Chapter Three

There was always a ruckus in the hallways between classes at Monroe Junior High. It was all basically background for Jason as he and his friends headed down the hall to their next class.

"You should totally come out to my house tonight. We could have an entire Call of Duty marathon."

Jason rolled his eyes at his friend.

"You do realize it's a school night, right? There is no way my parents would let me go."

"So say it's for a group project. Be creative, man."

"Did you forget who my parents are? They wouldn't buy that for a second. Not even my dad."

And they wouldn't. His parents could always tell when he was lying or being creative to get out of something. Plus, they were constantly on him about getting his homework done. There was no way they would let him hang out at a friend's house basically indefinitely if he didn't have everything done. They probably wouldn't even let him do that if he did have all of his work finished.

Just then his phone dinged, and he immediately pulled it out of his pocket.

"Ohhh. That was a quick response! You have a girlfriend, Jason?"

"He totally has a girlfriend. Better respond to her quick before she comes after you, Jason."

For the second time in such a short period Jason rolled his eyes at his friend.

"No, dude. I have CNN notifications set up on my phone. Something big must be going on in the world."

He pulled up the notification and couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"Shit. No way. Just no way. It can't be…" he muttered as he scanned through the main part of the article in hopes of proving himself wrong.

Jason had stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, which forced his friends to stop with him. They were causing a major traffic jam but none of them seemed to notice.

"What? Dude, what is it?"

If Jason's friends were expecting to get an answer out of him they were wrong. Jason's face took on a terrified, frantic expression, and he pushed away from them.

"I've got to go."

With that he raced away down the hall, completely ignoring the shouts echoing after him. Jason knew he would be in trouble for running in the hall if one of the teachers caught him and he'd be in even more trouble for being on his phone, but at the moment he didn't care. The situation necessitated these things. His teachers should understand, and if they didn't then he would take the punishment.

The first call he made was to his mother's cell. He hadn't truly been expecting it to go through, but hearing that voicemail message dropped the bottom out of his stomach. When he got the same from his dad's phone it was nearly too much. He had very few options left, but he knew there was no way he could just wait around for someone to finally decide to pick up their phone or give him answers. He was going to find those answers himself. There was no way he was staying out of the loop on this one.

Desperate times and all that.

So he made a call he'd never made before.

"Jason?"

Blake sounded confused when he spoke Jason's name, but underneath that confusion Jason could hear tension. His mother's assistant was clearly stressed out about something. That was enough confirmation for Jason that he didn't even bother asking if CNN's report was true.

"I know what happened. You need to tell me right now with certainty that Mom is alive and okay and explain why she isn't answering her phone. If you can't do that then you better send a car to Monroe Jr. High so I can go get Ali at Westmore."

"Jason…"

"Seriously not kidding, Blake."

And he wasn't. If Blake didn't send a car and Jason had to come up with another way to get to Alison Blake would regret it. Jason would make sure that his life was a living hell from that point onward.

"Alright. Alright, Jason. I'll get a car sent over now. Just don't… do anything your mom wouldn't approve of."

Jason got the feeling that Blake had initially been planning to tell him not to do anything stupid before he opted for a different phrase. It didn't really matter either way though. Jason was pretty sure everything he was planning would fit in both the "stupid" category and the "Mom wouldn't approve" category. Given the fact that there was a chance his mother wasn't even around anymore Jason wasn't even remotely concerned about the consequences of his actions. He simply hung up and headed for the office. It turned out he would be using some of his friend's advice that day after all. If he wanted to escape he was going to have to spin a pretty good story to be able to leave school without a parent signing him out. Pulling the "security purposes" card would have to be enough.

O . o . O . o . O

When the car pulled up outside of Westmore Prep Jason hurtled out of the backseat and sprinted toward the entrance. He hadn't been back to the school since he'd been expelled, but he figured it wouldn't matter that much since he wasn't going to stick around for long. All he had to do was get Alison and get out. There was no way he would let anyone stand in his way. The fastest way to get to Alison was to go straight to Dean Ward. He had no idea what class his sister was in, and tracking her down himself would take too long. Thankfully the halls were empty, so he was able to run to the Principal's office unimpeded.

Dean Ward's head shot up as Jason catapulted into her office, but Jason didn't give her a chance to even start a lecture or complain about the fact that he'd been thrown out of Westmore.

"What class is Alison in?"

"That's not something you just storm in here and demand, Mr. McCord. You shouldn't even be in this building at all."

Jason's nerves were pulled so tight that he didn't have any patience or emotional control to spare. He all but blew up at the principal.

"I don't have time for this! Just tell me where my sister is before I go find her myself and disrupt all the classes while I'm doing it."

"Jason! An outburst like that is completely unacceptable! What on earth is going on?"

"My mom's plane just crashed."

Dean Ward went still. She hadn't thought any reason would be good enough for her to give in to Jason's demands, especially after the way he'd spoken to her. Apparently she'd thought wrong. She turned away from him and pulled Alison's schedule up on the computer.

"She's in English. Mr. Rafferty's room."

She caught a brief flash of relief and gratitude on Jason's face before he sprinted from the room.

Jason knew exactly how to get to Alison's classroom thanks to his previous time at Westmore. What he didn't know was how he was going to explain everything to his sister. He needed to get her to come with him without argument, but he also didn't want to terrify her. If felt like an impossible task, and he was running out of time to figure it out.

The door to Mr. Rafferty's classroom was closed, but Jason simply flung it open and burst into the room. Every head swiveled toward him, which made it really easy to find Alison. She was sitting there staring at him with an open mouth.

"Grab your stuff and let's go. Right now."

Jason's demand snapped the entire class out of their shock. Whispers erupted throughout the room, and Alison shot to her feet.

"What are you talking about? What are you even doing here? You were expelled!"

And he was seriously embarrassing her. She did not need her little brother showing up at her school and wreaking havoc. That was exactly what he was doing though. Big time. She was going to kill him.

"Alison, do you need to take a moment to talk to your brother?" Mr. Rafferty asked.

She turned toward him and was about to respond "no" when Jason cut in.

"Mom's plane went down."

All of the anger rushed out of Alison as she turned back to face her brother. Panic immediately began to set in, and words almost completely failed her.

"What?"

"They don't know if anyone survived, but Dad has to know more than the news is reporting. So let's go!"

He'd been expecting Alison to jump to it and follow him out the door. His bluntness should have driven her to action. Instead it looked like his lack of plan had resulted in terrifying his sister. She hadn't moved a single step toward the door, and he could see her shaking.

"That… can't be," she whispered.

Apparently Alison was still trying to process what he had said, but Jason couldn't give her that time. He had to put a stop to Alison's downward spiral, and the best way to do that was not to give her time to think. They needed to go.

"Now, Ali!"

Alison jumped like she'd been electrocuted. In seconds she'd gathered up all of her books and thrown them into her bag. She headed toward Jason as she threw her bag over her shoulder. Even as she followed her brother out she couldn't make sense of what was happening or how it could even be happening. The more she thought about it the larger the empty pit inside her grew. Her mother couldn't be dead. She just couldn't be.