Shaggy felt his whole world come crashing down in the fragments of time that followed Greg's phone call, his voice didn't even feel like his own as he had numbly told Velma what Greg had told him, who looked shaken to her core. He could hear Greg in the background, shouting something down the phone but he ignored the still open cell. He just couldn't process what he had heard, it was like some surreal awful dream. There had been many worst case scenarios, pessimistic by nature Shaggy had privately worried over since Fred had disappeared, and yet they weren't even a fraction close to the awful truth he had just had bestowed upon him. He replayed the conversation in his mind, the temporary hope that had surged in his heart when he realised that Greg was finally returning his call, had been catastrophically extinguished in seconds.

Norville? It's Greg, I'm so sorry it took so long to call but you have to listen to me!

Shaggy hadn't even had chance to mutter a mere 'hello' in response as Greg spoke in rushed, panicky gasps. He had found himself clutching onto the phone for dear life as Greg's words spilled out.

God I'm so sorry! You have to know the truth – Fred didn't run away at all last night, he was taken by Devon Blake.

Taken. By. Devon. Blake. The four words bled into his conscious and he had let out an involuntary, almighty curse in shock and anger. It was also at this point that he dropped the phone and he had then soberly and almost robotically repeated the same phrase Greg had said, to Velma.

She said nothing initially but her reaction was encapsulated by her face and body language. She gripped the leathered back of the seat with sudden force whilst her other free hand, automatically flew to her mouth. Her brown eyes widened and her entire frame shook.

They continued to stare numbly at one another in horror, until Velma finally found the necessary moisture in her throat to speak again.

"But how?!" she spluttered numbly, "All this time..." she murmured sickened, still in a daze.

Shaggy forced himself not to think about that, he didn't want to even think about what could have happened in the many hours that had since passed. He reached down and retrieved the phone; Greg was totally incoherent now, babbling, crying, apologising over and over again like a simple 'sorry' was all that was needed, like covering up the fact a friend was abducted was just a mere mistake. Shaggy felt a fierce anger towards the young man but knew screaming at him would achieve nothing. He forced himself to remain calm as he asked the only thing that mattered to him right now.

"Do you know where he is Greg?"

The sobbing intensified and Shaggy felt his fists curl in frustration when he got the reply he was dreading.

" No! I'm sorry I don't know, I wish I did, god I really wish I did!"

Velma had finally recovered enough to let her emotions overtake her and she had put the puzzle pieces together quickly. If Fred had been kidnapped, then he hadn't sent that message last night after all, there was only one other person who could and he had known the truth all this time, she moved forward at speed, snatching the phone from a startled Shaggy's hands before he could react.

"How could you?!" She roared into the phone, all her fury coming to the forefront now. "How could you know about such a wicked thing and say and do nothing?!"

Velma had sparred with Fred many times over the last year, she thought he could be an arrogant jerk at times and had very bluntly told him so, it was fair to say there was no love lost between them but hearing he had been kidnapped by a psychopath, had shaken her to her very foundations, she poured all her anger and scorn out on Greg.

Greg didn't know who the sudden angry, female voice on the phone was but it only sought to intensify his shame. After spending the night in the motel, he and Sasha had then spent the day since, driving without any clear idea where they were going, just passing through one small town after another and with relations between them now fractured beyond repair. Greg had become an increasingly paranoid, empty shell of a man, who had jumped at every shadow and who resolutely, angrily had refused to talk about his burden with Sasha. He had allowed his phone battery to drain, reasoning to himself that he was less likely to be found that way but after one particularly terrifying encounter this afternoon where he had feared a man was really after him, he had finally broken down in another motel room in front of a stunned Sasha.

One hour earlier – 200 miles from Coolsville.

Greg couldn't even look Sasha in the eye any more, as he gulped several more pills to calm himself down, followed by a shot of whiskey.

"God Greg, look at the state of you," she said disgustedly, "I don't even recognise you. Look at us! We have more money than we've ever had in our lives and we're having to hide out in dingy hotel rooms, having left behind all of our friends and family, you owe me an explanation Greg. You've ruined our lives!"

Greg took several more shots of the whiskey before responding.

"It was the offer of a lifetime Sasha, easy money, I would have been a fool to turn it down." He finally looked at her and sighed, "I did it without a second thought but then...he kept upping the stakes."

Greg told Sasha of how earlier in the week at the garage, as he was preparing to leave, he had been approached by a smartly dressed man in a business suit who had offered him huge wads of cash to just spy on a colleague, and of how he kept coming back with more money and more propositions until finally he had made that final hideous play - to betray Fred and lead him into a trap.

"You willingly did that?" Sasha asked in disbelief.

"No! I didn't! I told him I wouldn't do it!" Greg cried, frustrated.

He reflected on those final fatal hours at the garage, where after seeing how shaken Fred was, at receiving at whatever was in the gift box, he realised he couldn't go through with it.

After Fred stormed past him, Greg waited a few minutes before silently creeping back into the break room and pocketing Fred's phone as instructed, he walked swiftly outside, checking that nobody had noticed he had gone and then took out his own phone to call Devon. He paced agitatedly as he waited for Devon to answer.

"I can't do this," he told him firmly as soon as he answered, "I won't do it! It's inhumane."

He had expected Devon to retort angrily but his response was calm and measured.

"That is disappointing to hear Greg but we will just have to find another way. Good day."

Greg had been stunned at how easily he had accepted his refusal, he should have known a man like Devon was not about to let this lie. Shortly before closing up, he received a call from Sasha who he knew was just leaving her first ante-natal class. He expected her to be full of chatter and excitement, she could talk for hours, but he frowned in confusion when she didn't say anything.

"Sasha?"

"Hello Greg."

He felt his blood run cold at the gruff male voice and knew instantly this was Devon 'finding another way'.

"No," he whispered.

"Mr Blake does not take too kindly to people messing him about Greg," the man droned, "surely you must know by now he holds ALL the cards here. It's not in your interest or hers to tell him no."

Fear flooded through Greg, in that moment, he knew he was tangled up in something far beyond him.

"Please," he begged, "please don't hurt them."

The man had chuckled, "no one has to get hurt Greg, your girl and your kid will be absolutely fine so long as you do as you're told. Go on sweetheart, speak to your boyfriend."

Greg heard Sasha then, confused and scared as she asked Greg what was going on.

Greg could only lie, he told Sasha everything was going to be OK and he would see her soon when the truth was he didn't know what was going to happen now. He ran a hand through his blond hair and glanced at the clock, what a fucking mess he had gotten himself into and now Sasha was an unwilling part of it too. He cursed himself for being so stupid, of course such rewards would come with a heavy price! This Devon Blake was clearly a psychopath.

The phone was 'politely' removed from Sasha and the man spoke in hushed tones to Greg, "so what will it be Greg? Time is running out and you really don't want to piss the boss off even further, shall I tell him that we're back on?"

Greg was being backed helplessly into a corner, he knew he didn't have a choice. "Yes," he replied miserably, "yes, we're back on."

"You're a smart kid Greg, you remember the plan? Do whatever you have to do to get Jones to Ledervelle tonight and Devon will keep his word. Call him when you're leaving. She'll be fine as long as you keep to your end of the deal."

"I didn't want to do it! Of course I didn't babe, but he gave me no choice, I would have done anything for you, I still would," Greg pleaded with Sasha, grabbing her arms.

Sasha brushed him off, standing up from the bed abruptly, " but you could have warned him Greg! You could have given him a fighting chance, why didn't you go to the police?!"

"You know why I couldn't do that," he said coolly, reminding Sasha of his dodgy past.

Sasha reflected on that but still couldn't even begin to forgive him, to her this was the ultimate betrayal. "I was fine you know? Sure, I was scared but that man, he would never have harmed me..."

"Maybe he wouldn't, maybe he actually had some kind of morals and a speck of humanity but Devon would, of that I'm certain."

"Okay, I understand all that, I can understand you were put in a horrific situation but when you got me back, you still did nothing, you wouldn't even tell me what had happened until now, probably because you knew I would never have let you run away...would have made you find a way to help that poor boy...why did you stay silent even though I was safe Greg?" Sasha's accusation was piercing.

"He threatened us," Greg replied flatly, "he made it perfectly clear what would happen to us if I didn't leave town."

"I still think you could have done something!" Sasha persisted, "this man, this Devon, if he's as dangerous as you claim he is, then you OWED it to Fred to find a way, to tell someone...to..."

"Dammit Sasha!" Greg threw something onto the table, three shiny bits of metal that landed one after another: THUD, THUD, THUD.

"Does this convince you how serious the threat is Sasha?" Greg cried bitterly, "does this help you realise that just to survive we HAD to leave?"

Sasha stared at the bullets on the table in horror, it should have made her fearful, the horrifying threat against her life and that of her unborn child but instead all it did was make her even more resentful of Greg and the act that had placed a man in what she now realised was mortal danger.

"And these are the actions of the same sick fuck who has kidnapped a teenager? What could Fred possibly have done to deserve that Greg, do you even know why?"

"No, I don't know why," Greg was totally ashamed now, "I never even thought he was all that serious until he took you, I thought he just wanted to teach Fred a lesson or something. By the time I realised what a freaking psycho he was, it was too late."

"You better hope it isn't too late!" Sasha exclaimed, stalking to her handbag, retrieving a white wire and handing it to Greg resolutely, "here."

Greg took the charger from her outstretched palm, "Sasha no," he moaned, "why did you buy this?"

"In case of an emergency," she said defiantly, her hazel eyes blazing, daring him to disagree. "And this is an emergency, you have to make this RIGHT Greg, even if it means sacrificing yourself, call 911," she demanded.

Greg looked terrified, "Sasha I can't!... I'll be arrested!...What about the baby?!"

"None of that matters right now Greg. You can call them and you WILL," Sasha said firmly, "you've sat on this for a whole day Greg! You better hope it's not too late already for him!"

Greg knew Sasha was right, he had thought of nothing else since, the guilt had had troubled his mind relentlessly but selfish fear for his own life had prevented him from doing a thing.

Wordlessly, he connected the USB port into his charger and plugged it into the wall. He watched the phone slowly ping into life over the next few minutes as the power flowed back into it. He tried to psych himself up for what he needed to do, aware Sasha was also watching him intently. As he keyed in the code to take him to his home screen, the phone suddenly came into life with a series of notification beeps, MESSAGE – JACK, MESSAGE – JACK, MESSAGE – ROY MESSAGE – JACK and then there were several voicemail alerts from an unknown number.

He called up his voicemail curiously, eyes widening as he listened to the increasingly desperate messages left by Fred's best friend. He felt tears forming in his eyes as he registered the desperation and frustration growing in Norville Rogers' voice with each new message as he pleaded for Greg to call him back.

The emotional messages from Norville meant it finally hit home for Greg, here was someone desperately searching to find his best friend, with no real clue what had happened to him, and who he had actually cruelly set up to hide an awful truth with a fake message, a truth that only Greg and now Sasha knew.

He solemnly played the messages to Sasha, who also grew emotional at hearing the desperate pleas.

"This is your chance Greg! You have to call that poor boy and tell him what really happened!" Sasha said earnestly.

So Greg had done just that, and now here he was being berated by someone else who clearly cared for Fred.

"I'm so sorry," he repeated sincerely, he had no intention of even trying to deflect any blame, or to try and come up with any excuses. He had done a wicked thing and nothing he could say would ever make up for that.

"Save your apologies," the girl spat furiously, "you better hope he isn't dead!"

Shaggy managed to wrestle the phone back from Velma, "Is there nothing else at all you can tell us man, that will help?" he asked desperately, " any clue at all, where he might have taken him?"

"No," Greg whispered, "No, I...he never told me anything..." he finished desperately.

It was hard to believe this young kid had ever been in cahoots with someone as dangerous as Devon, but since the shattering revelation, all Shaggy had hoped was that he could actually be useful to him, it seemed this hope had died very quickly and with that Shaggy's mood altered too.

"You greedy rat," he spat callously down the line, "I hope the money was worth it."

Shaggy pressed 'end' and tossed the phone across the van's floor and let out another frustrated shout, startling Scooby Doo, his Shaggy didn't get mad ever!

Velma was quickly by his side, a comforting hand resting on his shoulder. The bitter truth of what had really happened to Fred Jones that night was lurid beyond belief and Velma was devastated. Shaggy had always persisted that he wouldn't run, he could never believe that he truly was a 'coward', as she had so cruelly denounced, but she wouldn't listen, she hadn't even looked beyond what was so very obvious now; that they were being spun an enormous lie. The truth was Velma was furious with herself, the clues were there but instead, it was almost like she wanted herself to be proven right; that at the end of the day Fred was only out for himself, and this had obviously fallen into Devon's hands quite perfectly. They had never ONCE looked for him, just accepted he was gone. I'm so sorry Fred! We all let you down, please, please say it's not too late.

"Daphne!" she suddenly said aloud frantically, "Oh my god Shaggy, Daphne needs to know!"

Shaggy was on it straight away, speed dialling Daphne, growling in frustration when he hit her voicemail just as quickly, she might have already turned her phone off. Velma cursed too.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! My god Shaggy, how could I have been so stupid?!"

"It's not your fault Velma," Shaggy said quietly.

"I should have listened to you though Shaggy! You knew he wouldn't run away, I should have known, above everything else, he would never have walked out on Daphne. I'm sorry."

Shaggy met her eyes, there was no need to berate her, he knew she was feeling the same pain as him right now.

"We'll get him back," he tried to say confidently but the silence that followed belied their true feelings on the chances of that. Devon had had him for over a day. They both knew it could already be too late for their friend.

"This is karma," Shaggy suddenly reflected bitterly, "this is karma coming back to bite us after what we did to Daphne, the tables have well and truly turned."

"Don't think like that Shaggy," Velma said, "that man is truly something else."

"You're telling me! I mean how sick in the head do you have to be to torture your own nephew and plan to kill your own daughter!" Shaggy cried.

"Well," Velma said, "there's some things I found out that might cast doubt on some of that."

She opened her phone and shared the yearbook photos she had found, with Shaggy.

He glanced disinterestedly at the photos, not noticing anything out of the ordinary.

"So? That's just him with Daphne's mom I'm assuming? What's that supposed to show?"

"Look closer Shaggy," Velma urged, "that's not Devon Blake standing with Eve..."

Shaggy squinted at her phone to read the caption aloud. "Coolsville High's Prom King and Queen the lovely Eve Monroe and her handsome prince Matt Blake...' Wait...Matt Blake?! Is that a typo?"

"Nope," Velma confirmed, "there's actually a ton of photos of them together at school. Matt Blake was Devon's younger brother."

"I can see the family resemblance," Shaggy said, noting the similar hair and facial features that had made him originally assume the man in the photo was Devon. "Hang on, he was his younger brother?"

"Matt Blake is Ethan's father who died in the same accident that killed Eve remember?" Velma pressed. She waited for the penny to drop, Shaggy's face twisted in confusion before it sunk in and his jaw dropped.

"Holy fucking shit!"

"Yup. That's what I thought too."

"So she was in love with one brother in high school, but ended up marrying the other?! I mean wow!"

"Maybe I'm reading far too much into this, but I don't think she ever got over her high school love," Velma confided her suspicions, "why after all these years later, was she alone in the car with Matt when she died? I don't think that was an accident either."

"Gosh look at you Velma! You super sleuth."

Velma ignored Shaggy's gentle ribbing, "there was an investigation but it seemed to very quickly get shut down, don't you find that mysterious? He's one of the most powerful men in Coolsville and his wife and his brother die in a dodgy sounding road accident and it's just quietly swept under the carpet? You would think he wouldn't rest until he found out what happened."

"You think he killed them?" Shaggy asked with wide eyes, this was a whole other level to his depravity.

"I don't know, I could be completely wrong but I just get this feeling that perhaps they found their way back to each other and Devon didn't take too kindly to this."

They both mulled over this possibility until Velma's eyes flickered back to the laptop, drawn to the dot on the screen that was now moving at a rapid pace.

"Jinkies! The tracker!" she cried out, having temporarily forgotten all about it. Velma and Shaggy watched the dot moving with grim fascination, Daphne had obviously been summoned to her high noon showdown with Devon but Velma and Shaggy knew now she was going to be blind-sided by the stunning revelation of who else he was keeping hostage. Velma realised with shock that this clearly had been his intention all along; that at the very last second, he was going to pull the rug firmly out from under Daphne's feet. It had to be, why else had he gone to such extraordinary lengths with Greg and the texts. You would have thought he would have wasted no time in gloating about capturing Fred. This was obviously all part of his master plan. Velma felt sick, he was such a calculating bastard, she could only pray with all her heart that Fred was OK. Shaggy continued to try call Daphne without success and Velma continued to watch the dot move until suddenly it stopped, before starting up again and moving considerably slower, Daphne was obviously on foot now. She quickly pulled up GPS co-ordinates and checked the map to see where it was, it wasn't far, they would be able to catch up to her pretty quickly but as she was checking where Daphne was potentiality headed, her breath caught in her throat. There was only one old factory down there...

"Shaggy!" she called urgently, "I know where they are!"

She pointed to the location on the map, and Shaggy, like Velma, felt his spirits sag again. "That's where Fred is?"

Velma nodded, her mouth sat in a grim line of horror. "I think that's where he's been this whole time."

Shaggy closed his eyes despairingly, Devon, it seemed, was setting himself the ultimate trap, nobody had been in that old grain silo for years. That Devon had chosen this as his base for his showdown was undoubtedly very bad news for Daphne and ultimately as they now knew, for Fred too.