July 4th, 2014, Rossi Estate, 10 pm
Rossi's POV
Most of the members of the BAU had left Rossi's home. This left only Reid, Morgan, and Garcia, who insisted on staying to help with the mess, which was unnecessary but greatly appreciated.
JJ and Hotch had left earlier on account of Henry and Jack needing their sleep. Speaking of young children who should be in bed, I hadn't seen Cassidy since the begining of the party. She was sulking in the house for quite some time, which really wouldn't have improved the mood of the party, but nevertheless it would have been nice to have her semi-present.
After checking her bedroom, I descended the stair case, very concerned. Cassidy was gone.
"Have any of you seen Cassidy?" Perhaps, she was just being elusive as after all she had been all but vocal since she arrived.
"No, why?" Reid asked. "Almost 90 percent of all children who go missing miscommunicated their plans or misunderstood directions that were given, are lost, or have run away."
"I can't find her." I admitted.
"Can't find her? Are you trying to say she ran away?" Garcia asked, concerned in a motherly way. Yes, Garcia. That's what I meant, but it didn't have to be said like that.
"Yes." I let out the deep breath that I had been holding in. Cassidy would be fine; she's resourceful.
"Does she have a cell phone?"
"Of course." What teenage girl by this age doesn't have a cell phone?
"What's the number?" Garcia asked, going into full protective mode.
"1-219-278-3696." The numbers came out in a slow bitter way, like they were stuck inside my mind.
"Well the good news is you're parental connection telling you she wasn't here was right. The signal from her phone is coming from 30 miles away."
"30 miles?" I deadpanned. Cassidy, you are killing me.
"Where exactly is she?" Morgan asked.
"A small nature park in Quantico."
"30 miles." Reid repeated. And cue the stream of facts. "In order for her to be there she'd have to have left about 5 hours ago going about 6 miles per hour. And to reach that constant speed, based on her fitness level and age, she must have used a bike."
"Thank you, boy genius." Morgan replied sarcastically. "Why is she even in Quantico?"
"Can we ask her later?" I snapped. She was my responsibility for as long as she was here, and that left me very uncomfortable knowing my parenthood was going off to a rocky start.
"That's right; let's focus on finding her." Garcia says.
New Author's Note: upon editing this piece, I started to throw some shade at these characters because I had them make some bad decisions. Sorry y'all if you liked the innocent bittersweet version that I originally had going here, but like it needed some touching up and well as I was rereading it I was like, really? Like really though?
