Hey guys! I'm back with another chapter of JAS. This will focus on the kids, and how they react to finding out the fate of their parents from the last chapter. We'll get some heartfelt moments and strong emotions. Plus some strong determination. Let's see how it all turns out.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 20: For the Love of Our Parents

All the drama that unfolded in front of the kids was a lot to take in. Especially for Alya, who had to witness the violent turmoil between her mother and father. The result left her broken and devastated. She couldn't face her parents after that. Not feeling like they never truly loved her to begin with.

Theo watched as his friend sobbed in April's arms. Harry was rubbing her arm soothingly. Theo himself rubbed her back. She had been crying for a good ten minutes now and didn't seem to want to stop. The younger kids sat and watched, trying to come up with ways to help their grieving friend.

They had been like this for a while now, sitting in the empty lobby of the hotel.

"This is so awkward..." Theo whispered to Harry.

"I know..." He whispered back.

"You doing okay, Alya...?" April asked.

Alya sniffed as she sat up a little, "N-Not really... although, how can you feel okay after learning that your parents hate you?"

"Um... I'm sure they don't hate you, Als." Theo tried to assure her.

"You saw what happened, Theo! You heard it! My Daddy didn't even want me, and my Mom tried to kill me! What does that tell you?!"

Harry put a hand on her shoulder, "I'm sure there's a logical explanation for all of this. Maybe there's more to the story than we know. I'm certain if you ask your folks about it, they'll explain everything."

"I just don't know..." Alya wiped away her tears, "I know I haven't known my Mom for that long... and I know that my Daddy was always busy with his girl business... but I felt like... they always cared for me despite all of that. And now... the love between us all... seems... fake... as if it never existed. And whatever my parents have to say... it could be a lie..."

"Trust me, Mija. It's not a lie..."

The kids turned to see Sasha walk by. She had been there for a few minutes to watch the kids and decided to help comfort Alya She sat down next to the eleven-year-old and cupped her cheeks in her palms, "Your parents love you very much, Alya. It's just that things had happened between them before you were born... some very complicated things. I know you don't know too much about that. Your mother and father may not agree with each other, but if there's one thing they can agree on, is that they love and care for you..."

"But..." Alya looked at the woman, "What they said..."

"Those... were just things that were said in the heat of the moment. I'm possible they didn't mean anything... then again, I really don't know. And please... I ask of you to not resent them..."

"I just don't know how to feel..."

"It's hard... I understand. It's very hard. Give it some time... and I'm sure your parents will open up."

Alya didn't reply to that at all. But she did look at Sasha, who hugged her lovingly.

"Speaking of parents, where are our folks?" Theo couldn't help but ask.

Sasha looked at him, "Oh, they are probably in the rooms by now to get some sleep. We should all go too. We have a big day tomorrow after all. Remember?"

The kids exchanged excited glances. That was definitely something to look forward to in the morning. With that, they had started to retreat back to their respective rooms. But as they walked through the lobby they last saw their folks... they were met with something rather disturbing.

The lobby was trashed. Things were knocked over as if there was a struggle or a fight. Some vases and glass were broken. And no one else around...

How strange...

"Whoa..." Theo said as he looked around, "Did something happen?"

"This is rather bizarre..." Harry added.

"And where are our parents?" April wondered.

Sasha tried to keep the kids calm and not have them panic, "I'm sure they're in the rooms."

"No... they're not..."

Fuchsia had slipped down the hall, hoping to see her parents, but came back empty-handed, "My Momma and Daddy aren't here." She shrugged. April looked at her sister, "Are you sure?"

"Yep."

That prompted the other kids to rush to their rooms in hopes of seeing their parents. But much like with the Parkers, their respective rooms were empty as well. No sign or trace of them at all. For Theo and Sondra, the only thing they found was their little brother crying in his pack n play. Theo carefully picked him up and cradled him.

"Uh, guys. My folks aren't here either." Theo called as he and Sondra walked back to the destroyed lobby.

"I can't find my Dad," Harry added.

"Mommy and Daddy are gone..." Elvin spoke up as Nelson nodded.

"My parents... aren't here either," Alya added.

Sasha was now concerned, "Oh, wait a minute! Jan!" She rushed to her room, and found her daughter sleeping on the bed, "My baby..." She sighed as she grabbed the baby and walked back outside, "This is rather strange. Let me call Bucky." She pulled out her phone and dialed her husband's number. After a few rings, nobody answered. She tried again with the same result.

"Um, hold on. Let me try your mother's."

Passing Jan off to April to hold, Sasha tried the other numbers. First, she tried Trina... then Cami... then Leia... then Danielle... none of them answered. The kids were getting more and more confused and worried. Where could their parents be?

"I don't understand... why aren't they answering...?" Sasha wondered.

Theo looked among the wreckage and noticed something even more concerning, "I think I may know." He walked towards something and picked it up, "This is my mom's phone all right..."

Sondra gasped, "Something must have happened! Something bad!"

"Okay, ninos. Everything will be okay." Sasha assured everyone, "Let me just contact the police, and we'll get to the bottom of this."

With that, she called 911. Within about five minutes, authorities arrived to take a look at the situation. As Sasha and the kids waited for any useful information, Harry happened to look up and notice something...

"Cameras..."

Before he could say anything else, an officer came over, "You say you came here for a vacation?" he asked.

Sasha nodded, "Yes. We're here to spend the night."

"M'am, this hotel has been closed for five years."

... What?

"Closed? But... it wasn't closed when we got here. In fact, it was very open, and other people were here..."

"Either you can to the wrong place... or you were tricked."

Tricked?

"But who would trick us into coming into an abandoned hotel?" April wondered.

Harry then decided to bring up what he noticed, "What about the cameras? Perhaps there's something on them to figure out what happened to our folks."

"That is if they're even on." Theo pointed out.

"Only one way to find out." The officer replied.

With that, they all walked to one of the old control rooms of the hotel. And sure enough, they were on. The officer walked up to the keyboard and punched in commands to rewind any footage from an hour prior.

Soon, the screen showed the turmoil in the lobby, and what the kids saw scared them. Several men in black surrounding their parents. It soon escalated as the parents attempted to escape or fight back, but they were overpowered very quickly, which resulted in the men to actually hurt them, either by punching or kicking. Alya gasped in horror to see one of them hit her father in the back of his head, sending him to the ground.

Harry winced as his father was tackled to the floor, hard enough for him to hit his head. April held Fuchsia tightly as another man put a cloth over their mother's face to knock her out. Elvin and Nelson began to cry at the sight of their father and uncle being choked. Sasha clutched her heart as her husband was kicked hard.

Theo flinched to see his father fall. He was surprised he was even taken out. The preteen looked closer to see another man observing this whole ordeal. He had his back turned for a moment, but then he turned around...

"That's... that's Reagan Sauls!" He pointed out, "He's got our parents!"

"Are you serious?" Harry asked, before looking at the footage himself, "Aw man... you're right! It is him!"

"He found us!" April realized, "And now he has our parents."

Theo frowned, "It makes sense now. He and those other dudes must have fixed up this hotel to trap us, and when the time was right... they struck. And..." he took another look at the footage, "One of those dudes look like that Arnie dude who gave Alya that letter to give to her Mom."

Alya realized he was right, "Oh yeah... I wonder what was in that letter anyway... but it doesn't matter now. Our parents are in trouble..."

"Reagan Sauls, you say?" The officer asked, "Isn't he a wanted criminal?"

Sasha nodded, "Yes. He kidnapped these babies a year ago as part of a child slave ring. He was detained, but recently escaped... which you kids now know..."

"Yeah... we know, Tia Sasha." Harry said to her, "We've known for a while now too."

"What?"

"Sondra overheard you guys talking about it back in North Carolina." Theo explained, "So we know that you were keeping all of that a secret... so we kept our knowledge of it a secret from you guys... so you wouldn't worry."

Sasha looked at the kids with understanding, "I see... we kept it a secret from you so you wouldn't be afraid. We all know you all are still reeling from what happened last year..."

The kids nodded as they remembered. To them, last year felt like last week. The memories and struggle they went through with Reagan were absolutely Hell. And they'd rather not go through that again...

After some more questioning, the police relocated the kids and Sasha to the RV, before leaving to investigate the matter. Sasha had put both Jan and Jamal to sleep, before joining the older kids on the seats of the vehicle.

"Mrs. Miller... what's gonna happen now?" Theo asked.

"Are our Mommy's and Daddy's gonna be okay...?" Sondra asked with worry.

The woman sighed as she looked at the kids, "I... hope that things will be okay. Let's hope the police will find them... and bring them back to us..."

"If they even know where to look." Harry pointed out.

Theo nodded, "Yeah. Aside from whatever went down in that lobby, could there be any leads as to where Reagan is keeping our kids? Any at all. I respect the police, but they aren't always helpful, you know. Which is why..."

He then got up and stood in front of everyone, "We gotta save them ourselves!" He declared.

"Save them ourselves?" Sasha asked, "Um..."

"Who knows our parents better than anybody? Us! We know them! And since we know them, we must have a better chance of finding out where they went to! We can do a much better job than the cops!"

Harry seemed motivated as he stood up as well, "Yeah! We can do it! Our parents must be depending on us!"

"Yeah! We just gotta do it!" April agreed.

"Yay!" Elvin and Nelson cheered.

Sasha was surprised at this determination, but she had to intervene, "Hold it! Hold it! You can't seriously consider solving this on your own... are you?" She asked.

"Well... someone has to," Theo replied.

"I know, but that's why the police are here to help. It would be dangerous to go out there ourselves."

Harry spoke again, "She's got a point..."

Theo frowned, "C'mon, guys. Our folks risked everything to save us from Reagan last year... the least we can do is do the same for them..."

Sasha sighed, "I know you kids are determined. But... it's just that, you're just children. You can't just jump into action like this when you barely know what you're jumping into."

"I think we know Reagan pretty well at this point," Theo argued.

"You think you do. Not to mention Reagan has back up this time. I can't let you get hurt. I simply just can't. Even if you had a full proof plan... how do you know it will work. Reagan... might kill you..."

The kids understood where Sasha was getting at. Trying to fix the problem themselves could end very badly for everyone, and she had every right to worry about their safety doing it. But at the same time...

"Mrs. Miller, I get that it would be dangerous... but I don't wanna just sit around and wait for the police to do anything." Theo tried to explain, "It might be too late... I feel like, as the kids... we should do something. Anything to get them back..."

Sasha looked at him with sympathy, "I just don't want anything to happen to you... you kids are like all my babies in a way. And if anything were to happen under my watch... I'll never forgive myself..."

"So... what do you think we can do to help?" Harry asked.

"Well... maybe we can find a way to track them down. I have a feeling everyone is still in Atlanta, which is already a big place. They could be anywhere. If we can do that, we may have a better chance of finding your parents."

"Maybe there was something on the cameras that we didn't see." Sondra pointed out, "Maybe the bad men saying where they were going..."

"And maybe something with all the mess too!" Fuchsia added.

Theo and April smiled at their respective sisters, "Not a bad observation, sis." Theo added.

"Then we should go back to the scene of the crime and find out!" Harry proposed.

"But first..." Sasha spoke up again, "We should get some sleep. We're gonna need our strength to do any sleuthing."

The kids didn't object to that. And so, they all went to the back of the RV to sleep on the bed. As they did, Theo turned to Alya, who had been silent on this whole matter. He wrapped his arms around her, "Don't worry, Als... we'll get them back..." He assured her.

"Yeah... we will..." She replied, half-heartedly.

Theo smiled with a new objective in mind.

Hang tight, Mom and Dad... and the other Mom's and Dad's... we're coming for ya.

Well, the kids have found out that their parents have been captured by Reagan, and plan to get them back, as their parents did for them in GHAGTA. Of course, as Sasha said, just jumping in would be dangerous, so they're gonna take a different approach. As for Alya, she's very conflicted about how to feel about her own parents. Hopefully, things will turn out better for the Davis family. It may take a while, though.

Next chapter will follow this one, as we'll see some of the kids do a little detective work to find out anything of where their folks may be. Until then, I'll see you guys later, and as always, don't forget to review, please. Thank you!