The Connor's (Watty's 2018)

School? What's that?

"Hey, Andrea!" I sucked in a breath as a familiar voice called out my name and turned to see Penn galloping towards me. I tried to avoid the many students that were rushing to class and stood off to the side of the hallway.

"If I didn't know any better, I'de say you were avoiding me" Penn grinned trying to catch up to me as I began walking to english.

"Not like you haven't done the same thing to me, before" I shrugged not meeting his brown eyes.

"So, I'm right! You ARE avoiding me" I rolled my eyes at the faux hurt in his voice and turned into class before Mark scolded us for almost being late.

"I'm not avoiding you, God" I hissed dropping into my seat and staring straight ahead. Out of the corner of my eyes I noticed his own eyes widen and he quickly looked away.

Despite London's mini threat totally freaking me out, I wasn't about to just pretend that I didn't know what I knew about him. All of this was just so messed up! The entire case itself was starting to drive us all crazy because besides what Nate had helped us all realize last night, there was absolutely no way of understanding it without actually talking to someone involved...and since most of the people involved were either deceased or comatose, that was very unlikely.

I clenched my jaw as the age old thought of just calling Penn out, circled my brain. I couldn't.

"Hey" I heard Penn whisper from beside me and turned to acknowledge him, "London invited me for dinner...I hope that's okay?"

I forced a smile and nodded, "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well your acting wierd and I'm not too sure why so..."

"Well don't let me stop you from coming over to my house, eating my food, and kissing my sister's ass" I muttered sarcastically.

"I'm honestly so confused right now, Andy" Penn furrowed his eyebrows and watched my quietly.

"Yeah, well so am I" without a second thought, I picked up my bag, got up, and left the classroom probably leaving Penn to stare after me in even more confusion.

It took me exactly 25 minutes to walk home and when I finally unlocked the door, I was less than surprised to find Des still sitting at the table pouring over the pictures.

"Hey" I sighed dropping my backpack at the entrance and nodding at Des.

"Sup?" she grinned, not even questioning the fact that I was home much too early.

"Figured I'd come and help you"

"Grab a seat" She nodded pausing to pull her hair into a ponytail.

We sat combing through the stacks of papers on the table until something caught my eye, "How did we miss this?"

"What are you talking about?" Des leaned over the table and her dark eyebrows furrowed, "What is it?"

"I was looking through all the medical examinations and their all jumbled up...None of it makes sense"

"Let me see" Des stood up and came around the table, picking up two of the ten files I had splayed in front of me.

"This is so stupid" Des whispered squinting her eyes, "Everything written here is overly complicated...Like this"

She pointed to some jumbled hand writing and I was able to make out a word, "Desiccation?"

"Yeah" she nodded sitting down and looking through the remaining files, "That word has come up on every single one of the medical examinations but I never thought it through...."