“Jesus Boner, you need to pick your feet up some more, I can’t keep dragging your ass,” Nick groaned as he pulled the dead weight down the dark hall. “How much longer is he gonna be like this?”

Tiffany shook her head. “I don’t know….depends on how much Ester had in the shot.”

“Well that’s helpful.”

“Christ Carter, quit yer bitchin’” AJ growled with slurred speech.

“What kind of a place is this?” Nick grunted as they continued.

“Some old warehouse is all I know,” Tiffany said and then stopped where the hall branched off. “Go this way.”

“This is like a fricken maze or something…”

“We haven’t walked that far,” the young girl said as she gestured with her head back towards the direction they had come from. Nick looked back to see that they had only dragged AJ along for less than twenty feet.

“Shit….we’re never gonna get out of here at the rate we’re moving.”

“Maybe with us moving him along, the drug will work its way out of his system quicker,” Tiffany wondered out loud as they started down the new hall.

“Maybe a healthy slap to his face will snap him out of it,” Nick suggested.

Tiffany’s eyes widened at the thought. “You really think you could hit your friend?”

Nick shook his head and then grinned. “Nah but it would probably the only chance I’d get without Jay hitting me back.”

“How’s your arm doing?”

“I wasn’t thinking about it but since you brought it up, it hurts like a bitch.”

“I’m sorry….I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to sound pissy with you; I’m just getting frustrated.”

“We just have to make it to that door.”

Sighing, Nick stopped at the door that was next to him. “This one?” he asked in a hopeful voice.

Tiffany shook her head, “No, the one at the end of this hall.”

“Seriously…..I have to stop for a minute,” Nick gasped.

Tiffany watched as Nick propped AJ against the wall, shaking his arm after he was free of the tattooed rebel’s weight. “Something wrong?”

“He was cutting off the circulation in my arm; it was falling asleep,” Nick admitted as he raised his arm above his head and then brought it back down, shaking it again. “Damn, this sucks.”

The young woman looked nervously over her shoulder. “We can’t stay in the hall like this; someone will see us.”

“No one’s been around yet,” Nick replied.

“We’ve been lucky…once Ester wakes up she’ll call someone when she finds out she’s locked in the room.”

“Again, no one is in the halls,” Nick reminded.

“She has a walkie talkie,” Tiffany said.

“She has a what?” Nick questioned. “Why the fuck didn’t you take it from her before we locked her in?!”

“I-I’m sorry…I didn’t think about it when we were leaving,” Tiffany whimpered.

Seeing the tears pooling in Tiffany’s eyes, Nick instantly regretted his words. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. Don’t worry about the walkie talkie, it just means we have to bust ass.”  Without missing a beat, he automatically picked up one of AJ’s limp arms and threw it over his shoulder, propping his body against his.

“Are you sure you’re ready to go again?” Tiffany asked as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“Got no other choice…been through worse stuff than this,” Nick grunted as AJ leaned heavily against him.

Nick felt the adrenaline surged through his veins as he discovered he had more strength to pull AJ down the hall toward the wanted door. Although they were moving slow, they finally made it to the door only to discover it was locked.

“Shit,” Nick muttered as he tried the handle. “What key do we use? Do you have a master key?”

Tiffany shrugged her shoulders as she pulled the key ring from her belt. “Probably but I have no idea which one it would be; I guess we try all the keys.”

“Great,” Nick grumbled as he took on all of the tattooed man’s weight while the young woman started trying keys in the door lock. He glanced at AJ’s face. “Bone, can you hear me?”

“Huh?” AJ sleepily replied.

“Can you open your eyes for me?”

“Kaos?…you're dead,” AJ mumbled sleepily.

“No, that is what they told you,” Nick reminded. “C’mon try and open your eyes.”

 The older man managed to open his lids for a moment only to have his eyes roll back and his head slumped forward. This time Nick lightly slapped AJ on the face.

“Come on Jay…..try and wake up for me.”

When the light hits started to affect his band brother, Nick gritted his teeth and hauled his hand back and slapped AJ across the face.

HARD

”WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR???” AJ growled.

“I got it!” Tiffany announced as she swung the unlocked door open.

“What the fuck is going on?” AJ demanded as he placed a hand across the reddened slap mark on his face.

Looking at his older brother’s face, Nick could see a drug-induced confusion on AJ’s face.

“We don’t have time to explain, do you think you can walk on your own?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” AJ replied and tried to stand on his on, his knees quickly gave out and Nick instinctively reached out to stop him from falling forgetting about his injured arm.

”Shit!” he gasped.

“Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” AJ rasped as he looked at Nick cradling his right arm, his face contorted in pain.

“We don’t have time to explain out in the hall,” Nick stated. “I’ll tell you while we go down…hey don’t you guys use elevators?” he questioned when he looked down the narrow stairwell they would have to travel.

“This is the only way out I know,” Tiffany said as she looped AJ’s arm over her shoulder and Nick took the other.

“We can’t both go down together,” Nick sighed as he looked at the stairs. “You go behind us…I don’t want to take you down if we fall.”

Tiffany shook her head. “That’s a happy thought.”

AJ took his arm off Nick’s shoulder. “I can walk on my own,” he growled.

As soon as he tried to take a step away, his knees gave away and he crumpled to the ground.

“Your knees are still rubbery. Just let me help you until the drugs wear off,” Nick suggested.

Allowing his baby brother and Tiffany help him off the floor, AJ’s drugged up mind was slowly allowing the pieces to fall into place of where he was.

“Hold on the rail and we’ll take one step at a time,” Nick suggested.

AJ realized that with Nick’s injured arm in a sling, he was basically preventing them from falling by hanging onto the stair rail. One misstep could send them crashing down to the landing. He tried hard to shake the cobwebs from his drug induced brain.

“Are we almost out?” AJ asked, his voice bouncing off the tiled walls.

“We still have eight more floors to go,” Tiffany replied quietly.

“Please tell me you’re kidding,” AJ moaned.

“Pay attention to going down the stairs,” Nick pleaded when AJ’s legs buckled, causing the two men to nearly fall.

“Sorry,” AJ gasped, holding onto the railing tighter.

Just as the trio had gotten onto the landing and rested for a moment before they continued downward, a door had opened from one of the floors below, men’s voices drifted upward.

“Matt said there was an issue on the tenth floor…”

Nick held his breath as he tried the handle on the door leading off to the eighth floor. He was happily surprised when it discovered it was unlocked. He quickly pulled AJ into the open door with Tiffany following close behind.

Expecting this floor to be the same as the one they had just left, they were shocked to see that this looked like an office setting, freshly painted walls with pictures and new carpet on the floors.

“What the fuck kind of place is this?” Nick wondered out loud as he looked at Tiffany.

“Don’t ask me…I’ve never been on this floor before.”

“First office we find we go in…there has to be a phone,” AJ suggested, his voice groggy.

With AJ leaning heavily against the wall, the threesome made their way slowly down the hall, and was suggested, they tried the first door they came upon, finding a janitorial closet.

“Weird, its like they are totally running an office on this floor,” Nick commented as he softly closed the closet door.

“I never knew there was anything else but the ninth floor,” Tiffany defended.

“How could you not go explore?” Nick wondered.

“Yeah I agree with Nick,” AJ breathed.

The young girl shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno I guess I was content with the ninth floor. They said something about this was the only floor that was fixed, the other floors were too dangerous to go on,” she explained as they made their way further down the hall.

“That’s dumb, how could you be on top of floors that weren’t safe?” Nick snapped.

“Hey, don’t pick on her!” AJ rasped.

“I’m sorry but seriously, doesn’t that sound a bit odd?”

“Yes, it does sound odd but I do what I’m told and that’s that. Ester threatened to hurt me if I disobeyed.”

They stopped in front of the next door, Nick cautiously turning the knob. “Its unlocked!” he whispered. Upon opening the door, they discovered that it was a large, fully furnished office with a long leather couch and a sleek mahogany desk.  A phone was situated on a corner of the desk.

“Bingo!” AJ cheered when he saw the telephone.

“Don’t get your hopes up yet, the creepy office I was thrown in on the floor above you had a phone that didn’t work,” Nick recalled. “Tiffany, can you go see if it works while I hang onto him so he doesn’t fall over?”

“I think I can stand on my own now, I just move a little slower at the moment,” AJ grumbled in defense.

“Fine…if you fall over it’s your own fault.”

Nick picked up the phone and quickly punched in 9-1-1.

“Are you calling Brian?”

Before Nick could respond, the door slammed shut and Nick’s kidnapper rushed over toward the desk. “He’s calling nobody,” he growled as he snatched the phone from Nick’s hand and quickly disconnected the call. With the next move, the older man picked up the phone up and slammed it across the side of Nick’s face knocking him unconscious.

AJ watched the events unfold in slow motion, feeling helpless.

“Mr. McDonald, please don’t hurt us,” Tiffany begged.

The older man grabbed the young girl by the upper arm, slapping her across the face. “You were to stay put but someone you seemed to like disobeying.”

AJ felt his blood boil as he saw how the man was treating the young woman. “Let her go, let us go,” AJ hissed as he tried to get to Nick who was laying unconscious on the floor next to the desk.

“You’re coming with me,” the man said as he grabbed a hold of AJ by the back of his neck.

Just as AJ was hoping to be able to get free of the man, the office door opened and two, muscular men entered.

“Take them both upstairs to Mr. McLean’s room. I’ll dispose of the other one.”

His body still weakened by the effects of the sedation he had been injected with earlier, AJ’s struggles was to no avail and he found himself being easily dragged out of the room. Fear surged through his veins.

Fear for him and for Tiffany but mostly fear for Nick.