It Haunts Us Once Again

IV

I couldn't figure out how the book would've flowed without putting it in this order, so here is more of Willow. I promise that I'm going to get back to the other characters soon :)

This chapter ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would be. I hope you enjoy :)

-Q

...

Six Years Ago May, Willow
Part 1

She was engrossed in her book. So immersed that she couldn't see or hear anything else around her.

Today was the first official day of finals. They had their first final yesterday, but it was still a regular school day. Today started the "just final" days, meaning the school day was short and Willow didn't have any more work that was distracting her from her thriller. It was just getting to the good part and while her heart was practically pounding out of her chest, she kept a conscious thought to make sure none of it showed on her face.

She always liked the stories where there were people actively trying to hide the crimes they committed but there's always the main character that's either overly curious or it's just part of their job to figure out what really happened. Then, the antagonists go after the main character because they're threatening their innocence. She could read those for days on end and never get tired of the excitement she felt from them. She had always wanted an experience like that to happen to her, just to see how it feels to go through something like that. But she knew this was real life and that it wasn't going to happen.

Her concentration was broken when the whispering started.

Dang it. Right at the confrontation too.

She tried to continue, but it was no use. She couldn't focus. If there was whispering going on without the teacher saying anything, that meant that everyone was done with the test. No sooner did the teacher put up all the papers in a folder, the classroom got louder. "You guys can talk, just be aware that there are other classes still testing so keep it low. And no talking about the test," the teacher said and with that, she opened a book of her own. Right after that, Willow heard someone beside her ask someone else about one of the test questions and she couldn't help but laugh to herself.

"Whatcha reading Willow," the guy behind her asked. She turned around and saw Cayden with a small, genuine smile on his face. His hair was dark and messy and he wore a hoodie and some sweatpants, which pretty much screamed finals week. He looked at her with his soft, glistening green eyes and she smiled back. Out of all the people she would talk to, it would be Cayden. They've been great friends since the start of high school and now they're about to graduate together. She was glad that he came up to her that one day because if he didn't, she wouldn't have known how she was going to make friends on her own.

"I'm reading another thriller. This one's about a guy that's connected to all these missing people and the main character decided to look at the case file since he remembered hearing about it before he became a detective and he was curious and bored. So after he went to go talk to one of the victims' family members, he understood why they told him that something was very off and that they never liked what happened in court. The suspect they arrested before had been released early due to good behavior. And so the detective decides they were going to talk to them the next day. But when he gets back to his office, it was trashed and-"

"Willow slow down," he chuckled, "What if I wanted to read this book? I don't want you to spoil everything."

She gave a nervous smile, "Yeah you're right. Sorry about that."

"Don't apologize. I know you're excited." She was glad he understood her like this. She never really gets to talk about books, or any of her favorite things, like this with anyone but him.