Carrie walked home from school that day like she did every Friday, excited for the weekend to come. On her way home from school, she hummed a joyful tune until she came across a sign that read Missing Person: Thomas Evan, brown hair, brown eyes, 14 years old, 5’ 6”.  Shivers crawled up her body and goose bumps formed on her arms.  Multiple boys had gone missing in the recent year, and it frightened her.  Some boys had even ended up on the news found dead in the nearby woods.  She carried on walking trying to forget the horrificness of the situation.   It was a beautiful day in late September in the little town of Brighton, New York.  It was the kind of day that welcomed fall as the splashes of burgundy and awakening yellow began to mark the leaves and a cold crispness enlivened the air making Carrie’s nose turn a pretty shade of pink. If she would have known what her parents were going to tell her when she got home, she would have turned around right then and there and ran back to school where her boyfriend, Joe, would be.   She would have run to him and jumped into his arms refusing to let him go right in the middle of his football practice.  Carrie would be so devastated and heartbroken, and Joe would be the only one who could protect her from herself.  Because after hearing this troubling news, she would want to run far, far away and cry until she died.  But she didn’t know what was about to come, so she walked on to Newton Drive to the familiar, comforting old white house her family had lived in for as long as she could remember, just like the school she had always remembered going to, Brighton High.  School had always come easy for Carrie. She had just started her sophomore year and had just turned 16.  She was intelligent and kind and always got her work done.  Everyone liked Carrie because they really didn’t have a reason not to.  She was beautiful with big blonde curlicue hair that reminded people of her innocence and crystal blue eyes of the pacific.  She was a small, petite girl. 
Carrie loved the cold.  She felt it invited comfy clothes, hot drinks, and lots of celebrations and holidays.  As she dilly-dallied to her front door she thought of these things as this day was a reminder of the beginning of the cold that she loved and was the beginning of all these amazing things, or so she thought. She was so excited to tell Mickey, her brother, about Joe’s proposal to the school’s homecoming dance she couldn’t contain herself.   As she skipped to the front door in excitement over the weekend and talking to her brother, she galloped up the steps, twisted the cold metal knob, and walked in. When she entered her house, she heard the awful sound of her mother crying. Carrie’s heart shattered.  A million questions filled her head.  Why is she crying? Has something happened? She never cries. What is going on?... Before she could process what was happening, her father, David, greeted her at the door unexpectedly.  His face looked more tired than usual, his face was pale, and he looked like he had been crying as well. 
“How was school, honey?”  he asked in a tone that Carrie could tell was fake to ease her from the situation that presented itself. 
“What’s going on?” she said in a concerned voice.  Her father’s face turned completely pale, and the smile that he had put on for her had disappeared.  He looked down at the ground.
“What happened?” she demanded.  His face looked at hers again.  Tears swelled up in his eyes.  Carrie had never seen her dad cry before.
“Let’s talk outside,” he said as he looked in the direction of his wife upstairs sitting at the dinner table crying uncontrollably.  Carrie nodded and followed him outside through the front door.  They sat on the steps together, and she waited for her father to talk.  After a moment of him pondering what he would say to his fragile daughter, he began.
“ Do you remember that Mickey went to a party last night?” he asked as she nodded in response.
“Well Mickey was suppose to sleep over last night at Will’s house after the party ended, but this morning we got a call from Will’s parents saying Mickey wasn’t there this morning, and Will told his parents that he hadn't even shown up last night either because he had told Will he was staying out.  Will didn’t want to go with him, so Mickey stayed out on his own doing who knows what. We called Mickey over and over again on his cell phone this morning, and there was no answer.  So we called the police to file a missing person case.  We can’t find Mickey…”  his voice broke off as he began to cry.  Carrie’s eyes filled with tears as she remembered the sign she had seen on her walk home and the news stories of the boys found dead in the woods.  She leaned into her father for a hug as tears rolled down their faces onto the gray cold concrete steps like rain falling on a dark dreary day.  In that moment, Carrie wished she could have been anywhere else rather than being out in the cold.
The rest of the day was nothing but a blur of sadness and memories of Mickey for Carrie.  Mickey had always been more than a brother to Carrie.  Mickey was her best friend.  Their relationship was strong with trust, and they both could tell each other anything.  She remembered the day her parents had told her she was going to have a brother.  At that time she was only two years old, so she didn’t really know what it meant to have a best friend or brother.  Looking back at that she wouldn’t have traded Mickey for anything.  They were each other's best friends for as long as she could remember.  They hung out like they weren’t brother and sister, but like they were best friends and nothing else.  They always watched scary movies at this time of the year after school, and that was what Carrie was looking forward to the most.  On a regular Friday Carrie would have rushed up to her brother’s room as fast as she could. They would have talked about her day and his and laughed. They would have popped a dvd like Hocus Pocus into his blueray Sony dvd player and watched until they both fell asleep.  But it wasn’t a regular Friday, and Mickey wasn’t there for Carrie to pick on her and talk to her and hang out together. Questions again crossed Carrie’s mind in a jumble: Why didn’t he tell me where he would be going instead of Will’s house? He tells me everything. Did I do something wrong? Then Carrie remembered the time when she and Mickey had gone outside in the rain when they were little and they had hidden in their little playground they had built together as a family.  They had hidden from their mom as she yelled for them to come inside insisting they would catch a cold in the cold wet weather.  They had waited for their mother to go back inside and then they had danced in the rain, threw mud at each other, and laughed till their stomachs hurt for what had seemed like hours.  They had laughed, danced, and sung that day as the cold pellets from the sky penetrated their jackets, but all they could feel was happy.  Now all Carrie could feel was coldness seeping into her bones because she knew that somewhere Mickey wasn't dancing or laughing in the cold, but he was shivering and scared.  In that moment, Carrie knew she had to save Mickey.  She would find Mickey and never let him go no matter what it took.
The next day Carrie began her investigation.  First she printed out every missing person paper she could find on the internet from the past year in Brighton. With her desk piled with papers, Carrie began analyzing every case she had found.  She compared them, found their differences, and looked for any clue she could to help her find a way to her brother.  There was one striking clue that stood out the most to Carrie.  All the missing person victims who had been killed were boys who had just turned 14 or were 14.  Carrie was devastated.  Her brother was 13 now but was about to turn 14 in three days.  Chills shot up Carrie’s body as she began to cry.  She couldn't lose her brother.  It began to pour as Carrie pick up her red coat and ran out the door to Will’s house.
Will’s house was a big house, with a grand porch and flowers devouring the front yard.  The grass was greener than Carrie could even imagine grass could be and the house was a unique shade of forest green.  She stepped up the wooden stairs and knocked on the door.  Will’s parents answered the door and invited Carrie in welcomingly. 
“May I speak to Will?” she asked as they brought her some warm hot chocolate.
“Yes, I will call him down for you,” Will’s mother said as she went to summon Will.
“I’m very sorry about Mickey,” Will’s father said to fill the silence.
Carrie bowed her head and nodded.  The conversation was interrupted by the sound of the thud of footsteps coming down the steps. 
“Hello, Carrie,” Will said as he came down.  Will was a short boy.  He played lots of video games and wore oversized glasses. 
“Hi, Will,” Carrie said in response.
They both sat down across from each other in the living room.
“Can I ask you a few questions about Mickey?” Carrie asked to be polite. Will nodded agreeably indicating that Carrie should go on.
“Why didn’t Mickey come back to your house after the party?” she asked.  Will bowed his head as if he had to deliberate whether he was going to lie or tell the truth.
“Please, Will, I have to find him,” she insisted.
Will looked up and began,
“I didn’t tell the police this…” he said as he looked over at his parents doing something in the kitchen.
He began again but this time in a whisper,
“Before our friend Travis went missing, he gave us this number to a weed dealer who he said was 16 and from a close-by town.  A bunch of us guys have gotten these texts from this guy who has made some pretty good offers.  Anyways, this guy texted Mickey a couple of days ago and told him he had some for him for his birthday.  That’s what Mickey went to do last night.  He went to pick up his weed from this guy.” 
Carrie had gone completely quiet.  She didn’t know what to say.  Mickey had never showed any signs of being interested in this and frankly, Mickey wasn’t the type to do something like this.
“Do you know exactly where Mickey went?” Carrie said.
“He left me his phone so your parents couldn’t track him down.  I turned it on, hacked into it, and found the messages that the dealer sent to his phone and where they were planning to meet,” he answered back.  Carrie stood up, thanked Will, and left with Mickey’s phone and the determination to find Mickey once and for all.
As Carrie drove,  the houses began to seem fewer and fewer.  As she got to the house that Will had helped her find, she began to feel more worried and worried.  She pulled up to a little cottage.  The cottage was a dark rustic brown and looked as if it were rotting.  The blinds to the windows were shut and the door had at least four locks on it.  Carrie nervously went up the rickety steps and knocked on the door.  A cold breeze made her shiver as the day closed into a dark creepy night. A man she recognized open the door and smiled.
“How may I help you?” he asked as he hid behind the door.  Carrie realized who he was.  He was Mr. Mathews, the new janitor at their school.  Carrie had called the cops before she had gotten out of the car and waited eagerly for them to show up.
“I would like to know if you have any extra weed I could buy,” she said as she pulled out a big stack of money.  He looked surprised but intrigued.
“I do.  Who told you where I lived?” he said.
I heard from a friend that you were selling weed here.  Do you know Mickey?” she asked as the cops pulled in and ran to handcuff Mr. Mathews.  He tried to get away but couldn’t and was walked to the policeman’s car.  Carrie walked inside and found Mickey downstairs with a bag over his head and his hands tied with tight rope.
“Mickey!” Carrie cried as she untangled the rope. They both cried as Carrie rocked her brother back and forth.  Carrie loved her brother so much. She would never let him go again.
Later Carrie had found out from Mickey that Mr. Matthews was a actual drug dealer who lures 14 year old boys into his house to be kidnapped. Mickey had given into peer pressure to get the weed.  As a child Mr. Mathews was forced out of his house on his 14th birthday because he had sold weed to his friends.  He went through a rough life.  Mr. Matthews felt that kids like Mickey didn’t deserve what they had.  Mr. Matthews was put into jail and charged for all his crimes.  Carrie had saved her brother and that was all that mattered.