A/N: This chapter was written to the song Mad World, because, the more I wrote, the more I thought about the song. Thank you to everyone reading this who has left me reviews, I look forward to them when i get home from work, and finding even one in my inbox just makes my day. Thanks everyone!
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It'd been a whole week since Drake had dissapeared. The eigth day of their personal Hell as they waited for the police to come up with anything. There'd been no ransom demands, no phone calls of any kind. They were falling, into darkness, into despair.
Josh had been going to school for the last five days, every day he hated it more then the last. People stared and whispered, all of them wanting answers and all of them knowing better then to ask. He'd all ready yelled at a girl who'd questioned him about Drake, he'd been so upset he'd made her cry. He didnt have any answers to give them.
He knew he needed to keep going to school, that if he didnt keep some kind of routine to distract himself that he would break completly. Chemistry was the worst class for him now, because everytime he was there he remembered that look in Drake's eyes as he'd apologized, the last time he'd seen his brother... If he'd just gone after him when Mr. Roland had given him the chance then Drake would still be with them. Things would be okay...
He went to the bathroom everyday during Chemistry and cried. Five minutes of tears each day, when it was the only thing he wanted to do at all. He knew the odds of finding a kidnapped person after the first few days weren't good, so, what were the chances after a week?
Meghan spent all of her time at home locked inside of her room. She sat at her computer with sore eyes as she hacked into every security camera in town, looking for any sign of Drake. Whoever had taken him had to have one mistake, had to be on one of these cameras. She'd seen Drake walking away from the view of the camera outside of the school, but after that...
She hadnt talked to josh since after drake had dissapeared. She knew he was upset, that he blamed himself, and, so did she. She hated him for how he'd made Drake feel, That hurtful emptiness he'd been falling into just before he dissapeared.
Her tears could have filled an aquarium, filled the emptiness she harbored within herself with anything. She'd never been without her big brother, never thought she would. But he was gone now, and noone could find him. She was lost and couldn't find a way out. She promised herself that she'd find something, anything and it would help to bring him back. She knew how to outsmart people, she knew how to get what she wanted. All that knowledge that had once been so easy for her was hard now, taunting her in her search for an answer.
She pushed herself away from the computer, falling onto her bed she craddled her oldest teddy bear, one that drake had gotten for her when she was three. She held it close as she cried.
Walter looked at Audrey from across the room, his heart breaking as he watched her red eyes stare at the screen of her laptop. He knew that she was hurting, he was hurting too. But watching her fall into this desperate search for hope hurt the most. He didnt know what she'd thoguht she would find on the internet, but he was sure the answer wasnt there.
He wanted drake back as much as any of them, missed him just as badly. He'd cried on his way to work almost every day, searching the sidewalks for any sign of teir lost boy, swearing that he'd seen him just to jump out of the car and be looking at someone else.
"Audrey..." He said softly as he walked toward her.
"It's been a week." She mumbled, eyes never leaving the computer.
"I know." he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. She was reading a page of missing boys from California.
"They don't find most of them." She said, tears falling. he hated to see her cry so much.
"They'll find Drake." he promised. He had to believe it, had to hope in it.
"Look at all of them." She said, scrolling down the page.
"I think you should stop reading these." he said honestly.
She turned toward him, angry. "Why?"
"they arnt helping." he finally said it. "You're upset enough without letting everything the internet says wear you down."
"And if it had been Josh?" She asked hurtfully. "If Josh were missing would you still think it were a waste of time?"
That hurt him. He cared about both of the boys, faught the station to keep posting Drake's picture in the hopes that someone would find him. "If it had been Josh, I'd be telling you the same thing I am now. I'd be just as sad, they're both my sons." he said a bit deffensivly.
"I'm sorry..." She said, breaking into stronger tears.
Walter pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly as she cried into his shirt, as his tears fell onto her shoulder.
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When Drake woke up that morning he was sore all over. He'd fallen asleep beside Damien's bed, his hand still held tightly by his sleeping friend. memories of the night before had haunted him all night, he could still feel tears on his cheeks. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried in his sleep, if he ever had...
Carefully, he pulled his hand free and walked toward his bed, sitting on it with his head in his hands. He didnt know how they'd lived this way so long, how they kept living.
"You okay?" Ash's voice sailed over toward him.
"yeah..." Drake lied, looking up to see Ash still sitting against the wall, the way he'd been last night.
"It gets easier." Ash said. "After a while you numb yourself to it."
"It happens everytime?" Drae asked, feeling his heart drop.
"Yeah..." Ash spit. "Damien gets the worst of it, they like him. Thanks you, for staying with him last night."
Drake nodded his head. "It was all I could do."
"It means alot to him." Ash said, voice cracked. he wanted to cry, to let even just a fraction of this pain escape. "they've broken him down so much, it's a wonder he keeps fighting to live."
"I understand..." Drake replied softly.
Their conversation was broken by the sound of footsteps comeing down the stairs. Zane and Damien woke with them, turing toward the bars to see not only the other four, but Brendon too. They watched with masked fear as they all stood before them.
"Last nights actions will not be repeated." brendon said sternly. "I've never been so embarrased."
the boys didnt reply.
"However, since the men thought it all a preformance on thier behalf, I was able to get the investments I needed, with a little extra on the side. You boys will be working outside today."
Drake couldnt believe it. They were going to be aloud outside! He hadnt been aloud outside since he'd been brought here.
With that said, Brendon left them, going back upstairs to his welcoming home.
The boys were pulled out from their cell, taken to the bathroom where they quickly cleaned up and got into their regular everyday clothes. They felt the sun to rarely, beathed in that fresh air and felt earth under their feet.
"What do we do out there?" Drake asked.
"Trim the grass, clean the stones..." Zane said.
"It's got to be cut down before it can grow stronger." Damien said, wincing as he moved.
They were given their normal breakfest and their pills before being led upstairs, towards the back door. A think iron cuff was attached to each of their ankles, through the loops in each a single, heavy chain was pulled though. They were attached to each other and given a pair of gardening gloves before the door was opened.
The backyard was massive, at least three achres of neatly landscaped space lay before them. They were marched across the yard, further ad further away from the house toward a small pond with one giant willow tree along its sandy shore. The closer they got, the more Drake understppd the words polish the stones.
Hidden behand the tree's cutain of branches, away from the water, were headstones. There was a graveyard on the property. Drake counted the stones as they got closer, there were twelve. Twelve bodies laying in unmarked graves, weeping forever in solitude.
Their chain was attached to the base of the tree before they were left there to do their work. They waited until the others dissapeared into the house before they all relaxed, looking toward the headstones with a sadness that drake hadnt seen.
"Who are they?" he asked, all ready knowing the answer.
"Slaves like us." Zane said, touching one of the stones lightly.
They weren't the fancy poliched stones Drake had seen in a regular cemetary, more like the ones in cheesy horror movies. Roughly shaped concrete slabs, all of them blank. There were no names to identify who lay there beneath the ground, no years written to measure their lives.
"Most of them killed themselves, others were beaten until they couldnt hold on anymore." Ash said. "We clean up around themselves, Brendon's way of reminding us that we dont have to be allowed to live." His voice was bitter.
"Last night, when they said that the last musicion killed himself..." Drake said softly.
"He did." Ash replied. "before Damien got here, Evan was their favorite. Some of us numb ourselves to the rape and abuse, but, but he couldn't. He didnt eat, barly slept. One day he just snapped, he broke a window and cut into every vein he could."
Drake looked to the blank stones, feeling only a fraction of the pain that had lead them to this. twelve boys, all dead from the life they'd been forced to endure. He closed his eyes, bowing his head to them as he said a silent prayer.
"Do the others get burried here too?" he asked absently.
""Never seen one of them die." Ash replied. "Once Brendon starts having problems with them, he sells them off."
They worked in silence for the first hour, taking in the air and freedom of being out of the house, feeling the weight of their burdons on thier minds. How many of them would end up there? Dead before their time.
When they finished cleaning up around the srones Damien picked what few dandilions were in the yard around them, laying them carefully around the headstones. He'd only met one of the boys burried there, but he felt the pain they had all carried. He gave them all a prayer as he layed the flowers out, hopng that they had found some peace in death. A bit of freedom at the end of their caged lives.
They sat around the old tree, letting the warm breeze wash over them. They watched with empty eyes as the birds flew across the sky, gliding on the winds that carried on them their hopes. they stayed there like that until the others came to retreive them, leading them away from that area of peace and absent fear. They washed up, and sat in their cell. Their regular work would resume tomorrow.
They passed the hours until dinner with idle talk. About school, about anything that wasnt their current lives. They smiled with hollow happiness, for, as good as the memories were, they were a painful reminder of life now.
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It was late in the evening when Audrey noticed something on the screen of her laptop. Sixteen of the boys missing, including Drake, had all gone missing exactly six monthes apart. She passed it off as a coincidence, but, she couldnt stay away from it. She didnt know how she knew, and, maybe it was just desperation, but, she felt that it was connected. Maybe it had all been the same person...
She didnt care if it was nothing, to her it was something. She looked up the number for the FBI, waiting through every ring of the telephone.
"Jennifer Jareau of the Behavior annalisis unit." A plesent sounding woman andswered.
"Hello, my name is Audrey parker, my son went missing a week ago." She stumbled over the words.
"Have you contacted your local police?" Jennifer asked.
"i have." Audrey said, "They havent found anything, but, I think i have."
Jennifer could hear the desperation in the woman's voice.
"I've been looking at a missing person's page for California," Audrey started. "Fifteen other boys have dissapeared just like Drake, all of them six monthes apart. I know it might sound crazy and desperate, but, I think they're connected. That the same people have been doing this."
Jennifer logged into her computer, looking at the same page that Audrey was. There were twenty-five missing boys in california, sixteen of them, all roughly the same age had dissapeared six monthes apart.
"I'll talk it over with my team," She promised. "If we take the case, I'll call you."
"thank you," Audrey said, tears in her eyes.
Audrey gave her information to the woman on the phone, her hands shaking. Even if it was nothing, someone was looking into it. Someone would be trying to find her little boy.