HITCHCOCK, Texas -- The parent of two 16-year-olds who have been missing since last week are desperate to find the girls.

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Parents Make Tearful Plea For Safe Return

Searchers took to the air Friday afternoon hoping to find Ashley Williams and Marian Harstad. They have been missing since Dec. 5, when they skipped school.

Ashley's mother told News2Houston that they are holding out hope that their daughter and her friend are all right and safe.

"At times we don't get home until 2 o'clock in the morning, then we're back up here between eight and nine," Ashley's mother Nyla Williams said.

Ashley and Marian were last seen at By the Sea, a Bacliff restaurant. Ashley called her boyfriend on a cell phone, which went dead during the call.

The girls haven't been heard from since, and the cell phone hasn't been used since Dec. 5.

At first, police thought the girls were runaways, but Williams said that there "is no chance of that" because her daughter was "happy."

Williams said that Ashley had plans to try out for her high school drill team in February.

"She's out there, even if she did run away," Williams said. "There's all kind of nutty people in the world. I'm afraid she's going to run across somebody."

Tim Miller, who is helping search for the girls, told News2Houston that Texas Equusearch is running out of new ground to cover and leads.

"These girls are not streetwise enough to make it out there," Miller said. "They didn't have any money. They didn't take any clothes."

For now, all Ashley's parents can do is wait and hope.

"Every day, I think it's going to be the day that she's going to call," Williams said.

The girls were last seen in a gray, four-door 1996 Chevrolet Cavalier with the Texas license plate number 4KX-54B.

If you have any information, you're asked to call Hitchcock police at (409) 986-5559 or Texas Equusearch at (281) 309-9500.