Shattered Relations | Aru Shah AU |

XVIII

ARU
Aru awoke to a scream, followed by a crash, and the tinkling of glass. Not the most tasteful way to wake up, but, hey, it was more efficient than an alarm. 

Staggering forward like a zombie, she stumbled out into the hallway, thin slits of early morning sunlight escaping through the eggshell white blinds. 

Mini stood in the hallway, coffee soaking into the carpet, shards of ceramic mug the only indication of the caffeine intake she'd lost. 

"What?" Aru mumbled, her mouth dry. Mini, her face pale, and her eyes wide behind her glasses, took a step back, revealing the body of... a pigeon?

"The hell?" Brynne's voice piped up from behind both of them. Her previously-bleary eyes cleared, and narrowed at the body. 

It was headless, with tufts of feathers floating in the air. The stump was bloody, and feathers were randomly plucked from it. 

Brynne looked green in the face, while Mini's eyes were almost comically wide in terror. 

"There's a note," Mini said faintly, pointing a trembling hand towards the pigeon. 

Aru knelt down, and with frozen, stiff fingers, she unwrapped the piece of paper from around the scaly foot of the bird. 

It was printed, the font in contrast with the threatening words: If you want your friend to see the light of day again, you'll destroy every piece of evidence against us.

"'Friend'?" Aru asked sharply. "Have they got Kara? Or Aiden? Or maybe Rudy?"

Mini had raced to her room, and gotten her phone, and begun calling Rudy. He must've picked up, because after a few moments, the lines around her eyes smoothened, as some colour returned to her face in relief. 

"Hi, Rudy.... is Aiden there?" 

A pause, and then, "We got... an interesting note." 

Another pause, as Mini's eyes widened. 

"You guys got the pigeon too?" She asked, and began to tug at her bangs. 

"There's a note, isn't there?" she asked, before removing the phone from her ear, and setting it on speaker phone. 

Rudy's sickened voice crackled out, with some static, "The note... it's a threat, of course it's a threat.... Uh, it says, 'If you want your friend to see the light of day again'—"

"'You'll destroy every piece of evidence against us'," The three of them chorused, interrupting him. 

"Yes, but which friend? You don't think... Kara?" Rudy asked, anxiously. 

There was some shuffling on the other end, and a yell. 

"Aiden must've come in," Aru said, burying her face in her hands.

"WHY IS THERE A DEAD PIGEON IN OUR HALLWAY?" 

"Good question," Rudy said. "Guys? Any idea who our friend in danger might be?" 

"I—it could be Kara, but there's no way of contacting her—" Mini began, but Aru had already begun dialling the old number that had belonged to her sister, back when they were living in Atlanta. 

After a single ring, the call was declined, and the automated message came through. Exasperated, Aru cut the call, dread inching up her spine. 

Bile rose through her throat. "You don't think they managed to catch—"

"No, I doubt it," Brynne murmured. "She managed to escape them for a year..." 

Aru tugged at her hair harder, as if the action would pull the messy thoughts from her brain and organize them into a neat chain of events before her eyes. 

Then, her phone rang. She glanced at the number, skimming through the digits. Hope flared through her. Could it be Kara?

She clicked 'Accept', her heart hammering in her chest, before switching on the speaker. 

"Hello?" she asked anxiously. 

An equally anxious voice answered, belonging to a guy. He sounded slightly familiar... maybe in his accent? "Are—are you Aru Shah?"

She glanced toward Mini and Brynne, who shrugged in unison, confusion clearly expressed on their faces.

"Why do you want to know?" 

"I'm Nate Grant, Leslie's brother. You—you were the last person she tried to text. My... my sister didn't come home last night."

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