mine that's closest to him according to the map Chin sent, that means Gracie might still be up there, even now.
Infiltration is Steve's specialty. He's had the training for a lot of different types of field work, but sneaking in and out of places has always been what he loves doing best. Despite what Danny might have to say on the topic, Steve is actually pretty damned good at going unnoticed, at getting where he needs to go without ever being seen. He goes up the hill following the gentle curve of the land, keeping close to the ground and mostly hidden by the foliage, wishing he'd known beforehand what sort of terrain he was going to be encountering. He's still dressed in his cargo pants and a navy blue polo shirt, which aren't exactly the most stealthy colours in his present situation. Still, no one appears to be watching the hill directly. Presumably the four kidnappers are too busy watching either the kids or the road, and that's just fine by Steve. If they're expecting an outside threat to come from the road, which would be the most logical step, then they won't be expecting anything from another direction and therefore won't spend the manpower on keeping watch there.
Steve doesn't know much about mines except for the fact that they tend to collapse at inopportune times and are a really terrible place to hide in for that exact reason. He does know, however, that mines need to be ventilated in order to keep the miners alive and healthy, and ventilation means that there must be other access points. Therefore, the mine has more than one way in. He doesn't know exactly where they are, but ventilation shafts need maintenance just like anything else, and that means he can probably get inside if he plays his cards right.
He creeps along the ground once he's at the top of the hill, trying to approach the fence from what he hopes is a blind spot in the enemy's surveillance, and pulls out his phone again.
"Chin," he says when the line picks up on the other end, "I'm pretty sure I've found them. I've got a truck here, and recent tracks at the entrance to a mine. You can send in the back-up, but tell them to stop outside of visual range until I'm sure we can get the kids out. We don't want the kidnappers panicking and killing anyone. Can you get me specs on the mine inside? I want a ventilation shaft, anything I can use to get inside, get a layout of the different tunnels so I don't get lost."
"You can't possibly be thinking of going in there alone," Kono comes onto the line, and Steve guesses Chin must have put him on speaker phone.
"Kono, we don't have time to argue about this. The kids are in there and I have no idea how jumpy or paranoid these guys are. A full-frontal assault could set them off, and I don't want to risk that, not when Gracie's in there and all those other kids. It's way too dangerous. If I can do some recon, feed intel back to the team, then we can plan this so that we take them out without there being any collateral damage."
"Steve..."
"Kono, it's Gracie."
"Fine." She sounds unhappy, but there's nothing he can do about that now.
"Okay," Chin breaks in. "I can try to walk you through this―the file isn't good enough quality to show up well on your phone and I don’t have time to clean it up for you. You've got maybe one or two maintenance shafts that you can use, but you'll have to be very careful. This mine hasn't been active in years, and there are known issues of structural integrity in some areas. What sort of gear do you have? You got a vest? Flashlight?"
"Yes, and yes," Steve refrains from rolling his eyes, tucks his phone into the holster at his belt and adjusts his earpiece to keep his hands free. "Got you on hands-free now. What am I looking for?"
"Where are you exactly?"
"Perimeter, slightly south-west of the entrance. I've got a truck out front, what looks like one guy keeping watch over the truck and the main gate, but he definitely hasn't spotted me."
"All right. You've got your first access point about a hundred and fifty yards south-east of the mine entrance, so basically in a straight line from where you are, but you're going to have to get closer to the mine proper. You'll have to be right on top of it before you'll see it, and I have no idea what sort of shape it's in."
It takes what feels like a long time. Steve circles around a little, scales the fence at an angle he hopes won't be seen by the man standing guard, uses his shirt to protect his hands from the barbed wire. He drops into a low crouch on the other side of the fence, feet kicking up dust as he lands, sprints the last few yards until he's sure the mine will conceal his presence, takes a moment to pull his shirt back on and readjust his vest. Chin stays silent in his ear, but he knows the comms are open, knows that he and Kono are listening in, holding their breath even as they can hear him breathing, can hear the tell-tale sounds of running, of keeping still. This isn't the first time they've done this, either.
The first access point is all but useless, the ventilation shaft blocked by debris, and Steve curses under his breath, lets Chin direct him to the next one, which is mercifully free of any kind of blockage. He eases himself into the opening, bracing himself with hands and feet, hisses through his teeth when a section of it gives way and sends him sliding a few feet, the rough walls scraping his hands and arms as he lets himself down. He's not exactly equipped for this, no matter what he told Chin, but Grace is in there, alone and scared, and he's not going to leave her for a minute longer than he has to.
"Okay, brah," Chin is talking quietly, keeping the sound levels to a minimum. "You should be seeing a point roughly to your north where the tunnels meet up. See it?"
"Got it."
"Head up that way. The northeast tunnel goes directly to the mine entrance, the north tunnel takes a slightly roundabout route through another mining area, and the northwest tunnel takes you farther into the mine. So northeast is your fastest route, but you're likely to run right into them that way."
"Got it. I'll keep out of sight. Who's coordinating the SWAT team?"
"That would be Captain Hale. I've got him on the other line, awaiting instructions."
"Okay. As soon as I have a visual on their positions I'll let you know. You tell him where they are, what they're doing, what the weaponry is like, and you tell him to move in the minute he's got his strategy in order. I want up-to-the-minute updates on everything, and I'll provide support from in here."
"You got it. Hang tight, I'll let you know what he says in a minute."
The line goes silent except for the sound of Kono's breathing now, and Steve guesses that Chin must have taken the call on another phone or in another room in order to keep the lines free for him to stay in contact. It's a good thought, one he might not have had himself in the heat of the moment. He makes his way forward slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the light, weapon drawn and pointing toward the ground, knees bent and arms up, weaver-style. It's a stance that he doesn't always favour, but in the field it's one that's served him well.
"Kono, I'm coming up on the main tunnel," he says softly, and is a little surprised when she doesn't answer. "Kono? Do you copy? Kono!" he hisses a bit louder, before he realises that the line has cut out. He swears under his breath, holsters his gun, fumbles with the phone, but the minute he checks his screen he realizes it's of no use at all―the signal is completely gone. "Goddamn jammers."
There's no way of providing up-to-the-minute-intel now. Somehow he'd managed to forget about the fact that the kidnappers were using a cell phone jammer to keep communications dark, probably because up until now he hadn't encountered a single glitch. Definitely a jammer without too much range, definitely not too powerful, but enough that it's putting a serious crimp in his plans.
Steve blows out his cheeks in a slow exhale, running scenarios through his head. SWAT is right outside, but they're going to need time to regroup, to plan some strategies of their own because they have next to no idea what they're getting into.
So, at least for now, it's up to Steve to get those kids out, and he's entirely on his own.
~*~
Gracie doesn't know how long she's tied up for. It feels like a really long time, but she knows that it's because she's all by herself in the dark and sometimes what feels like a really long time isn't really long at all. She doesn't have her phone anymore. She can't feel it where she tucked it into her pants before, and she realises it must have fallen out when she fell down the hill before. She wonders if the bad men found it, or if it's just lying outside somewhere where it'll get rained on and ruined. It doesn't matter anyway because they're probably never going to find it now.
She can't hear much from where she is. The other kids are all staying quiet the way the men told them to, and the men aren't talking either. She can hear her own breathing, loud in the quiet of the mine, and can hear a faint sound like the ocean in her ears, like when you hold up a conch shell close to your ear the way Danno showed her once when she was really little. She wishes Danno was here now. She has to pee really badly and she doesn't want to wet herself like a baby, but if no one comes to get her that's exactly what's going to happen, and she feels a tear of humiliation slide down her nose. The other kids are going to laugh at her if they find out. She sniffles and swallows and tries very hard not to cry, because crying only got her in trouble before, and it's not helping anything. If she's going to get in trouble, then it should be because she's doing something that's going to help them, not because she's crying like a kindergarten baby.
The plastic rings on her wrists and ankles are starting to dig more painfully into her skin now, and she squirms and wriggles, trying to loosen them a bit, but that only makes them feel tighter, and she huffs impatiently. Maybe she should try to move, she thinks, maybe drag herself along the floor like in the movies, but she doesn't really know which way is out anymore. There's no light anywhere, and even if she does find the way out, that's where the men are. She hopes Uncle Steve got her message, that he's already on his way or maybe even already here and working on a secret plan to come save her. Any second now, she tells herself, he's going to come running in here with all the other police officers and they're going to shoot the bad guys and take her back to his place where she has her favourite toys and they can sit on the lanai with Mommy and wait for Danno to come back from the mainland and everything will be okay again.
Another tear slides down her nose, and she sniffles a bit harder and wishes Mommy were here to give her one of the nice tissues she keeps in her purse that smell like fruit. She'd take off the stupid plastic things and put salve on her wrists and hug her and tell her everything was going to be fine. Grace is tired of crying. Her nose is running and she can't even wipe it on her wrist, even if Mommy's told her that proper ladies don't ever use anything other than tissues or a handkerchief to wipe their noses. She sniffles and coughs a bit and swallows because it feels like there's a huge lump in her throat that won't go away, and wishes Mommy were here to take her home.
That's when all the noise starts. At first it just sounds like someone banging really hard against a metal door, or like the noises cars make when they're not working properly. Backfiring, Danno called it when she first heard it, back when they still lived in New Jersey and before he and Mommy got divorced. She doesn't know what backfiring means, but she knows the sound now, and that's what it sounds like. Except there aren't any cars here and she doesn't know if trucks make the same sound. The noise gets louder and that's when she realises that it's not a car at all, it's the sound of guns, just like before, except that the mine is making them sound weird and echo-y. She presses back up against the wall, listening to the gunshots. There's screaming now, too, all her classmates near the front of the mine shrieking and crying and she curls up as best she can, trying to make herself really, really small. She doesn't want the men to come back here and find her again.
The screams stop, though, and soon there's shouting, men's voices, and the sound of big heavy boots on the ground. The men shout at each other a lot, and there are a few more gunshots, and then nothing at all. Grace shivers where she is, but she can't move more than a few inches and she still can't see anything and all she can think to do is pray really, really hard that Uncle Steve is out there and that he's going to come save her any minute.
"Grace! Gracie!"
She bursts into tears again. "I'm here! Uncle Steve I'm here!" she screams as loudly as she can even though her throat is dry and her nose is all stuffed up from crying.
A moment later he's there, filling the whole entrance to where she is. Uncle Steve drops to his knees and gathers her up in his arms, crushing her in a hug. "Hey, there you are," he says, and they're the best words ever. "It's okay, Gracie, I got you, you're safe. Come on, let's get you out of here."
He uses the knife that Danno gave him as a present to cut through the plastic ties on her wrists and ankles, lifts her easily into his arms, and she wraps both arms around his neck. "I knew you would come," she tells him, pressing her face into his shoulder. "I told them you would come and I was right."
"Of course I came," he says harshly, but she knows him well enough to know that it's not her he's mad at. "I got your text message. You were really brave, baby," he tells her, carrying her right out of the mine and into the sunlight outside. She doesn't mind him calling her 'baby.' Danno does it sometimes, and so does Mommy, and it just means they love her.
"Are they dead?" she asks, and her voice breaks a little even though she won't be sorry at all if they're dead.
"One of them is. The others are all going to jail. Come on, let's sit you down over here," he carries her over to where there's a bunch of ambulances parked and puts her down gently, then wraps a big blanket over her shoulders when she starts shivering, even though it's really warm out. "We're going to let the paramedics take a look at you and make sure you're not hurt, okay Gracie?"
She nods and wipes at her nose with the back of her hand. "Don't leave," she begs, and he sits right down next to her and puts an arm over her shoulders.
"Of course I won't leave. I'm going to sit right here with you until we're done, and then if the paramedics say you're okay, I'll take you straight home. How's that?"
"Okay. Just don’t go, okay?"
"I'm not going anywhere," he promises, and she believes him. Uncle Steve never breaks his promises.
A woman paramedic comes to crouch next to her. She seems nice, with soft brown eyes and hair pulled back in a pony tail. "Hey sweetie. My name is Alice. Is it okay with you if I check you out? See if you're hurt anywhere?" Grace nods. "Okay, good. Does anything hurt? You've got a lot of cuts and bruises. Did they hurt you?"
Grace shakes her head. "I fell down the hill. One of the men smacked my face, but mostly I just fell down the hill. I was trying to get away, because I knew that's what you would do," she looks up at Uncle Steve, who presses his lips together tightly, then reaches over and very tenderly traces a finger along the bruise on her cheek.
"They did that to you?" he asks softly, and she nods. "I see. You were really, really brave, sweetheart, and they're going to regret ever laying a finger on you, I can promise you that."
The paramedic uses a cotton ball and some stuff that stings a lot to clean out the cuts and scrapes on her arms and legs, but Grace has been brave all day, and she's not going to stop now just because it stings. She holds very still and leans against Uncle Steve, who never takes his arm away from around her shoulders until they're all the way done. Alice leans back a little bit, pats her knee and smiles.
"You're all set. It doesn't look like you've got anything worse than cuts and bruises, but if your uncle here wants to take you to the hospital to make sure, then there's no harm in that. Now, Commander," she looks more sternly at Uncle Steve. "Are you going to let me look at that arm?"
Uncle Steve squirms a little bit. "It's a scratch, it's fine."
Grace's eyes go wide. "Are you hurt? Did they shoot you?"
He squeezes her shoulders. "I'm just fine. I have a cut on my arm, that's all. Nothing for you to worry about."
Alice gives her a smile and a wink, then produces a lollipop from a pocket. "How about you and I make a deal, Gracie? I'm going to give you this, on condition that your uncle here lets me take care of his arm. You don't have to look if you don't want to."
Grace reaches for the lollipop, then hesitates and looks up at Uncle Steve, but he's smiling, and his tone when he says "Oh, all right, fine. You win," sounds a lot like the tone he uses when he and Danno are arguing about pineapple, so she guesses it must be okay.
Uncle Steve has a really bad cut on his arm, but Grace has been with bad guys all day and she knows she's brave enough to stay while Alice cleans the cut with cotton and the same stuff she used on Grace, and then carefully threads a needle and put in seven stitches. It's not at all the same as when Mommy sews up clothing, and it's gross but kind of cool, and Alice explains everything she's doing, too, which is neat. Grace bets even Tommy has never seen anyone put stitches in skin before, either.
"Okay, I think you're both ready to go," Alice says finally. "I'd still recommend a hospital visit just to be on the safe side, but there's no emergency if Grace wants to see her parents first."
"Is Danno here?"
Uncle Steve shakes his head. "Sorry, baby, he hopped on the first flight back that he could get, but he's not going to be here for several hours."
"Oh."
She tries not to sound too disappointed, and hugs the blanket around her a little more tightly. She still feels cold, even though it must still be the afternoon and it looks like it's really hot outside. It feels like that one time she got really sick and felt cold all the time no matter how many layers she wore and no matter how many blankets Mommy piled on top of her. Uncle Steve tugs a little at the blanket so it wraps around her better.
"You still feel cold?" She nods, and he pets her hair once, softly. "It's because you're in shock. You know what that means?" She shakes her head. "It's what happens when you get really scared or hurt or something bad happens. Your body gets really cold because it's trying to make your heart and all your internal organs safe, but it means the rest of you is really cold. We'll get you warmed up in no time," he promises. "You want me to take you home now? Your Mom and Step-Stan are worried sick, you know."
She nods. "Can I go home with you? I want to wait for Danno until he gets back."
He hesitates. "Sure, of course you can, but don't you want to see your Mom and Stan?"
She nestles against him. "Yeah, but I don't want you to go, either."
She feels him pull in a shaky breath, ribs rising and falling just where she's pressed her ear. "Yeah, okay. How about I call them, and they can come over too? And we'll wait for Danno at my place. You sure you're feeling okay? We can go to the hospital if you're feeling sore or anything."
"No, I'm okay. I wanna go home."
He leans down, presses a kiss to the top of her head. "Okay, sweetheart. I'll take you home."
Uncle Steve gathers her up in his arms and carries her, blanket and all, back to one of the police cars. He doesn't drive, even though Grace knows he likes to be the one driving. Instead he climbs in the back with her and lets one of the police officers take the wheel, and she lies down with her head in his lap and lets him stroke her hair. In a little while they'll be home, safe on the lanai in front of the ocean, and Mommy will be there with Stan, and they'll wait there until Danno's home safe too. Mommy's going to cry, because she always does when she's worried and happy all at the same time, and then Danno will pick her up and hug her and Steve and maybe Mommy all at the same time, and they'll all sit together on the beach to watch the sun set.
Tonight she knows Danno is going to tuck her in, and he'll want to sleep in her room on the spare cot Uncle Steve keeps, and Mommy will sleep in Auntie Mary's room. Uncle Steve will be right down the hall, and nothing is going to get to Grace, not tonight when she'll be surrounded by her family to keep her safe.
This entry was originally posted at http://ratherastory.dreamwidth.org/218435.html, where there are
: comments, currently. Feel free to comment wherever you'd like! ♥
The truck bumps along the road for what feels like a long time, then turns sharply to the right, nearly knocking them all over again. This time the road is a lot bumpier than before, and Grace thinks they must be on dirt or gravel instead of pavement, like that time when Step-Stan drove them all the way up to that big ranch so she could ride the horses with Mommy. Her eyes prick a bit at the thought, because Uncle Steve never answered her text message, and the last time she tried to use the phone she could see that all the little bars were gone, meaning that there's no signal out here at all. They must be really far away by now, she thinks tearfully, and maybe they're so far away that even Uncle Steve might not be able to find her.
The truck comes to a halt after a really long time, and the men jump to the ground and pull down the ramp at the back so that everybody can get out. Grace gets to her feet, feeling wobbly from sitting on the floor of the truck for so long, pins and needles in her legs making her feel as though she has little bugs crawling under her skin. She stamps her feet to make the feeling go away, then grabs Tommy's hand so they can get out of the truck, blinking in the bright sunlight. Uncle Steve once taught her how she could tell the time of day just by looking at the position of the sun in the sky, but right now it's all really bright and she can't remember what he said about shadows and looking up in the sky and orienting yourself, and she really wishes he was here to remind her of how it all works. What she really wants, too, is for Danno to be here to tell Uncle Steve he's being ridiculous and to say that he'll get her a Mickey Mouse watch so that she'll learn to tell the time like a normal human being and not like some primate savage in the woods.
She stumbles a little when she walks down the ramp, and flinches when one of the men shoves her between the shoulder blades to get her to move out of the way of the kids coming out behind her.
"Keep moving, kid."
There are no buildings here, just a lot of hills. The truck is inside a whole bunch of fences, now, and she can see what looks like the entrance of a mine. It looks exactly like the haunted mines in Scooby Doo which always turn out to not be really haunted, and the Scooby gang always figures out that the bad guys are just pretending it's haunted so they can do bad things like smuggle jewelry. She heard Danno talking about the local gangs once, she doesn't remember the name except that it kind of sounded like Yahoo or Yahtzee, and that they smuggle all sorts of things like drugs and guns and stuff through Hawaii. She thinks Danno didn't mean for her to hear any of that, she knows he doesn't like it when she hears too much about his work. Maybe these guys work for the Yahoos, she thinks nervously, looking at them. They don't look Japanese, but maybe not everybody in the gang is Japanese, maybe they get people from all over the place so that the cops can't tell who they all are.
"Where are you taking us?" she asks, screwing up her courage.
"Quiet!"
The leader has gotten out of the front of the truck, and he slaps her hard with the back of his hand. The other kids all shriek, and Grace raises a hand to her cheek, eyes wide as she feels the place where he hit her begin to burn and sting. She promises herself she won't cry, but a minute later her eyes make her break her promise and spill tears down her cheeks.
"Quit crying," the man snaps. "Those are the rules. Don't talk, don't cry. You do as I tell you, you'll be fine. Do you want to get hit again?"
She shakes her head, scrubs at her eyes with both fists, trying to stifle the sobs that keep coming out. "I'm sorry."
"Don't talk," he repeats, but his voice is quieter now, like he's not trying to threaten her anymore. Grace trembles, keeps her head ducked as he raises his voice to be heard again. "Okay, kids, grab your buddy's hand. We're going inside, and you're going to be quiet or we'll make you wish you had been quiet, got it? Let's go, let's go, move!"
Grace hesitates even as all the other kids start filing obediently into the mine's entrance. It looks dangerous, and Danno always warned her not to go into places that were abandoned like that because she could get hurt or catch tetanus. Besides, if she goes in there where it's hidden, Uncle Steve might never find her and she'll be all alone with the bad guys and they could do anything they wanted to her. She looks back at the truck, then back over at the fences. They're too high for her to climb over, but the gate where they drove through is still open. It looks to her like maybe there should be a man in the booth by the gate to make it close, like in those big parking lots they had back in New Jersey―only there they didn't have fences, just those big yellow and black-striped barriers that went up and down. Danno used to let her press the button on the automatic ones, but sometimes there was a man in the booth who had to make them go up or down.
Uncle Steve wouldn't want her to go in the mine with the bad guys, and Danno wouldn't either. There's no way to signal for help inside, no getting away from them once she's in there. They might tie her up, or throw her down one of those big holes like in the movies. She's seen a lot of TV shows about people in abandoned mines, and they always get trapped by cave-ins because it's not safe. She wonders if she should tell the bad guys about the cave-ins, but she doesn't think they'd listen to her. No one listens to little kids except for Danno and Uncle Steve and sometimes Mommy, too, because Mommy is pretty cool even if she makes Grace do stuff she doesn't want to do. It's good for her, Grace knows this even when it means she has to eat brussels sprouts that are really overcooked. Mommy wouldn't want her to go in where it's not safe, either. The man told her not to talk, though, and her cheek is throbbing from where he hit her, and she doesn't want to get hit again.
Grace looks at the open fence, back toward the mine, back toward the fence again, and makes her decision. She drops Tommy's hand, edges away a little at a time while the men's backs are turned. They're keeping an eye on the other kids, making sure they're all going into the mine and not talking and not looking back at her yet, and she knows this is the only chance she's going to get to get away from them and somewhere she can signal to Uncle Steve. So she holds her breath, waits until she's sure they're not looking at her, then turns and runs as fast as she can toward the gate.
She clears the first set of gates within seconds, and for a moment her heart soars because she doesn't hear anything. I've made it, she thinks for a second, and then her heart leaps right into her mouth because the bad guys are shouting, and she knows there's no one else they could be shouting at.
"Stop! Stop right there, kid!"
She keeps running, gets past the second gate, doesn't stop even then because they're going to come after her and she really, really hopes that they're not just going to shoot her because she's sure that getting shot must really hurt. Danno's been shot before and he ended up in the hospital every time and Mommy cried whenever she thought Grace couldn't hear her. She doesn't want Mommy to cry because of her and she knows Danno would be really upset too, but she doesn't stop running, keeps going along the dirt road right up until she comes to a turn in the road that leads all the way back the way they came. She's sure of it, but she's sure that she shouldn't stay out here in the open, not when the bad guys are so much bigger and can outrun her or maybe even just shoot her because there's nothing to stop them. The road turns here, but that's because going off the road means going down a really steep hill, so she runs straight ahead, right into the bright green underbrush, arms up to protect her face from getting scratched by all the branches sticking out.
She can still hear shouting behind her, and that means they're still coming after her, still determined to catch her and bring her back, maybe even hurt her if they get their hands on her, but she can't stop now, definitely not now that she's broken all the rules they set out. You get punished if you break the rules, even if the rules are unfair and the people making them are bad guys, and she doesn't know how they're going to do it except that it won't be like at school or at home. Grace puts on a burst of speed, but she can't see where she's going, and she trips over something ―maybe a root or a rock, she can't tell― and she falls headlong down the hill, rolling over and over like it's one of those games she plays with her friends, except this time it's not a soft lawn she's rolling on. She feels every single branch and rock and protrusion she hits going down, jabbing and poking at her and ripping at her clothes, and she cries out in pain a few times before she finally comes to a stop about three-quarters of the way down the hill, completely winded.
For a second she thinks she won't be able to get back up, but the voices of the men coming closer forces her to her feet, shaking so hard she can barely make her legs move. They're going to catch her if she stays here, and she can't let that happen. If she gets away she can find somewhere there will be little bars on her phone again, and she can get hold of Uncle Steve and he'll come rescue her. He doesn't know where she is out here, can't possibly know where the bad men took her, and it's up to her to help him find her. She won't cry, she tells herself. Only babies cry when they're scared, and she's not a baby. She's not a baby and Uncle Steve would want her to be a brave girl and get away from the bad guys so he can come and save the day.
She takes a step forward, then another one, starts running again as soon as her legs stop shaking so hard. She can't run as fast now―there's a sharp pain in her tummy when she runs and her legs hurt from where she fell and it's harder to catch her breath―but she still runs as fast as she can. She can see a stream at the bottom of the hill, and she thinks maybe if she can get across the men won't be able to find her as easily. Or maybe she could just duck underwater and swim that way and they won't be able to see her at all. She keeps running, because she can't think of anything else to do.
The water looks a lot deeper than she thought when she first started running towards it. Grace is a good swimmer―everyone says so, and she loves going out into the ocean to swim―but she remembers Mommy telling her all about how fast currents can be treacherous and that it's really dangerous to go swimming when you don't know what's under the surface of the water. She hesitates on the bank of the river, and that's when the bad guys catch up.
A hand clamps painfully on her arm, and she cries out in pain as strong fingers dig into the skin and muscles. "Got you, you little bitch!"
Grace screams, then, struggles to pull away, but the man's grip is too strong to break. She kicks at him, tries to bite his other hand when he tries to grab her more tightly, struggles and yells and starts to cry even though she promised herself she wouldn't.
"Let go! Let go of me stop it!" she screams as loudly as she can, because that's what Danno and Step-Stan's head of security both agreed on: if someone's trying to grab you, then you struggle as hard as you can and you yell really, really loud so that people all around will hear you and come help you. "Help me!" she screams. "Help! Let go of me! Let me go let me go stop!"
She kicks and claws, reaches for anything that she can scratch at, and feels cloth come away in her fingers. For a moment both she and the man stand absolutely still, staring at each other in shock, his black mask dangling from her fingers. She can see his face in the bright light of day, and he kind of looks like he might be from the island, but his skin is pale and his eyes are grey instead of brown, and the expression on his face is murderous. She feels her eyes widen, then tries to twist away when she feels his grip loosen ever so slightly.
He's too fast for her, though, and as she turns his grip tightens again and a hand clamps over her mouth. "Shut up, kid, or I will make you shut up."
She spits over the hand, tries to bite him again, but he's so much bigger, so much stronger that she can't do anything now except wriggle uselessly in his arms, held pressed up close to the man's chest. He flips her face first onto the ground, then, pins her wrists behind her, and she feels something thin and hard being wrapped around her wrists. She thinks it must be those plastic handcuffs Danno sometimes uses, because it doesn't feel like metal. He ties her feet together too, then she feels herself being lifted off the ground and thrown over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. Danno sometimes carries her like this when they're playing, spins her around and around until she's dizzy and shrieking with laughter, but there's nothing funny about this. This isn't a game at all, and tears spill down her cheeks as the man carries her back up the hill.
She can't see where they're going now, but the ground quickly goes from green to brown, and she knows they're going right back to the mine. The man walks almost as fast as Gracie can run, and she cries harder, knowing that there's no way she was ever going to escape by herself. Steve and Danno don't even know where she is, and Danno is thousands of miles away and she's never going to see him again or Mommy or Step-Stan or the baby. The man carries her all the way into the mine until all the sunlight is gone and she can't see anything at all, can only hear the sound of his footsteps and his heavy breathing and her own heartbeat loud in her ears. When he finally puts her down they're alone and she can't even tell where the other kids are. By now her eyes have adjusted a little to the darkness, and she can still see his face even though it's partially obscured in shadow.
"Well, kid, you've just made my life a lot harder," he says, staring down at her. "You weren't supposed to see any of us, and now you have. Do you know what that means?"
She doesn't move. She shouldn't answer any of his questions, she knows that. Anything she tells him is stuff he can use later. "What are you going to do with me?"
"Well, what I don't want to do is kill you. This was supposed to be uncomplicated, and no one was going to get hurt. But you just had to go and play Pippi Longstocking, didn't you?"
Grace doesn't know who that is, but it doesn't appear to matter. "I'm sorry."
"I'll bet you are," he says, but it doesn't sound like he really believes her. "So here's what's going to happen. All your friends are going to get out safe and sound once we get our money. You, on the other hand, are going to stay here. My own friends and me, we need to get off the island before we can let you go. So you're going to stay back here, nice and tied up, until that happens. If you're lucky, when we're clear, we'll send a message to the authorities so they'll know where to find you. If you're not lucky, no one's ever going to find you again."
"What if I promise not to tell?"
The man gives her a flat look. "Can't take the risk. Besides, I don't believe you. You're more trouble than all the rest of them put together. So you're going to stay here, where I can keep you out of trouble."
"My uncle Steve is going to rescue us anyway," Grace tells him defiantly. "And then he and my daddy are going to put all of you in jail!"
"Sure, kid. I'm sure your dad's a superhero."
She glares. "My uncle's a Navy SEAL and my Daddy's a detective. Just you wait and see, you'll be sorry!"
The man pulls a bandana out of his pocket and dangles it in front of her. "Don't make me gag you too, kid. You going to be quiet, or do I have to stuff this in your mouth?"
Grace keeps glaring, but she closes her mouth, feeling her teeth click together. When Uncle Steve gets here, he'll need her to be able to yell so he knows where she is.
"Good girl. You make a single noise, and I'm going to come right back and gag you, so you sit tight and keep your mouth shut. Got it?"
She nods, scoots back until she's pressed against the wall of the mine, the hard ground cold under her bum. Her fingers brush against rock. Her wrists are bound tightly, but she can still wriggle her fingers and thumb and she's not getting pins and needles yet. The man strides away, and he doesn't even untie her ankles, just leaves her there in the cold and the dark. Even though she keeps promising herself that she won't cry anymore, she's not really surprised when more tears spill from her eyes and run, hot and salty, down her cheeks and over her lips.
Please come and get me, she finds herself praying again, fervently, even though Uncle Steve can't hear her. Please.
~*~
The school bus is in better shape than Steve could have hoped for. It went off the road and down a steep incline, and the fact that it's not totally mangled is a testament to the driver's skill. Unfortunately, that skill did nothing to help the poor bastard, who's lying face down on the ground next to two women. Steve doesn't touch them, leaves them to the crime scene techs to deal with, but from the overall descriptions he guesses one of them must be Grace's teacher, Mrs. Blake, and the assistant teacher who was accompanying the class on the field trip.
He flexes the fingers of his right hand next to his thigh to keep from forming a fist. The idea of Grace in the hands of these sons of bitches makes him want to find them, grind them into paste and then drop them at the bottom of the deepest pit he can find, never to be taken out ever again. Anger isn't a luxury he can afford right now, however. He hasn't heard from Danny in well over an hour, but he assumes that means Danny found a flight back and is returning at this very moment, as fast as the plane can take him. The thought makes him feel a little better, but he hates not being able to talk with Danny, to make sure he's okay, make sure he's holding up. He hates not having Danny here, right by his side, even if it means he'd have to deal with Danny inevitably freaking out because his baby girl is in the hands of kidnappers with no qualms about killing people to get what they want. For all that he and Danny rarely see eye-to-eye on anything, Steve has come to rely on him for an objective opinion when he gets too focused on a case, for a badly-needed smack when he lets his own obsessions get the better of him. Danny keeps him grounded, and he wishes he was here right now to call him a Neanderthal and then turn right around and threaten to carve out these bastards' hearts with a blunt spoon for ever coming near his daughter.
The kidnappers, whoever they are, have moved beyond kidnapping and right onto murder, which means a whole new playing field. In one sense, he can understand why they did it: frightened children are much easier to control than children who have authority figures they know and trust to guide their actions. Still, it's risky, what they did, which means they're not only ruthless and willing to kill, but they're likely also desperate. Murdering these people means the kidnappers know that they have no way out except to have their demands met and escape.
Kono jogs up to him, cell phone in hand. "We've got a ransom call," she says, a little out of breath. "The parents each got a call with a recorded message. They're demanding two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per kid, delivered at a location of their choosing at the end of the day."
Steve does some rapid math. "Grace's text message said four kidnappers. That comes out to about one and a half million dollars per man, supposing they split their shares equally. It's risky, though, demanding that high a ransom in such a short period of time."
"They picked the most expensive school on the island to target," Kono shrugs. "And they weren't wrong. All the kids' parents can come up with that sort of money, all but a few, anyway. There are a couple of kids in the class who are scholarship students, and there's no way their parents can come up with that sort of money, but a few of the other parents have offered to cover the ransom for them, too. I'll admit, I was surprised, but at least it's a good surprise, right?"
In spite of himself, Steve is impressed. It's not often people are willing to step up to the plate like that. He wonders if Stan is one of those parents. "Any word from Chin on tracking Grace's cell phone?"
"We've got a fix on the last location that picked up her transmission, and that gave us directionality. Chin's got a couple of different bearings, but there's been nothing for a while now. Either they took her phone or they're still using a frequency jammer."
Steve nods. "Okay, that's a start at least. I need you to head back to HQ, get started with Chin on more interviews, and set up a task force to get moving the minute we have a better idea of where they've taken the kids. The sooner we get an I.D. on these people, the better. If nothing comes up, then I want eyes on the drop-off point, see if we can't put a tracker in the bag with the ransom. I'd rather we not give into these people's demands at all if we can help it, though."
"Copy that," Kono agrees. Giving the kidnappers the ransom money all but guarantees that they'll just kill the kids and make a run for it. "It's a pity the calls were a recording, there was almost nothing we could get off them. The number they used was re-routed a bunch of times, but Chin traced it back to a burner phone. Useless."
"Damn it," Steve mutters, striding back up the hill, Kono right behind him. "I'm going to take a motorbike out, head in the direction we got for the signal. I'm going to see if I can't do some scouting on my own. I'll keep in touch. Update me if there's anything, all right?"
"You sure you don't want me to come with you?"
He hesitates. "No, I need you and Chin on point for the ransom demand. If the kidnappers get back in touch with any of the families, I want the best possible people there. I'll stay in touch," he repeats. "The minute I find something, I'll contact you. We're going to need back-up on this, make sure the kids stay safe." Danny wouldn't want him running in there on his own, guns blazing. 'You're not Rambo,' he'd tell him, poking him viciously in the chest, and then he'd roll his eyes and threaten Steve with bodily harm if Steve so much as tried to point out that Rambo was in the Army.
Kono doesn't look happy, but she nods, heads back toward her car, and Steve checks the coordinates that Chin forwarded to his phone. Gracie's cell phone pinged off two towers before the signal was lost, which gives him a direction to start in, at least. He knows the area pretty well―not as well as some, but well enough to serve his purposes―and he figures that the kidnappers probably found themselves a decommissioned mine to hide the kids, or maybe one of the outlying buildings, which would be safer but more visible and less easily defended in case someone did find them. He makes good time right up until he gets to the last location Chin was able to capture, and stops in his tracks. He's in the middle of the road still, watching it stretch out for what seems like miles ahead of him. There's nowhere to go but forward, at least―no turnoffs yet, nowhere that a truck could easily disappear along with twenty-five school-aged children.
He purposefully slows his pace, checks the time and sees that he's been travelling for nearly an hour. There are several roads that join up with this main one, all of them dirt tracks that show no signs of recent usage, and certainly no signs of a truck going by at all. It doesn't take much longer before he does find a turn-off veering sharply to the right where there's a distinct and fresh set of tire tracks. A sign that's looking significantly weather-worn warns potential trespassers away from the private property, but apparently that didn't stop the kidnappers from going in anyway. There aren't any cameras that Steve can see―any closed-circuit surveillance would be long gone by now, since the mine is no longer active―but there's no point in running the chance of attracting any kind of attention to himself, so he stashes the bike in the foliage, determined to continue on foot from here on in. First, though, he calls Chin for an update.
"I was about to call you, brah," comes the good news. "I got a location on Grace's phone. It's less than a mile away from your current position, actually," Chin says after a short pause. Steve can hear him tapping away furiously at his keyboard. "The signal's weak, but it's definitely the same phone. I'm sending the coordinates to your phone. I'm working on getting satellite imagery for the area, but it'll take a little while longer."
"Okay, good. I'm guessing they've got the kids in or near one of the mines around here. Can you send me a map of the area with the mines marked on it? I'm going to see if I can get a visual on Grace in the meantime. She might have been able to get away, or at least turn her phone back on."
"Sending it now," Chin assures him. "But those mines are really unstable, so I wouldn't go charging in there if you can help it. Anything could set off a cave-in."
"Duly noted. Okay, I'm heading out, setting my phone to vibrate so I don't attract any undue attention."
"Stay in touch, you hear?"
"I will."
Gracie's not in the same place as her cell phone. Even with all his tracking skills and the exact coordinates right to hand, Steve spends a frustratingly long time casting about in the underbrush with no sign at all of his friend's daughter. It occurs to him that the phone itself might have been dropped or thrown into the thick foliage, and he spends quite some time questioning his decision to follow the signal rather than simply continuing up the road and checking out the mine directly. He tells himself that if the phone isn't out here, then he's probably barking up the wrong tree. At least if he finds the phone then it means he's in the right place, and all he has to do is call it in. Chin's already promised to send back-up anyway, they're closer than Steve thought they would be. He blames Kono for that: knowing her she probably told them to follow him at a discreet distance―maybe a fifteen-minute remove, just to be sure he wouldn't be able to spot them or even hear them―and provide support the moment he needed them.
He finds the cell phone at the bottom of a hill next to a stream, half-hidden in the undergrowth. It's a good thing the phone is pink, he tells himself, because otherwise he would never have found it at all. He'll have to tell Danny about that when all this is over, because of just how loudly he complained about his daughter's having a cell phone with a Barbie-pink case with rhinestones embedded in it. Gracie loved it, of course, said it was the kind of phone a princess would have, and flat-out refused when Danny had tried to coax her into at least getting a Dora the Explorer case for it.
He picks it up, checks it for signs of damage or anything else that might point him towards his partner's little girl. Apart from a scratch all the way down the back of the phone, though―and that means they'll have to replace the beloved casing―there's nothing of use to be found on it. The hillside itself tells a different story, though: he can see where the leaves have been ripped and crushed when something―or someone―fell down the hill not too long ago. Something happened here, and by the looks of it Gracie herself was at the bottom of this hill not more than two or three hours ago. The footprints are difficult to read, partially obscured by the underbrush, but he can clearly make out two sets-one belonging to a child and the other to a man wearing heavy boots. The smaller set of prints goes in one direction, followed by the larger set, only to disappear after only a few steps. The larger set doubles back and leads back up the hill, and the deeper impressions tell him that Gracie's attempt at escape was short-lived. Assuming that the kidnappers have the kids in the mine that's closest to him according to the map Chin sent, that means Gracie might still be up there, even now.
Infiltration is Steve's specialty. He's had the training for a lot of different types of field work, but sneaking in and out of places has always been what he loves doing best. Despite what Danny might have to say on the topic, Steve is actually pretty damned good at going unnoticed, at getting where he needs to go without ever being seen. He goes up the hill following the gentle curve of the land, keeping close to the ground and mostly hidden by the foliage, wishing he'd known beforehand what sort of terrain he was going to be encountering. He's still dressed in his cargo pants and a navy blue polo shirt, which aren't exactly the most stealthy colours in his present situation. Still, no one appears to be watching the hill directly. Presumably the four kidnappers are too busy watching either the kids or the road, and that's just fine by Steve. If they're expecting an outside threat to come from the road, which would be the most logical step, then they won't be expecting anything from another direction and therefore won't spend the manpower on keeping watch there.
Steve doesn't know much about mines except for the fact that they tend to collapse at inopportune times and are a really terrible place to hide in for that exact reason. He does know, however, that mines need to be ventilated in order to keep the miners alive and healthy, and ventilation means that there must be other access points. Therefore, the mine has more than one way in. He doesn't know exactly where they are, but ventilation shafts need maintenance just like anything else, and that means he can probably get inside if he plays his cards right.
He creeps along the ground once he's at the top of the hill, trying to approach the fence from what he hopes is a blind spot in the enemy's surveillance, and pulls out his phone again.
"Chin," he says when the line picks up on the other end, "I'm pretty sure I've found them. I've got a truck here, and recent tracks at the entrance to a mine. You can send in the back-up, but tell them to stop outside of visual range until I'm sure we can get the kids out. We don't want the kidnappers panicking and killing anyone. Can you get me specs on the mine inside? I want a ventilation shaft, anything I can use to get inside, get a layout of the different tunnels so I don't get lost."
"You can't possibly be thinking of going in there alone," Kono comes onto the line, and Steve guesses Chin must have put him on speaker phone.
"Kono, we don't have time to argue about this. The kids are in there and I have no idea how jumpy or paranoid these guys are. A full-frontal assault could set them off, and I don't want to risk that, not when Gracie's in there and all those other kids. It's way too dangerous. If I can do some recon, feed intel back to the team, then we can plan this so that we take them out without there being any collateral damage."
"Steve..."
"Kono, it's Gracie."
"Fine." She sounds unhappy, but there's nothing he can do about that now.
"Okay," Chin breaks in. "I can try to walk you through this―the file isn't good enough quality to show up well on your phone and I don’t have time to clean it up for you. You've got maybe one or two maintenance shafts that you can use, but you'll have to be very careful. This mine hasn't been active in years, and there are known issues of structural integrity in some areas. What sort of gear do you have? You got a vest? Flashlight?"
"Yes, and yes," Steve refrains from rolling his eyes, tucks his phone into the holster at his belt and adjusts his earpiece to keep his hands free. "Got you on hands-free now. What am I looking for?"
"Where are you exactly?"
"Perimeter, slightly south-west of the entrance. I've got a truck out front, what looks like one guy keeping watch over the truck and the main gate, but he definitely hasn't spotted me."
"All right. You've got your first access point about a hundred and fifty yards south-east of the mine entrance, so basically in a straight line from where you are, but you're going to have to get closer to the mine proper. You'll have to be right on top of it before you'll see it, and I have no idea what sort of shape it's in."
It takes what feels like a long time. Steve circles around a little, scales the fence at an angle he hopes won't be seen by the man standing guard, uses his shirt to protect his hands from the barbed wire. He drops into a low crouch on the other side of the fence, feet kicking up dust as he lands, sprints the last few yards until he's sure the mine will conceal his presence, takes a moment to pull his shirt back on and readjust his vest. Chin stays silent in his ear, but he knows the comms are open, knows that he and Kono are listening in, holding their breath even as they can hear him breathing, can hear the tell-tale sounds of running, of keeping still. This isn't the first time they've done this, either.
The first access point is all but useless, the ventilation shaft blocked by debris, and Steve curses under his breath, lets Chin direct him to the next one, which is mercifully free of any kind of blockage. He eases himself into the opening, bracing himself with hands and feet, hisses through his teeth when a section of it gives way and sends him sliding a few feet, the rough walls scraping his hands and arms as he lets himself down. He's not exactly equipped for this, no matter what he told Chin, but Grace is in there, alone and scared, and he's not going to leave her for a minute longer than he has to.
"Okay, brah," Chin is talking quietly, keeping the sound levels to a minimum. "You should be seeing a point roughly to your north where the tunnels meet up. See it?"
"Got it."
"Head up that way. The northeast tunnel goes directly to the mine entrance, the north tunnel takes a slightly roundabout route through another mining area, and the northwest tunnel takes you farther into the mine. So northeast is your fastest route, but you're likely to run right into them that way."
"Got it. I'll keep out of sight. Who's coordinating the SWAT team?"
"That would be Captain Hale. I've got him on the other line, awaiting instructions."
"Okay. As soon as I have a visual on their positions I'll let you know. You tell him where they are, what they're doing, what the weaponry is like, and you tell him to move in the minute he's got his strategy in order. I want up-to-the-minute updates on everything, and I'll provide support from in here."
"You got it. Hang tight, I'll let you know what he says in a minute."
The line goes silent except for the sound of Kono's breathing now, and Steve guesses that Chin must have taken the call on another phone or in another room in order to keep the lines free for him to stay in contact. It's a good thought, one he might not have had himself in the heat of the moment. He makes his way forward slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the light, weapon drawn and pointing toward the ground, knees bent and arms up, weaver-style. It's a stance that he doesn't always favour, but in the field it's one that's served him well.
"Kono, I'm coming up on the main tunnel," he says softly, and is a little surprised when she doesn't answer. "Kono? Do you copy? Kono!" he hisses a bit louder, before he realises that the line has cut out. He swears under his breath, holsters his gun, fumbles with the phone, but the minute he checks his screen he realizes it's of no use at all―the signal is completely gone. "Goddamn jammers."
There's no way of providing up-to-the-minute-intel now. Somehow he'd managed to forget about the fact that the kidnappers were using a cell phone jammer to keep communications dark, probably because up until now he hadn't encountered a single glitch. Definitely a jammer without too much range, definitely not too powerful, but enough that it's putting a serious crimp in his plans.
Steve blows out his cheeks in a slow exhale, running scenarios through his head. SWAT is right outside, but they're going to need time to regroup, to plan some strategies of their own because they have next to no idea what they're getting into.
So, at least for now, it's up to Steve to get those kids out, and he's entirely on his own.
~*~
Gracie doesn't know how long she's tied up for. It feels like a really long time, but she knows that it's because she's all by herself in the dark and sometimes what feels like a really long time isn't really long at all. She doesn't have her phone anymore. She can't feel it where she tucked it into her pants before, and she realises it must have fallen out when she fell down the hill before. She wonders if the bad men found it, or if it's just lying outside somewhere where it'll get rained on and ruined. It doesn't matter anyway because they're probably never going to find it now.
She can't hear much from where she is. The other kids are all staying quiet the way the men told them to, and the men aren't talking either. She can hear her own breathing, loud in the quiet of the mine, and can hear a faint sound like the ocean in her ears, like when you hold up a conch shell close to your ear the way Danno showed her once when she was really little. She wishes Danno was here now. She has to pee really badly and she doesn't want to wet herself like a baby, but if no one comes to get her that's exactly what's going to happen, and she feels a tear of humiliation slide down her nose. The other kids are going to laugh at her if they find out. She sniffles and swallows and tries very hard not to cry, because crying only got her in trouble before, and it's not helping anything. If she's going to get in trouble, then it should be because she's doing something that's going to help them, not because she's crying like a kindergarten baby.
The plastic rings on her wrists and ankles are starting to dig more painfully into her skin now, and she squirms and wriggles, trying to loosen them a bit, but that only makes them feel tighter, and she huffs impatiently. Maybe she should try to move, she thinks, maybe drag herself along the floor like in the movies, but she doesn't really know which way is out anymore. There's no light anywhere, and even if she does find the way out, that's where the men are. She hopes Uncle Steve got her message, that he's already on his way or maybe even already here and working on a secret plan to come save her. Any second now, she tells herself, he's going to come running in here with all the other police officers and they're going to shoot the bad guys and take her back to his place where she has her favourite toys and they can sit on the lanai with Mommy and wait for Danno to come back from the mainland and everything will be okay again.
Another tear slides down her nose, and she sniffles a bit harder and wishes Mommy were here to give her one of the nice tissues she keeps in her purse that smell like fruit. She'd take off the stupid plastic things and put salve on her wrists and hug her and tell her everything was going to be fine. Grace is tired of crying. Her nose is running and she can't even wipe it on her wrist, even if Mommy's told her that proper ladies don't ever use anything other than tissues or a handkerchief to wipe their noses. She sniffles and coughs a bit and swallows because it feels like there's a huge lump in her throat that won't go away, and wishes Mommy were here to take her home.
That's when all the noise starts. At first it just sounds like someone banging really hard against a metal door, or like the noises cars make when they're not working properly. Backfiring, Danno called it when she first heard it, back when they still lived in New Jersey and before he and Mommy got divorced. She doesn't know what backfiring means, but she knows the sound now, and that's what it sounds like. Except there aren't any cars here and she doesn't know if trucks make the same sound. The noise gets louder and that's when she realises that it's not a car at all, it's the sound of guns, just like before, except that the mine is making them sound weird and echo-y. She presses back up against the wall, listening to the gunshots. There's screaming now, too, all her classmates near the front of the mine shrieking and crying and she curls up as best she can, trying to make herself really, really small. She doesn't want the men to come back here and find her again.
The screams stop, though, and soon there's shouting, men's voices, and the sound of big heavy boots on the ground. The men shout at each other a lot, and there are a few more gunshots, and then nothing at all. Grace shivers where she is, but she can't move more than a few inches and she still can't see anything and all she can think to do is pray really, really hard that Uncle Steve is out there and that he's going to come save her any minute.
"Grace! Gracie!"
She bursts into tears again. "I'm here! Uncle Steve I'm here!" she screams as loudly as she can even though her throat is dry and her nose is all stuffed up from crying.
A moment later he's there, filling the whole entrance to where she is. Uncle Steve drops to his knees and gathers her up in his arms, crushing her in a hug. "Hey, there you are," he says, and they're the best words ever. "It's okay, Gracie, I got you, you're safe. Come on, let's get you out of here."
He uses the knife that Danno gave him as a present to cut through the plastic ties on her wrists and ankles, lifts her easily into his arms, and she wraps both arms around his neck. "I knew you would come," she tells him, pressing her face into his shoulder. "I told them you would come and I was right."
"Of course I came," he says harshly, but she knows him well enough to know that it's not her he's mad at. "I got your text message. You were really brave, baby," he tells her, carrying her right out of the mine and into the sunlight outside. She doesn't mind him calling her 'baby.' Danno does it sometimes, and so does Mommy, and it just means they love her.
"Are they dead?" she asks, and her voice breaks a little even though she won't be sorry at all if they're dead.
"One of them is. The others are all going to jail. Come on, let's sit you down over here," he carries her over to where there's a bunch of ambulances parked and puts her down gently, then wraps a big blanket over her shoulders when she starts shivering, even though it's really warm out. "We're going to let the paramedics take a look at you and make sure you're not hurt, okay Gracie?"
She nods and wipes at her nose with the back of her hand. "Don't leave," she begs, and he sits right down next to her and puts an arm over her shoulders.
"Of course I won't leave. I'm going to sit right here with you until we're done, and then if the paramedics say you're okay, I'll take you straight home. How's that?"
"Okay. Just don’t go, okay?"
"I'm not going anywhere," he promises, and she believes him. Uncle Steve never breaks his promises.
A woman paramedic comes to crouch next to her. She seems nice, with soft brown eyes and hair pulled back in a pony tail. "Hey sweetie. My name is Alice. Is it okay with you if I check you out? See if you're hurt anywhere?" Grace nods. "Okay, good. Does anything hurt? You've got a lot of cuts and bruises. Did they hurt you?"
Grace shakes her head. "I fell down the hill. One of the men smacked my face, but mostly I just fell down the hill. I was trying to get away, because I knew that's what you would do," she looks up at Uncle Steve, who presses his lips together tightly, then reaches over and very tenderly traces a finger along the bruise on her cheek.
"They did that to you?" he asks softly, and she nods. "I see. You were really, really brave, sweetheart, and they're going to regret ever laying a finger on you, I can promise you that."
The paramedic uses a cotton ball and some stuff that stings a lot to clean out the cuts and scrapes on her arms and legs, but Grace has been brave all day, and she's not going to stop now just because it stings. She holds very still and leans against Uncle Steve, who never takes his arm away from around her shoulders until they're all the way done. Alice leans back a little bit, pats her knee and smiles.
"You're all set. It doesn't look like you've got anything worse than cuts and bruises, but if your uncle here wants to take you to the hospital to make sure, then there's no harm in that. Now, Commander," she looks more sternly at Uncle Steve. "Are you going to let me look at that arm?"
Uncle Steve squirms a little bit. "It's a scratch, it's fine."
Grace's eyes go wide. "Are you hurt? Did they shoot you?"
He squeezes her shoulders. "I'm just fine. I have a cut on my arm, that's all. Nothing for you to worry about."
Alice gives her a smile and a wink, then produces a lollipop from a pocket. "How about you and I make a deal, Gracie? I'm going to give you this, on condition that your uncle here lets me take care of his arm. You don't have to look if you don't want to."
Grace reaches for the lollipop, then hesitates and looks up at Uncle Steve, but he's smiling, and his tone when he says "Oh, all right, fine. You win," sounds a lot like the tone he uses when he and Danno are arguing about pineapple, so she guesses it must be okay.
Uncle Steve has a really bad cut on his arm, but Grace has been with bad guys all day and she knows she's brave enough to stay while Alice cleans the cut with cotton and the same stuff she used on Grace, and then carefully threads a needle and put in seven stitches. It's not at all the same as when Mommy sews up clothing, and it's gross but kind of cool, and Alice explains everything she's doing, too, which is neat. Grace bets even Tommy has never seen anyone put stitches in skin before, either.
"Okay, I think you're both ready to go," Alice says finally. "I'd still recommend a hospital visit just to be on the safe side, but there's no emergency if Grace wants to see her parents first."
"Is Danno here?"
Uncle Steve shakes his head. "Sorry, baby, he hopped on the first flight back that he could get, but he's not going to be here for several hours."
"Oh."
She tries not to sound too disappointed, and hugs the blanket around her a little more tightly. She still feels cold, even though it must still be the afternoon and it looks like it's really hot outside. It feels like that one time she got really sick and felt cold all the time no matter how many layers she wore and no matter how many blankets Mommy piled on top of her. Uncle Steve tugs a little at the blanket so it wraps around her better.
"You still feel cold?" She nods, and he pets her hair once, softly. "It's because you're in shock. You know what that means?" She shakes her head. "It's what happens when you get really scared or hurt or something bad happens. Your body gets really cold because it's trying to make your heart and all your internal organs safe, but it means the rest of you is really cold. We'll get you warmed up in no time," he promises. "You want me to take you home now? Your Mom and Step-Stan are worried sick, you know."
She nods. "Can I go home with you? I want to wait for Danno until he gets back."
He hesitates. "Sure, of course you can, but don't you want to see your Mom and Stan?"
She nestles against him. "Yeah, but I don't want you to go, either."
She feels him pull in a shaky breath, ribs rising and falling just where she's pressed her ear. "Yeah, okay. How about I call them, and they can come over too? And we'll wait for Danno at my place. You sure you're feeling okay? We can go to the hospital if you're feeling sore or anything."
"No, I'm okay. I wanna go home."
He leans down, presses a kiss to the top of her head. "Okay, sweetheart. I'll take you home."
Uncle Steve gathers her up in his arms and carries her, blanket and all, back to one of the police cars. He doesn't drive, even though Grace knows he likes to be the one driving. Instead he climbs in the back with her and lets one of the police officers take the wheel, and she lies down with her head in his lap and lets him stroke her hair. In a little while they'll be home, safe on the lanai in front of the ocean, and Mommy will be there with Stan, and they'll wait there until Danno's home safe too. Mommy's going to cry, because she always does when she's worried and happy all at the same time, and then Danno will pick her up and hug her and Steve and maybe Mommy all at the same time, and they'll all sit together on the beach to watch the sun set.
Tonight she knows Danno is going to tuck her in, and he'll want to sleep in her room on the spare cot Uncle Steve keeps, and Mommy will sleep in Auntie Mary's room. Uncle Steve will be right down the hall, and nothing is going to get to Grace, not tonight when she'll be surrounded by her family to keep her safe.
This entry was originally posted at http://ratherastory.dreamwidth.org/218435.html, where there are
: comments, currently. Feel free to comment wherever you'd like! ♥