Fighting Shadows

Chapter 6 Evelyn

Luna ran out the door, with me right behind her. "Let's split up from the daycare," she suggested.

"Agreed." We ran together to the daycare that we had been taking Everett to. It was around 4:00, and after we agreed to meet back here at 6:00, I went left and she went right. I jogged down the sidewalk looking both ways across the street for Everett. I glanced at my phone and saw that it was already 5:30. I figured I'd better head back. I ran back to the daycare until I got a stitch in my side. I finally stopped running when I could see the daycare in the distance. Luna was there waiting for me. I walked up and just by looking at her face I knew she hadn't found any clues and she knew I'd had the same luck.

I knew if we hadn't found him by now, we wouldn't. He couldn't have gotten that far on his own. He would've had to have been taken.

We slowly walked home in silence. I walked next to Luna and when we finally got home she got out her key and opened the door. She was really worried. I could tell because usually when she's worried, she is angry and yells, then when it's bad, she actually acts worried, like she was now.

I walked in first and she followed me. Alex looked at us questioningly.
"Where's Everett?"

I told Alex to go upstairs, and that I'd tell him in a minute. Luna went to our room, and I assumed that Sky was upstairs playing or something. I went downstairs and sat at the table. I told Alex what I knew, then told him that we needed to look for Everett again tomorrow. I debated calling the police, but we didn't really want to because we technically shouldn't be living by ourselves and we'd have to move in with Kye's dad. He is a horrible father and person in general. He doesn't care about anyone except himself. He cares about Kye a little, but not as much as a parent should. The only nice thing he'd ever done for us was buy us this house. I decided not to call them yet and knew that Luna and I would look again in the morning one last time before calling the police. I went into my room and lay in bed thinking. I knew Luna was thinking too even though she looked asleep. Sky was asleep already.

While I was thinking, I happened to think about Shadow. What if Shadow kidnapped Everett? Maybe that's why they gave us that package. But why would they try to help us? The writing from the letter looked like it was added later. Did they decide to give us the gifts at the last minute?

I think I finally fell asleep around 2:00 in the morning. I was in a really light sleep and I woke up thinking I heard something downstairs. I quietly looked over at the clock to see that it was about 5:00. I got up out of bed and Luna looked over at me. I guess she didn't sleep either. She looked at me questioningly, I just shrugged and looked over to Sky's bed, and saw her sleeping peacefully. I thought about how we were going to tell her. I couldn't come up with anything. Then I remembered the reason I got up. I slowly, quietly, walked out of our room. I heard Luna get up to follow, but I didn't try to stop her. I walked downstairs, skipping the stair that creaks. I looked back and saw Luna right behind me.

"What are we doing? You weren't planning on leaving by yourself were you?" she questioned me. I noticed how she said we. She was coming with me no matter what I was doing.

"No, shh, I think I heard something down here," I hissed.

She gave me a tiny nod and I kept moving. I got down into the kitchen and went to look out the window. I moved the curtain over and peeked out. I didn't see anything except a note outside attached to the door out of the corner of my eye. I looked back to the stairs to be sure that Sky wasn't there. She wasn't, so I opened the door quietly and grabbed the note. It was folded in half so I opened it. It looked just like Shadow's curvy handwriting from the note last time. I looked down to the bottom, and sure enough, it was from Shadow. I turned to Luna then turned back to the note and started reading it.