Hey, so sorry it took me a while to update! I just wasn't feeling to it an when I'm not in the mood, I don't write well. Anyway, review, review, review! I won't post the next chapter unless there are at least 5 new reviews! I'm counting ;)

Meredith felt something light hit her back.

"Eat," a voice ordered before the door slammed. She felt her way around the floor for the food she was given; whenever she wasn't being spoken to, she was blindfolded, probably so she wouldn't have time to find a way to escape. Or maybe it was just to torture her some more. Finally, her hands grazed over something soft and fluffy, around the size of her fist. She picked it up and felt it—a piece of bread.

Why not just leave me to die? she asked herself. But she already knew the answer.

"We don't want anything from you. We're just using you as bait." She couldn't erase that hideous smile on Mr. Rezza's face from her memory. And her maternal instinct told her this whole thing had something to do with Chloe.

Chloe, the most important person in her life. Was she okay? Had she contacted the police? Had Mr. Rezza found her? What was she doing right now?

Maybe her maternal instinct was wrong. But if that were the case, why did she feel a pit in her stomach?

"Have you found anything?" Chloe asked Alek from her phone, just half an hour after her last call.

"Not yet. I told you, as soon as something pops up, you'll be the first to know."

"I know, but…" Chloe sighed. She wished she could just let everything pour out like it had before. Her emotions felt bottled up, even though she still had Paul and Amy. It just felt different talking to them about it. They were humans; they would never know what it was like. But Alek and Jazz knew exactly what it was like to be hunted, to be hated, to be a part of this crazy world. And they were both out of her reach.

On the other end, Alek could practically hear Chloe's thoughts. He felt the same way, not to mention the fact that his heart felt as if it were breaking again every time he was reminded of her. That's why he had stopped going to school; it was too painful to hear her, too painful to see her, to painful to act as if everything were okay.

So he kept himself occupied. He had practically moved into the Mai headquarters' healing wing, watching Jazz, making sure she was okay. He was provided with a small room—more of a closet, really—so he wouldn't have to go back to the apartment but he would never call it "home." It felt dangerous, being in the Mai headquarters; if the Order knew where he, Jazz, and Valentina had lived, how could he be sure they wouldn't find him again? But there was nothing he could do.

Valentina. He fought back tears just thinking about her. She was practically his mom—she was the one who found him, cold and alone that faithful day, the one who discovered he, too, was Mai. She raised him the way no else ever had. There was so much he should've—no, could've—done for her. If only he was given the chance.

Then there was that whole thing with Zane. There was no way they were brothers. No brother of his would ever betray the Mai…right? Yet, whenever he replayed scenes he had with Zane, he could see the similarities, from their physical features, to the little bits of information he gave when the two of them were together; a liking for loud, rock music, a love for basketball, and a taste for the sweet and salty food combination. The whole thing was unbelievably confusing and no matter how deep he dug into his past—through the Internet, his birth records, everything—he always came out empty-handed.

"Never mind." Chloe's voice shook Alek out of his thoughts, and he remembered he was still on the phone.

"Okay." His voice sounded weird, even to him. He let out a small, awkward cough. Just as he was about to say bye and hang up, he blurted, "Don't worry. We'll find her." Realizing what he just said, he quickly hung up.

Chloe stared at her phone, unable to figure out what just happened. For a minute there, she thought the old Alek was back. She felt her hopes rise at the thought of things going back to how they were. Maybe someone or something had heard her wishes and decided to grant them. But Alek had hung up and she knew things weren't going to get anywhere.

Jazz screamed into her pillow. She felt utterly helpless and this was not something she was used to. While Alek and Chloe were trying to figure out where Chloe's mom was, she was stuck in the medical wing of Mai headquarters. Where there was nothing to do. Where there was nothing to think about. Where there was nothing to distract her from the horrible pain she felt every time she thought about…No, don't think it, Jazz willed herself. But she knew it was no use. She felt like she was living with half her soul. No, a fourth. It was one thing for her mom to be murdered, but at the hand of the boy she thought loved her? Wasn't that too much?

She felt her mouth start to tremble, almost familiarly. Tears threatened to fall and she swallowed a lump in her throat. There's no use in crying, there's nothing I can do, she told herself angrily. Yet the tears still came and she let them, too tired to fight. She released a strange, strangled-sounding noise involuntarily and sobbed. Both she and her mom had known death was a huge risk to Valentina, being the San Francisco pride leader, but Jazz had always just dismissed it without a second thought. Now, it was all too real.