A/N: So pay close attention to the date on this one, guys: it's set two weeks after the last chapter. I was thinking of continuing to write it out day by day, or even every few days, but I decided not to because it would basically just be—Rachel eats, Lisa eats, Rachel goes to school, Lisa meets with detectives, Rachel goes home, Lisa goes home, Rachel goes to sleep, Lisa goes to sleep, Alex pouts, Jackson plots. Ok? Ok.

Thanks for sticking with me, guys!!

Xx

Wednesday, January17, 2007

10:34 PM

Rachel beamed happily as she pulled clumps of hangers from her closet and tossed them on her bed, then dug her navy blue suitcase out from under her bed. Flicking a dust bunny off the top of it and dragging it up to rest on her mattress, she realized, for once, how genuinely excited she was.

She was going to Boston. And it wasn't just any ordinary trip, but she had the opportunity to do something she loved. Play music. Play music with a boy who was quickly becoming a close friend, Lou Whitman.

It had been gradual, the change in their relationship. One afternoon, he'd caught her in a music practice room at school, her fingers flying intently over the piano's keys. He knocked politely on the door, and when Rachel didn't see him, a bit more curtly. She had stood and let him in.

Lou nodded at the piano. "You play?"

"A bit."

He shook his head, touching his chin as a smirk spread over his lips. "That's a lot more than a bit, Rach. You're amazing."

She felt a crimson flush spread up her face and pulled her turtleneck up. "Thanks," she mumbled.

Lou flopped into a chair adjacent to her piano bench and leaned back, crossing his arms as he thought. "I have a proposition for you," he broached finally.

"Do tell."

"You may or may not have heard of my band," Lou said proudly. "We're called Thorax."

"It sounds techno," Rachel nodded, but let him continue.

"It's alt rock. Long story short, we're not too bad, and have a gig booked in Cambridge on the eighteenth."

Rachel counted on her fingers. "Two weeks."

"Yep. And…"

She smiled. "You need a keyboardist."

He flashed her a toothy smile. "Exactly. You interested?"

"When do you rehearse?"

After discovering the true chemistry that she had with the band that evening, Rachel began to find her nitch back into society. Less of her thoughts revolved around memories of Alex, and she began to marvel at her sudden happiness, and at the strangest of times. Most were when she was playing.

Rachel was astonished at the small bit of trust she'd begun to place in not only Lou but her two other bandmates, Zozo (who officially refused to be called by anything but her nickname) and Martin. She'd never really been able to rely on anybody except family before, but things were starting to change.

She felt safe.

Now, humming to herself one of her songs, she snapped her suitcase closed and set it on the floor next to her purse. Beginning to feel a bit warm from her efforts, she cracked open her window and stuck her head out into the frigid January air. The wind whipped her hair in her face, into her mouth, a million different directions as Rachel sucked in the refreshing breeze.

She looked around at her illuminated yard as her father cut the outside lights to go to sleep. It still scared her, that lawn. The snow had finally covered up those thick, heavy footprints, but she remembered. She probably always would, because it wasn't an elementary memory that would be easily wiped from her brain. Feeling another emotional explosion brewing, Rachel pulled back inside.

As her parents chatted quietly in their bedroom across the hall, Rachel prepared herself for bed. It was late, she knew, and she was leaving bright and early in the morning as per Lou's request. They wanted to beat traffic, or so he said. He probably just wanted to get the early morning discount at Percy's Lattes.

Rachel pulled her pajamas on, tightening the drawstring at her waist as she sighed at her reflection in the mirror. She'd lost a lot of weight in the past few weeks, because of her disinterest in food. Her parents were worried, still, she knew, but when they were watching, she made sure to force smiles and cheery dispositions. It was only in private that she cried anymore.

The shrink, Beth, was better than Rachel had expected, but equally annoying. She didn't help. The only thing, Rachel found, that helped was the music. Not the inkblots, and not the mid evening chats with a middle-aged woman in Dior.

She was dragging a brush through her hair when her eye spotted the unusual envelope on her desk. She frowned at it before padding over, her fingers grazing the smooth white lining, and opening it. A note fell out.

Rach—

Good to see you're moving on with your life. Just so you know—I'm not. I won't go into details now.

I see you're playing piano again. That's good. I always thought that you were amazing at it, but it shocks me that it took some dorky seventeen-year-old to make you realize it.

This isn't meant to scare you, and it isn't meant to intimidate you. But I will say this:

Don't think about Lou. I see how he looks at you, and yes, Rachel, the fact that I'm watching you goes without saying. And if he asks, sweetie, you just remind him—you are MINE. Not his. Ever. I won't let you fall victim to another teenage wasteland.

Just remember. You're still wearing my necklace.

I'll see you soon, Rachel, and remember.

I love you.

Love always,

Alex

Her first inclination was to scream, but then, with the aching in her throat already beginning, Rachel clamped a hand over her mouth to suppress it. She wouldn't scream, not with her parents so close. If they heard her, she wouldn't be allowed to go on the trip. They were wary about it as it was, only appeasing her because she told them that Zozo's grandmother lived in Boston and that they were staying nearby.

And besides, if Alex was watching, which he most likely was, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her nervous. She wondered how he'd snuck in here. The window, that had to be it, when she had been at school. Rachel moved now to the spiteful object and locked it shut.

Video cameras. There must be those, because when her parents were home—how would he manage to sneak about outside? She looked her room, and, upon not seeing any, sighed in defeat.

She had no idea why the note scared her. It was the intensity, she decided, upon which he claimed her as his property—instead of as what she was, a human being with rights and emotions. And his obvious loath of Lou, an innocent boy he'd never met.

"This is the end, Alex," Rachel whispered, turning the note in her hands. "Whether you choose to believe it or not."

XxxxxxxX

Alex leaned back in his seat and turned on his side to look at Jackson, who wore an irritated expression that threatened war.

"You're a fucking idiot."

"I know." Alex twiddled with the knobs on his cameras and watched as Rachel checked the lock on her window again and crawled into bed, pulling the covers over her head. He smiled. Like a toddler, with her fear of the night—or was it of the creatures that accompanied the darkness?

Jackson stuck the key in the ignition and they began to drive down the winding New York road. He squinted through the lightly falling snow and began to drag the car the hundred miles back to the hotel in Albany.

"I can't believe you made me come up here," Jackson snapped irritably. "Just so you could stalk your ex-girlfriend."

"There's no 'ex' in that title, Jackson," Alex growled, with just as much bite. "She is mine. Not that asshole who chooses to believe so."

"He talked to her," Jackson said simply, gesturing obscurely. "Who cares? Cut the frigging cord already. You're damn lucky that nobody caught you sneaking that note in there. What was the point, anyway, other than to potentially legally fuck you up?"

Alex paused, drawing the words out pregnantly. "I had to," he muttered. "I needed to see her. And let her know that…that I haven't forgotten."

"I don't think that's something that requires saying in a note that also conveniently highlights her new boyfriend's doom."

Alex grimaced. "Not new boyfriend. Never. I'd kill him first." He paused before continuing. "I'm going to Boston with her tomorrow."

"I'm sure she'd love to know that you're stalking her again," Jackson rolled his eyes and fiddled with the temperature console. "Don't go tomorrow. It's risky."

"Its been two weeks. She hasn't given a description, and Nolan and that retarded cashier kid's were too vague to count for anything."

"Not many people have been slashed down their faces by a knife, Alex," Jackson pointed out, settling on a heat and leaning back.

"Makeup," he stated bluntly. "And a hood. By the time I have her, nobody will have noticed and it'll be too late for them to do anything."

"You're digging yourself a grave," was all Jackson would add. Alex reclined his chair and closed his eyes, letting Jackson's words just linger in the air, not exactly absorbing them into his consciousness.

He's wrong. By this time tomorrow, everything will be back to normal.