**MISSING (Book 1)**

“Are you down yet?”, Hannah questioned impatiently.
“No, I'll soon be. Just a second. (bang) Whoa! I'm down now. This better be worth it. Where the hell are you?”
“Just look ahead, across the road.”
“Okay Okay, I see you.”
Chrissie quickly pulled off her earpiece and pocketed it. Making sure to switch off her phone, she ran across the semi-deserted road to her friend Hannah, who had just convinced her to escape from home through the window of her room. Hannah had lured her out with the promise of fun and a mighty good time. Chrissie at first was not desirous of getting on the bad side of her aunt, who was the only other person in the house, but her friend had sworn, promised and bet her life on the fact that they would return home before daylight, so her aunt would remain clueless about her late night adventure. She had a lot of love for Hannah and a big fear of Aunt Summer's anger, but after a while, encouraged by Hannah's pleas and attractive promises, she decided to take the risk. By the way, her aunt would be gone in a few days, but Hannah would always remain her friend for life, she reasoned.
“Whew, that was one hell of an adventure,” Chrissie panted as she came to a stop in front of Hannah.
“The adventure is yet to begin, girl,” Hannah replied while staring dubiously at her friend.
“Why staring at me like that? What are you looking at?”
“Well,” Hannah shrugged, “you're dressed so churchy. You don't look like someone who's ready to party. Anyway, it don't matter. Get in the car, let's go.”
Chrissie took one last look at her dress and sighed before sashaying over to the passenger's side.
“Wow. I'm glad you're here Chris,” Hannah said smilingly as soon as they were both seated in the car.
“Me too,” Chrissie giggled.
“Then what are we waiting for? Let's roll off!"
“Whoo hoo!!!”
They gave each other a hi-five and Hannah zoomed off the car.
The girls were in high spirits, but it had not always been that way. Chrissie was once very quiet, reserved and bookish until she met Hannah who introduced her to everything from parties to boys to fashion. With time, Chrissie started thinking and acting like her friend. Keeping late nights, flirting, partying and so on were the new norm for her, but even though he was not quick to discover the change in his daughter's behavior, her father, who was an FBI agent, quickly swung into action when he found that Chrissie was slowly going out of control.
Jason Raids knew that his job would not allow him to keep a close watch on his daughter, but he also knew that he could trust his sister, Summer, to do the needful any time she visits them. Summer, an unmarried woman in her mid-30's was Chrissie's worst nightmare when it came to rules and good behavior and the last thing she wanted to incur was her wrath, which would definitely lead to a wide range of punishments and boring lectures. She would never forget the time when she had to copy the entire book of Isaiah as punishment for lewd texting. It was with this in mind that Jason invited his sister to keep Chrissie in check for a few days since the latest emergency at his workplace demanded all his attention.
“Are we here?”, Chrissie asked as Hannah pulled up far out in front of a small simple-looking building which looked a few decades out of date.
“Yep yep yep! Just wait until you get in there and you'll be blown away.”
“Can't wait!”, she giggled.
Chrissie followed as Hannah led the way to the building. She could not help but feel a little inadequate as she watched from behind Hannah's sexy wears, which included a slim tank top with a plunging neckline deep enough to show enormous cleavage and the end of which hardly went past her pierced belly button. Hannah's thighs were almost completely exposed by a tight micro-mini skirt which expressed her perfectly round and jiggly backside in all its glory.
Chrissie shook her head in disappointment as she once again looked at her own jeans trousers that totally covered almost everything below her waist. She had to admit that she still had much to learn from Hannah about dressing sexily. In her defense, she had picked the clothes hurriedly and didn't have time to even look at them, but next time, she would certainly do better. For now, she would just have to figure out how to get through the evening without having much cause to think about her dressing.
As they approached the building, Chrissie could hear sounds that sounded naturally like those coming from a party. She had expected it to be a thing of few friends and a couple of drinks, but it seemed her expectations would be vastly surpassed. Hannah, with her usual confident stride, stalked up to a tall, burly fellow who stood like a statue at the entrance of the building and whispered a few words to him. Chrissie could not catch what was said, but she didn't care. She was all impatience to get in and see how large the party was, which from the extremely loud sounds she could hear must be very lively and highly populated.
“Let's go. Stay close!”
Chrissie promptly nodded and followed her friend into the building. She stole one last glance at the man at the front and to her surprise, he was focused intently on her in a manner that made her feel a little uncomfortable. But Hannah quickly dragged her in and closed the door behind them. Now inside the building, Chrissie thought her eardrums would burst. The place was much larger than she had thought and totally filled up too. The sounds emanating from the various loudspeakers were more than deafening. Bright lights flashed over the heads of the numberless dancers and from what she could see, almost everyone was high on something: music, drinks and there were the groups in dark corners sniffing and inhaling God-knows-what. As she stood looking about her in awe, Hannah roughly pulled on her arm.
“Hey, I said stay close.”
“Sorry.”
She could not even hear her own apology and if Hannah had not shouted into her ear, she would not have heard her too. Everywhere was jam-packed and a lot of the dancers were drunk. It took a lot of effort for even Hannah to plow through the teeming crowd with Chrissie in tow. Once or twice, she saw Hannah swat a hand away and she wondered why, but she didn't remain ignorant for long. Drunken hands were soon encircling her waist and pulling her toward their owners and she had to fight them off constantly. There was no choice but to swat any hand within reach if she wanted to keep her jeans on her waist throughout the evening.
Chrissie had no idea where her friend was taking her as she struggled to keep up, but Hannah was her trusted guide. She knew all the best things. They were now approaching an elevated stage where most of the lights and speakers were placed and the sound was getting much louder than ever before. Chrissie, unused to such high volumes, had to cover her ears while Hannah marched on unperturbed. To the left of the stage was a door guarded by another tall, burly man and it was this door that Hannah went straight to. She whispered some words to the man and he opened the door. Hannah glanced back at her friend and beckoned for her to follow. As soon as they were past the door, she closed it behind them and the sounds were vastly reduced.
“Whoa!”, Chrissie sighed, removing her hands from her ears. “I love this party, but the sound is way too loud.”
“That's how a real party should sound like,” Hannah shrugged carelessly.
“Hey I'm not you, so... Where are you going?!”
“Just wait here.”
Hannah had suddenly walked off into the dark, leaving Chrissie alone and a little panicky. She disliked staying alone in dark places, especially places she was unfamiliar with. She looked around her, partly to keep herself busy and partly to lessen her fear. She was actually outside the building. The door they'd just passed through was the back door, but as this new intelligence dawned on her, a sharp zipping sound emanated from behind her. She froze immediately. Clearly, she was not really alone. Turning around with fear, she searched for the source of the sound. Something shiny glittered on the ground a few feet away.
“What the hell's that?”, she asked herself. But before she could take a step toward it to investigate, she felt a strong hand on her mouth and a handkerchief pressed over her nose. Everything faded away.