Hunted

Chapter Thirteen: Connections

We left my car at the park, and Ben drove downtown. We stopped in front of a dingy looking apartment building, and I looked over at Ben.

"When you say grade nine was a weird year...?" I asked, not bothering to finish my sentence.

Ben shook his head. "I hung out with the wrong people, I guess you could say. Ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, got a little black mark on my record, and turned into a goody-goody." he explained.

"Seriously?" I pressed.

"Yep. I was standing outside of a convenience store, with this guy, Dave, waiting for our friend Allan. So Allan goes and tries to steal a case of beer." he continued. "Well, he succeeded. The cops showed up, and Allan bailed, leaving Dave and I with the beer, which neither of us were even planning on drinking."

"What an ass." I commented. "So this Dave guy- how old is he?"

"He's twenty." Ben replied. "Don't worry, he's harmless. Just a gamer who lives off of online poker winnings."

I giggled. "This should be fun."

We got out of the car, and walked up to the building. Ben hit a button on the receiver, and waited a moment.

It beeped, and a voice came through the speaker. "Yo, Benny boy. Come on up." he said, and the door opened.

"Benny boy?" I asked, trying to suppress a laugh.

"Shut up." he grumbled as we walked up the stairs. "Here we are."

We were in front of a door labeled 2C, and there was heavy metal music playing from the other side. Ben knocked, and the door opened.

Dave was short and wiry- shorter than me. He had dark hair and a stubbly chin. He was wearing a Star Wars shirt and jeans, and looked like he hadn't been outside in a week.

"Hey Dave." Ben said, smiling.

"Ben, my boy!" Dave replied with a grin. "My, you snagged yourself a pretty one."

I blushed. "Hi, I'm Olivia." I said, reaching out my hand so he could shake it.

"It's very very nice to meet you." he told me, and opened the door wider so Ben and I could step through. "So, why do two young people like yourself need to get into the NYU database? Forgot to send in your application in time or something."

"We need to find out why a friend of ours dropped out of university." Ben explained.

"Sure. I already got into the database while you were on your way over, so now if we can find what we need, it should only take a few minutes." Dave said.

"Awesome." Ben huffed, and walked over to the computer. "Can you get student records on here?"

"Of course." Dave snorted, reaching over him and clicking the mouse over a few different icons until there was a long list of students in front of us, and clicked the search bar. "Who are you looking for?"

"Danielle Weston." I told him, watching him type it in.

"Here we go, Danielle Weston. Says here that she dropped out on October 24th for 'personal reasons'." he says. "Under her marks, it says she was doing great in all of her courses."

I looked at Ben, then back at Dave. "Is that it?" I asked.

"Yeah, it doesn't specify." Dave confirmed, shaking his head. "Is this what you were looking for?"

"If that's it, yes." I said.

We thanked Dave, and as soon as we were out of the door, Ben looked down at me. "If her grades were great, and she dropped out for personal reasons, it must have something to do with all of this."

"Yeah, but how do we find out more?" I asked quietly.

"Why don't you just ask her?" he replied.

"And risk her being on Warren's side with all of this?" I muttered.

Ben bit his lip. "I guess you're right." he huffed.

We stepped out into the parking lot. As if on cue, Danielle stepped around the corner, wearing a hoodie. "We need to talk." she huffed.