Miss Hawkridge

three

"Anna, it's going to be okay," Alaric spoke gently, as the duo sat in the warmth of the car.

"How do you know that?" Anna sniffed.

"Because we're going to find her."

"How? How long will it take?"

"I- I don't know, Anna. But you fighting with your friend sure wont solve anything, okay?" Anna nodded.

"How did you separate Eli and me?"

"Let's just say Liv and I have had previous experiences when it came to separating two bickering people before something worse happened."

"You two have admirable teamwork." Alaric smiled.

"We do, don't we? How come you and Eli don't have that? I thought you guys were friends since childhood."

"Friends from childhood doesn't mean best friends forever." Anna looked away.

"It kinda does."

"Maybe, but, the three of us, we kind of drifted apart. Elijah had football practices. Amelia had her pageant. I had internships at my Dad's company. All of us became busier by the day, and before we knew it, we stopped hanging out. It all sort of changed after Amelia became a pageant finalist. Suddenly, she wanted to hang out with us more. And that's how we got close recently." Anna shook her head, her eyes swam.

"Anna..."

"Trust me, Ric- Can I call you that?" Alaric nodded.

"Okay. Ric, I need you to trust me, okay? Amelia, she's not the type of girl to simply pack her stuff and leave. If she ever faced a problem, she dealt with it. That's actually kind of why she entered the pageant in the first place. Her Mom was a chief investor, and she was known to be usually on sets of the pageant. Amelia joined the pageant to spend more time with her mom, which I know doesn't make much when I say it, but trust me, that's what her intentions were. She told me so herself. She felt like they were drifting apart so she decided to join the pageant. There is someone else, someone very crude behind her disappearance."

"Are you possibly suggesting she was kidnapped?" Alaric raised an eyebrow.

"No, I- I don't know. It could be a possibility. I don't know, okay? All I know is, she's probably not safe now."

"Okay, okay," Alaric inhaled, "Do you have someone suspicious in mind?" Anna shook her head.

"No one I can think really. But, I don't know," Anna bit her bottom lip.

Suddenly, Alaric's phone dinged. He checked the notification.

"You said Amelia joined the pageant to be closer to her mom?" Alaric asked without moving his eyes from the phone screen.

"Yes.."

"And Amelia was already crowned a month ago as Miss Hawkridge. Then why would they restart the whole competition again?" Alaric held his screen for Anna to see. She gasped.

"That's what I thought. Maybe we should give the pageant people a little visit." Alaric gunned the car and drove down the streets.

The sun beat down upon the wet parking lot, as Alaric parked Anna's car in front of a massive, grey one-storey building that had only a single black door, along with the steely pipes that ran along down the walls.

"You think we might find answers here?" Anna asked, wringing her hands, as the duo walked into the building.

"Excuse me, who are you? You shouldn't be here," a man called out. He was dark, heavily built, and wore a smart shirt, with a walkie on his belt.