Deceive Me (On Hold)

Chapter Three

 "You guys they were definitely here." Charity pointed shakily at the place where the nail polish was missing from and the other to girls drew in sharp breathes.

"Look we need to find the book and get out of here, this place is giving me the creeps," Dakota announced before practically pouncing towards Skylar's bookshelf. "What was the book that she read again?"

"Divergent," Tabitha stated. "God it's not such a hard name to forget Kota."

Dakota searched the bookcase quickly before coming to the book they wanted and hurling it at Tabitha that was standing at the other side of the room, "Here."

Tabitha caught the book in her hands and held it to her chest, "You could have knocked my eye out!" 

Tabitha began to flick quickly through the pages of the hardback novel until her hands froze on a page near the middle of the book, page one hundred and fourty and pulled out a blue sticky note just a few shades lighter than the turquoise nail polish that Sklar loved so much. The girls read the sticky note silently but they found more questions than they did answers. The note was written in nail polish, Skylar's nail polish to be exact and it had the words, 'Twists and turns, twists and turns, your life sure does feel like a rollercoaster right now doesn't it.'

"They're playing us!" Charity snapped.

"No this means something, we just don't know what yet," Tabitha replied.

"Just grab the note and let's go. I need to get home and have a shower before I puke from my own disgusting stench," Dakota complained.

The girls thanked Diane on the way out but told her they unfortunately didn't find anything out of the ordinary, which was a complete lie but they didn't want to worry Diane by telling her that Skylar's kidnapers had broken in to her house and stolen her daughters favourite nail polish.

Charity dropped each girl off at their respective homes and they agreed to meet up at Tabitha's again tomorrow morning, and if anything abnormal happened than they should call immediately. Tabitha took the note with her and had vowed to the others that she would place it somewhere special. 

Charity had told the other two girls that she was going to go straight home to bed but she didn't. Instead she made the twenty minute drive to the town over like she had been every day for the last year. She was going to see River Armstrong, her secret kind-of boyfriend. She met River two years ago when she had stupidly gone to see Dakota's ex-stalker at Twin Valley Behavioral Hospital. She had gone their to figure out the whole story of why Amy Mace was stalking Dakota, but now she wishes she hadn't. The stuff that Amy had told her two years ago still haunted her dreams. But one thing good did come out of that horrible day, Charity had met River who was also a patient at Twin Valley and they instantly had a connection. Charity had been visiting him almost every day since then.

Charity signed herself in at the Front Desk and was given a name tag that she stuck on the upper left side of her jacket, just above her chest. She smiled broadly as she opened the door to River's room. River didn't look like a mental patient and Charity didn't really understand why he was here at all, he never seemed crazy to Charity.

"Charity." River smiled lovingly at Charity.

"Hey Riv." Charity placed herself down on River's bed and took his hand in hers rubbing her thumb against his palm gently as if he would break if she touched him any harder.

"I've got some news," River announced.

"Well I sure hope it's good news because I can't handle anymore bad news for probably the rest of my life." Charity laughed even though it wasn't very funny, it was the truth.

"It's great news," River exclaimed. "I've been given the all clear, I'll be out of here in less than a week."

It was great news but Charity didn't smile, River lived over an hour away from Twin Valley and that was still twenty minutes away from Burlingwood, Charity wouldn't be able to see him everyday once he was released.

"What's wrong?" River asked her after seeing how concerned she looked.

"But you live in Bankstead that's an hour and a half away from Burlingwood," Charity complained.

"I'm not saying it won't be hard but Charity, think about it. We'll be able to come out as a couple and I'll be able to drive so we can meet half way. We can be a real couple." River grinned broadly and took both of Charity's hands in his. Charity began to grow excited. "So will you be my actual girlfriend Charity Davenport?"

"Yes," Charity practically squealed before pressing lips down hard to River's knocking him down to a lying position on the bed. Their kisses were passionate and beautiful and it made Charity feel like everything in the world was right again.