Author's Note: I am again going to thank everyone who sent well wishes to me after the migraine. I was still feeling a little off today, and my manager said she thought I had a cold. I kind of rolled my eyes since I don't think I do. I am just having the worst week I've ever had for migraines and their surrounding circumstances, that's all.

Anyway, this part of the plot is partially owing to the migraine. It might not work, I suppose, but it seemed to be semi-plausible, and it was the best I could do after my plot got away from me last chapter and injured Joe again, which wasn't quite what I was planning.

Plans Foiled and Otherwise

"We have to get in there!" Joe shouted, trying to push against his father and everyone else trying to deal with his wound. Bess winced, seeing more blood coming from where they were trying to keep pressure on it. They couldn't lose him, too, not now.

"No."

"But Frank and Nancy are in there and—"

"And the building just exploded," Fenton said, voice full of pain and resignation as he spoke. He looked back at the building like he'd just been gutted, and Bess wasn't sure that wasn't an accurate description of what had just happened. Frank was dead now, wasn't he? And so was Nancy.

Their friends were dead. They'd been so close to finding them, rescuing them, and ending all of this torment, but now... Now it was all gone. In an instant, that quick flash and boom, and just over. She didn't understand. She didn't want to believe it, but she could see the building burning in front of her. She knew what that meant.

Her friends were dead.

It was over.

"You needn't torment her for that answer any longer," Zollner observed, sounding amused. "I actually found him some time ago, so you see, my dear Miss Drew, you've suffered to no purpose."

Nancy choked on her reply and tears that wanted to come out. She didn't know if it was the pain or just losing to this bastard—again—but she was raw and close to the edge. She couldn't keep her reaction in, not when she was bleeding through the pressure she was trying to keep on her side and well aware of the fact that Zollner wasn't lying.

He did have Frank.

Frank didn't seem to be aware of that fact, which made Nancy assume he'd been drugged—again—and she almost swore because even if there was any hope of disarming Vallin and taking out the other two—she was seeing twins, if not double—she couldn't get him out of here in his state. Or in hers. She'd barely managed what she did earlier, and now she'd been shot.

"This location has been compromised," Vallin said. "Not only did she escape, but somehow the others found it. And Joseph managed to get himself injured again. I swear that young man must have a death wish."

"Only because you tried to shoot me out there," Nancy hissed, wishing she could do more than spit words at him. For all he'd said the wound wasn't fatal and he would fix it, he'd done nothing, and she was starting to feel like she would die. "If you hadn't done that, Joe would have been fine. Now he might die. And you claim that ruins your plans."

"It does," Zollner agreed. "However, Joseph has bought us the necessary time, and we must use it. The self-destruct has been activated. We must leave, now."

"Self-destruct?" Nancy heard herself ask. She shouldn't have been surprised to hear that Zollner had prepared for that eventuality, too. He would have rigged his funhouse to explode. It made such twisted sense. He wanted to control everything, and that meant he wouldn't leave anything behind for them.

He didn't have any intention of letting the authorities catch him this time. Last time, he had permitted it, but Nancy was sure that was all part of his game. He'd wanted it that way, wanted to use it to mess with Frank, and it had worked, all too well. He'd been a mess even before Zollner took him again, and now... She didn't think he understood any of what was going on, not with the way he'd looked right at her without any kind of comprehension.

She didn't know what to do. Without Frank, she had no hope of escaping—she didn't even have much of one with him—but she didn't know that she could get his attention or pull him out of the drug-induced fog he was under now. She couldn't hope to organize anything with him like that, and even if he wasn't drugged, they were right in the middle of Zollner and Vallin.

"Get her to the vehicle. The detonation will commence shortly."

"You're not going to get away. They'll be back before you can load us up, and they'll see you leave," Nancy said as Vallin dragged her up to her feet. She cried out, unable to stop herself because of the pain. She tried to pull herself free, but blood loss was making her weak. She stumbled, and Vallin more or less carried her forward.

"You overestimate their capabilities. Oh, I feel certain that Joseph will eventually uncover this passage, since he will never accept that you or Franklin are dead, but by then, we will have long since left the area and be once again untraceable."

"They found you once," Nancy pointed out. "They will find you again."

"Oh, perhaps," Zollner agreed, smiling, "but by then, I do believe we will be ready for Joseph, as by then Franklin will have assumed his role as heir. And you... you will also be under my control."

Frank felt Zollner tug him by the arm, and he let himself be pulled along, not attempting to free himself. He did not know how well his latest plan—latest exercise in futility, he supposed—would work, but he had no other recourse. He had to try it. Once Zollner had found him again, Frank had little choice but to go with him, prompting the last ditch plan he'd created, which was to play like he was too drugged to have any comprehension of what was going on.

He wasn't sure how good an actor he was, but it seemed to be working, somehow. He must have been under the influence of something, though he didn't remember Zollner injecting him again. It didn't matter, though he didn't know that he would have managed to stay unresponsive when he saw Leather Jacket shoot Nancy or when he heard them say Joe had been shot as well.

Frank just knew that he had to make them think that he was not a threat. He didn't feel like one, but he knew that he might be able to use surprise against them. He just needed an opportunity, but he didn't know when that would come, not with the others armed and him with nothing. He didn't actually know that he would be able to do anything with surprise even if he could find a small way in.

Zollner looked at Leather Jacket. "Joseph has bought us the necessary time, and we must use it. The self-destruct has been activated. We must leave, now."

"Self-destruct?" Nancy repeated. Frank figured it was just shock from the bullet wound talking. It made far too much sense for Zollner to have a self-destruct in his base. He was a megalomaniac, and he would have a self-destruct. He would have a contingency plan. He'd have all that and more. He'd allowed himself to be captured before, and he'd treated it all as part of a long-term strategy, one giant mind game, and he could be doing it now, though it might also be that he just wouldn't allow himself to be taken a second time. He wanted to escape.

He wanted to take Frank—and Nancy, he assumed—with him. Frank knew he had to stop that from happening, but he didn't know how. Surprise was only a valid option when there was something he could do with it, and he didn't know what that was.

"Get her to the vehicle. The detonation will commence shortly."

Nancy shook her head. "You're not going to get away. They'll be back before you can load us up, and they'll see you leave."

Zollner laughed. "You overestimate their capabilities. Oh, I feel certain that Joseph will eventually uncover this passage, since he will never accept that you or Franklin are dead, but by then, we will have long since left the area and be once again untraceable."

Frank had a sick feeling that Zollner's prediction would be accurate unless he could do something. He had to stop them from being taken out that escape hatch. He did not know how, but he couldn't allow them to be taken. Not now.

"They found you once. They will find you again."

Frank had to stop himself from smiling at Nancy's declaration. He wanted to have that kind of confidence, and he knew she was right about one thing—if Joe survived, he would keep looking. The only trouble was that if this building exploded with them supposedly still in it, almost everyone else would give up, and Joe would have to do it on his own.

And he'd already been shot.

That wasn't even the biggest problem. Frank knew how close he'd come to breaking, more than once, and he didn't know that he could survive much more of it, especially not with them having Nancy for leverage. If they hurt her again because of him, if they tried to do to her what they'd done to Callie...

Zollner smiled. "Oh, perhaps, but by then, I do believe we will be ready for Joseph, as by then Franklin will have assumed his role as heir. And you... you will also be under my control."

Nancy spat at him, but it lacked force, and she sagged back against Leather Jacket, looking like she might lose consciousness. Frank felt himself get pushed forward, and h let it happen, needing that door to open. One thing he'd overlooked earlier was that if he didn't let them get closer to Zollner's escape route, they'd die. So whatever he did had to be after he knew where that was—or was on the other side of it. If he could just... Yes, he had an idea. He didn't know if he could pull it off, but he did think he had a bit more of a plan now.

He saw the opening as the escape route was revealed, and Leather Jacket went first, carrying Nancy into the tunnel. Frank hoped he could make this look real, though in all honesty, with as much pain as he was now starting to feel past the drugs, he figured it wasn't too much of a stretch. He let himself falter and then fall, since he wasn't being held up.

Zollner swore, and the twins stopped to try and pry him up. Frank let his body go completely limp, trying to keep himself weighted down. The more it took to get him up, the more frantic they'd get, and really, if he just kept them from escaping and doing all this again, it had to be worth it.

"Come on now, Franklin. You were moving just fine a moment ago."

"I could have told you that giving him so many drugs would become an issue," Leather Jacket muttered, and Frank thought he was doubling back toward them. Good. That was better than he'd hoped for. "You're lucky he was on his feet for as long as he was, given the lack of awareness he was displaying. I don't think he heard one word of that conversation."

"We have to get out of here," Zollner hissed impatiently. "The whole building is about to explode. Yes, the detonations begin on the other side, but they will reach here soon enough—in a matter of seconds."

"I know that," Leather Jacket agreed as the building shook with the first explosion, loosening dirt and debris above their heads. All three of them ducked their heads to avoid dust in their eyes, and Frank made his move, throwing himself into a roll forward down the tunnel.

His leg caught on something as he went down, and he felt the barely scabbed over scar tear open again. The building quaked a second time, and rubble hit him in the back, knocking him down. All he could see above him was rock, and below him was darkness.

He didn't bother trying to move. Frying pan, meet fire, he thought, just before he lost consciousness for real.