Morrison closed the door behind him as he and Jeff stepped into the room, letting out a long breath. They'd found a small locker room with a couch and a large glass window to the outside, showing a nice panorama of the city, and decided to settle in to rest a while until they knew what was coming next.

"I suppose we need to start figuring out how to break the news to Matt and Angie," Jeff said, going over and sitting on the couch, leaning back, arms draped over the back of the couch.

"It's a tricky situation...it's not something to be done over the phone but if we get news broken, he'll hear about it anyway." Morrison walked over and plopped down next to him, leaning back as well, staring at the ceiling. "You'll just have to...I don't know, talk him through it first."

"If by tricky you mean shitty. Not sure if he'll even believe me, I mean..."

"He'll believe you. You're his baby brother. Even if he doesn't, the news will break and then he'll have to. We're just...trying to soften the blow."

"Yeah," Jeff said, leaning into Morrison, shaking his head. "I guess I should go ahead and call...since I'm sure the guys are arranging for news folks to get here soon..."

"Do whatever you think you should do," Morrison said, draping an arm around his shoulders.

Before Jeff could respond, the door to the room came open, and Josh peeked his head in. "Oh, hey, guys. Don't suppose you know where I can find a couple of bottles of water in here, do you?"

"Not that I know of...you want some help looking?" Morrison asked.

"If you don't mind. There's a lot of places to hunt."

"You okay, babe?" Morrison asked, looking back at Jeff, who had fished the cell phone out of his pocket and was looking at it silently.

"Yeah...I'm gonna go ahead and get started on this," Jeff said softly. "It's gonna be a long story."

Morrison nodded, getting up, patting Jeff's leg as he went, then headed for the door, stepping out with Josh and letting the door swing shut behind him, starting down the hall with the announcer. "Bottled water?"

"I don't care what really. Just something cold and wet. Running for your life is thirsty work."

"It is that," Morrison said mildly.

"So...how are the two of you holding up?" Josh asked, opening another door and peering into it.

"I don't even want to get into it," Morrison said, opening a door on his side of the hall, staring at a bathroom, then continuing on his way.

Josh nodded, and they searched in silence a moment before Josh opened a door to a small kitchen, with a couple of mini-fridges, a stove, a microwave, and a toaster oven scattered on worn furniture and cabinetry. "Ah, bingo," he said, starting inside, with Morrison following him. The first fridge contained nothing but a few rotten pieces of unidentifiable fruit, but the second had water, milk, sodas, and a few bottles of beer, and after a moment of consideration, Josh claimed the beer. "I think Chavo and I are going to get stinking drunk. Or as close as we can get off a six-pack."

"Once we're home, I say the group of us rent a bar for an evening and we'll all get as wasted as we can possibly get." Morrison took a bottle of water and a couple of cans of Pepsi out, wincing at the coldness of the cans. "We need to all just be a stable at this point. We're the most unstoppable group WWE can come up with, apparently."

Josh sighed, shaking his head. "You know, when this all started, I wanted nothing more than to play croquet with Batista's balls for daring to be involved in this." He worked open a bottle of the beer and gulped most of it down, then lowered it. "I guess I've had the rage scared out of me."

"It's not his fault, anyway. He's just a pawn like anyone else who could've been sucked into this."

"He's the easiest person to lash out at, though. The doctors and criminals aren't here for me to take it out on."

"Be thankful for that," Morrison said, walking to the door and holding it open for Josh. "I doubt they'll be gentle with us the way they've been screwing around so far...and even at that, we've barely gotten away by the skin of our teeth. We won't have a prayer if they get us again."

Josh shrugged a little, and Morrison turned to head back down the hall, Josh wandering the opposite way behind him, down another hall. Morrison looked down at the drinks in his hands, then went back towards his own room. He wondered whether Jeff had already gotten Matt on the phone, and if so, how the older brother was taking things thus far.

( )

Chavo heard the door come open, but didn't feel much like looking up. He had flopped onto his front with his face in the sofa, and it was a very comfortable position to be in, and he was loathe to leave it unless he had to. Instead he just held out a hand, anticipating the drink he'd requested from Josh. "I owe you, man, thanks," Chavo said, voice muffled in the cushion.

Footsteps approached his seat quickly, but something sounded a little off about them, as though they were too heavy for Josh. Chavo frowned and started to raise his head, but yelped when someone grabbed the back of his shirt, and something pressed against the back of his head, pushing his face into the cushion. He grunted and grabbed at whatever was pushing him, kicking his feet and trying to wriggle away. "What the hell-?" he grunted.

"Shut up," a familiar deep voice chuckled from over him, and he grunted when he was flung off the sofa and to the floor, rolling onto his back quickly and seeing Kane standing over him, wearing that bizarre outfit of a dress shirt and slacks again, drawing even more attention to his dead eye and borderline demonic, grinning face.

"Oh what the FUCK!" Chavo snarled, scrambling backwards and to his feet, ready to fight, but coming to an abrupt stop when he saw Kane wasn't alone, as there was a blonde man behind him, in khakis and white button-up shirt, carrying a pistol and aiming it towards him. "How the hell did you find us?"

"That's not your problem, Chavo," Kane said, smirking. He glanced back at the man behind him, a fellow who looked more scientific than thuggish. "Keep him isolated, Darrin, I'm going to keep looking for our subject."

"You bastard, you're never gonna get Rey back, you're gonna pay for this," Chavo growled, clenching his fists at his sides.

Kane simply turned and made his way back to the door, chuckling as he did. "You don't even know, Chavo...you have no idea what's coming." He opened the door, glancing both ways, then slid out, letting the door shut behind him.

"Just have a seat on the sofa there," the stranger, Darrin, said, gesturing with the pistol, and Chavo, though seething, got up and moved over, sitting down, glaring at him.

"You're not going to get away with this. Something like this can't stay hidden forever."

"We've kept it hidden long enough," Darrin said. "At any rate, the lot of you are already performing within our parameters. Your data is fascinating."

"What do you mean, 'our data'?"

Darrin shrugged somewhat. "Doctor Bettler has something planned for the lot of you. I don't know what, I just know we're recording things." He shifted, making his way around to the back of the couch. "I know you have a friend on his way in, so here's what you're going to do. You'll carry on as per normal until he's sitting here as well and then we are all going to wait quietly until the others have come to collect you. Don't try to warn him, I have orders to kill you both if necessary." With that, he crouched down out of sight of the door, going completely silent.

Chavo sat quietly, having to fight to keep from lunging backwards and trying to wrangle the bastard. No doubt he'd get himself shot as soon as he tried, which would leave Josh to either get shot or held hostage alone, and though Josh had been proving his competency so far, he couldn't fight a gunman on his own. They'd have to work together to do this, if Chavo could just think of a plan.

The door slid open, and Josh came in, carrying an armful of beer bottles. "Hey, I figured these would be a lot better for the gullet than just water. I don't know about you, but I could stand a little buzz going."

"Yeah, it sounds good," Chavo said, mind racing, almost thinking he could feel the stranger behind him, gun probably carefully aimed. He tried frantically to think of something, and abruptly, the most bizarre thought burst into his head, and it seemed completely crazy even as he decided to go with it. "I think you're right about curling up at home and watching Spongebob."

"Yeah, I'm telling you, man. Spongebob is like the perfect way to just let your mind go blank."

Chavo nodded, raising one hand and gesturing vaguely towards the back of the couch with it. "Yeah, you know what my favorite episode is? The one with Spongebob and that squirrel chick when they were playing karate too much."

"Oh yeah, that one is good. You know, I've heard online that people say karate on Spongebob is supposed to be like, their way of having sex or something. Really kinda fucks up the whole show when you read that crap." Josh started towards the couch, holding out one of the beers.

Chavo's gestures became faintly more frantic, as he jerked a thumb repeatedly towards the back of the couch. "Well, my favorite part of that episode was when Spongebob came home and all that."

Josh stopped, blinking at him a moment, opening his mouth to ask something, but hesitated, continuing the conversation, though with an obvious questioning tone in his voice. "Well yeah, that was a pretty funny part, so-,"

Chavo made a face, trying to convey everything with just his expression, and jerked his thumb backwards once more. "Yeah, it was absolutely the funniest part, I really, really liked it a lot with how he was running around," he said, glancing his eyes backwards as well as he could without obviously moving his head.

Josh stared a moment longer, and to Chavo's relief, awareness dawned on his face, and Josh knelt, putting down all but two of the bottles. "Well, yeah, but for me, the best part was when they were in the park making lunch," he said, keeping his tone conversational, even as he straightened, holding a bottle in either hand by the necks, starting to creep around slightly to get to a side of Chavo. "I mean, especially after you've read the sick shit people put online about the sex and whatnot and-,"

Without even the slightest bit of warning, Josh lunged forward at the couch, landing with his gut hard across the back, sending the air out of him, but even at that, he swung both bottles down as hard as he could at Darrin, the stranger, who let out a shrill grunt of surprise when both bottles collided with his head, and Chavo was up and moving as well, turning and lunging over the back, grabbing him and tackling him to the ground. The gun flew out of Darrin's hand at the impact, and Chavo was fast to grab the guys arms, flipping him onto his stomach, straddling his waist, then grabbing his head and smashing it down at the floor as hard as he could. There was a cracking sound, but nothing more, and Darrin's body went limp under him, either dead or unconscious, and Chavo found himself not particularly caring which as he got to his feet, panting, trying to figure out how exactly he'd gotten so short of breath.

"Can't...believe...you actually...did that..." Josh wheezed from where he was still hanging over the back of the couch, holding his stomach in pain. "Or even that you...thought to do it..."

"Yeah, well, considering the yellow bastard just saved our lives, I take back every bad thing I ever said about Spongebob." Chavo pulled Josh to his feet. "You all right?"

"Been better, but I'll live...holy shit, that's one of the bad guys, isn't it?"

Chavo nodded, wincing. "Kane is out there somewhere, too, looking. I have to imagine there's more. They found us somehow."

"We better go warn the others...fast..."

Chavo nodded again. "Come on, we better hurry, we have to get our asses moving again if we can get away from here..." He and Josh ran to the door and hurried out, moving down the hallway as fast and alertly as they could, keeping their eyes and ears peeled to avoid getting dropped on again.

( )

As he approached, Morrison noticed the door was slightly ajar from where he'd left it, but he figured Jeff, being inquisitive as always, had gotten up and peeked out after him to see where he'd headed off to. He made his way over and turned his back to work the door open, not wanting to knock the sodas around. "Jeff, I found you something to drink-," he started to say, as the door swung shut and he started to turn around-

The couch Jeff had been sitting on was knocked over, the phone was smashed against the wall just next to him, and Alexander was in the corner, both hands wrapped around Jeff's throat, holding the smaller man up against the wall, slamming him into the concrete over and over, Jeff's arms and legs hanging limp, skin waxy and ashen. Morrison flinched a moment, dropping everything in his hands, completely struck dumb for the briefest of moments, unable to move or react. Suddenly it hammered into him what was happening, what he was seeing, and he let out a scream, rushing forward. "Let him go!"

Alexander peeped back at him, and with an almost casual arrogance, threw his foot back to get Morrison in the stomach, knocking him backwards hard against the floor. "You don't learn real fast, do you, pretty boy?" He turned his attention back to Jeff, who had gone a vaguely grayish shade. "I think he's just about learned his lesson for daring to throw shit at my head and thinking he was gonna kick my ass when I just came in to say hi."

"Let him go, you're killing him!" Morrison yelled, scrambling back to his feet and running at them again.

Alexander sidestepped him, then swung Jeff around, colliding him with Morrison and knocking him against the floor again, then looked back at Jeff's face, smirking. "Killing? I think done killed, actually," he said, then turned, throwing Jeff hard against the wall and letting him collapse bonelessly to the ground. "I've been wailing on him for a bit now, guess I done forgot to keep track of time."

"Wha...what, Jeff...?" Morrison grunted, sitting up, looking past Alexander to where Jeff had landed on his side, body slightly contorted from the bizarre angle he'd landed at, completely unmoving.

"Just as well. He was beginning to be a fucking pest." Alexander smirked, moving towards Morrison. "Dead or not, blue-hair'll keep for me. I haven't gotten to play with you yet."

Morrison rolled back to his feet, glancing back at Jeff once, breath hitching a single time...then his attention turned as he shifted to glare at Alexander. "You sick, sick son of a-,"

"I need another color..." Alexander broke in, yanking two braids-one blue, one blonde-out from his pocket, holding them up just under his nose, tilting his head back as though to get a better whiff. "I like your hair but it's a bit too short, I'll have to keep you handy until it's grown out-,"

Alexander obviously had more to say, but his voice cut off abruptly, and he let out a strangled gasp when Morrison, without so much as a word, stepped in and buried his fist into the giant's exposed throat, feeling an incredibly satisfying crunch of destruction under his knuckles as he did so.

"You sick fuck!" Morrison heard himself screaming, in an odd sense disconnected, like he was hearing himself distorted, even as the giant stumbled around, clutching at his destroyed throat, and Morrison followed him, throwing first a kick to the crotch, then another to the chin that snapped Alexander's head back, knocking him against the floor. "You can't hide behind anyone else now, you sick fuck, you can't hide anymore, can you?" Alexander tried to scoot away, but Morrison fell atop him, straddling his waist and grabbing at his throat in both hands, then raising one, smashing his fist into the man's face, using the punches as punctuation with everything that came from his mouth. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?" Punch. "This is what you wanted!" Punch. "You want me, you can fucking have me-," Punch. "-you disgusting bitch waste of shit!" Punch. "You fucking psycho man cunt-," Punch, punch, "-you fucking shithole!"

Morrison was dimly aware on some level that Alexander was still fighting back, pushing and punching at him as well. He was aware that all the flailing they were both doing meant that a few of his punches weren't connecting with anything but the bone-shattering concrete floor under them, even though he couldn't feel any pain from any of it. He was aware that he was screaming threats and words in combinations that didn't really make any sense. He was also aware that all of this meant he had crossed over into a Bad Place at the moment, with the capital letters and everything, but even knowing all that on a logical level wasn't doing anything to make him stop. Because the simple fact of the matter was, losing control on this big fuck felt very, very good.

"I'll kill you!" he heard himself again. "I'll kill you, I swear to God, I'll kill you, I'll kill you I'll kill you I'll kill you!"

Still on that separate level, he became aware of the gradual cessation of movement from Alexander, the slow change of sound from fist hitting face to something more akin to a watermelon hitting the floor, but it still hadn't stopped feeling right to be brutalizing the bastard that had become the bane of his existence within two mere days, the freak who'd tormented them, who'd tormented Rey, who had probably tormented others just like them, the bastard who'd scared Jeff so much he'd-

Jeff.

Morrison abruptly stopped mid-punch, a red haze he hadn't even been aware of at the edges of his vision fading out, leaving him looking down at a formerly human face that now looked like so much ground beef and the awareness of blood and scorching pain in his hands. That didn't matter either though. Morrison glanced over at where Jeff was still laying on the floor, in the same position, completely still.

"Jeff...Jeff!" Morrison scrambled off the giant towards him, grabbing his shoulder and turning him onto his back, cupping his face. "Jeff!"

Jeff's eyes were closed and his mouth was open slightly, apparently completely unconscious. But he was that unearthly pale color and his lips were tinged slightly, a vaguely purplish tone to them. Morrison put a hand over Jeff's mouth, couldn't feel anything...immediately pulled Jeff up, putting an ear to his chest, thought he could feel a beat, but he wasn't sure, he couldn't be certain he really felt it or he was imagining it, but he couldn't hear or feel anything like breath, and the angry red hand prints around Jeff's throat were stark evidence to what he was afraid of.

"Oh God, oh no, no no no no no, oh God please no," Morrison whimpered, laying Jeff back against the floor, straightening him out, feeling once again like his body was moving of it's own volition, but this time the overpowering emotion, instead of rage, was all-consuming terror. "Please God, please God, please God," he was saying, even as his hands were moving, one under Jeff's neck, raising it enough to tilt his head slightly, the other automatically opening his mouth more, and Morrison leaned down quickly, pinching Jeff's nose and pressing his mouth over Jeff's, blowing in a breath as steadily as he could, watching Jeff's chest rise from the corner of his eye, pulling back just long enough to feel the exhalation as the air came back out, repeating it again, then putting his ear back to Jeff's chest. This time though, there was no question...he couldn't hear any heartbeat.

"Oh no, no no no no no no no no, no, Jeff, no, please..." He positioned his hands over Jeff's chest, locking his elbows, wincing at what he would have to do next, but went through it anyway, thrusting his hands down into Jeff's chest hard. He heard and felt a crack at the push, but didn't stop, keeping going with the chest compressions...Jeff would be better off with shattered cartiledge and broken ribs than a stopped heart...frantically murmuring a count to himself as he did. He leaned down again, two more breaths, then more compressions, back again, had to keep going, didn't know if it was working, he couldn't tell..."Please Jeff, please Jeff, please Jeff, please Jeff..."