Broken (18+)

chapter 8 - "You're gonna teach me to do what?!"

Veronicas POV

I wake up freezing my ass off and look at the window. "Shit!" I curse myself as I see I didn't lock my window last night and left it open. I quickly sit up on my bed and scan my room to see if there are any signs of someone breaking in. My eyes stop at my desk. Somethings missing.

I'm somewhat of a perfectionist. Everything has its place and I always keep everything organized. Otherwise, it bothers me. I walk up to my desk and scan it. Something is wrong. I look at the picture frame. The photo is gone. It was the only photo I had left of me and Brittany together. "What the fuck?" I mutter to myself as I try to figure out what happened to it. I know I wouldn't move it. I doubt my sister would take it. My father doesn't even come into my room. My mother might've taken it.

I look at the clock on my dresser, it's 4 in the morning. My mom will be pissed if I wake her up to ask her about the missing photo. So I head to the window, checking it for any indication that someone has come through it. I see dirt on the windowsill. That's strange. When I climbed out of my window last night, I didn't have any shoes on and my feet weren't dirty.

I rush and switch on my bedroom light and look at my floor. "Fuck, this can't be happening," I say as I notice dirt trails roughly a foot apart each. It must be residue from someone's shoes as they were walking. I start to panic and try to follow the footsteps. I trace them around my entire room and to behind the curtain. I move the curtain and see a lot more dirt there. It seems like they stood there for a while. Another path leads from behind the curtain and to around my bed. I gasp, "holy shit. They were right by me while I was fucking sleeping?! How didn't I hear them?" I follow the footprints until my window again. I look outside on the roof and truth be told, they are on the roof leading to the tree next to our house. They climbed up the tree to come into my room. Fuck fuck fuck. What happened.. and why did they take the photo of Brittany and me?

With shaking hands, I dial the only number that I know would answer this time in the morning. A sleepy voice answers the phone,

"What's up princess?"

I start breathing heavily and I hear shuffling on the other side of the phone. In a more alert voice, he says, "princess. What's wrong?"

"Someone broke into my room when I was sleeping. They took something. A photo. Nothing else is missing that I'm aware of. I'm scared Dustin. I didn't know who else to phone." I say while trying to calm myself down.

"Shit. I'm coming over. Do you see anything else? How did they get in your room?" He asks

"They climbed the tree to get onto the roof and came through the window."

"I'll be there now princess, don't touch anything. And keep your guard up. Whoever broke in, could still be there."

"Okay, please hurry. I don't know what to do." I say trying to hold back tears.

"I'm on my way. I'll see you in a few minutes." He says as he hangs up.

I clutch my phone to my chest and pace around my room, making sure not to touch anything as Dustin said.

Griffens POV

"Get up. We need to leave. Right now. Veronica might be in trouble." Dustin says as he wakes me up. I take a minute to process what he said while I'm half asleep. "Shit okay. I'm coming with." I say as I quickly get dressed. We get in the car and speed off to Veronica's house.

Dustin switches the car's lights off as we approach to not let any possible burglars be aware of our presence. And the car is electric too so it makes basically no noise as we reach the house. "Scan for anything suspicious. We don't know if the intruder is still here." Dustin says as he shuts off the car and scans the surroundings.