(Date and Time Unknown)

Joe slowly pushed up off the floor of the room and carefully hobbled back into the bathroom to wash off his face and to look at himself in the mirror. He had hollows under his eyes and tear tracks down his cheeks from crying. His hair stood out on end as it often did when he didn't wash it for days. The curls looked unmanageable and he didn't even have the energy to comb it.

His foot hurt. He had been burnt before in his life and probably once as badly as the brand he got this time but this one hurt in more ways than just the physical. The very idea that he was being treated as property, that his Uncle expected him to be a plaything, that the brand was the mark that symbolized such, made his foot hurt all the more. The emotional pain seemed to channel right into the foot until he wanted to scream for mercy. He wanted to take a knife and carve the symbol off his foot; surely that would hurt far less than the brand did.

Joe stepped out of the bathroom again; curious that the drugs he expected to be in his food hadn't kicked in yet. He doubted that Derak had the guts to try to face Joe when Joe was either conscious or unchained. The young detective, in the meantime, scouted the edge of the room and tried to find another door. If he got out on his own, so much the better. So what if Derak had cameras about the room looking for him? What did it matter if he did? After reading Vanessa's obituary he was well beyond caring what his Uncle did anymore.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the air. "I'm so sorry, Van, you deserved so much better than that, you did."

Tears trickled slowly down his eyes again as he lay down upon the top of the metal table to, once more, cry tears of anguish for the loss of the girl that he had loved almost more than life itself. The second girl, he thought with even more agony, that had paid the price he had been meant to pay. Why? Why did they pay?

Joe swallowed again and closed his eyes to try to sleep again. If he slept he might forget, the pain in his heart and his head and his foot might just go away for a little while. Sleep eluded him, though, and the vivid memory of the pain on his girlfriend's face as she slept made his own pain even more acute. He should have been there, encouraging her, telling her that she had to stay alive or else. Inside he was dimly aware that his own emotions were turning in a tumultuous tumble, over and over again inside of his head.

You can lay here and cry or you can try to do something, he told himself sternly. Do you remember what you told yourself in the hospital a few weeks ago? That you can't rely on Frank to pull your fat out of the fire anymore? Accept that and get out of this yourself. Forget the fact that your foot hurts. Forget what you lost. Get out and then rip Derak's head off with your bare hands. Make him pay for what he's done. Nobody is going to help you do it.

Joe rolled over and got up again. He carefully walked over to the stairs that went only halfway up to nowhere and limped up to the top stair. He could almost reach the rectangular section of stairs from that step and he leapt for it. His hands knocked against it but the rectangle was sturdier than he thought it would be. He pushed at it again and again to try to push it up. It refused to budge.

Joe turned to survey his dungeon and saw what he wanted. He climbed back down the stairs, careful, as always, to keep the weight on the ball of his bad foot and he grabbed the chair. He took that back up the steps and then settled it. It was, unfortunately, too wide for the step and sat at a topsy-turvy angle. Joe growled and picked up the chair to throw it, then sighed and carried it back down the stairs again. Next angle.

"My name is Joe Hardy," he muttered out loud. "I don't give up."

Joe limped over to the bathroom and looked about in it. There wasn't much that would help him but he did see something on the way by that would. He dug at the bricks of the fireplace that hid the door of the bathroom and tore at a couple of bricks along the edge. A pair of them slid easily loose, revealing behind it a regular doorknob connected to the actual door of the bathroom. Joe grinned and carried the bricks back to the steps and stood on them. It gave him just enough height to actually touch the rectangular door with his fingertips. He slid them along the rectangle in an effort to move it out of the way.

"Come on, you, move!" he yelled at the rectangle as he struggled with it. Did it only run on whatever mechanical gismo Derak had in place? There had to be a way to move it manually.

Joe limped back down the stairs again to his tray on the table and took up the dull butter knife left on it. Thank goodness his Uncle didn't realize what a useful tool a dull butter knife could be. He took it back up the stairs again and stood, again, on the bricks on the top step. The rough surface of the bricks duck into the toes and balls of Joe's feet but he didn't care about that. It didn't hurt nearly as bad as the burn on the heel of his foot hurt; he could handle the pain.

Joe dug along the edge of the rectangle with his butter knife and sunk it in as deep as the crack allowed. He jerked it occasionally but succeeded in only bending the knife. He carefully pulled it out and straightened the knife the best he could then started along another edge of the rectangle.

Either Derak is distracted or he isn't home, Joe decided. Good, because that just gives me longer to get out of here. And I am going to get out of here, before he does anything else to me or my family.

Joe took several deep breaths and started once more. He felt calm and confident. He could do this; he just had to keep at it. He would keep at it, not give up. If the door device gave out, Derak would still want a way to get to him. That meant a way to make the door move without whatever mechanical whoozit he has in place.

Be Frank, he thought. Frank could get out of this.

The problem was that Joe could feel his energy ebbing as he worked. The drug put into his food worked slower than it did the last time but he knew it was there, waiting to drag him down, knock him out before he could make good his getaway. He dug a little faster, with a little more determination than before. He grimaced in agony when he accidentally dropped back onto his bad foot and he held his foot up as his eyes teared up again. Damn!

Back to it, Hardy, he told himself sternly. And for pity's sake, be careful of the damned foot!

Joe took another breath and set his shoulders in determination before he stood once more on the bricks and, once more, began again. He dug frenziedly, with none of the calm that he had before. As if he had a clock built inside of him, he felt the time ticking away, as if his heart beat represented each second that passed. He wiped away a small trickle of sweat as he slid the knife along yet another section and, suddenly, felt a small little click and the rectangle slid to one side.

Joe faced another problem in that instance. The top half of the stairs were still in the way and, from what he saw, there was no way he would be able to fit past them to get out. He nearly dropped to the ground in defeat, then reached up again and, with a little hop, snagged onto a support bar near the bottom of the steps. He put all his weight on the steps in the hope to get them to start their climb downward but they didn't budge. He frowned and pulled up with both arms, his biceps strained as he looked through the steps into a small room filled with mechanical devices.

"Now, then," Joe said to himself in a stern admonition to stop being a crybaby. "Let's think this through logically. If there is a manual way to move the idiotic door then there's a manual way to move the idiotic stairs. Just think about it."

Joe pulled again, and then slid along the bar to see if he could find some kind of latch. He remembered hearing that clunking sound; that must be the release for whatever kept the stairs in place up top. Joe looked as much as the clearance between the bar and the bottom side of one step allowed, searching for anything that resembled a latch or hook or something like that. He held on with one hand for a few seconds to feel around along the edge of the stairs but had to grab back onto the bar with both hands before he fell and broke his head open.

Joe carefully dropped down from the bar and managed to land on the right part of his injured foot. He rubbed at his shoulders as he stared up at his problem and wished he had just another foot of clearance up above. If he did, he would be able to slither through. There just wasn't enough room where it was now. He had to figure out how to get those stairs to move!

Think, Hardy, he thought as he continued to rub at his shoulders while he studied the problem. There have to be latches. There has to be a lever of some kind. Or does there? That might be the problem, if the lever is on the other side of those blasted stairs, I may never get out of here.

Joe sat down on the top step and thought for a minute. Strange that whatever drug his Uncle gave him hadn't kicked in yet. Surely Derak didn't have what it took to take on Joe without drugs or having Joe firmly chained up on that table. Joe frowned and looked at the bottom of his foot again. It was still the ugly red of a very bad burn and probably would be for some time. Joe just hoped it didn't become infected. He would have to withstand the antiseptic sometime soon and pray.

If he didn't get out of here first, of course.

With that determination set in his mind, Joe clamored up to the top of the stairs again and leaped up to grab the bar once more. His hands almost slipped from the sweat but he tightened his grip and held firm. He was not about to fall from here. That would go down in the record books as an all time stupid Hardy move. He lifted up into a chin-up and peered right and left then right again and found his gaze locked onto a lever just on the other side of the stairs. Below that he saw something that looked suspiciously like a gear.

Joe abandoned caution to reach for the lever. He held on as tight as he could with his one arm but was unable to hold on enough to get even close to the bar. He frowned and reached with determination but he just couldn't do it! He dropped back until he hung from the bar and then dropped to the step just below. So close, he thought.

Joe hobbled down the steps to find something that would get him up high enough to grab the lever without having to hold the bar. He had the chair of course but it was too wide for the step. The table, likewise. The metal table that served as his bed ditto. He frowned and sighed and drummed his fingers against his temple as he thought. What would Frank do? He would probably already have jimmied something to get out of here by now, that's what. Joe turned once more to the problem at hand. The step was just too low. That gave him another idea.

Joe went around to the backside of the steps and studied the top step. Was there some way to move that up three or four inches? Even that much might help. He saw nothing that would help though, for one, he didn't have a pair of pliers. The bolts wouldn't turn without some provocation.

Joe came back around to the front of the stairs and sat down rather quickly when his vision suddenly swam before him. Blast it, he thought as a surge of anger shot through him. Blast it, blast it! I knew he drugged me, I knew it! Damn!

Joe took several deep breaths to see if he could slow the dizzy feeling but found all he wanted to do, now, was go to sleep. He struggled against the desire to pass out and climbed slowly back up the stairs again. One last try. That was all, just one last try and he would have to give up. He jumped sluggishly and nearly fell when he landed back on the step. He grabbed the rails to either side and held on, then slowly turned and went back down them. He stumbled again to the bottom of the stairs and, finally, he sat down heavily on the bottom step and leaned over. If he just rested for a minute he could finish up and get out of here...

Joe woke very slowly some time later and found, once more and to his dismay, he was chained back to the table. His shoulder ached from the exertion of hanging on the bar above the rectangle and from the chains pulling so tightly at them. He grimaced in pain as he tried to struggle but each movement was a painful reminder of all things bad. Oh how he wanted to go home.

Joe blinked his eyes several times then closed them. He was very dizzy, perhaps because the drugs were not totally worn off yet. The brand on the bottom of his foot burned so hot he wanted someone to just cut his foot off to make the pain end. He would love to bury it up to the ankle in a bowl of ice and if it totally deadened his foot that would be just fine, so long as it quit hurting.

Someone, he realized a moment later, had changed his clothing on him. Instead of the silk boxers and robe he wore the last time he was awake he now wore something that looked and felt like satin. He never wore satin, not even to dances. It was all Vanessa could usually do to get him into a decent shirt and tie, much less something so girly as satin. He glowered up at the now closed opening and made a face, all for his uncle's benefit.

Joe leaned back again and closed his eyes and tried to relax his muscles, slowly, one by one, so as to ease some of the painful tension in them. A moment later he jerked at one of the chains around his leg and kept jerking, to try to free the chain from the lion's mouth. They couldn't possibly be that strong, could they?

Forty or so tugs later Joe had to agree that yes, they possibly could be that strong. He had a bloody streak about the manacle on his right leg and it stung; not as much as the burn did, but stung nonetheless. He grimaced and lay back again, spent. He didn't even bother to look up when the stairs clunked and the opening appeared and the stairs came down. He closed his eyes and focused on breathing in and out, in and out, in and out. That was important. The rest of the world was not. His Uncle was not.

"Joseph," his Uncle said as he came down the stairs. "Good morning."

Joe grimaced in pain and looked away from his Uncle and kept his eyes firmly shut.

A hand gripped his chin and turned his face. He opened his eyes to find his masked Uncle looking at him with resolutely cold eyes. The hand that held his face almost burned hot and felt strong enough to break Joe's jaw with just one small squeeze. Joe grimaced again and tried to get his head free but to no avail.

"I'm not very happy with you," his Uncle said in a cold voice without letting go. "I saw that you tried to get away. I hope you realize, now, just how futile that is. The stairs only come down one way, by that lever. Even if you can get the opening opened again you won't be able to get the stairs out of the way, I made sure of that when I built them."

Joe tried to swallow but he could barely breath. He settled for a fixed glare right at Derak.

"Now then," his Uncle continued a moment later as he released Joe's chin. "I can see that you are as ready for the games to begin as I am. I wouldn't want you to be disappointed after all, would I?"

"Going to talk me to death?" Joe asked in a raspy voice.

"Oh, no," Derak smiled again - or so Joe assumed by the movement around his mouth and the slight look of cheer in the cold eyes. "I may kill you with pleasure but I won't talk you to death."

Joe turned away again and closed his eyes. If Derak was dumb enough to expect Joe's willing participation, he had another think coming.

Just let him release those chains now and see what happens, Joe thought, grimly. He'll wish he never touched me!

"No, no, that will never do," Derak said a moment later. "I see you still have a little too much spirit left in you, my boy. I think I'm going to have to do something about that. When we have our fun you will be a willing participant."

Joe froze, the glare gone from his face. He looked up at his Uncle again and froze inside - and outside.

Then he tried to block everything out.

The Loss PG