Love That's Sweet

Chapter Seventeen

Eric POV

NO!

The café seemed much busier than normal. It made sense, with all the snow outside and all. This must have made it a popular hangout this time of year. Judging by the looks of things, I figured Lucas must have been called in for work to help out with everything. I was right.

"Yeah, I called that boy about an hour ago, but couldn't get through to him." Kim, Lucas's boss explained as she rushed in and out of the back with different orders. "I called his folks too, but he doesn't seem to be home either."

Forget about being angry, now I was just plain worried as fuck. Where the hell is my boyfriend! I started panicking.

"Argh! He couldn't have just disappeared," I shouted, slamming my fist on the counter, "somebody has to know where he is!"

"Have you asked Will?" Vince, the twerp, hesitantly asked me, pointing over towards the blonde kid standing just outside the window. "Maybe he knows where Lucas is."

I rushed out of the shop to find Will standing casually out there on his phone. I still didn't know much about this guy, except for the fact he had been the one to set Lucas up with the same guy that tried to take him. That was almost enough to get me to grab him by the collar and beat the crap out of him, but I resisted the urge.

"Will, right?" He took his time to look up at me, faintly smiling in response. "Have you seen Lucas?"

"Yes."

"What? WHERE?!" I grabbed him, hoping to shake an answer out of him.

"He's still at school, in the back where he usually goes to smoke. That's the last place I saw him, at least."

That was all I needed to hear in order to let go and run off, but suddenly froze when my phone suddenly vibrated. It was a text from Lucas.

'Eric, meet me in the back of the school.'

Nothing about this felt good. There was no telling what, or who, I would find at the school when I got there. The text message, it wasn't like something Lucas would send me. He couldn't simply tell me to meet him somewhere, he'd have to poke fun at me first, or order me to go in a more direct way.

'I'm in the back of the school, idiot. Where are you?'

That would have been more like something that he would have sent me. So who sent the text? Fact of the matter was, whoever had sent it, they had used Lucas's phone. Getting to the back of the school was my best chance of finding him.

Maybe it's that punk Zack again, I thought to myself, Will had been the last to see Lucas and could just as easily have been a part of this.

It was strange, now that I thought about it. Making it to the school, I hurried to find a way into the back area.

Then again, there are plenty of other people that could after either Lucas or me. There are so many people I've beaten up over the years; any one of them could be behind this. Then there are those thugs from before...

That's when I knew it, turning the corner, there they were, those pieces of shits, and Lucas, all waiting for me to arrive.

"You dumbass, it was a trap!" Lucas cried out, just before being pushed back by two of them. "Let go of me!"

"GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF OF—"

"Glad you could finally join us," the larger one stepped up in front of me. "Oh don't worry. We were just in the middle of thanking your little friend for the last time."

They merely held Lucas back, but as I got closer, it was clear that they had already beaten him a couple of times. His left eye was a little swollen, and there was a bruise on the right side of his face. He also seemed to limp around, as if they had hurt his ankle.

ASSHOLES!

"LET HIM GO!" I was going to kill them, there was no doubt about it, but the bigger thug approached me confidently anyways.

"No you're not. Not unless you want us to really hurt your little friend."