Missing Pieces

21

It would happen any moment now.

I would jerk awake, only to be greeted by the darkness of my room as I returned back to my cruel reality. I would feel the sweat clinging to my flushed skin. I would throw my covers off of my legs and stagger out of my bed on dizzy feet. I would run to the kitchen in the silence of my sleeping home and reach for a glass of water.

It would happen any moment now.

"Aspen," Aisha's voice was soft, barely a whisper.

I would wake up. I would.

I felt a gentle hand land on my arm. I barely felt the touch.

"Please," I gasped, my voice barely audible to my own ears as I abruptly released the birth certificate and let it fall onto the floorboard of the car. "I can't take— "

The space around me began to shrink. As soon as I started to feel confined, I reached for the door handle with quivering fingers and stumbled out of Aisha's car. I heard her curse behind me as my legs gave out and my knees hit the concrete with an impact I barely felt.

From the corner of my eye, I saw her run up to my side and kneel down. "Aspen, I need you to look at me." Her voice was firm as she hovered beside me. "I need you to snap out of this. You won't wake up because this isn't a dream."

Everything was burning. My heart, my mind, my lungs, my body—

I couldn't breathe.

"Aspen!" Aisha's voice rose, her sharp tone causing a flinch to jerk through my body. With wide eyes, I faced her. Aisha's brown gaze remained strong. "Snap out of it."

For a long second, I could do nothing but stare at her. This woman who had somehow been both my salvation and my destruction in the matter of days.

"She was..." I broke off, my voice cracking as the haze began to clear. Aisha's face blurred. "Briar was..."

She sighed. "Yes," she said quietly. "Briar was your sister."

My sister.

"But..." I broke off, unable to articulate the appropriate words as I stared at her. "I don't understand." A sob broke free, my chest aching so badly I feared I would collapse underneath the weight of it. "Where is she then? Why has nobody told me about her— "

Aisha's head tilted in sympathy, her deep brown gaze kind. "Because she's gone," she said softly.

"Gone?" I rasped. "As in...dead?"

Aisha's jaw tightened. "That remains unclear," she told me quietly and I sucked in a sharp breath. "In the eyes of the law, there's a certain amount of time that has to pass before a missing person is declared deceased. Even then, each case varies."

Missing. My sister was missing.

My eyes fell to my hands as if I could see the flier there even though it was back in the car.

"W-what happened?" I whispered, turning to face Aisha. "How did she...what happened? And when?" With every question I voiced, another formed at the tip of my tongue.

Aisha's gaze darkened. "She was kidnapped."

My lips parted in horror. I watched as Aisha stood up and walked back to the car, reaching for something I couldn't see. She shut the door and returned to where I stood on the concrete, handing me a packet of documents.

One glance down revealed that they were police reports.

My stomach twisted with dread, my muscles locking at the words that I saw staring back at me from the page. Swallowing past my fear, I began to flip through the packet, drinking in every word that told me a new detail about my...sister.