Forgotten (original version)

Chapter 5

After about twenty minutes of arguing with the police, they finally agreed to let us look at the camera footage.

"Are you ok?" Harry asks me.

"I will be once we get Dani back." I hope it will be true.

"Anything you notice that we might not have, you report to me. Understood?" The officer said.

"Understood." I agree. Ever since I was little I have been terrified of police officers. I was scared they would come and take me away from my mom.

Harry rested his hand on my shoulder as we were being led into the security room.

"You have fifteen minutes." The officer said as if we were visiting a murderer in prison or something.

I look at the footage from an hour before Dani went missing. 4:01 PM. She got home at 4:23 and was in her house till 4:44. At 4:45 on the dot, a tall figure wearing all black climbed up her tree. Carefully, and stealthily, the figure crawls into her room. I hear no scream. Then again the microphone might not have picked it up.

At 4:50 the figure comes out of the window dragging Dani with him. When she struggles to get away, he smashes her head into the window sill, then drops her to the ground.

I cover my mouth and look away. How could someone even think to do that to a sixteen year old girl? Or anyone! Harry taps my shoulder and points to the screen. Not the camera we were watching. The one on the road near the forest. The figure was staring directly at the camera, holding Dani by the wrist. He tilted his head and then . . . The footage glitched out.

"AW COME ON!" I scream. I run my hands through my hair as tears stream down my face.

"Let's go, Luci." Harry says while grabbing my arm. I swat his hand away.

"Don't call me Luci." My voice cracks. "Only Dani can call me that." He ignores me and pulls me out of the room. Why was he being weird?

He's never EVER called me Luci before . . . I realize. He's hiding something.

I let him pull me back into my room, but when he turns to leave I step in front of him.

"You're hiding something."

"No I'm not." He says a little too quickly.

"Oh yea? Why did you call me Luci at the station?" I wonder.

"It just slipped out!" He snapped. He shoves past me and slams my door shut. I sigh and flop down on my bed and pull out my phone. I pull up pictures of me and Dani. While I'm scrolling through them, I see something odd.

"Harry!" I call and run out of my room, smashing right into my mom.

"Sweetie? What's the matter?"

"Nothing, I have to go." I run to Harry's room and swing open his door.

"Listen, I know you're hiding something, but I found something that changes everything."

"What is it?" He asks.

"I found a picture that was taken hours before Voletta died."

"Ok . . . And?"

"And" I continued, "the night she was murdered was a full moon."

"Oh my gosh . . ." Harry whispered. He whipped his phone out and started typing rapidly.

"What?"

"Luciana . . . Do you know what the full moon symbolizes?" I shake my head, "It means a time of friction, polarity, and more-intense emotional energy."

"Your point is . . ." I prompt.

"My point is, I think the figure is going to kill Dani on the night of the full moon." The world starts spinning. Of course I already assumed this, but to hear it come from someone else makes this a whole new level of scary. No. Not scary. Absolutely mortifying.

"Hey. It'll be ok. We don't need to worry about that because we are getting her back before then. Ok?"

My fingernails cut into my skin, "Oh I know." My fingernails break the skin and I start bleeding.

"Luciana jeez. Relax. Everything is gonna be fine."

He walked to the kitchen and came back with a bandage for my hand.

"What if we can't find her?" I whisper. It was something I've been asking myself for days.

"We will. We just have to piece together the puzzle."

"Dinner's ready!" Mom called from the kitchen. I walk to the kitchen, my body shaking like a leaf.

"Are you ok?" Mom asked with a worry crease between her eyebrows.

"I'm fine." I lied. I'm definitely not fine.

"Ok then. Take a seat." I immediately start worrying. Whenever we actually have a family dinner it means something happened.

"So, don't worry, nothing bad happened necessarily." My chest relaxes but not enough to ease the worry.

"I got fired from my job." Mom said. How is that not bad?

"What's gonna happen to us?" I ask.

"I don't know," Mom said quietly, "but we'll be fine. I've already applied for three jobs, and I would enjoy all of them way better."

"That's great mom. They're hiring at that old gas station in town. I could apply for a job there." Harry exclaims.

"Yea, and instead of working every other day, I can ask if they'll let me work everyday. We'll be ok." I assure my mom. But if I'm being honest, working every day and continuing with my chores and trying to find Dani sounds very stressful. But I don't tell Mom that.

"Thank you guys." Mom says. "I promise that as soon as possible, I'll get back to working."

"Don't stress about it Mom." Harry tells her. I head to my room after dinner and call my boss.

"Hey, do you think I could work every day instead of every other?" I ask him.

"Of course! I was actually just going to ask you if it would be possible for you to. Paula quit last night."

"Oh, wonderful! I'll be there tomorrow at my normal working hour!" I hang the phone up and change into my pajamas. I climb into bed and pull out my laptop. I searched up how it would be possible to just disappear from a camera. It said that it's impossible. But clearly it isn't since Harry and I literally saw someone do it today. I sigh and kick my laptop away. My phone starts buzzing and I assume it's my boss.

I pick my phone up and read the name. I let out a scream and dropped the phone. Then I scramble to pick it up again. I let out a sob as I saw the name. Because the caller was Dani.