“I’ll be right back,” I say, adjusting my grip on the bat. Theo pipes up, despite my earlier warning.

“Let me go too!” he says, waving his hand in the air.

“No, it might be dangerous,” I tell him.

“But I can make a light,” he replies quickly, a small candle flame igniting above his palm before I can tell him not to. It’s beautiful and delicate, nothing like the explosives he did earlier, and my eyes widen in shock.

“Wow,” the kids voice my thoughts aloud, gazing at the tiny flame lighting up the shadows in front of the store. I’m more surprised than I thought I’d be; who knew Theo could make such a small and calm flame?

“Okay, fine, but if you don’t listen you’re going back outside with everyone else,” I concede and he nods vigorously, carefully keeping his flame steady.

I enter the building, the air stale and dusty inside. The smell isn’t as bad as the other house but the dust makes me want to sneeze and I pull my shirt up to cover my nose. Inside, it’s mostly one big room with empty shelves lining it; whatever had sat on them was gone long ago. There are two doors off to the left side towards the back, both closed. I wonder if they’re locked too, but when I try the knobs they turn, creaking loudly but letting me in.

I try the light switches but unsurprisingly, they don’t work. So I call Theo over, who is examining an old cash register with curiosity. Carefully walking as though holding a full glass of water, Theo heads over my direction. I show him the two rooms.

“We just have to check to make sure it’s safe,” I tell him. “We’ll bring the others in and all check properly afterwards.”

“Okey dokey,” Theo says, walking fearlessly into the dark room. I follow him, my bat at the ready, but nothing pops out. The room has lots of boxes stacked, and some old product piled to one side, but that was mostly it.

“Eh, boring,” the boy beside me says, turning and eagerly opening the squeaky door to the second room. I follow, my senses all alert, but this room is also empty. His small light casts odd shadows on the bare walls, as he walks around the things on the floor. This room has several sewing machines against the wall on a table, as well as bolts of cloth and a bunch of random office supplies. Making sure one more time that the place is empty, I finally return to the front with Theo and let Ren bring the kids in. Cassidy hesitates as her foot crosses the threshold, but resolutely steps forward, fingers squeezing Ren’s hand tightly.

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Ren’s features are pinched with worry and he tells me in a low voice, “There’s only nineteen minutes left. If it’s not here-”

“Then I’ll book it to the last house and do my best to look. Let’s not waste time,” I cut in. I’m well aware of the ticking clock; in fact, it’s taking all my self control not to impulsively check the time on my phone every few seconds. But I stifle the fear. After all, there’s eight of us looking. That should count for something, even if most of the searchers were children. As long as there was a collectible in here, at least…

There isn’t a whole lot to look through in the main room, I noticed, so I let the kids check in there. Theo and Cassidy are both in the first room; it seems they’ve decided they’re a good team. Holding his hand up to light up the space, Cassidy searches through boxes with a focused determination. Entering the second room, I let my eyes adjust to the darkness for a moment and set my bat down by the door. While it may be difficult to scour the area with so little light, the collectibles had a glow, so hopefully that would make it easy to see. I head to the back table, shoving heavy sewing machines around. Some of them are covered, I realize, so just in case I lift the covers off and check underneath.

I just about jump out of my skin when something touches me from behind. Cutting off the scream that tries to escape me, I turn and see Kena tapping my back.

“Can I help you in here?” she asks.

“Of course,” I reply, willing my heartbeat to slow down again. Turning back to my task, I continue to heft the large machines back and forth across the table. Once that’s done, I carefully look around, my eyes fully used to the darkness by now. Kena is looking through the office supplies, but I can tell just by looking it’s not there. I begin shoving the bolts of cloth around, my anxiety increasing, when I hear someone shout.

“I did it! I won the pwize!” Cassidy’s triumphant cry echoes in the near empty store and all of us flock over, squeezing into the small room to see.

Cassidy is proudly pointing to a small spool of thread, piled up with the others in such a way that I might have missed it myself. It’s pale blue glow is swallowed by Theo’s yellow flame but I can see in the way that it bobs ever so slowly that it is indeed a collectible. Honestly, with the way they were all set up, the young girl very well might have accidentally grabbed it before realizing what it was. Genuinely happy and relieved, I squeeze Cassidy in a hug and spin her around.

“Amazing job!” I tell her and she squeals happily. Wasting no more time, I put her down and grab the spool, surprised at how cool it feels, like something out of the fridge. It vanishes with a flash and I receive my pop up. I can’t help but let out a sigh of relief at the blue notification. The kids cheer when they get theirs.

You have found the collectible ‘Connecting Thread’.

Nine out of ten collectibles have been found. 1 collectible remains!

Ren pats my shoulder and I smile at him.

“That was stressful,” I admit and he laughs.

“Yeah, it was. But hey, we have a whole…nine minutes left to relax,” he chuckles, glancing at his phone. I laugh too, more out of relief than anything, but my mood falters as I remember the other collectible that hadn’t been found by us.

“Do you think we should head back to the grocery store or stay here until the challenge is over?” I ask Ren, biting my lip.

“Let’s go back to the grocery store. We can make that our home base, of sorts,” he muses.

“What about my pwize!” Cassidy insists and I ruffle her hair, mussing it over her eyes as she grumbled at me.

“Don’t worry,” I tell her as I retrieve my baseball bat from where I’d set it. “I didn’t forget. You’ll get it once we go back to the mart. And,” I address all the kids, “hopefully we will have a nap after this.”

They all groan, as expected, but I ignore it. It’s gotten hard to tell the time, with the weather and atmosphere changing with each challenge, but I’m sure it’s after nap time for them and while they might be happy to skip one, Ren and I would be pulling our hair out in a few hours if they did. They're still little kids, after all.