The Moss Imagines

6: |Under| Part Three - Concrete

Rolling her eyes, Kristen sighed. She considered Zahir's apparent occasional smoking at the diner incredibly disrespectful and lost respect for him.

After a quick moment, though, she realized that would make her no better than himself since she had thought nothing of Stithe and Jarius fooling around on the property.

"What makes you think smoking in a burnt-down diner is a cute thing to do?" Stithe asked, gearing up to completely shut him down in the blink of an eye.

Pulling a lighter from his jacket pocket, he put his cigarette between his lips and shrugged.

Simultaneously, the girls cringed as Jare just looked for anything to say that could take their attention away from Zahir.

"That's not funny. That's disrespectful and offensive." Kristen added.

Glaring at her through his brows, Zahir blew out the first puff.

"To the building or you?" he smiled, taking a step closer to the door which made Kristen worry. Even though she didn't want to go in, she knew she would out of curiosity. Especially if Stithe ended up going too.

"To the woman who owned it." she answered.

"The woman that killed five people? No, six. Wasn't the sheriff's son there too?"

Shaking his head, Jare put his hand on his hips and put his foot on the first step.

Stithe and Kristen shared a look. The exact reason Kristen had been doing her project was because she felt it important to correct people on what happened the night of the fire.

"That answers my question." Zahir laughed, taking another puff of his cigarette and making it to the door where he squeezed himself through the leaning door.

Balling her fists, Kristen glared at him through the glass when a furious breeze swept past and threw Stithe off balance.

Jare caught her in time before she tripped over her feet.

"I'm not going in there." she said as he held her arms.

Nodding, he brought his hands to her face and held it. "I know you don't want to, but it'll be good for you to finally see the inside. Right?"

Sucking her teeth and silently agreeing, she immediately took Kristen's hand and led her up the steps.

Kristen didn't know why she was letting her. She was evenly torn on whether or not she wanted to finally see the inside of Willoughby's Diner, but there was also a fear of that unknown.

2014 - Night Three

The morning was just as cold as the night before and Sherrif Mason was on his way hoping to beat the sunrise.

Theo sat with his arms tight around Whisper hoping to warm up her body. He wasn't sure if she had fallen asleep or if she had passed out from the shock of being back in the warmth of the diner after being cold underground for the time she was.

For that day prior, he had assumed she was busy or dealing with something time-consuming enough to the point where she hadn't reached out to him for nearly the whole day, but after it had been more than twenty hours, he knew he was failing as a partner to let so much time pass before checking on her himself.

When he had gotten to the diner, it was after eleven and all the lights were on, but the blinds were down. The door was unlocked, so he had wondered if it was a good idea to bother her.

When he did go in, he saw the phones on the edge of the counter and when he had walked further in, he smelled something burning followed by white smoke from the kitchen.