Mrs. Jones sat on the hotel bed utterly exhausted. She was staring at her phone screen, wondering if she should call the number, wondering what she would say. She wasn't able to think for long before a decision was made for her; the phone started to ring, the number she wanted to avoid appearing on the screen. She took a deep breath, preparing herself for the conversation.

"Jones."

"Are you going to tell me what's going on now?" Jack confronted.

"Jack," she began. "Alex is in the hospital."

"What? What happened? He was okay last night."

"His condition is stable."

"What happened, Mrs. Jones?"

"I'm afraid I can't discuss this on the phone, Jack."

"Alright, tell me the name of the hospital he's at. I'll come over right now," she demanded.

She sighed. "We're not in England right now."

"What!" Jack almost screamed in her ear.

"He will be transferred to a hospital in London as soon as possible."

"I want to talk to Alex. Pass him the phone right now."

"He's not awake. Listen, Jack, you'll have to trust me, alright?" she finally said, hanging up the phone. It was starting to become a habit, hanging up the call in the woman's face.

Jack threw the phone onto the table, hearing it clang against it, hopefully not breaking the screen, not that it was her main concern at the moment. She sat in one of the chairs, bringing her hands to her head, sinking against them. Everything was spiraling out of control; everything was wrong. She was afraid to mourn the Alex she knew since he was little, the Alex that was always smiling, the Alex that was so well-mannered that every parent was jealous, the Alex that was gentle with every little thing, the Alex before Ian's death. It scared her what she saw last night; that wasn't the Alex she knew. So full of anger and hate, and against his best friend, the same one that Jack never saw Alex raise his voice against—it was wrong, it was strange.

She heard the door open. "Jack?" Tom's voice echoed through the house.

"Kitchen," she responded back.

"What's going on?" he asked as soon as he entered the room. From the moment he set his eyes on Jack, he knew something was wrong.

"Alex is in the hospital," she broke the news.

"What? What happened?" No matter what Alex had said to him, how he had behaved, Tom still cared for his friend, even if he spent the night hating him for what he said to him, for what he said to Steph. He still cared.

"I don't know; no one says anything to me."

"It doesn't matter. What hospital is he in? We'll go there right now," Tom said, already preparing himself to leave.

"I don't know," she responded, not raising her head.

"I'll call every hospital in London if I have to, Jack. We will find him," he was already taking out his phone, searching for hospitals' numbers.

"Tom, he's not in London; he's not even in the country."

Tom stopped, phone in his hands. "What? How's that possible?" Nothing made sense. Alex was there last night. How could he all of a sudden be in another country, admitted to a hospital? What has Alex gotten himself into?

Crawley sat in the room for hours, filling out reports and listening to nurses get in and out of the room throughout the night to check Alex's vitals. He got some strange looks. After all, they were well past visiting hours and no other patient got to have someone in the room all the time, but they had orders to keep quiet and not ask questions. So far, Crawley got no complaints. Someone even took pity on him and offered him some coffee. Crawley would prefer a cup of tea instead, but considering the quality of French tea, he wouldn't complain about the coffee. Normally, this kind of job didn't fall on his shoulders, his or Jones's. It was well beneath them. But Alex was a special exception; he wasn't an official agent or someone of high profile, but he also couldn't say that Alex was a civilian because he wasn't. Right now, security was fragile. Someone had killed Grief; they still didn't know who. They still didn't know what organization was behind Point Blanc. They still didn't know their power, and while they didn't find out, they couldn't scratch the possibility of someone coming after Alex.

It was early in the morning when a groan caught Crawley's attention. He put his tablet down before getting up. Alex was waking up, his vitals spiking, his eyelids fluttering open.

"Alex?" he called out, already pressing the call button.

He got no answer from the boy, who suddenly began coughing before briefly opening his eyes. His eyes locked with Alex's. Crawley watched as recognition flashed through them. Apparently, that was enough to wake him up. Alex's eyes snapped open, frantically moving across the room.

"Calm down," Crawley said as he watched Alex's vitals rise even more and his breathing start to get uneven. He was starting to regret having sent Jones away; she would be better at this sort of stuff. He never did well at comforting other people. Thankfully, the doctor arrived, making Crawley step back to give him some space to work.

"Alex, you're in the hospital." The doctor stated. Alex opened his mouth to say something, but before a single word came out, a fit of coughs hit him. The doctor hit a button, making the bed rise so that Alex was in a more sitting position. He picked up a glass of water with a straw.

"Do you want some water, Alex?" the medic asked, receiving a nod from the boy. The oxygen mask was pushed down, and the straw was pressed against his lips, making him drink greedily. Alex sank against the bed after the drought in his throat was erased.

"Do you remember what happened?"

Alex remembered what had happened and probably would never forget. The pain, the desperation—he had given up; he had been ready to die. He was sure he was going to die. What he didn't remember was how he ended up in the hospital. He knew he got out of the school. He remembered the cold, the numbness, but nothing more. He nodded his head.

"An explosion," his voice sounded rough like it had been scraped raw.

The doctor made a sound of agreement, taking out a light and pointing it to his eyes, making him squint before he turned it off.

"Can you tell me how many fingers I'm holding?"

Alex focused his vision on the hand in front of him. He never noticed that his vision was swimming around. First, there were six, but that couldn't be right. The guy was just holding a hand, and unless he had an extra finger, Alex was definitely not seeing right. He blinked once, and then the doctor was holding four. He blinked again, and there were two. He blinked again, and it was back to four.

"Ugh, two?" he guessed, before a cough broke out of him.

"Right, Alex. We need to look out for concussion symptoms. Double vision, headache—they're normal. Outside of that, you have to let me know. I'm also concerned that you're developing pneumonia, so I'll order an X-ray to confirm. I'll send a nurse to change your bandages," the doctor said, making his way out of the room. Alex didn't make it until the nurse arrived, already having fallen back asleep. He didn't want to; he had seen Crawley in the room—at least he thought he saw him. He could still be imagining all of this, but if Crawley was there, he had to warn him about the clone. But Crawley probably already knew about that if he was there. Why did he know? Did something bad happen? Alex remembered what Mrs. Jones had told him: the families of the first clones out had been killed. What if that was why they discovered Alex's clone? What if he did something to Jack or Tom? Alex would never forgive himself.

The next time he woke up, he could hear two voices talking in the background. He couldn't understand what they were saying, nor could he even try to understand before a fit of coughs ripped out of his lungs, loudly announcing his awakening to the room. He opened his eyes to see Mrs. Jones coming up to his bedside.

"Alex," she said in a relieved tone.

"There was a clone. He went in my place," Alex gasped out.

"We know. We have him in custody."

"Did he do anything?" It was the question that was eating him inside. This was the moment of truth.

"He didn't. Jack and Tom are okay." Alex breathed out a sigh of relief. They were okay; they were safe. He allowed himself to sink against the pillow behind his head, all the worries that he felt from the past few days suddenly slipping away from him.

"I thought I was going to die," he said quietly, like it was some secret, like he hadn't been lying in the snow freezing, like he hadn't lost more blood than he could afford to lose.

"I'm sorry, Alex. We came as soon as we found out."

"How did you know?"

She sat down on the chair near his bed, Alex's eyes following her movements.

"I noticed you—I mean, your clone—was acting strange on the way back to London, but I blamed it on the traumatic experience. I talked to him again. The only thing he was worried about was where he had taken Grief and the rest of the clones. But it was only when Smithers managed to retrieve the files

from Grief's computer that we put everything together. I'm sorry, Alex. I should have figured it out sooner. Just from the medical report alone, it should have raised some doubt."

Alex stayed quiet, assimilating what he had heard. "It wasn't your fault," he finally said. It was true; he saw the mask on the bed, and he also didn't put together that a clone had already been made.

"Where are we?" he decided to ask, although he recognized which hospital they were in—the same one that Alex had faked his death in only a few days before arriving half dead.

"Still in France," she said, confirming his suspicions. "We'll take you to London as soon as the doctor clears you for the trip. It might take a while, Alex," she warned him. She didn't need to. Alex knew his situation. He knew that he was full of painkillers. He knew his leg was heavily bandaged, although he didn't have the courage to look; the picture of a piece of metal sticking out of it was still fresh in his mind.

"Did you f—" Alex wanted to ask the question that started all of this, but before he could finish the sentence, the door opened, and a couple of nurses entered the room.

"We are here to take Alex for an X-ray," one of them said.

"Right, we'll finish our conversation later," Mrs. Jones said, stepping aside so the nurses could wheel Alex out of the room.

Unfortunately, the X-ray confirmed the doctor's suspicion, probably rendering Alex more days stuck in France. On top of that, his low body temperature started to fix itself, maybe a little too well. By the time Alex was brought back to his room, a fever was already starting to manifest, making him feel more miserable than he already was. Apparently, it was Crawley's turn on babysitting duty, occupying the chair where Mrs. Jones previously sat.

"Can you turn on the TV?" Alex asked after sitting in silence for what felt like ages. He was bored. There was nothing he could do to pass the time. He had given up on sleep after trying and failing miserably. It seemed like his painkillers only worked for his body, while in his head, it felt like someone was hitting him with a hammer. He had noticed the TV in the room, that ever since he had been there had been turned off, but he also noticed a remote sitting on a table next to Crawley.

The man looked from his tablet, where he had been working for the last few hours, and then at the blank TV.

"You have a concussion, Alex. You can't look at electronics," he said as serious as ever.

Alex groaned. "But I'm bored." He knew that he was acting like a child, but he felt miserable and just wanted something to distract him from the pain.

"Take a nap then," Crawley responded, turning back to his screen like he was mocking Alex, probably not the case, but it sure felt like it.

"What are you doing?" Alex asked instead.

"Confidential," the answer was instant.

"Oh, come on," he complained. He wished Tom was here. If he was, Alex knew his best friend would do everything in his power to make him laugh. He would even smuggle a pizza, not that Alex could stomach such a dish right now. God, he missed him.

Suddenly a phone rang, Crawley answering not a second after. "Crawley."

"Are you sure?" he said, looking briefly at Alex. "Alright, I'll be there in a minute."

He hung up, standing up. "I'll have to check something. I won't be out for long. Stay there," and just like that, Alex was alone. It was amazing how the silence could be silencing. Although Crawley hadn't been much of a talker, the absence of the tapping on the screen was noticeable.

Suddenly, he remembered the remote again. Surely a few minutes of TV wouldn't do any harm, and the remote was right there. He smirked, sticking out his hand, being careful not to pull a wire out of place. But before his hand could even touch it, the door opened.

"I—" Alex began, an excuse already on the tip of his tongue, but the words died out the second he saw who had entered the room. It was a man, the same man that he saw in the hallways of Point Blanc.

"Alex Rider," the man said slowly, almost like he was savoring it.

"What?" Friend, it was friend, not Rider. Grief had figured it out somehow, but he knew that he hadn't gone and told everyone. No, because Grief had been ashamed. Alex looked at the door. How long would Crawley take? Would Alex be alive when he did arrive? Probably not. He had survived the freezing temperatures of Point Blanc just to die in the hospital. Alex felt his heartbeat accelerate. He didn't just feel it; he heard it too, the machine next to his bed announcing his panic to everyone. Perhaps if his heartbeat got to an alarming level, someone would be alerted and come check on him.

The intruder seemed to think the same thing. Quickly, he whipped out a gun. Alex closed his eyes, the machine practically screaming next to him. There was noise, and then silence. Slowly, Alex opened his eyes. He was still alive. A bullet was lodged in the monitor of the machine next to him.

"What do you want?" Alex found himself the courage to ask. "Are you going to kill me?"

The man stalked forward. "I don't have orders concerning you," he said, examining Alex like he was some bug under a microscope. "Besides, if I wanted you dead, you'd already be."

"So what are you doing here? Point Blanc is over," Alex stated.

"I'm here to give you a warning. Stay out of this life. Killing is for adults, and you're still a child."

Alex frowned. "I didn't kill anyone."

"Not yet. You're never too young to die." A pause. "Your uncle knew that."

Cold chills ran down Alex's body. It wasn't difficult to make the connection. It was written right in front of him.

"You killed my uncle." It was more of a statement than a question.

The man neither confirmed nor denied it. Instead, he turned his back and opened the door before turning to Alex once again.

"Remember, Alex, next time they ask, just say no." And then he was gone.

Alex only allowed himself a second of shock. He couldn't let his uncle's killer get away, not after everything he went through to find out what happened. He started to detach everything that was connected to his body, not even flinching when he ripped out the IV from his arm. He jumped out of bed, ignoring his protesting leg, before running out of his room. He looked left, then right. No one was there. Alex lost him.