Enjoy!

The Broken Circus

Chapter 6: Resilience

Clay had been expecting the worst after the children had gone missing, but this wasn't what he assumed it would look like. He assumed they would find one of them, not lose another, especially not Charlie.

To say that Clay felt at fault for this was a massive understatement. He had heard Charlie's concerns and knew about her suspicions of Circus Baby's Pizza, and had plenty of his own, but his hands had been tied to do anything. At least, that's what he had believed at the time, but now he couldn't help but see what he had done as neglectful inactivity. He should've watched her more closely; he should've offered her protection. Now it was too late.

There had been no sign of Charlie or her car. No calls to report that they had seen anything, or on the young woman period- save a horrified call from Jenny Emily who had apparently gotten word from someone and went straight to Clay. The woman was caught somewhere between fear and anger, threatening to come down herself and help search, and Clay only barely managed to assure her that he would find her. He didn't tell her about their leads on Baby's Pizza.

Not that the leads had done much good. Clay had finally gotten a search warrant and sent a few officers down there to search the building, but they returned with nothing. They hadn't seen anything suspicious at Circus Baby's and word that the security footage was too warped to use. He wasn't satisfied with this answer, not convinced that they knew what they were looking for. So, Clay decided to do what he should've done originally.

He went down there for himself.

And when he stepped in the front, caught sight of the lone employee, and immediately recognized him as a former employee of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, he knew he made the right choice. Without any false pretense, he strode towards the man.

Apparently, he recognized the former detective too as when he saw him, he stared for a long moment before getting a look of dread on his face. Clay considered that moment of terror as his only warning for what was coming and strode towards him without any covering of his intentions.

"Afternoon, Mr. Caldwell. I must say, you are the last person I expected to find working here. What with your history with Freddy Fazbear's," he said, not hiding the suspicion in his voice. He was just as he remembered him, nervous and stammering before he could get out even a single word.

"I, uh, yeah, I wouldn't- I didn't either, it just sort of happened. Beggars can't be choosers, you know?" the worker fumbled out. He cleared his throat before daring to ask, "What do you need?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Scott. You know why I'm here," Clay said much more harshly. Hoping to stop the charade before it began. Fortunately, this seemed to do the job.

"Look, I- I told the cops who came in everything. I didn't see anything, I didn't even know anyone came by last night, and the security footage is corrupted. It doesn't show anything-."

"Isn't it funny how this is the same exact thing that happened at Freddy's? Both establishments searched for missing people and in both cases the security footage was somehow entirely unsalvageable, and in both cases, you were the one overseeing it." The worker's mouth clamped shut and Clay's voice lowered further. "Unless you want me to come down on you with the full extent of the law, I suggest you show me the footage this time."

There were no more protests. The man turned in place and led him directly into the arcade. It still had plenty of patrons, much to Clay's dismay. He was led to the back of the room where there was a staff room half-obscured behind an unused pinball table. Through the door was an incredibly narrow room- a closet- with a small desk and a monitor on it. Barely fit between the arcade and the bathroom wall.

The worker sat down at the desk and booted up the monitor before searching up the footage. He did so with a concerned frown, then scooted his seat slightly to the side when he pulled up the video in question.

"Okay, so, the footage is fine until around three-thirty last night," he began as he fast-forwarded to the time. Suddenly the clean feed of the dining room was consumed with static. "There! See? It goes in and out like this for about ten or fifteen minutes, then just shorts out completely."

"Show me when it does." More fast-forwarding commenced and Clay watched the grainy film until it suddenly stopped. Though he noticed that the way it stopped was less like it malfunctioned and more like someone shut it off- though there wasn't enough to show that was the case other than a hunch. "And the other cameras?"

"There's a couple of cameras in the front room, there's one in the hallway, one in the kitchen, and a couple outside. They all started shorting out like this. Not at the same time, but off and on all night. The one outside was mostly on until the whole system went down."

"Pull that one up," Clay said. As the man started to do so, he added in a low voice, "Curious how the static moves from room to room. Almost like it's purposefully blocking something out. Doesn't it look like that?"

"…Yeah, it does…" the worker admitted. He cleared his throat and discreetly whispered, "I noticed that the puppet in the front room was missing this morning… And the night technician didn't leave any notes."

Clay didn't say anything, but he already recognized this static as the same he saw the night of the Butcher Trap stakeout. This confirmed that Sammy was in the pizzeria like the message had said, and that meant that it was likely Charlie was there too. These cameras short-circuiting were actually showing the path that Charlie and Sammy had taken into the Pizzeria. He would have to get a better look after checking the outside camera.

Clay noticed something immediately once the worker started fast-forwarding, there was a lot more footage. "This camera didn't go off at the same time as the others?"

"No. It was actually about an hour later, I think. The inside cameras and outside cameras are on different systems. Or like, basically you shut them of in different places. You can shut down all the cameras for one and not the other."

"…So, you do think someone shut them down?"

The other man got a blank look, suddenly realizing that he had caught himself, then gave a tired sigh. "Yeah, I sort of do… Look, we both know what happened at Freddy's wasn't normal," he began. At this moment, the video quickly moving through, Clay caught sight of something before the camera shorted out. "And I know me being here and there looks suspicious, but I was just offered a job-."

"Hold that thought and rewind about twenty seconds," Clay said. The sternness and suddenness almost caught the worker by surprise, but he did as told. It jumped back to right before the car drove into the parking lot, and the worker's eyes widened as he saw it before it disappeared.

"Was that a car?" he asked. Then, without being told, he willingly skipped ahead until the footage cleared out. Sure enough, there was the car parked right outside. "Yeah, that's a car. That must be the technician who comes at night."

"No, I recognize the car. That's the car of our missing girl, Charlie," Clay explained. He could only see the front corner, but he could spot the tell-tale damage in the front bumper along with the familiar model and color. He noticed something else too, the look of shock and growing dread on the other man's face. "You didn't see the car?"

"I-I didn't check all the outside footage. Just the inside…" the worker admitted.

"And you didn't show the officers this?"

"They didn't ask. They just wanted to see the inside."

That alone was enough to make Clay want to snatch some badges. Of course, he wouldn't do that, but there was definitely going to be some harsh words for his men. How they could miss something so obvious was beyond him. Probably just another example of Dunn's inexperience acting up, knowing he was with them.

"Keep going," Clay said. The worker nodded and started to fast-forward ahead. There was a long period of time where nothing happened. The car was just parked outside the front door, and nobody was in it or came out to get in.

Then a white van drove out around the other side of the pizzeria.

"There! Did you see that?" the worker pointed out. He rewound and paused where the van was on screen and leaned in close. "That must be the night technician's van."

"You know that for certain?"

"Uh, well, no, but he's a technician, so he would be carrying tools. He would have to have a van like that. I've never seen it myself, but it would make sense, since he was supposed to be here."

"I don't suppose you've heard about the white van spotted in the area where some of our missing children were taken?" he asked and looked for a response. The worker's head snapped over and his face seemed to grow pale. "Keep going. I want to see until the end."

"Okay…" He started the footage and began to fast-forward through the rest of the video.

There was a long period where nothing happened until eventually the white van returned. It drove around the other side of the pizzeria again and disappeared. More time passed before the footage suddenly stopped. It didn't glitch or static, giving no sign of an error, but instead stopped like it had been manually turned off. Clay's eyes narrowed as he pieced together exactly what had happened.

"I believe we just witnessed the backend of a kidnapping," he said grimly. The worker's teeth clenched as he stared at the footage. "Are there any cameras around the back or sides?" The worker stiffly shook his head. "Right… What do you know about the technician who works here?"

"Nothing. I haven't even met him; I just know about him because the owner mentioned him… Ugh." He dropped his head into his hand. "This- This is all just… I-I can't believe this."

"Stay focused, Scott. I need you to tell me everything you know about the technician and the owner," Clay said firmly. The man huffed and fully turned the seat to face him, which was difficult to do in the tight space, causing their legs to bump.

"Look, I know this all looks bad for me, but I swear I had no idea anything like this was going on. I just thought- the owner told me it was a spinoff chain… Let me start from the beginning." He rubbed over his face tiredly. "I got a call from the owner of this place, Dale Miller, before it opened. He said that he was trying to open an animatronic pizzeria restaurant and heard that I had experience. Probably from the guy that owns El Chip's Fiesta Buffet; we go way back. He asked if I wanted a job, said that I'd be the only employee on board but that the whole thing was turnkey. Which it really is."

Clay nodded for him to keep going. "At the time I thought it was a stupid idea, but I've not been doing so well since Freddy's. Financially, I mean. One of my last nights I got in a bit of an accident and…" He tugged up his pants leg, revealing a deep scar along his calf muscle. It looked like he had been filleted. "Yeah, so, medical bills. A lot of 'em. The money was too good to turn down."

"And you didn't find it strange that you were going to be the only employee working a pizzeria?" Clay asked doubtfully.

"Well… Yeah, I did, but this isn't that strange compared to what I've worked with before, and he said it was because he couldn't afford to insure his employees."

"There's something legally questionable about that," Clay said flatly.

"Right, but believable, and I really needed the money. He sounded like a really nice guy, talking about all these ideas he had about the business. I wasn't sure if the place was going to make it, but I wasn't going to say that to the guy signing my paycheck… But I didn't realize how alone I really was until I started working here on opening. Dale's never here. I've never even met him in person! I've only talked to him once since I started working here and that was opening day."

"And what was that call about?"

"Just making sure I knew what I was supposed to be doing. That was also when he told me about the night technician. See, I asked him if I had to do anything with the animatronics, and he said no, to just let them do their own thing and that the technician who comes in at night would handle them… I should've asked probably asked questions after that, but I was just glad to not be the one stuck working on them. You know, the leg."

"No name?" Clay asked, cutting him short. The worker shook his head. "No physical description?" Again, a shake of the head. "And the white van?"

"I've never seen it before, but I've never stuck around past closing."

Clay was both disturbed and disappointed. He had clues, but nothing more to go on than a name and footage that only vaguely connected the missing children to the building, along with Charlie's car in the parking lot. It was all circumstantial, though Clay's concerns were less on seeking a conviction and more on find her and the children. He was pulled from his thoughts by the worker clearing his throat.

"There is one thing. That static… Did you ever see this mime looking animatronic back at Freddy's? It was tall and thin, used to be stuck in the Prize Corner to give out gifts? Well, we had an animatronic that looked a lot like it. Same character, different model. Normally it's posted by the door, but when I came in today it was gone… Back at Freddy's it was one of the animatronics that used to- I know it's hard to believe-."

"I know about the animatronics," Clay interrupted. The worker's eyes widened.

"Oh… Well, it, uh, it used to get out of its box and wander around the pizzeria… And whenever it did, the security footage would have that same fuzz over it… And now the puppet's gone from the front room…"

"You think she might've been attacked by an animatronic?" Clay asked. He knew this wasn't the case, but he wasn't going to let him know that. Sammy's existence was already on a need-to-know know basis, and additionally he wanted to hear all of this man's unbiased suspicions so he may have something to work with if he was more involved than he said. This could be the time to trip him up.

"She could've been, a-and I wouldn't put it past a place like this to, uh, know that this would probably kill the business and… Cover it up." The worker's mouth tensed again. It was clear that he knew what he was saying, possibly incriminating himself, but he was not exactly one to keep quiet. Though in this moment, Clay found a little more respect for him in doing so.

And dread because he was correct. Not that Charlie would've been killed by the puppet, but by the fact that someone could've easily covered it up.

"There's a chance of that. For now, what I'm going to need you to do is repeat the story about Dale Miller," Clay said. He reached into his pocket and brought out a voice recorder, small enough to remain easily concealed. "Now that you are aware that you are being recorded."

"…Yeah, I was expecting that," the worker said almost defeatedly. "Yeah, sure, I'll tell you everything. I don't want to be involved in this. I mean, I don't want to take the fall for this. You know what I mean."

"I do. Then we're going to go back through the footage and figure out where that static was moving. No objections?"

As expected, he didn't have any, and Clay now had his first concrete lead.

Mike got home at about eleven-forty, which was as fast as he could with his shift tonight. He unlocked the door and hurriedly let himself inside, expecting the worst and being relieved to see that Sammy was still there. As was Jessica, who had decided to stay over and watch him. She sat on the couch beside the puppet, who was rolled to face the back, and turned down the television when Mike came in. She had been watching the news as expected.

"Hey, Mike. How was work?" she asked in a friendly but somber tone.

"Dull. Best night I've had all week," Mike answered. He looked towards the puppet, noticing his position. "Thanks for watching him. How's he holding up?"

"…Alright," Jessica said. It sounded like she was stretching it and she looked back at him with a downcast look. After a moment, she reached for her purse and began to stand. "I wish I could stay longer, but I'm planning on getting up early tomorrow. You have my cell number, and if anything happens, I'm just going to be over at Marla's, so I can be here in ten minutes tops."

"Sure, sounds good," Mike said. Not that he knew where Marla's was. Jessica leaned over and gently pet the Sammy's head down to his back.

"It's going to be okay, Sammy. If you need me then just have Mike call me, and if I hear anything you'll be the first to know," she said. He gave a low chime. It was strange how a chime could sound so empty and listless, like a toy running on low batteries, but it did and he did. She had a worried frown as she said goodbye to Mike and made her way out.

Mike watched as she got in her car and drove off, making sure she left safely before shutting and locking the door. He then made his way over and took Jessica's seat on the couch. He sat behind Sammy's long, partially bent legs, and reached back to pat them.

"Alright, let me see," he said. The puppet knew what he meant, his mask. The only reason Mike had withdrawn on trying to mend the mask himself was because Sammy said he could fix it, in a few short words.

Knowing Mike wasn't going to be satisfied with anything less than seeing for himself, Sammy rolled himself onto his back. His body still largely limp and uncooperative, but his pain receding enough that he could fight against it. Sure enough, the man leaned in to see that some of the wider cracks had begun to narrow, and the thinner web-like cracks were starting to close up. The porcelain was healing itself.

"I'll be damned, you really can fix it," Mike said incredulously. He rubbed his thumb over a spot where there had been a hairline crack and felt only the slightest edge. "It's looking a lot better already."

Sammy gave another sad sounding warble from his chest. Healing didn't matter to him when the damage was already done, even though Mike's touch was soothing. He didn't let people touch his mask for obvious reasons, but Mike was an exception to the rule. It seemed he always was.

Picking up on his distress, Mike sat back and looked down at him sympathetically. The kneejerk response was to tell him that Charlie was going to be found safe, but everyone else already said that and he didn't seem to believe it. Honestly, Mike didn't either. He wanted to think that Charlie was going to be alright, but the realism of what happened at Freddy's tainted any amount of hope. Feeble words wouldn't change anything.

"Is there anything I can do for you? You want a blanket, or I could put something else on TV?" Mike offered. Charlie wasn't here, Sammy was. His responsibility was to take care of him and try to keep him comfortable.

Sammy looked up at him for a long moment, then the purple fluid began to overflow his eyeholes and trickle down his mask, tracing along the cracks. Mike almost regretted asking the question until Sammy weakly reached his arms out to him.

It only took him a second to realize what Sammy was asking for. It was almost a little surprising, but Mike gave it to him. He reached down and lifted Sammy gently into a hug. The puppet, though weak, managed to wrap his arms around his back and clasp him in a clingy embrace. Mike could feel the porcelain mask bury into his shoulder and held him a little more securely.

"There you go," Mike murmured, patting him on the back. The black fabric was soft with an almost foam-like give to it that his fingers sunk into. That was how he was able to feel the anxious ticking from deep in Sammy's chest. Proving that even though he looked like he was resting, on the inside he was in turmoil, his body struggling to deal with both the upset and the physical damage. He was anything but calm, he was just too lethargic to show it.

This didn't ease Mike's mind any. He had spent his entire shift stuck between worrying about Charlie and getting himself worked up about the state of Sammy. The thought that someone, human or not, could leave him in that state, dump him in that alley, infuriated him. A few times he had been forced to get up and pace the office to blow off some steam, thinking about Freddy's, the children, and the twins the whole time.

It was no secret that he had gotten attached to Charlie and Sammy. Charlie was almost like a little sister to him now, and the thought that she could be-… He couldn't dwell on it. Charlie might've not been here, but Sammy was, and it was his job to protect and take care of him until she was back, God willing.

"You're safe now. I know you're the last person you're worrying about, but I want you to know that I'm not going to let anyone or anything get to you," Mike said in a softer tone than he had ever used before, trying to soothe the puppet. Trying to put aside his own feelings and be the support he needed, because he knew he was feeling awful.

Which he was. Sammy was wracked with guilt and trapped in a body that was currently out-of-order. He felt useless and helpless, and he needed something to help take the edge off. Which was why he asked for the hug, because he thought if he closed his eyes it would almost be like hugging Charlie.

But it wasn't. He was very aware of whose arms he was wrapped in, and despite himself, he began to feel a familiar warmth and excitement that usually accompanied moments with Mike. This wasn't the time to be having his strings plucked and yet here he was allowing it. It made him feel more guilty, but all he could do was hug tighter and hide into the man's shoulder.

They stayed like that for a long while until Sammy's arms eventually dropped away. He didn't pull back, but it was possible that his body wasn't yet functioning enough to do so. Mike took the hint and carefully pulled him back and laid him down on the couch again. Sammy curled in and shifted himself into the fetal position.

He wished he could do something more than this; there had to be something more than sitting and waiting for the police to get their act in gear.

"…I'll tell you what, I'm going to make you another promise," Mike said, finally deciding on what to say. The only thing that he could give him that meant anything. "…If they can't find Charlie by time you're healed up, we'll go find her ourselves. I'm not above skirting the law, especially when I know you can get rid of most of the evidence, so we'll do a thorough investigation of our own. If they can't find them, we sure as hell will."

Sammy slowly turned his head to look at him. It was the first time his mask showed an express other than sorrow, briefly raising into a slight look of hope at the offer. Then it hardened, firmed, turned into a look of determination, and showed a fire that Mike thought had flickered out. Sammy hesitated only a moment, knowing the risk he previously took with Charlie, but then found himself nodding regardless.

They would find them, all of them, and next time he wouldn't be the one left in shambles. He was going to save them, and he was going to keep Mike safe, even if it meant having to take Baby apart piece by piece.

The only thing worse than being at William Afton's mercy with no idea what was going on was the mindless waiting on top of it. Being that there wasn't a clock inside of the cell, Charlie had no idea what time it was, but it didn't take her long to start feeling the hours slowly drag by.

After a while of sitting there defiantly without doing anything, unwilling to make any efforts to speak to her captor, Charlie eventually began to go through the books left in the cell. They weren't terribly interesting- fiction books with stories that couldn't possibly grip her when she was in a living psychological thriller- but they were a way to pass time as she waited to be called on again.

Sometime after her repair of the endoskeleton, she heard what sounded like footsteps out in the hallway. Then the security door unexpectedly lifted about seven or eight inches off of the ground. The clank startled her enough to flinch back before looking from her perched position on the cot. Any relief of William not coming in was short-lived, especially when a tray was shoved through the open slot and the door dropped down again.

She waited until she heard the footsteps retreat before venturing over to see what was left. In hindsight, she wished she would've said something, anything to show she wasn't afraid or compliant, but in the moment, she had just frozen up. Not that it mattered either way, she thought, and turned her attention to the tray.

As though this place couldn't feel anymore like a prison, she had been served a lunch tray with a small variety of foods on it. There was what looked to be some sort of tuna or chicken salad sandwich cut in two, apple slices, a small bag of tortilla chips, and a carton of milk. It almost looked like something that would be served to a kid in elementary school, Charlie realized only a moment before the dreading realization of why sunk in.

She scoffed humorlessly to herself. "He can't actually think I'm going to eat something he gives me. Baby's already drugged me once; I'd have to be an idiot to fall for something this obvious," she thought. So, she pushed the tray aside and left it alone for a while. Eventually she got hungry enough to take the chips and milk once she was sure they hadn't been tampered with. Then it was back to waiting.

It wouldn't be imprisonment without humiliation. Eventually she had to swallow her pride enough to ask to use the restroom through the Handunit. William stayed silent, thankfully, and the security door opened for her. This seemed like it would be the perfect avenue for an escape attempt, but it didn't take her long to realize that she didn't have the means to escape. The doors were sealed shut, and even that rattling vent had screws she couldn't turn with her fingers.

Either William was confident she couldn't escape or didn't care, because he made no comment when she walked up and down the hallway, guising her studying the location as an excuse to stretch her legs. Not that she had to explain herself when he willing let her out. As far as she was concerned, she didn't owe him any cooperation unless it benefitted her goals: find the children, figure out where this was, and either escape or call for help.

Eventually she was forced to return to the room and to the hours of uncertainty.

A second meal was delivered sometime later. This time it was a slice of pizza, a plastic cup of fruit cocktail, another pack of chips, and another carton of milk. At this point she became convinced that she was being served the same food as the kids. Though she had trouble believing William would care this much about their comfort. Maybe Baby was doing it.

In fact, the pizza slice looked like the size and shape of a frozen pizza, so it could've been from Circus Baby's, but it was impossible to know for sure. Though Charlie was moderately certain that she was being kept somewhere inside of, or perhaps underneath Circus Baby's. Considering the damp, cold feeling of everything, she was definitely in a basement. Maybe even somewhere in Afton Robotics.

The fruit cocktail was sealed in untampered plastic, so Charlie decided to risk eating it along with the chips. She really hated accepting anything that came from her captors but starving herself didn't seem like a wise idea. Then she returned to the books and tried to drag out the rest of the time slowly.

At some point she started looking into the Handunit again, managing to find a menu by poking around the touch-responsive screen, but all of the options on the menu were locked. The three options- settings, files, and synchronization- were all locked behind an access denied popup. Eventually she was forced to give up and set it aside. After that, she decided to completely give into the prison feel and started doing push-ups.

A third meal came later on. By then Charlie had gotten out into the restroom and hallway again, had finished one of the books all the way through, and was starting to feel the hours wearing on. She had taken the last two lunch trays out into the hall during her last trip out, perhaps to get the point across that she wasn't going to eat the prepared food. Apparently, they caught on, as this meal was entirely wrapped in plastic.

There was another sandwich, but this one was in a plastic container and sealed with a label that was clearly untouched. There was another cup of fruit, a candy bar, a bag of chips, and another carton of milk. It took her a long time to decide to eat that sandwich and when she did, she stopped halfway through to check for a reaction and finished it when there wasn't one.

But when that door opened a little to push the tray through, Charlie quickly dropped onto the floor and tried to look through the slim opening. All she could see was a pair of gaudy, lime green shoes before the door shut again. They almost looked like costume shoes. She knew it wasn't above William to wear a costume while committing horrendous crimes- a certain golden rabbit suit came to mind. This confirmed that it wasn't Baby bringing her the food.

Eventually she started to get tired and realized that it was probably getting late. She had spent this whole day in this room, save the time she had been out working on the endoskeleton. It was a disturbing thought, making her wonder how the children could possibly stand these conditions. She tried to drown those thoughts out by getting up to use the restroom one last time.

Charlie stepped into the bathroom and approached the sink to wash up when she heard something she hadn't before: music. She had been in this bathroom plenty of times and never once had she heard music, and even then, it was extremely faint. If it hadn't been for how quiet the hallway was, she might've not noticed it. It was coming through the vent in the wall.

It sounded like music box music.

"Sammy?" Charlie whispered under her breath. She knelt down against the vent and pressed her ear against it to listen better. She listened to the unfamiliar song and the muffled chimes before shaking her head to herself. "It's not him…"

It had to be being played on a toy or maybe another kind of music box, but it didn't have that same vibrating twang that Sammy's chiming had. If it had been the Grandfather Clock song, she might've thought it was being used to sedate him in the other room, but it was a different song, one she couldn't recognize. It made her miss her brother more and filled her with discomfort at the possibility of a child sitting in a cell somewhere listening to it.

There was nothing she could do except eventually pull herself away from the vent and return to the sink. She stared at herself in the mirror for a long moment before taking a deep breath and continuing.

All she could do was keep watching, keep listening, and keep waiting for the next opportunity. Whether that be another stage of his game, or a real chance to escape.

It was the early hours of the morning, the sun wasn't even up yet, and somehow, she was already running behind schedule. A woman driving was driving across town to work the morning shift at the diner. She had only been awake for a little while, having overslept past her five o'clock alarm, but she was close enough that she was confident she was going to make it.

Until she spotted someone walking on the side of the road. Normally this wouldn't be strange, but from the height she could tell it was a child.

She had heard about the children who had gone missing recently from the news and word around the diner, so it was dangerous for a kid to be walking around unsupervised. It also seemed too early to be walking to school, especially since the way the child was walking wasn't going in the direction of the elementary school. She decided to check it out and pulled up beside them.

As she drove closer, she got a better look at the child, who she could now see was a young girl with short brown hair. Once the girl noticed the car pulling up, she looked towards it with a frightened look and froze in place like she was about to run. The woman was quick to roll down the window and called out to her, hoping it would somewhat assure her.

"Is everything okay, Sweetie? You really shouldn't be walking alone when it's this dark. Is there anyone I could call to pick you up?" the woman offered. A long beat passed before the girl finally approached the window.

"C-Can you call my mom?" the girl asked. Her voice was choking up. She was crying, but it was unclear whether she just started or had been doing it for a while. "Please? I need to call my mom."

"Sure thing, Honey. Hold on." The woman opened up the middle console to get her phone out when the girl suddenly got in the passenger's seat without any provocation. "I just need your phone number."

The girl shakily gave out her number. She seemed scared, but from what the woman could see she didn't look injured or dirty. That didn't mean something hadn't happened though. It was very clear that something was terribly wrong.

While the phone was ringing, the woman asked, "What's your name, Sweetheart?"

"N-Nicky Sheppard."

Little did she know, but there sitting in her car was one of the missing children.