When he woke, he was floating on clouds. Under his back he could feel the soft, pillowy substance of them. But the smell that his nostrils picked up on wasn't anything like fresh air at all. Sunlight sometimes had a smell to it, a fresh and lively scent that invigorated and warmed the body. This scent was something else entirely. It was stifling hot and musty, like a dank and dirty basement right next to a furnace. A basement where someone had dropped off a dead body and left it to rot for a week. Jon breathed in that stink and coughed violently, sitting bolt upright with a start.

The first thing the book seller realized was that he hadn't been laying on a bed of clouds at all. What he'd felt had been a wrecked sofa that looked as if a gigantic rottweiler had turned it into a chew toy at some point. He was very glad not to have found any slobber amongst the tattered fluff. Once his vision cleared, he realized that the rest of the living room didn't look any better. From the best that he could determine, it almost looked as if the house he found himself in had survived a fire and at the same time been used as a cage for a large, rabid, wild animal. With his imagination conjuring up an image of the potential beast, he didn't feel very good. He felt a little sick to his stomach actually. Particularly when he remembered where he had been and what had happened before finding himself waking up here. Wherever here was.

"Oh good. You're awake." Hearing that voice, whoever it belonged to, so very close to him startled Jon so bad that he jumped to his feet and tripped over them several times while stumbling backward. Somebody caught him from behind and jammed a spear point against his spine. He yelped in pain and spun around quickly to slap his assailant, only to realize that it was a broken mantle over a crumbling fireplace. His cheeks flushed hot and his breath came in gasps as he tried to get his nerves under control.

Behind him, he heard the strange voice again. "Oh dear. I'm sure the mantle felt that." The tone was so haughty and regal, so full of mockery, that he finally recognized it. Which did nothing for his rattled nerves and attempt to calm the panic.

Jon spun around so quick that the jagged mantle poked him in the ribs sharply. He stared wide-eyed at the second burglar, whom he hadn't gotten a good look at before. "H-h-who...?" But his words trailed away. He lost his voice.

Leaning against the back of the couch was a man so pretty that he almost mistook him for Nemo. The facial features were startlingly similar to the empath's. Only the hair was red and the eyes were softer, a different color, and... Still. Rhy'din was so full of pretty people, but not like this. Not so close in resemblance to the one person he loved most in the world above himself. He felt the color in his cheeks again, burning hot, and he lifted a hand to try to hide them behind the shadow of his palm. He couldn't believe that someone so pretty could be as frighteningly cruel as the man he'd heard speaking to the Latino in his shop not so long ago. Last night? The night before? How long had it been?

The man raised a brow at him in confusion at first. He blinked incredulously at the book seller, and then he smiled. That smile was almost as lethal and menacing as the Latino's had been. Jon thought for a moment that they were perfectly matched as burglars, no, kidnappers in that respect. Then the man climbed over the wreck of a sofa and crept closer to him, purring. The man purred! Not only did he purr, but he invaded the book seller's personal space and rubbed up against him like a cat who'd just been given a tasty treat and now wanted to snuggle to indicate his thanks.

Jon gulped and trembled and cowered into the wall as far as he could go. Which wasn't very far at all. "H-h-who ... wh-where ...?" Forming complete sentences was completely beyond his capabilities at that moment. Though if he had been, he likely would have covered all the bases in the spectrum of interrogative pronouns.

"Havoc," the man answered. Still he purred and still he took up Jon's personal space, leaning against him lovingly. He even tiptoed sharp, pointed nails up from the bookworm's stomach to his chest. Jon shuddered and continued to tremble. Though it was so very stifling hot in the room, he felt so incredibly cold all of a sudden. And that sick feeling in his stomach wasn't going away at all. He'd heard that name somewhere before, hadn't he?

Then it dawned on him. "Oh God," he muttered. "Oh God." A little louder. "You're him!" He recoiled away from the spawn only by about three inches. "You're Nemo's brother!" That's where he'd heard the name before. The empath had mentioned a Havoc, and also mentioned something about staying away from him and... "And ... and the other one?" The lump in his throat was getting harder and harder to swallow, and it kept reforming over and over again.

"Only by blood," the spawn said with a sigh. "Ah. That is Salvador." The spawn cooed the name tauntingly, and almost adoringly. Jon thought he heard a hint of that somewhere in the reply. "He is making me be good." Havoc seemed to pout when he added that. "Tragic, isn't it?" Then, much to Jon's surprise and horror, the man licked his face. Jon cringed.

Now, Nemo had warned him that both Havoc and Salvador were very dangerous people. Which is why he'd told him to stay away from them. Jon hadn't the slightest idea of where he was, and realized he probably wasn't in much of a position to disagree. "Uh..." That wasn't a very brilliant way to start. Neither was the stammering that followed. "Y-yes. Very. T-tragic. Mhm." He nodded stupidly and tried his very best not to scream and run in terror. Quite frankly, he didn't want to know what Havoc was like when he was misbehaving.

"I think I see why he likes you so much," Havoc said. The man nuzzled his cheek. The blur of white that Jon could make out seemed like a vicious grin of some sort. He had the sneaking suspicion that this one wanted to eat him. Cannibal. But could it really be cannibalism considering they weren't even the same species? Havoc's voice lowered to a seductive murmur when he spoke his next words into Jon's ear. "You're very ... agreeable." Jon closed his eyes and shuddered.

Then, to his immense relief, the door opened, and when it did he opened his eyes. Beyond the door, for a brief moment, Jon could see a dark alleyway. He had no idea where that alley was, and therefore also had no idea which area of the city he was in. But when the door opened he felt a strange sensation of displacement, as if the air that wafted in from the outside didn't belong mingling with the stuffy air of the inside. But all that was pushed out of his mind the moment he saw Nemo stumble into the living room. From the outstretched hand connected to the body that followed him, the book seller surmised that the empath had been shoved none too politely into the house.

This time Jon got a good look at his kidnapper. The man named Salvador looked to be very young. From what the book seller could determine of his overall appearance, the Spaniard couldn't have been any older than eighteen, freshly out of high school. He was as tall as Jon was himself, give or take an inch, and walked with a languid yet dominant aura about him. He had rich brown hair, cropped short and feathered. This was a man who embodied calculating confidence. Jon had read about people like him before, and that only made his boyish good looks seem all the more imposing and ... alluring. Was the world full of people like this? People so beautiful on the outside yet so horrific on the inside? It was enough to turn his blood to ice and make him shiver. It even seemed that when Salvador entered the room that he brought in arctic temperatures with him. What chilled him most of all was the intensity of those sharply glaring, eerie yellow-green eyes. He looked and moved like a feral cat put into a boy's body.

The very first words out of Nemo's mouth were not to Jon. Though he did look directly at Jon, and Havoc, and pointed at the latter with a fierce look in his eyes. "You. Get the fuck off him."

"Or...?" Havoc countered with droll suspicion, turning his head away from Jon's. He eyed the empath challengingly.

"Or I start reciting 'journal' entries," the empath threatened. Whatever that meant, precisely, seemed to have quite an effect on Havoc.

To add to his relief, Havoc gave up on occupying his personal space the moment the empath said that. The spawn turned away from him and flashed Salvador what seemed to be a cross between a pleased-to-see-you smile and a voracious grin. "Did it go smoothly?" he asked. Jon found it a little strange that he jumped right to a question without even bothering to say hello. "I believe I scared little Jon into urinating on himself," he added, which wasn't exactly true at all. Though he was pretty sure he almost had done just that. "Can we keep him?" Keep him!? What!?

"No," said the Spaniard. That single word was dispassionate beyond all comprehension. Jon watched as his kidnapper tossed what looked like a skeleton key at Havoc. The spawn caught it nimbly and arched a brow questioningly. Salvador issued a toneless command. "Take him home." Then he stepped over to the empath and shoved him roughly toward another door under the stairs that Jon hadn't had the chance to see before. While herding Nemo along, he added a statement over his shoulder. "I'll wait until you come back."

"Pff. I knew you would say that, tambali." Havoc sounded disappointed, but he started toward the door anyway. There he waited for Jon.

If there's one thing to said about love, it's the fact that even the most cowardly of people discover bravery in the face of adversity. Jon pushed away from the wall then and started toward predator and prey. "Take me home? What? What do you mean take me home? And what's all this about you waiting until he comes back? What's this all about?" His hands had formed fists without him even realizing it, and he'd climbed over the wrecked couch without noticing that as well. For all he knew, he could very well have walked through the couch. He stepped into their path and fully intended on blocking the way to that door until he got some answers.

With one hand still resting on the empath's shoulder, Salvador lifted his pierced brow and stared at the bookworm as if he were trying to figure out what precisely Jon was. It didn't seem at first as if the boy was going to answer him, but then his brows dipped low and he did respond. Salvador tipped his head slightly to one side, but continued to stare with that same confused expression. "Go home, Señor Montgomery," he said. Not exactly an answer to Jon's questions, but an answer nonetheless.

"No." Jon was suddenly filled with resolute defiance, something he couldn't recall displaying ever before. First he crossed his arms, but then thought better of it. Instead he stepped back far enough to press his back against the door under the stairs and stretch his arms across it. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on."

His kidnapper looked even more puzzled. Jon was reminded again of a cat, particularly the one that he often saw that lived in the alley in the back of the shop. Nearly every day the book seller had tried to chase the stray off with mimicked hissing noises and flailing arms. Every time he tried that, however, the cat sat primly atop the dumpster and tilted his head at him as if he were trying to figure out what he was saying. Clearly this young man didn't perceive Jon as a threat. More like a curiosity of some foreign world. Jon's wild imagination had him feeling as if he were one of those plastic cage balls with a bell in the middle that the kitty was preparing to bat around tentatively. That's exactly how the boy looked at him, even when he dropped his hand off of the empath's shoulder and took two cautious steps closer.

"You are not as intelligent as I previously assumed," commented the empath's brother. From a brief glance, Jon could tell he looked just as confused as Salvador. But he only spared a glance. His attention was riveted to the Spaniard. It took all his strength of will not to show his fear. How he wasn't trembling he didn't know. The boy stopped a short distance away from him and simply stared, deep into Jon's eyes. What was he looking for?

Out of the corner of his eye, he was vaguely aware of Nemo fidgeting. "Jon..." There was an ounce of uncertainty in the empath's voice, a moment of pause, as if he were picking his words very carefully. Strange that right about now the book seller was mourning the link he'd asked Nemo to close off at some point. He couldn't handle the influx of some of those experienced feelings at times. But right now, it would have been helpful. "I ... get the sense this isn't something you're gonna wanna be around for," Nemo said. "Go home. I'll be all right. They just snagged you to get my attention. And ... well ... it obviously worked."

He was steadily feeling all of his newfound courage draining out of him. The longer Salvador looked into his eyes, the weaker he felt. He couldn't even think up a decent enough reply. The room was silent. If there'd been a working clock hanging on the wall, he figured that would've been the only thing he heard. To replace that, his heart was pounding furiously. After a long moment, a span of time that felt like forever, he watched the catlike boy's expression change. He furrowed his brows, frowned, and narrowed his eyes. But he never stopped staring into Jon's eyes. Slowly, Salvador lifted a hand toward the book seller's face.

"Don't touch him!" Nemo moved in between him and his kidnapper so swiftly. Jon was amazed by the speed in which he moved. It was almost as if the empath had been standing in front of him the entire time. That intervention was just enough to sever the deadlock stare he and the boy had been sharing, much to his relief.

Salvador drew back his chin and pulled back his hand. His eyes turned to focus that disappointed glare on the empath instead. Though he couldn't see Nemo's expression, he was fairly certain by the Spaniard's reaction that it was something challenging. "Your Jon is a fool," he said. His voice was still so very dispassionate, lacking emotion. This boy was a polar opposite of the empath, and his very presence sent shivers up and down the book seller's spine. Over Nemo's shoulder, he could barely see his kidnapper's fingers curl and flex, as if he were sheathing and unsheathing a set of claws. "He isn't going to leave." Frightening how deeply he'd been read, as if the boy had seen into the very depths of his soul and browsed through a script that Jon wasn't even aware of.

Then he saw it, for the first time. It hadn't registered until just now. The Spaniard's fingers were coated in a slimy black substance. At first Jon mistook it for old oil, but that scent wasn't in the air. Even his feeble human senses recognized that much. It was... "Is that blood? Nemo! Are you bleeding? What'd you do to him?" All that courage he'd felt draining away flooded back into him and he pushed away from the door to grab the empath and turn him around to get a better look at him.

Startled by the outburst, perhaps, Salvador took a step back and raised a brow. He tilted his head the other way and lifted his hand back up to inspect it, as if he weren't even certain what the black substance on his hand was himself. He didn't answer any of those questions, though. He lowered his hand to his side after a moment and watched the pair of them suspiciously.

Jon became oblivious to everything else. He fussed over Nemo's condition like a mother who's darling child had just fallen out of a tree. Was anything broken? Were there any scrapes? Does he have a concussion? Though the bookworm had read several texts on the subject of anatomy, not to mention medical journals, he certainly wasn't a doctor. Despite that, the gaping wound on the empath's stomach was enough to make him worry. "Oh my God. My God. What'd you...? How could you...? Bastard!" His courage was suddenly backed by something else. Anger. He turned away from the empath so quickly that he felt possessed. It was in that moment that Jon did the most foolish thing that any man could ever do. He punched Salvador. Or at least he tried to.

Nemo tried to grab him. He felt the empath's arms grab him several times and try to jerk him back. He even heard his reassurances. "Jon! I'm all right! Hey, n-no!" But he wasn't really hearing him at all. The focus of his rage was too consuming.

The next thing Jon knew was that he was on the floor, stomach flat. He was vaguely aware of a dull ache in his jaw, which quickly turned into a sharp pain, and then he sneezed. He sneezed a thick spray of blood onto the hardwood floor. With a groan he realized he'd acquired a bloody nose at some point. Then with a whine he tried to reach around to inspect the damage. Something, or someone, was holding his arm by the wrist up behind him. That same someone gave his arm a sharp twist, which caused Jon to cry out. "See?" Looming over him was the Spaniard, with a boot planted firmly between his shoulder blades and holding him down. "Foolish," he said.

Someone else was laughing. Jon was pretty sure it was Havoc. Nemo collapsed to the floor next to him, panting. The book seller wasn't entirely certain what had just happened. Everything had gone so quickly. Everything was still happening so quickly! The weight was lifted off of his back and Salvador had let go of his wrist. But now he was on his feet, sort of. Havoc had joined the fray and lifted him up. He shivered when he felt those sharp nails teasing his throat. "Both of them are idiots," the spawn commented.

Through a haze of blood and stars, Jon heard a door creak open behind him and slam against a wall. He saw the shadow of blue skin rising up from the floor with a whimper and heard the Spaniard's thick and dispassionate voice. "Fine then. If he wants to stay so badly, he can stay. Let him watch."

For some reason Jon suddenly regretted his feeble attempts at courageously defending his lover. That sick feeling in the pit of his stomach grew, and he almost threw up. But before he could do so he was ushered through the door and down a dark flight of stairs. The stink of old death rose up to meet him, thickly saturated in the atmosphere from the heat and humidity it mingled with. The air clogged his lungs, making him choke, and for the second time he blacked out. The last thing he was aware of was the sensation of falling...