Aleatory

Chapter 11 | Mary Sue

"It's Reagan. She's missing."

My mind went blank. "What?" I managed. "Are you sure she's not outside?"

Xavier looked at Brooke. "Yeah, she could be wandering around a bit."

Brooke almost crumbled. "No, no. Reagan wouldn't just roam around! She'd be exactly where she tells me! And she's not there! She's missing, and we need to find her! She could be in trouble, she-"

"Calm down, Brooke." I stood. "Help Xavier up and let's go looking for her."

We exited the diner with hurried steps, and scouted the parking lot. We called for her.

There was no response.

I looked around a bit. Something's... Missing.

"My car! Where the hell? What? Shit, where is it? I parked it right here!"

Xavier's eyes widened. "Whoever took your car might have taken Reagan with them."

I nodded, eyeing Brooke's death grip on his arm. "It is a possibility. Or someone with absolutely no connection to Reagan could've stolen it."

Brooke clenched her fists.

"Hang in there, Brooke. We'll find her." I said, with conviction.

"But how? She'll be miles away by now! Where do we even start looking?"

"The most logical action to do is to find her car. We've got to eliminate this lead from our search." Xavier stated, picking the dirt from underneath his nails.

"Well then, genius, how do we find her car?"

"How the fuck should I know?"

"Stop it. Let me think." I cut in. I could always use the laptop.

They're going to ask questions. But what else can we do?

I pulled out my laptop from my backpack and placed it on the hood of another car. The two walked up to me, staring curiously at the screen. I logged into the police database and ran my car plate through the locator. It took a couple of seconds.

The car was about thirty miles from our current location.

"Alright. All we need now is a car. This car." I memorized the location and put the device back inside.

The two of them gaped at me.

"You're a police officer?" Xavier asked, surprised.

"No." I shot back. It would take a while to explain, and now definitely wasn't the time.

I walked up to the door of the only car in the parking lot.

I turned to Brooke, "I need two hairpins."

"Whoa, isn't that Aayush's picture on the dashboard? Dude this is his ride! He's going to be stranded here." Xavier said, looking back to see whether the guy would pop up and accuse them of stealing.

"We'll return it." Brooke murmured as she handed the pins over.

I bent the end of the first pin to use as leverage for the barrel to turn. Then, it was the hard part. I tested each lock pin slowly, listening for a small 'click'. The car door opened.

Xavier whistled. "Okay, so not a police officer. A thug?"

We got into the car, and I opened up the steering column. A couple of minutes of shifting around and tearing off the insulation on the wires, the car started up.

"Dude, what the fuck? What even are you? Where'd you learn to do that?"

"Human. In school. And no, I'm not kidding."

"Please, can we leave already? I'm really freaking out now. Something's happened to her."

"Right. Let's go."

The ride was silent. Brooke stared out the window, searching for any sign of her friend. She blinked back her tears. Xavier looked straight ahead, eyebrows furrowed. It looked like he was thinking hard about something. His leg bounced up and down.

We were on the highway for a while. I took the second exit to the left, which led to a muddy trail. The scene changed from a concrete highway to a dense forest. The trail took us away from the highway and deeper into woods; I slowed down.

"The car should be close, and so should Reagan." I said as I parked in the shelter of a group of close-knit trees. You know, incase stealth was required.

"So we're walking there."

"Yeah."

We got out of the car -Xavier had some difficulty- and began walking in the direction we assumed we would find Reagan. The soil was moist, and there were stretches of slush that made Xavier curse loudly. Brooke would throw him a look of disgust every time she caught a particularly nasty one.

We neared a clearing. I signalled the kids to be silent. We hid behind a bush. In the centre of the clearing was this massive bungalow. It was stunning, with full-length glass windows that sparkled with the light of the setting sun. The walls were made of grey stone, with wooden accents. It was large enough to house three elephants. Or four.

And in the garage to the side of the bungalow was my car.

"That's the one," I whispered. "That's my car."

"Reagan has to be here. She has to." Brooke stepped out of the bushes and slowly made her way to the house. I followed, a few steps behind her.

Xavier took a couple of seconds to realize we had started moving.

"Hey! Wait up, guys!" He hissed, stepping over the bushes.

His misplaced his footing and fell.

"Fuck! My ribs!"

The three of us froze.

Alarms began to ring.