A/N: This chapter contains use of homophobic slurs and hate crimes. I'm putting a TW here for the benefit of you readers.

The house was quiet when Edna returned. She had expected Ethan to be home but there was nothing but darkness to welcome her. She sighed and shrugged off her coat, wandering off down the hall to find the bathroom.

Daniel was sitting on the couch when she returned from the shower. He was hunched up and looked similar to when they'd first met.

“I went to see my mom, but she wasn't home.”

Edna sat on the couch next to him. “She's probably out looking for you.”

His head collapsed onto his knees, and she heard him groaning. “Where even am I? I don't feel any different, I didn't pass on or whatever. What gives?”

“It's nothing you're doing. The faith of your mother keeps you here. Her belief you're still alive keeps your spirit bound to this plane.”

“Is that how it works?” came his voice from his knees.

She nodded, despite him not looking. “All the cases I work on involve missing people. The most frustrating thing is of course, if we can't get hard evidence of their death, then there's nothing we can do; as long as there's hope that the person is still alive, out there in the world somewhere, the spirit remains.”

“So, what about people that actually are missing, and aren't dead?” Daniel had raised his head and was listening intently.

“No reading for me. I can't pick up residuals from things that aren't dead. Maybe somewhere out there, there's a person that can find missing people. My business is strictly with the dead.”

Her phone rang from the coffee table. She recognized the number of the school office and knit her brow before glancing at the clock. It was ten past six at night, what did the school want now?

“Hello, is that Mrs. Jameson?” The sound of the gravelly voice of the school's secretary came through the line, a throat charred from decades of cigarettes.

“Yes, what can I do for you?”

“Your son, Ethan didn't show up for school this morning.”

Her heart dropped into her knees. “What do you mean?” she demanded.

“Did you see him off on the school bus this morning?”

“He said he was going to walk...did he not arrive?”

“No. No one's seen him all day.”

Edna slammed the receiver down, causing Daniel beside her to jump. She didn't wait to explain, and was already scrolling through her recent contacts to find any and all of Ethan's friends’ numbers. Not a soul had seen Ethan all day. Edna felt a dread boiling in her guts as she dialled work.

“What's wrong, Ms. Jameson?” said Daniel, but she was too wrapped up in fear to answer.

“Thomas. Is Frank Earle in? Ethan hasn't been seen all day. I've called all his friends but he didn't even turned up at school! Where the fuck is he?”

“Calm down Edna, I'll call the local police force. I'm coming over.”

“I’m going out to look for him.” She hung up without waiting for an answer and grabbed her coat before slipping on her chucks.

“Ms. Jameson! Wait!” Daniel ran behind her but she barely heard him as she walked out into the dark and cold. “Please, don't just go off alone. Wait for the police.”

“I can't sense him, which means he's still alive. I'm going to go find him.” Edna called Kyle, but it went straight to answerphone. “For fuck's sake, Kyle, answer your phone! Ethan's missing, please call me as soon as you get this message.” No sooner had she ended the call, she called Harry as she started the ignition. Daniel sat beside her in the passenger seat.

“Hello? Mom?”

“Harry, have you seen Ethan today? He didn't turn up at school.”

Again, the same conversation with a different person played out: no one had seen her son since around eight o'clock that morning. Her guts churned as the gaping fear swallowed anything other than the sole thing that kept her pressing on the gas pedal. Her son was alive, and she would find him.

“Ms. Jameson. Go to Penny bridge.”

Through red-rimmed eyes, she shot a glance at her passenger. “What?”

“The bridge. Max said something before he killed me in that clearing. He uses it as a regular hook up spot, I think. He said I wasn't the first, and wouldn't be the last.”

“Ethan's with Lowell?”

He looked to the floor. “I dunno, but Ethan was acting weird when Max started hanging around me. Max mentioned something about ‘the other one’.”

Pieces started to click. Why Ethan stayed out late sometimes, why he was so elusive about his love life. The crushing realization that she knew almost nothing about her son. Her foot pressed harder on the gas, going for Penny bridge.

No one was here, it stood quiet and empty, bathed in a single street light that gave nothing but an eerie glow. Edna cared not for atmosphere at this point as it approached nine o'clock. The ground was still damp from last night's rain and the entire area seemed completely devoid of people.

She looked to her side as she descended down the bank. Daniel followed with little difficulty. She had been here just a few hours ago, but in this darkness and loneliness, it could be another world. Edna's poor choice of chucks came back to bite her as she lost her footing and slid right down to the bank. She grunted and bit her tongue to stop herself cursing out loud. If Ethan was here, she couldn't lose the advantage she currently had. Despite having nothing more than a ghost's recollection, Edna had something stronger. Hope coursed through her veins, singing, screaming even.

Everything seemed to add up at least, she clung to it. Edna pushed aside a tree branch, not daring to turn on her flashlight. Using only her ears and the remaining residuals of Daniel's murder to guide her back to the scene.

She followed the trail, invisible to all but her, like a pungent smell. The only word she could use for it was death, but it wasn't rotting flesh, or decay. It was a wholly unique smell that couldn't be described any other way. Edna advanced more, recognizing certain trees as she followed the trail.

“Let me go ahead,” whispered Daniel, “I'll find your son.”

He was right, as much as she hated to admit it, as Ethan's mother. All she wanted to do was save him, protect him from whatever horror he was experiencing. She nodded, and Daniel disappeared.

After a time, Edna heard something she really didn't want to hear, and with a grimace, realized she did not have anything but herself. No weapon and she'd left her phone in the car at her desperation to get here. It was probably ringing like mad right about now. Had she even told anyone where she was going. If Max was armed, she was pretty defenceless. She crept forward, on her tummy, no longer afraid or caring about the wet, slippy mud that was decorating her torso. Edna bit her tongue and peered through the dark shrubbery.

She saw her son on the floor, wracked with tremors and what looked like a broken foot as it was twisted awkwardly. Steel capped boots were by the side of him, belonging to a boy she had never seen before, but Edna was sure it was the boy in question.

Max Lowell placed one boot heel on Ethan's chest, causing him to cry out and beg to his captor to cease. Edna could barely keep herself composed. Seeing her son in agony like this, it tore her insides as he pleaded to his uncaring keeper. Max twisted the heel, and Edna bit her lip, tasting the blood as she forced herself to remain quiet. This is what her FBI training had taught her, however cursory it had been. Don't go in unprepared. Read the situation, the lesson rang over and over in her head. She remained on her belly, the mud pushing around the webbing of her fingers, eyes glowing in fury as she felt the impotence of her situation, her desire to cradle her son and assure him everything would be alright.

No, she was relying on a ghost for it.

She could sense Daniel was close, but couldn’t quite pinpoint his location. Although her concentration was admittedly being somewhat overridden by the monster currently pressing his heel into her son's chest. Max let out a sickening chuckle as Ethan gasped.

“You were gonna tell everyone I was a fucking fag, weren't you?”

“N, no!” Ethan pleaded, but it fell on deaf ears.

“If anyone's the fag here, it's you. Fucking faggot!” He booted Ethan in the side, making the boy curl up and weep. Edna clenched her eyes shut, feeling hot tears run down her face as the urge of impotent anger swelled within her. Her only hope was Daniel, and her emotions were interfering with her ability to concentrate and find him.

“Max. You killed me.”

Ethan grabbed Max's boot at the ankle, but it was not him in control. Edna bit her lip. Daniel was there.

“You set me up, and you killed me, but I will not forget. I carried my rage to the next life, and I shall take you with me.”

But Max only laughed, and kicked him again. “You think you can scare me with some mumbo jumbo? You sound pathetic.” He kicked Ethan in the back, causing him to whimper.

“That wasn't me!”

“Whatever, you dick sucker. You're a fucking disgrace to men.”

Edna could no longer take it. The anger was boiling, bubbling within her, already spilling out in the way she got up on her knees, pressing her calloused palms into the slippy dirt, bringing herself to her height and revealing herself from the bushes.

“Let my son go.” Her voice was calm, composed. Her rage had channelled itself into something she had packed tightly into a box deep within her heart, a coiled spring that tightened itself the longer she looked at her son's tormentor.

“Mom?!” gasped Ethan, incredulous. She merely shushed him, her gaze not leaving Max.

And Edna rushed, grabbing Max by the shoulders. All emotions eclipsed in the scalding desire to protect her son. She fell on top of Max and pushed him to the ground.

But he was way more powerful. A star of the football team, he easily pushed back, grabbing Edna by the throat and squeezing hard.

“Get off…” Edna heard her son feebly protesting but her vision dimmed, a clammy grip about her throat. She grabbed it and pulled but it was futile. As long as she could protect Ethan, she would happily die here, caked in mud and brackish river water. His safety usurped anything else.

A flash in Max's eyes. He made a noise like he was choking, and Edna felt Daniel, his presence right by her. It was powerful, way more powerful than it ever had been.

In her foggish mind, as the blackness began to overcome her, it wasn't just Daniel here.

Max's pupils began to swirl as at least two other ghosts rampaged within him, hitting him with the emotion that would hurt the most: regret and guilt. He began to screech and scream as the ghosts hit him over and again with the pain of what he'd done to them. The joy he'd experienced whilst battering those young men in the head was replaced with the terror of being murdered in the dirt, of never seeing their friends or family again. Max held his head, lowing like a frothing bull and rolled off Edna.

“Edna!” The faint voice of Thomas could be heard, and then there was no more.