They keep telling me that I should just let her go, let that night rest and move on with my life.
They don't realise that I still wake up in the middle of the night, sobbing for Chance and sobbing for myself and sobbing for the fucked-up world with...
Even though I don't really want to take things slowly at all, I murmur to him, "How about we slow this down?"
Max nods but again, there's that magnetic pull drawing him to me — and drawing me to him. It's hard to stay apart from him.
Then the train pulls up into the station at New Ridge and Max's face pales. He moves away from me and is waiting for the door to open.
Frowning, I glance out the window. Ian Bellamy is standing on the platform with a thunderous expression clouding his face.
Nausea rises in my stomach; while I get to go home to loving parents, Max has to face a completely unjustified and absurd punishment because he loves me.
He doesn't glance back as he rushes out of the train.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The search for the truth continues the next day at school. I get in early to meet up with Lilia and Heather, as they asked me to over text. We meet in the library, which is always quiet in the mornings.
After explaining to the two of them very briefly the fact that Ms Harn doesn't give a damn about Chance, I ask, "What is it?"
"So we broke into the police station last night—" Heather starts.
"I thought you were grounded?" I frown at her.
"Well, I am — but my mum works at the station, so technically I wasn't doing anything wrong—"
"But you broke into the police station?" I ask incredulously.
"I did," Lilia corrects. "Heather distracted the officers and I snuck into the evidence room. They don't have much on Chance's case, but I did manage to steal her phone."
"And?" It doesn't faze me that the police barely have any evidence to help Chance's case.
"There's an app that Heather's brother developed at uni this year, and when installed, it can track the phone's location and calls throughout the day," Lilia explains, pausing when she sees me open my mouth.
"That's great and all, but I'm guessing Chance didn't just happen to have this app on her phone on the day she went missing. And how did it survive the waterfall?" I'm glad that Lilia and Heather actually did something — and that Heather seems to be being useful — but I can't help but be doubtful.
"We downloaded the app and I hacked into the mainframe to rewire it. And then we'll go through the phone's history — especially since it wasn't used after Chance went off the waterfall — and try and figure out if anything major happened," Heather tells me.
"And the police found Chance's phone in the middle of the woods; it must've fallen out of her pocket while you and she were running..." Lilia explains.
"Right..." I take a moment to let this information overload sink in — particularly the fact that Heather has hacking capabilities. "How long will it take you to do the hack?"
