Hidden In The Attic: An AJR Fanfiction

Chapter Twenty-One

↤↤↤↤↤ Jay ↦↦↦↦↦

Reluctantly, I obey Hanna and follow Kib and Ryan up to the attic to search for God knows what. We search for a while for a light switch, but when we finally find one, it doesn't work. So we all turn on the flashlights on our phones and begin searching through old, gross boxes full of random stuff.
Holding the phone with my left hand, I dig through a box full of black and white photos and albums. I pull an old, torn photo out of the box and inspect it. It features a little girl sitting on a man's lap, both with huge smiles on their faces. They look like they're outside, by a lake. I can't recognize much in the photo, but I know that it's the same lake here.
It's a cute photo; one of the girl's arms is around the man's neck in a sort of hug, while his arm wraps around her torso. They look like they're having fun. I almost smile, but stop myself when I remember the history of this place that Hanns told us.
"Whoa, I think this is that little girl who got killed," I say. I look up to Kib and they do the same, scooting over on the floor closer to me to see the photo.
Ryan, from a few feet across the room, stands and walks up to me, crouching on the other side of me from Kib.
"And that's probably her dad," he adds.
I take a deep breath. It's disturbing to look at now. They looked so happy.
I continue to stare at the girl in the photo and notice a bracelet on her wrist. The photo quality isn't very good, but I can see that it's woven and beaded— probably homemade. Cute.

Ryan reaches into the box and takes out a piece of paper with some writing on it. He stands up and starts scanning the paper.
"What is it?" I ask, raising my head a bit to take a look.
"Uh, a letter, I guess," he answers.
"From who?" Kib also asks.
"Shhh." Ryan raises a finger at the two of us. "Shut up. I'm reading it."
Me and Kib wait a couple seconds silently before Ryan speaks up again.
"Okay, it's to Lily. I'm assuming that's the girl that died here, right? And it says that they're sorry for not being able to make it and that this is their final letter to her. I... don't care this is boring, okay. '...attached is a bracelet I promised to make you last summer. I wish I could give it to you in person. I love you. Mom.'"
"Woah, that's wack," I say after another couple seconds of silence.
"Her mom died? That sucks," Kib adds.
He stares at the paper for a few seconds more, his eyebrows creased in confusion. "Wait. '...attached is a bracelet...' Well, where's the bracelet then?" Ryan asks, looking around the area.
I look around, too, for a bit, lifting up a few papers in the box to see if it's underneath them, but it's not there. Ryan nudges my arm and I look up and follow his gaze to see a bracelet on Kib's wrist.
"Where did you get that?" I ask, poking the bracelet that's on their arm. It looks extremely similar to the one we saw in that picture earlier.
"I stole it from here when I came to investigate and shit," they say with a shrug.
Me and Ryan are stunned and we start yelling at them, our shouts overlapping.
"Dude, are you fucking kidding me? That's her bracelet you stole, you dumb whore." I slap their arm as they try to slap me back.
"You're an idiot. You actually cursed us all," Ryan says.
"Fuck you guys!" They throw their arms up. "How was I supposed to know? I got interrupted by Adam before I could check the box!"
I give them one last slap before standing up with Ryan. "Maybe don't steal shit in the first place, bitch."
"Whatever." They put the lid back on the box, keeping the bracelet on, for some fucking reason, and stand up as well.
"Alright, can we leave?" Ryan asks. "We aren't finding anything that can actually help us. And I don't want Jay to get scared."
I look at him. "Dude."
"Alright, fine, we can leave. But just because Jay's scared," Kib agrees.
"I'm not scared, dumbass, it's Ryan."
Ryan kicks me lightly. "I saw a spider."
I shove him in the chest. "Shut the fuck up. Let's go." And I head for the stairs.