Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.

Author's Note: Poor decisions are still being made. Also, this chapter's a little bit shorter than the average for this story, owing to the fact that I've caught my husband's cold... but it's considerably more action packed than usual. Enjoy! =)

Fish Out of Water

Chapter 12

"Marshall, honey, we'll see you Sunday evening," his mother chirped happily. "Oh, I'm so excited! Your father and I haven't been on a weekend away in so long!"

"Have a good time, Mom," he replied with a smile.

"No parties," Seth Mann growled, his tone telling Marshall he was pretending to be joking, but was in actuality completely serious.

"As if there was even the slightest chance," he rolled his eyes.

"Really, darling, would Marshall do that?" his mother cast his father an amused glance. "One of his brothers, maybe… but now that they've moved out, we can finally go on trips together!"

Seth grunted, fixing his youngest son with a penetrating stare. "If I catch even a whiff of tomfoolery when I get back, it's your ass."

"No tomfoolery. Got it," he confirmed as he held the door open and ushered his parents out.

"And don't even think about touching my beer," Seth offered as a parting shot.

"Ooh, did you book the suite with the Jacuzzi tub?" Marshall heard his mother ask his father with a giggle. His father answered with a raunchy growl and pretended to chase her to the car as she squealed with glee.

"Oh God, that's disturbing," he murmured to himself with a shudder. He closed the door and flopped onto the sofa.

His father needn't have worried; Marshall was not predisposed to be of a partying nature, and even had he been, he hardly had enough friends to invite. He had just one, Mary… two if he counted her sister. Accordingly, he had no plans for the evening, even though it was a Friday. Really, it was because it was Friday. It was a night on which Mary's mother would be particularly likely to come home drunk, and Mary would be busy first with taking care of her sister and later with handling her mother once she came home.

Truth be told, Marshall's plan for the night was to stay near the phone. He knew, deep down, that Mary would not likely call if she had trouble, preferring to handle it on her own, but that didn't stop him from wanting to be ready in case she did.

The afternoon wore on, and Marshall found his thoughts drifting to that other problem… Mark. The guy was trouble of the worst kind, for sure; though he'd stopped hanging around Brandi's school after parents had complained and teachers had repeatedly run him off, Marshall was pretty sure he was still following Mary. He'd spotted him more than once in the intervening weeks, lurking in the background, and Marshall had done his best to be with Mary as much as possible.

Then there was the other problem: Mary's acceptance letter. The situation with Mark had made up her mind, it seemed; she believed that her sister wouldn't be safe if she was gone, and she had punctuated her point by giving the letter to him. The matter, from her point of view, was literally out of her hands. Marshall sighed as he turned the envelope over, staring at it as he thought. It wasn't just Mark, but everything; Mary wouldn't leave her sister in her mother's care either, with or without Mark's threatening presence, and he couldn't entirely blame her for that. Without Mary, Brandi wouldn't stand a chance. With deadlines fast approaching, it looked very much like Mary wouldn't be going to college after all.

Marshall was still wallowing in melancholy when the phone rang. He stared at it for a moment, disbelieving; it couldn't possibly be Mary… more likely, his dad was calling to check up on him. Either way, he needed to answer. His dad would probably turn the car around and come home to make sure he wasn't up to something if he didn't pick up the phone.

"Mann residence," he stated his family's pre-approved greeting.

"Marshall?" a quavering, tear-filled voice came over the line. "Marshall, is that you?"

"Brandi?" he recognized the voice and a sudden spike of anxiety catapulted his heart into his throat. "What's wrong?"

"Mary left!" the girl wailed. "She packed some clothes in her backpack… she handed me Biscuit the bear and said I was on my own now!"

"What?" Marshall was incredulous. It seemed completely unlike Mary to abandon her sister.

"She's gone! She told me I was old enough to deal with Mom…"

"Okay, okay…" he said, trying to calm both Brandi and himself. "Where did she go?"

"She went away with that Mark guy," she sniffled. "She said they were going to run away and… and get married… Marshall, I don't know what to do! I don't like Mark, he's scary like those boys after school, that wanted to… hurt… me…" Brandi burst into tears again. "I him say something like… it was her choice, it was her or me."

"Oh God…" Marshall breathed. It was just like Mary to do something crazy if she thought it would protect her sister. The marriage thing was undoubtedly a lie she'd told Brandi to make her think everything was okay, and it obviously hadn't worked. Mary, what did you do?

"Marshall, please, you have to find her! I don't know anyone else to ask for help!" Brandi sobbed desperately.

"Did you hear where they were going?"

"Wait… wait, yeah, I think so," she paused as she tried to think. "When Mark pushed her into the car, he said something."

The car? Pushed? Marshall's heart sank. This was getting worse by the minute. "What did he say? Tell me exactly as you remember it."

Brandi paused for a moment, thinking. "He said, 'Time to go have some fun… at the alley.' But I don't know where that is…"

"Okay, Brandi, listen to me. I want you to go to a friend's house and stay over there tonight," he said calmly, though his thoughts were frantic as he tried to put a plan together. "That one girl, what's her name…"

"Stacey?"

"Yeah, her. Go over there, leave a note for your mom that you're staying with a friend but don't say which one because you don't want her to show up drunk. Give me the number there and I'll call as soon as I can." Brandi quickly relayed the number and Marshall scribbled it down.

"But who will take care of Mom if I'm not here?" Brandi asked, her voice trembling.

"She's on her own," Marshall said, trying to keep the disgust he was feeling for Jinx out of his voice. "Don't even worry about her right now. Just take care of yourself."

"You're going to find Mary, right?"

"I'm sure as hell going to try."

Marshall hung up the phone and ran upstairs to put his shoes on. He tied the laces and started to leave, but hesitated. He went to his dresser and pulled the bottom drawer open. With a jiggle, the drawer was completely out, and from the space between where the drawer had been and the bottom of the dresser itself, he pulled a wooden box. He opened it and took out the six-chambered snub-nosed revolver he'd taken from Mary weeks before, along with the ammunition he'd emptied from the gun. After reloading the revolver and tucking it into the back of his jeans, he pulled the back of his shirt down over it.

Heading downstairs, he grabbed the keys to his dad's truck that had been left for his use in his parents' absence, and bolted out the door.

Marshall had been driving for nearly an hour, and he'd been down more alleys than he could recall with no positive results. He didn't want to think about the possibility that he'd simply missed them, that he had already been in the right place but at the wrong time. His hopes of finding her alone were getting slimmer by the minute, and he began to feel that he'd made a serious mistake in not calling the police… but that would have gotten Brandi taken away from Jinx and therefore from Mary as well, and he didn't want to think what she'd do if she lost her sister. Brandi was, at times, Mary's only reason to keep living, and she would need her sister to be there when she came home… if she came home. Pushing that horrifying notion away, he tightened his grip on the wheel. He couldn't give up on her yet.

He kept driving, and that's when he saw it. He'd been searching the nearby business district for about ten minutes, and he now noticed a particular building which, though it was a Friday night and the place should have been packed to the gills, appeared to be closed. A bowling alley, he thought, his heart pounding. A closed-down bowling alley. That's got to be it.

He noticed a few cars parked in the back, nearly hidden by the building itself, including the crappy old Camaro Mark had been driving the few times Marshall had seen him. He drove past the defunct business, parking just around the corner. Taking a deep breath, Marshall stepped out of the truck and into the night. He made his way through the dark as stealthily as possible, sticking to shadows until he got to the back of the bowling alley.

The back door was hanging loose on its hinges, obviously pried open sometime previously, but was unguarded. Hesitating a moment, Marshall pulled the gun from the waistband of his pants and, holding it lowered but ready, he crept inside. The stale interior smelled of liquor and cigarette smoke, along with an even less pleasant medley of odors from which Marshall could only readily identify urine and vomit. He fought the urge to gag as he edged silently through the darkness.

Working his way through the back rooms of the bowling alley, he arrived at a doorway through which a dim light flickered, the door missing. Back pressed to the wall and heart pounding, he slid over to the door and took a quick peek. The door opened onto the main room of the bowling alley where the actual lanes were; the place was obviously being used as a crash pad. There were a few mattresses, and the room was lit by candles. Beer and liquor bottles were strewn everywhere, and the floor was littered with cigarette butts. A large wooden spool of the kind used for electrical wiring served as a table, on which lay an assortment of drug paraphernalia.

Most noticeable, however, were the three men in the room. Mark was one of them, and the other two looked even rougher than he did. It looked as though they'd been drinking and doing who knew what else for some time. Marshall felt a rising dread that he may have arrived too late… but then the biggest of the three spoke.

"Hey, Mark… I think it's time for the entertainment," he said with a growl that turned into an insidious chuckle, and the other man joined him in laughing.

Mark lumbered out of the room, into what looked to be one of the establishment's restrooms, and when he returned, he was pushing a stumbling Mary in front of him. She was gagged and her wrists were bound behind her back, and her face showed the first traces of a black eye, but she appeared otherwise to be unharmed. For now, anyway. Marshall cringed; it would have made sense to tie her ankles as well, and the fact that the men hadn't done so was telling.

The second man approached her and kicked her legs out from under her. She hit the ground with a thump and a muffled cry, but quickly scrambled back to her feet and backed away from the men.

"Come on, girlie, play nice," the second man taunted, eliciting another laugh from the leader.

Mark approached her. "You know the deal, Mary… it's either you… or your sister."

Marshall saw a look of alarm cross her face, and then another expression that truly terrified him: one of submission. Mary was about to give in. He rounded the doorframe and brought the gun to bear.

"I don't think so," his voice rang sharply through the room, followed by the sound of the weapon's hammer as he cocked it back. He wasn't the son of a marshal for nothing; he knew his way around guns… but this was completely different from a trip to the firing range, and his hands trembled slightly even as they cupped the butt of the revolver.

"First time drawing down on a man, is that it?" the leader said with a sneer. The other man laughed menacingly and began to move toward Marshall, who steadied his grip and slipped his finger into the trigger guard.

"One more step and I'll fucking drop you," Marshall said coldly. Something in his tone got through to the thug, who hesitated; Marshall was deadly serious, and ready to fire.

A/N: Whoa, Marshall! What are you doing? Being a badass, that's what! =)

Dear Readers, how do you like the cliffhanger? As always, let me know what you think of the update, and stick around for the next one! =D