Blue | ✓

Chapter 3

After lunch, the day ran smoothly. Margaret was not sure if she should be happy or confused. Happy that there was no harassing or sad that not even one of her friends even talked to her. They would simply walk by without even sparing her a glance.

Margaret walked home. Alone. It felt strange. She had never been allowed to walk home by herself... Maybe she was considering how old she was, but her parents never had to really tell her because Carter was always walking home with her. Freshman year she wasn't allowed to walk home but then she met Carter and they began to walk together. Without laughter to staunch the silence, she constantly felt like she was being watched. The leaves crunched, and she looked down. There were no leaves by her feet.

She ran.

Right as she was turning the corner, a hand grabbed at her waist from behind. "Gotcha," a voice whispered in her ear. She began to quake with fear as another voice approached. "Now what have we got here," the voice questioned.

She could hear his footsteps come closer. He stopped in front of her and smiled. "Such a pretty face. What's your name, hmm?" Petrified with fear, Margaret met his question with silence. "No reply? I guess I'll find out when I fu-"

"Let her go." A girl appeared from around the corner. Margaret released a breath she didn't realize she was holding.

The voice came closer. "I said let her go."

The man standing in front cocked his head to the side and smiled. "What are you gonna do?"

"I'm not quite sure but the cops will figure it out," the girl stated slyly.

"It's okay, little girl. We ain't gon hurt her. We just wanted to talk. Right?" Margaret, paralyzed with fear, did nothing but nod her head.

"See? So, why don't you go back to your dolls? Everything is fine." The girl in front of them simply tsks at them and pulls out her phone. She presses a button and looks back up. "Well, I made sure the cops come anyway. Even if everything is okay."

"You know what? We ain't got time for this right now. We got someplace to be." They shove Margaret away from them and walk in the opposite direction. The man winks at her and calls, "Hope to see ya later," and disappears.

She tries to catch her breath, but she seems to only take in too much air. The other girl came running up to her. "Breathe, honey." And she did. Oxygen was only just reaching her head as she came to her senses. She went from the crouch she was in, to flat on her ass in realization. The whole ordeal still had her frazzled.

All she felt at this point was confused. In her little town, how could anything like this happen? You never heard of anything happening here. The only thing they had were drugs. Not kidnappers.

"Hey," the voice called Margaret back from her thoughts, "You okay? Let me walk you home."

Margaret doesn't remember how she got home other than the fact that the girl held her the entire time. "...anyway, just make sure to have a walking buddy. Where I'm from, walking home with someone is life or death." They arrived at her door. "Are you going to be okay?" Margaret gave a ghost of a shrug and whispered, "Sure."

That night, Margaret couldn't help thinking of that girl. She didn't even get her name. She wondered if she went to her school. Most of all she wondered what would have happened had the girl not shown up.

Walking-buddy it is.

~~~~~

After this chapter, there will be changes to how the story originally went because I discovered some plot holes that made it harder to continue writing.

No one is commenting so I have no idea if you guys actually like it or not. Work work me. I'm trying to improve both of our experiences.

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