"You, uh, plan to go out like that?"
Furrowing my eyebrows, I cast my gaze downwards, and that's when I remembered I had changed into pajamas after my date. My face heated up - it was embarrassing to unintentionally let Trevor see my pajama set that...
"Mr. and Mrs. Darhk," I said as the two of them whirled around to see who it was who had disrupted their... meeting? "I-I'm so sorry! I didn't—"
"Actually," Mrs. Darhk was quick to say before getting up from her seat on the couch, "you might be able to help."
"W-why? What's going on?" I asked. I was starting to get worried now.
The police officer strode over to me, notepad in hand. "It seems that your friend, Morgan, has disappeared," he said with a frown etched onto his clean-shaven face. "Do you know anything about this?"
My brain stuttered for a moment, and my eyes and mouth were frozen wide open in an expression of utter shock. Every part of me went on pause while my thoughts attempted to catch up. I had turned as white as chalk. "M-Morgan's... gone?"
"Yes," he replied shortly. "Apparently, her clothes have been cleared out of her closet, as well as her personal belongings. Her cellphone is unreachable. Do you know any places she could've possibly gone? Has she showed any signs of wanting to run away or has she had any history of running away from home?"
Mrs. Darhk must've noticed my catatonic state, so she stepped forward, placing a cold hand on my shoulder. "Well, she's never ran away before, nor has she ever shown any signs of wanting to," she answered promptly, and I nodded vigorously in complete agreement.
Still, I couldn't believe my ears.
I turned to face Mr. and Mrs. Darhk with an apologetic look on my face. "I'm so sorry, but I-I have to go—"
I still didn't completely comprehend what was going on—how could I when they're claiming my best friend's missing after I had just seen her yesterday?—but all I knew was that I had to get out of there.
Perhaps part of the reason why I was in such disarray and denial was because I refuse to believe that Morgan could've had such an elaborate plan in mind—without telling me.
But I wasn't ready to admit that yet.
"Go ahead, Addison," said Mr. Darhk. "Just—please tell us if you've found anything... or know anything."
I've never seen Mr. Darhk look so pale before. His usually stoic face looked so tired, and the bags underneath his eyes just further proved my case. You could not not feel bad for him if you saw what a mess he looked like.
"Of course, Mr. Darhk."
|
"Archer!"
My voice echoed through the empty house, and I wondered if he was still asleep. I raced up the stairs and burst into his room. Sure enough, he was still fast asleep in bed, unaware that someone we had both grown close to was possibly missing.
"Archer Hastings!" I snapped, pulling him by the collar of his loose tee.
"What?" he growled, now awake. He pushed me back, effectively removing my grip from his shirt. "Addie, what—"
"Morgan's missing!"
At my abrupt announcement, it seemed as if all his anger towards me for interrupting his slumber dissipated, ebbing away at the sudden information, and his fury was replaced with a look of extreme worry.
"You're... You're messing with me, right?" he asked with furrowed eyebrows, the color draining from his sleep-ridden face. "Because, look, if this is about yesterday's pudding, I told you I didn't—"
"Archer, I'm dead serious here," I said exasperatedly, trying to remain calm when deep inside, I was freaking the fuck out. "She wasn't answering any of my texts, so I decided to go over to her place, and—and her parents were there, and so was a police officer... and they told me she was missing or she's disappeared or whatever the fuck, and... and..."
I trailed off, on the verge of tears, as a lump begun to form in my throat, rendering it hard for me to speak. "And I—I don't know what to do..." I whispered defeatedly.
Without saying a word, Archer shot up from his position on the bed and grabbed his phone on his dresser.
"What... What're you doing?" I asked, peering over his shoulder.
"Texting Chase, Eric, and Killian so they know what's up and can help look."
||
A few hours later, Archer, Chase, Eric, and Killian all sat in my living room, each busy doing their own thing, doing whatever they could to help. Archer stood up, his hands on his hips.
"So," he began with a distressed look on his face, "Chase, you've checked The Brew, and she's wasn't there."
"Yeah," confirmed Chase with a prompt nod of the head. "I even had a little chat with her boss, Mr. O'Neill, too—nice guy, that one—and he told me she advanced this month's paycheck but didn't say why. Her work locker's been cleared out, too."
Archer nodded shortly. "Eric? How was school?"
"Well, after classes, Killian and I went around school—down to the cafeteria, to the elementary building, the high school library, even the auditorium—but she was nowhere to be found," he said, looking around the group with a somber expression.
"We even went by her locker; I broke the lock. There was nothing inside," added Killian with an air of pride at having broken the lock, "but it's also very plausible that she's just cleared her locker 'cause she's no longer a student at Amity High."
"Well, Addie and I have had no luck either," Archer sighed, ignoring Killian's comment. "We went downtown, checked out the karaoke place, a few restaurants around the area—no trace of the girl."
Killian ironically raised his hand, his face seemingly full of ennui. "I've called all the hospitals in the area... a few morgues, too. Nothing. It's as if she fell off the face of the earth."
The room fell silent, none of us knowing what the next step to take was. Was this it? We just accept that Morgan's gone missing? I couldn't possibly— What if something's happened to her?
"Guys," Eric suddenly said as he lifted up his phone to show us what was on the screen...
—
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— MORGAN'S DARHK'S MISSING!!!
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"Someone's posted about Morgan's disappearance," said Eric.
"Damn, news really does travel fast," Killian said, running a hand through his thick brown hair.
"On the bright side," I interjected with hopeful eyes, "now more people could keep an eye out."
Chase fervently nodded in agreement, and just as another silence could settle on our little search group, Chase spoke up again, raising his hand nervously as though in a classroom.
"I—er—I know this other place we could check—"
"Where?" I eagerly inquired.
"It was late at night a few months ago, and Trevor was having a bad day," explained Chase, even though none of us asked for a backstory. "He was texting me about how his brother was acting up, and he just wanted to disappear... I was worried that he was going to do something stupid, so I hacked into his phone and tracked his location, and well..." The blonde trailed off as he got up from his seat on the couch.
