Chapter 4 Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

James struggles within the grasp of the two muscular men, dragging him down a long corridor.

"Where are you taking me?" He yells as he keeps struggling. Their grip just tightens on his arms, making him scream out in pain. "Hey! Watch it, I worked hard on these muscles!"

The men just grin as they follow Shane to a grey door on the left. He takes out the set of keys again and starts to open the lock. James looks confused.

"Uh, what kind of room is this?" Shane goes to stand next to the door as the men start to drag James inside. "No, wait. Tell me what we're doing first!" Shane grins widely as he shuts the door behind them.

James looks around with confusion. The room looks like an interrogation room of some sort. But instead of the room holding a table with two chairs, only one chair is set up in the middle, standing in front of a large mirror.

The two men drag James over to the chair and forcefully sit him down. He winces and glares at them. The one of the men holds him, while the other grabs something from his back pocket.

"What are those for?" James asks, a hint of fear in his voice as he sees two sets of handcuffs in the guy's hands. He tries to struggle again, but with a fast CLICK, the handcuffs are set around his wrists, cuffing him to the chair. James pulls on them and stares up angrily at Shane, who is standing beside the mirror, watching him. "You're not going to get away with this, you know."

Shane laughs and shakes his head. "Relax James, you don't even know what I'm going to do yet. Just sit back and stare at yourself in the mirror, like you always do. I'll be right with you."

Shane walks behind him. James tries to keep an eye on him through the mirror, but he soon moves out of his sight. He tries to twist his body, trying to find out what Shane is doing. He can't see him, when he suddenly turns up right next to him.

He puts his hand on James head, softly brushing his fingers through his hair. James squirms in the chair, trying to get away from him.

"Such nice hair. I guess those Cuda products really did work for you, didn't it?"

"How do you know so much about me?" James asks with some fear latched in his voice. Then his eyes go wide and he gulps as Shane brings his face just inches away from his. He grabs his face and forces James to look in the mirror.

"So handsome. I can understand why you would pay so much attention to it." He lets go of the face and walks to the other side of him. James follows his movements in the mirror.

"Hey, I already know I look good. You didn't have to handcuff me to this chair to tell me all that." He stammers nervously with a smile.

Just then, Shane grabs him by the shoulders and puts his head right next to his. James stiffens.

"You know, I was always jealous of the way you looked. And the confidence with which you brought it on, too. Wow." He shakes his head. "James, are you familiar with the story of Snow White?"

James looks confused. "Uh, sure?"

Shane suddenly smiles strangely. "That's good. Because it means you know about the Mirror, Mirror on the Wall part. And in our story, guess who keeps coming up as being the prettiest of all?"

James gulps. "I-I don't know…" Shane's smile disappears as he forcefully grabs James by the hair. The pretty boy winces, but keeps from crying out.

"Every time I ask, it comes up as you, James. You! Never me." He lets go of James, who tries to get his breathing under control. Shane starts to pace back and forth behind him, before stopping next to him again. "Just look at me and then at you. Now how is that fair, huh? Look at what I'm up against."

James tries not to look in the mirror, but Shane grabs his face again and tilts it towards the mirror. "It's just not fair. And I think it's time we even the playing field." A creepy smile reappears on Shane's face as he walks away for a moment.

James tries to twist his body to see what he's doing.

"What are you talking about? You need some advice? I mean, I-I can give you advice.. I've given lots of people advice.." James keeps stammering, not knowing how to stop as he starts to feel and more scared.

Then he stops talking when he sees Shane coming back in his sight. His eyes widen at the object in his hand.

"What are you going to do with that?" Shane just smiles broader and walks closer. "No, please, don't do that.. It's all I have…"

James's scream can be heard down the long corridor…

Meanwhile, back in the cell…

Kendall has moved to sit on the bench in the right corner, while Logan and Carlos still sit by the wall. Only Logan has now moved to sit in front of Carlos as he checks all his bruises, Carlos wincing ever so often.

"Just try to hold still." Logan warns as Carlos hisses again after his friend touches a nasty bruise on his arm. "How did you get this one, anyway?"

"One of those big guys pulled me up from the ground, just holding my arm. He had a tight grip. Ow!" He cries out when Logan turns his arm a little.

"Sorry." He mumbles, before letting go. Carlos immediately pulls his sleeve down. "Well, good news is, nothing seems to be broken. Bad news is, these bruises are going to hurt even worse tomorrow."

Carlos groans. Logan chuckles, before shifting his gaze to Kendall, sitting on the bench in silence.

"Kendall?" Logan calls out quietly. Kendall doesn't reply. His gaze is fixated on the bars intently, where they watched James being dragged out what seems like hours ago. "Kendall?" he calls out again as he moves closer to his friend.

Logan sighs as he sits next to his friend on the bench. He carefully reaches out a hand to touch Kendall's shoulder. He flinches and looks at Logan with wide eyes. They soften immediately when he notices Logan's worried eyes and smile staring at him. He smiles back a little, but then moves his gaze back to the bars.

"What do you think they're doing to him?" Carlos' soft voice suddenly asks as he has figured out Kendall's thoughts.

"I don't know… but if they hurt him, I swear I'll.." Kendall's voice dies down as he grits his teeth and balls his fists again. He closes his eyes fro a moment.

"Kendall?" Logan's worried voice sounds next to him.

"I'm okay. I just.. I should have stopped them.. It should have been me in there.. And now they have James and they're doing god knows what to him and I can't stop them. I should be there to stop him, to protect him.."

Logan puts a hand on his shoulder again. "Kendall, look at me." Kendall opens his eyes and looks at his friend. "This isn't your fault. You tried to stop them. But those guys, I mean come on. They're even bigger than Freight Train. And there are three of them. You tried, Kendall. There was nothing you could do."

"I could have tried harder." He now shouts, standing up. "I mean, I just let that one guy grab me and distract me."

"Distract you? He knocked the wind out of you."

"Whatever, Logan. My point is, they took James and I didn't do anything.."

"Yes, you did! You tried, but they.." Logan's sentence is cut short as Carlos interrupts him.

"Shh, guys, I think I hear something." The guys turn their heads towards the bars. Suddenly everything falls silent as they too hear footsteps coming down the hall. Carlos carefully goes to stand; Logan quickly rushes towards him to help him up.

Shane's creepy sneer is the first thing they see as he opens the door. All three guys glare at him, but quickly their eyes try to find their friend when the two big men walk closer into the cell.

The guys gasp as they see James. His head hangs low and is covered with a hoodie as the men throw him down to the cold, stone floor and laugh as he just pulls up his knees. Carlos and Logan rush to his side, when Kendall tries to go after Shane.

"Kendall!" Logan calls out to him and he glares at Shane one more time as he closes the door, before turning towards James.

"James?" Carlos calls out carefully. James rocks back and forth slowly. Carlos holds out his hand, but he scoots back.

"Don't look at me." The guys share concerned glances.

"James.. what did he do?" Logan offers in a quiet tone.

"He knew I care about my looks.. He said he was jealous and that he couldn't stand me being better looking than him.." Tears slowly roll down his cheeks.

"James, what happened?" Kendall asks now as well.

"He decided he needed to do something about it… That's when he did this.." He slowly pulls down the hoodie, revealing a completely baldhead.

The guys gasp, but then sigh with some sort of relief.

"Don't look at me, it's horrible!" James cries out.

"Oh my god, James.. I thought he cut off your ears or something..Jesus..." Carlos tells his friend with a shake of his head.

"He shaved off my hair.. all of it!" He shrieks, sobbing dramatically.

"James, it's just your hair! For god's sake.. we thought he did a lot of worse things.." Logan yells.

"But it's my hair! Do you have any idea how long it will take to grow back?"

"Oh, who cares man!" James and Carlos start to argue, when Logan notices Kendall has quietly gone to sit down on the bench in the right corner again. He goes to sit next to him.

"Hey." He softly says, when he notices Kendall seems deep in thoughts. "Thank god it's only his hair, right?" He says with a small smile. But Kendall doesn't smile back.

"He did it on purpose." Kendall suddenly mentions.

"What?"

"Shane. He started with something small. But big enough to make an impact on James. He knew it would upset him." Kendall looks Logan in the eye.

"So you think he's going to try to do that to all of us? Get personal and hit where it hurts?"

"yeah, but in a slow pace though. I'm thinking it wasn't a coincidence they took James first."

Logan nods, beginning to see what Kendall is getting at. "He wanted to get at you, because he knew you'd try to protect us and then blame yourself if someone did get caught."

"And I think him kidnapping Carlos first was part of the same plan. I mean, carlos doesn't like to be alone. So what better way to get at him, then by taking him first, leaving him hurt and alone, before getting all of us?"

"So, then Carlos was first, before James was." The two boys sits in silence for a moment, thinking over all of this. "What do you think he'll do to me?" Logan asks, looking at his friend.

"I don't know. But whatever it is, it'll be something personal." Both guys sigh.

"How far do you think they'll be taking all of this?" Logan asks.

"I'm not sure I want to know." Kendall answers softly, resting his gaze on his two other friends. Some laughter is heard from both of them ever so often. Leave it to Carlos to cheer up their first so distraught pretty friend. "But whatever they have planned, I think we should stick together. I have a feeling it's going to get a lot harder."

Logan too switches his gaze to Carlos and James. Carlos is laughing, while James is making a Zoolander face.

"You know what? I could totally rock this look. Maybe it was time for a change anyway, you know?" Logan and Kendall smile at their friend, glad to see him already feeling better.

"Hm, that went a lot faster than I thought." Shane's voice breaks all of them out of laughter.

"Yeah, I think you may have done me a favor. It was time for a new look." James tells him, holding out a smile. Shane's smile doesn't falter though.

He just opens the door again and steps inside. He looks around and rests his gaze on none other than Logan.

"Your turn." Logan gulps as he looks at Kendall.

A slightly longer chapter this time. I hope you liked it, I know, maybe you were expecting something a lot worse for James. Just keep reading and reviewing this story ;)

Anyway, let me know what you thought of it and thanks for the support!

Love, Baxxie