Chương 47: Chapter 45 – Another Face on a Milk Carton

Amber"Chelsea!" Amber knocked on the mobile home door for the third time, louder now. Still there was no response. She pulled her phone away from her ear and checked the screen again. No answered calls. No texts back. Chelsea hadn't even read them. That wasn't normal. Chelsea overslept sometimes, but not like this. Not without sending twelve frantic apology texts afterward. Amber shifted her backpack higher on her shoulder and knocked again. A few seconds later, the locks clicked. Ms.

Drake opened the door wearing an oversized sleep shirt and yesterday's makeup smeared beneath one tired eye. Her hair looked like she'd slept through a hurricane of hairspray and cheap product.

"Amber?" she mumbled. As always, there was that awkward little movement people did around her face. The glance toward the scars. The immediate look away afterward like pretending not to notice somehow made it polite. Amber hated that people did that.

"I'm sure Chels will be out in a minute or two," Ms. Drake grumbled. Without waiting for a response, the exhausted woman shuffled back toward her bedroom and closed the door again. Amber stood there uncertainly. Something still felt wrong. Chelsea would've answered by now. Not wanting Chelsea to start the day stressed out and rushing, Amber quietly slipped inside and shut the door behind her. She immediately regretted breathing in. It smelled like stale cigarette smoke soaked into carpet and old furniture.

It always did. The scent clung to everything no matter how many candles Chelsea burned or windows she opened. Amber glanced toward the living room. Chelsea's backpack hung on its hook. Her shoes were underneath it. Amber frowned. Steven's stuff was gone, surprisingly. She would've expected him to still be home. He always seemed like the type to show up late to school without caring. At least Chelsea hadn't left without her. Amber moved quietly down the hallway anyway.

It was dark except for the weak gray morning light coming through the blinds. She reached Chelsea's room and pushed the door open carefully.

"Chels?" There was no answer. Her bed was empty. Additionally, it was still made, mostly. The blankets had been disturbed slightly, but not enough to look slept in properly. Amber stepped farther into the room. Chelsea's phone sat on the desk. It hadn't been plugged in and was dead. It was like it was just abandoned there. A cold knot formed in Amber's stomach. Something was wrong. She turned quickly and checked the kitchen first. Living room. Steven's room. All were empty.

The bathroom door stood open with the light off. Amber checked it anyway. Her pulse started climbing harder now. She crossed the small house and carefully cracked open Ms. Drake's bedroom door. Ms. Drake was already back asleep, soft snoring filling the room. The attached bathroom was visible from the doorway, empty with the light still off. Amber slowly closed the door, not letting the latch make a sound. She moved to the back door and cracked it open to check the tiny concrete patio outside.

Amber stood there for a long moment gripping the door handle too tightly. This didn't make sense. Chelsea wouldn't leave without her phone. She wouldn't leave without shoes. Or her backpack. Or telling someone. Amber forced herself to breathe slowly. Okay. Okay. There had to be an explanation. Maybe Chelsea had already gone to school somehow. Maybe Steven picked her up. Maybe she forgot her stuff in a rush. None of those sounded believable even inside her own head. Still, what else could she do?

Amber pulled the door shut and headed for school with quick steps, her stomach twisting harder the farther she walked away from the Chelsea's house. No way Chelsea was missing. There was no way. Amber spent the walk to school trying to convince herself she was overreacting. Chelsea probably got picked up early. Or maybe Steven drove her. Or maybe she had gone in through another entrance and was already sitting in class wondering why Amber was late. Every explanation felt thinner than the last.

By the time the school building came into view, Amber's nerves had twisted themselves into a tight knot beneath her ribs. Students crowded the sidewalks and parking lot in loose groups, half awake and loud in the way teenagers always were in the morning. Someone was blasting music from a car. Two freshmen nearly walked into each other while staring at their phones. Everything was too normal. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Amber scanned the crowd automatically for blonde hair and found some but not Chelsea. She pulled out her phone again and called Chelsea one more time while walking through the front doors. She knew it wouldn't do anything. The phone was sitting dead on her desk. As expected, straight to voicemail. Her thumb hovered over Steven's contact for a second before she shoved the phone back into her pocket. No. Not yet. Not him. Home room was already filling when she slipped into the classroom.

Chelsea's desk sat empty near the windows. Amber slowed. That alone almost never happened. Chelsea missed school sometimes when things got bad at home, but she usually warned Amber ahead of time. Or at least sent some exhausted text at two in the morning saying she wasn't mentally prepared for calculus 2 and society as a whole. Amber dropped into her own seat and kept glancing toward the door. Students continued filing in. Still no Chelsea.

"Yo, where's your wife?" a guy from the next row joked. Amber barely looked at him.

"Shut up." she replied quietly, with the tone of someone who lost a family member. He raised both hands immediately.

"Damn. Okay." The bell rang. Chelsea still wasn't there. Amber tried to focus while the teacher started talking about announcements, but her attention kept drifting back toward the empty desk. Her phone sat faceup beneath the edge of her notebook. There were no messages and no missed calls. Halfway through class she caught herself staring at Chelsea's seat so long the teacher stopped talking.

"Amber?" She blinked.

"Sorry." A few students looked back at her briefly before losing interest. The rest of homeroom crawled by. The second the bell rang, Amber stood and headed straight for the hallway. Maybe Chelsea had shown up late and skipped it. It was pointless anyway. There was rarely any interesting announcements or anything. Maybe she was in the bathroom. Maybe she was hiding somewhere reading because she didn't want to deal with people today. Amber checked the cafeteria first. Nothing. Library. Nothing.

The courtyard outside. Nothing. Everywhere she looked, she kept expecting to spot blonde hair and an apologetic smile. Instead she found empty spaces where Chelsea could have been. By the first period started, Amber's chest felt tight enough to hurt. Chelsea wasn't here. She wasn't at home. She wasn't hiding. She was missing. Amber stared down at her desk while the teacher droned on about chemistry equations. Her thoughts kept circling back to Chelsea's house. The untouched shoes. The backpack, still hanging.

The phone sitting dead on the desk. People didn't leave without their phones. Especially not Chelsea. Chelsea practically lived through reminders and alarms. Amber swallowed hard. Something had happened. And somehow, terrifyingly, she was starting to realize she might be the only person who had noticed yet. Chelsea"Miss Wixx, can you follow me, please?" Mr. Grafft asked as he opened the office door again. Chelsea stood immediately while Adriane pushed herself up more slowly beside her. Mr.

Grafft led them through the guild hall at a brisk pace. Several merchants glanced up as they passed, their attention lingering on Adriane long after they noticed Chelsea's horns. They stopped outside a heavier wooden door near the back of the building. Mr. Grafft knocked lightly.

"Come in, please." A light voice on the other side said. The large man opened the door and gestured them inside. The office beyond was noticeably nicer than the previous room they had visited. Larger desk. Better furniture. Actual sunlight coming through clean windows instead of dim lantern light. A woman in her early forties sat behind the desk reviewing a stack of papers. She looked up as they entered.

"Miss Wixx?" Chelsea offered a polite smile.

"Yes, Miss. And who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?" The line sounded fancy and formal. Was it from some old movie maybe? Or a TV show? Still, it felt right. The woman glanced down briefly at the papers in front of her before setting them aside.

"Miss Wixx, please have a seat. I am the guildmaster of this wing of the Merchant's Guild." Her eyes shifted toward Adriane.

"Please have your attendant wait outside." Adriane's expression flattened immediately. Before she could say anything, Chelsea spoke first.

"That won't be necessary." Her tone stayed pleasant, though slightly firmer now.

"This is my sister, not an attendant. She isn't allowed to leave my side, and vice versa." The guildmaster studied them for a brief moment before nodding once.

"Understood. Then she may sit as well." Chelsea and Adriane took the offered chairs across from the desk.

"Am I correct that you submitted an exam for grading earlier?" the guildmaster asked.

"I did." Chelsea folded her hands in her lap.

"Was there an issue with our payment? Did I give too little?" She already knew that wasn't the problem. This had the exact same energy as being sent to the principal's office after finishing a standardized test suspiciously fast. The guildmaster stood from her chair and walked toward the window behind the desk.

"Miss Wixx," she said carefully, "do you know one of the higher-ranking members of the guild by chance?"

"This guild? No." Chelsea gestured toward Adriane beside her.

"Adventurers, well... obviously I do." Adriane remained perfectly straight-faced.

"How did you finish the test so quickly?" the woman asked as she turned back around. Chelsea blinked once.

"Well… I'm pretty good at math. Also, it was… a bit… ok… way too simple." The guildmaster stared at her.

"Oh, by the way," Chelsea added helpfully, pointing toward the exam papers on the desk, "two of the multiple-choice questions don't have the correct answers listed. I don't know if you saw, but I fixed that for you." The woman's expression somehow became even more unreadable.

"So," she said slowly, "you expect me to believe you answered every question without assistance, perfectly, and faster than even our best S-Rank merchants?" Chelsea thought about that for a moment. She didn't realize she did it faster than the best of the best. She seriously needed to open a school for this poor poor world.

"Would you like me to write you some questions that might actually stump me?" she offered.

"It's been a while, but I used to do vector calculus." She paused.

"Actually... no, never mind. I don't think I could do that without a graphing calculator. I'm not that good." She frowned in thought, tapping her chin.

"Oh. Maybe if I had an abacus?" Chelsea turned toward Adriane.

"Are there abacuses?"

"I don't know what that is," Adriane admitted quietly. The guildmaster let out a long, tired breath through her nose.

"Miss Wixx," she sighed, "I genuinely do not know what to do with you." Chelsea gave an awkward little shrug.

"I just need to make a few small investments here and there. I don't need some fancy rank."

"Unfortunately," the guildmaster replied, returning to her desk, "by guild code, I am required to give you at least a three-star A-rank." She opened a drawer and removed a thin metal card about the size of a credit card before placing it carefully on the desk in front of Chelsea. It already had "Chelsea Wixx - Merchant A***" engraved on it.

"You technically hold higher standing within the guild than I do now." Chelsea stared at the card.

"So I'm like the Adriane of the merchant's guild now?." The guildmaster ignored that.

"Unfortunately, I cannot grant you an S-rank here. To qualify, you would need to travel to four additional guild wings, complete their assessments, and achieve similar scores." A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

"Though slightly worse would still suffice." Chelsea picked up the metal card carefully.

"So wait. I just have to be good at math?" she asked.

"Nothing about decision-making? Bartering? Running businesses? Any of that?" The guildmaster gave her a genuinely puzzled look.

"Math is the only thing that cannot be compensated for with skills," she explained, as though stating something obvious.

"Are you not a merchant?"

"Ah..." Chelsea suddenly felt much less confident.

"Um. No. But I plan on becoming one." The woman blinked at her, obviously frustrated. Chelsea cleared her throat awkwardly and stood up before the silence could get worse.

"Anyway, sorry to cut this meeting short, but we actually have a really busy day today."

"Of course," the guildmaster replied automatically, though she still looked mildly stunned. Chelsea and Adriane turned toward the door. Then Adriane stopped.

"I have a question for you before we leave." The guildmaster nodded cautiously.

"Certainly." Adriane pointed at her.

"Quickly. What's six plus seven?"