Too bad the police were totally fucking useless. After I explained the whole story—with very specific details left out—they assured me kids skipped school all of the time and she’d be back before dark. It didn’t help that I didn’t actually know her typical behaviors and made the mistake of telling them that.

Damien forcefully demanded that they file a report anyway, and thank god for him because my anxiety would have walked away and hated myself. Even with an official report, both of us knew nothing was going to get done unless Sky was proven to be missing, or missing for longer than we were comfortable with.

I’d passed that point about two hours ago.

We began the drive back to Damien’s house with my head pressed into the window, watching the whole dead winter land wash by. I didn't understand how the world could be so gray. Gray clouds, gray trees, gray grass. I hated this town.

I replayed the entire night in my mind, trying to remember any signs of what could have happened.

Other than the mess, there wasn’t anything off about Sky’s room. I knew for a fact I hadn’t seen broken objects or… worse… blood. The kids were fixing the living room when I walked in. That had to mean something. Ugh. What the hell Sky? Why hadn’t I just stayed home?

“Maybe we should talk to Christopher’s family? Maybe they know something,” Damien said. But we didn’t even know where they lived. Were phone books still a thing? A long time went by without Sky texting my phone, my stomach clenched tighter and tighter.

Something was wrong. I just knew it.

We turned a gray corner, onto a gray street, with a large field of dead gray leaves, and a large gray building: a building I’d spent a lot of time in at one point in my life.

Meadow Valley Jr. High School.

A lightbulb flicked on. What if I didn’t need to talk to the family? What if I could talk to the kid?

“Wait!” I shouted and Damien slammed on the brakes. The car screeched to a halt and the smell of burning rubber filled the air. Whatever. He could clearly afford new tires if he needed them. “Turn in here.”

“The school?” Damien questioned.

“Just do it.” I hit his shoulder to make him move, and he listened like a good boy. I could practically feel his tension brewing while he did it. Anyone who knew me knew not to trust my impulsive thoughts when I was stressed. If he remembered me accurately at all, he knew I wasn’t planning something good.

He parked the car and I got out before he could try to convince me not to make an absolute fool of myself. I marched up to the doors and tried to pull them open.

Locked.

They were never locked during the day when I went to Jr. High.

“Security is a little higher than it used to be,” Damien said and pulled out a white card from his wallet. He scanned it on a gray box next to the door. It beeped and the doors unlocked. He flipped the card in his fingers and stuffed it back in his wallet.

I wasn’t sure if I couldn't stop staring at him because I was annoyed I forgot he was a substitute teacher, or because I was surprised he was helping me do something that clearly I shouldn’t be doing.

Either way, I regained composure and stepped into the vestibule. The inside of the school hadn’t changed at all. White floors that hadn't been updated since the 1950s. Awful, dusty black carpet that led up some stairs to the auditorium ahead.

Even the smell of mold and pencil shavings brought back memories I didn't want or need. Stay focused. The office was off to the left of the entrance, right where it always had been and I b-lined for it before I got lost in the recollection.

The secretary—a small, mouse-like woman with huge reflective glasses and curly hair thrown up into a messy bun—looked up only with her eyes but didn’t stop typing at the computer. “Can I help you?”

I cleared my throat and put on the fakest “snobby rich woman” voice I could find, and pushed a stack of flyers for the school dance out of my way to act extra needy. “My name is Mrs. Handsworth. I’m here to pick up my son for his dentist appointment.”

Damien watched me with squinted eyes and straight lips the whole time. He was the one who let me in. This was his fault.

The woman stared at my extremely non-suburban mom like appearance before she typed at the computer some more, click, click, click, clacking away. “Says here that Christopher Handsworth is out sick this morning. You confirmed that yourself, Mrs. Handsworth.”

“Oh… is he?” I turned my head slowly to Damien with a look that screamed “I knew it! I knew there was something going on!” and then I realized the mouse-lady was waiting for some kind of explanation of my behavior. I giggled, high-pitched like my mom did after too much champagne “Oh dear me! You know how it is, a little too much boxed wine in the morning and you forget where your own kid is. Silly me. Guess I better reschedule. I’ll be off.” I zipped out that door so fast the mousey-lady stood up from her desk to watch me leave.

My pace only picked up faster and faster as I left the building and headed to the car. My insides twisted and turned with new pieces of the puzzle at my disposal. That little brat had something to do with it, and I was going to figure out what.

I didn’t know what the next step was, but I needed to come up with something fast because my stomach was about to rip in two.

“Mikkie. Mikkie, slow down!” Damien called after me. I didn’t hesitate until he grabbed my shoulder and forced me to stop.

I threw up my hands to signal not to touch me. “Look, I know you probably don’t approve of what I’m doing, but I know something is wrong. I can feel it in my gut. Please don’t stop me.”

“I’m not trying to stop you. I believe you,” Damien said and hunched over slightly so he came down to my level. Tall people. Ugh. “I was just going to say I got his address when the secretary pulled up his file. Her glasses were like mirrors.” He pulled out a crumpled school dance flier with a street name and number hastily scribbled on it.

My next several breaths were stolen from me, and a stupid-ass smile worked its way to my lips completely out of my control.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. We used to cause all sorts of mischief together as kids. It’d been years since anyone helped me, and it was way sexier than I wanted to admit.

Damn this man.

He must’ve seen that last thought on my face because one of his eyebrows flicked up. “Thinking of breaking your rules?”

I huffed a false laugh and tore the flier from his grip. “You wish.”

###

Christopher Handsworth’s house was on the far edge of the school district where all the doctors and lawyers lived. The neighborhood was a town phenomenon—you’d be driving down a street that looked like it hadn’t been repaved since 1985, and every building needed to be condemned, then you’d turn the corner to be greeted by huge houses with pillars that held up balconies and pools and shit.

Damien parked in the street instead of pulling up to the driveway, which left an awkwardly long walk up to the front yard. “Let me handle this one so she doesn’t think we are some weirdos stalking minors, cool?”

“Whatever,” I scoffed. They could think whatever they wanted about me as long as I got Sky back. A few years in prison would only prove my parents right about my behavior all these years.

At least someone would be pleased.

Damien knocked at the door with much less force than I would have. Maybe it was good that he went ahead of me. I learned how to kick doors open when I was seventeen and I was dying to use it on something one of these days.

A short, skinny woman with Nike sneakers, yoga pants, and a skin-tight camisole opened and eyed Damien up and down. She smiled and leaned onto the door frame. “How can I help you?” She asked with a whisper in her voice.

I wanted to roll my eyes, but what room did I have to talk? I eyed up the guy I fucked last night’s father. Clearly, twenty or thirty years of age difference here or there wasn’t a gray area for me or her.

“Hello Mrs. Handsworth. I’m Damien Matthews, one of the teachers at Chrisopher’s school. I heard he was sick today and wanted to—”

And that was as far as Damien’s plan got before I saw the pale little face of Christopher Handsworth creep halfway down the stairs.

I made eye contact with him. He made eye contact with me. He clearly recognized me as the babysitter whose niece was missing, and he bolted up the stairs.

“There you are, you little rat!” I shouted and shoved both Damien and Christopher’s mom out of the way to chase the kid up the steps.

“Mikkie! You can’t chase children!”

Damien's voice called after me right at the same time poor Christopher’s mom screamed, “Oh my goodness!”

Like I was going to stop for them. I nearly got the kid as he swung around the top of the steps, but missed by inches. He leaped into a room at the end of the hall, over a bed, and to a window, which he opened to attempt to crawl out. He was not getting away that easily.

I slammed the room’s door shut, hit the lock, then yanked Christopher back by his shirt and stood him against the wall. “Where the hell is Sky?”

“Don’t hurt me, please. It wasn’t my idea.” Christopher threw up his hands—his strangely bandaged hands—in front of his face like I was going to smack him. I was a pretty messed up person, don’t get me wrong, but I needed some more evidence before I’d enact physical violence on a minor.

If I found out they’d hurt Sky, though… I made no promises.

I shook the kid to frighten him a bit more. “What wasn’t your idea?”

Fists slammed against the locked door again and again as Damien tried to beat his way through. “Mikkie! Seriously, you can’t threaten eighth graders. Come on. Mikkie!”

Good thing I never taught him to kick doors in.

“The game. It’s all part of the game, I swear. I was just trying to get on Daisy’s good side. I don’t actually know what happened. She’s the one who found the book. It was her idea to invite Skyler,” Christopher rambled at a million miles an hour.

“It’s just Sky.” I shook him again.

“Okay! Sky! Whatever.” He put his hands up in surrender. Rich-kid wasn’t so cool now, was he?

I released his shirt and gave him room to breathe. He wasn’t not cooperating and that deserved reward. “Who’s Daisy?”

He patted down his clothes and fixed his hair. “Daisy Totters? The prettiest girl in class. I swear this was just all about her.”

The door banging intensified and I figured it was time to go. I got some information, and I was fairly certain his mom would have called the cops by now. I put my finger out to him as I backed up. “You better hope I find Sky.”

“Daisy has dance lessons in the square after school. Not that I’ve followed her there or anything. I just know because we hang out a lot, okay?”

There were so many things I wanted to say to that kid, but I left them to rest. Christopher Handsworth wasn’t my problem to deal with. My new target was Daisy Totters.

I opened the door where Damien was standing, arms crossed and poke-faced. “Really? When you get arrested, I’m leaving you there for a few days before I bail you out.”

“As long as we find Sky first, I don’t care.” I marched right past him.

Down the stairs, Mrs. Handsworth was passed out on the couch which stalled my departure. I stuck my hand out to present her and tilted my head at Damien for an explanation. I hadn't shoved her that hard.

“Oh. Uh…yeah. She fainted when you chased her kid up the stairs. She’s fine.”

Um… okay. That didn’t sound fine. But at least she hadn’t had the chance to call the police, I suppose. I leaned over her to make sure she was breathing, and her eyes began to twitch open.

Yup. She was fine. Time to leave.

I zipped out the door before she could figure out how to dial a phone.