Phone? Check.

Coat with twenty dollars in its pocket? Check.

Butter knife? Check.

I shoved the keys into my white minivan, turning them and pulling my car out of the driveway.

I was ready. I was ready to...to what? What was I supposed to do? I was half scared to death, but I knew for certain that, no matter what, I would never abandon Nessa. Not alone on a rooftop. Not even if this was a giant prank just to laugh at me about. Well, I guess that was what the butter knife was for.

I didn't want to believe it was real and it was practically impossible for me to. Every second, new excuses popped into my mind to prove that what I'd just been told was impossible, which it was. Why would someone ever want to take Nessa...and then use her to get to me? Why did they want to meet me so badly? This couldn't be just a regular criminal...if this was actually real. BIG if.

For some reason, my ideas began floating through my mind as I drove into the mall parking lot.

Everything is only how I want it to seem.

I parked in an open space and speed walked into the mall, through a side entrance closest to the only stairway I knew existed in the Hiltonnian Mall. I took the steps two at a time, propelling myself up level after level until I found an open door at the very top.

It hadn't been a lie.

Trying to not let it faze me, I continued my speed walk, which might as well have been running at this point. My boots pounded on the rooftops pavement as I navigated my way around dark figures jutting up from the roof, the only thing allowing me to avoid tripping and falling on my face being the moonlight.

Then, I saw her.

Nessa.

She was at the very edge of the roof, her blonde hair floating beneath her head, swaying quietly in the night air. Her body was leaning over in an awkward position. Then I noticed the other dark figure on the roof who was holding her, leaning her precariously over the edge.

"NO!" I screamed, sprinting across the rooftop now, every thought escaping my mind as I only saw Nessa, practically falling off the roof already. I could not let that happen.

I was a couple steps away from grabbing her when I felt a chill run down my spine as I noticed the dark shine of a small gun held in the dark figure's hand. It pointed directly at me.

"Hello, Myla." The voice seemed to slither through the air and surround me, bringing me back to less than thirty minutes earlier when I'd heard the exact same voice speak those exact same words to me.

I mustered up as much courage as possibly before asking the one question I'd been burning to ask ever since I'd gotten the original phone call. "What do you want from me?"

The figure began pacing back and forth next to the edge, careful to make sure Nessa was always at risk of falling off. "Well that's the question of the night isn't it?" The figure paused, and then looked straight at me, allowing me to see the dark shadows of the man's face. I continued standing there beneath the dark stare of the gun's point, unable to move without risking either Nessa's or my own death.

"An entire explanation would be too complicated. Let's just say, you're important, and I need you. So let's stop wasting time, and get right to the point." He began pulling Nessa away from the edge, and with every inch away from death my tense muscles relaxed more.

"If you move, I promise you I will kill Nessa," he stated as he walked toward me, gun pointed at my chest. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a long metal chain. I could feel myself begin to shake and I wanted to punch myself for it. It bothered me how much he scared me.

Just as the man began wrapping the chain around my chest there was a flurry of footsteps and the man unexpectedly disappeared from right in front of me, the metal pulling taught around me in an instant making it difficult to breathe. I gasped at the change in space and fell over without anything allowing me to stay upright any longer. With my arms tied against my body, I couldn't even use my hands to cushion the fall to the cement roof.

"HOW DID YOU GET HERE?!" screamed an unfamiliar voice from the ground next to me. I tilted my head in that direction and had trouble understanding what I was seeing.

Because a boy around my age had appeared out of nowhere and was now on top of my almost captor.