Groaning Gabe slowly twisted his body on the creaky old cot in an attempt to sit up. Doing his best to push back the waves of dizziness and nausea he lowered his bare feet to the cold concrete of the floor. Everything was all jumbled up inside his head. Running his fingers through the thick dark brown waves of his hair, Gabe surveyed his surroundings. Gray paint covered the concrete floor hiding the fine cracks that laced their way across the entire surface. Thick multi toned gray bricks towered over the floor being topped off long pieces on tin. "Where the hell am I?" he muttered as he slowly tried to stand, despite the slight waves of dizziness that were moving through his skull and the dull ache from his legs. How did I get here? he thought as he slowly moved toward the chain link fence surrounding him and the cot. Fear and frustration filled Gabe as he tried to remember how he got to be in a cage. Who was trying to buy his father's vote with blood this time? he thought pacing the small area in front of the cot. Maybe it wasn't a vote they wanted? He stopped pacing and stared in numb terror as a door was opened and allowed to slam shut.

"Ah, you're up," a dark haired man Gabe didn't recognize said with a broad smile. "You handled the second dose much better than I would've guessed."

"Second dose?" He stared hard at the man smiling smugly before him. "Dose of what?"

"Something to help your memory along," he said leisurely pulling a chair up to the cage. "And how is your memory coming, Erik?"

"Who the hell's Erik?" He narrowed his hazel eyes at the stranger. "And while we're on the introduction circuit, who the hell are you?"

"Who do you think you are, if you're not Erik?"

"Gabriel Patterson, son of Senator William Patterson." Silent anger settled across the man's sharp features for a moment at his answer.

"What do you remember?" Merrill carefully studied the fear and frustration that his captive was trying, with no luck, to sort through.

"Where am I?" Gabe hardened his voice. Two could play the answer the question with a question game that his captor seemed to be having fun playing.

"Bullheaded as ever, I see." Merrill smiled at Gabe. He was enjoying the torment he was putting the young man through almost as much as he enjoyed the thought of Cross and Previn's reactions to the death of their friend.

"How do you know me?" He leaned closer to the chain link, lacing his long thin fingers through the fencing.

"We know a couple of the same people," Merrill said almost smugly.

"Is that so?" His fingers tightened their grip on the thin metal they clung to as frustrated anger pulsed through him. "None of my friends would be acquainted with someone who kidnaps people and locks them in cages!"

"You don't remember them."

"Remember who?" He let his numb fingers loose of the chain link. What was this crazy man talking about? Gabe thought as he watched the man seated before him. What was he supposed to remember? Was he supposed to remember how he got their?

"They aren't important," Merrill said, quickly covering his mistake. "Tell me what you remember, Gabriel."

"Not how I got here, if that's what you're getting at," Gabe spat at the smug man.

"No it wasn't," he said suddenly standing and moving toward the door of the cage. "Go sit on the cot."

"Why?" He balled his hands into fists as he back away from the front of the cage. "What're you gonna do to me?"

"Do to you?" Merrill repeated as though the question required a great deal of thought before it could be answered. "Nothing you'll regret later." He flipped a small silver key between his fingers before placing it in the lock; all the while his hazel brown eyes watched with glee the wonderful torment his young captive was going through.

"Why am I here?" He hated the way that the question came out, hated the way that it sounded.

"In time you'll see, but first we have to fix your memory." He moved coolly toward the cornered young man before him. With an equally cool smile planted firmly upon his thin pale lips, Merrill pulled a syringe from the pocket of his shirt. He fought hard to keep the shrill laugh that wanted out, in as a visible shiver of fear shot through his captive.

"What the hell's in that?" Gabe couldn't keep his voice from shaking slightly as the syringe and that hand holding it loomed ever closer.

"Just something to help fix your memory, Erik."

"Whoa! Wait just one minute!" Why did this creep keep calling him that? His name wasn't Erik, he knew that much, didn't he? He did notice, however, that his outburst stopped his captor dead in his tracks an odd expression of anger and amusement stamped across his nearly handsome features.

"Why?"

"I want to know why you keep calling me Erik and why my memory needs fixing?" He pushed himself away from the wall of chain link he'd backed himself into.

The kid had more fire in him than he had hoped and almost more than the drugs could handle. But such bravery does deserve to be rewarded, Merrill thought dropping the syringe back into his pocket. "All right," he said, pulling the chair from in front of the cot. "You may want to sit down."

"I'll stand."

"Suit yourself. I keep calling you Erik because that's your name. Up until five years ago your name was Erik Merrill. You're my sister's son. I adopted you two years after her death." He stopped to study how convinced he had his stubborn captive. He could see some of the questions in the young man's eyes relax, and new ones begin to tense.

"Who changed my name and why?"

"It was a small group. They call themselves Adventure Inc. They worked with an American Senator by the name of William Patterson."

"Why . . ."

"Why you?" He smiled at how easily his prey was swallowing the lies he was feeding him. "The leader of Adventure Inc. hates me and would go to any length to see me suffer. He with a woman named Mackenzie Previn and the financial aid of Patterson, Kidnapped and brainwashed you. That's what this is for," He explained once again taking the syringe from his shirt pocket. "It's to help you remember who you were."

"If that's true and I am who you say I am, then why're you keeping me in a cage?"

"Would you've stayed put anywhere else? I was afraid that in your confused state you'd escape from any room that I put you in. I thought that this would be the safest place for you. I also didn't want them to find you before I could restore your memory." Half truths and constructive lies could do more than all the drugs in the world, he thought fighting the urge to jab the needle in the young man's arm.

"And the family I remember having?"

"Bodyguards and assassins for the high and mighty senator."

"And they dislike you because?"

"You're stalling and I really don't know why, no one's coming to your rescue. They don't know where you are."

The tone of Merrill's voice sent shivers of dread down Gabe's spine. The smile planted firmly on the tall thin British man's lips was enough to make Gabe wish he'd just tried to over power the man and escape. He didn't like the thought that the man could do anything to him and there was no one there to stop. And worse was the thought that the man had already done something to him, but he couldn't remember. He wanted to remember, but he couldn't. It was as though his mind knew where the information was but the files were encrypted with a code never before seen. As fear began to settle in and cause rivers of thoughts to run into each other in horrible crashing waves, he finally found a hard line of truth for the man who'd kidnapped. "My father won't do what you want regardless of if you harm me or not," he said, hardening his voice and cementing his bare feet to the cool floor.

"Well, now that is reassuring since I didn't ask your father for anything," Merrill said venomously as he moved quickly to grab hold of his captive. With a vice like grip on the young man's arm and a firm flick of his wrist, Merrill held Gabe into his chest. Smiling at the struggling young man, Merrill eased the thin needle of the syringe into the soft skin of Gabe's neck. He couldn't help but relish the small groan that escaped the pale pink lips of his captive the moment the needle bit into flesh.