Hey! So a bit of a shorter chapter, and I figure there is probably only two, maybe three, chapters left. Thanks for reading! Enjoy!

The next morning, Chad tossed and turned as he had a more horrifying repeat of the dream he had at Aiden's house.

"Sonny, I need your help," Chad pleaded with the girl in white. He reached his arm out, but all he could see was the black sleeve covering his skin. She exuded a radiant glow that seemed to be as warm as the sun on a California summer day. He felt so cold – he just needed to be surrounded by her warmth. "Sonny, I need help. Don't forget about me."

"No," Sonny stated firmly. "I will not help you, Chad. You don't deserve my help. This is goodbye."

"Sonny, don't leave me," Chad crumbled to the pure white ground. Still holding out his hand, he pleaded, "You're the only one who can redeem me, Sonny. I need you, I've always needed you. Help me!" His voice became aggressive and demanding which only pushed her further away from him.

"You're a monster, Chad Dylan Cooper, I would never help you!" She began to walk away into the never ending white space, but Chad jumped over and wrapped his arms around one of her bare ankles. The warmth and glow from her body faded wherever he touched her, and it seemed to be painful to her. She cried out when he held her and quickly pulled her bare foot away from his hands, allowing the soft glow to return and removing the painful grimace across her face. "Whenever you're near me, Chad, you hurt me! This is why I can't help you."

"But, Sonny, you're the only one who can. It's going to be painful, but if you don't I'm going to…I'm going to…"

Chad flew up in bed and pressed his fingers against his temple. He looked over at Sonny who was sleeping soundly, then hit his bed, cursed, and fell back onto the pillow. Sonny was shaken awake, but kept her head on her pillow, looking straight at the ceiling. She was too afraid to ask if he was all right.

His breathing was labored, but his fists clenched tightly. Throwing the covers off of himself, he stepped out of bed, pulled hers off, and ordered, "Let's go."

***

Connie walked into the So Random studio later that morning and found Marshall sitting at his desk with papers scattered all over the room.

"Connie!" He jumped up and made a pitiful attempt at organizing the mess. "I'm sorry it's such a mess. I'm trying to determine which sketches we'll use right away, the ones we'll keep in storage, and then the ones we'll just throw out. How can I help you?"

"I just came to tell you that the police will be coming by later this afternoon to do a search of the prop house as well as Sonny's dressing room. They're afraid there may be leads in her belongings to help locate where she is. They're at Mackenzie Falls right now."

"Why would they think there's anything that could help them? It was a freak happening."

"The police are grasping at straws. They don't know where to look anymore or even what to think. They're saying now that Chad and Sonny may have had something going on that no one knew about, and whatever it was, he got angry and grabbed her."

"What like drugs?" Marshall stood in disbelief.

"That was one theory."

"Connie, I have been in Hollywood long enough to know a druggie when I see one. I could point out someone on drugs from across the room. Sonny was not on drugs. Tell them they're going to have to come up with a new theory."

"I just wish this made sense somehow. My baby's lost and I have no idea where to start looking. It may be a stretch, and if she were on drugs it would crush my heart, but at least it would be a start to understanding why this happened. The randomness has just been too much for me to handle, and I can only imagine what it is like for her right now."

***

"So that was quite the dream you had last night," Chad commented after two hours of silent driving. The unfamiliar sunlight of the bright morning burned Sonny's eyes, forcing Chad to hand over his sunglasses. "Tell me about it."

"Really?" Sonny looked over dubiously. "Why do you care?"

Her words stung him and brought his thoughts back to his own nightmare, "Let's just give it a whirl. Look, you either tell me, or you're going back in the trunk." Chad caught his breath and looked over at Sonny through the corner of his eye. The last comment was meant as a joke, but it came off horribly.

Sonny looked to the ground, and was thankful for the sunglasses which hid the lone tear forming in one eye. Was he really going to threaten her with the trunk for the rest of their time together? She would rather just go back than be tormented with the debate between humiliating submission and humiliating punishment.

"It was about you and me, but it was in the future," she whispered, exhibiting her weakness. "And we were still in this car, but we were friends, partners. We were happy, even though life was hard."

"Well that doesn't sound so bad. Why were you freaking out then in your sleep? Why did you have to wake me up with your crying?"

"Because when we decided to return to Condor Studios, everything went wrong. We thought enough time passed, but we were wrong. You were arrested, Tawni screamed at me, Marshall shoved me against the wall, and then my own mother said I was a bad daughter."

"Oh, I can see why that would be scary," Chad shrugged.

"Well, it wasn't exactly the events which scared me, but the reality of the situation. Chad, if we don't go home soon, we're never going back home, and then I would let everyone down, and I would be a bad daughter. Letting my mom worry for so many years, knowing I'm alive, but never making the attempt to call her or return home, even though I was no longer your hostage."

Chad hated the word 'hostage'. She was not his hostage. "It's your own fault, you know. If you hadn't called her in the first place, she'd still think you're dead, she would have time to grieve, and then she would get over it. But you had to push it, and now her wound is torn open again. Then Ari had to pour some salt in it by calling her back a second time. Gosh, Sonny, it is not my fault if they get angry at you."

"I never said it was," Sonny closed her eyes to hold in tears, but to no avail. A few escaped past her lids, past the glasses, and down her cheek.

Before she could wipe them away, Chad saw the tears, and his thoughts were recaptured by her words in the dream, 'Whenever you're near me, Chad, you hurt me!'

"I'm sorry," he grunted. "It just, this whole thing is so new and so out of my control. But you have to understand, Sonny, what you did was wrong!"

"No, Chad, no it was not," Sonny's voice grew. "My mom was hurting. She was getting sick. She was dying. You might see it as wrong, but you told me the first time you put me in the trunk that you were sorry for what you were doing. Are you sorry anymore, Chad? Are you? You've gotten so delusional, that you actually think you're the innocent one here. After you have been given chance after chance after chance to save yourself, you've taken the path of hate and fear. And I'm sorry, Chad. I will do whatever you want, but I will not say calling my mother was wrong."

"Is that really how you feel, Sonny?" Chad asked menacingly.

"Yes, yes it is."

Chad sighed and pulled off into an abandoned park. That time of morning was too late for joggers, but too early for children, so the park was left empty. Chad hastily jumped from his seat, stomped around to her side, and yanked her out before she could find her feet beneath her. He popped open the trunk and dumped her inside. She did not give him a fight or pull away when he began to wrap her limbs together. She bit down into the bandana when it was fastened around her mouth and closed her eyes when Chad yanked the sunglasses from her face, placing them on his head.

Closing the trunk, he walked back around to the passenger's side and threw the trucker hat, which had fallen to the ground, onto the seat. He closed the door and returned to the driver's position and sped away as quickly as possible.

'Whenever you're near me, Chad, you hurt me!' The words kept echoing through his mind like an evil curse. 'Whenever you're near me, Chad, you hurt me!' He felt the weariness of the restless night consume him, but the voice in his head refused to let his mind focus on anything else. 'Whenever you're near me, Chad, you hurt me!' He stopped for coffee at a fast food restaurant, but the more caffeine in his system, the more frequently the words came. 'Whenever you're near me, Chad, you hurt me!' He tapped his finger on the steering wheel. 'Whenever you're near me, Chad, you hurt me!' He drank from the cup. 'Whenever you're near me, Chad, you hurt me!' Chad switched lanes to pass a stalled car. 'Whenever you're near me, Chad, you hurt me!'

"Shut up!" he shouted through the car. Sonny's eyes popped open, fearing his anger had finally taken over. Besides, who was he talking to? Why did he tell someone to shut up? Was she not the only one in the car besides him?

Throughout the day, Chad became more and more tense and exhaustion was quickly becoming a problem. He knew he should have pulled over to a motel and sleep for the rest of the day, but he convinced himself he would be fine and nothing bad would happen – he was wrong.

Sometime in the early afternoon, Chad saw an exit sign which advertised a coffee shop which he figured could give him an extra burst of energy. He looked around and there was not a single car around, it was as if he were all alone, but as he switched lanes, he forgot to check his blind spot and almost hit the person next to him.

The man in the other car, no older than twenty-five, honked his horn and raced back to Chad's tail end. Chad realized he was being tailgated, and if did not act fast, something horrible was going to happen. He looked back into his rearview mirror and saw there were at least two other men in the car, urging the driver on.

The man nudged Chad in the back, throwing him slightly off course. Upon contact, he heard Sonny shriek from the trunk. Chad suddenly remembered that if they were to get in an accident, she was likely dead.

Sonny closed her eyes as she felt another car bump into the car right next to her. She knew there was not even an inch of metal between her and this other car. She began to think this was the end. Praying, saying silent goodbyes, and allowing a few tears to fall, Sonny waited for it to be over.

Chad tried to accelerate to get away from his pursuer, but the attacking car was too adept at staying on top of him. Finally, with one final nudge to Chad's back left corner, the navy blue car flipped over and off the side of the road down into a ditch. The last thing Chad could hear was the shrill cry coming from the trunk.

***

"Oh…my…gosh," Ari dropped her hamburger on the table as she continued to read through the medical journal in her hand.

"What?" Aiden dipped his fry in the ketchup mound and stroked the plastic hair of the Sonny So Random bobble-head doll which came in the kiddy-meal he ordered. He already had about sixteen Sonny bobble-heads, but one can never have too much Sonny Monroe. "What?" Aiden demanded when Ari did not respond.

"I should have known – this is so obvious!"

"What?!"

"This says that when someone's muscles are cramped up in the same position for an extended period of time, lactic acid builds up and then poisons the kidneys. We may have gotten Sonny periodically better, but I did not treat her kidneys directly. She's in trouble."

"How long do we have?"

"A week, maybe two," she guessed.

"Chad will never bring her back that quickly. He does not trust us or anyone right now."

"Then we need to track him down, don't we?"

***

Chad slowly regained consciousness. He found a small cut on his forehead, but for the most part, his seatbelt had kept him safe and virtually unharmed. But before he could be thankful for his own safety, he remembered the human cargo in his trunk. "Sonny!" he shouted out. Chad flew out of the car, falling to the ground before reaching the trunk. The car was a bit crushed on top, but the body seemed to hold its shape fairly well. "Sonny," he opened the trunk to reveal the unconscious, bound girl.

'Whenever you're near me, Chad, you hurt me!'