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farther away; then closer again. Who was it? What did they want?
    â€œHey, if you can hear me, I need to get outta here. Hello? Can you help me, please?” She crawled toward the door, somewhat apprehensive about the furry villain that might still be lurking close by. “Please, help me.”
    The begging became sobs that were never heard. Or worse, were ignored. If there were a living, breathing human being outside, how could they keep her here, locked away from the world?
    She listened carefully as the footsteps once more escaped her. No food this time ; maybe dinner was later, or breakfast. It was easy to misplace hours in a room with no clock.
    â€œCome back,” she begged the cold sounds outside her door. “Come back to me.” Her slippery mouth brushed up next to the wall. She tasted dirt, wanting to throw up.
    Too late. She wondered if, because she hadn’t eaten anything, particles of her were coming up out of the dead space inside. Parts of her erupting and splattering disgusting mess on the ground.
    Emery scraped the wall with her nails like a lunatic. She hoped to find a hole, a stitch of brighter light, something real to hold onto. Then she pounded her forehead against the wintry surface. Once was enough to knock her out cold.

6
    Â 
    THE BACKGROUND HUM OF the television sounded like a swarm of hornets. Joel hadn’t changed the channel in a few hours. He let the station play and play as he tried to filter out thoughts. He wondered where the people who took his daughter were from. Questioned what they’d want with a scarred teenage girl anyhow. The notions he gathered were sick and perverse, horrible things no father would ever dream his daughter might be forced to endure.
    He remembered seeing a black sedan parked outside the ER and a van full of roses being peddled by a clean-shaven yuppie in his twenties. The whole thing didn’t feel right. Did they have anything to do with it, or was he just reaching?
    He recalled being in the lobby of hospital where Emery had been ripped from his life. The stink of the air was enough to suffocate him. Not clean, not filthy, just something gross and weak in between. He was aggressively tapping his fingers on the Formica countertop, waiting for someone—anyone—to tell him where his daughter had gone. And that strange boy she kept company with. While he was waiting for the police to arrive, Carlos Pena’s eyes met with his, but only for an instant. The look on that scumbag’s face was something Joel could not describe with words or even feelings. It just kind of hung there, apathetic, removed. Joel wanted to tear each particle of skin from the man’s bones slowly, rip the flesh from his weak carcass and send his body to the pit of hell for luring his wife away at the apex of his weakness. But he didn’t. Instead he stood back and let the doctor walk away down the hallway.
    His mind had been so busy that day, still reeling from the night before, when he’d taken off, inebriated and hopeless; tried to run out on his family, the only thing he wanted now more than ever. If only he’d known. If only he could go back to spend that last night with Emery.
    No form of rationalization could help. He was there in that hospital in the flesh, but his mind wasn’t. His mind was cloudy, angry and frustrated and confused.
    A still unfinished sermon now lay amidst the clutter of scattered thoughts scribbled onto paper. Beside that were his ambitious lists of conspiracy theories and phone numbers to agencies that had yielded no leads. He remembered the search parties, the agents and officers assigned to their case before they were eventually pulled away from it all to attend to more promising endeavors. The world had given up.
    He was convinced even God had given up.
    No matter what he did, who he called, or how hard he searched, he had gotten no closer to finding Emery. The idea that she’d become another lost face on