The same SUV had been parked outside Jeremiah Mercer's home for the past four days. When he had first seen it out his front window he had thought nothing of it. True he had never in his life seen the truck before but there was a possibility it belonged to the neighbor…right? At least that's what his wife Camille told him when he finally pointed it out on the second day. He was beginning to feel a little anxious about it. It had been a good two weeks or so since they made Victor Sweet disappear. There was no reason for him to feel so threatened. Still, Jerry couldn't help walking past the SUV just to make sure no one was in the truck. Luckily that day he took Amelia for a walk no one was in there. Now though as he stood at his front window, drapes pushed aside, he stared at the back of the truck. This was the fourth day; he hadn't heard the truck start up…hadn't seen the lights flash on at night. Camille had said they could've left during the day; no one was home during the day after all.

"Jerry! Get away from that window and help me get the girls ready!" Camille called from the girls shared room. Christmas was just around the corner and Camille had been moving around the house a lot. It wouldn't be the first or last time he helped her get the girls get ready to go to the mall. Reluctantly he pulled away from the window and walked towards the back of the house, sidestepping an excited Amelia trying to put her coat on.

"You passed right by your daughter Jerry…what is wrong with you? You're still not stressing out over that truck are you? I'm telling you nothing is wrong…now can you please focus and," she stopped talking as she noticed he wasn't listening. He simply kept walking and disappeared into their room.

Camille huffed and bent down to help Amelia tie her shoes, looking up as Daniela passed her by.

"Daniela babe, grab my keys and purse, we're leaving."
"Daddy isn't coming with us?"

"No, Daddy is…he isn't feeling very well," she gave a soft smile and looked over her shoulder to their now slightly closed room door. He would pay for acting like that around the kids.

"We should bring Daddy some soup," Amelia smiled, jumping up once her shoe was tied and running after her sister.

Bringing herself to her feet, Camille dusted her hands and pants off. She walked into the living room and picked up her sunglasses from off the kitchen table. "Jerry! We're leaving!" She called, and stood there waiting silently for an answer. She wasn't very surprised; he was probably on the phone. She looked up as she heard one of the girls call her name, the two giggling and hollering as they played in the snow. A deep breath was taken in before she walked out the door and down the slippery, ice coated steps to their car. The girls still playing, she grabbed her purse off the hood of the car, Daniela having sat it there before putting together a snowball to throw at Amelia.

"Girls! Come on lets go!"

As Camille turned around to gather her two daughters together, she watched as the door to the SUV slowly opened, and a man dressed in complete black stepped out. He was black, tall and slender, wearing a black hat that slightly shielded his eyes. Hands in pocket he smiled, it almost seeming politely and genuine as he stepped aside to let another man out the car. This one shorter, of an average build and as well dressed in black, though of a different type. Instead of the nice clean suit, and long winter jacket of the other, he simply wore black jeans and a black sweatshirt. The shorter man held a gun in his hand and stood by the car as the taller removed his hat and advanced towards the girls.

The girls still engrossed in their play had yet to notice the men, both throwing snowballs and laughing away. Camille found her jaw locked shut, unable to find the words of warning for her children as the man kneeled down next to Amelia and grabbed the young girls attention.

"Well now…what do we have here? A good game of snowball fighting, eh?" He had an odd accent, with black eyes he smiled at the girl, his hat in his lap as well as his hands.

"Huh? Yep! Me, Mommy and Daniela are going to the mall to go Christmas shopping! We're going to pick up stuff for our uncles!"

"Really now? Your uncles you say? They must be proud to have such cute little nieces like you two."

Amelia nodded happily, Daniela running up to stand beside her as her little sister, as usual let information flow from her mouth like water from a knocked over cup.

"They sure are! We have white uncles too! And our grandma is white! She's dead though…but it's okay, we're still going to her house to eat!"

The man chuckled and Daniela finally spoke up.

"Come on Amelia I think it's time to go," she was hesitant, grabbing her sister's hand and pulling her back towards the car.

"No wait! What's your name mister!?"

He looked a bit appalled at the question, putting his hat back on and glancing up as Camille finally began to move towards her girls.

"Well you girls can call me Stretch…Stretch Chester as a matter of fact," he slowly stood and turned his back to the girls, as Camille grabbed there hoods and pulled them back. "And you know what…you girls can do me a mighty big favor," he turned back to them once again standing next to the young man at the vehicle. His dark eyes looking up to Jerry as he opened the door, not waiting to rush down the stairs towards his girls. "Tell your lovely uncles that Stretch says…Merry Christmas."

Everything seemed to happen so slowly after that.

Yet as slow as things went, Jerry just couldn't seem to get to her fast enough. He just couldn't seem to reach his girls, each step bringing the boys arm of another five inches.

Until it was high enough to shoot.

And as the shot rang out he only hoped that the bullet was aimed for him. That this particular bullet was aimed at his heart, or his head. Aimed not at his family but at the head of it itself.

The bullet was not meant for him…not in the way he wanted it to at least. No this bullet had hit something so much more important in his life.

"DANIELA!"

Camille's scream filled the cold air as he watched his oldest daughter fall to the snow, the SUV long gone, having disappeared in a blink of an eye just as it came.

Not his baby…not his first-born. Not his flesh and blood, his child. His baby girl, not her…

"Daniela please!…Daniela? Daniela!!" As he leaned over his child, his wife cradling the lifeless child in his arms, he wasn't even aware of his desperate calls as they exploded from his mouth. His heart lurching, twisting in grief as he and his wife screamed for not only help but for her to open her eyes, and for the bleeding to stop.

As Amelia stood there beside her father, frozen in shock, yet the tears slid down her smooth plump face, the heat of them causing the slight wisps of smoke to brush her brown cheeks.

And the very sirens of hope rang out but neither parent nor unhurt child could hear them.

A nosey neighbor that they had so long regretted living across the street from having called 911 as soon as she saw the suspicious man step out of the car.

"I had been watching the truck all four days it had been there," she explained to the cops as she watched the ambulance take off down the street with the mother and two children.

The father was too shaken up the police had said, to upset to be in the small ambulance with the rest of the family. It seemed to make so much more sense to have the other daughter with her mother; the father wasn't in a stable mind to take care of the little girl that was unharmed.

Jerry had put up such a protest though, having hit not only paramedics as they tried to assist him but police as well in his distraught temperament. "My baby…My baby…why my baby? Why my baby!? Why!?" He had mumbled to himself as he sat there on the steps to his house. Completely oblivious to the questioning cops, they asking for information, for close family he could stay with, for what he thought may have happened or where he was during this entire dilemma.

A dilemma.

That's what they had called it.

As if it was a simple argument and his daughter had simply been pushed to the ground.

As if now all they had to do was stitch her little finger up and everything would be okay.

Dilemma.

The word was too simple.

They had might as well called it a pickle, that would've worked to for what he seemed to be going through right now.

An anxiety attack is what they diagnosed him with.

"He's trembling so hard we can't even give him the antibiotic. Not to mention he keeps mumbling to himself and looking about like something is still after him."
"We searched this entire area too chief…no idea what the problem could be."

Maybe it had something to do with the sudden lost of his daughter.

Yes.

That could be what was it.

At least that's what he was thinking, but sadly whatever he was thinking wasn't exactly what he was saying. Right now what he needed was his brothers, he needed his brothers right now, and as he stood to go find them, to walk to him he was grabbed once again. And it seemed that the longer he stood there, out in the snow, the cold wrapping its frozen arms about his face, the blood of his daughter stood out that much more vibrant against the once clean and pure snow.

He needed his brothers.

He needed the truth.