Topic: Without a Trace

Hannah J Schellden

Date: 2007-06-23 19:12 EST
-Six hours earlier-

"FBI, put your hands up and git on the ground! Le FBI, mettent vos mains vers le haut et obtiennent sur la terre!" My voice echoed in the nearly empty warehouse room as we busted the door down. I could hear footsteps, they were running. "They're running. Jason take the left! Melissa to the right! Neil with me," and so began the chase of the two men that had kidnapped, tortured and held the sixteen year old boy hostage, for the last four days, for a 2.5 million dollar ransom.

We were chasing them down, it seemed like we'd been running for a good amount of time now -- I was finally starting to get winded. My partner, Neil O'Riley was right behind me trying to keep up. "Carl, Matt you two mine as well stop, we've got you surrounded! Karl, Mat vous deux extrayez aussi bien l'arr?t, nous vous avez avez entour?!" Of course the pair didn't answer, they just kept running, but what they didn't know is that they'd run into a dead end. There would be no escape for these two, we had them.

Carl slammed into the brick wall that barred their exit, looking frantically to his brother, Matt. "Mat vous dickhead ceci est sans avenir!"

Those were the last words either man would say, before I was on top of Carl, wrenching his left arm tightly behind him, and slamming him into that brick wall. I let him stay there a moment before forcing him to the ground with a knee set between his shoulder blades. Whipping out my handcuffs, I had him cuffed quick as lightning.

In the meantime, my partner Neil had dragged Matt down and was doing the same thing to him. A brief look between us and we were hefting both men up simultaneously, reading them their rights.

The rest of the team caught up with us... Josh, Melissa, JJ and Eric, they were all applauding our successful chase down and grab. But the case wasn't over just yet, we still had to find the boy. "Alright, everyone spread out. I want every inch of this compound searched, NOW!"

And at that, the team and the other officers that had come to assist the call of gunshots fired at 31015 Scottsdale Lane, were all spread out and covering the grounds. An hour had passed and it was wearing on all of us. We'd been looking and searching for the teen for just a hair over four days. We had to get to him, soon.

"Neil! Over'ere! I found him! Get the medics now!" I was cradling the boys head in my lap, and quickly looking him over. Carl and Matt had done quite a number on the poor boy, but at least we had him now. There was still a chance that he'd make it alive. Traumatized... But alive. I heard the shouts and then the medics were there, by me, wrenching the teen from my embrace. "Tenez sur le gosse, tenez dessus," I spoke as gently as I could to him as they took him from me. I turned to the head medic then who was checking for a pulse and doing his own assessment of the boy. "He's been beaten, not as badly as we'd originally thought, but still. Dehydrated an by the looks of him, I'd say they starved him while they held him captive." They nodded to me, and it was like I'd never existed, they were so quick to work on him, to finally stabilize him.

Without another thought, I flipped my cell out as they whisked him away on the stretcher and punched in a few numbers. It was answered quickly, as I had expected and my voice was weak, "Capt'n we got'em." That simple phrase meant so very much to not only myself, my team, my captain... But to the boys family that had been staying at a hotel down the street from HQ.

We all headed back to HQ and after hugs and words of praise and thanks at the job my team and I had done, we were debriefed and told to go and get some rest before coming back to work on Monday.

Of course, being the FBI's head Profiler, when you were told to get some rest, it wasn't always that easy, and work came again before you knew it. So the team and I, well we did what we all enjoyed after a long run on a job... We went to O'Riley's Pub 'N Grill.

After a few drinks, and a bit of relaxation, I excused myself to the Ladies Room, to wash up a bit and just to look at myself in the mirror. I often found myself doing that after a successful run, it made me... Well it made me feel better about myself in so many different ways. I was tired, maybe it was time to call it a night, but then again we'd only been here a couple of hours, what would another couple hurt? It'd been a long four days.. A few more drinks couldn't possibly hurt. One more look in the mirror and I pushed the door open to the woman's bathroom in O'Riley's Pub 'N Grill. "H? Jason, indiquent ? m?lisse qu'elle nous doit un rond pour l'arr?t qu'elle a tir? dedans le Fe de Santa."

Hannah J Schellden

Date: 2007-06-28 13:43 EST
I was only half a dozen steps out of the bathroom when I stopped in my tracks. Tilting my head to the right a bit, a look of confusion and bewilderment crossing over my features. Gray-blue eyes moved slowly over the rather unfamiliar faces in what was just five minutes ago, O'Riley's Pub 'N Grill. "Jason? Melissa? Josh? This isn't funny guys, the hell is going on?" My right hand was already moving to my side and behind my back, lifting up the untucked tail of my white button up shirt, reaching for my Glock 23. Something was terribly wrong... I saw a troll woman, a female with what looked like wings, and many other different beings. It honestly looked like I had walked out onto a set for a Halloween movie, but Halloween wasn't for another few months.

I noticed that the troll female was looking at me, I could tell she'd seen that I was reaching for my heat.. Saw the look in her eyes as she gripped one of her own warhawks. Her voice though, the language was English, at least in a fashion. "Can I 'elp ya gahley?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man as well. Seated at a corner table, but his actions didn't go unnoticed... He'd turned to look at me his own hand slowly reaching into his coat.

The fae-like femme spoke to me then, rousing me from my thoughts, so much was happening all at once. "Are you lost m'dear?"

Lost? Lost wasn't even the word I would have used to describe the fairy tale I'd seemed to step into. I turned in order to the two voices, my fingers curling around the butt of my Glock, gray-blue eyes were un-blinking for a moment when I looked at the first... and then the second...Another blink. ~I am not that drunk, I am not that drunk.~ I recited these words in my mind, shaking my head, hoping to clear the illusions from my vision. "Jason? M?lisse? Josh? Ce n'est pas les types dr?les. O? l'enfer sont vous et d'o? avez-vous obtenu ces costumes?" Inside, a part of me was still hoping, still praying that either was I to far gone into a bottle and this was nothing but a drunken fabrication of my mind... Or still hoping that my Team mates were playing a rather nasty joke on me.

The troll femme's voice again cut through the mind conversation I was having with myself. She was slowly moving towards me, it seemed in a non-offensive mannerism, but still my guard was extremely high. I watched her as her hands rose up, palms extended towards me, heard her speak through the din of everyone else, "Easy.. now calm down and lets talk. Ok?" The troll femme's free hand was pulling a chair out from one of the nearby tables.

My head was pounding, from the days of no sleep and stress of the job, from the din of the crowd in this.. This whatever it was I was in, trying to focus on just one voice or one.. Creature was an almost impossible task. I heard the fae-like femme saying that she was not wearing a costume, but if she was not wearing a costume, then how did she have wings? I heard the man that was seated at that corner table telling me not to pull the Glock out if I knew what was good for me. What was good for me? Hell, I didn't know where I was, let alone who these people were, to hell with what was good for me. It was only the slightest second of semi-consideration to the man's words, while trying to figure out if the fae-like creature wasn't wearing a costume, how she'd managed to have the wings attached to her person. As if it was an automatic motion for me, in which it was, I pulled the pistol out, taking a somewhat steady yet uneasy stance, aiming for the rather large troll femme. "Ne venez pas plus ?troitement ou je tirerai."

My gray-blue eyes then snapped towards the male voice, blinking, but I'd say nothing in response to the man. I was terribly confused, but something that the fae had said clicked in my mind. Curious gray-blue eyes blinked towards the fae-ish looking creature. ~She understood me...Melissa?~ "M?lisse vous devez porter un costume, l'enlevez."

The femme troll spoke again, and this time a part of me was rather surprised as her French was fluent, though slightly different than what I was taught in Baton Rouge. "Vous n'?tes pas sur terre mon cher. Veuillez se calmer et ayez un si?ge."

After the troll femme said that, she motioned me to a chair that she'd already previously pulled out. The fae-like femme spoke once more, and she as well spoke my native tongue, again reiterating that she was not wearing a costume and that she was not Melissa. I think that was when the final blow was dealt to me, that these people... These creatures were real, not a product of make-up and plastic surgery, but true-blue, genuinely real, at least for tonight it was. That whatever pocket dimension I had stumbled into was as real as the Glock that I was holding in my hand.

Hannah J Schellden

Date: 2007-06-30 11:30 EST
"Sometimes things are not always what they seem, and sometimes they are so much more than that."

I had lost all semblance of time now, looking between those few faces that were talking to me, and even offering a momentarily glance to those that were not. My nerves that usually were as hard as a steel, and unnerved were rattled like a lioness in her cage. I felt the slightest bit threatened, I mean honestly.. I had somehow managed to defy all semblance of scientific reality and stepped into a world of fantasy, that was so very real and.. Slightly intriguing.

Reluctantly, I finally found myself lowering my weapon and holstering it, once more back into the safety of the waistband of my jeans. Almost automatically I found myself easing my tired body into the offered chair. Over what I believed was the next couple of hours, I was informed by the troll femme that I was in a place called, Rhy'Din and that what I had once believed to be only possible in movies and books... Was every day life here and consider very normal.

It was still to much for me to try and process that I believe I was feeling much akin to a computer that was going into data overload. I'd been informed that I was not the first, nor would I be the last victim that this, Nexus had claimed. Through all my questions, and all the answers given to me -- The one that disturbed me most, was the fact that there was no way back home, at least not to anyone's knowledge their that evening. Despite being slightly curious about this new-found-world, I at least wanted a way home for when I was ready to go. Though one gentleman had mentioned something about a space port and space travel, and as hopeful as I was that it would work, I had my doubts.

After what I assumed was a couple more hours, I found myself without company and just a touch scared... I had no safe place to sleep, no change of clothes and no money. I decided that the worst that could be done if the Inn's owner's found me sleeping on their couch, would be to ask me to leave. I had spotted a couple of couches earlier, during my "episode," so I made my way over towards the hearth and selected a couch. Without another second thought, I found myself flopping onto it, curling up and closing my eyes. It didn't take long before the embrace of sleep was quick to find me, and I welcomed it with open arms.

Hannah J Schellden

Date: 2007-06-30 13:34 EST
I wasn't quite sure how long I'd been asleep, but I did know that I hadn't been disturbed at all, and for that I was quite thankful. After being stolen from Baton Rouge, I guess a part of me was still holding on to a shred of hope that I'd been a bit to drunk and it was nothing more than a dream. Unfortunately, it was not a dream and very much real when I found myself rolling over off the couch and landing with a thud onto the floor. Groaning slightly and rubbing my head a bit, I pushed myself up finally, gray-blue eyes looking around slightly dazed.

I noticed immediately that the Inn was busier than it had been the night before on my arrival, tilting my head to the left, I slid onto the edge of the couch. I couldn't help that my mind wandered back to my Team back home. Was my Team worried about me? Were they working a case for me right now? What about Harley and Sev, were they worried about me at all? I could only hope, but would they even be able to find me? Was there any trace of me or any evidence of this "Nexus" in the ladies Room of O'Riley's Pub 'N Grill? Shaking my head, I finally forced myself to get up from the couch and carefully make my way through the throng of people and barwards.

Though I didn't stay there very long, all the bits of conversation around me, the smell of the stale air, mixed with alcohol and the fact that I'd not eaten the last couple of days had me a bit light headed and feeling slightly sick all of the sudden. A breath blown out and I slipped from the stool that I had momentarily claimed, and headed out the front door, hoping at least that the air here wasn't half as polluted as the air back in Baton Rouge. Shouldering the door open, I stepped out onto the porch, a deep breath taken when I finally made it outside and clear of all the people inside, I moved off and over to the left. Footsteps took me to the railing and I leaned on it, contemplating my situation. I had my Glock 23, the clothes on my back, the address Ashley had given me last night and my cell phone. Shaking my head I looked up to the sky, thankful at least that this place had a moon and just simply wondered why and went back to wondering if my Team was at all concerned that I was now nearing twenty-four hours missing. Another shake of my head, it was really no use worrying about my Team anymore, or evidently my life in Baton Rouge, it was over. I had to start over again, isn't that what the guy had said last night?

I vaguely remembered another man telling me that there was a way to get back home. Was he merely playing on my emotions when he'd said that? I spotted the swing and moved to it, settling back on it and swinging back and forth. "God I just want to go home." Wiping away the few tears that had fallen, I rolled my neck a bit and pushed up from the swing. Looking at the front door to the Inn again, I really didn't have a choice.. Maybe someone in there tonight would know of a job that was open and I could get to work, to at least pass some of the time. Pulling the door open again I stepped through it and made my way to the bar again, clambering up and onto a stool. My head was pounding still and I was just still in a sort, way out of it. Another look around at the different people around me, and the I still felt like I was trapped in a bad Halloween movie. I was trying to ignore the pangs in my stomach and the pounding behind my eyes.

The tender behind the bar tonight, was different than the man that bad been here the previous night. I had watched her for a few moments, noting how friendly she was.. Though I wasn't quite sure if it was her nature, or just part of her job. A few more minutes of quick study and I came to my conclusion rather quickly... It was her nature, just as natural as drawing a breath. I managed to flag down her attention, she was extremely busy, so I considered myself fortunate when I did manage to catch her eye. Though my french was fluent, I had forgotten again where I was and how few people might actually understand me. Gray blue eyes were diverted towards the femme's head that was sticking out of the kitchen door, a smile of thanks as she'd answered as the tender's attentions were momentarily diverted once more.

As the night progressed, I'd had no idea how educating, relaxing and enjoyable it really would be. I'd learned that the young femme who'd brought me the platter of food was named, Taneth and the tender of the night was Sid. I'd also managed to meet a man named Cory, who ran a ranch with his wife. He'd given Sid his business card to give to me, after a slightly brief conversation, inquiring if I'd liked horses at all. I told him the truth, my family back in Baton Rouge, they were all good on a ranch. Me on the other hand, even though I grew up on one, once I'd reached college-age all I did was really ride them. Cory told me to get a good night's rest, some breakfast in the morning and to be at the ranch tomorrow before noon. I honestly couldn't really believe my luck. It was my second night in Rhy'Din and I'd managed to make a couple of new friends, was given room and board, not to mention a good meal and drink, and even had a good, solid lead on a job.