“All I keep thinking about is someone hurting her,” Denaya Stewart told Dateline. “We’re just very concerned and scared for her.”

Denaya’s daughter, Queen Destiny Taylor, has been missing for five months. The 25-year-old was last seen on August 14, 2024, in the Gainesville area of Prince William County, Virginia.

“I’m just so worried about her,” Denaya said.

Destiny, as her family calls her, was raised in Virginia alongside nine siblings. “We’re very close,” Denaya said.

“She’s very loving, she’s giving,” Denaya said of her daughter. “She has a sweet personality.”

Destiny is a mother to two young boys. At the time of her disappearance, Destiny and her children lived with Denaya in Gainesville.

Denaya recalls the last time she saw her daughter. It was the morning of August 14. "She had just started her job at Buffalo Wild Wings,” Denaya said.

Destiny took an Uber to her job and later that evening called her mother. “She had called me around 9:30 that night, and I was like, ‘Where are you at?’” Denaya recalled. “She said, ‘I went out, hung out with some friends. I’m on my way home.’”

About 30 minutes later, Denaya says she got another call from Destiny, who explained she had been in a car accident with a friend and needed someone to pick her up. “I said, ‘Where at?’ She said, ‘By the mall,’” Denaya recalled. “I said, ‘I’ll send your brother.’”

As her son headed to the location, Denaya received another call from Destiny. This time, it was from an unfamiliar number.

Destiny explained that she had taken an Uber to her friend’s aunt’s house and that her brother could pick her up there. “She said, ‘I’m calling you from the aunt’s phone because I lost my phone,’” Denaya said. When asked how she lost it, Denaya says her daughter explained that she may have left it in the Uber. “She said her phone just disappeared; she doesn’t know where her phone went.”

Denaya says her son showed up in the neighborhood in Manassas, Virginia, about 20 minutes away from Gainesville. He called Denaya, saying, “It’s not a good neighborhood.” Denaya told Dateline he felt uncomfortable being there with his girlfriend and children.

Denaya called the unknown number back and told her daughter her brother was waiting for her. Destiny said she was still looking for her phone. “I said, ‘Well, your brother’s feeling kind of uncomfortable,’” she recalled. “He’s trying to get out of there.”

A few minutes later, around midnight, Destiny called her mother back, saying her brother had left. “I said, ‘Well, I can’t make him stay because he’s feeling uncomfortable,’” Denaya said. “I said, ‘Well, Des, figure it out at this point.’”

Denaya’s son confirmed to Dateline his mother’s recollection of events that night.

According to Denaya, Destiny’s twin sister, Dyamond, got a message on Instagram the next day from a random account. “Someone was saying, ‘I’m not coming home’ or something like that,” Denaya said. “But why would Destiny not [message] on her Instagram? She could have gone on her own Instagram. It’s just really weird.”

Denaya says the family initially waited to see if Destiny would return. “We were asking around, trying to contact friends, looking on our social media,” she said. “So then, eventually, we went and did a missing persons report.”

On August 28, 2024, Destiny’s family reported her missing.

The Prince William County Police Department is investigating Destiny’s disappearance. Public Information Officer Lieutenant Jonathan Perok told Dateline in an email that their office has completed “multiple investigative” attempts to locate Destiny, and that “information collected in the case suggests Ms. Taylor is missing under voluntary circumstances.” The lieutenant described the investigation into Destiny’s whereabouts as “active and ongoing and noted that information “has also been shared with neighboring law enforcement agencies in the event she is no longer in Prince William County, and she is entered into the national database as missing.”

Denaya says the family has also conducted multiple searches for Destiny. “We’ve been in Woodbridge and Dumfries, Manassas, Gainesville, and we’ve been to D.C. and Maryland,” she said.

Major milestones have been missed. “Her children’s birthdays passed,” Denaya said. “That’s not like her, not to be here for her children.” January 5 was Destiny and twin sister Dyamond’s 25th birthday. No Destiny. “[It was] her first birthday without her sister,” Denaya said of Dyamond. “So, she didn’t even celebrate.”

Denaya says it’s been hard to celebrate anything lately. She lost her mother in February 2024, and shortly after Destiny disappeared, one of Denaya’s sons died in a car accident. “It’s just been one tragedy after another,” she said. “Just overwhelming grief right now.”

Still, Denaya remains hopeful. “I just want to tell her that if you can make it home, baby, get home,” she pleaded. “There’s nothing too hard for God. We all miss you.”

Destiny is 5’9,” 150 lbs., and has brown hair and black eyes. She was last seen wearing a Buffalo Wild Wings T-shirt. She has a butterfly tattoo on her left arm and a facial piercing on her left cheekbone.

If you have any information regarding her whereabouts, contact the Prince William County Police Department at 703-792-6500 or submit an online tip at pwcva.gov/policetip.