Disclaimer: I own no one.

A/N: OK, you all got the idea that each chapter is an hour, so I can cut that out. If there's typos in the chapter, don't tell me, I can find them on my own, and it means that the stuff was coming into my head so fast, I couldn't get it all down. Anyways, enough of my babbling, so enjoy!!

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3:00-4:00AM

**3:00** Chris watched the TV screen in horror as he saw his parents' house go up in flames. It was on the news, and they had a helicopter on looking th site. The fire had grown to an enormous state. His mouth was hanging open as he stared at the figures on the screen. Steph was talking to him, but none of it was channeling into his brain.

Steph turned the TV off of mute, and they listened to the reporter.

"...We are live here on site of a fire that has gone raging out of control. It has burned this house, almost to the ground, and the firefighters are trying to save what's left, and as you can see behind me, that's not much. There are no reports as to whether or not the house was empty, but as soon as we receive any word on it, we'll be sure to report it. JoAnne?" Steph turned the TV off at that.

"Call them, Chris. Call them and ask if they're alright." Chris nodded numbly. He stood once again, and sat on the couch. He picked up the phone and dialed the home phone first.

One ring...two rings..three rings....four...five...Then, there was silence. Chris started to tear up, so he blinked a few times and dialed his mom's cell phone. It rang and rang and rang, but no one answered.

"There's no answer at home, or her cell. I think that they....that they..we..were.." He stopped and turned the TV back on. The reporter was back on saying something about how the firefighters thought they had the fire under control and they had learned that there were people inside.

Chris put his head in his hands. Steph sat next to him and hugged him. She couldn't even try to imagine what was going through his head right now.
**3:07** "We have learned that there were two people in the house at the time that the gas leak explosion occurred. Their names are being withheld for security reasons. We are told that it was a man and a woman, perhaps in their 60s. If-" Chris hit the mute button. He wanted to hear no more of what they had to say about it. He had convinced himself that it was his parents. He would recognize that house if he was half out of his mind or drunk as a dog.

Unfortunately, he couldn't convince himself that they had perished in the fire.

"This day sucks, you know that?" He said to her shoulder, because she was still hugging him.

"Tell me about it." She replied. They hugged for a little longer and Chris turned the TV off. He began to walk towards his office.

"What are you going to do?" She asked him. He sighed.

"I don't know. I'm going to try and write to get my mind off of this, but I don't think that it's going to work. I need to figure out what we're going to do once ape-nose out there wakes up, and thinks of another way to kill us. But, before all of that, I'm going to take two aspirin to get my headache to lessen down." He said. She smiled.

"Sorry about that. Want me to help with any of that?" She offered. He shrugged.

"Go ahead. If you want to follow me around or something, that's fine, too. But if you're coming, lets go because my head is killing me." Steph got up and followed him into the kitchen, where he, as promised, took two aspirin and stood there for a couple of minutes thinking.

"Thanks for helping me get away from Hunter," she said. Chris smirked.

"I think that would be my line. After all, had you not come along, I'd probably still be lying on the floor getting my ass kicked."

"Well, I just saw you and decided to help, since I had to get some kind of payback on him." She said, and then she yawned.

"Don't do that," he warned, but it was too late. He yawned seconds after her.

**3:18** "Maybe we should take a nap," Steph suggested. She walked into the living room again, and Chris followed her. He momentarily stopped by the bathroom to lift his shirt and look at his ribs. His stomach was already turning reddish/purple, and he was going to be on sore puppy come tomorrow morning.

"Hey, there's not enough room for both of us on that couch." He said as she laid down. She shrugged.

"So?"

"So? I want to be able to keep an eye on you, after all, Hunter is laying right outside on the welcome mat."

"Good point." She commented and they made their way up to Chris' room. She sat on a side of the bed and thought for a second.

"I promise I won't molest you while you sleep." Chris said with a smile. Steph just looked at him.

"It's not that, I just..." She said. Chris stopped smiling.

"What?"

"I think I'm ready to tell you about what happened out there."

"Steph you don't have to because-"

"No Chris, I have-"

"Because," he continued, "I already know. I promise you, I am nothing like him." She looked at him strangely for a minute or two and was about to ask a question when he spoke again.

"I can read you like a book on things like that, Stephanie McMahon." He said and she smiled. He smiled back and tilted her chin up with his hand. Then, he got up and walked around to the other side of the bed. They both climbed in and laid back against their pillows. Before he knew what he was doing, Chris put his arm around Steph and she rolled closer to him. Then, they both fell asleep.

**3:24** Hunter wiggled around on the mat and eventually made it to the corner so he could cut the ropes that were tied around his hands and feet. Once he had finished that, his cell phone rang. He stood up, and fished it out of his pocket. He had a headache like Chris did, only his was a little worse.

"Hello?"

"Have you finished them off yet?" the voice on the other end asked.

"No, not yet."

"Get the job done, Hunter, and make it look like he killed her, then committed suicide. We can't have a lot of publicity on this."

"Consider it done." Hunter said, then hung up. He walked over to his car and opened the trunk. "Screw suicide. I'll kill them anyway I see fit." He mumbled to himself. Then he pulled a gas can out of his trunk.

**3:29** Hunter had walked all the way around the house, spraying the gas along the side, like he had done to Irvine's parents' house. He threw the can back in the trunk and pushed his car down the driveway. He didn't car where it went. It wasn't his car anyways. He'd gotten it from that person. Or so they said. Anyways, his car was a little ways down the road and he'd get it in a minute.

Hunter stood on the doorstep and thought for a minute before striking a match. He stepped back a little bit, and then threw the match down on the gas.

**3:31** The gas instantly caught fire, and went in a circle around the house. Hunter turned and ran down the road to his car, so he could watch it from a distance.

Upstairs in the house, Stephanie rolled over on Chris' arm, and he was completely out of it. Steph wrinkled her nose and woke up. That smell was not one that smelled inviting. She looked over at Chris and then she heard it. His smoke detector started to scream from the hallway. Chris just rolled over and put the pillow over his head.

"Chris, wake up!" She yelled over the smoke detector.

"That stupid thing does that every once in a while." He mumbled in his sleep. Steph slapped him. His eyes shot open.

"What was that for?!" he demanded.

"Listen!" she screamed as the smoke alarm kept going off. He hopped out of bed and threw on some sneakers. Steph grabbed a pair of his sneakers that were sitting next to the bed.

"Let's go!! We're going downstairs; follow me and cover your mouth with this!" He yelled as he handed her an old t-shirt, after grabbing one for him. They bolted downstairs and Chris saw the flames that covered the windows. His whole house was surrounded by fire and it was going to start burning anytime soon. Chris ran for the kitchen, and grabbed his keys from the counter. He snatched his coat and used it to open the door to the garage.

He ran around to the other side of the car and waited for Steph to come out.

"What are you going to do?" She asked.

**3:36** "Do you trust me?" he asked as he opened the door to the car.

"I guess." She said as she climbed in the car next to him. Chris started the car and heavy metal music started to blare over the speakers. He turned it down a little, and punched the button for the garage door to open. He made a quick sign of the cross and shifted the car into reverse.
"Keep your fingers crossed." He told her, then he slammed on the gas. As luck would have it, he just got his back tires out of the garage and over the line of fire there, when a huge part of the supporting banisters of the garage fell on the car's hood. The garage door itself tumbled down on top of that, trapping the car, half in, half out of the garage with fire underneath it.

"Christ..."Chris said as he began to shift gears to get the car to move. Stephanie just stared out the windshield horrifyingly as she saw the fire rise up the huge piece of wood.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit," Chris muttered as he put it in reverse again. He slammed on the gas, but the car stayed where it was.

**3:39** Flames licked the gas tank as Chris tried desperately to get the car moving. Tears began to slide down Steph's face as he shifted gears again.

"Come on!! Come on, you piece of junk!!" He yelled as the car budged a mere inch or two backwards.

"We need to get out of the car, Chris!!" she screamed at him. He glanced at her.

"We need the car to come with us so we can get to Connecticut." He said as he shifted into drive again.

"Why would we go to Connecticut?" Steph asked as Chris slammed on the gas again. This time, he sped right back into the garage, stopping seconds before he hit the back wall, which was made of concrete.

**3:43** "We'd go to Connecticut to get your dad, and your family. If we somehow made it on the same list, and my parents are dead, what do you think he's going to do your family?" Chris said. Steph nodded, he made sense with what he said.

"It's now or never for getting out of here." He said to her. He shifted into reverse one more time and slammed on the gas. The car flew through the huge piece of wood and the garage door. He had to slam on the brakes to avoid flying down the hill his house was located on.

Chris sighed as he laid his head back against the seat. He silently thanked the big man upstairs for not killing him yet. Stephanie trembled after their close call. Both of them could only watch as Chris saw his house burn to the ground.

**3:47** Chris sat there in disbelief as his house slowly melted away. It was useless to call the fire department out here. The house was already almost gone. He fought back tears as he thought of all the memories that house held for him. He closed his eyes and rested his head on the steering wheel. After a few minutes, sirens became audible, so he shifted into drive and headed in the direction of Connecticut.

**3:51** Hunter growled as he saw Chris' car begin towards the interstate. He re-dialed the person that he had been talking to earlier.

"Yes?"

"They got away."

"Damn." It said, silence endured for a while, then.

**3:59** "Follow him and kill them." It said. Hunter nodded.

"Got it." He said, then hung up. He started his car and drove off in the direction of the interstate.

**4:00**