Undercurrent

Five

May 7th

Beck and I parted ways the day before after witnessing the 'event' at the blue hole and attended school as if nothing had ever happened, but he did make sure that he still had my phone number and I his in case one of us stumbled across something important in our search.

It was as if there was an unspoken deal between us and the animosity from his side completely vanished, leaving him regarding me with an aloof air of acquaintanceship instead of the bitter malcontent that he normally held for me.

He paid me no mind at school that day and I did the same, however the treatment from everyone else remained the same and he did nothing to stop it even though he knew that I wasn't the cause of his brother's death anymore.

I didn't let it bother me, however, as I finally had someone willing to dig deeper into Adam's death with me when I hadn't before. Everyone else had simply instructed me to let it go, that there were no currents in the blue hole, and that it was just my mind playing tricks on me.

I knew exactly what I saw and the accident the day prior at the quarry proved it: there was something spectacularly and inherently wrong going on at the old mining site and Beck and I were going to prove it and put a stop to it, we just needed to figure out what it was in the first place, and in order to do that, I needed to do some digging.

I texted Beck to meet me at my car after school and silently prayed that he wouldn't object. I had something he needed to see.

I was almost done with my classes for the day when one of my old friends came into my peripheral view and I was almost out of her cross hairs until she shouted my name across the crowded hall.

I groaned inwardly and pulled my light pullover tighter around my body and wondered if there was anyway I could dress any more inconspicuously if I tried.

Jeans and t-shirts were my staple garments in my wardrobe but somehow even with how ordinary I always dressed I remained the girl everyone was able to pick out of a crowd instantly with my jet black hair that was long enough to almost reach my belly button in the front and my fair skin that would remain light as a ghost if I didn't get out in the sun.

I decided to bite the bullet and allowed her to come to me.

Penelope Reyes could not be described with a mere few words, she needed her own dictionary to describe the many details about her.

Light caramel skin that emulated warmth, beautiful brown, almost yellow eyes in the sunlight, a voluptuous chest that made me envious as I stared down at my own sparse breasts and a waist that any girl would kill for: she was the embodiment of gorgeous and we had been best friends since kindergarten-that is until Adam came along.

He stole the spot of number one best friend right out from under her and she could never get over that, so we drifted apart a bit however always remaining cordial and friendly with one another.

"Hey, Nel, what's up?" I asked her, using her shortened nickname that she preferred over Penelope.

"I just heard. I'm so sorry girl! I am totally here if you need me!"

I furrowed my eyebrows at her in confusion, wondering just who else had died.

"What are you...?" I trailed off, hoping she would understand that I had no clue what she was talking about.

She flipped her dark brown curls across her shoulder and mirrored my same confused expression as she regarded me with an almost cold intensity and fiddled with the hem of her cherry red blouse.

"You mean no one's told you? It's been all over the news...I'm sorry sweetie, but the police and firefighters all went back to try to find... him...one last time but something went wrong with the diver's equipment and he ran out of oxygen before he could reach the surface again. Since too many people have died there now, they're putting up a concrete wall around the entire lake and making sure no one else can ever get there again."