AN: Sooooooo sorry for the long wait. Busy, busy, busy. At least it wasn't, like, a month, right? Not that all that many people are reading this story.

Chapter 7

Sarah heaved a big sigh. God, she was bored. She'd never been so bored in her life. Part of the reason for her state of extreme boredom was that she was sitting in the dark. It was wet all over and it smelled moldy. Yuck. She groaned and let her head fall back on the damp brick wall behind her. Ouch. Bad idea. That was where those bozos had clocked her one to knock her out when the icky-smelling stuff they'd shoved in her face didn't make her lose consciousness like she guessed it did the others. She'd fought back, and now she was missing her mother's necklace. She remembered the pressure on her neck and the sound of it hitting the ground when the chain broke after one of the goons had grabbed at it, so she guessed none of them had it. Which was great. Now, it was just lost. Sarah blew a raspberry at the dark, drippy room. Hey, anything to keep her occupied, right?

"Would you stop that?" the boy, Jake, whined. "It's annoying."

Sarah crossed her arms and shot a death glare in the direction the voice was coming from, even though he couldn't see her expression. "Well, I'm bored and it's past lunch. I bet it's almost dinnertime. I'm hungry," she pouted.

One of the other girls, Lindsey, Sarah thought, sighed too, before speaking. "I'm hungry, too. I threw up all my breakfast after they put that stuff over my face to make me faint."

"Oh, we know," Sarah said acerbically. Lindsey had ralphed right after regaining consciousness, thankfully not on anyone, but the smell still lingered in the small dark room.

"Be quiet, all of you, or else they'll come in again and make us," Brittany, the oldest of the bunch, said, hushing them. She was a sixth grader, and put on all the airs bestowed upon her by her rank. In other words, she was bossy. "Now, if we just wait, the police will find us or our parents will pay the ransom and they'll let us go. Until then sit still and don't talk."

"But I'm boooored," Sarah whined. She knew she was being a brat, but she didn't care. She wanted to go home to her grandpa and call her dad. Maybe he'd come see her when he heard that she'd been kidnapped…or maybe he'd even come find her. That would be awesome. She missed her dad. He never minded when she called him, even though sometimes he was obviously in the middle of something. He'd ask her questions about how she was, what she'd been up to, things like that. They'd just talk. Sarah sighed again and sniffed.

"Jeez, are you crying? You're such a crybaby," came from Jake's corner.

"Am not," she wailed, tears leaking out of eyes squeezed shut.

Brittany huffed and scooted over to where Sarah was sitting, narrowly missing the pool of vomit next to Lindsey. She knelt and put her arms around her. "She's only eight, Jake, and she's scared. And besides, I noticed a few sniffles coming from your direction earlier," Brittany shot out, brown eyes blazing in the dark. "Don't cry, Sarah. They'll find us and we'll all get out of here. Know what? I bet my Uncle Logan's out there helping the police look for us. He works with Eyes Only and he's saved a whole bunch of people."

"Yeah," said Lindsey. "I bet my parents hired, like, all the private detectives in the city. They'll find us, Sarah. They have to."

Sarah lifted her head and nodded in the darkness. "Yeah. I bet my dad's out there looking, too. He's like Superman because he's—" She stopped. She'd almost blabbed out The Secret.

"He's what?" Jake asked crossly.

"Nothing," Sarah said. She'd promised her dad and grandpa not to tell anyone about where her dad came from because if she did, bad people might come and take her away. Sarah huffed. "You mean like now?" she thought sulkily.

"Well, my parents probably aren't looking so hard for me. They don't notice me when I am there so they probably won't even notice I'm gone." Jake's voice sounded a little choked up when he spoke. He wasn't crying, though. At least not in front of a bunch of girls.

"I'm sure that's not true, Jake," Brittany said, trying her best to reassure him. She could help thinking, though, that from what she'd heard of them, Mr. and Mrs. Wright were unlikely to care very much about their son's well-being. She sighed. This sucked beyond awful. Here she was, in a dark smelly room god knows where, stuck babysitting a bunch of mopey kids only a little younger than herself. Brit gave a wholehearted groan, banging her head back on the wall, just as Sarah had earlier. Great.

AN: Kinda short? Sorry. Well, give me some feedback, please.