Will Halstead saw Wallace Boden enter through the automatic sliding doors, he was hoping the battalion chief would be able to help him.

"Chief Boden."

"Dr. Halstead," Wallace addressed him.

"I appreciate you coming," Will said, "I'm hoping you can talk some sense into him."

"What's he's done?" Boden asked.

"Visiting hours were over two hours ago, he refuses to leave, I don't want to have security escort him out, I understand how hard this is for him, and I understand it's family, and I'm the last person to stick to protocol and everybody in this hospital knows it, but we do have these rules in place for patients in the burn unit for a reason. Casey needs to rest, and he needs to be exposed to as few people as possible right now to prevent infections."

"I understand," Boden said. "I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you, Chief."

Boden knew the way, he'd already been in to see Casey last night when they first got the news he'd been hospitalized. He returned to the room and saw Severide sitting in a chair next to the bed.

"Kelly."

Severide turned and looked at Boden but didn't respond otherwise. Boden looked past him and saw Matt laying in the bed, unconscious, hopefully unaware. Wallace had to rely on all his years of experience, to disassociate from that image of his lieutenant, with the oxygen tubes up his nose, and two bandage patches covering his eyes, and large parts of his body blistered and oozing and other parts with the blisters and the skin falling off all over again. It sounded cold, but if he didn't dissociate from it, and in this moment treat Casey just like he did every other burn victim they saw on the job, then he knew that neither of them would leave the room. Instead he forced himself to focus on the Squad lieutenant.

"Kelly."

But Severide had returned his attention to the man laying on the air mattress to distribute his weight so as little pressure was put on his burns as possible.

"Kelly," Boden said again. "It's time to go."

Severide shook his head and continued to stare at his friend. "Sorry, Chief, I can't. I have to stay here with him."

"Kelly."

Severide shook his head again, "No, I can't leave."

"Kelly, don't make me drag you out of here," Boden said.

"I have to stay with him, Chief," Kelly insisted. "If he wakes up and nobody's here, he's going to panic, I need to stay with him."

Boden shook his head. Severide acted like he might be bordering on shock, he didn't seem to fully grasp the concept of Casey being kept in a coma for the time being. Once he got Kelly out of Casey's room, they might have to swing by the front desk and get someone to look at him too. The doctors had already explained Casey would be kept in a medical coma for at least a week, when he woke up he would still be in a world of pain, but they were going to keep him unconscious for the first part of it to save some physical strain on his body while he recovered. Wallace went over to the chair and moved to grab Kelly, who leaned back against the chair and shook his head and kept repeating "no, no, no" like a mantra. Wallace managed to get him under the armpits and jerk him to his feet, and Kelly struggled to break loose.

"Kelly," Boden said firmly, and almost instantly Severide stopped fighting with him. In a calmer tone Boden said assuredly, "Casey needs to rest...you'll come back and see him tomorrow."

Kelly stretched out a hand as if to try and touch Casey somewhere that he wasn't burnt, but in the end he couldn't do it. He hung his head low and sighed in defeat.

"He'll be alright," Boden told him, "just let him rest."

Wallace was well aware of how this situation was playing out. The way they spoke about Casey, almost as if he wasn't right next to them, wasn't much differently than if he was dying, and they knew it but were just trying to act like they didn't know it, those vain end-of-life promises to come back and visit soon, knowing there wouldn't be a next time. Knowing that, he could appreciate how hard this was for Severide, but they had to leave for the night. Boden had to force Severide to move his feet, and as soon as he took one step, a series of small sobs emitted from his throat and he tried to move back to Casey, Boden had to put his back into it and force Kelly towards the exit, by walking right behind him and pushing his weight against the lieutenant so he didn't have a choice.

Boden was sure this was earning them some strange looks from the other people in the hospital but he didn't care, he wound up having to force Severide along like that until they reached the waiting room. Then they saw an unusual sight, Voight and Antonio entering the hospital, Antonio looked exhausted.

"Oh good, you're here," he grumbled as they walked up to the two firefighters, "We've been trying to find you all night, we checked 51, Casey's home, Molly's, and half a dozen other bars in the district."

Nobody had to ask why they didn't just call Severide to find out where he was, he'd had his phone off the whole time he was in Casey's room.

"Find out anything?" Boden asked.

"Nothing definitive yet," Antonio said.

"We can't prove that that water heater was tampered with, but we do know it reached a top heat of 140 degrees," Voight told them.

"Oh God," Kelly groaned.

"We canvased the neighborhood," Antonio said, "nobody saw anybody coming or going last night until the ambulance came to get Casey. So if he was exposed to the same cocktail everybody else has been getting, nobody came in and gave it to him."

"The tox screen's not back yet?" Boden asked.

"We're waiting on it," Voight answered.

"I know I gave you guys the brushoff on Casey's poisoned candy theory, but just for the record, did he eat any yesterday?" Antonio asked.

Severide shook his head. "No, we usually run out at 51 before the night's over."

"Usually?"

"Few years back there were a couple bags left, if there were any this time, the guys from 1st Watch took it because nobody saw any," Kelly said. He looked at them and told them, "Casey knew this was going to happen."

"What?" Antonio blinked.

"He said something?" Voight asked.

"Not specifically, after the first cases he started questioning how they were connected, how the victims were picked, could it happen to just anybody...I could tell he was worried about somebody at 51 being next, but I just thought he was being paranoid. I didn't think it could actually happen."

Now Boden was starting to understand why Kelly had been dead set against leaving Casey.

"Come on, Kelly," he told the younger man, "I'll drive you home."

Severide pulled back from him, "I'm not going back there."

Boden looked at the two cops and tried to figure out what that meant. Then he realized Kelly hadn't been home since they brought Casey in. Then he wondered where Severide had been staying before he came back to the hospital.

"Are you still watching that girl?" Kelly asked, "the one they discharged?"

"Yeah but she's still not talking," Antonio replied.

"There has to be some way to make her, she knows something," Severide told him.

"Maybe there is," Voight offered.

Everybody looked at him, then at one another, wondering what his plan was.

Voight turned to Boden and said, "Chief, since this is one of your men, and this is a very delicate situation, I feel it'd only be appropriate to ask for your okay on this."

"What do you need?" Wallace asked.

"With your permission," Voight took out his phone, "I'm going to take some pictures."

"Of what?" Kelly asked.


Complying with the protocol about keeping Casey protected from any infections, Voight and Antonio had to don gloves and masks before they set foot in the room.

"Oh Dios mío," Antonio said as they entered the hospital room and saw Casey for the first time.

Voight didn't miss his detective crossing himself at the sight of the badly burnt lieutenant. If he were Catholic he'd have half a mind to do the same thing. It was hard to look at the man laying in the bed and remember this was the same guy who'd come to his home and knocked him on his ass several years ago. Firefighters thought about what happened if one of their own got burnt up in a fire, but nobody would've guessed Matt Casey would be capable of doing this to himself. For everybody's sake, Voight was hoping the tox screen would come back positive, at least then they could start making some sense out of all this. Then they'd move onto the next question of how he got the drugs. He knew Severide was right, and it wasn't just because of the established pattern of none of the victims having a drug record, back when he was trying to find something to force Casey to retract his statement, he turned every item of the man's personal life inside out and couldn't come up with anything, especially nothing hinting towards a drug history, even living with a doctor there were nothing suggesting he used Hallie for easy access to any meds. Of course it hadn't stopped him from strapping 15 years' in prison worth of cocaine under Casey's kitchen counter. Aside from not being one of his finer moments, in hindsight it was unlikely it ever would've worked, any State's Attorney would wonder how a guy lives 32 years virgin pure and suddenly acquires a brick of snow, but Voight also knew any lesser person, no matter how honest they were, would've recanted just to spare themselves anymore trouble. No such luck with this guy, he was too tough to beat, which was why what was happening now made no sense whatsoever.

He looked over and noticed Antonio staring at Casey in sheer horror. True they'd seen worse on the job, but never anything like this with one of their own and never anybody they worked with at 51.

"Get it together, Antonio," he told him, "we got a job to do."

He raised his phone to get a good angle and snapped a picture. Then he went over to the other side of the bed and took another.

"If these don't get that kid to talk, nothing will," Voight told Dawson, who merely nodded in agreement.


Severide pounded on the door and waited for it to open. It was the middle of the morning and the block was pretty empty, which suited him, it was usually a good idea not to have a bunch of witnesses around.

He heard the door being unlocked on the other side, then saw the main door open, and saw the girl standing behind the glass door.

"Lena Bryant?"

"What do you want?" she asked.

"You remember me?" Severide asked.

She looked at him and after a few seconds responded, "You're one of the firemen."

"Can I come in?"

"What for?" she asked.

"It's important."

She thought about it, then reached over and unlatched the screen door.

"How're you doing?" he asked as he stepped in.

The girl took a step back and said simply, "You didn't come here to ask me that."

"Do you remember the other fireman that came to the hospital to speak with you?"

"What about him?" she asked as she turned and headed into the dining room.

Severide followed her. "You know what's been going on all over the city, you were there when it all started in the cemetery on Halloween. Why haven't you told the police what you know?"

"What makes you think I know anything?" she folded her arms.

"The brushoff you've been giving everyone," Severide answered. "Somebody threaten you?"

She rolled he eyes and said, "I don't have any idea what you're talking about."

The sound of the screen door slamming shut got both their attention. Voight and Antonio stepped in and entered the room.

"Who're you?" Lena asked.

"Police," Voight answered as he flashed his badge. "Now, you're going to tell us what you know, and who's behind all this, otherwise you're going to be tried for murder."

"What're you talking about?" she asked, "What murder?"

Antonio took out his phone and brought up the graphic pictures they'd taken of Casey in the hospital, showing the full extent of the damage he'd suffered thus far. Her jaw dropped and she turned her head to look away, but it wasn't an option.

"Whoever's behind everything that's going on is also behind what happened to this man, Lieutenant Matt Casey from Firehouse 51. If he dies from his injuries, that's going to be murder of a public servant, that's a death penalty charge," Voight told her as he shoved his phone in her face. "And since you've kept your mouth shut since day 1, we can only assume you know something about it, and if you don't tell us who's behind it, we're going to charge you as the sole perpetrator."

Now they had her attention.

"Fine," she said. "What do you want to know?"

"What happened at the cemetery?"

She shook her head, "I don't know. A bunch of us decided it'd be fun to go bum around a cemetery for Halloween, see if anything happened."

"You knew the other kids that went?"

"Knew of them but we weren't really close, my friends never would've gone for it so I didn't bother telling them about it. We'd all been there for about half an hour when we saw somebody starting a fire in the middle of the place. At first we thought it was somebody just pranking us, I mean who does something like that? We went to check it out. I saw...this guy, toss a bag of something into the fire, the flames jumped, they got taller for a few seconds...then all this white smoke rose up from the fire. Everybody breathed some of it in, it was impossible not to, that stuff was everywhere, and after a while, the rest of them started to drop off...I figured they just wimped out and fell asleep, so I left. I don't know how I got to the other cemetery, it just seemed I was there. And that guy was there too...I don't know how he got there."

"Who is he?"

"I don't know. He was wearing some kind of mask. He was chanting something, sounded like every old movie about cults or witches' covens, and I felt weird. Everything seemed to be in a fog. Then something hit me, and I heard this awful ripping noise, and then I felt something wet going down my back. And I heard him say something about...first he'd take the blood...then he'd invoke the fires of hell to take the souls. I tried to get out of there...seemed like I was walking forever. I don't even remember how I got back to town, the night seemed to last forever, pitch dark and freezing cold. Finally it was morning, and the last thing I remembered was reaching the firehouse."

"And afterwards?" Antonio asked.

"I don't know," she admitted.

"Why didn't you tell anybody this in the first place?" Voight asked.

"I saw him again, when I was in the hospital," she said. "I looked out the window and he was standing across the street, it was like he was staring straight at me. I figured if I told anyone what happened, he'd know and he'd come and kill me."

"Still wearing the mask?"

"I hope so, if not, he really must be something out of hell," the girl told them.


"If this guy had those drugs ground up in whatever was in the bag he tossed into the fire, that's how the kids at the cemetery got exposed, they breathed it in, which means he threw a ton of stuff into the fire for them to inhale that much," Antonio told Severide, "and if this guy is somehow able to insert himself into the other calls 51 responded to, anyplace there was a fire, that could've been the starting point, he tosses a bag into the fire, the drugs go up in the smoke, the smoke is breathed in by whoever's around, and they do whatever comes naturally to their drug infested brains."

"What about the ones where there wasn't a fire?" Kelly asked.

"I don't know yet," he shook his head, "but it gives us something to start with. The tox screen finally came back on Casey, positive for heroin and anti-depressants just like the others."

"Antonio."

"What?"

"Could he have been exposed during that house fire the day before he scalded himself?" Kelly asked.

"I thought you said he had his mask on at all times."

"As far as I know...but something made him pass out. I thought it was just the shock of finding the family burnt to death, what if I was wrong?"

"Okay, say you're wrong, what happened then?" Antonio asked.

"I don't know...could that guy have still been in the house? Could he have knocked Casey out?"

"That's your territory, could somebody still be in that house and not be found by the firemen, and get away without anybody seeing him?" Dawson asked.

"I don't know," Severide said, "we didn't know the layout of the house, nobody could go back in for the bodies until the next day...Casey was in there for a while before I found him...maybe...it's possible this guy was there, when Casey's radio went out, they got in a fight, the guy somehow gets his mask off, he breathes in the drugs, he gets knocked out, the guy puts his mask back on, and hightails it out of there."

"That's a reach, Kelly," Antonio said.

"But is it impossible?"

"No, in theory I don't think it's impossible, but if he already killed the whole family, why would he stick around to attack one of the firemen?" Antonio asked.

"I don't know," Severide admitted.

"Besides, you said the paramedics said he was fine," Antonio reminded him.

"Actually they said Casey left before they finished examining him, I took that as a good sign, but maybe they could've caught something," Kelly said.

"Maybe they could've," Antonio agreed, "but that doesn't mean this wouldn't have still happened. Kelly, you can't blame yourself for this for not paying closer attention."

"Antonio, I knew he was worried, I wrote it off, I told him everything would work out and now he's in there with, with," Severide's chest started heaving and a choking sound rose from his throat.

"Take it easy," Antonio told him. "Casey's going to be alright, Kelly, it's going to be a bitch of a wait but he's going to recover from this. In the meantime we're going to find the son of a bitch who's behind it."

"But why would somebody do it?"

"Who knows? Maybe you were right after all."

"Me?" Severide asked.

"At the cemetery, maybe this is a cult thing, a cult with only the leader and no followers, maybe this guy is some delusional paranoiac who thinks he's reincarnated from the ancient Druids, who knows? We won't know until we catch the guy."

"How long's that gonna take?" Kelly asked.

"Severide, don't worry, we're going to find this bastard," Antonio assured him.

"I hope you're right, I hate to think how much worse things could get from here."