“Once you’ve had a few hours of the delicious memory of us slicing into your boy toy, we’re going to bring you back, slice Kanerboo’s throat open and leave him to bleed out in your arms. By then the cops should be here, but we’ll happily be arrested, knowing that you were just so close.”

The words of the serial killer rang in Jonathan’s ears, as he remained in the cold darkness. He blamed himself. If he hadn’t yelled at Patrick, they would still be together and free of the madness. He thought about - just as Keith had said - the wicked man slicing the blade over his teammate’s skin and making him bleed out.

He could hear and feel and see his friend’s agony. He could see Patrick squirming in discomfort and screaming into the tape wrapped tightly in place around his mouth, to silence his awful struggle with pain.

It hurt Jonathan deeply to think about this and to know that he was responsible for having a hand in letting this all happen to his winger buddy. He tried to think about happier thought, but they were clouded over by the dark scenes he’d been through.

It had been about ten painful minutes, before a new thought crossed into the Captain’s mind. He was determined to think of something else and he did. He thought about Patrick, but saw him glowing and shiny...in bright smiles. The blond was skating around during a practice, laughing and enjoying life.

Jonathan found himself, leaning on the railing of the bench, watching him.

“C’mon Jonny, don’t be such a stick in the mud, you Pigeon!” he chirped. “You can do it. You’ll get back to scoring goals in no time.” He flicked a sick-looking backhander into the empty net and skated over toward his friend.

“But I feel like I’m letting everyone on the team down.”

Patrick skidded to a halt. He was still smiling sweetly at him. “Nonsense, Jonny. You’re leading the team and we’re winning and soon, you’ll be contributing offensively, now come on,” the blond winger continued, grabbing Jonathan’s hands and leading him to center ice.

Jonathan clumsily tripped Patrick and they both crashed to the ice, the older man on top of the younger man. They both gasped, but suddenly Jonathan found Patrick looking at him like Nala from The Lion King. In the background, someone had turned on the song, “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” and the blond shook his gloves off and wrapped his arms around Jonathan’s neck, keeping him in place.

Then he lifted up and pecked the centerman on the lips, just as the song crescendoed into the big chorus. They both knew that the DJ had to be Adam Burish, but they didn’t care. They didn’t care who was watching them or anything.

The scene faded and instantly Jonathan was filled with hope and strength. He snapped his head up and narrowed his eyes. He had to do something. He had to break free and save Patrick.

He pulled his legs free, sharply kicking out and managed to break the tape holding them to the legs. Then he jerked forward and tore himself free from the back of the chair. He mustered his strength and miraculously broke free from the tape around his wrists. He was able to unwind the tape around his upper arms and finally peel the adhesive from his mouth. He rolled it up into a ball and tossed it to the side.

He darted to the door and tried the handle. It was unlocked. Apparently Keith hadn’t minded to lock the door. He swung the door open and burst from the room, clenching his fist in fury. He began to storm down the hall where he was and back toward the familiar living room, but after a few steps, a loudly muffled screech split through the air and echoed into his ears.

Patrick!

He picked up his speed and burst into the living room, where he was greeted by something one might see in a horror movie. He froze in place, staring in shock.


Shortly after Jonathan was removed from the room, Keith came back out, brushing his hands off, like he’d finished some business or killed the centerman. Anxiety crept into him, but he knew deep down that that wasn’t true. Jonathan was still alive, just in isolation.

“So I lied. Jonny’s going to stay in isolation and then maybe I’ll let him out, once I kill you, but I’m going to go ahead, since your blood is just so tasty and pretty, do some more damage with ya. And I’m tired of you on the couch anyway...let’s have some fun.”

Keith yanked Patrick off the couch and led him over to some kind of hanging contraption. Fred was back and he helped his buddy to untape Patrick’s hands and ankles. The blond made it difficult and fought them, screaming continually, but he was overpowered with two against one. He was soon tied up to the pole like a hunter or native American would do to roast his meat.

His wrists were bound tightly together over the bar by rope and then his ankles were tied up with more rope. He hung on the bar at the serial killer’s eyes level. It was painful and humiliating.

Fred vanished again. His work done. And Keith combed his fingers through Patrick’s hair, being gentle with him...at first.

Then the sinister villain walked over to the couch, turning his back on Patrick, who grunted and pulled at his new form of bondage. But finally gave up and threw his head backward in frustration. His neck hurt and he mustered courage to raise it up, as Keith returned to him. He was smirking wickedly.

When Patrick Kane saw the knife in the man’s hand, his heart leaped. He did try to struggle then, but couldn’t so much as squirm. His hyperextended arms and legs were like lifeless tense cables, preventing him from crashing to the concrete floor. His arms and muscles ached and screamed at him, but there was nothing he could do.

He lost feeling and just dangled there, waiting to be sliced open more by the madman and his knife. At that moment, he reached up with the blade and must have sliced through the ropes binding his wrists to the horizontal beam, because his upper body suddenly dropped.

He flinched, as he swung downward. Surely his head was going to crack open on the hard floor. But his body swung like a pendulum, swiveling slightly, his short boyish hair brushed the floor with each pass. Though his wrists were bound together, his arms were free now. He reached over his head – which was downward – and his fingertips scraped the wood floor. There was no pain though, only numbness.

As he swung, he dragged his numbed fingertips over the rough floor again, hearing them scrape, feeling his nails bend back and get torn up, as he tried to stop his body from swinging. If only he could stop, he might support some of his weight by pressing his fingertips against the floor, reducing the pain in his ankles. The full burden of his weight, was pulling on his ankles now, and he was swinging in lessening arcs. The rope must be digging into his flesh. He could feel something warm trickling down his calves, past his knees, along the insides of his thighs, where his jeans were. It headed toward his crotch.

Blood!

The rope must have cut deeply into his ankles. He flashed a vision of his twisted, torn flesh. Patrick screamed into the tape.

Oh, God!

There was a sudden burning sensation on the right side of his neck. Then on the left. He caught a glimpse of a bloody knife blade and knew the man had slit his throat.

It wasn’t his throat, though. It couldn’t be.

Then he accepted that it was and lifted his arms, probed with his fingers, felt warm blood and something else. But it wasn’t deep...he hadn’t gone for the kill...it was a tease. It was like he was playing with him.

He panicked at the horrible thought and tried to suck in air through his nose, and managed to raise his hands enough to rip the tape from his mouth. He drew in a breath to scream, but inhaled only blood dripping into his agape mouth.

It was only a matter of time, before he was dead and then suddenly, he saw the brunette man staring at him in shock and horror and watched as the madman turned to him.

“Why, Toes, you managed to escape? And you’re just in time,” the serial killer raised the blood knife and placed it to the side of Patrick’s blood stained neck.

Patrick whimpered, as he hung in place, feeling extremely anxious. The look seemed to empower his friend, who darted forward in a sudden move and he slammed into Keith and kicked the knife from his hold all in one cool move.

Jonathan punched Keith in the face and managed to knock him out. He was furious and he was on fire. Fred darted into the room and the Blackhawk Captain spot him. He had a knife in his hand, but Jonathan was on fire. He was like a professional karate black belt or something. He kicked the knife out and then twisted around and brought his fist into the man’s face, sending him to the floor.

But Fred recovered and tried to go for the knife, but Jonathan was first and he threw it with a loud tennis player style grunt across the room, far away and then elbowed the man in the head.

But Keith had woken up and snatched up his knife. He lunged for Patrick, but Jonathan whipped around and perfectly slammed into him, sending him into the wall and knocking him out again.

Patrick screamed and wiggled around, trying to get free of the contraption, but he would need help and he was beginning to feel extremely light-headed. His efforts ceased and weakened. And his screams faded.

He realized with horror that he was losing consciousness! He was losing too much blood!

Jonathan battled the two serial killers, until a welcome siren sound came. The police, led and commanded by Carlton Lassiter burst into the house and scene. They quickly got control and allowed Jonathan to focus on Patrick.

But when the brunette’s eyes landed on his friend, his blue eyes were shut and he wasn’t moving.

“PATRICK!!!! NO!!!!”

Notes

Look at that, I'm tearing up again at this....Kazer 8(
Sorry, a Lion King thing popped up and I had that in my head, so that's the explanation and influence I had for the Kazer scene Jonny sees to inspire him. Also, it is a known fact, thanks to Kanerboo's brilliant interview skills, that Adam Burish did in fact play love songs in the locker room. So, it is possible that he was playing "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" for Kazer or maybe even him and Sharpie. :P
Anyway, I'm gonna go finish crying now...


Next up: The answer to this question: Is Patrick Kane dead?