A/N: We're finally on the last chapter! As some of you may have noticed, I included Mark a little early and I don't regret that. I plan on getting the second book up relatively soon, but it's really hard managing all my classes as well as rewriting books (but the main reason is an ex-friend gave me trauma concerning this series because she was really rude and toxic and God definitely got her out of my life for a reason, but it's difficult to get to the point of being able to forgive her). Anyways, I'm much better now but my professors decided to do everything on MWF instead of Tuesday and Thursday, so yeah, it's hard. I'm slowly learning time management. It's a process. Expect the second book by November or so, and I'll be working on the next few books as well. Also, you guys are going to be getting the series much sooner than AO3 is.

He still had the key to his house.

Judd didn't know what he had planned to do with it, or if he simply hadn't taken the time to remove the key from his lanyard, but a part of him knew that he was still a part of his family, whether his parents were going to send him to prison or not. That key connected him to them. He had tried to press it into his father's hand after the accident, and his father merely closed Judd's fingers over the key and told him to keep it.

That key was as much a reminder as the red chip in his pocket.

His heart raced as he got out of the taxi and as he pulled his keys from his pocket. As bad as the roads had been on the way from the airport, as much destruction as he had seen, all the fires and smoldering houses and smoke still rising into the air, he hadn't expected to find home like it was. Nothing had changed; at least, not on the outside. Mr. Carter was still standing outside in his pajamas and watering his flowers.

"Is everything okay in there, Judd?" Mr. Carter lifted one hand in a wave. "There was a flurry over at your place last night."

Judd smiled tightly and waved back. His hands shook as he found the house key. "Don't know yet," he called back, but when he turned his face away from Mr. Carter and took a steadying breath to still his hands, he knew.

He felt very young, very stupid, and very afraid.

Judd shoved the key into the lock, pressed his shoulder against the door, and pushed it open. He thought he could get away with this, thought he could fly all the way to goddamn England and be fine. He thought he was the type of guy that girls would look at and swoon over, and here he was, he was sixteen years old and he was an orphan.

There was not any proof for that; at least, not yet, not as long as he stood on this side of the door, as long as he didn't step foot into his house. Outside, he was safe, and he didn't have to worry.

But at one time or another, reality sets in and you have no choice but to face the music.

So Judd took a deep breath, stepped inside, and slid down the door as it closed behind him.

I want Mom and Dad, he thought, and he pressed his fist to his forehead and wept openly, in the great expanse of the foyer. No one heard him.

And maybe he pounded his fist against the ground, maybe he twisted his fingers into his hair and tugged, maybe it felt like it hurt so much that it would never stop, that he could never breathe again, and he couldn't stop.

His heart tore into pieces – four pieces, to be specific – and twisted in his gut. The picture of Piper and Philip, anxiously waiting for him to get home so they could keep watching Scooby Doo, stabbed him in the lungs, and he kept whispering to himself that it was his fault, his fault, it was all his fault, he broke their hearts and he didn't even get the chance to say goodbye.

He slid even further until he was lying on his side, and he tried to curl further into himself, to protect himself from the pain, to stop the sobs that racked his body.

Nothing helped.

No matter what he had thought about his parents, no matter what he had thought about his family, they loved him, and they would always love him, and he had so much difficulty believing that because Judd never really remembered ever loving himself.

There were always the kids at school and at church, and they loved Jesus, hell, they were the poster children for VBS and Sunday school and Christian universities, and he felt like he was nothing compared to them, even though he knew the same verses and spouted them off as quickly as he could, and he didn't know, there was just something wrong with him, and it started when he was ten and it kept on going until he was sixteen, and he was sixteen now, and he still hated himself.

Judd ran out of tears to cry.

He stayed on his side, letting his breathing slow down, each breath shuddering as it blew past his lips. He reached up with one hand and wiped his nose, keeping his eyes trained on the tile three inches from his eyes.

His eyes blurred, and he winced, rolling onto his back. His head split in two, cracking straight down the middle, and his heart sped up when he thought about the pain. He curled his hands into his fists and tried to breathe past the pain, but nothing helped.

(Well. Only one thing helped, but if he got up and took his medicine, he would keep shoveling those pills into his mouth until he ran out and he would be dead, dead, dead, and he would never get to see his family again.

So he didn't take his medicine.)

Judd slowly pushed himself up, squeezing his eyes shut against the sunlight and movement. Carefully, he braced one hand against the wall and stood, breathing for another moment before he took a shaky step towards the staircase.

He didn't look at the family pictures on the way up the stairs. He couldn't; he was the only one who was left, and the sight of him holding Piper on his shoulders or him carrying Philip on his back would have crushed him again. As it stood, he didn't think he would be able to look into their rooms.

Piper's room was the first one on the second floor. To the right, white door with little pink hearts cut out and taped to the front. In the middle of the door, she had taped a picture of her and Philip and Judd, painted by her, and as Judd stood in front of her door, he lifted his index finger and gently lifted the bottom of the paper.

She was an artist. Piper really could draw, almost as if it was as easy for her as living was. When her homework was finished for the evening – and she always got it done, she always had it finished early, long before bedtime – she would pull out her pencils and the pencil sharpener and the sketchbook Judd had bought her for Christmas and she would ask Judd to give her something to draw, and sometimes he would say the sky or a dog or Philip in a crisis or him graduating, and she would always wrinkle her nose and stick out the tip of her tongue as she started drawing.

Her pictures always looked like photographs, snapshots of something that had yet to happen. Once, Mom had given her the picture of her and Philip attacking him while he was reading in the backyard, and that was the very picture Piper had decided was perfect enough for everyone to see.

Judd swiped at his eyes, clenched his jaw, and carefully opened her door.

Like her room always was, nothing was out of place. Her books were stacked neatly on her desk and in her bookshelves, her sketchbook on the left side of her desk. Her Bible sat on her nightstand, bookmarked where Judd could only guess was somewhere in the New Testament. Her room was perfect, pristine. Perfect, pristine little Piper.

When she was five years old, she had decided that she was going to learn how to read. She had bounded up to Judd and snuggled in next to him on the couch, and she had presented him with the biggest book she had been able to find, which, coincidentally, was more difficult a story than he'd ever read before. Even their mom had smiled gently, taken the book from Pipe's hands, and replaced it with a much smaller book, and Judd taught her to read.

And whenever Pipe would have a hard day, whether that meant getting in a fight with Philip or a different friend at school, or getting punished, she would grab the first book she had ever learned to read and she would seek out Judd, and he would smile softly and let her read to him while she sat on his lap.

She read that book to him when he was trying to get through his withdrawals.

Piper was supposed to go on and do great things in the world. Become president or the secretary of state, find the cure for cancer, eradicate the common cold. Maybe she would have been a female Billy Graham, maybe she would have been an ambassador to a foreign country. Maybe she would have been a doctor, a nurse, a businesswoman to lead the company into vast amounts of unfathomable success.

She was supposed to be his hero, and she was gone.

(That didn't make her any less his hero.)

He pressed his lips together and wiped his palms on his jeans before taking a shaky step forward. Nothing had changed in her room, nothing would be different except maybe her diary, and Judd didn't want to touch that yet, he felt like she would still notice him reading her diary and she would put her hands on her hips and ask, "Judd Michael Thompson Jr., what are you doing reading my diary?" And he would smile and laugh and toss it onto her bed and sweep her into a hug and apologize until he ran out of breath.

But that wouldn't happen. Her diary was ready for him to read, when he was ready himself.

Judd slipped between the window and her bed, biting down hard on his lip when he saw the barrettes still on her pillow. She always complained about her hair hurting whenever she would wake up, and they always told her it was the barrettes, but she never changed.

He pulled back the covers.

Of course, her pajamas were there. Her right sleeve was draped over her stuffed bunny, and he sucked in a breath and tried to blink back the tears.

(She stopped sleeping with her stuffed bunny when she was seven years old, but occasionally, when she had nightmares or when she was upset, she would pull it out and sleep with it cradled to her chest.

Piper had pulled out her stuffed bunny because of him. He really did ruin everything, didn't he?)

He pretended not to notice the dried tear stains on her pillow, and he left her room mostly as he found it.

Judd didn't expect much different from Philip's room. Philip was less organized than Piper was (in other words: he was not organized at all), but there was one similarity between the both of them, and that was the lack of his two favorite siblings on the entire face of this planet.

Just as Judd was about to leave Philip's room and investigate the rest of his house, he found a note lying on top of Philip's Bible.

He looked around and pulled the corner of the paper to read it better.

PRAY THAT JUDD COMES HOME.

Judd quickly swiped at his eyes. "Guess your prayer was answered a little late there, Phil." He sniffed and backed away from Philip's bed. "But I'm back. I'm really, truly back."

He was back.

Lionel never watched the news. Which was ironic, he realized, considering his mom was a reporter for one of the biggest magazines in the world. But he liked reading the news, liked the cold hard facts of it all, and Mama always had a way of making the world seem a little bit less scary. She got rid of his anxiety.

As he waited for Vicki, Lionel turned on the television. A part of him knew that he couldn't escape the news, that no matter what channel he turned to, there would be a reporter on the screen, telling the world what everyone had discovered already, and he would have to realize that a lot of people had committed suicide or died in car accidents or plane crashes and that, coupled with the disappearances, was too much for him to bear.

It was just white noise, anyways.

The doorbell rang, and he stood slowly and the path that used to seem so short seemed like it was five miles long now, and when he opened the door, Vicki stood on the other side.

She was smaller than he had expected.

Vicki twisted her hands together and tugged on the bottom of her shirt. No matter how much she tugged, her shirt didn't cover her belly button, and she sighed and tucked her hair behind her ears. "Hi," she said. She didn't look at him. "I'm, uh, I'm Vicki."

He nodded and stepped aside. "Lionel. Reece's brother."

She took a tentative step inside, and he closed the door behind her. "I thought– I mean, your sister would always tell me that your mom never liked nicknames."

Lionel chuckled once and gestured towards the living room. He had cleaned up while he waited for Vicki to walk all the way from the trailer park, and though touching his father's clothes had creeped him out, it was nice to pretend, even for a moment, that things were okay again. "Yeah, Mama hated nicknames, but I almost never called Reece by her given name. Just so long as I didn't call her 'Claire.' She always said it sounded incomplete to her."

Vicki smiled tightly. "I'm, uh, sorry that– that I didn't change or anything, it's just that…well, I wanted to get here as quickly as possible." She waved her hand in the air and ran her fingers through her hair. "The trailer park was going crazy. Don't blame them. All of the little kids are gone, but I- I just couldn't be there any longer, y'know?"

Lionel nodded again and collapsed onto his favorite spot. "You got any family left, Vicki?"

She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. She still hadn't really looked at him. "No. At least, I don't think so. I used to have an uncle, but a) I don't know what happened to him, and b) I don't even know if he was still alive at the time of the disappearances. My family hasn't talked about him for a while."

He bit his bottom lip. "You haven't looked at me yet. Is it because I'm black?"

At this, Vicki looked up sharply. "What? No, that's– that's not it, Lionel, I– it's just that–" She took another shaky breath. "You look exactly like your sister. I didn't expect that."

He blinked. "Oh." Lionel scrubbed his nose with the heel of his hand. "Uh…sorry? I guess?"

She shook her head. "It's…it's not your fault. Obviously, you can't control it. It's just that…" She huffed out a breath past her lips. "Clarice was the only person who ever…treated me like a friend. Like a person. Someone who was worthy of respect."

Lionel smiled softly. "Yeah, that was my big sister. I almost became a Christian because of her. She had a way of letting people know they were loved."

Vicki pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on top of them. "Yeah. Yeah, she did. I guess…it's weird to say, and weird to tell you, but I felt more loved by her than I ever did by anyone in my family."

He wanted to ask her more about that, wanted to ask about the scars on her stomach and the cigarette burn on the inside of her elbow, but he felt like it would be prying. "I, uh, called the church nearby. There was a secretary there who got me in touch with a pastor. He said he could see us as soon as he got to the church. Told me he'd call when he got there."

Vicki dropped her feet to the ground and leaned forward, pressing her fists into the couch cushions. "A pastor? You mean like a Christian pastor?"

Lionel shook his head. "I thought the same thing, but he said he didn't…he said it was complicated, I guess. Maybe he'll tell us more about it."

Vicki's face fell. "Oh."

He lifted his shoulder in a half-shrug. "It could be worse, I guess. Things could always be worse."

She tilted her head, and her hair fell to cover part of her face. "How could things be any worse, Lionel?"

"Easy," he said, turning the tv off. "Our families could be dead."

He never once told her about Uncle André.

Judd shoved his door open and before he could get three steps into his room, he stopped cold.

His entire room was trashed.

All of his clothes lay strewn about his floor, his desk drawers hung precariously, papers scattered his desk and blew when the air conditioning breathed upon them, and the boxes beneath his bed decided to bare their face.

Judd stepped closer to his desk, mostly because that was the easiest thing for him to deal with, the part of his room that he knew was typically always messy, and he pushed some of the papers aside.

He saw, every time he blinked, his father ripping the drawer out of its place and digging through his past assignments, his past tests, everything that Judd had ever done in the past several months. He could see Dad throwing all the papers onto the desk while Mom tried to keep Philip and Piper calm, and he could see Dad finding receipts and not his passport, and he could see Dad running a shaking hand through his hair before running out of his room.

The clothes were all from his dresser, and Judd suspected that his parents were more worried about finding his passport and the money than actively destroying his room. Even his mattress looked like it had been moved, tipped over, and Judd had to close his eyes and curl his hands into his fists because he had made his parents' last night on Earth the closest they would ever come to hell.

(His dad told him, once, that whenever Judd was about four years old, he had gotten a really high fever, almost 104º, and Dad had wrapped him in a blanket, shoved him into the back of the SUV, and sped to the hospital, all while whispering a prayer.

Judd could have died, twelve years ago, because of the flu. The hospital almost hadn't been able to help him, and Dad told him that he had never been more scared in his life, that he had just spent the entire evening pacing the waiting room and saying that he would have given anything to take his place.

Now, Judd couldn't help but think that this was the most scared Dad had ever been.)

He shook his head and backed out of his room. It would need to be cleaned up later, of course, but there was more to do, more to get his mind off of this, off of the pain he had caused his family. His room would look the same in a few hours, nothing would change, and Judd fucking wished it would, he fucking wished he had changed for the better, that he would finally be able to see himself as someone his dad could be proud of, someone his mom could love, someone his siblings could look up to, and he fucking ruined it all, he ruined it all like he always did.

Come to Me.

Judd grit his teeth and slammed the door behind him.

While she waited at Lionel's house, she tried to fall asleep. Only whenever she would, she would see her parents, her dad hugging her, but she also saw him beating her. She saw Eddie begging her to become better, but she also saw him passing her a joint and a bottle of vodka. She saw her mother pleading with her to come to church, but she also saw her mother high and unable to take care of a crying Jeannie.

Jeannie was the only person Vicki could have believed when Christianity tore through her family.

Suffice to say, Vicki didn't get a whole lot of sleep.

Lionel stepped out of the kitchen with two bowls of cereal in hand. "I, uh, don't know how to cook, so this is the best I could do. We ran out of milk."

Vicki took the bowl from him. "I'm not hungry."

He shrugged and sat across from her. "I ain't either, but us not eating isn't gonna help anyone. Besides, doesn't matter how close the church is to my house, it's gonna be a decent walk, especially with the roads like they are." He lifted his spoon and shoveled some cereal into his mouth. "Besides, you already walked here from Prospect Gardens, you really should eat something."

She pressed her lips together. "Lionel –"

He held up a hand. "Vicki. I'm not budging on this. Just…eat something, it'll be good for you."

She carefully lifted the spoon to her mouth, and she was surprised to find that her hands were still shaking. "Lionel," she said, setting down her spoon. He glared at her. She picked it back up. "Do you– do you think things will get better?"

Lionel jabbed his spoon into his bowl. "I don't know. I really don't."

The landline rang.

What was heaven like?

It was the first question Judd encountered, the one that kept baring its face to him, and he didn't want to think about it – mostly because he was left on hell – but that was all he could find himself thinking about. He could picture golden light, brighter than the sun, and music, and celebration, freedom that no one had ever been able to fathom.

Judd still wanted his family here because he was here, but he had been selfish for so long, and this was what they had longed for, the hope that they clung to with an iron fist. Who was he to hope for anything differently?

He nudged open his parents' door and stopped cold. There was nothing different. His mom's jewelry box was still open, probably where she had put up her wedding ring as she was getting ready for bed. Their bed was made, their clothes hung in the closet.

Was I wrong? Are they still here? Judd hurried to their bathroom, looked around, felt the tip of his parents' toothbrushes and breathed a sigh of relief when it was still wet. I will gladly take an ass-whooping any day over being alone.

But even as he ran outside their room and back downstairs, he knew that it was selfish of him, to hope that his parents weren't with God, weren't with their other children. Who was he to hope that his siblings escaped this but that his parents would have to suffer even more pain?

When he got to the living room, he realized he didn't have to worry about it.

The phone had dropped onto the ground sometime in the middle of the night, and it was still connected, the line still blinking to show that someone was still on the line. Based on the clothes, Dad was closer to the end table.

Judd took a step closer and picked up the phone. There was nobody on the other line. He hung up.

He tossed the phone into the air and caught it in his left hand. His head still pounded, still felt like someone was stabbing his brain, but he kept his eyes open and gently placed the phone back into its charging port.

As he set the phone back into its charging port, he found his dad's handwriting on a piece of paper. Flight times to London. The last time was incomplete.

Judd knew his parents were going to find him, were going to do everything they physically could to bring him back home, he knew that they were scared for him, but this? Finding his parents' clothes right next to each other, Dad's sleeves overlapping with Mom's?

He choked on a sob and fell to his knees.

All he wanted right now was to be kneeling in front of his parents, begging for their forgiveness, to make things right, resting his head in his parent's lap as they combed their fingers through his hair and reserved the lecture for another time. He was sixteen years old, and he thought he could do everything by himself, but he really couldn't, he was alone and he realized this wasn't what he wanted. It wasn't what his family wanted.

Judd grabbed his dad's shirt and buried his face into the fabric. His father just wanted what was best for him, just wanted Judd to become a good man.

And what had Judd done? He had gotten hooked on pot, had driven drunk, had slept with women six years his senior. He had lied and stolen and run away, and he hadn't even given his family the decency of a handwritten note to say where he had gone. He thought–

He thought so many things before, but now he didn't think about anything except how much he missed his little brother and sister, how much he missed his parents, how much he didn't want to be by himself.

You're not alone. Listen.

Judd lifted his face from his father's shirt. He tossed it back onto the couch and rushed into the garage. Philip's bike was still resting against the wall. He grabbed it, took it outside, and started biking for the church.

There had to be someone else there. He couldn't be alone.

Vicki tripped over an uneven sidewalk and fell to the asphalt. "Ow!"

Lionel stopped and turned around, reaching a hand out to help her up. "Vicki, we're almost there."

She took his hand and let him pull her up. "You said that five minutes ago." She winced and brushed her hand over her knee. Pebbles of asphalt fell from her knee. "Are you sure you know where you're going?"

He bit his bottom lip and glanced over his shoulder. A man and a woman argued on the porch of another house. He didn't know if they were looting or if they were arguing over the whereabouts of their children. "I don't," he admitted, "but I've passed it often enough on the way to school. I think I'm going in the right direction."

She squinted at him and tested her weight on her bad leg. It still hurt, but she could manage until they got to the church. "Here." She pulled out her phone and typed in New Hope Village Church into the maps app. "This is how I found you."

Lionel took her phone from her. "You need to charge your phone."

"I also need a fucking drink, and I'm not getting that anytime soon. We all have to do things we don't want to do."

He rolled his eyes, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her along behind him. She hobbled behind him and hoped that she wouldn't fall again.

It was so quiet without children around.

Ryan's eyes still stung, and he had no idea if it was because he was still crying or if it was from biking around into the wind for the past hour and a half. He knew Mr. Steele wasn't following him; at least, not anymore, and he loved Mr. Steele, he really did, but Mr. Steele was Raymie's dad and Raymie was gone. It was hard to deal with.

So Ryan gulped in air, slowed down, and stepped off his bike. Across the street, there was a little church.

It was Raymie's church.

Ryan set his bike down and collapsed onto the grass. He wanted to keep crying, but he was just so tired. He just wanted to lie onto the ground and curl up and fall asleep, and when he would wake up, the entire world would be okay again.

The world had to be okay again.

An older boy with dark brown hair biked down the street. The bike looked a little small for him, and as soon as he got to the church parking lot, he ditched the bike and ran inside.

Ryan guessed he lost someone. His only question was whether it was a person who died or if it was a person who disappeared.

He stood up, grabbed his bike, and pushed it across the street. It couldn't hurt to find out what that kid went looking for.

"Bruce! Bruce, is that you?"

Bruce Barnes took off his glasses and set his Bible on the table in the foyer. "Judd? Is– what are you doing here?"

Judd winced and lifted a hand to his head. "I–" He twisted his fingers in his hair and breathed shallowly. "Left behind."

Bruce tilted his head to the side and rested his hand on Judd's shoulder. "Migraine?"

Judd nodded quickly and winced again.

Bruce shook his head and sighed. "Did you drive here?"

Judd groaned and whispered, "No" so quietly that Bruce barely caught it. "No," Judd said, a bit stronger. "I, uh, I biked here. Philip's bike."

"I got a call last night from your parents. They were –"

"Really worried about me, I know." Judd opened his eyes, and Bruce saw the tears in his eyes for the first time. "I know. Got ninety-two calls and several hundred text messages while I was on the flight to London."

"Wh–" Bruce clamped his mouth shut. "Are you doing okay, Judd? How's your eye?"

Judd groaned again and rested his forehead against Bruce's shoulder. "I can't see out of my right eye, Bruce. You know– God, it hurts."

Bruce rubbed Judd's back. "Did you take your medicine when you got home, son?"

Judd shook his head, and the motion bunched the fabric on Bruce's shirt. "No. If– if I had taken my medicine, I wouldn't have stopped." He lifted his head and looked Bruce dead in the eyes. He looked so young, younger than his sixteen years. He looked like a boy, like Bruce's seven-year-old son. "I'd be dead right now if I'd taken my medicine."

Bruce exhaled shakily. "I, uh…I'm glad you didn't take it, then. You need to take care of yourself, though. I have some aspirin."

Judd twisted his fingers in Bruce's shirt. "Don't– don't leave me, Bruce, please, I– I'm sorry, I know I worried you and I know that everything's just gone to hell, and I'm sorry for not listening, not to you, not to my parents, and I'm sorry that I've been an ass to you –"

Bruce cupped the back of Judd's head. "Judd," he said firmly, "I want you to listen to me right now. I was left behind, too, and it wasn't so someone could give an explanation in this mess. I'm in the same boat you are."

Judd scrunched his face and leaned forward to weep onto Bruce's shoulder.

The door swung open again, and a young boy stood in the entryway, twisting his hands in the hem of his shirt. He looked tired and small, his eyes were rimmed with red, and he looked like he hadn't eaten all day.

Bruce continued to rub Judd's back but he lifted his head. "Can I help you, son?"

The young boy blinked at him and glanced around the foyer. "Me?"

Bruce nodded, and Judd stepped away, using his sleeve to swipe at his eyes.

The boy bit his bottom lip. "Uh…do- do you know what's happened? Like…why people disappeared?"

Judd lifted his head to look at the boy and took a shuddering breath, immediately turning his head to look away. "He looks so much like Philip," he whispered to Bruce.

Bruce patted Judd's shoulder. "Yeah, I know what's happened. There are two other kids coming to see us and talk to us. I'd like to wait until they get here."

Judd scrubbed a hand over his face. "Do– do you know when they're getting here?"

Bruce shook his head and gestured for the other boy to come closer. "Don't know. I think they're walking over here, and it's at least a mile of a walk. I assume they left as soon as I called them back, but I don't know for sure."

The boy took a step closer.

Bruce sighed again. "What's your name, son?"

The boy shrugged. "Ryan. Daley. Ryan Daley."

"Did you lose anyone, Ryan?"

Ryan nodded. He looked like he wanted to run. Judd carefully moved closer, and Bruce's heart twisted when he realized that Judd caught the runaway look in his eyes. Judd would know it better than anyone else.

"I lost–" Ryan's voice cracked. "My parents. They died."

Bruce shook his head. "No, they did–"

Ryan lifted his chin and glared at Judd. "They died. At least, my mom did. She was in a really bad car accident this morning. I got a call from a police officer. I don't know for sure about my dad. He was on a plane."

"Oh."

Judd sighed. "Hey, Ry, you want some hot chocolate? If you want marshmallows with it, you're out of luck, but the hot chocolate here is pretty good."

Ryan twisted his lips. "And we'll know what happened when the other two get here?"

Bruce smiled to himself as Judd led Ryan to the coffee station. "Yeah, Ry, we will. Bruce will explain everything to us in just a little bit. And tell ya what: I bet, if we look hard enough, we can find candy or goldfish somewhere around here."

Bruce grabbed his Bible and headed upstairs. "Judd, just call me when the other two get in. It should be a girl and a boy. I'll be in The Room."

When he got upstairs, and when he was by himself, he let himself cry. He was going to be doing a lot of that in the coming days, he realized.

Ryan stuck his hand into the box of animal crackers Judd had managed to procure and stuffed as many as he could into his mouth. Judd simply played with the straw in his cup of hot chocolate, staring straight ahead at the fireplace. A Bible verse was carved into the stone above it.

The door swung open again, and a redheaded girl stumbled through the front door, followed by a boy just barely taller than Ryan.

Judd looked up. "You guys here to see Bruce?"

The girl's mouth fell open, and she glanced at the boy she came with. "Uh–"

The boy nodded. "Yeah. Who are you guys?"

Judd studied the girl. She looked familiar, like a dream he'd had years ago, when things were better and when he still had hope. He stood and gestured for Ryan to follow. "I'm Judd, this is Ryan. I– My family used to go here. They disappeared. I came here to see if…anything was the same. Bruce is upstairs."

The girl fell into step next to him, Ryan and the other boy trailing on their heels. She tucked her hair behind her ear. "My parents used to go here, too."

Judd nodded slowly. "You need some rubbing alcohol to put on that knee. Don't want it to get infected."

She shrugged. "I'm –"

"V?" he said, lifting an eyebrow.

Her mouth fell open. "You're J?"

He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. "Guilty, I suppose. Look, I–" he rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm sorry. For a lot of stuff."

"Well," she said, glancing behind her, "I guess I should apologize to you, too. My real name's Vicki, by the way."

The boy who came with Vicki tapped Judd's shoulder. "I'm Lionel, just in case you'd like to know."

Judd laughed. "Nice to meet ya, Lionel. The Room is this way. Bruce said he'd be there."

Vicki hugged herself. "'The Room,' huh? Sounds so ominous."

Introductions, exhausted faces, chins touching their chests and snapping up, crying, crying, crying.

Vicki Byrne was fifteen, and even though Judd kind of knew that, even though he knew that she was much younger than him when he had slept with her, he regretted it as much as he regretted running away. She told them about her lifestyle, about how she was already entering withdrawals and she was going to try and be better, that she was tired of numbing herself.

Lionel Washington was from a Christian home, much like Judd, had grown up hearing the same thing Judd had always heard. He was moments away from praying last night, he almost wasn't here, and he turned his face to Bruce and said, "I can't shake the feeling that God wanted me to wait. He wanted me, but He wanted me to wait. I don't know why."

Judd told them his story. Told them how he had run away, how he thought he was hot stuff, that he was independent and smart enough to make it on his own, but now that he was, he realized his mistake.

Ryan didn't speak beyond telling them his name and that his parents had died.

Bruce kept it short, told them that he had been the youth minister here for years, but he had never really believed it, never really cared for the Bible. He had led people to Christ, had prayed with teenagers and adults alike, had led conferences and graduated seminary, but he hadn't believed. He never took that last step, and though the same could be said for both Lionel and Judd, Bruce only knew Judd, so he turned to look at him and say, "Gotta say, Judd, I'm a little surprised to see you here."

Vicki squeezed Judd's hand in reassurance.

Judd cleared his throat. "I told you," he said hoarsely. "I thought I was the only person in the world who mattered. Everything I ever did, I did for myself."

He hung his head. Vicki still held his hand, and he knew it was just as much for her benefit as it was for his. He would let her hold his hand, and he would offer comfort to Ryan, and he would ask Lionel how he was doing.

He wasn't the only person in the world anymore.

She didn't tell Bruce about her brief desire to shove sleeping pills into her mouth so that she could fall asleep and never wake up again. She told them all about her lifestyle, her sex and her drugs and her drinking, and she felt filthy talking to them, she kept tugging on her crop top. No one had mentioned it, but she felt awkward in it.

She was fifteen, and she had spent her entire life trying to be older. Except now she had aged several years in a single night, and she wanted to be a fifteen-year-old again. She wanted to do what a fifteen-year-old would do.

Vicki squeezed Judd's hand again and pulled her hand away.

Bruce noticed and he nodded.

She had no idea what that meant. She just…needed someone, and Judd was the person she had known the longest, even if it was only by the name of J.

Vicki was tired of numbing herself, and though the pain pierced her soul, she felt more like a fool than anything else.

Lionel regretted his life. He regretted his decision to just go downstairs with André last night, instead of running up the stairs and talking to Clarice. He wouldn't be here right now if he had just run upstairs.

He meant it, when he said that he felt like God had made him wait. Lionel had no idea what God had in store, why God would tell him to wait, but he knew that God had.

Christians were supposed to lead, to take charge, but Lionel was just tired and sad, and he could still feel the light of heaven on his hand.

Ryan was confused. Everyone kept talking about church and God, as if either of those things had anything to do with the disappearances. All of them had lost their entire families, but Ryan was the only one whose parents had died and not disappeared.

Bruce told them it was God. Ryan didn't know.

He didn't know.

They all sat in the middle of The Room, all of them on the hard plastic chairs instead of the couches, and they considered Bruce's words. Judd and Vicki knew the truth; they knew what they had to do. But Judd's headache still pierced his head, and he would still gasp and lean forward, cradling part of his head in his hand. Vicki was still in her crop top and booty shorts, and she still reeked of alcohol and pot. She knew, she knew that Bruce was right, but why would God want her, especially out of everyone in this room?

"God doesn't care what you've done. Any of you," Bruce said, as if he had read her mind. "He just wants you to come home."

Lionel nodded slowly. "I already prayed. I…don't know if it worked or anything, but I just…I want to be used for God, you know?"

Bruce smiled and squeezed Lionel's shoulder. "Good to have you join the family, little brother."

Lionel squeezed Bruce's wrist.

Judd breathed deeply, his eyes still closed. "Bruce, I– I need time to think."

Vicki nodded. "Me, too. I– I know you're right, but I just…I can't do it right now."

Bruce looked like he had more to say about that. "Ryan? What about you?"

Ryan shook his head. "I just want my parents to be alive again."

And in that one sentence, Ryan said the thing that all of them had been thinking: They just wanted this nightmare to be over already.

He stared into the mirror, smoothing down his hair. His tie was perfect, his suit immaculate. He tilted his head, studied his reflection in the mirror.

There was a knock on the door. "Nicolae? They're ready for you."

A smile spread across Nicolae's face, and he adjusted his tie. "It is my time now."