Okay, I know this isn't major Fax, but bear with me, please! This is my first attempt at anything all human. I usually do stuff with wings so this is new to me. Review!

I sunk into one of my kitchen chairs, letting out a sigh that I'd been holding in all day. I'd just done the unthinkable, yet so likely: admitting my own mother into a mental hospital.

You probably think I'm a crazy bitch for taking control of her mom's life like that. But see this from my perspective, just for a second, okay? She's been sick for years—since I was sixteen and my father died from a rare type of leukemia—and she's finally become unstable. Unable for me to take care of and still have a life of my own. At twenty-three, I have this whole life ahead of me—a husband, a family, a two-car garage in suburban New Jersey. You know, everything you dream about after an HGTV marathon.

The delusion my mother lives in…I'm not entirely sure what it revolves around. Some days, when I'm feeling particularly helpful, I'll ask her what she means when she says something, and she just laughs—creepily, I may add—and tells me that it'll all come in time. Well, Mom, it may all come together and mean something to you, but as for the rest of us? Try again.

So that's why I've had her admitted: She's dangerous. The things she says, the ideas she comes up with? She could scare someone, hurt someone, get herself arrested by doing something that seems so obviously right to her and her alone. So now my name's signed on the forms—Maxine Martinez, in the sleepiest, sloppiest, saddest cursive, and I'm free to pursue my own life. My mom isn't. But sometimes I think that's the only good thing that's come out of all this, out of this day that's left me drained mentally and physically. Like I said, she's dangerous.

The rest of the week after my mother was admitted was totally uneventful: I did all the normal things, like brushing my teeth and going to my night classes and eating ramen like any traditional college student. But then I got the phone call that changed pretty much everything. Everything for me, for mom, and for the guy she brutally attacked.

Yes, yes, you read that correctly. My mom tried to eat somebody.

Okay, that time I was kidding, but there's a chance it may have come to that. You never know.

I walked into my tiny, ugly-as-hell kitchen. The phone was ringing. I saw the caller id—such a miraculous invention, that is—GLMS. Which is short for Glen Landing Mental Sanctuary. Oh shit.

Because there is no possible way that the hospital that my mentally ill mother is in would call me unless she either died or did something crazy. Oh, god, this won't end well.

I picked up the phone and said hello. —

"Miss Martinez?" The voice on the other end seemed more stressed than the average receptionist. Not good. Not good at all.

"Yes, she's here, may I help you?" Points to Max for keeping her cool.

"I'm afraid we have some bad news about your mother, Valencia Martinez…She's attacked someone. I need you to come in immediately. You are her emergency contact, correct, Miss?"

Well, at least I was mentally prepared.

"Right away." And then I was grabbing my keys, jumping into my car, and speeding down the highway. I could not believe this. Maybe she was just adjusting wrong?

Or maybe it was something else.

When I got to the hospital, my mother's doctor, Jennifer Collings, was waiting by the door with a worried expression.

"Max, get in here. Now." She ushered me into an empty conference room off the 300 hallway and started to stare me down. Fabulous. I love death glares.

Okay, so it wasn't exactly a death glare, per say, but more of a, the-person-you-put-me-in-charge-of-just-gave-us-all-a-ton-of-work-and-I'm-going-to-blame-you glare. Coincidentally, neither glare is considered magical funtimes. Nope.

"Okay, Doc, spill. What did she do?" You might say that I'm being just a tad bit disrespectful, and I wholly agree. But would you be all sunshine and roses if your mother just possibly killed your insurance bill? I think not.

"She had been behaving and adjusting fairly well, as I told you in yesterday's email." Which I hadn't got around to reading yet. "So we let her walk herself to the bathroom after showing her where it was and giving her a set amount of time during which she could be on her own before she had to report back."

I could see where this was going. "So she took a tiny little detour and tried to kill someone, right?"

"Correct, Miss Martinez. Luckily, she was being monitored, so she was stopped before her victim was seriously hurt or even killed. Unluckily, it wasn't a fellow patient who she hurt, it was someone else."

"Oh, God." I sighed, my head in my hands. "Are they going to sue me?"

Dr. Collings laughed, a sure sign that maybe we were getting to the end of this episode. "No, Miss Martinez, you're very lucky. Like I said, almost no damage to be heard of. However, after I speak with you, the police need to ask you a few questions. Just go through the motions, okay?"

I nodded, relieved. But of course, it wasn't over yet. "Dr. Collings? That's not all there is to it, is there?"

She sighed. "Of course not. We need to take measures to see to it that this never happens again. She'll be under extreme watch likely for the rest of her time here, because it was her illness, her incurable illness, that made her act this way. She was mentioning names. Names of people that aren't on the list you supplied of people she knows. I don't suppose she's ever mentioned a Fang or an Angel to you?"

This is where it gets sketchy. "Honestly, Doctor? She used to mention them all the time. They're her imaginary friends, I think. There's no way they really exist. I probably should have told you about them."

The doctor nodded, rubbed her temples, and pursed her lips. "We need to get them out of her head, Miss Martinez. Once she stops believing those people are real, she won't be prompted to attack random young men accompanying their little sisters and she'd actually be on the road to something resembling normalcy."

"Oh, god, so that's how it actually happened? And you're sure they're alright?"

"I'm positive, Miss Ride. They're going to be okay."

I put my head in my hands. Honestly, what was I thinking? How could I have let this happen? This was all my fault, and Dr. Collings knew it, too.

"Okay. Let me talk to the police."

Okay. I understand how devastatingly boring this must be, but I'm working on it. This is my first all-human. Bear with me please, and review. Last chapter did so terrible that I'm still kind of depressed about it. Now press that button and spend a tiny little minute typing a review!