GWENDOLYN BLAKE kept getting dreams about Finney Blake and Avery Brown's kinapping. They would haunt her, making her wake up in fear every single night, picturing everything her brother might be going through. These dreams showed things she couldn't quite understand. She saw a house, a tree and a man wearing a mask and holding black balloons. She knew these things were related to The Grabber, but she couldn't quite place her finger on how they were connected and how it could help her find her missing brother.

One certain night, Gwen decides to tell her father about these dreams. She wants to help her brother, she wants to find her brother while there is still a chance. Maybe there was a possibility where her father could help her, but there was also a possibility where he wouldn't help her, and things wouldn't end well for Gwen if that happened.

Gwen was standing in the door frame of the living room. Her father sat in a chair, as always, a drink in his hand, watching the fireplace. Gwen breathed in deeply, getting ready for the conversation she was about to have with her dad.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, honey?" Her father turned to look at her as the girl walked into the room.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course. Come, sit. There you go." Gwen sat down infront of her father.

"Will you promise you won't get mad?"

"I promise."

"It's about my dreams." Gwen's father slowly took a sip of his drink and then placed it in the table beside him. Now it was his time to get ready for the conversation he was about to have with his daughter.

"What about your dreams?"

"Well, what if they, you know, they're, well," Gwen struggled to find a way to phrase what she was about to say without getting her father angry.

"Gwen," Interreptuded the man.

"Your mom, she was a special soul, and she was smart, just like you. But sweetheart, she saw things and she heard things, and she became so convinced that her dreams meant something, and eventually they told her to do things, terrible things! Until she took her life. But, they weren't real sweetheart. They just weren't real." Gwen had tears in her eyes, and her father did too. What happened to her mother was horrible, but Gwen would always love her, no matter what.

"I loved mom."

"I loved her too."

"I mean, I loved her the way she was."

"I know sweetheart. I just, I don't want that future for you. Do you understand?"

"But, what if it could help me find Finney?"

...

Everyone in town was still looking for the two missing teens, there were police men, police cars and citizens, all spread around town, desperate to find them. Two police officers were knocking at doors in town, asking people if they had seen any of the two missing teens. Nobody had.

They were currently knocking on another citizen's door. Barking was heard from the other side of the door, and you could hear a man inside shouting at the dog, telling it to go inside a room and stop barking. The door was soon opened and a man with a moustache wearing a blue shirt appeared.

"Hello?" Asked the man.

"Good evening, sir. We've been asking residents from this neighbourhood some questions about the recent missing kids. Have you seen any of these two?" One of the police man showed two pictures to the man in the door, one was of the missing boy, Finney Blake and the other one was of the missing girl, Avery Brown.

"You're the police."

"Yes, sir."

"You're here for the missing kids?"

"Yes, sir. If there's anything you know," Said the other police.

"Come inside." The man interrupted the police man, gesturing the two to come inside the man's house. The two police men hesitated if they should go inside the house, but as soon as they did, they could see a board with pictures of news articles, and pictured of the missing kids.

"Yeah, right here. So, all the kids lived in the same district, right? They walk to and from school, they were grabbed from the way home from school, except for Robin Arellano. He was grabbed on a saturday afternoon on his way to the store to get some candy." One of the police tried to interrupt the man but it was no use, the man just continued.

"Listen, he has to be able to grab these kids, and get them back to his place very quickly, which means he has a house with a garage. And he can't risk them getting away, or waking up, so he knocks them out. Which means that he has to live somewhere in this area. Right here. " The man ranted, pointing to a certain location on a map he had on a board.

"Sir," Tried the police.

"It's Max."

"Mister Max."

"It's just Max. My friends call me Max, and since we're all working on this case together, you know,"

"How long have you lived in the area, Max?" Interrupted the other police man.

"No, I live down in Durango. I'm just crashing at my brother's place. I've been reading about this case a lot and I'm in between jobs right now, and you guys could really use my help on this."

"You keep working on this and when you've seen any of the missing kids, you give us a call."

"Or if I have any new leads, right?" But it was no use. The police wasn't interested in what Max had to say and they started leaving his house.

"If you see any of those kids, you give us a call." The police man repeated.

"And you might want to tidy up before your brother gets home." The other police man said, gesturing to the cocaine that was in the living room table, and left.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid. Goddamnit Max." He cursed himself, but a few seconds later he just continued inhaling the cocaine.

But a very important lead to this case that Max had no ide of was that the two kids that everyone was searching for, were staying right under his nose, quite literally.

...

Avery and Finney had nothing to do in this place. They were starving, they hoped to see The Grabber appear, opening that huge metal door, with a tray full of food waiting to be eaten. But they also didn't want to see him, they were terrified of him, I mean, who wouldn't be?

After a few moments, the lights turned on, and thats when the teens knew that The Grabber was approaching.

"Pretend you're asleep." Said Finney as he hurriedly layed down on the bed.

"What?" The girl asked confused.

"Pretend you're sleeping. Quick." Finney simply repeated, closing his eyes shut. Avery quickly followed what he was doing, and pretended she had fallen asleep. She could hear the metal door being open, and The Grabber sighing the minute he entered the basement.

"I know you're not sleeping." Avery mentally cursed. She slowly opened her eyes and sat up, only to find the man she hated the most looking right back at her.

"We're starving." Spoke Finney.

"Tell me your names."

"Why do you care?" Asked Avery.

"I usually don't. I eventually find out in the paper. They print a nice, big photo, with all the details I could ever want. All the things you lie about."

"What's different this time?" The girl asked again, but the man just gave a loud sigh.

"It's complicated. Too complicated. Everything's different, nothing's going right."

"You could let us go." Said Finney.

"I'm thinking about it." This made Finney and Avery perk up. They couldn't belive their ears, they finally felt as if they had hope. Real hope.

"We promise we won't tell anyone. You can blindfold us and drop us off in the street, we'll walk home."

"Well, tell me your names." Finney and Avery thought hard on what they could say. They found it weird that The Grabber wanted to know their names and they knew they shouldn't trust him. After all, what good could come from this share of information?

"Taylor. Taylor Mohen. And she's Julie Miller."

"Yeah, my name's Julie." Avery confirmed, trying to sound as convincing as possible.

Suddenly, the Grabber just threw the tray he had in hand on the floor, making a loud sound which made the two teens jump, and making all the food spill onto the ground. Avery's eyes shifted from the food spilled all over the floor, and the Grabber who had just thrown their meal. The Grabber then threw a paper to them, and the two grabbed it and opened it. There they were. There was a picture of Avery and Finney on the first page, there was a small description on their height, weight etc, and where the two were last seen and how everyone should be careful with their children.

"I was really starting to like you, Finney and Avery." The Grabber spat. You could hear the anger in his voice as he said their names. Even without seeing his face, they knew the Grabber had an angry expression hiding behind that mask. Finney and Avery's head shot up, worried on what would happen to her. They thought he was going to hit them, or punish them for lying. But he didn't.

"I almost let you guys go." And with that, the man left, leaving a huge amount of guilt and embarrassment with the two kids.

"How could we be so stupid?! If we had just told him our names we would probably be getting out of this shit place!" Avery groaned in anger. Angry that she missed a big chance of getting out, a big chance on going home.

"There was no way of knowing. He could have been bluffing, Aves." Finney explained with a sigh. Avery thought about that, and she knew there was a chance the Grabber could have been lying, but the doubt on whether he was kept eating her alive.

The two teens were to busy blaming themselves to notice that the Grabber had left the door open once again, but when they finally did, they tried hard to ignore it. The lights were turned off but Avery and Finney knew that they shouldn't go through that door, Billy had told them what would happen, and they saw The Grabber holding that belt, waiting for the two so he could beat them up. But it was just so tempting, it seemed as the door was calling to them, telling them it was their chance to escape. None of them wanted to stay in this place, Avery couldn't do it anymore, she missed everything, she missed her life. She felt miserable.

They walked towards the door, wanting to open it. As they got to the door, the telephone started ringing. Finney and Avery rushed towards the phone and put it in between their ears. They waited for someone to say something, but no one did. It was silent.

"Hello? Bruce? Bil- Paper boy?" But nobody answered. The only thing they heard was as if someone had hung up the phone. Avery sighed in defeat. She knew they shouldn't go upstairs, that phone call was probably just a warning about it, and she trusted it. So the two kids just stayed in the basement.

Upstairs, the Grabber was once again, sat in a chair, with no shirt on except for a jacket, and a belt in his hand. He was waiting for the two of them to appear, but they wouldn't. The Grabber waited, and waited, and waited. But none of the teens appeared. The Grabber was getting tired from all the waiting, his eyes slowly started to get heavy as they started to close, and soon enough, he drifted off to sleep.

...

Finney and Avery had fallen asleep, once again. The two slowly started to wake up, and this time, they woke up together, which was weird and unusual. For some reason, they felt as if there was another presence with them. Afraid of it being the Grabber, Finney got his spaceship toy out of his pocket, he turned on it's flashlight and started looking around the room, this reminded him of when he use to play with his toy spaceship during classes, oh, how much he missed being able to go to school.Avery followed with her eyes everywhere the flashlight pointed at, trying to see if maybe the Grabber was looking at them, just like he had done before with Avery. Finney pointed at the door, then he pointed at the phone, and then he started pointing the flashlight to different places of the room.

He turned his toy flashlight to a corner, and in that corner, there was something that scared the hell out of the two teens. There was a boy. His back was bent and he was floating in mid air, blood dripping from his neck onto the ground. He looked unsually pale, and the two teens knew he was dead. Avery and Finney held their breathes and then turned to look at each other, making sure they were both seeing the same thing. They turned back to the boy, and just stared at him in shock. They didn't move an inch, scared to do so.

The boy then lifted his arm and pointed somewhere, making Avery's eyes widen. Avery and Finney followed their eyes to where the boy was pointing, and then they noticed he was pointing at the phone. The two slowly stood up from the bed and started walking towards the phone. Finney picked up the phone and put it in between his and Avery's ears. When Avery went to look back to where the floating boy had been, she noticed he was gone. Oh my God, where they going crazy?

"Hello? Hello?" The girl asked. Avery was dying inside, she had never been so frightened in her entire life. She had no idea what just happened, but she had just seen a ghost, a dead ghost. And she was so scared.

"You don't have much time. The Grabber hasn't been sleeping. He thinks this might be it, that he's gonna figure it out." A soft voice spoke from the other side of the phone. Avery looked at Finney, worry filling all her features. She knew this wasn't Billy, it was another innocent boy that had become a victim to The Grabber.

"Who's gonna figure it out?" Asked Finney.

"His brother upstairs." The boy answered, laughing. Avery arched a brow, she had no idea why the boy was laughing, maybe it was revenge or some dead boy shit.

"Are you Griffin?" Asked Finney, moving from one side to the other.

"Who?"

"Griffin Stag."

"Probably. It's all a little hazy, but I imagine you know all our names."

"Every kid does. I didn't know you."

"Nobody did. You spend so many years invisible, but then every kid in the state knows your name. You don't have much time."

"Why hasn't he killed us?" Avery snapped her head towards Finney. She was actually pretty interested in knowing the answer to that question. The minute she was kidnapped, she thought she wouldn't even last a day, but why didn't he kill her and Finn yet?

"Because you guys won't play the game. You have to play the game, if you don't play, he can't win."

"What game?"

"Naughty boy. Or in this case, naughty kid. If you don't play naughty kid, The Grabber can't beat you, and if he can't beat you, he can't move on to the next part of the game. And the next part of naughty kid is his favorite part."

"What's the next part?" Griffin simply laughed.

"You don't have much time."

"You said that." Said Avery.

"He's not been sleeping."

"You said that too." Repeated Avery.

"Yeah, well, he is now, in his chair. He passed out,m waiting for you two to play."

"And what good does that do us?" Avery asked confused.

"Wait. The door is still unlocked." Finney spoke, making Avery turn to look at him. Oh my God, that boy's a genius. This could be the chance where they could actually escape.

"The door is still unlocked."

"Do we just go?" Asked Finney, looking between Avery and the open door.

"There's a combination lock, on the door after this metal one. It was my bike lock."

"Your bike lock?" Avery asked.

"Yeah, he took it. When he took me."

"What's the combination?" Asked Finney.

"I don't remember."

"Griffin!" Shouted Finney into the phone. He was desperate, and so was the girl beside him.

"I remember being afraid I'd forget it. That's why I wrote it down."

"What?! Where?"

"I carved it, with a bottle cap in the wall."

"Which wall? Which wall?!"

"The one in the right. About shoulder height when you're sitting down." Avery rushed to where Griffin had said it was, Finney following right after, dropping the phone onto the bed. They searched on the wall for the combinations that was carved with a bottle cap. And they found it.

"2, 3, 3, 1, 7." Said Finney.

"2, 3, 3, 1, 7," Repeated Avery. A smile almost appearing onto her face. Avery grabbed the phone from the bed.

"2, 3, 3, 1, 7?" The girl asked, making sure they had the right number.

"If you say so." Replied Griffin.

"Or is it 23, 32, 7? Or 23, 3, 17? Or 2, 33, 17?" The girl asked in a rush, doubts rushing through her mind.

"I can't remember."

"Griffin! Please." She begged in frustration.

"I can't remember. You'll have to try them all. And you'll have to be very quiet about it."

"Okay. Thank you anyways." The girl sighed. And without another word, Avery hung up. She was pretty angry at Griffin for not remembering the combination. But she also wasn't, because she knew it wasn't his fault. So she couldn't blame him about it, she probably would never understand what happened to him or what he was going through, so she couldn't blame him, not even for a second. The only one to blame was the man currently sleeping upstairs.

Avery and Finney stood beside each other, a few feet away from the door. They held each other's hands, both mentally preparing themselves for their escape plan. They weren't sure if it was going to work or not, but if it didn't, they knew that they'd be screwed, really screwed. Avery took a deep breath in and looked at Finn. She gently squeezed Finney's hand, making him turn to look at her, the girl nodded her head with a small reassuring smile, and Finn almost melted right there and then.

"We're really doing this?" Avery asked with a soft gaze, worry hidden in her features, which somehow Finney managed to see.

"We're really doing this." The boy confirmed, nodding his head in reassurance. Avery softly smiled, thanking for him being with her every part of this awful journey, she didn't know if she would be able to do this if he wasn't by her side. If it wasn't for him, Avery probably would've given up days ago. So, she was thankful for him. Thankful for him just being there, even if she also wished he wasn't there, suffering and having to go through this pain.

Finney nodded his head, telling Avery it was time, and they both started to walk towards the door. Finn thought about how if anything happened, he would protect Avery, no matter what. He had to protect her, he just had to. And he would do anything to make that happen.

They got to the big, heavy metal door and started opening it wider. They slowly started walking up the stairs, step by step, making as little noise as possible. And with that, their escape had begun.