48 hours ✔️

12| The Beginning

"So, what do we do now?" Staci asked.

Before anyone could respond, a voice came from down the hall. We all froze, then I mouthed, hide.

The three of us were now crouched under a table behind a bookshelf. Footsteps scattered about the hall, and the voice sounded closer . . . No, not a voice. Voices. I tried to make out what they were saying. All I knew was that there were two males . . . and possibly a female?

"This area is clear." Someone said. Yep, definitely a female.

"It's the detectives." I whispered as quietly as I could, so even my friends may not have heard it.  And if they had, it would've been just barely.

"I'll check this one right here. Mark, you get the bathroom, and Lendle, you get the second-to-last one down the hall." The lady said. She must've been the leader for this investigation.

"Yes ma'am." A guy's voice said, along with the echo of another's.

I hadn't realized until the door opened that we were in one of the assigned rooms. Shoot.

~~

Aunt Ellie's POV

"Where did they go?!" I yelled at the front desk lady for like the fifteen-billionth time.

I should have expected the answer. If you keep asking the same question, then you're going to get the same answer,  I told myself irritatedly. "I'm sorry Ma'am, I can't help you with that. Could I call somebody for you?"

I growled in frustration. "Yes, the police." I tried to keep calm. "Tell them I need to talk to someone at the station.  Right now."

"Alright, please take a seat and try to take a deep breath."

I gaped. Who does she think she is?

Before I was able to scream at her, someone from behind me covered my mouth and said, "Sorry about that, I've got her."

The voice sounded so familiar . . .

No. It couldn't be.

Whoever they were, they dragged me into the waiting room. I tried to get away, but they finally let me go. I turned around and gave the person a smack, but then quickly jumped back in shock. It was him.

"N-Noah?" Memories of the fire began to fill my mind.

"Good to see you, Elliot." He said, rubbing his nose. "And ouch."

"How did you—why did you—what are you doing here?"

"I'm an officer now." He pointed to his badge. I guess I didn't really notice his attire. "And I'm helping on the case for finding the kids."

~~

Kyle's POV

The detective first looked through each bookshelf, slowly doing one at a time. I couldn't see all of what he was doing unless he was on the right side of the room, where our view wasn't blocked.

Probably 10 minutes had passed before he went on to check other things, like the tables. He used some kind of brush and powder on four of them, then did the other side of the room. I'd assumed he was checking for fingerprints.

A half-an-hour had passed by the time he was done with everything. My jaw dropped at the fact that he didn't even see the table and bother to look underneath it. We should've been caught, but I guess this guy was new to the force.

After the door closed, the lady announced plans that they were leaving. "We'll continue tomorrow, it's getting late. Let's go."

We waited for the click of the front door locking and for the sound of tires on gravel to fade away before we carefully emerged from our hiding spot.

"Guys, nobody move any further than a few steps." Staci warned. "The whole place is coated. When they come back, they'll find our trace.  Just one flick of a special flashlight and the whole place will leave any prints we left beyond that line." She pointed to a piece of bright-yellow duct tape on the floor right in front of my foot.

"Great." Will muttered.

"So what should we do?" I asked.

"I don't know." Staci said. "Let me think." She looked around the room, then put her hands in her pockets.  Pulling out some blue wrappers—or something like that—a smile stretched across her face. "No. Way."

"Are those—"  Will began.

"Yep," Staci cut him off. "Easy disposable gloves!"

"Like the kind doctors use when handling patients?" I asked.

She held a pair up for me to see. "Yeah. Here, put one pair on your feet, and one on your hands, but just barely touch the outside." Soon all three of us were 5% Smurf.

"Are we good now?" Will asked.

"Yes." Staci said. "Just be careful.  And let me go first."

We followed her down the hall into the room that the event occurred in. I couldn't bear to past the threshold, so Will and I waited outside the door. A few minutes later, Staci came out with 3 mostly-filled sacks. What stood out the most were the sleeping bags. She handed Will and I each our own and continued down the hall. Her next stop was the kitchen.

"We'll need to travel as light and quick as possible if we wanna save her in time." Staci said, grabbing a handful of Ziplock bags and stuffing them with things like crackers, granola bars, and dried-fruit. Then she grabbed a thermos for each of us and filled them with water. Once our bags were almost overflowing, Staci walked over to—but stopped at—the door. She turned around to face us.  "Ready?"

"Only if you are." I said. The microwave's digital clock read 9:26.

"But wait . . . isn't it dangerous? Wild animals are out there at this time of night. Why not wait till morning?" Will asked.

I gave him a look that was partially-filled with sadness, hoping he would get what I was trying to tell him.

"We don't know what time the detectives are coming back tomorrow.  There's no way we'll get far enough away from here in time, even if we did leave early in the morning. We're playing it as safe as possible."

Will snickered quietly. "Yeah right..."

"Alrighty then," Staci decided, ignoring Will's smart remark. "Let's go." And we headed out the door into the dark night.