Chapter Seven: Searching

The week that I was on the run was the longest week of my life. I was constantly cold and wet and the fear of being caught never left me. I was always on the look out which ensured I was restless and sleep deprived. It was one particularly rainy day that convinced me to find shelter. I decided to use the opportunity the local library presented me to look for my father on the Internet. It was a long shot that I would find him (after all I knew very few details about him) but I knew I would never forgive myself if I didn't at least try.

The librarian at the front desk looked at me strangely as I approached her. I knew I must have presented an odd sight, wet and dirty and looking far to shabby to be anything but a homeless child. However, like was so often the case, when I spoke to her she softened to me almost immediately. She introduced herself, her name was Cathy, and she promptly showed me to a computer as asked.

I'd had little experience with computers however I could remember using the Internet when Rick first brought a computer into the house. It was old and worn but it worked and I had learnt pretty quickly how to navigate the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, as so often happened in our home, the computer was sold when Rick was a little low on funds so it was a short-lived novelty. However it did mean I had some ideas of where to begin my search.

I looked for my father, using a search engine, by seeking teachers who were my father's age and were educated at the university my mother and he had met in. My mother was never much of a student, which you would understand if you met her, however her parents had expected her to attend. After an extensive search, cross-referencing the year of graduation with the other information I had gathered over the years, I managed to narrow my search to a mere 118 people. Feeling defeated, I would never be able to sift through the list of possible fathers, I logged off the computer, thanked Cathy and prepared to leave.

After looking outside into the cold, gray scene before me I decided to look through the shelves of books for a few hours, anything to delay going out there. I spent blissful hours walking up and down aisles of books, reading titles and taking a look at those that caught my attention. I was so engrossed in a book about barn owls of Scotland that I didn't notice the two men approached me.

The larger of the two men, dressed in black suits, grabbed hold of my shoulder and caught my attention. I started to scream however the second man, slightly shorter and rather skinny, placed his hand over my mouth. He bent to my ear, whispered "You will walk with us calmly" so sternly that I NEVER would have considered any alternative form of action and they led me out of the library.