a phoenix in the fire » fillie

chapter 3 ↝ gone like the wind

SHE WAS LIKE A QUETZAL. IF YOU TRIED TO KEEP HER IN A CAGE, SHE WOULD HAVE DIED.

It had been a month since Millie had disappeared. Time dragged unbearably slow for Millie's friends. It had been longer than 24 hours. It had been 744 hours.

The worst part was that people were giving up.

Within the first week, over a thousand fliers had been plastered on every pole and door in Lavender Ridge, with missing fliers expanding to other close towns. The residents of Lavender Ridge relentlessly searched the area. There was still no sign of Millie Brown.

By the end of the month, people who didn't know Millie began to let go. They accepted that she was not coming back.

The police were no help either. They searched, but there were only dead ends. They tried to track Millie's phone since it was missing, but the gps was shut off. Whoever had taken Millie had thought their plan through. The police continued with their theory that Millie had been taken and kidnapped. There was blood found about a hundred feet from Millie's shed. Millie's house bordered the town's woods and forest. Within those trees, it was too easy to lose a person. Especially one missing for a month already. Yet Lavender Ridge residents searched that forest. No sign of Millie came up.

The crime investigators had found blood on a sharp pointed rock; one that was presumably used to hit Millie on the head.

The police were going to run it through with Finn, Gaten, Sadie, Noah, and Caleb. The unsub or unknown subject, as the police called it, had stalked behind Millie and blitz attacked her.

Sadie, who was playing Millie, walked out of the shed and continued strolling down the path. Detective Harbour, who was playing the unsub, silently followed and mimicked hitting a rock onto Sadie's head.

Finn gasped. He could see it now. Millie was probably walking down the path, cell phone in hand as she checked it again. Maybe she was waiting to meet someone. She wouldn't notice the attacker behind her. Once she focused on something, it was hard to break the focus. Her attacker then hit her head with the rock just as lightning struck the ground. No one would hear the sickening crack.

"You understand then?" Harbour asked and directed that to Finn. Finn wordlessly nodded, feeling tears cloud and blur his vision. "You couldn't have prevented this, Finn or any of you for that matter. Whoever did this planned it out meticulously. They knew what they were doing, and they knew exactly who they wanted."

The next day, the police released a press statement which Finn saw on a news channel: Fifteen-year-old Millie Bobby Brown is presumed alive. She has been missing for a full month. The police urge anyone with any information they believe helpful to call the Lavender Ridge police hotline.

It wasn't even important. It just restated what everyone already knew.

Finn wanted to rip his hair out. School did not relent, and neither did the stress of Millie's disappearance. Finn talked to Millie whenever he felt ready to explode with all his pent-up emotions. He had no way of letting those emotions go, not without exploding and causing damage.

Finn never stopped meeting with Gaten, Sadie, Caleb, and Noah. If anything, they all grew incredibly close.

"Do you think she's alive?" Sadie asked. She looked beyond tired.

"When did you wake up today?" Caleb asked in reply.

"5:30," Sadie answered, yawning. "I wanted to get a picture of the sunrise." She patted her camera bag with a weak smile.

"I have to believe she's alive," Noah said, bringing the conversation back to answer Sadie's question. "I think the guilt would actually kill me."

"Noah, there's nothing you could have done," Sadie comforted and grasped his hand. The group was sitting in a cafe. Noah and Sadie were next to each other, Caleb was at the head, and Finn and Gaten were opposite of Noah and Sadie.

"I think she's alive," Caleb stepped in. "Millie is a very strong person. I always admired that about her."

"Admired," Gaten interrupted. "You used past tense right there."

"Do you ever think about God?" Noah randomly emotionlessly asked.

"It's really weird," Finn answered Noah's question.

"You used past tense as if she was already dead," Gaten continued, ignoring Noah.

"It was a slip, okay?" Caleb murmured, picking up and sipping at his coffee.

"Just don't fight," Sadie said, releasing Noah's hand. "Millie wouldn't have wanted us to."

"Are you sure about that, Gingerbread?" Caleb sarcastically asked. Caleb affectionately called Sadie 'Gingerbread', and Sadie called Caleb 'Chocolate" in return.

"As sure as the tide rises, Chocolate," Sadie giggled.

"I hope I never lose you all," Noah suddenly blurted. "None of us got a chance to say good-bye to Millie."

"Don't kermit sewer slide," Gaten warned, but he was smiling too widely at his reference to be taken seriously.

"Did you just?" Sadie annoyedly asked, rolling her eyes.

"Just don't feel like that's your way out," Finn continued for Gaten. "Because it isn't. Come to any of us. We're a safe home, and we won't rat you out to the counselor."

"Also known as Winona."

"Winona," Finn repeated.

"I think Millie was like that symbol in the book, The Bean Trees," Noah whispered.

"That book sucked," Gaten groaned. "I failed the reading test on it because I couldn't get into the book, so I didn't understand it at all."

"Oh, I see what you mean. Millie was like that bird they talked about," Finn replied, understanding what Noah was talking about.

"She was like a quetzal. If you tried to keep her in a cage, she would have died."

Millie could never be tied down. Millie was too good for that. She was such a free child, young and happy, albeit mysterious.

Millie loved to video her friends smiling. She always said that it was because smiling was beautiful, but Finn realized there was more to it. Maybe Millie recorded them because she knew this was going to happen. Millie loved her stupid mysteries.

Finn remembered Millie talking about running away. They would lie on her bed, staring at the ceiling with random pieces of tape stuck on them. He remembered that the tape was from when Millie tried to hang something from her ceiling but failed, and the tape wouldn't come off. Millie had stopped talking about running away for a few months before she disappeared, and it had fallen to the back of his mind.

Maybe all Millie ever wanted was to be remembered. And to be remembered, she would have to do something crazy. She would have to make a mystery. She would have to disappear.