Barnabas sat bolt upright, not knowing how long he had been asleep or how late it was, knowing only that the atrium was dark and cold, and the sky outside the window was liberally sprinkled with stars. He slipped his fingers into the watch pocket of his vest and pulled out his time piece -- and a flat piece of cardboard fell onto his lap. He turned it over, and it was the dark-haired 'Dream Man' game piece that he must have unconsciously tucked into his pocket in the drawing room. The game that Amy said appeared out of thin air, Julia had disappeared when she took the game piece from Amy, and an arc of light had crackled between their hands. David's words replayed in his mind, "when the Queen is removed from the board, the King is left vunerable -- to the enemy Queen. There was no doubt in his mind that they were all the pawns in some perverse game being played by forces of evil, and he worried that perhaps they could all be acceptable sacrifices to the players manipulating them.

He rose from the uncomfortable chair and stretched his stiff legs, wondering where Julia was, and mentally kicked himself for taking two of those pain pills. At least the pain in his hand would have kept him alert. He pulled on his coat against the chill as he returned to the nurse's station and still found no one on duty. 'So unlike the efficient management in the future after Julia purchased it', Barnabas thought. He briefly hesitated before searching the halls for her, but keeping Julia from driving tonight was more important than not disturbing the patients, and he started down a corridor where he thought he saw the flash of a white lab coat out of the corner of his eye.

He followed it, and as he turned a corner, Barnabas heard a chorus of nervous laughter coming from a room ahead where the 'sons of Thor' watched with personal relief as Dr. Thorson assigned Julia to the most unpredictible and violent patient staying at Wyndcliffe. Dr. Thorson stood aside and told Julia she would have to administer an injection of a newly developed neural inhibitor, but Julia cautiously checked the straps holding the violently thrashing man to the bed first, and when she did, the patient jerked his arm free and grabbed Julia, pulling her onto the bed. Marcus Thorson made no immediate move to help Julia, and only stood beside the bed gloating while she struggled, and then only made an effort to free her when she screamed, "Marcus, help me!"

Then laughing like a man who was enjoying a great practical joke, Thorson strong armed the patient so that Julia was released.

"You knew he wasn't restrained!" she gasped, and when Thorson continued to laugh and said, "Never take anything for GRANTED, doctor," Julia's temper slipped it's own restraints, and she swung back and slapped him hard across the face.

"Your actions are irresponsible and negligent -- you would put a staff member at risk merely to satisfy a personal grudge? As Chief of Staff, your duty is to the well-being of the patients and the safety of the residents here. Your misplaced vengence is reprehensible!"

Thorson sneered at her and growled, "So the little resident thinks she knows what my duty is and censures her superior -- well, YOUR misplaced sense of priority proves to me that you're obviously not ready to be trusted with the responsibility of managing the hospital tonight. I'm taking the honor of that trust away from you and giving it to someone who is worthy of that considerable distinction. Rob, Wyndcliffe is yours tonight."

Rob's face fell immediately and he stammered, "But Thor, it's New Year's Eve, I have plans for tonight!"

Thorson ignored the whining, and when Julia whirled around to leave the room, Thorson's voice boomed loudly through the hallway. "DOCTOR Hoffman, it's obvious that your unstable female hormones have taken control of your behavior! The patients here already have severe emotional problems without being at the mercy of a woman's time of month!"

The 'Sons of Thor' snickered, and Julia barely stiffled an angry scream while her eyes flashed wide with fury and humiliation. "How dare you speak to me like that! You're no more professional than those three bottom-feeding insults to the medical profession!"

"That's enough, DOCTOR. You're obviously unfit for responsibility, and I'm relieving you of duty until you're no longer in the throws of hormones. You're excused from duty until further notice." The other two residents elbowed each other, while Rob sulked with a petulant expression.

Julia's impulse was to slap Thorson again, but she forced herself to stiffen her spine and give Thorson a calm look of utter contempt before she turned her back on him and strode away. Barnabas started to follow her, but Thorson stepped in his path and said, "If you're a friend of that girl's, I suggest you put her in her place if you want to see her keep her career intact. Any more outbursts like the one I just witnessed, and she won't see the inside of Wyndcliffe ever again!"

Barnabas allowed himself to a lopsided smirk and said, "Dr. Hoffman will own Wyndclifffe before you can force her to submit to your terrorist tactics. She is an incredibly strong willed woman, one who will not forget this incident." Barnabas side-stepped Thorson. "Excuse me."

Barnabas walked to the lobby, only to see a glimpse of Julia through the window as she was running to the parking lot, still wearing only her dress and white lab coat. His throat choked off with fear when he realized that she was entering a car, and before he could rush through the door, she spun her tires and roared down the curving driveway to the road.

Barnabas yelled, "Julia, wait!", but it was too late and she was gone. There was no one else in the parking lot, and for a moment Barnabas thought he would have to go back inside and try to convince someone that Julia was in danger, and he had to stop her. But then he spotted a set of keys dangling in the ignition of a little English sports car, and without a second thought, Barnabas Collins committed grand theft auto. He turned the key and the two-seater protested but started, as he shifted the stick into a forward gear. It lurched and the motor lugged, luckily without dying , and Barnabas followed Julia's tire marks down the driveway until he reached the main road, where her tracks were lost among many.

He stopped in confusion, her tire marks seemed to curve to the uphill direction, but Crystal Lake was downhill from Wyndcliffe. With the newspaper article clearly in his mind, Barnabas took a leap of faith and turned downhill to Crystal Lake. The roadway was slick from ice and snow, and Barnabas was still not the best of drivers even after almost five years of practice, so he found the light weight sports car sliding sideways several times on the way down the road, but he managed to keep it on the pavment, until he was rounding one of many tight curves, when he saw the sign for Observation Point posted ahead. In that moment with his concentration fully focused on the sign, the sports car hit a sheet of ice, and Barnabas lost control, the car went into a spin and slid off the road, ending snuggly backed into a clump of trees.

to be continued.

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