I awoke with back pains like no other, you would have thought I would have got used to it by now.

I stretched and then quickly checked all my pockets. Not to see if anything was taken, I have nothing worth taking, to see if anyone had put something in them. As much as people pretend, this town is not the safest place to be. Everyone pretends like drug activity doesn't occur and that the occasional stabbings don't exist.

But people will put stolen drugs in your pockets when your not watching and then you're not only homeless but in jail for possessing certain drugs and allegedly dealing them too.

Although I've been in jail once, that being yesterday, drug handling and petty theft are two completely different worlds and I sure as hell wouldn't want to be caught up in the prior.

I went about as usual, looking for willing food banks and or churches and looking to see if I could hit the jackpot with any bins.

I learnt quite quickly that people here are not only pretenders but stingy too. They'll gladly throw away left overs but won't allow the starving to pick at them. They don't want to have it but won't let others have it either.

But despite recent complaints about my scrounging for food, which just so happened to be in people's bins, I continued with it up until the afternoon. After all the worst that can happen is someone telling you to piss off, followed by a string of colourful vocabulary.

And of course, the worst happened to me today...

"Hey! What do you think you are doing?"

I turned around at the sound of shouting, to meet the owner of the voice. A policeman. My luck was sticking to its title because I'm sure that he was working last night when I was arrested too. Yes, I remember him around the desk typing something on a computer as I was being dragged to a cell, although he probably won't remember me, mind you.

I didn't answer him, but instead shrugged my shoulders and started to walk away from the him and the bins. I didn't want a fight I just wanted free food. But of course nothing in this world is free.

"Hey, wait up miss."

I turned back around. Purposely looking downwards at the pavement in case he had somehow remembered my face out of all the ones he saw yesterday.

"Shouldn't you be going home by now, it's getting quite late?"

I almost scoffed at him. Home. Hah. I don't have a home, but not wanting to test the patience of the law itself, I answered in short sentences, hoping he'll get the hint that I don't need his help and he can go back to his job, making sure no one gets shot.

"I'm homeless." Well that wiped the concern off of his face and put him into some form of surprise.

"Oh." I think he felt sorry for me, or was being a nosy bastard, one of the two, because he still stood in the same position and showed no signs of moving.

"How old did you say you were?" He asked, not in the pedofile way, in a polite or curious matter. But then again, professional pedos would be able to ask it in that same manner.

Holding back the urge to say below the age of consent, I replied with, "Fourteen."

"And where are your parents?"

"I don't know." I sighed, bored and tired of the game of twenty questions.

"You better come with me then." The policeman said.

That instantly triggered something in me, making me burst out.

"I don't care if you wear a police badge, I've done nothing wrong and nothing illegal." I quickly rambled.

I then started running. I didn't want to go to jail. The sound of free food and housing was tempting but I can't go back to a confined, locked room. I just can't.

I pushed the side of my face up against the door listening into the conversation in the next room.

"Finn, we're going to need to start giving her more to eat." I recognised the voice of brown eyes through the door.

"Oh, shut up, Luca." Replied dirty blonde.

"She's a growing girl and she's going to die if we're not careful."

"Luca, you're being dramatic. No way is she going to die if she's only given a bit of bread for a couple days. Anyway, we've sent the note to her parents it shouldn't be long before we've got some cash and she's no longer our problem." Said dirty blonde, Finn.

I heard a long sigh and then footsteps coming toward the door. I quickly darted across the small room and lied on my mattress in a hopefully natural position, trying my best to make it look like I had been lying on this mattress all this time and not eavesdropping.

The sound of the door unlocking came next, followed by Luca (aka. brown eyes) walking in.

"You alright in 'ere."

I nodded in response and he looked at me suspiciously and then shut the door. The lock turned again and I was back in my room of silence.

+++

I woke up suddenly, and instantly hard, cold metal hit me straight in the forehead. I dipped down under the railing and tried to remember what had happened. It was in that moment that I decided to look at my surrounding environment.

The cell. I was back in the cell, I was yesterday. But how? I looked at the door, but surprisingly it was unlocked and hanging wide open. I wasn't stupid and I didn't need to think twice about my actions. I fled out of the cell and towards the exit, looking behind me to see if anyone was following.

But my ideas of escape were soon faltered. Specifically when I bumped into a large and hard figure. Looking up I realised that it was the policeman who had questioned me earlier. Or at least I think it was earlier, how long was I out for?

"Woah, Vanessa, I believe. Slow down so I can explain something to you." He said in a calming voice.

I couldn't run, not with him there, so I nodded and went along with him.

+++

"You fell unconscious. Does this happen often?"

I wanted to state that he had told me he would answer my questions and not the other way around but still my reply remained, "Depends what you define as often." I'm a stubborn person and unlike most of them, I'm willing to admit it. However, if you think that I'm going to make your life easy because your an important figure head, then you better guess again.

The policeman sighed, from behind the desk, while I stared back emotionless. "I'm trying to help you, Vanessa and you're not making it any easier for me."

"I guess you could say it happens pretty often."

He nodded his head. "Well, after you fell out of consciousness, I brought you here and then did some research on you. And it appears that you were here just yesterday."

I scratched the back of my neck sheepishly, "Err, yeah."

"Not going to hold you back on the past." He said, the sound of his foot tapping the floor vibrating through my ears. "But I may have also found your parents."

I looked at him dumbfounded. I had been looking for them for a good couple of years and hadn't found them, yet he managed to do it while I was unconscious. Of course, I didn't have his technology or his records.

"It's a small hunch, but I do think it's them." He then spun the computer, next to him, around so that it was facing me. Picking up a pen he pointed to the picture on the screen.

"This here was a missing person poster, put up in a small town police station, about three hundred miles from here and the person missing was believed kidnapped. It was sent to this station and others despite how far away it was because of the chance that the person was taken to a destination further away from their home."

Despite the police man talking I couldn't help but continually stare at the picture on the screen.

"When searching through recent files, I found that you were here yesterday, which gave me a profile of you and your picture. I then searched missing person, looking for your parents. This picture," He said tapping the screen. "Was in one of the last pages as the case was so long ago and I was about to dismiss it when I noticed the resemblance between the young girl in the picture and your profile."

I looked at the image more closely, it had obviously been scanned and moved to quickly because the picture was a bit pixelated and blurry, but my distinguishable features were there.

"I am going to go out tomorrow to the location of this missing person poster and would like you to accompany me as it is your parents we're looking for." He inhaled and exhaled. "So what do you say Vanessa, ready to find your parents?"

And I think he was expecting an enthusiastic cheer, but the information hadn't yet sunk in and the only response I could muster was, "Okay."

a/n: I know this chapter was a bit boring and a teensy bit unrealistic but it will (hopefully) get better.

On another note, I'm trying my best to update all of my books, but I've been feeling a bit distant from Wattpad, lately... hopefully this mood will go away so I can actually start to finish certain stories.

chapter release date = 06/01/19