"The only reason you were born was because your mother was stupid."

He moved the knife to Mary's neck. He wasn't digging the knife intoher skin, he was just holding it there with the cold metal resting precariously against her skin.

"There was pills she could have taken, or she should have just had an abortion! Would have saved me the trouble now!" he yelled in her face.

Then he moved his hand so it was grabbing the side of her neck (the one opposite the knife).

There were so many questions that Mary was thinking of: "What is he talking about? Pills? Abortion? Save him the trouble? That means he's going to kill me..." she thought to herself. "If I am going to die, I guess I might as well ask him some questions. Maybe he won't answer and maybe he will, but I have to know what he wants with me."

"What are you talking about?" Mary asked quietly, half expecting to feel the knife blade slide into her throat.

"After your mother was raped she should have taken precautions, but she was too idiotic."

Mary's eyes widened. "How did you know my mother was raped?" she asked, refusing to believe her suspicions.

He smiled a wicked grin. "Say hello to Daddy!"

Mary sucked in her breath. She felt like she was going to have a heart attack. She was wrong, very wrong! She should've just died without knowing that her father was such an… evil man. She had always known he would have had to have been, to do what he did to her mother. But to see him face to face? And to know that he was holding her against her will? And that he was probably going to kill her? That was just too painful.

"No!" Mary thought to herself. "Maybe he's lying," she thought, searching for some other solution. But she knew, down inside, that it was true.

Derek must have seen her look of distress for he laughed, practically manically. Then he spoke, "Your mother had to die of course, but I couldn't just kill her when that was what she wanted to happen, when her life wasn't going good, I had to wait until her life was getting good (when she least expected it). And when her dance career started doing good, I just had to kill her." Mary just stared at him. This man was a killer, he'd killed her mother, he would kill her and his reasons were crazy. This man was crazy. He definitely wasn't sane.

Then Derek continued, "When you lived with Dominique, you life was bad enough (what with the emotional abuse and all), I could have just let you stay that way for awhile." He sighed. "But then you had to go and meet Joey

and he made you so happy. And your dance career was starting to take off. So I had to-"

"Just shut up!" Mary cried, tears running down her cheeks.

"Why you…" Derek said pulling back the knife.

America's favorite pop star was a mess.

Mary had been gone for three hours before Joey Parker finally made it back to Dustin's apartment. He had stood practically in shock, trying to answer all of the policemen's questions. It hadn't really set in. It was all just like a nightmare, and at any moment Joey expected himself to wake up, and find out he had just fallen asleep on the couch again.

Joey had slowly driven home. He had driven by himself many, many times, but never in his life had the car seemed so empty.

Joey arrived at Dustin's apartment to find a very worried Dustin and Tami. They both were talking at once about how they were late, Tami got worried and came over, and how they had seen something on TV.

Joey walked in and sat on the small, blue sofa. He somehow told them the whole story, all while staring at the wall.

For once, Tami and Dustin couldn't think of anything to say. They seemed to be in as much shock as Joey was.

For a full hour the three of them just sat in Dustin's living room. Dustin was thinking about how creepy the whole situation was, Tami (with her eyes filled with tears) was thinking about how much she needed her best friend, and Joey… well, Joey thought about a lot of things.

He thought about how he had fallen in love with Mary. He thought of things that had happened when they were together. It was like his head was a TV and it was stuck, playing rerun after rerun. Never in order. Some things were rather important moments, their first dance, Mary's graduation day, and the day they arrived in Manhattan. But other stuff, was just little moments, such as the time Mary told him a joke on her way to school, or called to say that Tami had called, or the way her eyes lit up when she laughed, or she lost herself in the music when she was dancing. Just little things that made Mary who she was.

They had stayed there almost all night, until they decided they needed some sleep. So Tami headed back home with the promise that she would be back first thing tomorrow morning.

Tami kept her promise and ended up waking the boys up.

They had just eaten some slightly burned eggos (made by Dustin) when Joey's cell phone rang.

"Hello." he answered.

"Yes… Mr. Parker?" a deep voice replied.

"Yes… who is this?" Joey asked.

"This is Isaac Konsley, from the Los Angeles Police Department. I called referring to a young woman you said was being held against her will." the Mr. Konsley said.

Joey put his hand over the receiver. "It's the police!" He whispered.

Tami and Dustin were soon crowding around him.

"Mary Santiago." Joey said into the phone.

"Well we think we found her body."

Oooooo a cliffhanger! Hahaha

I loved writing about Joey for some reason, I think it turns out well (I am I right or wrong?)

I can't help feel that Tami and Dustin are out of character…