“Where is she?” Brecken comes running down the stairs.

One of the cops clears his throat as he steps forward. “We have every officer in the county looking for her. And we’ve made calls to surrounding counties as well.”

Brecken looks from the cop to me. “There’s no way she would just run away. She has to be here somewhere,” he says sounding confused.

My mother shudders under my arms, and her legs give out. I don’t have the strength to hold her up. We both fall to the floor as we both hold each other crying.

Do you know what it feels like to be helpless? Completely and utterly helpless? It’s hell! Brecken and I put together search teams that searched day and night. We had systems. Different teams searched different hours. We spent every waking moment looking for her. Or maybe to find just a clue of where she could have gone. But nothing came up. One day, we had just returned from another town when the cops were once again at our house.

We ran into the house just like before and prayed that Nicole was sitting on the couch with my parents, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

“We have found that there have been seven other abductions with the same MO as this one.”

“Abduction?” I question. “I don’t … I don’t understand,” I stutter. “You never said you thought someone had taken her,” I say in horror.

“There were certain details we kept from the public …”

“Which are?” Brecken demands.

My parents haven’t spoken a single word. They sit on the couch holding each other as they cry. That’s all they do now.

The officer sighs heavily. “Her purse. Her car keys were left in her car on the side of the road. There was cash still in her wallet. So obviously not a robbery.”

“Then what was it?” I snap. I hate that the fuckers feel like they can keep information from us.

“We had made calls to surrounding counties and we got a call back this morning from Craig, about fifty miles from here. A girl matching your sister’s description had pulled over on the side of the road to help a woman out whose car appeared to be broken down. Moments after she stopped to offer her services, another car pulled up behind her. A man jumped out and pretended to help them, but when the girl turned her back on him, he jumped her.” My heart stops. “Another man jumped out and helped place her in the back of their car. The woman who was pulled off the side of the road jumped in her car and drove off.”

I hold up my hand to stop him. I take a deep breath and rub my forehead before I ask. “How do you know all of this?”

“The girl was able to escape. She opened the car door while the two guys were driving down the road. The men stopped to grab her, but another car was approaching so they fled. The girl was taken to the hospital. Due to her jumping from a moving car, she has broken bones but is expected to live.

“I don’t understand what this has to do with my sister,” I grind out. “Why are you here telling me about another girl when my sister is still out there?” I demand.

“The girl has been questioned by the police. I guess they had roughed her up pretty badly, and she pretended to be unconscious while in the backseat. She overheard them discussing the other girls …” He takes in a deep breath. “They were traffickers.”

“What does that mean?” I snap.

“That means they take young women who fit your sister’s description and they sell them … into sex slavery.”

“Oh God, Case!”

I look away from my wrist and over at Taylor. She has a hand over her mouth and tears run down her face.

“I’m so sorry,” she mumbles from behind her hand. “What did they do?”

I run a hand through my hair. “There was nothing they could do,” I say honestly. “People who are involved in trafficking send women overseas. You have a very short timeframe to find them. After that, the odds of finding them decrease dramatically.”

She shakes her head wide-eyed as if that concept is hard for her to believe. “I don’t understand.” She speaks softly as she removes her hand from her mouth. “How do you know she …?” She can’t even say it. “Did they find her?”

I shake my head. “I could still feel her.”

“Feel her?” She breathes the word in shock.

“You know how everyone says that twins have this intuition? They can feel one another?” She nods. “I felt her for days. A few weeks, and then one day, she was just gone.” She lets out a sob. “I just knew that she was gone,” I whisper. I had let Nicole down. She was taken from us, and I wasn’t man enough to find her. To bring her back where she belonged.

“I’m so sorry, Case. I can’t even begin to know what you went through. What your parents went through.”

“My parents.” I sigh as I hang my head.

“What about your parents?” she asks nervously.

 

Two weeks Nicole has been gone. Two weeks our town has been turned upside down with her going missing. Everyone is still looking for her day and night. Brecken and I don’t sleep. Don’t stop to eat. We’ve been skipping school and driving around aimlessly. Still nothing! My parents refuse to leave the house. And I’ve refused to go home. Everywhere I look there, I see Nicole. I see her standing in the entryway kissing Brecken good-bye when he leaves late at night. I see her sitting on the couch covered up with a blanket as she cries over a sappy movie on TV. I see her walking into my room yelling at me for something I did to piss her off. I can feel her everywhere. And it rips my heart out.

But as I pull into my driveway, I shut off my lights and take a deep breath. I have to go home for some sleep. My eyes are heavy, and my body aches. I can’t keep going. I need to rest. I need my bed. Just a couple of hours and then I’ll head back out.

I pull myself out of my car and make my heavy legs carry me into the house. I walk in and it takes my breath away as I try to make my way up to my room. I stop as I come to the top of the stairs. I look into Nicole’s room. It still looks the same. Her bed unmade from when we were in a rush to get to school that morning. Her walls decorated with pictures of her girlfriends and all of her trophies from her cheerleading competitions. A picture of Brecken, her, and me at the football field sits on her dresser.

I have to look away. The thought of what she must be going through is so hard to bear I can’t help but want to scream. I run to my room and lie down on my bed. I scream into my pillow as my heart pounds in my chest. My fingers dig into my pillow as I bury my face in it, not wanting to wake my parents. For the first time in two weeks, I don’t hear their cries.

I wake the next morning and make my way down to the living room. I still feel drained; the four hours of sleep I got didn’t do shit for me. I go to reach for the coffee pot when I see a letter sitting on the countertop. I pick it up recognizing my mother’s handwriting.

 

I can’t go on. I don’t want to go on. I just need it to end. For the darkness to take me away.

I need to let go of today. Hold on to the hope of tomorrow.

Come tomorrow, I will be in a better place.

 

It falls out of my hand and floats to the floor. I take off in a mad dash to their bedroom at the back of the house. “Mom?” I yell as my heart pounds in my chest. Let me be wrong! “Mom?” I scream so loud my throat burns.

I go crashing into their room, and my body comes to a halt as if I just ran into a glass wall. It takes several seconds for my mind to understand what I see. My mother lies on her side of the bed. A peaceful look on her face as she lies on her back. My father lies beside her, his face turned toward me. My hands shake and a sob comes out as I look at the blood that covers him, the bed, and the floor.