Briggite paced down the hallways, searching in every place she presumed Miss Parker may be. Her quest was producing pathetic results and she had reached the point of growling as she opened every door to a Parker-less room.

Her phone rang and she answered it with a curt "yes" followed by "you've got to be kidding me. Oh I will find her, sir."

She closed the phone and heightened her pace, heading for the one place she knew she'd catch Miss Parker.

*****

Jarod shifted on his bed uncomfortably. The thoughts racing through his mind were intolerable. She would be fine, she always was. He wondered if it was too soon to call and make sure she had gotten out safely. He knew she'd been able to track his location via his last call to her so she should have the number to his hotel. She could easily call him.

He groaned, knowing these thoughts were only stressing him more. The only thing he could do now was wait, and he hated that. Jarod picked up a tweety bird Pez container to comfort himself with some sugary solace. Then he reached for the phone.

"This is Sydney."

"Have you relocated yet?" Jarod greeted him.

"We're in transit right now, Jarod. How are you recovering?" Sydney replied, always concerned for his prodigee.

Jarod looked at the bruises scattered about his body and ignored the pain it took to hold the phone up to his ear, "I'm doing well. My leg's especially healing nicely, which is good."

"Very. Jarod, what were those disks about? The ones I sent to Miss Parker. I told you she--"

"You'll understand everything soon enough. I just wanted to call and make sure you guys were going somewhere safe. Could I talk to Emily?" he added hesitantly.

"Oh, of course." Sydney handed the phone to the young woman saying that it was her brother.

Emily grinned, "hi big brother."

Jarod immitated with a small laugh, "hello little sister. How are you doing?"

"Peachy keen, jelly bean. They're taking good care of me. You had some nice captors, I'm not sure what you've been complaining about for so many years," she added sarcastically.

He scoffed, "Oh knock it off. I hope they didn't mistreat you too badly in The Centre."

"Honestly, they left me alone a lot. I spent the first week in a recovery room with nurses tending to my injury, and the next mostly just lying on a bunk. It was well pretty boring actually. There was one visit with Mr Raines I think his name was, but it was right before Angelo helped me escape and it wasn't a very big deal."

"I'm glad to hear it. You take care of yourself okay, sis?" Jarod's lips curled into a smile just using the endearing term.

"You got it. And whatever you're planning to do, because I know if you're not with us then it's because you're doing something else, please be careful about it. I don't want to lose my brother again."

Jarod nodded, "Everything's under control, Em. And everything will be fine."

He hung up the phone, hoping he had told her the truth.

*****

Miss Parker had nearly run to Cade's nursery, slowing her pace only when getting suspicious looks from nameless Centre employees. What the hell did those other people do in here anyway? She threw open the door to Cade's room and her heart dropped when she saw no one. He had just been there, this was hardly the time to play hide and go seek in one of the largest buildings in Delaware. She panted until she'd caught most of her breath back, turning around and noticing a piece of paper on the floor. In childish handwriting she read the words "Cade is going home."

She shook her head, baffled at the meaning in the words, but stood and departed. She was devestated at the thought of returning to The Centre later to retrieve him, but she knew she'd have to soon.

The halls and the people in them seemed normal as she strode toward her exit. Nobody to stop her. Her heels clicked as she marched through the parking garage toward her car, as purposeful as ever.

"Go home," she heard. Miss Parker smiled with unrequited joy when she saw Angelo crouched by her car with little Cade within his arms.

"Angelo! Oh it's never been so good to see you," she ran the last length to where they were, where Angelo stood, holding baby Parker.

Miss Parker folded the boy up in her arms as Angelo handed him to her, "Take the boy home."

"I'll get him out of here, don't worry," she looked into his soft eyes which always melted her own, "Angelo, come with us. We'll go to Jarod and you can live a life out of this hell hole."

Angelo just stared at her inquistively. His face scrunched though as his soft smile twisted into a wide, maniac grin.

"What's wrong? Angelo, what's wrong?" she grabbed his upper arm as she repeated her question again, watching his features turn sporadically demonic. Then they stopped and he looked up at her from his hunched posture.

"Take the boy home."

Miss Parker sighed loudly in frustration, holding Cade in one arm and running her hand through her long, dark hair with the other. Cousin It never had turned exactly tolerable.

"Now now, Miss Parker, don't be upset," she heard echoing about the cement surroundings. There was no mistaking that sinister female voice.

"How many times do I have to get rid of you, Briggite?" she said, pulling her gun quickly on the blonde, whose gun was also drawn.

Briggite was grinning at the scene before her. Miss Parker couldn't be more vulnerable this time.

"I'd like to know what you think you're doing with my child, and just what the hell is going on with our computer system."

"Maybe if you treated him like your child, I wouldn't be risking my ass to protect him. As for your technological problems, let me just ask who the hell you think I am because I'm sure not Broots, so how about you call tech support instead of boo hooing that you can't access your Trolls R Us account."

The smile on Briggite's face disappeared as she cocked her gun, "I know you're behind all this, and now everyone else does, too. You can play dumb if you want, but I'm not letting any of you go anywhere."

"You would risk shooting your own child, just to take your revenge on me. Why is that not surprising?" Miss Parker clutched Cade closer to her. He was grabbing her around the neck tightly and was surprisingly quiet, considering what a gab he normally was at his young age.

Briggite made no move to argue with her, and it was then that Angelo leapt and knocked the blonde to the ground, who landed with a scream and a thud, "Get the hell off me, you thing!"

Miss Parker took the moment to put Cade in the passenger seat, wishing Jarod had told her about this damn plan before so she could have properly arranged for a carseat. She started the car and reversed it quickly as Angelo continued to struggle with Briggite. She threw open her door and shouted, "Angelo, come now!"

The man-child screamed as Briggite turned him over onto the pavement with much effort on her part. She stood and aimed her gun, shocking Miss Parker with the intense explosion of the pistol.

Miss Parker's entire hand rose to cover her mouth when she realized Briggite had aimed for his head. The shock disoriented her for momentarily as all the memories she shared with that innocent man flew threw her mind. There was no way he could have survived a gunshot to the brain. A tear darted down her cheek as Briggite turned, gun drawn, grinning, to face the car.

"That mindless animal has had that coming for a while," Miss Parker stared at her wide-eyed in disgusted disbelief, "And you, my sweet little step-daughter, haven't deserved any better fate fo yourself. If only you'd just played by the rules instead of running off to have fun with your wittle pal Jawod." The mocking baby voice at the end of Briggite's sentence brought Miss Parker back to reality.

"I've had enough of you, bitch." She shot Briggite in the chest without any hesitation at all. It flashed through her mind how idiotic the woman was to ramble on instead of just killing her when she had the chance. Luckily, the woman was dumber than a bag of bricks.

As Briggite lurched forward under the impact and fell to her knees, sputtering for air, Miss Parker sent yet another bullet flying into the other side of her chest. She had had enough of this back from the dead game everyone in The Centre was so fond of playing. Miss Parker rushed out of the car and grabbed Angelo's wrist, her head sinking in despair when she found no pulse. He had died to save them and as she held his lifeless corpse in her hands, sobbing, she couldn't help but remember how Briggite had commited this same execution style on Tommy years ago. At least now, she knew it would never happen again.

Miss Parker laid his head down gently and closed the lids of his eyes, imagining he was in a better place, no longer alone. The sound of a door opening caused her to run to the car where Cade stared at her wide-eyed and stunned. For a brief second, she felt guilty, realizing she had just gunned down this boy's mother right in front of his eyes. He probably didn't even realize she was his mother as little time as they spent together.

"Trust me, you're better off without her kid." she said, shifting the vehicle into gear and putting her sunglasses on.

The quick acceleration caused her tires to screech as she peeled out of the garage and onto the main road, sweepers giving up their pursuit of the former Centre mistress upon reaching the bloody scene and two lifeless bodies.