Invisible

About thirty minutes. They missed him by about thirty minutes. They missed Corrie by about thirty minutes.

"You lazy mother fuckers,' I say, horrified. "You missed him by thirty motherfucking minutes! You got there forty-five minutes after I called. WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!"

The twins drag me back into my seat. "You said there was evidence of multiple girls, and you took to damn long. What if they're dead, because you took so damn long? What if Corrie is dead?" I shudder.

"Young man, there are things you don't understand," the police officer said.

"I hope you stay up all night to night, because you've killed my girlfriend. I love her. She could very well be dead. Forty five minutes. Wasn't it an urgent call? Or are the lives of my girlfriend, people's daughters, not worth it?" I can't muster up the strength to stand up again, to get angry, even though I hate the man standing in front of me with all my heart. I don't feel anything. "She called me. Not the police. She hid and called me. I was supposed to protect her, and I don't even know where her body is."

Alec starts crying again, sobbing into Quinn's shoulder (how sweet, he came to comfort Alec. I want my Corrie). Jake was here too (for Lorrie, or for me, I'm not sure). Emily didn't come. Mom came. We're all ignoring her. Corrie's father was called. He never answered, and wasn't home when they went looking for him.

The policeman looks uncomfortable now. "There's no guarantee they're dead."

I look at him, right in the eyes. "She called me and said that he would kill her. Corrie is dead. My beautiful little Corrie is gone. You took forty-five fucking minutes. And I was three hours away. That stupid cat got out and she went looking for it and I never noticed. She called me."

"Son, she's just a girl-" The police officer says awkwardly.

"No. She's not. She's Corrie. Do you know what she looks like? Other than the school picture they gave you?" I smile faintly and pull the picture out of my wallet, showing it to him. Its the picture Izzy took of all of us at the football game, when Corrie and the twins were painted. "She's the gold one, of course. Do you want to know why they're handcuffed together? Because Corrie gets scared, so easily, and runs away. And any time she's on her own she gets hurt. She was raped, and abused, and just starting to get better. She would cut, and I stopped her from suicide, and now look at her. She wont ever recover. And you took forty-five minutees."

The officer takes a step back, looking horrified now. I just stare at him mournfully. "Always scared, she's always scared and she doesn't deserve it. But look at her now. Do you know what she sees when she looks in the mirror? She told me she thought she was the ugliest waste of space on the planet, and meant it. My beautiful little Corrie. Do you have daughters?"

He nodds.

"Make sure they know how important they are to you. Because now Corrie's dead and I don't think she ever really felt that way."

Thats when Ashton and Jake both snap, wiping their eyes at the same time. The officer more or less runs away in horror. It starts raining outside and I go stand out in it because Corrie loved the rain.

"You know its raining, don't you?" A man asks me randomly.

"Of course."

"You'll catch a cold. What are you doing out here?"

"My girlfriend was kidnapped, and is most likely dead, and she loved the rain."

The man plows ahead, unfazed. "Well, most likely doesn't mean certainly. Go and find her."

I contemplate that, staring right up at the sky. "I don't know where to start looking."

"Hardest part is the beginning."

I find one of the officers I recognize and wreck his office, stopping just before I'm about to be physically restrained. "Leads, anything?!" I half yell to the room of men. "Or do I have to wreck the rest of this useless department."

When one of the men literally takes a sip of his coffee I throw it in the trash. "Where the hell is my girlfriend? Tell me now, or so help me, I will castrate the lot of you."

I get nothing, except for I'm kicked out of the police station.

So I sneak off to the roped off house of Stan Parkinson and go inside.

First an foremost is the blood. There's blood on the stairs, and over turned chair in the kitchen. More blood in the kitchen. Otherwise the downstairs is normal. I follow the blood up the stairs. Trails of it on the walls, tiny handprints.

Oh my God, this is Corrie.

I vomit into his toilet, then brake down and sob. There's blood in the bathroom.

There's blood in the bedroom, on the bed. Cut ropes hand from the headboard and footboard. Corrie, oh Corrie, oh Corrie.

They said he was probably headed south. He had a van, a creeper van., of course. Thats what he made off with the girls in. Corrie.

I can't bring myself to go downstairs where most of his... Stuff is. ut otherwise the house is normal. On the mantle, above his fireplace, are bunches of pictures, all from the same place. Some ranch, and he's always with the same creepy-looking man.

The sign for the ranch is in one of the pictures. I hesitantly type it into my phone and leave.