AN: You may be thinking that the climax of this fic has already happen. That's where you're wrong. With this chapter, we have merely finished Act I. No updated warnings. Enjoy :)

For the first time that Drake could remember, he did as Josh asked without question, and dutifully stayed behind him. He let Josh carefully step out of the room first, then limped after him. He was still in agony over what James had done, and every step was just making things worse. There was nothing that Drake could do to make the physical pain abate, at least not while he and Josh were still trapped there.

The hallway was dark, and silent. There didn't seem to be anyone else down there. Through the minimal lighting, it just looked like a normal hallway in a normal house. The door and the room they'd been kept in did not fit the rest of the house at all, just a small hell in an otherwise perfectly normal living space.

Josh turned to the right, and carefully made his way down the hallway. Drake followed, his hand gently gripping the back of Josh's tee shirt. He tried to make himself let go, but dammit, he didn't want to. He stayed less than a foot behind Josh as they crept to a stairwell. The boys stopped for a moment, both listening. There was the sound of muffled conversation coming from upstairs, and laughter. Drake closed his eyes - despite the fact that it was dark down there already and closing his eyes would not in fact help him hear better - and focused more. The laughter was always the same. It was a laugh track.

"I think he's watching TV," Drake whispered, barely loud enough to even hear himself say it. Josh looked at him and nodded.

Cringing at each step, scared they might creak, Drake and Josh made their way up the stairs painstakingly slowly. By the time they reached the top, Drake had to cover his nose and mouth to muffle the sounds of his heavy breaths. Moving up the stairs had been agony, and he was pretty sure his lip was bleeding from how hard he was biting it to keep himself quiet. His eyes were watering, and he was pretty sure he could feel blood beginning to trail down his thigh from a barely coagulated tear reopened again.

Josh reached for the doorknob, but Drake reached out and grabbed his arm, squeezing it. He needed a minute. Josh looked back at him, his confusion quickly turning to worry. He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped, seemingly thinking better of it due to their likely proximity to James. Instead, Josh reached out and tenderly cupped Drake's face, resting his hand with his thumb in front of Drake's ear and fingers in his hair. He looked at Drake, and in Josh's eyes, Drake saw all of the love in the world. Drake had never been more scared of what lay beyond a door in his life, but Josh was with him, so it was going to be okay.

Josh leaned in and rested his forehead against Drake's, and whispered, just loud enough for him to hear it, "whatever happens, promise me you'll run. No matter what, you run." He leaned back and stared at Drake, more serious than Drake had ever seen his brother before.

Finally, Drake nodded. He wasn't sure he would be physically able to run, but for Josh, he would do anything.

Josh gave him a nod in return, then once again put his hand on the doorknob. So, so slowly, Josh turned the knob and opened the door. The boys cringed and paused at every slight creak, but managed to get the door open entirely. It was slightly lighter upstairs, allowing the brothers to see that the door opened into a kitchen. With the door open, they could clearly hear the sound of Friends playing on the TV in likely the next room over. Drake felt sick at the thought that the same man who had held him down and violated him also watched one of the same sitcoms as him. Knowing that, Drake wasn't sure he'd ever be able to watch that show again.

Drake did as Josh instructed, and stayed behind him as they crept out of the basement and into the kitchen as quietly as possible. Josh was slowly crouching down further and further, but Drake just couldn't. He tried, but it just put too much stress on his already battered body. Drake grabbed Josh's hand and squeezed it, biting his lip again to keep himself quiet as he forced back tears of pain. He'd cried enough already.

But there wasn't anything Josh could do. He just looked back at him with a different kind of pain in his own eyes, and squeezed Drake's hand. But maybe that was enough.

Josh paused, his eyes on one of the kitchen counters, and carefully stood up more. He grabbed a meat mallet off the counter, and gripped it in his right hand as he crouched back down and began to slowly continue to lead Drake around the corner as they looked for an exit.

Drake stopped in his tracks and pulled Josh back a bit at the sound of a toilet flushing somewhere else in the house, then footsteps. It sounded like it was coming from somewhere in front of them, but most of the lights in the house were off, and they didn't know the layout. They leaned back against the wall, hands over their mouths to muffle their breathing, as the sound of footsteps got closer, and closer, and closer. James was just around the corner. Josh's arm went to hold Drake further behind him, while his hand gripped the meat mallet a little tighter. Drake prepared himself to face the man as he stepped closer and closer. Another door opened, the steps continued, and the door shut. The boys stayed exactly where they were for a moment, silent, breathing as quietly as they could. After maybe two minutes, it was still silent. The brothers shared a look. All they could do was cautiously continue, and hope that the lack of open floor plan in the house would be their saving grace.

His heart beating so fast that Drake was surprised that Josh couldn't hear it himself, he followed Josh out of the kitchen and into another long hallway, with multiple doors on either side. At the end of the hallway was an ornate door, with a chandelier hanging above on the high ceiling of the entryway. That was their way out. Drake smiled and sighed in relief. They were actually going to get out of there. They were going to be-.

A door slammed into them, sending both brothers to the ground. Drake cried out as the pain ratcheted up.

"Drake, run!" Josh shouted, but it was all Drake could do just to breathe, much less stand up and run away. Still, he began scrambling to his feet as best he could while Josh reached towards the mallet that he'd dropped, but James kicked it further down the hallway.

"I didn't say you could leave," James said, his voice deadly serious. He was still holding the bloody knife. Josh got to his feet and pushed Drake behind him. "I've only tried one of you, and you think this is over? I will have you both."

"Please, just let Josh go, you can do whatever you want to me, just let Josh go," Drake begged. He tried to move in front of Josh, but his brother held out his arm and wouldn't let him, and Drake was in too much pain to be able to push past.

"Shut up," Josh shot back at him through gritted teeth.

James just laughed, twirling the blade in his hands.

"See, I knew you liked it, you little slut," James said with his sick grin. Drake flinched back at his words, and didn't miss the way that Josh stepped further in front of him. "If you wanted me to give it to you again so soon, all you had to do was say so." James lunged at Josh with the knife, plunging it into Josh's shoulder before shoving him away. Josh let out a strangled scream as the knife was ripped out of the wound, and fell to the ground.

"Josh!" Drake cried out as his brother's back hit the wall, clutching his shoulder as blood gushed from the open wound, spilling over his hand and coating it red as Josh attempted to stem the bleeding. His eyes were wide in pain and shock. He tried to run to his brother, but James was faster.

The knife now shoved into his waistband, James grabbed Drake, and shoved his back against the wall. He immediately started grinding against him and touching him, holding his wrists together above his head in one massive hand. Drake twisted and cried out through clenched teeth, but once again, he couldn't get the much larger man off him. James' other hand quickly reached underneath the back of Drake's loose pants, and Drake froze. It couldn't happen again. It just couldn't.

"See?" James moaned. "You know you like it. You know you were made for this. You want it in your perfect little ass again or should I shove it in your pretty mouth and down your throat?"

Drake's breath caught in his throat in fear, and James relaxed slightly against him, his hold slightly looser. With all of the strength he had, Drake took his only chance. He shot his knee up and right into James' groin.

James groaned and crouched over, losing his grip on Drake's wrists entirely. Drake pushed him as hard as he could, right as Josh came up and smashed his temple with the meat mallet, sending James to the ground, where he didn't move as blood began pooling around his head. Josh's shoulder was still gushing blood, and Josh was definitely paler than he'd been before as he breathed heavily, staring down at the unmoving man.

"Josh," Drake cried out, leaning against the wall. He kept a tight grip on his loose pants.

Josh dropped the mallet and stepped over to Drake, immediately enveloping him in his arms. Drake didn't even care that he was getting Josh's blood all over him.

"You're okay, it's over. He's dead. It's all over now, we're okay," Josh said, tears in his own voice. Drake just buried his face in Josh's good shoulder, gripping his shirt with shaking hands as he cried.

Sooner than Drake wanted, he forced himself to calm down. Josh was still heavily bleeding, and they needed to do something about it, and they needed to get out of that house. No matter how much he didn't want to, Drake let go of Josh and pushed him back just a bit, and took off his shirt. Josh was swaying where he stood.

"What are you doing?" Josh asked, but Drake didn't respond as he began wrapping the shirt under Josh's arm and across the other side of his neck, as tightly as he could. He had no way of knowing how deep the wound was, so he had to assume that without immediate medical attention, his brother would bleed out. What he did know for sure was that Josh was losing too much blood.

"I need to stop the bleeding," he finally responded, once the shirt was as tight around Josh's shoulder as he could possibly get it. "But you should keep your hand there, and keep pressure on it. Now come on, let's get out of here." One hand still gripping the waistband of his pants, Drake grabbed Josh's hand with his other and marched them towards the door.

"Drake, wait, you're gonna freeze," Josh protested. He was right. Drake was clad in a pair of loose dress pants, and quite literally nothing else, but Drake didn't care.

"I just want to go home, Josh, please," Drake cried.

"We're going home, it's okay," Josh said, then opened the door.

The brothers stepped out into the cool night air. Drake began shivering almost immediately, but he still didn't care. He forced himself to let go of Josh's hand in order to wrap an arm around his bare torso. Normally it would've been a beautiful fall night, but in only a thin pair of dress pants that hung too low after the waistband had been destroyed, it just didn't cut it.

"Look! Over there," Josh said, pointing to the right. There were lights in the distance. Drake wasn't sure how far away they were, but it didn't look far. They were close enough that Drake could tell they were from a house. He could make out the siding and a car in the driveway.

"Come on," Drake said. He started walking as quickly as his battered body could handle, shivering with every step and cringing at the feeling of twigs and rocks cutting into his bare feet. Before long, his teeth began chattering with how cold he was. Josh wrapped an arm around him and held him close as the two continued on in silence. Drake knew that Josh should've kept extra pressure on the stab wound, but he couldn't deny that the warmth that Josh provided did help.

After a minute, Drake stumbled in the dark and fell to a knee. He cried out in pain and didn't move. He couldn't move anymore. His body was demanding he stop.

"Hey, we're almost there, come on, bro," Josh urged, lightly trying to pull him up.

"I can't, Josh, it hurts," he cried. He needed to rest. He couldn't do this anymore. He didn't know how Josh was doing it now. Josh was stronger than him. Josh didn't need him slowing him down. Josh didn't need him at all.

"Come on, Drake, it's not that much further. You can do this." Drake just shook his head and focused on not hyperventilating. Was he going into shock? Was that what this was? "Hey!" Josh shouted, but Drake didn't think he was shouting at him. "Somebody help! Please! We need help!" he screamed. "Someone's coming, it's okay, Drake, there's someone coming. There's someone coming, it's okay. We're gonna be okay," Josh cried.

Drake looked up to see an older man approaching them with a flashlight. He was at least in his sixties, maybe his seventies.

"Please help us," Josh repeated. "We need the police, and probably a hospital."

"What happened to you? Come inside, you must be freezing," the man said. He reached down to help Drake up.

"Don't touch me!" Drake shouted, falling back behind Josh in panic. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he repeated. That man was just trying to help them. He didn't need to be scared.

"It's okay, Drake, we're okay," Josh said. He crouched down next to Drake. "I can't carry you myself right now, not with my shoulder like this. He's just gonna help me get you into the house. I'm right here, it's okay, I promise."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," Drake rushed out. He looked back at the man. The man looked down at him in concern, and slowly extended a hand. Despite his fear, Drake forced himself to take it, and allowed Josh and the man to help him to his feet. He wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders, careful to avoid aggravating Josh's stab wound as much as he could, and allowed them to wrap their arms around his torso, despite flinching at the feeling of the unfamiliar man's touch. Drake forced himself to focus on the fact that he was getting closer to the house and he wasn't in as much pain as they helped him, not the feeling of the man's hand on his bare body.

The side door of the house opened, and a woman about the same age as the man stepped out.

"Hank, what's going on?" she asked.

"Call 911," Hank replied. Only a moment later they were at the door, and then they were inside.

Drake immediately relaxed in the light of the warm home. The couple was older than he'd first thought, definitely in their seventies, and their home very much had the look of the home of an elderly couple. It looked as though they'd woken the couple, but Drake wasn't sure what time it was, only that it was night.

"Oh, sweetie, what happened to you?" the woman asked, looking at Drake as she grabbed a phone and quickly did as her husband had requested. "Yes, hello, I need an ambulance, and possibly the police. Two boys just came up to our door. They're both covered in blood and one of them is nearly naked. I'm not sure what's going on." Drake tuned out the rest of the phone call as the woman stepped away.

Hank and Josh helped Drake onto the couch, where he immediately pulled his legs up and curled up on his side, hiding his body from view. But it didn't matter. He was sure they'd already seen the bruises on his hips and the bite mark on his shoulder. He only relaxed when Hank laid a blanket out over him and Josh sat next to him, allowing him to rest his head on Josh's legs. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see another blanket being wrapped around Josh as well.

"Will you call Mom?" Drake asked Josh.

"After we talk to the police, then we'll call Mom and Dad, okay?" Josh said. Drake hated that answer, but he nodded anyway. He didn't want to tell the police what had been done to him, he just wanted to go home.

"Can you tell me what's going on?" Hank asked again. He sat down a respectable distance away and looked at them with concern. Drake looked away and allowed Josh to answer.

"My brother and I, we were kidnapped a few days ago, and we just got away, and I think he's dead, and I know the other guy is dead, and Drake, he's- he needs a hospital."

"Oh my goodness," the woman said, still holding the phone to her ear. "Drake? Drake Parker and Josh Nichols?"

"How do you-?"

"Debra, you're right," Hank interrupted. "You boys have been all over the news. You're the Channel 7 weatherman's sons, right?"

All over the news. Drake and Josh had been kidnapped and it had been all over the news. Everyone knew. Everyone was going to ask questions, they were going to find out, everyone was going to know, they would know-.

"Hey, hey, calm down, it's okay, we're safe now, we're okay," Josh rushed out, ignoring the couple's questions and running his fingers through Drake's hair in a clear effort to calm him down. "Don't worry about anything else right now, okay? That doesn't matter right now. We're okay. I'm okay, and you're okay, and we got out, and that's all that matters."

Drake forced himself to nod, but Josh was wrong. It wasn't okay, and it never would be okay again. Still, he allowed himself to just be held by Josh as Debra continued talking to the 911 call taker and Hank got them both some soup. He didn't want any of it, but he knew he needed it. They both did. They hadn't eaten in days. But that meant he needed to sit up, and Drake was sure he couldn't do that by himself. He nudged Josh a bit.

"Will you help me up?" he quietly asked, not even attempting to make eye contact with his brother.

"Of course," Josh immediately responded. With Josh's help, Drake managed to get himself upright, despite the pain that sitting caused him. He whimpered as he leaned against Josh's good shoulder, desperate to relieve some of the pressure. Drake placed one of the bowls of soup in Josh's lap, knowing his brother would struggle to hold it with his bad arm, then forced himself to grab the other bowl for himself. He balanced it in his lap while he held the blanket around him with one hand, and the spoon with the other.

"How long have we been gone?" Josh asked, taking a sip of his soup. He gave Drake a pointed look, wordlessly telling him to do the same. Drake complied, and took a sip, enjoying the warmth of the soup on his tongue, if nothing else. It soothed his aching throat as he swallowed it, hoarse from screaming and crying.

"It's been about three days, honey," Debra replied, sitting next to her husband after having hung up the phone. She'd already told them that the police and EMS would be there shortly. "The whole county's been worried sick about you boys, maybe even the whole state."

"Hell, there was even talk of the damn FBI coming in to try and find you before it was too late," Hank added. "And I'm glad it wasn't too late."

Drake was quiet. It was too late. He was still alive, but it was still too late.

Josh kept up a steady flow of meaningless conversation as Drake stopped eating his soup and just leaned against him, staring into the fireplace that Debra had graciously lit. He kept the blanket wrapped tightly around him, hiding his body from view. At least he was finally warm again, with the blanket and the fire and Josh right next to him. He didn't know what he would do without Josh. Drake thought that without Josh, maybe he would die. Without Josh, maybe Drake would've been trapped in that room, as James' whore, until James took it too far and killed him - or until Drake found a way to kill himself.

"Drake?" Josh asked, gently shaking his knee. Drake snapped out of it and looked up at his brother, then noticed that there were more people in the room. The police were there, and EMTs were right behind them. Tears immediately sprung to Drake's eyes.

"Can you call my mom?" he asked the man in uniform before the deputy could ask him anything.

"Of course," the deputy responded with a nod. "We're gonna have your parents meet you at the hospital. Now you don't have to give me a full statement right now, but I do need to know just the basics of what happened."

Drake just shook his head and closed his eyes. He didn't want to tell anyone anything.

"We were kidnapped off the side of the road a few days ago by these two guys, their names were Miguel and James. I don't know their last names," Josh answered. "We woke up in their basement, in a cage, and then tonight, James, he killed Miguel, and then he- he hurt Drake, really bad, and then- then we got out, and I hit James, and I think I killed him, and then we came here." Josh was crying by the end of it. Drake took one hand out from under the blanket and searched out Josh's hand, and clasped it in his own.

"And he stabbed Josh," Drake added. That was the most important detail. Josh had been hurt too, and somehow, Josh was handling it significantly better than Drake was. Drake was an absolute mess and Josh was somehow keeping it all together.

The deputy sighed.

"I hate to ask this," the deputy prefaced. "But Drake, were you sexually assaulted?"

Drake squeezed his eyes shut even tighter and nodded, squeezing Josh's hand as he did so.

"Okay, we're gonna get you boys to the hospital. Is there anyone else in the house?"

"Should just be the two bodies," Josh quietly answered. "Can you get this off me?"

Drake listened to the now familiar sound of a handcuff being unlatched. At least Josh didn't have to have that swinging around on his wrist anymore.

The deputy stepped away a moment later, and EMTs immediately took his place. Two stretchers were brought in behind him. Drake hated being separated from Josh the moment he was placed on the stretcher, but he forced himself to keep it together. His brother was still in his eyesight, and they were going to the same ambulance. It was going to be fine. Plus, he was immediately wrapped in two blankets, and he would've been lying if he'd said that didn't feel wonderful to be so covered.

Drake was rolled out of the house on the stretcher, and Josh was on the stretcher right behind him. Really, Drake didn't need a stretcher or an ambulance, but it wasn't as if he had his own vehicle to take him to the hospital, so that left his options very limited.

He was rolled up to an ambulance, the bright lights illuminating the otherwise dark night. There were four cop cars that he could see, blue and red lights spinning in circles. He could just barely make out deputies going in and out of the house they'd escaped from, and there were more deputies speaking with the elderly couple who had helped them. Off to the side, Drake could overhear one of the deputies talking to someone with more stripes on his sleeve as the EMTs prepared to load Drake into the ambulance.

"Who's the detective on call for this case tonight?" the deputy asked.

"Villarreal, I was just about to call him myself."

"He'll wanna know this isn't over," the deputy said. "There's only one body down there, and the kid said there would be two. The other psycho is in the wind."

Drake stopped breathing. Josh hadn't killed James after all. James was still out there somewhere.

"Josh!" he cried out as he was loaded up into the ambulance, trying not to panic. He lifted up his head and saw his brother with a look of panic on his own face, as he was loaded into a different ambulance. They weren't going together. "Wait, no, I need my brother, please!" Drake shouted at the EMTs as he began to struggle, agony overtaking his lower body once again as he did so. "Please don't take him from me, I need him, I don't wanna be alone, please," he begged. The EMTs held him down and called for the deputies to help restrain him. Terror shot through Drake's heart at the thought of being tied down. "Josh!" he screamed. He could hear Josh shouting his name from the other ambulance, but he couldn't see him, or make out the rest of what he was saying over the EMTs and deputies and his own heartbeat.

"You're okay, you're still going to the same place, you're gonna see him soon, I promise," one of the EMTs said as the other and two deputies held him down.

"Let me go, please let me go, don't touch me, I don't want this, I don't want this, please," he cried, seeing James holding him down instead of people who truly were just trying to help him. Everything the EMTs and deputies were trying to say to him turned to static in his ears. He couldn't even speak as his panic turned to hyperventilation. Something cool was placed over his mouth, but it didn't stop the static from beginning to overtake his eyes too.

As the static overtook his mind and everything went dark, the last thought in Drake's mind was the echo of James' words:

"You think this is over? I will have you both."