a/n- hey jubbas! not gonna lie, i'm kind of excited to be putting this chapter out!! just a brief kind of summary, you learn a bit more about cara, you see a little more of cara and emma's friendship, and you learn a little something more about elena's case (kind of more so a clue to be honest). aND LOOK AT ME UPDATING AFTER TWO DAYS, WHAT?

the ending to this kind of sucks, but i honestly did not know how to end this in an interesting way and im currently rushing because i have somewhere at four and its 3:30 and i've gotta shower and DAMN IT.

alriiiight, enjoy, and make sure to leave a comment because i really do love reading what you guys have to say!

x,

bri.

-

[ cara ]

Hurry, you don't have all day.

I quickened the speed of my fingers on the keyboard as I attempted to browse through my Dad's computer once again. How else would he track Elena's car? Where else would he have a tracking system installed? I mean, it had to be his laptop, right?

My breath hitched as the mouse ran across a circular green app, with not much of a design on it, to be honest. It was one of the last few apps that I hadn't checked, so of course I had to click on it. I was almost immediately met with the image of a lock, and was asked to punch in a passcode. I rolled my eyes, typing in Elena and I's birthday. The screen unlocked and I almost laughed. My Dad was too easy.

As a few more seconds began to flew by, I'd started to realize that this was it. This was the app that my Dad used to track the two of us down, and had failed to use to find my sister. To be completely honest, I didn't even know why I was sitting here trying anyway. If a professional security team and the FBI had failed to track Elena's car down using this system, God only knows what made me think I'd have a chance. I moved the mouse over to a tab that opened up to have IP tracker addresses tracking down both mine, and Elena's car. I bit the corner of my lip and quickly tapped on Elena's IP address and then cursed to myself when the computer failed to locate it. What the hell was going on?

"El, we're going!" I groaned to myself quietly at the sound of Calum's voice in the kitchen.

"Just a minute!" I called back, slamming the lid of the laptop closed out of frustration. I was beginning to get anxious and desperate.

I stood up and paced the tiled flooring of Dad's office. The app had never failed to locate either one of cars before, ever. He'd been able to find me when my car broke down in the middle of a fricking prairie (I'm not the best at re-filling my gas), and when Elena had taken a wrong turn on the highway and ended up in the middle of San Diego. What could've caused it to flop now?

What if the tracker on her car was the only connection they had to Elena right now? What if they were running out of ideas on how to find her? Would they just give the case up? Would they be forced to leak it out to the public, say she was missing?

I brought my index finger up to my lips and began to gnaw on my fingertip, my heart starting to race. My head started to lightly spin and I quickly took a seat in one of the chairs infant of Dad's desk, my head falling into m hands. It happened quite often, to be honest. Since I was fifteen. I worried a lot. And sometimes it would lead to little episodes like this - my heart starting to race, my mind blanking out, I started feeling dizzy and I had trouble breathing, like my lungs were shrinking in size by the second - but I never took it seriously. I'd never told anyone. It was normal to feel like this, right? Especially when feeling worried?

I breathed in and out deeply, tilting my head back and concentrating solely on my breathing, even when the door swung open.

"Cara, for the love of all things holy we have to leave now or we're gonna get stuck in- what's wrong?"

I shook my head, "I'm fine, Emma."

"Uh, you don't look like it... Or sound like it," she added as her eyes widened at my quick breathing. "Really, Cara, what's going on? You look and sound like you just ran a mile."

"It happens a lot," I shrugged, waving her off and pushing myself back up. "don't worry about me. Let's go."

Emma let out a small sound of disbelief, grabbing my wrist as I tried to make my way towards the door. I looked at her in confusion. "What?"

"You can't just shake something like that off, Cara. Is it just that? Is it just hyperventilating?"

"I get dizzy too, lightheaded sometimes.. My heart pounds really fast. I'm telling you though Emma, it's fine. It's been happening since I was thirteen whenever I'm anxious and I've made it to eighteen years old alive, so I think I'll be o-"

"Thirteen?!" Emma gaped at me, her eyes narrowing. I swallowed.

"Cara," Emma almost laughed, shaking her head. "that isn't okay! I can't believe this has been happening to you since you were a pubescent little girl and you never said anything, this is serious. You could-"

"Guys, I swear I'm gonna leave without you, I don't wanna get caught in traffic-" Calum yelled from outside the office once again, the sound of keys and the front door opening a weak attempt to threaten us.

Emma shut her eyes and then looked back at me, sighing. "Remind me to take you to a doctor sometime soon, okay?"

My eyes widened. No. Absolutely not. This'd been happening to me for as long as I could remember now! I'd learned how to manage myself, how to calm myself down, how to cope with it- what else did I need a doctor for? "Emma, I'm fine! This is blowing layout of proportion-"

"Cara," she scolded, giving me a look that wordlessly told me to just give up. "Elena may be my best friend, but I care about you too. This is serious, and it isn't something that should just be thrown aside. I mean you look like you just saw the woman in black. I'm going to take you to a doctor as soon as possible, and I frankly do not give a shit about what you say. Okay?"

I exhaled, shakily. There was no use in arguing with her. I was sure everything would be alright in the end, anyway. "Okay."

She grinned at me, sympathetically, and my breathing finally slowed down.

-

I laughed as I stuck my hand outside the window, throwing peace signs out to all the drivers and cars behind us. Cal made a disapproving sound, something along the lines of 'aye!', and swatted my thigh playfully. "Someone's gonna call the cops on you."

Emma cleared her throat from the backseat and dropped her pitch down about four octaves lower, "Officer, there's an obnoxious white girl in the car in front of us who thinks she's cute, and keeps throwing peace signs up in the air while I try to drive, I'm filing a complaint." Calum laughed, his head falling back.

"I'm not white!" I whined, laughing anyway. "This is the last time I'm gonna say this, you ignorant toad, I am Portuguese!"

"Is that why the chicken your mom makes is always bomb?" Emma snickered, turning her head and attention back down to her phone screen.

"Precisely." I hummed.

"Shit, I've gotta piss." Calum muttered to himself, turning to both sides of the road while we were at a stoplight. "Where's the nearest convenient store?"

I took a minute to look at where we were and our surroundings until I realized that our high school was only about four minutes away. "I mean, there's a 7-Eleven behind our school? Can you really not hold it in?"

"I have a bladder the size of walnut, Elena." Calum retorted, taking a right turn towards the school.

"Should've peed at home, then." Emma muttered.

"I didn't have to go then!"

"You know your guys' house is like half an hour away, you should've at least tried!" I chimed in,

"Be thankful that I think you're cute, otherwise I would've asked you to get out of the car already." He glared at me teasingly. I rolled my eyes and gave him a face, but smiled anyway once he'd turned back to face the road.

Once the car had been parked in front of the convenient store, Calum had stepped out, leaving Emma and I in the car alone. The air was still a little tense regarding what had happened earlier, and I found myself wishing for Calum to hurry back.

"I can't believe we're actually done with school." Emma suddenly chuckled, staring out the window at the high school we'd both previously gone to, along with Elena, for the past four years of our lives.

"Me either," I answered truthfully, shaking my head in sudden disbelief. "but there's still college, you know? There's still so much to do so I don't think we should relax too much if you get what I'm-"

"Do you see that?" Emma cut me off, her voice sharp.

I turned around curiously- she was looking out the window with her lips parted. Quickly, as if I thought that if I didn't act fast enough, what she was staring at would disappear, I turned to look out of the passenger window. All I saw were cars parked in the plaza parking lot, the school building, trees, grass- nothing interesting. I squinted. "What are you talking about?"

"That car, Cara!"

I squinted in frustration, my eyes weak without my glasses. I continued to look around the parking lot, still clueless. None of the cars exactly stood out! What car? Which car?! "I still don't know what you're looking-"

"Look at the school parking lot, Cara." Emma's voice was only getting sharper, more tense. "Do you see that car?!"

I shifted my gaze to the only part of the school visible, which was the back of the building and the back parking lot. It was for the most part, empty, aside from the small black car parked in the center of the lot, with three familiar white flowers spray painted on the hood. My breath hitched in my throat, and I felt like throwing up.

It was Elena's car.

"Oh my God," I whispered to myself, quickly fumbling with the door handle until it opened. I hadn't had a good run since I ran home from school the day I'd found out Elena had gone missing, so the fact that I was running like hell towards the black Prius had my legs crying for help.

It seemed unbelievable, it seemed like a dream. It had to be. Hadn't I just broken down earlier this morning, thinking that I'd never see her again? How was everything just happening so quickly? Was this actually it? Was the project actually finished?

Everything had happened insanely quickly- before I knew it, I was five feet away from her car.

"Elena!" I yelled out once I'd finally reached the vehicle, banging on the trunk. I ran to the front of the car, peering through the window, expecting to be met with my sister's face.

"Where is she?!"

I ignored Emma's voice from behind me, continuing to stare into the driver's window, thinking that if I concentrated enough, I'd see what I wanted to see- I'd see Elena sitting in the driver's seat, staring back at me with a mocking grin spread across her face.

The only thing was, she wasn't there. She wasn't siting in the driver's seat, looking at me. She wasn't back.

Elena wasn't there.

"She's not here." I said quietly, shakily, backing away from the car a little bit, but continuing to stare into its interior through the glass. All of her things were there- her pink bomber jacket, her white tumbler cup, still filled half way with water, her backpack, her purse- everything was still there. Why didn't she take any of those things with her?

"She obviously didn't think to take any of her stuff with her," Emma exhaled, reading my mind. I nodded.

I groaned, hating myself for getting my hopes up. This absolutely sucked. The feeling sucked. "But why would she just leave her car here?! If she was going to run away, wouldn't she need her car?"

Emma shook her head, folding her arms across her chest. "Not necessarily. Someone else could've picked her up in their own car. She could've run away with someone else."

I sighed, knowing that that was definitely a possibility.

"But you would think that she'd at least bother to take her purse with her, don't you think?" I turned to look at Emma, feeling exasperated. "Elena's clumsy, so I understand her accidentally leaving her phone behind at home. But her car? She would never trust the world enough to leave her car parked here alone! And her bag, why the hell would she leave her bag? She left behind some of the most important-"

"Don't tell me that's what I think it is."

I gave her a dirty look. "Emma, you need to stop cutting me-"

Emma pointed her finger towards the ground, near the back left tire of the car. "Is that or is that not the tacker your dad installed into Elena's car, laying on the ground, smashed into pieces, Cara?"

My narrow V shape my eyebrows formed deepened even more and I averted my eyes to where her finger was pointing. My eyes widened and I quickly rushed over to the pile of metallic and plastic pieces laying on the ground, bending down onto my knees get a closer look. I picked a few of the pieces off of the ground and fumbled them with my fingers. It looked exactly like the tracker device my Dad had showed and told the both of us he'd installing onto our cars before he even handed over the keys, only completely destroyed. "This is it. It has to be it."

"Oh my God," Emma slapped her palm to her forehead harshly, looking away. "I can't. I'm done."

My lips parted, but no words came out. I was rendered speechless, to be completely honest. This must've been why nobody was able to track her down using the tracker. She stomped all over the fucking thing.

"Does this mean.. Does this mean she doesn't want to be found?" Emma asked, after a few moments of simple silence.

I bit my lip and shook my head, shrugging. "I don't know."

"But now we have a clue. We can go from here. I don't know where the hell she went, but she didn't take her car." I stood back up and turned back around to face Emma, who was gnawing on her thumbnail. "Elena would never choose to run away, okay, she's rebellious as hell, but she wouldn't do that. She knows better. I'm sticking with the theory that someone must have convinced her to run away with them, hence her leaving her car here, or-"

I paused, and Emma stared at me curiously, edging me to complete my sentence. I exhaled and peered over my shoulder at the car once again, before continuing on.

"Or someone kidnapped Elena. And that someone doesn't want her to be found."