I am like, sooooo sorry about the late update. It was raining so hard, and I couldn't even go to the library. If this happens again, a good excuse is probably going to come out of it. Most likely not going to be late ever again. Hopefully. So like I said, a good excuse, but there also will be a REALLY GOOD chapter. (or at least in my opinion, hopefully in yours too.) So before we get into that here's the replay:

Artemis ran outside, the ground was dry, and the air was sticky and sour. He had to check something. He went to the gravel driveway. He knew that something was wrong, the moment they drove up. It was right in front of him. Butler only bought one kind of tires for the cars, the safest kind that have the most traction, but there were different tire marks in the driveway.

Now, here's today's: Chapter 6: The Lost and The Found

Artemis was still in the driveway, on his knees, staring intensely at the ground, when the rain started. Butler was soon out there, picking the mud boy up and carrying him into the house. He put Artemis on the couch, and of course Mulch, Foaly, and Trouble were still there. It took a good long 30 minutes before Artemis could even stutter out a word.

"I-I ca-cant believe it." He started, whispering into his hands. "Who would have done this, Opal is gone. I thought all the problems would have been over by now."

Foaly trotted over and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "You know better than that mud boy, problems never seem to cease when you're around. Who else have you pissed off in the last decade that knows about the people and Holly?"

"Well there's Jon Spiro from the C-cube incident, and Abbot from the demon incident, but they're in jail, no way to get out. I would be notified immediately if they did. Then there's Sool bu-"

"Sool's back on the force, he pleaded to, and the council finally decided that he was sane and trustworthy enough to come back. The council is keeping a close eye on him though." (But as you know, is a straight up lie, council is just too busy. But Foaly doesn't know that.)

Artemis sighed, "Then there isn't anyone else that knows about the people or Holly."

Mulch winced at the thought that just occurred to him, he knew he shouldn't talk about Artemis' family, but for Holly's sake, they needed to consider and talk about all of the options, no matter how insane they sounded. So he spoke his thoughts, "Artemis," he said, "Did you think your father did this, I mean, now that he knows about Holly, and the people?"

Artemis smiled sadly, something that Mulch had not even expected, he thought the mud boy would explode at him accusing his father, "No mulch, Father has changed, and even if he hadn't, he's on vacation with Mother, Myles, and Beckett. They would never let him leave, and we had a conversation about the secrecy of the people before they left."

Trouble then spoke, slightly in shock like Artemis when Butler brought him in, "Why don't you ever go on vacation with them? It seems bizarre that a family vacation doesn't include all the family."

Trouble was just trying to change the subject, and Artemis was happy to help, "I don't like vacation, it's too happy and mind numbing. I also believe that too much time vacationing will take a tremendous drop to my I.Q. points as well."

Foaly sighed, "Artemis, you well know that that won't happen. Now, you two, stop trying to change the subject, we need to think this through."

Trouble spoke up again, and when he spoke, you could almost see the hurt in his voice, "What if Holly just did this to herself?"

Foaly snorted, "Kidnap herself, Holly wouldn't, would she?" Then he thought of something, and looked at Artemis, "What if she's just trying to scare us? You know after the prank you two pulled on her? It's believable."

Artemis shook his head, "Holly would have come back by now, anyway, where would she get a car, much less drive one since she cant even reach the gas pedal."

"She could have mesmerized someone."

Butler cleared his throat, and everyone looked up at him, for someone as tall and big as Butler, he was so quiet most of the time, it was hard to realize he was there. "Artemis, you of all people are forgetting something."

Artemis again smiled sadly, he knew exactly what he was talking about, "I didn't forget about the hidden video camera old friend, I just fear that if I look at them, that they will tell us something that we don't want to even believe anymore." Nonetheless, he got up to his study.

Once in there, he logged on and accessed into the video feed in the last day. Their worst fears came true as they saw Holly walk up to the door, and be snatched, blindfolded, tied up, and finally thrown into the backseat of a car. The car sped off; there was no license plate to identify the car. The kidnapper, was definitely an elf

Hours later, after Foaly, Mulch, and Trouble left, Artemis was still at his computer, trying to find a clue on where Holly went, and how to find her. He finally passed out of exhaustion in a few more hours, at his desk. Butler found him like that and put him to bed.

Not even fifteen minutes after all of this happened, Foaly found something very interesting when he reached the ops booth to go to work. His eyes widened with fear and disbelief, and almost stumbled into the elf that was asleep in the chair at his desk. Foaly looked around, how did someone get into his office (or whatever it is) without him knowing? It terrified the paranoid Foaly, he looked Holly quickly over, there were deep, dark, purple bruises on her wrists. Other than that, she looked perfectly normal. He wondered if Holly really did fake all of this to get back at him, maybe, he thought, the bruises are just paint. He tried to wipe it off, tried his best actually, but it wasn't paint. Her eyes flickered open suddenly.

"Holly?" Foaly asked, "Are you alright?"

Holly's eyes quizzically starred at him, "Who are you? Who's Holly?"

"You, you're Holly. Are you messing with me, look, I'm sorry about this morning with Artemis and Butler. I just thought that you know with you working all day and night now that you would be happy to see him. Remember, we needed him distracted. Frond, holly I'm sorry. Please just drop the act."

Holly just shook her head, and looked away. Foaly grabbed her wrists, "Who did this to you?"

Holly had a quick moment of fear, she remembered just a little bit about, about, a-a knife, being held somewhere, about being scared. She didn't know by who, she just knew that she didn't want to feel that scared again, didn't want anything to happen to her. And since she didn't know anybody, or remember anything, she had to trust herself and her instincts. And when this centaur grabbed her, she felt hostile and scared again.

"Let go." She demanded.

"not until you say that this is all a joke, that this is some permanent paint or something that you did to yourself to make this scam more believable."

Foaly did have more to say, but didn't get a chance to say it, because Holly had now kicked him in the gut. He let go of her bruised wrists and stepped back. Bad move. Now that her wrists were free, she slapped the centaur in the face, and launched herself from the chair.

"Holly! What do you think you're doing!"

She kept attacking him, but soon guards came in and grabbed her. Foaly asked the guards, "Where's Trouble? He'll want to see this."

One of the guards responded, "Commander Kelp is on a mission, he will be out for the remainder of the week."

Foaly groaned, just great, he thought. Then the guards took Holly away. No doubt to Argon's office. He wiped blood from his mouth from when Holly slapped him. Then mumbled only one word…..

"D'arvit."

The next day, Foaly called Artemis' phone on Holly's communicator. It only took half a ring before Artemis answered, "Holly?"

Suddenly Artemis heard Foaly saying, "You better come down here, Argon's office. Now." Then the centaur hung up.

So, do you forgive me? Well, maybe not cause of the cliffhanger. Hate reading them, LOVE writing them. Oh well, again, I'm sorry. Don't hate me. Haha! Anyway, write again on Tuesday.

Oh! I also would really like it if ya'll would leave a review on how you think Holly will react to Artemis. I mean, I know how it will, but you know, I want to see what you think she'll do.

Before I go, I want to thank Vector arrow for clearing up a little grammar error I had last chapter, its all fixed now.

I also want to say that I'm not Eion Colfier, I don't know how his characters would react to some cases. (Take that also as a Disclaimer)

Leave a comment. Encouragement or criticism, I just want to know what you think I'm doing right or not! :)