CHAPTER 1

Peter and Olivia silently entered the warehouse; Olivia's gun drawn and Peter close behind her. "Are you sure this is where they are meeting?" Peter whispered to Olivia. "Yea, in about a half an hour they are doing an arms trade in that back room." She whispered back motioning to a door at the far end of the warehouse. Suddenly they heard footsteps behind them and turned around. A man stood by the door and Olivia raised her gun, shouting, "FBI, freeze!" But he just smiled, stepped out and slammed the door, locking the deadbolt. "Damn!" Peter cursed, kicking one of the crates sitting on the floor. Olivia went over to the door and tried to pull it open, with futile results. She looked up at the windows, to high to reach and there are no other doors. She ran her fingers through her hair, frustrated with the situation they were in. "How are we gonna get out of here?" she asked, Peter. "Before they come back, probably to kill us." Peter interjected. "Thanks for the optimism, Peter." She replied. "Maybe we can get out through that vent." Peter said walking over to the far wall, beginning to unscrew the bolts. As they were beginning to unscrew the last bolt hot air flooded out of the vent, causing them to cough. Peter sniffed the air, "It smells like something's burning." He said. "AHHH!" Olivia screeched, collapsing onto the cold cement floor. "What is it?!" Peter asked frantically. "My leg!" she hissed through gritted teeth. He squatted so he was level with her and lifted her pant leg up exposing dark crisp brown, bleeding skin." 'Livia, I think that hot air is burning you or something!" He felt a sharp pain shoot up his legs, but ignored the throbbing. Peter pulled his shirt off and ripped it into strips and wrapped her legs to stop the bleeding, not paying any attention to his own burning legs. She cried and writhed on the floor in pain as the gas continued to smolder the skin on her legs, slowly moving up her body. He couldn't stand the sight of her screaming in pain with bloody bandages wrapped around her legs and tears pouring out of her eyes. He pulled her into an embrace and he felt her immediately relax at his touch. "Liv, it'll be ok. Shhh." He said softly in her ear, tracing circles on her back. "It hurts." She moaned. "I know." He said caringly. Inside his head he was trying to figure out what could be burning her and why it was affecting her much, much faster than it was affecting him when another scream pierced the air, "Where?" he said urgently. She pulled her shirt up so he could see her abdomen, where the skin had already begun to burn to a crisp an fall off. Her jaw clenched as she tried to will the pain to stop. Peter removed some of the bandages from her legs and wrapped them around her stomach. Where he removed one of the bandages from her leg he could see the bright white bone peeking up from the burned flesh. Suddenly he remembered that he had his phone and pulled it out. Battery dead, Damnit! "Liv, you have your phone?" She nodded weakly and slipped it into his hand. On the third ring he heard, "Agent Broyles." "Broyles! It's Peter!" "Peter, what is it?" the agent asked. Olivia let out another scream. "Peter, who was that? What's going on?" Broyles said with urgently. "It's Olivia. We are at the warehouse. They must have known we were coming. They locked us in and filled the warehouse with some sort flesh burning gas. We need an ambulance!" with that Peter hung up. "Broyles is coming, Olivia. You'll be ok." Olivia seemed to have calmed down and the pain had lessened. Peter took this time to look her over, not good. The gas had burned all the way up her legs, and was still making its way up her abdomen while his own legs were hardly burned past his knees. She closed her eyes, trying to forget the pain. Peter cupped her face with his hands and shouted, "Olivia! Come on! Stay with me! Please stay awake! They'll be here soon!" she slowly slid into darkness. "Please Olivia!" he shouted again, a tear sliding down his face. Soon he too followed suit into the black of his mind.