"...She's actually a kitten, I swear."
"...I just want to squish her cheeks."
"...Dude, don't be weird."
"...If we wake her, do you think it'll wake them too?"
"...I don't think we should risk it."
"...Yeah, but she has work today."
Hazel sighed, slowly blinking open her eyes as she came to meet the blurry faces of Joel, Oscar and Leo who all stood in front of her, inspecting her sleeping state as she curled up in a ball on the couch, tucked under Fox's arm who shifted in the night after she and Leo returned. She held her hands close to her body, curling them much like a cat would because of a habit of holding her duvet close to her until she let them fall, realising she was being stared at as she woke.
"Shhh," she hushed them despite the fact that they were no longer talking, "I'm still sleeping."
"Tweetie, it's half six. You start work at half seven."
She blanked, taking in Leo's softly spoken words as her eyes slowly adjusted.
"Fox is still asleep, I can't go. If I move, I'll wake him." She said jokingly, her words hushed in only a breath, "tell Stewart it was for the greater good of this world, he'll understand."
"...I'm awake..."
"Don't tell them that, Fox."
She lifted her gaze so she could look up at the sleepy taller boy who she leaned against, far too comfortable to move. He seemed to have the same struggle as she did, unable to move his arm out of fear of losing any warmth. Though, both knew they couldn't stay like that forever.
"Honestly, I think you're stuck," Leo stated, pointing his finger to her other shoulder which once she thought about it, had a lot of extra weight on it. Surely not enough to be just Fox's hand.
Slowly, she turned, realising that the weight could only be coming from one person, and sure enough, she found herself in the exact predicament she expected to be in.
"When did he get there?"
Ryan rested against her shoulder, his body preventing her from moving at all as she finally began to wake up properly.
"He switched spaces with me last night when we got back," Leo said, causing everyone to raise their eyebrows. But, they didn't get to say anything more as they moved on.
Really, Leo knew there was more to it. Leo was still awake when he saw him tossing and turning as he usually did. The beanbags weren't uncomfortable and Ryan rarely had an issue sleeping on them. But he did have an issue sleeping. There were nights when the anxieties got to be too much, those were the nights when he randomly called his friends at 2 am, either to feel bad for waking them or to explain that he needed something familiar to keep him from freaking out over nightmares. Leo figured he had the same anxieties, but managed to find something to keep him calm.
"Sorry Fox," she hummed, "we're stuck."
"Oh well." The boy shrugged in response, not really caring that he was stuck in an incredibly comfortable position.
...
"...Ah, heck."
"What's wrong, Tweetie?" Joel immediately asked, sitting in front of them on the floor.
"I don't have a change of clothes and need to work..." Hazel pouted, realising that she didn't have enough time to go home and change. "Should I be scared of waking Ryan?"
"Very."
"Excellent," she said before poking her cold finger to the boy's nose and watching as his eyes shifted under his eyelids.
He let a grumble escape him, clearly already waking before groaning, not opening his eyes once as he felt her cold finger, though, didn't know who it belonged to.
"Piss off." He breathed out, barely awake.
"No, you."
"No, you."
"You.
"I said it first."
She removed her finger, watching as he opened his eyes.
"Why am I on Tweetie?"
"Because I have a magnetic personality."
"Sure. Whatever you say." The boy grumbled, still not moving. He didn't move whatsoever, simply laying against the girl with a scowl on his face, letting it grow more and more annoyed the longer he rested on her until he snapped a sharp- "What the fuck, Tweetie?"
"What have I done now? I didn't even move!"
"Exactly! How am I supposed to get up if you're so damn comfortable!?"
"You don't," Fox said, his voice vibrating through Hazel as he kept his eyes shut, simply relaxing as the morning continued.
Leo rolled his eyes with a short laugh, pushing himself up and away from the three on the sofa as instead, he moved across the room followed by Oscar who bounced behind him, hoping to help the ashy haired boy tidy up the mess they had created through the night.
Of course, it was strange to see the group after they had all just woken. They seemed much calmer, far too tired to really think about their actions and how they looked in both their appearance and personality. Their hair was ruffled and the clothes they had all fallen asleep in seemed a little more uncomfortable.
"Osc," Leo spoke up, turning to the boy who couldn't seem to stop playing with his new much more vibrant purple strands of hair, "did you move our clothes?"
"Yeah, they're in my room."
"Right," Leo nodded, shuffling away and up the stairs so he could get changed. Hazel watched, her head at a tilt as she took in the conversation, a question tickling her mind.
"You guys have clothes here?"
"We have clothes at all of our houses," Joel said, leaning against Fox's legs from the floor, "we spend so much time away from home, it just happened and we decided to keep it that way."
"It's fuckin' annoying when I want to wear somethin' I don't have though," Ryan grumbled, his face now buried into Hazel's shoulder. Really, he was hardly threatening when he was using her as a pillow.
"Quit getting your swears on Tweetie," Fox said, flicking Ryan's head with his free hand.
"...I really need to get up."
The two beside her fell silent, neither wanting to admit that they heard her. If they pretended not to have heard, they could continue to gather warmth.
She sighed, knowing exactly what they were doing. She only knew because she did it so often too. But, she wouldn't actually admit to that. So, begrudgingly, she began to shuffle, sinking further down her seat until they all sank, their bodies barely on the couch and threatening to fall if Hazel couldn't maintain the strength in her legs.
"Why'd you do that?" Ryan groaned, still not moving from her shoulder. The boy was persistent, she'll give him that.
"Because I need to go." She finally let herself drop, landing beside Joel on the floor who seemed to be preventing Fox from falling. He smiled at her, patting her head as Ryan's body flopped, dropping into the space she had once sat with a grumble. Hazel continued, pushing herself up and stretching. She was going to be uncomfortable all day, but, that was her own fault really. Though, she wondered if Archie noticed that she hadn't been home, she would have been surprised if he didn't.
Moving past her curiosities, she stepped across the room, walking towards Oscar who seemed to still be fiddling with his hair, an idle smile painted onto his lips like a wonderful piece of artwork. He barely even noticed her as she stopped in front of him, forcing his hands to drop from his hair out of surprise and quickly, she took their place. Taking a handful of his hair and brushing it away from his face through her fingers and quickly, she tied it, not giving him the chance to argue as she sacrificed her hair tie. Though, she doubted that he would complain.
She took a step back, admiring her work as the tiny ponytail flopped to the side and she laughed.
"Beautiful," she giggled as she continued walking past. "Consider that my parting gift."
"You're really going?" Joel turned, his eyes widened and saddened as he looked up at her.
"I have work," she said, unable to maintain eye contact with him in fear of deciding not to go to work so he didn't look so sad.
"Want me to walk with you?" Leo offered, emerging in a set of casual clothes, taking her by surprise. She forgot that they weren't attached to their school uniforms. Honestly, seeing the boy in black jeans and a blue jumper was a little odd, she wasn't used to it.
"That's okay," she stepped back, recollecting her thoughts. "Take your time to wake up, have breakfast, I'm not gonna make you suffer the cold outside."
"Alright," he nodded, smiling warmly as he passed her, patting her head.
After their night, he found himself feeling much closer to the girl, not that he didn't beforehand, but now felt a little more confident in the fact that she wasn't hanging around him because he was friends with the others. He now believed that she liked him like she liked the others, not that she liked him because she liked the others.
"Sayonara!"
"Bye Tweetie!"
"Stewart, those boys are making me hate myself and I don't know what to do."
"...But I thought you were friends?"
"That's the problem!"
She sat at a table, going through a textbook as the cafe remained empty on a weekend. Every so often, passing people would stop by, but it wasn't regular enough to keep them from getting bored, especially not in the icy cold weather. A frown lived on her lips, staining her face with a sadness that couldn't be wiped away.
"I just," she breathed out, unable to focus on anything so instead she began to stare at the wall, her face filled with exhaustion brought on by her own mind. "They're such good people, and here I am destroying everything... I don't know what to do..."
He let a sigh escape, moving away from the counter as instead, he took a seat. His eyes were set on her as she kept her gaze distant, unable to cope with any eye contact. One minute she felt perfectly fine, like there weren't any problems, the next, she felt like a shattered mirror, reflecting something broken. It was agonising.
"When did you last get a break? A proper break, I mean. Involving no thoughts about work, no boys, no crimes, nothing. Maybe you should go home."
"...I don't know... I don't remember."
He paused, his eyebrows furrowing as he took her words in. She didn't remember. The girl who had become known for her memory and genius mind had found herself unable to remember the simplest facts. That, or she didn't care to remember.
"At this point," she continued to say, her gaze finally falling towards the table, "I don't think I can handle going home."
"You don't?" He tilted his head, worrying his eyebrows, "why not? Is there something wrong?"
She shook her head. She didn't want to admit that she was frightened, she didn't want to tell him that she was scared to walk down the street alone, that she couldn't sleep in her own home in the fear of hearing those unfamiliar footsteps again, closer this time, coming for her. She was scared.
"You're becoming ill," Stewart announced, "the stress is literally making you sick, Hazel. Please, be careful. Stop for just a day."
"I can't!"
She didn't mean for her voice to come out so sharp. It snapped and unfortunately the taste of her frustration was lingering, it was addictive.
"Maybe you could give up everything, work in some shoddy cafe and forget it all, maybe you can live a normal life but I can't! I don't get a break, I don't deserve one until I earn it! There is nothing for me beyond this!" She couldn't even raise her head, her teeth were clenching on her tongue, desperate not to let anything else slip but the longer the silence drifted, the more thoughts came to her, all those times she was told 'don't work so hard' or 'take a break' as if it was ever easy. "Who cares if I get sick, it doesn't change the fact that I have to work."
"I do! Roderick does, Archie does, the boys do! People care! If you get hurt-"
"You'll move on! I don't ask for you to care, I don't want you to care! If you get torn up over me, that's your own fault."
Her eyes were burning and nothing was helping, there was no escape from the work. She couldn't go home to all those boxes of files, she couldn't think about happy memories of people who weren't there anymore or people who were tainted by her work. She couldn't even think of waking hours ago to the sight of friends because she knew those friends weren't going to last. They would find out soon enough and it hurt. Her eyes were burning and she was crying but she was soundless.
"Hazel-"
"No! Stop it, stop! Don't!"
She wanted it to end. She was so desperate for it to end and it wasn't ending.
Her phone buzzed beside her and she only had to glance to see the unknown number, the message beneath that she immediately concealed by grabbing the phone in a firm grip and shoved it in her pocket. She didn't want to see it, she didn't want to see her address messaged to her like a vague threat but she did.
Her stomach was in knots and she could feel her pulse in her fingertips as she hung her head low and gripped her leg hard, her nails digging into her skin, the grip hardening more and more for every quick beat of her heart that felt like it was going as fast as a bullet could fly.
She sank. The only way this would be over was if it ended. And she was desperate for an end, she didn't care what it meant, whether the end was brought by a solution to the case or...
She needed it to end.
Rapidly, she began to gather her things up, coming to a decision. She would make the case end, she would do what she had to just to ensure it was finished with, even if it meant annoying the people around her, even if it meant that all those times she had responded with 'I'll try' were for nothing. She wasn't going to try and she didn't know if she ever had.
She could feel Stewarts worried eyes burning into her, she could see his lips part, wanting to say something and it only made her frown more and more. She didn't want to be watched, she didn't want his sympathy, she didn't deserve it.
Then she left, walking into the frightening outdoors where anyone could be watching her, watching how she stormed off and left Stewart aghast that she had ever raised her voice at him, they would watch how she bit the insides of her cheeks and searched her mind for any way to end this nightmare.
She stood, her gaze firm as she looked over the sight of old wood, crumbling bricks and broken windows.
She was there again.
She didn't want to admit it, but the abandoned hotel was the place she believed would have the most leads, the most evidence. She didn't know what happened there, who even went there or if anything she had already found there was related to the case at all, but, she thought it was. She got the feeling that it was. She hoped it was. And if she had to hold onto false hopes in order to end the case, then so be it. There was nothing else she could do in her desperate attempt to end it.
The place was dangerous, she knew it was. It was likely full of mould and dust, things that would be particularly damaging to her scarred lungs. The floors crumbled, people hid things there and there were likely rodents. But she needed something, she wanted to end the case, find any evidence that she could label as 'enough', just so she could accuse anyone but the boys.
She wanted them to be safe from being framed, and that meant she needed to work even faster. She didn't know what would happen if the case went more public than it already had when the evidence she gathered pointed fingers toward Ryan. Would they come to the same conclusions she did when she first started? Would they seek more information, or just take what they had?
She didn't want to risk it.
She approached, stepped through the hidden entrance of the old abandoned hotel and made her way through.
It was decided that she would spend the night there, hide away somewhere until she hopefully heard, saw or found something. She would take the time to explore around, find anything she didn't get the chance to see the last time she went.
Eventually, she found herself back at the stairs, looking through the dull lights that seeped in through broken windows and slim slits in the wood that shielded the broken glass. Nothing had changed. There was nothing of interest. Truthfully, she had hoped something would be there. But, she knew she shouldn't have hoped. It always felt pointless.
There was still an empty drawer, a box without anything in it and remnants of drugs, one more baggie than she recalled there being. Though over the days they all seemed to have gotten soggy, the damp smell had grown stronger and the likelihood of mould being around increased. She hoped it wasn't black mould, but even if it was, she doubted it would stop her from spending her time there, even if the stuff could technically kill her in just a matter of hours.
She roamed around, going to every floor she could reach. The higher up she got, the more unstable the floors became. But she continued, stepping over holes through the darkness and searching the open rooms that held nothing but the average things you would find in what once was a fancy hotel. Broken things, glass, furniture, too much dust and mould.
Unfortunately, the glass found her before she found it. And as she searched the room, opening drawers to find spiders and, shockingly, more dust, she failed to notice the broken chair leg on the ground, shielded by the darkness that grew. And, to her absolute horror, she fell... Directly into the glass.
It was sharp and stung immediately. But it was too familiar. When she had fallen at the flats, she felt the same things. The tiny shards of glass burrowing in her skin, the hot red blood dripping. But unlike last time, this was entirely her fault. So, she took in a sharp breath and kept going. It hurt, sure, stinging her fingers, palms and arms, but, she didn't care. She never really did.
It took her over an hour to stumble onto something of interest, besides glass.
A basement.
It was as terrifying as you could imagine. Old, decrepit and pretty much pitch black with no hint of light other than what leaked in from the door at the top of the stairway down. And of course, she hesitated to go in. She desperately wanted to turn away and pretend she didn't see it, but she also intended on searching every inch of the hotel and that included this space too.
Already she could smell the rot, the mould and the damp within. She could hear echoing drips of water, creaking of old wood likely to break with a single touch and-
"Just hurry up, we don't have all day."
She stopped, almost letting a gasp out as a voice spoke from behind her, travelling the wide-open space and bouncing from the walls as she haphazardly threw herself through the doorway, pulling the door with her and leaving it open just a crack so she could peer out.
Her heart was pounding and, while the last time she was in a situation like this she held her hands to her face to stay quiet, her efforts to stay silent were instead put into keeping the dripping of her blood to a minimum.
She couldn't even see the beads of red that sank to the ground, it was so dark anything could have been in there with her.
She didn't want to think about the spiders.
Even if she wanted to, she couldn't because she could think of only two things. Wrap her hands in her jumper to keep bleeding to a minimum and watch through the crack of the door as two figures entered the hotel through the same entrance she came in from, slipping past the boxes and through the red door.
"The shit we have to deal with..." the taller figure of the two said, waiting for the second to follow through the door after him. His voice was somewhat familiar, but Hazel couldn't quite place it. She didn't think she ever met this man. "I thought this was all behind us, all the other guys have left the city already. Why're we still dealing with this shit?"
"Because they're investigating again," the second voice said, coming from a shorter guy, one she definitely recognised the voice of. But without a face, she couldn't be sure about who it was. Instead, all she saw was a hood as he shuffled into the hotel. "It's just until they're done, then back to business."
"Just make the damn deals at my flat. It's not like they're gonna trail us."
"No, they will. Apparently, we've come close a few times." The younger of the pair said only to earn an eyeroll as he turned to his pocket and pulled out a wallet. "Seriously, Dan. Take this shit seriously. I can't go to jail. I'm the one who's having to try and hide all this mess. You guys were the ones to fuck up."
"You made the choice to join up."
"And I fuckin' regret it too," he snapped back, shoving money into the guy's hand. "Next time, come alone and just leave it in that drawer. I'm honestly sick of your face."
"Oi, watch your mouth, kid."
"Piss off."
Hazel watched as the taller of the pair turned to a bag on his shoulder just as the shorter guy did, still with his back to her. And, unsurprisingly, began their trade. She kept holding her breath, knowing a single slip up could be it for her.
She tried to distract herself by counting, trying to see how long it took for them to finish, but she lost count as she fought a sneeze away, scrunching her face and not moving a muscle on her body. When she turned back to the pair, one was leaving and the other was rummaging through his bag one last time before bringing out a single shoe which he proceeded to toss over his shoulder, hearing the thud which hit the wall by the door she hid behind, prompting a harsh jolt from her entire body.
Then he was gone too.
She stood where she was for about five more minutes before she decided it was safe to move again. Then what happened hit her hard, whipping her mind like a whirlwind as she thought about it more and more.
She would have liked to call Archie immediately to update him on her find. But, she held back. She couldn't let anyone know she was there or she would be stopped, nobody wanted her to find the trouble she attracted. So, instead, she kept it in mind.
She pushed forwards, stepping out of the door and leaving the basement alone. She spent enough time there, she didn't want to search it too when it felt so creepy. Instead, she approached the thrown shoe, finding just what she thought she would.
A plain black trainer, a little old and missing its other half of the pair. But inside were the letters. L.S.
They were there. Somebody did use the place as a base and from the conversation, it sounded like they were the people she was looking for. Now she knew that the day she would spend there wouldn't be for nothing, there was a hope that somebody else would come in, that they would show themselves to her and she could get it over with, dangerous or not.
Next time, she decided, she was going to confront them.
Another few hours passed. She thought at least. By that point, she couldn't be certain. She didn't remember when she arrived and she didn't want to waste her phone's already dying battery to check. She needed to save it for emergencies, just in case anybody called telling her they found the suspect or that there had been another crime. Not that she would go. She was set in her spot on the third floor, still able to hear through the silence what happened on the bottom floor but high enough to be out of the way.
While she didn't know the time, she could assume that it was late. Late enough for it to be dark out. Late enough for the sounds on the streets to begin to quieten down.
The smell of dampness was growing stronger the longer she spent there. She was hungry and she was tired. But she wouldn't sleep. A headache was growing every moment she spent huddled up, her nose became stuffed and her throat itched. But she wouldn't leave.
She rested, sitting uncomfortably on the floor.
And she waited.