Carlos is awoken from his sleep the way glass breaks; suddenly and appearing impossible to repair. Everything in him wants to avoid the reality. The pain is enough to make him want to exist in a constant state of delusion. The truth is... now, with the things he has, it's almost impossible to fall into that state of emotional despair.
He has a husband. He has three boys he's responsible for. He cannot just lie there underneath the weak and flickering lights. Something has to be done.
Flashback
Seven years ago...
He held her hand as she took her last breath. He was the last person she looked at when that moment came. His abuela was a most cherished woman. Hundreds of people showed up for her funeral and he remembers fumbling with the cuff links of his tuxedo jacket when he stood in front of her embalmed body. She lied, as if asleep, in that casket.
He decided then that love was far more important than lies or games. Being the best of the best meant being what she was; kind, forgiving, and warm. The way she'd point at him with her bony little finger and insist he pray every night. The way she never criticized him for his love of Kendall. The way she always made him feel human and real.
No one else in the family did that. They were kind to him the week of the funeral and then speaking to him became an inconvenience for people. The world without her was so difficult. So painful. He didn't really celebrate that Christmas. He couldn't. He spent the night watching the wax of candles drip and imagining her face in the light of the flame.
End Flashback.
A loud pop drags him back into his awareness. His body is mostly bare. Only a thin, torn pair of boxers cling around his waist and fall around his calves when he stands. He's covered in cuts and bruises. Dried blood is caked on his face and under his left arm. He's awfully heavy. When he moves he sways.
One foot in front of the other. He grabs a robe and pulls it over his cold skin. Then to the door. Out into the corridor.
Here he finds three young things. No older than the boys he's taken in. One a brunette, tall and angry. The other two blond, defeated and quiet on the ground. These three are familiar faces. Two of which are rivaling girls from the Disney entertainment industry; Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter. The other is Nick Champa from TikTok.
The one standing, Olivia Rodrigo, wont quit yelling at the girl on the ground. It's all a big huge mess for her. To Carlos it's a common story and listening to it wont help him get out of this situation alive; not will it help them.
"Can you shut the fuck up?" He speaks softly despite his words being so rough.
She looks up at him with a cocked brow questioning his audacity. She's about to cuss him out for all he's worth but he stops her.
"No. You don't think I know what you're going through? You don't think I was your age and had roommates, or colleagues, or best friends that did something awful to hurt me. You come home from filming a music video to find the girl you thought was meant for you in the bed of someone you trusted, a pal, a compatriot. She's making those noises a little bit better than she did when she was in your arms. I know that pain. I was that boy. That heartbreak helped me realize the truth. I have a wonderful husband and as an adult who knows that pain I will never doubt myself. I know that I wouldn't do anything to hurt him and as much as I know he'd never hurt me I'm not unprepared. I'm capable enough of loving me to move on. There are people dying and they could use my help so get out of my way."
The boy on the floor, with a cloud of depression hovering over his Periclean face, lets out a chuckle. He spins on his hands to face the man in the silly robe and asks, "Who are you to think you can save anyone?"
"I'm Detective Garcia. I survived his first game. I can surely survive his second." With that the tall, bold man made his way down the hallway leaving three youngsters to their own devices.
They're perplexed. Even the boisterous one with the attitude is unable to respond because this is just too incomprehensible. She joined on either side by the other two who have finally taken the time to get off the ground.
Sabrina pushes her thick curls out of her face and steps past them to follow the officer. There's no time for naval gazing.
There, up ahead, sitting on a gurney and covered in blood, is Dr. Logan Mitchell. He seems disconnected somehow. Underwhelmed. Like he's just been working and had a rough day. It's not like there's a hostage situation going on, or anything, perhaps he just lost a patient.
He looks up. Carlos meets his gaze. It's as if they're boys again.
Anytime they shared so much as a glance in their youth there was also this underlying understanding. It's bad, but let's not talk about it. Carlos always knew that Logan was being abused. The young man's mother is absolutely dreadful. Carlos was the only one of the three who ever saw their compatriot be physically assaulted by his mom.
They were so little back then. Logan's grown now and moved away from all of that. There's no more narcissism or rage communication. There's no more wide eyed, small pupiled, drug addiction. He escaped into their music group and the four of them went on to do great things with their lives. Kendall's a professor, Carlos is a detective, and Logan is an attending at Seattle's greatest hospital. Where James went they don't have a clue.
Maybe that's the pain for Logan. What fuels his disassociation, perhaps. Carlos never had to guess, James was very affectionate with Logan. They never went anywhere with it and James didn't know about the violent tendencies of Ms. Mitchell but Carlos, especially now after the sensitivity training it took to become a detective, realizes that Logan must have trauma bonded with James.
"Holy shit!" Sabrina slaps Nick's arm, "Do you know who these guys are? Who they used to be, I mean?"
Olivia trails behind the group running her hands all along the wall trying to keep up. Her nose is trickling blood and she's been uncontrollably weeping for the better part of an hour- hence the rage. The chemicals in the air are causing a nervous system malfunction in those who breath here in the hospital. She's almost down for the count, pressing her face into the cool glass of a window, when she gets her second wind.
She pushes off the wall and peers through the flickering of the lights at the four people in front of her. Realization settles over her and she shoves past Nick and Sabrina ignoring their disgruntled complaints. Logan and Carlos watch her as she continues on towards an open lobby of the floor their on and then they too see what has her so perturbed.
Her former flame, the knock off version of Cameron Boyce; Joshua Bassett. His love for her has been gone. Logan and Carlos follow and it's the detective's hand that reaches up and stops a young girl from getting to close to another sick and twisted contraption designed by the sadist keeping them all here. Sabrina shows little interest in the young man she supposedly stole from Olivia.
Rodrigo's entire SOUR album was dedicated, allegedly, to her HSTMTMTS costar and the girl he'd left her for. Sabrina's 'EXHALE' debuting shortly after, for a lot of the fans, confirmed this love triangle. Now none of them are in the love they'd convinced themselves existed and here he is chained up and waist high in a vat of warm liquid. His eyes shut in a deep sleep.
"Don't ever trigger a trap before you've had a chance to analyze the scene." Says Detective Garcia.
She looks over her shoulders and there's blood in her tears. His heart breaks for her. He lets her go.
She sobs as she latches onto his face, "Josh. Josh, come on. Wake up. Wake up, please."
Sabrina is seen pulling herself up onto the counter top of the lobby desk to rest. There's so much weakness in the younger ones. Carlos and Logan have the urgency and the will to sustain themselves but even Nick is crumbling back to a seated position as his face has drained of all it's color. They're dying so quickly, but why?
The boy in the trap, who's hair is fuzzy like broccoli, nuzzles himself in his restraints as he awakens. He sees her and senses his snare at the same moment and it creates hysteria in his mind. He immediately associates her face with the feeling of being trapped. He screams but it's muffled by the gauze in his mouth.
Carlos steps in front of her, "Young man, I'm Detective Garcia. You've been abducted. I'm here to help. Okay?"
The fact that he's wearing hospital gowns and not the uniform of a cop does little to ease the young actors distress. In fact, he got worse. He's yanking against the chains on his wrist and looking up at the ceiling with a strain in the veins of his neck. His fear has overcome him.
Logan gives it a try, "What's his name?"
He's asking Olivia who cannot hear him in her state of shock.
"Joshua." Mutters Sabrina as she wipes blood out of her left ear with the sleeve of her yellow-brown sweater, "His name is Joshua."
Approaching the victim Logan says, "Joshua, it's true. This Detective is a friend of mine. I'm Dr. Mitchell. I work at this hospital. There's a lot going on right now and it's hard to explain but right now we need to focus on getting you out of here. Do you understand?"
Josh looks over the blood soaked scrubs and decides to take a deep breath in though his nose. He throws his head at the annoying tic brought on by the trickle of blood down his forearms and onto his face from the suspension of is arms.
Nick, with his back against the wall, slowly rolls his heavy head to the side and his eyes widen at what he sees. He tries to scream but no sounds come out. He struggles to his feet and nearly trips over himself in an effort to get closer to Detective Garcia.
"What? What is it?" Asks Carlos.
They all, including Joshua, look in that direction to find what at first appear to be sculptures. They most certainly are not sculptures. Before the stair case and in front of the elevator in vats, like Joshua's, covered in a thick layer of hardened wax, arms suspended in his same fashion, are a series of familiar faces.
"OhhHHHH MY GODDD!" Sabrina falls to the slick flooring in her attempt to remove herself from the counter top.
Once she's regained her balance she's racing over to the one she knows best. Her hand reaches up to touch the cheek of this wax figurine but pauses in hesitation. Sabrina's face is soaked with bloody tears as she whispers the name, "Rowan?"
It's true. Rowan Blanchard, her costar on Girl Meets World, as well as Matt Cornett, Sofia Wylie, and Meg Donnelly are frozen in a poise, doll like state. They have been dipped in their final state.
Joshua panics and begins jerking at the chains holding him to the ceiling. One strong blow and a hatch above him is released. Hot, boiling wax oozes down slowly onto the exposed skin of his small chest. He screams into the gauze tucked between his lips. How painful it is to have so much to say and to go unheard.
