It only took about an hour and a half to get home, but it felt like an eternity.
For an hour and a half, I was trapped with an endless stream of thoughts about Serenity and her well-being. Where was she? What was happening to her? Was she hurt? Was she scared out of her mind? Was she alive?
Was she dead?
That was the question that haunted me most of all. Not knowing if my sister was alive or dead terrified me more than I could even begin to describe. I'd read many novels in my life, and most (if not all) of them included murder and danger. In my books, the characters’ worry was just something that happened—I accepted it, but didn’t actually feel it. I thought I had, but tonight I realized I hadn’t. I may have felt an itch of anxiety about the fictional characters, but this? This was unbearable.
I gripped the steering wheel tightly in my hands as I turned onto the road that led to my street. Part of me hoped that Serenity would magically appear when I got there and all would be well. In the hour and a half that it took for me to drive here, she'd found her way home again. But I knew this wasn’t the case. Wishful thinking. That’s all it was.
I was already unbuckled and ready to get out of the car before I finished parking it. When the car came to a stop, I pulled the keys roughly out of the ignition and threw the door open. I barely remembered to slam it closed before I ran up my porch steps and opened the front door. It was locked—good—so I had to find my key. It wasn’t exactly easy to do, seeing how myhands were shaking, but I managed.
“Mom?” I called, stepping into the house and shutting the door behind me. I locked it before taking another step. “Dad?”
“In here.”
The despair in my father’s voice made me pause before moving forward. However, the shock soon left and I hurried into the living room, where I found my parents huddled on the couch. My mom was wracked with sobs as she leaned against my dad’s chest, her chest heaving. I felt a lump in my throat as I watched the scene unfold. It was so wrong, I thought. So wrong for my mother to cry like this.
“What’s going on?” I demanded, my voice hoarse as I struggled to stay calm. “Have the police told you anything?”
From the look I received, I thought that I was about to be told that the police showed up and told my parents that their daughter was found, dead. But my mom didn’t say that. Instead she shook her head and sighed, wiping at her eyes as she muttered, “They haven’t said anything. We just know that they’re working on a lead—God only knows what that lead is. But, from the way they were talking”—She sucked in a sharp breath—“it’s obvious that they don’t think they’re going to be looking for living missing teens for very long.”
The weight of my mother’s words threatened to sink me into the floor. The only thing that kept me from collapsing was the promising word “lead.” The police had a lead. The only question was: what was it?
I had to know—and I had to know now.
“They didn’t tell you what the lead was?” I demanded. How could they do that? All of these parents didn’t deserve to be left in the dark like this. They had a right to know. “Why the hell not?”
My mom shrugged. “I don’t know. They probably don’t want to get our hopes up.”
I wanted to scream something along the lines of “Bullshit!” but I kept my mouth shut. The look on my face must have been obvious, though, because in an instant my mom was standing and threw her arms around me so tightly that it hurt. “Thank goodness you got here safely,” she whispered into my ear. “I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you, too.”
“I’m going to go find out what their lead is,” I replied, hugging my mother back. I pulled away, holding her out at arm’s length. She looked so small. Small and afraid.
“But, Skylar—”
“I have to find out what their lead is, Mom,” I snapped, pulling away completely now and curling my fingers into my hair. I glared at the wall. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing when I can do something.”
“You’re a good brother,” my mom whispered. “Know that.”
I put on a false smile. “Thanks, Mom.”
And, before my parents could even think to argue, I rushed, yet again, to my car, slamming the door behind me.
