3: Kidnapped.

Ellie sat on the sofa hugging her legs. The TV was on, but she couldn't keep focused on it. She felt miserable.

Sarina hadn't came out of her room yet. A few times Ellie had gotten up and made her way to Sarina's door. It was silent inside, and every single time Ellie was about to yell in to ask if Sarina was okay, she'd chickened out. Probably because she knew she wasn't okay. She was far from okay. Ellie itched to break inside of that room and tell Sarina the whole story, because she felt like it would make everything a little better.

A loud rumbling noise crushed Ellie's thoughts and she jumped a bit. She realized it was only her phone and reached down to the coffee table and picked it up. Aaron's--Sarina's 'father'--handsome face popped up on the screen. His dark brown hair messily covered his forehead, and a small grin played at his thin lips. Just like his sisters', he had bright blue eyes.

Ellie answered the call put the phone to her ear. "Hey," she said coolly.

"Hey, is everything okay?" he asked. "Did you tell her yet?"

Ellie paused for a moment before answering. "Yes," she said quickly.

"And?" Aaron asked, waiting for details. "How'd she handle it?"

"Not well."

"Well what'd you say?" he asked.

"I didn't really say anything… I asked Caroline to bring over mother's letters today. And I showed her the one how she could ask us anything. And then Sarina asked who Tonya was, and I told her it was mom."

"Are you serious?" Aaron asked loudly. "That's all she knows?"

"Yeah, well, she locked herself in her bedroom afterwards. I just couldn't--I didn't know how to tell her. So I showed her. But now that she knows that, I'm going to explain everything else when she comes out."

Aaron sighed. The line was silent for a moment. "Alright. Well, um, try to tell her soon. I should be leaving in a week."

Ellie agreed and they both said their goodbyes. She put the phone back down and grumbled, holding her stomach. It felt like it was twisted in knots. She got up slowly and walked down the hallway again. She had to do it this time. She had to get all of this out to Sarina.

But she stopped. What was that noise? It sounded like a faint scratching just outside the front door. Ellie was going to brush it off, figuring it was just a cat pawing the door, or a bush rustling in the wind--but then she heard a voice. An unfamiliar voice. A deep, man's voice. Who was out there? Ellie wondered to herself.

She walked over to the door and peeked outside the curtains like she had done earlier. She didn't see anyone.

She opened the door only and crack and scanned her porch. With only the door open a bit, she couldn't see anything past the porch, so she opened the door wider and looked outside and scanned the lawn. No one. Maybe it was just someone passing by?

She was about to shut the door when she noticed something on her welcome mat. She kneeled down for a closer look. It was a black golf ball sized ball of--was it hair? Ellie poked it and almost gagged. The gob of hair was freshly wet, and a piece of it clung to her fingertip when she'd touched it. She rubbed it off on the mat, and hurried to the kitchen to get her broom. She brushed the hairball away, utterly disgusted. "What the heck was that?" she asked to no one in particular.

She was about to shut the door--but then something else caught her eyes.

The bottom half of the wooden door had deep scratch marks etching out what looked to be a word. Ellie squinted, trying to decipher what whoever had done it had written. When she figured out the first two letters--'S' and 'A'--the rest of it came easily to her--it said Sarina. "No," Ellie said softly, and immediately yanked the door shut. She dead bolted the door and ran down the hall to Sarina's bedroom.

She beat her fists on the door and yelled for Sarina to open it--something she really didn't want to do, but she was panicking.

She stopped for a moment and put her ear to the door. It was quiet on the other side. Was she asleep? Ellie wondered to herself.

Ellie stopped for a moment and tried to figure out what to do. When she finally got an idea, she bolted to the bathroom and pulled open the cabinet. She frantically searched the contents inside and finally found what she was looking for--a bobby pin. She rushed back to Sarina's door and stuck the bobby pin inside the middle of the door knob, wiggling it around. Finally she heard a soft pop as the door unlocked, and she pulled it open.

Ellie took a few steps into the room, and fell to her knees. She leaned over and buried her face into the carpet, feeling pathetic and empty.

The bed was empty. There was no one else in the room. Sarina was gone.