Where is Louise Bauman? + Original, Book 1 ✔

36

- Painkiller; Ruel -

Charlie kneeled to the ground, spreading the photos out one by one. There was one of each of her friends, technically two of her and Ren counting the one of them kissing. She couldn't stop staring at it - someone was watching them that night. The same night someone put a fake doll up in the gymnasium of the high school, the same night Nadia had basically threatened her.

This just proved that whoever was targeting Charlie, wasn't only targeting Charlie. They were clearly targeting the entire group, whether it be for them trying to figure out what happened to Louise or for some other reason unknown to them. She glanced at each individual photo, seeing they were all taken at different times, on different days. Each person in the photo didn't know it was taken, without consent. They were all being watched as if they were under investigation.

There were a total of nine photos, one for each person plus the extra one of Ren and Charlie, and one of all of them together. Jade's was of her leaving her house - probably in the morning to go to school. Tyler's was him walking from his car in a parking lot that looked to be Granny's. Mikey was in the hallway at school, whereas Kiya was similar but instead of being inside the school it was her entering high school.

Ren's was him waiting in his jeep, probably one of the times he was waiting for Charlie one morning or afternoon. Obviously, the time of day was hard to tell, Charlie couldn't remember as she was just starstruck by the fact that she had the photos in the first place. Then, one of her by herself was one of the days she was walking with the group, you just couldn't see anyone else in the photo.

Trystan was the second to last photo, as he was finally in the mixture of being in the people being targeted. His was him in the locker room, his backpack on his back as he was getting ready to leave as he stared at something on his phone. The very last photo was all of them sitting together at Granny's, right before all of them had gone to Trystan's for the movie night.

"No, no- no no no no!" Charlie exclaimed, shoving all of the photos together and putting them back into the ripped envelope. She pushed it away from her, running her fingers through her hair. She didn't know what to do, as she knew if she texted the group chat they'd want to meet, and that would ruin any plans of meeting with Ben in the next hour.

She pressed her palms to her eyes, leaning her back against the edge of her bed as she tried to dissect her thoughts. Things were a mess, and she knew she needed to tell her friends about this as soon as possible.

Finally, she decided she would still meet with Ben but tell her friends anyway. No matter how much they wanted to have one of their little 'group meetings' or run to Charlie's, she wouldn't let them. Especially Ren. This is her chance to get Ben on their side, and she wasn't going to ruin that with photos but she did need to let them know to be careful because people were watching them.

To: Operation LB.

Guys, we have a problem.

Almost as soon as she set her phone down, it began to buzz. She knew that the simple text message was enough to make her phone go off, especially with Ren not being by her side and him telling her repeatedly that he was going to keep his phone on him in case something happened to her.

She took in a deep breath, before opening her eyes and picking her phone up again, checking the texts she got from everyone in the group chat.

Operation LB.

Renny

WHAT HAPPENED