The Long Game━ (l. sinclair)

why would you push a sweet girl so far

"Oh, god," Nancy keened. "More chemicals."

There, on the kitchen counter, were bottles and cans and liters of opened cleaning supplies. It was all a mess, spilled over the tiled counter, and the kitchen was basically destroyed.

"You think they're guzzling this shit?" Corey asked, holding a can of powdered ammonium. Mike swatted at Corey, forcing him to put it down. The last thing he should be doing is touching chemicals without protective gear. Corey rolled his eyes, albeit fondly, and released his grip on the can.

"Yeah, either that or they just went on a hell of a cleaning spree," snarked Nancy.

"But, last year, Will didn't eat chemicals," said Max, looking at the brunette boy. "Did you?"

Will shook his head. "No. This is something new."

Then, all of a sudden, Sam realized.

"Mr. Clarke! Fifth grade — posit," Sam looked at Mike, Lucas, and Will with bright eyes. "What happens when you mix chemicals together?"

Lucas, Mike, and Will remembered the lesson, then, too. They nodded, and together answered, "You create a new substance."

"What if they're making something?" theorized Sam.

Corey raised a judging eyebrow at Sam. "In themselves?"

"Yeah," Max took Corey's stance, "come on, if you drink this crap, it'll kill you."

"If you're human," Lucas added, presenting them with a new thought.

In Sam's ear, she heard a distant, faint pulsing that no one else seemed to ear. Her head whipped around to the direction her gut was telling her to go. When Sam's friends saw her subconsciously clutch at her chest, they knew to follow her.

Sam walked out of the kitchen and into the dining room she'd been in a couple days prior. Ignoring how much of a mess the eating table was, she followed the rushing feeling to the first living room (remember, they're rich and have two, for some reason). On the carpet, there was an empty bottle of wine. Sam crouched to inspect it, but the wine wasn't what gained her attention in the end.

"Blood," Sam discovered, voice strained.

She looked away from it, up at the group that was following her. Nancy was the first person that caught her eye. She looked as if her mind was running a million miles per minute.

Nancy crouched right next to Sam, eyes on the blood. "Yesterday, Tom had a bandage on his forehead..." She picked up the empty bottle of wine, inspecting it for a few seconds, and noting the red blood stain on the label. "He was attacked."

They began to follow the rest of the blood stains, because, yes, there were more. Nancy brought the group to the garage, where the blood trail thankfully ended. On the middle of the garage floor, there were cords of rope just lying there. Jonathan crouched down and picked it up.

"They must have tied them up," Jonathan realized. "They must've taken them somewhere."

He stood back up, meeting Sam's weary eyes.

"Mrs. Driscoll," Nancy snapped, suddenly remembering. "She kept saying... 'I have to go back.'"

Sam's eyebrows rose. That caught her interest. She wondered, "What if the flaying is taking place somewhere else? There must be a place where this all started, right? A source."

"Somewhere he didn't want me to see," El nodded.

"Sam, you're a genius," Nancy breathed, as if Sam did anything at all. "If we can find the source, then maybe we can stop him. Or, at least stop it from spreading, or doing whatever the hell he's doing with those chemicals."