𝐀𝐍 𝐔𝐍𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘, 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥𝐬

xxɪᴠ || ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇᴏʀɪᴇꜱ

Astrid always knew her reckless and somewhat senseless adventures at Pine Hill would come in handy when she returned to Sweden. Sneaking out of the dorms during the early hours of the morning was a piece of cake, and hot wiring the car she found parked mere meters down the street was Hillerska brought back a flood of missed memories of wild parties and dangerous pranks.

The sun was rising at the sky line as Astrid pulled up to the old junk yard that was somehow still in business. The place looked absolutely dead. Astrid scouted the place out quickly before even thinking about getting out of the stolen car. She had already been on edge about the whole situation, but she hit the roof when her phone began to ring.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was Wilhelm's face which lit up her screen, as opposed to August or the Queen's contact. Answering the phone quickly, Astrid heard movement in the distance. Her eyes flickered to where she had heard the noise, slouching further down in her seat in an attempt to not be seen.

"Astrid?" Wilhelm was asking, "Astrid, you there? Hello, earth to Astrid?"

"Yeah, I'm here," She exclaimed in a hushed tone. "What's wrong? It's like six am". As she spoke she glanced around the surrounding area; to her left was dense forest while directly in front of her and to the right was the junkyard. The place was pretty beat up - rusting exterior steel structure which looked like it held up the shed, with uncut grass and unchecked weeds sprouting around the edges of the shed. Astrid's confidence was slowly fading.

"That was Jasmine's argument. Where are you?" Wilhelm asked, "Because I know for a fact that you aren't at Hillerska. Jasmine had already checked the whole school - she's been up since five worrying about you. You want to tell me why you're skipping out at six am?"

Astrid rolled her eyes; Jasmine sleeps like the dead, and never used to wake before nine am. It used to make them late almost every day. But of course, she had to choose today to awake at the crack of freaking dawn.

"Ah, don't worry about it. Tell Jas I'm fine, that I'll be back soon," She sucked in a breath as she slid further down her seat. She was almost laying down by this point, her legs cramped in the under space by the steering wheel. She spotted who she assumed was the owner of the junkyard coming in, and she really didn't want to get questioned while still on the phone to Wilhelm.

Wilhelm chuckled knowingly. "What crime did you just commit?" He asked.

"I didn't commit any crime!" She exclaimed, but she didn't need to be by Wilhelm to know he was giving her a judgemental look. "I stole a car," She admitted after several beats, "It's really not that big of a deal".

"You stole a friggin car?" He cried, "How on Earth did you manage that?"

"I hotwired the thing".

"You-" Wilhelm's voice was cut off before he could finish his sentence. Astrid heard muffled chatter in the background, before the call exploded with background noise. "I put you on speaker, Simon's here," Wilhelm exclaimed.

"What's going on?" Simon's voice sounded staticky, and far away.

"Ash stole a car".

"She what?"

"Said she hotwired it. I don't know where she is now, though," Wilhelm explained. Astrid rolled her eyes as the two boys continued their conversation, eventually just switching off her phone altogether.

She waited for several more beats to see if Wilhelm would ring back, after realising that she had ended their call. He didn't. With one last glance around the surrounding area, Astrid deemed it safe enough to depart from the car. She kept a firm grip on her phone as she approached the shed.