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“Brian?” Kevin used the wall to guide himself down onto the floor next to his cousin. He could actually feel the skin on his wrists tearing against the handcuffs, but he ignored the piercing sting and the trickle of blood running down his hands. The sound of Brian crying was hurting him more than the cuts ever would. “Brian, look at me.”

Brian didn’t look up. Instead, he wrapped his arms tighter around his legs; pulling his knees into his chest in an effort to make himself as small as possible. His chest hurt from the branding. His lungs hurt from crying. His entire body hurt from trembling. He wanted to be sick, but he didn’t have the energy.

“Brian?” Kevin tried again. He shuffled closer and gently leaned his shoulder against Brian’s. It was his cousin’s immediate jerk of fear that made him start to cry. Brian was broken, and he had no idea how to fix him. “It’s me, cuz. It’s only me.”

“What’s going to happen now, Kev? Did you see? Did you see what that guy did to AJ?” Brian forced himself to stop shrinking away from his cousin’s touch; to raise his head and to blink numbly through his tears. “I would rather die than – than be – than watch ...”

“Don’t say that.” Kevin pulled in his breath. “No matter what happens, we’ll get through it.”

“They’re coming back for us. You know that, right?” Brian wiped frantically at his wet face. “We haven’t escaped anything. I mean it, Kev. If they touch me again ...”

“They won’t touch you again.” Kevin was struggling to get his tears under control; to get the memory of the man with his hands all over AJ out of his mind. “I won’t let them.”

Despite everything, Brian smirked at his cousin’s comment. “You can’t do anything, Kevin. None of us can do anything anymore. We’re trapped. They’ve got us beat; physically and mentally.”

Kevin knew that what Brian was saying was true. Still, he wasn’t ready to give up. He didn’t want to surrender; to let their captors take everything away from them. His mind flashed to Kristin and the boys, and his tears began to fall even faster. He wasn’t ready to let go of his family.

“Ahhh, Kevy-Kev, I see that you’ve finally decided to shed a few tears.” The big man’s voice boomed out over the sound of the lock clunking over into the open position; over the sound of the heavy door swinging open. “Are you upset over what I said to your little bearded friend? Don’t worry; I haven’t done anything to him ... yet.”

“You’re sick.” Kevin kept his voice dangerously low. “You’re nothing but a deranged, perverted, lunatic. I hope the cops come and shoot you in your polluted head; you sick fuck!”

“So much animosity.” Angelo motioned for Carl to haul Kevin off of the floor. He wasn’t worried about him fighting back. He could see the blood running down Kevin’s fingers and the pain criss-crossing his face. He knew that the oldest member of the group was completely useless. “You’ve clearly been spending too much time with AJ.”

Kevin let out a low growl as the other man pulled him off of the floor. He tried to twist out of the man’s grip, but he could barely even move his arm. The slightly smaller man may have been the quieter of the two, but he certainly wasn’t stupid. He had made sure to grab Kevin by his wounded arm; rendering him physically worthless.

“Why so quiet, Brian?”

Kevin’s stomach dropped as the bigger man began to address his cousin. Brian was still curled up on the floor. He didn’t even flinch when the man said his name. He just continued to stare into nothingness. The fight in his eyes was gone.

“It’s time to join your friends ...”

The contents of Kevin’s stomach continued to summersault as he watched the man reach down and dig his fingers into Brian’s upper arm. For a fleeting moment, he thought that his cousin wasn’t even going to react. But, as always, Brian’s actions surprised him. Kevin could literally see the life return to his cousin’s face as Brian sprang up from the floor and clamped his free hand down over top of the bigger man’s fingers; catching him completely off guard.

Although he was small, Brian was strong and shockingly quick. He pried the man’s fingers away from his skin and kicked with all of the strength he could muster; catching his captor directly in the knee cap and sending him stumbling backwards.

If the room had been larger, Brian’s actions would have given him a good chance at escape, but Angelo recovered too quickly and easily blocked his path. Ignoring the throbbing pain in his knee, Angelo reached out and yanked the southerner backwards. He spun him forcefully into the wall and grinned as Brian’s back connected directly with the cinder blocks. He lunged forward; closing the gap between them in a matter of seconds.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” Angelo’s adrenaline picked up as he watched Brian’s eyes widen. He pressed his body into Brian’s; enjoying the fact that he was squirming against him in fear. “Now, I’m going to have to punish you.”

Why had he done it? Brian didn’t even know the answer. His thoughts were so jumbled that it was hard to keep track of what was going on in his head. One second, he had resigned himself to the idea of dying and the next minute he was fighting the irrational urge to try and escape. He knew that he had made the wrong decision as soon as he had reacted, but by then it had already been too late to change his mind.

“There are so many ways that I could punish you, Brian.” Angelo brought his masked face even closer to Brian’s. He could feel the dampness of Brian’s tear-streaked cheek through the fabric of his mask as his cloth-covered lips brushed against the southerner’s skin. “Soooo many different ways ...”

Brian shuddered as the man trailed his hands down his sides. Even if he was stupid enough to try, there was no way that he could attempt another escape. The man was using his torso to keep him in place as his hands worked their way down to his hips. He started to cry, once again, as the man pressed the lower half of his body into him. Brian’s stomach heaved as the man’s body twitched, and then he was suddenly on his hands and knees; emptying the entire contents of his stomach onto the floor in a heap of shame for the world to watch.

“Let’s go.” Angelo at least had the decency to wait until Brian had finished being sick to speak. “We’ve wasted enough time.”

Brian allowed himself to be pulled into a standing position. He kept his head down as the bigger of the two men shoved him out of the room. He could hear Kevin being dragged along behind him, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at his cousin. He didn’t want to see his look of pity.

“Your partner is out of his God damn mind.” Kevin hissed at the man who was pulling him by the arm. “We’ve been complacent so far. What more do you want from us?”

“Shut up.” Carl delivered his generic response in what he hoped was a tough sounding grunt. He didn’t want Kevin to know that he agreed with him. He didn’t want to let Kevin know that he was the weak link; although, he could sense that Kevin had already figured that out. “You’ll do as we tell you to do.”

Kevin clenched his teeth. He could sense that the man holding on to him didn’t agree with what his partner had done to Brian. There was something about the tone of his voice that gave him away; that told Kevin that he was surprised and confused by his partner’s sudden change of behaviour.

“Here we are!”

Kevin looked up as the bigger man spoke. Against his better judgement, he let out a string of profanity as he stumbled into the room after Brian. Howie was standing on a series of precarious looking risers with a rope looped around his neck, while Nick and AJ were both chained to the floor. The situation was worse than he ever could have imagined.

“You bastard!” AJ screamed at the bigger man as soon as he looked at Brian. He tried to launch himself forward, but the shackles around his ankles stopped his movement. His knees hit the ground hard, but he recovered unexpectedly fast; swiping frantically at the space in-between him and their largest captor as the beefy man secured Brian to the floor with the available set of restraints positioned next to Nick. “I told you not to touch him! I know that you did! I know that you did something to him!”

“AJ, please ...” Brian’s voice came out as a hoarse whisper. “I’m okay.”

“Your friend tried to do something stupid.” Angelo finished securing Brian’s ankles into the shackles before turning to AJ. A grin lit up his face. “Do you want to take his punishment for him?”

“Bring it!” AJ commanded. “You can give it to me right here, right now!”

“Jesus, AJ.” Kevin swore as the men who had dragged him into the room finished fastening the shackles around his ankles. He swayed unsteadily on his feet; struggling to maintain his balance with both his hands and his feet bound together. “You need to stop talking.”

“What the hell is happening?” Howie’s voice sounded even worse than Brian’s. He darted his eyes anxiously back and forth between his four band-mates before settling his attention on Brian. “Did they ...”

“No.” Nick spoke before Howie could finish his question. He, too, had his eyes locked on Brian’s pale face. “They didn’t. R – Right?”

Brian gently shook his head. He could still taste the bile in the back of his throat. “No. No, they didn’t.”

“We haven’t done anything just yet.” Angelo laughed. “But now that we have you all in position, we can get started with our last game. As you all know, Howie was our big winner, so we’re going to get things going by having him answer a simple question. Are you up for that, Howie?”

Howie flicked his eyes in the bigger man’s direction. He didn’t dare turn his head for fear of pulling the rope more tightly around his neck. The man may have asked him a question, but he knew that he didn’t really have any choice when it came to the answer.

“What’s the question?”

“Like I said, Howie, it’s a really simple question.” Angelo smiled beneath his face mask. “Nick or Kevin?”