Awh, only three more chapters after this one. Which is really sad. I always feel really, really sad when I end stories. Ugh, me and my emotions.

Anyway, I know I said there would be like eight or so chapters left, but really there's going to be about two after this one, then the epilogue, and then it's done.

But fear not, for Chase and Christine's story will continue on, and I'll probably give a sneak peek into how in the A/N note on the epilogue.

December 13th 2013

Chase's Pov

"How did you manage to swing this?" I asked, indignant, as Ashley pulled at certain parts of my costume and Sammie spiked my hair up with her gelled fingers.

Bree stood in front of, a head-set clipped onto her ear and a clipboard in her hands. She shrugged, a smirk sliding on her face. "I can be persuasive if I really want to," she said easily.

I narrowed my eyes at her, not convinced. "Bree..." I said in warning.

She sighed, flapping a hand at me. "Oh, fine. I locked Callan in a janitor's closet and hid the keys."

Ashley and Sammie paused in their movements of making me staged ready to snicker ruthlessly. My lips begin to twitch, because the idea of Pretty Boy banging on the wrong side of a janitor closet door was highly amusing, but I managed to keep my amusement of the situation to a minimum to shoot my sister a stern look.

Bree challenged it by rolling her eyes. "Please, like you wouldn't have done the same thing."

I fell silent to this, because I know she's right. Not only would I have done the same thing, but probably worse.

"Do I really have to wear tights?" I muttered, feeling the back of them beginning to ride up. I knew from the minute I saw them all flush faced and cunning that it was bad idea to leave me alone with Ashley and Sammie when in charge of something that permitted them to use me as a Ken doll. "Can't I just wear something else as equally stupid but more fitting? Like poofy pants."

Ashley thumped me. "Shut up with all your whining," she commanded, going back to straightening out my shirt and the stupid hat they put on me. "Just be lucky you and Rachel are the height and she allowed us to use hers."

"Oh, gee, and not even my own pair of death traps? God, do you women spoil me."

Bree leaned over and thumped, not even looking up from her clipboard. "She's right; shut up."

I scowled, standing still as they finished up with me.

Sammie waved her brush around, satisfied with her work. "And there. That's how you turn a geek into a star-crossed peasant."

Like that opportunity was going to knock on her door more times than this.

"Oh my God, did anyone else notice that it's a Friday? Friday the thirteenth?" I winced, the pitch of Alyssa's shrill voice irritating my sensitive hearing. All day she'd been obsessing about the date, saying that it was a sign everything was meant to go downhill.

Really, our plan was to stop everything from going downhill, but what if all her shrieking and worrying about meant something? What if something threw off? The calculations didn't add up right?

A man in tights and a feathered hat did not need this kind of stress and pressure on his shoulders when about to perform in front of 500 watching eyes.

"Opening scene starting in five!" Bree called out, hurrying to the left to gather all the actors needed from that scene.

I sighed, standing off to the side and watching as people scramble, buzzing around like worker bees to get the final cut perfect.

Davenport, Tasha, and Leo were sitting in the third row with a gray-faced Grant and anxious-looking Rem, just barely in my view. Davenport kept acting fidgety, playing with his program to the show.

Two lanky drama geeks stroll by, decked out in their costumes for the opening scene.

"Alyssa!" I could hear Bree calling out. "You're needed for introductions in two—scratch that, one!"

Alyssa whizzed by me, frantic as her hands reached up to nervously run through her hair. "Everything will be fine," she muttered frantically, looking up at me crazy-eyed, "right? Won't it! Tell me!"

Blinking, I slowly tried leaning away, prying her hands off my shoulders. Sammie was going to kill her for bunching up the costume if the stress didn't destroy Alyssa first. "Uh, that's your cue."

I turned her around and pointed out Darren, a tech geek that was helping Bree keep backstage under control, was frantically waving at her to get on stage from the other side.

Alyssa sucked in a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and slapped a plastic smile onto her face, confidently striding on stage.

Bree looked at her from the other side of the stage, microphone in hand. Alyssa, finally realizing that her hands were empty, gave a nervous smiling to the chuckling crowd. Turning, she quickly caught the microphone Bree sent spiraling toward her in mid-air.

Alyssa shifted, looking out to the crowd with her eyes slightly squinted. Even from where I was standing the lights were hard on the eyes.

"Sorry about that folks," she said nervously, "but welcome to the Mission Creek school production of the Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet!"

A loud applause came, eager parents waiting to see their kids on stage. I could make out a few siblings in the crowd, bored and playing on their phones, only half listening.

Alyssa says a few more words about how DVDs would be available in a week at Parent Teacher Night before excusing herself from the stage.

And then we were off.

Most of the play was a complete success. Christine and I were grinning idiots with every kissing scene we had, and all the women in the audience gave their respective awes as they gushed.

Truth be told, the play was perfect. But when all the cast and backstage crew came on stage to take a bow, that was when things started to get a sketchy.

Christine was somewhere at the right end, with Gemma and Damon while I stood more toward the middle with Ashley on my left and the beefy guy who played Capulet on my right.

"Oh my God," Ashley muttered, her right hand nicking the small of my back. I smiled to the crowd that stood and cheered for us. "Last row, sixth seat to the left."

I took a millisecond long look at her in the corner of my eye. Her glossy lips were spread into a wide smile, no signs of her talking. Who could she have seen in this crowd that would alert her? What could she have seen?

My mouth was still smiling, accepting the gracious applause that was for other people's kids, and not really me, but my eyes zoom to the back, struggling to make out the dimmed figures in the bright stage lights.

And suddenly I see it. I see them. Tina and Marcus were scowling while sitting on either side of the Christine's mom had been with in the paparazzi photos—James. Callan wasn't in sight. I began to wonder: was he really with them as much as we thought? Or was he just a phase—a pawn for their game just like us?

Just as we started being escorted off the stage, I saw her. It wasn't enough to really tell, but in a brief splash of tangled dark hair, I saw Marian slip out of sight.

"You guys were fantastic!" Tasha gushed, pulling Bree, Christine, and I into a suffocating hug as soon as she saw us.

"Wow, do you have a grip," Christine choked out after she finally pulled away. I nodded into agreement, at where she had crushed my arm against my side. Where Tasha managed to build up all this strength when she was so busy with book club and bickering with Eddy, I have no idea.

(And how Leo was a wimpy stick with noodle limbs with a mother stronger than him, again I have no idea.)

Slowly, I eased myself away as Christine pulled her dad and Tasha into conversation, watching out of the corner of her eye as Bree dragged me out into the hall.

"To the closet we go," she sang sarcastically as we skidded to a stop in front of a janitor's closet far down the hall from the auditorium's doors. Bree slid a bobby pin from her hair and straightened it, jamming it in the lock and wiggling around until she heard the satisfying little click sound of the door unlocking.

I nearly burst into laughter at the sight in front of me.

Bree must have knocked him over the head with something, because there was a big knot on the side of his head. His hands and were bound behind him, a two rows of duct tape went around his head to cover his mouth, and he had his butt in a bucket.

"Aw, he regained consciousness," Bree said, looking down at him disappointedly. With her boot, she prodded at the bucket, making it tip and bringing down the boy stuck in it with it to the floor.

"What were you hoping to drag him out and stuff in the dumpster?" I asked, smirking at the thought. But my happiness was dampened a little by the feeling of the material of my tights bunching up.

Bree shrugged, her arms crossed over her chest. "If necessary, I suppose."

"I'm not stopping you. They are a lot of heavy objects in this room."

Bree raised an eyebrow, looking at the other buckets, brooms, and mops in the small area. "Very true."

Callan was giving us a bug-eyed look that was getting a little creepy.

"So, what do we do with him?" I asked, closing the door behind us.

Bree knelt down, taking one edge of the tape and beginning to rip it.

"Shit, woman, what's the matter with you?" Callan yelped, beginning to wriggle around. It wasn't like he got very far; it was probably because all he could do was crawl with that bucket still stuck on his butt and us blocking the doorway.

Bree rolled her eyes at him, unfazed. "Alright, you're free to go," she said, slashing his bounds off with the sweep of a sharp piece of metal that was lying on a shelf. But before he could move to get that bucket off, she picked him up by his shirtfront.

"But keep this in mind," she whispered, dangerously close to his face, "I find out you said anything about this, a bucket on your ass will be the least of your worries, got that?"

After watching nod fearfully, she dropped him, making her dramatic exit. I looked down at him in disdain before following her out.

"Think he'll anyway?"

"Nah, he knows I got Rachel as backup. Would you risk that kind of thing?"

I didn't answer before the answer was obvious—anyone who had common sense would value their vitals more than going up to face Rachel. Even when she wasn't in a bad mood.

"So you really think it could have been my mother?" Christine asked, sitting cross-legged on her bed.

I nodded, leaning against the lab's counter. It was an hour or so after the play and I was mentally wiped, and still cringing at the thought of ever having to wear tights ever again. Christine had invited me to Skype with her, so I took that as the perfect time to relay what Ashley had seen to her.

"Definitely, if James was there, it was more than likely that she wasn't far behind," I said.

"But, why was she leaving? It'd seem like she'd be glued to his side like Barbie and Eyebrows are," Christine said aloud.

I shrugged, yawning. "I don't know. Maybe she was out running evil errands to keep the Puppet Master happy?"

Christine paused, mewling over this information before snapping her fingers, and her eyes going wide. "What if that's what he really is?" Christine asked, astonished. "What if James really is a puppet master who's some controlling everything?"

"But the science for control over another human's mind is years away from now," I protested.

Christine snorted, rolling her eyes. "Please, it wouldn't be hard to stick a chip in someone's brain, minus all the cool powers, and sit back with a control panel and play a real life version of Sims."

"So, you're saying all this time James has been controlling your mothers and our peers?" I asked skeptically.

She hesitated, planning out her words carefully.

"I'm saying…that I'm giving my mother the benefit of the doubt."

I know, this chapter is really short even though it took me forever to update, but I had total writer's block on this one, and I had a limit of what to put in here, and when and how, and then I had to start thinking of the next chapter…

My brain was in at least 20 different places at once, so bear with me.

I'll try to make the next chapter update an earlier one, but I can't promise anything. It will be the second to last chapter, then the epilogue. So…yeah, that's that.