The Job 3

Part 18: Love Grows

It had been a week since the fire at Danny's beach house and once again everything had changed. Straight after it had happened, Milo and the others quickly left the beach because they knew people were going to start seeing the smoke. Sure enough, soon after they left the firefighters arrived to stop the blaze and then the police turned up so they could try and figure out what had occurred. They were more than shocked and surprised when they recovered the remains of someone inside. A charred, black and crispy body that was definitely no longer identifiable just from looking at it. As soon as the unknown body was taken to the morgue, tests were done and sent off to get analysed. However, the results didn't take long to get and confirmed chief Amari's suspicions because DNA evidence had been taken from Charlie's bedroom when he'd first gone missing. A statement was put out revealing who they had found and that Charlie was dead. Since most people went along with everything saying that Charlie was the one that killed Ryan, some people were happy because they thought he got what he deserved whereas some people were angry because Charlie should have gone to prison. However, there was the rare few that didn't believe any of it. They didn't believe that Charlie had killed Ryan. They didn't believe Charlie had been hiding out in Danny's beach house all this time. And they didn't believe Charlie's death was some freak accident or apparent suicide. They still thought it was all Milo and they were especially angry he was still managing to get away with all of it. Chief Amari was among these rare few. Obviously.

Despite not being called in for any sort of questioning or getting any obvious hate towards him, Milo still wasn't doing good. Sure, he could be doing a lot worse but that didn't mean he was on top of the world. He hated what had happened and he knew that on some way it was his fault. Enzo hadn't known Charlie was in the beach house but maybe that wouldn't have changed anything. Perhaps he still would have burnt the thing down. Either way he definitely knew now since the news was everywhere. They were all currently arriving at college and it was clear to Milo straightaway that none of the others were handling things well either. Cassie especially.

"Hey guys" said Milo as he walked up to them, noticing out the corner of his eye that some people were setting up candles for Charlie. "How are you all doing?"

"How do you think we're doing?" Replied Ani, a little more bluntness than intended. "How have we let this happen again?"

"Another one of my friends is dead" said Danny in a monotone voice and just staring blankly. "We haven't even got to christmas yet and somehow two of my friends are now dead."

"What does christmas have to do with anything?" Replied Cassie, crossed arms and staring at Milo. "Neither of them should have died anyway."

"Cassie you know I didn't mean for this to happen" said Milo.

"And yet for some reason it still did" replied Cassie. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I know the reason. It's because you can't seem to stop yourself from doing possibly dangerous and/or life threatening things."

"Alright, I suppose that's partly true" said Milo, glancing around.

"No, it's completely true" replied Cassie, raising her voice slightly. "But instead of you getting hurt, it's always someone else. You always manage to get yourself out of the way just in time."

"Okay but obviously I didn't mean for either Ryan or Charlie to die" said Milo, getting frustrated and feeling a sudden stinging pain in the small cut on his head that was left from when he was hit with the gun. "Ryan was a complete accident and Charlie was out of our hands. Enzo would have killed me or one of you if we had tried to do something on that beach."

"Maybe that would have been for the best" replied Cassie, shaking her head slightly. "Perhaps we deserve what's happening to us. Perhaps we should end up like Ryan and Charlie."