My Undercover Life | ✓

Chapter 42

"Are you planning on staying home again?"

Dropping my spoon, I looked up to see Megan dressed in her uniform with a half eaten apple in her right hand. I sighed, leaning my body against the kitchen counter. "There's no point in going to school right now."

She frowned, pulling her lips into a thin line. "Lily, how long are you going to keep this up for? You can't just let your effort go to waste like this—"

"—I'm not letting my effort go to waste!" I shouted at her. "I'm staying at home so I can figure out where the hell the killer took Bradlee and Ashleigh."

"But it's been three days—"

"—don't you think I already know that? It's not like I'm sitting around, doing nothing about it."

"I didn't say you were, Lily."

"I know," I said as I ran a hand through my hair. "I just—I just don't know what to do. Demitri and Skylar aren't saying anything, and Hunter's been texting me non-stop trying to figure out where Bradlee ran off to. It's bad enough with Ian running around twenty-four-seven acting like a psychopath trying to find his sister, but now I have Bradlee's family breathing down my neck thinking I know where he is."

Her eyebrows scrunched down, taking a bite of her apple. "Why?" she asked around a mouthful of fruit. Swallowing she said, "If anything they should be questioning Hunter. He was the last person to see Bradlee before he went back to see you—"

"—wait a minute." I paused, moving towards her. "Did you just say Bradlee was going to see me?"

"Yeah. I thought you already knew that?" she asked, tilting her head.

"What? No, I didn't," I said, shaking my head. "When we were at the pet shop, I told him to go back with you guys . . . I saw with my own eyes that he did."

"He did come back with us," she answered, turning her back away from me, as she threw her apple away. "But"—She faced me again—"As soon as we got back to Woodway, he pulled Hunter aside, before signing something to him. I didn't want to intrude, so I left. It wasn't until later on that Hunter told me, Bradlee left to go see you."

I gulped, feeling my pulse rising in my chest. "S-so the reason why Bradlee was taken in the first place was because of me?" I blinked, staring at the ground. H-how could I ever face him again after this? How could I—

"Of course it wasn't!" I jolted upwards at the sound of her voice. She grabbed my shoulders, and looked me in the eye. "Lily, it was just a string of bad luck. It's not like you kidnapped him yourself."

"I might as well have! He disappeared because of me! He's being tortured because of me! He could be d—"

"—snap out of it, Lily!" Megan shouted, as she began shaking my shoulders. "Bradlee isn't dead, you hear me? Remember, we still have time before he does anything drastic to them."

"Like that's any better, Megan! We only have one more day before he kills them! Don't you fucking get it? If we don't find them, it's over. And, as of yesterday we still have nothing."

"Nothing?" She raised an eyebrow, dropping her arms. "What about that video you guys looked at on Monday?"

"I'm not sure . . ." I told her truthfully. "Demitri shut it off when Asher came back from the bathroom."

"I thought you guys were looking at it after you came home, though? Didn't your mom—"

"—she did, but we stopped the video right afterwards. If she knew that two more people went missing because of the serial killer, she would never let me continue looking for them again. And, I need to look for Bradlee."