I tore through the kitchen and scrambled to locate the cellphone that was hidden somewhere in my duffel bag. Was Paige calling me? Was she reaching out? Was she finally ready to end this once and for all?

Finally, my hand came into contact with the cold piece of metal. My finger stabbed the answer button as I paced back to the kitchen in one motion.

"Paige," I growled.

"Alexa?"

My heart stopped in my chest. Alvin, Melissa and my father could see the pain in my eyes.

"Alexa, is that you?"

I closed my eyes as tears fell down my face. The sound of my sister's voice sent waves of relief through my body. She was alive.

"Y-Yes," I whispered. "Anna, yes, it's me!"

My dad's face lit up as I tried to refocus through the tears clouding my vision.

"Keep her talking," Alvin mouthed. "I'm gonna try and track the call."

I gave a nod.

"Alexa, I'm so scared," Anna whimpered. "Please, find me. Please-"

Her voice disappeared all too soon as I hung onto the phone with a death grip.

"Anna?" I pleaded. "Anna!"

"She's fine," Paige's voice came through. "For now, at least."

Suddenly my relief turned to raging anger.

"Where are you keeping her?" I growled.

"Just some old house." I could hear her move on the other side. "Don't worry, we're cozy."

Alvin gave me the signal to keep her on the line.

"We can end this now," I stated. "This is between me and you, Paige."

"Oh, yeah, of course," she said. "But I have one more thing I need to show you."

"What?" I asked. "What is it?!"

Then the line went dead. She had hung up.

"Fuck," I cursed, looking at Alvin. "Did you get it."

"I got some coordinates," he claimed.

Then, the phone buzzed in my hand. She had sent a text message.

I opened it and realized it was another address. My eyes rolled at the thought of another piece of Paige's life coming to attention.

"It's just another address," I announced.

"Wait," Alvin said as he typed into his computer. "The address is the same location as the coordinates I got."

"Which means she's there, right now," Melissa claimed.

"We need to leave." I shoved the cellphone into my pocket but my dad grabbed me. I looked up. "Let me go," I ordered.

"The address is four-and-a-half hours away from here," he said.

"And?"

"And Paige will not be there when you get to that address." His worried eyes scanned mine. "I'll call in a chopper to bring me and Alvin to Los Angeles. Chapman needs to see this drive. We'll be back in six hours. Then we'll leave-"

"Six hours!" I protested. "Anna can't wait six more hours!"

"The world might not be able to wait six more hours either, Alexa," Alvin included. "It sounded like Victoria was getting close to what they need to set all of this off."

I shook my head in disbelief.

My eyes found Melissa. "Are you gonna suggest I wait for them to get back, too?"

"No," she stated. "I'm ready to leave when you are."

I felt the fire I had for her burn in my chest as I smiled.

My dad stepped forward. "Alexa, listen to me," he pleaded. "If those men catch up to you, they're going to kill you."

"I won't let them catch me," I defended. "Not again."

"It's safer to just wait."

"I can't believe this," I said. "You're doing it again."

Alvin and Melissa seemed confused, but not my father.

I turned away and headed for the bedroom. He followed me, just like I assumed he would.

"I am not abandoning you and Anna again," he defended. "I'm trying to make you see it's a better choice for us to go at this together."

I lifted my bag onto the bed. "Then we can go. Right now. Together. And you can fly back to Los Angeles after we find Anna."

"Did you not hear what those people were saying?" he fumed. "We are days away from another world war! Days away from thousands of innocent people being killed!"

I turned. "And what about Anna!? What about your own daughter?!"

He fell silent. I could feel my breathing stop in my throat.

"Don't you think you owe it to her?" I stepped forward. "Don't you think, that for once, she should be your first choice?"

The pain in his dark brown eyes was visible. I knew I was hitting him in all his weakest places.

"That apology that you gave me..." I said. "All that stuff you said on the porch... If you leave, it'll all mean nothing. It'll just be another lie to add to your collection."

He remained silent.

"If you leave, you're choosing everyone else over Anna."

The tears clouded my vision again. I didn't want him to leave me. I wanted him to stay and help me fight to get my sister back. But what I wanted would not dictate what Anna absolutely needed from me.

I would leave soon, with or without my dad by my side.

"The entire world is in serious danger, Alexa," he said.

The defeat I felt was suffocating.

"Anna is my entire world, dad," I answered. "And now I can see she isn't yours."

I grabbed my bag and stalked to the bathroom connected to me and Melissa's bedroom. The door slammed with one great force of my hand as I flipped the lock.

The plan was to change to leave, but the pain ripping through my heart crippled me. All this time I had believed he had returned for the right reasons. To mend his broken family. To earn back our trust and love. To fix everything he had broken.

But I had been wrong. I had been so, so wrong.

My back pressed against the door as I sank down to my knees in tears. I could hear him knocking on the other side, saying things like "Alexa, please don't do this" and "Please, just wait for me to get back".

And after a few minutes of begging, he was gone.

It felt as if my sole purpose was to cry. That there was just too much pain and fear living inside of me that needed to be released before I could continue. So, I allowed myself to do just that.

I cried through the sound of him walking around upstairs. I sobbed to the sound of the front door slamming and his car starting.

And it wasn't until fifteen minutes later that I heard another light knock on the door.

"Alexa?" Melissa asked. "Can you let me in?"

I sobbed and choked back more tears. At least she had stayed. At least I wouldn't have to do this completely alone.

"N-No," I stuttered. "I-I'm just... changing. I'll be ready to l-leave soon."

She was silent for a moment, which led me to believe she was granting me my space to compose myself. As broken as I felt, I couldn't dwell on it. My sister needed me to pull through. She needed me to find her and bring her home, regardless of the consequences that we would face.

I couldn't dwell on the fact that her world would fall apart again once we got her back home, after she found out her dad had abandoned her. The image of her pain made me want to hurt our father.

He didn't deserve her forgiveness. He didn't deserve anything but to be alone.

I stood and dressed. My dark jeans hugged my legs, but remained just a little loose due to my weight loss. I pulled on a black, long-sleeved shirt and then my leather jacket. Then I washed my face, pulled back my hair and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

How, after everything I had been through over the past six months, had I survived? Was it by chance or was it fate? Was my luck running out? Or was I on the path I was supposed to be on? Was all this going to make any sense in the end? Was the end coming sooner than I believed?

Another light knock pulled me out of my trance. Right. Anna. She needed me. There was no time to waste. The sooner we left the sooner we could make it to wherever the hell Paige was leading us.

I opened the door.

Melissa had her things packed and ready to go. She ignored the pained look on my face as she lifted her phone.

"If we leave now, we can get there by one," she said.

I nodded. "Let's go."

We locked up the cabin and sped off down the dirt road, hitting the highway in record time. The car was silent. I expected it to be for a little while considering the words my father and I had in front of everyone. Melissa didn't want to set me off, and frankly, I was grateful.

So,we disappeared into the morning as the sound of Anna's panicked voice hauntedme the entire time.