Author's Note: Here we go again. ;P

Hello! Welcome to my ninth CSI:Miami fic! I'm so stoked for this sequel to "Demons." The story title is subject to change. The following is a super-special sneak preview of the story. It's an excerpt from the currently planned-to-be tenth chapter. I hope you're all strapped in for the long haul, because this is shaping up to be my most intense, longest fic ever. I'm stoked and I hope you are too.

I hope you enjoy this special peek! I wrote it and posted it right at midnight as a little birthday present to myself lol. I'm 22 today! Yikes, I feel old. :P Anyway, enough about me. Go read!

Countless faces swirled around him in the seemingly endless ocean of bodies. The midday sun beat down upon them all, waves of invisible heat lazily radiating upward in suffocating swirls and ribbons. The smell of baking asphalt and sweaty people mingled with the freshness of the ocean air and exotic flowers, making the air feel even heavier.

Ryan Wolfe stood in the middle of the sidewalk, feeling people bump into him over and over again as businessfolk, tourists and beach-goers all went about their daily activities. None seemed to even notice the young man standing still in the middle of the roiling afternoon crowd, gazing blankly around at them as they passed. They didn't seem to notice, or perhaps simply didn't care, the shadows under his hazel eyes or the dark stubble on his face or the tousled, unkempt state of his dark hair.

He stared around at all the people ignoring him as they passed him on the street. A middle-aged man in a navy blue suit was walking toward him, a black cell phone pressed to his ear.

Ryan's eyes widened.

"...Should be home by five o'clock tonight, sweetie," the man said, not noticing the younger man he was quickly approaching. "Janice and Freddie still coming over for dinner?"

An iron-like hand suddenly clamped onto his wrist. The man in the suit stopped dead in his tracks and stared in utter surprise at the person who had grabbed him. The young man looked terrible, as if he hadn't been taking very good care of himself. He gazed at him, a strangely wild look in his eyes.

"Hey, what the hell...," the man in the suit barked, but Ryan cut him off.

"They'll find you with that!" Ryan cried, not letting go of the man's wrist, the one that held the phone against the man's ear. Passersby turned to stare confusedly as they walked past.

"Honey, I have to call you back," the man said quickly into the phone, then pressed the button to hang up. The young man still didn't let go of his wrist. His grip was bruisingly tight.

"The signal is carried through the airwaves!" Ryan shouted in the man's face. "They'll find you, they want to find you!"

The man painfully wrestled his hand from Ryan's grasp. "What the hell is wrong with you, boy?" he snarled. "Get away from me!"

"No, you don't understand!" Ryan cried, moving uncomfortably close to the man, clutching the lapels of the man's suit jacket. "You can't let them find you!"

The man began to feel the creeping onset of fear. Who the hell was this guy?

"Look, man," he said carefully. "You need to let go of me. Right now."

Ryan stared at him with wild eyes for a few moments, something terrifyingly alien flickering in the hazel depths. Then he let go of the man's jacket.

The man in the suit quickly hurried away from him, leaving Ryan looking lost and confused on the sidewalk. He watched Ryan furtively as he hurried away. As soon as he was a seemingly safe distance away from the strange young man, he took out his phone again and dialed three numbers.

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?" a woman's voice asked.

"Yeah, there's some crazy guy accosting people here," he said quickly, glancing in Ryan's direction. He didn't seem to notice the look. "I don't know what's wrong with him."

"Where are you, sir?" she asked.

"Near the corner of Fern and 16th," he told her. "Across the street from Marley's Grill."

"Okay, sir, we'll send someone immediately. In the meantime, I suggest you keep your distance from the man."

He glanced at Ryan again. "Yeah, no problem there," he muttered.

Ryan began ambling through the crowd aimlessly, not really going anywhere in particular. A few people who had witnessed his interaction with the man in the suit watched him closely, all the while making sure to stay well away from him. Something about Ryan was certainly off. People began skirting around him completely as they noticed something was wrong.

Within a few minutes, an unmarked police car appeared at the corner. Frank Tripp and Eric Delko climbed out.

Ryan saw them from his place about fifty feet down the way. He watched them carefully.

Frank and Eric spotted Ryan, everything about the strange callout suddenly making sense. They began walking slowly toward him, talking quietly to each other.

Ryan watched them come closer, not blinking.

Eric made eye contact with Ryan. "Hey," he said. "Can we talk to you for a second?"

Ryan hesitated. Then he took off sprinting.

"God damn it!" Frank growled, hurrying back to the car as Eric raced after Ryan.

"Hey, stop!" Eric bellowed as he fought to catch Ryan. "Miami-Dade Police! STOP!"

Ryan completely ignored him, bolting across grass and sidewalk as he cut through a small park. People screamed and scattered when they saw him pelting toward them with Eric thundering along a couple dozen feet behind him.

Ryan came to a more open expanse of grass. His feet flew across it lightly as if some otherworldly power coursed through them. The distance between him and Eric was quickly expanding, despite the older man's valiant efforts to keep running at breakneck speed.

Frank suddenly appeared on the street in front of him in the car. He stopped squarely in Ryan's path, forcing him to quickly slow his speed.

That one small moment of hesitation was just enough for Eric to close the gap and launch himself on top of Ryan. He tackled him with the force of a linebacker, and the two of them went down in a tangled heap. Ryan immediately began kicking and wriggling, grunting and crying out as he fought to get away from him, but Eric held him down as Frank fumbled to cuff Ryan's hands behind his back.

"Get off me!" Ryan yelled.

"Take it easy, kid," Frank growled. He was finally successful in snapping the metal cuffs in place around Ryan's wrists.

"Leave me alone!" Ryan screamed.

"We can't do that, man," Eric said quietly.

A small crowd of people had gathered around them, many of them snapping pictures or taking video with their camera phones.

"Hey, get out of here, people!" Eric barked at them. "This is none of your business, move along!"

He helped Frank lift the still-struggling Ryan to his feet and begin guiding him into the backseat of the car. Ryan fought the whole way, squirming and flailing, but the combined strength of the other two men was too much for him to overcome. They managed to push him into the back of the car and shut the door.

Ryan began kicking the back of the seat in front of him as hard as he could, roaring incoherently like a trapped wild animal. Frank and Eric got into the car as calmly as they could, ignoring the steadily growing crowd of onlookers.

"I didn't do anything!" Ryan bellowed desperately, still slamming himself against the seat and kicking with all his might.

Eric turned around to face him, a stony expression on his face, but his eyes were sad.

"If you didn't do anything, why'd you run?" he asked quietly.

Author's Note: TaDa! There you have it. I hope you enjoyed this teensy taste of what's to come! I don't know when the real story will start, unfortunately. I have a lot of research and such to do before I can start getting it up for you all. But I'm really excited, so it'll go as fast as it can. Thanks! :D