Chapter 24- Where's Fudge?

"I don't care how upset Fudge is right now", Sarge voiced his opinion, gazing out at the wild weather raging on. "I really don't think she should be out in this weather."

"No", Luigi agreed with a heavy sigh. He looked around at his friends. "We should start looking for her."

Everyone was very quick to agree.

"You all know Fudge better than we do", Finn pointed out, speaking from himself and Holley. "Where do you think she would be?"

"We will look everywhere!" Luigi responded determinedly. "She must not have gotten very far, but I am taking no chances." Immediately, he took charge. "Guido and Sheriff, you will come with me and help search the town. Sarge, Fillmore, look by Willy's Butte. Mater, Ramone, go to the tractor field and look there. McQueen, Sally, go to the waterfall and the Wheel Well. Everyone else, search the rest of the desert!"

It wasn't often that Luigi handed out orders like that, but nobody hesitated to obey. Normally, they wouldn't be particularly worried at this point. Fudge went off on her own all the time and had also gotten lost at the Los Angeles International Speedway before the tiebreaker race. Several times, search parties had been called. Fudge was never missing for more than a couple of hours. On this occasion, however, the Radiator Springs family had two concerns. The first was that she was out in a storm and the town was even beginning to flood a little. The second was that she had never been in a wheelchair and unable to walk when she'd been missing.

Though, as he followed Sally, Lightning couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes. The fact that Luigi had sent him as far away from him as possible failed to escape his attention.

"Where could she be?" the race car wondered as he and Sally made their way to the waterfall.

"I don't know", the Porsche replied. "I really don't think she'd be this far up, but it's worth a look. She knows this area, but she couldn't have gone this far by herself."

"I don't think so either", Lightning agreed.

"The good thing about that is", Sally went on with a smile, "it means she'll be found soon."

Lightning mirrored her smile. "I guess that's true."

"We'll probably be the last ones back to town. I'm sure Fudge'll be there when we get back." Sally sounded so confident. Lightning didn't know how she did it. Sure, he was pretty confident and positive, but his girlfriend was even in the bleakest moments.

"Yeah. Probably." The thought cheered him up. He was sure Sally was right.

The two searched the waterfall and drove all the way up to the Wheel Well. It was slow going with the rain pelting down on them and the climb became very slippery. Lightning even nearly skidded off the road at one point. His eyes widened and his heart rate shot up. Not because of what had happened, but what it reminded him of. He could've sworn he felt the horror of realising that Fudge had fallen off his roof.

"Fudge!" he gasped, suddenly feeling the urge to turn back.

"Something wrong, Stickers?" Sally asked, concerned.

"No... No", he assured her. "I'm fine." Only he didn't sound fine at all.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Let's just find Fudge."

So, they continued on their journey. They would call out Fudge's name every now and then, but there was no answer.

"She's not here", Lightning admitted defeat after about thirty seconds at the motel.

"Well, we didn't think she would be", Sally pointed out gently. She began making her way back. "Come on. We better get back to town. I'm sure Fudge will be there by the time we get there."

"Yeah. I'm sure she will..."

Fudge didn't know how long she was lying there in the dirt, crying her eyes out over both Sammy and her current situation before she lifted her head up. She was hellishly sore, quite scraped up and very afraid, but she was hopeful. Nobody knew where she was! That meant that they would have to come and find her! She'd be out of here in no time!

Okay. How long had she been there already? She had no idea. It was hard to tell without a watch or being able to see an awful lot of light. Still, she was confident that they'd come looking for her soon. Someone would find her in no time.

In her current situation, Fudge had no idea how much time was going by. However, even so, she was beginning to get a little suspicious of how long she'd been stuck there. Wasn't anybody going to come for her? Would they even come here at all? Maybe she should call out. Maybe someone would hear her.

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. ""HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!"

The only response was her echo, bouncing around the caverns and a boom of thunder.

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!" she tried again. "HELP!"

Again, nothing but echoes and thunder. If anybody was in the distance, they probably wouldn't hear her anyway with all the noise the storm was making. Maybe she should just call out if she saw or heard something. That way, she could save her energy because Chrysler knew she needed it. Still, she couldn't help but worry how long that would take. The human girl lay her head back down again and started to cry again.

"Please, God!" she repeated. "Just let Sammy be okay and let me be okay!"

"You know, Fudge would be a lot stronger if I hadn't almost killed her", Lightning commented guiltily as he and Sally made their way back to town.

"Stickers!" Sally cried. She couldn't say anything else. Accident it may be, but he had almost killed Fudge. Nobody could deny that.

"She might've gotten stuck somewhere", the stock car went on. "She might've been able to get out if she wasn't in a wheelchair."

"It's gonna be okay, Stickers", Sally assured him. "We're almost back in town. I'm sure Fudge is already there."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you're right."

Unfortunately, Sally was wrong. Fudge wasn't there when they got back.

Lightning felt his heart sink. "She's not here?!"

"No", Luigi sighed. "No one found her."

Sheriff shook his hood. "I can't think of where she could be."

"But Flo, Holley and Lizzie aren't back yet", Finn reasoned. "Perhaps they've had better luck."

Lightning nodded. "I hope so."

Luigi glared at him. "This is all your fault!" he accused.

Lightning looked highly insulted. "My fault?!"

"None of this would have happened if you had not said to let her go!"

"She needed time to herself!" Lightning reminded him.

"And look what has happened now because of that!"

"I'm sorry, Luigi! But come on! How was I supposed to know this would happen?"

The Fiat rolled his eyes and his face took on a disgusted expression. "That seems to be your line of the year!"

Now, Lightning was really mad. "Hey!" he yelled, seething. "I-"

"ENOUGH!" Sheriff barked, silencing everyone. Even the rain seemed to quieten down after that. The squad car continued in a much quieter tone, repeating the words he'd told Luigi when he blew up at Lightning on the night of the accident. "This ain't gonna help Fudge."

"You're right, Sheriff", Lightning admitted with a sigh. "I'm sorry."

Sheriff glanced at Luigi, wondering if he was going to apologise too. Yet the Italian car remained silent.

"Here they are now", Ramone announced, looking down the road to see his wife, the British spy, and the old Model T. Immediately, most of the others turned their attention in that direction.

"Is Fudge with them?" Lightning questioned desperately.

"No..."

"So, where could Fudge be?" Lightning wondered.

Sheriff gave the stock car a sad look before shaking his hood and staring at the ground. "Well, son, I'm afraid that's one question I can't answer."

Short chapter, I know. I'll give you guys more soon.

Just a reminder: I am accepting asks for a Q and A at the end, so please don't hesitate to ask any characters- canon or OC- any questions about anything that's happened so far. No asks for Cars 3 just yet please because that hasn't happened yet. If I get any Cars 3 asks, I'll save them for Driven to Win.