Lara and Lawrence, in their worry, passed a sleepless night in their cell, but they were not the only ones. Many Sunnycrest teens felt restless that night as well, and yet when the morning came, they found themselves buzzing with nervous energy. This was the day of the Harvest Dance, after all, and whether they made fools of themselves or had the times of their lives, they were helpless in its grasp.

Lindsey nibbled on her pencil eraser as she reviewed her history notes. At least she was fairly certain these were her history notes. To the untrained eye, they would have looked like any other blank sheet of paper.

“Hmm,” she said, moving on and reading a passage from her history book. “Okay, here's one. Where did the Battle of Midway take place?”

Alicia drummed her pencil on her opened book in deep contemplation. They were in study hall. The two girls had a test on World War II that afternoon, and reluctantly decided that studying would be a good use of their time. After a moment's thought, Alicia's eyes sort of glazed over and she answered, “The Harvest Dance.”

“Oh, man, I can't wait for that! It's gonna be so fun!” replied Lindsey.

It was Alicia's turn to ask. She flipped through her own notes for a good question, then asked, “Who was the emperor of Japan during the war?”

Lindsey considered her answer carefully, then gave a blissful smile. “The Harvest Dance!”

“Ooh, that's tonight!” remarked Alicia. “Wow, I'm so excited!”

“I can't focus on this at all! I'm just too pumped up!” declared Lindsey, shoving her books away.

“I know! I know!” squealed Alicia. She gave the table a small drumroll of hysterical raps with her knuckles, before reaching over and grabbing the blonde's wrists as if to steady herself. “I can't sit still! I just have way too much energy! The dance the dance the dance!”

“I wonder what the student council came up with as far as decorations go,” Lindsey posited. “It was kind of a last-minute thing, and I've never been in that scary kid misery dungeon but it'd probably take a lot of work to make it feel festive...”

This sort of calmed Alicia a little, or at least, reduced her energy level. “I'm more worried that it's some kind of trap. I mean, I know Torey's in our corner, but the rest aren't really going to just let us have a dance there, are they?”

“I doubt it. There's gonna be preppy kids and jocks there. They're not gonna stand for that,” replied Lindsey. “Not to mention us cheerleaders. They hate us most of all.”

Alicia looked sad. She let go of Lindsey's wrists. “I wish they didn't. What did we ever do to them? I mean, they kidnap babies and drink their blood as tribute. If anybody deserves to be hated it should be them, but we always turn the other cheek! I blame movies and TV.”

“Oh, absolutely. I'm sick and tired of the way the media portrays all cheerleaders as shallow, self-absorbed, and wildly promiscuous,” said Lindsey wearily. She paused, then added, “I mean, there's only one Lindsey, baby.”

Caitlin burst into the room, out of breath. “Alicia! Lindsey!” she gasped.

“Oh! Caitlin!” said Alicia, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“Did you just get to school? We didn't see you this morning,” added Lindsey.

It was normal to see Caitlin looking worried. Eyes wide and lips trembling, hands wringing the air...it was almost a daily thing. But they had never seen her this worried. The girl looked almost out of her mind with terror.

She rushed over to them and seized Lindsey's upper arm, clutching for assistance. “I was looking for my mom!” she burst. “She didn't come home last night and she's not answering her phone!”

Alicia put a surprised hand to her mouth. “Oh no!” she worried. Digging for pep to reassure her friend, she added, “Don't worry, Caitlin, it's okay! I'm sure she's fine!”

“I'm not!” replied Caitlin, trembling visibly. She was beyond pep. With a tug on Lindsey's arm, “Come on, you guys have to help me find her!”

Alicia and Lindsey stood up without delay. “Right!” agreed Lindsey. “Let's go get Chase and get out of here!”

The study hall teacher, if he could be called that, cleared his throat. “Ahem. Going somewhere, ladies? Class is still in session, you know.”

“Study hall isn't a real class,” explained Caitlin.

“Yeah, a handsome, rugged, independent man like yourself should be teaching sex ed. Rowr,” said Lindsey.

…

This half-assed, formless flirtation was serviceable enough to get them out of there, and that was all they needed. Lindsey knew better than to waste her best material on a lowly study hall teacher.

They decided the best place to start investigating was the police station. Even if Caitlin's mom hadn't pulled an all-nighter and stayed there, they'd at least be able to confirm with her coworkers whether or not she came in to work and at what time she left.

Asking around, they began to put together a timeline, although it was a crude one. She clocked in at the usual time, five in the afternoon, and went out on patrol soon after that. She reported taking a half-hour dinner break at around nine-thirty, and returned to the station at the end of her shift, one in the morning. Immediately afterwards, no later than one-fifteen, she located the edge of the earth and promptly dropped off it.

“How come nobody knows what happened to her after her shift ended?” asked Lindsey, frustrated. “She came back here, we know that. So did she go home or what?”

“It was late. There aren't a lot of people here in the middle of the night,” said Caitlin. “Plus even the people who were here...I doubt they'd notice. She ends the night here and goes home the same way every day. It's such a mundane, everyday thing that most people wouldn't pay any special attention to it.”

“I guess that's true,” said Alicia. “Any ideas, Chase?”

Chase, who had been investigating a water cooler with her mouth (they would clean the nozzle before they left), dropped what she was doing and thought about it. “Us try ask for help?” she queried, looking up at them. When they confirmed that they did, she announced, “Then I try fight for help.”

“Fight for help,” they quickly discovered, was another term for “getting random cops in headlocks and demanding answers.” After apologies (and excuses regarding Chase being on experimental medication) were made, things quieted down.

“There you go, Chase. Take it easy,” said Caitlin. She was still gripping the cannibal's upper arms from behind, not sure if it was safe to let her go yet. “We'll find her, we'll find her. But look, there are some problems fighting just can't solve.”

“Yeah, guess that true,” said Chase, humoring her.

One of the office doors opened, and out walked a man none of them had ever seen before, with a black suit and blonde hair. “Is something going on out here? I thought I heard fighting.”

“Nah, no big deal,” assured a cop, “just Lara's kid and her poorly medicated friend.”

Despite using Caitlin to threaten her mother, Agent Stevens had never actually met the girl before, and wasn't sure which of these teenagers she was. The one girl he recognized, with a sudden, plummeting feeling in his gut, was Chase.

What was she doing here? Had she figured out who was really behind all this? Was she here to kill him? He couldn't fight her, that was why he had Melissa...

“Hey, I don't think we asked this guy yet,” realized Alicia. “Excuse me sir, were you here last night by any chance?”

Agent Stevens snapped out of his terrified trance and looked at her. “What? Oh. Oh, yes, I was.” Still distracted by the presence of his enemy, he clumsily extracted his ID and showed her. “Agent Stevens. I'm here temporarily, investigating a federal disappearance case.”

“Oh, yeah, my mom told me about you,” remarked Caitlin. “She says you must be pretty dedicated, you're always working late.”

“Wait, then maybe he saw her!” realized Alicia. “Agent Stevens, did you see Officer Boyd leave last night?”

Boyd worked around his nerves to deliver a placating smile. “Er, sorry girls. I'm afraid I didn't. Why do you ask?”

They quickly explained the situation. “Well, if you can't help us, I guess we better just look around for clues. This is the last place we know she was, so maybe she left something behind that could help us,” said Lindsey.

Agent Stevens flinched. The last thing he needed was these kids snooping around. He needed to throw them off track. “You checked the bars, right?”

“The bars?” asked Caitlin.

The man nodded. “I didn't see her leave, but I heard her mention stopping for a drink on the way home.” He gave a quick laugh. “I wouldn't worry about her. She's probably just passed out under a table somewhere. Try the Salt and Lime first, that's where the cops usually drink.”

Alicia thanked him for the tip, and the four of them left. As they started walking over to Alicia's car, though, Caitlin stopped them. “Wait, where are you guys going?”

“To bar for mom, silly,” answered Chase.

Caitlin shook her head. “My mom only drinks on the weekend. Yesterday was Thursday. There's no way she'd stop for a drink on the way home.” She looked up at the police station. “That Stevens guy directly lied to us. He's hiding something. And I think we better keep investigating until we find out what it is.”

Lindsey clenched a fist. “Well, let's waltz right back in there and start looking around!”

“N-no, that would be too conspicuous. He's still in there. If we do that and he sees us, he'll know we're onto him,” said Alicia. “Let's look for a back entrance.”

In agreement that this made sense, the four of them walked around the building, looking for a back entrance. This led them to the basement window.

“Hey, they won't expect us to come in from the basement,” commented Caitlin, pointing at it. “Think it's locked?”

“Only one way to find out,” answered Lindsey. She smashed the window with her foot.

“Jesus!” Caitlin jumped. “That was not the way!”

They carefully removed any remaining pieces of broken glass, then slipped through the frame and let themselves down to the cement floor gently, so as not to make too much noise.

When their eyes adjusted to the poorly lit basement, they were astonished by the machinery it contained. The large tube where Melissa C. had been held, the operating table, the various control panels and computers...although they had no idea what the functions of these devices were, they found them very impressive anyway.

“Yikes, what all this stuff?” asked Chase.

“Some kind of machinery,” said Caitlin. “But what's it all for? It looks like a mad scientist's laboratory.”

At the sound of her query, a disbelieving voice from the corner asked: “Caitlin? Is that you?!”

There she was, locked up. “Mom!” cried Caitlin. They rushed over to the cage. Caitlin and Lara looked like they really wanted to share a hug, but gaps in the wire were not large enough to allow this. “Oh, Mom, you're okay! You're okay!”

“Wow, it's really her!” remarked Alicia. She raised a triumphant fist in the air. “Alright! We did it, gang!”

Lindsey spotted Lawrence. “And look, there's...that guy I'm letting come with me to Harvest.” She stared at him for a second. “Come on, help me out here.”

“Lawrence!” Lawrence answered, annoyed.

“Oh, yeah.”

Caitlin's wide, terrified eyes found her mother's calm, assured ones. Her hands gripped the wire, fingers hooking into the small gaps. “Who locked you up in here?” she asked. “Why?”

“It was that government crook, Stevens,” answered Lara. They quickly mentioned that they'd met him upstairs, and the woman added, “He did something to your friend Melissa, turned her into some kind of weapon.”

“Which one? We know two Melissas,” said Lindsey.

“Are you serious?” Caitlin replied.

“Now he's using her to fight,” Lara continued. “I tried to stop him, so he locked me in here.” She looked at Chase. “He wants to kill you, Chase. I don't know why and I don't know if I want to know.”

“You don't,” answered Caitlin.

They didn't have a key to the lock, but they were able to use some of Lawrence's leftover welding supplies to cut the metal with his instruction. When the door squealed open, Caitlin and Lara finally got their reunion hug. Lawrence went for one with Lindsey, but she denied him.

“So, wait, how did he turn Melissa C. into a killing machine?” asked Alicia. “He doesn't know how to do that, does he?”

“He had help from me,” answered Lawrence. It was a statement he could have been proud to make. Instead, he sounded ashamed.

“You do to Mel C.? Small lad put guns in guts?” asked Chase.

“Well, there was a little more to it than that...”

“Why did you do that, asshole? You messed her all up!” stated Lindsey. “You made it so she can't be a flyer anymore!”

Lawrence did not defend himself. “I thought I was doing the right thing, but I was blind to what was really going on. Stevens is nuts. He doesn't really care about helping her, and he has no regard for her well-being. He just wants to use her to his own ends.” He looked up at them hopefully. “But I can make amends. I can help you stop her. I know every bolt in her body.”

Alicia hesitated. “Like, a self-destruct button? We don't want that, Lawrence. We don't want to hurt her.”

“Better than a self-destruct. Remote shutdown,” he announced, grabbing his laptop. “She won't be harmed at all. I'll just turn her off so we can bring her back here, and I can undo some of the damage I did. Just let me get set up somewhere, and then you guys bring her within range. I'll do the rest.”

As soon as he said it, they all thought of the same place. “Do at Harv!” blurted Chase.

Lawrence scratched his chin. “Yes, that's certainly possible. We could do it at the Harvest Dance. The process takes some time, though. I'll need a distraction...”

“You'll have one,” said Alicia decisively. Not that she had an actual plan already; she just had confidence that one would materialize.

“This all sounds pretty dangerous for a bunch of kids,” said Lara. “All of you need to stay back and leave this to the police.”

Then, Chase put a hand on the woman's uniformed shoulder. “No, Cait mom. Must be us. Cops no can stop. Mel C. too strong for shoot or cuff. Us friends of her. Just us can reach. Just us can stop!”

It was the first time Lara had really met Chase's gaze. In the blonde's eyes, she saw the strength and will of someone who understood danger, had experienced it firsthand, and knew how to face it with courage, but also with intelligence and rationale. In a way, she thought this girl would make a good cop one day.

She looked from Chase to the other cheerleaders. Without having to speak, their expressions showed they agreed with their squadmate, and that they had absolute faith in not just her abilities, but their own. Even Caitlin, usually so hesitant, had a certainty and determination about her which reminded Lara of herself.

“Alright, but I'm chaperoning,” she compromised. Caitlin groaned in pain.