Patton pulled into the parking lot of the school and his eyes widened. There were police cars everywhere.

"Patton? You still there?" Logan asked through the phone.

"Yeah...I am," Patton felt tears coming to his eyes.

"I'll come out to you. Okay?" Logan stated.

"Hm..." Patton nodded. He knew Logan couldn't see him, but he hoped that the teacher understood.

"I'll be right out, but I'm going to hang up okay." Logan warned. "I love you." And the line went dead. Patton put his phone down and the tears started flowing down his cheeks. My child is gone. What's going to happen to him? Why did they take him?

Patton tried to hide his face from view. He could tell people were coming towards him. Is it Logan or someone else?

"Patton?" Logan opened the car door. Patton tried to wipe the tears away from his eyes.

"Logan! I'm so sorry," Patton hugged the taller male.

"For what? This wasn't your fault. You have no reason to blame yourself." Logan starting running his fingers through Patton's hair.

"If...if I wouldn't have gotten a flat tire I could've been here. I could've-" Patton mumbled into Logan's chest.

"The tire is not your fault. Incidents happen and it was an unfortunate event, but we can't let that stop us from making progress. The police are already looking for him and will let us know if they get any leads. In the meantime we must do our best to make sure we stay able to help in any way we can."

Patton nodded against Logan's chest. "He's so scared Logan."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~'

Roman ran all the way back to his house. The first thing he did was pull out his phone and dialed a number.

"Hello?" Joan answered.

"Hey Joan. Can you come over?" Roman asked.

"I'm at work right now." They responded.

"Can you get off?" Roman internally hoped they could. Joan always says how nice their boss is. After all, he let them get off for the play.

"I can't," Joan responded after a minute. "I'm covering for my boss. He had some kind of appointment he needed to attend. I'm not sure how long until he gets back."

"Oh, what if I went there?"

"I think that would work. I can text you the address."

"Yes please do. I'll see you in a little bit then." Roman said and hung up the phone.

~~~~~'

After Joan texted Roman their phone rang again and seeing it was Patton they answered it.

"Hey Patton, I was actually-"

"Joan," The speaker on the other end answered.

"Who's this?" Joan questioned.

"Logan. I didn't have your number and Patton said I could use his cellphone. Sorry for any inconveniences." Logan said

"It's alright Logan. I just didn't recognize your voice for a moment. You hardly ever call. So what's up?" They responded.

"We've had a family emergency and we are wondering if you can watch the dog shelter until he can get back."

"Yes, Patton has helped me so much. I'd love to help him."

"Thank you." Logan hung up the phone and Joan sighed. Roman was going to be there shortly.

~~~~'

"Joan? Are you there?" Roman called out. He hoped this was the right place. Roman started looking around. There were dog puns all over the room and pictures lining the walls as well as artwork done by children with their names and ages. There were also several pictures of employees; Joan included, as well as families with dogs. As Roman continued looking at the images there was one picture that caught Roman's attention. It was a picture of two males with the boy Dirk had taken. Roman felt guilt as he looked at the three smiling. They look so happy.

"That's my boss," Joan said from behind Roman. "The one with the light blue shirt. The other one is Logan, he's an English teacher and the last one is their child. Virgil was recently adopted."

"They...they look happy." Roman said. Joan nodded.

"Yeah, Patton was so excited when he told me that they were adopting a child and even more excited when Virgil got to come to work with him."

"Joan?" Roman turned and looked at his friend. "I need your help."

"That is why you are here, right?" They replied smiling.

"Oh, right. Yeah, of course," Roman said. "You know about what happened to my grandpa." Joan nodded his smile fading.

"Well, If you were to know someone possibly related to him. What would you do?"

"It's not what would I do...It's what did you do?" They said.

Roman sighed. "I may have found the child of the stranger and someone agreed to help me question him. But I realized what I did was wrong because this person found out that the kid was the child of the person who gave them a scar while they were in jail."

"You went to a criminal for help?"

"well...yeah...we were friends a while ago and it was a last resort type thing."

"Last resort. Roman there are many other options you could've taken. Why didn't you come to me first?" Joan sighed. "Never mind that." They continued before Roman could say anything. "What happened to the child?"

"He...uh...got kidnapped by my used-to-be friend." Roman admitted.

"Kidnapped? We need to contact his parents if they don't know already. You weren't thinking were you? Imagine how scared they would be to find out their child was kidnapped." Roman flinched and hunched his shoulders feeling the shame at Joan's statement. "Do you know anything about the child, besides him being adopted?" Joan looked at Roman.

"Yeah...I knew one of his parents, but recently learned the other one and his name." Roman glanced at the photo of the family. Joan's eyes trailed where Roman's was looking. Realization dawned on them.

"Virgil?!" Joan exclaimed.