"Do you think Skylar's parent's will just let us in to her room to look at her book case?" Tabitha asked. She highly doubted that they would, I mean Skylar's mother had practically forced the police officers to question the group of girls. It was now late afternoon the day after all the crazy commotion had happened. The group had spent the morning at the town pool with the guys, the four boys wanted to take the girls out for some fun in the morning after everything that had happened the night before. And the group did have fun, they played marko polo and had a handstand competition like back in the good old days when they were young and carefree.
But now they had gone back to the crazy that was now their reality. They were seated on the cream colored leather seats of Charity's new deep red BMW F30, parked out the front of the Branning's house contemplating whether to sneak in to the house through Skylar's bedroom window which was on the second floor and probably nearly impossible to climb in the with the zero percent body strength that the three girls had or to just knock on the front door and ask if they could take a look in Skylar's room for clues, because they knew Skylar better than any old police officer. Thankfully due to their weak strength and common sense the girls chose the latter option.
The girls were here to find a book, it was the first charm on Skylar's bracelet, they had bought it for her to signify the first book that she had ever finished reading. Skylar didn't like reading much and she would never get to the ending, even though the ending of a book was the best part. Tabitha had convinced Skylar to read one of the weird dystopian novels that Tabitha loved so much. Turns out Skylar had really liked how brave and courageous the main character Beatrice was because it was the first book that Skylar had ever finished.
The three girls made there way up to the patio of the Branning's large victorian style house and Tabitha knocked on the door. It took only a few seconds for Tabitha's mother Diane Branning to open the door, she wore a fake smile as she did but you can tell from the red puffiness of her eyes that she had been crying for hours and judging by the big black bags underneath her eyes she probably hadn't slept last night either. Just like the group of seven that had slept at Tabitha's last name, she was to worried about Skylar to fall asleep.
"How can I help you girls?" Diane questioned the girls.
"We were wondering if we could go have a look around Skylar's room, we know her so much better than any stupid police office and we want to do the best we can to find out what's going on," Tabitha queried. Diane seemed to contemplate this for a second before stepping aside and opening the door wider so that Tabitha, Dakota and Charity could enter.
Tabitha shouted out a thank you to Diane before the three girls practically bounded up the wooden, spiral stairs that led to a guest room, a bathroom and Skylar's room which was probably the biggest room in the house, she even had her own walk-in closet with a special section for her shoes. She also had a balcony which the girls had painted a pastel purple during the summer between ninth and tenth grade because they had gotten bored and run out of summer activities. The only thing standing in the way of Skylar's bedroom and the balcony was a thin piece of glass with purple curtains over it so that people couldn't spy in to Skylar's room. She didn't use to have curtains up but after an incident the year before, where two freshman boys from school had taken pictures of her getting change and had posted pictures of her in her lacy blue underwear all over Burlingwood high school.
Skylar's bedroom looked just as it did when the girls had seen it just three days ago, before any of this crazy stuff happened. Her massively wooden jewellery box still sat on her stark white desk, overfilling with silver and gold chains and diamond studded rings. Her journals from the last ten years sat at the top of her bookcase, full of secrets and life experiences that she had always felt the need to write down so as not to forget about any little detail of her life. Her massive collection of nail polish was spread out in a straight line across her desk, except for the one that had always been in the middle. A shimmery turquiose one, Butter London's Scallwag. Skylar's signature color, also the color or the writing on Tabitha's cabinet.
"You guys they were definitely here." Charity pointed shakily at the place where the nail polish was missing from and the other to girls drew in sharp breathes.
"Look we need to find the book and get out of here, this place is giving me the creeps," Dakota announced before practically pouncing towards Skylar's bookshelf. "What was the book that she read again?"
"Divergent," Tabitha stated. "God it's not such a hard name to forget Kota."
Dakota searched the bookcase quickly before coming to the book they wanted and hurling it at Tabitha that was standing at the other side of the room, "Here."
Tabitha caught the book in her hands and held it to her chest, "You could have knocked my eye out!"
Tabitha began to flick quickly through the pages of the hardback novel until her hands froze on a page near the middle of the book, page one hundred and fourty and pulled out a blue sticky note just a few shades lighter than the turquoise nail polish that Sklar loved so much. The girls read the sticky note silently but they found more questions than they did answers. The note was written in nail polish, Skylar's nail polish to be exact and it had the words, 'Twists and turns, twists and turns, your life sure does feel like a rollercoaster right now doesn't it.'
"They're playing us!" Charity snapped.
"No this means something, we just don't know what yet," Tabitha replied.
"Just grab the note and let's go. I need to get home and have a shower before I puke from my own disgusting stench," Dakota complained.
The girls thanked Diane on the way out but told her they unfortunately didn't find anything out of the ordinary, which was a complete lie but they didn't want to worry Diane by telling her that Skylar's kidnapers had broken in to her house and stolen her daughters favourite nail polish.
Charity dropped each girl off at their respective homes and they agreed to meet up at Tabitha's again tomorrow morning, and if anything abnormal happened than they should call immediately. Tabitha took the note with her and had vowed to the others that she would place it somewhere special.
Charity had told the other two girls that she was going to go straight home to bed but she didn't. Instead she made the twenty minute drive to the town over like she had been every day for the last year. She was going to see River Armstrong, her secret kind-of boyfriend. She met River two years ago when she had stupidly gone to see Dakota's ex-stalker at Twin Valley Behavioral Hospital. She had gone their to figure out the whole story of why Amy Mace was stalking Dakota, but now she wishes she hadn't. The stuff that Amy had told her two years ago still haunted her dreams. But one thing good did come out of that horrible day, Charity had met River who was also a patient at Twin Valley and they instantly had a connection. Charity had been visiting him almost every day since then.
Charity signed herself in at the Front Desk and was given a name tag that she stuck on the upper left side of her jacket, just above her chest. She smiled broadly as she opened the door to River's room. River didn't look like a mental patient and Charity didn't really understand why he was here at all, he never seemed crazy to Charity.
"Charity." River smiled lovingly at Charity.
"Hey Riv." Charity placed herself down on River's bed and took his hand in hers rubbing her thumb against his palm gently as if he would break if she touched him any harder.
"I've got some news," River announced.
"Well I sure hope it's good news because I can't handle anymore bad news for probably the rest of my life." Charity laughed even though it wasn't very funny, it was the truth.
"It's great news," River exclaimed. "I've been given the all clear, I'll be out of here in less than a week."
It was great news but Charity didn't smile, River lived over an hour away from Twin Valley and that was still twenty minutes away from Burlingwood, Charity wouldn't be able to see him everyday once he was released.
"What's wrong?" River asked her after seeing how concerned she looked.
"But you live in Bankstead that's an hour and a half away from Burlingwood," Charity complained.
"I'm not saying it won't be hard but Charity, think about it. We'll be able to come out as a couple and I'll be able to drive so we can meet half way. We can be a real couple." River grinned broadly and took both of Charity's hands in his. Charity began to grow excited. "So will you be my actual girlfriend Charity Davenport?"
"Yes," Charity practically squealed before pressing lips down hard to River's knocking him down to a lying position on the bed. Their kisses were passionate and beautiful and it made Charity feel like everything in the world was right again.