[ SAMPLE ONLY - FIRST 3 CHAPTERS]
"He was reckless. He was exciting. He was Theo.
And he was a breath of fresh air in my otherwise extremely dull life"
What if the missing person is your missing piece?
Rose has always played by the rules - now it's...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
O N E
It had been a sweltering hot summer and even though I couldn't wait for evening, the sun was at least a sign that there was still time to get the job done; the darkness had not arrived yet.
When night fell, we'd have to stop. We'd have to give up on the search for the day.
I posted the flyer through the letterbox. Listened to it drop onto the mat. Tried my hardest to not look at the sombre face in the centre of the paper, below the bold "MISSING PERSON" caption at the top.
These actions felt like routine now.
Once you finished one road it was on to another. Doing the same thing every single time. I wondered how many people would read what I had gone to the effort of posting, how many would actually take a moment out of their lives to think about what we'd written on our flimsy flyers, and how many would just throw them into the bin without a second glance because it wasn't their problem.
And then I'd catch his eyes. The ones on the paper. The ones I had been trying to avoid. His green eyes, glistening from the flash of the camera. His face was contorted into a scowl that showed he clearly didn't want his photo taken at that moment. His dark brown hair, short and messy, fell onto his face.
Theo Lockhart. The boy no one at our school really knew – and the boy everyone now believed something awful had happened to.
There were other helpers waiting at the top of my tenth road, basking in the heat of the evening sun as they took a short break. Their eyes were closed as they rested, taking a few moments to let the fatigue wash over them before they got back to their search. I joined them on the small patch of grass they were lying on, finding my own spot and dropping down onto it.
My feet sang with joy as my weight was taken off them. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the soft breeze that brushed over my skin and blew the hair o my sticky face. But it wasn't long before the moment of peace was ruined, because Grace came bounding over, a frown on her face – that was a sign of bad news to come.
"Here," she said firmly, dumping a wad of paper down onto the ground next to me as she took a seat herself. "Johnny West had to go home, so they've given us the rest of his flyers to post."
She removed her jacket from her shoulders, revealing a black vest top tucked into her denim shorts.
I pushed myself up from the ground and eyed the stash of paper I already had. "But we haven't even made it halfway through our own flyers."
Grace shrugged, using her hand to fan herself in the heat. "I guess we'll just have to hand in the ones we haven't posted at the end."
"I suppose," I murmured, feeling the last burst of sunlight hit my face before it disappeared for the night. "Was Naya all right with you cancelling your date tonight?"
