Fallen Angel - TOC

Chapter Seventy-Nine

Sly's mind raced as he was forcibly led from the brightly lit General Hospital hallway to a nearby exit. Each time he twisted and squirmed to escape, he was rewarded with a firmer grip over his mouth and a warning jab from the gun rammed into his spine.

"If you don't stop, I'll kill you," his kidnapper gritted out in a harsh whisper. "I have a silencer on this gun, and I'll drop you right here in the hospital without a second thought."

Sly ceased struggling so he could think without the death threats, but he panicked when they banged open the exit door, and he felt the cold night air on his face. Now they were outside, and he was even further from help. His parents probably wouldn't miss him for another twenty minutes. There was an ominous black car parked a few feet away, and he recalled being chased by a black car when they were driving with the girls in the countryside. His blood chilled as he put two and two together and figured out that it must be the same people. His kidnapper seemed all too willing to kill him, and Sly knew that if he got into that black car he might never see his family or Emily again.

Suddenly, Sly dropped to the ground as he allowed his body to go limp, surprising the man behind him. He'd learned this maneuver in school, in a seminar designed to teach kids the skills to protect themselves. He wasn't any girl, but he also wasn't going to enter that car without a fight, and he decided right there to give it his all. Sly let out a loud scream of survival and used his legs to kick away at the man, managing to kick the gun out of the man's hands.

A second man jumped from the black car and joined his partner in efficiently subduing and silencing Sly. The second man whipped the kid around onto his stomach and held a pressing knee into his back, causing Sly so much pain that he was effectively silenced. The first man drew a roll of duct tape from his black trenchcoat and ripped off a generous piece, yanking the Sly's head up with a handful of blond hair, smacking the duct tape over his mouth and using long lengths of the silvery gray tape to bind his hands behind his back. Angry at the kid's resistance, he continued with his taping and harshly bound Sly's ankles together to prevent him from escaping.

When Sly made muffled noises and rolled away, the first kidnapper hit him hard on the skull with his retrieved pistol, nodding in satisfaction when Sly stopped moving on the ground. Stunned, Sly rested his cheek against the rough, black asphalt and wondered dazedly what a man was doing sprawled in a bush several yards away. The lighting in the parking lot allowed him to see that no one was nearby to witness what had just happened to him. He blinked rapidly, trying to figure another way out of his predicament, but the blow to his head slowed down his thought processes, and he felt himself being lifted from the ground and thrown into the trunk of the black car. He wriggled around futilely as the lid to the trunk slammed on top of him with a chilling finality and blocked out all light.

~*~*~*~

"He's gone!" Luke shouted as he surveyed the empty room with its ransacked appearance. Luke turned round and round in the room with his hands held out in dismay. "They disconnected these machines and took him out from under our noses."

"I'm afraid you're right," Johnny agreed tensely.

"Who?" Luke asked in disbelief.

"My guess is that underground FBI operation. The Mafia is done with Frankie, and he doesn't have enemies from the old life."

"He was supposed to get a CT scan," Luke said quickly in an attempt to deny the reality of his son's kidnapping. "Maybe he's there."

"Luke," Johnny said quietly with a hand extended toward Luke's arm to stop his constant, frantic movements. "He's gone."

"NO!" Luke shouted, shaking off Johnny's hand. "I won't believe it. Frankie's all right. We're jumping to conclusions."

A nurse walked in at that moment with a gurney and a confused look on her face. "Where's the patient? He's due for a CT scan."

Johnny stepped forward. "That's what we'd like to know. He's missing."

"How can that be? Wasn't he connected to a respirator?"

"He was," Luke's voice croaked out as he leaned against a wall and held a hand over his forehead.

"Will you contact security and initiate a search?" Johnny asked. "Lucas Lorenzo Spencer, Junior. Age fifteen. It's important. He might have been kidnapped."

The nurse gulped and turned pale with fright. "That's never happened here before."

"DO IT!" Luke shouted out angrily.

"He's upset. It's his son who's missing," Johnny explained calmly, placing a hand on the nurse's back and directing her toward the doorway. "Please. Contact security, now."

~*~*~*~

"Luke? What's wrong?" Alexis asked as she jumped from her seat in the waiting room and ran over to her husband. "Is Frankie okay?"

Luke walked mechanically, like a robot on slow drive, with his slippers slapping and scuffing on the floor. He ignored his wife and sat down in a chair, staring straight ahead in shock. "He's gone," he choked out finally. "Frankie is gone. They took him."

"What?" Alexis, Ruby and Bobbie exclaimed in unison.

"Johnny?" Bobbie questioned.

"Frankie is missing from the ER exam room. Security is searching for him, but I'm sure he's gone. He was disconnected from his monitors and respirator. They worked quickly. Alexis, please contact your private eye and tell him we think the underground FBI organization is responsible. Have him keep an eye out for anything suspicious or unusual. Did you phone your brother about Frankie?"

"He's on his way," Alexis replied tearfully. She sat down beside Luke and rubbed his back in a futile attempt to help him, but she felt a shower of panic raining on her as well.

~*~*~*~

Sly fought off his claustrophobia and fear of the dark, but he didn't figure on hurting this much with his ribs aching and sharp pains running down the length of his side as well as a blinding headache pounding in his head. He rolled onto his left side to relieve the pressure on his bruised ribs and tried to kick out the back lights to the automobile, but screamed out his pain behind the duct tape when he discovered that his shoes had been removed. He had quickly given up trying to figure out where they were taking him as the road pretty much felt the same for the entire drive, and he couldn’t tell when and how they were turning. Occasionally, he was rolled back and forth in the trunk when the driver braked, and he dreaded the feeling of his skin scraping against the rough metal interior.

The sensation of being entombed overtook him gradually until he decided that air was becoming scarce in his small space. Sly coughed and his heart pounded in terror when he realized that his nose was bleeding again. Choking, he futilely tried to bring in oxygen as the blood flowed down his throat and out of his nose and congealed, reducing his airspace.  If his mouth hadn’t been taped shut, he could have drawn in air through that route, but now his nose was almost totally clogged. I’m going to die, he thought fuzzily as the oxygen stopped reaching his blood. Disregarding the scratching pain on his face, Sly desperately rubbed his cheek and chin against the interior surface of the trunk, trying to peel enough tape from his mouth so he could breathe.

~*~*~*~

"We should have had a doctor come with us!" the young, blond nurse said tensely as she boarded the white van after her companion.

"Not enough room," the other woman said harshly with a voice that sounded as rough and deep as man's and an accent straight from a forty year old trailer park in Appalachia. She whipped off a few articles of her nurse's disguise and plumped up her beehived hairdo that was rife with strands of overly highlighted hair.

"I need some help!" the pretty nurse said in terror. She rhythmically pumped the bag that oxygenated her patient, but she knew that the drive would take at least twenty minutes, and the kid's drugs would be wearing off before that time. "Mrs. Richards!" she repeated shrilly.

"Shut up!" Verdene rasped out as she patted Frankie's shoulder with a hand sharpened by long, hot pink talon nails. "This one ain't gettin' away. He's our retirement."

"I don't want to be responsible for his death," the nurse exclaimed tensely. "I didn't realize you were going to take a boy let alone one that was connected to a respirator. I thought he would be a grown man."

"What do you care? You're getting paid."

"I care about my patients."

"More than money?" Verdene sneered with red, lipsticked lips askew. "I doubt it - otherwise you wouldn't have accepted this job, missy." She reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of Marlboro's, running them under her nose and inhaling with pleasure. She pulled a cigarette from the pack and scowled with narrowed eyes when her companion protested.

"NO! No smoking or lighting up. He's on oxygen. It's dangerous - we could all explode and catch on fire back here."

"Partypooper," Verdene complained as she petulantly leaned back against the interior wall of the van and reached into her bag for an alternate vice - a pinch of smokeless tobacco. Sighing, she let the moist tobacco settle into place between her cheek and gum. She looked at Frankie with predatory fondness. "I can't wait to retire to Hawaii. Thanks, sweetie," she said, pinching his cheek.

~*~*~*~

Alexis suddenly shot up from her seat and frantically looked around the waiting room with terrified brown eyes. "Where's Sly?"

Johnny's warning antennae went up immediately. "Where did he go?"

"He said he was going to the restroom. It's been about ten minutes." Alexis' eyes filled with tears, and she melted down to the floor, leaning forward with her head down and her palms flat against the cold surface. "Oh god, oh god. They have our kids," she kept repeating. "They took both of them."

Ruby lifted Alexis from the floor and sat her several seats down from Luke as Bobbie sat beside Luke. The two women worked seamlessly to try to bring some order into the couples' near nervous breakdowns. "We're going to find them," Ruby stated confidently. "Don’t allow yourself to think otherwise."

"I don't know," Alexis sobbed in a drawn out voice. "I want my boys back."

"We all do," Ruby said reassuringly. She felt a cold, hard spot in her stomach as she was upset and concerned, too, but she was determined to be strong and reasonable in the midst of the storm.  

"I should have known.   I never should have let him out of my sight," Alexis said hysterically.

"Sly is fourteen years old, old enough to use the restroom by himself," Ruby said logically. "There's only so much we can do to protect our kids. If they wanted him, there's nothing you could have done to prevent this."

"We forgot the bodyguards," Alexis said firmly. "It's our fault. This never would have happened if we'd done what we should have."

"Maybe yes, maybe no," Ruby said firmly. "For now, you have to pull yourself together so you can phone the private investigator."

"He needs to know."

"Yes."

The two women were interrupted by an assured masculine voice. "What is Frankie's status?" Stefan questioned as he walked up to them. Laura followed closely behind him with an expression on her face that registered shock and fear, and she seemed close to pitching a hysterical public fit. "Why are you so upset? Where's Frankie? I want to see him."

"I don't know," Alexis' tremulous voice answered.

"Something's happened," Ruby said. She considered hedging and sugarcoating the truth as she recognized the dangerous look on Laura's face.

"What??" Laura asked in a high pitched voice one note away from a torrent of tears.

"They took him!" Alexis exclaimed angrily. "He's been kidnapped, and so has Sly. They're missing."

"Johnny is checking the men's restroom," Ruby added. "We don't know for sure he's gone."

"I know it. I can feel it in my bones!" Alexis protested.

Laura trembled and held onto Stefan's arm for dear life as the news slowly filtered into her brain. "My son is hurt. How could they take him? I thought you said he was on a respirator?"

"He is," Alexis said quietly. "He was. The room is empty and security can't find him."

"Why wasn't someone guarding him?!" Laura shouted with wide eyes and a scowl as she pounded on Stefan's arm for emphasis. "You knew he was at risk."

Stefan flinched and pulled his arm away. "We'll find them," he said with authority as he met Alexis' eyes. His voice and expression softened when he saw Alexis' pain. "You trusted me on the island. Have I ever let you down? They will be recovered."

"Oh, Stefan," Alexis exclaimed, jettisoning herself into her brother's arms as it seemed like only his voice could reassure her. He hugged her and patted her on the back, and then took her face into his hands, staring straight into her eyes and smiling, although he was sad and worried himself. "Let's talk to Luke and Johnny and formulate a plan."

"A plan, yes," Alexis agreed, nodding. She took in a deep breath and smoothed out her hair, wiping off her tears and straightening back her shoulders. She assumed her usual analytical manner with the comforting presence of her brother and felt a renewed sense of determination.

Ruby placed an arm around Laura's shoulders and guided her away from her husband so Stefan could act on the matter at hand. "We'll make it all right," she said firmly. "Everyone's going to be okay." Oh joy. Why did I get Laura duty? Bobbie, you owe me one, girl.  She looked over at her niece, who was holding Luke's hands and speaking to her brother in a calm, measured voice. Bobbie met her aunt's glance, and her frightened face communicated her worry that she wasn't reaching Luke or making a dent in his extreme devastation.

~*~*~*~

Security thoroughly searched the hospital grounds with their flashlights casting beams into every nook and cranny of the building and its grounds. There was no sign of a fifteen year old boy, but they were soon to discover someone else as they walked the length of the sidewalk behind the hospital.

One beam lighted on a man struggling to free himself from a large bush. His legs and arms flailed, and he muttered the word 'aliens' to himself, over and over.

A security officer placed a hand on his gun as he slowly approached the curly headed man.  "What are you doing out here?" he asked firmly.

"Ahhhhh! Help!" Sonny screamed when he saw the silhouette of a man behind a bright beam. "No, no, no! I'm not beaming up. You can't take me." Sonny finally extricated himself from the bush and awkwardly dashed away toward the parking lot and his perceived freedom.

"Like hell I can't," the security officer gritted out as he took off after Sonny. Unfortunately for Sonny the man had been a star linebacker for his college football team, and he'd recently graduated with his physical capabilities fully in gear.

The man tackled Sonny, who cried out and slapped at the man to no avail. Sonny's wrists were handcuffed together and his face smashed into the blacktop. "Not the face, not the face!" he protested, squirming wildly and shrieking. "Awwwww...I want Jason. Save me!"

"Is he a psych case?" the officer questioned his partner who had been amused by the show and was bent over laughing.

"Probably. He's not making a lot of sense. Who knows what's he's been doing out here. Taking drugs?"

"I'll take him in, and you continue looking for the missing boy."

"Maybe he was beamed up, and they're coming back later for this nutcase," his partner joked.

~*~*~*~

"This is a rough road," Verdene noted worriedly when the van jostled its occupants back and forth as it ran over numerous potholes. She'd been knocked on top of Frankie, and she patted her beehive as she sat back up to make sure all of the lacquered hairs were in place.

"Help me, please," the nurse stated firmly. "I can't keep pumping this oxygen. I need a break. I'll hold his chin up and you do this," she said nodding at the apparatus.

"Oh, all right," Verdene crabbed. "Gimme that."

"Careful."

"Yes, princess." Verdene pumped the bag with her hot pink nails flashing rhythmically. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Anna."

"Humph. Well, you're gonna lose your looks, Anna, if you don't settle down and stop being so tense," Verdene advised knowingly. "Why are you all in a tither?"

Anna looked up sharply into Verdene's watery gray eyes that were framed by numerous crowsfeet and silently wondered what had happened to her looks. "I'm concerned that this young man is waking up." Frankie's head jerked slightly in her hands and his jaw clenched, making her own nerves jump and twitch.

Verdene coughed so hard and soggily it sounded like a lung would follow. "Ain't that what you want?" The desire for a cigarette consumed her being, and she resented taking care of the kid.

"No. He needs to be sedated since he's intubated and can't breathe on his own. We don't want him to fight it."

"Oh. What about that black medical bag of yours. Got some goodies in there?"

Frankie let out a low moan and flung his arm toward his chest. Anna looked over at the black bag and made her decision. She dug through the bag and wrapped her fingers around a glass vial. "Valium," she said with a question in her voice. "It's not my first choice, but what can we do?"

"Improvise," Verdene nodded knowingly. "Give him some whiskey if you have to."

"Yeah, right," Anna muttered under her breath. Why did I get myself into this? Unpaid school loans or no, this is nuts. It's not worth it. I feel so sorry for this kid. She hesitated giving the sedative to the boy, and she wasn't sure what his vitals were since they'd rushed him out in a hurry and had no other medical equipment at their disposal. Frankie's IV and catheter bags were hastily thrown on top of his legs, and there was only a thin sheet covering him. He was shivering and still looked pale and clammy with a tube draining liberal amounts of blood from his chest. What if she gave him the Valium and it killed him? Verdene wasn't doing so hot with administering the oxygen, and she'd better make a decision quickly so she could take over.

Frankie made choking noises as he naturally fought off the tube and artificial respiration, trying to breathe on his own but finding it impossible. When his eyelids fluttered open, and his eyes rolled around, she quickly injected a generous amount of Valium into his IV and crossed her fingers. Frankie's hands made tight fists, and he kicked his feet in his desperation to pull oxygen into his lungs.

"Watch it!" Verdene yelled crossly, slapping Frankie on the leg when one of his feet hit her arm.

"He can't help it," Anna shot back. She stroked Frankie's forehead and took hold of his hand, talking to him in a low, reassuring voice. Frankie's eyelids fluttered with exhaustion and the effects of the sedative. Anna's soothing voice took him all the way under, and she continued holding his hand until he settled with his head lying to one side and his jaw slack.

~*~*~*~

"Finally. We're here," one man grumbled to his partner. He unlocked the lid to the trunk and threw the keys into his pocket. "We can unload the kid and go on our way. The van is already here," he noted.  "What the hell?" he asked when he saw splatters of blood smeared around the trunk and over his captive. He jostled Sly's leg to get his attention, but the kid was face down and didn't raise his head. "Help me here," he called out to the other man who joined his partner and lifted Sly up.

Sly's head hung down toward his chest and then fell to the side when they pulled him upright. His eyes were closed and a long, thin trail of blood flowed from his nose down to the front of his shirt. They shook him again, but he didn’t wake up.

"Shit!" the one man yelled when he figured out that the duct tape had kept the kid from breathing properly. The tape was partially scraped off on one end but otherwise firmly fastened over the mouth of their captive. He ripped the tape off, which ordinarily would have hurt but didn't make a dent in Sly's consciousness. The man held two fingers over Sly's neck, checking for a pulse. "He's not dead," he said shortly. "But he's not far from it. Let's get him inside and maybe they can revive him."

"I hope so," his companion said worriedly. "The boss will be pissed if this operation isn't successful."

"Screw the boss," the other man gritted out as he lifted Sly out and carried him over his shoulder. "It's not like we had any high tech alternatives here. It was snatch and run. He made a last minute decision."

"Still..." his partner hedged. "It's not good if you deliver them dead."

"Shut up and hold the door open for me."

~*~*~*~

Sonny had totally disintegrated by the time the security guard wrestled him into General Hospital. He kept digging in his heels to protest his captivity and repeatedly slid down to the floor, displaying as much muscular tension as a limp noodle. When he couldn't focus enough to interact with the staff and answer their questions concerning his name and what drugs he'd been taking, two orderlies forcibly held him down while they took a blood sample to send to toxicology and determine if he were taking mind altering substances or was merely a garden variety lunatic in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was a full moon out that night after all, and it did seem to make the crazies restless to the point where it seemed like hazard pay was necessary for those souls unfortunate enough to work on the night shift in the hospital.

Sonny fought off the orderlies until he managed to escape and skitter across the small room, taking refuge behind a stool in the corner, violently thrusting it out at any person who approached him.

"Send that blood to toxicology. He's high as a kite with pupils to match."

"What are we going to do with him while we wait?"

"Pin him down and sedate him - 4mg Haldol IM. We'll search for a wallet and try to find next of kin to take responsibility for him. Also, phone this in to the police. Someone might be looking for him."

"Escaped from a secure facility?"

"Maybe."

"I won't negotiate!" Sonny screamed when they tried to talk to him. He dropped his defense by abandoning the stool and placing his hands over his ears with his eyes closed. "Lalalalalala...." he chimed out as he attempted to block the sounds from his hearing. "I can't hear you. You can't reach me. Nana-nanana-naaaah!"

"That's what you think," a well muscled orderly said disparagingly when he rushed Sonny and wrapped a huge arm around the man's neck. "Get him," he directed the doctor who brandished a syringe. "I have him."

Sonny's brown eyes opened wide when he felt a prick and the medicine entering his muscle. "Uh-oh," he said unhappily.

~*~*~*~

"I can't believe you almost suffocated him!" a nurse scolded the man in black, the one who had been in the Navy Seals.

The man drew himself to his full height and glared down at the petite, redheaded woman dressed in scrubs with a stethoscope hanging around her neck. "Shut up and do your job," he ordered. "I don't get paid to take lip from a woman. Is he going to live or not? I need to tell the boss."

"I think so," the nurse said carefully while adjusting Sly's oxygen apparatus under his nose. "His color is coming back, and he's not gasping so much. His vitals are stronger."

"I'd rather have killed him," the man said harshly. "Little prick kicked my gun out of my hand."

Serves you right, the nurse thought peevishly. She looked at the slender, bruised and unconscious boy stretched out on the bed. Wasn't exactly a fair fight. "He'll be fine," she said with a dismissive tone and wave, hoping that the goon would exit the room soon. He made her nervous with his enthusiasm for the darker side of his job and reminded her of what she herself had sold out to take this assignment.

~*~*~*~

Sly's eyebrows knitted together in response to the loud, angry voices echoing through the room and the shooting pains in his head. He was lying on his back on a bed that wasn't much more substantial than a cot, an afterthought in the room. He'd been left and ignored in favor of a more important patient. His right index finger twitched, and soon his brain absorbed some of the words spoken as he slowly returned to consciousness.

"We can't keep at him like this! I wasn't told that a respirator would be necessary. It's too expensive to have an item like that on hand. We don’t have a respiratory therapist. He'll die if we can't provide him with the care he needs."

"We moved in when the opportunity arose," a gruff voice replied. "He wasn't supposed to be physically harmed. It's not our fault. It's that kid lying over there. He did it."

"Give me those records. You did think to retrieve his file?" the voice asked sarcastically.

"Yes," a scared female voice answered.

"SHIT! He has a collapsed lung. He has tubes and you've been throwing him around like a doll.  I'm surprised he hasn't regained consciousness with all the time it took to drive him here."

"He did. I gave him Valium."

"What?!!"

"He was opening his eyes and fighting with the tube."

"Of course he was. Too bad you tried to kill him with the Valium."

"It's all we had!"

"Get out of here. You were only along for the ride anyway, right?"

Sly heard the sound of footsteps running by followed by a furious round of cussing and the sounds of machinery moving and something hissing. He was confused, and he began crying out of fear with a few tears escaping from his eyes. Where was he and what was was happening? He still hadn't opened his eyes yet, and he tensed when he felt a hand pick up his wrist.

"At least you haven't killed this one yet. He looks like hell."

Sly felt a hand slap his cheek, but he was too afraid to open his eyes or react.

"He's still out. We'll be lucky if he's not brain damaged from lack of oxygen. Who knows about his friend? He's bleeding like a stuck pig, and we don't have a surgical facility."

"They're brothers."

"What?"

"The boys aren't friends, they're brothers."

"Good. We'll transfuse all the blood out of this one to save the other."

"Sick. The boss will be more than displeased if the kid dies."

"What about this one?" the man's voice asked as he dropped Sly's wrist back onto the bed.

"Not as important. Frank Smith Junior is the priority."  

~*~*~*~

"I found it," a nurse said triumphantly, waving a small slip of paper in the air. She'd been searching through Sonny's wallet, trying to find something to identify him other than his driver's license. "It's a name - Jason Morgan. And, there's an international phone number underneath it. Should I call? It's the only clue we have."

"Why not?" another nurse said. "It'll cost a fortune, but keeping him here in the hospital will, too."

"He broke his ankle. I can't believe he was walking on it. And he had terrible bruises on his lower legs, like he ran into something."

"I've never seen anyone act loonier. The toxicologist said he has an exotic designer drug in his system. They can't type it, but it's like a super duper LSD."

"This will be a party he'll never forget."

"How's he doing?"

"He's on his third injection of Haldol and on his way to the psych ward after being bandaged up."

"Was that him screaming earlier? It was positively eerie."

"Space aliens will do that to you."

~*~*~*~

Agent Richards stood over Frankie's bed with much the same disappointed expression that Frank Smith had had five years earlier after Frankie's rescue from the Mafia and his subsequent hospitalization. Frank Smith had had plans for Frankie, plans that weren't in his son's best interests, and Agent Richards shared the same sentiment. He didn't care about the boy lying in front of him - whether or not he were in pain, what his plans were for the future or how he felt about his life. To Agent Richards, Frankie was nothing more than a commodity, a piece of flesh to be sold to the highest bidder.

Agent Richards coughed soggily, and his eyes watered with his longing for a cigarette as he regarded the injured boy. "So we meet in person," he said flatly. He tapped Frankie's cheek with the back of a finger and made a face. "It's hard to believe you have one of the world's finest minds, runt of the litter that you are." He sighed heavily. "Why are you always getting hurt? I won't receive my money for a half dead body. You'd better heal up quick. Verdene is becoming impatient, and so am I. I’m ready to retire. This cold climate is killing me."

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he continued speaking, almost as if he were confessing his sins to a boy who couldn't respond or judge. "I knew that you'd been kidnapped. I've known for thirteen years." His face and eyes hardened into a greedy, selfish expression. "Frank Smith was brilliant. I have to hand that to him. He knew what he had by the time you started talking. I was in charge of his case file, building the evidence against him year after year. We knew he wasn't your father, and it wasn't hard to determine your true parentage. What a fascinating experiment, sitting back, watching you become a hardened criminal, being taught by the master. Yet, you had the finer mind, certainly. I've never seen such brilliant strategies in my entire life. Too bad Frank Smith was such a twisted man. Many times, I thought he'd permanently ruined my investment, and I expected you'd wind up in one of those mass graves. But, you adapted." He lifted Frankie's hand and turned it around. "Where's that heavy gold ring of your, Mr. Number Two Man?"

Agent Richards rose from the bed and shook his head. "You will recover. I have buyers lined up in China, Russia and three countries in the Middle East. War strategy, global mob takeovers. You're capable of anything, aren't you, little Frankie Smith Spencer? They won't care if you're in a wheelchair, only if you're breathing, which...unfortunately...you're not succeeding at very well these days. Perhaps I can hold them off for a week or two. They're very impatient. I'll auction you off to the highest bidder.  What shall I charge for you? Twenty million for the starting bid?"

Agent Richards' eyes narrowed as he turned to leave. "Get well, Frankie - or I'll make you wish you'd never been born."  

~*~*~*~

The room was dark and quiet except for the sound of Frankie's cardiac monitor and the insistent hiss of flowing oxygen delivered through a mask covering his face. Over a period of several hours, Frankie had woken up repeatedly and fought off the breathing tube so tenaciously that the doctor had given up and removed the artificial respiration from his patient. Of course, it had also proved impossible to locate a huge, expensive piece of equipment such as a respirator in the middle of the night without detection. The kid had to fight for his life without the support of a machine. Lucky for his kidnappers, he seemed to have a fierce will to survive.

Sly had played possum for the greater part of the night, pretending not to regain consciousness so he could listen to the unedited talk surrounding him. He desperately tried to grasp any piece of information that would help him figure out where they were, who had kidnapped them and what would happen in the future. It had been hard not to moan or cry out with the pain of his concussion and sharp aches in his ribs and nose. Maybe they would have given him some pain medication if he'd alerted them to his dilemma, but Sly chose to persevere as he knew where his advantage lay.  Any control over the situation was preferable to him, and being ignored suited him just fine.

Sly had determined early on that Frankie was in the same room as him. At first, he'd been confused as he'd regained consciousness and uncertain of his location or condition, but he'd sneaked a peek at the commotion several yards away from him and had seen someone lying sprawled on a bed with several people frantically moving around him. It'd seemed like the people were afraid that Frankie would die because they didn't have the appropriate equipment to save him, and Sly had lain silently in terror for what seemed like hours, his heart beating a staccato rhythm in his chest.

Sly had taken first aid classes and had also paid attention in his health classes. Anything scientific interested him greatly, and he had a natural aptitude for applying what he'd learned. He knew that he couldn't fake his condition by just lying still. He planned to fake being brain damaged, not dead, so when they'd called out his name, he'd made an unintelligible noise and turned toward the voice but offered nothing else. He'd burned with anger when the voice he identified as the doctor had said, "You have no idea how long he was without oxygen? This kid's going to be a vegetable. You might want to take him back. He won't be any use to you like this. He might improve, but why bother with him? Do you expect your prize over there to cooperate when his brother is like this?"  Sly's anger was convenient and a survival tool as well since fear was licking at the edges of his mind, threatening to take over. Anger was workable and helped him to focus on escaping rather than being frozen in place like a scared animal.

Finally, the people stopped coming and going, and Sly and Frankie were left in peace. Sly was afraid to rise from his bed, but if he didn't do it now, he might not have another opportunity, or so he reasoned. He had to see how Frankie was and try to talk to him. After ten minutes passed with no one disturbing them, he dislodged the nasal cannula from under his nose and placed it on the bed. He swung his legs around his cot, and held the edges firmly with white knuckles, riding out the dizzying tide of nausea that accompanied his upright position.

Sly limped over to Frankie's bed, reaching his hand out for the wall and pausing to catch his breath. He'd never felt so bad in his entire life, but his determination spurred him on, and he soon reached his brother's bedside.

"Frankie?" he whispered as he rolled his eyes toward the door, afraid that someone would walk in and discover that he was up. "Oh God, help him," he breathed out when he took in the full impact of his brother's appearance. Frankie's eyes were closed and his head turned to one side, with his face grimacing and his lips pulled back over his clenched teeth as he took in tortured breaths. Sly saw the obvious black gap that should have been a tooth in the lower right side of Frankie's jaw. It made his stomach flip, and he was flooded with memories of their huge fight.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I pushed you."

Sly's tearful eyes ran down over the length of Frankie's body, and he noticed that his brother was restrained on the bed, his wrists and ankles tied down firmly so he wouldn't move and dislodge the medical paraphernalia littered over his body. Frankie's hands flexed uncomfortably. That's not right, Sly thought. It's bothering him. He started untying one restraint but stopped. They'll come back and notice this is unfastened.

"Frankie," Sly repeated louder, shaking the boy's shoulder to wake him up. "It's Sly. They've kidnapped us." Frankie's eyes opened slightly, appearing as mere slits in his face. He blinked several times as Sly continued talking to him. "It's the men in the black car. They took us both from the hospital. Your lung collapsed. That's why it hurt so bad after you fell. My nose is broken, thank you very much. I’m trying to come up with a way to get us out of here. I'm pretending to be brain damaged."

Frankie's lips twitched as if he were trying to smile. He coughed and then said in a soft, gravelly voice, "Don't gotta pretend."

"Yeah, right," Sly answered sarcastically. "At least you're alive."

"Sorta," Frankie answered.

"We need a plan."

"Yeah."

 Next chapter...