Steve's hands curl into fists and he swallows. "I did what you said. Brought her here. Tell me where my family is."

"Oh, Steve." Birkin shakes his head and walks toward him, hands in his pockets. "Of course. You did a great job."

Steve flinches as the doctor comes closer. "Just tell me."

"Sure, sure." Birkin stops less than a foot from the man, who's practically shaking he's so overwhelmed. "They're..."

The doctor's voice lowers; Steve leans in slightly to catch his words, his neck extending like a turtle poking out of its shell. Before he can move, Birkin whips his hand out of his right pocket and jabs a needle straight into Steve's jugular.

I swallow a scream as I watch his eyes roll back in his head and his legs give out beneath him. Birkin laughs crazily as the big man crumples like a paper doll in the rain.

"Thanks for your help, Steve." He shakes his head and turns back to me, grinning widely. "What a great guy."

My heart is pounding; my eyes are locked on the empty hypodermic needle in Birkin's hand. "Is... is he..." I swallow. "Is he dead?"

Birkin laughs again. "Of course not! What, do you think I'm some kind of monster?"

I don't answer. Because obviously I think he's a fucking monster, but I'm really not keen on having a needle shoved in my carotid anytime soon.

He takes a jerky step toward me. "Just a sedative; he should wake up in a few hours. I don't kill innocent people."

That's good news.

"Then, please, let me go," I whisper.

"But, Zoe..." He makes a tsk noise. "You aren't innocent." I watch his hands pull back on the end of the needle a bit, so the tube fills with air. "Do you know what happens to the human body when you push an air bubble into a vein?"

Shit, fuck, damn.

My heart pounds harder.

"The medical term for it is an air embolism. Fancy name for a bubble, in my opinion. Then again, given that such a little bubble can do such amazing things... like travel to your heart or your brain, block the blood flow until you slowly lose consciousness and die... I suppose it deserves some elaborate terminology. Don't you agree?"

He takes a step closer, rolling the needle between his fingers.

"Please," I whisper, trying not to panic. "Please, you've got the wrong person. I didn't do anything to you."

"Well, now, that's just patently untrue, Zoe." He frowns at me. "I got a very interesting phone call from Robert Lancaster's Head of Security a few days ago! Mr. Linus I believe you've met him. Not the friendliest man I've ever encountered, I'll say that much." His eyes narrow. "Want to take a guess where he was calling me from? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't his beach house in Palm Springs."

I drag in a shaky breath.

"Seems some people at the FBI had some questions for him. Questions about me. And the health of our employees." He leans closer and I try not to show how much fear his proximity inspires. It takes all my self control not to squeeze my eyes shut.

"You can imagine, he wasn't very happy." Birkin's pupils are constricted to pinpricks; a surefire sign he's high out of his mind. "He told me all about you, and your little investigation. And then he told me it was my fault for keeping those medical records saved to the company network. He told me to fix it."

I swallow, still watching the needle in his hand.

"So, Zoe, here I am." He comes closer; I can feel his rancid breath on my face when he speaks again. "You and I are going to have a little chat about what you gave the FBI. And then you're going to do what you do best."

My heart is pounding so hard I'm worried it'll give out. "What? What do you want me to do?"

He makes a disappointed face. "And here I thought you were supposed to be clever." He shakes his head. "You're going to hack their servers and erase all the evidence you gave them. No evidence means no trial. No trial means no jail time for me or Lancaster or Linus."

He's nuts. Certifiably insane. Unfortunately, I don't think pointing that out at this moment is going to do me any favors.

"And, if you do it all perfectly..." Birkin's hand reaches out to stroke my face; I feel the side of the plastic needle pressing against my skin and tears of horror fill my eyes despite my best efforts. "...Then maybe I'll let you go."

I don't dare to breathe with the tip of his needle so close to my eye socket.

"Oh, don't cry, Zoe!" Laughing, he stumbles backward a few steps. "We're going to fix everything." He tilts his head. "Well... you're going to fix everything." His grin is manic. "Because, if you don't, I'm going to kill you."

I swallow hard.

Fuck.

Birkin tows me by my bound hands like a dog on a leash, leading me through the abandoned offices using his cellphone as a flashlight. The power was cut in this building a long, long time ago. We step over piles of trash and medical waste, around discarded particle-board furniture and past broken light fixtures.

"This used to be a nice place, you know," he says conversationally. "I had a successful practice. A loving family. A good life."

"What happened?" I ask quietly.

He goes silent.

"Drugs," I guess.

He jolts to a stop and looks back at me with his unfocused eyes. His fist tightens on the needle in his hand. "You don't know. You don't know anything about it."

I press my lips together. "You're right. I'm sorry."

He nods and continues pulling me down the hallway. Eventually, we reach an office. There's a crappy laptop sitting on the dust-covered desk. Birkin pushes me toward it with an angry shove.

"Fix it, little hacker girl."

I stare from him to the laptop.

I couldn't hack a Girl Scout Troop blog with that piece of crap.

Am I going to tell him that?

Hell to the no.

If I can get online, maybe I can somehow call for help.

"Can you unbind my hands?" I lift my chafed wrists, bloody from the zip-tie's sharp edges. "I won't be able to type like this."

He stares at me flatly. "You'll manage."

Thinking it's probably best not to argue with the crazy, needle-wielding drug addict, I nod and walk toward the chair, trying not to sway. My head still feels foggy from Steve's punch; I wonder if I might have a concussion as I settle onto a creaky, springless chair.

"This is going to take a while," I warn, trying to buy myself some time.

He leans back against the wall and glares at me. "You have an hour."

It takes all my energy to keep my face from reacting. Even with a super-computer, I couldn't hack the FBI in under an hour. His demands just show how out of touch with reality he's become, addled by morphine and god only knows what else.

That actually works in my favor.

"Okay," I say in what I hope is an agreeable tone. "I'll do my best."

He nods. "Don't try anything stupid. I'm watching every keystroke. You try to call for help, I'll kill you before they ever get here." The look in his eyes tells me he means every word.

I take a deep breath.

So...

All I have to do is figure out a way to call for help while making it look like I'm hacking into a government agency on a computer so crappy, I'm surprised it's able to piggyback off the weak WiFi signal Birkin's iPhone is broadcasting, without alerting the drug-addled madman watching my every move.

Simple.

Right?

Mind reeling, I turn to the computer, prop my bleeding wrists against the edge of the dirty desk, and get to work.

"This is taking too long," Birkin says for the tenth time.

He's getting twitchier by the minute; either he's coming down from his high, or he's starting to get suspicious that I am not, in fact, halfway through my hack into the FBI's secure servers, as I assured him five minutes ago.

"Almost done," I say, fingers typing nonsense into the terminal window. I figure so long as it at least looks like something out of the movies - green code on a black background, lots of complex number sequences - he won't know the difference. But if he's coming down from his high...

He might start paying better attention.

He might realize I'm lying through my teeth.

He might jab that air-filled needle into my neck.

I blink back tears as my fingers move, trying to push the thoughts away. If I can just stall a little while longer, until they get here...

"How much longer?" Birkin appears at my side, looking sweaty and feverish. His pupils are slightly more dilated.

"I'm almost inside their network," I assure him. "Should only be a few more minutes."

Where the hell are they? Come on, come on, come on.

A feeling of dread stirs inside my stomach.

What if they didn't get my message? What if they couldn't figure it out? What if I made a huge mistake, not just calling the police?

I fight back a shiver of panic. My fingers tremble against the keys as blood drips onto the desk, my raw wrists weeping steadily until the wood surface is slippery and red in the low light of the office. Only the glow of the laptop illuminates the space.

Birkin is unstable. That much is clear. If a team of policemen pull up outside with flashing lights and sirens, I'll be dead before they make it to the front door.

No way in hell am I taking that chance.

Plus, it's not exactly like I can call 911 and ask for assistance without him noticing.

I can, however, access his iPhone.

With the laptop piggybacking on his satellite signal for WiFi coverage, I'm already connected. Once I realized that, I knew I could send a text right from the computer. I could reach out to Parker and Nate. The only question was... what the hell kind of message does one send, in this scenario?

Writing something obvious like, "Help! Birkin has me tied up at his old office and is holding me hostage with a freakishly large needle, come save me ASAP!" basically guarantees my demise if Birkin so much as glances at his phone messages in the time it takes help to get here. He'd instantly know I hacked his phone.

Hello, needle to the neck.

Sending a cryptic message seems even less ideal; sure, in his drug-addled state there's a chance Birkin wouldn't realize I was the one sending texts from his phone if they aren't an overt call for help... but there's an equal chance that Parker and Nate would have no idea what I was trying to tell them.

Hello, slow and painful death.

In the end, the decision comes down to trust.

Trust that the universe isn't always out to get me.

Trust that, sometimes, you can count on people.

And, ultimately, trust that Phoebe's unfailing addiction to all things fashionable will finally serve a purpose other than making her look fabulous.

The message I sent has no words - only an image.

I have to hope it's enough to lead them to me.