***JASON***

How much did those goddamn assholes tranq me?

I roll over, groaning like I've got a massive hangover (not that I would know how one of those feels anyway) and get a look at my surroundings. I'm in a cramped, cuboid cell, containing nothing but a toilet, a sink, and a bunk bed. I'm in the top bunk. Peering underneath, I see someone on the bottom bunk, but I can't tell who it is because my glasses are off.

"Hate to say it, but you should put that face away." It's Harris. "I'd rather you didn't puke on me, dude."

"I'm not gonna puke," I say, even though my stomach's churning like nobody's business.

"Here, before you go..." Harris reaches up and puts my glasses on for me. "But seriously, are you okay?" he asks. "I figured it'd take longer for the drugs to wear off for you, 'cause you're heavier than I am and all."

"Guess you were right." I look down at myself, half-expecting to see a prison jumpsuit in place of my usual clothes, but I'm still wearing the threads I was taken in. "What about you? Didn't you get hurt in the crash?"

Harris winces as he pokes his ribs, but then he shakes his head. "I'm fine. Michelle broke her leg, though. And Kevin...I don't think he regained consciousness, last I saw."

"What about Evan? Or...or Jeremy? He got all cut up from that glass-"

"I don't know." Harris leans down and scuffs his shoe on the floor. "I've only seen you so far. Haven't left this place since I woke up."

I bite my lip, feeling like if I don't, I'll burst into tears. "Where are we?"

"I don't know that either," Harris says ruefully, "but I have an idea. Those cars that came after us on 101 all had Utah plates."

"Utah? You don't think-"

"Can't jump to conclusions, but it probably has something to do with that Senator Bosch."

I clench my fists. "Of course. Elena's number-one customer."

Harris pounds the underside of my bunk a couple of times. "Hey, he's fucking with the wrong Dark boys. We'll kick his ass, Jay. Yeah?"

"You're always ready to fight," I say. "But...how much damage can we do, just the two of us?" I stare up at the ceiling, lost in thought for a second. "I dunno about you, man, but I'd feel a hell of a lot better if we had the rest of our squad with us."

"Me too." Harris shows his head above the side of my bunk. "But we got each other's back. That's good enough for me."

I roll over and roll my eyes. "Why do I feel like you're trying to show me up by not getting all mopey about this?"

He pokes the back of my head. "How long have you known me? You know I don't believe in that bullshit about real men hiding their feelings."

"Still, I think that's kinda what you're doing."

"Is that your way of trying to rile me up?" I turn around and see Harris pouting at me. "Look, I'm pissed as all get-out too, but I'm not trying to hide it. I'm compartmentalizing. There's a difference."

"No, you're just using more official-sounding terminology to cover what you're really doing," I say, unsure why I'm allowing these thoughts out of my head.

Harris stands back, crossing his arms. "Don't be an ass. You're not the only one missing the people you love."

I slide off my bunk slowly, then grab hold of its metal railing when I feel a dizzying surge of head rush. "You're right," I say. "I miss them, and I need them with me. I need to know they're okay." I let go of the railing, then take a couple of unsteady steps into the center of the room. This place really is claustrophobic, with the complete lack of windows, and the only opening on the otherwise solid metal door being a slot about two feet off the floor. "And you're right about another thing. I got you. For sure."

"Tell me something I don't know," Harris says with a grin.

"I love you." The words fly from my mouth, unfiltered, motivated only by a sudden need for honesty.

His grin expands. "That's not something I don't know."

"I'm not kidding." I look him in the eye. "You were talking about the ones I love? Yeah. There's Jeremy, he's my baby brother. Always will be. Evan, I've shared my heart and body with her - like you have with Aimee."

"You still remember me asking for one of your condoms? It fit perfectly, by the way, in case you were-"

"And you." I shut him up by grabbing his shoulders. "We go together like peanut butter and Nutella too."

"You mean 'peanut butter and jelly?'"

Him and his Fire's passion for fruit. "Can't you just let me get this off my chest? You're not my blood, you're not my lover. You're my brother in spirit, and that's why I love you."

I've moved him to tears - both of us, in fact. "Took the words right out of my mouth," he says, holding up his fingers to make the classic metal horns. I match the gesture, and we both allow Dark sparks to connect between our hands. Then he hugs me, and when I return it, he hugs me more tightly, even though I must be hurting his ribs. This, right here - this is what I'm fighting for.

Someone for whom I'd die.

"I'm sorry, but could you cut out the homoerotic bonding? You're on camera here, boys."

Harris and I break apart and look around to see where the sound of this annoying phony-polite male voice is coming from. Then a hidden panel on the wall, across the room from the toilet, slides down, revealing a TV screen bearing the image of a sixty-something silver-haired man in a suit and tie.

"Senator Mallon Bosch, I presume." I narrow my eyes at the screen, although I'm not sure where whatever camera he's got watching us would be positioned.

"Yes."

"Hi, Mr. Senator," Harris says, waving jauntily at the screen. "Come on, Jay, let's be nice to the gentleman. Even though he thinks we're abominations."

"You're not wrong."

"Ooh, double negative," I laugh.

"Lucky for you," says Harris, "we're not grammar Nazis. No, you're just a plain old garden-variety actual Nazi. White power, America First, death to warlocks and gays, am I right?" He sucks an imaginary dick for a couple of seconds - either that, or he's pretending to gag himself with a spoon. "I already know I'm double condemned as far as you're concerned, Your Excellency. But just in case..." He steps on top of the toilet, unbuckles his belt, and pulls his pants down.

"Star-Lord underwear?" I ask.

"Hey, my dad's got no more fashion sense than yours, but he knows the fanboy pride I take in wearing these." He pulls his boxers down for a full moon, then sticks his hand behind his back, showing off his bracelet. To top it all, he flips off Bosch, crowing, "Kiss my beautiful bi ass!"

I add my own flipped bird and chime in, "Yeah, what he said," before slapping his right cheek with my other hand. Harris takes that as his cue to climb off the toilet, then unzip his fly and whip it out so he can take a long, long piss. All with his ass still hanging out too. It's all I can do not to laugh at the extreme levels of literal toilet humor he's got at his disposal. Especially when Bosch slowly, silently turns away from the screen. Probably not so he doesn't have to see Harris' lovely display (I'm sure he's so impotent and repressed he'll try to get off to anything, including teenage boys going to the bathroom), but so we don't see him pop every vein in his forehead in high-def.

"Ohh...come to Daddy!" Harris groans. That, I'm sure, is real, and now that I think about it, I need to piss just as badly myself. "Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, you know how much I needed that?" The sound of piss splashing into the toilet bowl finally stops, and he looks around and says, "No toilet paper, boss? What, do I gotta shake it out like a fucking barbarian?" Which I guess he does, because five seconds later, he pulls up his pants and zips his fly. The toilet flushes automatically.

"Are you done?" Bosch mutters. We can barely hear him, because he's got his back turned still.

"No," I say. As Harris washes his hands in the sink, I take my turn emptying my bladder. I suck at whistling, but under pressure, I do a pretty good rendition of "Beat It." Almost a full minute later... "Now we're done," I say, walking over to the sink. "Done answering nature's call, that is. Done insulting the shit out of you? Not a chance, as long as you've still got us trapped here."

"Luckily," Bosch grumbles as he turns around, "you won't be thorns in my side much longer. Soon, Elena Montoya will be here, and we'll finally see how well her inventions work against you."

Harris snaps a mocking "Heil Hitler" salute. "Yeah, that's not gonna happen. But good luck all the same, mein Führer."

"You got a taste of what Elena's weapons can do last time you challenged her," Bosch says. "Believe me, you should know by now how much danger you're truly in."

"Shut up with the mealy-mouthed bullshit," I say. "We're done here. You're done, you got me, Mally?"

Bosch twitches so much, I think the camera feed might be broken at first. Then he finds his voice again, and the audio comes through like normal. "We'll see about that. It's all in God's hands." He cuts out, then the panel retracts, hiding the screen.

"Yada yada," Harris mutters, holding up one hand in a "flap your gums" gesture. "Suck our fat ones...Mally." He nudges me in the side, then points to the door. "Hey, while you were still down for the count, I took a look at this thing."

I perk up, liking where this is going. "And?"

Quietly, Harris taps his finger against a slightly raised square patch of metal on the side of the door. "On the other side of this," he stage-whispers, "is the latch. All we gotta do is use our powers to bust this thing open from inside."

"You don't think there'll be some kind of countermeasures in place?" I ask. "Besides, Bosch is watching us."

"So what? Can't hurt to try."

I think about where the others must be. Are they thinking along the same lines? What decisions are they making?

"I don't wanna be the only one who doesn't make a break for it, dude." Harris gives me his biggest, most imploring puppy-dog eyes. Being a dog owner himself, he's got the right source of inspiration.

"What say we do Dark and Fire?" I ask. "Explosive combination."

"I like the way you think, my good man." Harris points at the door. "You do Dark, I do Fire?"

"Yeah."

Harris moves back, close to the toilet. "We should get back so the explosion doesn't hit us so hard."

"Good thinking." I join him. Side by side, we raise our dominant arms, then fire onto the door. At first, my Dark beam and his Fire don't connect, but then we bring the two energies together and...

...BOOM.

The door blows out, and we hear a pair of male voices cry out in pain. There must be a couple of guards on the other side, and right now, I think they're stuck under the heavy door. They push the door off their bodies and try to raise their guns at us. Nope, we're not having this. I Dark up their eyes and mouths, so they can't see us, nor can they call out for help. Harris, meanwhile, blasts the business ends of their guns with Fire, melting them so they can't shoot us.

"How about that?" he cries, raising his fist until he extinguishes his Fire. Carefully, we both climb out and over the ruined door. Harris jumps around on the spot. "See, Jay? See?"

"Yeah," I say, bumping fists with him. "We did good. But we're not done yet."

"I know!" He's having way too much fun here. Beating these assbutts up feels good to me too, but I'm not nearly as excited as Harris is. How excited is he? He grabs my face and kisses me on the mouth. "Cross that off my bucket list," he laughs, watching me blush.

"What, kiss a guy?"

"Not just any guy." He winks at me, then sets off up a nearby set of stairs. Wait - this isn't a long corridor or prison block or whatever? We got the one dungeon and that was it?

Where is everyone else?

I don't have long to think about it, though. As soon as we reach the top and open the door, I can barely get a glimpse of what looks like a nice living room before a bunch of guns fire at us.

Harris and I retreat from the gunfire as quickly as possible, but not quickly enough. I push him ahead of me, but I get winged - a bullet lodges in my shoulder, sending burning pain throughout my upper body.

"This...this isn't gonna be so easy, is it?" I ask through gritted teeth.

"When have we done anything easy?" Harris points out. "Come on, man, we can't let these idiots win!"

He's right. Again.

Together, we open the door, ready to take the fight to these shooters, whoever the hell they are.