He felt ribs turn unnaturally inward as the guy's foot connected, the impact made worse by heavy boots. The pain momentarily took his breath away and he instinctively wrapped his arms around his chest to provide a degree of protection from further injury.

"Look, Mr O'Connor, you're certainly not making this easy for us." Another one of the men stated, reaching down to haul the ex-cop up by his shoulders. "You don't have the money, sure, we get that, but you're going to have to get it. Do you understand?"

Brian gritted his teeth together and nodded, fighting back tears from the sheer agony radiating from his chest. "Yes."

He knew he wasn't going to be able to get the money. There was barely any money left in his bank account, and anything that was there only went towards paying bills. Sure, races were won every once in a while, but the money was usually blown on beer and clothes. Maybe a couple of races could have been won in order to earn the money in seven days, but with his ribs as mashed as they appeared to be, he wouldn't even be sitting in his car for a while.

"Hey, look, we're leniant guys," One said lightheartedly, though it did nothing to change Brian's impression of them. "We're going to give you 48 hours to get the money together, OK? If you don't have it by then..." he opened his jacket on one side and slid a gun up from his waistband. "You get the picture."

Brian's head was spinning from the pain, but he was coherent enough to know what the guys were saying.

"$100,000, Mr O'Connor." The guy said breathily. He turned to walk away, but before exiting, he whispered to another one of the guys - the biggest one, the one with the steel-capped boots.

Brian didn't recall anything else after being kicked in the ribs for a second time. The wave of pain was nearly enough to make him pass out, but just for good measures, the guy took hold of a couple of fingers on his left hand and forcefully yanked them both back, emitting two clean snaps. He fell over the edge of consciousness and was actually thankful for it.

---

Brian woke up abruptly, shifting position and being reminded that the events in his dreams were all very real. "Shit..." he mumbled to himself, glancing over at the clock and realising he'd only been asleep for an hour or so. His ribs were throbbing angrily, indicating that he'd probably leant on them at some point. It was ridiculous how little sleep he'd had recently without the torment of recollecting previous events which led to his injury. It was as though it wasn't bad enough just to experience the pain. As soon as he closed his eyes, he was forced to open them again as a scream of some sort reached his ears.

For a split second, Brian forgot that the guys who had been after him were locked up, and actually thought they were back. He felt a sudden rush of guilt and devestation in the fact that he'd carelessly left Erin downstairs on her own.

The thinking didn't last long, as he jumped out of bed seconds later, barely managing to push the searing pain aside long enough to run down the stairs.

"Erin!" He shouted as he reached the bottom. His eyes scanned the room for both intruders and some sort of weapon as to hit them wtih. After a minute, it hit him that the living room was completely empty aside from her on the couch. "Oh, thank god..." he sighed, leaning against the wall briefly before walking over to the middle of the room and wrapping his arms around her shaking body.

"Hey..." he soothed, gently running his fingers through her hair, "What happened?"

His question remained unanswered, and was only responded too only by her arms clutching at his body tightly and then the feeling of tears falling onto his bare torso. "I'm so sorry, Bri..." she sobbed, "I'm so, so sorry..."

He had no idea as to how to deal with crying girls, much less did he have any idea for why she was apologising, so he just gently rubbed her back. "It's OK, Erin..." he replied, repeating everytime she apologised.

As soon as she calmed down, he would take her back to his room. They needed each other tonight, for reasons beyond comprehension.

When