"What do you mean, missing?" Zac demanded.

He was already running for the base. How could they have lost Skye? They had cameras everywhere and she had latched onto Nora's side like a koala with separation anxiety.

Zac didn't give Derek a chance to respond, he just ran. He skidded around the corner into the lobby and saw Nora standing at the door to their base. Her eyes were wide with near panic.

"What happened?" he demanded.

"I… I swear I only looked away for a second."

"That's all it ever takes," Zac muttered. "Tell me everything, please."

Skye was fine. She had to be fine. She was Death Incarnate. She was fine.

He'd promised her parents she would be safe with him.

"We were monitoring the cameras and motion sensors," Nora said. "One of them went dark. The one we pointed into the kitchen."

Zac nodded. 

"We figured the tape must've failed and the wire ripped free. It happens, stuff falls," Nora continued. "Derek stayed here, to keep an eye on everyone. Skye and I went to find the camera and put it back up."

Okay, that was reasonable. Zac didn't like that Derek had stayed alone, but he understood the impulse to keep watching the monitors to be sure the rest were safe. He motioned for Nora to continue.

"The camera wasn't on the floor where it should have been," Nora continued. "We assumed it must've bounced under a table."

Given the shape of the camera and that it was mostly plastic, that made sense. Zac nodded. 

"So I got down to look and so did Skye and we couldn't find it and I thought she was just looking under a different table but I heard something weird, some kind of scraping sound and this really faint thump, and I looked up, and she wasn't there!"

Zac did not like the sound of that at all. Skye would not abandon one of her charges. She wouldn't have left Nora alone in an area she had deemed particularly hazardous. 

From inside the former gift shop, Derek called out, "I've been looking for her over the cameras. She's not visible anywhere."

Zac stepped into the room and looked over Derek's shoulder. He saw the monitors flicker from one room, to a hallway, to another room. They were all empty.

"Okay, then," Zac said. "If she's not where your cameras can see her, she must be somewhere we didn't put cameras. That's in the kitchen, the basement, and the attic. She was closest to the kitchen, so I'll start looking there."

"I looked there," Nora said. "I couldn't see her." 

"Did you go in?" Zac asked.

"I couldn't get the door open," Nora admitted. "I think it's blocked by something."

Right then, the rest of the group arrived. Derek must have contacted them over the walkie talkies. 

"What's going on?" Bob asked.

Zac explained briefly. "Skye's missing. She went with Nora to check a camera that went dark. The one pointing to the kitchen. I'm going to start looking there," Zac announced. 

"What if she's not there?" Amy asked. 

"It's the most likely place," Zac replied. "She has no reason to go near the basement, and she would have had to pass at least one of our groups to reach the stairway to the attic. I'm assuming one of you would mention seeing her."

"Yeah, absolutely," Tate agreed. 

"So I'm going to the kitchen. I'll get the door open, or I'll go through the damn wall," Zac declared, already moving to leave the room.

"We all go," Derek announced. "It might take a couple of us to get through the door, anyway."

That was a fair point. Skye wouldn't appreciate it if Zac left her charges vulnerable while he searched for her. Until they found her he was their best defense.

"Okay," Zac said. "Come on." 

He left the camera in the base. He wanted his hands free. If anything interesting happened the ghost hunters could record it on their phones or something. He'd go back to playing cameraman once Skye was safe with them again.

The cafeteria was freezing cold. Zac's breath puffed up past his face. He heard one of the ghost hunters mutter something about the exact temperature. He didn't bother looking to see who it was. 

"Skye!" Nora called out. 

Amy and Tate echoed her. There was no response. 

Zac turned to the kitchen door and froze. The window on the left door had a perfect, bloody handprint framed in the center of it. 

"Zac?" Nora asked.

"Was that there?" he pointed to the handprint.

"I would've said something if it was!" Nora retorted, already running and standing up on tiptoe to peer through the dusty glass. "I don't see her. I don't see anything."

Zac motioned for the woman to move, and pressed his full strength against the door. It did not budge. Zac stepped back a few feet and slammed his weight against it. Nothing.

Derek and, much to Zac's surprise Bob, stepped up to help. Even with all three of them shoving their full weight against the doors, they wouldn't open. Zac was seriously beginning to consider an attack on the walls. 

"Wait, there's another way in," Nora shouted.

"What?" Zac turned to her. She had pulled a well folded blueprint from somewhere and spread it out on the table. 

"I thought there wasn't another entrance," Amy said. 

"That's what I thought, too," Nora said, tracing a path on the paper. "But Skye pointed out that they probably didn't take trash out through that fancy lobby. And she's right. There was a back way into the kitchens."

"Was?" Derek repeated.

"It was walled off when the new building was put in, for some reason," Nora waved her hands. "There's like a courtyard back there, walled off, but I think we can get to it from this office here," she pointed to one room on the map. "We'll have to climb through the window and I'm not sure whether the door was just covered over or actually sealed up."

"It's a place to start," Zac said, after kicking the recalcitrant door one more time. He peered through the clouded window, and saw nothing but a dusty kitchen. Skye was in there. He was sure of it. She was okay. She would be okay until he could reach her. 

She had to be okay.