MISSING LINK》t. briggs & v. stirling

Chapter 《04》

The phone was heavy in Felicity's pocket. The further away she, Lia, and Sloane got from her school, the more she wondered whether or not doing this was a mistake. Whether or not she should turn back, pack her bags, and get ready to leave as she'd been told. But, if she was being honest, it was kind of nice to escape the monotonous halls of her school and just walk the streets. If she closed her eyes and just listened to the sounds of everything going on around her she could almost pretend—even if just for a moment—that she was normal.

It was pretty sad, Felicity had lived at this particular school for three years and could probably count on one hand the number of times she'd left the campus.

It's not that students weren't allowed to go off campus, quite the opposite actually. She'd heard the other girls talk all the time about their weekend excursions to New York City or the small town that surrounded their school. Something about attending an all girls school made them all antsy to leave on the weekends to meet their guy friends or something.

Not that Felicity would know. She didn't exactly have friends on campus, let alone friends she'd have to leave to visit.

In fact, the closest thing to "socializing" she'd ever done off campus was that one time her freshman year when she'd gone to that stupid "joint-school" dance her school and the all boys school down the street had held. But even then, she'd regretted the choice to go almost immediately and instead of dancing decided to do some light B&E into that school's chemistry lab to run an experiment she'd been wanting to do in her free time. She'd been having a great time too until that one kid showed up and accidentally almost burned the whole place down.

The two of them had narrowly avoided expulsion.

Though, now that she was thinking about it, she'd never seen the boy again, so maybe he actually had gotten expelled for it. She was at least 90% the only reason she hadn't been because her court marshal made a call.

But that was besides the point. "Where exactly are we going?" Felicity asked, pulling Sloane out of the way of a car as Lia led them across the street with little to no care for the actual rules of pedestrian crossing.

"59 Brunswick Rd, Troy, NY 12180." Sloane answered, seemingly unphased by the car that had almost hit her—as if she'd already done the math and somehow known that even without Felicity's interference she wouldn't have gotten hit. "It should just be up the road."

Felicity looked to Lia for a translation.

"Our hotel," She offered, "Which we definitely never left to go on an unauthorized expedition through your school that resulted in our accidental crashing of your witness interview."

Felicity raised an eyebrow at the girl. "Right."

"Hey, if anything, you should be thanking us for that," Lia replied airily, "given that our intervention broke up what looked like one helluva awkward family reunion."

That was one word for it.

"The fact that you sent the email changes our profile," Lia continued on, stopping in front of the building and opening the door, "instead of looking for a killer who craves recognition for his work, we've got your dumbass whose serious mommy and daddy issues have fueled your desire for attention, and a killer who thinks he can keep getting away with murder."

Felicity stopped short at the girl's words, sending her a scowl. Clearly the term 'sugar coating' was not in Lia's vocabulary.

Lia threw her hands up in the air. "I just call it how it is, Julia. Also, you're blocking the doorway."