“N-not long, I was only passing by. I heard a noise and it frightened me. I wanted to see what it was,” Blaine replied, tripping over his words.

            “Well, you shouldn’t be this far into the woods. You should go home,” the boy said. Go on! Get out of here!” he nearly shouted at Blaine after realizing Blaine had not moved.

            “My father owns these woods, I won’t go until I’m well and ready to!” he shouted back, not believing that this stranger, as beautiful as he was, was yelling at him and shooing him off of his own property.

            “You own the woods?” asked the boy sarcastically, as he gestured around him.

            “Yes, I do,” came Blaine’s matter of fact reply.

            “What’s your name?” asked the boy curiously.

            “Blaine. Blaine Anderson,” Blaine stated simply.

            “An Anderson, huh? Well, you need to go home Blaine Anderson,” the boy stated more sternly than the first time. He was still glancing around the forest, making sure that Blaine was unaccompanied.

            Blaine met the boys eyes, cyan in color, and stated “I was on my way home, thank you very much, until you felt the need to bother me, and I would be more than happy to carry on doing so, if I knew which way to go.” He looked around him taking in the woods, all the trees blended together, forming the same scenery no matter which way he looked.

            “So, you’re lost then?” the boy chuckled, walking towards Blaine. “Come on, I’ll show you the way home.” He placed his hand on Blaine’s arm, pulling him away from the spring.     

            They started walking back the way that Blaine had come from, though he didn’t know how this strange boy could tell one direction from the other. “Sure, I need a drink first,” Blaine replied, twisting his arm out of the other boys and striding back towards the spring.

            The boy panicked and ran in front of Blaine, separating him from the spring, “No!” he shouted. “You don’t want to drink that, it’s poison!”

            “It can’t be, I watched you drink some just a moment ago,” Blaine said, trying to move passed the boy.

            “Well, I feel really sick now,” the boy said, while continuing to block the shorted boy.

            “ You don’t look ill at all. I’ve been moving for hours, I need a drink,” Blaine said, finally pushing passé the boy and walking up towards the spring at last.

            The boy grabbed Blaine by the arms and pulled him hastily away from the spring, “Leave it alone!” he shouted. Blaine broke free of the boys grip and took off back into the direction that he had been leading him moments ago, “My father will have you arrested for this!”

            “You’re not planning on tell him are you?” asked the boy, his voice trembling with fear. He started to chase Blaine through the woods, dodging and ducking under trees in hopes of catching up.

            Blaine ran face first into another boy that appeared as he turned around a large tree. “Where do you think you’re going?” the boy asked him as he grabbed onto his arms and held him securely into place.

            “Finn!” shouted the first boy, who had finally caught up, “Wait, you can’t!”

            “You know what Burt told us to do Kurt,” Finn shouted back, his arms now wrapped tightly around Blaine’s middle, pulling him off to where his horse waited for him.

            “We can’t do this Finn,” Kurt pleaded, “Please don’t do this.” But Finn already had Blaine on the front of his horse and was galloping off towards their cabin. Kurt began to run as fast he could, shouting for Finn all the while.

~

            Finn stopped the horse just outside the cabin and pulled Blaine off of the horse, shouting at him, “Don’t say anything! Do you hear me?” Blaine struggled to break free, but the other boy was much larger than him.

            Carol, who was on the porch, had just taken notice to the fact that there was another boy with her son upon hearing the shouting. “Finn!” she yelled, “You let him go right now!”

            “He was at the spring with Kurt! He’s an Anderson mom!” Finn’s word hit Carol hard, and all the light drained from her face. “It’s finally happening then…”

            “I want to go home!” Blaine shouted. He suddenly couldn’t remember why he had left in the first place. Dalton Academy seemed far better of a fate than being kidnapped by these people. He sunk down, and placed his head in his hands, panic taking over.

            Leaning down next to him Carol placed her hand on his leg, “Don’t worry love, you can go home, I promise.” Blaine looked up and met her eyes, a shimmer of hope sparkling in his. At least this woman was kinder than the two boys had been.

            She stood back up; turning her attention back towards Finn, “Go find Burt.” It was order, and one that Finn followed. He took the horse and walked off into the distance. Carol began to turn the handle on her music box, as she paced up and down the small path in front of her cabin.

            “I’ve heard that tune before,” Blaine whispered under his breath, recognizing the tune from that the man in the blue suit had hummed as he walked away the night before.

            “Come on in,” Carol gestured as she walked up the small stairs that led to the door, “let’s get you something to drink while we wait.” Blaine followed the woman into the cabin, deciding a drink had in fact sounded nice, as he never did get to have one from the spring.

            He sat down on a small bench inside of the cabin, as Carol poured him a glass of warm tea. “I’m sorry if my boys frightened you. They don’t mean you any harm,” she said as she handed him the cup.

            It wasn’t long before Burt, along with Finn and Kurt, walked into the room as well. If Blaine didn’t know any better, he’d say that all three of the men looked rather frightened. He couldn’t imagine what they had to be afraid of. He was the one that got kidnapped after all.

            They all gathered towards the front of the room, leaving Blaine alone on the bench. He could hear them talking rapidly over one another, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

            Carol, sensing Blaine’s confusion, turned back towards him, “This is my husband, Burt Hummel,” she gestured to her side. “Burt, this is Mr. Anderson.”

            Burt walked over to the bench that Blaine was seated in and extended his hand out for Blaine to take. “Hello, Mr. Anderson,” he said, his hand still extended. He didn’t know what it was about him that attracted so many strange people lately, but he was most definitely not taking this man’s hand. At least the man from last night hadn’t tried to kidnap him.

            “Well,” Burt started, dropping his hand to the side, “Why don’t we all eat and talk about this.” He caught Kurt smiling at him from across the room.

~

            After dinner was ready, Carol set the table, placed the dishes she had prepared in the center, and they all sat down to eat. Blaine was not hungry. He just wanted to go home. He suddenly yearned for his parents, and could for the first time in his life sympathize with his mother’s over protectiveness.

            “My father is going to come looking for me, you know. He has money, a lot of it, he’ll pay you,” Blaine begged.

            “I don’t want any of your father’s money, or anything else, Mr. Anderson,” Burt supplied.

            “Than why am I still here? Please, just let me go home,” Blaine tried again.

            “We will let you go home love, I promised you and I meant it,” Carol interjected.

            “After we can trust him,” Burt shot back.

            “We can’t trust him!” Finn raged in. “We can’t trust him anymore than we can trust any other normal people! He’ll tell on us first chance that he gets.”

            Blaine wondered what he meant by normal. He would have turned over some ideas in his head if Kurt hadn’t spoken, “He wouldn’t”. It was the first words the boy had said since being there. Finn stood up and walked away, glaring at Kurt the entire time.

~

            Back at the Anderson household, Mrs. Anderson was staring out of the window, just hoping to see her son. She let her eyes wander to the grass, where he would always lay down, staring u at the sky aimlessly. She looked up to the fence that he would so often stand against, his eyes drifting to the forest.

            Suddenly, it hit her. The strange man in the blue suit from last night!

            “Dear!” she shouted for her husband. She reminded him of the man from the night before as he came rushing into the room. He set off to the town jail to speak with the deputy at once, and begin a search for the man that had been talking to his son.

            It turned out, the man was already at the station. The deputy didn’t know what to make of Mr. Anderson’s accusations but one does not often say no to a man with power, so when Mr. Anderson request to speak to Sebastian, the deputy let him.

            “You were talking to my son, last night, were you not?” inquired Mr. Anderson.

            “Yes, I was, charming young man. The deputy here tells me she’s run away. Doesn’t much surprise me, really.”

            “She didn’t run away. And I could give a damn less what surprise you or not. What I do give a damn about is if you know where she is or not!” Mr. Anderson barked back.

            “No, I don’t. I’m in search of someone myself actually, a family, by the name of Hummel. Have you heard of them?” He offered a picture of Burt to Mr. Anderson for inspection.

            “I don’t know them.”

            “Well, I’ll be on my way then. If you need someone to search your woods for you Mr. Anderson, let me know, I’m rather skilled in the arts of finding people,” Sebastian said, and with that, he left the station.

~

            Carol gathered some of Kurt’s extra clothing, and offered them to Blaine. She showed him to an extra bedroom in which he could change and sleep. They made lighthearted conversation for a while, before Carol took off to her own room for the night.

            Upstairs in his room Kurt had been listening. When he had heard that his mother had gone on her way to bed he toyed with the idea of going down into the spare bedroom to visit Blaine. Finally, after a rather lengthy internal dilemma, he made his way down to do just that.

            “Hey, Blaine Anderson, are you awake?” he asked lightly, not wanting to wake him if he was.

            “I am now.”