Stuck! Nina and Amber were stuck in the stupid warehouse!

Nina sighed. This was all her fault; she shouldn't have convinced Amber to come to this sketchy place! True. They had found Patricia, but by now, Patricia could be anywhere with Rufus. And Nina and Amber were slowly starving.

Admittedly, it had only been several hours since they had gotten locked in by Rufus (according to their cell phones that were only good for telling time now that they lost cell service in the heavy metal building.)

Amber had screamed for the first half hour while Nina combed the place for something useful to aid in their escape.

"Boxes, blankets, ooohh- here's a metal pipe!" Nina said as she yanked the pipe from its rusty attachment on the wall. She began to repeatedly bang it on the door. Over. And over.

After a good solid five minutes of trying to knock it down, Nina slumped in the chair.

"My hands hurt," was all she could say.

"Too bad the stupid door doesn't have hinges," said the surprisingly insightful Amber.

Amber was pacing as she claimed to be claustrophobic. She was no longer screaming and after the initial freak out- she was surprisingly calm.

"Someone will come for us," she said nodding- trying to convince herself, "won't they?"

Nina had no answer. No one knew where they were.

Fabian still didn't know where Nina and Amber were and he was starting to get worried. Alfie and Jerome were no help. When he asked them at supper if they had seen them- they just spoke of horses and polishing silverware.

He left the House and decided to go to the clearing where Patricia was supposed to have met Joy the other night. He searched for clues of where they could be until the sun was well below the horizon.

His heart began to beat faster and faster in worry for the girls. When it got too dark he prayed that they were already back at the House. But when he walked into the common room, his heart sunk.

"Has anyone seen Nina and Amber?" He asked in true alarm.

No one said anything. Not even Trudy. He took this as a terrible confirmation that they were still missing. Victor didn't seem concerned. On the contrary- he took the same cold manner of 'everything being under control' as when he had talked about Patricia being with her fake Aunt and Uncle.

Fabian went upstairs and started forming a plan. It was 8:45pm- he grabbed his pillows and put them in his bed so it looked like he was already in it- sleeping. And wearing all black, he snuck back outside to search for them.

He was walking for only a few moments when he saw two dark shapes also flitting through the night across campus and heading towards the clearing. At first, in his excitement, he nearly shouted out, "NINA! AMBER!" but he noticed something strange about the forms that he saw. So instead- he followed.

Amber and Nina were in no better condition that earlier. In fact- they were much worse. They were very, very hungry. Nina had insisted that they ration the hamburger considering they might be stuck there for a while. So they each had only had a miniscule bite in all of those hours.

Nina was still going through all of the objects in the warehouse- particularly ones that could be used for their protection if Rufus came back. He was a dangerous man, she just knew it.

After Nina and Amber really had nothing else to say about their situation (other than how much it sucked)- they went quiet for a long while. Nina lay on the floor and Amber now took the chair. As she looked up- she saw something, that gave her an idea.

"Amber! Look! There's a hatch up there!" She said pointing at the ceiling.

"Maybe- if we can reach it- and escape!" Nina jumped up as she began stacking boxes to stand on to reach thier only hope of escape.

Within minutes, all the boxes that were movable for two teenage girls were placed underneath the hatch and stacked strategically. Unfortunately – it wasn't enough. Nina realized that only one person would be able to leave because the other person would have to give a boost up from the very top box. She would feel bad being the first person to leave, considering she was the one who made Amber come in the warehouse. Thus, she explained the situation to Amber,

"Only one of us can get out of here, so the other can open the door from the outside! I'll give you a boost and be careful when you get on the roof."

They tried and tried. Amber just couldn't seem to get out the hatch. After much pushing, Amber used Nina's shoulders to leap out of the hatch. However, the momentum was too much. She flew out the hatch, and began to slide off the roof.

Nina heard a loud shriek and a rolling then a loud, "THUNK" on the front side of the building.

"Amber! Are you ok?" She yelled.

She got no response. How was she supposed to know that Amber was lying unconscious outside the warehouse? Nina was totally helpless as she yelled to her friend.

A half hour later, Amber would wake up and woozily make her way to the woods in an almost drunken state- unable to remember a thing.