Selena was dressed to the nines and super excited for what was going to be her first date night in months.

Normally Franklin took her out all the time. There was only one restaurant at night, which was Veera's. It wasn't every night, but from Friday night to Sunday night, she was open for dinner. She would dress her little café up in candles for romantic lighting, and would create these interesting meals. Never creating the same menu twice.

And sure, it was only open three days out of the week, but Franklin almost always took her there, at least one of the three nights. If they weren't at the diner, he was having her wined and dined at his mansion. But with the new girl showing up he had been vexingly distracted from wooing her.

She understood that Kelly's ability was important, and that protecting her and keeping everyone safe was difficult, especially with Kelly being as ungrateful as she was, but Franklin had been oddly extra attentive with her. He hadn't been half as concerned or generous when Selena had first arrived in town. Where as, Kelly was getting all sorts of charity, and taking up all of his time.

The gossip around the town was that Franklin even thought about moving her into the mayor's mansion.

He had never thought of doing that before... with anyone. Not even her.

Franklin always said he didn't want to live with anyone. He was a private person and that mansion was his only safe space. He didn't want anyone violating that.

As his girlfriend, Selena couldn't help but be jealous. All that attention should have been on her. It should have been her moving in that the town was gossiping about. Not the frumpy new girl.

Selena looked back at herself in the mirror. She was in the nicest outfit Elsa had made that year. A deep blue knee length, cleavage showing, skirt flaring dress. It was Selena's favourite style and it was the kind of dress that Franklin loved to pry off of her.

She was looking forward to that the most because her sex life had basically been bone dry since Kelly had come to town.

She paired the dress with a pair of navy-blue pumps, a little blue clutch and a strand of beautiful pearls.

Franklin had promised that he'd be picking her up in a few minutes. All she had to do now was check on her ward. Make sure all was good before she left for the night.

Aswella had been given to her as a hatchling to be taken care of only a year ago. She had not condoned the kidnapping of the Harpy's child but Franklin wanted to keep the town safe. At that point the Harpy was swooping in on the town at least once a day. She hadn't really gotten any townsfolk, but she had dropped a few after trying to take them, and stolen and damaged a lot of the town property.

Franklin had been convinced that that was the only way to keep the town safe and Selena couldn't really argue much with him once he had the child so she had done as he asked.

At first Aswella used to try to run away, but she didn't anymore. Which meant that Selena wasn't too worried about leaving her alone for the night. As long as the little harpy was sleeping before she left there wasn't anything to worry about.

Earlier this year all her feathers had started to grow out of her arms. They stopped being arms and started being wings. It was a prickly itchy process that had made Aswella particularly hard to deal with.

Selena had thought they were done with those tantrums but she had thrown another one of them today, almost entirely out of the blue. Had locked herself in her room right after school. When she did stuff like that Selena would just leave her alone, give her her space to work it out.

She just wanted to check on her before she left, make sure she was sleeping.

Then, if Franklin was late like she was worrying he might be, she'd march into the mayor's office and remind him of their date. Maybe get to the stripping parts early.

She knocked on the door but there was no response. Not unsurprising if she was sleeping or ignoring her. This was why Selena had a key to her door. She unlocked the door and poked her head inside.

The bed was empty.

Selena threw the door open and whirled around, scanning the room for the girl. Then she searched. Under the bed, in the closet, in the toy chest, everywhere. But she wasn't there.

Her window was open.

Just because she had feathered wings now didn't mean she could fly, right? Selena had been watching her like Franklin asked. The girl had been trying to fly but she wasn't getting any velocity. But that didn't change that her ward was gone, who cares how she did it, clearly the window was the mode of escaped.

She checked out the window just to be sures he hadn't jumped out to try and fly and was just dashed on the ground below. Nope, no body that she could see.

Nope. No, she was gone. And that was not good.

Without any hesitation she kicked off her heels, went for her runners which totally clashed with her dress, and then sprinted for the one man she knew who could fix this.