Peter decided Kahlyn did have a point. He could really use his girlfriend's comfort at the moment. He texted Jen asking her to come.

Jen recieved a text from Peter about Justin being in the hospital. She had her mom drop her off and ran into Peter's arms, stroking his hair to ease his worries. "Are you okay? Is Justin okay?"
She looked into Peter's chocolate eyes, seeing they were red from tears. "What happened?"
Peter told her everything and she put a hand over her mouth. She could see the tears forming in his eyes as he spoke.
Peter cried, "What if he dies? What if he's not the Justin we know and love?"
She let him cry unto his shoulder. She felt a few tears herself.

Buck continued driving along... He was begining to fear he had reached a dead end, but at last he spotted it. A large van headed due NW that matched the descriptions perfectly. He flicked on his sirens, and his lights and sped closer. He was sure he could make out the siloets of two people through the windows, one appeared to be Ian's age.

******

Kahlynn looked around. Then a thought struck her... perhaps the family wanted to be left alone, and be given time to cope with what happened... she whisoered kindly in Maralynn's ear, "I'll leave you two alone if you'd like."

Lucretia to walked to Miley's house, stepping on every crack in the sidewalk.

Miley looked at pictures of her brother, all cheerful, happy and healthy. She wiped her eyes when she saw a lone little girl throught the windaw. Caustiously, she went to the door.

Lucretia walked up to the doorstep of Miley's house, observing everything she could get her eyes on. She stepped onto the doormat and paused. She then knocked twice and waited for an answer.

"I think you have problems...." Ian said to Alex, gesturing through the back window to the cop car that had begun it's chase. "Just let me off here....please!!"

**

"AH! I think I will now!" David yelled back, watching as the bullets flew past him. He heard them rip through the bark of the trees near by. He was steadily approaching his car, but not fast enough for his taste. He dived behind a dumpster, placed in the corner of a small clearing in the park, with picnic benches around. Reaching into a hidden pocket in his coat, he pulled out a flash grenade. "Let's see if this works!" he threw it, and covered his eyes as it landed and exploded in the clearing that separated him and Nate. Using that as his distraction he made a break fro his car.

***

"Yes....please....leave us alone" Maralyn said, choked up and fighting tears. She tried to smile, but almost couldn't. She kissed Justin's hand.

Miley cautiously opened the door to a a girl (lucretia). SHe let her him." "Sorry if my face is so blotchy. It's been a long day", she said as she shut the door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Justin felt a slight comfort by Maralyn's touch. He was glad she still loved him, even though he was in so much pain and felt uglier than Shrek. "Promise to never leave me?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jen held Peter in a close embrace, hugging with hi. "Who would do something like that to someone like Justin?"
Peter stroked her long, waistlength hair. "People were trying to kill us, Miley, Micah, Ian and Kahlynn. I hope he's okay."
Jen asked, "Where are the others?"
Peter said, "Miley went home. Ian and Micah are missing. Kahlynn is here."
Jen hugged her boyfriend. "This is terrible!"

Lucretia walked into Miley's house, enjoying the welcoming souroundings. "No, I understand," she replied sliping a strand of her dark hair behind her ear, "I... I've had days like that too."

Kahlynn quietly tiptoed out of the room, and into her own.

****

Buck was flying, as he chased the van. "Come on, Come on." Then he started gaining...

Micah was feeling cold without his hair. Part of him missed it and thought it looked horrible. The other part thought the buzz felt cool when he touched it. Then again, he felt it was very nerdy and wondered if he would be allowed to grow it out a little bit, at least to where it was tapered to the top of his neck. He asked a prison guard for one phone call. He wanted to check on Kahlynn and see if she was okay. None of this was her fault. It was his fault. The guard granted him one call, so he called Kahlynn's cell phone from memory and hoped it was her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter said to Jen, "I guess we better get home. It's almost midnight."
He asked his uncle for a ride home, then he and Jen left with him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Miley asked, "What happened?"

Emmy felt overjoyed that Brian offered to let her read his novel; that meant a lot to her. "That would be really cool! And I could let you read some of the stuff I've written, too," she responded with a sweet smile. "Some of my friends in the City and I used to have a little informal writing club. We would meet and share what we were working on. It was a lot of fun." She cherished those memories, even though most of those friends eventually turned their back on her that fateful year past. Still, that little writing club was the source of most of her fondest memories. "We called ourselves the Inklings, after C. S. Lewis's writing group. I guess we could have been a bit more creative, and come up with our own name, but we liked it."

-------

Logan got home after an hour or so of hanging out with Stacey and Rosamunde. It had been lots of fun, even though he found Rosamunde's presumptuous nature a bit annoying. The enjoyable presence of Stacey more than made up for that, though.

He was glad to get out of the cold weather and into his house, having not worn a thick enough sweater. He knew his mom wasn't home: she almost always stayed at work late, and besides that the car wasn't in the driveway. Emmy, on the other hand, was sure to be home, so he called out. "Hey Emmers, I'm back." There was no response. That wasn't totally unusual; she was probably upstairs, enraptured in some thick novel or something. What was odd was the fact that her cat, Prospero, was presently approaching Logan with a series of mournful mews, the way he acted when Emmy wasn't home. "Emmers, you home?" he called out again.

He checked her room. Sure enough, she wasn't there. A curious grin crept over his face. "Now, where's Little Miss Recluse run off to?" he wondered aloud. It was about that moment that he caught sight of Emmy through the window; she was walking down the street, and she wasn't alone.

"Brian," Logan whispered to himself, the utterance laced with distaste. "What's Emmy doing with him?" He decided to go find out.

Lucretia twirled her hair and wondered if she should trust Miley. Lucretia had learned not to grant trust easily, but Miley seemed kind so she said, "Well, you see, I've been living by my self for quit a while, so it gets depressing sometimes. Sometimes I have no idea where my life is going.... but, what about you? What's wrong? It's not like I know you very well, but we could talk about it."

"I like that name too" Brian said, smiling warmly. "I'd love to read some of the things you've written." He looked over at her. "I bet they are really good"

Brian hadn't realized, at the time of his and Emmy's conversation, they had had been approaching Emmy and Logan's residence. He only realized this when the door of the home ahead of them slammed shut, and he looked ahead, locking eyes with his rival. "Logan..." he breathed under his breath, stopping short and touching Emmy's arm to make her stop too.

******

"I'll never leave you" Maralyn promised, feeling a certain amount of strength filling her.

Justin blinked back a few tears. "Thanks. Can I see a mirror?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Miley wiped her own eyes with another tissue. "My brother has been scalped and stabbed in the chest by some thugs. He's a kind man and didn't do anything wrong. He was only trying to protect others and he's not even a police officer!"
She burst into sobs, wishing her brother would come in teh door healty and tell her everything is all right.

Emmy grinned at Brian's compliment. She was enjoying the time spent walking with Brian, up until he suddenly stopped short and held her back. She thought this was strange, until she saw what he was looking at - Logan. He was coming directly toward them, drilling Brian with a look of disgust as he approached. Emmy stiffened, dreading what she knew would come.

"Hello Em," Logan said, though he was still looking at Brian. His eyes narrowed as he asked in a condescending tone, "What are you two doing?"

Emmy fidgeted a bit, trying to get through the awkward situation. "I was walking, Logan," she said unapologetically.

Logan ignored her, and stepped up a bit closer to Brian, folding his arms. "What are you doing with my sister?" He asked coldly, his usually smug and arrogant demeanor replaced with a demanding and tough one.