A/N: Thank you all for your reviews and support! I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 17: To be prevailed upon to marry

Ana's drive back to Portland felt unbearably long, though at the same time it felt like no time had passed at all since her mind was so preoccupied with everything going on. The bulk of the road trip consisted of her fielding phone calls from Kate asking when she would be home, glancing impatiently at the clock on her dashboard, and staring at the road ahead while trying not to think about what she would find upon going home. She frequently noticed a black Audi following her all the way back home, and through her distress, she could sincerely appreciate Christian looking out for her despite everything going on.

However, this whole debacle with Leila would probably prevent Christian from wanting anything to do with her anymore… but she couldn't think about that right now.

After over three hours of driving, Ana finally made it home, and she felt her stomach drop the moment she saw a police car parked on the side of the road in front of the house. She parked in the driveway before getting out of the car, and she turned to watch the black Audi that had followed her home drive down the street and out of sight.

"Ana?"

Ana turned toward the front door, and noticed Kate stepping out onto the porch, a worried frown on her face.

"Kate," Ana said, feeling immediately comforted by her older sister's presence. They walked toward each other and embraced.

"Any word yet?" Ana asked before pulling away. Kate shook her head.

"No. We're just talking with a police officer right now… Mom and Dad want to get the cops to put out a search for Leila, but apparently law enforcement doesn't want to waste time and resources on a runaway teenager."

Ana sighed, rolling her eyes. "Of course they don't. Does the officer know that she's with Jack?"

"Yeah, we showed him the letter she left on her desk," Kate said. She helped Ana pull her suitcase from the car and walked with her to the front door. "None of us know enough about Jack to give the officer much information about him, though. Maybe now that you're here, we'll be able to get some more info about him."

"Maybe… but I don't know. I feel like despite all that time I spent with Jack, I never really knew him at all," Ana said. Kate didn't say anything, and the two of them walked together through the front door of the house, ready to face what was inside.

It was several hours later when the police officer finally left the Steele home. Ana endured hours of countless questions, from both the police officer and her parents, about Jack and who he was to her. Ana already felt guilty for bringing that piece of garbage into their lives, subsequently leading to him running away with her little sister, but she did her best recounting everything she knew about Jack. She hoped what information she had about him would aid in the police search - Kate, Carla, and Ray had already given the police officer the names of all Leila's friends, and Ana made sure to give him the names of Jack's friends from the Delta Chi frat.

It was now dinnertime, and Kate and Ana were in the kitchen helping their mother bake a casserole while Ray sat at the dining room table with his laptop, trying to reach out to family and friends through Facebook about where Leila and Jack may have gone.

"I don't know where we went wrong," Carla said tearfully, dabbing her eyes with a dish towel. "I don't know what I did to make my baby girl act out like this."

"You haven't done anything wrong, Mom," Kate said to her mother soothingly. "Leila has been acting out for awhile now. I can only assume it was Jack who was the cause of it."

"Oh, my poor Leila," Carla sobbed. Ray, noticing his wife's distress, got up from the table.

"It's alright, darling. I'm sure Leila and Jack are still in the area, and we'll find them soon," he said, pulling Carla into his arms, and she rested her head against his shoulder. "And the police said they're going to start a preliminary search for them. I'm sure this will all be over before we know it."

Ana and Kate exchanged a glance, but neither of them said anything.

The timer on the oven suddenly beeped. "Oh, that's the casserole," Carla said, drying her eyes and pulling away from her husband. "Ana, can you grab that?"

"Sure," Ana said, picking up the oven mitts and opening the oven door to take out the casserole. Kate walked over to the cabinet to grab the plates and forks.

"The casserole smells great guys," Ray said, pecking his wife on the forehead before walking back over to his laptop. "Let's eat dinner, and then we can continue working on finding Leila."

The others agreed, and despite all the horrible stuff that had happened today, Ana couldn't help but feel comforted by the simple fact that her family was here right now, eating dinner at home.

~/~

After they all ate, Ana and Kate made their way upstairs together.

"Did Leila leave anything in her room that might hint at where she and Jack might be?" Ana asked as they approached Leila's door, which was open.

"No, just that note saying she was running away," Kate said as the two of them entered. "Dad and I searched her room from top to bottom, but we couldn't find anything. We think she took her phone with her, though Dad thinks it's turned off because we can't track it through the Find my Phone app. She even went so far as to delete the search history on her desktop computer."

Kate walked over to Leila's computer and clicked the mouse so the screen lit up. Ana's stomach dropped as she looked at the wallpaper… it was a collage of Leila and Jack posing for selfies, laughing, hugging, making silly faces, and even kissing. Just looking at it made Ana want to throw up.

"Yeah, that was my reaction too," Kate said, noticing the look on Ana's face before glancing back over at the computer screen. "It's still hard to imagine the two of them together… I don't understand how none of us could have realized what was really going on."

"When Jack was with Christian's sister, he managed to convince her not to tell anyone about their relationship," Ana said, scowling. "It's not difficult to imagine him using the same fucked-up tactics on Leila."

Kate sighed before glancing down at her feet. "I know that Dad said they're probably still in the area somewhere, but I can't help but think that that's not the case. I feel like we would have heard something by now if they were nearby."

"Yeah, I know," Ana grimaced. "But I hope for Leila's sake we're wrong."

Kate didn't say anything, but Ana knew there was probably a lot they both wanted to say yet couldn't find the words. Silently, the two of them walked back out of Leila's bedroom and closed the door behind them.

The Steele's didn't hear anything more that night, and they all went to bed with their minds filled with thoughts of Leila. Ana hardly got a wink of sleep, and for hours she tossed and turned in her bed, trying to think about anything other than where Leila might be and if she was okay.

I wish I hadn't told Christian about what happened.

That one thought crossed Ana's mind as she stared up at her dark ceiling, and she knew this probably wasn't the time or place, but she couldn't help thinking it. Christian and Jack had had a long and difficult history that seemed like it was finally in the past, but in her ignorance and pride, Ana had brought Jack into their lives once again and fucked everything up.

And now this whole thing with Leila would irrevocably tie Jack to her family, quite possibly ruining any future chance Ana could've had with Christian… as slim as that chance might have been.

Ana rolled over on her side and squeezed her eyes shut, resolved to not think about Christian again as she began to fall into a fitful, uneasy sleep.

The next morning, the Steele family woke up to a visit from the police officer they spoke to yesterday. Apparently, he and his partner had found something… some gas station footage of a person they believed to be Jack.

"This footage was taken at a gas station right off Highway 95 near McDermitt," the officer said, handing them several pieces of paper showing stills of black-and-white security camera footage. The pictures were a bit blurry, but Ana could easily recognize Jack standing beside his car, which he was filling up with gas.

"That's him," Ana confirmed to the officer, and he nodded.

"The security footage got a shot of his license plate," he said. "That is his car, and we believe Leila was in the passenger seat with him in this shot."

"They were in McDermitt?" Ray asked, flabbergasted. "That's all the way on the southern border of the state! Are they driving to Nevada?"

The officer hesitated a moment, and Ana suddenly realized what was going on. "Do you think they're driving to Las Vegas?" she asked quietly.

Kate placed a hand over her mouth as Carla gasped. "Oh my God, they ran away to get married?! She's only seventeen!"

"Is that even legal?" Ray asked the police officer, who shook his head.

"No, but Vegas chapels don't really care about the finer aspects of marital laws. It would be easy enough for Leila to lie about her age if she wanted to," he explained. "My partner and I have alerted the local police in Las Vegas about the two of them, and we should hopefully have more information within the next day or two."

"I'm not going to sit around and wait to hear if my underage daughter has gotten married to some sleazeball!" Ray shouted angrily, jumping to his feet. "We have to go down there and find them, right now!"

"Dad, we don't know if they're in Vegas yet," Kate said fairly. "Or if they're even going to Vegas in the first place. We would have no idea where to even start looking… the only thing we can do right now is wait for more information."

Ray still looked upset, and Ana was right there with him… she felt utterly useless just sitting around here at home and waiting. She wished she could go to Vegas right now to start looking for Leila and Jack, even if it did feel completely hopeless.

"We'll keep you and your family updated with any new information," the police officer said to Ray. "We'll do our best to discover them before they actually get married, but I can't make any promises."

Ray turned away, running a hand over his face, and Ana felt utterly dejected. Even with a vague idea as to where the two of them were heading, this search seemed fruitless…

What if they were too late? What if Leila and Jack were married right at this moment? Ana really didn't want to think about that.

The police officer soon left, and Ana headed upstairs to her bedroom without saying anything to anyone. Since coming back from Seattle, Ana hadn't allowed herself to think about asking him for help finding Leila, but now it seemed like she didn't have much of a choice.

After closing the door behind her, Ana walked over to her desk and picked up her cell phone, readying herself to call up the one guy she knew could help. Christian had told her in his letter he'd been keeping tabs on Jack for months, so she knew if there was anyone who had a chance of finding Leila, it would be Christian.

However, Ana remembered the expression on Christian's face right before she had said goodbye to him in front of the restaurant… he was acting very cold and distant toward her, clearly wanting nothing to do with her or her fucked-up family. If she was being honest with herself, it was that look on his face that made Ana so reluctant to call him up to ask for help in the first place.

Now wasn't the time for fear or trepidation, however… she needed to suck it up and ask the man whom she had harshly rejected months ago to help her with a problem that he probably didn't want anything to do with.

God, I hate this.

Taking a deep breath and steeling herself, Ana dialed Christian's number and brought the phone up to her ear.

It rang once… it rang twice… it rang three times… Ana felt her heart pounding loudly in her throat as she waited for him to pick up.

"Hello, you've reached Christian Grey. I'm unable to answer the phone right now, but please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible."

Ana quickly hung up the phone before she heard the beep, feeling like she was about to be sick. Tears sprung up in the corner of her eyes as she shakily set her phone back down on her desk… him not picking up the phone sent a clear message that he didn't want anything to do with her or with her problems. She never should have bothered to call him in the first place.

Quickly brushing away the errant tear that had fallen down her cheek and taking a deep shaky breath, Ana decided not to let Christian ghosting her bring her down. She knew that he had no obligation to help her or her family, so her thinking that he would help them would be foolish.

Still… Ana felt that his rejection would have hurt less if he at least answered the phone. But maybe he felt just saying 'no' to her face was too harsh.

Ana took another deep breath before walking out of her room to go back to her family downstairs, knowing that they were probably wondering where she was.

A small Boeing jet touched down at McCarran International Airport at around three o'clock on Sunday, the conditions being rather cool and foggy for this November afternoon. The plane sped down the runway before finally slowing down to a rolling stop; instead of pulling up to a jet bridge at the terminal, it rolled up near the hangar slightly away from the other planes. Some airline workers in windbreakers hurried over to it, doing some quick maintenance checks before pushing a rolling staircase up to the door.

The door eventually opened and two men stepped out, one of them on the phone as the two of them made their way down the steps.

"So they're off of Highway 95 in Beatty?" Christian Grey asked, his phone to his ear as he gazed off into the distance. "Are you sure Welch?"

"Positive," Welch said from the other end. "It's a nondescript little town, but it looks like he arrived around noon and hasn't moved since. I can only assume they got a room at a motel and are currently staying there until they can head to Las Vegas."

"Try to get the name of the motel they're staying at," Christian said. "And let me know if they move at all. Taylor and I are going to start heading in their direction right now."

"Yes sir."

Christian hung up the phone before turning to Taylor. "Ready to go?"

"The car's arriving now, sir," Taylor said, looking over to the right. Sure enough, a black Lexus was driving toward them from the hangar. "Welch said they're in Beatty?"

"Yeah, a two-hour drive from here," Christian said, grimacing. "We better get a move on."

"Yes sir."

Once the Lexus pulled up and the keys were handed off to Taylor, Christian got into the backseat. He knew that what he was doing right now was overstepping bounds quite a bit, but Ana had seemed so upset about what had happened with her sister, he couldn't just sit back and let that scumbag Jack take advantage of her family like this.

He was going to do everything in his power to help, even if it meant that Ana would never know what he did.

Taylor pulled out of the hangar and headed toward the highway, driving off to where they knew Jack and Leila were currently staying.

A/N: And the drama continues :)

If you liked this chapter, please review! Next chapter, Christian confronts Jack about bringing Leila home.