Bad Boy

Brandon

I wake up feeling refreshed for the first time in a long time. I look up and see Brandon, sleeping peacefully. I smiled at the sight, he made me feel safe. I jumped when I heard my door burst open and so did Brandon. I look up and see Rowan, Elisia and Hailey standing there, eyes widened. "Hera!" Rowan yells, running to me and yanking me out of the bed and pulling me behind her. "What the hell are you doing here?" she asks Brandon. He just gives a confused look. "Guys it's fine" I say stepping in front of Rowan. "What are you talking about?" she says, hinting at what I told her and Hailey yesterday. "I trust him. It's a long story but I trust him" I say. The girls stare between me and Brandon for a moment before Hailey breaks the silence. "Hera, can we talk for a minute?" she asks calmly. I nod my head and start to follow them out of the room. I turn to Brandon at the door and mouth the words 'I'm sorry'. He just flashes a smile before I turn and walk out. I shut the door and follow them down the hall. We stop and they turn to me. "Why is he here?" Rowan says crossing her arms. "He came over to work on our project and trust me, I did try to get him to leave but it didn't work very well. We worked on the project for a while and I ended up just blabbing out that I knew what he did. He explained it to me and it all just makes sense. I don't think it's him guys, I really don't" I say. "How do we know that it wasn't really him that shot that guy?" Elisia cuts in. I look at her in confusion. How does she know about this? I turn to Rowan and Hailey with the same look. "You guys told her?" I say getting a little upset. "We had to. What if she was in danger with Ash?" Hailey says. "I told you guys Ash is innocent" Elisia says. "So your telling me that picture is fake?" I say getting angry. "Well Brandon was in it too" she says. "That's not fair" I say crossing my arms. "I'm sorry Hera. But we can't just trust everyone, we can only trust each other right now" Rowan says. I let out a laugh in response. "That is so unfair. How can I even trust you guys? You went behind my back and told Elisia when we said we wouldn't. And she's still around Ash and that's okay but I can't trust Brandon?" I say raising my voice a little. "Hera we don't know Brandon as well as we know Ash" Hailey cuts in. "You can't trust him Hera. You don't even know him that well" Elisia says. At this point I'm pissed. "How can you even say that? How are you going to sit here and tell me who I can or can't trust or hang out with. This is pathetic, I thought you guys would trust me enough to follow my own instincts, and my instinct says that Brandon is not dangerous" I say. "We're not trying to-" Rowan starts to speak but I cut her off. "Can you guys please just go?" I say. "Hera" Hailey says stepping towards me. "Please just leave me alone" I say stepping back. They all look at each other then back at me. They give me a simpathetic look before turning and walking towards the door. I stood there and watched as they left. I turned and walked towards my bedroom and stopped when I saw Brandon standing at the doorway. I stop and look at him for a moment, scanning his face. He looked at me with a sad expression. "You heard all of that" I say. He nods his head and continues to look at me. All of the sudden he pulls me into a hug and I couldn't hold back the tears. I let it all out, sobbing into his chest. I guess I didn't realize how much I needed to cry. I was tired of always being scared and I was tired of avoiding people just because I feel like I shouldn't trust anyone. When we talked about everything last night it felt so good to be able to talk to someone other than Rowan Hailey and Elisia. Even though I was pretty mad at them, I still care about them and want them to be safe. I'll check up on them soon, just not right away. Me and Brandon just decided to hang out in my room most of the day watching anything we can find on Netflix. After a little while, Brandon's phone went off and he grabbed it to look. When he read the screen I felt his whole mood shift. He got really serious and sat up. "What's wrong?" I say sitting up also. "Uh nothing" he says looking back at me. "I just need to go home for a little and do some stuff" he says standing up. "Are you sure your okay?" I say. "I'm fine Hera. I'll text you later" he says giving me a quick smile. He gave me a quick hug before leaving. I could tell something was wrong but I didn't want to pry. Just as I was about to text the girls and try to talk to them, I got a flash. I hesitently opened it. It was a video of Brandon walking down the street. I gasped, what do I do? When I was thinking of what to do I got another flash. I opened it quickly, this time it was a picture of Rowan in her room. After that was a message that said 'Which one do you care about more?'. I was over taken by anger and texted back. 'Listen, I don't know who you are but if you touch either of them I will find you'. I sat down and waited for a response. 'Shouldn't have said that' they responded. I shot up from my bed looking around my room to make sure no one was inside. I called Rowan but it went to voicemail. I kept trying and no answer. I ran out my door and all the way to her house. I opened the door and looked around. "Rowan?" I said loudly. I got no answer. I rushed to her room and opened the door to see her sitting on her bed on her phone. She jumped a little when I walked in. "Hera?" she says looking at me worried. I was out of breath from running but I was realeved that she was okay. "I got a flash from them" I say standing there. "What was it?" she says standing up. "A picture of you on your bed and a video of Brandon walking. They asked who I cared about more. I kinda went off on them and they said I shouldn't have said that" I say quickly. "Wait, so is Brandon okay?" she says. I was a little surprised she cared because last time we spoke it was about them not trusting him. Then I realized what was going on. "Oh god. If I came here to make sure you were okay... does that mean something is going to happen to him?" I say frantically. Just on cue, I got another message. "Rowan" I say showing her my phone. It was a picture of Brandon in the trunk of a car. "We need to find him" I say. My heart was in my stomach, why him? Of course I care about him but I didn't know I cared this much. Rowan ended up calling the others and having them meet us at this abandoned church. "What are we doing here?" I ask. "My sister sent me a guy who can do some tech stuff for us and hopefully put an end to this" she says. Not much later, the other girls arrive and we go inside. We walk into the building and find this guy. "Sup guys" a guy says. This must be him. "I'm Stinger" he says with a smile. We all introduce ourselves and start filling him in on what has been happening. We told him about Brandon and he started typing away on his computer. "So I'm going to try to find this address from this photo and hopefully it leads us to him" he says not taking his eyes off his screen. We sit there in silence, the only noise being his keyboard. I couldn't stop thinking about Brandon. I really hope he's okay. I was the one who put him in danger, if I would have just done the stupid project alone we wouldn't have gotten close and he wouldn't be in this place right now. "Done" Stinger says sitting up. "Says he's at this building" he says pointing at his screen. "Let's go" I say, almost running out of the building. The girls followed me as we found our way to this building. At this point it was getting dark and looked like it might rain. We walk up to the building and tried the door, it was unlocked. This has to be it. We walk in looking around. This place was creepy. There were animal heads everywhere. We walk around trying to find him. We walked to the back and found a freezer door. There was a padlock on it and to the left was writing on the wall with blood. Please don't let that be Brandon's. "We don't have a key" Hailey says. I look around the floor and saw a brick. I picked it up and hit the lock with it. A couple tries and it was broken. I swing open the door and walk in. "Hera!" I hear one of them yell at me. I keep walking in the freezer, it was pretty dark so I couldn't see very well. I was walking forward when I bumped into something. I flash a light at it and my heart sunk. "Guys!" I yell, starting to freak out. They all run to me and stop at the sight. "Brandon!" I say as tears started to fall.