Drop Dead Gorgeous 〰 Jake Fitzgerald

9

"That lockdown really messed with everyone," Noah muttered. We were in his room, for he had this great plan to talk to me about that apparently had to be done in private.

After what seemed like hours of trying to convince my mom to let me stay over at Noah's house for  a 'project', I was finally granted permission, and here I was.

"So what did you really want to talk about?" I asked, reaching into the bag of chips he had given me.

"Well.... During the lockdown, I took Audrey's phone, and..."

"And...?"

He hesitated, sighing before walking over to me from his spot on the rolling chair. "It's better if you see."

Noah unlocked the phone in his hands, and quickly moved to the messages app, before clicking on the chat that said UNKNOWN and scrolling for a bit.

He handed me the phone that had a gif of Audrey on it. Upon further inspection, I saw that she was with that Ian guy, the one who died.

"Oh my gosh," I breathed out.

"I know," he answered. He got lost in his thoughts once more before stating, "I think she's the accomplice I've been looking for all along."

"She killed someone? I - oh my gosh."

"Look, I have a plan."

He went on talking about some park or something, but I wasn't paying attention.

And how could I? I had just met Audrey, and this seemed to affect me much more than Noah, who has been best friends with her since forever.

Audrey killed someone.

"You there?" Noah questioned, breaking me from my trail of thoughts.

"Yeah, I just... I can't believe it."

"Look, just come with me tonight, and maybe we'll get some answers. I... I can't believe it was just Audrey who helped Piper." He paused before adding, "I don't want to."

-

Later in that night, I texted my mom to tell her that I'd be arriving home a little late, since the project was taking a little longer than expected.

She didn't answer, and I didn't expect her to. She was probably busy at the station, trying to track down the killer that we had already known.

Emma was supposed to meet us there, but I tried to text her through Noah's phone, since he was driving. No answer.

"Why are we going here again? This could be a death trap for all I know."

Noah parked his car as we arrived at a very creepy carnival-looking park. Without answering my question, he got out of the car, taking his phone with him.

"C'mon," he urged, looking around. He unlocked his phone and groaned a bit. "Great, no service."

"No service? Noah, this is literally screaming for us to run for the hills," I told him, walking over to his side as we both admired the creepy scenery in front of us.

"Well," he mumbled, "here goes nothing." Both of us started walking towards the gate, him going in first as I cowered behind him. We walked into the big mouth of a creepy ass clown, and it didn't take long for us to realize it was a mirror maze.

"Hello?" Noah called out, his voice shaking.

"Noah," I whispered, "I don't think anyone who has ever yelled out 'Hello' in a scary movie has survived."

He held onto my hand slightly as we both stopped abruptly at the darkened hallway of mirrors in front of us.

After a few long seconds of intense silence, Noah finally blurted out, "Nope," and we walked back out quicker than we had gotten in.