Title: Welcome To Hell
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders, gen
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: R
Prompt: 4, We don't use the word impossible here
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the beautiful Greg Sanders, just borrowing him for a while. Please do not sue.

***

"Stop struggling, kid. It's impossible to get loose. Just relax and enjoy the ride."

The words only made Greg struggle harder, even though he knew they were true. No matter how he wriggled, he couldn't free himself from the ropes that bound his wrists and ankles -- or from the seat belts that were tying him down in the back seat of the car.

He should have known better than to investigate a strange noise by himself, even though he was the only CSI who had been at the scene. No one had thought that there was any danger; if they had, he wouldn't have been sent there alone. Gil would say that he shouldn't have been, anyway.

What had he been thinking? He should have called for backup, told someone that he'd heard a suspicious noise, rather than going to check it out by himself. He had always been too impetuous. And now it had gotten him into a mess he might not be able to get out of.

The car stopped abruptly at a red light; Greg twisted his thin body against the seat belts, trying in vain to lift his head, to get some idea of where they were. No one would see him even if he did manage to raise his head; the windows were tinted, keeping anyone inside from view.

Greg swallowed hard, turning his head to rub his cheek against the leather of the car seat in a futile effort to loosen his gag. That proved impossible, too; they'd shoved a rag into his mouth, then tied a cloth tightly between his lips, knotting it at the back of his head.

He was effectively bound and silenced, and he had no idea what these men were going to do with him. All kinds of unpleasant possibilities had been going through his mind; some of them made his blood run cold and his body go limp with fear.

They'd taken pictures of him after he was bound and gagged, joking about who they would send them to first. He'd heard them mention Brass' name; maybe the rest of the team already knew he'd been kidnapped, and were even now looking for him.

It felt like they'd been driving forever; thanks to the fact that he'd been pushed face down onto the back seat when the belts had first been wrapped around him to hold him down, he hadn't been able to see any street signs, so he was completely disoriented.

Greg had no idea which direction they were headed in; they'd taken his phone and left it at the scene, so the team wouldn't be able to track him that way. For all they knew, he had disappeared without a trace. There would be no rescue coming any time soon.

He'd never been so terrified in his life, not even when that street gang had been beating him up and he'd thought that he was going to die. This seemed to be a gateway to a much more certain death -- a death that would more than likely be slow and painful.

Had it only been last night that he was safe at home? He could remember every second of last night with crystal clarity, from the moment he'd awakened until he'd realized that it was nearly time for him to head to work. Wasn't that how people remembered the last day of their lives?

Calm down, Greg, he told himself sternly, trying to shut away the thoughts going through his mind. He couldn't think like that; if he did, then he'd be too paralyzed with fear to be observant, to notice things about these men that he could tell the team when they found him.

If they found him.

When they did, it might be too late. He could be killed in so many different ways, his body left somewhere in the desert; he could be left in a conspicuous place for the team to find with his throat slit. He could be strangled, shot, stabbed, suffocated. So many ways to die.

Greg forced back a sob; it would barely had been heard, anyway, even if the music blaring in the front seat had allowed the sound to penetrate his captors' ears. The cloth gag in his mouth kept him from making any sound louder than a strangled whimper.

He couldn't let himself cry. He couldn't lose control; if he did, that would be the beginning of the slide down a slippery, steep slope that he might never be able to climb back from. No matter what these men did to him, he couldn't let them see his fear.

It was easy to tell himself that -- but Greg knew that it wouldn't be so easy to do.

He'd managed to wriggle around in his bonds until he was facing the front of the car, but he still couldn't lift his head at the right angle to see anything other than the night sky sprinkled with stars, the tops of trees, and phone lines. That wasn't going to help him figure out where they could be.

Greg inhaled sharply as the car swerved, turning off the smooth road onto one that was bumpy and uneven. He could only assume that they were getting close to wherever they were going -- and from the feel of the road, it was in a very isolated place.

Panic began to rise in him again; the team wouldn't expect him to have been taken to some faraway place. What if they couldn't find him? What if they gave up looking, assuming that he was dead and that they'd be wasting their time to keep up the search?

What if it was impossible for them to find him? Tears came to his eyes at the thought, threatening to streak down his face, building up in his throat and almost making him feel as if he was choking on them. What if he died here, without ever seeing anyone or anything he loved again?

What was it that Gil had told him, only a few days before? "We don't use the word impossible here," the older man had told Greg, holding his gaze with those impenetrable dark eyes. "Don't ever think anything is impossible, Greg. There's always a way."

He had to believe that. He had to believe that there would be a way for the rest of the team to find him before it was too late, that he would be saved at the eleventh hour. He had to hold on to that hope, as slim as it might seem at the moment.

The car bumped down what seemed like a very long road, jolting Greg's bound body but not loosening his bonds in any way. He drew in a breath when it stopped, closing his eyes for a moment and sending up a prayer to any deity that might happen to be listening.

Whatever was going to happen to him, he couldn't lose control. And he couldn't give up the spark of hope that Gil had given him. The CSI team didn't use the word impossible. They would find him. And they would save him, no matter what they had to do.

The two men got out of the front seat of the car, slamming the doors behind them. Greg waited, his thin body tensed, wondering how long it would take them to open the back doors and loosen the seat belts that held him down, then drag him out of the car to whatever fate awaited him.

There were too many voices to belong to just the two men who had brought him here. The air was filled wit the cacophony of talking and laughter, the smells of cigarette smoke and cheap booze; Greg wanted to cough, but the cloth filling his mouth didn't allow him to do so.

When the doors were opened, it almost startled him; for a moment, Greg had let himself believe that they'd only brought him here to hold him hostage, and that they would just keep him in the car. But rough hands loosened the seat belts and dragged him out of the car.

Greg's eyes widened at the sight of what looked like the gaping mouth of a cave; what were they going to do, leave him here? The team would never find him; he would die here, tied up and gagged, alone, helpless, with no one ever finding him until he was long gone.

He wanted to scream, to struggle, to close his eyes and discover that this was all a nightmare and that he would wake up at home in his own bed, drenched in sweat with his heart beating a mile a minute, but safe and alone -- not in the hands of a group of men holding him captive.

"Welcome to hell, boy," a gravelly voice whispered in his ear. "A worse hell than you could ever imagine."

***

Next story in series - Live Through This.