her disappearance

41

CREIGHTON

We follow Ivan all evening until he made it back to campus. Luca and I slept in the car.

I woke up and I registered that Ivan's car was gone. "Shit," I mutter, shoving Luca so he can wake up.

"What the fuck." he mutters before sitting up.

"He's gone." I say.

"Shit." he says, turning the engine on. He pulls up his phone and follows the tracker he created. Luca was training to be an engineer. He made a GPS tracker in one of his classes and we thought it would be useful to use. We stuck it under Ivan's car the other day.

He pulls out of the student parking as we follow the GPS, which led us to Ivan's house. "Look I need to shower, Creighton. I haven't left this car in days."

Excluding the few bathroom trips we haven't really been taking care of ourselves. "We'll go to my home and sort ourselves out. You have his location so we can track him after."

He nods and we drive down to my house. I shower quickly and I get ready as does Luca. We find Ivan's location and we follow him again.

"Can't just be me who realised that this isn't part of his usual routine?" Luca asks.

I nod in agreement. "It's not."

I had noticed it as well. This might be it. Ivan parks up in the woods. He looks carefully around and ensures that no one was following him before he takes off. Luckily, Luca parked far from where Ivan would see him so we were in the clear. I take off my seatbelt and Luca and I leave. "Bring the camera."

He nods and throws the camera in his pocket. We follow the direction that Ivan came. He was standing in the middle of the forest, moving leaves and dirt from the ground. Luca was taking pictures.

Once he removes the remaining filth, he pulls the hatch up and disappears underground. Luca looks at me bewildered and I return the same expression. "Let's go." I tell Luca.

We follow Ivan underground cautiously. We were at an advantage with him. With Luca and I combined, we had at least 6 inches on him. "Please." I hear someone whisper, their voice dry and raspy. I step closer so that I could see the situation. Iris was restrained to the ground, dressed in nothing. Ivan was towering over her.

"Look who's begging now. You didn't leave me alone when I begged you to stop."

"I was a child." she cries.

"You were a fucking bully." he snarls in her face. He forces her on her feet. "Undress me." he orders.

She shakes her head. "Please. I'm exhausted I can't do this again."

"I don't care if you can do it or not." he barks.

She sniffles before doing as he says. I couldn't help myself. I step forward, making myself known to Ivan. His eyes widen slightly. "What are you doing here?"

I chuckle. "Better question. What are you doing here?"

"I found her! I was going to take her back."

Iris stays silent. I pull my sweatshirt over my head as I hand it over to her. "Put this on."

She murmurs thank you before doing as I said. Ivan's eyes flare as he takes a step closer towards me. I could have laughed. What did he really think he could do?

"Take her away." he tells me. "I have Anoushka for the rest of my life. Just imagine what I'm going to do to her." he says, chuckling.

I punch him across the jaw. "You'll be lucky if you even see the light of day." I laugh. "You're going nowhere near Anoushka."

"Luca. Come out." I say.

Luca walks in and strolls towards Iris. "Call my uncle." I tell him.

Ivan attempts to run but it is foolish. I wrap my hand around his neck as I push him against the nearest wall. "Don't try that again. It's embarrassing."

He goes red. "Iris. Are you alright?" I ask. I knew Iris personally. She used to invite me to her parties all the time.

"I'm okay." she whispers. I grab Ivan by the neck, turning him around as I direct him out of this tunnel. Iris and Luca follow after. Luca puts Iris in the car and hands her a bottle of water and some food. I press Ivan against the car and he winces. "Oh does that hurt?" I ask, shoving him harder.

"Fuck you." he roars.

Luca passes over some rope and I form a secure knot over his hands and legs. "Mission accomplished." Luca tells me. "Now you and Anoushka can ride off into the sunset." Luca smiles.

"Not quite yet."

I had a plan. My stepdad should be talking to Ishan right now.

I hear police sirens in the distance and I grin. "I can't wait to go home."

"Wren's going to kill me because of you. I haven't seen her for a whole week and she's sent me pretty brutal messages."

Suddenly, a laugh erupts from Ivan. "Isn't she pregnant?" he asks. "I wonder what the school will say when they find out. Heads up, I already told them. In fact, if you weren't stalking me you would've realised that Wren's has been excluded."

"You're fucking lying."

He shrugs. "Go call her."

Luca grabs his phone and dials Wren. He puts her on speaker. "Hello." she says, her tone clear and not giving any sign of distress or misery.

"Hey princess. You alright?"

"No. Unless you haven't received the message that I'm going to kill you when you come home."

Luca grins at the threat. "Besides that."

"Yes I'm fine."

His smile widens. "Did anyone find out that you were pregnant?" he asks.

"Well. The principal came to me and told me that she had evidence that I was pregnant. So I took a pregnancy test which came back negative. I wonder what stupid bastard lied about such a thing." sarcasm laced in her voice.

This had Anoushka written all over it. Anoushka must have faked the pregnancy test for Wren.

Luca and I both look at Ivan, who was seething. "I'm coming home princess," he tells her before hanging up.

Luca leans down and throws a punch across Ivan's face. "If you ever attempt to blackmail her again, I'll fucking end you."

Good for him.

Four police cars appear and my uncle gets out of one of the cars. "We found her," I tell him.

He follows me to Luca's car where Iris sits quietly. "You alright, sweetheart?" he asks.

She nods. "Can I go home?" she chokes out.

"Come on," he tells her before taking her in a car and escorting her to the station. I had to direct the officers to where Iris was staying for the past weeks and they took away Ivan and allowed me and Luca to leave.