At the Lookout, everything felt wrong.

The screens still glowed. The alarms still worked. The slides were still there. The pup houses still sat in their neat row like nothing had changed.

But Ryder was gone.

Chase hadn't stopped moving since the morning they realized Ryder never came back. He searched the Lookout. He searched the cliff paths. He searched town. He searched every place Ryder ever went when he needed air or space.

Nothing.

No response on the tags. No signal. Just static and silence.

The pups gathered in the control room, all of them quieter than usual. Even Marshall's usual energy looked muted, like he didn't know where to put it without Ryder there to steady them.

Rubble was the first to say it out loud.

"Do you think... his dad took him?"

Chase's ears dropped immediately. His stomach clenched.

"I hope not," he whispered, voice rough. "That would not end well for Ryder."

Zuma frowned, confused and worried. "What did Ryder's dad do to him, Chase?"

Chase froze. His paws pressed into the floor like he needed something solid.

"I... I don't know if I should tell you," he said quietly. "It's not my story to tell."

Rocky's voice softened. "That's okay, Chase. We know Ryder had a horrible upbringing. And we know you witnessed some of it." He swallowed. "If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to."

Chase stared at the map screen, jaw tight. For a second, it looked like he wasn't going to say anything.

Then he exhaled shakily.

"His father hurt him," Chase said, barely above a whisper. "He was... mean. To Ryder. To me." He forced the words out like they scraped. "That's all I'm going to say."

No one pushed.

No one teased.

Because the silence that followed wasn't empty—it was heavy with understanding.

Chase lowered himself onto the floor like his body had finally run out of adrenaline. As team leader, he felt useless. Like all the training and missions and gear meant nothing if he couldn't find the one person who made them a team.

Where are you, Ryder? Are you okay?

None of them felt like playing. None of them even wanted to eat.

Rocky, however, couldn't sit still.

He hopped onto the control panel and started tapping keys and buttons with quick, restless paws.

Marshall looked over. "Rocky... what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to find Ryder," Rocky replied, eyes narrowed, serious in a way Marshall wasn't used to seeing.

He expanded the map, toggled signal searches, ran scans that made the screens flicker with lines and numbers.

Minutes passed.

Then Rocky slammed a paw down in frustration. "Why is this so hard? How can he not be anywhere?"

Chase stood slowly and walked to the big screen, studying it like it might reveal something if he stared long enough.

"Rocky," he asked, voice tight, "does this map only show Adventure Bay?"

Rocky blinked, then nodded quickly. "That's all we're seeing right now... but I can widen it. Show the surrounding places we've been. Foggy Bottom routes. The coast." His paws flew across the panel again as the map spread outward.

The search radius grew.

Still nothing.

No Ryder signal.

No trace.

Chase's chest tightened.

If Ryder wasn't in Adventure Bay... where was he?

Before Rocky could run another scan, the pup pad rang.

Chase's head snapped up instantly, hope flaring for half a second—then flattening when he saw the caller ID.

He answered anyway, voice steady because someone needed them.

"PAW Patrol here."

Cap'n Turbot's voice came through in a panic. "Sorry to bother you— I know you're looking for Ryder and I do hope he's alright— but my boat just hit a rock and I'm sinking!"

Chase's ears lifted, instinct taking over. "Don't worry, Cap'n. We're on our way."

He turned to the pups and raised his voice. "PAW Patrol to the Lookout!"

The pups snapped into motion automatically.

"Chase needs us!" Marshall said, already running.

Within seconds they were lined up, ready, even though every single one of them looked like they wished the mission was something else—something that led to Ryder.

Marshall stood tall. "PAW Patrol ready for action, Chase sir!"

Chase swallowed hard and pushed forward anyway. "Cap'n Turbot hit a rock. His boat is sinking."

Skye's ears drooped. "Oh no..."

"Zuma," Chase said quickly, "I need you to help Cap'n Turbot get to safety and tow the boat back to shore."

Zuma nodded, determined. "Let's dive in."

"Rocky," Chase added, "we'll need repairs once it's stable."

"Green means go," Rocky replied.

Chase forced the familiar line out even though it felt wrong without Ryder beside him.

"PAW Patrol... is on a roll."

They slid down the Lookout chute and launched into the mission.

It went smoothly—because Ryder had built them well, and because they were trained, and because even in grief, they didn't quit.

Cap'n Turbot was safe. The boat was fixed. The town was helped.

But when they returned to the Lookout, the relief didn't last.

Because Ryder was still gone.

A week passed.

A full week with no signal, no ransom note, no clue, no answers.

Katie started staying at the Lookout to help however she could—feeding the pups when Chase forgot, making sure someone remembered to sleep, sitting with them during the quiet hours when worry turned into spiraling panic.

Chase kept scanning. Rocky kept searching. Skye flew patrol routes. Zuma checked the coastline. Rubble dug around the hill trails like maybe Ryder had fallen somewhere unseen. Marshall asked everyone in town if they'd seen a boy on an ATV, if they'd seen anyone strange.

Nothing.

And somewhere far away from Adventure Bay...

Ryder was fighting a different kind of clock.

Ryder's hands shook as he typed, eyes stinging from exhaustion.

He'd been stuck in that room for too long. No windows. No daylight. Only the harsh overhead lights that made time feel unreal.

He kept making mistakes—not because he didn't know what he was doing, but because fear kept slipping into his hands. Because hunger made his thoughts slow. Because he missed the pups so much it felt like a physical ache.

And every time he failed, he imagined Chase's face when he didn't come home.

He imagined Skye's whine. Marshall's confusion. Rubble's quiet fear.

He could not let them down.

When the steel door opened, Ryder's whole body locked.

The masked man stepped inside, voice loud and angry. "Are you not done yet, boy?"

Ryder clenched his jaw. "No," he snapped, and the second the word left his mouth he knew it was a mistake. "This isn't easy, you know."

The man crossed the room fast.

Ryder's head turned with the impact, pain flashing and heat blooming along his cheek. He didn't cry out, but his breath caught.

"Don't you give me that tone," the man growled.

Ryder forced himself to look up anyway, glare trembling but real.

The man leaned closer. "You have until tomorrow evening," he said, voice low and cold. "If it's not finished... the things you care about will suffer."

Ryder's stomach dropped.

Then the man left, slamming the door like punctuation.

Ryder stood there shaking, staring at the computer like it was the only lifeline he had left.

Because it was.

He'd been doing two things at once.

The first was what they demanded: building the software.

The second was what they didn't know: building a way out.

Ryder had been quietly saving scraps of material, tiny pieces of tech, anything he could hide. He'd been watching the camera angles, learning the system, waiting for one opening.

Tonight, he found it.

He finished the software.

Not perfect, not what he wanted, but functional enough to pass inspection.

Then he moved fast.

He hacked into the camera feed and looped it—seconds of empty room repeating cleanly, like nothing was happening.

His hands flew across the keys.

Then he tapped into the only signal he could reach.

A connection.

A thin thread of hope.

"Chase," Ryder whispered urgently into the system.

At the Lookout, Chase jerked awake like someone had called his name in a dream.

His pup tag crackled.

"Ryder?" Chase breathed, shock punching through him. For a second he couldn't move—couldn't believe it.

Then Ryder's voice came through again, distorted but real.

"I don't have much time," Ryder said, words tight and fast. "Chase, I need you to get Rocky to trace this call. Now."

Chase's whole body snapped into motion. "Rocky!"

Rocky practically launched off his pup bed and sprinted to the control room, paws hitting buttons with frantic precision.

"He's on it," Chase said quickly. "Ryder sir, hold on—"

The signal flickered.

Ryder's voice cut in and out. "Trace it—please—"

Then—

Static.

The connection died.

Chase stood frozen for half a second, staring at the tag like he could will Ryder back onto the line.

Then he turned to Rocky, voice sharp with urgency. "Did you get anything?"

Rocky's eyes were locked on the screen, code and coordinates scrolling. "I— I'm trying— it was short—"

"Try harder," Chase begged, and the word came out broken.

Back in the room, Ryder's breath stopped when he heard movement.

Footsteps outside the door.

He ripped the system down and shoved everything back into place just as the steel door opened.

The masked man stepped in, suspicious.

"What are you doing?" he growled.

Ryder forced his voice small. "I'm... programming your robot."

The man's gaze flicked toward the camera. His shoulders tightened.

"What did you do to my feed?"

Ryder's stomach turned to ice. "Nothing, sir."

The man didn't believe him.

Ryder hit the wall hard enough to see stars. He slid down, head ringing, mouth tasting like metal.

The man stood over him, voice low and furious. "Don't lie," he hissed. "You better not have contacted anyone."

Ryder's vision swam. He tried to breathe. Tried to move.

The man grabbed him roughly, hauled him partway up, then shoved him back down like Ryder weighed nothing.

Pain flared, sharp and spreading, and Ryder couldn't keep the sound out of his throat this time.

Then the man left again, slamming the door like he'd sealed Ryder into a coffin.

Ryder lay there on the cold floor, shaking, breathing shallowly. Everything hurt. His head throbbed. His ribs ached every time he inhaled. His arm felt wrong.

He couldn't tell what was broken and what was just pain.

He only knew one thing:

I hope Rocky traced it.

Ryder's eyes burned, but his body was already shutting down. Exhaustion and pain dragged him under like a tide.

As darkness took him, the last thought he managed to hold onto was the one thing that still felt like truth.

Please... find me.