Chapter Ten

"There must be something we can do," Mrs. Knight paced back and forth in front of Kelly, Katie, and Gustavo.

As soon as she had gotten the news from Gustavo, and they both had concluded that they had gotten the same letter, Mrs. Knight had driven to Rocque Records like a mad man. Katie was worried that they were going to get pulled over, and for once, her mischievous brain couldn't think of what she would say if a police officer did indeed stop them. What could she have said? Her mother was crazy with worry because her brother had been kidnapped by these strange people that said that they would kill him and his friends, who were also kidnapped, if we told you? Yeah, that was going to go over well. So she just sat back and prayed that her mother wouldn't run any red lights.

They had made it to Rocque Records in (as ironic as it is) record time and as soon as they had gotten in, they compared the letters. All except for the names at the top of the letters, they were exactly the same; stating that they knew their whole schedule and that they were constantly being watched.

At that point, Gustavo called in Freight Train to act as his bodyguard to scout Rocque Records, so far he hadn't found anything, but that still didn't make any of them feel better. If anything, the fact that Gustavo had to call in Freight Train just made things even harder.

"There's nothing that we can do, mom," Katie stated forcefully. She was sitting on the couch in Gustavo's office, knees brought up to her chest, re-reading the letter. "They say that if we bring in anyone besides us, then there's a good chance that they'll be kill-"She suddenly chocked off, unable to say the word. She shook her head and took a breath. "And it seems to me that they're pretty serious, especially with the video thing."

"Katie," Kelly said slowly as she studied the young girl's face. "You seem to know a lot about these people?"

"Well," Katie shrugged modestly. "That's only because I basically live on Fox TV and movies. In the movies, things like this happen all the time," she licked her lips. "But in the end everything turns out fine because there's always a stupid mistake that they made. But-"she rubbed her forehead. "They seem to know what they're doing." She tossed the letter aside and pulled her arms tightly to her body, staring straight ahead.

Kelly sighed and looked over at Mrs. Knight; she couldn't even look at Gustavo, the two of them didn't know what to do, but the boys weren't related to them. Mrs. Knight was pacing, a faraway look in her eyes as she bit her fingernails. She couldn't imagine what she was going through, her son and his friends were under her care and they were kidnapped and she couldn't tell the other families what was going on. So what would she do if the kidnappers kept their promise, if they couldn't get the money in time?

"I KNOW IT'S A LOT OF MONEY!" Gustavo suddenly screamed into the phone, causing Mrs. Knight, Kelly, and Katie to jump. "I NEED IT NOW!" He suddenly lowered his voice. "No, I can't tell you why, I just need the money. No, don't hang u-"Gustavo let out a cry of rage and slammed the phone back down onto the cradle, almost breaking it in the process.

Gustavo bit his lip as his fingers drummed on the arm of his chair. He had seen the way the boys looked when they were being dragged into their cells from that video file. It looked so eerie, like they were actually dead and no matter how hard he tried; he couldn't get it out of his mind.

"You," Gustavo looked up at Mrs. Knight as she suddenly spoke. "This is your fault – if you hadn't had waned my song to California so badly this wouldn't have happened!" Mrs. Knight glared at the music producer angrily. "My son and his friends are missing because of you."

"Me?" Gustavo scoffed, shaking his head. "This is MY fault? That's rich!"

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Knight asked.

"What do I mean?" Gustavo snorted. "Oh come ON! He wouldn't have been here if you didn't let him come here! You know, to help his little friend with his annoying dream to become famous."

"WILL YOU STOP? BOTH OF YOU!" Kelly screamed so loud she had to cover her own ears. "If you could HEAR yourselves! You both care for the boys and it's not the fault of either of you!" She crossed her arms over her chest. "The boys aren't going to die, we're going to get him back alive – the money's already moving, it's just going to take a few days until we have it in the form that we need. Until then we need to stick together and not lose it." She shrugged. "Besides, how were we all supposed to know that this was going to happen?"

"It's similar to what happened to Dak Zevon." Katie commented off-handedly. She looked up as the others looked at her. Her eyes widened. "You didn't hear about that?" She turned an accusing glance at Gustavo. "And you call yourself a music producer; I thought you were supposed to pay attention to everything in the music industry."

"Just get to the point, Katie," Kelly stated as patiently as possible.

"This was like, almost five months ago now, but Dak disappeared on day on his way back from recording something for a new music movie," Katie explained. "At the time, he was having problems with his family; they were getting into a lot of fights, so a lot of people thought that he had just run away. But think about it; he had everything he could have needed with his family, and he never had problems with them before, why would he run away?"

"Are you sure it's the same people?" Kelly asked, suddenly looking concerned. "Are you absolutely sure?"

"The story all fits, it seems like the same kind of people and their same tactics," Katie said with a confident nod. "It's a textbook kidnapping plot, but it seems to me that they didn't get the money in time or he would have….shown up by now…"she trailed off, suddenly looking angry. "Anyone lays a hand on my brother and they'll have to deal with me."

"That's very nice, sweetie, but you're not going to do anything or go anywhere." Mrs. Knight stated as she walked over to her daughter and gave her a hug. "They mentioned you, they might come after you too, and I'm not going to let you get yourself in danger." She looked at her watch as Katie stayed silent. "It's getting late anyway and I don't think that there's much that we can do now; maybe we should try to get some sleep and regroup tomorrow."

"But they said that they're going to be, periodically, sending videos, so we should probably take shifts watching the e-mail," Kelly protested.

"No," Katie shook h her head. "It's the first night; they won't be sending anything else. They want us to worry and put us in suspense, they won't be contacting us again tonight."

Carlos awoke to a stinging pain on his cheek.

He aw up and saw Eric kneeling over him, peering close into his face. Eric's green eyes were two pools of nothingness, and the fact that it was that close to Carlos' face, sent shivered down his spine. Sam was standing off in the corner of the room his arms over his chest.

Wait, he was actually cold. Carlos sat up and looked around. He wasn't in the cell anymore, neither were Kendall or James. His two friends were lying on the ground, being roughly awakened by Kale and Leif, who were almost bouncing up and down from giddiness.

"Good, you're awake." Eric stated and dragged Carlos to his feet, clamping his hands down onto Carlos' wrists. "Now, you're going to watch this."

"Watch what?" Carlos whimpered, now starting to shiver uncontrollably. Where's Logan? I hope he's back in the cell. I hope he's ok. What do they want with the rest of us?

"Well, we've been doing a lot of research on you guys," Eric explained, sounding almost like a parent to a child. "And we know a lot about your guys. Like, where you fit in relation to each other. Kendall and James are the strongest ones of you all. Then there's Logan, and last but not least there's little you. The one that's the most sensitive you'll cry at any chick-flick. So, it got me thinking. What better way is there to torture you than to make you watch your friends get hurt?"

As soon as the last word left his mouth, Kendall and James were beaten.

"No, no stop!" Carlos cried over and over and over again until his throat was raw and burning with the effort. He closed his eyes as James and Kendall cried out in pain, trying to block the sickening sounds of skin against skin. But Eric reached over and grabbed his chin, forcing his head back up.

"Watch or we'll kill both of them," Eric hissed.

As he did so, Sam pulled putt a 9mm pistol and cocked it, pointing it at Carlos' friends. Kale and Leif continued to circle James and Kendall, punching and kicking them each time it looked like the boy was getting back up. Leif had even gone so far as to grab James by the front of his shirt, haul him to his feet, and punch him across the face again, knocking him back to the ground.

"And I'm going to keep watching you, you can blink, but if you keep your eyes closed even a second longer than it take to blink," Eric licked his lips and moved closer to Carlos' ear, tightening his grip on the young teenage boy's arm as he did so. "I'll give Sam the order to start shooting." He gave a smile. "Do you understand, asswipe?"

Crying silently now, Carlos slowly nodded.

"Good."

Eric moved his hand from Carlo's face and put it back on his other arm, being sure to press his fingers tightly against his biceps, just enough to cause pain.

Carlos couldn't do anything but sit there and cry as his friends were beaten into unconsciousness…

A/N: I feel like I keep making Mrs. Knight's and Katie's personalities turned around. At least, when it comes to writing about their feelings with the guys being kidnapped. I feel that Kelly and Gustavo are fine though. So every chapter from now on will start with Mrs. Knight, Katie, Kelly, and Gustavo, and then go into BTR.

So, now you guys know why Carlos is never actually being hurt. I thought that it would be better and it would really show a lot of his character if it was that the way that Carlos would be tortured is by watching is friends get tortured? What do you think about that idea?

Sorry it took me a bit to update, I had a tiny bit of writer's block. But I'm back. I don't know how long this story is going to be, probably as long as I think the story needs to go, as well as the fact that my chapters are pretty long.

I hope you enjoyed, well, with I guess not really enjoy it because they were being hurt so badly, but still, enjoyed it.

Cheers,

-Riles