Chapter 5 - The Unknown Number
The screen glowed fiercely in the dim living room, casting an eerie blue light across Maya’s face as she stared at the single sentence blinking from the unknown number. Arthur leaned forward anxiously, his green sweater catching the light as he strained to see.
“Who is it, Maya? Is it Page?”
he asked, his voice cracking with desperate hope.
Maya didn’t answer immediately. Her fingers trembled so violently she almost dropped the phone onto the entryway rug. She read the message three times just to make sure her brain wasn’t playing cruel tricks on her. The text read: If you want to find your sister before the men in coats do, meet me at the old shipping docks warehouse 4b in twenty minutes. Come alone, or the deal is off. There was no signature, no name, just a stark ultimatum that smelled entirely of danger.
“It’s not Page,”
Maya finally said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
“It’s someone claiming to know where she is. They want me at the old shipping docks on the waterfront. Alone.”
Clara instantly shook her head, a fresh wave of panic washing over her face as she grabbed the sleeve of Maya’s blue sleeveless top.
“No! You cannot go there, Maya! It’s dangerous! It could be a setup by those loan sharks!”
“Mom, if I don’t go, we lose this apartment by tomorrow night,”
Maya replied, gently pulling her arm away from her mother’s desperate grip.
“That man told us we have until midnight. This text is the only lead we have. If Page ran, she left a trail, and whoever sent this message knows where she hid.”
Arthur stood up, his face set in a grim, resolute line that defied his age. He stepped between Maya and the door, his eyes burning with a fierce paternal instinct that had been buried under years of exhaustion.
“If you go, I go with you,”
Arthur declared firmly.
“I’m not letting my daughter walk into a trap by herself in the middle of the night.”
“The text specifically said come alone, Dad,”
Maya argued, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
“If they see you, they might bolt, or worse, they might hurt both of us. You need to stay here with Mom and Chloe. Lock the door, don’t answer it for anyone, and call the police if I’m not back in an hour.”
Chloe bit her lip so hard it began to bleed, stepping forward to wrap her arms around Maya in a tight, desperate hug.
“Be careful, Maya. Please. We can’t lose you too.”
May you like
Maya hugged her sister back, whispering reassurances she didn’t feel, before turning toward the entryway. She grabbed her heavy jacket from the coat rack, pulled it on over her blue top, and checked her pockets one last time. The air in the apartment felt thick, heavy with the collective dread of a family tearing itself apart at the seams. She opened the heavy oak door, stepping out into the cold hallway without looking back. The elevator ride down to the lobby felt agonizingly slow, the metal cage groaning under its own weight as it descended through the quiet building. When she stepped out onto the street, the biting wind whipped her hair across her face, stinging her cheeks. She hurried to her car parked across the street, her breath pluming white in the freezing air. She unlocked the driver’s side door, slid inside, and started the engine, watching the dashboard lights flicker to life. As she pulled away from the curb and headed toward the dark, isolated waterfront, she had no idea what was waiting for her in the shadows of warehouse 4b. But as she turned the final corner toward the docks, her headlights swept across a familiar black sedan parked right outside the rusted gates, and her breath caught in her throat.
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