Beautiful Nightmare (On Hold)

Chapter Eleven

"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong.  No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it" - Terry Pratchett.

~

It's been a week since the dinner at David's house and things have been tense and uncomfortable. I don't know what happened to my brain. It just suddenly stopped working when I bumped into Aaron in the hallway.

And when we kissed it was like all thoughts of hating that man went out the window. His lips were soft and the way his hands were on me were firm and possessive yet still had a gentleness to them.

It was possibly the first time I've never been disgusted and uncomfortable from human contact. I actually enjoyed it and I hate myself for that. I blame the alcohol.

This whole week, we've been avoiding each other at all costs. There were a few times where we made eye contact but it was brief as we both immediately looked away. We have been avoiding each other like the black plaque, that we haven't even gone at each other's throats.

It was very weird and I'm sure the team has picked up on the fact that we've been simply ignoring each other. I honestly don't mind that much though, I'd rather not deal with him and his shit attitude. I'm more than happy to pretend that what happened in the hallway didn't.

It's Monday and we are on a case in Flagstaff Arizona, involving missing children. Two boys and one girl have already gone missing, snatched from public areas. Two from parks and one from an outside ice cream parlor. With no witnesses the only evidence we have are red balloons tied near where the kids were last seen.

They have all gone missing over the span of a week and no bodies have been found. We believe that they are still alive, well hoping so. The only lead we got is a short surveillance video of about forty seconds outside the ice cream parlor. It showed us a shady figure that was wearing a dark hoodie as he lingered outside.

All we could tell was that he was Caucasian before he disappeared from view. Not long after the child disappeared and the balloon appeared tied to a chair.

We believe he had to have lured the child away from where the camera could have viewed him before taking her. It was definitely a long and stressful case, on day four and we still don't have any solid leads.

The team is split up trying to triple check anything we could've possibly missed. We are all getting tired and a bit frantic, we want to find these kids before we find bodies.

Aaron is busy talking to the local police about changing their routes. Penelope and Spencer are busy working on trying to find any geographical patterns but seem to be coming up empty, they are all random spots and none too close to the other.

Morgan and JJ are out talking to possible witnesses and the parents to go over every little detail again. And Rossi and Emily are surveilling the parks again and talking to the workers at the ice cream parlor.

I've been going over the children's files repeatedly trying to find anything similar or suspicious. From
school records, medical reports, everything and still coming up empty.

They all age at ten except for the little girl Delilah who's nine. All doing well in school, they don't visit similar doctors and have the best health. The two boys Gregory and Tyler do sports, basketball and then Tyler plays soccer.