UTAH : ONE YEAR, ELEVEN MONTHS AGO

Ryan heard Chrissie talking to someone as they approached. She was telling the person about their drugs, a perfect saleswoman. Unfortunately she had that skill down and had sold a lot of drugs.

"What's in the other coffin?" a woman asked.

"Nothing," Chrissie lied.

Ryan would have barked back that she was a liar, but she'd taped his mouth shut because he kept doing it during her sales. Not that any of the people she was dealing with would ever try to help him, but he'd managed to sabotage a few sales by yelling and screaming and kicking the coffin. The only downside to this was when she had large deals she now shot him up with some kind of sedative.

"Oh come on, what's in there? It smells bad! Do you have a body in there?"

"No. I have my fiancée."

Her lie made his anger flare and he kicked the side of the coffin.

"Is he cute?" the woman asked.

The lid was opened. Standing next to Chrissie was another woman with long brown hair. Since she wasn't strung out, Ryan assumed she was a dealer.

"Yeah. He's cute all right. Could use a shave and shower though."

Chrissie looked at her. "He has issues with that."

"Like what?"

"Just issues."

The woman smiled. "Is he one of those mail order husbands? You can't trust them to go anywhere alone?"

"Pretty much." Chrissie closed the lid. "So, do we have a deal?"

"I need some time to think about it. Will you be here until tomorrow morning? I'll come back at eight."

"If you're not here, we're moving. We need to be somewhere in three days."

"Where's that?"

Chrissie laughed. "On a plane to Moscow. That's where we're getting married."

"Oh yeah? That's cool. Here's the down payment. I'll be back with a decision tomorrow, so make sure that down payment is too. If I catch it for missing money, I won't like you anymore Chrissie."

"It'll be here."

There was a short moment of silence and then Chrissie opened the lid again. She climbed in with him, kissing his neck where she'd been giving him shots of sedative.

"We have the rest of the afternoon to play!"

Ryan wanted to punch her. He wanted to bite and kick. He wanted his sidearm so he could shove it in her mouth and pull the trigger. As her hand started unfastening his pants, he turned his imagination to all the ways he could kill her.

Ryan didn't wake up right away when a hand patted his face.

"Hey, wake up."

Ryan tried to, but she'd given him a sedative shot before a large deal an hour ago and it was hard for him to find his way out of its fog.

"Wake up!" the voice hissed as the hand smacked his face hard.

The slight sting woke him and he looked up. The buyer from earlier was crouched next to the coffin.

"Sit up. It'll help." She grabbed his shoulder and arm, helping him.

Ryan lifted his hand and looked at it. Ryan sat up, his mind taking several seconds to grasp that the plastic ties had been cut. But it couldn't think beyond that to tell him he was free and needed run.

"Are you Ryan Wolfe?"

"Yes."

"Come on." She grabbed his arm. "Chrissie and Jerry are getting high with the other militia. We have to be get out of here while they're busy."

Ryan let her help him out of the hearse. His surroundings started spinning and he stumbled forward. She caught him.

"Hey, I can tell from all these holes in your neck she's been shooting you up, but if you want out of here, Ryan, you have got to fight this off."

Ryan focused on the woman.

"Who are you?"

"A friend that saw your APB. Come on."

Ryan let her pull him into a walk, trying to get his bearings on the landscape. There were a lot of trees between them and a gate. He could see a car sitting outside the gate.

"Your car?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah."

A gunshot rang out and Ryan fell with his would-be-rescuer. Ryan turned, grabbing her shoulder and then pulled back. She had been shot in the back of the head and it left a wide hole. Ryan looked up, seeing Jerry aiming a rifle at him. And next to him, Chrissie.

Ryan jumped to his feet and ran for the gates. Jerry shot two more times and somehow missed both times. Ryan reached out to grab the open gate. From seemingly nowhere, someone tackled him to the ground. Then there were a dozen more men and women beating him with their bare hands. He felt something snap in his left leg, followed by several ribs cracking. The pain made his head spin and he lost his ability to tell up from down.

"STOP!" he heard Chrissie scream.

They moved away and he tried to get up, but between starving to death, being dehydrated, and the injuries he'd just sustained, he had no strength left. He was rolled over and Chrissie knelt down. Ryan screamed when her knee slid against his broken ribs.

"That hurts?" she asked, then leaned harder on them.

Ryan screamed louder, trying to push her off. Chrissie punched him.

"Love hurts." Chrissie pulled a gun from behind her and pressed it against his forehead, cocking it.

Around her the people cheered and encouraged her to kill him.

Chrissie stood. "Put him back in the coffin. We're leaving the country tomorrow night, get rid of that hearse and coffin after we leave."

Roughly he was returned to the coffin and tied back in it. Someone tapped the lid and it slammed him back into darkness. Ryan closed his eyes, unable to fight back his tears any longer. He had been a dozen feet within freedom and that hurt more than his broken bones did. He didn't want to die, but he could only imagine how she was going to kill him. Why hadn't he made her pull the trigger to end his torture? Ryan cried harder, realizing she was winning. She was going to smuggle him and her drugs out of the country, and nothing he could do was going to stop her. And Horatio wasn't coming to save him.