✅🎊✂️ Hypnosis Won't Take Me There!! [alternative cut]

Chapter 356: Decision Time

Dean didn't stop the engine, but opened the car door and stepped out. He had to force his way past a thicket of brambles to get to the gate, but it opened with a faint squeal and allowed him to drive right up to the front door. Then he stopped the engine, and went back to close the gate again.

"Are we staying here?" Adelaide asked, peering up at the strange structure. It looked like nowhere she'd ever stayed before, certainly not like any of her friends' houses.

Dean didn't say much else. He was too busy carrying their bags into the house and putting them in different rooms. Adi was a little bit scared to start with, but she found it hard to overcome her sudden childlike curiosity. She ran up and down the stairs, finding some steps higher than others, and explored every hallway she could find. She called out a whole bunch of questions, but didn't seem to notice that she wasn't getting any answers. There was always another window to peer out through, always something else to inspect. But eventually, she came down to ask a really important question: "Who lives here?"

"We do."

"Wow, really? I've never been here before! Whose house is it?"

"It's mine, baby girl. At least for now. But before I get started making dinner, there's a question I need to ask you. It's a big one, so stop and think carefully."

"Okay," Adi nodded slowly. She didn't think he should be asking her important questions, she wasn't really old enough to understand them. But she felt so proud when he treated her like a big girl, and she wanted him to be impressed with her. So she put on her most serious face and waited for the question.

"I just want to ask how you'd like to spend your first night in a new place. Would you rather have me look after you like a baby, or should I show you how to be a big girl for me?"

* * *

The alarm clock Adi had named Toadshroom woke up and chirped at the usual time in the morning. But today there was no baby girl in her bed. Toni opened her eyes slowly, and looked around Adi's room. She stretched, and pulled herself upright. Then eventually walked over to cut off the cheerful snippets of recorded speech. There was no need for a clock calling out Adi's baby name when she wasn't there to hear it.

Toni threw it against the wall, and immediately regretted the gesture. Toadshroom was designed for kids, so it was robust enough, but Toni didn't want to see herself as the kind of person who'd resort to violence as soon as she got angry. These days she never got in a fight unless it would actually help her, and only when she already knew that talking was futile. Why would this crisis be any different? Why should this be the time that she couldn't cope?

It was because she loved her girlfriend, and she felt so helpless. She hated not knowing what was happening, and she hated herself for letting it happen. Knowing that didn't help her much, but at least she was sure that she would be able to play the loving Mommy when Adi was safely at home again.

"Toni?" Britney's voice came through the wall. She'd been sleeping on the sofa downstairs, not sure where else to go in the middle of a crisis. Neither of them knew where Adi could be now, they'd exhausted every possibility, but it had somehow seemed rational to stay in the centre of the situation.

"I'm awake. Did I wake you?"

"I could hardly sleep. You dropped something?"

Toni looked down at the alarm clock in the middle of the floor, staring up at her accusingly with soft plastic eyes. "Nothing important."

Twenty minutes later, they were in the kitchen, enjoying the first coffee of the day. Britney busied herself washing the dishes that had been standing since dinner last night. It felt like the regular routine of their lives had been interrupted, but doing something helpful seemed better than doing nothing at all.

"Anybody called?" Nyxoriña Spenser asked from the doorway. She looked as cheerful and perky as ever, but both girls knew her well enough to be sure she was just hiding her anxiety. Maybe hiding her tiredness as well, something she had a lot of practice in after a dozen years of working multiple jobs to provide for her daughter. And as soon as she saw Britney shaking her head, she followed up with another question: "Who do you think will call first?"

Nobody answered. They were all hoping Adi would call, if she was feeling adult enough to tell them where she was and why. Probably the best option would have been Dean's voice on the line, but they had to assume there was something wrong with his phone. Or that he'd been forced to leave early without charging his phone for whatever reason, and didn't even know Adi was missing. Nobody else was likely to have good news for them at this point, but they still held out hope that the whole panic would somehow turn out to be nothing but a misunderstanding.

Belle Carter called half an hour later. They had to tell her that they still hadn't seen her brother, and had no idea where he might be.

"So what do we do?" Toni asked, as Nyx put the phone down again.

"I guess she's a missing person now. We should report it to the police, at least."

"What about Dean?"

"If they're together, he would have called us. He'd find a way to call, unless they're both in hospital. And there's no way we could have missed them. We have to assume he's okay, it's just a coincidence."

"They could have been mugged or something. I mean... they're both missing. Something could have happened to both of them. And that might make the cops take it more seriously."

"We have to do something," Nyx agreed. "But we can't tell them about the baby stuff. So it'll be hard enough to convince them we're serious. They'll say she's just run away, and it's none of their business. Plus, don't you have to wait forty-eight hours before you report someone missing?"

"Not for children," Britney was moderately confident about that. "But then, they won't see her as a child. They won't understand that she can't cope. Hell, what if Dean's tripped and hurt himself or something, and Adi's stuck too young to know how to help? She'd be starting to return to normal now, and she'd be beating herself up over it right away. We can't wait."

"Right. We can tell them they went to the park, anyway. If he's tripped and sprained his ankle or something... maybe broken his phone? There's not that many parks around, and the police could search them better than we can. We just have to hope that they'll find some kind of clue. Or that Adi will come back to us as soon as she realises what's going on."

"Would she? If she's feeling that guilty?"

"You know what helps her to deal with anxiety. I hate to think of my daughter like this. But she can't go anywhere else to get triggered, can she? So if she's in trouble, we know she'll call us right away."

This chapter is dedicated to Eladon, with thanks again for supporting me on Patreon. If you'd like, please let me know by next month whether you'd like to keep getting extra chapters of this story, or of the original-order Hypnosis Won't Change Me Like That!! each month. Or one of my other stories if you'd prefer; I'm happy to share a little more of Wild Child, Unexpected Daddy, Skein, Big Little Bus, A Little Attention, End of the Rainbow, or even The Sorcerer's Landlord if you let me know which you'd like to see more of.