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My mom took the paper. My mom called the number. Now she's out looking for Bill/Axl. She couldn't believe what he'd done to Izzy, that he'd held down his best friend and beaten and raped him. So she's stalking the streets, a single vigilante determined to bring him to justice. I'm scared, seriously scared for her.

I'm sitting on the couch with Izzy in my lap. He's wrapped around me, head resting on my shoulder as he whispers sweet nothings into my ear. I'm smiling but I'm not really listening. My eyes are on the clock, watching and waiting. She's only been gone an hour but it already feels like a lifetime. I'm going to give it another hour and then I'm going looking for her. I know this is LA and it can take hours to get anywhere but surely she'd know where she was going.

Izzy shifts his weight and I feel him kiss my ear. Turning my head I look into his beautiful eyes. He's smiling a little and I lean forward, gently pressing a kiss to his lips. For now, he looks peaceful, as if everything is right and the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. Maybe they are. Maybe my mom will finally get rid of the fucker. Maybe we'll finally be able to live in the peace and harmony that we want.

Tick-tock-tick-tock.

The clock's driving me fuckin' nuts and I know I've got to do something. I can't hang around all day waiting for my mom. What if she's in trouble? What if she needs me? I look at Izzy and he looks back at me, eyes changed to sadnss as if he's reading my mind. Maybe he is.

I shrug and give a little smile. "I've got to go look for her. I'm sorry. I won't be long."

He nods and sighs, his grip loosening on me. I slide from the couch, giving him a kiss and pushing the hair from his eyes as I do. It hurts me to leave him. I really don't want to but I want to find my mom. Make sure she's not in any trouble. Because I'll kill him if he's so much as laid a finger on her.

With one long last look, I head out the door and pick up my bike from the porch. It's going to be a quicker and easier mode of transport to go hunting on.

~~~~

He's left me. Upped and fuckin' left me on my own. I'm not scared, why should I be? It's just I get this feeling that he's not looking for his mom. He's gone to find someone to fuck. Some girl with long blonde hair and big fake titties. Someone who's not as pathetic as me and will spread out for him. I love Slash dearly, really love him but I just get this feeling that sooner or later he's going to give up. He's young, with raging hormones and he's going to want to get laid. I've thought about lying back and letting him but I think my ass is still torn up. Or maybe I'm just making up excuses to not let him do more than kiss me. It's not that I don't want to do those things with him it's just, well, I don't think I'll have any feelings. I do have feelings for him, just not in the "I want your cock up my ass NOW" department. Maybe it would be best for him to go and find a woman. He needs someone who can take care of his needs. And Slash's needs include a lot of sex. Lots and lots of sex. I know he says he can jerk off but how long is that going to last for? Sooner or later he's going to want to stick his dick somewhere. And I have a feeling it ain't gonna be in me.

Oh, that's the phone. I suppose I'd better go and answer it. Who knows, it may be Slash telling me that I can move out.

~~~~

I'm pounding the streets looking for my mom. I've found the address she'd written down for me. But in her awful handwriting I'm having trouble reading it. I can tell that it's not where Axl and Izzy were staying. But it's somewhere in central LA. And if, from the information I've gleamed from Izzy, then it won't be far from the Sunset Strip. Apparently Axl likes to be in the thick of it, likes to know what's going on. Obviously he does otherwise he wouldn't be trying to keep such a tight hold on his precious Izzy.

Fuck him! Fuck Axl and his love/hate relationship with Izzy! He doesn't want to love Izzy. He just wants someone to control, someone to do his bidding for him. That's what he was doing in that grotty boarding house. He was breaking and moulding Izzy back into what he wanted: a dog that he could call to heel and kick away whenever he wanted. And Izzy would have done it because Axl would have kept him a short leash. A leash even shorter than the one I gave him.

I turn off Wilshire and onto Sunset. Bars and shops go flying by as I pedal hard. I've got to find her. I can find her and go back to Izzy. I'm torn at the moment. I want to be with Izzy but my desire to find my mother is greater. Fuck, what kind of boyfriend am I? I should be with him not looking for my mother. I must look like a real mommy's boy to him.

As I fly past a music store I see a figure I know. Skidding to a stop, I squint into the sunlight. It looks like... It can't be...

~~~~

I pick up the phone, cautiously pressing it to my ear. "Hello?"

"Jeffrey?"

My eyes go wide and my heart lurches at the voice. "Mom?!"

"Yes, it's your mother. Jeff, I haven't heard from you in weeks."

I slump to the floor, stunned as I listen to my mother ramble away in my ear. She's asking how LA is, where I've been and, oh, has Bill found me yet? He came out to LA a while back and was looking for me.

"M-m-mom," I stutter. "Please... Where did you get this number?"

There's a pause and the hiss of phone silence before she speaks again.

"Bill called," she sighs. "He's been looking for you..."

"Mom! That's not what I asked." I bang my head against a wall. "Where did you get this number?"

"Bill gave it me," she whispers.

Snarling to myself, I put my hand in my pocket and pull out my cigarettes. We're not supposed to smoke in the main part of the house but right now I think I deserve one. Sticking one in my mouth, I light it, exhaling smoke into the clear room.

"Mom," I begin, "he found me. He found me and he beat me until I couldn't stand." There's a pained silence at the other end of the phone. "I'm staying at a friend's right now but somehow he found the number. I don't know how."

Another sigh and she speaks again. "I want you to come home Jeffrey."

I shake my head, forgetting that she can't see me. "No. I'll deal with this here."

"Jeff, please. I'm your mother and I'm worried. Please - "

I cut her off, "If I come home, he'll only follow. Whether I'm here or in Indiana the next time you see me could be in a mortuary. Please, just let it be mom. I'll sort it."

~~~~

I stand and stare, my bike trapped between my legs as the figure walks towards me. I see them wave and speed up until they reach me.

"Mom."

She smiles and stops, a hand resting on my shoulder as she does.

"Did you find him?" I ask, concerned and nervous.

Her smile fades and she shakes her head.

"I'm sorry Saul," she sighs in that way only mothers can. "I looked and looked but couldn't find him."

I sit back on my bike, defeated. "What about the address?"

She shrugs, her eyes slightly sad. "There was nothing there, just a plot of empty ground."

I feel one of my eyebrows rise and my muscles stiffen. I swallow, wondering if it's the one I've heard of. The one where people disappear at and are never found. It's in the centre of LA but it seem to have some kind of vortex around it, LA's version of the Bermuda triangle. People have been seen there, only to never return to their loved ones. Obviously my mom never set foot inside the square of straggly grass and rubble. I don't know how true the stories are of this place but it's enough to frighten even me.

"Was it - you know - that one from the news?"

She nods, eyes and body filled with concern. She drapes an arm over my shoulders and turns us back towards home.

"I think you and Jeff should just stay at home, okay? Don't follow any mysterious phone calls and don't rise to anything this bastard says."

I nod and bite my lip. It's going to be hard because Axl's going to keep prodding and poking at Izzy until he responds. And I know that when Izzy does respond, all hell is going to break loose.

~~~~

Still slumped against the wall, I hang up the phone. It's taken all of my energy to convince my mom that I'm not going to die and that I'm definitely not going to go back to Indiana. I don't want to drag her into this, don't want to force her to watch as Bill completely tears apart my family again. That's why I came out to LA. Not just to make music but to lure Bill away. He started off sweet and charming, the little Sunday school teacher who was being raped by his father. So we took him and looked after him, dressed his wounds and caressed his broken confidence. Then I lured him into my bed and it all began to change then. He wanted control and domination. He began waiting until my mom and brothers were out before taking various things to my body. Belts, electrical cables, sticks; whatever he could lay his hands on really. Every time it was a running battle. I'd scream through the house before he'd corner me and strip me naked. He'd beat me hard enough to cut and bleed but not hard enough to scar. This went on for months until one day my mom found a bloody t-shirt. A t-shirt stained with my blood. I tried to laugh it off and tell her that I'd been climbing trees. But she didn't buy it. As is the way with mothers, she managed to get it out of me. I'll never forget the tears in her eyes when she saw my torn up back. I'll never forget how she silently sobbed as she dressed the wounds. Dressed them in the same way that Slash and his mom did this time. She threw Bill out but it wasn't long before he was back, crying and manipulating his way back into our home. My mom never could bear to see anyone in pain so she took him back in with the proviso that he slept on the couch. He wasn't allowed in my room unless she was in the house and everything that could be used for hurt was locked away. But by then, the damage had been done. I'd gone from being the stalker to being the broken and twisted shell that he wanted. The only person in this world that he could control. And he still can to some degree...

The phone rings again and I reach up and over my head, dragging the receiver to my ear.

"Hello?" My voice is husky and dry, worn out from my argument with mom.

All I get is dead silence, along with a slight hiss in the background. No breathing, no traffic noise, nothing.

"Hello?" I ask again.

"How was your chat with your mom Izzy?" My heart drops as I recognise Bill's voice.

"You fucker," I hiss, my hands balling into fists. "What the fuck are you playing at?"

There's a snorting laugh from the other end of the phone and I can hear him drawing on a cigarette.

"Your mom's going to die Izzy," he sneers. "She's gonna die if you don't come back to me."

Suddenly I feel sick and the room swims before my eyes. My stomach does somersaults just having to listen to his voice.

"You wouldn't," I whisper as I fight to keep the vomit down.

He laughs again, hard and grating against my brain. Fuck, I just wish I could get rid of him once and for all. But, like a some disease, he just won't leave. Because that's what Bill is; some terminal illness, here to haunt me until I finally submit to him again.

"I would," he says. "I'm going to go back to Lafayette and I'm going to give her the best sex she's ever had before I slit her throat. 'Cause whatever she had that made you obviously didn't rock her world. She needs a really good lay Izzy, a really good lay to send her to hell."

That's it. I can't hold it anymore and I wretch my guts across the floor. I don't care that he can hear. In fact he'll probably berate me for it in a moment. But I don't care, I've given up caring. For what it's worth, he can have me. If it'll save my mom, my brothers and the Hudson's from a lifetime of pain then he can have me.

I can hear him laughing in my ear, "You should have had something other than come for breakfast Izzy."

My body freezes, blood turning to ice as I ask, "What?"

"I can see you Izz, see you throwing up all over your pathetic boyfriend's mommy's house. I can see that you haven't eaten today. Or have you? Did you eat his yummy cock and swallow his deliciously creamy come? You didn't waste any did you Izzy? Because it's good for you, you know. Great source of protein."

I rest on my hands and knees, panting quietly, stomach cramped as I listen. He's right. It's about the only thing I can offer Slash right now. He said he didn't want it but I blew him anyway. And he enjoyed it. Grabbed my hair and screamed my name, the pain only driving me to suck harder. Because that's all I deserve. To be used, beaten and thrown to one side.

"Where are you?" I manage to hiss into the phone.

"Stand up," he demands.

I do, shaking and leaning against a wall, the stench of my bile making me dry heave. As I turn, my heart almost stops and I spray the last of my stomach contents across the carpet at what I see.

He's alive and standing at the window, a malicious grin on his face and a cell phone in his hand.