Thank you to everyone following this story, I really appreciate all your comments! I hope you enjoy this chapter.

CHAPTER 11.

"Have you found her?" Sylvester called out of the car window as Paige pulled into the garage.

Breathe in… and hold… and out…

"Not yet, pal," replied Toby, sadly.

Sylvester, Paige and Ralph leapt out of the car and ran over to where Walter, Cabe, Happy and Toby had gathered around the monitor tree.

"Who else?" asked Paige as she and Ralph joined the group. "Mark's message said 'friends'. Plural. Who else has he taken? Oh, God, why is he doing this?"

"Allie's safe," confirmed Cabe. "She's on her way to Homeland now in an armoured car with someone I trust."

"I posted a message in the Warlock's Chest WhatsApp group," explained Sylvester. "Already got replies from all the guys… and one from Dyfrost's mom. He's grounded again. At least he's safe."

"The guy's fifty years old!" exclaimed Toby, rolling his eyes.

"Cecil is on a month long vacation in Europe," added Happy. "He just sent me a photo." She held up her phone so the others could see Dr Rizzuto's smiling face in front of the Eiffel Tower.

"I texted Patty," began Ralph. "But… she hasn't replied yet."

Everyone fell silent for a moment. Eventually, Walter spoke up. "M…m…maybe she didn't hear her phone?" he offered, but everyone was already fearing the worst.

Toby walked over to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup. "Anyone else? Cabe?" he asked. His mind was racing, trying to figure out what Collins' plan was, what his next move might be, but Collins was more unpredictable now than ever and even Toby was struggling to get anything from the little information they had.

"Thanks, Doc, I think I need one," answered Cabe, but the others all shook their heads.

Ralph sat on the couch and Paige sat beside him. She wanted to say something supportive, but right now she had nothing to offer. "I'll try calling Patty," said Ralph in a quiet voice.

"Walter, have you contacted Ray?" asked Paige.

Walter shook his head and began pacing around the floor. "I wouldn't know how to," he replied. "You know Ray, he's… well, he's Ray."

Suddenly Ralph threw his phone to the floor.

"Hey, buddy, stay cool," urged Toby, crossing to the couch to address Ralph.

"Patty didn't answer," snapped Ralph. "Mark Collins has her too."

"We're making assumptions here," said Walter, standing still for a moment. "We have no proof that Collins has Florence, or Patty. For all we know he is playing some kind of sick game with us."

"Well I don't wanna play," retorted Happy, clenching her fists.

Suddenly, every screen on the monitor tree flickered into life and the grinning face of Mark Collins appeared, multiplied seven times. Paige gasped and pulled Ralph protectively towards her. Everyone else froze to the spot, unable to take their eyes from the screens. Collins' beard was less unruly than the last time they'd seen him and it looked like he'd lost a little weight, but other than that he was exactly the same. His glassy-eyed expression terrified them all.

A computerised voice filled the air. "This is a recorded message." The message repeated three times and by the third time everyone in the garage was holding their breath.

Walter felt completely helpless. Collins had become a monster and he couldn't help blaming himself. For a moment he wondered what might have been different had he not decided to have Collins committed all those years ago. Maybe if Collins didn't hate him so much he wouldn't have sabotaged his relationship with Paige? No… no, he really couldn't blame Mark for everything, as much as he wanted to.

"Hello, Team Scorpion!" announced Collins as soon as the automatic message had finished. Then his smile was replaced by a look of apparent uncertainty. "Too soon?" he asked. "Maybe you're still two teams, a broken team, a team torn apart by lies."

"Collins," hissed Walter through gritted teeth. Every logical part of his brain was telling him that reacting to a recorded message was pointless, but he couldn't help himself.

"Don't let him get to you," warned Toby. "That's exactly what he wants."

"By now I'm sure you've realised that my earlier message was serious," continued Collins. "Your friends and I are going to spend a little time getting to know each other. I suppose you want me to tell you where they are so you can heroically come to their rescue, but that's no fun is it! Instead, we're going to play a little game and this game is just for us, for old times' sake, so no cops. No authorities, or your friends will suffer and I'm sure you don't want that. So, I'm going to send you each one clue over the next hour. In sixty minutes I'll expect you to have solved my little puzzle. Unless you spend the next sixty minutes fighting, picking faults in each other, stabbing each other in the back and the like. You do it so well, after all."

"Turn it off!" yelled Walter. Happy turned and pulled the plug from the wall and immediately the screens went blank.

"How does he know so much?" asked Paige, twisting her hands together tightly. "He's been watching us the whole time!"

"Probably hacked our phones," replied Happy. "Monitored our emails, CCTV, bank transactions, anything to spy on us."

"He could probably tell you how many times Cabe used the bathroom," added Toby.

Sylvester shuddered. "How... how long do you think he's been planning this?" he asked.

"Truth is, he's taken advantage of our recent... situation," Toby answered. "As much as he's tried to manipulate Walt and Paige, I doubt he ever expected us to do this. No one expected this."

"By 'this' you mean the destruction of the team," noted Walter.

"Temporary separation," Happy corrected him, but Walter just shrugged dismissively.

"What's that for?" asked Paige defensively. "You don't think it's temporary? I thought after yesterday we all agreed..."

"We all agreed to work together to... to...to find Collins," retorted Walter, interrupting her.

Paige's face fell. "Walter... Last night..."

"I... I just want to find Collins," said Walter. "T..t..to find Florence and Patty."

"Of course you do," snapped Paige.

Toby leapt up and stood between them. "Hey, folks, now is really not the time," he said. "We're all worried about them, we all want them safe."

Paige's nostrils flared as she tried desperately to control her emotions. Just hearing Walter say Florence's name in that context had triggered something inside her and she couldn't explain it. Was this jealousy? Was this her insecurity rearing its ugly head again?

Just then Walter's text alert sounded. He picked up his phone. "It's from Collins," he stated. "Y."

"Why? Because he's an asshole," replied Cabe.

Walter looked at him with a confused frown. "No, the letter Y. That's the entire message."

"Well, what the hell kinda clue is that?" growled Cabe.

"Y is the medieval Roman numeral for one hundred fifty," noted Sylvester. "Do... do you think that's significant?"

"One hundred fifty what, though?" asked Happy.

"Y represents the Greek letter Upsilon," said Ralph. "In particle physics it represents the Upsilon Particle. Maybe it's the first part of an equation?"

"Collins said we would each get a clue over the next hour," Paige reminded them. "Even you geniuses aren't going to figure it out from one letter."

"Paige is correct," said Walter with a nod.

"Oh, you sound surprised?" retorted Paige.

"OK, OK, timeout!" said Toby, forming a 'T' with his hands. "We're all stressed. We're all still trying to process all of this. Collins wants us start fighting again and I sure as hell don't want to give the bastard anything he wants so let's all try to stay cool."

"I'm with the Doc," said Cabe. "There are two people in danger, people we care about, we don't have time to fight."

"I wasn't fighting," replied Walter, flatly. Then he turned to Paige. "I don't want to fight," he added pointedly.

Paige nodded. "Me neither," she agreed. She wasn't quite sure what had just happened. She'd suddenly felt the need to defend herself, but Walter hadn't actually said or done anything that even remotely resembled an attack. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Before anyone could say anything, another text alert sounded. This time it was Sylvester's phone. He looked at the screen, desperately hoping it would be a message from Patty to say she'd stopped at the mall, or missed the bus, but when he saw the screen he knew it was from Collins. "It's a G," he announced.

"That's not a Greek letter," noted Ralph, but before anyone could offer any theories, Paige's phone sounded.

"I got a P," she said.

"Bathroom's over there," sniggered Toby. Happy elbowed him in the ribs. "Hey, you know what I'm like when I'm nervous," retorted Toby, nursing his new bruise.

"This is a waste of time!" exclaimed Walter and he stormed off towards the kitchen. Cabe and Toby both made a move to follow him, but Paige stopped them. "I'll go," she said.

"You sure?" asked Cabe.

Paige nodded. "He doesn't know how to process how he's feeling," she said. "This is where I come in. This is what I do."

She walked over to join Walter who was standing by the fridge drinking milk straight from a carton.

"Hey," she said in a gentle voice as she approached. Walter looked up, but said nothing. "Um, so, y'know, it's OK to be angry. In fact, it might be good for you if you can channel it into finding Patty and… and Florence."

Walter shrugged and gulped down another mouthful of milk.

"I, er, I'm sorry about before," continued Paige. "I… I didn't mean to… to snap at you. I'm just so worried and…"

"I understand," Walter answered. "And… and you're right, I am angry. These last four weeks h…have been… I know I haven't been dealing with my f…f…feelings in the correct way. I… I honestly never thought I'd see you again, Paige. Now, suddenly, here you are… and the team… and I don't know what to think, but… but now I can't afford to think a…a…about it because Collins has done this… and…"

"We do need to focus on finding Collins," Paige interrupted him. "The rest… the team… us… it'll have to wait. I can't focus on all of it either. In the last four weeks… especially these last few days… I thought I was losing my mind. My emotions have taken control of me and I'm trying to get back that control, but it's hard. It's so hard, Walter."

Walter put down the milk carton and reached out his hand, resting it on her forearm. Paige didn't move, allowing him to touch her. It felt so natural, so comforting, so safe. She wanted more.

"Paige," began Walter. "I'm… I'm lost without you."

Paige gasped. "I… I don't know what to say," she whispered. They stood there for a moment, both accepting that they felt… well, something they couldn't explain. The moment was shattered by Toby's voice.

"A poop emoji, what the hell?" Toby frowned at his phone screen as they walked back to join the others.

"Look, I've got an E!" added Cabe. "Another dumb letter. If Collins was here I'd shove his letters up his..."

"I have a T," Happy interrupted before Cabe could finish his train of thought.

Walter quickly wheeled the blackboard over from the corner of the garage and picked up a small piece of chalk. He scribbled the letters on the board, reciting them out loud as he did so. "Y… G… P… E… T… and a poop."

"Egypt!" chorused Toby, Happy, Sylvester and Ralph in unison.

"Yeah, even I figured that out," added Cabe. "I was kinda expecting a harder puzzle."

"Egypt is a big country," Paige noted. "It doesn't really give us that much to go on."

"The puzzle is a delaying tactic," explained Toby. "He wants us to find him, but he needs a head-start. He knows we'll do whatever he says, we have no choice if we want to save Flo and Patty."

Walter sighed. He knew Collins was just using Florence and Patty to get to him and the rest of the team, but he didn't want to think about what he might be doing to them. "What does the poop have to do with anything?" he asked.

"Could be Collins' way of pointing out we're all in the crap?" suggested Toby.

"Wait!" exclaimed Sylvester and he scurried over to his old desk without thinking.

Toby and Cabe exchanged a glance, it was certainly a good sign that Sylvester felt comfortable enough being back at the garage to sit at his old desk. It was an even better sign that Walter hadn't commented, or tried to stop him. Maybe this could work after all?

"What have you got, Sly?" asked Ralph, running over to join him as he furiously tapped the keys on his laptop.

"There's an… an… old sewage treatment plant in the middle of the desert," he said, clicking one final key to send the images to the largest screen in the monitor tree. "It was abandoned years ago. Turns out a group of scientists were using the remote location to carry out dangerous experiments on humans - people died, so the place was shut down."

"What makes you think this is the right place?" asked Cabe as he studied the aerial photos on the screen.

"Mark told me about it once," replied Sylvester. "Remember when he used to corner me and… and rant in that crazy way that scared the living daylights out of me? Well, he said those scientists should have been hailed as heroes for pushing the boundaries of science with their experiments, not locked up as criminals."

"Trust Collins to see the good in a bunch of murdering psychos," noted Toby.

"He knew you'd remember your conversation, Sly. It must be the place," said Walter. He crossed over to the monitors and pointed to the corner of the image on the screen. "Happy, is that an airstrip? How quickly could Collins organise a flight?" he asked.

"Hijack a plane, you mean?" Happy queried.

"Well he ain't gonna rock up to LAX and book tickets on Amex," noted Toby.

"The plant has its own airstrip," said Sylvester, reading information from his computer screen. "It's in the middle of nowhere, there's no road network to speak of."

"I'll call it in," said Cabe. "I'm guessin' it's already too late, but at least we should put all airports on alert. He's a wanted man and he has hostages. Even with his talent for evading the authorities it won't be easy for him to leave the country."

"Collins said no cops," Sylvester reminded him. "We can't alert anyone. We don't know what he'll do…" he trailed off. Everyone knew what he was thinking, they were thinking it too.

"Is there any way we can verify this before we go on a wild goose chase?" asked Walter.

"Oh… oh… we're going to Egypt, aren't we," said Sylvester. His chest was starting to feel tight again. "I… I… I don't know if I can…"

"Hey, it's Patty and Flo out there, Sly," Cabe reminded him, sternly. "Whatever it is you think you can't do, you can. Understood?"

Sylvester nodded profusely. Breathe in… and hold… and out…

"Cabe," said Paige. "I want Ralph at Homeland with Allie."

"I'll make the arrangements," replied Cabe and he picked up his phone, but Ralph leapt to his feet and grabbed it from his hand.

"No!" he exclaimed.

Everyone was stunned by his outburst, especially Paige. "Ralph!" she scolded. "What are you doing?" She'd never seen him act this way before. Had the last four weeks affected him more than she realised? Maybe running away had just been the tip of the iceberg?

"I'm coming to Egypt with you," said Ralph, folding his arms defiantly across his chest.

"No you're not," insisted Paige. "Mark Collins is dangerous. I need to keep you safe."

"But I need to keep you safe, Mom," Ralph answered with determination. "I can't stay here while you go chasing after Collins. He's smart, but he's crazy so it's going to take all of us working together to outsmart him. I'm coming with you. You need me."

Paige was stunned. Her mouth fell open, but she struggled to find any words to say.

Cabe was the first to speak. "I know you wanna help, but your mom's right. This is way too dangerous. I'm calling Homeland, I'll have a car here in ten minutes to pick you up."

Ralph turned to Walter. They still hadn't had chance for a proper conversation about what had happened between Walter and his mom, but it would have to wait. This was far more important and Ralph hoped more than anything that Walter still understood him the way he always had. He hoped they still had the same connection they'd had since the day they'd first met in the diner. "Tell them, Walter," he said.

Walter slowly turned his head to look Paige in the eye, but said nothing.

"No," said Paige, shaking her head, suddenly terrified by the expression on Walter's face. "No, no, no! Walter… don't you dare! He has to stay here where it's safe!"

Toby leaned in close to Happy's ear. "This could get interesting," he whispered and Happy nodded in agreement. They'd both seen that look on Walter's face before and now they were seeing the same look on Ralph. No-one was going to change either of their minds, not even Paige.

"I… I'm sorry, Paige," said Walter. "Ralph is correct, we need him. He has the highest IQ on the team."

"He's a child, Walter!"

"You told me once that I have the emotional capacity of a teenager, do you think I should also stay behind?" asked Walter.

"No, no, don't you throw that back in my face now!" begged Paige. "Please, Walter."

"Think about this for a second, son," urged Cabe. "We know what Collins is capable of."

"Yes and that's why we need Ralph," replied Walter. He looked back at Paige. "You are his mother, of course I will respect your wishes…"

"No!" shouted Ralph, but Walter held up a hand to silence him.

"But," he continued. "But I urge you to consider the greater good. Collins needs to be stopped. Please, Paige. I promise you I'll protect Ralph. With my own life if I have to."

"Walter…" She could only say his name before the tears started to fall and she realised he was right. They couldn't take the chance that Collins might get away again. She looked at Ralph and she couldn't help but smile through her tears. "Ralph, I'm so proud of you… so proud."

"Does that mean…?" Ralph let his words hang and waited.

Paige nodded, then she looked at Walter. "If anything happens to my son…"

Walter nodded. She didn't need to finish her sentence. "I meant what I said, Paige. With my life."

Cabe took a deep breath, the seriousness of the situation was suddenly all too real. "I'll call in a few favours, we'll be on a plane within the hour, but we'll be on our own. No back up. No extraction plan. That's the way Collins wants it and we can't take any chances, at least not until we know Patty and Flo are safe."

Sylvester let out an audible whimper and Toby wrapped his arm around Happy's shoulders. They were really going to do this - together. They had no choice.

To be continued…