I know it's a little late, there's an explanation at the bottom.

Thanks to Kiara212, kimmitwilight, piccolover22, HockeeChica, RawSugarX23, dragonwriter512, winky23, HOLLYZ, AliceLuvsU, mediate89, Princess Skye, brokenfromthepast, anmapamo, TopKat90, 123xyz, Wolfgirl82 and flooridiot12 for your wonderful reviews!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot.

Red Fires POV

It had taken several hours for us to get from the shuttle station up here to where Sky and I along with all of the other 'helpers' that Sky had assembled were stationed, waiting for them to come out. My palms were sweating, as was just about every pore on my body, but I was more excited for this moment than I was nervous for the outcome. A couple of our team members had seen a pair of them go into the place that we were hiding out right across from, so it was only a matter of time before they had to come out again.

"Red Fires?" I heard Sky ask me and I turned my head towards him, silently giving him permission to continue.

"Are you ready for your life to change?" he asked with a smile on his face. I couldn't help but to smile back at him and nod at the same time.

"You bet I am. I've been waiting my whole life here for something like this to go down. And it won't just be my life that will change; yours will too."

He shook his head, but I nodded. "Yes it will. You did a lot of work here, Sky."

"Thank you sir," he said, smiling to himself and I was glad to have finally given him something to smile about. We had been partners for awhile now, so I figured that on the eve of the biggest thing of our lives I could give him some kind of niceness and credit.

I heard a voice over the radio that was clipped to my ear in a little wireless headset transmitter.

"There's movement coming this way," one of the men that was stationed a little ahead of us informed us and I grinned before focussing on this pivotal moment.

I raised myself a little from my crouched position behind a rock so that I could see over towards where the people would be moving. Sure enough, I saw two figures emerging from the space in front of us. I had to give the order or else this would all be for nothing.

"Go now," I said simply and watched as my men surrounded the two figures before dragging them to the ground.

Sky and I emerged from our hiding place and jumped immediately into the truck that pulled up in front of us. The three men that were transporting our humans had given them chloroform or something to knock them out until we got them where we needed them. We couldn't interview them in the middle of the street without causing a scene. There were ten other men staying behind to scout for any more humans in there.

It only took us about ten minutes to reach the 'safe building' that Sky had set up for us. The humans; one male and a female, were carried into the building by our assistants and set up on couches. All we had to do was wait for them to wake up and half of the battle would be over.

Jamie POV

We were still camped around the corner from Pet's house where we were waiting very patiently; well I was since Jared and Mel were napping, for Wanda to emerge so that we could...

I actually had no idea what we were going to do next. We could just show ourselves and hope that she would follow us, or we could knock her out and take her like we did to Pet, but that would be mean. I shuddered at that thought. I guess the best that we could do was to just corner her somewhere out of the way and talk to her. Somewhere with the van close by though, so if it did turn out to be Pet; which I knew that it wasn't, we could run and get away faster than it would take her to alert anyone else to us being there.

I sighed and leaned back against the seat that I was sitting in, looking at Pet's house again. Jared had found a neat little nook for us to park in where no one could see us, but we could see out. I had to hand it to him; that certainly was one of his better ideas. Mel didn't even flip out on him for parking in a residential area filled with souls either, so that was good.

The sun was just beginning to rise, so we still had a couple of hours to wait until we might get a glimpse of Wanda; I was very impatient. It seemed almost useless to have come all that way just to sit there and have to wait some more. But there was nothing I could really do about that.

A few of the houses around us were beginning to stir and I could see lights being flipped on in various rooms of these houses as the souls began to get up to start their days. They lived their lives so carefree compared to us, and I kind of envied that. I could hardly remember a world where we weren't on the run or hiding from these people. I was just really glad that Jared had found my sister and we had gone to the caves, or else we would have still been in hiding somewhere. I didn't even want to think of the probability of us still even being alive if we were still out there.

As the sun came up and I glanced at the time on the dashboard, I saw that it was nearly 7:30am and wondered how much longer it would take Wanda to leave her house. Already the families with little ones were emerging and crowding around common places, probably waiting for buses to take the children to school. One family consisting of a mother pushing a stroller with an infant in it and a little blonde haired boy passed almost directly in front of where we were hidden and I held my breath, almost afraid that so much as a sigh would give us away to them.

To my surprise, the little blonde boy stopped directly in front of the van and looked in our direction. I knew that he was looking at us. His mother called for him a few times before coming back and asking what he was looking at.

"Nothing Mommy, I thought I saw a cat," he lied, as I could see him looking directly into my eyes.

"Oh, how sweet Tyler! What colour was the kitty?" his mom asked and he smiled at me before winking.

"An orange one," this boy Tyler replied before being ushered away by his mother, still talking about the fake orange cat.

As soon as they were far enough away, I let out the breath of air that I had been holding in and shook my head. I couldn't figure out why that little boy would have lied to his mother about that. I thought that all souls were truth-telling individuals. And how could he have seen us? I didn't get that either. Especially since the kid's mother couldn't see anything and she looked directly at the van, the same as he did. He must have been one special kid or something.

About two hours later there was finally movement at Pet's house. I saw a figure with blonde hair look out of a window before shutting the curtains. She repeated that twice and I grew excited.

"Mel! Jared! She's up and moving!"

The sluggishly moved around as I yelled at them and slowly came to sit up front and look at the house as well. In a downstairs window, the blonde haired person walked back and forth in front of the window twice and it looked like she was talking into a phone before she looked outside and shut the curtains.

"She might be mobile soon. What's our plan of action?" Jared asked, motioning for me to get out of the driver's seat. I moved in between the seats and he leapt over me into the once that I had just vacated.

"Well, we've got to wait for her to come outside before we can do anything. I don't think she'll take it too well if we just knock on the door and do it that way. We can follow her for a little while and then ask her?" I suggested as sort of a question and Mel nodded.

"I agree. We can't exactly waltz in there and everything. So I guess we just wait then," she said, and Jared and I agreed.

Not too much longer after we had decided that, the front door of the house opened up and the girl emerged out onto the little porch. She turned around to lock the door and Mel was already looking through the binoculars at her.

"It's her; it's Wanda," she reported, her voice wavering a little bit and she didn't even attack me when I grabbed the binocs from her.

I looked through and a huge smile lit up my face as I recognized Wanda's face and everything about her.

"It sure is," I agreed.

Wanda kind of looked around a little bit before setting off in the direction of the little stores that we had passed on the way in.

"Where's she going?" Mel asked, taking them back from me and watching her. Jared and I leaned forwards to keep a visual on her, but we lost her.

"Can you still see her?" Jared asked and Mel shrugged while shaking her head.

"A little, but I'm losing her."

"Sit back, Jamie, I'm going to move the van so that we can see her. Don't worry," he said to Mel as she started to open her mouth, probably to argue him. "I'll make sure that she can't see us. We'll be as inconspicuous as possible."

"Right," she snorted, looking through the binoculars as Jared pulled into the street. "In a gigantic van. Good one. We should have brought the car," she sighed and I shrugged.

"It wouldn't have made much of a difference; we still would have ended up following her like this. And plus, then they could have seen into the back of it while we drive around," I pointed out, but nobody responded.

We followed her while trying not to seem creepy and stalker-ish, watching as she walked right into the little grocery store that was in the pocket of stores. Jared pulled into the back of the lot and we waited until she emerged again before walking into another little store. Wanda came out with a bag from there to add to the bag that she had acquired from the first store and began to walk back in the direction that she had come from. It almost seemed like she was a little on-edge about something, and I hoped that she wouldn't notice that we were following her and freak out.

Then again, she might have recognized the van and given it up or something, just jumping in and coming with us as we took her back home. That was a long stretch, I realized, but I could hope.

She went back to the house and inside, so Jared parked us in the same spot as before. I really hoped that we didn't have to wait long before she came out again because I was growing impatient. Unfortunately, I had no control over that aspect; we would just have to wait it out. Jared leaned his head back against the headrest, but didn't take his eyes off of the house and Mel just trained the binoculars on the windows.

"Do we think it's her?" Jared asked quietly.

"Yes."

"I'm not sure."

"Why not, Mel?" he asked her, probably because he already knew why I said yes.

"Well, I mean of course the body is going to look like the one that we got for her originally, and she seems to still have the same way of holding herself like Wanda did, but I dunno. She seems a little uncomfortable."

"That could be a sign that it's Wanda," I pointed out and she nodded.

"Or it could be that Pet is spooked after that kind of an experience. Although we were nothing but nice to her, so I don't see why she would have any reason to be afraid of us," Mel pointed out and Jared laughed.

"Yes we were incredibly nice to her. I mean, beside the whole drugging her and taking her back to the caves before cutting her open and taking her out to replace her with someone else part," he said sarcastically .

"Jamie, move," Mel instructed me and I ducked, frowning.

She reached over, only taking one hand off of her binoculars and hit Jared on the shoulder, shaking her head as she took her hand back.

"Honestly Jared, you really had to go there?"

"Yeah, I did," he replied, rubbing his shoulder where she had just hit him and I smiled apologetically for her actions. He just smiled and shook his head, rolling his eyes; he was used to it anyways.

Silence filled the van then and was broken about five minutes later by my impatient sister.

"Is anyone else antsy about this?" she asked from behind her binocs. I swear she had glued them to her face. If she kept holding them up to her eyes any more, she was going to have permanent rings around her eyes from them.

"I am," I answered, which probably didn't surprise anyone.

"Me too," Jared answered and I nodded. Of course he would be; he was out of the caves not two weeks after returning from the raid that had gone wrong. If this got screwed up too, it would seriously mess with his head.

Mel began tapping her hand against the contraption that was practically attached to her face and after about a minute it became annoying to me. I looked to see what it was that was making all the noise; it couldn't have been just her hand, and saw that there was a ring sitting on her left ring finger. She hadn't said anything about having one, and I hadn't even noticed a ring on there until now; but it could have only meant one thing. She and Jared had to have been engaged.

I looked over at Jared and he was staring at the ring with a little smile on his face. When had this happened? I couldn't figure it out unless he had proposed while they were away. But I didn't know why they wouldn't have said anything to me about it. I wasn't going to confront them, because I didn't want to create any friction, especially since I didn't know how long we were going to be stuck in there.

I let it slide for the moment as we sat back and just waited. I was going to go crazy unless Wanda came out of that house. There wasn't much to do until then.

Wanda POV

Someone was watching and following me.

I had first noticed when I had heard the rumble of a diesel engine very early in the morning. This struck me as odd and a bit strange seeing as how there were no souls up and moving around before 6am in this neighbourhood. There were noise by-laws and things too that they had made up to ensure that this was a quiet area.

When I first heard it, I had bolted out of bed, scared that whatever it was was going to cause mayhem or something. The van had just gone around the corner and disappeared, but no matter what I did, I couldn't get back to sleep. Instead, I went and reorganized the bag that I was going to take with me again and going over the list of supplies that I needed to get this cuff off of my wrist.

I realized that I had been trying to tug it off again and rolled my eyes. I still couldn't get it off because of that bone, but I still kept on unconsciously trying to. You'd have thought that I had learned by then, but no.

I had decided the night before that I was going to get my supplies to use to get the cuff off of my arm once and for all. I would then wait and stick it on something and then leave as fast as possible. It would be better if I had access to a car to get out faster, but Cloud Spinner didn't believe in having a car; she didn't want to ruin the environment, even with those extreme eco-friendly vehicles. I wasn't exactly going to argue with her though, it was her opinion.

I had waited until the morning school bus had come and picked up all the children and their families had dispersed to go either to work or back home before I ventured out to the stores. As I waited, I had drawn all the curtains closed in all of the windows, because it freaked me out knowing that those people in the van might have been watching me. As I was doing that, the cell phone that Cloud Spinner had given me rang for like the millionth time since she had left.

"Hi Mom," I answered as I walked down to the first floor.

"Hi honey, is everything alright?" she asked in a hushed voice and I figured she wasn't supposed to have been on the phone or something.

"Everything's still the same as the last time that you called last night," I answered while walking into the living room.

"Liar," I said to myself, knowing full well that I was leaving out the bit about the van. There was no way I was telling her about that.

"I see. Have you eaten?"

"I just got up, I was going to get something to eat, yes," I said to her while starting to pace around the room. Phone conversations with her made me antsy and eager to get off the phone; I was always afraid of giving something away.

"That's good. What were you going to eat?"

Really. "Uh, just some cereal. I'll be fine, Cloud Spinner, it sounds like you need to get back to what you were doing," I told her, trying to get out of it early.

"Oh no Pet, I always have time for you."

"Uh huh."

I heard in the background someone calling for her and she gave a bit of a rushed goodbye before promising to call back when she was done with her meeting. I closed the phone and shook my head before closing the curtains. She really was something else.

After that little conversation, I began to walk towards the stores down the street and had rounded the corner from Pet's house when I heard the sound of a diesel engine again. I resisted the urge to look behind me at the vehicle, as I didn't want them to know that I was onto them, so instead I continued on and went into the grocery store. I got the things I needed and as I was at the checkout, I looked out the big front window and spotted the van in the back row of the parking lot.

I decided to see if it really was following me; or if I was just paranoid, so I left the grocery store after getting my bag and went next door to the hair salon and got some unneeded shampoo. I just wanted to see if the van was going to stick around while I was in there or not. When I came out, it was still there. I quickly walked home and peeked out the curtains in the front window, but I didn't see the van drive by. I frowned before shutting them tight again and running up to Pet's room to dump the contents of my bags on her bed.

I picked up the package of butter and placed it on the window sill to soften it up a bit before I used it, otherwise it would be too hard and cold. After doing that, I took the bottle of vegetable oil that I had gotten into Pet's bathroom and opened it up. I poured a generous amount onto my arm and slathered it all over with my fingers, making sure to get a lot of it under the cuff and around the little round bone that had been stopping it.

Once I had slathered what I thought would have been enough onto my arm, I tried to pull at the cuff, but the hand doing the pulling just slid off, as it was too slippery. I sighed and turned on the tap to wash off the oil from that hand. As soon as I had done that and dried my hand off I began to slide the cuff forwards towards my fingers. Like it did every single other time I tried it, I was able to edge it just to the point where it would hit the bone and then get stuck again.

I really cursed Cloud Spinner's genes for creating such a large bump on Pet's arm like that. Then again, everyone had one; they just never really had a problem with it like I did. They also didn't have to get a stupid metal thing off of their writs, therefore realizing just how big it really was.

I walked out of the bathroom and over to the windowsill to check on the butter. I poked a finger into it and it was still fairly solid. I cracked open the blind a little to allow it to be in direct sunlight before I went to go and put some more oil on my arm. Perhaps if I just made it more slippery then it might work.

Three quarters of an hour later, after just about exhausting every plan that I had in mind for getting this thing off, I slumped down on the bathroom floor in defeat. I couldn't get it off. I was going to be stuck there for the rest of my existence on Earth, and would never get to see Ian again. The thought made my heart very heavy and I bent my head down as the tears welled up. I had promised myself that I wouldn't cry again, but I couldn't help it; nothing was working and there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel. I just wanted to be back with Ian more than anything.

I could hear the distant ringing of the cell phone from the bed in Pet's room where I had left it and I considered not picking up, but I didn't want Cloud Spinner to worry and call the National Guard or something. Instead, I tried to compose myself during the short walk into the room and took a deep breath before answering.

"Hi Mom."

Red Fires POV

I watched as the two humans began to stir in their sleep and smiled to myself. I hadn't recognized them as ones from the hospital when we had gotten Pet back safely, but that didn't mean that they weren't just some others from their little hideout. I couldn't believe that we had actually caught these two. That had to have been the best moment of my life.

Sky sat back down in his chair beside me as they began to stretch and rub their eyes. The female was the first to sit up and look around, squinting because of the light. The male just frowned and looked around from where he was lying on the couch, but neither of them said anything. I gave them a minute before I spoke.

"Hello, my name is Red Fires and this is my partner Sky. What are your names?" I tried to be as polite as possible so that I didn't scare the humans off.

The male sat up then and looked over at the female before answering me.

"My name is Cold Fire. What happened to us?" he asked, his voice escalating in volume.

"Hush," the woman spoke, putting her hand on his arm. "My name is Melody in the Moonlight, and I think what Cold Fire means is why are we here?"

I couldn't answer either of them as I sat there in a bit of shock, frowning as I learned their names. Perhaps they had figured out a way to get the souls out of the bodies and reverse the insertions. Why else would they have soul names for a human body. Only parents did that with their children, and these people were obviously not children.

Sky was one step ahead of me though and walked swiftly over to one of our men standing by the door and took the flashlight for him. We had dimmed the lights for them while they slept to make it a bit easier when they woke up, but the lights were still a little bright for sensitive eyes. But they weren't bright enough to see if they were humans or not.

He turned on the flashlight and quickly shone the beam in Cold Fire's face. To my shock and surprise, a beam of silver light bounced off of them around the room. He repeated the same thing on Melody in the Moonlight's eyes and they had the same reaction.

"Where are the humans?" I asked them without really thinking.

"What?" Cold Fire asked, really confused by that point, I was sure. "What humans? What are you talking about? What kind of an operation is this?"

"I'm sorry sir, but are you sure that you don't have any sort of affiliation with humans of any sort?" Sky asked, saving my skin and I tuned back into the conversation.

"No! That is outrageous! There are no humans left on this planet, are there?" Cold Fire asked almost shouting at us.

"We already introduced ourselves, but we work for a special part of the government We have a special task force that allows us to track down any human resistance that is still on the planet. Yes, there are a few humans left, and we thought that you were part of them," I told them a little without giving too much away. "Are you sure that you have never seen a human?"

The both shook their heads and I almost threw up.

"I'm really sorry about the mix up. Would it be alright if you just showed us around that building that you were coming out of earlier?" Sky asked and they looked at each other before shrugging and Melody in the Moonlight nodded.

"Um, I suppose," she responded. "That stuff that you gave us to make us sleep won't hurt us, will it? I mean, that was pretty harsh of you to do that to us."

"We are so very sorry about that. Had we known that you weren't humans, we would have avoided this whole situation," I apologized to them and they both seemed to nod in understanding.

"We should go to the place now," Sky told me. "There's a car waiting out front."

"If you'll just follow me," I told the pair of them, gesturing towards the door. They both stood and followed me out and into the waiting car. The ride back to the warehouse was silent and I felt bad for putting these clearly innocent civilians through that.

In no time at all, we had arrived back where the van was parked outside of a warehouse. Melody in the Moonlight searched through her pockets before she found a key that was clearly to the building. I followed her and Cold Fire towards the door while Sky spoke to the men that were still stationed around it, briefing them on the change in plans. Sky caught up with us as we were about to go inside and whispered to me that they were going to check the van for the tracking device that had led us to that place.

Once we were inside the building, I looked around and saw that it had a few desks with two computers, printers and lots of paper and bookshelves everywhere. It was just a large, open space with stairs leading up to another level and nothing but that furniture was on the first level.

"We're editors and are collaborating on our first book together, that's why it's such a mess here. We try to work from home as much as possible, but we do have to go out and meet with other authors every once in awhile," Melody in the Moonlight explained and I nodded.

"Sounds like a very interesting career choice," I told them and they smiled at me.

"Would you like to see our living area upstairs?" Melody in the Moonlight asked and I smiled.

"That would be very lovely," I told her and she began to lead the way to the only set of stairs in the entire place.

Upstairs was completely different. It was very open and modern with only two doors leading off of the big space. The kitchen, living room, dining room and book nook it looked like were all open to each other and everything had very nice flow. The rooms were all different colors, but they went well together. It was very open and airy and nice.

"This is very beautiful," I complimented them and Melody in the Moonlight smiled.

"Thank you. I chose most of the pieces in here."

"And the pain colors," Cold Fire added and she nodded. "But I did all the handy work."

"Well it looks incredible," I told them and they thanked me again. "What is behind those doors?"

"This one," Melody in the Moonlight opened the first door that was closest to us, "Is our bathroom."

I looked inside and it was tiled with blue glass tiles, had a huge soaking tub and a shower, with double sinks under a huge mirror. Definitely no place to hid humans in there. They led us through the huge closet, which Sky walked around in, looking I'm sure for possible humans before we walked into their master bedroom. There was a bed that dominated the room and another bookshelf full of books and a couple of chairs to sit on. Otherwise, it was empty.

Cold Fire led us out back into the main room and around the corner into the little book area; and I noticed a door that I hadn't seen before.

"Up there is our piéce de résistence," he said, holding onto Melody in the Moonlight's hand as she opened the door and gestured for us to go through first.

I took the plunge and started walking up the stairs that were directly through the door. They led up to another door and when I opened it I found myself on top of the building under a little canopy that they had built. Underneath it was a table and chairs and a little farther down was a bar with a canopy over it and some lounge chairs.

"We love it up here," Melody in the Moonlight said as soon as she had emerged from the doorway.

I felt a little guilty that we had imposed upon these people and made them feel a little uncomfortable with the situation.

"Look, I'm really sorry about what happened today and if there's anything that I can do..." I started to say but Cold Fire held up a hand to stop me.

"There was no harm done. I realize that you did what you had to do and I really do thank you for doing your job right. What you do is important to everyone and I appreciate your thoroughness to complete a job," Cold Fires said, holding out his hand for me to shake.

"Well, I'm still sorry," I said but he shrugged.

"No blood, no foul. I'm glad that we could at least put your minds at ease by showing you around, and I'm sorry about the mix up," he continued but I shook my head.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for," I said and he smiled.

"Let's go back inside, it's starting to rain," Melody in the Moonlight suggested and we all headed back down.

Once back down on their living floor, I got a thumbs up from my men telling me that the place was clear. I then turned to the couple as I had to know,

"Have either of you been down south lately? In and around the state of Arizona?"

Melody in the Moonlight nodded. "We were down around there a little while ago. My sister was having her baby so we went down to a healing centre there and saw her, why?"

"Well we were able to track you here because there was a device attached to your van," I told them and a man stepped out and showed them the device that they had pulled off of it. "We had put it on another vehicle similar to your van and it was evidently moved and placed onto yours."

Their eyes opened wide as they realized how exactly we had gotten here.

"So this is really our mistake. I will take all of my men out of here right now and you can forget that this even happened," I told them and they nodded almost numbly. "Thank you for your time and I'm sorry that this had to happen," I said just as I was the last one to descend down the stairs.

Outside, I yelled for everyone to meet back at base and go back to what they were doing before. I ripped open the door to a truck and told the guy to get a ride in another car. Once he was out of my way, I hopped into the driver's seat as Sky jumped in the other side and peeled away from the curb. Neither of us said anything for a few moments as I drove through the streets. I was practically fuming mad by that point.

"How the hell did this happen?" I asked and Sky didn't answer. I hadn't wanted him to either.

"After all of our careful planning and everything, we are still no closer to finding these damned humans than we were before. You made sure that you put it on the right van, right?"

"Ye.. yes sir, I did. We managed to follow them all the way to St. Joseph's remember? It must have been after that when we weren't watching the monitor as much when they had made the switch over."

"Well then what could have gone wrong?"

"A whole slew of things, sir. They could have switched vans, or just simply taken it off or..."

"Thank you," I said to him in a steely voice, ending his ramblings.

After a few moments, I dug around in my pocket for my hand held monitor, throwing it at Sky as I merged onto the Westbound highway, switching on my GPS at the same time.

"Check it."

"What..."

"CHECK IT!" I yelled at him. "MAKE SURE THAT THAT DOT IS STILL AROUND THAT ADDRESS IN SEATTLE!"

"Alright, okay," he said, while switching it on and waiting for it to boot up.

Just as I had finished plugging in the address for Cloud Spinner's house; and was getting a little nerved that he hadn't said anything yet when Sky finally spoke.

"It's there. She's still in the house," he said quickly.

"Good. Keep your flipping eye on that dot. I mean it. I'm not letting her get away from me too."

"What do you mean, sir?"

I gave him the stink eye before answering. "They must be on to us if they managed to move the tracking device off of the van. Who says that they won't go for the girl next? We need to get there as soon as possible and stake out her house. They'll return for her sooner or later."

"Are you sure about this?"

"No. But after today's catastrophe, I have to do something to save my neck."

"I'm sorry about that..."

"It wasn't your fault. Watch that dot."

Mel POV

After watching the house with the drawn curtains for almost two hours, I was growing very impatient; after ten minutes I was going bonkers, but this was over the top. I was hungry and tired and just wanted to sleep, but if I missed anything I would regret it.

"Can't we just go up there and knock? It would be better than just sitting here," Jamie asked and I shook my head.

"She'll come out soon," I replied and heard him sight.

"You've been saying that for awhile now, Mel. Are you sure?" Jared asked, putting a hand on my arm.

"Of course I'm sure. She can't stay in there forever," I answered simply, training my binoculars on the front window. "I see movement."

"Where?" Jamie asked, sitting straight up in between us and leaning forwards trying to see better.

"Behind the blue curtain in the upstairs window," I said and he sighed.

"Mel, I can't see up that far, you know that. And who says that it means anything. So she's moving around," he said, but I smacked him so he's stop.

"Oh my gosh, the front door," I simply said and the van was so silent that you could have heard a pin drop.

Sure enough, after all our waiting and everything the front door to the house opened up again. This time though, Wanda didn't have a coat or shoes on, nor did she lock the door after stepping outside. Instead, she sat down on the first step of the porch and pulled her knees up to her chest before wrapping her arms around them and putting her head down. I knew that she only assumed that position if she was crying.

"We've got to go out there," I said, putting the binoculars down and putting my hand on the door handle.

"No Mel," I heard Jared say, but I still started to open the door until I felt his hand on mine that was opening the door. I looked and he had leaned right over top of me to do that.

"Why not?"

"Because Mel, you can't just go walking up the street in the middle of the day, you never know who might see you," he said, looking into my eyes and trying to plead with me.

"Wanda will see me. It will be fine, Jared. I need to go out there, she's crying. That's what she looks like when she's crying. Trust me on this, I'll be fine," I reasoned with him, but he still shook his head.

"I can't lose you," Jared said, touching our noses together.

"And you won't," I replied, trying to open the door again but I couldn't with his strong hand on mine. "Nothing will happen to me."

"You can't know that..."

"But I do. Let me go out there."

I could see it in his eyes that I was winning and he eventually sat back, allowing me to open the door and jump out. I heard his door slam behind me and turned to say something to him, but found Jared's lips pressed up against mine instead. I kissed him back until I heard Jamie clear his voice behind us and I turned to him with my finger pointed.

"No, you get back in the van," I whisper yelled at him and Jamie shook his head.

"This was my idea, I'm coming along," he whispered back.

"Jamie..."

"He can stay in the shadows with me," Jared said and I sighed. I wasn't going to win this one.

"Fine," I relented, starting to walk away from them.

"Give us a signal when it's clear," Jared instructed before turning me around to kiss me again. I smiled and backed out of our cover of trees starting to cross the street to Wanda. Once I was about halfway to her house, I broke out into a run.

She must have heard the heavy footsteps on the pavement as she lifted her head up when I was almost at the driveway. I thought about cutting across the grass, but I didn't want to leave footsteps on the perfectly cut lawn. As I ran towards her, I didn't know who I was going to be faced with, but it didn't matter; this was the moment of truth that we had come all that way for.

I got to the bottom of the stairs and stopped, panting heavily as I stared at the girl in front of me and she looked back. I saw a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes and I knew that I had been right; she had been crying.

"Mel?" she asked me and I nodded.

"Wanda?"

My heart was pounding as I waited for a response from her. She stood up and looked down at me before stepping down the two steps in between us. Once she reached the bottom she nodded.

"It's me Mel, it's Wanda," she choked out before bursting into tears.

I quickly crossed the space between us and wrapped the smaller girl up in my arms. I couldn't help but to shed some tears of my own as I embraced Wanda and her body shook with her own tears. I was so happy that we had found her and that it was Wanda and not Pet.

"I swear to you it's me, Mel; it really is," she said between sobs and I held her tighter.

"I know it is, Wanda. I believe you," I told her and she nodded into my chest, wrapping her arms back around me.

"Let's go inside, we can talk better in there," I suggested and she nodded before letting go of me and starting up the stairs. As I climbed them behind her, I turned around to where I knew Jared and Jamie were hiding and gave a big thumbs up sign and nodded my head, hoping that they understood what I mean. I then followed Wanda into the house, more determined than ever to get her out of there and back home with us.

A/N: 7053 words not including a/n's, and I wrote most of it today. :)

Okay. The last week was midterm week, and I don't have a midterm exam for any of my classes, I just have a lot of projects. I tried to get a lot done before this week so that I'd still have time to write, but that didn't happen. I had 2 projects due and on Monday got an e-mail from a teacher telling us that our midterm evaluations for our placements were due on the Thursday. On every paper that we had gotten from that class, it said 'due after reading week'. So I spent 3 days busting my butt to complete that 50 page package on top of putting the finishing touches on 2 projects. Then I go to hand in the package and she tells us that she didn't want it till after reading week. Gahr.

Sorry about my little rant, it was just realllly frustrating.

Next chapter will be done by Thurs/Friday as it's my fall reading week this week and I have virtually nothing to do..

Thanks for your continued support!
Review : )