Every night, when I closed my eyes, his image would be branded to the backs of my eyelids. That same smile, so gorgeous yet so deadly. Those deep blue eyes, like the treacherous oceans you find, the ones which sometimes have those desolate lighthous...
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"The search parties have found nothing," Karissa's mother cried, a train of salt water running down her face incessantly, cutting paths through her makeup.
Xander's gaze hardened.
He knew it wasn't Karissa's parents' fault, but he couldn't help feeling resentful towards them. They let their child — their only child — get taken hostage. Three fucking times. That's got to be a record.
Xander felt a sharp nudge in his side. Glancing, he saw Simon giving him a warning look; Xander immediately understood. He was glaring subconsciously and needed to tone it down.
Conjuring up a blank face, he said in a professionally controlled tone with just the right amount of empathy, "They'll find her, don't worry." Those are about the only words he could manage without sounding sarcastic.
"Yeah," Grace piped up, offering a reassuring smile to Karissa's mother, who gave her back a watery one. "They'll find her within no time; or she'll escape. She's clever, don't forget that!"
"Too clever for her own good, sometimes," Karissa's mother laughed tearily, wiping her tears with a shawl.
"Mrs Randolf? If you don't mind me asking... where were you when Karissa got taken?" Xander asked. He couldn't help himself. He heard Corina mutter something at him under her breath almost inaudibly, but he was too focussed on Mrs Randolf's answer to care.
"Honey..." she said, a confused look on her face. "My name's not Mrs Randolf. And my daughter's name isn't Karissa. Those aren't our real names, didn't she tell you?"
The four teenagers exchanged a glance.
"She did, but..." Corina began.
"She didn't tell us her real name. It probably skipped her mind," Xander shrugged, seemingly unbothered. In truth, it did bother him; it felt strange, somehow, not knowing the name of someone he cared about. Especially someone as significant to him as Karissa.
Simon saw straight through him, though, and shot him a small grin, reassuring and encouraging. It was a weird fact; Xander came off as the careless, confident, clever type but in reality, that was only scratching the surface. All the encouraging words and smiles his friends gave him, he valued immeasurably. All the things everyone said about him at school, he took to heart. When a false rumour went around that he bullied a boy called Hector, others started bullying this boy too, just to seem cool. Xander didn't understand why people wanted to be like him, and he'd made an effort to help Hector and become his friend to stop anyone who bullied him; he also used his popularity to shame the bullies. After that, Hector became one of the most liked people in their year. Xander then started to understand he was an influential person in his year, though he was unsure of how he got there. He always put it down to his parents' riches, and never believed that it was completely because of his own charisma.
"Her name's Lorelei DeCores," Mrs Randolf — Mrs DeCores, rather — said, snapping Xander out of his thoughts.
Lorelei... it has a ring to it, Xander thought, mulling over her real name. Suddenly, he remembered her captor's words: 'Oh, just kiss already. You won't get the chance again, Lorelei.'
