Framed

Twelve.

"You are the most extra person I have ever known, Lauren Jauregui." Zayn says with a grin as he and Lauren sit together at the desk in Lauren's room, two boxes of pizza between them.

"I'm serious, though, that's how amazing it was."

"You just compared your first date with your girlfriend to a fog metaphor." Zayn recalled as he opened the box of pizza, taking a big whiff of the pepperoni within.

"Yes, and?"

"How is that not extra?" Zayn grinned. "Most guys don't even think of using a simile, let alone a metaphor when it comes to first dates."

"Well they would have if Camz had chosen to date a guy instead of me." Lauren replied with a smirk, reaching for a slice of the pepperoni pizza. "Camz is the type of girl that deserves metaphors."

Zayn grinned as Lauren bit into her pizza piece. "I'm just glad you're happy, Laur."

"At least for the time being."

-

"Okay, so there was a mixture of arsenic and cyanide in the protein powder." LaFontaine said the next Monday at lunchtime.

Lauren, Zayn, and Ellie were sitting at one of the tables in Room 221B, lunches spread out before them. Camila was down in the cafeteria eating lunch with the rest.

"Nothing else?" Lauren asked, watching as her coffee swirled slowly around in its cup.

"In regards to fatal or poisonous additives, nothing." LaFontaine said, eyebrows quirked in contemplation. "But with biological evidence or fingerprints -"

"Please tell me you found something," Lauren replied.

"I can't say I have." LaFontaine said, voice dry. "Whoever is doing this knows what they're doing, Lauren. They either used gloves or wiped down the surface so no prints would show up...we're going to need another piece of evidence."

"Then we have nothing." Lauren said, arms tensing, along with most of her upper body. "We're back at square one, searching again for evidence, trying to get some sort of lead that we'll probably never find."

"You make it sound so bleak." Ellie says, hopping off her stool, hair swaying slightly as she steps toward Lauren. "We have other routes to explore, not just the protein powder."

"The video evidence we took so long to get all went to naught too; we're basically fucked." Lauren countered. "We're all in over our heads."

"Let's just wait and see what happens. The police have no clear evidence, we have no clear evidence. We're both at the drawing board, let's just keep our eyes open for something for the time being." Zayn adds in, occasionally glancing down at his unopened turkey wrap on the table.

"Actually, I have an idea. It's very illegal, but it may just be the thing that propels us to our next lead." LaFontaine suggests, as they head towards their desk.

"Which is?" 

"Twenty four hour monitoring of the school-wide computer activity, with some hacking if necessary. I don't know much about computers, but I know someone who can do things like this effortlessly, and lucky for us he's in this institution. Have any of you met JP Armitage?"

-

Meanwhile, in the cafeteria, the rest of the gang were sitting in their usual lunch table, swapping food and talking about new music that had come out that past week. Mani was sitting on Camila's right, watching as Camila giggled at a joke that Louis had made, something involving shadow puppets. Despite the slight peaks of conversational activity, the air of the group was quiet, more so than usual.