Chapter 1

1

August 16, 2019

Three months, that's all it was, three months. She would be so busy making new friends that time would fly by, Elana had told Gabrielle the day she had left for camp. Just three short months. Now, standing at the bus stop, with her "WELCOME HOME" sign in her hands, these last few minutes seemed to crawl by at geological speed. She missed her daughter so much and couldn't wait to hold her in her arms again.

The letters Gabrielle sent home had helped. It was a sweet, old-fashioned way to keep in touch. It reminded her of when she would write to her family back in Puerto Rico after her dad had moved them to the mainland when she was ten.They had been exchanging texts as well during the first month but those had stopped suddenly. She was concerned at first but figured that since the letters kept coming, Gabrielle must have either lost or damaged her phone. That was definitely a Gabrielle thing to do.

She was brought back from her reminiscing by the sound of the bus coming. Squinting her eyes, she saw a little black dot off on the horizon; then, it began to get bigger and bigger. Small shapes began to form around the dot, which quickly became more defined. Eventually, the amorphous mass solidified into the shape of a bus, which grew larger and louder the closer it got. It took all her strength not to start jumping up and down in joy.

When it finally came to a stop in front of her, she peered through the windows, trying to see Gabrielle, but couldn't. While this was a bit odd, normally Gabrielle would have been pressed up against the window looking for her making faces. Still, it wasn't too alarming.

Elana watched, one by one, the kids got off the bus. Some went to the arms of waiting parents, others just walked off to dissolve into the haze of the crowd. She was struck by how none of the kids looked excited to be home. They all looked pretty miserable, in fact. It was like their spirits had been broken.

Elana found herself experiencing a sharp pang of guilt stabbing her in the heart. Had she done the right thing? Would Gabrielle come off the bus, equally broken? Dear God, she hoped not. She wanted her daughter reigned in, not to have her spirit crushed. She waited and watched with increasing anxiety; hoping Gabrielle would come bounding down the bus steps, backpack in tow; the same happy-go-lucky girl she had been, just a little more down to Earth. She didn't know what she would do if Gabrielle came out as emotionally broken as the other kids were.

Lost in worried thought, Elana was snapped back to reality by the sound of the bus pulling away. She looked around quickly but didn't see Gabrielle anywhere. A new worry started to overtake her; had her daughter not come back at all? She began to dart around madly, shouting, "GABRIELLE! GABRIELLE! DONDE ESTAS? GABRIELLE, AQUI, AQUI," but there was no answer.

She looked around even more frantically, hoping to see her daughter, or at the very least, someone who might be able to help. She locked eyes on one of the dead-eyed children, getting ready to climb into a silver SUV. She started running toward him, begging him to wait. The boy just turned and looked at her, emotionless. His father, a particularly blonde-haired and blue-eyed man, looked on in horror at the mad, brown woman running up to them.

"Wait! Wait!" Elana called, waving her hand. "My daughter, Gabrielle, she went to the camp with you. Have you seen her."

The man didn't know what to do. He had heard of how dangerous these unhinged wetbacks could be. He was disgusted by her and her over-the-top display of emotion, but he was equally fearful of her as well. "Listen, Miss . . ." he started to say before she cut him off.

"Flores. Elana Flores. My daughter, Gabrielle Flores, she, I didn't see her on the bus or get off of it. I just want to know if your son had seen her. I show him picture." Elana's English was exceptional but worry had caused her to slip her words. Proud as she was, she had more important things on her mind than correcting herself (especially for a man who looked like he would think of her as a savage either way). She pulled out her phone, held it above her head with her right hand, and pointed to it with her left. The father, still looking fearful, nodded. Elana quickly scrolled through her pictures until she found a perfect one of Lucia. She thrust it in front of the boy, "My dadaughter Gabrielle," she said.

The boy looked at it blankly. "It looks like a boy," he said in an unemotional deadpan. His voice, together with his visage, produced the effect that he was less a child, but more of the reanimated corpse of one. "Either way, I didn't see them."

"She missed the bus? Another is coming?" Elana pleaded more than asked; hoping against hope that there would some good news, some salvation from this dawning nightmare.

"There's no other bus. We all got on the same bus together. Even if there was, they were never at camp," the zombified boy said flatly.

"Please, you're mistaken. I got her letters. She was there. Please, look again!" Elana pushed her phone closer to the boy's face, hoping he would say something different.

"Listen, Rosita," the father started to say impatiently.

"Elana. My name is Elana; not Rosita or Conswella or Juanita," she hissed between rage-clenched teeth.

"I'm sorry, Elana. I feel bad for you not knowing where your daughter is, but if my son here says he never saw her, then he never saw her." He opened his car door and got in, his son did the same. He started the car and put it in drive. He then rolled his window down and looked at Elana. "Maybe she ran off," he said with a twisted, hate-filled smirk, "I mean, that is what you people are good at, isn't it?" He then sped off.

Elana screamed and cursed at him in both Spanish and English. She then looked around a bit more before collapsing to her knees.

2

"Hello, thanks for calling Camp Dream Catcher. I'm Tiffany; how may I help you?" The voice, which would have sounded obnoxiously upbeat and chipper under the best of circumstances, but now sounding malevolent and mocking, asked. How dare it sound so happy, Elena thought as her world was crashing down around her. It was sadistic and evil.

"Yes, hello, this is Elana Flores, and I am calling about my daughter Gabrielle." Elana paused to see if that was sufficient for the hatefully happy voice called Tiffany to start giving her the information she wanted. Instead, she was greeted by a silence so pure, so absolute, she wondered if Tiffany was even still on the line.

"She was supposed to come home today, but she wasn't on the bus. I asked some of the other campers if they had seen her, but they all said no. I was just wondering if she was still there or had gotten on another bus, maybe?" Elana sat, listening for a reply while praying to every god, angel, and ancestor she could think of for this all to be some sort of mistake, and everything would be fine.

"Yes, hello. Ms. Flores," a male voice now said, "this is Michael Grant, head of Camp Dream Catcher. How are you doing?" This voice was very polished and practiced. It was a voice that was honed from years in the sales industry. Elana guessed either car salesman or insurance.

How am I doing, she wanted to scream into the phone. My daughter is missing. That's how I'm doing. "I'm just trying to figure out where my daughter, Gabrielle, is," she replied as best she could.

"From our records, Gabrielle left this morning with the rest of the campers." He was trying to sound reassuring and authoritive; however, Elana thought she heard a trace of worry and fear in his voice.

"I talked to some of the other children, and they said they never saw her. I even showed them her picture and they said they never saw her at the camp." Elana could feel both fear and anger rising up in her. Something wasn't right here; she could feel it.

There was another uncomfortable pause. Elana began to wonder ruefully if a third voice would now get online to not answer her. Finally, Michael started to speak again. "Gabrielle was here, Ms. Flores," his voice was very slowly and deliberate. "She had a wonderful time and hoped to come again. Our counselors helped her on the bus and waved goodbye. I can't tell you anymore than that. Good luck, Ms. Flores." And with that, he hung up.

She wanted to immediately call back but figured that doing so would yield pretty much the same results. She looked over at the stack of letters she had received from Gabrielle. Those were her letters, right? She had been there, right? She had also texted Gabrielle as well during the first month, and she said she was there and having a good time. No, something didn't add up. She had one last avenue to go down, and with a deep sigh of regret, she started typing in the number

************************************************

Hector Flores sat in his recliner, drinking ice tea and watching the news. The whole world was going to Hell, and he loved it. It was the only thing that made him feel better about his own life. Materialisticaly, he was doing fine. His consulting business was doing well, his house and his car were all nice. He was comfortably middle-class. No, it wasn't his economics that burned his soul. It was the fact he wasn't able to see his daughter. His ex and the family court of California saw to that.

The sound of his phone vibrating caught his attention. He picked it up to see who was calling and saw his ex-wife's number, big and bold, on the screen. He groaned to himself. If she was calling, that meant it was bad news. The only time she ever called him was when it was bad news. He thought about ignoring it but then thought it might be about Gabrielle and decided to answer.

"Wha," he started to say but was immediately cut off by Elana.

"Is Gabrielle there with you?" Elana's voice sounded anxious, depressed, fearful; as if she were on the verge of a breakdown. Her tone was such, that what she actually said failed to register with him.

"What?" Hector asked, confused, trying to understand what was going on.

"Gabrielle. Is Gabrielle there with you?" Her voice was anguished, bordering on hysterical.

"No! Why would Gabrielle be here? You pretty much made sure I'd never see her again," he answered bitterly.

"Don't start with me, Hector! I'm in no mood to deal with your shit right now," Elana said angrily. She then paused to let her anger dissipated a bit before continuing tearfully. "Gabrielle, Gabrielle is gone. She's missing."

Hector dropped the phone in his lap as the world dissolved away, leaving only Elana's words to wrap themselves around him like some spectral blanket, slowly smothering him. He picked his phone back up, acting purely on autopilot. "How?" Hector whispered, barely able to breathe.

Elana explained everything that had happened. "Gabrielle, she was constantly getting into trouble. She was getting into fights, skipping school, her principal said she was on the verge of getting expelled from school. He suggested I send her to a camp that specialized in troubled youths. It would be over the summer, he said he had worked with them in the past and they did good work, so I signed her up. When I went to pick her up, she wasn't there. I called the camp but they said that she had gotten on the bus. You were my last hope. I thought maybe she had come to see you for some reason," Elana started to break down, weeping uncontrollably. The last shred of hope she had left her, leaving her feeling empty and broken.

"Get ready, " Hector said with equal parts determination and fury. "Get everything you think you might need. I'm coming over, and we're going to the police!"

3

Sarah Redcloud was mentally preparing her resignation letter for the hundredth time that day while mulling over some paperwork. She was one of only a few non-white detectives (and the only indigenous one) in her department. It meant that not only did she have to put up with a bunch of sexist crap; she also had to deal with a heaping helping of racism as well. The fact that she was still on the force was more a testimony to her spitefulness than actual love for the job.

As she went through the motions of doing her job, she heard the chief call her name. Slowly, she got up, closing her eyes and shaking her head, wondering what fresh misery awaited her, and walked into his office.

The chief was an I'll proportioned man. His legs were too long, and his arms were too short for his body. His face was fat and round, but the rest of him looked as if he hadn't so much as seen a sandwich since 97. His mouth and eyes were about half the size of what would have been considered aesthetically pleasing with a nose and ears that were twice as much. He was bald on top with a ring of thick, curly, salt and pepper hair around his head.

"Yes?" she asked, irritated that not only had she been interrupted, but that she now had to deal with him.

"We got a missing person case. Fourteen-old girl, the parents are waiting in interrogation room three." He picked up some papers and handed them to her. His speech patterns were always a bit off, like an alien or a computer trying to approximate human speech, coming close, but not quite there yet.

"Why me?" she asked bluntly, already guessing the answer.

"They're your people," he answered back with a mocking smile.

Sarah wanted wanted to punch him in his chubby face. "By 'my people', do you mean Lakota or brown?" She didn't even try to hide the bitterness in her voice.

"See for yourself. I can't tell the difference," he smirked.

If we're ever in a fire fight together, I'm going to shoot you, she thought to herself. Picturing herself blowing his brains out made her smile.

************************************************

Sarah entered the room and saw a Hispanic couple sitting at the table. The man reminded her of Gomez Addams. The woman was pudgy but not fat, svelte by mid-western standards. She had long, black hair that was tied into a tight bun and wire rimmed glasses. She had scrubs on which told her that she worked in the medical field (a nurse most likely). Seeing them, she quickly gathered two things: one, these were the parents of the missing girl, andbtwo, they were divorced. They looked worried and scared but took no steps to console one another. Divorce always made things more difficult due to the fact that most couples were more interested in attacking each other than providing useful information.

"Hola, Senor y Senora Flores. Soy Detective Redcloud," Sarah started to say but stopped when the man waved his hand.

"We both speak English. I was born here and she's been her since she was ten." There was a quiet indignation in his voice that said he was so over people just assuming he couldn't or didn't speak English.

"Very well," Sarah said as she sat down. She flipped through some of the papers she had before looking up and talking again. "So, your daughter Gabrielle is missing. Do you know about when she went missing?"

Elana shook her head. "She was at camp for the summer. I got letters from her and we texted each other for the first month, but then she stopped. I was still getting letters from her, so I thought she had just lost or damaged her phone. Gabrielle was always doing things like that. When I went to pick her up, she wasn't on the bus. I asked some of the other children if they had seen her and they all said no."

Elana stopped to wipe her eyes and compose herself before continuing. "I called the camp, but they said she left on the bus and hung up on me. I then called Hector here to see if she was with him, but," Elana stopped again, unable to go on.

"And you're dad I take it?" Sarah asked politely but sternly.

"Yes. I don't have much involvement with my daughter. I have some visitation rights, but they're rarely enforced. I didn't even know she had gone away to camp," he said, ending with giving Elana a hateful side-eye.

Elana snapped around and glared at Hector. "Oh! So this is all my fault?" she angrily asked.

"I am merely telling the truth," Hector replied with righteous indignation.

Sarah looked down and rolled her eyes. Here it comes: the yelling, the blaming, it was always same. She wondered if it was ever possible for divorced parents to love their kids more than they hated each other.

"Mister and misses Flores, please. This isn't going to help find Gabrielle. Just calm down please." Sarah's voice was flat and firm. She knew she had to get things under control as soon as possible if she ever wanted to have a hope of finding this kid. Luckily the two settled themselves and retreated to their corners, allowing Sarah to begin again.

"Ms. Flores, you said Gabrielle was supposed to have gone to camp; what was the name of that camp?" Sarah's voice was softer now, more sympathetic.

"It was called Camp Dream Catcher. It was highly recommended to me by Gabrielle's principal. Gabrielle wasn't doing so well. It wasn't anything drugs or anything like that. She was just getting in to fights a lot, skipping school, and her grades were falling. The principal was worried, so he recommended this camp."

"I take this is a camp geared for troubled youth, am I right?" Sarah asked, trying to get as many pieces in place as she could before launching her official investigation.

"Si. He said that he had worked with the camp before and always had positive results, " Elana replied sadly.

"You should have talked to me about it," Hector said, turning away from Elana, rubbing his face with his left hand.

Elana twisted herself around as fast as she could, pointing and wagging her finger at Hector. "What makes you think you deserve a say in Gabrielle's life? You weren't there! You left us behind. I've been doing everything all by myself!"

"That's because you never wanted me around!" Hector angrily shouted back. "You told me you didn't need me!"

"BECAUSE YOU WERE NEVER THERE HECTOR!"

"Because I was working! I was building a business, putting food on the table, a roof over our heads!"

"Your dick in any punta that would lay with you!"

Sarah slammed her hand on the table which caused Camilla and Hector to snap out of their argument and look at her. "You two can either yell at and blame each other; which if you do, you both can fuck off right now; or, you can pull your fucking heads out of your asses and actually help me find your daughter!"

Both Flores looked at Sarah like two small children who'd just been yelled at by their mother. They shrank down in their seats in fear and shame. Sarah glared at them, letting them know they were on thin ice "I'm going to need screen shots of all your texts with Gabrielle. Also, all the letters she wrote you and the name and contact information of the camp she went to."

"Si," Camilla said and handed over a stack of letters and the brochure for the camp. "I thought you might need them. If you give me your number, I'll send you the screen shots right away."

Sarah took everything Elana handed her and gave them a quick look over before placing them down on the table. "Thank you," she said. "Now, Ms. Flores, Did you notice anything about the camp when you dropped her off?"

Elana shook her head. "I didn't take her, she took the bus."

"Ok. So you took her to the bus stop and saw her get on the bus?"

Elana's face froze in terror.

"Ms. Flores?" Sarah asked, her curiosity piqued.

"I was running late for work, Gabrielle was dawdling, like normal. I kissed her goodbye and told her not to miss her bus."

"So you never actually saw her get on the bus, did you?" This suddenly affected the entire timeline now. If Gabrielle had disappeared before she even left for camp, that means she had been missing for 3 months now. Then again, if she hadn't made it to camp, who had been writing Elana and why did the camp say she was there?

"N-n-n-no. But she's fourteen; she could be trusted," Camilla sounded like she was pleading for affirmation that she didn't do anything bad.

Hector slapped his face with his palm and cursed.

"Don't Hector! You have no right to judge me!" Camilla snapped back, her right index finger pointed straight between his eyes.

"Ms. Flores, Elana, please stay focused. Did Gabrielle actually want to go to this camp?" Sarah quickly asked, trying to keep the interview from going off the rails again.

Elana looked down in shame. "No. No she didn't," she said softly. She then looked back up with some desperate hope in her eyes. "But I got the letters. And the camp said she was there!"

"Ok. I'll start there, but I have to consider all possible avenues. Now, I just have a few more questions alright?"

Elana nodded her head.

"Alright. Now, you said Gabrielle was getting into fights at school. Can you tell me what that was about?"

"Gabrielle, she's a very . . . , uh, very special girl," Elana said with noticeable reluctance.

"I'm sure she is Ms. Flores." Sarah replied, trying not to sound like a condescending bitch.

Elana shook her head, knowing that the detective was patronizing her. "No, I mean, she has a special condition. She's transgender. Her original name was Gabriel. She came out to us when she was four. She, what you call, socially transitioned, before she started school. Everything had been fine until she started middle school and she was forced to change for gym class. She's on puberty blockers, but she still has her parts. Once word had gotten out, she was being bullied pretty bad."

Sarah was stunned silent for a minute. This complicated things exponentially. "I see," she mumbled out before she was able to regain herself. "I'm going to have check with the school to see who she was having the most issues with. We could be looking at a possible hate crime."

"Please, do whatever you need to," Elana said, a million horrible possibilities playing out inside her head.

4

The car ride back to Hector's was a quiet, miserable experience, thick with an oppressive tension that crushed any willingness or need to reach out to the other. Grief, anger, bitterness, fear were all swirling together in a toxic, soul killing poison. It simultaneously kept them apart yet refused to let them separate. Even when they pulled up to his house, they both just sat there, unable to move or to talk. Elana eventually reached for the door but stopped when Hector spoke.

"You should have told me," he said in a quiet, angry, accusatory voice. "I should have been there. Kids need fathers, too."

Elana slowly turned to him with contempt radiating out of every pore on her body. "Yes, you should have been. So why weren't you?"

Hector snapped his head around, ready to unleash all his pain upon his ex. "Because you wouldn't allow me to! You shut me out, kept me away from my daughter! It wasn't enough for you to hate me, but you had to make sure she did as well!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Elana fired back, ready for battle, needing to do battle, "was I shutting you out when you were laying in the bars? Or going to bed with any two bit punta you could pick up? I never knew when or if you were coming home on Friday or Saturday nights. That's why I stopped making dinner for you. I was tired of seeing it grow cold and having to throw it out!"

"I was working all the time! Two, three jobs sometimes! Paying for our house, your schooling, our kid, our familia! I would work and work and work, and then I'd come home to you, my wife, and you would shut me out! A man has needs! He needs release! You weren't available!"

"I wasn't avaliable?! I wasn't? You ever think I was tired, too? I was going to school, cleaning the house, cooking the meals, looking after Gabrielle, and working a part-time job as well! You ever think maybe I needed 'release'? I wanted, I begged you to just stay with me. Hold my hand, do the dishes, let me rest un poco minuto, but all you wanted was me to lay down under you. I was your maid, mother, and whore, but never your partner, never your wife."

"And what was I, Elana? A paycheck? A security guard? What role did I have in your world? I wanted to hold your hand. I also wanted you to hold mine."

"The only thing you wanted me to hold was your cock," she said in a low, broken voice.

"I only wanted you to love me," he replied quietly, leaning against the car seat.

"Then why did you leave?" Elana asked with a cold fury.

"You divorced me, remember?"

"Hector, you left us long before I ever filled," Elana said with quiet resignation. She was too spent, too drained to continue this endless back and forth of blame and anger. She opened up the door, got out, went to her car, and drove off.

Hector just sat in anger, rage, despair, shame, regret, and a thousand other emotions whirling and slamming against his brain and heart. Eventually, he forced his way out and into his house. As soon as he entered, he looked all around his living room. Everything was so neat and tidy. Nothing was out of place. It was the home of a self-made man, a man who crawled from the lowest lows to achieve success. This was his home, his story, his testimony.

A primal scream slowly built in his stomach, rushed up his throat, and erupted from his mouth. He grabbed the coat rack and threw it as hard as he could at no place in particular. He rushed around, knocking down books, pictures, and nick nacks. Any and everything he could get his hands on, he sent flying across the house or down to the ground. He tossed over chairs and flipped tables. He tore a clock off his wall and punched a mirror, causing the glass to explode everywhere, lacerating his face and hand. Blood poured from the wounds as he collapsed to the floor on all fours, panting like a mongrel, lolling his head back and forth, reduced to the most base and animalistic level.

Then, something caught his eye, and he snapped back to sentience. It was a picture, now broken and torn, of him, Elana, and Gabrielle when she was about 2 years old. They looked so happy, so much like a family. He reached out and picked it up, his blood staining it further. He started to both laugh and cry at the same time. He rolled over on his back, shards of glass stabbing him, but he was indifferent to them. To the night, to the sky, to the universe, God, Karma, anyone, he started screaming, "GABRIELLE! GABRIELLE! GABRIELLE," over and over.

**********************************************

Elana walked into her house and was greeted by a deafening silence. The house didn't just seem empty, but it was an engulfing, negative space. She didn't so much walk in it as she was sucked through a cosmic sea of nothingness by an invisible black hole, pulling her by some perverse hand, to Gabrielle's room. She sat on her daughter's bed, looking out at the night sky. The room and the outside world existed in parallel dimensions, side by side, neither touching or affecting the other. This was her world now, a world apart, separate, a world of silence and darkness. It was a world without Gabrielle.

Elana broke down, weeping in that the way only those who have experienced the most profound loss could recognize or understand. When it was done, she would play the blame game, ask herself the tough questions, rip herself apart upon the hooks of guilt, but for now, all she could do was cry.