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For continuity: These events take place simultaneously with the events of chapter 2.

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Maria managed to swing a sick day from school the next morning, and spent the entire day in bed. It wasn't hard to fake the illness-- her stomach felt like it was on fire. Or rather, like it was going to explode.

The others gathered in her room around 2:30, after school let out. They'd wanted to stay with her-- Liz especially. When they'd called her at three in the morning, the dark-haired girl had been frantic at the news. "God, Maria, are you all right?" she virtually screamed into the phone.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Maria remembered answering. "But I don't really matter. Michael's the one in trouble."

Michael. The thought of him made her stomach clench, which was not a good thing for it to do in its present state. The memory of his fear still lingered with her-- it had haunted what restless sleep she'd managed to snag through the day. She'd never thought of Michael as afraid. A pest, yes. Arrogant, sure. But scared? It didn't mesh with his image. The emotion had shaken her almost as much as the vision itself.

She could barely feel the bond now. Except for the stomach ache, which she felt sure was due at least in part to her psychic link with Michael. Either that, or her experience from the night before had been even more stressful than she remembered.

"We checked his place before school," Max was saying, as Maria dragged herself out of her nausea-induced detachment. The young man sounded sick himself. "Michael wasn't there. Hank didn't know where he was."

Isabelle snorted. "As if he'd care," she grumbled; but the words lacked verve.

"Why can't you just dreamwalk into his head and find out where he is?" Liz asked. The brunette was sitting cross-legged on the end of Maria's bed. Max sat at her desk, and Isabelle stood semi-stoically in the corner, one hand fidgeting with the simple gold charm at her throat.

"It's not that easy," Isabelle replied. "Michael's dreams....They're...well, they're GUARDED."

Liz's eyebrows drew together in bewilderment. "Guarded? What does that mean?"

Isabelle bit her lip as she tried to think of a way to explain. "They're warded," she finally said, exhaling loudly. "I've tried to get in before-- just to see what was going on in his messed up little mind. But I couldn't. All I met was a big blank wall of nothing. I couldn't get through." She leaned against the wall. "I'll never get in."

"Could I?" Maria asked softly, and all eyes turned on her.

"What?" Isabelle returned.

"I said could I? Get into his dreams, I mean." She sat up a little straighter in bed, wincing at the pain this caused in her stomach. "If we really are...linked," she faltered a little at that, "then I should be able to get into his head." She gave a wry chuckle. "I mean, I'm already there anyway, right?"

Isabelle seemed to be considering. "It MIGHT work..." she murmured, staring inward.

Max shook his head and clasped his hands together. "No," he said firmly. "No, we aren't going to do it."

Maria threw him a confused look. "But...Max, this could be our only chance!"

His eyes met hers, and he held steady. "No, Maria. You're talking about dreamwalking. That is NOT as easy as it sounds. I do it only rarely-- Isabelle has always been best at it. And Michael could never get it right." He shook his head again, moving his eyes away. "There's no guarantee you'd even be ABLE to get into Michael's dreams. And if you did, there's even LESS of a guarantee that you could get OUT again."

The room grew still as everyone mulled over that.

Liz broke the silence. "Max?" she murmured.

He looked at her. "Yes, Liz?"

Her eyes met his, and Maria could feel the fear emanating off the other girl. "Why are you still here?"

Max's eyes flicked to Isabelle, and they shared a glance. "Because if they'd wanted us," he murmured, "they'd have taken us before Maria got to my window." He looked back to Liz, eyes grim. He'd been grim a lot of late, Maria had noticed. It didn't suit him-- it made his face hard.

"They took Michael because his ties were loose at best," Max continued. "Isabelle and I...we have a family. We go to school. I have a job." He shrugged. "And if we disappear..." He trailed off.

Liz nodded, understanding. "It would raise suspicions."

Max nodded.

Maria spoke then. "So what happens to you two when...when Michael's...outlived his usefulness?" She couldn't believe she'd said it. Nor could she believe how hard it had been to say.

"We're going to find him before that happens," Isabelle said firmly. Maria almost believed her.

Suddenly, a sharp, ripping pain tore across her stomach, and Maria doubled over in agony. "SHIT!" she shrieked, one arm wrapping around her abdomen as she collapsed against her comforter.

Liz and the others were immediately at her side, touching her, asking her what was wrong. Maria was too busy trying to keep down her meager lunch to hear them.

"Th..They're hurting him," she gasped eventually, eyes squeezed shut.

"Michael?" Max's voice sounded even more worried than earlier.

Maria could just manage a nod.

Isabelle rounded on her brother. "They're hurting him, Max," she reiterated. "Not just poking and prodding him. HURTING him. We have to try Maria's plan." He began to protest, but she held up a hand to silence him. "Listen to me!" she told him, and gestured to Maria's hunched form. "Maria is literally our only link to who took Michael, to where he is. If there is even a CHANCE that this bond can help us find him and STOP this, then we have to try!"

Max still looked unsure. "Izzy--" he began, but she cut him off again.

"No. Don't 'Izzy' me, Max," she fumed. "Michael is your friend. He's MY friend. Hell, he's almost a brother to us!" She threw her hands in the air. "And you want to just throw him to the wolves to keep the pack off our backs?! What is wrong with you?"

"That's not what it is, Izzy," Max argued.

"Then explain it to me, Max," she countered. "Explain to me why you won't at least try."

Max's dark eyes went from his sister, to Maria, to Liz's worried gaze, and back to Maria. "They've taken one of our friends," he said softly. "Now you want to let them try and take another?"

Maria raised her eyes to his. She knew she was pale-- probably white as death against her ivory sheets. But she couldn't let him think her weak. "It's my choice," she said softly. "My choice, and my risk." Max looked like he wanted to tear his eyes away, but she wouldn't let him. "Let me do this," she whispered.

The young man didn't shuffle his feet. He didn't hunch his shoulders, or pull his gaze away. Maria hoped he could see into her soul-- that those super Alien powers of his would help him read her like Michael had always been able to. "STILL is able to," she scolded herself. "He's not dead yet. He WON'T be dead anytime soon."

When Max replied, she almost couldn't hear his answer. But his expressive eyes spoke volumes.

"All right," he murmured. "But Izzy goes with you."

Maria just smiled.

******

When Michael opened his eyes again, the room had stopped its spinning, and his stomach was calmer. He thanked whatever God was listening for that small favor, although he could still feel the pain of Topolsky's shoe digging into his ribcage. And his nose was itching. When he tried to reach to scratch it, he realized his arms were tied.

No. Not tied. Shackled.

His fuzzy head was clearing rapidly, and he looked down at himself, feeling suddenly sick again.

If he hadn't been the one chained hand and foot to the surgical table, Michael would have laughed. It was like something out of a bad B-movie. His shirt was gone, and he was clothed only in a pair of thin green surgical pants. A heart monitor to his left read his heart rate in a neverending loop, while a brain wave indicator on his right scribbled his thought patterns in unintelligible, wavy lines. He seemed to have sprouted wires during his unconciousness. They branched away from him like so many mutated veins- red, blue and white.

Letting his head fall back to the thin pillow beneath his head, Michael released a sigh of frustration, closing his eyes. He wanted some tabasco sauce right now. He wanted chocolate cake, and chili peppers, and to be able to kick back on the couch and watch the latest white trash beat on each other on Jerry Springer. He wanted to sit in his favorite booth at the Crashdown and watch the world go by, while eating a basket of Saturn rings and following Maria's every move with his eyes as she flitted around in that cute little outfit...

Wait a minute. What had made him think of Maria?

Before he could follow that thought, Michael heard the familiar WHOOSH of a door opening. Tilting his head to the right, he grimaced. "Why hello, Ms. Topolsky," he greeted the slim blonde woman in green scrubs advancing on him. "I must admit, I rarely get this intimate on a first date. You know, the bondage and everything. I usually save that until at least...oh, date three."

Topolsky grinned down at him as she drew up beside the table. It wasn't a pleasant grin-- it was the exposed teeth of a hungry predator. "Humor is the way a coward hides his fear, Mr. Guerin," she told him.

"You don't like jokes?"

"I'm not a coward."

"Bet you're BIG fun at all the parties."

"You don't seem to understand your position here, Mr. Guerin," Topolsky informed him, checking the steady blips on his heart monitor. "We are not 'buddies.' We are not 'friends.'" She circled around his table and lifted the printout from the brain wave recorder, glancing over it with an appraising eye. "I don't care to hear your thoughts, and I have no intention of telling you anything more than you have to know."

"What, you mean no 'How does this make you feel?' talks?" Michael scoffed. "Gee, how will I survive?"

Her sharp eyes went to his, and Michael forced himself not to swallow. "That's simple," she said. "You do as you're told, and you'll live a long, happy life. Misbehave..." she trailed off, letting her silence speak for her.

"Oh, I'm shaking in my scrubs," he quipped, and immediately regretted it when her eyes began glinting. He was beginning to hate that glint. Hell, he was beginning to FEAR that glint.

Topolsky made no verbal reply. She simply walked away from him, to a nearby tray covered in a sterile blue cloth. Snapping on a pair of latex gloves and pulling on a surgical mask that sat atop the material, she reached out with a perfectly manicured hand, and whipped the cloth away.

Michael's stomach turned to stone.

Picking up a wicked looking scalpel, Topolsky turned back to him with a twinkle in her eye. "Let's begin, shall we?" she said softly, as though she were instructing him in the finer points of yoga.

"What are you gonna do with that?" he demanded as she advanced on him. "Don't let her see you sweat," he told himself, as he concentrated on keeping his voice steady.

She stopped beside him again, holding the scalpel to the side. For some strange reason, all Michael could think of was 'ER.' "Why, whatever did you think you were here for, Mr. Guerin?" she asked politely. "The conversation? I already told you, that's a moot point." She gave him a smile behind the mask that was as reassuring as the rattle of a Diamondback's tail. "Don't worry. I do have a medical degree. Nothing should go wrong. And if it does..." She gestured to the top of the room, where a series of dark observation windows circled the wall, just below the ceiling. "Well, we're not alone. Someone will come along and give me a hand." She began to lean in.

Michael shied away as far as he could, and she paused. "Don't I at least get some anesthesia?" he asked, unable to quell his panic.

Topolsky tsked him softly. "Mr. Guerin, you saw what happened the LAST time we gave you an anesthetic. It's too risky to try it again. Besides," he could hear the smirk on her face, "I don't feel like ruining another pair of pumps." She bent down, and placed the edge of the scalpel against his shoulder. "We'll start simple," she assured him. "Let's have a look at your ligament structure." With the practiced ease of one who was used to operating on corpses, she began to slice.