I'm jolted out of my slumber. The words 'I don't know' ring in my head. I look at my surroundings. I'm in my car. The heat isn't on, so my hands are as cold as ice and I can see my breath everytime I breathe. My keys hang in the ignition slot, ready for me to turn it and drive. I look behind me to see the sun coming up. The other half of the sky that is in front of me is still pitch black. I must have fallen asleep in my car.
I pull out my phone to see what time it is. 7:58. I should get home before school starts, or worse, before my parents figure out I didn't come home last night. I quickly turn on my car. The gentil roar of the engine wakes me up and I feel cool air blowing in my face. The system must be as cold as I am. I shiver as I place my half frozen hands on the steering wheel, hopefully I will be able to drive properly.
I take a look in my rear view mirrors to find I'm still parked on Chloe's driveway. Why didn't she wake me up? Why didn't her parents? Probably because she never bothered with me after burning all her energy with Richelle and I doubt her parents will care if there is an unexpected visitor sleeping on their driveay. They aren't the most caring. 'Anything goes' is their rule. Besides, they are almost never home, their jobs are very unstable so they have interviews to go to nearly every weekend.
Chloe has been in masses of trouble before but after realizing no one bothers if she gets expelled, she turned into a poster child for heaven.
As I back out of the driveway, something moves in my left mirror. I slam the brakes and breathe. The person scared me.
"Emily!" A muffled voice calls my name.
I honk my horn as a response then realizing, this early in the morning, I probably just woke everyone up. It's bound time for them to get up anyways. If anything, I've saved them the time to go smack their alarm clocks twenty times before they actually wake up.
"Emily." Someone taps on my window. I roll it down to feel a big gust of wind blow on my bare shoulder.
"Amanda?" I croak at the figure at my window. My voice is dry and frozen, "What are you doing here?"
"Richelle told me you were spending the night on "Chloe's property,"" She makes air quotes with her fingers, "I honestly didn't think she would mean that so literally." Amanda looks around my car then at the the driveway I spent the night on.
"Well, it's not like I wanted to sleep here. I think I dozed off." I admit.
"Are you able to talk now?"
I look around my car then give myself a quick glance in the mirror. My vehicle is on the clean side but I can't say the same for myself. I haven't taken a shower for twenty four hours and the minimal amount of makeup I have on is starting to smudge. I don't think I had a good night sleep so my eyes look worse than Richelle's and my mascara is running off of my eyelashes. I look like a raccoon that spent all night looking for food, and not only did I not find any food, but I'm dog tired.
"Why not." Unwillingly, I unlock my car door and Amanda sneaks around to meet me on the passenger seat.
"I have proof!" She cries once I have successfully maneuvered off of the driveway.
"Proof of what?" I don't dare to look at my partner, with my luck, I will drive into a bus.
"Proof that it's Richelle." She shouts.
"What is it?"
"Where do I start?" She groans sarcastically, "She is loaded with insider information."
"Like what? I'm getting tired of guessing Amanda. Spill."
"Well, she has all these photos of dead people - and not just any people. People that have multiple stab wounds or bullets in their heads." I shudder at the gory details but Amanda doesn't seem to notice - or care, "And Michelle is the focal point of one of them. Well, her and the pool of blood she's swimming in." I start to feel nautious, "And there are all these other kids - I should add that they're younger - and they are all dead. Like, one of them, a boy was hung by his wrists and another had multiple deep cuts on her an-"
"Amanda!" I cry at her, "Please, move on. Please" I beg before she gets too far into detail.
"Oh, sorry. So, she also had these videos of the people dyi-oops, sorry, you don't want to hear about it. Um, she has this blocked number she was texting and there were a lot of hacked files. No names were provided, just numbers but I think if you go down to the police station or the school board, you can find out what those numbers represent. Back on topic," Amanda rambles on as fast as she can, probably to say every little detail before I can reach my house, "she has this blocked number she's been texting. The texts were mostly, like, death threats. I want to believe it's her crazy talking." Amnda sighs.
We stop at a red light.
"How did you get all this?" I question her. Am I supposed to believe Richelle is the culprit. She can't kill her friends!
"I stole her computer..." Amanda admits ruefully.
"WHAT!" I scream so loud the people in the car beside me, look to see what the fuss is all about.
"I'm sorry. Did you want to know or not?"
"Do you want to go to jail for breaking and entering and STEALING!" I scream again. This time, no one bothers to look at me, "And you're going to mess with Richelle? Or any insane per-" I stop myself, remembering that Eldon is crazy - was crazy.
"I'm sorry okay, but now we have enough proof to give it to the cops!" She cries.
"They also have enough proof to ARREST you!" I scream again.
"Green light, Em." Amanda points at the traffic light above my head and bows her head to look down at the rip in her jeans.
I press the gas pedal again and go into the direction of my house.
"What else did you find?" I ask.
"Why should you care?" Amanda denies.
"Not you too." I complain.
"Then stop making me think you don't care!"
"Fine." I change my tone to a much lighter, happier sound, "What else did you find?" I ask.
"I found this." She holds out a piece of paper. I turn my head to see what Amanda is referring to and whirl my attention back to the road what I saw is making me want to look more. I turn onto a residential subdivision and double the speed limit. I reach my house within a minute.
"What is that?" I ask once I have parked my car on my driveway.
"Look for yourself." Amanda hands the paper over to me and stares out the windshield.
The page that is handed to me has the alphabet written on it with two thirds of the letters crossed out. The only letters left are: a e h o r s u and w.
"Is this Richelle's?" I ask Amanda, unable to pull my eyes away from the page.
"Yeah." Her voice is barely audible.
"What does it mean?" I ask.
Amanda shakes her head.
"I don't know." She says solemly.
I take a deep breath and open my mouth to says something just to close it again because I don't have anything to say.
"I thought you would know." Amanda prys.
"Is this Richelle's copy?" I ask. My eyes are bulging out of their sockets. If Richelle finds out these are gone, she is going to freak.
Amanda shakes her head.
"No. I made a photocopy of it when she wasn't home." She says so casually.
"Good." I breathe.
"Do you know what it means?" Amanda shakes her head before I can even finish my sentence.
"I don't know what any of this means. All I know is that it's important to Richelle. She had it on top of this big pile of evidence on her desk." Amanda replies.
"Wow." Is all I can say.
"Yeah." Amanda responds. No one talks after that.
The cold air starts to close in around me and I pull up the zipper of my off-the-shoulder sweater.
"Do you want to get ready?" Amanda says, breaking the silence.
"What are you going to do?" I ask.
"I'll be around. Call me when you're done." She says then starts to head out of my car.
"Wait!" I call to to Amanda even though she has only one foot out the door, "I don't have your number."
"Riley does." If Riley were here, it would make sense - or maybe not because without her, I wouldn't be with Amanda. But where do I get her number? Does she have some sort of phone book because I assumed she kept everything on her phone.
Amanda jumps out of my car then runs down my driveway. She has a big jacket that goes all the way down to her knees and a hat. Hopefully she will be warm enough to walk to school incase I decide to ditch her.