Beep...

Beep...

Beep...

The steady beeps of the heart monitor resonated through Marin's ears as he slowly came too. As soon as he tried to move though, he felt a sharp pain in his back. The memories of what had happened before he passed out were flooding through his mind. Miles. "Adrienne..." He opened his eyes and started to sit up.

"Marin!" Alyn exclaimed as he saw his best friend start to wake up. He hesitated to hug him though, fearing that if he did, he would only hurt his friend more, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. "I'm so glad you're awake. I thought you'd never wake up." He looked as if he were on the verge of tears.

Marin looked around the room. "Adrienne..." He was scared. He needed to find her now before it was too late. As he scanned the room and didn't see her, he turned to Alyn. "Did you find her?"

Alyn gulped. He didn't want to be the bearer of bad news, but he couldn't just leave Marin in the dark about what happened. He needed to know. "Marin... You've been asleep for 14 months. We... We never found her. I'm sorry... We looked for months straight, but she we never found her. We never even had much of a lead." 

Alyn feared to make eye contact with Marin. "Chat and Ladybeetle disappeared. We haven't seen them since she went missing that day. The cops were starting to suspect that they took her, but I knew that wasn't right. Adrienne's mom didn't let them drop the case for the longest time. She herself actually went with them multiple times. It was crazy. But eventually they did drop it. Just a few months ago, they did."

"Nothing has been the same." Alyn smiled sadly. "Not without you two at school. They even cancelled Prom. Clovis hasn't made fun of anyone since then. He hasn't really said anything. Nina's lost without her best friend. Your parents... It's just so bad, Marin." 

Marin was stunned silent. He didn't know how to react. "I need to leave. Sign me out of here right now!" Marin yelled, frantically trying to remove all the machines that were attached to him. 

"Marin! Calm down, I'll get a nurse to do that." Alyn grabbed Marin's hands, stopping him from continuing in his actions. "I know this is a lot to take in, but you need to calm down. Deep breaths." Alyn glanced up at the heart monitor which was now beeping at a rapid pace. 

It only took seconds for nurses to start coming in and checking his vitals. Marin started thrashing against them. "I wanna leave! Let me leave! Adrienne!" Marin yelled and screamed, trying to push the nurses away from him. Eventually, one of them came in with a small needle and injected it into Marin's arm. 

The one who did this turned to face Alyn. "This won't knock him unconscious, but it will keep him calmed for a few hours. Can you call the parents and have them check in with the doctors?" She asked politely.

Alyn nodded and pulled out his phone. He scrolled through his contacts, finding Marin's mom, and pressed the green call button. He held the phone to his ear as he walked away from the bed towards the window, where it was quieter.

"Hello? Alyn? What do you need?" The voice on the other end asked in a clearly tired tone. It was five in the morning. 

"You need to come to the hospital ASAP. He's awake." Alyn whispered into the phone as he watched Marin start to calm down. He hung up the phone and put it back in his pocket, making his way back over to the bed as the nurses filed out of the room.

"I need to find her..." Marin's eyes were relaxed, as was his body, due to the effects of the drug that the nurse put in him. He wasn't tired, but he looked the part. 

Alyn gave him a sympathetic smile, barely noticeable. "I know, Marin. You'll find her. But for now you need to wait till your parents get here. They'll talk to the doctors and sign the paperwork and you'll be out in no time. Got it?" Marin nodded.

Even after his parents came in that morning, it still took days until he was permitted to leave. There were many tests that they had to go through to make sure that Marin would be alright when he went back out into the world. He had been sleeping for 14 months, and a lot could change in that time. Alyn and his parents caught him up to date for the most part. A lot of it he didn't take well, but he tried not to get too worked up over it.

Marin sat in his room, staring at the ceiling as he sat in his chaise. He glanced over at the window, memories of all the times that Chat had tapped on that window, asking him to let her in. He remembered the last time she did, when she left him so curious. 

He sighed as he went through his things, trying to keep his mind of the situation at hand for a moment. "Wait." He froze. "T-Tikki? Tikki, where-- No, no, no. Where's Tikki?" He started throwing things around. He felt his ears. His earrings were missing. 

He rushed down the stairs into the kitchen where his parents were. "M-Mom, dad, my earrings, where are they?" He wanted to laugh at himself for how feminine his sentence sound, but he didn't. 

"Huh?" His mother raised a brow and tilted her head, then her lips formed an 'o' shape. "Right." She left the room then came back with a small box. "Here you go." 

Marin let out a sigh of relief and smiled. "Thank you." He quickly made his way back up to his room, putting the earrings back in his ears. He grinned from ear to ear as Tikki appeared in front of him. "Tikki!" 

The small kwami wrapped her small hands around Marin's cheek, hugging his face. "Marin. I've missed you so much."

"Me too, Tikki. But we don't have too much time for reunion's. We need to find Adrienne and Plagg. I just hope..." Marin trailed off. He didn't want to think about whether or not she was alive. He simply decided to hope and pray that she was alright. Even if she was, he wasn't about to think that she was dead.

Tikki gave Marin a comforting smile. "She's still alive. If she wasn't, then Plagg would have been passed on to another."

Marin felt a wave of relief wash over him. He sat down on the edge of the bed. He was almost crying tears of happiness. "She's alive. I just hope she's okay. Do you by any chance know how to locate Plagg?"

Tikki shook her head. "No, but I know how to locate her ring. If she's still wearing--"

"Tikki, you're brilliant! We can locate her ring. Come on, hurry up!" Marin grabbed his jacket then ran out the front door, ignoring his mother's questions about where he was going.

~~~

"Adrienne, get up. He's c-coming back." Plagg started to shake Adrienne's shoulder. She was currently lying down on a small bed in the center of a bedroom. It was dark, seeing as though there were no windows, and she had her arms tied to the bed. She was small and frail. Sure, she had been of small stature to begin with, but this was different. It looked as if you could snap one of her bones in half like a tooth pick. 

Adrienne barely moved, not being panicked at all. This was the routine that she had been used to for the past year, she estimated. It felt that way, but she had lost count after five months. She had tried to transform at one point, but before she had the chance, the man took the ring from her. "No point..." She muttered, barely audible. 

Plagg frowned, hiding in the crook of her bed to keep himself hidden from the man's view. Seconds after, the door swung open. "Are you hungry, my darling?" The man asked, taking a few steps into the room.

Adrienne didn't answer, she just curled up into a ball. She didn't want to look at him. She closed her eyes tightly, hoping that if she just imagined he wasn't there, he would disappear. But as much as she wished that to be the truth, it just wasn't. She had tried time after time to dream the entire situation away, but it never worked.

The man sighed, throwing the tray down and crossing his arms. "You haven't eaten for over a week. You can't starve yourself to death."

"That was the goal. Death sounds more pleasing." She retorted in an irritated and coarse voice. Along with not eating, she had only drank water minimally. She had planned on offing herself through dehydration, but Plagg demanded that she at least drink some water when it was offered. He couldn't convince her to eat, though, no matter how hard he tried.

There was no reply, except an annoyed glare. Even if she couldn't see it, she could feel him glaring at her. She was surprised, however, when she heard another voice. "Sir, the hospital just confirmed that he's woken up. He was released from the hospital this morning. I have visual confirmation that he was spotted coming in this direction. We could be wrong, but we think he knows where she is." Adrienne's head shot up at this.

The first man growled, frustrated. "Looks like your boyfriend has come to save you finally. Send someone to stop him. ASAP." He said the last part to his associate, then left the room, slamming it harshly. 

"W-Wait!" Adrienne stood up and tried to make her way towards the door, but she was yanked back suddenly by the ropes, making her fall onto her back. She stood up again and started pulling on them as hard as she could. "Plagg, try untying them again!"

"It didn't work--"

"Plagg, please just try again..." Adrienne's voice was filled with desperation. She pulled and pulled on the ropes, trying to get her hands free as Plagg worked on untying them. 

After several minutes, Adrienne found herself getting exhausted due to the fact that her eating habits have been way less than decent for survival. She tried to reach the door, but the ropes were still too tight on her wrists. "Come on, just... A few more... Steps..." 

"They're almost untied Adrienne, be patient." Plagg mumbled, focused on the ropes. "Just stay still..." A few seconds later, the ropes fell from Adrienne's wrists. 

She gasped as she fell on her knees, looking at her wrists. "Plagg, thank you..." She crawled towards the tray and took the water, chugging it down. She took some and dumped it on her hands, shivering as the cold water hit her cut and bruised wrists. "Keep yourself hidden, we need to find my ring."

Adrienne quietly left the room, tiptoeing down the corridor. She had to keep herself as quiet as she possibly could. The halls were dark, and there was barely any light to illuminate the hall. She just had to rely on instinct to escape, and she wasn't sure how well her instincts were. 

"If I was Chat, I could easily find my way around here." She whispered to Plagg. She heard someone coming as she found herself as an intersecting hall. She rested her back flat against the wall, keeping herself hidden as well as she could. They passed by her and she hesitated, but followed them. She followed them all the way to a room with a large table. There were about 4 people surrounding the table. She assumed that they were all male.

"We should have just taken the ransom money. We could have taken it and left. This has gone on too long, Miles. It's all for your personal benefit, and we haven't gotten anything. Not a penny!" The first man said.

Miles? Adrienne thought to herself, keeping herself hidden in the shadows outside the room. She felt fear trail through her veins. Someone from her class had done this to her? She wanted nothing more than to scream at him for what he did to her, but she had to keep herself hidden. She couldn't alert anyone.

She continued down the corridor, not really having much of an idea as to where she was going. "Follow me..." Whispered Plagg as he flew in front of her. She followed without hesitation. She didn't have much of a choice, and she trusted Plagg.

They reached the end of the corridor and there a door, she tried the handle once, but it didn't budge. She mentally cursed to herself, but then smiled as Plagg phased through the door, then came back out with a small box. It was her ring. 

Adrienne had to resist screaming in delight when she saw it. She slipped it on her finger, but then examined it closer. "P-Plagg... The ring. It's broken."

~~~

Ehhh, I'll end it there. Not as long as I wanted, but I'm short on ideas and inspiration. Hope it doesn't suck. Also wow Marin I knew you slept in a lot, but this is by far long overdue. Haha, I made a joke about something serious. Anyway, just like Marin's waking up time, this chapter was long overdue and I hope you enjoy it. :3 Okay, adieu~