Despite the endless comments being shouted behind my back, I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the last letter. “Open me when you’ve lost your way,” it read. Just like the countless others we’d found over the summer, it gave specific instructions on when to open it; more over, and more eerily, it knew exactly of our predicament.

Had we finally lost our way in the midst of this mind game?

“My gosh, Hannah. Open the letter, you idiot.” Kade brushed past me, hitting my shoulder with his. I wanted to protest against his insensitivity, but I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe, at that. This letter… This letter could lead me to my sister. So why couldn’t I find it in me to move my legs and get the dang thing from it’s resting place?

I watched as Kade picked the letter up from off the driveway - my driveway. Jordan, Kay, and Presley all stood behind, suddenly silent. Even without turning around, I knew that they’d become well aware of the fact that Kade’s face had turned pale in the moonlight.

Kade stood reading the letter in silence for a little over a minute, the rest of us watching his face for clues of what it might say, but unable to move out of uncertainty. Hesitantly, Kade looked up at me with an unreadable expression on his face and slowly walked towards me. He whispered, low enough so the others right behind couldn’t hear. “I’m so sorry, Hannah. I…”

He didn’t finish.

He didn’t have too.

He placed the letter in my shaking hands and walked back with the rest of the group. I could hear them saying things like “What did it say?” and “What the actually beans just happened?”, but pretty soon, the blood rushing to my ears drowned out all of the outside sound, and it was just me and my letter.

The fist of the thirty some letters that we’d found that was written in my own twin’s handwriting - addressed to me.

To Hannah,

I’m sorry. And I won’t ever stop being sorry. More accurately, I hate myself for what I’ve done to you and mom and dad. Instead of telling you where I was going, I’ve left you this series of clues, of which you have obviously followed to this: the promised final clue. Never-the-less, I knew you’d be able to figure out my little game - if that’s what you’d even call it - eventually. Though it may seem torturous now, I promise that someday it will all

make since. However, until then, I have to ask you to trust me. Even if the journey is long and hard - trust me, because eventually, it WILL be worth it. Other than the whole waking up and finding your best friend missing part. Under normal circumstances, I know that you’d probably come out of this whole thing hating my guts, but I know you better than that. Trust me, Hannah - that’s all I’m asking for: a little bit of trust.

I love you forever,

Elle

Despite the fact that my cheeks were wet with fresh tears, I turned to the group, who had gone deathly quiet. I passed them the letter and let them read it. My hands shook so badly that I almost dropped it while handing it to them, but I managed to recover in time to not let them see my weakness.

Or at least I thought I had.

The next thing I knew, Kade was walking over to me, a concerned look on his face. “Are you ok?” He asked me, keeping his voice low.

Of course I wasn’t ok. The last piece to solving this unending puzzle had been an unsympathetic apology letter from my missing sister saying how I just needed to “trust” that her disappearing in the middle of the night was going to help anything - whatever that anything was.

Before I got the chance to answer, Jordan gasped. “Holy crap, guys. Hannah, look at this.”

He held up the letter so Kade and I could see it as well. Jordan looked up at me. “Read the first letter of each sentence.”

“What?”

“Just do it!”

“Fine, fine…” I took the letter from his hands, and did as he asked. What I saw made my heart stop.

The letters formed one sentence.

“I am in the out,” I read allowed.

Kade looked at me. “Does that mean anything to you?”

A smile crossed my lips. “It means everything.”