Ruz's POV
The mini mart bell rang as I pushed the door open.
The store was quiet. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. The air smelled like instant noodles and floor cleaner.
I walked slowly toward the food shelves.
Coz i already knew what I came for. Snacks. Always snacks. Snacks did not judge you. Snacks did not argue with you.
I grabbed a basket from the stack near the entrance and started browsing.
A kid ran past me fast, careless. He almost crashed into my side.
I did not move. Did not flinch.
He adjusted at the last second, Good instincts. He had good reflexes and even better survival instincts.
He was maybe twelve years old. Dark hair, messy in the way that came from running instead of grooming. A face that looked familiar in a way I could not place.
Maybe I knew him. Maybe I had seen him around. Whatever.
He stopped a few feet away, turned, and looked at me.
Not the look of a child who had almost crashed into someone and was about to apologize. The look of someone who was assessing, calculating, trying to figure out if I was a threat or just another person existing in his space.
I respected that.
"You should watch where you are going," I said.
He tilted his head. "You should watch where you are standing."
"I was standing still."
"That is not my problem."
"Neither was your face colliding with my elbow."
He smirked. It was not a child's smirk. It was the smirk of someone who had been in verbal sparring matches before and had learned how to hold his own.
"You are mean," he said.
"You are short," I replied.
He looked offended. "I am twelve."
"That is not an excuse. Short is short. Age does not change height."
He stared at me for a moment. Then something shifted in his expression not anger, not annoyance, but recognition. The kind that came from meeting someone who spoke the same language.
"…You are funny," he said.
"I am not trying to be," I said.
"That is what makes it funny."
I turned back to the shelf. Grabbed some packets of chips, cookies, biscuits.
The kid stayed where he was.
Then he stepped closer to the shelf, reached up for a packet of something bright, sugary. His fingers brushed the edge of the packet but could not quite grab it.
He tried again. Stretched. Stood on his toes.
Still failed.
I watched him struggle for three seconds. Then I reached up, grabbed the packet, and handed it to him.
He took it. Did not say thank you. Just looked at me with those sharp eyes.
"I could have gotten it myself," he said.
"You were not going to," I said.
"I was trying."
"Trying is not doing."
"Someone taught you that," he said.
I paused for a second and looked at him.
"…Someone did," I said.
He nodded like he understood something I had not explained. Then he stuck out his hand.
"I am Asher," he said.
I looked at his hand. Then at his face. Then back at his hand.
"Ruzzelle Rich… you can call me Ruz," I said. I shook it. His grip was firm. Older than his years.
"What kind of name is Ruz?" he asked.
"What kind of name is Asher?" I asked.
"A cool one," he said.
"Debatable," I said.
He grinned. "You are old."
"I am seventeen."
"That is old."
"To a twelve year old, everyone is old."
He considered this. "Fair point."
We stood there for a moment, two strangers who had just insulted each other and somehow became something closer to friends because of it.
Then I paid for my snacks and walked toward the door.
He followed.
"Are you following me?" I asked without turning around.
"I am going the same direction," he said.
"That is what stalkers say."
"That is what people who live in the same neighborhood say."
I glanced back at him. He was smirking again. Annoying kid. I liked him.
We walked together for a block. Then he turned left, and I turned right.
No goodbye. No see you later. Just the natural separation of two paths that had crossed and were now continuing in different directions.
I opened a packet of chips. Chewed and walked Towards the home.
The street was quiet.
That should have been my first warning. But I was distracted thinking about Asher, about his sharp eyes and his quicker tongue, about where I had seen him before. The answer hovered at the edge of my memory, close but not close enough.
In the middle of the road, I saw chaos.
A group of men five, maybe six running after someone. A boy, maybe. I could not see his face. Did not care enough to try.
I was not interested.
So I walked away.
Turned down a side street. Took a longer route home. Finished my chips.
The sun was setting by the time I reached the house. Orange and pink bleeding across the sky, the kind of sunset that usually made me stop and look.
Today, I did not stop.
Because standing outside my house in a loose cluster, looking worried, looking restless, looking like they had been waiting for far too long were all of them.
Josh. Nika. Mira. Aira. Zayn. Enzo. Marco. Diego. Adrian. Rifat all. But someone is missing, that little brute who is actually older than me but behaves like a 5 years old kid, Liam.
Section Z and Section E, mixed together like chaos and chaos had decided to merge into something even more chaotic.
My friends.
Yes. After all this time, after everything that had happened, I could finally call them that. Not classmates. Not people I tolerated because we were forced into the same spaces.
Friends.
But they were not laughing. Not joking.
They were worried.
I walked closer. They turned. Someone exhaled in relief. Someone else looked away.
Josh stepped forward.
"Liam is missing," he said.
I stopped walking.
"…What?" I said.
"He is missing," Josh repeated. "We had plans to go somewhere but he was late. So I called him. No answer. I texted him. No reply."
A pause.
Then continued. "I finished my errand and tried to contact him again. Still nothing. His phone is off. No one has seen him since this morning."
I looked around at the group. At their faces. At the tension in their shoulders and the worry in their eyes.
"How is that possible?" I asked.
No one answered.
Because no one knew.
Author POV
The drive to Liam's house was silent.
Not the comfortable kind of silence, the heavy kind of silence. The kind that pressed down on everyone in the car and made it hard to breathe.
Ruz sat in the back, her window down, the wind pulling at her hair. She was not looking at anything in particular. Just staring at nothing, thinking about everything.
Josh drove. Adrian sat in the passenger seat. The others followed in a second car behind them.
No one spoke.
No one knew what to say.
Liam's house was large.
The kind of large that had been built for a family that never fully moved in.
Josh rang the doorbell.
They waited.
The door opened after a few minutes.
Mrs. Luna Castillo, Liam's mother, stood in the doorway, and the moment they saw her face, the tension in the air transformed into something worse.
She had been crying. Her eyes were red. Her cheeks were blotchy. Her hands were trembling as she held the door.
"…You are his friends," she said. It was not a question.
"Yes," Josh said.
Luna stepped back.
"Come in."
The living room was full of people.
Not the kind of people who brought comfort, cops in uniforms, their expressions grim, their notebooks open. A detective sat on the couch, speaking in low tones to someone on the phone. Another officer stood near the window, looking out at the street like he expected something to happen.
Luna led them to the couch. She sat down heavily, like her legs could no longer hold her.
"He has been missing since this morning," she said. "I thought he was with friends. I thought he was just being late. He is always late. You know how he is."
Ruz nodded. She knew.
"But then I received a message," Luna continued. Her voice cracked. "He has been taken."
The room seemed to grow colder.
The officer near the window spoke.
"We believe Liam was taken by a group connected to his father's rival."
Ruz's hands curled into fists.
"They sent a message," the officer continued. "Demands. Threats. We are working to trace the source, but...."
"But you have nothing yet," Adrian finished.
The officer did not deny it.
The cops worked for an hour.
Questioned. Searched. Made phone calls. Typed reports. But nothing changed. Liam was still missing. The kidnappers had not contacted them again. The trail was cold.
Ruz sat in the corner, watching, waiting, thinking.
Mira sat at Liam's laptop, her fingers moving across the keyboard. She had asked for permission, and Luna had given it without hesitation. Anything. Anything to find him.
Rifat stood near the window, looking out at the dark street. Zayn stood beside him, silent but present. The others were scattered around the room sitting, standing, pacing, each dealing with the waiting in their own way.
Then Mira stood up.
"I found him," she said.
Everyone turned.
She did not explain. Did not wait for questions. Did not do anything except grab her jacket and head for the door.
"Where are you going?" Luna asked, her voice desperate.
"To get your son," Mira said.
Ruz was already moving. Adrian was already moving. Josh, Nika, Aira, Zayn, Rifat, all of them, moving at once, like a single organism with a single purpose.
Luna grabbed Ruz's arm.
"Bring him back," she said. "Please. Bring him back."
Ruz looked at her. Did not promise or did not reassured.
"We will," she said.
And then they were gone.
The warehouse sat at the edge of the city, forgotten by everyone who mattered.
It was old. Abandoned. The kind of place where people went to hide things they did not want found. The walls were rusted. The windows were broken. The darkness around it was absolute: no streetlights, no houses, no signs of life for miles.
Mira had tracked the signal. Had followed the breadcrumbs. Had found the location no one else could find.
They parked the cars far enough away to avoid detection. Walked the rest of the way in silence. No words. No plans. Just the quiet understanding of people who had been through enough together to know what needed to be done.
The warehouse had two floors.
The main floor was open, empty, filled with shadows and old equipment. A staircase led to a second level office, maybe, or a storage area, it was hard to tell in the dark.
And in the center of the main floor, he was tied to a chair....
Liam.
Unconscious. His head drooped forward. His hands were bound behind his back. His shirt was dirty, torn in places. He looked small in a way that Ruz had never seen before.
Around him, men.
Too many to count. Twenty, maybe more. Some sitting. Some standing. Some playing cards at a table near the back wall. They were armed not obviously, but the bulges under their jackets told the story.
They were relaxed. Confidence. They had no idea anyone was watching.
Ruz crouched behind a stack of crates near the entrance. The others were spread out around her Adrian to her left, Zayn to her right, everyone else positioned in the shadows, invisible to anyone who was not looking for them.
"What is the plan?" Adrian whispered.
Before anyone could answer
Rifat moved.
He did not say anything. Did not signal. Did not wait for approval. He simply stepped out of the shadows and disappeared into the darkness near the back of the warehouse.
Ruz reached for him too late.
Then
Click.
The lights went out.
Complete darkness. Absolute silence.
The men in the warehouse reacted immediately shouting, scrambling, reaching for weapons they could no longer see. But they were disoriented. Confused. Easy targets.
Ruz understood.
No plan. No strategy. Just instinct.
They moved.
Adrian, Enzo, Eren, and Marco went upstairs. The men up there had been relaxed or had been the least prepared for a fight. They would be handled.
Rifat, Zayn, and Diego went after the boss. He was at the back of the main floor, surrounded by his closest men. The hardest target. The most dangerous.
Ruz, Mira, Aira, and Josh went for Liam.
The fight started.
Not clean. Not controlled. But effective.
Ruz moved through the darkness like she had been born in it. A man reached for her but she grabbed his arm, twisted, shoved him into another man. They went down together.
Mira was silent. She appeared out of nowhere, struck, disappeared.
Aira fought with fury. Every hit was personal. Every move was meant to hurt.
Josh stayed close to Ruz, watching her back, taking down anyone who got too close.
On the other hand,
Adrian led the way, with Enzo, Eren, and Marco close behind.
The moment they reached the second floor, armed men spotted them.
"Hey!"
Gun barrels swung toward them.
Adrian charged first, punching one man in the face. Enzo grabbed a metal pipe and knocked another attacker backward.
Eren kicked a man into a stack of crates, while Marco tackled someone trying to pull a knife.
For a few seconds, chaos filled the room.
Then more armed men rushed in from inside.
"Ohh Shit!" Marco shouted.
One man slammed Enzo against a wall.
Another hit Adrian from behind. Eren and Marco fought back, but they were quickly overwhelmed.
Within moments, all four were pinned to the ground.
"Got them."
The armed men grabbed the boys by their arms and dragged them downstairs.
Adrian struggled. "Let go!"
Nobody listened.
On the back of the main floor.
The boss stood there with several of his closest men.
"Get the lights back on!"
Rifat, Zayn, and Diego moved carefully through the warehouse, staying low as they made their way toward the back of the main floor.
The boss had a phone pressed to his ear, speaking calmly to his partner.
"We've got the boy."
He listened for a moment, then smirked.
"What? She's one of his friends?"
His smile widened.
"Good. Let her come."
His voice turned cold.
"This time, I'm ending her little game once and for all."
The boys charged in the darkness.
Zayn dropped one guard with a punch. Diego slammed another into a stack of crates. Rifat fought his way toward the boss while confused men stumbled through the darkness.
For a moment, it worked.
The guards couldn't see properly, and the fight turned into chaos.
Rifat was fighting, but someone grabbed him from behind. Diego was tackled to the floor. Zayn managed to knock down one last guard before three men pinned him down.
The boss straightened his suit, pointed the gun at them and looked at them with a cold smile.
"Brave kids," he said. "But not smart enough."
The three struggled, but it was useless.
Just like Adrian, Enzo, Eren, and Marco upstairs, they also had been caught.
The guards dragged them, where the others were already being held.
Back to the site,
Ruz reached Liam somehow.
Knelt beside him, checked his pulse alive, and started cutting the ropes around his wrists.
"Liam," she said. "Wake up."
He did not move.
"Liam."
Nothing.
She slapped his face lightly. Then harder.
He groaned. His eyes fluttered.
"…Ruz?" he mumbled.
"Stay awake," she said. "We are getting you out of here."
Behind them, the fight continued.
And then
The lights came back on.
Everyone froze.
The boss stood at the back of the warehouse, flanked by Rifat, Zayn, and Diego who had their hands raised, weapons pointed at their heads.