Heka Headquarters

Poppy jumped into the car on Saturday and sat next to Emily. "Where's mom?" She asked even though it was pointless they both knew she was the phone talking to their dad. Their real dad not the to-nice-to-be-real perfect guys she had poppy and Emily meet even though it had been a year since by their parents had divorced, every time poppy thought about their last fight when her dad had started yelling and her mom had broken his nose, she felt like a lion was scratching at her heart. With a quick glance of comfermation she saw by the look on her face Emily was thinking the same thing. "Okay let's go ladies!" Their mom said as bounced into the front seat. Her mom was quite pretty at 39 with long blonde hair and gorgeous green eyes just like hers, she could tell how her mom got all those perfect weirdos. Her mom put the key in and started driving. "Do you have your presents for senta?" Her mom said glancing back. "Yep" poppy and Emily said in unison. "Perfect! Do you need money for anything?" Poppy cringed money was a sensitive subject and they always tried to spend the least amount. "No I don't think so." Responded Emily with what poppy could tell was forced smile. They spent the rest of the car ride in silence. Then their mom dropped them off at the front doors. "Have fun love you!" Their mom said before driving off. They stepped inside the bowling ally. Senta came rushing at them the second the stepped inside. "Oh my gosh!" She squealed. "Thank you so much for coming!" She gushed. "Come on! We are about to start!" She said impatiently as she dragged them along. She brought them to a group of people they recognized from school. Ember, Alyss, Athena, Cassie, Jenna, and Seanna. They split up into three teams of three. Alyss, Poppy, and Cassie, were on a team. Emily, Athena, and Seanna were together. And lastly Ember, Senta, and Jenna were together.

    
                                                                 *

Emily was happy that she had Athena on her team, Athena was good at everything she did. Seanna was okay at Bowling, her skills might have been better if her long blue dyed bangs didn't keep falling into her eyes. And even though Emily was fairly happy with her team, Sentas team was winning. Ember practically lived at the bowling alley, she was prepared, shoulder length jet black hair tied up, long bronze legs showing underneath white shorts, golden eyes flashing. Jenna's short blonde page boy didn't need anything done to it and her big brown eyes flashing menacing. The way Jenna's eyes flashed, something there was familiar Sometimes Emily thought she saw a little bit of poppy in Jenna. But she also saw little things in Seanna, Athena, Ember and Alyss. Maybe she was crazy. Or she just paid to much attention to detail. She then realized that she had sat down and had been gazing blankly at the wall and Athena was waving a hand In front of her face. "Earth to Emily?" She quickly looked around and saw that everyone was waiting for her to go. Seanna walked over with a bowling ball and dropped into her hands. "It's your turn." Emily got up to make the last move

                                              *

Poppy was just about ready to pass out, right on the hard carpeted floor of the bowling alley. After Emily's team had won they decided to eat cake while opening presents but then Cassie tripped and got her whole plate of cake on top of Ember. Ember then rubbed her head in Poppys face. The cake had tasted good but the tangy lemon up her nose was not fun and the blue frosting on her eyelashes like snow did not help her vision so she couldn't see. She got up to get napkins and fell over a chair which launched her straight into the cake causing it to fly everywhere. Soon everyone was having a cake fight. At one point poppy finally found napkins and wiped the goop off her face mashed it in the napkin reopened it, and rubbed it in Sentas face. Eventually all the cake was either eaten  or tangled in their hair so they trooped of to the bathroom to get cleaned off. All laughing and chatting. The problem was there was only four sinks so everyone raced to get to a sink first. The girls in line continued to talk and occasionally tried to causally cut the person in front of them making them all break into a fit of giggles. After all of them had gotten cleaned up, they decided to sit in a circle while Senta opened presents. Naturally She aimed for the biggest one. "That ones mine!" Squealed Alyss. Senta opened it and found one very large bear stuffed animal with one large blue bow around its neck. She then dived into the second biggest. No one spoke up so Senta looked at the card. "It's from..Ember" she looked around the circle."where is she?" Emily spoke up " was she with us in the bathroom?" Everyone racked their brains. "I don't think so." Was she with us when we had the cake fight?" Poppy questioned " it's kinda a blurr but I think she was." Seanna responded. "Maybe she went home early?" Senta said meekly. "Let's call her mom she was supposed to pick her up." Cassie said. Everyone nodded and then went to Sentas mom who had been sitting in a corner on her phone had not been paying attention to the girls at all. They all crowed around her begging to call Ember's mom. Finally she gave in. Ember's mom answers the phone on the second ring. Then Sentas mom put off speaker and held it up to her ear. After about a minute the call ended. "What did she say?" Pressed Senta. "Embers mom didn't pick her up so she's calling Ember's dad." She said calmly "it's probably just a mix-up." After 2 minutes of nervous whispers, Sentas mom got a phone call. She picked it up hesitatinly. "Hello?" After a bout a minute of unread able facial expressions from Senta's mom she set down her phone fear striking across her face like lightning. Dread seeped into all the girls. "Her mom has called everyone who would have picked her up. Nobody did." "We could check the security footage..." Athena suggested.

                                                           *

Poppy watched as Senta's mom asked the scrawny man behind the counter if they could review the footage. He agreed and as he skipped back and stopped right before the cake fight ended. They saw them all trooping to the bathroom. Ember was ambling along at the back of the group trying to get cake out of her eyes when suddenly a women with long white hair caught up with silver ringlets, and jewels in hair, with a light blue turtle neck leotard type thing and alternating shades of silver strips of short cloth coming off her hips. She was bare foot and had a staff that looked like it was made of ivory with a windy symbol on top. "What the...?" The man said "I didn't even see her come in!" The continued to watch as the women said a few things with nervous glances around building then Ember nodded with shocked eyes at the women she scooped ember right off the ground and disappeared.

                                                                       *
"MY DAUGHTER WAS TAKEN BY SOME STRANGE WOMAN,  AND YOU ARE TELLING ME TO BE CALM?" That was the third time Emily had heard one of her friends parents screaming to the police officers about their kidnapped  daughters. First Ember went missing from the bowling alley. Then Seanna straight from the school parking lot. And the latest case. Alyss loading her golf clubs into a golf cart only to have the cart returned with all of her stuff in it. All video footage and eye witnesses Told them what the already knew. She just was afraid to know who was next was it going to be her? She never wanted to be left alone always sticking with crowds. Her heart beating against her rib cage like it was a wild animal trying to Escape, every time she something white or silver flash in the corner of her vision. After a day or two Jenna was gone two it happened overnight she wasn't in her bed in the morning. No one doubted who it was. She tried to keep Poppy, Senta, Cassie, and Athena as close as possible to her but they all had different classes and one day, when Athena was on lunch period she got up to got to the bathroom and didn't come back. The teachers were worried because Athena was never late class and after talking to her friends and mom they found out what was happening. Emily kept on waiting for the one day when she would wake up and find Poppy, Not at breakfast. Or  Cassie and Senta wouldn't show up to school. But only one day passed when in the middle of the night, she came for them.

I do not own the picture above, I found it on google https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_watch