Young Writers Society

“Which building should we check first?” Alex asked, finishing her food.

“The Empire State Building is closest, then the Chrysler Building. If you want to check it, the One World Trade Center is about a thirty minute drive.” Zoey said, handing Jonah another pill.

“The One World Trade Center seems wrong to me.” Elizabeth said, “Just, something about it makes me feel like Charles wouldn’t be there.”

“Maybe because it’s a newer building.” Alex said, “But, if we have time, maybe we can check it.”

"We can check it. Just in case." Avery piped up.

Elizabeth looked flustered. "But-"

"Liz, c'mon, ya never know." Zoey said. Reluctantly, Elizabeth nodded yes.

"We should go to the closest first. Or we can split up, but I honestly don't suggest that. If we do encounter the kidnapper, no one wants to face BM alone." Avery explained.

Jonah sat up straight. "Empire State Building, here we come!" He was happy they were finally going to look for his best friend.

Everyone got up to get ready. Zoey gave them all sunscreen to put on. Jonah happily bounced on his heels, put on his shoes, and followed everyone out. Elizabeth locked the door.

"If it's going to be too cramped in Ave's car, we could just take Charles'." Jonah suggested. Avery wasn't insulted. It was true. It would be cramped. Everyone followed Elizabeth out of the apartment and towards Charles' car.

It was a Mercedes GLS and looked like the newest model. Alex crawled into the middle row with Zoey, Avery sat with Elizabeth in the front, and Jonah got the third row to himself.

“Wow, this is quite the car.” Alex said, looking at all the screens and accessories. She had never seen most of them in a car before. She had rode in a Tesla once, when her uber happened to have one.

“Charles wanted to have a good car, he also has a small Porsche. He never takes that one out.” Elizabeth started to drive towards the building.

Jonah groaned, and Alex turned to Zoey, “Will he be OK?”

“Yeah, he does this for attention. He’s been fine for about an hour.” Zoey looked back at Jonah, who was leaning on the window.

Avery stifled a laugh.

Fine for an hour. Over-dramatic young man, Jonah was.

Avery watched Elizabeth's hand on the steering wheel. His smile was fading as her knuckled turned white. Avery's eyes shot up to her face and he saw her sweating.

The speed was 100. His eyes widened. The maximum was 70 on this road! And it wasn't that busy of a road, either, meaning there would be more people walking than driving. It was dangerous.

"Uh, Liz?" he touched her shoulder, and he felt her tense. "A-are you okay?"

The three at the back seats were still talking, oblivious to Elizabeth's state. Suddenly, she pulled up the side of the road.

"Charles." Elizabeth cried. "New York is a huge place. He could be anywhere. My baby brother... The kidnapper could've taken him anywhere." she clutched the steering wheel tighter.

That caught everyone's attention.

Alex looked up to the front, along with Jonah and Zoey. They had never seen her like this before. Zoey said, “It’ll be OK Liz, I promise you.”

Jonah tuned in, “Scouts honor!”, and raised three fingers. Alex turned around and gave him a face that said, not helping, he got the message and resumed looking out the window.

After sobbing for a couple of seconds, “It won’t be,” she took a deep breath, “Be OK. It won’t.” She put her head in her hands.

“Why don’t I drive, Liz?” Zoey said. Elizabeth didn’t respond at first but nodded silently and they switched spots. Alex patted Elizazabeth’s back.

“Liz, I swear, I will make sure your brother is found and safe. Even if it takes the rest of the year to find him.” Alex paused and realized what she had just said, “Not that it will take a year, it’ll take only a few days. A week at most!”

“Thanks.” Liz smiled, but returned to crying.

Avery hoped whatever Alex said was true.

It wasn't easy to look for a kidnapper. Especially in a city as busy as New York. It was going to be hectic, for sure, but when Avery saw how horrible Elizabeth's state was, he knew that she cared a hell lot and she really wanted her brother to come back home without a scratch.

In about fifteen minutes - full of silence - the group had reached the Empire State Building. Avery hopped out of the car, followed by everyone else. They entered the huge building.

"This place is awesome." Avery breathed, taking in the sight around him.

“Wow.” Alex said, following behind Avery. The walls were a brown sort of marble and the floors were also brown.

“Cool, isn’t it?” Zoey said, casually, “There’s hardly anyone here, so we should be able to ask the front desk about the initials.”

The group walked over to the front desk, which was as spectacular as the rest of the building, and waited for someone to approach them.

When someone walked up to them, Alex said, “Hello! We have a question about an employee.”

“Well, you’ll need a reason for that,” The person at the front desk responded, “A good reason.”

Avery bit the inside of his cheek. Hard.

"They're a relative." he said quickly. "A very close relative and... we're all their cousins." he cringe-smiled. He crossed his fingers and hoped that it would be good enough. "And... they work here as a janitor." he added.

"She." Zoey said.

"How do you know?" Jonah whispered from behind her.

"I have a feeling." she said through gritted teeth.

"Hm." the woman at the front desk squinted at them from behind her half-moon spectacles. "Couldn't you lot have met her later in the day?"

"N-no." Elizabeth spoke up. "We wanted to surprise hi - her."

"Why so?" she asked, leaning on her arm and looking up at the group with a glare.

“To be nice. Wouldn’t you want to be surprised at work?” Alex said.

“Not especially.” The woman behind the desk said, “But, fine. What’s their name?”

It seemed as if the whole group gulped at once, except for Jonah, who was too distracted to care.

“Well, what’s the name?” The lady was growing impatient and was staring straight at Jonah.

“Her initials are D.B.” Jonah said. Alex could have hit herself in the face. She would never let them in if they didn’t tell her a name.

Zoey internally groaned. "Jonah's just fooling around as usual..." she said. "We actually call her BM. Um... and we've honestly never called her anything else other than that."

The woman glared at Zoey. She glared right back. "You lot seem suspicious."

Avery sighed. "Look, we just -"

Elizabeth moved to the front of the group. "Lady, listen up. We'll give you a thousand frickin' dollars. Just find us anyone in this building right now with the initials BM. She works as a janitor or something. This is about Charles Emmett. Ring a bell?" Elizabeth whisper-yelled.

The woman behind the desk didn't even flinch. "Make that two thousand dollars. I have to pay the rent for my apartment."

"Four thousand and give us a list of every person by the initials of BM who work here, in Chysler building, and the One World Trade Center." Elizabeth snapped, leaning on the marble counter.

The woman nodded curtly. "We have a deal."

The group behind Elizabeth gawked. The woman was the most greediest person who ever lived. And Elizabeth? Probably the best negotiator and briber who walked planet Earth.

“Holy shit…” Alex put her hand over her mouth and laughed, “Holy… wow.” Alex was shocked. It was shocking Elizabeth had negotiated with the woman so quickly, but also that Elizabeth could just throw away $4,000.

The lady walked into a room behind the desk and left the group to wait. Alex looked at Elizabeth, gave her a thumbs up, then turned to Jonah.

“Jonah. DB?! Seriously, where did you get DB from!” Alex whispered, pissed. If Elizabeth wasn’t rich, they would have been kicked out, and possibly arrested.

“I dunno, I thought her initials were DB.” Jonah said, fiddling with something on the desk.

Zoey mumbled something along the lines of, "You retard."

“I doubt that..” Elizabeth said, turning her attention back to the desk. She had a list and two keycards in her hand. The lady walked up and set them in front of Elizabeth.

“Here’s the lists. I can tell you the only BMs here are men, so you probably won’t need to look here. The keycards will get you into the One World Trade Center and the Chrysler Building, just in case you need them.” Elizabeth took the items from the lady and took out her checkbook.

“Four grand, out to who?” Elizabeth started filling out the check and looked up.

“Gina Louise.” The lady said. Elizabeth finished filling out the check and handed it to the woman, who immediately took it, wished us a good day, and returned to the room behind the desk.

Avery had a smile on his face the entire time the group walked farther into the building. Elizabeth ran her finger down the list of people by the initials of BM.

She looked up. "We... we should get a hold of some male janitor and ask him a few questions about the staff."

The group turned a corner. No janitor in sight. Jonah cleared his throat. "I know someone who works at the One World Trade Center." he said.

"We'll discuss that once we're done here." Zoey said swiftly.

“We’ll discuss that once we’re done here.” Jonah mocked her, in a different voice.

Elizabeth whipped around, anger written all over her face. She shoved her finger into Jonah’s face and said, “Lookie here Jonah, if you don’t care enough to be nice to your sister then you obviously don’t care enough to help us find Charles! You haven’t done anything to help us besides driving Avery to get that car, but other than that, you’ve been useless. So why don’t you just shut your freaking mouth and be quiet!”

“Rude.” Jonah said, moving her finger out of his face, “I bet your the only one who thinks that.”

“Shut up Jonah!” Zoey and Alex said in sync. Jonah’s face turned bright red and he looked down at his shoes.

The group walked in silence, following behind Elizabeth. She stopped at a door and said, “Here’s the maintenance room.” Alex knocked on the door.

Avery felt awkward when Alex and Zoey had yelled at Jonah. He wanted to yell too, but in front of people... He looked around. Thank god they hadn't attracted any nosy human beings. He patted Jonah's back softly.

Jonah didn't say anything. Didn't shrug him off either.

When Alex had knocked on the room, no one answered. As soon as Elizabeth reached for the door handle to check id it was unlocked, they heard footsteps. Everyone froze.

Alex started sweating and slowly turned around, her eyes closed.

“Hey! What are you doing at my closet?” The group turned around, Zoey’s hand was still on the handle.

“Uh, sir, we, um… we were looking for a janitor.” Zoey stuttered.

“Hmph. How can I help?” The man crossed his arms and looked at the group. He was wearing a grey jumpsuit of sorts, with a name tag and keys. His black hair and beard seemed matted down onto his skin.

“We’re looking for Charles Emmett, the singer…” Alex said, the janitor nodded approvingly, “And the kidnapper, well, she left a letter. It said that he was trapped, somewhere with amazing views, so we assumed a skyscraper. Have you seen him, or someone with the initials ‘BM’ anywhere?”

“That’s quite a story. Come in my office, and we can chat.” The janitor seemed to be eyeing Elizabeth, so Jonah gave him a bit of a look. The man unlocked the door and led them into the closet. There was some cleaning supplies and elevator, which they went down in, and were led to a basement.

It was dark and damp, and the man had to turn on a flashlight to get to the lightswitch. When he located a door, he opened it, and led them in to a nice office. Avery and Alex sat together on an old couch, with the other women sitting in chairs and Jonah standing.