Coyotes and Wolves, Milo Manheim Original Story

Tough as Nails

POV: Milo

I found myself back at the field. I wanted to start at the beginning. I retraced my steps, until the moment I'd lost sight of her. Then I tried to get into Estella's head.

She went to get a Coke. We were closest to this concession stand. I remember seeing the line was a little long. He couldn't have grabbed her in the line, too many people around. Maybe he got her on the way to the car? Maybe they snuck up on her. But, she's pretty careful about walking around in the dark alone, she would've made sure there were people around any path she took to the parking lot.

Did she go into the school to find me? Or maybe she went to the bathroom? I doubt if she ever got her Coke. I know she would've hit him with the can at the very least, if he tried something, unless he came up behind her.

Ugh! Too many possibilities. This is impossible! How could she disappear and no one saw anything?

Maybe they did and they're just not reporting anything? The Police haven't contacted her parents with anything new.

I skulked around the perimeter, looking for a way in. Eventually finding what I was looking for and pulling myself up through an open window on the first floor of the school. It was closed and locked, so I was thinking that maybe no one searched it yet.

It looked super creepy at night. Dark, and quiet.

I jumped when the heater abruptly turned on, and whenever a shadow danced against the tile floor.

I was completely on edge. My skin covered in goosebumps. I don't know if I was afraid, or just hypervigilant at this point.

I had a weird idea. The school had built an ice rink for the Hockey team, with their own locker rooms. I figured that if those Puck Heads took her, this would be a good place to start.

Walking into the locker room, the light was dim, but I could see a little from the outside lights through the high windows. I searched through the stacks of grey metal lockers, going through a few rows, until I felt something on my foot when I stepped through the fifth one. It was a discarded shirt. I picked it up to look it over, hoping it was a dude's size. But it wasn't. It was hard to see the color, but I felt the raised silk screened number on it, and as I squinted it came into focus, a dark #3.

A sudden scream rose up a few rows away, but through the darkness I could barely see even a shadow. It wasn't Estella. It sounded like a guy.

"Crazy fucking bitch!" Shouted a voice, that was full of anger and possibly even pain.

I heard the thundering of footsteps, it sounded like more than one set. And they were coming around the corners of the locker room. I tried to listen to where they were heading, and I began to sprint to cut them off.

Around a dark line of lockers came a figure, short, and petite. And she came crashing into me.

"Estella?" I cried, breathing heavily.

She shook in my grasp, as I held her by her arms.

"Mi...Milo!" She gasped, continuing to shake, as she stood clad in just a nude colored bra and shorts.

I wrapped my hoodie around her quickly, and looked behind her, as the sound of larger footsteps sped up. Then I saw a taller figure, the outline of his shoulder-length hair was catching the light from the windows.

"Hey!" I shouted, angrily.

And he actually seemed startled, and unprepared seeing someone else in the locker room. The adrenaline pumping through him as he chased her, caused him to go into instant flight mode and turn around running in the other direction.