Runner {bxb}

9: I cant believe it's not B̶u̶Better!

Aaron

I don't understand why Andrew is acting weird. Wasn't he the one who wanted to forget this ever happened?

He's just been sitting on his bed, staring at his hands for almost an hour. I've had enough.

"Andrew, enough of this. You need to tell me what's wrong!"

His lips part slightly before he speaks. "He's-He's going to kill himself."

"Who?.." I ask in confusion. Not Sam'ed, that's for certain. He seemed perfectly happy living here with Andrew.

"The Alien... he-he escaped them, they were using him for- for awful things... He said that they'll punish him for running away and that he was going to kill himself to avoid it." He presses his face harder into his hands as his knee bounces up and down.

"Holy shit."

"I-I don't know what could possibly be so awful that he'd do that. He wasn't a bad person, Aaron. I wanted to help him..."

I walk over to him and grip his shoulder. His gaze raises to meet mine. "Andrew. We're going to go find him."

"What?.." he looks up at me, his eyes are watery, but not enough to bring him to tears.

He hates crying.

I feel bad that I wasn't there when Sam'ed started crying earlier today. He doesn't really know how to deal with it and it freaks him out.

"Let's go find him. I don't think he'll leave the school campus, if he does, I doubt he will get far."

He thinks it through for a moment before replying.

"Okay." He stands without protest and starts tying his shoes up. "Okay." We both head out immediately.

We've been searching for hours.

And Andrew is looking more frantic by the minute.

We haven't found any trace of him, no one has seen him around. Andrew is startling people even. He's desperate. More so than I've ever seen him. It honestly terrifies me.

"Andy it's getting dark..."

"No! We have to find him!" He scowls, turning to face me angrily. "We have too, especially before his kind find him!"

"Andy.." I place my hand on his shoulder as his breathing picks up. "Come on, we can look again tomorrow. First thing in the morning. We're doing nothing but wasting our energy here today..."

He sniffles and nods. "Okay... But first thing in the morning okay?"

"First thing." I pull him in for a hug. "To be honest I was beginning to think you didn't like him that much by the way you acted around him."

"...I know- I feel awful about it but I do care. I barely know him but I feel like I've just lost something precious."

"We'll find him, if we have to raid whatever alien spaceship they have ourselves." He just nods. I walk him home to make sure he actually goes to bed. I do one more sweep of the area before heading back to my own dorm and collapsing in bed.

We search the next day.

And the next.

And the day after that.

And the day after that.

We skip our classes for an entire week searching for him. But we find nothing.

I sit alone in my room, worrying about Andrew, worrying about Sam'ed. There's a knock at the door.

I stand up with a sigh. I check the clock. 5:28am. I open the door.