A/N: Please review if you read. I appreciate any feedback.

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After Alexis had gone to bed, Jackson spent the rest of the evening trying to come up with the perfect way of testing his daughter's supposed new found loyalty. Since Alexis' change in her behavior and her urgency to want to go home Jackson had very rarely left her alone enough that she would be capable of leaving.

This was slowly starting to become more complicated than he wanted or even anticipated. How could Lisa stand raising this kid for all these years? He needed to find a way to get in control again. Not just in the physical sense he had to find a way that she didn't even want to think about leaving him even if he wasn't around. So far he had been close enough that Alexis didn't even dare let the thought pass her mind for fear of the consequences.

What he was doing right now was clearly not something he could keep up with for the rest of his life nor did he want to. Not if he ever planned on going back to work fulltime. His idea of the future definitely didn't include spending all of his time monitoring his daughter's whereabouts. His only other option was to return Alexis back to Miami and that wasn't going to happen.

Making Lisa happy was certainly not part of his plan. He didn't go through all of this trouble just to give up now. He had dealt with situations and clients that were much more difficult. Surely he could get his own teenage daughter under control.

Right now his employers may not have any trouble with him spending so much time working at home planning things, but eventually they were going to want to see some action. He was after all one of the best employees that they had and didn't want lose him. Come tomorrow morning he would return to work and find out for sure how worried he should be about Alexis.

Hopefully she possessed more common sense than her mother ever did.

XXXXX

In the morning Jackson made a few important phone calls to put his plan into place and then went through his normal routine of getting ready for work. He hoped to be gone before Alexis woke up so he didn't have to come up with a reason why he was suddenly leaving her alone.

Jackson wasn't stupid and knew not to expect much from this little experiment of his. Right now he was sure he could predict how this was going to end. She was going to be foolish like her mother and anger him. Maybe by the end Alexis would see that he was not somebody to cross. He didn't care whether he was technically her dad or not there would be consequences for breaking the rules.

XXXX

Alexis didn't sleep much anymore. She went through the motions every night but it never got any better. It didn't matter how many times she tried to convince herself it was all going to be okay it didn't change anything. That morning it took her an hour to get out of bed. She was slowly losing any energy or determination that she once had. He was winning and he was always going to win. He was bigger, stronger, and held all of the power. She was never going to get back home.

When she first started walking down the stairs to the kitchen area she immediately noticed something was different. The house was completely quiet. There were none of the typical sounds that she had grown used to. Even as she stepped into the kitchen she heard no footsteps or her father's voice which was unusual since he spent most of his day on the phone arranging plans for things she did not want to know about. Alexis couldn't believe that her father would have left her alone; her acting couldn't have been that good, could it? No, she just hadn't found him yet.

She checked every room twice before she allowed herself to think that maybe this was the moment she had been waiting for. Everything that she was planning on doing once she got back to Miami started rushing through her head until she realized she needed to stop. She had learned pretty quickly that it was useless to get her hopes up. What she should be focusing on right now was getting out of her and back to Miami. Taking the stairs two at a time Alexis grabbed a small backpack that she filled with a jacket, extra clothes, water and some food.

Unlike the inside of her house that was much different than normal the outside of her house was just as she remembered it. Alexis started running towards the woods that surrounded her father's property before she stopped abruptly.

Turn back now…

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

It isn't too late…

If she did this and she got caught she was sure it wouldn't end well and she was sure that she would never be able to get her father to trust her.

He hadn't gone too far yet but she also hadn't done anything this stupid yet either. Maybe she should turn around and pretend like nothing happened, but she might never have this chance again. She was never going to get back to her family if she kept being afraid of her father. Hopefully she was making the right choice and she would find help before he even realized she was missing.

XXXXX

It was early morning when Lisa rolled out of bed trying her best not to wake Landon.

Her muscles ached from walking all over nearby and far away towns hanging posters and talking to people about her missing daughter. She had taken some time off of work to help renew the search for her daughter since the police weren't too concerned about a teenager who was missing.

"And where are you planning on going today?"

"Oh you're awake" Lisa said with a hint of disappoint in her voice. She was hoping to avoid this before leaving. "I haven't decided yet but I won't be gone long this time."

Lisa noticed how Landon's face fell and was marked with his own disappointment that she was yet again leaving him. "I promise"

"You know I bet the hotel could really use their manager actually being there on a regular basis."

Lisa could feel her heart beating faster and her face getting warmer. If he hadn't been so far away she was sure that she would have slapped him. "I am trying to find Alexis! You may be okay with moving on with your life and pretending it didn't happen but I can't. I have to make sure she knows at least one of us is looking for her."

They had some arguments over the subject but everyone involved never truly said how they felt. Landon threw the covers off the bed and got up to face Lisa.

Lisa could see her husband clenching and unclenching her fist. It was same thing Jackson did when he was angry and trying to control his actions. She was sure that Landon wasn't like Jackson. He may feel angry and want to hit her but she knew he wouldn't actually go through with it.

"Don't you dare insinuate that I don't love her."

"I never said that." Lisa said so quietly she wasn't sure if he had heard her.

"Some of us can't allow ourselves to completely break down every chance they get or spend all of their time looking for her."

Lisa was crying now and for some reason Landon couldn't seem to care. She needed to hear how he felt. This wasn't all about her. She wasn't the only one who had lost someone. He allowed her time to grief and be depressed but now it had been close to two years and it was time for her to establish some kind of normalcy.

"Somebody in this family has to make money to pay the bills. I could go out with you and then when they start turning off things like the water and the electricity we can write them notes instead. Explain that we don't have any money because we spent so much time looking for our daughter. Do you think they would really care Leese?" Landon wasn't sure what happened but he just couldn't stop yelling at her. He might not have carried Alexis like Lisa did and Alexis might not have any of his DNA but he was hurting just as much as Lisa.

Lisa could feel the tears running down her cheek. "Stop..please just stop" Her anger at Landon had quickly changed to a deep sadness because she knew Landon was right. "I'm sorry, Landon. I'm sorry that I'm never home with you. I'm sorry that I can't find our daughter and I'm sorry that it's consuming my whole life."

How did their marriage ever get this way. It didn't used to be like this when Alexis first went missing.

Landon remembered the first night he meet Lisa. His friends had dragged him out claiming he worked too much and he needed to have some fun. Lisa was standing over by the wall with another girl. She was gorgeous and was smiling at something that was just said. It turns out that her friend had dragged out her that night for the same, exact reason. I tried to talk to her and she was very shy or maybe she just wasn't very trusting of guys after I found out about her past. I touched her hand to try to get her to dance with me and she instantly pulled it back towards her. I had thought that she was going to slap me then for being so forward but she didn't. She actually apologized saying she was a little jumpy around new people and wasn't really interested in a relationship right now. It was her friend that was with her that pushed her forward and I heard Lisa's friend whisper something about being really cute. I'm sure my face turned bright red but if she noticed she didn't say anything. She was a good dancer and at the end of the night I really wanted to see her again but she refused to give me her number. So I gave her mine in case she changed her mind. Which she obviously did but maybe he should be thanking her friend Cynthia. He was sure she was responsible for the nudge to call him back.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you. But can't you see this isn't healthy. This isn't any kind of way to live. There's nothing wrong with never wanting to stop searching for her but it shouldn't be consuming ever hour of your day. Landon sat back down on the bed feeling much better now that he got everything out that he was bottling up. He motioned for Lisa to come over to the bed with him.

"What if he's hurting her, Landon and I can't do anything to stop it. She can be really stubborn sometimes and I worry that Jackson will eventually snap. Landon I know what he's capable of and it scares me. He'll snap and she won't ever come home. I worry all the time that's she's hungry, or cold or in pain."

"We're going to find her. She's going to be alright." Landon reassured her pulling her into his embrace and letting her rest her head on his chest. Landon resolved that the first thing he would do after they found Alexis was kill Jackson. He was going to make sure it was a long, painful death just like their never ending pain and heartache.

"I shouldn't have to be worrying about things like this. I should be helping her plan her graduation party. I should be worrying about whether she's picking the right school and whether she'll do okay away from home for the first time."

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Alexis hurried through the woods hoping that eventually she would come upon the main road. She wondered if this was how Emily attempted to escape. Maybe she was scared of getting lost and followed the long driveway instead. Whichever way Emily came she knew Jackson had found her at some point and she was hoping she could succeed where Emily did not. She was one, the only one who could convince the police to go look for Emily's body. She owed it to her friend to do this for her. She wanted to get as much land covered as possible before she was discovered missing which meant she was not stopping for anything. Alexis realized as she was walking that she really had no plan. Her only goal at the time had been to get somewhere that people could help her and return her home. There had to be cars that traveled that main road. Surely she would be able to find someone willing to stop to help a young girl.