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Meanwhile...

     Jacob blinked, disoriented, as the blindfold was removed from his eyes. A guard stood over him, blindfold in hand.

"Boss says we have to get you fixed up." he said blandly. Jacob squinted into the light: he hadn't seen any pure light for the last two days.

"Why?" He sprang to his feet, suddenly alert. "Ashton! Is she okay? Where is she? Where are the rest of us?" He looked around, a complete and utter madness in his honey-colored eyes as he scanned the area for any signs of the group. He banged his head against the solid concrete wall. Meanwhile, the guard stood patiently in the doorway.

"Are you okay?" came the genuinely confused voice of the guard. "You know, that isn't very productive."

The banging stopped briefly. Then Jacob's voice came in reply a few seconds later. "I can do whatever I want." The banging continued, more frantic this time. The guard grumbled quietly into a walkie-talkie.

"Boss, he's just banging his head on the wall. It's very irritating. I think we need proof that the girl's here. Over."

A calm voice, interlaced with static, replied, "She'll be coming in about two minutes. Over and out."

Two doors away, Luke sat slumped against the wall. He hadn't been blindfolded when he came, so all he did was stare blankly at the ceiling. He shifted uncomfortably, the cement floor hard and cold underneath him. He heard a muffled thud, then another, and the banging went on continuously. Luke stood up and stretched. He'd been sitting down the whole time since arriving at the tall, formidable structure. He assumed he was in some way underground, this theory based on the absence of exterior windows.

He had been waiting so long for someone to open his door that he thought he was daydreaming when the solid steel door swung open.

Nicole was greeted at the door of the cell by Luke's emerald stare.

"Get up, you're gonna see Ashton today." She looked back at him with equal intensity.

"You're lying."

"I'm not, I swear it. Get up."

"No." He sullenly turned to face the wall. "Wait." He suddenly turned to look at her, his startled stare almost nuclear bright. "How do you know her name?"

"She told me."

"When?"

"Two days ago. Why?"

His eyes narrowed. "What did she tell you?"

"About a necklace, she heard that my bosses had a conversation about her..." she said uncertainly.

"What did she do?"

"She chucked a cot at my boss?"

Luke let the barest hint of a smile cross his lips. "It's her." He glanced at Nicole. "Thank you."

"Me? Why?" She asked, genuinely puzzled.

"You let me know she was alive." His eyes looked somewhat faraway, his thoughts clearly somewhere else. He paced the small room, quietly muttering random names. But somehow Nicole suspected they were not random at all.

"...Simon, Yuri, Philip." Luke finished. "And to think that Ashton could have been added to that list..." With a chill she realized that these might well be people that he had lost. Ghosts of his past. Or maybe...maybe just ghosts.

"Listen," whispered Nicole, almost afraid to interrupt his thoughts. "If boss says you need to get fixed up, I'd better get you to do it or I'll get fired or worse. Come on."

Reluctantly, Luke followed her outside his small holding cell. "Amicitia est dolor." he said quietly, then left.