Chapter Three



Author's Note: I don't own Richard, unfortunately. This is a slight crossover from Murder By Numbers, only in my story, Richard escapes and goes on the run before the police can try and catch him.



Lucas was eventually brought back into consciousness by the loud noises that surrounded him. He opened his eyes to find himself in a room full of people he had never seen before. Most of them were dressed in dark clothes and were all yelling above the noise of the loud, pulsating music. Lucas counted about twelve guys but only three girls. Most of them were passing around cans of beer while others passed around joints. The sweet scent of pot mingled with the smell of cigarette smoke. Then he noticed the two men that had grabbed him and knocked him unconsciousness with that chloroform.

He started to get off the couch when one of the guys sitting nearby him noticed he was awake. The man had dirty blonde hair with shrewd blue eyes. A lit cigarette was clenched between two rows of straight, white teeth. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and yelled at the group of people to turn off the music.

A black man sitting near the music pressed the off button and turned to grin at Lucas, "You finally decided to wake up?"

Lucas straightened up on the couch, "What the hell do you think you're doing? What do you want with me?" he was unable to keep the fear from creeping into his voice. A small part of him wondered if they worked for the killer. He quickly decided they couldn't, they would have killed him already if they did.

"Good going." a wry voice came from behind him, "I said to go get him so I could talk to him, not scare the shit out of him in the process." Lucas' eyebrows shot up when he heard the familiar voice. It sounded like her but it couldn't be her. Slowly he turned around and his eyebrows shot up another inch when he saw who it was.

"Cassie?" he looked at her in amazement, "But you're supposed to be-"

"Dead?" she finished for him, going over and plunking herself down on the blond guy's lap, "I know. I faked it so that everyone would stop accusing my brother and my dad of murder. I knew they didn't do it, so I pretended I knew who the killer was and then Bart helped me stage my death. After that I left Salem."

"Then she met me and that was when the fun started." the blond guy spoke up. Lucas had been watching Cassie's mouth move and did another double-take.

"Did you get your tongue pierced?" he asked in amazement. In response, she stuck out her tongue to reveal what was definitely a tongue ring.

"It glows in the dark too." she added triumphantly, then changed the subject, "So, how is everything going back in Salem? How's Rex? And my daddy?"

Lucas shifted uncomfortably, not knowing how to answer the questions. First of all, he didn't know if she meant Tony or Roman by the last question and he didn't really want to tell her that they were both dead. At least, not in front of twenty people, half of which were either drunk or high.

"Why don't we talk about it later? You still haven't introduced me to all these people." Lucas reminded her, trying to make her forget her last questions. It seemed to work.

"That's right." she smiled at the blond guy, "This is Richard Hayward. The two over there that kidnapped you are Josh and Kaleb." she began moving her arm and pointing to everyone else, "Ryan, Jesse, Trent, Zack, Adam, Erik, Shaun, Dave, Freddy, Dan, Tyler and Bruce. The three girls over there are Carla, Nina and Kari." she finished, "Everyone, this is Lucas Roberts."

Everyone sort of murmured a greeting. The one Cassie had pointed out as Jason, who was wearing glasses and grinning like an idiot said, "You two don't look like brother and sister."

"No, he's too much better looking than Cassie." Carla responded, winking at Lucas flirtatiously. Lucas saw Cassie give the black woman a dirty look out of the corner of his eye. He had only seen Carla and Cassie interact once and he could already tell that they didn't get along. He wondered what had caused such a bad relationship between the two of them. He then took one look about the way Carla was looking at Richard and decided that he could probably guess where all the animosity was coming from.

"Where were you going anyway?" Adam questioned, breaking the tension between Cassie and Carla.

"I wasn't really going anywhere in particular." Lucas answered, "I just left Salem because there's a serial killer on the loose and they wanted to kill me next. Someone told me that leaving Salem was the only way I could avoid becoming the next victim."

"So, Lucas." Richard spoke up, flicking some ashes into an empty glass sitting beside him, "Since you're Cassie's brother and since we like Cassie so much, we were wondering if you wanted to come with us."

"Come with you?" Lucas repeated blankly.

Cassie began to explain, "He wants to know if you want to become part of our motorcycle gang, at least until it's safe for you to go back to Salem."

"It's a hell of a trip man." Josh broke in, a huge grin on his face similar to Jason's, "Trade in your car and get a bike. There's nothing you can do with a car that you can't do with a motorcycle."

"Actually, there is one thing." his friend, Kaleb, countered, "But you could probably do that on a motorcycle too, if you had enough balance."

Cassie shook her head and tried not to laugh, "Do you want to come with us?" Cassie asked him again and everyone in the room fell silent as they waited for him to answer.

Lucas thought about it for a minute, "I guess so." he said finally and Cassie broke into a smile.

"Great." Cassie and Lucas hadn't been that close back in Salem but she did seem glad that he was coming with the group of bikers, "Carla, didn't you say your cousin wanted to trade in her bike for a car?"

Carla nodded, "Actually she did. You should go up there and talk to her right now." Lucas looked from Cassie to Carla with a look of comprehension coming onto his face.

"You guys planned this whole thing, didn't you?" he asked.

"From the minute Cassie saw you at that gas station." Jason responded cheerfully.

"We'll just ride over and pick up your car." Carla decided, "You can come with me on my bike, Lucas." Cassie noticed the way Carla was looking at Lucas and her eyes darkened.

"That's okay, Carla, but me and Richard will go take him over there." Cassie replied through clenched teeth. Cassie, Lucas and Richard went outside and went between the motorcycles in the driveway to get to the two bikes sitting at the front of the driveway.

"You can ride my bike." Cassie told Lucas, "I'll go with Richard. He's a nice ride." Lucas and Richard whirled around to stare at her in shock and it was a few seconds before she realized what she had said.

Blushing furiously, she corrected herself, "No, I mean, it's a nice ride. You know, the bike." Lucas and Richard couldn't keep from laughing, which only made Cassie blush even harder. Lucas got onto to Cassie's bike and Cassie tossed him the keys. He didn't know how travelling with a group of motorcyclists would turn out but he did know that it was going to be a lot healthier than spending hours driving in his car, trying unsuccessfully to forget about Sami.



"Is our plan working?" Sami asked Nicole as she flipped past another talk show. She and Nicole were sitting in Sami's apartment, watching TV and talking about Brady.

Nicole smiled, "I think so. I've been pretty much ignoring Brady, giving him the silent treatment like you told me to. He's not taking it very well. He doesn't know what to think anymore."

"Good, keep that up." Sami nodded approvingly, "Then you have to go find another guy to chase after to make him jealous."

Nicole eyed the television screen thoughtfully, "I still haven't decided who to go after yet. I could go after Shawn but he already has two girls madly in love with him. Then there's Phillip. But I wish there was someone else I could go after, someone that would kill Brady to see me with. But how are you doing? You still miss Lucas a lot, don't you?"

Sami pulled her eyes away from the screen to stare at Nicole, "Am I that obvious?" she asked nervously.

"No, you just really haven't been yourself lately." Nicole laughed and shook her head, "It might be just me but you don't seem to be doing a very good job of hiding your feelings."

Sami refused to respond to that and went back to glaring at the TV. Nicole knew the only reason she could tell how much Sami cared about Lucas was because she had been spending so much with Sami and because they were becoming such good friends. But it was easy to see that Sami had it bad. Really bad. Nicole just hoped that the killer would be caught soon so that her friend would find the same happiness with Lucas that she hoped to find with Brady.