It's been four days since he had run into Alex, but it was still all he could think about. The halls were empty which left him to himself. Jason knew he was supposed to be thinking about math and what he wanted help with so that he could tell his new tutor but he couldn't help it. His mother was missing. Alex's father was involved in something weird. Something that connected both of their parents to a drug cartel.

Jason was so deep in thought that he almost ran into Will Wright.

See, Jason never really liked Will. It was probably because Will never really liked Jason but he didn't know why. Now that would've been fine if Will didn't happen to be everywhere Jason was. They were in almost all of their classes together. In fact, most of the times that Jason was sent down to the principal's office, Will was with him. And more often than not, one of them always had a black eye. This would make them want to get back at the other and they were stuck in a never ending cycle of getting each other in trouble. Plus, it was safe to say that both of them were in charge of the two main groups in the grades. Jason was leading the classic definition of who you would consider popular while Will was leading pretty much the rest of the grade. In other words, Jason was the King of the land and Will was the leader of the rebels. Those two do not mix together very well. So, when Jason bumped into Will, he knew he was in trouble.

The two of them stumbled backwards and Jason hit his shoulder into a door frame and cursed as Will crashed into the lockers.

"You can't even watch where you're going?" Jason muttered to himself.

"I'm not the one running around a corner at seventy-five miles per hour," Will snapped back.

"At least I can go that fast."

Will raised a snarky eyebrow, "Trust me, Kane," venom dripped from his voice when he said Jason's last name, "I can do a lot more than you think. Definitely more than you."

Jason immediately went into defense mode. "Is that why I'm the basketball captain?"

"Just because I'm not the basketball captain doesn't mean I'm not better. We both know that if I decided to try I would beat you in a landslide."

"Do we though?" Jason stepped forward. "Besides, it doesn't matter what you think you could do or what you could've possibly done, it matters what you are doing. You could be better but in the end people only care about one person and that's me. I'm the one who actually went out there and accomplished something. What are you doing?"

"More than you are."

"Really?"

Will took a step forward, "The world is bigger than high school basketball games, which is something you've never understood. But one day you will. And when you do, I wouldn't be surprised if they found Jason Kane hiding out in one of his dad's mansions, too scared to walk out into the daylight."

Normally Jason would've reacted to this, but now Jason knew what Will meant. It's only been a few days since his mother disappeared and he could already feel the bubble that protected him for so long starting to weaken. How long until it popped completely? And what would happen when it does pop? Would he hide away from his problems? But Will was wrong. He hadn't been running away, he's been trying to find his mom. When he figures out what happened, he wouldn't run away. He wasn't a coward, right?

Will, who took Jason's silence as defeat, smirked and walked down the hallway. Jason watched his shadow recede in the distance and continued walking through the hallways. All things considered, the exchange went pretty well.

Finally, Jason made it to the corner of the library where he was supposed to meet his math tutor who was already waiting for him. She was sitting in one of the chairs with her head bent over some papers and a textbook.

"Hey, I'm..." then she looked up.

She had striking blue eyes that collided with her black hair. Jason had seen her around school with the girl that Alex was always talking to and he had to admit that she was kind of cute. But now that she was looking him right in the eyes, there was something else about her. Something about her was so familiar but yet foreign, some sort of pull...

"Hi," she mumbled as she stuck her arm out. "I'm Brooklyn Sanders. You can call me Brooke."

Frak. His name was Jason Kane. He was the one who was supposed to do the talking not her.

Jason regathered his composition and shook her hand, a smile forming on his lips, "I'm Jason Kane."

Brooke nodded and tucked a strand of hair behind her hair, "I'm supposed to tutor you on math, right?"

Jason nodded, "Yeah."

Brooke sat back down and she started packing up the textbooks that she had out. Jason raised an eyebrow as he read the title of a textbook: Introduction to Finite Math. Wasn't that a college course?

Brooke looked back up at him with a smile and his surprised face, "What?"

Jason shook his head and sat in a chair next to her, "Nothing."

She turned back around and produced another notebook and pencil from her backpack, "So, what did you want to work on?"

Jason and Brooke were walking on opposite sides of the hallway towards the main exit. She seemed to be completely involved in her phone although she hadn't tapped the screen for the past five minutes. Of course she could've been watching a very interesting video without volume or earbuds but Jason found that highly unlikely. Jason wasn't doing much better either. He was scrolling through his Instagram but he wasn't actually paying attention to it. There were three things going through his head: his mother, Alex wanting to meet him outside, and Brooke walking next to him.

There was still another feel to Brooke, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on. The air around her, the energy coming off of her was different, almost more excited. Jason shook his head. Now he was just thinking of nonsense.

They reached the doors and pushed them open. Jason could spot Alex standing by his car in the distance. He was about to make his way across the empty parking lot when he was tackled into a hug. The smell of designer perfume floated through the air and Jason internally registered the fact that it must've been new before he started feeling guilty. How could he have forgotten? There were three things he was thinking about but not one of them included his girlfriend.

"Hey, Jason!" Reina squealed.

"Hi, Rei."

"How did your tutoring go?" she asked. Jason was now suddenly aware of the fact that Brooke had lagged behind by the time Jason stepped outside and she was just starting to approach the doors. He was also aware of the fact that Rei could read people as easy as reading the alphabet. She probably knew that Jason had forgotten he was supposed to meet her, afterall, it's happened a couple times before and she never seemed bothered by it. Except for before, it had never happened when he was around another girl.

Dread filled Jason's stomach. If Reina figured out that Brooke was Jason's tutor then she would either buy her a ferrari and thank her for helping him or they would find Brooke dead in a ditch somewhere off the coast of Indonesia. Both were viable and awful options. Jason knew he was a lot to handle but this would be too much. Brooke definitely didn't sign up for all of the drama that came with him.

He needed to get Reina away from the doorstop before Brooke came out... too late. The doors slammed open and open Brooke walked through them. There was one thing left to do and that was to pretend like he didn't know her. Brooke walked by and he ignored her as he hoped that she wouldn't look his way. She didn't. For a moment, Jason thought she was safe until Reina looked at Brooke with narrowed eyes. Jason scolded himself. Reina must've figured out that he was trying to ignore her. Reina opened her mouth to say something but then another voice interrupted her.

"Hey, Jason," a voice called. They both turned to see Alex walking up to them with his hands in his pockets.

"Alex," Reina acknowledge.

"Sup' Rei," he nodded. "I'm gonna have to steal Jason for today."

"It's Reina to you," she snapped. She was obviously annoyed that Jason would have to leave. She turned to Jason, "You said we could hang out today, maybe grab dinner."

Jason hesitated, "I know but this is important."

Reina sighed and gave in, "Fine, but you better make it up to me tomorrow."

Jason nodded, "I will. See you tomorrow."

Reina mumbled a goodbye and Jason jogged to catch up to Alex who was already running through the empty parking lot. The only other time Jason had seen Alex move with such urgency was when they were serving free breakfast in the cafeteria.

"You're lucky your girlfriend is so lax. That could've ended badly if she wasn't," Alex said. So maybe he wasn't as urgent as Jason thought if he was willing to talk about Jason's love life but it was definitely a lot for Alex.

"And sometimes she's not nearly 'lax' enough," Jason mumbled.

"I would be jealous, too. Brooke's pretty cute."

Jason blinked, "Who's Brooke?"

Alex rolled his eyes, "You don't need to act innocent around me. When I said I would be too, I meant hypothetically. Trust me, I don't want to be your crazy jealous girlfriend. "

Jason sighed. So maybe he wasn't as urgent as Jason thought if he was willing to talk about Jason's love life, but it was definitely a lot for Alex. "You know Brooke?"

Alex shrugged and said, "She's Via's friend," like that explained everything.

Jason decided to refocus. "What's going on?"

"Just by our luck, today is a shipping day."

"Wait, you mean..." Jason trailed off and Alex nodded.

"So, Kane," Alex started as he reached his car door, "we going or not?"

Jason stood next to the car and evaluated the situation. On one hand, they were sneaking into an international drug cartel dealing. One wrong move and they would learn what it feels like to have a bullet in the head. But on the other hand, his mother was missing and Jason wasn't the kind of person who would run away and let it go. No, he was going to figure out what happened to her at all costs.

"Let's go."

The warehouse stank.

When Jason and Alex went the first time it smelled like your usual abandoned warehouse: rain, mud, and rusting metal. But now it smelled like... nope, Jason didn't want to say it. Especially because the smell seemed to be coming from the brown stuff the spread over the windows and Jason was pretty sure he accidentally touched some of it when he snuck in. Jason decided it was what would go inside a toilet if cows had toilets. As for why the substance was spread out over the entirety of the warehouse, Jason had no idea.

Jason and Alex quietly made their way across the metal catwalk on the side of the warehouse. They knew that the only guards on the top half were on the floor above them but they still kept to the shadows in case there were more hiding in a corner somewhere. Finally, they found a place with a clear view of the people below them and the boys knelt down as they watched with keen interest.

Below them, people moved back and forth carrying packets of what looked like everyday items like pasta sauce or pottery. Jason could've sworn he even saw a big bag of Gushers somewhere in the mix. Jason may not have seen a drug operation before but he watched enough of Breaking Bad to know that the drugs were inside of the objects, maybe even mixed in with them.

"So," Alex whispered, "what are we gonna do now?"

"You don't have a plan?"

"No, I thought you would."

"You were the one who suggested we come here."

Alex shrugged, "I came up with ten percent. I thought you would come up with the other ninety."

Jason resisted the urge to punch Alex in the face.

"If we could just watch them and see if anything goes wrong or if we find any clues about our parents."

"But what if nothing happens?" Alex protested. "Then we won't get anything. We could go down there and ta..."

"Getting killed won't do anything either," Jason said.

"Okay, fine. Say we do watch them. But how do we know when something goes wrong? It's not gonna be as obvious as blaring alarms and red lights."

All of a sudden red emergency lights turned on as alarms went off. The people below started running around in a sort of frenzy as others started shouting orders.

"Seriously dude!" Jason loudly whispered to Alex.

"No way," Alex said. He paused and thought for a moment before saying, "It's not like some guy is gonna walk up to us show us what my father is up to."

Alex looked around expectantly as he waited. The alarms kept blaring and the chaos continued below them.

He sighed, "It was worth a shot."

"Come on," Jason motioned him towards a secluded hallway just as people ran past in the previous hallway.

"What are we gonna do?" Alex looked at Jason as if he might have all the answers. Jason was supposed to have all the answers. He was his captain. He straightened his back and he thought for a moment.

"Let's find people," Jason finally said. "Not all the people here can be here willingly. There's gotta be some people who were forced into it. Let's find them and convince them to help us."

Alex nodded and they were about to turn down the hallway when something cold pressed against their skin. Something cold and sharp. A knife.

"I don't think so," a voice spoke. The voice seemed to belong to a boy. The voice seemed familiar to Jason. One he had heard many times before and despised. He talked to him just earlier that evening.

"Will?"