My steps sounded as empty as I felt as I walked the stone pathway that led to Tamara's front door. The drive here was nothing but a foggy memory, my mind had been distant from me but present in the task. Now that I was here I needed to find the strength to face Cal's family and tell them what had happened. Compared to what Cal must have been going through, this should be a simple task. Yet, there was a weight around my neck that seemed to grow heavier with every step that I took.

I raised my fist toward the door but it opened before I ever made a connection. Tamara stood on the other side with a friendly smile, sleep still hanging from the edges of her upturned eyes. She must not have been awake for a long time, but it was almost like she had expected my arrival. My hand dropped lifelessly to my side as words collected in the back of my throat, making it hard to breathe.

"I thought I heard my cousin's car." She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to adjust the parts that were disrupted by her nights rest. It was strange to see such a human reaction on someone who I knew was more. Tamara didn't share many similar physical features with Cal, but her eyes - the sharpness of her gaze. It was exactly the same. "The girls are still asleep but I just started a pot of coffee."

"About Cal," My heart lurched painfully in my chest at his name and I choked on the rest of my words. My body trembled against the emotions that threatened to overwhelm me again.

Tamara's happy expression dropped, the shine in her eyes dimmed. "What's happened now?"

I was pathetic, acting as though I had every right to feel sorry for my loss of him when I didn't. This family - Cal...they had suffered so much already and they were going to suffer more because of me. They were made to suffer because Cal had decided to risk his own neck to protect Mary-Beth and I. If anything happened to him, that would be on me and my inability to protect Mary-Beth on my own.

I turned my face away unable to meet her gaze. "They arrested him."

"That idiot," Tamara said under her breath before she reached out and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. It didn't seem right to have her comfort me. It only made me feel more pathetic than I was. "Don't worry, they'll let him go in a few hours."

"I don't think so," I said, clenching my hands into tight fists at my sides. Swallowing my shame and frustration, I forced myself to look at her. "Paige is dead--"

Tamara's hand slipped from my shoulder and her eyes widened. "What?"

I continued on while I had the courage, "They said they had proof that it was Cal."

"That can't be right..." She stumbled back a step, shaking her head. The pain and shock written on her face, I memorized it and buried the weight of it in my subconscious. I would remember this later when I had the time to think over everything that had happened. Right now was not that time. I took the opening she had created in her retreat and stepped into the house, closing the door behind me.

"It isn't right," I said, my voice coming out stronger now that I had my focus back. "He's being framed."

She jolted out of her shock. "Then you have to tell them that. You have to--"

"I have to leave." My words came out sharper than I intended. My entire body went taut like a bow string.

"Leave?" Tamara's brows pinched together as she met my gaze. "You can't leave now. What about Cal?"

"That's exactly why I have to leave." I pushed past her and headed toward the hallway.

"I don't understand." Her voice came out as a whisper.

Mary-Beth was more important than anything else. Cal and I had put everything we had left into making sure she would be safe from the fallout. It didn't matter that it was tearing me apart to think that I couldn't have them both - that maybe the only way to have one was to sacrifice the other.

"No!" Tamara's fingers pinched the skin on my arm as she caught me in a tight grip. I glanced back over my shoulder and found myself captured in her cold, haunted gaze. "I won't let you leave him like this."

I understood her pain and her desire to save her family from destruction. It wasn't fair what had happened and what might happen to them. They had all suffered more than was necessary, certainly more than any of them deserved.

I reached up and placed my hand over hers. "This is what he wants. You have to let me go."

Those haunted eyes squeezed shut and her hand slipped from beneath mine, freeing me from her hold. The pain leaked from Tamara as she opened her eyes, tears dripped liked silver moonlight, each one full of sorrowful longing. "That idiot..." 

I thought I knew what it was to lose someone that I cared about. My mom, my dad...they were gone and they weren't coming back. The pain of that was like drowning slowly. Day after day, It weighed on me and pulled me deeper down. But I held my breath, holding out hope that someone who come along and pull me out. Cal was the one who through me the life line and dragged me from that prison, told me that I wouldn't be alone anymore. He had made a promise I knew he couldn't keep but I had believed him anyway. This pain, there's no struggling against it. I've been completely devoured by it, lost to the belly of the beast.

"Everything okay?" Roxie leaned out of her door, blinking away the sleep from her eyes.

Tamara quickly erased the emotion from her face, wiping any evidence from her eyes. "Wake-up Mary-Beth, her sister's here to get her."

Roxie's face paled a little at the command. "Right, I'll do that." She slipped back into the room, closing the door. 

"Listen, I --"

"I could use some coffee. You want some?" Tamara interrupted me. Her tone was even and her face blank. It was impossible for me to know what was going on inside her head. I gave a small nod and followed her to the kitchen. The room was small and it seemed even smaller with the way the air sat heavy against my skin.

I watched Tamara grab two mugs from a rack next to the sink. It seemed wrong to be partaking in something so mundane after everything that happened. Still, when she offered me the steaming mug of black liquid I took it.

She sipped from her mug. "Try not to worry too much. We'll figure this out. We always do."

I nod before taking a sip, letting the bitterness coat my tongue. I didn't believe her. There was no way to figure this one out. Cal had made that clear enough to me. The only answer was that he would have to face Bradford, if he somehow found a way to clear his name.

Heavy handed knocking startled me out of my thoughts. It rolled and cracked like thunder in the silence of the house. The banging on the front door became incessant.Tamara set her mug down on the counter, muttering under her breath as she rushed from the kitchen. I followed her, my muscles tense and ready for whatever attack might be coming for us. She opened the front door without hesitation. I think that Tamara was hoping for a fight -- anything to release the storm that was brewing inside.

Tamara sucked in a sharp breath. "My god, what happened?"

"I don't know! He kept telling me he had to come here..." I recognized that voice.

"Alec?" My voice came out as more of a squeak as I peered around Tamara.

His surprise matched my own. There was a boy hanging off of Alec's shoulder, his breathing was shallow and blood stained his sweatshirt.

"Lets get him inside," she said, reaching for the wounded boy. She an Alec worked together to carry him into the living room and set him down on her couch, a trail of blood followed behind them. I moved to the front door, peeking outside to make sure here wasn't anyone else before I closed the door.

Roxie sneered at Alec as she rushed into the room, most likely summoned by the commotion. "What the hell did you do to him?"

"I didn't do this!" he replied, breathing heavy. "I found him like this."

"Why bring him here?" she asked, eyes trekking over the unfamiliar boy. He really looked to be in a bad way. Now, that I could see him clearly. It looked like someone had beaten the hell out of him. His face was swollen, bruised, and bloody. He clearly needed to be taken to a hospital. "Why not take him to daddy?"

"Enough!" Tamara's voice cut through the tension in the room like a double edged sword. Both of the kids went quiet, though they continued to glare at each other from opposite sides of the room. I watched as she brushed the hair from the boys face and he winced, trying to open his eyes. "Roxie get me the first aid kit."

Roxie rushed out of the room in a flash and returned even faster with a box. She passed it off to Tamara without a word. This was bad. Paige was dead, Cal was in jail, and now this boy. There were too many things going wrong for this to all be coincidental. I needed to get my sister and get out of town before we got caught up in the storm.

"Where's Mary-Beth?"

Roxie tensed at my question, gaze focused on the boy bleeding all over the couch. "She's around, somewhere."

My blood turned cold at her response. Tamara glanced in her niece's direction, eyes piercing. "This is not a game, Roxanne. Where is she?"

"She's not here?" Alec asked.

"Why do you even care?" Roxie fired a question back at him.

"Roxanne!"

"I don't know where she is, okay?" Roxie's voice rose above everyone. "She asked me to cover for her last night so I did."

"Oh, god..." I was going to throw up. The urge was building in the pit of my stomach.

"And before anyone asks, she didn't tell me where she was going, and I didn't ask. I figured she went to see you." She waved a hand toward Alec.

Alec clenched his jaw as all our eyes turned to him. "Well, you're wrong. As usual."

"This is not happening," I said. The walls of the room felt like they were closing in around me. I lowered myself into a chair nearby to keep myself from falling over.

"Took..." The words fell off into unintelligible sounds, but the boy had spoken. The single word may have been nothing but a whisper but it cut through all the noise.

I stared at the unidentifiable features of his face. Whoever had put their hands on him had probably meant to kill him. He was probably lucky to be alive, but to me...his appearance was nothing but a bad omen.

"What did he say?" Tamara asked.

Alec leaned in closer to his friend, putting his ear to the boys lips. I watched as the color drained from Alec's face at whatever he heard. He looked toward me and I knew. He didn't have to say the words out loud. I didn't want him to say the words.

I started to shake my head. "Please, don't..."

"They took Mary-Beth," he said. His voice trembled as he spoke, a defeated look on his face.

A keening sound cut through the room. It took me a moment to realize that the sound was coming out of me. Alec moved towards me and I threw out my hands as if they would keep out the world. My sister was missing. Some monster had taken her and done gods knows what to her. I had failed her. I had failed Cal. Everything was gone. I had lost it all. My vision became a blurry mess of shapes and colors. All I knew was the sensation of falling and the darkness that rushed to meet me.

Then there was silence.

Then there was nothing.