Asher Banning still mourns his mother after three years. When his friend, Caden, decides to get their group of friends together for Christmas as a way to help Asher not feel lonely for the holidays, things quickly turn upside down.
MATURE: for expl...
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"What? How can she be missing?" My eyes landed on Nick. He was with her last.
"I—I don't know. She said she was gonna go check the garage for spare parts, since you brought it up earlier, but she was gone for a while. I went to go look. She could've been having a hard time finding what she needed, and when I got there, the garage was locked. From the outside. And, and I didn't hear anything from there. I didn't even see footsteps leading to the garage!"
"But you saw her last!"
"There were footsteps going into the forest," Abigale stated, stepping toward me.
"Well, maybe she had to go to the bathroom?" That was the first thing that popped into my head. It was a bit of a stretch, but it could've been possible.
"Really?" Caden looked annoyed. "In a house full of bathrooms?"
He has a point, you idiot.
"The thing is . . . there was a second set of footsteps," said Freyja.
"What do you mean another set of footsteps? Was someone with her, or . . .?"
"No one was with her," Sam whispered, his voice cracking. Tears welled up in his eyes. I knew how scared he must've felt, but this was out of the ordinary. Just because she wasn't here, didn't mean she randomly disappeared. Of course, it didn't sound right at all. It didn't sound like her to have left without telling someone.
"Do you think . . ." Nick began but stopped in mid-sentence.
"I . . . I don't know," I said honestly. "We can't start assuming things. Someone couldn't have kidnapped her." Right? "At least, not when we don't have any evidence to prove it."
I turned on my heel as Tori's sobbing noises got louder. I put my shoes on, wrapped a jacket around my back, and left. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know what I was going to do or how long I'd be out here for. But we couldn't leave Kirsty out on her own. We couldn't abandon her when no one tried to look first.
When I got outside, the group followed behind me and left to investigate. Sam stood in front of me, scared to move like a bomb would destroy him if a single muscle lifted off the ground.
"We're gonna find her. I know we will," I assured him.
His mouth curved into a small grin, but it trembled. With a nod, he walked past me and continued to make his way to the crowd.
I heaved a sigh and joined them.
"The footsteps stop right here. This is it . . ." Paris trailed off, pointing to the powdered ground. I came up behind her and stared where the footprints were. They were right. There was a second set of footprints, both were away from the car and lead straight into the woods. But when we followed them, they vanished.
