Three



Twelve years past since the Browns lost their daughter. Twelve years since she was snatched by men inside a black SUV. Unregistered, fake plate number and totally untraceable but it was not until the sixth year since the Browns stopped to mourn. It was not until the police had told them, upon their money and fame, upon the whole county's interest, it was above their power and as much as they would like to have faith, it was aimless to point at any direction. 

All private investigators had turned down the case on the first ring and now here they are. 

Here they are again all over the news and flashes of light capturing their house in its troubling bliss. 

"Why now?" Michael says out loud to nobody. He is alone. He is sitting on the neatly made desk at the centre of his office where there is a swivelling chair behind it and a beautifully designed shelf coated with glass in front. 

On a different day, he will realize the air conditioner is high and freezing and his teeth are gnashing difficultly against each other but today he needs the cold. He needs his brain to slow its movements and calculate for a bit. 

Michael presses back and sinks into his seat, unsure what to feel. Excitement or the resurfacing of a wound they had wrapped and left behind them. It seems just when they have everything under control, something unforeseen would emerge and pull them down the fall again. His wife. His son. He has to be strong for them; he knows that. 

What of Christian? He had seen his long lost sister walk through the front door in a drenched clothe; God knows in what. Will their his boy ever be able to unseen such unpleasant sight? How is he even processing this?

Damn it. He slams his hand on the fine table and tries to pull it off its feet but it would take more than a few bottles of whiskey and an angry man to raise a table sealed with concrete and about six inches of screw down on each end.

His wife had not left the room, she had not stepped out of the room and he is sure she must be crying eyes out. In fact, he's certain of it. He knows she said she will forever hang on to her daughter. He knows she felt guilty as though getting over her child was a crime. She cursed every day she woke up with an empty room opposite Christian's. She cursed herself for putting on the black dress and attending the burial of her own child with the coffin empty. What if she was dead? Would things be different? 

***

The incidents begin to play in clips. First, the words of his wife on the phone. The terror as she screamed their daughter's name. 

"Someone took her. Someone took our daughter, Michael. I am standing here. Someone took our daughter."

She was between cries and terror. A panic attack was on the way and Michael could sense it, so could she, knowing it was not a fact. So far, their brains only process facts and what hits deeper than every fact. Laurel is missing. Someone took Laurel. Laurel Brown!

The disturbing face causes him to wrench in the chair but another clip replaces it, and then another, and another, till the day he was on the black – the day they embraced her death.

The flashes continue again and he is standing in front of the door, Laurel falling, he is yearning for her but she is void, just like Sophie's nightmares.

***

Michael pulls back from his thoughts, his hair in disarray. The handsome man is gone in just a few days and is replaced by a hollow looking piece of meat pumped to fit into the shape he wears. 

He escapes his office into the long corridor, passing walls and vacant rooms they never had the pleasure of using until he reaches his room. He turns the knob and while he braces himself to endure the sobs of his wife, he never expects to be greeted by an empty room and neatly arranged bed. 

It is a bad sign. Two things. One, Sophie never laid on the bed. Two, Sophie had made the bed as a means to distract herself, with both options equally as bad as the other. Michael turns immediately and sets to his heels. If one thing he knows about his wife is she grieves solitarily, away from others. 

He continues down the series of stairs, then the back door and out a couple of steps to the dark boy's quarter. 

He pushes the door and it swings open. Making his way through the darkness, he turns the light on as he passed each. Anxious, he flips the bathroom light on, and a breath of relief escapes his mouth, his eyes, taking a few blinks, measurably satisfied.

"She is supposed to be dead," Sophie murmurs. "We buried her. We fucking did a fucking burial," Sophie continues, hurt, swaying back and forth, arms wrapped around her leg. Michael sits on the floor, ignoring the mixture of alcohol and water and probably vomit.

"But she is not. Sophie," he calls out but she doesn't turn. 

"Sophie, she came back and it's a miracle. We should be thankful." he places his hand on her back. Sophie is getting calm but her next question reminds him of everything he had darkened up and have refused to ask even though he knows the same questions are now the nightmares that haunt him.

"Why now? Why would they let her go after twelve years?"

***

Christian cannot close his eyes. He tried a million times already but whenever he gets close, he sees her face again. He sees the fuzzy distant image of her, unveiling, slowly, into the shadowy light. He sees her bright eyes now dampened and full of emptiness.

He turns into a different position but nothing changes. The same image. The same fragile step after another from the distant end of the street.

He doesn't know the sister that walked in a few days ago, he doesn't know if she is even his sister anymore but he knows those eyes. The amber eyes almost like gold and just like the shiny substance, the gaze lingers longer than normal but he doesn't know what he sees anymore. It is definitely not the innocence of his eight years old sister twelve years ago. Something has changed. Something he is unsure will return to the way it used to be but he sure as hell will find out.

He stands from his bed. He walks out the door. He reached his parent's room and turns the knob but the room is empty. The bed is still as straightened as it can be. He walks in without a word and checks for sounds from the bathroom but no one. He sees the light in the Boys' quarter and his answers are with him already. 

He heads to his room, hoping another futile attempt to sleep will pass but as he reaches his room, another thought comes across his mind. I shouldn't do this. He thinks, turning to the other door, and wraps his finger around it then makes the final decision. 

Laurel is sleeping gracefully and she looks better than when she first arrived. She still looks like a sick sickle celled human but no longer like a dying one. 

He strides towards her, recalling all he had overheard. 

"Something is odd about her. I mean, I have been in this job my whole life and have handled cases. This is unlike others. Her wounds are fresh and look like they were inflicted without a struggle." The doctor had said to his father and the detective inside his office.

Christian curls into the bed, setting himself to sleep in her arm. 

"I don't mean to say your grief was for nothing, but we should consider the possibilities that your daughter must have done this on her own accord." 

Christian for a moment cannot think of his sister running off at the age of eight and even if she did, she would have taken him with her. He is sure of it. The doctor has no idea what he is saying. Some monsters did this to his sister and he knows one day, they will pay for their crime.

"I will examine her further just in case I missed anything but that be done in your home."

Christian closes his eyes as the

words of the doctor hit home. He closes his eyes and there's comfort. He can sleep here. He can sleep in the arms of his elder sister.