Authors Note: Hey Everyone! Thanks for the patience and I promised that the chapters would come faster than they had recently. I am sorry if it still seems a bit slow, but at least there isn't nearly a year in between anymore, haha. I am going to try my best to wrap this story soon, and I have requests to do a sequel on it, so we will see what happens and whether I end it with a nice neat ending or a cliff hanger (cue dramatic music), j/k, maybe….

Anyway I wanted to say thanks and I also wanted to say I am sorry about the long wait for updates…

Kris

Chapter 57

Slater was staring at his sleeping children, pain echoing throughout his heart as tear entered his eyes. His daughter was only a baby and she needed her mother, every little girl needed a mother to be there for her. Lucas had been through so much in his short life before he had been brought home to them, and he loved his mom, needed her in his life and Slater needed her more than anything. He was clutching the letter that his wife had left him, he had seen the pain in Lisa's eyes as she explained how Jessie didn't want to be the reason all the friends had to be apart, that she didn't want to be the reason that Zack and Kelly felt like they had to stay away from everyone to protect their son, and as a mother, she understood where Kelly was coming from.

Slater walked into the living room and saw that everyone was there, including Zack and Kelly with their sleeping son, everyone but Jessie. He could see the guilt shining in the eyes of Zack especially, he had known Jessie longer than any of them and he was someone Jessie had come to rely on for so many things, and he felt like his pulling away forced Jessie into this.

"Slater… maybe we can still find her, stop her." Kelly said softly, the guilt and shame in her eyes had Slater wanting to lash out, but he couldn't.

"This is my fault." Slater said, tears that were unshed in his eyes causing his voice to thicken with emotion.

"No, this isn't your fault at all. This is that creep's fault and if we could just find some way to find out who he is, we could find out what this is all about and save our friend and just put a stop to all of this." Lisa said as she talked fast, like she always did when she was nervous or worried or scared about something or someone.

"Well, what do we know?" Kelly asked, seeing that this might be their last shot.

Zack was watching the group, the pain in his chest made him realize that as her best friend, Jessie had needed to confide in him, she had needed him to bounce ideas off of, and he had shied away instead of helping her. He was the schemer of the bunch, the only one who came up with the tricks and schemes that usually got things to go the way he wanted them, of course there were usually consequences in the end, but his ideas did have merit when other people added to them. There were times when he had really good ideas, but he had the tendency to not be able to know how to implement them correctly, which is where his friends usually came into play. He knew that Jessie would have talked to him about her plan, would have asked for his help or advice on what to do, but instead she had felt like she had no choice and couldn't come to him for anything, he wouldn't even talk to her through a text message, so she had no way of asking him for his advice or any scheme he might be able to come up with. He slowly started to pay attention to his other friends, he needed to come up with a way to save his friend, because deep down he couldn't shake the feeling that this really was his fault.

He was grinning as he watched Jessie check into a hotel under the alias he had given her to use. He had given her a little care package so that her friends wouldn't have a clue where to find her and it was working. He knew that the dejected look she had on her face was proof that she had given up hope, that she had accepted her fate and while he loved the fact that he had really won, he almost felt sorry for her, which only made him angry that she had managed to get him to feel bad for being the winner. He wasn't all that sure what he wanted to do, whether he was going to end her life or if he would just force her to live her life alone, away from the people she loved, and especially away from her children. He knew that it would be a slow torture to force her to live alone forever, to never have friends or companionship, to live knowing her children were out there and that someone else might be acting as their mother now.

"Oh Jessie, we will decide what's going to happen soon enough." He said as he thought of a brand new idea. He could always force her to live her life, with him as his personal slave, doing everything he wanted her to while he got to see whoever he wanted and do what he wanted, while she had to rely on him to tell her what she was allowed to do or wear, every single day of her life.

Jessie was sitting in the hotel room, staring at the pictures she had taken with her, the few that she had grabbed as her last reminder of the two babies she would never get to hold or cuddle, the husband that meant everything to her and the friends that were safer without her around. She had wished she could have called Zack, asked him for some advice on what to do, what scheme to pull, but it hadn't been allowed, there was just no way it could happen and now she was on her own. Jessie knew she could fight back, that she could find a way to make sure that her friends and family were safe, and in fact that was her plan. She knew that it would most likely cost her, her life, but if it meant that Slater and the kids as well as all their friends were safe and had a future, than losing her life for that, was a sacrifice she was more than willing to make.

Slater was staring at everything that they had on the person behind the latest issues. Screech and everyone else had banded together and called in people they had met, people that had become close friends to them all, and they were all shocked to hear what they were going through and were more than willing to help. The only people not there, were the two people that Lisa and Screech had dated, mainly because everyone felt like there was just something about them that was off. As everyone worked together to try and find something, anything, a mistake that would help them ID this guy and find a way to save Jessie, someone knocked on the door and as Slater stared at that person and listened to what they had to say, he smiled because he realized something, he now had something that their tormentor never thought they would, the upper hand and as he invited the person standing there in, and was told about the bugs and camera's that were in the house that would make it impossible for them to go inside and talk to them, he realized he had another advantage, because now that he knew what was going on, he had a way to communicate with this crazed creep.

Slater slowly allowed Zack to come to the door and talk to the person and from there, since the person was using a signal jammer to make sure that nothing that was around them that might transmit to the guy would actually work, the three of them came up with a new plan, and Slater finally realized that this might really have a chance to be over, that he might have a real chance at being happy with his wife and kids, and who knows, they might have a real chance to have more kids in the future, maybe Riley and Lucas wouldn't be it for them, and maybe, just maybe, they would finally be free of fear and just be a normal group of people, and maybe Screech and Lisa would finally see they belonged together and the six of them could just raise their children happily together.

"I think we know what we need to do. This is going to work, and this time we will make sure that we finish this for good." Zack said as he smiled at his friend and then at the person who had come forward out of guilt to help.

"We have a chance at freedom and happiness, I hope it works and I hope we get there in time." Slater said softly, praying nothing bad happened to Jessie before they could do what needed to be done.