| GHOST STORIES | THE BLACK PHONE | COMPLETED

6 | THERE IS NO WIN-WIN SITUATION HERE

     "WHAT DO YOU mean Abby is gone?" Robert asked, anger and worry laced through his voice as he glared at James.

"She wasn't at the school when I went to get her." He explained, his voice shaky. "I ran the road we take to get home, she wasn't on it. And-and then I found her bag!"

Grace wiped her eyes as tears had begun to stream down from them. "Why would she leave without you?"

There was a silence from the boy, causing both his parents to slowly start putting the pieces together. Robert's glare hardened. "Where were you?"

"I-I.." He stuttered out, his hands fiddling together as he tried to find the words. "I got distracted."

Robert stepped towards him. "Distracted by what?"

"A girl-"

He felt a hand hit his cheek. "A fucking girl?! You let a girl distract you?! Now your sister is gone! This is all your fault!" The grown man began to beat on his son, drawing blood from his nose and lip.

Grace stood, trying to pull her husband off of her son, but she was pushed back until Robert was done with him. The man spat at him before heading into the bathroom to wash his hands. Grace dropped to her son's side, brushing his hair from his face and scanning his injuries. While it seemed there was a lot of blood, in reality, he had nothing broken and seemed to have accepted his fate the moment his father slapped him.

James felt guilty, he didn't even realise the time when he got caught up with the girl. He had gotten high with her and the moment he realised it was getting dark, was the moment he realised he had basically abandoned his sister. He didn't think she would be stupid enough to head home without him, then again, he never thought he would be stupid enough to forget about her.

After speaking to the police, and lying to them about his busted up face coming from him being in a fight, James was basically ignored by his father. Robert had now began to show care for Abby, which he had never done before. It was odd seeing up printing out flyers for her disappearance and putting them up around town. Even the neighbours were surprised by his actions, almost everyone on the street knew he hit his kids and now he was showing genuine concern for one that had been kidnapped by The Grabber.

Finney Blake had been around to the house, to see James and ask how he was doing. He wasn't as close to James as he was Abby, but at least James was still around. After Robin went missing, his family avoided many questions about him from both Finney and Abby, but James wasn't the same. When Finney came around, the pair spoke about what James had found at her abduction site and what they could do to try and find her. Although, all their plans eventually fell through.

It was weird for James, he had been thrown out of his routine. He didn't have to walk Abby to school, or pick her up. He didn't have to protect her from their father's abuse when they got home. He hated that, he hated that he let her get taken. As much as his mother tried to drill it into his head that her kidnap wasn't his fault, he truly believed it was. And it broke him inside, even more knowing that he could have been there to make sure she got home safe.

So now, three days after her disappearance, James was walking from house to house to ask if anyone had seen her. He knocked on a door and it opened to reveal two men, one looking high out of his mind and the other looking brooding and tired.

"Um, hi." James spoke, shuffling his feet as he held out a flyer to the two men. "I was wondering if you had seen this girl?"

The first man, the one who was clearly high, snatched the flyer and scanned over it. "Is this the most recent victim of The Grabber?"

James nodded. "It's my sister, have you seen anything?"

The other man shoved the first one out of the way before he could say anything else. "Sorry kid, we haven't."

"Oh, well...um." He looked to the ground and sighed. "If you remember anything or if you see her, you can call the number at the bottom. Thanks."

He got no response from the man, who then shut the door as the boy walked away. James carried on with his mission of the day, returning home with empty hands and no more flyers. He walked in to see his father passed out on the couch and his mother faintly praying in the bedroom. She had been praying almost none stop since Abby had been taken, she prayed that nothing bad would happen to her and that she would return home safely.

James knew she was kidding herself, no one ever escaped The Grabber. Vance and Robin would have proved that by now, and Abby was no where near as strong as they were. James sat on his bed, his head in his hands. He didn't really know what to do, he had done everything he possibly could. He had thought about every possible plan he could carry out to find his sister, even attempting to ger kidnapped by the Grabber himself. But everyone knew that the moment someone else went missing, meant that the previous victim was likely dead.

It made sense, The Grabber wouldn't have been able to have six kids still alive. Eventually he would have been overpowered by them, the only reason he wouldn't have been is if he killed them before getting his next victim. 

Grace slowly opened the door to James' room, seeing his head lift up and look at her. "How you doing?"

"Shit." He mumbled without thinking, before realising what he said. "Sorry."

She sat beside him and grabbed his hand. "It's okay, I know this is hard."

"It's all my fault."

"No, it's not." She argued. "It's all on that horrible man who took her."

James shook his head. "But if I had just gone and picked her up like I was meant to-"

"You might have been hurt too, or even worse, been killed." Grace said softly before sighing. "James, this happen and sometimes it is out of our control. If you had been with Abby, anything could have happened. You could've been taken, or both of you. You could've been killed."

He looked at the ground. "I could've stopped him from taking her."

"He would've tried anything. He knew she had seen him take that Robin boy, this is what people like him do." She wiped her eyes. "There is no win-win situation here."