Love's Not A Competition(Tayley) *FINISHED*

Chapter 24

Taylor POV

"C'mon, C'mon she has to be around here somewhere." I whispered to myself as I ran up and down the streets looking for Hayley. I was so worried, I needed to find her. I ran and searched everywhere I could. It didn't help that it was very dark outside.

"Hayley!" I began to call out her name. There was no response, only the sound of a car driving extremely fast.  I ran up the street a little more. The street was only lit up by the very dim streetlights. As I got closer to one of the streetlights, I noticed something on the floor. I bent down and took it in my hands and examined it. Hayley's bow. She was here. I looked down the long street. She couldn't have gone that far. Just as I was about to start running up the street again, I heard my name being called.

"Taylor!" I turned around and saw Tay running after me. She caught up to me and took a moment to catch her breath. "Taylor what happened?" She asked with a worried expression on her face. "Where's Hayley?" She looked around.

"I don't know! Why do you think I've been looking for her!" I snapped at her.

"I..." Her face grew sad and scared. It reminded me of when I used to beat up the kids at my school, it reminded me of when I beat up Gerard on the first day of school, how he looked at me like if I was some sort of monster, and now, Tay was looking at me in the same way.

I let out a deep breath. "Tay..." She took one step back. "Tay please...I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you I just-" I sighed, "what's the point? Everyone hates me anyway. Especially Hayley..." I sat down on the side of the sidewalk and put my head in my hands.

Tay slowly got closer and sat down next to me. "Hayley doesn't hate you..." She whispered to me.

"Then why has she been acting weird lately? What have I done?" 

"You didn't do anything. Infact, you're the one who takes her mind off of everything that's been going on."

I looked up at Tay confused. "What do you mean? What has been going on?" I asked.

She let out a deep sigh. "She hasn't told you, hasn't she?" I shook my head. "Well, you know Chad, right?"

"Yeah... What about him?"

"Well, I hate to be the one to tell you, but he's been stalking Hayley. Sending her notes and pictures, telling her to watch her back, all that creepy stuff."

The memory of when Chad had beat up Hayley and I flew into my mind. It sent a shiver down my spine. Who knows what else he's capable of. "When did this start?" I asked.

"Not too long ago." She said. 

I let out a deep sigh. "Why didn't she tell me this?"

"She was planning on telling you soon, she just didn't want you to worry. She cares about you, Taylor. We all do. Why do you think we decided to look beyond your imperfections and what you've done in the past? It's cause we care." She told me. I looked down at the ground and smiled a small smile.

"Thanks." I whispered.

"Taylor, you still haven't told me what happened back there..." She reminded me. 

I scratched the back of my head and sighed. "I don't even know. One minute, I'm making my way back to the party after using the bathroom, next thing I know, I'm getting pulled into a room by that Eddie kid. He locked the door, I tried to escape but I couldn't. Before I knew it, he was kissing me! I tried to push him off but then the door opened, and Hayley saw what was going on. She ran out crying, I punched Eddie and ran out looking for Hayley. I couldn't find her, all I found was this." I said as I held out Hayley's bow for Tay too see.

Tay sighed and got up from the sidewalk. "C'mon, lets go back. We'll tell the others and then we could continue looking for her. It'll be easier when we have 7 pairs of eyes looking for her."

I nodded and got up from the ground. I kept my head hanging low though. Tay noticed this and stopped walking. She put her hand on my shoulder. I looked up at her. "We are going to find her, okay?" She said. I looked down at the ground and slightly nodded. We began to walk back to the house for the others.

Hayley POV

"Let me go! What do you want from me?!" I yelled at Chad as he threw my into a house that looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. He closed the door behind me and locked it. I looked around and saw that there was no windows, and no back door. 

He chuckled. "I am going to go to the bathroom, and you could explore your new home." He said.

"N-new home?" I asked.

He didn't respond. He just let out a laugh and began to walk down the hallway. But no ordinary laugh. This was an evil laugh, the ones that you would think you would only hear in the cartoons or in the movies. Only this wasn't a movie, this was happening. I heard the bathroom door close and I ran to every door there was, trying to see if there was a way to escape. There was only about 3 rooms, all of them with a bed inside, none of them had windows. I went to the end of the hallway and slowly opened what I believe was a closet. Most closets you would think would have like coats or something. Not this one. There was a small table in there. On the table was a knife and a gun. I teared up and slowly began to cry. He's gonna kill me was the only thing that was on my mind. I shivered and cried.

"I see you found the closet." Chad said, causing me to jump up.

"What do you want with me?" I asked.

He walked past me and into the closset. He picked up the knife and I shrieked. "Let me tell you how things work around here." He slowly walked closser to me. "This," he said as he held the knife infront of my eyes, "Is for your strikes." He began to walk to the closet again and picked up the gun. "How does the old ball game work again?" He got behind me. "Oh yeah, three strikes," I heard the sound of the gun loading. He pressed his lips onto my ears, "And you're out." He whispered into my ears. I began to cry even more.

"Oh shuttup." He told me. "Go to bed!" He grabbed me by the arm and threw me into one of the rooms. He stood in the doorway and stared at me. "Sleep good." He gave me an evil smirk. And with that, he slammed the door, locking it from the outside. I crawled onto the bed and silently cried. I tried to go to sleep, hoping that this was all a dream, but it wasn't. This was real.

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A/N: Sorry for any grammar mistakes or anything like that. I will try to put the We Are The In Crowd (Tay and Jordan's band) new music video on the side so you could watch it if you haven't(:

-XO