a/n: And this chapter includes further (unwilling) drug use.

Phases Four and Five

"You know the drill."

TK heard the words as if through water or cotton or...something thick and cobwebby that distorted the sound of them. Or maybe the intention of them, he wasn't sure. He didn't feel anything. Fear. Anger. Concern. He remembered feeling all of those things earlier that evening. He vaguely remembered he was supposed to feel something. For himself. Or maybe for the woman being forced into a chair across from him.

Mia.

Right.

Pregnant. He was supposed to do something...something to do with her, he thought. But he couldn't grasp exactly what it was. He couldn't think right. TK wasn't sure how he knew it, but he knew he usually thought better. Clearer. This...was new. This fog. It was like his brain was switched to the "off" position. But his body… his body was stuck on "go".

He couldn't stop twitching. Shivering. He wasn't cold. He hated being cold, but he wasn't cold. He shivered, though. Jittered.

"Why?!"

That he heard clearly through the fog.

"Look at him! I can't take any more! He can't take anymore!"

Take what? What was he supposed to take?

Oh. Maybe something from the bowl between them. Grinch shook the bowl, and all these little packets jiggled around.

Pills. Pills in little packets. Sometimes one, sometimes two. All different colors, shapes, sizes.

Scream took the bowl, now. He shook it, too. Moved it back and forth on the table. Like maybe mixing it was needed. Or something.

TK looked at Mia, hoping she would tell him. Give him a hint, at least. She was really unhappy, though. At him? Maybe? She seemed really angry. Or maybe...sad?

Her lips moved. The guy with the Scream mask was in her face, his lips moving. Too quiet. He wanted to tell them to speak up, but he couldn't quite muster the energy to get the message from brain to mouth. He was so, so tired. Everything felt...heavy. His thoughts. His head. His legs. Everything. But twitchy, too. His muscles jumped all by themselves. He wasn't telling them to do it.

She moved her lips again, and this time, words came with the movement. "TK, you know about medicines, right? Which ones won't hurt you?! Show me something that won't hurt you!"

He looked into the bowl. Did he? Did he know pills? Mia thought he should. TK fished for something. Something nagging at him, inside. Something just out of reach. Something that made Mia think he knew about pills.

TK felt like he should be more...scared. Worried. But it was like all the feelings had run off and were hiding.

Carlos. He was supposed to meet Carlos. For dinner. Right?

TK wondered if he was thinking of the right day. Was that today?

Was it?

Why...why was he here, with all these odd faces and moving lips and... pills?

Mia held up a packet with two little pink pills. "These?"

TK blinked at her, and she tossed them back and pulled out a little baggie with one big, white oval shaped pill. Mia really seemed to think he should recognize them, the different pills. But he didn't. She looked closely at them all, even squinting sometimes and holding them up to the light. He wasn't sure what she was looking for.

Scream face, though, he was angry at Mia. He was quiet when his lips moved, though, so TK couldn't hear past the ringing and whooshy sounds in his ears. But he was frowning. He grabbed Mia's hand and forced her to pull a bunch of pill packets out, like playing one of those claw games at the fair, trying to pull up some dumb prize.

TK was pretty sure Mia was unhappy that he couldn't think straight or hear words unless someone yelled them. He was pretty sure the pill thing was upsetting her. Uh oh. Tears. Now she was sad about something. She held a packet of two little orange pills to him. Freddy Krueger handed him a bottle of water.

Oh. Freddy took the packet from her. TK watched like a movie...Freddy grabbed his hand, TK's floaty, weird, tingly, heavy hand, and dumped the pills into it, then uncapped the water. Freddy pushed his hand up to his mouth. Oh. He wanted TK to swallow them. Was that all? Would it make Mia stop crying? He wanted Mia to stop crying.

Down they went. He coughed a little. They got stuck, sort of. He could feel them in his throat. He took more water. The water tasted good. He didn't know he was so thirsty. He drank more. He drank until the bottle was empty.

Freddy and Grinch seemed happy. They patted him on the back. Then everything got dark. Like sleep, except he could tell he was moving. How was he moving? He couldn't feel his feet on the floor. He could hear...thudding. Was that him, thudding? He tried to help Freddy and Grinch move him. He was pretty sure they got mad when he didn't move on his own...but maybe he wasn't remembering right.

TK shook his head, trying to clear the fog, but all it did was move a little and then resettle. They sat him down. The dark rose up and moved away. Table. Chairs. Clock. Mirror.

Wait.

He knew this place.

It wasn't always so...alone, was it? TK felt like there were others. Or maybe he dreamed them. He was really sleepy. With effort, he put his arms on the table. With more effort, he dropped his head to them.

oOo

"Good golly almighty," Judd said. "We like to never get there!" He acted like he was playing some car racing game, changing lanes to get around slow drivers.

Marjan called Carlos to report nothing had been found at the warehouse. "Should we meet you at the headquarters? Are they having any luck there?"

"We got another lead from Grace. We're heading to North Austin."

"Are you serious? North Austin? What's in North Austin?"

Carlos gave her the short version. "Look, you'll never catch up to us. We'll call if this pans out."

Marjan sighed. "What are we supposed to do?"

He smiled humorlessly at her dejected tone. He knew she was frustrated and wanted to be busy doing something. "I don't know. I'm out of ideas if we don't find something at this place."

"I guess we'll go back to Paul's," she sighed. "Call us the second you find anything."

"I will," he promised, hoping there was something to call about.

When his phone rang minutes later, he thought it would be her again, so he answered without looking. "Marjan, we're still about ten minutes out, okay? I've got nothing—"

"Ten minutes out from where, Officer Reyes?" Detective Borregos demanded. "Why did you leave the Marckal building? What are you chasing down?"

Owen grabbed the phone right out of his hand, made a static sound with his mouth, and ended the call.

Carlos glared at him. "Seriously?! Do you know the kind of trouble I could be in if he gets his guys out there first and we show up?"

"I am not standing at the curb this time," Owen vowed.

In silent agreement, Judd punched the gas.

Carlos texted the detective with the address of their destination and the words, Sorry. Dead spot.

oOo

Other people came to the table. TK recognized them. They looked familiar. Slowly, their names returned.

It was less buzzy, less whooshy in the room with the door closed. He wasn't sure why. But he could hear words again.

"Jesus Christ, he's drugged up six ways to Sunday!" That was Harvey.

"Well, look at Barbara! I didn't think she got a bad one, but it's too fast for the pills to be doing that!" Dan.

"What do you suppose the last experiment is? If it's even really the last one?" Harvey again.

TK lifted his head. Nope. Too heavy. His forehead smacked his arm hard, and it hurt.

"TK?!" Mia. Someone was shaking him. Hard. Maybe Mia?

He tried lifting his head again. Held it up a little longer this time before it crashed back down on his arm again.

They came back again...Scream and Freddy and Grinch.

Dan leapt up, flew at them. TK frowned as Dan flew backward and fell down. He tried to get his legs to work. He needed to help Dan somehow. He wasn't sure how. Just...help.

The buzzy whooshy sounds returned, and TK turned to look back, though his head was too heavy for it. But he couldn't turn it far enough to see Mia or Harvey. He could only hear them hollering "No!" and "Please!" as Freddy and Grinch lifted him away.

oOo

They circled the unlit parking lot first, nothing but darkness and shadows. When they were nearly back where they started, Judd's headlights caught the holy grail backed against a loading dock platform.

"Black panel van!" Owen pointed.

"Yep," Judd agreed, and parked hood to hood against it so it couldn't drive off if there was anyone inside. "Hold up," he said, and leaned down in front of the front passenger seat. Next thing Carlos knew, he was handing out weapons like Oprah Winfrey giving out freebies to her audience. You get a gun, and you get a gun, he thought humorlessly.

"Got one already," Carlos said, and reached under the blazer he'd worn to the restaurant.

Unlocked, Carlos quickly found there wasn't anyone inside the van. Judd was already moving, ignoring the long ramp in favor of vaulting himself up onto the deck of the loading platform. Owen spryly followed. Carlos hoped he wouldn't embarrass himself. He was a cop, after all. Adrenaline gave him the boost he needed, though, and they stormed in through the unlocked man door next to the shuttered roll-up.

"Alright," Judd said softly as they got their bearings in the dark space, each of them sweeping the area with their phone flashlights. "What's the plan, Carlos?"

Carlos wished he was on duty, in uniform, armed with all the things he took for granted. Taser, baton. Radio. "We need to stay together until we know what we're up against."

The loading area was dark. Deserted. Silent.

Judd and Owen had enough good sense to let the guy who knew a little something about searching a premises go ahead of them, which was good. When they reached a far door with a small window in it that was covered in black material, Carlos looked at them.

"Stay behind me," he said, and reached for the handle, wondering what was waiting beyond.

oOo

Freddy and Grinch put him down on a hard surface. TK blinked up into the bright lights overhead. And then he started to move. Except he wasn't moving. It was like those things at the airport that you stood on and you moved when you were too lazy to walk.

"No!" Mia, again. Her voice sounded...echoey. Like the word bounced all around the room and came back again. "No, he'll drown! He can't move! He'll drown!"

Drown?

TK was pretty sure he couldn't drown on the moving thing. There was no water on the moving thing. But...she was right. He couldn't move. TK felt something again…fear. He felt so heavy. He'd been shivering so hard...he was still shivering so hard, but he couldn't move. He tried to turn his head. Couldn't. Could only stare up at the bright lights as they passed above him.

Drown?

She was still screaming, over and over, but now it was, "I'll do it! Stop this! I'll go in his place!"

But he didn't stop. The mover moved him, and as he moved, he felt the air get colder. Noticeably colder.

He hated being cold. Hated it.

He tried to tell them that. His voice wouldn't work. Only his eyes worked. Except he couldn't shut them. All he could do was notice when the lights flipped and became a wall that blurred past until suddenly…

The cold exploded all around him. Icy. Wet. Everywhere. In front, behind, beside, on top. Randomly, he remembered some schoolkid chanting song about prepositions...aboard, about, above, across, and so on, to the tune of Yankee Doodle, and settled into the cold, wet place where nothing whooshed or buzzed.

oOo

The far door of the loading area spit them out into a dimly lit hall where, just beyond, they could see a set of double doors and pinpricks of light through more black window cover. They couldn't see much, but all of them heard a woman's voice screaming.

"No, he'll drown! He can't move! He'll drown!"

In synchrony, the three of them, Carlos, Owen, and Judd, broke into a run.