It was at the north end of town where we finally met up again. The sun was past its peak, and the wind blew cooler than before. There was a grey stone slab that read ‘Geir Lakewood Park’ in front of us.

  The wide-spread wooded area that was as much a forest as it was a park grew naturally around the many lakes and ponds and potholes. There were large houses and roads near the southern part of it, but here, though it was technically managed, it had grown wild and thick, with beeches and maples and winding paths swirling around the place. There were other areas where it was pure wetland as well, but the search hadn’t extended that far east.

  It had been a hustle, but we needed our parents’ permission to join, since none of us were eighteen yet.

  I had thought it would have been impossible to get every one of our parents to do so, but the news travelled fast, and there was lingering sentiment from the disappearance of Jenny’s brother not a week past.

  And so, with the element of surprise, and a whole bunch of luck, we somehow managed to convince most of our parents to let us join the search for our schoolmate, mine and Harry’s being the easiest of the bunch.

  For some reason when our parents heard we were to do something together they always defaulted to complaisance. I don't know why, but it's been like that since we were kids. On one side, Harry was a golden child, and the moment my parents heard the name Harry Fairbanks, they struggled to keep themselves from drooling. On the other side, me, well I can't know everything, but I'm sure Harry's parents didn't salivate with a mention of my name. In truth, I don't know what they saw in me, and it didn't really matter. They trusted in Harry, and that got us the first two signatures.

  Donna had assured us that there wouldn’t be an issue over the phone. She and Anne had gone ahead of us to her mother’s office while we were at my house. Her mother worked in downtown Volpora, so in the time it took for them to go and come, we’d reached Anne’s and were waiting parked outside her house. It didn’t take them long though and when the five of us walked inside Anne’s home, Donna already had her signed papers with her.

  We were expecting Anne’s parents to be the hardest from the beginning. I knew her parents, especially her father. And to put it lightly, Henry Kinglet wouldn’t allow her to do something so risky even if she’d brought a gun and an escort of half of the county’s police force along. But even he had a weakness to be exploited: Anne herself.

  We were sure to get hanged upside down—Harry and I—the second a single strand of hair went missing from his daughter’s head, and we’d definitely go to hell for this, but we leaned in on the sentiment and reminded him that the girl that was lost was much like his own. We made a promise to care for his daughter, and after Anne gave a truly heart-wrenching performance, he reluctantly, and with a lot of mumbling to himself, signed off to let her join us.

  Lastly, we had Nemo’s father, Sheriff Declan Faerwald. A man we knew would be impossible to convince, regardless of argument or guarantee.

  Sheriff Faerwald loved Nemo and his sister Lucy to death. And with a job title like that, danger was no stranger to him. He had dealt with it his whole life, and the last thing he wanted was for one of his children to inherit or deal with the same issues he found himself facing on the daily. He was a solid man, always trying to deter Nemo from acting on his reckless impulses. A hopeless endeavor that was unappreciated by anyone who didn’t know how stubborn and thick-headed his son could get. A trait, ironically, they shared in common.

  Truthfully, no matter how much we racked our brains, no one could think of something to convince the sheriff. And so, seeing no other choice, Nemo proposed an idea. To leave his father in the dark and simply sneak him in after we’d gotten clearance to enter. A hastened search effort like this had no chance of being airtight, security was bound to be lacking.

  Which brought us here, outside the entrance to the park, talking to an organizing officer sitting behind a white table that was set up next to a small van.

  Nemo was waiting in his car, parked somewhere down the road.

  The officer stacked the papers and placed them inside a folder on the table, then stood up. “All right, you four, have you brought flashlights?”

  We nodded. It had actually been Anne’s dad that forced them on us, alongside a first aid kit and a pair of walkie-talkies.

  The man went inside the van and came out with a map and another flashlight, it was a welcome addition, seeing as we’d only brought two with us. You’ve got to admit, for five teenagers, we were pretty much as stacked as they came.

  “It’s not much but it’s all we can do for now. Give me a moment,” he turned and spoke in the radio on his shoulder. The thing buzzed and he walked back inside the van. It took him some time to come back outside, but when he did, he had a puzzled look on his face. “You’re all minors, right? You see, we don’t have anyone to guide you right now, all the volunteer team leaders are unavailable at the moment. I’m afraid I’ll have to turn you down.”

  “Can’t we just go by ourselves?” Harry asked. “We’re from around here, we know the area.”

  The officer scratched his short dark hair. “I don’t know if I can let you do that. It really goes against protocol.”

  “Officer,” Anne said and moved to the front of the group. “What’s your name?”

  The young policeman turned to her and spoke. “It’s Corporal,” he showed the insignia on his sleeve, “Corporal Lepley. But please, just call me Reynard.”

  Anne smiled. “Reynard, I know we must be an inconvenience, but we only want to help find our schoolmate. Is there really nothing for us to do?”

  The police corporal shook his head. “I really can’t let you—”

  “Anne,” she said. “I’m Anne by the way.”

  “Right,” he chuckled, “as I was saying, there must be an adult team-leader if you want to help. I could get in a lot of trouble if I let you in,” he said, his voice a tinge regretful.

  Me and Harry looked at each other and shrugged. His girlfriend was doing the best she could, but even her jurisdiction had its limits; the best was sometimes not enough when it came to these matters. Sometimes you just had to give in to the rules and live with it. But then, as I watched Anne cozy up to the amiable officer, an idea popped into my head.

  “What if you came with us?” I asked.

  He turned to me and raised his hands. “I can’t, I already tried asking for permission when another young man had come not too long ago.” He paused. “And even if I was allowed to go, I’m not from around here, I’d be lost inside those woods.”

  “Worth the shot,” I said.

  Anne turned to me and Harry. “I guess … we go back.” She sounded deflated.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “When will the next team leader be available?” Donna asked.

  Reynard shrugged. “Groups are organized in the morning, maybe you can try your luck then.”

  Anne tossed her hair in frustration and walked past us. “Thanks for nothing, Reynard.”

  Harry called out to her, but she paid him no attention. Before he ran after Anne, Harry turned to me, “Call Nemo to come pick us up.”

  He was right, Nemo and Anne’s cars were parked some distance away in order to hide from the officer, and with the plan gone awry before it had even begun, there really wasn’t any reason to walk all the way back to him.

  I picked up my phone and called Nemo to inform him of what happened.

  After some complaining from his part, I pocketed my phone, took one look at the white van, then turned my gaze back to the couple.

  Harry had caught up to a sulking Anne, her arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently. She really wasn’t accustomed to not getting her way, but Harry wouldn’t let that deter him. He wrapped his arms around her and started rocking her from side to side.

  Anne’s frown wasn’t long to last, and she let him do so, a smile slowly creeping on her lips.

  In the quiet of that afternoon, outside the forest, Nemo’s car was a loud disturbance that sounded like an old man struggling to catch his breath. The green Corolla ambled over to where Donna and I stood next to the van, and he lowered his window down. His car had that old manual handle you actually had to turn in order for the window to roll down, and so it took him a few breaths before he had the whole thing down.

  “It’s a bust,” I said.

  “So much for good deeds and all that,” he said. “Come in,” he rose from his seat and looked over the car’s top, “am I taking the both of you?”

  Donna and I had already noticed the couple laughing some distance away. “Do you remember where I live?” Donna asked.

  “Do you?”

  Donna looked at Nemo in an exhausted kind of way.

  “Come on, give me some credit, how long have we known each other?”

  “Two years,” she said.

  “Two years!” he repeated, his voice too honest to hide the truth.

  “You’ve no idea, do you.”

  “Why do you think I keep Terry around for.”

  “Because he’d be lonely without you?” Donna asked.

  I walked around to the passenger’s seat and faintly heard a static noise buzz behind me.

  “Nope, it’s his excellent topographical memory.”

  I opened the passenger door. “I think it has to do with the fact that I’m the only one who can tolerate you for more than an hour a day.”

  “Wrong again. Though if I had to say, your mother’s brownies do help a lot.”

  “Oh,” she said as I lowered the front seat for her to jump into the back, “maybe it’s because he’s such a pushover.”

  “Okay, that’s enough, both of you come on, get in,” I said and got out of her way.

  “Excuse me,” Corporal Reynard Lepley said from behind me.

  Donna—sitting in the backseat—looked back to the officer who’d spoken through the slit of the open door; I followed her gaze and did the same. He was smiling, hand behind his head.

  “Are you, perhaps, the sheriff’s son?” he asked.

  Nemo leaned over the dropped-down seat to look out of the co-driver’s window. He furrowed his brows and asked, “How do you know?”

  “Well, your father—”

  Nemo answered his own question and spoke without thinking, not that he’d usually do that anyway. “Did my father put you up to this?”

  “Not exactly,” Reynard said slowly.

  “Well, I haven’t done anything wrong, have I? Go report that,” he said, his voice slightly irked.

  Reynard closed his eyes, still sporting that complacent smile. “I think you’ve misunderstood, I mean … are you with the four of them?” He pointed to the rest of us.

  Nemo was slow to notice the tone of his voice, but something finally clicked for him. He nodded, giving the man time to make his intentions clear. It was always a peculiar thing to witness Nemo becoming insightful when a situation allowed for it and how quickly he could stop being, well, himself.

  Reynard continued. “Well, seeing as you’re the sheriff’s son; were you going to join the search?”

  “That’s right. I was, I was going to join. But since you aren’t letting us in, I don’t have any other choice, do I?” He paused and added. “Maybe I’ll tell my dad to be our guide, how does that sound? Will you let us join then? If I bring my dad. The sheriff.”

  Reynard Lepley chuckled awkwardly. The young officer, looking flustered, had definitely misunderstood the relationship Nemo had with his dad. “I don’t think we need to include your dad. I was only saying, since the sheriff and the police have such a good relationship, I would only be doing my duty to help keep it as it is. In any way I can.”

  Nemo raised his brow.

  “You know, in a favor for a favor sort of way.”

  “You scratch my back, I scratch yours?”

  Reynard smiled.

  Nemo flashed him a toothy grin. “Where do I park?”

  Lepley pointed to a place not far from where he’d parked originally. In the meantime, I informed Anne and Harry of the news and the four of us walked back to the van to wait for Nemo.

  When he returned, Reynard showed us a grid map of the park and the woods surrounding it. The whole area was divided into large fields, with each containing a certain amount of smaller sub-squares. A number labeled each field, and the color of it, the usual green to red, denoted the risk or importance of said area. The teams that came to help were then assigned to one field depending on experience and were then expected to come back to report whatever it was they found or didn’t.

  The five of us were given a small area in the western part of the map. It was, in Lepley’s words, the only one he could give us and keep his conscience clear. It was one of the safer fields, mostly flat without much in the way of cliffs or hills. It was also less likely for anything to actually be there, so far from Jenny’s home.

  In the early hours of dawn, the police had conducted a hasty sweep of the area, but with a lack of danger in the area, the volunteers hadn’t deemed it necessary to do anything more than that. The bulk of the search had gone towards the eastern side, among the many small ponds and winding woods that extended forth from the last few big houses of the north-end of the town. That’s where most of the teams were currently operating.

  I didn’t much mind the fact that we had practically no chance of finding anything of note. Our being there was only a token act anyway, as much actual worry as it was something interesting to pass out time with. I know I’m an ass for thinking that, but you don’t need to be emotionally invested to want to help. Though if I was being honest, I wasn't sure if that applied to everyone. Harry and Anne in particular, there was something odd going on between them, it was as if they needed to be involved.

  Especially Harry, he was visibly annoyed by the fact that there wasn’t much he was given to do. In truth, he’d always been the guy who would care for things that didn’t involve him, a quirk much like Nemo’s own over-compulsive curiosity.

  Sometimes I’d forget those two had been friends for as long as I’d been with either one of them, and since looks and personality had been exempt, something had to give for those two to find common ground for so long.

  But he cares that much? A question popped into my head, and I wondered if his reaction had anything to do with the hesitation he’d had all day, with that something he’d wanted to tell me.

  Lepley was describing our roles and responsibilities again. We had to be back, he insisted, before sunset. That meant that we had barely a few hours to spare.

  “We go in, move in a line close to each other, and come out before it gets dark,” Harry said. “Did I get it right?”

  Lepley wanted to say more, but even I was becoming impatient. And so, after much prodding and pushing from five exasperated teenagers, he showed us the way, wished us good luck, and left us to find our way along the path to the field; the map held in hand.

  The path ahead was paved concrete and before we’d gone too far from Lepley and the van, I looked over my shoulder to see him talking to the radio on his shoulder with an easy smile on his face.

  “He must be new,” Nemo said quietly so that his voice didn’t carry farther than needed.

  “Well, he did say so himself,” I said.

  “He must be looking for a transfer,” Anne said, walking up to Harry at the front.

  Nemo scoffed. “Then he must really be new. No one in their right mind would help me and expect a favor from my dad in return.”

  “We really lucked out,” Donna said. “We shouldn’t jinx it.”

  “I knew I’d get something out of my dad being sheriff one day.” Nemo chuckled.