Chapter Twenty-Six

"ISN'T IT GETTING awfully hot in here?" Sonny asked as he pumped in and out of Brenda. His hair was soaking wet and his body was covered in sweat. He was also starting to have a hard time breathing in the hot moist air that permeated the steam room.

"No." Brenda assured him as she felt their climax about to hit. "That's just the way we're making each other feel. We've always made each other burn like this." They held each other tightly as they came apart in each other's arms.

After the pleasure began to ebb away, Sonny looked around the room. It was like trying to look through the London fog. "I think something's wrong." He was starting to feel so sleepy. All he wanted to do was curl up on the floor and go to sleep. "It's too hot in here. It wasn't this hot before." He forced himself to get to his feet, then he pulled her to her feet, as well. "I think we'd better get out of here."

"Sonny, not yet." She protested weakly, as she leaned against his chest. "We have so little time together. Can't we stay in here a little bit longer." She was starting to feel sleepy, too.

He searched through the steam for their towels. He handed hers to her so she could wrap it around her, and he did the same with his own. "No, we can't." Sonny insisted. "It shouldn't be this hot in here. There's something wrong." He grabbed her by the hand and dragged her to the door.

"The door won't open." He started to panic as he turned the doorknob and it wouldn't budge.

"I locked it after I came in." She told him sleepily.

He turned the lock and it still wouldn't budge. "I think we're locked in here." He exclaimed. "No matter how I turn the lock, the door won't budge."

Then the truth hit her like a ton of bricks." Oh my god." She gasped. "It's Alcazar. He's trying to kill us."

"He's going to succeed." He told her. "If we can't find a way out of here, we're going to be cooked alive."

She watched him feeling on the bench and on the floor for something through the thick steam. "What are you looking for?"

"I brang my cell phone in here with me." He told her. "I was talking to Jason on it, earlier. If I can find it, I can call Jason and he can get us out of here." His hand bumped against something under the bench. "I found it." Then he heard a loud thump.

He peered through the steam and saw that Brenda had collapsed on the floor. "Brenda." He rushed over to her. "Sweetheart." He gently slapped her face to get her to wake-up. "Wake-up! You can't go to sleep. You've got to stay with me." But she didn't respond and Sonny could feel he was about to pass out at any moment, himself.

He hit redial and waited for Jason to answer the phone. "Jason." He panted into the receiver. "It's Sonny. Brenda and I are trapped in the steam room at the health club at the Port Charles Hotel." He added, before he passed out. "I don't think we have much time left. Hurry." Then he collapsed on the floor next to Brenda, as the steam to continued to grow thicker with each passing second.

~ ~ ~

ALCAZAR'S MAN FIGURED enough time had passed for Sonny and Brenda to have succumbed to the heat. He unlocked the door and turned the temperature inside the steam room back to its normal temperature. As it turned out, he just did it in the nick of time, because right after he finished Jason came rushing towards the steam room. The man had just enough time to duck out of sight. Jason threw open the door and steam came pour out. When it cleared Jason rushed in and dragged first Sonny, then Brenda out of the room. Then Morgan took both their pulses as he called for an ambulance.

Alcazar wasn't pleased when he learned that they were both alive. What was it going to take to rid himself of the two of them. Deciding that he'd better show up at the hospital to make a showing of the concerned husband, he got the shock of his life. He was informed that Brenda was dead. She had died in route to the hospital. He didn't believe it. He wouldn't believe it. He insisted that they show him her body. So they escorted him down to the morgue.

The room was cold and sent a chill up Alcazar's spine as he entered. It was filled by a sea of sheet-covered mounds, that Alcazar surmised were bodies. The doctor lead him over to one such mound. He peeled back the sheet and there laid his wife, Brenda. He hadn't loved her. A man such of himself wasn't capable of such a thing as love. But he had wanted to possess and own her from the moment he first laid eyes on her. And for awhile he had, but for him he had just been a means to the to find Corinthos. They could have been happy if she could have gotten over her obsession with Corinthos. But instead she'd betrayed him for Corinthos not once, but numerous times. Now she was dead. She had used him and now she'd gotten exactly what she deserved. Then a thought suddenly occurred to him.

He turned to the doctor. "My wife is dead." Alcazar declared. "But what of the man who was with her? Is he dead, too? Is Sonny Corinthos dead?

The doctor shrugged. "I have no idea." He told Alcazar. "I only know of your wife. I was sent to break the news to you."

Alcazar rushed out of the morgue and back up to the floor the Emergency Room was located on. If Brenda was dead, then so must Corinthos be. He had to be dead. His plan had worked after all. They both must be dead. Which meant nothing but Jason Morgan would be standing in his way of taking over Corinthos mob. And he'd have no trouble dealing with him.

He rushed over to the nurse on duty at the admitting desk and asked to be directed to the doctor who had taken care of Sonny Coirinthos when he'd been brought in. Then he tracked down the doctor and waited for him to finish with the patient he was taking care of. When he was finally free he asked him the question that he burned to have answered.

"You're the doctor who took care of Sonny Corinthos when he was brought in." Alcazar couldn't conceal his eagerness, but the doctor mistook it for concern for a loved one. "Tell me. Is he dead? Did he die just like his companion did?" Then he waited anxiously to hear the answer he longed to hear.