CHAPTER 118

“Valerie?”

My voice was a panicked strangled cry that was somehow still low that nobody paid me any mind. I looked around me again, she had just been there a second ago, so she couldn’t have wandered far, right? Wrong.

As I scoured the general area of the truck, looking carefully into the faces of every little kid close by, much to the disapproval of their mothers, I was quickly starting to realize that I might have lost my daughter. The open bottle of water that I was holding fell from my hand,bouncing off the ground at my feet. I didn’t pay it any mind. I suddenly felt nauseous and lightheaded, like I had eaten something bad. My heart was starting to thud like crazy in my chest, like if I even moved the wrong way, it would come flying out and end up at my feet, right next to the discarded bottle of water.

“Valerie,” I whispered, my eyes wide open like a deer caught in the headlights. I looked around the area rapidly again, before something clicked in my head. The driver! “Dennis…”