FIC: "Before the Dawn" 8/?

[astralis]

I come bearing fic. aanushka, this is for you, seeing as you've waited so long for it.

ETA: Now with the end of the chapter added! Apparently there's something wrong with my copy and paste skills.




"How do you know they're even going to be here?"

Sara shook her head. She was starting to wish she hadn't agreed to let Nick tag along. When she got her hands on Greg - he needed to see that she was old enough to look after herself and definitely didn't need him interfering. It was sweet, sure, but getting Nick on her case had made what she was going to do so much more difficult. It had been stupid to tell Greg what she was planning, but they'd been discussing next steps for the case and it had just slipped out.

"Sara," Nick persisted, drumming his fingers on his knee. "How do you know this isn't pointless? You said the kids disappeared after Brenda's body was found. What makes you think they're going to be back at the factory tonight?"

Sara shrugged, carefully parking the Denali under a street lamp. "Something Marissa said, that's all. She said we all knew where they'd be. I think she and Angel have still got more information about who killed Brenda."

"And?"

"And..." Sara pulled the keys out of the ignition and grabbed a bag of food she'd brought for the kids. "And I want to help them. Is that such a crime?"

"No, but surely there are better ways - "

"Nick, if you're coming with me, then shut up." Getting out of the Denali, she could almost feel him stiffen. Hastily, she promised herself that when this was all over she'd make it up to him. Dinner, a movie - but right now he was getting on her nerves. She needed his support rather than his worrying. He really wasn't helping matters, talking non-stop about what a bad idea this was and had she thought of this? That? The other thing?

"Fine." Nick got out and slammed the door shut. "But for the record - "

"Shut up." Sara turned and started walking towards the factory. She knew he'd follow, and, dammit, she loved him for that.

This street was always quiet. It was a run-down old industrial area, with very little traffic during the day and even less at nights. Good place to live if you were a bunch of kids trying to keep clear of a system that would put control of your life into the hands of faceless authorities. The police had known they were here and they'd done - what? Well, that was another thing for her list of things to do when this was over.

Sara shook her head. Double standard. She knew why the kids didn't want to be at home or why they didn't want to be in foster care, yet she thought the police should be doing something about them. The only thing that could be done was home or foster care. But when the alternative was little girls selling their bodies and talking about it like it was the most ordinary thing in the world -

"We don't have to do this," whispered Nick, behind her. He'd probably misinterpreted her head shake.

"I do."

"Then so do I."

"God, Nick - " Sara stopped outside the street entrance to the factory, and swallowed. "You do know I love you." A weight of some sort lifted itself from her stomach. Why had she said that? She was going crazy. First she was angry with him, then she loved him, and why was she worrying about this now? "Let's go."

Nick nodded and rested one hand, just for a second, on his right hip. She could see the outline of the gun he'd insisted on wearing. Strangely enough, it was reassuring, but Sara couldn't think of any reason why they'd need a gun. Just going to talk to Angel and Marissa on their turf, nothing scary, nothing to worry about.

Nick pushed the door open and stepped inside. Sara took a deep breath and followed him.

The abandoned factory lay silent and almost, in a strange way, expectant. Hopeful, maybe.

Definitely time for another session with her therapist - as usual, when this was all over.

Most of the machinery that had once lived on the ground floor was long gone. A few machines, probably broken and worthless, had been pushed into a corner where the dim light of the moon and street lamps coming in the windows caused them to cast grotesque, monstrous shadows across the concrete floor. A few darker patches - oil stains - marked places where machines had once stood.

There was definitely evidence of human habitation here. The room was littered with old newspapers, empty beer cans and bottles, a variety of trash, an old, ragged blanket. What there wasn't, in immediate sight, was kids.

"Upstairs?" said Nick, quietly, indicating towards the concrete stairs that ran up from where they stood.

"Offices," Sara nodded. "Yeah." Nick was already moving towards the stairs. Sara grabbed his arm. "I'll go first."

"I should."

"Look, you don't need to protect me, OK? Besides, Angel and Marissa know me. And a woman is less threatening than a man."

Nick shrugged. "Have it your way, but I'm right behind you."

It seemed to take an eternity to walk up those stairs. Afterwards, Sara always remembered it as a defining moment, a sort of Rubicon. As if by walking up those stairs she set a chain of events irrevocably in motion.

Maybe it was her imagination, but she seemed to hear voices falling silent behind the door as she reached the landing at the top of the stairs. Gathering her courage - and she hadn't been at all scared before, so why the hell was she scared now? - Sara knocked on the door. "An - Angel? Marissa?"

Nothing.

They had to be there.

Sara took hold of the door handle - it was cool and smooth and felt, for some reason, out of place - and opened the door. After the few seconds it took her eyes to adjust to the darker room, she saw Angel and Marissa sitting side by side with their backs against the wall, a blanket over their legs. There was a pile of things in the corner - more blankets, more newspapers, clothes, food - and two more doors opening off the room. "Hey."

"I didn't think you'd come," Marissa said, almost without emotion.

"Well, I did." Sara stepped into the room and beckoned Nick in after her, watching the girls' reactions carefully. "This is Nick Stokes. He's a CSI, like me. He worked Brenda's case the first time, back when her family was murdered. Nick, this is Angel and Marissa."

Nick nodded and smiled at each of the girls, who just looked rather wary. Sara sighed. She couldn't blame them, really. "Can we sit down?"

Angel nodded.

"Sure," said Marissa.

Sara sat down gingerly, Nick beside her. "I brought you some food," she said, passing the bag over.

Marissa looked inside and smiled. "Bribery," she said. "Thanks."

"I'm not bribing you, I'm just - "

"Trying to help. Yeah, yeah, we know." Marissa put the bag down next to her.

"So," said Sara, awkwardly, trying to make some sort of conversation. "Is there anything else you guys need? Want? I can bring it for you, you know - "

"We're fine," Marissa said quickly. "We're used to looking after ourselves."

"Yeah. I bet you are." Sara fished around for something else to say. "Where are the others?"

Angel glanced sideways at Marissa for a split second and then back at Sara. "I don't know."

Sara was fairly sure she did. "I'd still like to talk to Raf, you know," she said. "He was the last person to see Brenda alive. Even if he can tell us where the last place was he saw her, what time - it might help us figure out who killed her."

"He won't talk to you. I told you that," Marissa said.

"I know. I know. Look, maybe you could find out, let me know?"

"He won't talk about Blondie," Angel shrugged, fiddling with the worn edge of the blanket.

"Look - "

Something - a noise, an instinct born of years living amid violence - made Sara stop talking as an old, but not quite forgotten feeling seized her around the heart.

There was a second of silence, of normality, and then one of the doors burst open and a few kids in dark clothes rushed into the room. Angel and Marissa lunged sideways as Nick grabbed Sara's arm.

She'd thought this life was over.

There was screaming. That was what she remembered. Screaming. Her voice, Nick's, a few other voices. Fear and anger and pain, words, sounds - she couldn't decipher anything, couldn't figure out what was going on, but there was pain and blood - hers? Blood on her hands, it had to be hers, or maybe it was Nick's -

And then there was a gunshot and Nick's voice, louder than the rest. He couldn't have shot one of the kids, not Nick, they were all still moving - and there was more shouting and she was fighting one of them off - he had a knife - she'd never been sliced with a knife before -

Why was she so detached? She was almost calm, yet there were knives and Nick's gun and she was bleeding and this shouldn't have been happening like this -

It was her childhood all over again.

Nick fired his gun again, and this time there was a cry of pain from one of the boys and then, without them even seeming to communicate, they were streaming out the door and down the stairs and a dark, terrible silence remained in the room.

"Honey?" Nick's voice, shaking, scared. She should have listened to him, shouldn't have come - "Sara, you're bleeding - Sara!"

No no no no no - two bodies, she knew bodies, knew what bodies look like and this was death - two bodies, skinny, one blonde haired one dark.

Sara crawled across the floor, feeling blood under her hands, blood that could be anyone's. Angel and Marissa were bloodied, still, unmoving, dead.

Sara took Angel's hand and sat there, aware only of their bodies and of Nick, his back against the far wall, calling for police and paramedics.

This wasn't how it was meant to happen.