Some of the policemen had gone down to the lake house, scouring the area for Ella and Hans, but they came back empty-handed. They were now readying to comb the woods, a magnanimous task given the vastness - there were hundreds of acres surrounding the lake, a great part of it owned by us. We hadn't enlisted help from the community yet - my dad had wanted to keep it under wraps, until absolutely necessary. Which was when, exactly? My mouth frowned at the grim thought.
"Cole?"
I jolted, not realizing how deep in thought I was. Monica was wringing her hands, her forehead furrowed. She looked like she wanted to cry, something I had never seen her do, not in the years that I had known her. "They're gonna find her, right?" I could see Ella's mom holding her phone to her ear, as she had been doing on and off for the past few hours after learning about Ella's disappearance. Too bad Ella had a dinosaur of a phone - it worked too well in Hans' favor, the fact that we were unable to track it. I didn't have the heart to tell her there was no signal in the woods, either, if that was where Hans had brought her. Or that Hans had probably taken her phone away from her, and was enjoying knowing no one could reach her.
I nodded, exhaustion washing over me. I hadn't slept a wink since the morning before, and felt close to collapsing right now. My eyes burned, as did my back, but I couldn't stop my mind from racing, couldn't waste time sleeping. "We'll find her." Because we had to. It was part of the game, it would make Hans happy, but we had to find her. Please, I prayed to whoever would listen. Let her be safe. I refused to let my mind imagine in what state we would find her. Please.
A thought hit me like a truck. How had I not seen it before? I saw my dad speak in a low voice to one of the policemen, his eyes occasionally darting worriedly towards Ella's mom. "...have to try again," he was saying. "We might have missed them the first time."
I strode over to them. "The boathouse," I chimed in quietly. "I went there, but now I realize why Ella wasn't there. There's another place Hans and I liked to go to as kids. I'll come with you to show you."
The officer looked at me warily before nodding. We left the house together with several other police cars, and I finally succumbed to my exhaustion and fell asleep on the way there.
The trek into the woods was different from what I remembered. The trees seemed bigger, denser, the canopy interlocking, the forest not just made up of conifers but other manner of foliage I didn't know the names of. I prayed my memory would serve me right at this crucial time. After twenty minutes of heading eastward, I spotted a large moss-covered boulder that served as our hideout-cum-fortress when we were kids. "That way," I nodded to the grim-faced plain-clothed policeman ahead of me. After five more minutes, I thought I could see movement amongst the trees. "Ella?" More rustling, so that guns were drawn and we headed cautiously in that direction. I could hear muffled sounds, and my heart plummeted when I saw Ella, disheveled and bound to the tree behind her, sitting slumped sideways on the forest floor. "Ella!"
I rushed to undo her ties, and the gag that had been put into her mouth. Her eyes were closed, and her hair was plastered against her forehead and cheeks. But she appeared otherwise unharmed, and I was grateful for whatever had run through my twin's head to have stopped him from hurting her.
"Not so fast."
My head whipped around. Hans stood, a hunting gun ready, pointing towards me, signaling for me to move back. The policemen behind us must have made a move, because Hans fired a warning shot to the sky. Even then, even then, Ella didn't shriek or react in any way.
"Congratulations for finally it figuring out." His tone was reprimanding, as if I was a child caught with a mouthful of sweets. "Fourteen hours and twenty-two minutes since you came looking at midnight." He clucked his tongue. "You were always so predictable, Cole. If you had left an hour earlier, you might have caught us leaving the house."
I fixed my gaze on him, hatred and an uneasy feeling mingling inside me. I was unsure of how to proceed. But I needed to play this right, because Ella was still whimpering on and off, perhaps drifting in and out of consciousness. Was she dehydrated? Drugged, maybe? We needed to get her to the nearest hospital.
And so I said the only thing that made sense to ask. "Why?"
"Why what, Cole? Why did I take Ella here? Or why did I take Ella away from you?" His laugh was harsh, bitter. "You always were self-centered, Cole. It was always you who needed the attention. Poor Cole. He must be traumatized. Poor Cole, he was too young to understand what he had done to Nathan. Well, what about Hans? Didn’t anybody see that Hans needed attention too? But it was alright, I told myself. It was alright, because even though they showered attention
