Once I got my head back onto its correct placement after a couple minutes of doing nothing but staring blankly off into space, I rose to my feet, filled with James' words of both power and weakness. All of the information he had fed to me was going to be put to good use, whether he liked it or not-I would die trying, if that's what it took.

As James and I stood, face to face, we met eyes. Eyes that were no longer separated by being merely male and female. Eyes that could never come together as boyfriend and girlfriend. They were the eyes of the damned, eyes that knew too much and would reveal it for too high of a price. We were forever separated by the fact that he was the prince of the Manticore dynasty, and I was the princess of the peasants that were controlled by the royal family.

The paper of my Manticore registration was in my hand now, and because it was becoming sweaty, I neatly folded it up and shoved it in my back pocket, trying to ignore the quivering of my hand. Although I never wanted to think of myself as X10-415, I felt that the paper held some sort of unnamed power for me. Finally, as I lifted my head to look at James, I asked, after decades of silence, "Do you know where your father took my parents?"

He sighed, averting his eyes from mine. "Wyoming, most likely. They're far too valuable of a commodity to take anywhere else."

"Do you know how to get there?" I questioned as I zipped up the front of my jacket that had somehow come undone between the time I burst through the window back at my apartment and that moment.

"Sure, I've been there enough. But, I don't have the money to buy a plane ticket to get us there, and we don't have the time to ride your motorcycle there either."

"Yeah," I replied, then turned away from him, so that my hand rested on the doorknob, "that's why we need to make a quick pit-stop before heading out to Wyoming." With that, I opened the door and headed down to my bike, leaving James no choice but to follow me. After all, if his father ever found out that he had let the precious X10-415 escape, James would be executed on sight.

It seemed as though, despite the fact that I could barely touch James' bare skin without trembling, we had come together somehow-only to be cruelly ripped apart by some unnamed fiend. Yes, his father was from Manticore, and my parents were too. And, we already had both admitted who were truly were, and, I suppose, that was what counted. I'd heard many a time that after couples come clean with each other, there is a time when their love is reborn again because of that trust. If this was true, I knew that our love had indeed been reborn, only to be crushed under Lydecker's foot. So, in truth, we weren't any closer then than before we had began.

Upon arriving at my destination, where giant buildings loomed against the limelight of the city, I didn't even bother to knock on the door of the penthouse, feeling that politeness wasn't my solution at the moment. James followed me hesitantly inside, wearing the mask of an executioner who has been forced to kill their own child. His eyes were pale and bland, filled with more horror than there should have been in the son of Donald Lydecker. Yet, I would never accuse James of being anything but what he was; he had accepted the fact his heritage was destructive and intended to take full responsibility for his actions. Good or bad responsibility, I wasn't sure at the moment, but he would take responsibility nonetheless.

As James closed the rich door behind him inside the spacious room, there came a clattering from behind a crystal wall, and a voice called out, rather timid almost, "Who's there?"

"It's me, Logan," I responded, peeking around the corner to see him sitting in front of his computers-the few friends he had in the world, it seemed. I should have been surprised that he was up so late, but, knowing him, he probably had some more work to do before heading off to bed.

Logan shook his head, muttering to himself something that sounded like, "Don't you people ever knock?", but I wasn't entirely sure because his head became reburied back in a mess of wires. Then, he paused, seeing that I wasn't going to speak first, and looked up at James and I standing behind him. James, though, kept a wise distance away from Logan, hiding in the shadows that night had brought.

"And, who, may I ask, are you?" he questioned, with a nod towards James, turning around in his swivel chair.

"This is James…but I need to ask you a favor," I replied almost too quickly.

"Who's 'he'?" Logan replied, as he put on the glasses that I come to associate with only Logan Cale so that he looked like the man I remembered.

"James," I repeated, confused as to what Logan was getting at. "Logan, I-"

"Yes, Alanza, I understand that that's his name, but I don't…what exactly is-"

"Mom and Dad have been kidnapped by Lydecker," I interrupted with direct authority, taking charge of my parents' lives. Then, with a heavier sigh, I whispered, "Along with Brin, Jace, Krit, and Syl."

Logan's hand froze in mid-air, suspended only by shock. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me, Logan."

"And do I really want to know how this occurred?"

"My father kidnapped them," James said, finally speaking up for himself. His deep voice sounded alien next to Logan's, which I found rather funny at the moment, but figured it best not to laugh. Besides, I didn't think I could muster any humor out of my troubled body even if I had squeezed my skin in a vain attempt to do so.

"And who would your father be?" Logan asked. Then, as the pieces fell into place before his eyes, I saw his expression drop and smash on the tiled floor. "Oh my…"

"That's it?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow, and putting on false bravado. "'Oh my'? No wonderful words of wisdom from the infamous Logan Cale?"

"Considering that my fiancée was just kidnapped by the very man that she has been running from all her life, no," he responded rather tartly. Swinging his legs back around to face his computers, he asked, "And, although I'm not sure I want the answer to this, I'll do so anyway: What's the favor I can do for you, Alanza?"

"I need four tickets to Wyoming as soon as possible."

"Four?" both James and Logan echoed at once.

"Yes. One for me, James, Case, and Max. I'm betting that James and I can't take down Manticore and save my parents. I'm going to need help from the only available X-series I can get for the time being."

"That I can do," Logan said and immediately went into his furious typing mode, talking as he went. "I'll have the tickets waiting for you guys at the Seattle airport, which'll fly you out to Cheyenne under the name of Guevara. You'll pick up the tickets, hop on the plane and that's that." As he was babbling along, I asked if I could use his phone. "Sure," he replied without even glancing up. "Just don't anger anybody by calling them so late at night."

Taking the cordless phone out to the living room, I walked past the couch where I had lain after giving Logan my blood-a time that seemed years ago. A time that seemed so innocent pure, but was indefinitely caught like a butterfly in a net. Lovely to look at, and lovely to hold, yet when you moved too close, it would break into a million scrambled pieces.

James stayed in the computer room, watching Logan, but he glanced over at me several times, as if checking to make sure that I was ok. The phone on the receiving end rang numerous times before a sleepy-mouthed person picked up.

"Hello?" they yawned, but I couldn't blame them for being tired because it was close to midnight.

"Case, is that you?"

"Yeah…Who is this?"
"It's Alanza."

"Alanza? What's up?" In the background, I could hear Max's perky voice asking what was wrong with Alanza this time. The girl never tired, it seemed, no matter how late is was. She had probably downed a cup of coffee before going to bed and now it was kicking in.

"There's been a slight…all right, gigantic problem," I sighed, resting my elbows on the window frame that overlooked the cities. The glass, being colder than I was, fogged up from my body heat, and I smiled, remembering the name of Logan's home, "Foggle Towers".

"Which would be what?" Case questioned. I could hear him rolling out of bed in the background.

"Lydecker's kidnapped my parents, along with Krit, Syl, Jace, and Brin. We-James mostly-assumed that they've been taken back to Manticore in Wyoming."

There was a substantial pause, and for a moment, I thought that he had hung up on me. Finally, he spoke again, but his voice sounded far away and distant as if he had moved into a different room where the sound echoed. "Alanza, how much do you know?"
"About what?"

"About…everything," Case responded, apparently trying not to give things away with Max possibly listening in.

"I know everything…James and I had a long talk-"

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but, well, you know…"

"I understand, Case, but that's not the problem now, I need your help, and I need it bad."

"Anything."

"I want you and Max to go down to the Seattle airport as soon as you can. You'll find tickets there, waiting to take the four of us out to Cheyenne. You and Max need to get out to Wyoming with James and I because we have to take down Manticore. These tickets are under the name of 'Guevara', so you guys can pick up your two, then James and I will meet you on the plane in about twenty minutes-hopefully less. I know I'm asking a lot…"

"No," he insisted, "I made a promise to you, a long time ago, remember, Alanza?"

"I don't, no," I responded. After all, the night, at the pace it was going, was going to be revealing a lot more than past clandestine promises that Case intended to keep. And, I wasn't sure that I wanted to know what the secrets were that would be discovered.

"I told you when we first met-remember the campfire?-that if you ever wanted to get a hold of me or anything, I'd be there in a heartbeat. If things ever got crazy on you, that is. I knew that this was going to happen, and I'll help you, no matter what."

"Thanks, Case."
"No problem." He paused again, before saying, "Look, I got to start getting ready and break the news to Max. I'll see you two at the airport-ok?"

"Ok," I responded, just as he hung up, leaving me with a dead, but moaning, receiver. I walked back out to the computer room, where Logan waited, watching me as I laid the phone back in its protective cradle.

"Four tickets to Wyoming at the airport-right?" I asked.

"Yes." He glanced over to James, then back at me. "Alanza, is there anything else I can do?"

"No," I said, shaking my head fervently. "Nothing more. I don't know if I'll ever be able to thank you enough as is." Then, turning to James, so that I would be able to give Logan a proper good-bye, I asked him if he would start heading on down to the bike. James apparently didn't agree with me, but went along rather reluctantly; I seemed to have developed some kind of new power over him that I was unaware of.

"Logan," I said, crouching down next to him so that we could be eye to eye, "I want you to pray for us. I don't know if you believe in God and all that, but pray to Ben's Blue Lady, if you must, because things aren't looking promising."

"Yes."

"I know I haven't been the friendliest person to you in the past, but I want you to understand that I was angry, and I would really like it if you could forgive me now…" I swallowed harshly, hating the words that I was about to say. "In case I don't come back."

"I forgive you," he responded with a curt nod.

"Thanks."

"Alanza?" he called as I rose to my feet, and he did the same. Stopping inside his opened doorway, I turned to face him, my burning hand left to rest on the cool doorknob.

"Yes?"

"You asked me for words of wisdom, and I can give them to you now."

"Anything…I'll take any help that I can get right now…please."

"Don't get too high of an opinion of yourself."

"What?"

"Alanza, you may be able to crack like lightning and carry many pawns in your palms, but despite that, you have to remember that you're still one apart, and a single mistake will bring the ultimate backslide."

Whispering, I nodded my head, "I know, Logan, I know…''