Absent

Thirty

Scott's P.O.V
I remember clearly what convinced me to become a police officer. It was about a month after I had collected that boy. Mitch. He stuck with me. Some how, four years later, I was still thinking of him, even though I hadn't seen him in a very long time.

I walked into the store, in search of a coat. November was here, and my jacket wasn't cutting it.

As I headed to the back of the store where they kept the clothes, I heard crying. Intrigued, I followed the sound. It was a lady. In her late forties, early fifties. A bald man next to her had his arm over her shoulders and they held out a paper.

I drew closer. What was she crying about? God, I'm nosey.

"-please? He hasn't been home in a month." The woman sniffed.

"I don't know if I can. I mean, I would, Mrs. and Mr. Grassi, but I don't know if I am allowed to let people hang up posters in the store." I watched them closer the moment the store employee said their last name.

Grassi, Grassi... The name was familiar. But why? They was that I kept asking myself as I stood there.

"Then get your manager." The woman snarled, a hiking everyone that heard her, especially her husband. She seemed so level headed. "My Mitchie is missing."

Mitch! These were the parents of that boy Drake had. His name and face had constantly stuck with me. I stood there and watched as the uncomfortable employee slink away to go get his manager as the woman cried.

"Mike! Why did this have to happen to our beautiful boy?" She sobbed.

Because of that reason. Because he was beautiful. I thought. My heart felt heavy as I watched the pain of this couple. The pain I helped set. Never had my father cared for me like that. My mother, she did, but she was gone so early in my life.

That is when I made up my mind. I would help the police find these kids.

Little did I know, just how heart wrenching that would be. I had to constantly betray Alex, the man I loved more than anything, and he never knew.

Almost four years, I did that. I remembered the day we found Wednesday. I remembered her all to well. I had been the one to give her to Alex for Ethan and his wife. I knelt down by her and cried. "I am so sorry. So so sorry." I sobbed. Soon, I promised to myself that I would get Mitch out. I began to closely monitor where he was sent. Even when the clients sold him on their own, Alex knew exactly where. It took months for me to finally get the police to storm the house that I knew held Mitch.

Few knew how I got my information, and one of the people that did was Alex's Informant. That is how we knew they had tracked Mitch's phone and had to relocate.

To this informant, a boy named Travis, I was just there in the station. Being the one Alex trusted above all else had it's perks. When they began to suspect that someone was ratting out on where the kids were, all eyes turned to Travis. How funny that the most loyal of us was the one that everybody saw as a threat and the one they trusted was the one actually bringing them down.

Travis was dead that night. By then, I had to wait to disclose information, for I knew Alex would kill me if he found out. By this time, Mitch was with a lady, Juliet O'hera. I had met her one, months before and that woman gave me a bad feeling.

Six months had past. Now was the time to act, even if it got me killed.

"Chief?" I knocked on Chief Menchez's door. He had told me that the moment I was ready to tell him how I knew where there kids were, he would listen. I was risking Jail Time for Mitch.