Rain slicked the ink-black streets, steam rising from the hood of the sleek ebony car. The windshield wipers ticked a rhythmic, hypnotic beat in the stillness of the deserted street.

Peter Caine slumped back into the cushion of the seat, drowsy from the warmth of the car's efficient heater and the full meal his foster mother had recently fed him. It was late; he was tired.

It had been a pleasant evening, rounded out by shared stories and family banter around the blazing fire that spread warmth through the large, comfortable house that had been home to him since he had turned fifteen. Paul Blaisdell had been unusually talkative, an unexpected bonus to the delicious dinner and the light conversation they so seldom had the time or opportunity to indulge in lately. Peter had even coaxed a 'war story' out of his foster father, a rare prize, indeed. Usually, his questions were neatly sidestepped or evaded altogether. Tonight, Paul had been in an expansive mood and Peter had gleaned another piece of his foster father's often-secret past, just as he had been managing lately with his natural father.

Nothing quite compared to the sheer pleasure of having his curiosity satisfied, even slightly, when it came to Paul and Kwai Chang Caine. At this rate, he'd only be... what... a hundred and seventy or so, before he ran out of questions.

Headlights veered up behind him, slewing across the rain-lanced asphalt as the approaching vehicle took the corner too quickly. Only half-interested, Peter watched as the van teetered, regained traction on the treacherously wet road, then settled into the lane behind him.

Peter returned his attention to the slick road.

The fuzzy, pleasant glow that lingered from the evening began to fade, slightly at first, then more, drifting off into a mental roster of the things he had to accomplish in the morning. He'd been stuck with paperwork from two other detectives who were out with the flu; he had a meet set up with one of his informants, a nervous man who was as likely to bolt when he saw Peter coming as he was to hang around and get paid for the information he'd collected. Then there was the deposition in the Crawford case, a couple of leads Skalany wanted him to run down...

There weren't going to be enough hours in the day. There never were.

The rueful thought touched his mind and a smile flitted across his face just as the lights of the van behind him flashed on high beams. Light fragmented from the rear view mirror blinding him. Peter flung up a hand to shield his eyes and corrected the twitch of his hand on the wheel. The Corvette skidded, then straightened and he cursed, a heartfelt growl of protest at the lack of courtesy from the driver now tailgating him.

If it weren't teeming down rain...

The first bump might have been a mistake.

The second sure wasn't.

Peter grunted as he was jolted forward, then backward by the second impact. Steel met steel in a yielding of bumpers as the 'vette lurched forward, then slid sideways. The van rammed him again, sparks arcing between the vehicles through the slanting rain. The black sports car spun sideways and was struck yet again before it could respond to the hands on the wheel. Another hit, this one caving in the passenger side door and thrusting the small car onto the muddy shoulder.

The seat belt wrenched Peter's shoulder, but held him in place. His head cracked hard against the driver's side window and his vision blurred into a light-flecked haze.

Then the car was suddenly still, canted at an angle in the drainage ditch that ran beside the road. For long, molasses-slow minutes, the only thing Peter heard through the confusion that fogged his mind was the tick of the cooling engine and the thrumming drone of rain against metal.

Half-conscious, he fell sideways when the door was yanked open, the seat belt alone keeping him from spilling out of the car. Hands reached across him, but he couldn't react through the sluggishness miring him in a dreamy, confused daze. The seat belt clasp clinked open, the belt was pulled away, and the same hands caught him by the shoulders and hauled him out of the car.

Peter was on his feet, swaying dizzily when the icy rain began to clear his head. He remembered the van then, knew instinctively that this was no bizarre accident, and he jerked away from the hands still clamped on his shoulders. The grip tightened, lightning briefly illuminated the street, and Peter looped a fist at the man holding him pressed against the side of the ruined car.

The blow bounced harmlessly off the man's shoulder and Peter was yanked forward. He saw the second man, made out a blurred, heavy-jowled face, and he tried to force uncooperative limbs to respond. His movements were slowed, awkward, as if he were wading through deep water, and Peter fell against the second man. Arms snaked around him, one circling his waist, the other draped across his shoulder from behind. He smelled the distinctive odor, vaguely recognized it, but before he could put a name to it, the handkerchief was over his nose and mouth and he was breathing fumes, unable to draw air into his lungs. His mind clouded, the darkness deepened, greyed, then settled over him like a blanket, and he slumped into the blackness with a sigh.

*****

The dreams were a smear of sound and kinetic images. They rose and fell as if being lifted on a tide, becoming sharper, receding, then returning on waves of nausea.

Peter groaned and tried to turn away from the cold that seeped into his body. Hands plucked at him and he recoiled, his eyes clenched against the darkness, the lingering phantoms of his dreams following him into consciousness.

The ground was hard beneath him, cold and unyielding. He lay face down, shivering and sick. One eye flickered, then opened to murky light. He tried again to turn, but he was held in place. The restraint panicked him and he arched against the hands, struggling to break free.

Pain lanced through his back, taking his breath, effectively pinning him back to the floor. A hand entwined in his hair and his head was pressed to the cold stone. It took a moment for him to realize that the pressure came from a knee planted firmly in the small of his back. Any attempt to move brought more pressure, more pain. He lay gasping for air that wouldn't come.

"You must do as you are told."

The voice was casual, a grotesque parody of a conversational tone. Peter could see only the rough material of a pants leg and a sandaled foot, perilously close to his face. He didn't recognize the voice.

"Lea' me 'lone." He tried to make it a demand, but with the side of his face pressed against the floor, it came out slurred and mumbled.

"Turn him."

Peter was spun around on the floor and suddenly found himself face up, again dizzy, his head swimming with vertigo. He stared up at the man towering over him, the figure's perspective grotesquely altered by position and distance. Peter made another attempt to figure out his current dilemma through the drug-laced haze that still swam through his mind. At the same time he searched for a name to put to the face peering down at him.

Four men held him spread-eagled on the floor; he was still light-headed and woozy from whatever they'd used to sedate him. Nausea teased at his throat and his legs and arms were leaden and unresponsive. He wasn't sure he would be able to fight off one of the men holding him, much less four.

The internal debate ended when the man standing over him dropped to one knee beside him. He saw the scars then, souvenir slashes across the finely-sculpted face that told of the cruel and usually-fatal fascination with an age-old, outlawed form of gambling. Not many men had survived losing at Pai Gow.

Peter had never known a name to put to this face that stared down into his widened eyes so calmly, but he could hardly forget it. Scars were etched in the dark skin, scars that were repeated over the lean, hard-muscled body. The death of a thousand cuts. It had claimed Jennifer's grandfather. It had nearly claimed Peter's father. It should have taken this man's life, but it hadn't. Somehow he had survived the agonizingly slow, horrifyingly degrading form of murder, survived it, and continued to practice it with a sadistic delight.

The man smiled, the expression never reaching past his lips. His face creased with it, and the lattice-work of scars shifted slightly on his features.

"Your father humiliated me," he said, the voice still conversational, almost friendly. "He took something from me that I was not willing to give. And now you will help me to repay him."

"You cheated," Peter said, knowing it sounded ridiculous, but not able to push coherent thought past the residue of drugginess meshing his mind.

"Your father cheated me," the man countered, the smile a slash of thin lips in a face that showed no expression.

"You're a liar."

The smile faded, then solidified. The man reached down and Peter flinched away from the dark hand, but the fingers only grazed his cheekbone, a stroke of flesh against flesh that was more caress than assault. Peter's eyes squinted shut, then snapped open as the warm fingers mutated into cold steel. A knife blade skimmed his cheek, gliding lightly across the high cheekbone and down the sharp angle of his jaw. Peter hitched in a breath as his body tensed in involuntary reaction.

The man laughed then, a harsh bark of expelled air that broke the expectant silence. He drew the knife away and stood.

"You are my prisoner," he said, picking absently at his hand with the razor-sharp point of the knife. "We will treat you with the same respect your police department treated me when your father caused me so much... inconvenience." Ebony eyes, shuttered beneath black lashes, stared down at the helpless man. "Search him."

Peter sensed the intention even before the first hand plucked at the buttons of his shirt. He twisted, trying desperately to get at least one leg free, a foot into a position to kick out, anything to cause some damage before the unthinkable could happen. His back arched, buttons and material gave way, and his shirt was literally torn away from his body. Nausea rose into his throat, an almost irresistible urge that he swallowed against as he struggled to jerk away from the groping hands that held him, pulled at him. A fist slammed into his stomach and the air was driven from his lungs along with the ability to fight what was being done to him. He sobbed in a breath that didn't seem to make it past the agony doubling him into the grasp of his captors.

He felt the tug at his jeans, heard the zipper slide down. His boots and socks were gone, and he couldn't remember their being removed. A hand slithered up one long, lean leg to yank at the jeans, and he kicked out, his bare heel connecting with yielding flesh. He heard a grunt, then was stunned by a backhand to the jaw that rammed him down against the floor. Another blow smashed into his ribs, and he lay gasping and heaving as his pants were hauled down his legs. His briefs followed and he was held, naked and trembling against the stone, his breath coming in frightened and mortified gasps.

The scarred man squatted beside him again, the knife loosely held between his fingers, bobbling with the motion of his hand.

"You will not fight me for long," he said quietly, shifting the knife to his left hand. "Soon, you will prefer to obey me than to defy me. But it will take time." He smiled and touched the fingers of his right hand to Peter's chest, letting the hand ride the swell and ebb of the panicked breaths. "We will have all the time you need," he continued, his tone absurdly comforting. He smoothed a caress over Peter's chest and down the flat planes of his stomach. His fingers skimmed across the sharply ridged hip bone, stroking over silken skin. Peter jerked in a breath at the intimacy of the touch and involuntary tears pooled in the corners of his eyes. The ebony stare didn't move from Peter's ashen face. The man's left hand shifted to join the right, the blade of the knife tracing the path of his fingers across the line of hip. He smiled.

The knife bit suddenly into flesh and tore across the hip, the skitter of metal across bone the only sound in the room. Peter groaned, his body spasming in protest at the slash of pain, but the hands holding him allowed him no release.

Blood pooled in the hollow of his hip and streaked down his side to puddle beneath his writhing body. His tormentor jolted to his feet, as if suddenly tired of his diversion, and repeated his order, "Search him." He glanced at the crimson stain on the knife blade. "And do it right."

Peter was still trying to work past the fiery pain that lanced through his lower body when he was again turned face down. A hand fisted into his hair, but, this time, Peter could offer little resistance as he fought the new explosion of agony as his hip was ground against the floor. Blood streamed from the deep cut and smeared a scarlet trail of gore beneath him.

His face pressed against the cold surface of the filthy floor, he barely felt his legs being forced apart and spread; nor could he fight it when the fingers invaded his body, thrusting cruelly into him in a sadistic mockery of a strip search. His mind rebelled and he shut down, forcing his reactions out of his reach, withdrawing into himself with a desperate, revolted surge of hatred that would eventually focus and find form within his spirit.

It seemed hours later before he was thrown into a cell and left alone. He crawled into a corner and let the nausea finally break through his control.

He heaved until he was aware of nothing but the pain and exhaustion.

***** 

"I picked it up today."

Annie Blaisdell halted her hand in mid-brush through her golden hair and cocked her head quizzically at her husband. Then her face brightened. "The carousel." The words were a pleasant thrill in her mind and she smiled around the thought, already imagining the reaction the tiny reproduction was going to elicit from their foster son. "Describe it to me," she invited.

Paul dropped to a seat on the bed beside her, taking the brush from her hand and absently stroking it through her hair. The golden strands coiled around his hand, sparkling with reflected light from the bedside lamp.

"It's scale to his train set, of course. You know as well as I do that he's been eyeing it for the last few months with pure lust in his heart."

"Boys and their toys," Annie chuckled, luxuriating in the feel of her husband's hands teasing through her hair.

"It was your idea to get it for his birthday," Paul reminded her. "Anyway, it's a full carousel with all the requisite creatures from horses to giraffes. They're all intricately carved and the colors are nearly pastel. It's run on a single battery and the animals rise and fall as it rotates. Peter's got good taste."

"He takes after my side of the family," Annie noted smugly.

"I thought maybe it was some of the Shaolin influence you're so fond of pointing out to me."

"Peter is part of all of us. Like all our children, he is the best of us fitted into his own unique form."

"You've been hanging out with Caine again, haven't you?" Paul chided gently.

"Master Caine has visited," Annie conceded. She reached up and took the brush from her husband's hands, then leaned back into the cocoon of his arms. Paul enveloped her slim body into the warmth of his embrace. "He seems to be concerned about Peter."

"Kid works too hard," Paul said with a shrug as he rested his chin on his wife's shoulder, enjoying the scent of her shampoo and the closeness they seemed to share so rarely any more. "I worry about him too."

"I know."

Annie turned in the embrace and nestled snugly against Paul's chest. Talk of priests and birthdays vanished as their bodies molded familiarly with each other.

*****

Cold was the first sensation.

It crept up his legs, over his belly and into his chest.

Peter coughed, the reflex tightening his stomach and pulling against the seeping knife wound in his hip. It took him a second to recognize the moan as the sound of his own voice. It took even longer before he dared to open his eyes in the darkened cell.

He was alone, huddled into the corner of the stone prison, his arms wrapped protectively around his naked, shivering body. He could hear rain battering at the small building, but there was no window to tell him whether it was still night or if he'd slept through to morning.

His mouth was dry and he had a momentary twinge of concern about how much blood he'd actually lost from the knife wound. The thought was lost in a wave of dizziness. It was too much effort to try to hold the worry.

A rumble of snoring brought his attention around, and his eyes adjusted further to the inky blackness -- enough to allow him to make out the form sprawled in a chair across the room. For a moment, he entertained the absurd reflection that this must be how it felt to be in prison. Angered, he shook off that concept. He hadn't done anything to deserve prison; certainly, he hadn't done anything to earn the treatment he had suffered through before being unceremoniously dumped into the tiny, barred room. A ripple of tremor darted up his spine at the memory of the hands, intimate and terrible on his body. They'd have to kill him before they touched him like that again.

The guard was obviously deeply asleep, giving weight to Peter's theory that it was still night. He shifted his position on the chilled floor, then gritted his teeth against the pain that jolted up from his hip. More fluid seeped from the wound as the crusted layer of dried blood cracked from the strain of movement. Peter winced, touched his hand gingerly to the long gash. His fingers came away wet and sticky. His thigh was smeared scarlet and a pool of nearly-frozen blood spread out beneath him.

His clothes had been thrown in sometime during the night. They lay in a heap against the back wall of the cell. Heat flooded through Peter's face as memory kicked back in, his mind replaying his recent humiliation for him, and he crawled over to the pile of clothing. The shirt was torn but usable and he pulled it over his shoulders, slipping his arms into the sleeves, instantly grateful for the meager warmth it offered. The stench of vomit threatened to spark another revolt from a stomach that was already empty, and he had to force himself to his feet. Gingerly, he pulled his briefs on and the pressure helped ease some of the ache in his hip. Getting the jeans on was the major obstacle, and he was panting from the exertion by the time he had them tugged up to his hips. Sliding cold, stiff denim over the oozing knife wound left him gasping against the back wall of the cell, but he finally got them up over his hips and fastened. Right now, he'd be real happy to see a pair of baggy sweats, he thought with a wry twist of wishful longing.

Now to blow this joint.

The thought had barely made its appearance in his mind when his knees buckled and he dropped heavily back to the floor. Dizziness swam through his head and the nausea was back. He bent at the waist, the position pulling again at the knife cut, and gave in to the retching that racked his empty stomach.

*****

The rain had drizzled down to a faint mist of icy, fog-clouded moisture, the morning air heavy and chilling. Paul had put it off as long as he could. The second cup of coffee was churning in his belly. He'd even made his way through a full breakfast and half the morning paper. The car was rumbling contentedly in the driveway, the heater fogging the windows with an overabundance of warmth. Paul slid in behind the wheel and cut the defroster. A few more minutes of 'warming up' and he'd have had to resort to an open window just to breathe.

He eased out of the drive a little gingerly. Road conditions the past few days had ranged from 'iffy' to downright treacherous, and another cold front was expected in over the next few days. Spring was trying to come in, but so far it looked like a losing battle. A few brave crocuses and daffodils poked their expectant heads up in the front yard, but now a thin layer of ice bowed them into pathetic little huddles of yellow and green.

Traffic was light because he'd been reluctant to force himself out into the dreary morning drizzle. It wasn't often that he delayed getting motivated in the morning or put off heading for the office. If anything, Blaisdell's office light was on earlier than anyone else's and off much later.

Except Peter. He laughed at the thought. Kid needs to lighten up. Get more outside interests. Do as I say, not as I do.

Traffic opened up ahead of him, cars veering into his lane. Paul cursed lightly, a half-hearted effort at best. Bad weather seemed to bring all the idiots out and plant them firmly behind the wheel. A second car veered left, its headlights swerving through thick, misty air. Somebody over the embankment?

Just as susceptible as anyone else to rubber-necking in spite of his position as a police captain, Paul glanced to the left as he edged the sedan over toward the shoulder to allow the other car enough leeway to get safely past him.

The gleam of glossy black gave him a twinge. A second, closer look brought his foot down hard on the brake. The car skidded beneath him; he compensated for the skid with the wheel, yanked his foot off the brake and eased the car off onto the shoulder.

Paul slid out of the seat and dodged traffic across the two lanes. Rain misted down, frosting his hair and streaking his face with icy moisture. He slipped on the ice-coated grass and went to one knee next to the wrecked car. As he caught his balance and pushed himself back to his feet, he confirmed his earlier fear.

It was definitely Peter's car.

Skidding on the slick soles of his shoes and the frozen grass, he circled the crumpled fender and moved hand-over-hand to the driver's side. There seemed to be no damage other than that the front tire was canted at an odd angle. No blood. There was no blood. He kept reassuring himself of that single fact.

Why the hell hadn't the damned kid called?

*****

Dawn was still an hour away when Caine heard the first noise on the floor below. He sensed the presence, recognized the enmity, long before the footsteps began their slow tread up the flight of stairs.

The priest slipped from his bed and walked openly across the room. He waited at the top of the stairs until the man merged with the faint light shed by a bank of candles.

"You are a messenger," Caine said softly, knowing the truth before he read beyond the surprise in the man's eyes.

The stranger halted, his foot poised between one step and the next. Slowly, carefully, he let the foot drop back down to the lower step.

"I am here to tell you that we have your son."

Caine nodded, as if the information did not come as a surprise. "You have harmed him." It should have been a question; but from the priest it came as a statement of fact, only marginally roughened by an overlay of emotion.

"We are killing him," the man corrected.

Caine spread his hands in a gesture of query. "Why?"

"Because we can."

"That is not... why."

"You shamed Chen. He must exact a price for that."

"It was I who fought him. Not my son. Take me in his place."

"It will not be that easy, priest."

"Then what do you ask for his return?"

"There will be no return," the man countered, shaking his head. "I have come only to tell you that we are killing him, and there is nothing you can do. We are killing him slowly. It will take a very long time."

Caine spread his hands again. "If you offer me no way to save my son, why do you come to me at all? I could simply follow you back to where you are holding him."

The man smiled, the reflection of candle light in his nearly black eyes a feral glint. "I am going in the opposite direction. But, perhaps you can use your talents to feel his pain, priest. It is a fair trade."

"My son has not harmed you."

"But he is your son." The smile vanished and the man's features were blanked into the darkness of the staircase as he stepped backward, dropping down to the step below. When he saw no answering movement by the priest, he turned and melted back into the dark.

*****

The scrape of metal against stone brought Peter's head up with a jerk.

Grey, early morning light fingered in through the dirt-grimed windows, the only sign that it was daylight. His back to the wall, Peter was huddled into the corner when the scarred man stepped into the cell, silhouetted in the filmy haze of diffused light.

Peter lurched to his feet, determined not to meet this man on unequal ground. His knees threatened to buckle and his body protested the sudden movement, stiffness having settled in with the cold. He ran a mental checklist of his chances, trying to think past the weary disorientation in his mind. He was dizzy, exposure and blood loss both conspiring against him. He leaned back against the wall, afraid to test his weight on the weakened hip. Thoughts of kung fu vanished on a wave of resigned exhaustion. If he had any chance here at all, it was down and dirty. Even then, it wasn't much of a chance.

Surprise? If he could move now, before the two men who were edging into the cell behind their leader could get positioned...

His empty belly cramped, and he doubled over into the pain. Simply following through with the movement, he thrust forward into the scarred man's midsection. Peter heard the satisfying 'oof' of expelled air as he drove the man backward, toppling one of the startled goons behind him. The confines of the cell, combined with the leverage of surprise, almost worked to his advantage. Both men tumbled backward into a heap of legs and arms, tangling with each other as they crashed into the barred door.

The third man was already behind Peter, though, and landed a fist low in his back. Pain erupted through him, a haze of red-tinged agony that arched him backward into his assailant's arms. Peter's arms were yanked behind his back and he was held upright, gasping and breathless.

"I have him, Chen." The words were breathed next to his ear, harsh with the exertion of holding him.

The scarred man had regained his feet and stepped forward. At least now there's a name to match to the face, Peter reflected absently. At the moment, he was very sorry this man hadn't died on the floor of the back room of an illegal gambling hall.

Peter steeled himself for the first blow. It didn't come.

Instead, Quo Chen stepped close enough to him that his breath, when he spoke, was warm and fragrant against Peter's face.

"You must stop fighting me," he said, his voice soft and gentle. He touched a hand to Peter's face, waited out the natural flinch, then stroked his fingers down the cheek, running the tips along the sharply angled jaw line. "You will stop fighting me," he reiterated, his tone never losing the gentle drone of soothing cadence. He ran the backs of his fingers down Peter's other cheek, his eyes, nearly black pools of endless depth staring into his captive's face with a mesmerizing intensity. The caress continued, the fingers trailing over the high cheekbone. Peter tried to jerk away from the unwelcome touch, but the third man had moved beside and slightly behind him to grasp his hair, yanking his head back. The hands pinning his arms tightened at the same time. For an absurd moment, Peter wanted to cry. Tears stung at his eyes, humiliation rather than pain. He bit his lip in frustration at his helplessness.

The hand on his face resumed its petting caress, an open-handed stroke of his cheek, the touch feather-light and terrifyingly gentle. Powerless to do anything else, Peter closed his eyes and endured it.

The stinging slap came as a complete shock. Both Peter and the man holding him were slammed back into the wall with the force of the blow. Light sparked behind his eyes, tears seeped down his cheeks, and Peter fought for air as his balance twisted away from him. He barely felt the first blow to his unprotected stomach. He didn't feel the second. By the time he was dropped back to the floor of the cell, he was no longer conscious.

*****

"What the hell?"

"I'm sorry."

Paul Blaisdell bolted up from his seat as his foster son sidled into the office, pulling the door shut behind him. At sixteen, the boy was nearly six-feet tall and lanky to the point of being thin. Dark hair curled in unruly bangs on his forehead nearly, but not quite, concealing the livid bruise that adorned his left temple.

Lieutenant Blaisdell swung around the desk and caught Peter by both arms, drawing him further into the cramped office. He eased the boy into the closest chair, then went to one knee beside him. Brushing the tousled hair back, he poked gingerly at the bruise, asking, "What happened, Peter? You get into a fight? Are you hurt?"

"Paul, I'm sorry."

Blaisdell rocked back on his heels so he could look his son in the eyes. Peter, characteristically, ducked his head, hiding from the scrutiny. "You said that," Paul agreed, reassured now that guilt seemed to be the overriding concern, at least from Peter's vantage point. "You want to be a little more specific?"

"I wrecked the car."

Paul huffed out a blast of held-in air. It could have been a lot worse, he mused. "My car? The sedan?"

Still not looking up, Peter nodded, a nervous jerk of his head that involved his entire body in the gesture. His hands were twisted together in his lap, the knuckles white with tension. Paul, generous in his relief -- hell, it could have been his personal car and not the elderly sedan that served as backup transportation -- placed his own hand over Peter's, feeeling the trembling beneath his touch.

"How bad?" he asked.

Peter glanced up then, and Paul read everything the boy had been thinking in the brief glimpse into the brown eyes before they dropped again. There was relief, lingering fear, suspicion, even a faint trace of security, an assurance they had both worked very hard to attain.

"I took it to Nick's and he said it just needs some body work on the fender."

"Oh, that makes me feel a lot better," Paul said. "You had a high school junior assess the damage, did you?"

Peter did look up then, defensive. Paul had, after all, just insulted one of his friends. If nothing else, Peter was loyal. "You know how good he is with cars, Paul. Nick knows everything about them."

"Well," Paul countered with a lift of one eyebrow, "you don't mind if I get a second opinion?" He pushed himself up and sat back against the edge of the desk. "Did you get that checked out?" He nodded at his foster son's head.

Peter brushed one hand absently across the swelling. "No, it's nothing. I just hit the steering wheel."

"Break it?"

"Paul."

Blaisdell spread his hands. "Okay, okay. I still want it checked out. I'll run you by the clinic. You never did tell me what happened."

"A dog ran out in front of me."

"And you hit the brake... "

Peter nodded.

And Paul finished the thought, "At the same time you hit the accelerator."

The guilt flooded back into the too-expressive face. Peter shook his head. "No, I... I mean, I... I... " He sighed, a heartfelt breath of resignation. "Yes."

"And how many times have I told you not to drive with both feet?"

"About a thousand times," Peter said in the long suffering voice of a novice driver who had recently had father-taught driving lessons imposed on him.

Paul scowled, but the expression had too much tolerant amusement in it to carry any weight. "Don't push it kid," he muttered.

Blaisdell rocked back in his chair, dragged out of half-formed memories by the opening of his office door. "What?"

Chief of detectives, Frank Strenlich, knew the look, knew the tone. He stepped inside his captain's office and pulled the door shut behind him. The problem was, he had nothing to offer.

"No word, Paul," he admitted, sinking down into the chair across from Blaisdell's desk. "Nothing at the hospital." He didn't bother to mention the morgue. It was a given that he'd checked there; there just wasn't any reason to bring it up to the kid's father. Foster father, he mentally corrected himself with just a twinge of resentment. "No police report on the accident. Everyone evidently assumed it had already been called in. We've run a check with all the cab companies and wrecker services. The car's been towed and we've had people go over every inch of it. There's no sign of blood." He glanced up, a guilty half-nod of apology accompanying the words. There would be no sugar-coating any of it with Paul, though, and they both knew it.

"His apartment?" Paul knew the answer, but the question had to be asked anyway.

"No sign that he was there at all last night. His bed's even made. No one saw him come in. No one saw him go out."

"He can't just disappear."

"I know that, Paul. We've got people doing a house-to-house out there right now."

"But you're not coming up with anything."

"We're not coming up with anything." Frank repeated the words with the same, measured weariness he heard in Paul's voice.

"It wasn't that bad a wreck, Frank," Paul insisted for the third or fourth time, his tone suggesting he was still trying to convince himself.

"That's what the wrecker said," Frank confirmed. "There's just no reason the kid couldn't have walked away from it, Paul. He's out there; he's probably running down the jerk who hit him on foot. You know Pete. He's just got the tiniest little bit of stubbornness in him."

The tentative smile was lost on Paul. Blaisdell slumped back in his chair and slammed a fisted hand onto the desk pad. "Damn him!" He breathed the words. They were more a prayer than a curse. "What the hell am I going to tell his mother?"

"What are you going to tell his father?" Frank prodded.

Blaisdell's head jerked up. "You mean no one's been there?"

"That's the first place I sent a man, Paul. You know that. Caine hasn't seen him."

"Does he know what's going on?"

"I don't think so." Frank shook his head and amended the statement. "At least no one's told him anything yet. You know how... well... " He shrugged. "You know."

"Yeah." Paul nodded wearily. If he went to see Caine, at least it would put off having to tell Annie anything for a while. There were some good points to that option. He pushed himself out of the chair and tugged his coat from the rack behind his desk. "I'll be in Chinatown."

*****

The creak of metal protesting against rusted hinges had become a signal. Like Pavlov and his dogs. Only the conditioned response this time was fear.

Peter's stomach knotted, fear twisting helplessly through him as the cell door completed its arc. He had lost track of the number of times the door had been pushed open. One eye was swollen shut, blood crusted against his cheek from a cut opened above his eyebrow. What he could see from the other eye was blurred through pain and shock. His body had stopped shivering; the natural reaction to exposure took more energy than he could summon. In the last couple of hours, the best he could do was to maintain a tentative hold on consciousness.

At the creak of the door, his body tensed, but he couldn't pull himself out of his curled huddle on the floor. Hands reached for him, but they had become faceless, unidentifiable, no more than instruments of pain and fear. He was drawn out of his coiled position and stretched out on his back. Vaguely, he felt the hands on his ankles and shoulders, but he couldn't see past the limited blur that was his vision.

Chen's face edged into the circle of light, fuzzy and indistinct, then clearing as his one available eye centered on it. The smooth, dark planes of his face had become almost comforting in its familiarity. It was the only face Peter could find a focus on in the midst of all the pain and unfocused terror. And the loneliness... More than anything, he was alone.

Thoughts of Paul, wistful longing for his father... they had faded after the first few, carefully timed beatings. He was alone and he would remain alone, except for Chen. The scarred man had become the only constant in his life, the only thing, no matter how horrible, that he could count on.

Chen leaned close as if he realized that Peter was seeing him through a clouded image.

"Wha' do you want?" Peter mumbled through swollen and split lips, the words clumsy and broken.

"I want to touch you, Peter," Chen responded with the same feral smile. He blunted the words with the now-expected gentleness of his hand as he brushed the sweat-salty hair from Peter's forehead, then ran his fingers over the fever-warmed skin. This time the hand continued past his face, dipping into the hollow of Peter's throat, skimming over his collarbone. Peter twitched and felt the hands on his legs and arms tighten in response to the tiny movement of protest.

Chen's smile reappeared at the reaction, but his eyes remained fixed and blank. He watched Peter's face carefully, as if he were memorizing the effects of his touch. The torn shirt was easily brushed aside by the long, thin fingers, and Chen grazed them over the gently sloped planes of Peter's chest, enjoying the play of muscle beneath his sensitive hand.

Bruises mottled the pale skin and he felt the bulge of swollen, angry skin that marked a rib that was probably broken. His touch altered and he probed at the rib. Peter gasped and arched against the pain. He writhed against the restraint that kept him subjected to the increasing pressure of the strong fingers, and finally Chen let his hand move away from the injury. Peter's desperate gasps for breath increased as the hand moved lower across his stomach. The one responsive eye widened as Chen's fingers touched the waistband of the jeans, moved further over the denim, the pressure increasing, suggestive. Peter squirmed beneath him and sobbed in a gulp of air.

"Another fear we must explore, Peter?" Chen suggested in the same quiet, conversational tone. "But not now. Now, we will talk about fathers and temples and the laws of retribution." He rocked back on his heels and brought out the knife he had used earlier. A rust-brown stain of dried blood still marked its blade.

Chen studied the knife, holding it up to in front of his face, watching the glint of subdued light as it bounced along the razor-sharp edge.

"There are payments due me, Peter," he said. "Your father has a debt that I must collect."

He rested the point of the knife against Peter's throat, almost, but not quite, nicking the skin.

"You would not want inequity between us, would you, Peter?" He drew the knife down the throat, barely skimming across the skin, over the ridge of collarbone and to the finely muscled shoulder.

"In a way, your father gambled with me a second time. He allowed me to live. This was a mistake. There is always a price to be paid for mistakes, Peter."

Without warning, Chen shifted his grip on the knife and raked it through the tensed muscle of Peter's shoulder. It sketched a line of crimson from the curve of the shoulder to the breastbone, penetrating deep into the muscle, the streak of red widening, spreading slowly over the heaving chest.

Chen rested his free hand on Peter's stomach, watching the expanding river of scarlet grow with each panted gasp. The next cut was more shallow, across the rib cage. It was followed by another.

***** 

Candlelight glinted off the windows of the quom, draping the empty interior in a warm, yellow glow, a vibrant contrast to the miserable weather outside. Paul Blaisdell stepped into the exercise room, hesitant, feeling out of place and like he was intruding. He wasn't comfortable around Peter's father, might never be.

But he couldn't quite shake the feeling that if anyone could help him locate the young detective, it was the enigmatic priest.

He shook his head and smiled self-consciously. When did you start believing in shadows and metaphysical insights, old son?

The odor touched his senses lightly and he sniffed at the air. A faint overlay of spices and a vaguely familiar aroma that he couldn't quite identify drifted down the stairs. He stepped toward them, catching the flicker of light against the wall, a glow of yellow playing against the surface and dancing off the tread of the stairs. Candle light.

"Caine?"

His voice sounded harsh in the stillness.

There was no answer.

Paul started up the stairs. As he rounded the top half-flight, he stepped into the past, a history he had only occasionally imagined.

The Shaolin sat lotus-style in the center of the meagerly furnished room, his hands resting on his knees palms up. He was bathed in the saffron glow of countless candles, his eyes closed, his countenance serene, a mask of non-expression. There was no whisper of sound in the room, only the immobile, waxen figure in the middle of the floor.

Paul stood awkwardly at the head of the stairs.

If the priest was conscious of his presence, he made no show of that awareness. Awed, uncomfortable, but totally at a loss as to what to do, Paul sank to a seat on the top stair and leaned back against the wooden banister.

For a very long time, Paul simply sat there and watched the unmoving features of the priest. The shimmer of candle light lulled him and the not-quite-identified scent seemed to fill his pores, rocking him into a half-sleep. His head had dropped to his chest before he finally heard the first sound.

Startled out of a near-doze, Paul jerked his head up. Caine hadn't moved, nor had his face altered, but there had been a sound. Paul was sure of that even as the echo of the tiny noise flitted out of his mind.

He waited. Caine didn't move. The yellow glow from the candles tinted his skin an unhealthy, sallow hue. There should have been at least a flicker of movement beneath the eyelids. There was nothing.

Suddenly, the priest choked, a gasped breath that shuddered through his body. Sweat broke out without warning on his pasty skin, spreading a thin sheen of moisture over his face. Hazel eyes burst open, at first sightless, then clearing to a crystalline glint of reflected light. Caine slowly, ponderously turned his head and leveled his unblinking gaze on his uninvited guest.

Paul got clumsily to his feet, gripping the wooden rail for support. He had been sitting there long enough for his legs to stiffen and his back to settle into a dull ache.

"We must go to our son," Caine said.

"Where is... how do you... ?" Paul made a vague, sweeping gesture with one hand. "Do you know where he is?"

"I can find him," the priest hedged.

"I'll go to the car. Call for backup." Paul's foot was on the first stair when Caine's voice halted.

"There is no time. We must go for him ourselves."

Paul turned and faced the other man. "Who has him?"

"An enemy who wishes revenge."

"Against Peter?"

"Against me."

"Are we in time?"

Caine flowed to his feet, reaching for his ever-present bag of herbs as he rose. "He is alive," he said, again not quite answering the question.

For once, Paul wasn't willing to settle for evasion. "Will we be in time?"

The answer he got wasn't much better.

"I do not know."

*****

Smoke coiled and rose in a smothering fog, choking out the light of the candles. Peter doubled over, retching up black vomit, dropping to his knees in the effort to breathe.

He wanted to call for his father, but the air was leaden in his lungs. Explosions deafened him, a cacophony of terror that numbed him and left him twisted and lost in the once-familiar corridors of the Temple.

Hands pulled at him, hauling him to his feet. He fought them, then fell into saffron colored arms. The priest -- Khan? -- enveloped him into an embrace of strength, dragging him into the thicket of smoke and flame. Peter struggled backward but he had no strength and the much taller, stronger man countered his resistance without effort.

Forms shifted through the smoke, phantoms beyond the reach of his senses, then, suddenly, the priest wheeled away from him. Peter glimpsed blackness through the grey, a hooded figure. The priest whirled into an attack on the black-clad assassin and Peter stumbled away from them both.

He had to find his father. His mind wouldn't feed him the information he tried to force from it. Where had Caine been before the entire world exploded into flame and noise?

Meditating? It was the time for reflection, wasn't it?

The thought swirled away in a wave of heat and choking air.

Another form blurred before him, stumbled, went down.

"Daniel!" The word was croaked from a throat rasped raw with blistered air. Peter went to one knee before the smaller boy, his hands claw-like and deadened as he tried to draw Daniel to his feet. Heated air seared his lungs as he gasped in a deep breath to draw the strength necessary to lift the other child. Daniel settled across his shoulders, a dead weight that staggered Peter, nearly dropping them both to the ground.

He was nearly upright with his unresponsive burden when light exploded around them. Peter's legs buckled and he never felt the first debris raining down on them.

Darkness replaced fear, an ocean of drifting, sleepless, dreamscaped time floating over him...

Then the pain started.

First, a tug on his hands, then a lancet of pain in his arms, radiating up through his shoulders. It crested over him, banishing the fogged dreams and pulling him back to consciousness. The pull on his hands continued, relentless, and he tried to jerk away. A spark of light blossomed above him, a camera-shutter of vision that showed him the face of the man hurting him. Ping Hai pulled again, lifting Peter to his feet, then higher, his ancient face creased in worry and fear.

Peter had never seen the tiny, wizened priest afraid. The boy shivered into his own terror, then lost the thought in a fiery bolt of pain that ripped across his shoulders.

Rope bit into his wrists, and Peter tried to pry his eyes open. The left one was blood-crusted and swollen, but he was able to see a little through the slit of his right eye. Blurred faces swam slowly into focus. The image of the elderly priest vanished from half-merged memory and dream, then Peter recognized Chen's features. He tried to speak, but a weight had settled into his chest and he couldn't drag in enough air to get words past his cracked and swollen lips.

The ropes at his hands jerked again and Peter gasped as his feet left the floor. His lungs burned with their demand for air that wouldn't come. His shoulders were slowly torn into ribbons of agony, and he realized through a muddle of confusion that he was suspended just above the floor. His head dropped forward as he tried to heave in air.

A hand fisted into his hair and yanked his head back. He moaned, a tortured gasp that rumbled through his chest and past his dry throat.

"Your father knows, Peter."

The words swam through his head, muffled by his own pain and the dizziness that clouded his mind.

Chen moved closer, his breath warm and fetid on Peter's cut and bleeding cheek. "Did you hear me, Peter? Your father knows. He knows that we are killing you, slowly and without honor. There is nothing he can do to stop it, even if he had the courage to try."

If this was a movie, Chuck Norris would spit in his face now, Peter thought. But the pain that racked through his body was too real to be relegated to any flight of fantasy. It was consuming him, taking all his effort just to withstand it. Nothing else existed beyond the red veil of agony, the ceaseless struggle for breath. A memory tickled at the back of his mind, something about hanging and suffocation, but it flickered and died, too elusive to hold.

Cold steel grazed his throat. He knew without forcing open his one functional eye that it was the knife Chen had been using to torment him. He had a moment's weary sadness at the thought that it was going to happen now. Peter Caine wasn't through with his life, yet. There was too much to do, too many people he loved, to want to leave it now, in spite of the pain that burned through his body. It was difficult to hang onto the regret, though, and it slipped away. He braced for the cut.

The knife moved away, tracing a feathery path down his chest and onto his stomach. His shirt was gone; he didn't remember when that had happened, and he'd stopped feeling the cold hours ago. A twinge of reaction shuddered through him as the knife ticked past the waistband of his jeans and across his groin. Still, it didn't penetrate. By the time the blade had traced its path to the thigh, Peter had drifted back into immersion in his own pain.

The cut, when it came, was a shock. Chen sank the knife deep into Peter's thigh, jerking it downward to widen the gash.

Enough. The single word sighed inside Peter's head and he let the darkness take him under its protective blanket.

*****

The wind and rain that had tormented the area for the last two days had graduated to near-hurricane force. Highway had given way to poorly maintained paved roads and then to paths that were nothing more than dirt tracks made by all-terrain vehicles. Blaisdell couldn't quite silence the whispers in his mind that told him he was driving through a torrential downpour in the middle of nowhere on the advice of a priest who had had a 'vision'. If the stakes had been anything other than Peter's life, Paul would be sitting in the security and warmth of his office right now. Not driving through a starless, rain-blackened night in dense woods.

He spared a quick glance in the rear view mirror and his eyes met the half-lidded gaze of the ancient priest who was their sole 'backup'. Peter's belief that the Ancient could walk on water just as well as his father could did nothing to reassure Paul in the face of unknown odds.

The sense of urgency that emanated through Caine's outward manner goaded Paul to force the car faster than was safe for the conditions.

Leaf-bare tree branches, weighted by wind and rain, ticked at the car in passing. The headlights barely picked up the line of muddy ruts enough to give them some direction as they plowed their way deeper into the thick woods.

Eventually, Paul knew, they'd have to leave the car and approach on foot -- assuming they weren't on the proverbial wild goose chase and there was something to approach. He snuck a glance at the man in the passenger seat.

Caine sat with his head bowed, not watching the nearly non-existent road. He looked like he was praying.

*****

"How long you going to let him hang there?"

Chen glanced across the room. Lindley sat rocked back in the hard-backed, wooden chair, balancing precariously on two legs. His hands were clasped together across his stomach.

"How long has it been?" Chen asked.

Shrugging, Lindley looked at his watch. "Almost four hours." He waited, but got no answer. This game was wearing thin. Hal Lindley didn't mind torturing cops, but there was only so much entertainment to be gotten from it, and the smell of blood was turning his stomach. "So, how long you gonna leave him like that?"

Chen met his eyes. "Longer," he said, then turned back in his chair to resume his pointless stare out into the rain-drenched night.

***** 

"We must stop here."

Paul Blaisdell started at the quiet words. He had been so focused on the treacherous road that he had nearly forgotten his silent companions. He glanced over at Caine who sat beside him, then to the back seat at the tiny Shaolin priest who had accompanied them.

"Are we close?" Paul asked Caine with a tiny thrill of combined excitement and fear.

The answer wasn't very satisfying.

"We must walk from here."

Paul edged the car over to the side of the mud-track road. The tires slipped in the rivulets of water streaming down the steep path, then caught as he cut the headlights and engine. "Look, Caine, don't you think it's about time you leveled with me? Where exactly are we going?"

Even in the dark, Paul sensed the shrug. "I do not know... exactly."

With a sigh that released some of the tension out of his shoulders, Paul slumped against the door. "I know Peter is convinced you're tuned into some higher plane, and I really don't care about that. What I'm concerned about now is your... our son. If we're on the wrong track and he's -- "

"He is here."

Paul stared out the rain-streaked windshield. "Here? Where here?"

"I do not... know."

Grunting in frustration, Paul demanded, "Then do you at least have a direction?"

Caine nodded, pulled his hat lower over his forehead, and without saying anything started into the woods.

*****

A scrape of sound woke Lindley from a fitful sleep. He dropped forward in the chair, the front legs thumping onto the floor.

"What is it?" he asked Chen who stood at the door of the tiny cell, staring at their unconscious prisoner.

The scarred man turned and leveled his dark gaze on Lindley. "I was thinking it is time to wake Peter. If we leave him like this too long, he could die, and I am not ready to allow that."

"You're a sick son of a bitch, you know that?"

Chen laughed, a mirthless snort that carried no humor. "I didn't see you refusing any of the money we made in the game, Hal. You have always been rather eager to assist me in the 'consequences' meted out to the losers."

Lindley shook his head. "It's just never taken this long to terminate a player, that's all."

"This one is special."

"I'll bet his old man is sorry he let you live."

"He will know sorrow when he is presented with the body of his son."

Lindley pointed toward the cell door. "Want me to get some help, in case he's still got some fight left in him?"

Chen ran his hand down the length of one of the metal bars as he visually assessed the damage to their prisoner, tried to form an estimate on how long he'd live. Peter's head was dropped forward on his chest, his eyes bruised, blood matted, and closed. Dried blood streaked down from his shoulder, across his chest and stomach. More blood, fresher, soaked through the blue jeans from the deep wound in the right thigh. His chest heaved in an effort to drag air into lungs starved for it. If he hung much longer, there would be brain damage, and Chen wanted him aware of what was happening. Or his revenge wouldn't be quite so sweet. And he did intend to enjoy this particular killing.

"Get Greene," he finally said. "I don't think it will take more than two of you to hold him this time."

Before Lindley could get to his feet, the door swung open and Rafe Simmons darted inside, yanking the door shut behind him.

"We found a car," he said without preamble. "About three miles down the trail."

"Empty?" Chen demanded.

"Nobody in it, but the engine was still warm. They haven't been gone long."

"Somebody got lost," Lindley said with a shrug. "Ran out of gas. Could be any number of things."

"Right," Simmons countered, "little family trip into the backwoods during the worst storm of the decade."

"Who is with the car?" Chen asked.

"I left two men. Their orders are that nobody leaves alive."

"Good." Chen glanced back at the cell. "You and Lindley stay here while I check it out. When I get back, he'd better be in that cell."

*****

Three shadows blended with the night, two with a natural grace born in them and perfected by years of learning, one with a skill acquired by necessity in a life too often dangerous. Teeming rain obscured their vision, but they could make out the small, lighted building. Light peered through one of the windows, repeating in graduating layers on the other side of the building. A jeep was parked at a slant in front of the building.

"He is there," Caine said softly and Blaisdell nearly missed the words.

"Then let's go get him."

"We must approach with caution. These men will have guns. They will not hesitate to kill Peter."

"You got any ideas," Blaisdell demanded.

"Diversion," suggested the Ancient.

"Perhaps you would assist with that, Lo See?" Caine offered with a slight bow.

The tiny priest slithered into the night, lost almost immediately to sight as his black-clad body merged with the darkness.

"Be prepared," Caine said, then slipped forward out of the cover of the trees.

Paul, unsure what they were doing, followed. Reaching the building, he followed Caine's lead and melted against the wall. When the priest made no other move, Paul wondered what they were waiting for.

The click of the jeep's headlights a split second before the high beams broke the rain-lanced dark told him exactly what they were waiting for.

The door to the small building was jerked open and a burly man stepped out, gun in hand.

"He is yours," Caine said simply and slipped past Paul without further explanation.

Blaisdell, caught off guard but recovering instantly, was behind the man before he reached the jeep. Blindly trusting Caine to take care of whoever was inside, Paul drove a fist into the man's back, then slammed his wedged hand down onto his neck. The man fell without a sound, his gun skittering away into the mud.

"Excellent."

The word spun Paul around, but it was only the Ancient, who passed him with a bow. Paul turned and followed the Shaolin into the stone building. A single lamp on the desk pooled a circle of light around the sprawled body of a man. His gun had made it into his hand, but no further. The fingers were still clasped around the butt of the pistol. Paul started forward to retrieve the gun when he caught sight of Caine at the cell door. The priest was rubbing his hands together and then over the lock, but Paul instantly lost interest in that when he saw Peter.

The terror was a tangible thing, tendrilling out and gripping his heart in an icy fist. "How long?" he whispered as he turned to follow Caine into the suddenly open cell. "How long?" He'd seen men die from hanging like that. He couldn't force the memory past the fear in his throat. There was only a certain length of time before brain damage, and then death, occurred. How long had they had Peter strung up like that?

It took longer for the blood to register on his protesting mind. But when he helped Caine lower the body, the ropes giving way just as quickly and mysteriously as the door to the cell had, he felt the dried crust of old blood, the slippery film of newer bleeding. The ropes free, Peter fell into his father's arms. Caine went with him to the floor.

"There is no time." The Ancient moved past Blaisdell and grabbed a full length overcoat off the back of a chair.

Caine looked up at the Ancient and nodded. He took the coat and wrapped it around Peter. "Help me," he said to Blaisdell as he lifted his son's dead weight and started to rise with him draped over his shoulders.

Paul helped position Peter across his father's back in the traditional fireman's carry. The young cop was heavier than he looked and Paul had a hard time lifting him even that far.

"You can't carry him like that. It's too far," Blaisdell protested. "Let me help."

"We will need protection. There are many men here," Caine countered. "You will be that protection. You and Lo See." The priest didn't wait for agreement; he ducked his head as he stepped back through the door and into the rain, hunched over with the weight of his son's unconscious body.

Paul had no choice but to follow. He wasted no more than a single, wistful glance at the jeep, knowing that any attempt to use it would only mark them as instant targets.

Sure would be easier, he thought regretfully, watching Caine merge with the darkness, bent nearly double with his burden. By tacit agreement, Lo See led the way into the dense, protective cover of the wind-lashed trees. Paul trailed Caine, his .38 held tight in his fist, his eyes probing through the blackness for anything that might threaten them. He had no illusions about their chances if they stumbled upon any members of the encampment. The pistol he held was their only weapon, and, in spite of the Ancient's skill, Lo See was old and frail. Even Caine was virtually helpless while he was carrying Peter. Paul had seen whole missions fall tragically apart with better odds than they shared this night. He let his mind fill with the sights and sounds around him, sifting mentally through each sensation, testing for any sign of danger from practiced ease. Anything was better than letting his thoughts stray back to his first sight of his foster son, hanging bloody and unconscious in the filthy cell.

Even now, as the doubt filtered in through his thoughts, he wasn't sure if they had been in time... if they got as far as the car...

Lightning streaked through the sky, and Paul fell back, his instinctive recoil mirrored in the actions of the two men ahead of him. The instant of illumination displayed the road before them like a movie strobed onto a screen: the sedan angled slightly off the side of the road, two men, armed with rifles standing unprotected beside the vehicle in the downpour. A Land Rover squatted in the middle of the rutted road, partially blocking the car from view.

Without a word, Caine shifted sideways into deeper shadow. Paul followed, his back to the priest, planting himself between Caine and Peter and the armed guard who remained unaware and slouched against the bumper of the four-wheel drive vehicle. He nearly tripped over the priest when Caine sank to his knees beneath a sheltering bower of fir trees and lowered Peter to the sodden earth. Lo See slipped past Paul and melted to the ground beside the unconscious form of Caine's son.

Caine nodded to Paul and, wordlessly, they turned and vanished into the cloying dark.

Damp cold already leeching into his bones, Lo See didn't bother watching the other two men leave. He curled into a seat on the wet ground, partially sheltered by the canopy of branches as he pulled Peter's limp body up into his lap, cradling him in the curve of his own body. Lo See's cold-induced shivering was a disturbing counterpoint to the lack of response in Peter. There was no shivering, only the faint gasp for breath that trembled through him. Exhaustion had long since surpassed the body's instinctive search for its own warmth, and Peter lay unmoving within the protective embrace, his face ghostly in the darkness.

The Ancient rocked gently, crooning nonsense in an extinct Chinese dialect he hadn't practiced in years. His eyes had closed as he lost himself to the droning rhythm of his own voice, and he was startled when Peter twitched.

"Peter, be still. You are safe," he whispered, tightening his arms to prevent any sudden movement that might cause pain or further damage. Through the gloom, he saw dark eyes try to open, then squeeze shut against awakened pain. Almost instantly, fear overrode the pain, and Peter struggled weakly, forcing his eyes open again. There was no recognition in the blank stare he leveled on Lo See's face. The terror couldn't hold against debilitating exhaustion, though, and he went limp; his eyes flickered, then shut.

The elderly priest held out one cupped hand, let it fill with chilled rain, then brought it to Peter's cracked and split lips. The young cop choked and tried to turn his head away, but the Ancient's free hand trapped him. Water trickled into Peter's mouth, then down his throat, and he gagged as he tried to swallow too fast. A second makeshift cup of water followed, then Lo See drew Peter back up against his chest, making his own body a haven of warmth and shelter. One of Peter's hands groped for him, then fisted into the sodden material of the Ancient's coat. Lo See smiled bleakly at the blind trust he sensed in the desperation of the grip.

He resumed the rocking and tuneless crooning, a timeless, meaningless lullaby to a frightened child.

Paul's first thought was that two, well-placed bullets would end the problem.

He discarded the idea even before he considered that the priest might be inclined to object. If Peter's life were balanced against those of the two men standing between them and escape, even Caine would deem it a fair trade. The fact remained that gun shots weren't mistaken for thunder, not by people who traded in death. The first report of his pistol would bring the entire encampment down on them, and they were the strangers to these woods; they were the ones at a disadvantage in a headlong chase through unfamiliar terrain on treacherous roads.

He touched Caine's arm, an unnecessary restraint, for the priest has already stopped to look at him. Paul tipped his head down in an effort to keep the freezing rain from streaming into his eyes, peering up at Caine from beneath the ridge of his eyebrows.

"I make good bait," he suggested.

Not questioning the vague statement, Caine merely nodded, then slipped backward into the camouflage of trees and storm. A bit startled at the suddenness of the 'non-plan' of action, Paul hesitated a moment, then shrugged it off. He hiked his parka hood up over his head and stepped out into the middle of the rutted road. He walked hunched over, tucked into the protection of his coat, his identity completely shielded from the men fifty yards away from him.

Straining to see through darkness and hampered by his bent posture, he watched the two men as they startled into awareness of his approach. He saw them glance uncertainly at each other, probably wondering if he were a threat or one of their own, unrecognizable in the folds of the heavy coat and hood. At least, that was what Paul was hoping they were wondering, because if they weren't, his wife and children might soon be getting firsthand verification of the effectiveness of their insurance policies.

So far, so good. The two men squinted into the dark, trying to make out his face, their rifles dropping down into half-threatening positions. One of the men stepped forward, closing the distance as Paul approached without faltering from the other direction.

A little bit closer...

Paul could nearly make out the other man's face now. Chinese, but with that slight blunting of the features that told of generations spent here, a blending of cultures and bloodlines. The other man remained, tense and braced, close to the vehicle, his weapon now held in a tightly defensive grip. Paul didn't alter his stride.

With a luxury of trust that he had seldom experienced in a lifetime of having to rely on sometimes faulty backup, Paul never doubted that Caine would be where he was supposed to be. Blaisdell never even considered the second man, centering his attention on the man now only a few steps away from him.

When Caine fragmented himself from the darkness that encased them and dropped the second gunman from behind with a single blow, Blaisdell never saw the movement beyond his sphere of vision. The man walking toward him heard the grunt from his partner, spun around, realized his error and whipped back to face his own personal waterloo.

With a kick that would have impressed the hell out of his foster son, Paul sent the rifle sailing into the trees. Following through with a solid right punch, he sent the man flailing after the weapon. Now, that felt damned good. A tiny chunk of tension eased out of his neck. He didn't bother retrieving the rifle. They were heading into a retreat, not going back to rout the camp.

"We will get Peter to safety now."

The priest's voice came startlingly close and Paul turned. Caine was beside him, unruffled, but bringing to mind the absurd image of a drenched kitten. Beyond him, the second man lay sprawled in the sawgrass rimming the road, his head lost in the heavy brush, his booted feet pointed upward into the rain.

Lights suddenly veered out of the dark.

Paul darted sideways, one hand clutching at Caine's coated arm, trying to drag him into the trees with him. The priest shrugged the effort away and turned squarely in the middle of the road.

The headlights caught him in their twin glare, outlined in their golden glow as the jeep growled to a stop, rocking on its tires. The engine died and the lights blinked off, deepening the already oppressive darkness. The engine began to cool with a rhythmic ticking.

Baffled, Paul jerked his .38 into his hand and stepped back up onto the edge of the road, his attention split between the motionless priest and the darkened vehicle.

The door to the jeep clicked open, the hinges creaking as it swung outward. Briefly, the interior light showed one man inside, then winked out as the door was slammed shut.

Even without ever having seen the man and with only that second of vision, Paul would have known him. Peter had described to him the murderer his father had defeated when he destroyed the Pai Gow operation that had taken root in Chinatown a few months ago. Caterpillared scars were etched into the dark, finely carved face. Expressionless eyes peered dark holes from the oddly-attractive visage.

Like a demon carved on a totem, Peter had said, an image to be both admired and feared.

Paul had thought the description a bit whimsical at the time. Now as he saw Peter's memory given form, it was every bit as terrifying as the young man's words had suggested.

Chen stood beside the jeep, a black raincoat his only protection from the wind-driven sleet, ebony hair plastered to his scalp. He gave no indication that he noticed Blaisdell standing behind the priest.

"A man's honor should never be taken twice, Priest." Chen's voice was a deep rumble of anger, a bass echo of the thunder that split the night. "You seek to take that which is not yours."

"No one can take what a man does not possess in the first place," Caine countered.

A shadow of color tinted the other man's face, visible even in the poor light granted intermittently by streaked lightning. "Your son is a coward. He begged for mercy that I did not give."

Caine shook his head. "I know my son. Your words are meaningless to me."

Chen canted his head in question. "You don't care that I made him crawl before me?"

"If you did this to him, then it is your shame, not Peter's. He has no blame for your actions."

"Face me, Priest."

"I will."

A shimmer of emotion finally touched the unnaturally passive face, a rage that Chen could no longer keep removed from his features. His voice was a guttural, wordless snarl as he leapt forward, finesse abandoned in the passion of his attack. Caine stepped aside, a lithe shift of position that sent the man sprawling past him. The priest's hand snaked out and caught Chen's arm as he began the arc of his fall. A viper-quick snap of Caine's wrist broke the arm with a grotesque crackle of bone. Chen shrieked, then spun into a twisted turn, his right leg coiled in preparation for a kick. A kick that never landed.

Caine speared his wedged hand into the man's exposed throat. Cartilage popped and tore. Chen's eyes bulged into a parody of surprise, his mouth gaped open, and a wordless keening escaped from his destroyed throat.

He dropped without another sound into a heap at Caine's feet.

Paul stepped up onto the road and, after only a second's hesitation, he squatted and touched a hand to Chen's chest. There was no answering beat of life beneath the pulse of his fingers.

Blaisdell rose stiffly, cold and tension tiring him, and he stared into Caine's eyes. "Peter has this guilt complex," he said quietly, "about having killed people in his line of work. He told me that it bothers him because he thinks it makes him less in your eyes." He glanced down at the body at their feet. "Yet you didn't hesitate to kill this man."

"No, I did not," Caine answered with no show of reluctance.

For once, Paul wouldn't let an enigmatic answer stand. "If it was me, I could understand. After seeing what the son of a bitch did to Peter, I'd have ripped his heart out of his chest with my bare hand without a qualm. But, you... you're supposed to... " He lost the analogy on a wave of weariness.

Caine reached over and placed a hand lightly on Paul's shoulder, a bridge between them that spanned across the confusion. "There is a time," he offered, "when a man has abandoned the Tao and his life is forfeit. Nothing would be served by allowing him to live. Only more pain, more danger to those who are innocent."

"Then you do believe in retribution?"

A smile finally touched Caine's face. "No," he corrected gently, with the same tone Paul had often heard him use on their son -- his 'teacher's' voice -- "I believe in keeping those I love safe from the danger others may bring to them."

*****

The storm had finally begun to die.

Rain still ticked at the windows of the cluttered office, but it was no longer driven by a merciless wind. The first scarlet rays of daylight were knifing through the slate-grey clouds, beginning to dispel the shadows that lingered over the three men seated there.

No one spoke. Weariness had silenced them on the long ride to the hospital after Paul put in his call for a police sweep of the area. A phone call, forwarded to the hospital from Frank Strenlich two hours after their arrival told him that the net had been closed and an assortment of people, drugs and weapons was being sifted through on the scene. At the moment, Paul didn't particularly care.

His attention was focused on the closed office door. His eyes blearily read the backward lettering on the frosted glass, mentally rearranging them to form Andy Wright's name in his mind. He'd lost track of time, had no idea how long he'd been slumped into Andy's chair behind his desk, waiting for the physician to come back and give them a verdict on Peter's condition. He knew that Kelly would be bringing Annie here any time now, and the only thing he wanted was to be able to tell Peter's foster mother something, anything other than, "We don't know."

His right hand fussed with the desk pad, then moved over to the photograph sitting askew on that corner of the desk. Six pairs of Wright eyes stared cheerfully back at him through the barrier of non-glare glass that isolated them from him. Four children, all dark haired and grinning happily. Mary, 45, plump, motherly, eternally smiling at the world. And Andy, himself, looking more like a football linebacker than a doctor, thick black hair a lush mass of waves on his head, broad shoulders forming a symbolic and physical shield around his family.

Paul had known Andy for more than ten years. They played poker together, drank beer together, watched the Rose Bowl and won and lost bets they never collected. And now, Paul was depending on Andy to keep him from losing his son. All the confidence in the world in Andy's skills couldn't relieve the lump of dread that rode like a weight in the center of Paul's chest.

The emergency room staff had hoisted Peter onto a gurney and burst through the trauma room doors with him. Paul's last sight of his son had been eclipsed by the waxen stillness of Peter's face, his color a match for the white-sheeted stretcher. Before the doors wheezed closed and cut off both sound and sight, Peter tried to jerk away from the hands that steadied him on the gurney.

His terrified "No!" was a shriek of protest that faded into a gurgle as he struggled against the gentle, cautious restraint being imposed on him. Then the door closed fully, and the single word echoed in the air of the outer room.

Andy had stepped outside only long enough to snap orders to a nurse who was already hurrying toward him and give barked instructions to the intake clerk that Paul and the two men with him were to be taken to his office to wait.

They had been waiting ever since.

Putting it off as long as he could, less than an hour ago, Paul had finally made the call to his wife, giving her a mercifully brief description of what had happened. He'd heard his younger daughter's voice in the background, tight with worry.

Paul ran his finger over the gilt edge of the picture frame. Peter had already been a member of the family by the time Andy and Paul had become friends. To Andy, he was 'one of the kids'. And your kids never really grew up. For Paul there was a measure of reassurance in that thought. Andy would be taking care of Paul's child -- not an injured cop, not a patient -- but his friend's child. There was a magical quality to that, as if it could infer some bit of immunity. Paul hoped it would be enough.

A shadow moved just out of range of his vision. He turned and glanced at Caine. The priest rose from his seat on the couch, his eyes on the door. Paul rose with him.

A moment later, a blurred form took shape through the milky glass, then the door opened.

"Andy, what... ?" Paul couldn't force the words past the instinctive question.

Wright nodded at them both, then at the smaller figure of the Ancient who had remained on the couch, his hands muffled into the oversized sleeves of his now-dry tunic. None of them had bothered to change clothes. What hadn't been protected by coats or hoods, had just been allowed to drip dry in the artificial warmth of the hospital.

"Sit down," Andy instructed, sinking into a chair across from Paul. "Talk to me, Paul. What the hell happened to that kid?"

Blaisdell sighed, tension making it a puff of expelled air. "He just got into the wrong hands, Andy. You can pretty much see what happened to him."

Dark, heavy brows frowned into a 'V' in the center of Andy's thick-featured face. "Yeah, Paul, I can see what happened to him. He's been tortured. That's not something that occurs every day around here in spite of the decay of modern civilization." He shook his head and raised one hand in a combination silencing and apologetic gesture. "I'm sorry," he grumbled. "It's a little hard to take. Pete's a good kid. I like him. I'm just having a little trouble dealing with this."

Wright glanced over at Caine. He'd met the priest a couple of times at the Blaisdell house, casual meetings with a rather unique guest. A twinge of conscience told him he should be dealing with the priest, not the police captain. After all, he was Peter's natural father. But Peter had been Paul's kid for the last twelve years and it was a habit that Andy couldn't quite shunt aside. He turned back to Paul.

"They're finishing up with him in x-ray right now," he said, rocking back in the chair. "I don't think there's anything broken. A suspicious swelling over one rib that might be a cracked bone, but I think that's it."

"He will be all right?"

Surprised, Andy looked at the priest. He was accustomed to silence from the man on the few occasions he'd seen him; he wasn't even sure he'd ever actually heard Caine's voice before. There was no difficulty recognizing the unspoken plea for reassurance in the tone, though. It was the concern of a father for a son, and it softened Andy's manner. He turned slightly to include Caine in his line of sight.

"He needs time, but, yes, he'll be all right. There are some questions I have though... " His eyes shifted back to Paul. "Is there any chance that... " Andy looked away, surprised at his own hesitancy. The protection of the medical persona simply wasn't there when he was dealing with a friend; he'd known that, seen it happen before.

"I hope you realize that you're scaring the hell out of me," Paul said, leaning forward in the chair, his hands clenched together on the desk pad.

"No, I'm sorry," Andy said, "It's just a little hard to ask. He's in pretty bad shape, Paul, but you saw that for yourself. Dehydration, exposure, blood loss. We've got him on a heart monitor, and we're going to put him in ICU, but that's standard procedure in a case like this. His blood work looks fine, neurological tests proved okay. We can still stitch up the knife wounds without too much damage left behind because of the delay. Strain and pulled muscles in his shoulders and rope burns on his wrists. The bruises will heal; the rib will heal."

He looked again at the priest. Caine's eyes held him briefly trapped in their hazel gaze. He had the feeling the priest knew what he was trying to say before he could get the words out. Shaking off the feeling, he looked squarely at Paul. "Do you have any reason to believe he was sexually assaulted?"

Paul rocked upright in the chair. "What?"

"Don't overreact," Andy cautioned, both hands raised to ward off a protest. "We're getting some pretty extreme reactions from him. Getting his clothes off was a real experience and doing the exam was... well... a bit of a challenge." He sighed and ran a hand through his thick hair. "Look, Paul, Pete's a 'toucher'. He always has been. Now, even semi-conscious, he won't let anyone touch him at all and that's not a good sign."

"Wh-why the hell are you asking me?" Paul stuttered. "You're the doctor. You examined him. You tell me!"

"He has not been raped. Not in the physical sense."

Both Paul and Andy looked at Caine. The priest stared at his own hands, the fingers linked within each other's embrace, then up at the two men. "I would have... " He shrugged one shoulder. "I would have sensed it in him. When Peter's spirit is wounded, he tells it in his face. I would have seen it."

Andy stared, started to speak, then looked back at Paul. He saw none of his own consternation reflected in Blaisdell's face. Shaking his head, he wasn't about to bother wrestling with understanding Eastern mysticism at five o'clock in the morning.

"He's right," Andy told Paul. "We finally got enough feedback from the tests to feel safe in sedating him. I was able to do a thorough examination then. There's some abrasion, but no evidence of rape, no tearing, no presence of semen. I'm still concerned. I know he was only partially conscious and terrified, but I also know Peter, and something is very wrong."

"Tell us what to do," Paul pleaded.

Andy shrugged. "I'm not sure. Be there when he wakes up. Make sure someone's there. All the time. At least for a while."

Paul laughed, a snort of mixed disbelief and relief. "Just try to keep us out," he said. "Hell, just try to keep his mother out." He glanced at the clock on the far wall. "She should be here any minute now. When can we see him?"

"It'll take a while to settle him in a room after they run the x-rays. Maybe an hour?"

"Great," Paul grumbled. "That'll give me plenty of time to try to explain some of this to Annie."

Andy didn't envy him that task.

*****

Daylight had faded to dusk, dusk to nightfall.

Time had dragged in the silent room. Exhaustion inhibited conversation. Even the tentative sharing of comfort among the silent watchers had been brief and terse, limited finally to an occasional touch of a hand in passing.

Kelly had spent an hour in tears, huddled into the welcoming embrace of the tiny Shaolin priest after her first look at her foster brother. She had been silent after that, until her mother eventually convinced her that she needed to go home and get some rest. She had classes in the morning and needed to sleep more than she needed to ghost around the hospital corridors with a tear-streaked and wan face. Feeling guilty at her self-perceived abandonment, Kelly accepted the offered escape and left shortly after a lunch that no one ate.

Frank Strenlich had appeared around five o'clock that evening with a report on the raid, hastily whispered in the corridor to his captain. Paul had kept one hand on the door handle as if he needed the physical link to the room. Contraband weaponry, a cache of drugs and faces that fit several mug shots had been the outcome of the raid. At the moment, Paul couldn't care less. He listened to the report, offered vague answers to Frank's questions about Peter, then slipped back into the room.

Lo See had been given a ride back to the quom hours earlier to handle classes and, hopefully, get some sleep. The elderly face was lined with weariness and the lingering strain of worry and exertion.

As he stepped back into the room, Paul tried to meet Caine's eyes. The priest sat in a chair near the window, his face set into its familiar mask of serenity. But Paul's gaze didn't make it past his wife and foster son. Annie sat beside the bed, one small hand wrapped around Peter's fingers. Her sightless eyes never moved from his face, as if she could see him beyond the restriction of her blindness. In a way, Paul knew that she could.

"What the hell are you doing here? You should be home in bed."

"Nice to see you, too, Frank," Paul Blaisdell flung over his shoulder as he continued toward his office. The door shut behind him, and Strenlich watched through the slatted blinds as the captain dropped heavily into the chair behind his desk. Paul's shoulders were slumped in weariness, and he ran a hand over his face, then reached for a file from the stack on his desk.

"You going to give this to him or am I?"

Strenlich turned and stared at the manila folder, then up into the opaque lenses of Kermit's sunglasses. The arch of one eyebrow lifted slightly over one frame, punctuating the question.

Frank dodged the query. "I don't know if that's such a good idea."

"He's gotta know, Frank. You know it and I know it. Paul needs to know it."

"You got a fetish for gory details, Kermit," Frank countered. "There's not a thing that's going to be made better by forcing Paul to read that."

Kermit tapped an index finger against the file. "You're wrong."

"Then you give it to him."

The other man didn't even hesitate. "Okay," he said and headed for the captain's office.

Blaisdell barely glanced up when Kermit tapped lightly on the door, then entered without waiting for an invitation. There were blue smudges of exhaustion beneath Paul's eyes, heavy lines of weariness entrenched into his face that one night's sleep had failed to erase.

He watched as Kermit dropped the file onto the desk pad.

Kermit knew Peter and he knew Paul. What was in Hal Lindley's official statement needed to be seen, or the kid would never face any of it. The only advantage Kermit could give either of them was the ammunition Paul needed to make Peter deal with what had happened to him in the two days he was held prisoner. That he would be causing pain by doing so didn't let him off the hook.

"What's this?"

Settling down in the chair across from Paul, Kermit said, "It's a statement by one of the men with Chen. He thought he could buy some leverage by dumping most of the responsibility on his dead boss, so he was real 'cooperative' when we wanted answers. You need to start on page 3 and read through page 4, Paul."

"I do, huh?"

Kermit nodded.

Reluctantly, Paul opened the file. For the next ten minutes, he read in silence, feeling the color leech out of his face with each paragraph. At the bottom of page 4, he closed the file and handed it back to Kermit, then got to his feet.

"I'll be at the hospital."

Again, Kermit nodded and watched him leave, then took the file with him. The information in it was about to disappear in the middle of some inexplicable computer glitch. It happened all the time. The wonders of modern science.

***** 

"Hurts, huh?"

Andy Wright completed a cursory exam of his young patient and tugged the blankets back up.

"It's okay," Peter lied, shifting, trying to find a position that caused him the least amount of discomfort. He decided there wasn't a good position.

Andy dropped into the chair beside the bed. He sat there long enough to get the reaction he was expecting.

"What?" Peter demanded.

Andy scratched the bridge of his nose. "When you going to start?"

"Start? Start what?"

"Healing."

"You mean I feel this bad and it's not going to get better? I thought you were a better doctor than that."

There was enough honest dismay in Peter's tone that Andy laughed. "Your body's going to heal just fine, Peter. That's not what I mean, and I think you know it."

"I don't."

"Okay." Andy's finger chased the itch down the side of his nose and across his cheek. "When are you going to start talking about what happened? It doesn't have to be to me, Peter, but you need to start opening up."

"It's not... I didn't... "

"What happened to you wasn't your fault. None of it was."

"I know that."

"You don't know that. That's the problem. You've always had a bad habit of blaming yourself when things got beyond your control. That hasn't changed just because you're supposed to be grown up."

"I'm a cop. Cops get hurt. It's no big deal. I'll get better."

"Is that how it feels in here?" Andy leaned forward and tapped Peter's chest, lightly, cautious of bandages and bruises. As he expected, the young man flinched away from the touch. Feeling like the neighborhood bully, Andy forced the issue. "Don't like me touching you, kid? Why not?" He rested his hand on Peter's shoulder, trying to ignore the tension that rippled through the muscle beneath his fingers, the faint tremor of reaction that was just beyond Peter's control. "What did they do to you that was so awful, Peter? What is it that you can't talk about?"

Peter allowed the contact as long as he was able to stand it, but the combination of touch and probing questions was too much. He shrugged away from Andy's hand and tried to sit up in the bed. Pain knifed through his chest, and he dropped back to the pillows with a gasp.

"Okay, okay, Peter, take it easy." There was genuine alarm in Andy's voice and he jerked his hand back down into his lap. What the hell do I think I'm doing? "I'm sorry, kid. I didn't mean to push you that hard."

"It's okay," Peter forced out through teeth clenched against lingering pain.

"No, it's not okay. And you're not okay. All this proves is that I should have taken a few more psychology courses and a couple less anatomy classes." He laughed. "But you should have seen the teacher I had for anatomy." He studied Peter's face, watching some of the color flow back into it as the pain ebbed. "It doesn't change the fact that you need to talk to somebody, Pete."

"It'll go away."

There was a hint of pleading in the statement, an entreaty that Andy forced himself to ignore. "I could order you to see somebody."

"Is that part of your normal routine?"

"Not unless I think it's in my patient's best interest."

"And you think I can't handle getting knocked around a little by some psycho? You think I'm gonna fall apart because some asshole gets his kicks beating up cops?"

"I think you're having trouble dealing with the abuse you suffered, Peter. There's a difference. A big difference."

"What if I don't agree with you?"

Andy shrugged. It was time to pull rank. "Then I make a formal recommendation, in writing, that you seek counseling before you return to active duty. Then it goes to Internal Affairs."

Peter paled and pushed himself up onto one elbow. "You wouldn't do that."

"Peter, did anyone tell you that you hit your mother?"

"What? I-I-I w-wouldn't... "

"Not on purpose, of course not. Nevertheless, you did hit her. You didn't even know you did it, but that was how you reacted to having her hand on your face."

"But she... is she... ? I saw her this morning. She was fine. Wasn't she?"

"She's fine, Peter. That's not the point. The point is that you're not facing this by yourself, and so somebody's got to help you do that. And, kid, you're surrounded by people who love you enough to see that you do what's right for you. Whether you want to or not."

His stomach knotted with tension and dread, Peter considered his options. Ruefully, he decided he didn't have any. Idly, he fingered the rough patch at his right wrist, running his fingers over the abraded skin. He glanced at Andy, searching the familiar face for any sign of weakening or indecision -- and finding none.

"When did you learn to play hardball?" Peter asked, the first hint of a smile touching his face. "I mean, all these years I live next door to Dr. Welby, and suddenly you're sitting here blackmailing me. Kinda like the 'Stepford Doctors'."

"They haven't made that movie yet, kid. Okay, do I win? You ready to consider this?"

Peter sighed. There really wasn't any choice. If Andy felt strongly enough to threaten to drag IAD into it, then he would follow through on that threat. It was still a little baffling to discover that core of steel in the affable doctor.

Peter couldn't resist one last try. "Aren't you the one who got sloppy drunk last year on New Year's Eve and put the lampshade on your head and did the tango all by yourself on the coffee table?"

"Forget it, kid," Andy laughed. "Your father's already blackmailing me with that. One major crime to a family."

Yeah, Paul did take pictures that night... "Okay, I'll talk to somebody."

"Who?"

The brown eyes took on the stunned look of a deer trapped in the glare of headlights. "I-I don't know. When I get out of here... when I feel better, I'll... "

"Not when you get out of here. Now."

"Now?"

"Now."

Peter hitched in a breath. "Okay, you obviously have somebody in mind. You tell me."

"How about Paul?"

"Paul?"

"You think you can talk to him?"

"Yeah, sure, of course I can talk to him." Relief brought the words out faster than Peter had breath to sustain them. He panted in air and added, "Fine, he's coming by tonight. I'll talk to him then."

"You give me your word that you'll talk to Paul?"

"Yeah, right, sure."

"Fine."

Andy pushed out of the chair. "Good boy," he said and stepped back to the door, tugging it open. Peter knew he'd been set up even before Paul stepped into the room, on cue.

*****

Andy grinned as Paul replaced him in the bedside chair. He held up a hand, "Gotta run, kid. You know, lots of doctor stuff to do. You two have a nice talk."

Damn, he thought as he made good his escape, kid sure does the 'lamb led to slaughter' look well. Probably comes in handy in his line of work.

"Don't even say it." Paul forestalled any objection with lifted hands and a good measure of father/boss undertone to his voice. "There are times to play fair, and there are times to pull rank. This is one of the latter."

"I don't know what you want me to say, Paul." A definite vein of irritation ran through the words.

"That's not the point, kid. You've got a problem. You've always been able to come to me before. Remember? 'Anytime'? 'About anything'? Your words, not mine."

"You and Andy... " Peter started to gesture with his right hand, found it still trapped by the IV board, then waved his left hand toward the closed door. "You're making a big deal over nothing. A couple of nightmares... it's nothing." Peter saw the mistake even as the words rolled out of his mouth.

"Nightmares? You didn't say anything about nightmares."

Crimson flooded into Peter's face, and he tried to straighten against the pillows. He got halfway to a sitting position before he dropped back against them. The gash across his hip reminded him why he was lying flat as the stitches pulled and stung. It simply took too much effort and hurt too badly to be worth it. Still, he didn't like the sensation of being under fire with the added disadvantage of having to look up to everyone. Helplessness wasn't a feeling he could tolerate at the moment. It was too close to the truth.

"I was knocked around for two days, Paul," he said, hating the defensive tint to his voice, "I think I'm entitled to a few bad dreams. Okay?"

Paul rocked back in the chair, not rising to the challenge in his foster son's tone.

Instead, he said softly, "When we first brought you home from the orphanage, you were quiet, much quieter than you had been since the first day I met you. You were quiet for a long time. I couldn't figure out where all the energy, the anger, the fears that you had to be experiencing were going." He looked up, held Peter's eyes. "Until your mother told me that you were having nightmares. She'd hear you crying in the middle of the night. When she'd check on you, you always said everything was fine. You thought because she couldn't see you, she wouldn't know."

Peter tried to look away, but the blue eyes were compelling, trapping him by force of will. Memory flowed in, unwelcome, painful.

"Remember the night you took a swing at me?"

Shaking his head, Peter felt tears flooding into his eyes, contradicting the attempt to deny the memory.

Paul allowed the tiny refusal, to an extent. "Sure you do. I pushed you to tell me about the nightmares. You said you weren't a little kid. You didn't have bad dreams. Annie was lying. We were just looking for an excuse to send you back. We never wanted you in the first place. A whole week's worth of pent-up silence spilled out of your mouth all at once. And when I didn't fight back by saying the things you were trying to force me to say, you hit me." He smiled, ruefully. The damn punch had hurt.

"And after that one hit, you started talking. Really talking. Not any of that bullshit about how we didn't want you. But talking about your father, the orphanage, your mother, how scared you were, how lonely... And the nightmares stopped, didn't they, Peter?"

"I'll work on it, okay? I'll do better."

Paul sank backward in his chair. He'd heard that tone before. Nothing about it had changed...

"I'm sorry. It was wrong."

"Peter, that's not the point. I don't even think that's what I said."

Paul rocked back in his chair, elbows on the padded arms of the seat, fingers tented before him -- his 'thinking' position. <

As always, silence was the most effective weapon against Peter. The boy bolted to his feet, started to turn away, and then checked his retreat before he could convince himself that leaving the study was an option. He turned back to face his foster father, his face reddened with unexpressed emotion.

"I got in trouble. It's my fault. I'm sorry." The words were shotgunned out of his mouth on a burst of anger; whether it was self-directed or aimed at Paul wasn't clear.

"That tactic might have worked at the orphanage, but it doesn't work in this house, kid."

"What?"

"You think if you just accept the blame for whatever happens, that the world will come crashing down on your head, and then everybody will leave you alone."

Peter dropped into the chair. "That doesn't make any sense."

"You keep building walls to keep us out, Pete. I don't intend to let you do that. We're going to talk about what happened, and figure out -- together -- what you could have done to avoid it, and then get past it. I don't really care who was at fault or who was wrong or any of that. I care about you. We'll handle the rest of the fallout later. Right now, we're going to take care of what's really important here -- you."

Brown eyes peered up at him from beneath the heavy fall of unruly bangs, a trace of suspicion lurking in the dark stare. But Paul could see the trust sheltered behind the forced facade of toughness that never quite worked for Peter. The kid was listening, and he would learn. Now, it was up to his foster father to say all the right things... Good luck, he silently admonished himself.

"What is it you can't face, Peter? What do you see in your dreams that you can't handle?"

Peter tried for a smile; it was more a grimace. "You can't just ask me how I'm feeling? Bring me presents? Sneak in food?"

Paul nodded toward the IV bag. "We thought hot dogs and burgers could wait until you got rid of that. And your mother and sister are in charge of presents. So, how are you feeling? What are your dreams like?"

Peter's sigh was an eloquent admission of defeat. Actually, he'd held out longer than Paul had expected. The kid had come into the Blaisdell family with more emotional baggage than any child should have to carry, but he was intelligent -- and easy to manipulate. Paul had walked him through a lot of pain. Unfortunately, he imagined with Peter, there would be a lot more pain and many more 'walk-throughs' ahead of them. That's okay, kid, I love you. Just as much as your other father does.

Let's ease into this...

"Tell me how they got to you in the first place."

"My car." Peter's eyes widened comically as the idea obviously occurred to him for the first time. "They trashed my car."

"It's not that bad," Paul soothed. "I had it towed into the garage. It'll be out before you are."

Peter glanced out the window, finally seeing sunshine through the lingering drizzle -- sunshine and green and even a few brave dots of color. "They ran me off the road. I hit my head, I think. It's kinda cloudy. They used a drug on me. Made me sick. I don't do drugs well."

That's the truth, Paul mused, for Peter, aspirin's pretty hard core.

"I woke up in that little stone building. It was cold. I remember it was so cold." His voice faded. He didn't look at Paul, but kept staring out the window, his eyes taking on that sightless quality that said he was looking inside himself. "In the dreams, it's always cold." He shuddered. "They wouldn't tell me what they wanted. Of course, I recognized Chen. I could figure it out without a whole lot of imagination, but when he wouldn't really tell me... " He shrugged, a careful shift of his shoulder in deference to the stitches across his chest and stomach. "It was a little scarier that way. I guess he knew that."

"You're allowed to be frightened, Peter." Paul's voice was a gentle undercurrent of sound that touched his foster son with a familiar reassurance.

"Good thing," Peter retorted with a small laugh, "'cause I was scared to death. It was... it w-w-was... "

Paul waited out the hesitation, the beginning stutter telling him that Peter was closing in on it, pinning down the emotions, trying to draw them forward so he could share them.

"It kept g-getting worse. At first, I tried to fight them, but they kept coming back. And I kept g-g-getting weaker. After a while, they d-didn't even have to hold me down any more. He could do anything." He turned then and looked at Paul. His eyes were pools of unshed tears, glistening in the dimly reflected light of the overhead lamp. "He could touch me gently, or he could hurt me, and I couldn't do anything to stop him. He just kept... "

The words in the recorded statement Kermit had shown him blurred back through Paul's memory, branded indelibly on his mind. His teeth clenched in anger, an impotent rage that he didn't dare show to Peter. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Paul almost reached out for Peter's hand. With a physical wrench, he realized that was the one thing he couldn't do right now. That lack of touch was astonishingly painful.

"After a while, I just gave up. I couldn't control anything. No one was coming for me. Just him. In the dreams... in the d-d-dreams, it's his face that I see... th-the scars... they... " He shook his head. He couldn't force the words out, and he surrendered to that inability.

Paul waited, silent, holding his hands together in his lap so that he didn't reach out and touch his foster son -- risk breaking through the struggled words and ending them.

"I wasn't even scared anymore." Peter's voice had dulled, gone colorless, as if the desolation had taken him over again. "I was just so lonely. I knew there wouldn't ever be anyone coming back for me again. That I was alone, forever. Like when my father died... wh-when I thought he'd died. Like when I thought you and Annie didn't really want me." He glanced at Paul then, peering up at him with that apologetic look that pleaded for forgiveness for his words even as he said them. "It was like an ache so deep inside me that I couldn't even reach it."

"But we did come for you, Peter."

That earned him a smile, a genuine smile that lasted even as the first tear slipped free and tracked down Peter's face. "You did," he whispered. "You both did."

Paul waited for a sign, the slightest indication that he could offer a more physical form of comfort. His hands ached to touch his son, but Peter wiped the single tear away and turned back to the window. It's a start, Paul told himself through a sheen of disappointment. Give him time. He leaned forward in the chair and started to rise.

"You want me to leave you alone, Peter? So you can get some sleep?"

"No." Peter's head whipped back around, his eyes again wide, shimmering. "I mean, you don't have to go, do you? You could stay here a while. I understand if you have to get back, but... "