Broken Descent (Bruno Mars)

Day 1: Fallen Trust

The day after Charlotte went missing, Bruno's alarm went off at around noon. Given that he hadn't slept all night, it proved pretty useless. The hours of the night felt so long. It was set so he could be up to go to the studio. Obviously he wouldn't be going. How long would he not being going? It would be until the wait time was over, eternity if that was the case. It all seemed like a dream; Bruno went to her room to check and see if the nightmare he'd been experiencing was real or not. Maybe his heart wasn't really broken and his head was messing with him. He peeked his head in to see her bed still made from the night before, with Roberto sitting in the middle of her pillow. Unable to go inside, Bruno shut the door. It was a nightmare, but it was also real.

The police department had spent all night looking at surveillance footage. Because of the crowd and angling of the cameras, there was only one shot deemed useful. Bruno went down to the station to check out the monitors with Phil.

The chief officer pointed to the edge of the shot where they saw Charlotte, bending down to take a rock out of her shoe. Bruno's chest tightened as he watched the group, himself included, walk away from her. It was at that point when the guilt tormented him. Charlotte hadn't walked away this time. Bruno had walked away from her. He tore down the wall of trust he had built, leaving her innocence for anyone in the world to take.

The next shot showed Charlotte sitting on the park bench, talking to a stranger. He knew just by looking at her that she was nervous.

Bruno ran his hands through his hair. His eyes began to water again as they had since he realized she was gone, since he realized that it had already been 24 hours. The footage they were looking at seemed like it happened hundreds of years before.

"I told her about strangers so many times. Why is she talking to him? Why didn't she listen to what I told her...especially after last time."

"It's not your fault," the officer said. "Kids are trusting by nature."

Bruno's heart broke when Charlotte took the man's hand.

"Why?" Bruno asked quietly. "Why didn't she scream? Or run? She didn't resist at all..."

"She was scared," the officer said. "Do you recognize the guy?"

Bruno shook his head, but Phil nodded.

"I do," Phil said.

Bruno's eyes widened, as did the eyes of many of the officers in the station.

"He's one of the guys from the zoo," Phil told Bruno. "He's the other guy...the blond one...I chased them both...I remember."

The officer thought for a moment. "So you believe she was targeted?"

"This almost happened in San Diego," Bruno sighed. He finally took a seat in front of the monitor, sobbing into his hands.

The sun had gotten very low in the sky, signaling the passing of another day.

"I can't believe I let this happen. I was supposed to protect her..." Bruno's voice faded.

The police department in Anaheim would later keep in contact with San Diego to further the investigation. Bruno went home to his empty house. The only sound he could hear was the hum and bubbling of the aquarium. He didn't hear Charlotte's laughter or Roberto's singing over and over. He didn't hear her conversations with her stuffed animals or her quiet humming she thought no one could hear. Bruno fed the fish and then quickly left, unwilling to be reminded of how happy he usually was watching Charlotte look at the fish and tell them her plans for the day. Without her, they were just fish.

Later that night, the moon shown especially bright. With every tick of the clock and every change of the hour, Bruno's hope in ever seeing his little girl again wore very thin. He leaned against the railing of the balcony, looking out to the valley. Looking up at the moon, Bruno remembered when Charlotte came to him that one night. He pictured how scared she must have been. Every horrific vision came into his head, of her lying in dirt something, hurt. He could fix that. He would fix anything he needed to. Bruno hoped that at the very least, she was alive. If she wasn't, he couldn't fix it.

"I love you, peanut..." he bawled to the moon, hoping Charlotte was looking at it too. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Charlotte stared at the moon, remembering what her dad had told her about it, how you could see it from anywhere in the world, no matter where you were, as long as the sky was clear.

"Hey kid," one of the men said, snapping her out of her zone. "Are you hungry?" He asked, holding out a handful of pretzels.

Charlotte just stared, without a response.

"What?" he said. "You don't trust me?"

"I...I only trust my daddy."

"Well..." he said, laughing in a different way than she'd ever heard before. "You should've trusted him to keep you safe at Disneyland."

She looked out the window, holding her bird tight, not caring how dirty it was making her dress. She tried to picture him making the noises it made, but she couldn't do it.

"Sorry Daddy..." she said quietly, only audible for herself.