Both Brian and Nick snapped their attention to the door when they heard it open, seeing AJ and Howie walk in, supporting Kevin in between them.

“What the hell happened?” Nick asked as he looked Kevin over, noticing a distant look in his eyes.

“Howie and I found him unconscious.” AJ grunted out as they walked Kevin over towards his bed. “Knocked his head hard on the floor.”

Kevin shied away from Howie’s inspection, “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine Kev.” AJ said. “There was blood on the floor and you could hardly walk here, how you gonna sit here and tell us that you’re fine.”

“Because I am.” Kevin muttered out. “Sure I was a bit disoriented at first, but I’m fine now. Just needed to catch my bearings is all.”

Howie began to shake his head, “I don’t know Kev, head injuries are serious. You say you feel fine, but you could be bleeding inside your head or be suffering from a concussion for all we know.”

Brian nodded, “Howie’s right man, I say we call this off and get you to a hospital.”

“Look, I already said that I’m fine, we’re not calling this off.”

Nick rose from his seat, “Are you serious? Are you even listening to yourself? You’ve suffered a head injury, you don’t want to get yourself checked out at a hospital and you wanna keep going? That’s complete bullshit Kev!”

“We came here to complete a mission, and we’re not leaving until we do. We’ve only got four more days of this, and I’m fine enough to do it.”

“Will you stop saying you’re fine and just…”

“Alright Kevin.”

Nick stopped in the middle of his sentence and shot a look over towards Howie, who had interjected him and had given in to the fight. “What?”

“We’re gonna continue this.”

“Howie, are you fucking serious?”

“Yes Nick, I’m very serious. There’s no sense in fighting it… he says he’s fine, then he’s fine… he says we’re gonna continue on, then we’re gonna continue on. You’re only wasting your breath if you tell him otherwise.”

Nick glanced over at Kevin, seeing a smug look on his face. Reluctantly, he agreed with Howie, no longer wanting to go up and up with Kevin, not wanting to bring out the sadistic side of him that he witnessed the night before. He looked over at Brian and AJ, noticing that they too weren’t gonna bother fighting anymore.

“Whatever you guys say.” Nick muttered out as he made his way to the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him.

Howie looked over at Kevin, “Can you at least let me take a look at your head?”

“It’s okay,” Kevin shook his head. “I’ve stopped bleeding and I just got a headache is all. Just give me some Tylenol and I’ll be fine.”

“Please Kev. We all agreed that we wouldn’t call this off and that we wouldn’t take you to the hospital… the least you could do is let me check you over. I know you’ve said you feel fine, but… better safe than sorry.”

Kevin stared long at Howie, wanting to fight his point that he was fine, but too exhausted to do much of anything, although he wouldn’t let his weariness evident. Taking a deep breath in, he sighed heavily. “Whatever man.”

Kevin turned a bit in his bed so that the back of his head was facing Howie. “Jay, go get the first aid kit.” Howie instructed as he made his way closer to Kevin.

When AJ returned with the kit, Howie grabbed it and opened the box, pulling out a pair of latex gloves and slipping them over his hands. He reached out to the back of Kevin’s head, parting the hair matted in blood, looking for a gash or a lump. “That’s weird.” he muttered out.

“What is it?” AJ asked as he walked up beside Howie, glancing over him to inspect the back of Kevin’s head as well.

“Besides the blood in his hair, there’s nothing there.”

“What do you mean there’s nothing there?” Brian asked his time, walking up behind AJ and Howie.

“I mean what I said… there’s nothing there. No gash, no lump, no signs of direct impact to the back of the head.”

“Kevin,” AJ slowly drawled out, “You said you fell right?”

Kevin nodded, “Yeah… when I was climbing out of the hollow opening in the wall, I lost my grip and fell.”

“And you’re sure that this is your blood?”

Kevin remained silent. “Oh wait, hold on Alex, let me go bust out my handy dandy portable forensics kit and we can take samples of the blood and see if it came from me.” he replied sarcastically. “Of course it’s not somebody else’s blood! I’m sorry I couldn’t give you guys a mystery to solve Scooby and Shaggy.”

AJ scoffed and walked away, “What the fuck ever.”

Kevin stared at AJ as he walked away. “I’m fine D.” he grumbled as he moved away from Howie. “I’m just gonna go pop me some Tylenol, take a shower, go to sleep and I’ll be good as new.”

Nick emerged from the bathroom, still not bothering to say anything to anybody. He began walking towards the main room when he noticed that Kevin was walking towards him. Nick refused to make eye contact with him, instead he kept forward, just wanting to jump into his cot and sleep. As he and Kevin crossed paths, they both lightly brushed past each other, that movement alone causing Nick to stop dead in his tracks, while Kevin kept walking towards the bathroom.

Nick slowly turned around and looked over at Kevin. When they brushed past each other, Nick all of a sudden felt extremely cold, as if he had entered a large freezer. He heard hush voices, which he assumed was all in his head, but the hair on his body was standing at full attention, his flesh prickled. As soon as Kevin passed though, everything was back to normal; the room temperature was back, the voices were no more, and nothing remained but goosebumps that trailed up and down his arms. He couldn’t help than to wonder what the hell just happened, but he tried his best to brush it off.

Sighing heavily, he collapsed face first down onto his cot, inhaling the stale scent of the provided pillow and sheets, slowly luring him into slumber.

“Don’t get too comfortable Nick.”

Nick cracked his eyes open, peering over at Brian, who had woken him from his light and brief nap. “What?”

“We have another mission.”