Marsh raised the club and landed a blow on Max's shoulder. The teen was knocked off balance and fell to the floor. Marsh dropped on top of him and began whacking him on the back with the club. Once Max was subdued, Marsh struggled out of his clothes, forced Max onto his knees, and made him lean over the bed. As he violently took Max, he hummed.

"Now, time for a little rest," Marsh said when he finished. "Then we go again. In fact, we're gonna go all night, my little bitch boy," he mocked.

Less than an hour later, Marsh stood over Max, who was still lying on the floor. He bent down, and Max opened his eyes to look at the swine who had already hurt him badly with the billy club.

"Come on, boy. Get up on your knees," Marsh instructed.

Max, intent on giving the man what he wanted so that he wouldn't beat him again, complied. When Marsh told Max to perform oral sex, the teen hesitated. Max didn't see the thick chain wrapped around Marsh's hand. When the heavy chain hit the side of Max's head, he was sure his skull was cracked open. Blood gushed from his hairline, and a steady stream ran down his arm.

Marsh swiftly wrapped the chain around Max's neck, blocking his airway. Believing he was going to die, Max landed the first punch in Marsh's stomach. It winded him, and he lost his grip on the chain.

Max pounced on him like a rabid animal. He punched Marsh until he was lying flat on the floor, then he stood and kicked him in the face several times. When that wasn't enough, he picked up the billy club and smashed it down on Marsh's head until he lost consciousness. Even then, Max kept pounding the club against Marsh's skull.

Max didn't realize he was screaming as he pummeled the depraved troll. Then the door to the room flew open. "What the fuck have you done?" John William shouted.

Max looked down at the pile of flesh on the floor in front of him. Marsh's face and skull were mutilated. There was blood everywhere. His thoughts were hazy from his fit of rage.

"He kept hitting me. He was choking me with that chain," Max muttered, coming back to his senses.

"Who the hell do you think you are? You're a servant!" John William ranted.

Two other men from the cartel appeared in the doorway.

"Get this little asshole out of here. We'll deal with him later," he stated, looking at Max.

The men took Max from the bedroom and locked him in another room across the hallway. John William turned his attention to Marsh. Yuk, he thought, what a fucking slob. He bent down and jammed two fingers into the fat around Marsh's neck. No pulse. "Shit!" he yelled.

John William closed the door behind him, leaving Marsh lying dead on the floor. He had to get rid of the body. Then he would deal with the boy.

Chapter Thirty.

The two men took Max back down to the basement and shoved him inside his kennel. When Cali and Maggie returned, they found him walking in circles in his confined space.

"What's wrong, Max? What happened?" Cali asked once they were alone.

"Oh man. I fucked up really bad. I was with this asshole tonight. Man, he was brutal. He kept hitting me with a club, and then he started strangling me with a chain. I...I don't know what happened to me. I just fuckin' lost it and started beating the shit out of the guy," Max explained. "You know I'm gonna pay for this. Who knows what John William will do to me?"

"Jesus, Max," Maggie said. "Are you hurt? What happened to the man?"

"I don't know. Shit, I could've killed him for all I know. I just kept hitting him. I wanted him to die. I really did. When John William came into the room, the guy was lying on the floor. There was a lot of blood everywhere."

"I hope you did kill him," Cali said.

Max abruptly stopped walking in circles. "I hear ya, Cali. But it doesn't matter if he's dead or alive. I'm gonna be punished for this."

Cali and Maggie watched Max. He started mindlessly rubbing his own arms, as if to warm himself from the cold. He knew he would be facing the hardest time of his imprisonment. His mind betrayed him as he thought of the different ways they would torture him. Then, as if someone threw cold water on him, he realized that he had fought back for the first time. A small smile jumped onto his face.

"What the hell are you smiling about?" Cali asked.

"I was just thinking. I finally bit back. I mean, it felt so good. I wanted to bash that bastard's brains in. For once in my life, I took a stand. I know I'm gonna pay, but once the punishment is all over, I'll have tonight to hold on to. Maybe they'll get the message that we aren't going to keep taking this shit. We might just bust out of this shit hole. They need to worry about us. You guys hear me? They need to fuckin' worry about us!"

Max's false bravado was snuffed out an hour later when John William came down to the basement carrying a baseball bat. Maggie and Cali immediately stood up in their kennels. Even Shana managed to move over to the door of her small prison. Seth crouched in the corner of his own kennel, fearful that John William was coming for him. Max began talking incoherently when he noticed how dead John William's eyes were.

"I'm sorry, John William. I don't know what happened. One minute everything was fine, and the next, I just don't know what happened. It won't happen again. I'm sure it won't happen again..." Max said with remorse.

Without uttering a single word, John William unlocked the door to Max's kennel, strode over to the boy, and began hitting him with the bat. "You killed the fucking guy," he yelled, as he continued to hit him.

Max covered his head with hands, letting his forearms shield his face. But when John William broke the boy's right leg with the bat, Max fell to the floor and began to tremble. Irritated beyond belief, John William shoved the bat into Max's ribs in hopes of breaking a couple. The bat slipped, hitting Max under his left ribs instead. Intense pain burned through Max's side and shoulder. His piercing screams finally made John William retreat and leave the boy to think about what he had done to Marsh that evening.

Max stayed on the floor of his kennel, screaming in pain. The others could see that his leg was broken, but Maggie was more worried about the way Max was holding his left side. She hoped that what she thought might have happened to him, hadn't.

Chapter Thirty-One.

Upstairs, John William remembered what Myles had told him to do to Max. "Break his fuckin' leg and put a hurting on the no-good son of a bitch. I want him to learn from this. Then, I want you to contact some of our outside pimps and see who we can sell him to. Now that he fought back, we ain't gonna be able to use him. He's more trouble than he's worth."

A short while later, John William appeared in the basement. He was carrying a box of medical supplies and two pieces of wood. "Maggie!" he snapped, opening her kennel. "Get your ass over there and bandage up that broken leg of his. Be quick about it, too."

Maggie practically ran from her kennel to Max's. She knelt down beside him.

"Max, I'm going to splint your leg. OK? It's going to hurt, but I have to do it," she explained.

Max only looked at her with confusion. All of the color had drained from his face. Maggie worked quickly to put the splint on his leg. She had no idea if she'd done it correctly or if it would help the bones to heal properly. By then, John William had retreated to the kitchen to eat with some of the other guys in the cartel.

"Max, it's me, Maggie. Do you recognize me?" Maggie asked him.

Instead of answering, Max fainted. When he came to, it was apparent that he was still confused.

"Tell me where you have pain, Max," Maggie stated more aggressively this time.

"My shoulder," Max managed. "And here." He pointed to the ribs on his left side.

"OK. How many fingers am I holding up?" Maggie persisted, holding up three fingers.

Max looked at her hand, but the fingers were so blurred he couldn't answer. Besides, he was in so much pain that he didn't care how well his eyes were working.

Maggie reached down and felt his belly. It was distended and hard as a rock. She suspected that it was filling with blood. She found a pulse on his wrist and counted the number of beats in what she estimated was a minute of time. She counted 160 beats.

"Cali? We have a problem," she said with concern.

"What, Mags? What's wrong with him?"

"I think John William ruptured his spleen. From everything I know, I think he's bleeding internally. If he doesn't go to the hospital, he'll die, Cali," Maggie cried.

"Is there anything you can do to help him? Come on, Mags. Think! What did your books tell you to do?" Cali asked, panicked.

"There's nothing I can do, Cali. He needs surgery by a real doctor. That's the only thing that can be done. But he doesn't have a lot of time," she added.

"How long? How long can he live?" Cali asked impatiently.

"I don't know. I just don't know," Maggie stated in anger.

Maggie lay on the floor of Max's cell, her body up against his. She put her arm around him and waited. There was nothing to do now but pray. John William came back a few hours later and found them. Maggie woke, feeling someone watching her.

"John William, Max needs to go to the hospital. I think you ruptured his spleen." Maggie pulled up Max's shirt, exposing his belly, which bulged with the blood that filled it. Suddenly, Max threw up, and blood splattered across the dirt floor of the kennel.

"He ain't going to no hospital. So you better think about all that shit you read and fix him up real fast," John William snarled at her.

"I can't! I can't fix him. Only a doctor can fix him. He's going to bleed to death," she pleaded.

John William opened Max's kennel. "Let's go! Back to your own place," he said menacingly.

"Please let me stay with him. Please, John William. Just tonight. I swear I'll do whatever you want. Please," Maggie begged.

"Anything? You'll do whatever I want, huh?" he sneered. "You'll do whatever I want just because I say so. You get that through your stupid little head." Then he paused, not to think, but to build her anxiety. "OK, you can stay with him tonight, but you owe me, and I always get paid." He chuckled as he heaved himself back up the stairs.

"Mags?" Cali called out. "What's going to happen to Max?"

"I don't know for sure, Cali. I don't even know if his spleen is ruptured," she responded in a defeated voice.

Then Maggie lay facing Max. She snuggled up to him as close as she could get. Putting her arm around him, she began to tell him a story. It was the Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, a story that Max had begged her to tell him repeatedly during their years of bondage. Max was hooked on Tom Sawyer's story and his ability to believe in his own daydreams and allow his imagination to become his reality.

Tears streamed down Maggie's cheeks as she told Max the classic tale. Every so often, when Maggie got to Max's favorite parts of the book, he would look up at her and smile. When she finished telling him the story, she silently held him in her arms.

"Tell me the story about my dad, Maggie, please," Max asked softly.

Chapter Thirty-Two.

"Do you remember when you were nine years old and your dad took you hunting for the first time? The two of you drove a couple of hours to your cabin in the middle of Pennsylvania. On your way, there was a blizzard as you started to drive up the mountain. The two of you couldn't see past the hood of the car, the snow was falling so fast. Your dad was driving slower than you could walk because he couldn't see the road anymore, and to the right, there was a cliff that dropped to the bottom of the mountain. It took you hours to reach the top of the mountain. But you and your dad treated it like a great adventure, a matter of survival. When you finally got to the cabin, you made a fire in the fireplace and drank hot chocolate." Maggie paused to give him time to acknowledge the memory.

"I remember, Maggie. Keep going," Max managed.

"Well, the next morning after breakfast, your dad took you into the woods to hunt. You were lying on the ground behind a fallen tree, waiting for the deer to come out. It started to snow again, and you rolled onto your back and looked up into the sky past the huge trees. It was like you were transported to another world as you watched the snowflakes falling through the trees. You could hear the sounds of tree branches rattling and pine needles shifting as the wind shuffled them around. Man, Max, you were at total peace. You loved it there. You loved being one with nature."

Maggie stopped and brushed the hair back from Max's eyes. Her hand glided over his face and forehead in a gesture that reminded Max of his mother.

Max's eyes welled up. "Don't stop, Maggie. Finish the story," he urged.

Maggie tried hard to be brave for Max. But eventually, she let herself feel all the emotions that were pent up inside of her as she finished his story. "While you were looking up at the sky, your dad was high up in a tree nearby. Suddenly, you heard footsteps, and you were jolted back to reality. Your dad was standing over you, looking down with a puzzled look on his face. He said, 'Did you see the deer? He was standing fifteen feet from you, son. It was a clear shot.'

"Embarrassed and worried you had disappointed your dad, you told him you hadn't seen the deer because you were watching the snow fall from the sky. Then you held your breath, Max, just waiting for him to be mad that you weren't hunting the way he'd taught you to. Instead, your dad got down on his knees. Silently, he stretched out right next to you. He looked up into the sky for a while. You both did, watching the beauty unfold around you. The two of you listened to the odd sounds, and you could smell the pine trees and wood smoke from other cabins in the distance. Then your dad rolled onto his side and propped his head up in his hand.

"'Son,' he said, 'I've been coming out for many years-since I was your age-but I never noticed how alive I could feel until right now. Sometimes, we are so focused on what we want that we are blind to the things that make us happy. Like lying here with my son, watching the snowflakes fall. It's just incredible, and when I focus on what is right in front of me, nothing else matters. All my worries vanish. Thank you, Max. If you hadn't told me why you missed the deer, if you had lied, thinking I would be upset, I would never have been able to live this moment with you.'"

Maggie's voice trailed off.

Tears were streaming from Max's eyes and running down the sides of his face as the memory of his loving father played in his mind. His father was devoted to his mother and him. He was a good-natured man, and Max adored him.

Finally, Max opened his eyes, but his lids were heavy. "Thank you, Maggie," he said.

Maggie laid her head gingerly on his chest and put her arm around him. She heard the beating of his heart, and as the minutes wore on, his heartbeats grew weaker and slower. Before he lost all consciousness, Maggie propped herself up on one elbow and looked into his face. "Max, I love you. You're the best big brother a girl could ever hope for. You're finally going to be happy, Max. You're going to be free," she croaked.

Max was too tired to open his eyes, but he squeezed her hand lightly. "I love you," he mouthed, his voice too weak to pass through his lips.

Putting her head back on Max's chest, Maggie closed her eyes and focused on the diminishing rhythm of the drum that played inside his chest, until his heart beat for the very last time.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

Maggie was sobbing, her chest rising and falling so hard that she clutched at her ribs to steady them. The sounds that came from her made the others go silent.

After several long minutes, Shana spoke. "Is he dead, Maggie?"

"Yeah, Shana. He's gone," she bawled.

Shana was crying openly. "Do you think he was in a lot of pain?"

"No, Shana. He didn't know what was happening. He couldn't feel anything," Maggie lied, wanting to give the others some comfort.