“What the fuck do you mean she’s not here!” My voice booms down the hallway.
The teacher in front of me is pale and shaking. I’m scaring her, just like I’m scaring the kids that hurry past, but I don’t care.
“Sir.” The principal’s voice sounds behind me and I spin around.
“Where is she?!”
“Her uncle picked her up,’ the principal says, causing my world to halt.
My blood runs cold as my tone goes sharp. “What the fuck did you do? Me, Angelo, and my mother are the only people allowed to pick her up.”
Angelo is next to me and he’s already on his phone.
The principal tries to control her features. “I know that, sir. But he said he was approved and asked me to look. When I double checked in the system, his name was there.”
I don’t need to ask for the name. “How long ago?”
“Minutes.” She says, holding up her hands in defeat. “It’s only been minutes.”
Hearing enough, I sprint out the front door of the preschool.
“Annie!” I shout her name.
There’s no reply, only a sea of faces that turn in my direction.
Darting between bodies, I call her name. Shouting it, over and over. A few parents start to approach me, but I ignore them. I don’t have time to explain.
“I’ll go this way.” Angelo barks as he runs off to the right.
Turning left, I push myself to move faster as I tear down the side street.
“Annie!” My voice cracks on her name.
That fucking asshole has my baby and the fear clawing at my throat is nearly crippling. But I can’t think about it. If I think about it, I’ll collapse. If I collapse, he gets away and I’ll never see her again.
“Annie!” I yell even louder.
A squeak of a sound, barely audible, has me skidding to a stop. My head turns towards the large parking lot across the street. Nearly every spot is filled. I don’t see any people. I don’t see…
There. Movement.
Rage swiftly fills every pore in my body. Without looking for traffic, I race across the street as fast as I can.
My feet pound across the cracked blacktop of the parking lot.
I’m closing in on them.
Seeing his disgusting thin fingers wrapped around her wrist has her name coming out of me in a roar. “Annie!”
At my shout, they both look back. Randal’s face shows manic anger mixed with shock. I’m only 50 feet away now. I’ll be on him in seconds. And I’ll fucking kill him. And he knows it.
I sense it a moment before he acts.
He’s a piece of shit, but he’s not dumb. He knows the only thing that will stop me from ripping him apart is saving Annie. With no way to stop him, I watch in horror as he lifts her 4-year-old body and tosses her.
“No!”
Blackness fills the edge of my vision until all I can see is Annie. I push myself faster. The sound of my girl’s scream nearly stops my heart, only to be cut off when she hits the trunk of a car with a thump.
Time slows when her body starts sliding down, off the car, toward the pavement.
“Annie!” I call out one last time before pushing off the ground, diving towards her.
Catching her in my arms, I pull her into my body and twist, taking the impact on my back.
Sobs wrack her body, but the movement tells me that she’s alive.
“Annie. Princess. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
My words are hardly audible. I’m crying nearly as hard as she is. Too close. That was too close.
