As instructed, Howie and Brian quietly followed Kevin along the dark pathway toward the ware house. Standing close to the side of the building, Kevin peered around the corner and then motioned with a nod of his head back to the others to follow him once he determined that no one was standing on the other side.

“Honestly Kevin, I doubt they are waiting to ambush us,” Brian softly whispered only to get a disapproving glare from his cousin.

Grabbing Brian’s arm, Howie joined in with Kevin’s glaring look, adding a shake of his head for added emphasis. Reluctantly, Brian shrugged his shoulders and followed silently after his cousin.

Trying the first door they came upon, Kevin gave a slight tug only to discover that it was locked. He muttered quietly and then continued further along the brick building.

A few moments later, the trio came upon a windowed, grime-smeared door. Holding his breath, Kevin cautiously looked in, exhaling when he turned the knob and discovered it wasn’t locked. After his discovery, he turned back toward Brian and Howie.

“The door’s unlocked,” he started in his slow, southern drawl.

“So let’s go in,” Brian whispered, growing impatient.

“We can’t just run in without a plan,” Kevin continued.

“Like we’ve had a plan up to this point,” Brian protested as he tried to walk past the older man, getting stopped before he got around him.

“Listen to me!” Kevin growled. Brian stiffened at the sudden change of tone. “There appears to be what looks like a security guard sitting at a desk. One good thing is that he’s sleeping.”

“So we tiptoe around him,” Brian suggested.

“Not that easy,” Kevin replied.

“Brian and I are pretty quiet, Nicky would get us busted trying to sneak in, but I think we seriously don’t have anything to worry about,” Howie whispered.

Kevin peered into the window again. “So, there’s a door toward the left of that guard’s desk. We walk in and head for that door.”

Brian smirked. “What if it’s the janitor’s closet or worse, a bathroom?”

“We hope it’s not,” Kevin replied, stopping to give Brian a stern look. “If it is ….since we’re being quiet….. we would move on, undetected, alright?”

Quietly, Kevin opened the door, holding it open for Brian and Howie to pass through, making sure he held the door until it closed softly. He gestured with a nod of his head toward the wanted door, praying silently that it wasn’t a closet or worse, locked. His hopes were dashed when he discovered that it was locked.

”Kev….off to the right,” Brian whispered as he took off.

”Hey!” Kevin muttered as he watched Brian walk away.

”S’okay,” Howie smiled as he saw the propped doorway that Brian was walking toward.

Kevin relaxed a bit as he made his way toward the doorway with Howie. Once inside the doorway, he looked up at the winding cement stairs.

“Why would this be propped open?” Kevin wondered out loud.

“Who knows, but I guess we just check out each floor to see what we find,” Brian said as he started up the first flight of stairs.

Opening his eyes, Nick was initially met with complete darkness. After a few of minutes of letting his eyes adjust, he discovered he was looking up at a star filled sky. Rolling over onto his side, Nick immediately regretted his actions for the movement left him feeling dizzy and nauseated.

An urge to vomit crept up on him and without warning, he found himself dry heaving while laying on his side. The heaving bout became so violent that he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to catch his breath again. Once the surge finished, Nick found himself exhausted and sweaty. He also discovered that the task struck up a severe pain in the side of his face that he hadn’t felt when he had initially woke up.

“Weird,” Nick mumbled to himself, instantly regretting opening his mouth when pain seared through the left side of his face. “Awe fuck!”

Although he regretted uttering the first word, immediately swore because of the pain, literally sending electric surge of pain from his face down to his toes. The pain was more than Nick could handle and he immediately passed out.

AJ slowly woke from his drug induced slumber, still laying face down on top of the made hospital bed. Dragging a hand slowly over his face, he searched his mind as he tried to recall events that happened hours ago. Thoughts he had sworn he wouldn’t forget, AJ found that they were no longer able to be recalled.

‘Had Nick been in this room earlier?’ AJ wondered. Was it a dream? What about that girl?

One thing that AJ did remember clearly as he scratched the side of his leg was he knew that was where Ester had shot him up with some type of drug. Would that drug cause him to think that he had seen Nick in this room?

“What the hell did she give me?” AJ wondered out loud as he sat up in bed. A key being placed into the lock outside the room caused the rebel hold his breath, stiffen his posture.

“Damn, I was hoping you’d be asleep,” the old woman said as she entered the room. “I guess you won’t be helpful,” she started to say as she pulled a two way radio from the front pocket of the smock she wore.

“Don’t bother,” AJ said.

“I know you won’t be co-operative, it’s best that I call my security,” Ester replied.

AJ smiled at the woman. “I’ll be good, I really want what you’re giving me.”

“Really? I haven’t given you that much yet----“

“With my size, it doesn’t take much for me,” AJ lied. “What have you been given me anyway?”

“My own special drug cocktail,” Ester replied with a smile.

“Well, I’m ready anytime you are…..I’ll be good, don’t bother calling those apes,” AJ suggested as he continued to sit on the bed.

The old woman sized up her ‘patient’ and for a few moments debated on calling her two body guards before she finally believed AJ’s words and slipped the radio back into her front pocket. As she stepped closer to AJ, she pulled a fluid filled syringe from the opposite pocket. “You make this so much easier for me.”

As the old woman stepped closer, AJ lunged, grabbing her arm and quickly twisting it behind her back, causing her to cry out and drop the syringe to the floor. Pushing his grandmother’s advice on how to treat women with respect, he drew his fist back and punched her squarely in the jaw, rendering the old woman unconscious.

“I’m definitely gonna go to hell for this,” he rasped as he shook his pain-filled hand. Grabbing the two way radio and door keys from the woman’s front pocket, he made a hasty exit from the ‘hospital room,’ closing the door and locking it.

Once out in the dimly lit hall, he realized that he had no idea which way would be out. Snippets of him walking with Nick and Tiffany on either side slipped into his brain. He quickly decided that maybe Nick being in his room wasn’t his imagination after all.

‘If it was my imagination, why would I recall walking down this hall with Nick?’ AJ thought to himself as he decided to head off to his right.

The first door he came upon, he opened and discovered it was a stairway, he prayed that this would finally be his way out as he started down the moldy smelling stairwell.