"How much money have you got on you?" Will asks, browsing through his own wallet.

Looking straight ahead, I brusquely say. "Enough." Sat beside my friend of many loyal years, Will is just trying to be organised. Where Maci is concerned, I have always needed hush or information money. All too many times, I've had to pay off her drug buddies; either to keep quiet or to sing like a canary. With Slam now doing all of the driving, I'm free to liaise with whoever I need to during the search for Maci.

"Jules and Cam will catch up with us in a bit, I've given them those leads that you're wanting followed up and the police have been made fully aware, too." Will shoots me a glance, wanting to know if I am paying any attention to him.

I am, I'm just not really in the mood for much talking. My mind is overcrowded; full to the brim of too many thoughts. I know that everyone is doing all that they can to find my sister—Don is out in his truck, searching all around Porter Ranch. Mom is making desperate phone calls and going through Maci's things; trying to find anything that might help to pin down where she has gone. Myself, Will and Slam are in downtown LA, scouring the streets and the numerous hangouts where Maci has previously been known to go. Jules and Cameron are looking into suppliers, dispensaries and doctors who are known to freely give out meds like they're sweets, before they meet us later on, and the cops are doing their bit, too—we are all just trying to save Maci from herself.

"Thanks." Eventually, I find something to actually say to Will.

"We'll find her." He says, wanting to throw some of his positive vibes in my direction.

Even Will realises that Maci being pregnant changes everything.

I've never gone searching for her in this way before. Never.

Usually, she's left to do her own druggie thing, until she eventually crawls back to our mother and ultimately ends up in a new rehab or on a new course of therapy.

But the baby, the baby changes everything.

The life inside of her is more important than the selfish needs of my sister. Only, I don't think Maci is thinking the same way that I and others are thinking. And I think I knew that yesterday. I was just too sickened to admit it to myself.

That was my mistake.

My denial. 

My stupidity.

The blame and the anger I feel about that, are now beginning to actually suffocate me from the inside out.

I should have told mom about my fears that Maci was about to run.

I should have told her.

Then maybe, she could have done more to stop Maci from running in the first place.

"This is all my fault, Will." Quietly, I free some of all that is inwardly beginning to choke me.

Will turns his head hard. "How is any of this your fault? This is Maci, remember? This is what she always does, Rhys. No matter how many lifelines you throw to your sister, she always fucks shit up." He waits, waiting to see my reaction to his candid and angry expulsion of words. When I don't, he decides to rein in his own frustrations just a little. "You're her brother. I get it, I do. When you found out she was pregnant, you knew that baby was going to need someone to fight its corner, because deep down, Rhys, you knew that Maci wasn't going to." Again, he wavers around on my silence before warily continuing. "Maci is an addict. Her being pregnant doesn't change that, bud. You know how this shit works...only Maci can want to help herself."

My despondent gaze slowly lifts. "I wanted to believe that Maci was getting better, Will. I kidded myself into thinking that I was getting a little chunk of my sister back. But you're right, Maci is Maci. And yet, there's still an optimistic piece of me that is hoping that my sister is going to do right by herself and her child. I want her to prove me wrong. To prove us all wrong. I'm wanting to get the call that she just needed some time out, and that she and her baby are safe. That's all I want."

Will is looking at me, and I know that Slam himself is looking at me from the rear view mirror. Not wanting to puncture the only bit of optimism I have left, my friend soon sympathetically replies. "We all want that, Rhys...we really do." He then smiles, my hope maybe getting a little all too infectious. "As yet, no one has seen or heard from her, so that's a good thing, right?" His eyes are brightly green and wide as they stare back at me.

Shrugging, I chuck him a friendly half-smile. "We'll see."

Time is passing, and with each second and minute that does pass, the heavier my unease becomes.

Maci obviously doesn't want to be found. Usually, she doesn't care whether she is found or not. If she's not going to any of the places that she usually does, and she's not with or using the usual people that she does—where is she and with whom is she with?—that alone, fills me with such dark and burdensome dread.

As I'm getting dragged deeper down by that unstoppable dread, Jules calls me. As soon as I answer my cell, he is already headlong into what he has to say. "Rhys, apparently your sister was seen about two hours ago near Skid Row. No one is admitting to dealing anything to her. Only that she's been seen in that area."

"Shit." The curse rolls off my tongue at the same time as my stomach rolls over with expanding fear.

Will is now tapping my arm. "Where is she?" He loudly whispers beside me.

I quickly repeat what Jules just told me. "Maci has been seen in Skid Row a couple of hours ago."

Will tenses up, grimacing tightly. "Shiiiiit!" Yeah, he's now rolling out the exact same curse upon hearing where my sister was last seen.

Skid Row is notorious. Skid Row is where all the low life's go to get their high's. Normal people never go there. Tourists are told to certainly not go there, and yet, that is apparently where my sister was last seen.

This isn't good.

Not good at all.

"Slam, get us to Skid Row!" All of what I've been feeling is now being soaked in my adrenaline. Rubbing my tense hand down my fraught cheek, I then speak to Jules who is still on the line. "Stop whatever you and Cam are doing now, Jules, and concentrate on Skid Row."

"We're already on our way there."

With us all on our way to the place where my sister and the child she is carrying really shouldn't be, the dread inside of me only darkens.

**

For nearly an hour, we have driven around and around; trying and failing, to look as inconspicuous as possible in a white Lincoln MKZ with blacked out passenger windows—ridiculous when you actually think about it. As we crawl beside the dirty and trash-strewn sidewalks from the safety of the car, we desperately try to see Maci's face in amongst the many other troubled faces that we see.

Down every dark and dingy street that we go, the homeless and the lost individuals, all seem to exist within a community that dangerously dwells at the bottom of society; all living in long lines of tents and makeshift canopies, with their belongings stuffed inside shopping carts or battered old bags.

Skid Row really is somewhere that only the desperate and the damaged would choose to come. Seeing this place for myself, actually makes me feel physically sick. To know that my pregnant sister has brought herself here, that she might still be here, gives me a really bad feeling. To think that she has been snaking her way through the destitute and the undesirables, through all of the pimps and the prostitutes, just to get to the dealers and the dope fiends—makes me fear for her safety.

"I can't believe she'd come to a place like this." I morosely tell Will.

His reaction is quick. "I've heard of this place, but shit, it's an eye opener, for sure." Are Will's own perturbed thoughts about Skid Row.

No longer wanting to internalise all that's heavily bothering me, I start offloading some of it. "Maci has done some crazy shit over the years, but this, to put herself in so much risk...even for her, this is bad."

Will agrees with a fraught frown. "I know."

My words of worry quickly morph into words of sudden anger. "What in the hell is she thinking, Will? She's pregnant for fuck sake. Why come here?"

Shrugging hard, Will looks at a total loss. "I don't know. Obviously, Maci isn't thinking straight, right now." Tapping his hand on his knee with anxiousness, he then looks at me with friendly consideration. "This really isn't looking good, Rhys...but you can't blame yourself for any of this. Just like you always do, you have given your sister a chance. A chance to get clean. A chance to get her shit together. A chance to be a mother. If she has blown this chance, you can't take the rap for that. Whatever happens next, is all on your sister's head, Rhys...not yours."

Grateful for his honest and kind camaraderie, I turn my head with a thankful smile as I vaguely stare out the car window. "I don't know, Will. Everything I ever seem to do for Maci, always seems to be the wrong thing. None of it ever seems enough."

Just as he's about to reply, I notice Mom calling. "Any news?" I quickly and anxiously ask.

Mom doesn't actually say anything, all I can hear is her struggling to breathe, struggling to get a single and audible sound from out of her throat. "Mom?" My panic is starting to swell. "Mom, what's wrong?" Still, none of her words come. Only strangled sobs and stuttering sounds can be heard. "Mom, what's happened?" More of my panic swells and more of my heartbeat I can hear thumping around in my ears. "Mom, please? Tell me what's happened?"

"M...Maci." I listen hard, trying to hear my mother's fragmented and subdued voice. "G...gone. She's...she's gone, Rhys."

Although I heard my mom, my brain hasn't quite caught up with what is happening. Fear is now beginning to suck the oxygen from out of my constricted lungs. "What do you mean? Where has Maci gone?" Cold confusion and numb denial are now at war with one another. I think I know what my mom is trying to tell me, I just don't want to accept what she is telling me. "Answer me, where has she gone?" My voice rages. It rages its own war on all that is occurring. "I need to know. Where has Maci gone?" I'm shouting down the line now—shouting at my Mom, at the gut-twisting situation, at shitty Skid Row, at the whole fucking world—I'm shouting at them all.

Mom sniffs really hard, whimpering as she does. "Dead. She's dead."

My eyes slowly shut, wanting to shut out all that has just been whispered out of my mother's lips as the fear drains away any energy I have left within me.

I can't open my eyes.

I don't want to open my eyes.

My breaths feel crippled.

My heart feels crippled.

My thoughts are crippled.

Unable to move. The phone slips from between my fingers and I start pulling away from my awful reality.

This can't be happening.

It can't be true.

This can't be happening.

It can't be true.

This cannot be fucking happening.

It cannot be fucking true.

My brain keeps repeating my miserable mantra, over and over and over again. It's trying to undo all of the damage, trying to unsay all that my mom has just said. But she did say them. She did say that Maci is dead. She said my sister was gone. No matter how hard my mind is trying to protect me from those horrifying words, those words are still managing to push themselves through my numbness and through my denial. 

Dead.

Gone.

Gone.

Dead.

They also keep repeating themselves to me.

At this point, I'm too paralysed to react.

I don't know how to respond.

I don't know where to go or what to do.

"Rhys?" Will is warily placing his comforting hand on my shoulder, unsure of everything himself. "Slam is taking you to your moms...okay?"

His voice is nothing but an echo, but I find myself still nodding. "Okay."

But nothing was okay. Everything was far from okay.

Maci is dead.

Her baby is dead.

And I am to blame for that.