Find Her

  "So? What's the catch?" I ask.

   "A catch? Please, Lilah, you know me, when is there ever a catch?" He responds, a smirk plastered on his face.

    "So, you're going to let me borrow your truck, no questions asked?" I let the keys he formerly gave me clink in my palm, reminding him how much power this gives me.

    "Well, I guess there is a catch...You include me, you tell me everything, not like last time, no secrets.." He stated, letting his country draw slip out towards the end of the sentence. 

    "Deal." I could use the muscle, but, honestly, he may look strong but he's one of the most gullible humans I've met, secrets are easy to keep with him.

     "Lilah and Oliver, partners in crime!" He whoops. 

     Like always. 

    To give more of a backstory I live in a small city, and by small I mean a population of two-hundred twenty. 

      Wynot, Nebraska.

      Nothing truly happens here, until four weeks ago, December twenty-fifth, Christmas. Everything was normal, families that were able to get gifts, opened gifts, and those of us who weren't able made cookies inside and willed it to snow. I was hanging out with Ollie and Charlotte, Ollie's sister, at their house, trying to get away from the chaos of my own.           

     The three of us have always had a complicated relationship, Charlotte and I have been friends since kindergarten, Ollie always having been a year older than us I'd pretty much never met him, until freshman year. I was in one class with him, and Charlotte. We got to know one another quickly and we would flirt and kiss in secret, then I told Charlotte, and she blew up. Made me pick him or her. I'd only known Ollie for two semesters and picked Charlotte, obviously. When I'd told Ollie he'd got really mad at Charlotte and said it was unfair, which it was, then he disappeared, there were rumors of boarding school, the army, plenty of things, but in reality he'd gone to live with his dad in Texas, where he was raised, up until fifth grade when he moved up here, and he came back a junior with six more inches, a haircut, defined features, and a new name, formerly he always went by Ollie, but he switched to Oliver and completely turned himself upside down. He'd always been an attractive boy but losing the baby face and the long hair he was hot, and I couldn't keep my hands to myself. We'd been sneaking into one another's house kissing in deserted hallways, trying not to let Charlotte know.

   We'd gone on like that for the first four months of junior year, then Christmas rolled around, and we told Charlotte once again, and instead of getting angry, she just left. She didn't leave and come back though, she disappeared.

    This is where our story starts. It's December thirty-first, New Year's Eve. No one can find Charlotte, we've tracked her phone, which must've died because it still said she was at the house, then we tracked her car, which was found in the woods right outside their house. It's been six days and the police have already given up, and Mrs. Kent hasn't said a word, she just sits and stares at nothing all day long. There is most definitely something wrong, and if no one else is going to figure it out, I will.

    I decided to start by checking her favorite spots for clues, but I don’t have a vehicle, that’s why I had to hit up Ollie, and her being his sister and all I kinda figured he wouldn’t just hand over his truck, but want to be the driver.

     “So, where are we going first?” He asks, climbing into the seat. 

     “Blue Dawg.” I responded. It was Charlotte’s favorite coffee shop, but it wasn't in Wynot, so we had plenty of time to talk. 

     “Ollie…” I start my sentence but quit. 

      “What darlin’?” He asks.

      “I think we should put a pause on our relationship until we find Charlotte, or at least find out what happened.” I pause waiting for his answer. 

     “Are you doing this for you or for Char?” His eyes stay on the road.

    “I think we need to focus on finding Charlotte, nothing else, and we both know that we create a distraction for one another, and once we find her we can talk it out, reasonably.” I inhale. 

    “Okay.” That is all he says. 

    The rest of the ride is in comfortable silence. 

     When we get to Blue Dawg no one is there, literally. Not a cashier, not a single human. But the door is unlocked and there is an open sign. 

     Before we head in Ollie asks “What are we supposed to be looking for?” 

     “Anything not normal.” I respond. 

    “Hello?” Ollie calls out. 

     A tall skinny man comes rushing out of the kitchen, looking frightened. 

    “Um, hi. I was wondering if-” I start asking him about Charlotte but he cuts me off. 

     “NO! We’re closed! You must leave!” He ushers us out of the door. 

      “Okay, that was definitely not normal.” Ollie says, hands in his pockets.  

      “Yeah…” I trail off, thinking. I’d made sure to scan the whole room and memorize it in my mind in case it was a clue in the future. “Did you notice anything specifically clue-like?” 

     “Um. I didn’t really look.” He shrugs, “Your the investigator here.” 

      I sigh. “I need to get back in there.” 

     “Well I don’t see how we could do that, that guy seemed awfully frightened and he’d said it was closed so I don’t-” I stop listening to him and think. I wasn’t paying well enough attention to where he’d come from, but I think, quite possibly, he could have been in the pantry like he was hiding from something or someone. He still had on his apron, but the place looked completely deserted like it hadn’t been used in days. Maybe it hadn’t. 

     “We’re going back in,” I say.

      “Oh my gosh. Did you listen to literally anything I said?” He throws up his hands in exasperation. 

     “Nope.” 

     I walk back into the shop, the door still unlocked. I immediately start checking mugs, cold, cold, cold. Then I check for condensation marks under the mugs, the coffee had been sitting for at least five days.

    I start sneaking into the kitchen, nothing looks particularly messed up, until I open the pantry, and the same skinny dude bursts out screaming, a gun in his hand. He was hiding. 

    “Woah dude,” Ollie says, “We mean no harm, it’s just, my sister’s missing and we were wondering if you’d seen or heard anyth-” He got cut off once again but a group of black-dressed men bursting in the room. 

   “PAPITO! We know you're in here! Just come out!” They yell, immediately starting to search the room. 

    “Oh no, oh no, oh no” He, Papito, retracts back into the closet. 

    “What’s happening?” I whisper-yell. 

    “Get in here!” He fires back. 

    The three of us file into the small space, me and Ollie further back and Papito pressed against the door. 

    “Boss? The closet maybe?” We hear a muffled voice speak from behind the door. 

     Papito starts panting and Ollie wraps his arms around my waist, shielding me. 

     The door bursts open and I scream, they have the three of us at gunpoint. 

      They shove us out of the closet, Ollie’s death grip still on my waist, whispering in my ear that it’s gonna be okay. Myself, I’m completely frozen, I can’t do anything but dig my nails into Ollie’s arm. Papito…is sobbing. 

      “Please, please I promise I didn’t do anything, let me go.” He says between sobs. 

       The men turn around and start conversing. Ollie and I are silent but Papito continues his sobs, I want to tell him to shut up and get a hold of himself, he’s only making it worse, but the fear is preventing me. 

      One of the men spins around and yells “Oh my God can we just shoot him already?!” 

      The biggest man, supposedly the boss, says nothing he just does a singular nod of his head, and before I can even comprehend what’s happening, a gun is shot and Papito is dead. 

      Something inside me snapped from the fear and I collapse to the ground and start sobbing, I just witnessed a murder. 

      All the men leave and I’m just sitting on the floor, my knees tucked up to my chest, I can’t comprehend anything right now other than the panic attack, I know Ollie’s talking to me but I can’t respond, I’m in too much pain, I’m trying to breathe how the doctor told me but it’s not working. 

     I feel Ollie’s arms slip around me as he realizes what’s happening, rocking me back and forth. 

     I close my eyes and try and forget everything, the pain in my chest fades and I relax, putting my face in Ollie’s chest.

     “You okay?” He holds my face in his hands, his hands are huge and soft on my face. 

     I nod slowly. 

     “You wanna go home?” He asks. 

      “NO,” I say too loudly, “No, we have two more places to go to figure something, anything out.” 

      “Where?”

      “Urban,” Where she works, “And Penna Mountian.” Where they found her car. 

      “Let’s go then.” He helps me up and we head to the car when I remember. 

      “What about Papito!??” I exclaim. 

       “I called the cops, they should be here any minute.” He responds. 

       I sigh in relief, even though I know calling the cops doesn’t secure anything, “Okay let’s go.” 

       Urban isn’t far from Blue Dawg at all, and when we get there I guess I’m expecting another crazy deserted place, but everything looks extremely normal. 

       I ask the cashier and the manager if they’d seen or heard from Charlotte and they both answered along the lines of “I was so sorry to hear about that, we are doing all that we can to find her. God bless you.” 

      We ended up finding absolutely nothing at Urban, which I was sad about, for the sake of clues, but I was also overjoyed we didn’t have to run into any more of those men or witness any murders. 

     It was getting later but I still wanted to try our last destination.

    “Are you sure you want to go out in the woods this late?” Ollie asks me after I tell him I still want to go. 

     “Yes, I’m sure, Ollie! This is another human being we're talking about, your sister. We have to find her.” I exclaim, hyperventilating. 

      “Hey, it’s okay.” He says, wrapping his arms around me. 

      I press my face to his chest and start sobbing, “It’s-it’s not fair, I should be the one gone, it w-was my fault she left and now I'm here and she’s out there and as far as we know she could be… she could be d-dead.” 

     He tightens his hold on me, “This is not your fault, and it’s not mine either, she chose to react the way she did and she’s gone now, if she would have reacted correctly and civilly then we might not even be in this mess and no it’s not fair but it is not your fault. And for all we know she said something to someone and she’s in deep but....” He grabs my face and looks me dead in the eye, “It’s not your fault.” 

      “It’s not my fault.” I repeat. 

      I hug him for just a second longer “Thank you, now let’s go!” 

      We get into the car, and off to Penna Mountian.

      Penna Mountain is all the way back in Wynot, so again we have a long trip back. The atmosphere has changed since then though, on the way I was trying not to love Ollie and not to touch him, but now our fingers are entwined and I know two things for sure. One: I’m not letting him go. Two: He’s mine, and I am his.

    I get caught thinking about what’s gonna happen when we find Char, how she’s going to react to this, that when Ollie says we're here I don’t even realize until he untangles our fingers. 

    The park is closed off for obvious reasons but we just climb over the warning tape. Her car had been removed from the site which was a bummer because Charlotte hid everything she didn’t want anyone to see in her car, but even if there was something the police most likely would have found it, maybe. 

    We search the woods, every branch, every tree, every single inch, and found absolutely nothing, I’m starting to get angry we had no leads at all except ‘Men in black killed Papito’ and ‘Papito wouldn’t talk about Charlotte’ those are the worst leads ever. 

    “Holy crap, Lilah, Lilah, Lilah” Ollie repeats my name until I get over to him. 

    “What??” I ask, he has something. 

    “Her phone.” 

    “Is it dead??” I ask. 

     “No.” He responds. 

     “Then why did it say that she was at home?”

    “I-I don’t know.” He stutters. 

     Ollie put in her password but it was incorrect, “This was her password literally a week ago.” 

     I shrug. “Try her birthday?” 

    “That’s what it was originally.” 

     “Try your birthday?” I suggest. 

    “I’m her least favorite person in the world, why would it be me.” He chuckled. 

     “Reverse psychology. Do it.”

     He does. Correct. 

     Nothing looks different, same wallpaper, same phone case, a million selfies in the camera roll, then we look at contacts. 

    **ERIK**

     “Who’s Erik?” I ask. 

    “No idea.” He mumbles. ‘

    He clicks on the contact and looks to see when it was sent.

    Today at four-thirty. 

    It read: Meet at Blue Dawg, midnight.

    And Charlotte responded: Okay. 

    I look at the time, eleven-ten. 

    “We’ve gotta go! Right now! She’s alive!” I exclaim. 

    The two of us run like never before and race there, he’s going one-o-two in a sixty-five. 

    I’m painting, maybe we’ll find Charlotte. 

    Oh my gosh, “Ollie…we could find Charlotte.”

    “I know.”

  My heart starts beating out of my chest. 

   We pull up right at twelve-o-one and see Charlotte, held at gunpoint, by the same men who killed Papito. 

   “Ollie! Lilah! Help m-” 

   The realization hits me, they just shot Charlotte. 

   Charlotte is dead.