Not In Love With Liam

9~ King's Kidnapper

♜LIAM LAWRENCE♜

I called Noah a countless number of times yesterday. Darcy said she was mad at her and was ignoring all of them. I guess that included me.

Her other friend said she was meant to be staying with her but it was 4am and she still hadn't arrived.
Noah wasn't a kid. She could stay out late and be fine. But I was worried about her.
She hadn't spoken to me since she'd asked if I wanted to meet up, and I hadn't actually seen her since her friend was in hospital.
I couldn't take my mind of her throughout my lessons, so I decided to skip fourth lesson and look for her.

Chase, Riley and Alex offered to come with me, but I asked if the others could stay back while Alex and I went.

Her friends had already scanned their entire campus, and had no luck.

"Maybe she's gone home?" Alex asked.
"Naah. Olly asked her sister if she was home. She's not."
"There are clubs just down the road from here. About a mile. Could she be there?"
"Only one way to find out."

🔎🔎🔎

We approached a square downtown from Noah's uni.
There were lots of shops and restaurants, and a club called King.
The club was closed, but everything else was open.

We walked into the first restaurant we saw- Saller's.
There were a few people inside, eating. It wasn't busy, so we didn't have to search too far in, but there was no Noah.
There'd be no point asking if anyone had seen her. The restaurants were all closed at the time Noah came out, so the only people who could have seen her would have been the people in the club.

"Should we check round the back?"
"The carpark?"
"Yeah. If she's still here, she would have slept round the back somewhere."
"Yeah, okay."

I knew why I chose Alex. The others (especially Chase) would have been of no help whatsoever.

We jogged round the back. There was a carpark, a small, rusty playground and some bike racks.
Alex and I walked through the area, and although I should have been keeping an open mind, I wasn't convinced we would find her.

As we reached the park, Alex saw something on the floor and picked it up.
"It's a phone."
"And it's unlocked. Whoever left it must have dropped it not long ago."

I took the phone and looked at it. On the screen was a picture of Noah stood next to a guy. They appeared to be in a club.

Noah's beautiful smile shone through the screen, her sparkling eyes in perfect contrast with the dim lights.

"Do you know that guy?"
I shook my head. "But he might know where she is."
"He probably lives around here. Is that Noah's phone?"

I scrolled through the camera roll to see more picture of the guy.

"Probably not. It's his."

I closed the gallery and opened his contacts. Home was the only useful number I could find.

**

"Hello?"
"Hi."
"Who is this? You have my phone."
"Yeah I know. I found it in the park."
"Oh, cheers mate, are you still there? I'll come get it."
"Yeah yeah, but I actually needed to ask a favour of you. There's a picture of you and a girl-"
"You looked through my pictures?"
"Look, you left it unlocked, the picture was just there."
"Right, okay. So what about the picture?"
"The girl in it. She's my friend, Noah. She's gone missing."
"Oh, shit. I'm sorry mate. I don't know where she is. She ran out of the club yesterday, she was pretty upset."
"Upset, why?"
"She got into a fight. She was drunk."
"And you just let her go?"
"Well what did you want me to do, lock her in the toilets? I'm not her Dad mate, and besides she didn't really want to be around me anyway."
"What do you mean? What did you do to her?"
"Nothing! Look, I'm coming to get my phone."
"Whatever." I hung up.