Emily's POV

As soon as Wren walked in through that door everyone started to do as planned to get the information that we needed from him. I would have preferred if we didn't get violent, it seemed there was enough of that to go around, but I agreed to let Caleb, Toby and Ezra have it their way in case Wren wouldn't talk.

And that's where we were now.

"Tell us what we need Wren and we'll stop," Ezra was shouting, but not loud enough that neighbors would hear, and he cocked his fist back to deliver another blow.

The man we tied to the chair cringed and mumbled something I couldn't make out, but it was the first time he had tried to say anything.

Caleb shared a look with Ali and when she nodded her head, he reached forward and ripped the grey duct tape from Wren's mouth.

"Start talking," Caleb commanded and I couldn't believe the hardness in his voice. I couldn't seem to find the comfort in his eyes which were now hard and narrowed angrily. But I know why it was like that, I didn't know why I knew...I just did. He was like that...we were all like something else, because pf the pain. Pain and loss can change people. End of that story.

We all knew how close we were to finding the ones we loved...the ones I knew I should be missing, the ones I should know, the ones I should be glad to torture this man to find.

"Now why," the man spat in his British accent, "would I do that?"

Although I was sitting behind him, I could tell he was smirking, that he thought this was a game. I didn't realize my fists were clenched into the couch until I looked down and seen an unnatural white shade across my knuckles.

I shocked everyone into silence when I stood up and walked in front of the man I didn't know and cleared my throat.

"I'll tell you why." I had no idea what I was going to say, all I knew was that I was mad and tired and I just wanted this to be over.

"Hello Emily, how are you?" He smiled crookedly and I hated the smug look on his face. Even through all the redness and swelling and blood dripping slightly from his mouth and nose, he looked like none of this was affecting him.

Ali made a noise that sounded similar to a growl and from the corner of my eye I watched as her hands lunged for Wren, specifically his neck, "you asshole, I'll kill you, I swear to god-,"

I was startled, yes, but too wrapped up in my own anger and personal frustration to make a move against the blonde, waiting instead until Mona and Caleb pulled her away and held her between their bodies, coaxing her to calm down.

I turned my gaze back to Wren blankly and tilted my head, "I've been better, or haven't you heard?"

"Emily," Toby was grabbing at my shoulder gently from behind me but I shrugged him off and waved my hand at him.

"No Toby, he wants to know why he should talk, and I want to tell him."

Wren was red in the face now, he looked angry that Ali had attacked him and now that I looked, I could see fresh red scratches across his neck.

"You know what, let me tell you a story and then we'll see about you wanting to talk okay?" But of course there was no response, "Toby, can you bring me a chair?"

I couldn't see anyone's face from behind me, but I imagined they were as confused as Wren looked.

I felt a chair touch gently at the back of my knees and I lowered myself into it and I sighed.

"Wren, do you have parents?"

He knitted his brows and I forced a smile on my face, "it's just a question, answer it please."

"Yes."

"Great, and do you remember your childhood?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember the first time you learned to ride a bike, do you remember your first kiss, your first car, if you wanted to, could you remind yourself about what your birthday was like at home, can you at will think about high school and laugh at some memories with the friends you had?"

His eyes narrowed and he looked at the people standing behind me, "I don't see how this a story at a-,"

But that wasn't what I wanted to hear so I threw him off guard and surprised myself when I reached across with an open hand and slapped him clear across the face, "just answer me!"

He lifted his head and cracked his neck, licking his lips, catching the taste of his own blood on his tongue, "yes."

"Great, well guess what? I can't. I don't know how long you've been planning this with Charles but thanks to you I have no recollection of my life before this. I know nothing but pain and anger and the heavy sadness that sits on my chest, so heavy that I feel like I can't breathe somedays. I get it, Charles wanted some sort of revenge, but it wasn't enough for him to take the people I know I love. It wasn't enough to torture me physically with the stitches and staples and bruises and cuts, all the blood I watched them wash from my body. No that wasn't enough." My voice had gotten low and I felt something dark settle inside me.

"No it wasn't. See it wasn't who I loss, that made this the most painful, it was what...that what was a piece of me, the very being of who I am. I don't even know who I am. Charles had to take away my mind, my memories, any knowledge I had about who I was as a person. He took away the ability for me to talk without getting a migraine. You must not know the feeling I get when I start to literally choke on my words, verbally drowning myself just for trying to speak. You don't know how it feels to wake up in the morning and walk by mirrors, jumping at the stranger you see in the reflection. You don't know what's it's like to close your eyes and be faced with two nightmares. One, the quiet, deathlike and blinding blankness that comes from waking up with nothing in your brain but the thought that everything hurts and two, when you do try to sleep you finally have these visions, you toss and turn because you're being tortured by these images that you can't decide are real or made up.

"You don't know. You can't know how much pain that inflicts to search through your own brain and try to decide if you're remembering parts of your life or if you're so sad and lonely that your mind is trying to make things up, so you wake up and walk around still thinking about what is real or not. That makes it hard to live. It makes waking up not seem worth it.

"That's what my life has been like for a few weeks, but I say my life, because that's all I know. These that people I should be missing, that have risked their lives for me unknowingly, I don't even know. I tell myself I love them, but I'm not sure how love is really supposed to feel anyways, I can't think of reasons to love these people.

"I'm so tired of being pain's servant, we all do things and feel things and say things when we're in pain, pain is the same as anger that way and it's fucked up, but we're in a fucked up situation anyways so I might as well say this...I know if I lost them, I would be fine, because I don't know them, I can't make the right pictures in my head and feelings in my heart to make me know who they are and that makes me want to do anything to get them back. And you know what? I just realized how angry I am…and since we have no way of finding Charles who is the real monster, I can imagine myself taking it all out on you. I'm numb Wren, numbed by everything yet I can feel all the pain, I can't imagine what I'd have to do to you to make you feel the same way."

Wren and I maintained eye contact the whole time and he hadn't moved, I don't even know if one of us blinked.

"So that's why I'm doing this, these people you helped kidnap are my only chance at feeling sane, of getting my identity back, because I swear, if not I will go crazy and I don't want that, I want to remember the day I learned how to ride my bike, the name of my first kiss, color of my first car, I want to know the name of my high school, and if you won't do it because of that then here's really why you're going to tell us."

I turned around and aside from the wide eyed expressions, there was a look I was getting, like everyone stopped seeing me as just in the way, or weak, I didn't see that they felt bad anymore. Mona shared a look with me and she let go of Ali, whose gaze I avoided, and the short brunette handed me a file.

"Here, is all the proof we need to expose you to Charles, you're afraid of him right?"

"Why would I be afraid of Charles? You don't have anything to expose about me to him."

"Actually," Mona looked at me for permission and I sat back and crossed my arms, watching her move to my side and take the folders from my lap, "Emily is right. We found out who murdered Mrs. D, Wren, it was you."

"Ridiculous, she got us where we were, why would I murder her?"

"We found the emails, you wanted out, you were done, the money wasn't worth it anymore, you couldn't live with yourself knowing what you did. You helped create a monster and you fed an innocent girl to that monster and when you realized that, when the monster you kept under your bed started to get older and smarter, you were scared, you wanted out."

I watched Wren intently, studying his facial features for any sign of stress.

"James, Wren, it doesn't matter what you call yourself because if we tell Charles that you killed his precious mother, we both know he won't stop until you pay for it. And all it takes is for us to give Charles what we found, the emails, the threats and the street security video that was somehow miraculously deleted. But you see, all of us, together, are smarter than you are alone, we found that video and if we zoom in on the right frame, why there's a man that looks an awful lot like you in that video."

Wren's face turned five shades lighter and I could make out the slightest beads of sweat forming along his hairline.

"Why'd you really want out?" I asked with the presence of a slight lilt in my voice.

"Em, what are you talking about?" Mona asked but I ignored her.

"You have no idea what you're talking about," he spat, "of course I wanted out, that freak of a son had an obsession with dolls but I wasn't going to be hers anymore."

"So why not kill her and then leave?"

"I would've looked guilty."

"But you wouldn't have, Charles had been out a long time by then, they didn't need you anymore, but you stayed and that's why you would've looked guilty if you left then. So why'd you stay in the first place?"

My eyes were fixed on him and I could hear everyone but Mona shift behind me, "yeah, Emily has a point, if the deal you wanted to make with Mrs. D was just to let you go, she would've, you vowed to stay quiet because she made sure to pay you and if you ratted her out, you put your own reputation at stake. There had to be something she wouldn't do in order for you to want to kill her. What'd you want?"

Wren was staring at the papers now in Mona's hands, "you'd really do anything for her, wouldn't you?" Wren jutted out his chin in Ali's direction, "how can you justify that she's worth protecting? How can you say what you're doing is right? Why? Because you're trying to get back who you love? This is her fault anyways."

"This isn't about Alison," Caleb defended, with an arm still hovering in front of her body, "so answer the damn question Wren."

"You had to have been told no by mommy dearest, it was more than just getting out, you had that chance a long time ago, no, you had to have something else before you disappeared," Mona was getting anxious, I could tell she was close to figuring it out, "What was it?"

Something in me clicked, everything he said was already enough to know why he stayed, why he was still doing Charles' bidding and why he didn't leave. I was going over everything in my head and trying to make sure it made any sense before I said anything but when I was sure it was it, I held my hand to Mona's shoulder from where she stood taller than me at my side.

"You said Charles liked his dolls, that disgusted you," I pointed at his chest, "and you also asked basically what we wouldn't do for those we loved. And when I slapped you, you know what I could smell on you?"

Alison pushed past Caleb and between me and Mona and stood mere inches from Wren, "lavender," she whispered, looking at me with wild eyes.

"Lavender," I confirmed, "you stayed for her, CeCe, you love her, even if she was practically a child when you started working with her but when you wanted out, you wanted to take her with you, but Mrs. D wouldn't have that. She wouldn't let another kid steal her kid's favorite doll, you didn't like that one bit did you? You threw a tantrum just like a kid and she paid the ultimate price." I took a deep shaky breath and stood from the chair, I felt nauseous, I had no idea who I had just become but the broken and somewhat terrified look on his face said it all.

I had used something special to him and used it against him, love was a double edged blade that way I guess.

I got up to head towards the bathroom and ripped my arm from Alison's attempted grasp to stop me, "Em," she tried but I kept walking, ignoring the pain in her voice when she said my name.

In that moment I knew I was right, now I knew it firsthand that pain really can change people.

Alison's POV

When I tried to make sure Em was okay, I recoiled immediately. She had pulled her arm away before I really had the chance to stop her. I felt incredibly useless at that point. I could hear the pain, the cracks in her voice when she was talking, she never said anything like that before, but what hurt more was knowing that I couldn't make it go away. I couldn't fix the cracks in her voice or the cracks in her spirit. Yes, she seemed stronger than before, but she also seemed more tired.

"Ali," Mona was waiting near Wren's side with an expectant look on her face.

"What?"

"Wren wants to make a deal."

I turned away from where I had just watched Emily flee and walked the few steps back towards Wren,"I'm not looking for a deal here, either you tell us where Charles is and where he's keeping everyone or we turn all this into the police and leave you here where you will spend the rest of your life rotting in a jail and trying to avoid being someone's bitch." I didn't care how venomous my voice was, Em was probably crying in his bathroom and it was his fault, "we could've done this the easy way, but you made Emily cry and now I'm pissed, so any chance you had at making a 'deal' was out the window about a few minutes ago, you missed your chance."

"My chance? No, you missed your chance, if you left Charles alone and did as he said Emily would be fine, everyone would be f-," but again, he was cutoff when Ezra leaned forward full force and landed his fist square on the jaw, using his other hand to harshly grip Wren's face and force the men to look at each other.

"Wren, you're a doctor, you've dealt with your fair share of patients having psychotic episodes, now look in my eyes and tell me what you see? Do you see a manic person who's on the verge of becoming very violent? Because that's exactly how I feel right now. Emily is not the only one feeling crazy, I promise." Ezra was practically growling through gritted teeth when he pushed Wren's head out of his hand and everyone else looked on edge, Toby turned and walked to the counter, coming back with something from his tool box.

"He's right Wren, and I've seen Ezra with a hammer, I helped him with some renovating a while back, I hate to see what he can do to those pretty little doctor hands of yours if he had one right," he swung the hammer around until Ezra held his hand up and Toby landed it in his upwards facing palm, "now."

Wren's hands made fists against the armrests of the wooden chair and I could see the tension in his back, "do it I said, I don't care what, but cover his mouth and do it."

Ezra looked at me and smiled like a madman at Wren, "you heard the lady, I'll give you 3 seconds to start talking or else I will make it very hard for you to let go of this chair when we're done."

The countdown made it to two when it shocked us all and Wren started to cry, "bingo," Mona said with a bitter satisfaction in her voice, I took a moment to breathe and after we all shared a look among ourselves Wren started to talk.

No One's POV

"I don't know what you want me to tell you."

"Start by telling us where they are," Toby demanded.

"I don't know."

Toby made a hard line with his lips and he raised his fist, only to put it back down when the man tied in the chair started to beg, "no not again, please, please, I'm telling you the truth, I don't know. Charles helped me get this job after you all thought you had caught -A. We laid low for a while, I fell off the grid and he left me alone, then last month he left a note in my bedroom with a note saying he needed my help, he told me to steal some sleeping gas and ether or chloroform."

"Why both," Mona questioned.

"Ether and chloroform wear off as soon as you stop inhaling the fumes, after I snatched them in the terminal I had the back of the van releasing just the right amount of sleeping gas with a smoke machine so that they'd stay asleep. I drove to some motel called The Rusty Can and that was it, I don't know anything else."

"So instead," Caleb walked closer with closed fists, "you just let Charles take them and do whatever he wants with them? You decided you could live with yourself."

"You don't understand, I had too. It keeps him off my scent about Jessica and it kept CeCe safe."

"CeCe, why wouldn't CeCe be safe," Ali asked with a furrow set in her brow.

"Because she's in love with him. She loves him for 'saving' her," he said mockingly, "for giving her a purpose, when really I did that, I loved her. Charles is just using her until he gets you. That was always the plan, it was what your mother said and it was what Charles has been doing."

"And you think you loved her why?"

"That doesn't matter, I don't care what you do, just don't hurt her, she was never a monster, Charles and your mother made her, they made her into what she is, she's sick Alison, all I wanted was for her to get better, instead she follows Charles' every command, I bet she was sent to finish the job at the hospital where you were taken wasn't she?"

Alison cringed at the thought of Emily's life being so close to ending yet again, feeling cold to the bone that even then she would've failed again at keeping her safe, "how did you know that, for all I know you helped her, you know how hospitals work after all."

"She called me before then and said she didn't know if she could do it, she told me Charles was going to make this the tip of the iceberg, she said killing Emily would surely push you right into his hands. He said that to her and she still couldn't see she was always just your substitute. She was so upset, promising that she'd lie to Charles and make him forgive her, she's that delusional that she'd apologize for not killing someone for him."

Ali felt her blood begin to boil, "and you being the great guy you are, you were going to do what, give her free treatment, a diagnosis for a chance to get in her pants, you sick bastard."

"Caleb," Wren said, ignoring Alison, "you know I wouldn't be surprised if Charles also took up a certain fondness for Hanna, seeing as she also bears a similar resemblance to Alison." Wren smirked at the chance to push Caleb's buttons and smiled a bloody smile a bit wider when no one punched him in the face for it.

"You will never find Charles, he's too deep for you to even know where to look. No one gets found when they get- when Charles doesn't want them to."

Alison watched his eye twitch and she pushed him in the chest, "what were you going to say?"

"I wasn't going to say anything."

"Yes you were, you know where they are, you know or how else would you smell like CeCe, you were probably just with her, tell us where they are and we won't say anything to Charles about how you were trying to steal his play thing and killed our mother."

"You don't get a hold of Charlie, he likes that name better," he whispered, "no one does."

"What was it we were so afraid to admit before," Mona puzzled out loud with amusement in her voice, "that -A was always watching? Well that's right, except, for weeks now, Caleb has been running a signal jammer about five-blocks wide of wherever we are, so he hasn't really been able to see what we've been up to at all, and if he gets close, he's always just a little off. All it would take is one flip of a switch and a few phone calls before we're back on the map. You see after that picture Charles sent us, we kept a loophole in the system that opened a one-way comm signal that allowed us to receive but not send anything, that included our location in case he tried to use the GPS on us, the external speakers to void him of eavesdropping and the cameras to put a little blanket over his eyes, Charles has no idea what we're doing and that's probably been freaking him out. It would make a lot of sense if he found out it was because you've been helping us."

"Why would he believe you?"

"Because we found bugs around you're house that we disabled and kept the security cameras in your vase, tv, radio, fridge and a few other places on standby before we even stepped a foot inside, we can all go back out, turn it on and walk in together to make it look you've been helping us and then guess who's ass is on the line first? Yours. So I," Mona said with a fake smile and her hand over her chest, "find it in your best interest if you start telling us everything you know because the way I see it, this can turn all 50 shades of ugly if we decide that you're not helpful, in fact, your potential is the only reason you're still breathing right now."

Mona stood and placed one fingertip on Wren's jaw, "you know Wren, I don't have to go to medical school like you did to understand the body. I know you've been hearing these threats all night but you know how smart I am, I took advanced Anatomy and Physiology and several classes on Psychology so I know what areas of the body send the most pain receptors to the brain, I also know how pain is just mental and even when your body feels like breaking, it can actually take so much more of it. I don't need a hammer or any brawn...I have theories on how much more pain 'more' really is, please don't make me test my thesis out on you, you have such nice rugs, and blood is such a hard stain to clean up."

"You're a liar, all of you are little liars."

"But we're the prettiest aren't we," she teased, "makes it hard not to do what's asked of some pretty little liars, hmm, that has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? But pretty girls can have the ugliest secrets, and let me tell you one," Mona leaned in close so that her mouth was just centimeters from his ear, "I will enjoy watching you writhe in pain and the best part is, no one will hear you, no one will care when you're found dead, and no one will try to stop me, no one will save you," Mona stood when she was done, dragging her nail over the other side of his jaw before she stood with hands on her hips, "so call my bluff Wren Kingston...I'm daring you."

Everyone watched Wren's adam's apple bob as he swallowed nervously and he darted his eyes between each of Mona's, reading her for any indication that she was in fact bluffing. The air tightened around them and finally Wren let go of the strained breath he was holding, "Okay, okay, River Road, that's all I heard him say once, it wasn't meant for me to hear but I heard him say something about River Road."

"River Road? That's it, think harder Wren or I swear I'll bash your head in."

"No, no, I'm telling the truth, that's all I know, I swear that's all I know."

Mona narrowed her eyes and then stood her full height, "Caleb, can you run a search of River Road, find the nearest location and nearby woods or forests."

"Okay, but why the woods or forests?"

"The last two places we found -A was deep in the cover of trees and the place Alison and Emily was found was running out of the woods near a highway."

"She's right, do it," Ali added and Caleb nodded his head and went to work on his laptop.

Turing back to Wren, Alison asked, "what else do you know?"

"Nothing, I know nothing."

"We all know that's a lie, you've been seeing CeCe haven't you?"

Wren shook his head, "not in the way you might think."

"Then tell me what I'm supposed to think," Ali demanded and she pulled up a chair and sat in front of him.

"We meet, once every other week, she comes here or I meet her somewhere and we have lunch and just talk."

"Just talk? Talk about what?" Alison wasn't buying that their secret rendezvous were all that innocent.

"That's personal," Wren defended.

But Ali shot back angrily with, "helping Charles take my friends was personal, this, this is just a question. So answer it, what do you two talk about?"

Swallowing hard and knowing he's been beat, he looks someone solemn when he answers, "she talks about Charles for a while, she talks like she needs to get him out of her system yet has to be at his side forever and finally when that's over then we talk about me, about my work and we like to pretend we're normal people just getting lunch. Then within a few hours, she has to leave and I don't question her, I let her go, I tell her to be safe and then we leave."

"She never mentions what Charles' plan is?"

"I'm out of the loop now, Charles basically owns me, he uses me when he wants to and if not, I stay were I'm supposed to."

"And he has no clue you've been crushing on CeCe?"

"No, and I'd like for it to stay that way, the things that I've done for your mother and for him, I've found a way to be at peace with it, but I can't live with myself if something happened to her because of me."

"Oh but you can live with yourself if something happens to the people that I love? It's justified then?"

Wren didn't answer and Ali was just a few seconds from wiping the smug look off of his face had it not been for Caleb's interruption, "guys, I got a hit, River Road, Weedville, Pennsylvania, it runs alongside the Wapiti Woods, and other surrounding state forests, it's something but it's not much, it'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack if we don't know where to start."

"I'll call my partner back at the station and ask them to call the Weedville local police and the rangers in that area, I'll have him put out pictures of the girls and Em's parents as a missing persons, if anyone's seen something, we'll find out."

"Toby but won't Charles find out we're on to him and just move?" Ezra asked.

"If this asshole is right," he said pointed a finger at Wren, "then Charles should be deep within those forests anyways, I'll make sure nothing is televised and there's no chatter on the radios, that way he won't know. We go and we ask around, I doubt he'd be able to drive them deep without being on a road or trail."

"And the only way to do that," Mona added, "was if he checked in somewhere, and that means someone had to have seen him. You can't just drag 5 people behind you, he needed access to a road, good job Toby."

"So now what?" Ezra was waiting patiently for someone to say what was going to happen next.

"I guess it's my turn," Toby smiled and went into the kitchen to call in the favor.

"Everyone's doing what they can to save your friends and Emily's poor parents, what have you done Alison, other than put everyone in this mess in the first place?" Wren was now poking at Alison, sensing that he was no longer needed and they could be doing anything they wanted with him now. After all, no one would miss him, so he might as well piss some more people off before he gets killed or left for dead or worse, turned over for Charles to deal with.

x-x-x-x

Now that Wren was being cooperative, Emily let herself breathe, she was currently in the said man's bathroom, sitting on the toilet with her hands braced on her knees, the pressure building in her head from all the pent up emotions and talking so much.

There was a mantra she had begun to repeat in her head that she kept telling herself would help her stay calm. She started saying the first things she'd wanted to remember since waking up, so sighing she closed her eyes and started, "I like the color blue, my eyes are brown, I want to go to Paris, I have a bracelet with the Eiffel Tower on it, I live in Rosewood, I like swimming, I live on Birch St., my first kiss was with someone in a library, my name is Emily Fields."

She occasionally rocked herself by rubbing the tops of her thighs with her hands, saying the same thing over slowly, until after the third time, her heart rate returned to somewhat normal. She managed not to stumble on too many words, but she had to fight it harder than the last time.

The throbbing in her head was still there, it felt like someone was knocking on her mind, demanding someone to answer, but all she could do was pretend she couldn't feel it. All she could do was wait for the pain to ebb away again into numbness.

Emily thought the knocking in her head came to life when someone knocked at the bathroom door, finally able to pull her away from the toilet seat on the third call of her name, "Emily, hey, it's Caleb, you okay?"

Em stood on the other side of the door and let him hear her laughing, "well, like I said before, I know I've been better."

Caleb allowed his laugh to be heard and he smiled even though it wouldn't be seen, "well you and me both."

"Yeah." Emily hand her hand on the knob and she took a deep breath when she heard Caleb shuffling away, "Caleb," she called from behind the closed door.

"Yes?"

"How long have I been in here," she bit her lip, knowing that the concept of time would sometimes escape her.

"Long enough Em, we want you back out here."

"How long, please." Her fingers flexed around the knob and she waited.

"43 minutes."

Em let go of the breath she was holding, "okay."

And before Caleb had time to catch what she had said, the door opened and she stood with her head down, staring at the space between there feet.

"So, what did I miss," she asked with a crooked smile and a slight shrug in her shoulders.

She was met with a broad smile and an outstretched hand, "well Wren gave us a location."

"So, what does that mean now?

"That means it's time."

"You mean-,"

"Yes, exactly Em, we're getting them back."