Vicky Stone stretched her legs one at a time, wincing when her knees cracked. It had been a long day at the boutique. She couldn't wait to get home; she was going to put on her robe and slippers, sink into her armchair with a glass of wine and didn't plan to get up any time sooner than Christmas.

As she walked toward the back room to collect her purse and jacket, someone grabbed her elbow.

"Wait, Vicky!" the young woman said. She had a pleading look on her face.

Vicky knew that look. "Oh, no," she said. "I've been waiting to go home since I got here this morning."

"Please, Vicky?" Julia begged. "It's only for an extra two hours. Jake is deploying tomorrow! If I leave now, we could get dinner before he has to catch his flight to base!"

"And of course it's your patriotic duty to make a soldier happy, right?" Vicky joked.

"You know it! Please? I'll buy you lunch tomorrow."

Vicky sighed. "It better be a big one," she said.

Julia squealed like a little girl, causing their surly manager to look over at them disapprovingly.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Julia squeaked over and over, hugging Vicky tight and dancing about.

"Okay, okay, get out of here!" Vicky said, laughing.

Still squeaking, Julia skipped to the back to gather her personal belongings and go home to her boyfriend. Vicky shook her head amusedly, her thoughts wandering to her own love. She rubbed the bottom of the diamond ring on her left hand with her thumb, daydreaming about Derek and their wedding in two weeks. She couldn't wait until the day when she would finally be Mrs. Victoria Hartnett.

-:o:-

The extra two hours of covering the end of Julia's shift had been the longest of Vicky's life. By the time she limped to her car in the evening dark, her feet felt as if they had grown to ten times their normal size. She half collapsed into her little Hyundai and kicked off her horrid shoes, electing to drive barefoot rather than spend another second in them.

Before long, she was pulling into the little two-car driveway in front of the small house she shared with her fiancé. It was a bit cramped, but it was home, the perfect place to start their family together.

Vicky tossed her purse and shoes into the corner by the door and put her keys into the little dish on the nearby table. She hung her jacket on a peg behind the door, missing the coat that usually hung next to hers and the man who wore it.

Within moments, she was in her favorite sweatpants and an old t-shirt of Derek's. His smell made her relax, and she remembered that he would finally be home from that awful business trip sometime tomorrow morning.

She went to the kitchen, taking a glass from the top cupboard as she went. Vicky took out a quarter-full bottle of Chardonnay out from the rack in the pantry and got a corkscrew out of the drawer. As she worked on the cork, she clamped the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could use both hands.

"Hey, baby, it's me," she said into the machine when Derek didn't answer. "You're probably sleeping already, but I just wanted to call and say I miss you. I can't wait to have you home tomorrow. You owe me a big present for leaving me for a whole week! Oh, and before I forget again, can you call the DJ and make sure he has our music all set? He wasn't sure if he had the song we wanted for our first dance, so if he doesn't, we need to burn him a copy. Thanks, babe! I love you so much. Can't wait to see you, bye!"

She kissed the phone and hung it up. The cork removed, she poured herself a hearty glass of wine, leaving the empty bottle on the counter.

A small noise made her stop what she was doing. It sounded like a soft tapping on the glass surrounding the front door. Her heart started pounding. She got creeped out easily, which was why she never let Derek take her to any horror movies.

Vicky silently crept toward the front door, the only sounds coming from the wind outside and the creak of the hardwood flooring beneath her socked feet. She looked left and right in the front hall. Satisfied that no one was there, she shook herself and returned to the kitchen.

As she refocused her attention to the wine in front of her, the floor creaked behind her. She whirled around and screamed.

-:o:-

"Victoria Stone, a 24-year-old sales clerk at a women's boutique downtown," Tripp rattled off to the newly arrived CSI team. "A neighbor walking her dog passed by and said her dog started going nuts. She thought she smelled blood, so she knocked on the door. When no one answered she peeked through the window and saw… this."

The young woman lay in a pool of blood at their feet, her silky brown hair fanned out at all angles. Her eyes were closed, her face at utter peace. She might have been sleeping. Several crimson gashes in her chest and neck proved otherwise.

"I'll take prints," Ryan said.

"I'll see if I can find a murder weapon," Natalia offered.

"Walter and I will start interviewing neighbors, see if there were problems at home," Jesse said.

The CSIs branched out to perform their own jobs. Horatio knelt down beside the body as Calleigh opened her kit.

"What do we have here, Tom?" Horatio asked.

The coroner was gently examining the wounds in the young woman's body. "Definitely exsanguination from multiple stab wounds," he answered. "I count seven that I can see. Someone was furious."

"She's got defensive wounds on her arms, there," Horatio pointed out. Calleigh snapped a few photos of the cuts.

"She fought back," Calleigh said quietly. She reached out to hold the victim's left hand in her own. When she moved the woman's finger, a glint off the diamond perched there caught a ray of morning sun.

"Beautiful ring," Calleigh remarked. "No wedding band with it, we need to track down a fiancé."

"So, we can probably rule out theft as the motive," Horatio said. "A ring like that could easily be worth a couple thousand and would not go unnoticed by a thief."

"Sexual assault?" Calleigh posed, hating to say it.

"I'll run a kit first thing when I get her back," Tom assured her.

-:o:-

Horatio walked out with Tom as he wheeled Victoria Stone's body out to the transport van. A silver car pulled up slowly to the house, pausing at the foot of the driveway. Horatio watched it with hawk-like eyes.

A young man roughly the age of the victim stepped out of the car with a confused expression on his face. Horatio approached him.

"Can I help you, sir?" he said warily.

"What's going on?" the man asked, a panicked light in his eyes. "Is Vicky okay?"

"Are you Ms. Stone's fiancé?"

"Yes, I'm Derek Hartnett, I live here with Vicky. Where is she?" he demanded.

"Sir, where were you last night?"

Derek looked him straight in the eye and seemed to gather the answer he sought. "No," he began weakly. He tore away from Horatio and ran toward the house.

"Vicky?" he screamed.

"Mr. Hartnett!" Horatio called, running to catch up with him.

Calleigh caught him at the front door. "Sir, you can't come in here, this is an active crime scene."

"Crime scene?" he repeated numbly. He looked past her and saw the blood pool. The color drained from his face.

"Oh, God," he whispered.

Horatio placed a hand on his shoulder. "Mr. Hartnett, I need you to come with me, please."

Derek let Horatio steer him away from the house toward the van. They stopped next to the gurney with the body bag on it.

"Mr. Hartnett, I know this is difficult, but is this Vicky?" Horatio asked gently.

Tom partially unzipped the bag, revealing the young woman's face. When he saw it, Derek seemed to be frozen, then began to weep uncontrollably. He sank to his knees and sobbed unabashedly.

Tom loaded the bag into the back of the van as Horatio stayed with the young man. He let Derek cry for a bit then leaned down to put a hand on his shoulder once more.

"Mr. Hartnett, I need to take you down to the station," Horatio said. "You might be able to help us find whoever did this to Vicky. Okay?"

"I don't understand," Derek choked. "She's the sweetest thing. No one would ever hurt her. I don't understand…"

"I will help you," Horatio said.

-:o:-

"Hey, Tom," Calleigh said, walking into the cold morgue. "Did you find anything on our stabbing victim?"

"The rape kit came back negative," he said. "Small miracles, I suppose."

"Small miracles," Calleigh echoed quietly.

"I photographed all seven stab wounds and made molds of them," he reported. "I have them here for you."

He handed her a small tray full of rubbery lumps. She picked one up and turned it over to inspect all sides.

"Looks like a hunting knife," she commented. "I'll run it, see if it can give us a model. Thanks."

-:o:-

"Neighbors say the couple was perfectly happy: no fights, no problems of any kind," Jesse told Ryan. "They were, to put it in one lady's words, 'a match made in heaven.'"

"There were a lot of boot-prints that me and Natalia lifted off the floors," Ryan reported. "They are a men's size 10, so they don't belong to our vic, and we didn't find any boots that match the treads in the fiancé's closet or garage. I'd say they belong to our killer."

"What kind of boots?" Jesse asked.

"A type of hunting boot," Ryan answered. "And since the fiancé owns neither a gun nor any type of outdoor equipment, for that matter, I'd be willing to guess that he doesn't hunt."

"Hunting boots?" Calleigh asked from the doorway. Neither Ryan nor Jesse had heard her come in. "Victoria was killed with a hunting knife, a fairly inexpensive one that you can get at any sporting goods store. Maybe we're looking for someone who hunts for recreation."

"And got tired of the animal prey and decided to try the human kind," Jesse quipped.

-:o:-

Natalia scanned the room, looking for anything they might have missed in their first inspection of the crime scene. Whoever had committed the crime had done a good job of cleaning up afterward. She couldn't find a murder weapon, a fingerprint, a hair, anything that could tie the crime to someone.

She took a deep breath to steady her frustration. Everything will be alright, she told herself.

Walter looked around from the other side of the room. "What exactly are we looking for?" he asked her.

"Anything we might have overlooked," she answered, not breaking her focus.

Walter walked to the kitchen. A lonely crystal glass half-filled with wine shimmered on the counter. He opened the pantry door next to the refrigerator, noticing the three bottles of wine that balanced on the wire rack. He read the labels on each one.

"Hey, Natalia?" he called. "Can you come here a second?"

"What's up?" she asked, coming up behind him.

"I found their wine storage," he said.

"Okay…" she said, needing a hint.

"So, look at the labels."

"Merlot, Pinot Noir, another Merlot," she read. She thought for a moment. "I give up, what's the significance?"

"These are all red wines," he explained. "The glass on the counter has white in it."

"Ah," she exclaimed, smiling. "So, where's our missing bottle? Recycling?"

"Both cans are full," he said, gesturing toward the two bins against the wall. "No wine bottle."

"Maybe he took it with him, needed a drink to steady his nerves?" Natalia suggested.

A flash of color suddenly hit her eye from the living room. She walked back out across the hardwood floors to stare at a spot of carpet underneath the coffee table. Kneeling down, she saw the light green glint of sunlight on glass once more peep out from within the threads. She pried the little shard of glass from the carpet. It was splattered with blood.

"Killers only clean what they can see," she remarked, tucking the glass into an envelope. "It would have been impossible to see that little piece in the dark without the sun to reflect off it. It's light green."

"The color bottle white wine usually comes in," Walter added.

She gave him a funny look.

"What?" he demanded.

"Nothing," she said, smirking. "I just had you pegged as a Budweiser type of guy, that's all."

"I've had girlfriends," he said defensively.

-:o:-

"DNA came back," Natalia announced to the CSIs gathered around her. "The blood on the glass does not belong to Victoria Stone. It came back XY."

"The fiancé?" Jesse guessed.

"Nope," she said. "Not his either. I'm running it through CODIS now."

"She had defensive marks on her arms, maybe she used the wine bottle as a weapon, got a piece of him," Calleigh suggested.

"I hope so," Natalia said.

The computer beeped and an image jumped to the big screen.

"The blood belongs to one Adam Byron," Natalia read. "He has an old breaking and entering charge from eight years ago. He is an employee down at East End Shipping, works on the docks there."

"Bring him in," Horatio said.

-:o:-

Ryan and Jesse sat in silence as they pulled up to the loading dock with a one-car escort right behind them. Workers darted away from them like skittish fish.

"You got his picture?" Jesse asked.

"Yeah, he's right there," Ryan said, pointing to a scrawny, sandy-haired man in jeans and a plain white tee.

"Let's go," Jesse said. Both of them climbed out of the car and strode forward, their hands resting on their holsters. The two uniforms that had accompanied them spread out in case he tried to run.

Byron watched them come closer. Ryan noticed his muscles tense, preparing to leap into action.

"Adam Byron?" Jesse called.

As if Jesse's voice had cracked like a whip, Byron took off, speeding away from his would-be captors. The officers dashed after him, flying across the docks like hellhounds giving chase.

Byron dove behind a large array of shipping containers. Jesse and Ryan drew their guns. "Split up," Jesse ordered. The officers complied.

"I'll take left, you take right," he muttered to Ryan.

"Got it."

The two CSIs left each other to cover either end of the shipping container Byron had crossed behind.

Jesse raised his gun, ready to shoot if Byron tried to attack him. He stepped around the container quickly, but Byron wasn't there. He cautiously made his way down the little alley created by two containers.

Byron launched himself at Jesse from a shadowy recess, knocking him to the ground and sending the gun flying out of his hand. Byron landed two solid punches to Jesse's jaw, but was thrown off by a twisting roll.

Jesse tried to regain his balance, but Byron wouldn't relent. He threw himself at Jesse and, with all his might, slammed his head against the solid metal shipping container.

Jesse collapsed to the ground, dazed. Byron drove his knee into Jesse's stomach, knocking the wind out of him, leaving him defenseless.

With a feral roar, Ryan crashed into Byron out of nowhere, sending both of them tumbling away from the concussed Jesse in a confused heap. Ryan's fist smashed into Byron, who countered by slamming his head into Ryan's.

Reeling from the blow, Ryan rolled away from Byron, trying to regain his stance. Byron leapt to his feet and pursued Ryan as he tried to right himself. As he moved to kick him squarely in the gut, Ryan grabbed his leg and flung him sideways.

Both men scrambled to their feet, breathing heavily. Byron bellowed like a wounded animal and tore at Ryan, who wasn't fully prepared for him. He was driven backward by Byron's force and flung into the wall of a container.

Byron unleashed a fury of blows to Ryan's torso, not allowing him a moment of reprieve. Ryan used the same vicious move Byron had used on him before, slamming his head into his attacker's.

As Byron staggered from the blow, Ryan tried to pull himself together. Then he realized that Byron had drawn a long hunting knife.

"Adam…" he warned.

Byron paid him no heed. He charged at Ryan again, who grabbed the wrist that held the knife and held on tight. With an almighty wrench, Byron broke Ryan's grip, threw him back against the metal and shoved the cold steel blade into his abdomen.

Ryan cried out in agony as the knife grated against his ribs. He felt the hot drip of blood begin to seep onto his shirt. Byron mercilessly tore the blade from his flesh and raised it for the killing strike.

Ryan managed to catch the wrist that so mercilessly sought to end his life before it plunged into his neck. The struggle seemed an eternity. Pain the likes of which he had never felt coursed through him, but with the pain came strength, the strength to survive. He had to ignore the burning of his side and the pounding of his heart as the sharp steel inched perilously close to his throat…

Two gunshots rang through the air like an angel's trumpet.

The look of cold-blooded murder on Byron's face faded into one of amused surprise. He looked down at the two bullet holes that peppered his side and then looked at Jesse, who clenched the still-smoking gun in his shaking hands. The knife clattered to the ground harmlessly. Byron, still looking slightly bemused, took a few wavering steps in Jesse's direction and collapsed lifelessly.

Ryan slowly slid down the side of the container, his breathing labored with pain and exertion.

Jesse hurried to Ryan's side, trying to blink the dizziness from his sight. Ryan closed his eyes in an exhausted grimace, unable to move.

"Wolfe…"

Ryan only answered with a quiet groan.

Jesse knelt beside his friend and fumbled with his phone. "This is Cardoza," he stammered, his voice thick with nausea and vertigo. "I need … a bus to … East End Shipping, Dock 4… Officer down, repeat… Officer down!"

As multiple voices clamored over the airwaves, Jesse returned his slowly returning focus to his fallen partner.

"Wolfe, look at me," he said.

Ryan complied, opening his pain-clouded hazel eyes and trying to focus on Jesse.

"Help's coming. Just hang on, okay?"

Ryan looked at him dazedly. A pained grin spread across his ashen face.

"That was fun," he said.

Jesse chuckled a little. "So much fun," he said.

"You okay?"

"Am I okay?" Jesse retorted. "I'm not the one that just got sliced. I'd be in your place if you hadn't come when you did. He could have gutted me like a fish just laying there."

"Ah, you're just jealous that you're missing out," Ryan joked, indicating the gash in his abdomen. He winced again.

"That's bleeding pretty bad, we should try to slow it down," Jesse remarked. "Here, lie down, that might help."

Jesse supported Ryan as he gingerly lowered himself to the ground.

"People might freak out if they see me down here," Ryan pointed out. "They'll think I'm dead."

"Yeah, well, if we keep letting all your blood out, you will be."

They sat in silence for a while. The officers that had accompanied them finally found them amid the maze of shipping containers. Jesse asked one of them to run to the squad car to get a first-aid kit and the other to direct the ambulance in when it arrived.

"Did you really just shoot at me while half-blind and staggering?" Ryan suddenly demanded.

Jesse laughed. "Technically, I was trying to shoot at him, not you. Although I was seeing two of each of you, so I had to estimate."

When the first officer returned with the kit, Jesse took out a big roll of gauze and a few trauma pads.

"I have to take a look," he told Ryan, who nodded.

Jesse carefully lifted Ryan's shirt to reveal the gruesome wound underneath. Ryan gasped in pain as the cloth brushed against the tender gash.

"This is probably going to hurt," Jesse warned.

"Just get it over with," Ryan choked.

Jesse pressed the bandaging lightly down on the wound. Ryan bit back a cry of pain. His breathing came in shallow gasps. Sirens could be heard in the distance, approaching fast.

"Just hang on," Jesse mumbled quietly, more to himself than to Ryan.

A blast of noise announced the arrival of the ambulance and a CSI Hummer. Horatio clambered out of the Hummer as the paramedics unloaded a gurney from the back of the rig.

"What happened?" Horatio demanded, worry creasing his face as he knelt beside his two CSIs.

"It happened so fast," Jesse tried to explain. "He knocked me out, when I came to he was about the cut Ryan's head off, so I shot him."

"Twice," Ryan whispered dazedly.

"You hang in there, Mr. Wolfe, okay?"

"Uh-huh," he answered vaguely.

The paramedics came over wheeling the gurney. As one set about prepping Ryan for transport, the other stared at Byron's body, seemingly frozen by the sight of the man's wide-open death gaze. Horatio noticed.

"You alright, son?" he asked the young paramedic.

"Yeah, sorry," he stuttered. "Haven't really gotten used to it, you know?"

Horatio nodded. "What's your name?"

"Joe."

"Joe, it's something you never get used to, and there's nothing wrong with that. You understand?"

"Yes, sir."

The young man hustled to his partner's side to help load Ryan onto the gurney.

"Natalia, Calleigh and Walter are coming in to process the scene," Horatio told Jesse as they watched the paramedics lift Ryan into the back of their rig. "I'll drive you to the hospital."

"I'm fine, H," Jesse protested.

"You might have a concussion, Jesse, I want you to get it checked out."

That was not a request.

Jesse sighed in defeat. "Okay."

-:o:-

Ryan stared blankly at the bouncing walls of the ambulance as they hurtled toward the hospital. He felt incredibly weak and achy. The bloody gash in his abdomen seemed to throb distantly, numbly.

The young paramedic that hovered over him had an anxious look on his face, something that did not exactly comfort Ryan.

"My name's Joe Ferrara," he said. "You're Ryan Wolfe?"

Ryan vaguely nodded.

"Okay, I need to wash out the wound a little. It's just saline, so it shouldn't sting too much," Joe explained.

A cool liquid splashed across his skin, but as soon as it hit the gash, it was as if someone had taken a molten poker to his flesh. He yelled and writhed in pained, fighting against the belts that strapped him to the gurney.

Joe looked panic-stricken. "What is it, what's wrong?"

"That hurts!" Ryan cried.

"But it's just saline, I…"

"It really, really hurts!"

"Okay, hold on, I probably just washed some sweat in there with it, calm down!" Joe's pale face was sweaty, an odd look on his face.

"We're almost there," he assured him.

Ryan didn't like something in the tone of his voice. Something was dreadfully wrong.

-:o:-

Horatio and Jesse pulled up to the hospital seconds after the ambulance. They followed the paramedics as they wheeled Ryan inside. Alexx Woods ran out to meet them.

"I'll take this," she told the orderlies.

"Alexx…" Ryan whispered, his voice sounding strained and distant.

"I'm here, Ryan," she told him, taking one of his bloodstained hands in hers. "Hang in there, baby."

"Alexx, something's wrong," he choked. "My chest hurts, I can't breathe…"

"Hold on, sweetie, I'm gonna take care of you," she said. "Bring him in here," she told her assistants, indicating an empty trauma room.

The nurses hooked him up to monitors with timely precision. Immediately, the machines began beeping out of control. Alexx furrowed her brow.

"That can't be right," she mumbled.

"Blood pressure is 80/45," one bewildered nurse reported. "Heart rate 200."

"How long have his vitals been like this?" Alexx demanded from the paramedics as they gathered their things to leave.

"About seven minutes," Joe reported.

"His heart cannot sustain that, it's working too hard," Alexx commented. "We need to calm him down."

"Alexx…"

She went to stand by Ryan's head. "Ryan?"

"Alexx, something's wrong," he gasped. His breathing came rapid and shallow, as if he was drowning. "My chest is on fire and I can't breathe…"

She took his hand in hers as the nurses hooked him up to an IV and a blood transfusion. "Okay, baby, I know," she said soothingly. "You're panicking. Your mind is tricking you into thinking it's much worse than it is, which is sending your heart and lungs into overdrive. I need you to calm down, okay? Try breathing with me."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His hazel eyes were pleading.

"Come one, baby, just breathe."

He managed to take in a shaky breath in rhythm with her and let it out slowly, though it seemed a near-impossible task for him.

"That's good, again," she coaxed.

He breathed in, then out.

"Good," she murmured.

His hazel eyes bored into her brown ones. As they looked at each other, his eyes started to drift out of focus, and then flickered shut.

"Ryan?"

He didn't respond.

She leaned in closer to his face. "Ryan?" she asked louder.

Still no reaction.

"Get me an oxygen mask and crank it up to 100 percent," she ordered. A nurse appeared at her side immediately with the requested tank of air. Alexx placed the breathing mask over Ryan's mouth and nose, lifting his head gently to fasten it around his face.

"It's just as well," she remarked. "Poor baby's been through enough without having to be awake for it too."

Within moments, the surgical team had arrived to take him upstairs. As they wheeled him out of the room, Horatio and Jesse watched as their seemingly lifeless comrade was borne away for surgery.

"How's he doing, Alexx?" Horatio asked.

Alexx sighed, thinking about her response before giving it. She knew she could be candid with Horatio.

"The stab wound itself wasn't too bad," she said slowly. "The way the knife went in, his ribs bore the brunt of it, stopped it from penetrating too far. They should be able to sew that up just fine."

She paused.

"But?" Horatio prodded.

"Something doesn't feel right to me, Horatio," she explained. "I can't explain why his vitals were so haywire. He had dangerously low blood pressure, which may have saved him from bleeding out in the short run, but it's putting his heart and lungs under too much stress to get blood to his organs. His heart is overcompensating, and it's going to short circuit if we don't find out what's causing it. I thought it was a panic attack, but stress should increase his blood pressure, not lower it."

She thought for a moment.

"Do you know if he's taking any vasoconstrictors? Medications that narrow the blood vessels?" she asked.

Both shook their heads. "Not that we know of," Jesse said.

"Does he have a cold or allergies? Antihistamines or decongestants can cause it, but I've never heard of them causing so much in a healthy person…"

All three were silent.

"What about antidepressants?"

An awkward silence followed.

"Is he?" Jesse asked.

"He hasn't said anything to me if he is," Horatio said.

"I'll have them test his blood for them, just to be safe," Alexx said. "I'll stay with him until he wakes up."

"Thank you, Alexx," Horatio said.

"Thank me by staying away from here," she sassed. "First Calleigh, then Eric, now Ryan? If you all miss me that much, just give me a call. Quit trying to get yourselves killed just to come see me."

-:o:-

Derek Hartnett sat on a bench in the lobby of the CSI unit, his thoughts drifting through time and space with no trajectory. He stared at a picture of Vicky he had taken on his phone three weeks ago. She looked so happy. So alive.

He vaguely noticed someone taking the seat next to him, someone with red hair.

"Lieutenant Caine," he said stiffly.

"Mr. Hartnett, can I help you with something?"

"I was just downstairs signing out Vicky," he numbly explained, his voice thick. "The funeral home will be here in twenty minutes to take her out of here. I came to get her personal things." His shaking fingers found the diamond ring at the bottom of the little box in his lap.

"Did you get him?" he asked Horatio. "The man who hurt Vicky?"

"You know what, Mr. Hartnett," he answered slowly. "Vicky did."

Derek looked at him, confused.

"If it wasn't for her courage, we may have never found the guy. She fought back and left us a trail of evidence right to his door."

Derek smiled a quivering smile. "She always was the strong one. Never took any crap from anyone."

Horatio smiled. "I believe it."

-:o:-

"Horatio, take a look at this."

He walked over to Calleigh. "What have you got, ma'am?"

"Something was bothering me about our initial crime scene," Calleigh explained, typing as she spoke. "Vicky Stone was a fairly athletic woman, right? Her fiancé said she took a kickboxing class on the weekends."

"Right," he said.

"So, I was thinking, why wasn't the room in a worse state than it was? Tox results indicated no inhibiting drug was used on her, and the state of the living room as we found it suggested that there wasn't much of a struggle. While I think she was outmatched, she still would have put up one hell of a fight."

"Go on."

"Then I remembered something Ryan said at the scene, about there being a lot of boot-prints from the killer. A lot more than was necessary to break in, kill Vicky and leave. So, put those together, and it hit me: what if there were two killers? Two men together could have restrained one woman without much fuss."

"So, I took samples from all of the prints collected and ran them through trace," she continued. "Roughly half of the prints from both the left and right shoes had traces of the kind of sludge one finds on a busy dock. The other half was spotless."

"So, either the killer wiped his feet halfway through the deed," Horatio finished her thought. "Or there were two men in the house with the same size and style hunting boot, one our dead dockworker, the other unknown."

"Exactly," she confirmed.

"Calleigh, excellent work," he declared. "We have another killer to find."

-:o:-

"Dr. Woods?"

Alexx stood up and walked to the doctor calling her name.

"The patient you asked about, Officer Wolfe?"

"Yes."

"He came out of surgery just fine," she answered, smiling. "There was a small laceration to his liver, but we were able to repair it and the rest of the internal damage. He's resting in recovery now. He should be awake in an hour or two. Would you like to see him?"

"Yes, please," Alexx said, finally able to breathe easier. "Thank you, Dr. Page."

The younger doctor led Alexx into the recovery room where Ryan lay. The machines beeped steadily, the danger seemingly passed.

"Let me know if you need anything," Dr. Page said.

Alexx nodded in thanks and settled into a chair at Ryan's bedside.

"You really scared me, baby," she whispered to him.

-:o:-

Alexx startled herself awake. She had dozed off watching over Ryan. He still lay motionless in the bed.

She checked her watch, and then did a double-take. She held the watch close to her ear, but it seemed to be ticking properly. It had been nearly four hours since Ryan came out of surgery, but he showed no signs waking.

She stood and stretched, walking over to his side.

"Ryan?" she called softly.

He did not respond.

"It takes longer for some people, I guess," she thought out loud, but it didn't do much to ease the worry now creeping into her heart.

Then she noticed something: he was sweating profusely. The air conditioning was on, but for some reason Ryan was sweating.

"Ryan?" she called again, placing a hand on his forehead.

It was burning hot.

Alexx snatched a thermometer from the bedside kit and placed it in his ear. She held her breath for the few seconds it took to read. When it beeped, she read the number and her heart nearly stopped.

Ryan was running a fever of 102.9 degrees.

Alexx hustled to the door, where she spotted Dr. Page filling out charts not far down the hallway.

"Dr. Page!" she called.

The young doctor came over immediately. "Dr. Woods, what's wrong?" she asked.

Alexx led her inside. "He's burning up! His temperature is 102.9!"

Dr. Page frowned, retrieving her own thermometer from a pocket in her scrubs. "That's impossible, he's on powerful antibiotics. It's far too soon for an infection. Maybe your thermometer wasn't calibrated properly…"

She placed her thermometer in his ear and pushed the button. When it beeped and she read the number, her expression was one of utter confusion.

"It was 102.9, right?" Alexx asked.

"No," Dr. Page muttered. She looked at Alexx. "It's 103. It's going up."

"Let me see the wound," Alexx demanded softly.

A nurse that had accompanied Dr. Page readjusted Ryan's clothes to reveal the large white bandage underneath. She gingerly began to peel off the gauze and gasped.

The wound was an inflamed, angry red at the site of the swollen stitches. Fluid oozed from the gash and further aggravated the infection. Mottled purple and red bruising surrounded the wound for six inches in every direction.

"My God," Alexx breathed. "What did you people do to him, rearrange his organs? Increase his antibiotic dosage right now!"

"Yes, Doctor," the nurse answered, hurrying to carry out the orders.

Alexx and Dr. Page looked at each other speechlessly. Neither had ever seen anything like it before.

-:o:-

"Should we be worried about Ryan?" Natalia asked Calleigh hesitantly as they climbed the stairs. They were on their way up to Adam Byron's apartment in hopes of discovering who his mystery accomplice was.

"Alexx sounded worried on the phone, and she doesn't scare easy," Calleigh said. "But if anyone can fix him, she can."

Natalia took some comfort from the confidence of Calleigh's words. Everything will be alright, she told herself.

"Here we are, apartment 410," the pudgy little landlord told them. "These boys are never around, though. Doubt they're home."

"Adam Byron had a roommate?" Calleigh asked.

"Yeah, I never saw him much, though. Adam rented the whole apartment, so he could do whatever he wanted with the second bedroom. I don't have any official record of anyone but him living there."

"Do you know what this roommate looks like?" Natalia asked.

"Young, brown hair, brown eyes. Always seemed pretty clean cut to me."

"Thanks for all your help," Calleigh said.

Natalia and Calleigh entered the dingy little apartment together. They looked around, taking in every detail. A large, empty aquarium stood next to the window. Calleigh found a picture of Byron and another young man dressed in hunting garb. She picked the frame up off the dresser and took it out to the hallway to show to the landlord.

"Is this the roommate?" she asked him, showing him the picture.

"Yeah, that's him. Jason or Jacob or something like that. Seemed like a nice kid," he answered.

"They always do," Calleigh remarked.

"Calleigh!" Natalia called from within. "Come look at this."

Calleigh complied and followed Natalia's voice back toward the bedrooms. She stood between the two, where she could see into both without moving. Each bedroom had a pair of matching hunting boots on the floor.

"I think we found our mystery man," Natalia said.

"Now all we need is a name," Calleigh said.

-:o:-

Alexx paced the same path over and over, gnawing her lower lip with anxiety. No matter how high they pushed his antibiotic dosage, Ryan's fever kept climbing. It was up to nearly 105 now.

He lay in a pool of his own sweat, shivering uncontrollably. She considered sending the nurse to get ice, lots of ice. If they packed it around him, it could keep the fever from frying his brain. But then again, with his heart working much too hard as it was, subjecting him to more constricting variables such as cold would surely send him into heart failure.

She felt helpless. She simply didn't know what to do.

An alarm on his lung monitor started blaring incessantly. Alexx raced to his side to see what was wrong. His breathing was raspier and shallower than ever before. She took an intubation kit out and opened his mouth to see down his throat.

It was swelling shut at an alarming rate.

"No, Ryan," she begged. "Don't do this!"

Two nurses ran in at the alarm.

"Get me a crike kit, I need to cut him a new airway," she ordered.

The nurses looked at each other in confusion as they obeyed. Another alarm suddenly began going off.

"What's that?" one nurse asked.

As if to answer, Ryan started violently convulsing.

"He's seizing!" Alexx shouted. "Hold him steady and get me a shot of Ativan!"

A nurse handed her the required syringe. The three women took hold of his head and upper torso in different positions, struggling to restrain him. Alexx took very careful aim and plunged the needle straight into his neck.

Almost instantly, Ryan's spasms slowed, then ceased. The one alarm ceased while the one attached to his lungs kept beeping.

"Now for the crike," Alexx said, taking a controlled breath. She took the scalpel and carefully cut into his throat. She inserted the tube into the incision and hooked the tube into the portable bag. She began pumping slow, deep breaths through the bag into his lungs for him. The alarm shut off.

"Get a respirator in here," Alexx said, fighting the tears. The nurses left to fetch the required machine.

As soon as they left, she let out her held breath as she kept up the steady pumping. "Don't you ever do that to me again," she threatened softly.

-:o:-

"Alexx!"

"Horatio!"

The pair of old friends hurried toward each other.

"Alexx, you said it was urgent?" Horatio asked, confused. "What's wrong?"

Alexx took a shaky breath. "Ryan's dying," she said.

Horatio looked at her, confused. "But…" he began. "But the wound wasn't all that deep…"

"It's not the stabbing that's the problem, Horatio," she explained. "He has some sort of infection that our antibiotics can't fight. We don't understand, he's not responding to any treatments. His heart is about to give out, and that's if the fever and seizures don't cook his brain first."

Horatio looked heartbroken. "What can I do?"

She handed him a fat, yellow envelope. "I took some blood samples from him and swabbed his wound for trace. We're not supposed to use outside labs, but ours is always slow, it takes them hours to get tests back." Her eyes met his. "Ryan doesn't have hours, Horatio."

"Alexx, we will do everything in our power to help him, okay?" he told her firmly.

"Let me know if something turns up?"

"You'll be the first."

-:o:-

The lab was deathly silent as Natalia worked. She was running the samples from Alexx to locate any foreign substance that could be causing the problem.

The team waited silently nearby, their eyes locked on her steadily working hands and her machines. The tension was nearly unbearable.

When the machine beeped, everyone nearly jumped out of their skins. Natalia tore the assessment paper from the printer and read hurriedly. She frowned.

"Both the blood and wound track samples showed traces of…" She brought the paper all the way up to her eyes to read. "Phosphodiesterase alethinophidia."

They all stared at her blankly.

"Come again?" Walter said numbly.

"What the hell is that?" Jesse exclaimed.

"Snake venom."

Everyone redirected their stares at Calleigh. "The first word refers to hemotoxic enzymes, things that mess with your blood, heart and lungs, and the second is some sort of subgroup of snake, I think."

Horatio called Alexx immediately. "Alexx," he said. "It's snake venom. Give Ryan as much antivenin as you possibly can."

-:o:-

Alexx breathed a small sigh of relief. After receiving Horatio's call and subsequently flooding Ryan's system with antitoxin, his fever was beginning to fall and his bodily systems were slowly beginning to stabilize.

Still, she worried. Lack of oxygen to the brain during the seizures could cause permanent brain damage. They wouldn't know how extensive any damage was until he woke up.

If he woke up.

Alexx shoved that thought from her mind. Of course Ryan was going to wake up. He just had to.

-:o:-

"So, Alexx says Ryan is stabilizing, meaning Calleigh's out-of-nowhere, random knowledge of Latin snake enzymes was correct," Walter said. "But that doesn't tell us how Ryan was dosed with venom in the first place."

"We swabbed the knife, no venom," Jesse said.

"There was no venom at the docks that we could find," Walter added.

"And no one could have slipped it to him at the hospital because he was constantly under Alexx's watchful eye," Horatio finished.

"Yeah, pretty much," Jesse said.

"Gentlemen, we are missing a crime scene," Horatio said.

A picture on the big computer screen across the hall caught Horatio's eye. "Excuse me," he muttered.

Calleigh was running the picture of Adam Byron's roommate through the facial recognition software and the Florida DMV. Thousands of driver's licenses flitted across the screen at a rapid-fire pace.

"Ma'am," Horatio said as he walked in. "Still trying to find our mystery partner?"

"Yes, sir," Calleigh said absent-mindedly, her eyes not leaving the flashing screen. "Natalia went to the hospital to check on Ryan, figured Alexx could use the company."

Something beeped. An image of a driver's license matching the facial appearance of Byron's roommate froze on the screen.

"Joseph D. Ferrara," Calleigh read. "Twenty-six years old, last known address is the same as the late Adam Byron. We found him. Horatio?"

Horatio was standing transfixed, gazing at the photo with a confused look on his face. "I know this man…" he said.

"What? From where?" she inquired.

Realization lit up Horatio's face. "He was the paramedic that responded to the dock. His name was Joe, he was upset by Adam's body, but I assumed it was because he was new at the job."

Jesse and Walter had come over to see what was happening.

"There was an empty tank at the apartment, one that could possibly house a snake?" Calleigh chimed in. "I've read about some snake owners regularly milking their snakes for venom. That's how he could have gotten it!"

"He dosed Ryan in the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital. He's our missing killer," Horatio stated.

-:o:-

"Jesse, what's wrong?"

"Natalia, the one who dosed Ryan was the paramedic who responded. Where are you?"

"I'm pulling into the hospital now, why?"

"H thinks he might try to finish the job," Jesse explained. "We need you to notify security and protect Ryan until we get there, got it?"

"Yeah, got it," she said, hanging up the phone. Everything will be alright, she told herself.

She haphazardly parked, then ran into the hospital. Instead of waiting for the elevator, she raced up the three flights of stairs to Ryan's room.

Alexx was coming out of the room when she veered into the hallway.

"Natalia, good to see…"

"We think someone may be coming here to kill Ryan," Natalia cut her off, clutching a stitch in her side. "The one who dosed him is a paramedic and could try to finish the job."

"Oh, God…"

"Alexx, what?"

"He's in there now! Said he wanted to check on his patient from this morning!"

Natalia's heart froze. "Go get help!"

Alexx took off as Natalia drew her gun and burst into Ryan's room. "Freeze!" she yelled.

Joe Ferrara was standing over Ryan with a hunting knife in his hand.

"Joe, put the knife on the ground now," she ordered.

"Adam tried to kill him," Joe mumbled. "I had to finish the job. That's what good hunting partners do."

"Joe, if you do not put the knife down, I will shoot," she declared, her heart thumping wildly inside her ribcage.

"I just wanted to be a good hunter, like Adam," he explained pleadingly. "A real hunter makes a real man, he said. We followed that girl home from work, just like tracking deer in the glades. She struggled like the animals do. There was so much blood…" A tear fell from the corner of his eye. "He made me pick up every piece of the bottle she smashed over his head. I cried the whole time."

"Joe, don't make me ask you again…" she warned.

"He said I could never be a real man if I couldn't kill…" he sobbed. "I saw Adam's body, knew I had to make him proud. I keep a vial of venom in my pocket for good luck, knew it would work… But it didn't…"

"Joe…" she warned again.

He swung the blade high to drive it deep down through Ryan's heart.

"NO!" Natalia screamed.

Joe staggered and dropped to his knees. He looked at her and grinned a bloody grimace, then fell to the floor, dead. With a jolt, she realized she had fired a bullet straight into his chest.

Natalia took a deep breath to steady herself, lowering her gun with a shaking hand. She went to Ryan's bedside and took his hand in hers.

"I got you, Ryan," she whispered. "I'll protect you."

His eyes opened slightly. She smiled at him. He smiled weakly back, exhaustion seeping through both of them. She sat down heavily beside him on the bed, his hand resting in hers. She was still shaking a little, and a single tear splashed onto her lap.

"I'm really glad you're okay," she whispered. "I'm not going anywhere if you want to rest."

He smiled again, then closed his eyes to sleep some more. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She told herself, as she so often did during the bad days, everything will be alright.