Creed was sitting with his back against the grimy brick wall, breathing hard from his efforts. He had no idea which way was out, but damn if he was going to hold still waiting for that asshole to come along and show him whether he was a trigger or an explosive.

The media player was still paused on Arkdone's face, just the way Creed left it after watching the video twice. He wanted to memorize that sick asshole's face so when he beat the pulp out of him, he could appreciate knowing he'd wiped that smug look off his face.

He looked down at his bloody fingers and knuckles and willed the pain away, just as Meg told him he could do. Apparently, he had known of this gift before his amnesia. Afterward, he used it without knowing it was a gift or exactly how to wield it. That is, until Meg walked him through it. He thought everyone could control their pain to some degree, but he learned differently. Most people couldn't do what he did.

He concentrated on his hands for a moment and told himself, "Ah, that's not real and it sure as hell doesn't hurt." Instantly, the pain switched off and he ignored the torn flesh and nails thanks to his efforts at leaping up to the crevice-like ledge and trying to pry the one-way door open with his bare hands. He tried pounding on it, but got nowhere from the awkward angle of hanging by one hand gripping slimy filth. He had given up on that and decided the best guess he could make was to attack the same brick wall in which the door hung. He tried prying the bricks away from the wall, to make a hole. He was able to pull one brick out only to see another layer of brick behind it. His efforts with the brick only earned him four ripped off nails.

He was breathing hard after pounding the heck out of the wall out of sheer frustration. He was just thinking how possible it was that he'd managed a boxer's break in his left hand.

That's when he heard sound.

There was a faint scraping, rhythmic.

It was coming from the wall to his left.

He crawled quietly to where the scraping was the loudest and put his ear to the wall.

"Hey!" he yelled to whoever was there.

The scraping paused for a moment then continued.

"Hello? Who's there?"

In response he heard a sharp series of barks and knew it must be Maze. His heart leaped for the first time since he awakened hours before.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to help the coyote with his torn up hands, Creed looked frantically around the room. The only thing to use was the laptop. He jumped up and grabbed it. With what strength his hands had left in them, he broke off the thick plastic monitor from the base and ran back to the spot he knew Maze to be digging. With the only tool he could find, Creed began pounding the corner of the monitor into the packed dirt, trying to break through to the softer ground that must be below.

Just as he broke through the top layer of packed dirt, and Creed felt a glimmer of hope, he heard the most gut-wrenching series of canine screams. In them Creed read pleading, surprise and the most horrible pain he'd ever heard from a creature. Creed held very still listening.

Dear God, no!

Chapter 51 A Different Kind of Predator.

"What happened when you got to Germany?" Alik's voice was gentle, but he wasn't letting up on Farrow.

She gave him a tired, annoyed look. "Don't you feel well enough to track again?"

"No, not yet," Alik stalled, acting as though they had all the time under the sun to hold this conversation.

"It's not easy to talk about, Alik."

"I know."

"I don't even know where to begin."

"Begin at the beginning."

Farrow bit her lip, but to her credit she cleared the emotion from her throat and started.

"Bjorn dosed me...sick son of a bitch snickered with joy when I screamed because it burned. Alik did it burn you when you were dosed?"

He was already nodding, even before she asked. "It felt like thousands of razors digging in my thigh where the white coat jabbed me and slipping through my veins just as painfully. I even remember when the pain hit my eyes. I thought I would go blind with the pain."

Now it was Farrow's turn to nod completely agreeing with his description of the pain. "How old were you?" She asked, feeling a moment's reprieve from her storytelling now that Alik backed up her memory with his own.

"I was two years, nine months, according to the records Mom stole from The Institute."

"You were Danny's age?"

"Looks like it."

"But you remember how it felt to be dosed?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember life before that?"

Alik swallowed hard and looked out his window for a moment before responding. "Eidetic memory, remember?"

"Well, yeah, but I figured it happened once you were dosed and made...meta."

"No, I have always had a perfect memory. The serum just enhanced it." He pursed his lips together tightly, reached into the center console and grabbed the sports drink he had been sipping trying to replenish his fluids after getting sick a dozen miles back.

"Oh, wow. Alik I'm sorry you remember everything. Some things I'm glad time has made blurry to me."

Alik shrugged, dismissively. "Back to your story, little sparrow,"

"Right, the story." Farrow gripped the steering wheel tightly, but she kept going.

"Bjorn took a special liking to me," Farrow's voice sounded very small, like a little girl's, but she kept going. "Even once I survived the first week and was sent to the girl's barracks section A for the 'new recruits,' he would come find me and have me go work with him in his office. I would try to hide from him, but he always found me. I would ask for extra duties so I would be unavailable. I befriended the platoon leaders and instructors as much as I could-as long as they were women."

"Why only women, Farrow? What happened?"

Farrow tried to take a deep breath, instead her throat hitched painfully. She let out a coughing fit. Alik offered her a drink to soothe her throat. After a sip, she got her coughing under control enough to talk. But her voice sounded distinctly different-pinched, tight and raspy.

"I never talk about this Alik. Once I tell you what happened to me, I never want to discuss this again. Are we clear?"

"If that's what you want, of course," Alik agreed to her stipulations sensing how important it was for her to feel in control of this conversation.

"He would come to my room in the dormitory late at night. The first time it happened I was just a little girl. I thought he was coming to be nice to me. He wanted to..." Farrow's voice caught. "Alik, he said he liked me and just wanted to make sure I had enough blankets. It was a cold night-winter in Germany is very cold. He brought me a blanket the next night and I remember watching his beady eyes catch the courtyard's light coming in from my small window. The blanket billowed over me and I... I giggled. It looked like a big soft billowing cloud. After losing my mommy and never having known my dad, the extra attention seemed nice-at first."

Farrow stopped talking long enough to take another sip of the sports drink. Alik heard her voice tighten with emotion and knew this must be really hard to talk about. He even wondered if she ever told anyone else about the inappropriate treatment she suffered at the hands of that sick bastard, Bjorn.

But what Alik was having a really hard time doing was controlling his temper. Hearing the doe-eyed, sincere girl sitting beside him regress in body language and voice into a sweet little girl, made him crazy with rage. And hearing that new small voice roughen with unshed tears based on terror made him want to go beat the crap out of the monster who did that to her.

Now, Alik needed to take a slow, calming breath because he was very close to needing her to pull over again. This time he didn't want to vomit so much as punch the hell out of some poor tree trunk.

Oh hell, he thought. If this conversation goes in the direction I think it's going, I may need to do both.

"It seemed nice at first. What changed?" He prodded gently, through clenched teeth.

"Well, the visits became every night. He would say he was coming to 'tuck me in' at night. He'd..." she swallowed hard, "he said I was special. He called me beautiful and would tuck my long hair behind my ears. He would want to brush it out for me. His favorite was after I'd showered and washed my hair. Eventually, he insisted that I shower and leave my hair wet and tangled so he could come 'help me' with it."

Nervously, Farrow ran her hand down the back of her cropped hair.

"Is that why you wear it cut short now?"

"Yes," she said abruptly.

"The attentions progressed from him running his hands down my body when he'd 'tuck me in' and way too long hair brushing sessions to...more." Farrow's need to leave details out was completely understandable to Alik. Besides, he was feeling the need to be sick for entirely different reasons than retro-cogging.

"By the time I was-um-developing, he became more obsessed with me. He stopped being so discreet in his attentions. Anytime he would see me he would pat my chest, right here," she held her hand just above the bulge of her breasts, "and call me his 'big-breasted thing'."

Alik seethed at the quiver of fear in her voice. Silently, he was promising God he would rid the world of that sick monster. Outwardly, he was offering understanding, controlled nods and looks of concern. He didn't know how much more he could hear without a blood vessel bursting in his forehead, but if she could suffer through years of sexual abuse at the hands of a sick monster, he could sit here respectfully listening to her retelling and be supportive and sympathetic.

"Eventually, the other metafemales started to really resent the special treatment they saw me get. As far as they were concerned, they thought I asked for the attention. I would get attacked often-jumped by other girls in my squad. The last time that happened they left me with more bruises than Bjorn liked. He brought me weapons and told my instructors to allow me to defend myself. No one else was allowed weapons in the barracks or around campus unless they were actively training with an instructor. I was an anomaly in so many ways. The next time the girls came to jump me for having that special treatment, I shot three of them dead and beat the last one so badly, she had to spend a week in the Facility's hospital recovering from a broken jaw, ribs and kneecap."

Farrow glanced at Alik looking for an expression she was terrified she'd see. Instead of the judgment and reproach she was sure he would feel, all she saw was tenderness and pain painted on his sincere face.

"Oh, Farrow. I had no idea you had to suffer so badly-ostracized by the others and abused by your captors. How you survived all those years..." Alik shook his head in genuine amazement. "You are so much stronger than even you give yourself credit for. You are a fighter through and through and I wish to God I didn't have to, but I admire you for standing up for yourself the way you had to."

Farrow just stared straight ahead, watching the highway zoom under the hood of the car as they continued on their path toward their missing family members.

"After that day, Dr. Bjorn worked something out with Dr. Williams and before I knew it, I was assigned as the Director's personal assistant. I knew it was the only way I was going to survive so I accepted the assignment. None of the other girls even looked at me again. They knew what I'd done to protect myself and now they saw I had the Director and his favorite sadistic head scientist pulling favors for me. No one touched me ever again. Well, none of the metahumans.

"All I ever wanted was to find a place where I belonged; a place where I felt safe and could trust those around me with my life. I just wanted to find a place where I could sleep in peace. I never wanted to hear the click of a doorknob turning in the middle of the night. I never again wanted to pray for death when a black silhouette stood in the lighted doorway of my room."

Farrow was panting with fear. Her adrenaline was pumping fight-or-flight responses to the terror of the memories Alik had forced to the surface of this poor girl's mind.

"Would you please pull over?" Alik asked in a soft tone. He was controlling his rage at what was done to this sweet girl and knew what he needed to do.

Farrow nodded silently, swallowing the tears trickling down her throat. Within a mile, they came across a highway rest stop. The moment Farrow put the car in park, Alik got out and walked around to her driver's side. He opened her door and held out his hand to her.

She couldn't meet his eyes. "We don't have time for this, Alik."

"We'll make up the time. Right now I really want to hold you. Will you let me?"

Farrow frowned, confused. "You're not repulsed by me now?"

"What? No, of course not!"

Tentatively Farrow offered her hand for Alik to help her out of the car. When she stood so close to him, the world seemed to melt away. The majesty of the stars against the midnight blue night sky paled compared to the look of love in Alik's indigo eyes.

"I've never told anyone what happened with Bjorn before," she watched him closely, looking for any hint of revulsion.

"Thank you for trusting me, Farrow. You didn't have to. It took a lot of courage to open up to me."

"That wasn't courage," Farrow scoffed at herself, "it was desperation."

"What do you mean?"

"Can you imagine what it's been like living with the...memories of all that has happened to me and never having told a soul? Sometimes I thought I would go insane acting as though nothing was wrong all those years." She shook her head hard, as though having just tasted something disgusting. "Anyway, it's in the past, and I'm done talking about it. Okay?"

Her whole body language changed just as abruptly as the tone and content of her words.

"If that's what you want," Alik offered cautiously.

"Are you ready to track, or what?" She asked. Her tone was all soldier again.

"Yeah, give me one minute to scan before you punch it." Alik gave Farrow a sideways glance, still trying to understand the best way to help the sparrow with a broken heart.

Chapter 52 Bitter Sweet Moments.

Margo's mind was racing on two entirely different planes of thought: her missing family members and the responsibility of taking care of Danny.

On one hand, she couldn't stop thinking about her children being taken by some madman who made Williams' evil seem tame.

What was happening to them right now? Had they already watched the video explaining that they cannot be near one another? What is Arkdone doing with them? Why is he even involving himself? Margo sighed deeply.

Ever since they'd come home to an empty house and Meg's pool of blood by the front door, Margo had been fighting to stay sane, stay in the present and think logically. Truth be told, all she wanted to do was curl up under the covers of her big bed and sob for her family, for her legs, for all that she had that was now gone.

But she had a little boy to take care of and knowing he depended on her made Margo find strength she never knew she had.

Margo hadn't held a baby since her children had grown up. To feel Danny's warm body heavy in her arms made her heart sing. She knew she should call Theo in to help her lay the baby down for the night, but she couldn't let him go. Something about holding him helped calm her nerves and gave her a feeling of overall peace-completely unexpected considering what she was going through.

Danny had loved eating the pizza so much he had managed to get sauce all over his face and in his blond hair.

Theo had run the bath for the little guy. He added bubbles, which fascinated Danny to no end. The baby hadn't even noticed when it was time to wash his hair; he was so fascinated with the iridescent spheres. He burst into laughter as he'd wrapped his arms around a big pile only to see them slip away or pop.

Danny's laughter was very much like the bubbles in his bath. They seemed to gurgle from deep in his belly and come bubbling up his little throat to his grinning mouth where it sounded as melodic as chimes in the wind.

Finally clean and skin very puckered, Theo let the water drain and lifted the slippery little body that was their newest son out of the tub to dry him with a towel. Danny loved being clean. He squealed with joy, bolting from Theo's efforts to dress him and ran around buck-naked! The baby seemed to love playing the clean-streaker game almost as much as playing with the bubbles that helped get him there.

Margo was so charmed by the little boy; she just couldn't help but giggle at a very wet Theo chasing Danny's screeching, naked body streaking around the house. Theo was laughing so hard and was so out of breath, by the time he caught Danny and slipped on his little cartoon covered tighty-whities, they flopped across Margo and Theo's king-sized bed, exhausted.