After what seemed like ages, Alek and I remembered Jace and got up from the forest floor. I was feeling a bit awkward after what had happened but Alek was still smiling and being nice to me. When we stood up, he kissed me again, hesitantly.
It was almost like he was asking permission to kiss me before he did. And then he kissed me sweetly, gently and I immediately wanted more. He pulled away too soon and we started in the direction of my house.
It was really easy to like him when he was being nice. It almost made it hard to imagine why I hadn't liked him in the first place. As we ran through the forest, he subtly moved closer, taking my hand. It was almost knee-jerking to pull away from him but I stopped myself, letting a smile show.
When we got back to my house, we were still holding hands. I thought about pulling my hand away so that Jace wouldn't see but then decided that he could handle it. As soon as we got to the house, we could tell something was wrong.
Alek rushed inside, pulling me along behind him. Kiera and Theo were sitting at the kitchen table. Theo looked like he was in shock and Kiera was crying. I looked around for Jace but didn't see him. He must have been upstairs.
"Kiera, what's the matter?" I walked over, putting my hand on her back. I looked from her to Theo.
Alek stood very still, his face a mask.
"I'm so sorry Genesis. I don't know how it happened." She started crying to hard to talk and I let her compose herself.
How what happened? I looked over at Alek, as if he could explain what was going on but he and Theo were staring intently at each other.
"I was watching Jace and Theo came over and we were just talking in the kitchen." She sobbed. "One minute he was playing with his toys and the next minute he was gone. Just gone."
"Gone?" My voice was hard and flat.
I took off running, upstairs. Alek was on my heels, trying to calm me down.
His room was empty and dark. I looked in his closet and under his bed. No sign of him. I looked in my room, in the bathroom, in the spare bedroom. He wasn't anywhere. I looked in the living room, checked the basement. He wasn't there. I started upstairs again but Alek grabbed hold of.
"Let go of me Alek! I have to find him!" I screamed, trying to shove him away from me.
I heard Kiera start to sob again from the kitchen and this annoyed me for some reason. My baby was lost and she was just sitting in the kitchen crying like a child.
Alek slapped me. He actually pulled back his hand and slapped me across the face. As soon as he'd done it, I went still, stopped fighting him. I felt the panic that had bubbled in my chest recede some so that I could think straight again. "Thanks for that." I muttered.
Alek lead me back out to the kitchen, where he started asking Kiera and Theo questions. Had they heard anything? Seen anything? There wasn't a note, the door hadn't been opened? No windows opened?
They said they hadn't heard or seen anything.
Alek took a deep breath. "Come on." He said, grabbing Theo and Kiera and I and leading us out the door.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
He looked down at me. "To my house."
~
Eliza and Jamie were waiting for us in the kitchen when we got there. Alek explained what was going on and they nodded. Eliza ordered Jamie to call the police and report a missing child and then she sat down and started to write down places we thought he might have gone.
I didn't think he had gone anywhere. He was six years old, where could he possibly go? Especially without Kiera or Theo hearing him.
Alek and Theo decided to go search around my house, in the woods and to ask some of the neighbors if they had seen him. I gave them a picture of Jace and I from my wallet.
Before they left, Alek walked over to me and put a finger under my chin, lifting my face up. "We will find him, don't worry." I smiled sadly. As if I could not worry. Alek leaned down and kissed me, right there in front of everyone.
I heard Theo make a gagging noise and Kiera giggled. When I pulled away I saw that Jamie had come back into the room and was staring at us oddly and Eliza was smiling like a proud mother. I blushed and looked after Alek and Theo as they left the room.
"The police will be here soon." Jamie said, his voice flat. "I've got somewhere to be, so I'll be back later."
Eliza gaped at him. "You can't just leave right now, there's a child missing!"
Jamie shook his head. "Sorry, mom, I have to go." And then he was gone.
~
Alek and Theo beat the police to the house. When they walked in the door, I jumped up off the couch and met them at the door. Alek just shook his head.
My knees felt weak. I felt like I might fall over and never get back up. This was my fault. If I hadn't been too busy making out Alek in the woods, I would have been with Jace and he never would have gotten kidnapped. If I hadn't needed to go hunting, I would have spent all day with him.
I was hardly ever even with him anymore. Between school, work and hunting, I hardly spent any time with him. He had spent more time with Kiera than anyone lately. He probably felt like I had abandoned him.
Alek reached over for me, pulling me closer to him. "Hey," he said, "Stop that. It's not your fault."
I tried to smile at him but it got all twisted on my face. He wrapped his arms around me, hugging me to him. It helped.
The police arrived a few minutes later. I gave them the wallet picture I had of Jace and told him what clothes he'd been wearing today. Kiera and Theo recounted what had happened. The police officer seemed a little suspicious that they hadn't heard or seen anything but he didn't comment. He took my address and then told me that they were gathering a search party to go out and look for him but that I should stay here and stay close to my cell phone in case someone called.
Everyone decided to stay at Alek's house with me. We all sat in the living room, the television quietly, not talking. Alek's thumb was rubbing soothing circles into the side of my hand.
When had he suddenly become so compassionate? He wasn't killing humans, he was comforting me, and acting like he honestly cared about Jace's well being.
I just couldn't figure out what had happened to Jace. He must not have left on his own. He would have had to walk through the kitchen, where Kiera and Theo were sitting, in order to leave the house. Unless he had crawled out a window, but all of the windows in the house had screens and none of them had even been open when we looked. Besides that he was six years old and completely dependent on me. He would never have even thought about running away.
Had someone taken him? Who would have done that? I didn't have any enemies. Even before becoming a vampire, I had always kept to myself. And after, I had made friends but I hadn't pissed anyone off. Jace himself obviously didn't have any enemies, unless you cound Michael, the kid in his class that he stole a crayon from once and got sent to the principle's office for.
Who would ever kidnap a six year old boy right out of their house when there were people sittin gin the room right next to him? No one would be that stupid, right? Kids got stolen from supermarkets and being left in a car outside. Not from their living rooms.
I started to panic more, thinking about who could have kidnapped him. Some creepy rapist. Or worse. A vampire. But that was ridiculous. What would be the coincidence that a vampire would still another vampire's son?
My thoughts flickered to the babysitter but I decided I hadn't pissed her off enough for her to do that. She just hadn't wanted to continue watching him. Besides, she was a nice lady. She would never kidnap a child.
I thought about my parents. They may very well try to kidnap him from me. But how would they possibly do it without Kiera and Theo knowing? They were vampires, they heard everything. And we had searched the whole house. There was no way my parents could have gotten inside the house and then taken him out without them knowing about it.
About fifteen minutes after the police left, Theo's phone rang. He pulled it out and stared at it, trying to figure out the number. After the third ring he picked it up.
All of us watched him as his face went from calm to surprised to shocked and then he dropped the phone, hanging it up as he did so.
"What's going on?" Kiera asked, her tone hesitant.
Theo looked up, his mouth hanging open a little. "That was Anna."