Later that night, Zell sat in Balamb Garden's computer lab, sifting through his email, his mind on everything but what was on the screen in front of him. That had scared the shit out of him, the way Lydia had passed out during the SeeD exam. He remembered how her eyes had rolled so far back into her head that only the whites showed, how the saliva trickled down her chin, how she collapsed onto the floor of the arena with a sickening thud.

How she muttered in her sleep.

How they had tried to wake her up, but she did nothing but mumbled, her eyelids twitching, her face breaking out in a cold sweat.

And what had she mumbled? All kinds of nonsense that meant nothing to him, but must have meant something to her. Something about a saw, something about somebody being disfigured....

And now his ma was missing. God, what a day from hell.

He craned his neck as he heard the door to the lab open. It was Lydia.

"Hey, Zell," she said, slightly surprised. "Don't see you in here very often."

She pulled up a seat a few computers down and turned the computer on.

"How you feeling?"

"I'm doing okay," she replied, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear as she leaned closer toward the computer screen. "Embarrassed."

"Where'd Kyle take you?"

"Oh...um, we went to see Crimson Rain. Kyle's been dieing to see it."

"Crimson Rain? That's pretty bloody, ain't it?"

She laughed. "How'd you guess?"

"I didn't know you were into slashers."

"I'm not, but Kyle wanted to see it, so I humored him. We're going out again tomorrow night. He wants to go see a Serpents game."

"Listen, Lydia," Zell began, clicking the computer off and moving to the chair beside her, "I heard that Kyle's kind of a...."

"Kind of a what?"

"I heard he treats his girlfriends like dogs," he said bluntly. "Miranda Bisken went out with him a while back and she said he was a total control freak. Said he roughed her up when she tried to stand up to him."

Lydia sat in silence, examing Zell's concerned face.

"Listen, Zell....I don't know what rumors you might have heard, but Kyle's a really nice guy."

"You really like him?"

"I wouldn't be going out with him tomorrow if I didn't."

The door opened once again and Headmaster Cid stuck his head in. "Zell, the police are here. They want to ask you some questions."

"What's going on?" Lydia asked, her eyes wide after Cid closed the door behind him.

"I stopped by my house today for dinner and ma wasn't there, but her car was still parked out front" Zell said, rising to his feet. "The police have been out looking for her."

"Oh my God, I hope she's okay..."

He followed Cid into the hall where two police officers stood, looking solemn. One was tall and string bean thin, with wavy black hair, the other shorter and balding.

"Something's wrong...what happened to her?" Zell demanded in a shaky voice.

"You're Zell Dincht?" the short officer demanded.

"Yeah, what-"

"Your mother's still missing. No sign of her anywhere. We're probably looking at an abduction. The neighbors were on the front lawn sitting with company. They saw her come home from the grocery store at approximately 5:00 PM. You arrived at your home at 5:30 PM. That leaves less than a half hour for her to have been kidnapped, a half hour in which the neighbors were on their front lawn, lots of people going for evening walks. If you had a backdoor, that'd be another story."

"What does it mean?" Zell asked, struggling to contain his nerves.

"It means either the kidnapper was pretty damned slick, or your ma vanished ino thin air. You guess."

The door to the lab opened and Lydia came out, her arms crossed over her chest, her face slightly pale.

"Did they find her?"

"Miss, if you're not part of the Dincht family, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to give us some privacy," the short officer said, gesturing down the hall.

"Oh, okay. Sorry," she said, casting Zell a sympathetic look as she headed toward the dormitories.

"We'd like you to come up to the headmaster's office for some questioning, if you don't mind."