Tony looked up at the setting sun, the snow was up past his knees. He pulled out a Flashlight in one hand and walkie talkie in the other. He pressed the button “Let’s call it, it’ll be dangerous if we stay out any longer.”

Alice’s voice came through “C’mon, just a little longer.”

“No can do, Alice. We stay out too long and there’ll be more than one missing person we have to search for.”

There was a pause before Alice spoke in the radio again “Understood.”

The search party returned back to the road they all gathered at and went their separate ways. The only 2 remaining were Alice and Tony.

“Same time tomorrow?” Alice asked.

“Alice, this is the last time.” Tony was defeated.

“Please, just one more time.” Alice pleaded.

“Alice, it’s been 2 weeks of this and we’re no closer to finding him. There’s at least a couple hundred square miles of forest out here. We’ve covered as much as we could and still haven’t found a single sign of them. Even the helicopters didn’t see anything unusual, and they won’t be able to search properly until all this snow melts.”

“But you said they drove past the traffic camera out of Heart and there were no reports of their car being seen in the next town over. They must be out here!”

Tony put his hand on her shoulder. “There’s a 40 mile stretch of road between us and Davidson. The forest stretches out almost 3 times that in every direction. If they’re out here, then finding them would be like a single needle hidden in a football field of haystacks.”

Alice knew that he was right and that’s what scared her.

“I don’t like this anymore than you do, but we could search every day for a year and there still wouldn’t be a guarantee that we would ever find them. Even if we did, the chances of Levi being alive…”

Alice refused to think like that because if she gave up, then there was no one else who would try to find him or even care that he was missing. “You might be right, but I refuse to give up hope until we find him. No matter what.”

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Tony let out a deep breath, he got where she was coming from. It’s impossible for 2 people to completely disappear, but his captain had made it clear that he wouldn’t be wasting anymore time and manpower on this endeavor. “Okay, as long as you keep looking, then so will I.”

Alice’s eyes lit up “Really?”

“Yeah, but it’ll just be me. No more police assets.” Tony wanted to make sure Alice understood what she was agreeing to.

“It’s better than nothing, so I’ll take it.” Alice enthusiastically accepted Tony’s offer. Two people searching was better than one.

Tony made good on his promise to help with Alice’s search for Levi and they spent every moment they could looking for Levi. Even with it feeling pointless at times.

“It’s been over a month since Levi’s abduction. Well 38 days to be exact. Tony and I have been spending every free moment out searching for him, we’ve searched close to a hundred miles… only about a couple hundred miles more and we'll have combed the whole forest. I ended up getting a dirt bike like I wanted, but I’m not using it for the reasons I thought I would. It's definitely helping to clear through the forest faster though. Luckily Tony is a pro at riding, and he’s been a huge help in my search for Levi. I know that he’s out there somewhere. We’ll find him.”

Alice finished up writing in her journal and started heading down to meet with Tony. He lit up when he saw Alice pull up. Originally, he started this search with a singular reason, to help find Levi. But after all this time spent with Alice, he began to grow attached to her and getting to see her was the highlight of his day.

“You ready to get started?”

Alice smiled “You know it.”

The 2 loaded up onto their dirt bikes in full riding gear with backpacks on that contained an assortment of useful tools like flares, a gun, flashlights, and some snacks. Tony led the way and Alice trailed behind him.

They blazed through the forest, searching as far as they could before finally running low on gas and needed to head back.

Once again, they returned unsuccessful, and it hurt Alice every time they came back without even so much as a clue to where Levi was. She never gave up hope though.

Tony awkwardly smiled “Don’t worry, tomorrow’s a new day. You never know what we’ll find.”

Alice let out a sigh “Yeah, I just wish we could find literally anything.”

“In the meantime, maybe we could go get something to eat before calling it a night.” Tony propositioned Alice.

Alice never knew the right way to answer this question whenever Tony asked to do something after their searches. She was grateful for the help but didn’t want to lead Tony on into thinking this was anything more than a partnership. “Sorry, I’m feeling pretty drained after today and I have work tomorrow. I’m just going to head home, shower and get some sleep.”

“If you change your mind, give me a call.” Tony couldn’t hide that Alice declining his offer stung a bit.

Alice waived goodbye and got into her car “You got it, night!”

Tony waived back, looking slightly disappointed, and finished loading up his gear into his car before driving off back home.