You know, every time I start typing a new chapter lately, I intend to bring the story to a close. For some reason, my mind always ends up going in a different direction. Anyway, enjoy and review!

Raul Juarez hung up his phone. Everything had gone smoothly. That was good. It calmed him down a little bit. That was also good. He had time to think things through a bit. There were a lot of different ways he could do what he wanted to do. But things had changed. Jessica had woken up. That wasn't supposed to have happened. Apparently, she was going to be fine. Well, why couldn't she be fine with him? To tell the truth, he hadn't really wanted to kill her. She was too much fun to have around. But he was under the impression that she was practically dead anyway, in which case, why shouldn't he finish her off himself? But now things were different. She woke up, and she was getting better. So maybe he could keep her around for a little longer.

He wasn't sure what he wanted to do, but he knew that he needed to make a decision quickly. He supposed he could call his sniper again and have him take Jessica out. There were two reasons he didn't want to do this. Number one, he'd tried having other people take her out, but none of them had been successful. Number two, he liked the idea of playing with her for awhile first. Make her ask for death before he killed her. Hell, he could get a whole group of people together, all those damn Rangers that kept interfering. Yes, that's what he would do. He'd get them all and kill them, one by one. By the time he was done, she'd be easy. It would take time though, that was the only drawback. But hey. They hadn't found him yet, what was a few more weeks?

THREE WEEKS LATER

Jessica's hospital room was really crowded. She was being released today. She still had a lot of physical therapy to go through, and it would take a few months before she regained full use of her leg. She was stuck in a wheelchair for now, a fact that she despised. She felt utterly helpless, a feeling she loathed. Fortunately, in a few weeks when the cast came off her arm, she'd be able to wheel herself around without any help.

She hadn't been sure of where she was going to stay. She was almost eighteen, and she really liked her little apartment. But at the same time, she and Sydney had grown extremely close over the past few weeks. It had been Sydney, her aunt, who had been with her at each physical therapy session so far. It had been Sydney who had spent hours sitting next to Jessica's bed telling her stories about her mother. They'd laughed and cried for hours on end. So when Sydney had offered to let Jessica stay there until she could take care of herself, Jessica readily agreed. When she was honest with herself, it would be nice to live with people she could trust. She really was looking forward to it.

Angela looked at her best friend sitting on the hospital bed. Doctors were busy unhooking her IVs and pulling needles out of her arms. She'd gotten a lot of color back in her cheeks, and she was smiling, but Angela could tell that she was still in pain.

"Hey Ang, will you help me get dressed?" Jessica asked quietly. Angela nodded and hurried to the other side of the bed. Grabbing Jessica's waist, she helped her hobble to the wheelchair, and then gently lowered her into it. She knew Jessica was embarrassed that she was so incapacitated like this, but Angela was glad to help. She pushed her friend into the bathroom, and pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt.

As she helped Jessica get dressed, Angela couldn't help but cringe when she saw the marks that still covered most of Jessica's body. Even though the bruises were mostly gone, there were still scabs, old scars, and bandages. She felt a renewed hatred for Jessica's dad. How could anyone do that to another human being?

Walker watched his daughter push Jessica out of the bathroom. He was glad that the two were such good friends. He was immensely proud of both of them. They were having a barbecue at the ranch today before everyone got settled back into their everyday lives. He knew that Jessica still had a long road to total recovery and he was glad that Jessica was willing to let them all help.

"Are you all set?" He asked.

"Yeah." She answered. "I'm all ready to go."

"Okay. I'll go get the doctor and we'll get all the discharge papers set." With that, Walker left the room.

Alex's thinking was along the same lines as Walker's. She too was glad that her daughter had made such a good friend. She was just sorry that there had already been so much pain in their relationship. During the weeks that Jessica had been in the hospital, she and Alex had talked quite a bit. Jessica confessed that she felt terribly guilty about what Alex had gone through. Alex admitted that she was still occasionally having nightmares. But, as she told Jessica, she couldn't deny that things could have been a lot worse. She'd reiterated that she didn't blame Jessica for any of this. Alex wasn't sure if Jessica believed that or not, but regardless, it was true. Alex firmly believed that people weren't defined by who their family was.

Trivette watched as the doctor followed Walker back into the room and walked over to Jessica. Frankly, he thought that the checking out process was a bit of a pain. They'd already told her that she could go home, so why did they have to keep redoing her blood pressure and stuff? Trivette had enough experience with hospitals to know how annoying it all was. Jessica had to be ready to go home. Truthfully, he was starving. And Walker made the best burgers in Texas.

Gage pushed Jessica's wheelchair out to the parking garage, Sydney following him. He was glad that Jessica had decided to stay with them, at least for awhile. He and Jessica had grown close under the most extreme of circumstances, but their relationship hadn't wavered. Like Alex, Gage didn't blame Jessica at all, and he knew that without her, he probably would have died. He had an immense amount of respect for Jessica. At seventeen, she'd been through things that most people couldn't dream of and she still had her whole future ahead of her. And a bright one at that.

Sydney was feeling jittery. She was glad that her niece was coming to stay with her and Gage, but she was nervous still. She and Jessica had spent a lot of time together recently and grown very close. Sydney found her thoughts drifting to her sister more and more often lately, and she'd started to share memories with Jessica, who hung onto every word. It felt nice to share stories with someone. She'd kept her sister's death a secret for so long that she couldn't remember ever sharing stories about her with anyone, not even Gage.

She still had a major concern. It had been three weeks since anything suspicious had happened. Raul Juarez hadn't tried anything else. As much as she wanted to think that he was gone for good, she couldn't do it. She knew that he wouldn't rest until he'd done whatever he wanted. Either he would try to get Jessica back, or he would try to kill her. Really though, either way, she'd die. Sydney refused to let that happen. She would not let Raul Juarez take another piece of her life away.

Sydney watched Gage gently lift Jessica out of the chair and into the backseat of their car. As Sydney folded the chair, her eyes fell on a small box in the corner of the trunk. Hesitating for only a moment, she grabbed it.