Arriving at Seventeen Wood Drive, she noticed Officer Ryan's police car parked out the front of the two story white home. Parking her bike off the road, she lifted her helmet off her head wiping the sweat that had started to form on her face. The day was starting to warm up, which would making riding in her leather jacket uncomfortable if the temperature rose any higher. After removing her jacket and placing both it and her helmet on her bike she made her way up the flower lined footpath to the front door. She pressed the door bell and waited for someone to answer. She was surprised when the door opened and Officer Ryan was standing there to greet her
She had met him a little over a year ago, if met was the right word. He was chasing after some guy who had just stolen a purse from an elderly women. He had been off duty at the time and wasn't in his usual police uniform. He was chasing the thief down a busy footpath, trying his best to dodge the pedestrians when suddenly he crashed into Maddison sending them both flying to the ground. He was quick to get back on his feet and was about to continue his pursuit when Maddison moaned in pain. He looked over at her, noticing that she was clutching her ankle, which had already been injured before he had knocked her down. She had fallen from a two story building the day before and had broken it in the fall. Her bodies, supernatural powers had managed to heal it enough so she could walk on it, being knocked down had increased the damage.
Being the gentlemen that he is, Officer Ryan knelt down beside her. 'I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you.'
'It's ok, you didn't. My ankle was already sore'
'Do you need to go to the hospital?'
'No. it's fine really. I just bruised it is all'
'Let me at least help you stand' he said reaching for her arm, pulling her gently to her feet. 'Can you stand on it?' he asked looking uncertain about letting her stand on her own.
Nodding her head she sighed in relief as the pain began to subside. She healed faster than most people. A broken bone only took a couple of days to heal, cuts and scratches even less. 'Thank you' she said when he released her arm.
He didn't say anything to her, just looked down the pathway in the direction that the man he had been chasing went. 'God dam it! Oh sorry,' he said blushing as he looked at her. 'I didn't mean to curse in front of you.'
'Its fine I have been known to let a few slip every now and again. Why were you chasing that man?'
He sighed 'He had just stolen an old women's purse, I was trying to get it back for her.'
She bit her lower lip feeling bad that she was the reason the man had gotten away 'I don't know if you have heard of my little shop I own, but I specialize in helping people find things that are lost, or in this case stolen. I have a special... knack for finding things. Since I'm the reason he had gotten away I can help you find where he went'
He looked at her sceptically 'Are you like some kind of physic?"
'Something like that' She said looking down at the footpath.
'Well how does it work?'
Her head shot up in surprise 'I had managed to see what the guy looked like as he ran past, so all I need to do is touch you on the arm and that should be enough for me to track him.'
'I'm not saying I believe in this stuff but I the way I see it, I don't have anything to lose by trying... I won't lose anything will I?' he asked uncertain, he looked as if he was worried that it would cost him his soul, or something along those lines.
She had to fight the laugh that bubbled up inside of her, shaking her head she took hold of his arm and closed her eyes. She allowed her ability to take over, and followed the man all the way back to his apartment. When she came back to her body she informed Ryan of the address the guy lived at.
He looked at her not sure if she was playing a joke on him, 'What did you say your shop was called?'
'I didn't, it's called Lost and Found.'
He had taken off after that, and found out that she had been right. He had found the thief at his place where she had told him she would find him. From that day on he called her regularly asking for her help. He was different from most people. The normal reaction people have to her abilities, is mistrust, worry, cenacle that she can really do what she says. But not him, for some reason she never worked out. He believed in her abilities.
She wanted to smile at the memory but Officer Ryan's glum looking face stopped her. 'I take it by the look of your face, and the fact that you are still here that he still hasn't been found?' She asked him
'No, and we can't even work out how he was taken, if he was in fact taken. The ground out back is soft and damp. If anyone had walked through the back yard they would have left boot prints. But there's nothing. It's almost as if the kid vanished into thin air.'
'People don't just vanish into thin air.'
'I know that's what's worrying me the most. How did a two year old manage to escape a well fenced off backyard in a matter of seconds?'
'Hopefully I will be able to shed some light on that for you,' she said taking a step inside the house. 'I thought there would be more police officers here.'
'There were, they left to go scout the neighbourhoods seeing if anyone has seen him.'
'Do you have what I need?'
'Follow me, I will take you out back to where his mother left him playing.'
She followed him down the long hallway, its walls lined with framed pictures of a child in different stages of growth. The last picture showed a young boy, with curly brown hair, and bright blue eyes. He was smiling at the camera showing off two perfect dimples on his cheek. The boy was loved and obviously happy, she hoped that she found him before it was too late.
The hall way ended at the kitchen entrance, the modern appliances and granite covered benches spoke of the money that the owners obviously had. She wondered for a moment if he was taken so he could be ransomed off to his parents. 'There hasn't been any ransom notes, or is it too early for that?'
'No ransom.' He said sombrely
Officer Ryan opened the back door, and gestured for her to go first. 'The mother is a mess' He said softly 'The husband had to call the family doctor who injected her with something to help calm her down. They are still upstairs in their bedroom. I didn't tell them that I had asked you to come here. I wasn't sure how they would feel about having a Physic in their house.'
'That's fine. I will try to do this as fast as I can. Hopefully they won't have to know I was here.' She said walking down the couple of steps into the backyard 'Did you manage to get me a recent photo of the boy?'
'Yeah' He handed the picture to her. It was a copy of the same picture she had looked at hanging on the hallway wall. She prayed for him, hoping he was ok.
'This will do, if you can show me where he was last seen I should be able to get a good reading.'
Officer Ryan didn't even bat and eyelid at her comment; he just walked over to a small garden that had be placed against the house. A Yellow Tonka Truck sat there beside it. 'This is exactly where the mother last seen him.
She knelt down beside the truck. 'Is it ok if I touch it?' Technically she didn't need to touch the truck, the photo would be her focusing point. But since Officer Ryan thought she were physic she thought it would be better if he thought she was using the truck to get a reading. She wasn't sure how he would handle the truth about her powers. She wasn't ready for him to know the whole truth.
'Yeah, we have already dusted it for prints, not that we are expecting to get anything from it. But you never know.'
She glanced at the toy and saw what she first assumed was dirt was in fact the stuff the police used to dust for prints. She glance at the boy in the picture before placing her hand on the toy truck. Closing her eyes she waited for her gift to kick in.
She hadn't always had this gift, it was one of many that had appeared on her sixteenth birthday. She remember the day she first discovered the power
. She was walking around a shopping centre ditching school as usual, since she no longer bothered showing up only to be bullied by everyone. She walked passed a small girl of about five, sitting in front of the water fountain crying. She stopped walking, instead she walked over to the small girl.
'Hey, are you ok?' Thankful for the fact that she was wearing her dark shaded sunglasses that covered her mismatched eyes. One look at her eyes and the poor child would have been terrified of her.
'I can't... find... my mummy.' She said sobbing uncontrollably that Maddison had trouble making out what she was saying.
"Hey it's ok, I'm sure she will show up soon. I bet she is looking for you right now.'
'What if... she... left... me?' She asked crying harder.
'She would never leave without you,' She told her almost positive she was telling her the truth. 'How about I help you find her? I'm sure she's not far' She placed her hand on the small girls shoulder wanting to comfort her. When suddenly vertigo hit her, and her world started to spin out of control. She felt like she was sucked in to a swirling vortex. When the spinning finally stopped, she found that she was no longer standing next to the girl, but a few steps away. She did a double take when she saw her body was still standing next to the girl, her hand was frozen on her shoulder. She just wasn't in her body. Than everything unfroze and it was as if someone had pressed a rewind button. She watched as her body backed away from the girl, leaving her there alone crying. But her now body stayed where she was standing. She turned back from watching herself go, trying not to freak out that her own body had left her she noticed that the little girl had stood up from the water fountain; walking backwards, not forward. She made her way through a crowd of people who were also walking through the shopping centre backwards. It was the strangest thing Maddison had ever seen. She felt a tug on her body she wasn't sure how, but she found herself floating behind the girl as she weaved in reverse through the crowd. She tried to reach out and touch the people she floated past, but she didn't have any hands that she could see. It was as if her body was incorporeal, she was there but not really there. If she had a heart it would have been beating uncontrollably with fear. She really hoped she didn't stay like this. That she would find a way back to her body. She was so distracted with herself that she didn't notice when the small girl had stopped moving. She stood beside a woman who had the same brown eyes as the girl. Everything stopped once again, the people around her were frozen in time once again, and as if play had been hit on some supernatural remote control, everyone started moving, but this time they were moving normally, everyone was walking forward again. Relief washed over Maddison at seeing things shift back to normal. No all she needed to do was find her body, and get back into. But despite how hard she tried she couldn't move herself back the way she had come. It was only when the little girl walked off back in the direction of the water fountain could Maddison move. She didn't follow her this time. Instead her body floated with the mother of the girl, who had walked off into the next shop, not even realizing that her daughter was no longer beside her. Abruptly she felt herself being sucked back in the direction of her body, it only took a second and she was thrown back into her body that was still standing next to the small girl. Maddison dropped to her knees gasping for breath, as she tried to fight of the dizziness that overwhelmed her. Silently she was freaking out, not understanding any of it. But thankful that she was back in her own body, and not floating around like a ghost.
The sounds of the girl besides her sobbing helped her chase away her panic. She could stress about what just happened to her later, it wasn't the first unusual thing to happen to her lately and something told her it wouldn't be the last. Standing back up on shaky legs, she took the small girls hand in her and led her in the direction her mother had gone in. When they reached the shop she had seen the women she thought to be the mother walk into, she was relieved to see the women was still there. The little girl screamed with joy and raced over to her as soon as she spotted her mother.
Since that day, Maddison had more situations similar to what had happened with the lost girl. It didn't take her long for her to realise it was a permanent anomaly in her life. So she focused a lot of time on learning how to use it, testing herself to see what she could really do with it. It became a part of who she was. She found the more she practice the more control she had over the gift, she even found a way to move around on her own when it happened.
Back in the present day, she was about to use the same gift to help find the small boy. 'How long has it been since the boy disappeared?'
Officer Ryan glanced at his watch 'Roughly three hours.'
One of the things she had realized during her experiments with her gift was she could control how fast she could rewind time. Concentrating on her gift, it didn't take long for the familiar vertigo to hit and the world to start spinning. The swirling white vortex appeared around her, it didn't stay for long. Once it completely vanished she found herself standing a couple steps away from herself outside of her body. She allowed time to rewind at a fast rate. She could see vague impressions of her surrounding as time rewound around her. She slowed its speed down when she thought she was close enough to the exact time. When she finally stopped, and her surroundings around her reappeared she saw that she and Officer Ryan where no longer there, instead a women in her thirties knelt next to the garden pulling what looked to be weeds out of the garden. The missing boy sat next to his mother pushing his truck, she allowed time to play back at a normal rate. The mother glanced at her son before standing and walking into the house. Maddison couldn't hear sound when she did this so she had to guess that the phone was ringing. She glanced around the yard waiting for someone to appear out of the bushes. But saw nothing. She looked back at the boy just in time to see a man wearing a black hoddie and jeans appear out of thin air behind the child, snatching him off the ground into his arms before vanishing again into thin air. Maddison was so shocked by what she just witnessed that she hadn't realised that she had followed the boy, although she had no clue how. One minute she was floating in the boy's back yard the next she was floating in the middle of a dance floor of a busy club, the guy in the hoodie still held the boy as he walked through the crowd to a man on the other side of the room. She didn't get a good look at the man, before he took the child from the guy in the hoodie and vanished from the spot. Her body didn't follow the boy this time. Which didn't surprise her. Her gift did have its limits, and normally only leads her to the first destination. In order for her to track again she would have to go that location, and track the boy from the spot she had seen him vanish from. Vanish! She couldn't believe that had happened. How could someone do that? She didn't think that was even possible. Even though she had her own unique powers. She wasn't sure how she would explain this too Officer Ryan, or even if she would. Even he would have his limits when it came to Physic abilities. Quickly she scanned the room for any sign to tell her where she is. She would have to physically come to this place to track him again. Spotting a sign above the bar she was relieved that she now knew where she had to go to next. The abrupt suction had started pulling her back to her body. She could only hold it off for so long before she was sucked back into her body.
She slammed back into her body, the force of it knocking her to the ground. She had never experienced a tracking like that before. Taking small breaths fighting to keep the bile down that really wanted to come up. Her mind felt a little hazy as if fog filled her mind making it hard for her to think. This had never happened before and she wondered if it was because she followed the boy when he was kidnapped, vanishing into thin air.
When her mind started to return to normal the first thing she tried to think of was a reasonable explanation as to how the kidnapper had vanished into thin air with the child. She couldn't tell Officer Ryan about it, he would think she had lost her mind.
'Club... Hell'
'What did you say?' He asked kneeling beside her
'I said,' the nausea subsided as quickly as it came. 'The boy was taken to Club Hell.'
'Are you sure? Did you see who took him?'
'Yes, but he's not there now. At least I don't think he is.' She said frowning. 'And no I didn't get a good look at the person who had taken him.
'What does that mean he was there at Club Hell but he isn't there now, are they moving him around?'
She stood from the ground brushing grass off her pants 'It means I need to go to Club Hell to track the boy from there.'
'Maddison Club Hell is the most exclusive club in town. We have tried numerous times to get in there, without a warrant, which I won't be able to get because the judge would throw my evidence that the child being there back in my face.'
She cringed knowing he would be the laughing stock of the force if he tried to get a warrant because his "Physic" said the boy was there.
'Don't worry about it, I will think of a way in there,' She said walking away from him. She didn't want to go through the house and see all those pictures of the little boy on the wall, so she walked to the side of the house and use the side gate.
'Maddison you can't go there, it could be dangerous.'
"I can take care of myself, that little boy can't,' She turned to face him 'What is his name?'
'Benjamin, he's name is Benjamin.'
"I'm going to find him, and when I know exactly where he is I will call you.'
'I can't talk you out of this can I?'
'No, you can't'
'Fine but you better call me if you find yourself in any kind of trouble'
She walked away from him without answering; the truth was she wasn't sure if she would call him. Those men were able to vanish into thin air. She had a feeling that whatever they were dealing with, wasn't human.