BANG!

A bright light, a loud noise, and... blood. The man fell on his side to the left of me. Had I screamed? My throat felt kinda sore. It took me a minute to realize he had been shot, straight in the head.

"Susie?" It was Mike. He appeared with a flashlight in front of me. His face changed. "Oh, son. Get up," he appeared concerned, and walked forward and offered me his hand. I took it. My ears rang and his words were muffled. My head ached, my stomach growled, and my hands were sweaty. My mind was an absolute mess and I had no idea what had just happened. Had I passed out? I did, didn't I? Why? Where did the man come from? Mike's voice brought me out of it. I could hear more clearly now. "You alright, Liam?"

"Uh..." I couldn't bring myself to say much of anything. My legs were wobbly, and my lips quivered. In the dim light of the flashlight, I could see shimmering, warm liquid on my arms. Blood. I wiped it on my clothes a bit frantically, and wiped off my face with my hoodie sleeves. My head throbbed as well.

"Trevor is waiting in the car." Mike began to walk towards one of the halls, leaving me at the main door in darkness.

"Wait! What happened?" I called after him. He stopped walking. Mike turned back to face me, shining the light in my eyes.

"I don't want Raven or Trevor to worry." He said.

I responded, "I won't tell them." I knew that would be a lie. I told Trevor everything.

He sighed, "We found him in one of the offices. He claimed he worked here, but I'd never seen him around here before. That's when he pulled out that gun. We did what we had to to get some answers and protect you kids... he said he had Susie but wouldn't tell us where. He got out when we weren't looking, and now Joseph and Susie, and until now, you, are all missing." I didn't know what to say, so I just nodded and walked out the door, shuffling my feet and holding my hands out far in the darkness. I chewed on his words. On what had happened. I had just been held at gunpoint, by a guy that my dad held at gunpoint. My dad! My dad was missing, too! Susie had been missing for a while... how could one guy take out two full-grown adults, and tie them up, and yet struggle when restraining me, a weak 16 year old boy? How could one guy- I gasped audibly. It wasn't just one guy. It had to have been more than that. Should I warn Mike? No, I decided. I needed to stay with Trevor and Raven. Mike was a trainer police officer. He could handle himself. At least, that's what I told myself.

My hands hit freezing metal, and I pulled them back immediately. The metal felt as though it burned me, it was so cold. I gently touched the windows of the vehicle before me, and knocked lightly. A flashlight clicked on from inside the car, blinding me for a second. The door opened.

"Liam? Are you okay? They told us you were missing!" Trevor began frantically, and helped me into the backseat. I slammed the door shut. His eyes were wide, and Raven was huddled beside him. Tears welled in my eyes to know that they were safe. Trevor clicked the flashlight off, and I hoped they hadn't seen the smeared blood on my face.

"I... I... A man with a gun was there, but Mike got him down, and is just looking for Susie and my dad now." I explained. I heard Raven let out a sigh of relief. Or maybe it was a deep breath of worry. I nudged Trevor's shoulder with my hand. I whispered to him, "I think there's more armed men in the building... Mike and Susie and my dad could be in real danger."

"What? We have to do something!" He exclaimed. Well, so much for trying not to worry them, and trying not to let Raven hear.

I began to piece together an idea, "Is there a back door?"

Raven piped up, "Yeah, but what for? What's going on?"

"We could arm ourselves... go in through the back... Raven, you know the building better than us. Where would you hide if someone was looking for you?"

She thought for a moment, "Oh, I know! There's this old room that they use as storage for just junk. Lots of hiding spots."

I nodded thoughtfully, "Then we can go in and look there. Do we have anything we could use as weapons?"

Trevor nodded in the dark, "Yeah, yeah. There's a crowbar in the back, maybe a baseball bat too."

"Those will work." I said.

Raven grumbled, "So what the heck are we doing?" I chuckled, although I was incredibly nervous for this plan. We could get hurt, after all. And we were all just kids. Maybe it would safer if we stayed in the car...

I decided to be blatantly honest, "That man took Susie and my dad, then Mike shot him while he restrained me. I think it would've taken more than one guy to kidnap all three of us. I think there's more bad guys in the building."

"And if there aren't?" Raven asked skeptically. Despite her cool demeanor, I could tell that my words had scared her. I felt bad for her and again, regretted telling her the full truth.

"Then no harm done." I said.

"Let's do this." Trevor said. I froze. It became so much more real when he said that.

"But... wait guys. For a minute. Mike is a trained police officer, and we are just kids. Those guys might be armed... we could get hurt. And he told me not to tell you guys all that stuff. He wants to keep us safe." I reminded.

Raven pointed out, "But we want to keep him safe, too. He's our dad." I nodded shakily.

"Al- alright." I stuttered. Trevor flicked on the flashlight, and us three hopped out of the car and opened the back door. Sure enough, there was a crowbar and a baseball bat. I took the crowbar, and Trevor took the baseball bat.

"How come I don't get a weapon?" Raven whined.

"You're a kid." Trevor said plainly.

"So are you!" She spat back. I pulled the handcuffs from my pocket and handed them to Raven.

I said, "You've got something more important to carry."

"Where did you get those?" Trevor asked.

I shrugged, "They were on the table." We shut the back door with a thud and began to walk to the other side of the red brick building. The back door was made of steel. My palms sweated, and I gripped the cold crowbar in my hands tightly. My knuckles turned white. There were so many things with this stupid plan that could go wrong. I shouldn't have said anything. "Are you guys sure we should do this?" I asked anxiously.

"Yes!" They both said in unison. If I hadn't been so worried, I probably would've laughed at that.

"Trevor, you go first..." I said. He pushed past me and creaked open the door. It lead straight into a hallway. The hallway was pitch black, and a shiver ran up my spine. He shone the flashlight in the building, revealing white walls and a tile floor. It reminded me of a school for some reason. I remembered school. It had only been what, a day? Two days? Since all this went down? It was unbelievable. Absolutely insane. God, I just wanted to curl up and cry. I wanted to chicken out of this plan so badly. But when I turned and looked at Raven's determined face, at Trevor's worried expression... I knew I couldn't leave them. We walked into the building quietly and shut the door behind us.

"Which room is it?" I whispered.

"This one!" Raven pointed to a door. I looked over at Trevor.

"You should go first again..."

Trevor huffed, and rolled his eyes, "Alright, you big baby." He placed his hand on the knob, turned, and pushed open the door. Just like Raven had said, it was full of stuff. Just junk. Chairs, old desks, brooms and cleaning supplies, boxes, pictures and paintings, and just stuff. Everything was covered in cobwebs.

"I have a bad feeling about this..." I said.

Trevor responded, "Liam, you have a bad feeling about everything." I smiled sheepishly. He was right. Suddenly, an item from somewhere in the room fell with a shallow clang. Me, Raven, and Trevor all turned to look at where the noise came from. "Who's there?" Trevor called. I was planted in fear. I couldn't move. Trevor, on the other hand, took several steps forward. He pushed a large, dusty office chair out of the way.

"Trevor..." I didn't know what to say, but I was incredibly nervous that he would get hurt. I wanted to somehow warn him. Trevor gave me a glance over his shoulder. An idea popped into my head. If there was someone over there, then he wouldn't feel threatened by some kids. He heard us talking; he could probably tell we were kids. So, I came up with a way to motivate whoever was hiding behind all that junk.

I yelled, "Come out with your hands up or we'll shoot!" Trevor flashed me a skeptical glance. But, almost immediately, some more items fell to the floor. From the clutter appeared a blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl. Like, a young girl. No older than me. She held her hands up for us to see while we pointed our weapons and flashlight at her.

"Who are you?" Trevor asked, pointing the thick wooden baseball bat at her.

"My name is Venti Shay. I'm 16 years old." She said.
Her voice was smooth and cool and steady. She held her hands up, and kept her eyes down low. She didn't seem scared at all. I was skeptical of her. She made me uneasy, being so calm in a situation where she thought we had guns.

I spoke up for once, "Why are you here?" No more keeping questions to myself, I decided.

"My mom said she would be here." Venti said.

Trevor continued to question her, "Why would your mom come here? Why are you hiding?"

Venti put her arms down, and I guess she had noticed we weren't very sufficiently armed, "I don't know. She called me while I was at a friend's house and said she was here. My friend dropped me off here a while ago. I was hiding from those men... There were four of them. I know that three left not too long ago..." My heart sank. There were three of them?! With Susie being Susie and my dad being my dad, there's no way they could fend off three whole criminals.

"Was anyone else with them?" I asked, my voice quivering.

"They had two hostages... they drove away. They were parked out back..." she turned away.

"Oh no... Mom and Joseph." Trevor turned to look at me. My knees felt weak and I fell to the floor and held my hands to my face. My dad had been kidnapped by some criminals... they would probably kill him, since we killed one of them. Why do they even need him? Why did they take him? Why did they take Susie? I felt a hand on my back. I looked up to see Trevor. I felt his hand shaking. He was worried for his mother, too. But unlike me, he could hold it together. He was strong. A leader. He turned to look at Venti.

He said, "Venti, if you help us and my step-dad get our friends back, then we will help you find your mom." She raised an eyebrow. Trevor took a step towards her. A moment of awkward silence passed, and she finally nodded and said okay. I stood up, sniffled, and wiped my nose.

"Let's go find Daddy." Raven said. We all agreed. I made a point to walk beside Trevor as we walked down the hall.

"Trevor," I whispered, "How can we believe her?"

"We can't. We will keep an eye on her until she earns our trust. If what she says is true, then we can't just leave her here," Trevor explained. I nodded. That made sense. God, this entire day (or night?) had been hectic. One problem after another. We found Mike wandering the halls.

"Are you kids crazy?" He scolded. "You should be at the car!"

Trevor defended us, "We wanted to help you, and found somebody else that needs help, too. We can all help each other, and we can get Joseph and Susie back."

Mike stomped right up to Venti, and gripped her shirt in his fist, "Who are you?!" I took a step forward, my hands out, as though I would be brave enough to intervene. Did I even want to intervene? I didn't trust Venti, either.

"Dad." Trevor took a step towards them, as well. Mike sighed, and took a step back, releasing her. Venti hadn't even flinched.

After a moment of silence, Mike said, "Alright. Let's leave now and see if we can catch up to them." You could tell he was worried about Susie. Otherwise, he wouldn't have let Venti come with us. He probably thought she could help. Him being worried only made me even more worried about my father. Like, incredibly worried.

Raven sat in the passenger seat. Me, Trevor, and Venti sat in the back. Our luggage was in the back of the vehicle. I felt uncomfortable sitting beside Venti. I didn't trust her one bit. I was painfully aware of our shoulders touching. The car growled as we drove down the road. Venti claimed that she saw the car drive off in this direction, but again, I didn't trust her. I hoped she wouldn't be the reason for my father's death. I couldn't stop worrying about him. It wasn't just overthinking. It wasn't just questions. It was pure, agonizing, heart-wrenching worry. I don't even remember the last thing I said to him. He had been avoiding me, it was obvious. He and I didn't get along very well, and I don't think I actually loved him. But he was my dad, and I know he did his best. And I worried for his safety. Not to mention Susie. I could only imagine what Trevor was going through. He seemed so strong, so tough, but him and his mother were very close. He was probably going through hell wondering about her. I wanted to comfort him but didn't know how.

"Trevor? Your mom is going to be okay. I just know." I said quietly to him. He nodded, and looked out the window. I sighed, and my mind filled with worries about my father. The car rumbling and Trevor sitting beside me were my only comforts.