Vanish: Sasha

-»29, Reunite

Time was frozen around me. The music had been reduced to a silent hum and there was no one else but Addison and I. My feet started to move, but a hand caught my arm and spun me around. Xavier looked at me in a panic state. What's his problem?

I couldn't quite hear him, but I could still make out what he was saying. "Go back to the motel and lock the door." He turns and disappears into the crowd. I should probably follow what he said, but I'm too fixated on the fact that I found my missing best friend.

My feet started working again as I ran to her and the boy. She was frozen, like she wasn't expecting to see me. But the moment I came within arms reach, she engulfed me in the biggest and warmest hug I've ever got in my life. The hug you give someone when you thought you lost them. "I can't believe you're here. I can't believe you made it." She kept whispering over and over again as she clutched onto me. I looked over her shoulder at the boy with white hair; the one from the club footage. He looked at our hug session with happiness, but it was slowly fading away.

And then Xavier's instructions voiced in my head.

"We have to go." I pulled back from Addison and grabbed her hand. "Something seems to be going on." She nodded and grabbed the boys hand. I dragged us through the streets and back to the motel Xavier and I were residing in. Addison had been very paranoid the whole way; constantly looking around us.

We walked through the door and she let out a breath of relief.

"I can't believe I found you." I lightly laughed as I looked at her. There were cut and bruises on her face and arms, and her eyes didn't look as bright as they used to be. "What happened to you?"

She turned and made eye contact with the boy before returning mine. "A lot of things have been happening. I'm just glad that you managed to follow my clues to the right place." Her voice still had hope.

"Ah, yes. The clues. The clues that told be basically nothing as to why you decided to leave and put everybody through hell." The anger seeped through. Maybe I was over exaggerating a bit, but I was mad. Addison flinched and ran her fingers through her hair.

"I only wanted you to find me. I had to use clues that only you would know to follow. And it clearly worked." She explained. "But, there is a good reason I left. It was to protect myself and everyone around me." She walked over to the bed behind me and took a seat. Patting the area next to her, I took it and let her gather her thoughts.

"First of all, this is Jesse." She pointed to the boy awkwardly standing by the locked door. "He's been helping me... Escape." She chose her words carefully. "Dad went into a big debt. He got fired from his job but decided to not tell mum and I. I found out that we started running out of money so I decided to make a decision. I went to Xavier to see if he knew of a place I could work and he pointed me to a man. I didn't know what he did until I walked in the house. But even if I didn't want the job, I couldn't turn away; He told me too much about his Black Bears gang." She fiddled with her fingers, no longer making eye contact. Jesse was listening to her, but kept his eyes on me.

"I was desperate... So I started dealing for them. It was going ok for a while, nothing that bad ever happening, until the night I was told to go to the warehouse. One of the guys from the gang wanted some weed, but he didn't have the money. I told him I couldn't give it to him but he insisted because we were practically family that I should give it to him for free. I was told to never give away supplies without getting some form of payment, no matter who it was. So he came at me." Tears started to well in her eyes.