Spencer woke up to bright sunlight hitting her eyes. She was in a room she didn't recognize.
She immediately sat up and realized that Alex was in the bed next to her, but she wanted to find Emma. She could tell she was in someone's house, it was to homey feeling to be a hotel.
She got out of bed, she was still in her clothes from the nigh before. She walked out of the room, she could smell pancakes and hear people talking from down the hall. She followed her nose to the kitchen, where she found Aria and Ezra standing in front of the stove and talking in low voices while making googley eyes at each other.
"Aria?" Spencer didn't remember coming here last night, the last thing she remembered was pulling out of the driveway in Alex's car and then nothing, maybe she fell asleep.
"Oh, your up, are you okay? How are you doing?" Aria walked across the kitchen and hugged Spencer.
"I'm fine, when did I get here?"
"Last night. Alex called us from your phone and told us everything. He asked if you could stay with us for a while. You had fallen asleep in the car and Alex carried you in.""Where's Emma?"
"She's fine. She's in Liam's trundle bed, we moved it into Annabelle's room last night"
"Is it on the floor? she'll fall out if she doesn't have bars" Spencer started toward the hallway as she was saying this, but Aria caught her arm.
"Relax, we only use one bar for Liam's bed since its against the wall, so we moved Annabelle's toy box so Emma can have the wall on one side, and the extra bar on the other."
"Okay, sorry I'm just frazzled"
"It's fine, we understand, are you hungry?" Spencer didn't realize that she was famished. She hadn't eaten much that night, she was going to have something when she got home from the coffee shop, but then the whole thing happened with her car and she had been in such a rush to get out of there she hadn't noticed she needed food.
"Yes, very" She said.
Aria led Spencer to the kitchen table where Ezra was putting down a plate of blueberry pancakes.
"Thank you so much!" Spencer said to Ezra, it was still a little weird knowing that he used to be her English teacher, and now he's her best friends husband. He still kind of looked the same, he had the same messy black hair, the most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen, and he still had a little sense of that boyish smile he always used to flash at Aria when they flashed each other in the hallways.
"So how did she get in your house, did you hear a door open or anything?" Aria asked Spencer as she put syrup on the pancakes.
"No, I just heard her pick up my keys, at first I thought it was Alex, but when I checked, he was upstairs in bed. So I woke him up and he had no idea what I was talking about. We looked everywhere for them, but we couldn't find them, then we looked in the driveway, and my car was gone"
"Do you have a tracker on your car?" Spencer wished she did."No"
"I was just thinking if you did we could track where your car is and see who is doing this" Aria said.
"Aria, I don't think she wants to talk about it right now, she had a hard night last night" Ezra said as he put two cups of coffee on the table for them.
"I'm sorry, I just hate having to go through this again, and with our kids in it this time. It really scares me." Aria said.
"I know, I feel the same way. I don't like not knowing who it is and I hate thinking that they might do something to out children" Spencer felt a jolt of adrenaline run through her, she wanted to see Emma, to know that she's alright.
"I'm going to go check on the girls" Spencer said as she got up from the table.
"You mean these girls?" They all looked to the hallway to see Alex holding Annabelle and Emma clinging to his leg.
"Emma!" Spencer ran over and picked up her daughter. "Are you alright? Did you sleep okay?"
Emma rubbed her sleepy eyes "I'm fine mommy" She said "I'm hungry"
"You want some pancakes? Mr. Ezra made some" Pancakes are Emma's absolute favorite breakfast food, but Spencer wasn't the best at making them, so she almost never got them.
Emma ran over to the table where Spencer helped her into Liam's booster chair.
"Do you mind if she uses this until Liam wakes up?" She asked Ezra who was putting a plate of pancakes in front of the excited three-year-old.
"No problem" Ezra smiled at Emma. "Do you want syrup?" He asked with that boyish smile.
"Yes, please" Emma said shyly.
Spencer laughed and walked over to give Alex a good morning kiss. Aria was putting Annabelle into her highchair and Ezra was so kindly cutting Emma's pancakes for her.
"Do you want to call Emily and Hanna so they can come over and we can discuss what we're going to do about this." Aria asked Spencer as she fed Annabelle a spoon full of soggy Cheerios.
"Um, sure, I'll tell them to come over in about an hour. Um, what's your address?"
"I'll write it down for you" Aria said.
"Okay, I'll be right back"
Spencer was going back down the hallway to find her phone. She walked past Annabelle's room, she could tell by the amazing mural Aria had painted on the wall. She was looking at the Dr. Seuss inspired picture when she heard a noise. She walked into the room completely and saw a shadow pass the window.
"Alex! Ezra!" She called them in from the kitchen.
"Yea, Spencer, are you okay?" Alex answered as he and Ezra walked into the room, Aria wasn't far behind with Annabelle and Emma.
"I heard a sound and saw a shadow out that window" Spencer pointed.
"It's probably nothing. But lets just check outside to make sure everything is okay" Alex said, he and Ezra walked back into the kitchen. As soon as Aria heard the back door slam, she looked at Spencer.
"Do you think it's something?""I'm not sure, but I'd rather have them go out and look, just to be safe" Spencer picked up Emma and started toward the kitchen again.
Alex and Ezra came running in the back door, out of breath."What happened? Are you okay?" Spencer asked, worried.
"Aria, we need to pack, now, we need to get out of here" Ezra said as he took Aria by the arm and led her toward their bedroom.
"What's going on?" Spencer followed Alex to the guest room where they were staying.
"We need to leave. Get Emma and Annabelle dressed for them, I'll go get Liam up."
"Okay" Spencer did as she was told and, after throwing on a pair of jeans, she got Emma and Annabelle dressed and ready to leave. She packed Annabelle toys and got Emma's bag that hadn't even been unpacked yet.
She met Alex in the hallway, he was out of breath and looked scared.
"Where's Liam?"
"He's not in his room" Alex said.
"Aria!" Spencer said as she ran toward where Aria and Ezra disappeared to.
She let herself into their room, which she knew was incredibly rude, but it was an emergency.
Aria was standing in between the closet and a suite case on the floor throwing clothes into it, just as Spencer had the night before.
"Liam's gone" Spencer said.
Aria dropped the pile of clothes she had in her hands and Ezra came running out of the bathroom.
"What" Ezra asked.
"Alex went to get Liam up and he wasn't in his bed"
They all ran toward Liam's room. Alex was there looking in the closet.
"I can't find him" Alex said when he saw two very worried parents at the door.
Ezra, Aria, Spencer, and Alex all searched every nook and cranny of that house and Liam was nowhere to be found.
"We need to get out of here, now!" Aria said as she started to throw clothes into a bag for Annabelle.
Ezra and Alex started loading the cars with bags while Spencer and Aria got the girls ready. They were all in their cars and pulling out of the driveway within 5 minutes. They had no idea where they were going, maybe Emily's house to warn her, and call Hanna.
"I'm calling Emily, lets go to her place" Spencer said to Alex, who was following Ezra's car.
"I don't think it's a good idea to go to someone's house, I think they would have a better chance of finding us there, maybe we should go out of town for a little while" Alex told Spencer calmly.
"Yea, that does sound like the best thing now, but we need to find Liam, let's talk about it when we get to the police station"
Ezra pulled up to the police station and Alex followed. They all got out and ran inside.
"We need help" Aria said, loudly, as soon they were through the doors.
"What's wrong Miss?" Asked a man sitting behind a desk.
"My son, we went to wake him up this morning and he wasn't in his bed. We've looked everywhere and we can't find him" Aria was talking really fast, which Spencer knew meant that she was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.
"When was the last time you saw him, ma'am?" The officer asked.
"Last night when we were putting him to bed." Aria's eyes were starting to tear up and a single tear fell down her cheek.
"Do you know if he would have any reason to run away?"
"He's only 5, he can't even tie his own shoes yet!" Aria was getting upset, she just wanted them to find her baby she didn't have time for all these questions.
"Alright, if you two wouldn't mind going with this officer, he's going to help you try to find your son."
Ezra and Aria followed a tall officer with a black beard into a room full of windows, but it had blinds covering them.
Alex handed Emma to Spencer and walked out of the police station, Spencer followed him.
"What do we do now?" She asked him.
"Come on, lets go check their house and yard one more time, there's a chance Liam could still be there" Alex started walking toward the car and pressed the button to unlock it.
Spencer got in the back and began buckling Emma in her car seat as Alex pulled away. He sped all the way back to Aria's house.
They pulled into the driveway, but Alex didn't turn the car off.
"Spence, if I ask you to stay in the car, would you?""That depends, why are you asking me to?"
"When me and Ezra went to check outside after you heard that noise, we saw someone running away in a black sweatshirt.""Do you think they had Liam?"
"Possibly, but I don't want to put you in danger just in case he came back after we left. Will you come sit in the drivers seat while I go look through the house?""Okay, but I don't like you going in there alone."
"I'll be fine Spence"
Spencer got out of the back seat and gave Alex a quick kiss before getting into the driver seat and watching him go inside. She sat there inpatient, answering Emma's never-ending questions. She was so worried, she wanted to go in after him, but she didn't know who would be in there, and she didn't want to put Emma in anymore danger than she already had.
All of a sudden, Spencer heard a loud screeching sound coming from the house. It sounded like a smoke detector. She grabbed Emma out of the back seat and ran inside. The house was filled with smoke, she couldn't even see 2 feet in front of her.
"Alex!" She stood at the front door screaming his name. She heard glass break from the kitchen, but she didn't know if that was the fire or if Alex was in there. She took another step forward, she could feel the heat from the fire on her arms and she pressed Emma tighter to her chest.
"Mommy, I want to get out of here!" Emma yelled.
Spencer turned around and went back to the car. She grabbed her phone and dialed 9-1-1. "9-1-1, what's your emergency" A voice answered.
"My friends house is on fire!" Spencer pulled a wrinkled piece of paper out of her pocket and read Aria's squiggly handwriting to tell the operator the address of the fire.
"A fire truck is on its way ma'am"
"Okay, thank you" Spencer hung up the phone, and immediately heard sirens. A giant red truck came speeding around the corner and pulled up in front of Aria's house. All the firefighters jumped off the truck and began to extinguish the house.
One came over to Spencer.
"Ma'am, was there anybody in the house that you know of?""My husband went in there to look for our friends son" Spencer told the man.
"Okay, ma'am, we'll do everything we can to get them out and safe" The man ran away and into Aria's house.
Spencer just stood there with Emma, feeling so helpless. Her phone buzzed in her hand and she looked down to see Aria's name and picture on the screen.
"Aria!" She answered. "Do they have people looking for Liam?""Yea, they just sent out 3 squad cars. Where are you guys, are you alright?" Spencer could tell by Aria's voice that she had been crying.
"Aria, you need to come home, now!"
"Is everything okay?" Aria was getting upset again.
"I can't tell you, just come home, you'll see when you get here."
Aria saw the fire truck when Ezra turned onto their street.
"Oh, my gosh!" That was all she could say.
Ezra pulled over in front of their neighbors house, so they wouldn't be in the way of the fire fighters. He got out and ran over to Spencer, who was standing in the front yard. Aria was not far behind him with Annabelle.
"What happened?" Ezra asked Spencer, who was staring at the burning house.
"Alex went in to look for Liam again. I heard the fire alarm and when I opened the door, it was just smoke. I tried to call him, but there was no answer." Spencer broke down. She fell to the ground, buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Aria handed Annabelle to Ezra and sat next to Spencer.
"It's going to be okay. They're going to find him and he's going to walk right out of that house and into your arms. Everything's going to be okay" Aria said as she rested her head in Spencer's shoulder.
Ezra was talking to the chief fire fighter, the one who had talked to Spencer earlier, when they heard the sirens of another truck. The ambulance pulled up in and the paramedics jumped out and ran to get the commands from the chief. Spencer watched as they ran into the now extinguished house with a stretcher.
Aria rubbed Spencer's arm. "They're going to come out walking behind Alex because he's going to be so fine, he's going to insist in walking himself out" Aria tried to soothe Spencer.
Spencer looked up again and saw the paramedics carrying someone on the stretcher. She ran over, but the fire fighters held her away from him.
"Alex!" He didn't answer her, but she saw him turn his head and smile at her.