"Get your affairs in order, because I will bring you down... you may not have pulled the trigger, but you had a hand in a friend of mine's death.. a friend I cared very much about. You're going down." Mike said cooly, before getting up and walking away.

PRESENT DAY

Charlie lay awake in the wee hours of the morning, trying desperately to go back to sleep. Briggs was asleep beside her, snoring a little. Charlie felt a tear fall gently down her cheek as she thought of Lexi. She was the first one to meet her the day Donnie and Lauren brought her home. She was such a little thing.. so jumpy and unsure of herself. She had grown in so many ways in the four years she had been with them.

She remembered when Lexi was younger and working on getting her GED, and she would sit at the kitchen table with her history homework while Charlie made dinner and she would tell Charlie everything she was learning. Charlie loved history and would always have a story or two on the subject. Lexi would smile and tell her every time that she told it better than any history book.

Lexi's presence was very much missed by the entire house. There was an emptiness in the house. A hole that only young Lexi could fill... and not just in the house... but in their hearts as well. With a soft sigh and a wipe of her tears Charlie rolled over and finally found sleep. After all, she to be up in a few hours. Briggs was going undercover at the police station and surely Mike would something.

Mike pulled up alongside Paige. Her eyes were cold and focused. She was rubbing something in one of her hands. Mike leaned forward a little to see what it was. It was Lexi's locket.

"You don't even know the cost." Paige said harshly.

"Yes I do." Mike responded. He hated this wedge between them. He cared so much for Paige.

"Then act like it." Paige said. "Lexi did.. and she ended up paying the ultimate price... Cause no one else cared or did anything."

"I care.." Mike said, "I miss her too... we all do."

"I want this place shut down, I want these girls out, and I want Lexi's body.. or what ever's left of it... she deserves a proper burial.. one fit for a hero."

"And she'll have one.." Mike said softly.

Paige nodded but without looking him in the eye. Jake's got out of the car to join her.

"I'll call you if there's any movement." Paige said. And Mike drove away.

Lexi woke up groggily from the anesthesia to find herself inside a large dog cage. As soon as she fully came to Lexi's was wired with panic and fear. She felt a throbbing pain in her side and she thought for a moment that she was back with her father in that time before Graceland. But she wasn't and that fear was replaced with a new fear... she was alive and she had no idea what was going on. Lexi went to sit up when her side rippled with pain again. She managed to push herself up into a sitting position as she leaned back against the bars. Lexi gingerly lifted her shirt to look at her side. Her side was bruised and swollen from her hip to the middle of her ribcage. Lexi touched it gently but she had no idea if anything was broken or not. All she knew was that it hurt. Her legs had bruises on them too and she reached up to touch the scabbed over cut just above her eyebrow.

Lexi held her breath when she heard footsteps. The door into the room opened and the boss man walked in. He smiled a smile that made Lexi cringe.

"Well hello Alexia.. glad to see you're awake." He said. He step closer to the cage and knelt down beside it. Peering at Lexi through the bars.

Lexi stiffened and inched to the back of the cage and away from him.

The man chuckled. "Don't be frightened my prize pig.. there is no need for me to hurt you. Sorry about your accommodations, but I can't have my little Russian princess running off."

"I'm no princess." Lexi hissed.

The man chuckled again. "No.. but you are a Petrova.. and worth a lot of money."

"My family is dead and no longer controls the mob here anymore." Lexi said.

"True.. but I'm sure not all of their secrets died with them." He said.

Lexi hardened her face as best she could but she couldn't suppress a shiver.

The man chuckled again and looked hungrily at Lexi. He placed an apple within her reach outside of the cage, smiled an eery smile, and left.

Jakes sat next to Paige in the car. He stared out the window at nothing. "What did Lauren and Donnie say when you told them..?"

Paige continued to stroke Lexi's locket in her hand. "They cried a lot... I told them as soon as we closed the case and recovered her bod-" Paige choked on the last word. "I just told them I'd called them to plan the funeral."

Paige quickly whipped a tear from her eyes as the image of Lexi lying in the grass beside her before being taken away, came to her mind. The look of fear, pain, and sadness on her little face. The look she gave Paige when she placed her locket in her hand... the look that told her that she knew she was going to die.

"You know I'm not a big talker when it comes to emotions and lovey touchy stuff...but Lexi, man me and her talked. I didn't even have to tell her something was bothering me, she just knew. We kinda had this unspoken language between us and I don't know.. the kid just got me. She was just always willing to take some of the weight of other people's burdens. Which is remarkable, considering what horrors that kid must have went through ...I've never known anybody like that." Jakes said.

"You have no idea.." Paige said softly. She squeezed the locket tightly in her hand. "It's just not the same without Lexi.."

Just then, Jakes's phone rang.

Mike stood in front of his mirror tying his tie. When he was done he glanced at the threshold of his room. He flashed back to Lexi standing there when he'd first meet her.

"Welcome to Graceland."

"Thanks. I'm Mike Warren."

"I know who you are."

"And who are you? The stray?"

Mike smiled at the memory, but his heart still hung heavy with grief.

Mike turned off the Lights and closed his bedroom door. He and Charlie were off to the bank.

Johnny sat on the front steps of his mom's porch sipping a beer. He reached behind him and took out a small folded photo from his back pocket. He unfolded it and stared at it. It was a picture from last year of him and Lexi. They were standing side by side with their surfboards on the beach in front of the ocean. They both held up hang ten signs. They were smiling.

"Who's that?" Lucia asked, coming out on the porch to join him. She sat beside him and Johnny offered her a drink of his beer. She accepted.

"So who's in the picture?" She asked again.

"My little sister." Johnny replied simply.

Lucia gave him a look.

"We weren't really related but she was like a little sister to me... she was my friend." Johnny said.

"Was?" Lucia asked.

Johnny nodded. "She died a couple days ago."

Lucia handed him back the beer.

"I'm sorry about your friend." She said compassionately. "I know what you're going through... what was her name?"

"Lexi.. but I always called her Tie-Die." He smiled warmly.

Lucia smiled back. They got to talking about lots of stuff as the night went on. Passing the beer back and forth. Talking to her made Johnny feel better... took some of the pain away. He liked sitting on the porch with her. It felt right.. it felt good.

Mike pulled up behind Paige's car in the dark parking lot. Paige had picked up on a call. It was from Carleto.

"Listen." Paige said. There was something in her voice.

Mike listen to the recording.

.

"How's the Petrova girl? Is she secure?"

"Yes. She goes up for auction tomorrow."

"Cancel it. Nobody goes anywhere until I say so. Shut the place down."

"We won't make any money that way."

"We'll make money when I say so. Shut the place down."

.

"She's alive Mike.. Lexi's alive!" Paige said.

Mike couldn't believe it...

Paige asked him once again to shut it down and it took every ounce of strength he had to say no.

"Mike, Lexi's in there! She's still alive! Who know's what will happen to her between now and when they open the pipeline back up! We can't leave her in there... she's one of us!" Paige said desperately.

But he had to.. He prayed to God that Lexi would be safe until they could get to her.

"I might be able to get eyes in there." Mike said.

Lexi grit her teeth as she little by little worked on prying at one of the screws that held the sides of the cage together. Lexi froze immediately and stopped what she was doing at the sound of footsteps outside the door.

"Hello my little pretty. So plans have changed, you're going to be staying here a little longer than planed." He came closer to the cage. "But I just got off the phone with a friend that told me something rather interesting... He told me about a rumor that was going around sometime ago about a little micro chip of inside information that was inserted into the back of a certain someone." His eyes were gleaming.

"The police have it. They took it out of me when I was rescued." Lexi snarled.

"Oh well.. would you mind if I took a look myself?" He said.

"No. Go to Hell." Lexi said coldly. She held his gaze, unflinching.

The man chuckled and pulled out a scalpel. "Too bad."

R&R and Stay tuned for Chapter 19! :)