"You don't walk away if you love someone. You help the person." -Hillary Clinton


Chapter 2

The night before:

"Hey Char," Henry said, fiddling with elevator button, "I think something's wrong with the elevator."

"What's the problem?" Charlotte asked, walking over.

"It's not opening." To prove his point, he pushed the button and yanked his hand away immediately. A blue bolt of lightning hit his hand and died out.

"See? It shocked me!" He rubbed his hand gingerly.

Henry's phone buzzed as a text appeared on the screen. He skimmed through it, his eyes widening and his face whitening.

"I need to go. Now." Henry made for the tubes, but Charlotte halted him.

"Wait up! What's wrong?" she asked concernedly, upon seeing Henry's panicked face.

Henry thrust his phone wordlessly at her. She read the text, her face growing solemn.

"Go. I'll tell Ray where you've gone.''

Henry nodded gratefully and shouted "Up the tube!"

Cops were already on the scene when he arrived, and the rest of Henry's family were huddled on the lawn. Henry's mother was crying.

Henry's dad looked up as he approached, distress on his face. "She's gone," he whispered brokenly.

"Hey you! Young man!" It took Henry a moment to realize that the policeman was addressing him, "Are you Henry Hart?"

"Yeah, so?" Henry retorted.

The cop took no notice of his belligerent tone. "We have few questions for you."

"Fine," Henry relented, "But only a few."

"Where were you when your sister was kidnapped?" the cop questioned, a pen and notebook in hand, ready to take notes.

"Are you accusing me of something, sir?" Henry's temper flared up.

"No, and be quiet, I'm the one asking the questions," the cop snapped, "Now answer the question."

"Fine. I was working at Junk-N-Stuff. That's my job." Ray could vouch for him later.

"How close were you to your sister, on a scale of one to ten?"

Henry bit back a remark. As if I would kidnap my own sister."Eight." That was stretching it a bit, but he loved his sister, no matter how many arguments they had.

The cop scribbled it down. "Now, who is your boss at Junk-N-Stuff?"

"Ray Manchester." Why did he need to know all of this?

"Did he come over often to your home?"

"Not really. Why do you need to know that?"

"Just eliminating as many suspects as possible." The cop wrote his response down.

"Are you implying something, sir?" Henry asked, his voice rising in volume.

"Of course not. We just need to narrow down the number of people that could be responsible for your sister's kidnapping."

"Are you saying my boss is a suspect? That's ridiculous! He was with me the whole time!" Henry protested.

The cop ignored his objection. "Thank you Henry, that's all we needed to know."

Henry rolled his eyes as the cop walked away, relieved that the interrogation was over.

He joined his parents on the front lawn, closed his eyes, and prayed that this would all go away. When he opened them, the scene was still the same. Red and blue lights flashing, yellow warning tape surrounding the perimeter of their house, and cops scattered left and right.

"What happened?" he asked, turning his eyes to his parents, begging for answers.

"Your mother and I were just wondering where you were. It was quite late, after all. Then, we heard a crashing sound and Piper's scream, and then it all stopped. We ran to the window, and there it was, holding our daughter and laughing like a madman. Then, it took off down the street, and then we straightaway called the cops and texted you."

His father concluded the story with a sad look on his face. Henry's mother burst into a fresh set of tears. "That evil thing ran off with my baby!"

"And he left this," Mr. Hart added, handing him a short note. It was printed in elegant calligraphy, and emitted a threatening tone.

"Either reveal to the world who you are, or face the consequences. When you are ready, meet me at the place where the indestructible force met its end."

A chill zipped down Henry's spine.

"I don't what the devil this person is insinuating, but if he lays a finger on our Piper..." Mr. Hart let the threat hang, shaking his head.

Henry wasn't listening. He needed to alert Ray. Heart pounding in his ears, he swiftly thought of an excuse.

"Hey, Mom and Dad, I'm going to look at the damage to Piper's window, okay? Bye." He didn't let them speak, and darted to the backyard, where he could have some privacy.

He flipped the lid of his watch open and Ray's hologram appeared.

"Hey Kid, Charlotte told me what happened. How're your parents?" Ray queried anxiously.

"Distraught, to say the least. Hey listen, that's not what I called you for, okay? The guy who kidnapped my sister left a note."

"So?" Ray asked.

"Listen to what it says." Henry read the note aloud, and Ray's face became alarmed as the words sunk in.

"No, this can't be happening," Ray groaned.

Return to Present

"Hey Henry, pass me a banana."

Those were the sole words spoken during breakfast the next morning. Charlotte wanted a banana, so Henry silently passed a banana to her. Charlotte ripped off the skin and bit into it.

The Harts were all stressed and still not over the shock from the night before. Nobody slept at all, judging from the heavy bags under their eyes. Mrs. Hart had forgone her usually tidy appearance and donned a simple blouse and jeans, and not bothered at all to do her hair. It was jarring sight, seeing how much the Harts had changed overnight.

The rumor mill was extremely efficient at its job, so by the morning, word had spread that the Harts' bratty daughter had been abducted and that got everyone stirring.

Now, the Harts were a well-known family in Swellview, and they were generally liked. The oldest, Henry, was a likable boy, but the younger girl, Piper, was infamous for her spoiled attitude and unhealthy addiction to technology.

However, this town wasn't united like the one in "The Grinch." Everybody went about their business, and few offered their condolences, including Jasper, Charlotte, and Ray (as Captain Man).

Charlotte was residing in the Harts' home, and occupied the spare bedroom. Her intent, as she said, was to be with Henry at a hard time. That was partially true. However, her real purpose for staying there was to discuss the pending issue at hand, which was deciphering the note.

Henry could care less about the note; he just wanted his sister back. Finally, Charlotte gave him the ultimatum: If he wanted his sister back, they had to figure out where she was first.

Charlotte hated seeing Henry like this; he was hardly the upbeat friend that she knew. Some part of her told her mind that he would get over it.

And the stupid butterflies wouldn't go away. They still lingered in her stomach whenever she was in Henry's presence.

While Charlotte was dealing with these problems, Henry's parents were struggling to salvage their own. It wasn't just physically they were anguished; it was also emotionally. They had no idea about the sender of the note, nor did they care. Like Henry, they just desperately wanted their daughter back, despite her brazen ways.

It was three days when Charlotte finally coaxed Henry out of the house. They went for a walk in Swellview Park.

"Hey look! It's the ice cream stand! Let's go get some ice cream," Charlotte invited enthusiastically. Henry just grunted his assent, and Charlotte dragged him forcibly to the stand.

"Hiya there, Mr. Hoffman!" Charlotte greeted the man, "My friend and I wanted some ice cream."

"Hey, Charlotte!" Mr. Hoffman's face lit up as he recognized his customer. "What'll it be today? Pecan? Mint?"

"Neither of those, actually," Charlotte sighed, "It's for my friend. Two vanilla ice cream cones, double scoops."

Mr. Hoffman hummed softly under his breath as he fixed their ice creams. He pointed discreetly to the sprinkles, and then to Henry's ice cream. Charlotte nodded.

"Here you go." He presented the ice cream cones. Charlotte took both of them and placed them in Henry's hands.

Charlotte rifled through her pockets until she found the right amount of change. But before she could pay for the ice cream, a rough hand landed in front of her and she looked up to see Mr. Hoffman's smiling face in front of her.

There was a curious tattoo on the side of his neck. A raven. How odd, she noted.

"Consider this one on me, Charlotte," he said warmly, his eyes flickering to Henry, whose concentration was devoted to kicking a pebble with his sneaker.

Charlotte looked at her friend, and then back up to Mr. Hoffman uncertainly. "Why are you being so nice to us?"

"Do I need a reason to be? Consider this a treat for my favorite customer."

"Thanks again!" she called as she walked away.

"C'mon Henry, lick your ice cream before it melts," she chided.

Henry tuned her out. He was in his own world.

Charlotte didn't like this Henry. She needed to get through to him, and fast, before it destroyed their friendship.

"You know what? Let's have a chat." She pulled him over to a nearby bench and sat down.

"Are you going to sit down, or am I going to have to make you?"

Henry sat.

"Listen up. I want you to listen to what I have to say, and no interruptions. Got it?"

He nodded mutely.

"I'm getting sick and tired of your miserable attitude. I hate it when you get like this, honestly I do. I want the old Henry back. You know, the cheerful, easy-going, funny Henry that I used to know. Remember him?"

He sighed heavily. "What do want me to do?"

"Just tell me what's bothering you. Get it all out."

"If only if it was that easy, Char," he sighed, "You know what's bothering me."

"Okay, then. Tell me how you feel."

His pretty coffee-colored eyes were glassy as he elaborated. "It's tearing me apart inside. I never realized that I really, truly loved my sister until she was taken. And I'm just so exhausted. Ray and I are working our butts off to solve this crime, and the police are no help at all. I just wish we knew what that note meant. That would solve all our questions."

Charlotte sympathized with Henry. Poor Henry, she had no idea how it must feel like to lose a loved one to a person with malicious intentions.

Henry had his head in his hands now. "I swear, if this person even touches Piper, I will kill him. That son of a bastard ought to be ashamed of himself, or whatever the hell its gender is."

Charlotte had never seen Henry get this emotional, which was saying something. Henry rarely let his emotions get the best of him, and when they did, it wasn't pretty.

At that moment, Jasper came barreling up to them, his phone in one hand and toting a silver bucket.

Jasper was panting too much to form a comprehensive sentence, so Charlotte let him breathe for a few moments.

"Ray..." he panted, "He wants-wants you—Man Cave."

That was enough information for Charlotte to understand the message Jasper was trying to relay. Without second thought, she grabbed Henry's hand, an impulsive gesture on her part, and Henry looked down at their clasped hands, confused. "Char—?"

Mortified, Charlotte looked at their intertwined hands. Thankfully, Jasper hadn't noticed a thing, otherwise he would've leapt on it.

A light blush crept up to her face as she instantly released his hand. She thanked her dark skin. But she could not deny the tingles that went through her hand at that contact.

Henry, too, had subtle signs of embarrassment. He was rubbing the back of his neck inconspicuously, baffled at the sudden action. And there was no contradicting the fact that a shiver had gone up his spine the moment Charlotte touched him. He had no idea why this had happened, but little did he know, his feelings for Charlotte had changed just a tad.

Charlotte could feel Henry's eyes burning holes into the side of her head, so to divert his attention, she asked quickly, "What does he need us for?"

"Something about a note, I think. I'm too tired to remember." Jasper gasped dramatically as if to enhance his point.

"Great. Let's go." Charlotte had to suppress the inexplicable urge to reach out and hold his hand.


"Hey, Ray, we're here," Henry said breathlessly, skidding into the Man Cave, Charlotte less than a foot behind him. "Jasper said something about the note...?"

"Oh right." Ray looked up from the couch, from where he was thumbing through an issue of Playboy, the women posing provocatively on the cover. One was giving a seductive smile.

"Well?" Charlotte asked pointedly, trying to mask the repulsed feeling that rose up in her at the suggestive magazine. Beside her, Henry was also feeling similarly abhorrent.

"Right." Ray tossed aside the magazine, stood up, and stretched his limbs. "Well, Schwoz and I—"

A dry cough echoed throughout the room. Schwoz was tinkering with the monitors.

"Schwoz," Ray corrected, shooting the foreign man a haughty look, "did some tests on the note, and found out who sent it. Here, take a look at it and see if you can guess."

He extended the note to the pair standing by the elevator. Henry and Charlotte both made to grab it and their hands brushed accidentally. This resulted in both of them hastily withdrawing their hands, Henry muttering an apology, and Charlotte blushingly taking the note. Henry read the note over her shoulder. Charlotte could feel heat radiating from his body. Suddenly, the room felt hotter than before.

Ray, meanwhile, had gone back to idly reading his magazine, having noticed nothing. Schwoz was watching them earnestly, his eyes shifting between Henry and Charlotte.

"Look closely," he told them.

Henry leaned even closer to her to peer at the note, and Charlotte couldn't take it anymore. She dropped the note, her body uncomfortably hot.

"Why'd you do that?" Henry got down on his hands and knees at her feet to retrieve the note, as Charlotte's cheeks grew warm for the second time that day. What was wrong with her? She'd never felt like this before.

Henry had found the note, and was studying it intently with his caramel eyes. "Who was it?"

"It's this guy named Ringo. He's a part time clown, and an undercover criminal. He's disguised himself as a clown to avoid capture, but he can't hide from us now."

"Uh, he can, actually. We don't know where he is," Charlotte pointed out expertly, "He could be lurking anywhere."

"With my sister," Henry added, his face betraying nothing, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what Henry was feeling on the inside. Hatred, for the man who had unrightfully taken Piper hostage.

"That's the thing. We don't know where he is," Ray said, his face downcast. Henry also seemed to deflate on the outside, but it was nothing in comparison to the emotional tumult inside him.

His emotions were so raw that Charlotte could feel them emanating off of him, so strong that she felt bad for him. She couldn't imagine the pain and suffering he and his parents were going through.

"Ray, it's Piper we're talking about here." His voice trembled, his lower lip wobbling slightly, "She's my sister. I can't just...lose her." His voice cracked.

That touched the hearts of everyone in the room. Charlotte hugged him, ignoring the recurrence of the butterflies and the repetition of the burning, tingly sensation that went up her spine.

Ray, however, was having difficulty trying to sum the gall to hug his sidekick. He hated this situation as much as Henry did, and honestly, he longed to murder the person causing Henry this much torture.

But it was true that they couldn't go right away. They had no clue where this clown lunatic was, and they wouldn't know until they figured it out.

Schwoz hurried into the room at that moment. "Turn on Channel 7 news!" he said urgently.

Ray dashed to the monitors, pressed a button, and the familiar logo zipped across the screen. The newscasters were anxiously shuffling through their reports, before finding the correct one and staring unblinkingly at the camera.

"Breaking news. The man who has captured a young girl from Swellview has been spotted. According to the informant, whose name is undisclosed, the man was wearing a clown costume and was entertaining young children at a birthday party. Here's Penny with more information."

The screen slid to fair-haired woman, with big blue eyes and chubby stature. Henry looked up, intrigued.

"Thanks, Trent," she replied promptly, an air of importance around her, "The man has been identified as Ringo, a popular clown in Swellview. He was amusing children with his juggling skills. He then proceeded to make an attempt to grab one of the little kids and run away. He was unsuccessful, however, and had to make a run for it. The police are tracking him, and have added him to their hit list."

Ray snorted. "As if. They're probably lounging around, eating donuts and whatever else they have down there." He turned off the screen and plopped down in the command chair, disconsolate.

"Ray, do you know what this means? We can find him now." Henry paced the Man Cave, his eyes alight.

Ray sighed, not wanting to break the news to the kid. "Kid, we still won't be able to, unfortunately. He could be anywhere."

Henry ran his hands through his hair, refusing to believe it. There just had to be a way.

"Doesn't Schwoz have a device that can track someone's location by their footprints? Or can he build one?" he queried desperately.

"Listen Kid, we can't do anything right now. The least we can do is wait around for a new sighting." Oh man, Ray loathed discouraging his sidekick, but there was no point in chasing after a man that couldn't be found.

Henry was stubbornly unrelenting. "We don't just 'wait around;' we're Captain Man and Kid Danger! They don't just wait around. They take action. That's why we're Swellview's superheroes," he argued.

Charlotte hadn't spoken at all during this debate, but she had to concede that he had a fair point

"That's true, but we can't just go running after a man blindly. Look, I admire your strong will, and I'm inclined to agree with it, it's just that we need to be logical." Ray was finding it harder to disagree with Henry. But he couldn't just get his head past the odds.

Henry slumped to the ground, finally defeated. Ray, unwilling to say anything more, left the room. Schwoz hastily made an excuse and disappeared into the back room.

Charlotte and Henry were now the only ones remaining in the Man Cave. Charlotte was in the midst of an internal conflict, torn between saying Ray was right and comforting Henry. She settled for kneeling next to him, brushing his golden hair aside and meeting his eyes.

He looked so forlorn that Charlotte felt pained. She spoke quietly to him, attempting to ease the ache just a little. "Henry, it's okay, we'll locate him eventually."

"'Eventually?' I want to locate him now. The little shit who kidnapped my sister," he spat bitterly, his eyes burning with loathing.

Charlotte was willing to agree with him, but she was playing the role of best friend at the moment. Although...she wouldn't mind being in a different role. You know, girl-

No. No. She would not allow herself to finish that thought. That was completely absurd. Right now, she wanted to be and remain his best friend. And right now, he needed her help, and she wasn't going to think such preposterous thoughts. She was going to console him.

"Henry, he's bound to show up at some point, right? He can't hide forever," Charlotte explained reasonably.


"No. Don't you dare," Ray, in his Captain Man attire, hissed. He and Kid Danger were cornering a villain who went by the name 'Arthritis.'

Kid Danger, however, wasn't into crime-fighting today. His lack of fire and enthusiasm puzzled many of the citizens in the general area. The absence of this was unsettling; it was almost as if he didn't want to fight crime anymore.

Arthritis was holding a Stun-Gun, and was aiming it at Captain Man, unknowing to the fact that he was indestructible and was making the biggest mistake of his life.

A taunting smirk crossed Captain Man's lips as he came to that conclusion. He moved closer, and a beam shot out of the gun, hit Captain Man, and rebounded. A second later, Arthritis lay on the ground, unconscious.

"Thank you, thank you, citizens. No need to thank me," the handsome superhero said, bowing theatrically as the crowd applauded jubilantly. Captain Man was yet again, a hero.

No one noticed as Kid Danger slipped away unseen from the scene. His heart was beating erratically. He'd just received an imperative text from his mother, telling him that he was needed at home immediately.

He made sure to change back into his normal self before entering the house.

The first thing he saw was that his mother was crying, and his father was rubbing her soothingly on the back. Henry automatically assumed the worst, judging from his mother's tear-stained face.

"Any updates?" Henry asked worriedly, sitting on the couch beside his dad.

Mrs. Hart lifted her wet face and said hysterically, "She's gone, Henry."

"Who's gone?" Henry asked persistently, his edginess growing.

His father's face said it all. Gravely, he broke the news to Henry. "It's Charlotte."

Seriously, enough with the cliffhangers already! -All of my Stages of Love fans

Yeah, totally, I agree. I wish the cliffhangers would stop too. But that's the great part about keeping readers in suspense. It keeps them on the edge of their seats.

Okay, sorry about the delay. I'll try to keep updating weekly. It's hard when you have multiple multi-chapter stories that are incomplete. I feel like this chapter was subpar, or below my standards. But the reviews help me improve.

Wishing you happy writing & reading,

~AJ