Chapter Twelve

A/N: Thank you to TheDarkMistressBellatrix for reviewing the last chapter.

When she woke in the morning, for just a moment, Julia thought that everything was alright. Her daughter was safely tucked up downstairs, her husband was down in the town and her son was on his way to school, as Elizabeth had agreed to take him, to allow her a little more sleep. It was only when the haze of sleep faded away that the woman realised. Yes, Caleb was back, and David in school, but Maddy was missing, and she still had no leads whatsoever as to who had taken the girl. That was when the pleasure of waking faded away, and she was left with all that she could ever have for sure. Reality.

She had not succeeded in her quest the previous day, though she had achieved a goal that she had held for years past, and therefore, her family could not be completed. 'It will be soon, though.' she tried to persuade herself, feeling in her soul that it was not very effective, but continuing nonetheless, in case it should become so. 'I will find Maddy today. I can't let her think that I'm not coming for her, or that I'm just going to leave her with whatever madman has decided to take her away from me.'

With her desperate aim causing the adrenaline to flow through her veins, Julia rose from her bed, dressing as quickly as she could, before making her way downstairs, with the intentions of returning once again to the beach, to see if she could gather any further evidence than the necklace, which she now wore around her own neck, for the purpose of keeping a part of her little girl close to her, until she could locate the girl herself.

However, it was only once the woman was out of the door and descending the steps in front of the house that she recalled a small detail, one that she had entirely overlooked the previous day but was so incredibly important. Her head spinning, the redhead once again entered the house, her eyes immediately confirming what she had believed to be true. There was fresh sand imbedded in the carpet.

For just a second, the woman found that she could not breathe. She had wiped her shoes before she had entered the house, and so had David. They had made certain that there was no trace of sand remaining on the soles. So, whoever had traipsed the grit into the rug, they had been on the beach yesterday. It could not be possible. Or perhaps it could.

Glancing down the floor, the woman found that the trail continued, trampled deeply into the tile and even present in traces on the stairs. A path had been created by the gravel, barely visible to the eye that did not look for it, but for Julia, each grain stood out as clearly as a star in the night's sky, lighting the way to her finally being able to find her little girl. Or so she hoped, at least.

She was aware, after all, that the trail of sand could be nothing. One of the members of the house could simply have wandered down to the beach and simply forgotten to wipe their shoes when they had returned. 'Maybe I'm just going mad.' the woman thought, shaking her head in an attempt to clear it of the plan she had formulated. By the time she had finished her internal debate, the redhead found herself stood at the point where the trail ceased. Much to her dismay, the trail had ended with a door.

'I shouldn't do this.' she instructed herself, her frustration mounting to a point beyond her control. She could feel the wilful tendencies of her nature creeping up to cloud her vision, telling her that she should, that this may be the only chance she would get in which to find Maddy. In the end, as it always did, the woman's wilful nature won the battle, and so she moved forward in a few small steps, resting her hand upon the door handle and turning, entering the room before she had a chance to come to her senses.

The room was dark, and seemed to be relatively cold upon entering, though the landing on the staircase had not had a high temperature at all. Immediately, Julia groped along the wall, searching for the cool metal covering of the light switch. She could not see a thing in the room, and to ascertain anything to do with Maddy's disappearance or where she was at current, she was going to need to be able to see. Eventually, she felt the electric shock of freezing cold steel beneath her fingertips, and upon doing so, pressed down, blinking her eyes rapidly to adjust them to the sudden light coming from the midst of the ceiling. It was only when the blur from the slit of her eyes had become clear that she saw for the first time the contents of the room. The sight alone was enough to cause her eyes to blur over once again.

There, lying on the floor, bound in fabric and her arms covered in bruises, was poor little Maddy. Her hair was dark from lack of washing, and her clothes were slightly darkened by a dried fluid, one which Julia could not deny was most likely blood. Unable to prevent herself from doing so, the young woman cried out, the pain of seeing her daughter in such a position far too much to keep herself silent. The thing that terrified her the most, after all, was the fact that her daughter had not moved since she had entered the room, and had not even stirred when the blinding light had been switched on. 'She can't be.' the redhead thought, her eyes brimming over with tears. 'Oh please, God, she just can't be.'

No longer frozen by the awful shock, she finally received the scream from her aching heartstrings, and sprinted across the room, kneeling beside her daughter and pushing her hair out of her face, noticing with a wince that there the space around her right eye was blackened with another bruise. Desperately, she groped at the girl's wrist and at her throat, feeling for the tell-tale signs of life beating away beneath her skin.

However, just as she felt the slightest pulse beneath Maddy's skin, heaving a weighted sigh of relief, the moment of reprieve shattered as the door slammed shut, the sound rattling through the room like a crash of thunder. Breathing a shaky sigh, this time permeated by her own fear, as well as that she felt for her daughter, Julia turned to face the figure.

Once the person was in her sights, the woman blinked, once, twice, perhaps even thrice. She could not believe her eyes. All along she had believed that a stranger had taken her child, but now she realised it was someone closer than she ever would have known.

A/N: Please review, and tell me who you think the person was!