More and more people are going missing now, we're starting to form an organisation haha in all serious though writing the end of this chapter made me really sad :( hope you enjoy it :)

"Another one's gone missing." Lea stated throwing his tote bag down as he closed the front door and kicked his shoes off.

"What?" I asked looking up from my laptop, the half finished chapter of my novel still on the screen.

"Another person from town has gone missing." Lea said again going into the kitchen and putting the kettle on.

"When?" I asked getting up and going over to kitchen.

"A few days ago by the sound of it." Lea said leaning against the kitchen counter next to the sink. "Leon, the delivery guy at work, told me."

"Who was it this time?" I opened a cupboard and took out our nearly empty jar of coffee (time to go shopping again...great, more munny going out while none is coming in) while Lea pulled two mugs off the draining board next to the sink.

"Aeleus." he replied. I thought for a minute trying to work out who he was; it was one of those incidences where you know you know who the person in but you can't seem to put a face to the name.

"Who's he again?" I asked spooning coffee into the cups as Lea opened the fridge and retrieved the milk.

"The really tall guy with auburn hair that sort of spikes up." Lea described pouring water into the cups. I thought for a moment tapping the spoon absent-mindedly against my lips.

"The guy who looks like he could kill you with one punch?" I asked after a while.

"Yeah," Lea replied. "he also kind of looks like he's been smashed in the face repeatedly with a shovel." I clicked my fingers.

"I know who you mean now, he's another one who looks like he should be in the army." I mused taking my coffee and leaning against the kitchen counter.

"I think he was at one point." Lea stated taking his own coffee and blowing on it.

"And he's gone missing?" I asked for clarification more than anything else.

"Yeah."

"I don't get it!" I exclaimed shaking my head. "Most of the people who have gone missing – Braig, Dilan, Aeleus – they all look like they can handle themselves. I pretty sure even Even could defend himself if someone attacked him."

"What's your point?" Lea asked taking a sip of coffee.

"I don't know." I sighed. "It just seems so strange that guys like that are going missing when they could easily throw off anyone who tried to take them."

"Yeah," Lea mused. "unless they're not actually being taken."

"What do you mean?" I asked. Was Lea suggesting what I think he was? That these guys had just up and left without saying anything to anyone?

"Maybe their not being taken," he stated shrugging ever so slightly. "maybe they're going willingly." That could be true; it could be that these men had just had enough of Radiant Gardens and had gone. If that was the case then this was all much less worrying than it seemed but that theory didn't fit either. Dilan had a wife and I'm pretty sure Aeleus had a wife and kids as well, it didn't make any sense for them to just leave their families with no explanation whatsoever. Then there was the scene that me and Lea had walked in on a week ago.

"No," I mumbled. "you saw what had happened in Even's office; there's no way they're going willingly."

"I suppose not." Lea mumbled back. We hadn't spoken of what we had seen since it had happened but both of us knew that the other was thinking about it constantly. Lea tried to remain his usual cheery self but the dark circles underneath his eyes said that he wasn't getting nearly enough sleep (and Lea only didn't sleep when he was stressed out or worried about something) whereas I was less able to hide the effect it was having on me.

I had hardly been able to finish a meal since we had walked into Even's office and found it ransacked, blood and rotting organs everywhere, and meat was totally out of the question. It was stupid but I just couldn't face food; every time I saw a juicy piece of steak, or something like that, I was immediately reminded of that decomposing heart with insects burrowing inside it and my stomach lurched. My work had been affected as well; it's really hard to write a scene between two star-crossed lovers when all you can see when you close your eyes is a torn and bloodied lab coat and having a good idea what had happened to the person who owned it.

Also I couldn't get the image of those three girls out of my head, especially the tallest one with blueish black hair. The look of almost satisfied glee on her face as she had looked up at me and mouthed 'three down'. It was almost as if she was happy that I had seen her; like she had wanted to be caught in the act. I was sure that those three had something to do with Even's disappearance – they must have done, I had found strands of their hair on his desk for crying out loud! I should have told the police about that, I honestly did try to but the thought of what those girls would do to me stopped me. They had seen me watching them; they would have known that I said something if the police came looking for them and then they would have come looking for me.

The loud ringing of the doorbell made both Lea and myself jump out of our skin. We had fallen into a pensive silence as each of us thought about what we couldn't bring ourselves to discuss and the sudden sound had harshly brought us back to reality. Breathing heavily and heart racing about a mile a minute I put down my cup and went over to the door leaving Lea clutching his chest and cursing to himself. When I opened the door Arlene was on the other side her hands behind her back.

"Hey stranger," she said smiling at me brightly. "I thought you guys might like some cheesecake." From behind her back she produced a large pink box, which I took and smiled back at her.

"Free cheesecake?" I asked in mock surprise and then narrowed my eyes at her comically. "There must be a catch."

"No catch," she replied innocently. "just a free cheesecake for you because you're my two best friends Lea and Lumaria, you know, not because Jasmine sneezed on it or anything." Her innocent smile mutated into a half smirk and I shook my head grinning at her.

"Really?" I asked incredulously and motioned for her to come in.

"Well she sneezed near it, not actually on it but John said we couldn't serve it to customers so it was up for grabs." she explained taking off her coat as I closed the door behind her.

"Hey Lea," I called into the kitchen and he stuck his head out into the hall. "free, potentially sneezed on, cheesecake?" He seemed to contemplate this for a second before nodding and disappearing back into the kitchen.

"I'll get the squirty-cream." he stated and Arlene and I laughed. Lea and I never turned down free food, even if it had potentially been sneezed on be one of Arlene's co-workers. Arlene and I went to join Lea in the kitchen. I made Arlene a cup of coffee while she divided the cheesecake between the three of us and Lea practically drenched each piece in cream.

"Wow you really love that stuff!" Arlene laughed as Lea handed her a bowl that looked as if it was more cream that cheesecake.

"I do." Lea replied grinning like a child as he handed me another bowl. "I could actually eat a whole bowl of this and nothing else."

"I've seen him do it," I told Arlene as the three of us went and sat in the larger living room area of the flat; Lea and Arlene on the sofa and me on my desk chair which I turned so that I was facing my friends. "it was disgusting!"

"It was amazing!" Lea corrected. I just rolled my eyes and took a bite of the cheesecake which, despite being drenched in UHT cream and sneezed on, tasted amazing (but that's the thing about cheesecake; even when it's bad it's still pretty good). "Did you walk here straight from work?" Lea asked Arlene turning to her.

"Yeah," she replied. "I finished early today. John offered to walk me home but I said I'd be fine, the last thing I need is that pervert knowing where I live."

"You walked here by yourself?" I asked suddenly concerned. Arlene shouldn't be walking around this part of town (or any part of town for that matter) by herself if people twice the size of her were going missing.

"Yeah." she replied. "It's no big deal."

"It is a big deal!" Lea snapped suddenly serious. "People are going missing Arlene!"

"Lea it's three-thirty in the afternoon!" Arlene exclaimed gesturing outside. "There's loads of people around, I wouldn't have been in any danger."

"That's not the point Arlene." he shot back. "Do you honestly think that Braig, Dilan or Aeleus thought they were in any danger before they went missing?"

"Braig, Dilan and Aeleus were sent on a job and just haven't been in touch." Arlene retorted. "They all look as if they're in some kind of armed forces so they were probably drafted somewhere."

"What about Even?" Lea asked. "He's not in the armed forces and his place was covered in blood when the police found it." Neither of us had told Arlene that we had been the ones to find out that Even had gone missing; if we couldn't talk to each other about it we certainly couldn't talk to anyone else!

"Even was a creepy reclusive sociopath who probably trashed his own office before leaving town." Arlene stated. It sounded rational enough – there was something not quite right about Even anyway – but I still didn't like the idea of her walking around by herself, not when Xehanort's aids were running around the city terrorising people. Lea opened his mouth to retort but Arlene's phone began to ring before he could say anything. She pulled it out of her pocket. "It's John, I need to take this." She flipped open her phone and answered it, walking out into the hall so she could have some privacy.

"Hey Lea..." I began after a shot awkward pause. I could tell he was angry at Arlene for not taking these disappearances seriously and I was too but if she didn't want to believe that there was something sinister going on then we couldn't force her too.

"What?" he asked turning his attention back to his cheesecake.

"Who was the last person Aeleus was seen with?"

"Give you one guess." he replied darkly and I immediately knew that is was Xehanort; who else would it be.

"Of course." I muttered shaking my head and stabbing my cheesecake. "Stupid question."

The next evening I stood out in front of the architectural firm that Lea had been working in all week waiting for him too finish. I looked at my watch, more for want of something to do than any desire to actually know the time. I couldn't help thinking about the conversation Arlene, Lea and I had had the night before; I had honestly thought that Lea and Arlene were going to come to blows at one point if it had carried on any longer.

Luckily after the phone call from John Arlene was more annoyed at him because he had changed all of her hours without telling her until the last minute again. She had come back from the hallway fuming because John had put her down for the late finishes for the whole of next week meaning that, after all the cleaning up and tidying, she wouldn't be leaving till about half past nine at night. Seeing an opportunity to prevent her and Lea from continuing their previous fight I pounced on the opportunity to berate her manager and the evening carried on as normal.

I sighed, checking my watch again without really looking at the time, I was exhausted. Not to sound narcissistic and self pitying but all these disappearances were killing me; I was hardly eating anything and I barely slept at all. I knew I was being stupid getting work up about this – it was surely so much worse for the people who's loved ones had actually disappeared – but I couldn't help wondering if Lea or Arlene or Aerith would be the next one to go missing. It didn't seem likely that they would though; there was a definite type of person that whoever was doing the abducting was going for – big strong men who could handle themselves and be trained to take other people out if they were required too.

"Boo!" Lea shouted in my ear, grabbing my shoulders and making my jump out of my skin. I turned to face him, clutching my racing heart and panting heavily while he laughed his stupid arse off. I glared at him and gave him a shove once my heart rate had returned to normal.

"You're an arse-hole, you know that right?" I told him.

"Aww and that's why you love me!" he grinned moronically as he grabbed my arm and hugged it to his chest.

"Lea!" I pleaded trying to prise myself free. "People are staring."

"Let them stare," he said in faux adoration. "I want the whole world to know how I feel about you." I sighed and began walking away; Lea always did things like this when we were in public because he knew that it made me uncomfortable when people stared at me. "Baby don't walk away from me, you know you're my world!" he called as he ran to catch up with me.

"You're an idiot." I told him once he reached me.

"And that's why you love me." he shot back grinning like a Cheshire cat. I gave him my best 'unimpressed face' and shrugged.

"Eh?"

"Oh that's bloody charming." he said pretending to be hurt.

"Baby you know you're my world." I replied monotonously. Lea gave me a shove before the two of us erupted into a fit of giggles. We continued to walk down the street, still in fits of laughter, when a hurried voice made us both stop.

"Excuse me!" the voice said. Lea and I turned to see a woman, possibly her later thirties/early forties standing behind us. She had long silvery-blue hair and dark eyes which were wide and frantic. She was clutching a photograph and, from the way everyone else seemed to be avoiding her, she had probably been here a good few hours pouncing on anyone she could. "Do you live around here?" she asked frantically.

"Um we live a couple of streets away," Lea said signalling in the direction we had been walking. "but we know the place, why?"

"Do you know the boy in this photo?" she asked giving Lea the photograph, he looked at it and then handed it to me. It was a photograph of a teenage boy who couldn't have been older than fifteen or sixteen and two young girls who looked about six or seven. The girls had lighter hair than their mother but the boy looked the spitting image of her right down to the long silvery-blue hair that he wore with the fringe covering half of his face.

"Yeah," I replied, elongating the word as I realised where I had seen this boy before. "Ienzo right? He works in the chemist's?"

"Yes that's him, he's my son!" the woman exclaimed. "When was the last time you saw him? Please I need to know!"

"Um a couple of days ago, maybe," I replied trying to think. "I'm sorry, I don't go in the chemist's very often. Why?" The woman took back the photograph and sighed, defeated.

"He didn't come home from work last night." she told us. "At first I thought he'd stopped off at a friend's house so when it started getting late I called a few of them and they all said they hadn't seem him. I know people have been going missing around town but I thought, whoever it was, they were after big army men like Aeleus not a someone like Ienzo – he's just a child!"

"I'm sorry." I said trying to sound comforting but not really knowing what to say.

"He might not have been taken, he didn't ever seem unhappy at home did he?" Lea asked in an attempt to be helpful.

"No never." the woman stated, tears forming in her dark eyes. "He was always just Ienzo; a little quiet and shy but he's been like that ever since he was little. I can't think of any reason why he would suddenly decide to run away."

"Have you called the police?" Lea asked and the woman shook her head.

"What would they do?" she asked, anger in her voice. "They're only just beginning a search for Dilan and Braig and they've been missing for weeks now, Ienzo's barely been gone twenty-four hours." I sighed, she was right. The police of this town didn't seem to be taking these disappearances overly seriously, apart from Even's and that's only because his place looked like a murder had been committed there.

"Is there anything we can do?" I asked.

"If you see him please tell my baby to come back home...we need him." she said before dissolving into tears. Lea put an arm around her shoulders and tried his best to comfort her but there was nothing he could do. There was nothing either of us could do, the only thing that would console her would be the return of her son.

"Mummy!" a high-pitched voice cried and Lea, the woman and I turned to see one of the small girls from the photo running towards us. A few feet behind her the other small girl was walking hand in hand with a tall man, with lighter hair than the rest of them but he was unmistakably their father. The woman swiftly wiped the tears away from her eyes and forced herself to smile as her daughter reached us.

"Hi honey," she said picking the small girl up. "are you ok?" The girl nodded.

"We just finished putting up the posters of Ienzo with Daddy." she told her mother before casting a shy glance at myself and Lea. "Mummy, who are these men?" she asked, a little scared.

"These men know Ienzo, they said they'd tell him, when they next see him, that we want him to come home." she told her daughter and I could tell that she was desperately trying to hold it together for her sake. The girl looked up at me and Lea with her huge dark eyes.

"Please tell my big brother to come home, we miss him." she said. I felt a lump rising in my throat but swallowed it down.

"I promise we will." I told her and gave her my friendliest smile.

"Thank you." the woman said giving us both a tearful smiled before turning to meet her husband. Lea and I turned away from the small family and began to make our way back home. Neither of us knew what to say – this was the first person to go missing who didn't seem like they could handle themselves if it came down to a fight, he was the odd one out. I'd met Ienzo a few times and he was just a kid, shy and a little awkward like most boys his age.

"Fuck!" Lea muttered angrily after a moments silence.

"Yeah..." I replied quietly.