Lost love

Chapter 8

Kathleen had noticed Meredith hadn't been at school for the past two days and with no calls from her parents about her whereabouts, she was concerned. Meredith was never off school, even when the young girl was actually sick her parents still sent her in, only for her to be sent back home again by the nurse. She didn't have many friends in school so none of the other children knew why Meredith was absent either. It was coming to the end of the school day and after 3 failed calls home, she felt something was wrong, she knew.

Her welfare to Meredith was in school but she felt like she had a bond with the small girl more than just a teacher to a student, she wanted to do whatever she could with whatever help she would accept from her. Her recent flags that were raised to the child protective service about her home life were still flying high and even they agreed with Kathleen that something had felt uneasy in the home, however they had found nothing and for now there was nothing anyone could do. Picking up her phone and stepping outside of her classroom, she called her mom.

"Mom, hey." She said as the line opened.

"Hi Kath, everything okay?"

"Yea- actually no. Are you busy?" She stuttered.

"What's wrong? I'm just on my way to get Derek and Amelia from school." Carolyn said, stopping whatever she was doing to listen to her eldest daughter.

"Have you seen little Meredith around?" She asked nervously, pacing the hallway.

"No. We don't ever see her.. in fact I haven't seen any of that family since the other day when Derek told us about her dad." She frowned as she thought about it.

Meredith was not allowed outside anyway so it wasn't uncommon for them not to see her but Carolyn hadn't even seen her and her father in the morning like she normally does when taking her own children to school.

"She hasn't been in school for 2 days and no one has heard anything from the family.. mom?"

"Yes?"

"Can you go over and check on her. I'm really worried, somethings wrong, I just know it is." Kathleen asked taking a shaky breath.

"I-" Carolyn was going to say she had to get Derek and Amelia but hearing her daughters concern she stopped. "Okay, you'll have to pick up Derek and Amelia from school though Kath."

"That's fine, thank you mom."

"I'll call you once I've been over." Carolyn said before ending the phone call.

**

The Greys house was only two houses down from her own so it wouldn't take her long at all to check on Meredith. Leaving her house she walked down the street slowly approaching the lonely house, it looked sad. There was no swing on the porch or children's toys in the garden, just a house; brick; windows and a door. As she got closer she noticed a breeze pushing the door slightly showing that it was in fact not closed. The silence was deafening and she couldn't stop the pit of her stomach dropping.

"Dr Grey?" Carolyn knocked on the swinging door. No response.

"Mr Grey? Meredith? Are you home?" She asked.

After with no response to her calls, she turned around to leave until she heard a shift, it sounded like the shift of a table across a wooden floor or some furniture. Someone was definitely home. She walked back up the porch steps and called out again, with no response again she decided to not walk away this time but instead enter the lone house. Straight away she noticed ornaments fallen on the ground and at the bottom of the stairs looked to be a small puddle of blood that someone had attempted to clean.

"Meredith? It's Carolyn, Amelia's mom. Are you here sweetie?" She asked gently as she walked through the house.

Her heart dropped as she walked into the living room and saw a tiny Meredith sat against the sofa, blood dried against her head and bruises on her body, her eyes were closed and Carolyn was afraid that she wasn't conscious until she touched her shoulder and Meredith jumped away.