Suddenly the door at the foot of their cell slid open with a spine shuddering grind of rock on rock. Ian looked up in surprise as Michael was shoved back through the door. His brown hair was a disheveled mess and he was wearing a rumpled hockey jersey that he didn't have before. His eyes were wide and had the strange quality to them that said he was looking straight through everything. He stumbled a couple steps then fell to his knees.

Ian instantly got to his feet and ran over to kneel in front of their drum major. "Hey! Michael. Can you hear me, bud? Say, set, if you can hear me."

Michael looked up at him and gave him a strange look as if Ian was speaking in some sort of foreign language that hadn't been invented yet. His already hollow eyes were clouded over and the shadows around them were so dark, that if Ian had taken a selfie of the two of them, with his black eyes, he could tagged the picture with #twinning and no one would have questioned why.

Ian grabbed Mike by the shoulders and started shaking him. His head rolled around on his neck like a rag doll's, but he otherwise didn't respond at all. "Yo! Is there anyone in there?" He yelled in his ear.

Michael cringed away from his voice, but still didn't say anything.

So he can hear me.....why isn't he answering...?

Ian was secretly terrified of the answer to that question. He didn't look like he was all there, like someone had sucked all the Michael out of the body and  threw an empty shell back into the room to mess with their minds even more. Mike went to go sit in a corner with his legs pulled up to his chest. He didn't even ask if Abbie was okay and that bothered Ian more than everything else. Something must have happened, they had to have done something to him. He wouldn't be like this, no matter what happened. But what did they do?

Lisha quietly pointed out the fact that he was was wearing an oversized hockey jersey that didn't belong to him. "Do you think they're hiding something," Ian asked.

"They never gave two shíts what happened to us before," she murmured back. Ian noted that in one day's time, they had stopped talking about their kidnapper as a he and started referring to them as a they. Lisha continued, "They especially never cared if we were cold. They are trying to hide something. That jersey wasn't given to him out of kindness."

"I mean....that team is an insult in itself...."

Lisha gave him a look.

"Sorry..." He sighed. "I'll hold him down, you roll up his sleeves and look for anything suspicious."

"Why his sleeves?" She looked at him inquisitively.

He rubbed his wrists, a strange habit that he had formed over the last few days. "It's just a feeling."

She frowned, but nodded. "Alright."

Michael's corner was the one closest to the door. He was sitting right on top of their last hammer, with his legs pulled up to his chest and his head resting on his knees. "Hey Mike," Lisha called softly. "We just want to see something, okay?"

He nodded slightly, which they took as a good sign. Lisha approached him slowly and pulled out his left arm with a hesitancy that someone would have used to touch a bomb. Ian hovered over her right shoulder in anticipation of a lash out...or maybe a pass out. She rolled the sleeve of the jersey up his arm then shook her head hard. "No....gods no."

"What?" Ian asked urgently. Tony sat up straighter from where he was watching on the other side of the room.

She moved out of the way so he could see. At the crook of his arm was a small dark dot that resembled an IV hole. "They drugged him," Ian breathed and sat back on his hunches. Lisha nodded sadly.

Michael squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again, like he was trying to clear dust from his corneas. "Errr..."

"Don't try to talk," Lisha warned. "You've been drugged. You need to wait for it to wear off."

Michael shook his head sharply and pushed them away. His eyes were still clouded and it didn't seem like his mind was really coming back either, but still he tried. "How are they?" Mike managed to choke out.

They shared a look, glancing back at Tony to get his opinion as well. He didn't appear to have any better ideas on how to handle the situation than they did. Tears began welling in Lisha's eyes and she shook her head harshly.

Michael didn't seem to get the idea. Ian brushed his hands over his eyes as he managed to choke out. "I'm sorry man, we waited too long."

He reaction was instantaneous. Michael lept to his feet, pushing both Lisha and Ian to the ground, and ran over to where Abbie's body laid, untouched from the moment she left. For several long minutes he begged, and pleaded for life, all the while stumbling over his heavy drugged tongue. When it became evident that she was gone and not, he rose to his feet with the hammer grasped loosely between his fingers. "I thought I told you to look after her," he whispered harshly.

"Mike, there was nothing we could do," Ian said.

Michael stormed over and grabbed Ian by the collar. "You should have tried!" He exclaimed. Ian's stomach dropped as he was lifted off the ground; the drum major's hollow eyes were wet with tears as his fingers curled tighter around  the hammer.

"MICHAEL DON'T DO IT!" Tony screamed, causing him to drop Ian back to the floor and whip around. Tony paled as he realized his repercussions of speaking out.

Ian watched in a daze as he screamed one string of words after another.  If we hadn't used your plan.
If only you had run faster.
You could have done something.

That's what they did to him, Ian realized with a jolt. They forced him over the edge. They stole Michael away and groomed their most stable mind into a killer.

"Mike! NO!!!" Lisha seemed to realize it at the same time he did. She sprang from the ground as Michael raised the hammer above his head. Tony tried to scamper back but the wall was in his way.

Lisha grabbed Michael by the elbow as his arm swung back in an arch. She stopped the assult on Tony before it began.

As Lisha rushed Michael her head came into the sharp back end of the hammer. Ian screamed as the momentum carried the heavy metal head straight through the sax player throat. Blood sprayed across the room as the hammer cleaved straight through an artery and sent blood spilling down the front of her shirt.

Michael fell to his knees as Lisha collapsed in a deep pool of her own blood. Her chest heaved up and down as she attempted to take in another breath, but her trachea was ripped wide open. There would be no more breathing for her.

Ian lept to his feet and disarmed Michael of his weapon, but it was already too late. Tears ran down the drum major's face as he seemed to realize for the first time what he had just done.

Lisha's eyes were staring straight at the wall, but for the first time in a long time, they seemed clear. They weren't scared, just bothered, like there was a project she wasn't quite done with. "T-tell..."

"Don't talk," Tony said urgently. "Shít! Is this what you wanted!?" He screamed up at the ceiling, and for once, no one answered.

"Tell....t--tlll ...Cerbal, the notebook," and then she was gone.

Two will die.

Three will walk out.

Two were dead.