Sara decided to follow her excellent and wonderful plan that was impossible for something to go wrong

It was perfect, absolutely

How hard could it be to "persuade"(bribe) some kids to do her bidding?

As easy as she thought actually

She brought a big bag of cheap candy and looked for her old acquaintances around her old neighborhood

She wore her usual working clothes that were mostly kids clothes in decent conditions but not perfect(holes, stains, discolorment, etc).Uncle Muscle usually gave her that kind of clothes since she could pass as an average kid with not so wealthy parents or a slum kid with relatively new clothes

Usually kids her age ruin clothes relatively fast, so it wasn't so strange for them not to be in perfect conditions, and clothes like that were what people usually donated to the church

As for why Uncle Muscle gave her that kind of clothes, it was to not draw attention. A kid alone in a bad neighborhood with good clothes draw attention. On the other hand, a slum kid or street kid wouldn't draw attention, since they were more common

Which worked perfectly fine for Sara under the circumstances. If she wore nice clothes with her old acquaintances, things could turn bad thanks to envy, but with those clothes, it would be relatively fine

She did have to spend some effort in finding some of her old acquaintances since most kids were taken to an orphanage, but she even managed to find one of the two kids that helped her drag Max

The kid was a blond boy around her age that usually hear the stories Max read, and sometimes play with Sara, John and Jess on the few occasions they had some free time

He was one of the few kids she could consider friends since Jess Max and John were her family

I guess you could call him Sara's childhood friend

She found him begging on the streets like she used to do, but on a different spot

"Sam, good to see you"(Sara) said with a smile when she found Sam

Still, by this time, Sara had already found a couple of kids and traded some information for candy, but nothing she didn't know. They only knew what they heard people talking on the streets and what they remembered of the incident

So she didn't have much hope on finding something new by asking Sam, but she was still glad to see him

"Sara! I thought you were taken like the rest!"(Sam) said while smiling back

"Na, I am working just somewhere else. What happen to Lisa?"(Sara) Asked Sam

Lisa was the other kid that helped Sara move Max's body and one of Sara's friend and Sam "sister"

The moment Sara asked that, Sam got a little depressed and looked to the floor

"She was taken to an orphanage like the rest"(Sam)

"Oh..."(Sara)said while also looking down

Like I said before, to slum kids, an orphanage was like going to prison for an adult, so it was a sad news

They stayed quiet for a few seconds, but since Sara had something important to ask him, she made up her mind and went directly to the point

"Sam, did you hear anything about Max or John after the factory collapse?"(Sara)asked

When Sam heard the question, he looked up and found Sara looking directly at his eyes with a serious expression

"No, sorry. I thought they had been taken like the rest"(Sam) shaken his head a little while answering

Sara found no surprise there since none of the other kids or Uncle Muscle knew anything about them

Instead, she decided to ask the next question

"Do you know anything about the hood guys?"(Sara)

"Who?"(Sam)

"You know, the guys with hoods that were at the factory that day"(Sara)

"Ah! those guys. No, sorry. Haven't seen them since that day"(Sam)

Again, no surprise. From what she heard from the other kids, they had been avoiding that zone since the day of the incident

Probably because besides having to worry about the police and citizens, the mafia and people of the streets hated their guts on that area

Not a good zone to roam around

"Yeah, no surprise there. Do you mind asking around? I am trying to find anything related to them. I am paying for anything valuable like their whereabouts or where they operate"(Sara) Said to Sam while handing him some candy

He gladly took it and out it on his pockets but still asked

"Why the interest on those guys?"(Sam)

"Because they kidnaped Max and John"(Sara)said with absolute certainty

In her mind, there was no doubt that they had them

"Wow! Really? no wonder you are willing to pay to find them"(Sam) said with a surprised look

"Exactly, so please, help me look for the hood guys"(Sara)pleaded

"Ok"(sam) Nodded in agreement

And like that, Sara got her first reliable informant

She said goodbye and let him continue begging on the streets or he would have big problems later

She could have offered him to stay at her home, as payment for his help, or since they were friends, but she couldn't. Uncle Muscle Explicitly told her numerous times she couldn't allow anyone else to enter her home, and that he wouldn't help anyone else but her with their problems

He probably didn't want to deal with more brats than he absolutely had to, so she warned her in advance in case she ever felt sorry for people in the same circumstances than her

There was also the possibility that someone would end up killing her to take the place for themselves, since the streets were never a nice place full of good people

Still, she got what she wanted in a way

how it actually turned out was different than what she expected, but it was still something

She gave away most of her candy, and got almost nothing in return, she just got a little lucky with Sam, and lucky in the sense that he would look into it, not on what he knew

If it wasn't something so important to her, she may have been discouraged. Instead, she decided to try a new approach

She heard some of the kids curse at the hood guys like her, and found out that most people in that area hate them(like I said a few lines before if you have a fish memory) so she figure it out that asking around a place they didn't dare to approach was a bad idea

She would have to go further away if she wanted to find any kind of information about them

Maybe it was time to face her greatest enemy since she started working with Uncle Muscle

The bicycle!!!

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Note: Thanks Neiden for the grammar checks :D