Chasing Shadows

Part One ~ Chapter Nineteen

“Umm, all right.” I rolled my lips into my mouth and bobbed my head up and down again.

“And I expect legitimate answers.” Fingers tapping out something on her cell, I watched as she made some sort of arrangement for a ride. Knowing that she wasn’t going to be inviting us along for it, I turned to face the others.

“I say we leave Tim’s car here.” Julia scrunched up her nose. “I don’t think I want to ride in the car of someone who could be dead right now.” I flinched at her words but agreed anyway; I didn’t want to ride in Tim’s car either.

“Then it’s settled. We will walk.” Amy led us from the parking lot and abruptly stopped. “Matt, right now is probably a good time to pull out your lovely little smart phone and get us directions home.

“We’re supposed to turn left.” I showed Amy the map on my screen after punching in the address for our house, discovering it would probably take us a good half hour to get home.

Silence enveloped us during the first few minutes, and I wished that I could say it was the comforting silence exchanged between good friends. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and I found myself trying not to blurt out random words just to get a conversation going. What was everybody else thinking? Were they blaming me for whatever happened with Tim? I did wish we could do something, but we really couldn’t. Mr. Grey held the reigns.

“What happened in there?” Julia spoke hesitantly in a soft voice.

“She was tied up on a chair.” I confessed the details, explaining how as I tried to comfort Kelly, Tim had decided he could leave. Forgetting about the trap that the door could have possibly held, Tim had carelessly opened it up and triggered an explosion. “I don’t know what it was, but it seemed like it killed him. He wasn’t showing any signs of movement, and it must have hit him right up close.”

Amy sucked in a breath, and Julia reached up to place her hand on my shoulder. I glanced down at them, but I quickly turned my gaze back to my feet.

“You have to understand,” I begged, “That as much as I hated Tim, and he was a terrible excuse for a man, I never wanted anybody to get hurt or die.”

“Gosh, Matt, we would never assume something like that.” Amy shook her head. “Especially not on you.”

“Hah.” Johnny scoffed. “Like you can even talk.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You slept with the guy.” Johnny rolled his eyes. “Somewhat of a conflict of interest there.”

“It’s not as if we were in  love! Or even dating.” She winced, as if realizing what their hook-up suddenly sounded like. “Never mind. How did you know?” Amy raised an eyebrow at her brother, waiting patiently for an answer.

“It didn’t take a genius to put it together.” Johnny bit his lip. “Actually, it sort of did. Kyle confessed his thoughts to us one day after piecing together things we knew and what we had heard.”

“I don’t know how uncomfortable it should make me feel that one of you best friends figured out my sex life and stories.” Amy half-shuddered and half-laughed. “I miss Hamilton now. I liked being around everybody all the time. It felt like home.”

“It’s weird, but it really does. Even if that’s where all of this trouble started, I don’t think I could leave Hamilton.” Julia smiled with longing. “And even though I know you feel like this is your entire fault, I do have to thank you.” She faced me. “Hamilton feels so much more like a community and home than here ever could.”

“Awww, so sweet.” I cooed sarcastically. “But, yeah, I guess you’re right.” I sighed, caving in and smiling also. “Even if it is the source of our nightmares, it also holds some of our fondest memories.”

***

            “Matt?” My mother’s voice carried over to my room, and I shut the screen of my laptop to go downstairs.

            “Yes?”

            “There’s been some news in town.” My mind flashed back to the scene in the motel. The rumbling shake from the explosion replayed itself in my mind.

            “Yeah?” I made my voice nonchalant. “What kind of news?”

            “Timothy’s body has been found dead. The story is that he booked a room at a motel in town, and the body was discovered later on. Traces of drugs were in his system, but they haven’t said whether or not that was the cause. Whatever happened, it seems like it went by completely unnoticed by security cameras.”

            My eyebrows shot up in surprise. The room was booked under Tim’s name? He had drugs in his body? Was Mr. Grey saving our asses from jail or something?

            “The man at the desk cannot be reached. It seems like he has gone missing, which is upsetting since he was really the only one who might have known anything.”

            “Oh.” I tried to make it out like this was upsetting news, but in reality I was just confused. Was Mr. Grey just trying to cover the tracks so that he could dispose of us himself? It seemed like his latest form of torture was playing his mind tricks on us, and I was not sure whether or not I should be thankful for this.

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Ok so this is VERY late and I really do apologize, but I won't go making excuses because I'm sure you don't actually care too much why it's late. Basically, a combination of trying to work out the details in this chapter (I don't think I did a very good job--it still seems kind of confusing for a reader) & some unexpected health issues.

But please share your thoughts! Even the characters are feeling a little homesick for Hamilton now...

xx

Ella

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