Visions (Forest Secrets Book 1)

Chapter 17

Lucky for us, the next party was only a few days later. Robin had given us directions but we didn’t have her come with us because if we got into any trouble, we didn’t want her to go down too. Hopefully we wouldn’t either…

            Catherine didn’t even offer, just stayed quiet. I wasn’t like I was holding it against her. I figured that it was because she was afraid. I didn’t like it just because it reminded me of how much fear I had to keep hidden. These were the thoughts that were racing through my head as we drove to the party: fear, confusion, planning, being on the brink of finding something out.

            Emily was driving us, and while the long line of road side trees whipped past us, I suddenly thought about how everything was suddenly fitting together. The most obvious one was why Carter had been kidnapped from home and not on one of his routes home. Anyone from our town would have known which ways he would have chosen and followed him, knowing the best spot to strike. The kidnapper hadn’t done that, because they obviously didn’t know, and just found out where he lived.

            Six o’ clock and it was still light out. This party was going to be so different from the one a few days ago, even though the Litha party was a different party in itself. This time Christine and I had dressed with a completely different goal in mind, and we’d also dressed Emily. We all had on tight but maneuverable pants, snug but not confining shirts, and converse. We had to look hot and dressed nice, but we also had to be ready for anything. With converse, we looked casual, but would be light and quick on our feet, plus, sharp turns wouldn’t be a problem. We had pants to protect our legs in case we had to make a run for it in the dark, and they had to be snug so they wouldn’t catch on anything. The same went for our shirts, which were snug so no one had anything to grab a hold of. We really didn’t want to go through any situations involving the use of our outfit choices, though.

And of course, we didn’t want anyone else thinking of those same situations when they looked at us. It couldn’t look like we’d picked our outfits for these reasons, so they had to be flattering and attractive. I had a deep purple tank with matching converse and soft, worn dark jeans. Emily had a hunter green half-sleeve T-shirt and black converse and deep blue jeans. Christine had a faded red halter top and black denim jeans with her favorite red converse.

Thank god we all loved converse.

We also hoped it wasn’t obvious that we were all wearing darker colors.

The trees were soon segmented with more and more houses and businesses as we entered the town.

            We made good time and held our head high as we got out of Emily’s car and faced the party house where Carter’s kidnappers might be, or at least left some sort of clue.

            Or might be there now… I looked at the other two and we all took a deep breath before advancing to the door. Christine knocked and an unfamiliar boy answered. He was cute, with blonde hair and brown eyes, but I was just relieved it wasn’t a girl. It would have been harder to do this.

            “Hey, we heard there were some pretty cool parties here. Got room for three more?” The three of us smiled in an inviting way. How could he say no?

            Turns out he couldn’t, and we walked into the house with a live band and a whole shit load of people. The boy who had answered the door walked past us, returned our inviting smile, and said, “Have fun girls.”

            We made our way to an abandoned chip bowl. “So what do we do now?” I asked.

            Christine pursed her lips as she thought, then whispered, “We look everywhere, for anything. Anything of Carter’s, or anything we can link to Carter.” Then said even quieter, “Does everyone remember what he was wearing that night?”