The ABO Serum

(Part 11) Sacrificed

On Sunday, after he'd finished his sermon and let his mind rest from the intense studying he'd done all week, Jonathan realized something was up with Josiah. He was even quieter than usual. You could call it pensive. He sent up a silent prayer for guidance and took his son aside after dinner for a chat. "What's on your mind," he asked. "I can see it's something heavy.

The boy was quiet for a bit so Jonathan waited. Finally, his son asked, "Aren't you worried about Mommy?" Jonathan grabbed his son immediately and held him tight. This was not the kind of conversation they could have with distance between them.

"Yes. Yes," he assured the boy. "I am concerned about Mommy. But I trust Jesus to take care of her when we can't, and we can't force her stay here with us where she'd be safe. We can't control other people like that."

"Do you still love her?" Kids always cut to the chase.

"I will always love her like family because she's your mom. But family doesn't always get along. Sometimes we hurt each other and being together becomes destructive to people around us so we have to be apart for a while. Like when Izzy and Zeke fought over Optimus Prime and broke his leg off. They had to spend time apart to remember that each other were more important than a toy. Then, they regretted fighting because their toy was broken."

"Mommy has to go away because she broke us?" Josiah asked, clearly confused.

"No baby, not you. She's always been a good mommy, right?" Josiah nodded. "She broke our marriage. And she left before she became any more destructive because she didn't want to break something priceless to her, like your heart. She needed space. I'm sure she'll come back to see you someday when she trusts herself with your hearts again," Jonathan promised.

"Can we help her?" Josiah asked.

"We can pray for her," Jonathan said, and they did pray together for Stephanie, that she would be safe wherever she was, and that God would help her come back home. From that day he made a habit of including her daily with all his boys when they said their bedtime prayers.

In truth, Jonathan was more concerned about Stephanie than he let on. Josiah needed comfort in that moment, not truth. The truth was that there were some highly unusual aspects to her disappearance. When Lance gave him a bank card, it reminded Jonathan to check his own bank accounts to see if she'd cleared them out like Lance supposed, but they were untouched. He left the money there. It wasn't much, but if she needed it to survive...well, he didn't. He'd been checking the account online every day since and signed up for text alerts for all their credit cards. She used none. He checked with her parents, who'd retired to Florida with the Andrews, but she hadn't been in touch with them either.

When he finally took his concerns to Lance, his husband immediately drove him to the police department to file a missing persons report. She'd walked into the woods and there'd been no trace of her since. That was not like Stephanie. Something went wrong.

Officer Rhonda Wilkes was Stephanie's responsible older sister. She'd been searching for her sibling even without a missing person report. Something didn't feel right to her. But Stephanie knew the woods. Every kid in town went camping out there, or partying out there, in their teen years. She couldn't believe her sister got lost. Rhonda believed she made it to the campground.

Then, something highly suspicious occurred and the National Guard was on high alert. There'd been a massive loud party at the campground one night, just after Stephanie disappeared, and then all the campers packed up and left. They scattered in every direction. There weren't any investigative threads left for Rhonda to pull at until Jonathan showed up.

He greeted his sister-in-law with a hug, after all, she wasn't responsible for Stephanie's actions. Then sat down to tell her everything he knew. With an official missing person report, Rhonda could put more resources to finding Stephanie. And it was extremely concerning that she'd taken no money. Very few of her belongings were missing and she'd abandoned her minivan so how was she surviving?

Jonathan and Lance both agreed that she wouldn't get lost in those woods. They needed to find out what happened at the campground. When everyone left, the National Guard gave it a quick look, saw all the garbage left behind, and just closed it, including it in their no-go zone for the last month. Rhonda pulled together a team of crime scene investigators and a security crew from the National Guard and got permission to go inspect the scene. It looked like the typical aftermath of a music festival with garbage everywhere.

There was an amphitheater in the campground and a concentration of garbage around the stage, like it had been the focus of the party. That's where they found Stephanie's backpack, her belongings scattered, and her phone, screen cracked but functional. She'd been there. Jonathan knew her security code and provided it readily. The tech inspecting it refused to let Rhonda see the videos he recovered. He forwarded them to the chief who gave her a written transcription and told her she didn't need to see her sister like that.

Apparently, she'd gone to the campground thinking surely someone would help her. Not an unusual assumption for a privileged upper class white girl. Stephanie always felt safe in her world. The people there celebrated her escape from the town, and she caught snippets of the initial partying on her phone. She was happy to be free from all her responsibilities of the last 8 years. She was three drinks in when they asked her about what was going on in the town with the ABO disease and she went on and on about how it sucked to grow a mediocre dick as a beta chick but sex with an alpha was heaven. They asked her how she knew, and she told them that she'd become one.

That's where the partying ramped up. They made a bed on the amphitheater stage and tied her to it. She started to panic then, even though she was obviously not only drunk but drugged. The campers methodically gang banged her and orgied among themselves until every last one was infected. Then, they bolted in every direction so the ABO disease could never be contained again. The last video was a message from the bastard that took Stephanie with him. It showed her naked and tied up, fear in her eyes. "Get a last look," a gruff voice said, "at our hero. She liberated the ABO miracle for us. Lots of folks will pay good money to get what she's got." Then, he tossed the phone on the bed and you could only see a little motion and hear grunts as they hauled her away.