Hollow Woods ✔

Clues

The bell rang to dismiss us all. Dean and I always go to my house after school, I mean, it's not like he has anywhere else to go.

As a fighter, I get paid when I win a fight and I have never been defeated since I started. My manager Nora makes sure I am in top shape for every fight. She knows how to give a pep talk when I need it the most and for that I am thankful to have her in my life.

I start up my car as Dean whispers to me, "Rhydian is walking over here." I look up as the car's engine gives off a fierce start.

"Hey, got room for one more?" Rhydian asked, leaning against my car, looking in through the passenger window.

"Don't you have your goons to give you a ride?" Dean asked sternly. I held in my laugh when I saw a challenging look morph onto bother their faces.

"I do but I didn't think Raven over there would want them to know where she lives." He looks away from Dean and gives me one of his pantie dropping smiles, at least that's what would happen to most girls.

"Get in." I give him a small nod, "Dean, I invited him. He's only coming with us to give me more information about the girl." Dean looks up and runs his hands through his curls then giving an angry grunt. As Rhydian closed the door behind him I sped off the school grounds. Looking through my mirror I could see him grab onto the back of my seat.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Rhydian yelled, digging his fingers into my seat.

"Bro, this is tame for her driving." Dean said, trying not to laugh at Rhydian's horrified face. Eventually he gave into his laughter. He was uncontrollable, hitting my dashboard and holding his side as his laughter made it hard for him to breath. I gave him a good smack to get him under control. He lets out a few more laughs and then stops, trying to catch his breath.

Silence overcomes the car, which I liked, but it was awkward. Dean was sitting in the passenger's seat watching some videos while Rhydian sat behind me on his phone, probably texting his friends or a new hookup. Out of nowhere, Dean bursts out laughing again shocking both Rhydian and me. I pulled into my driveway, turned over to face Dean and pulled out one of his earbuds. I took the collar of his shirt, pulling him to face me.

"You have a real problem, do you know that." I say, bumping his head to mine. We both laughed as we all got out of the car.

"Are you guys dating or something?" Rhydian asked as I used my keys to open my front door.

"No," I say, swinging the door open, "We're more like siblings than anything." Dean nods his head in agreement as he chews the cookie that he took from my kitchen. "Make yourself at home. You're free to take any snacks." I disappeared upstairs into my room, setting my laptop on my desk, pulling out sticky notes and lined paper along with unlined paper to draw out anything if needed.

~Dean~

"Well, you better have something good to say. Ex isn't one to take a lie... rationally, just to say the least." I gave him a concerning look and he looked scared for a second but he quickly covered it up.

"Umm, I'll try not to."

"Well, up we go. Also, don't say anything about her room. Don't test her patience."

~Ex~

I heard them head upstairs and then a second later they both walked through my door.

"Whoa." Rhydian lets out, taking in the walls of my room. Covered in strings, push pins, newspapers, drawings, pictures and sticky notes. Everything color coordinated of course.

"Started the moment I found out about this case. Haven't spent a second away from my investigation." He continues to look around, starting to get up close to read my notes and the newspapers.

"Why are you so interested in this. I mean, you don't even know what she looks like, let alone know how she was. So why try so hard for someone who might be dead already?" I could see flashbacks flood my mind, all the things that I went through and how I hoped that the cops never stopped looking.

I firmly gripped my Bluetooth mouse and covered my mouth with my other hand, holding in the vomit crawling up my throat. Dean noticed and helped me up and out of the room. He rushed me to the bathroom and closed the door behind me.

"Lock the door. You can't do this right now. Listen to me, if he sees you like this all he's going to have are questions. We both know that you don't want to answer them. Pull yourself together, I'm going back to the room, take your time, don't rush this." I heard him walk away.

I lifted the seat and let my guts out.

~Dean~

"Is she ok?" Rhydian asked, looking concerned.

"She's just been pushing herself too much and she's not used to people like you." I'm good at coming up with bullshit. "She'll be back in a bit." I sat on the desk chair and looked through all the new info we collected for the past week, it wasn't much. "Take a seat man." I watched as he sat at the edge of the bed, still looking shocked at all the walls.

~Ex~

I stepped out of the bathroom and walked into my room to find Dean and Rhydian talking as if they had been friends for years. Dean turned to me and I gave him a nod, letting him know that it had passed over. He got up and I sat on my desk chair while he sat on my bed.

"Ok Rhydian, if you still have time will you please describe in detail how this man you were talking about looked like. If you only saw his profile that's fine, a profile image is better than nothing." He began, I held my pencil, drawing out every word that came from his mouth.

After three hours, I finally finished my sketch. I turned it over for confirmation that this was indeed the man who he saw. His jaw dropped in shock.

"That's spot on. How, when did you have time to learn and become this good?" Rhydian took the paper to get a closer look.

"You've only known of my existence for what, a good 24 hours." I say, slightly laughing. I turned on my phone, it's 11! "Hey it's late, do you want to stay the night or do you want a ride?" I can see that he's already half asleep. "You're staying the night."

I helped him up and walked him over to a spare room. I left him to get comfortable as I walked back to my room and picked up a sleeping Dean. He has a room here seeing as his parents don't get along well with him. I was quick because I don't want Rhydian to ask questions on how I can carry a buff football player.

As I stumbled back into my room, not being tired and it being a weekend tomorrow, I decided to pull out my secret vodka bottle. Not even bothering to get a shot glass or anything. I gulped down as much as I could, my throat stung as the liquid traveled down. If Dean were awake he would have snatched my bottle and hid it back to where it was.

Sometime later I was drunk over the moon. I fell on my bed, curling up into a ball to sleep, man I can't wait for the hangover in the morning.