Sitting in the car with his band mates, AJ filled them in on the details of how he woke up and was duped into thinking he was in a hospital, waking from a coma.

“They told me you guys were killed in a plane crash,” AJ tearfully recounted. “They had newspaper articles, television reports, everything was made up to make me think everyone was dead.”

“Gosh,” Howie breathed, “that had to be horrible.”

“Horrible isn’t the word for what they did to me mentally,” AJ agreed.

Kevin rubbed the rebel’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. “Thank god we found you; we never lost hope.”

Brian’s head jerked in his cousin’s direction. “Never lost hope?! You kept saying Jay was dead---“

“Well the odds were stacked against him so it seemed that he was dead,” Kevin defended.

AJ shook his head. “The way they had me convinced that you guys were dead I can only imagine that they made sure everyone thought I was dead from your point of view…..I only realized that what they were telling me wasn’t true was from a picture of Brian in their prefabricated magazine. Thank god I remembered Rok got that same exact cut from working on his house the weekend before my accident.”

After a few moments of quiet thought, Howie broke the silence. “What about Nicky? You said you weren’t sure if he was in the building?”

“To be honest with you, I’m not sure if I really saw Nick…..I could have been hallucinating; I mean it seemed like I was with him at one time, he was holding his wrist like he had hurt it.”

“But you don’t know for certain if you were with him or not,” Kevin added sadly.

AJ shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure.”

“Let’s let the police figure this out,” Howie suggested. “We’d be in over our heads going into that place trying to find Nick.”

Brian looked at his cousin incredulously when Kevin placed the key into the ignition. “So that’s it, you’re just gonna leave??”

Kevin sighed as he started the engine. “We really don’t have any other choice. Howie was right, we’d be in over our heads going in there and trying to find Nick if we’re not sure he’s even in that place.”

AJ shuddered visibly. “You don’t want to mess with those people.”

“But AJ’s out of there, what makes you think they’d stick around?”

Kevin turned to face Brian. “I honestly don’t know what else to do!”

Brian pulled the cell phone out of his front pocket. “Call the police right now?”

“And what the hell do I tell them? I have no idea where we are! They can follow us from the street corner back to this place. I have no idea the street name!”

Howie leaned forward from the back seat. “Kevin’s right, the police would actually need some type of a physical address….lets just drive out to the street to find the name of where we’re at.”

“Even I have no idea where I am,” AJ rasped as he nodded.

Without speaking further, Kevin put the vehicle into drive, leaving the headlights off; edging their way down the narrow dirt path.

Once again Nick woke up underneath the star-filled sky. Running a hand over the side of his face instantly sent shock waves of pain through his body. Slowly, Nick checked the other side of his face and discovered that he wasn’t met with the same pain when he touched it.

He soon realized the seriousness of his situation when he suddenly discovered that he wasn’t able to close his mouth to swallow. ‘That asshole must have broke my jaw when he knocked me out,’ Nick immediately thought to himself. Slowly he stood up, not wishing for repeat performance of dry heaving that had hit him the last time he moved around. The nausea had resurfaced but managed to stay in the pit of his stomach and that suited Nick fine for the moment.

‘Where the hell am I?’ Nick wondered as he started to walk in the darkness. Where ever his body had been dumped at, he quickly discovered that the kidnappers had only placed him approximately twenty feet from the dirt road. He had only walked for a short time before the nausea started to grow.

Nick suddenly dropped onto his hands and knees as the sudden urge to throw up hit. Tears sprung into his eyes as the bout of dry heaves resurfaced, leaving him breathless. He never noticed the headlights that shone on him as he wretched.

“¿le dio una patada el asno oye borracho su muchacha del coche?”

“¿son usted bien?”

“Oye, tal vez él necesita un paseo ser agradable!”

“¡No, déjele andar su asno borracho a casa!”

Although Nick’s Spanish was limited, he did pick out the words drunk, walk and home out of the conversation coming from the truck that had stopped alongside of him. He looked over at the pickup and shook his head. “No,” he mumbled, afraid to open his mouth. “Ayuda,” he hoped that he conveyed the word for help.

“¿Dice usted español?”

‘God,’ Nick groaned inwardly when he realized that the only people that had found him on this road only spoke Spanish! They seemed to find the situation he was in, funny as they continued to laugh. There would be no way he could tell them what he needed. He shook his head negatively. Although his Spanish was extremely limited he did know that they were asking if he spoke Spanish. He could order a drink proficiently but what he needed right now was help in getting AJ.

“Police.”

The passenger in the small red pick up gasped when Nick approached his side.

“He needs to go to the hospital," the young man on the passenger side said in broken English.

Again, Nick shook his head. “No, police.”

“You need help, get in,” the man said in broken English as he opened the door and stepped out.

Nick hesitated for a moment but didn’t resist as the man lightly took his arm and guided him in.

“Hacen que él se siente por la ventana no quiero que él vomite en mi camion!” the old driver spat when Nick was led into the truck cab.

The passenger smirked as he quickly got out of the truck.. “He’s afraid you’ll puke in his truck,” he explained to Nick. “I’ll tell him I’ll ride in the back.”

When the passenger indicated what he was going to do, the old man appeared to disagree.

Getting sick in the truck was the least of Nick’s worries at the moment. He needed to find AJ! The two men immediately started arguing.

“No quiero tomarlo al hospital él nos conseguirá en el problema!” Sólo abandónelo aquí!”

“¡Él no será un problema! ¡Él tiene que ver a un doctor!”

The older man shoved Nick on his shoulder, indicating that he wanted him out of the truck. Despite the younger man’s objections, Nick was finally guided out of the cab.

“Adiós. La ayuda es este camino. Policía,” the young man said as he gestured in the direction the road was leading.