As soon as I entered the loft, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of dread. It was too quiet and dark. Justin should have been home. And with Justin came light and laughter. Not shadows and silence. We had talked just an hour ago. Well, fifty-eight minutes ago. We had been doing that for months, talking every hour we were awake. No matter what. If I did nothing and Justin was safe, he would be calling me in just a couple of minutes. But somehow, I knew he wouldn't. I tried to rein in my panic, but my hand trembled as I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Justin's number.

One ring.

I stopped breathing.

Two rings.

I wobbled a bit.

Three rings.

My heart stopped beating.

Four rings.

I felt nauseous.

On the fifth ring, someone answered. My heart leapt, but only for a flicker of a second. Then it plummeted into my stomach, and my blood ran cold. A soft female voice came on the line. "Hello."

I swallowed hard. "Uh, is Justin there?"

"I'm sorry, no. I just found this phone laying in the middle of the road. I was walking by, and it started ringing."

I clenched my jaw. "Where?"

Twenty minutes later, Carl and I were standing in the middle of the road near where the female passerby had found Justin's phone. There wasn't much to see, just skid marks and Justin's phone. The woman hadn't witnessed anything, so after Carl took her name, he let her go.

I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair, spinning around slowly as I did so, scanning the road and the surrounding bushes, desperate to find any clue as to what had happened.

"Maybe he just dropped his phone. Have you called all of his friends?"

"No. No. He wouldn't have…ever since shortly after the…the rape, we've had an agreement. He calls me every hour. Every hour. He wouldn't have been careless with his phone. No way."

Carl sighed. "Okay. I'll get a forensics team out here."

**********

I sat there in some basement (one I didn't recognize), alone. It was chilly and dark. There was only one source of light, a single light bulb hanging above me. It swung back and forth slowly.

I railed against my bindings until my wrists and ankles ached and burned. I screamed until I was hoarse. But no one came. Not for a long time.

**********

Every minute that passed drove me closer to the edge. I couldn't stop the endless stream of horrifying possibilities from appearing in my mind. Justin bruised and bleeding…Justin dying.

I was trying so hard to focus on something constructive. Looking for clues. That's what I was doing when the forensics guys arrived, trying desperately to ignore most of what was going on in my head and find something that could tell me who had taken Justin and where. The forensics guys measured and photographed the skid marks and took Justin's phone to check it for prints and to look at his call history.

When they were about ready to close up shop, I got lucky. I actually found something. A cloth, like a handkerchief. I was reaching down to pick it up when a stocky man with dirty blond hair pushed me out of the way and grabbed it (with his gloved hand). He snapped, "Don't contaminate the crime scene! We might be able to get prints off of that."

Then he sniffed the cloth and concluded woodenly, "Desflurane. It's the only inhalational anesthetic with an acrid smell. The rest are sweet smelling, sometimes sickly so."

Carl sighed and patted my shoulder nervously. "Looks like you were right, Brian. This is a kidnapping."

At the "crime scene" and then at the precinct, the minutes separating Justin and I, our last call, became hours. I was losing all semblance of control. Justin was slipping away, and nothing I could do would stop it. I had no idea who had Justin, why they had taken him, what they were doing to him, or if I'd ever see him again. I was slowly going mad.

**********

I had to piss so bad that cold shivers were running not just up and down my spine but also throughout my body, and my abdomen had started to ache. But no matter what, I refused to piss my pants. I refused to let my kidnappers think I was afraid, though, of course, I was. I was terrified. And in so much pain. My wrists and ankles still burned and ached. Finally, after what had felt like hours, a door at the top of the stairs, one that I hadn't even seen because it was cloaked in shadows, swung open. The doorway was so bright that I couldn't see who was entering the basement. All I could see was a tall slim figure, just his shape, no features. Then when he closed the door and started coming down the stairs, I couldn't even see that. Once he reached the bottom of the stairs, he moved closer, but he stayed in the shadows.

Then he asked calmly, in a lilting voice, "Do you know why you're here Justin?"

I felt a cold lump at the pit of my stomach. How did he know my name?

I stammered, "N-no."

"Sure you do. You've fallen in with a bad man, one who makes you do sick things."

I closed my eyes, trying desperately to push back the waves of panic threatening to take my consciousness. This man sounded exactly like Ethan. Not his voice, but his words. Was it possible that Ethan had engineered this from his jail cell? The thought had me trembling. I squeezed my eyes tighter to prevent tears from falling. Not again. Please God not again. Suddenly, I felt an overpowering nausea. Then the world started spinning.

**********

Carl was on the phone with someone. I have no idea who. He grunted a few times. Then he actually smiled a little. When he hung up, he stated brightly, well, as brightly as Carl gets, "The forensics team got a print off the cloth and there's a match in the system."

I asked quickly, in a near growl, "Who is it?"

"Jared Tombs. He's been brought in for questioning more than a dozen times on kidnapping cases, and he was arrested a few times, but nothing ever stuck."

I swallowed hard. "Were those cases…did the cops find the…the victims?"

"Yeah. In each case, after a few weeks, they were released."

I just stared at Carl. That made no sense. "Was there ransom involved?"

"Nope. The victims were set free, and none of them ever identified their kidnappers."

"I don't get it."

"He's a deprogrammer."

Every muscle in my body tensed. "A deprogrammer?"

Carl nodded. "Near as we can figure, parents hire him to get their kids out of cults and the like. So now we have some suspects."

"Justin's parents."

Carl nodded. "We need to bring them in for questioning right away. Maybe we can scare them into telling us where they've got him stashed."

This was unfuckingbelievable. I knew Justin's parents hated me and that Justin's mom wasn't too thrilled about the turn our relationship had taken, but I had trouble believing that she would have agreed to have Justin kidnapped. Especially after…

I shook my head and sighed. I just didn't know. Once upon a time, there was little she wouldn't do to "save" her son from me. She'd lied to Justin, asked Justin to live like a prisoner (under Craig's thumb), tried to justify her husband's violence (hitting Justin, punching me, and running me down with his car), and attempted to cut Justin off from everyone. A year or two ago, she might have agreed to hire someone to kidnap and deprogram him, but now? After the bashing…the rape…I just didn't know.