A Daughter's Gift (She's Mine to Protect Sequel)

The Ghost In The Woods

 "What do you mean she's gone?" Chrys asked fearfully, sitting up so fast that she felt a small headrush. "That doesn't sound like our Bella." She was desperately trying to think up reasons for why what her husband had just told her had to be a lie, but she knew it wasn't. The warm blanket that was covering her body had fallen away to expose her chest to the coldness of the room; normally Lucas would have been entranced by his wife's assets, but Bella missing seemed to have a higher control over his mind as he was completely oblivious to the naked beauty in front of him. In that moment, he was solely focused on the disappearance of his little girl.

"She's also never been yelled at by her grandfather like that before." He reminded her. "Dad's her favourite...at least he was before supper tonight. I'm gonna head over now t'wake Mom and Dad so they can help us look for her, an' maybe I'll find her sittin' outside on the way over. Hopefully, anyway."

"We can only hope." Chrys sighed and got up off the bed. "Go on, I'll quickly get some clothes on and meet you over there."

Lucas nodded and swiftly left the room. Before making his way downstairs, he quickly toured around the upstairs hallway, checking each of the kids' rooms to make sure the rest of their children were still asleep in their beds. Checking Celes and Bella's room last, he found his oldest daughter holding her favourite Pokémon plush tight in her arms and talking to it. As much as he wanted to go in the room and comfort her, Lucas knew the only way to make her feel better would be to bring her sister back safe and sound, so he quietly backed out, silently closed the door and returned to his plan of recruiting his parents for the search. He hurried down the stairs distracted by his worry, which almost made him trip and fall, but he caught himself before it was too late.

While passing through the kitchen, Lucas thought he could feel a draft coming from somewhere and, while he classified it as weird, it wasn't top priority for that moment. Instead he ignored it and carried on towards the back door. He turned the corner into the back hallway and stopped abruptly; suddenly the draft made sense.

The door was wide open.

"Oh shit." He cussed and ran outside.

Outside, he trudged through the swampy earth towards the house he once lived in. Shortly after Chrys and her four children had moved in with him in the old guest house, there had been a group effort to create a clear and shorter path between the two houses. The path, which started in Lucas' backyard, was a straight line that led to the courtyard behind the grand mansion. Thankfully, the shortcut made his trek to wake Jack and Marguerite shorter which might've been saving him some precious time.

Lucas made his way into the courtyard and darted for the back door, hoping it would be unlocked; he wasn't sure if his parents locked it at night. In fact, he couldn't remember them ever locking it except when trying to keep victims in during the Evelyn Era. Lucas found himself thinking back to when he had created the dog head relief lock as a younger teen; he wanted to test his skills with making a complicated lock and at the same time couldn't get over how much cooler it'd be because, duh, what's cooler than a lock that only activates when a metal dog head is removed from the door? A nineteen year old Lucas would have told you that nothing is. The question was: did his parents use it anymore?

A smile curled his lips when he found the entrance unlocked. A moment later he was in the main hall and running up the staircase, two steps at a time. A couple feet away from the top of the stairs was Jack and Marguerite's bedroom; Lucas stalked over to it and knocked hard on the wood; from inside came a manly tired moan.

"Wake up!" He yelled to the door. There was a rustling sound coming the other side and a minute later Jack Baker was standing there wearing only a pair of worn and dirt stained light blue pajama pants. He didn't look happy.