It hit midnight and Christie continued to stare at her phone screen counting the messages she had sent to Marc. Exactly seventy-five over the last three hours. The clock clicked over to one past twelve it had been exactly one hundred and ninety minutes since the last text from him.
For a boy who always had his phone on his person, normally responding within three minutes, anyone could tell something wasn't right. Christie fidgeted as she turned her phone off and on again hoping it was a phone glitch.
Pacing thirty-five times up and down her room she texted Tegan and Delilah ten times. They didn't reply either.
It was time for desperate measures.
Her parents were asleep, Brielle was out, if she was quiet she wouldn't get caught. She tied the laces of her boots up five times before cutting the old flyscreen (which her father had kept promising to replace) and climbing out of it, catching her leg but managing to pull it out of the small space between the open window and the window sill.
Checking out the wound she shrugged before tiptoeing across the lawn, before braking into a run and refusing to stop until she reached the Baxter's.
Knocking on Tegan's window she peered in, seeing that her phone was on her bedside table and Tegan was fast asleep even more desperate measures needed to be taken. Christie put her hand under the small crack under the window and yanked it open slightly. Tegan rolled over in her sleep, murmuring. As the gap widened Christie yanked the window open and shimmied through it, kicking out her legs for momentum.
Eventually she made her way through and climbed onto Tegan's bed, climbing over her in an attempt to get to ground. Tegan rolled back around, her eyes snapping open.
"Winnie get off me," she muttered, pushing Christie off the bed.
Christie fell onto the floor or rather a human shaped lump. They awoke with a jolt. Christie heard them inhale and she quickly clamped a hand over their mouth.
"It's me, Christie. We need to go save Marc's ass." She removed her hand from the stranger's mouth. "Also who is this?"
"It's my cousin Winnie," Tegan said, yawning. "Winnie this is my crazy friend, Christina Alenka Claythorne."
"Don't you use my middle name Tegan Eloise Baxter," Christie hissed. "Marc isn't replying to any of my texts and he always does. We need to get Della she knows where he is."
"Couldn't you climb into her window?" Tegan said.
"Like me she can't drive, so we need you," Christie said.
"Alright let's go. Winnie if my parents ask I'm with Roland," Tegan said as she stepped over her cousin and headed to her closet.
"No, I'm coming with you. I know three types of martial arts and I'm kickboxer I'm the brute strength to your brains and accessory. If you guys get caught you can't fight back, I can," Winnie said sluggishly as she climbed out of her sheets.
Winnie knelt down and extracted a black shirt and tights from a canvas bag and looked over her shoulder at Tegan and Christie who quickly covered their eyes so she could change. She tied her frizzy brown hair back and tied the laces of her sneakers up.
"Tegan you're driving, Christina you call Delilah, now be quiet," Winnie said.
Winnie was the first of the three to creep out of the bedroom and across the foyer table where she grabbed Trent Baxter's keys, placing a clammy hand over them to stop the noise.
The three of them crept across the carpeted floor. Winnie handed the keys to her cousin as they walked out of the front door.
Tegan and Christie sat in the old leather seats of the front half while Winnie slipped into the backseat.
"I'll call Delilah," Christie said, pulling her phone out of her bra.
"That's attractive," Tegan muttered, starting up the engine.
"I don't have pockets," Christie said in defence. She dialled Delilah's number five times before pressing the call button.
"It's Marc, he's gone missing, we need to find him," Christie said.
Delilah yawned through the phone. "Coming."
The three of them pulled up at the Basmijan's residence, jolting with the inertia in the car as Tegan slammed on the breaks. Delilah stood at the driveway and climbed into the backseat with Winnie. Throwing the laptop and the multiple chargers and plugins into the backseat Delilah strapped up and pulled the laptop onto her lap.
"What do I need to do?" Delilah asked with a yawn.
"Tell us where we are going, you and Marc obviously found something," Christie said.
"Just head towards Bondi it's around there," Delilah said.
"Great that's descriptive," Tegan said as she punched Bondi into the GPS.
Tegan hit the gas and flawed it, driving out of Astwright and onto the highway. They all sat in an awkward silence apart from the engine of the car.
Christie fidgeted and tugged at her clothes feeling that Winnie was looking at her. She quickly turned her head to find Winnie looking over Delilah's shoulder.
"What's your story?" Christie asked her.
"I don't have one," Winnie said, straightening up.
"Tegan what's your cousin's story?"
"It's not my place to tell you," Tegan said, turning to face Christie.
"Ah, tragedy."
"Eyes on the road Tegan!" Winnie cried.
Tegan swerved to stop the car from going into the gutter but barely missed hitting the toll booth, hearing the beep go off as they drove through the booth.
"Are you a private school rich bitch or public school povvo like us?" Christie asked. "Actually Astwright is one of the most upper middle class suburbs in all of New South Wales but answer the question."
"Private school but I'm on an English scholarship," Winnie said. "I now see why you warned me about her," she said to Tegan.
"You warned her against me," Christie whispered.
"You can be a little intense," Delilah said, pushing her glasses up her nose, before looking down at the computer screen again.
Christie pinched Delilah's knee from the backseat. Delilah batted her hand away and crossed her legs, trying to balance her laptop and glasses. She made an aggressive gesture behind Christie's back. Winnie let out a giggle which caused Christie to look back at them, causing the two of them to uncontrollably laugh at her confused expression.
The four of them relapsed into silence, the blinker signal being the only sound that broke the silence. Tegan wiped her eyes and put on the brakes as she entered a residential area, shifting the gear stick down.
"I need to stay awake, someone say something," Tegan said, drumming her hands on the steering wheel.
"Did Wes come around to your place?" Delilah said.
"Yeah, he barged into the living room, screamed he was bisexual and ran out. Winnie chased him down and stopped him until I caught up," Tegan said. "I hope the guy he's in love with works out. I'm always scared of online relationships."
"There not that bad I've got a friend who's in one and he's pretty happy," Winnie said.
"You're friends are weird though," Tegan said.
"Hey, I'm not normally the one trying to save my friend's arse in the middle of the night, in a warehouse, on the other side of the city," Winnie said, raising her arms in defence.
Tegan huffed and turned her eyes back to the road, making a left at the intersection and speeding up. She turned the radio on and the car was filled with crappy pop music, she grimaced and kept driving, glad for the distraction.
Christie wound down the window as if it would release some of the tension with the warm summer breeze.
After ten minutes she said, "I love hanging out with the Baxter's. You two are so threatened by each other."
The cousins sat stewing in their own thoughts, Christie's musing hadn't helped anything (not that it normally did). I need to learn to keep my mouth shut, Christie thought, fidgeting again in her seat, as Tegan opened and closed her mouth four times, only uttering out a mummer instead of a full sentence.
"At least her life's exciting," Tegan whispered.
"I'd prefer your boring one."
Delilah sat in the back seat, slowly clapping and sighing. "Well done Christie once again we've forgotten the gravity of the situation and made it something petty. We've stolen a car and driven out to the city in the middle of the night, to rescue our friend who may have been kidnapped. What's not exciting! But we could get arrested, or Mum could find out or you know we could die but the adrenaline is coursing through my body is stopping all of my inhibitions." Her arms flew up with the said adrenaline, knocking her glasses off her face, causing them to clatter to the floor. She picked them up and put them back on self-consciously. "Tegan make a right here and it's the sixth warehouse on the street."
Christie jerked back hearing sixth, of course it wouldn't be five, nothing was ever that easy. Before she could throw up with anxiety, Tegan made a sharp right and the nausea occurred but Christie was pretty sure it was the driving. The seatbelt stopped the four of them from falling through the windscreen.
"Shit! Learn to drive," Winnie said.
"I'm sorry how many hours do you have?"
"Fifty."
Tegan swore under her breath as she pulled up under the shade of a tree, the car wheels squeaking on the jacaranda flowers which were still to be swept up. She pulled the handbrake up and shut the lights off.
"Alright Delilah I need you to shut down the security cameras," Christie said.
"That could take a while," Delilah said. "My software is already halfway through the process and it's taken forty-five minutes, unless it finds something quickly."
They sat in the car for twenty minutes while the software put together letters and numbers to formulate the correct code. The mixture of numbers and letters slightly hindered the process unlike Kip's fully lettered passcode.
"Alright Tegan and Delilah you stay in the car. Winnie, you and I will infiltrate the warehouse," Christie said, as the computer pinged with approval.
"Do you want the security cameras down?" Delilah said, opening it up in a browser. All of a sudden she burst into tears attempting to wipe them away before they saw them. "Christie you need to get in there now. He's tied to a...toilet in a bathroom."
"Take them down Del, we'll get him."
Delilah typed a code into her computer. She gave Christie the thumbs up, which elicited a smile to her erratic friends face, comforting her somewhat. Winnie and Christie climbed out of the car in sync, as if it was planned. Winnie jogged across the road, dodging the spots of sand as she ran. Christie tried to keep up with the bigger girl who was faster than a thinner Christie.
"We have to find a window or open door," Winnie said, automatically assuming leadership.
"I know I'm not an idiot," Christie said, storming past Winnie and stepped on a stick which cracked under her weight.
"Have you finished with your hissy fit? You can't save your friend if you're not focused," Winnie said, peering around the corner of the building and heading towards the door.
"He's not my friend," Christie hissed.
"He is," she said, all-knowingly. "You broke into another friend's house to break into this warehouse to rescue the guy at almost one-thirty in the morning. If that's not friendship I don't know what is." They kept walking until they reached the garage door. "Would you prefer to pick the lock or will I?" Winnie said, once they reached the door.
"I will if you don't mind Miss Leader ma'am," Christie said, giving her a salute.
"Yes peasant you can," Winnie said, rolling her eyes.
Christie picked up the padlock and chain, extracting a bobby pin from her hair and giving four others to Winnie, who reluctantly took them in her hand. Within twenty seconds the lock let out a click and she ripped it out of the holder.
"Phones on airplane mode?" Winnie asked.
"Of course, it's the only way you can't be tracked," Christie replied shortly.
Christie pulled the door up letting Winnie duck under it before she followed in suit. Turning the light on her phone on, they moved towards the flickering dim light. In the centre of the room blood had been splattered along the concrete floor. Christie froze when she saw it before surveying the area from afar to see it was not quite enough blood for a human and there were feathers littered around.
Winnie kept going forward, briefly picking up the fifty dollar bill lying on the floor. She offered it to Christie who sniffed it and rubbed it between her fingers. It was a fake one. She kept moving through the alcohol scented room, trying to hear Marc struggling. Nothing like that but there was the shifting of weight. As if Winnie had sensed her thoughts she flashed the light in the direction of the noise.
Christie sucked in a breath and stiffened. She groped around in the darkness for Winnie's hand.
"Good evening, I thought someone would come," they said.
"Alex Carmichael," Christie said. "Still having sex with your clients?"
Alex also stiffened when he saw who it was. The girl who had caused a threat to his career was standing in front of him catching him in the act of being in a crime ring like she had deduced.
"Still ruining the life of your counsellors, bitch," he said.
It was as if a switch flicked off in Winnie's mind. She ran at Alex, catching him off guard, landing a well aimed punch to the ribs. When she went for the ribs again he blocked her punch landing one to her chest. Winnie recovered quickly and kicked him in the stomach, as he doubled over in pain, she punched him in the nose. From his position he punched upwards into the ribs. Winnie blocked it. He stood up straight and placed a well positioned wheel kick into her side.
Winnie stumbled to the side.
He ran towards her and shoved her to the ground. Winnie buckled under his weight and fell to the floor, rolling out of the way of him as he tried to pin her down. She grunted as she stood up sluggishly, still winded from the attack. Alex stood up again. There was the old trick. The one that always worked.
The combat ensued. Winnie just had to get closer. Blocking, kicking and punching continued, they were equally matched. Winnie punched him in the nose and gave him a backhand to the face, smiling a little. Now she was close enough. She raised her knee and hit him in the groin.
She pinned him on the ground, where his back was towards the ceiling. She knelt a knee on each side of him, holding in face into the cold concrete.
"Who are you?" Alex asked.
"Marguerite Blakeney," Winnie said, smashing his face into the ground.
Winnie threw a harsh look at Christie who hurried towards the door and picked the lock, opening the door to find Marc gagged and bound to an old, rusting and discoloured toilet. His eyes were closed as he tried to accept his position. Christie ran towards him, watching as he opened his eyes and recognised her. They flickered with delight and she knelt down at his feet and ripped at the ropes encasing him.
"I've got you, buddy," she said, moving to the bindings around his wrists.
Untying the ropes around his chest (getting a lot closer than she would have liked) Marc was freed from his imprisonment. He flexed his limbs before standing up stumbling over his two feet, Christie reached out to steady him before jerking her hand away.
Christie ran out of the bathroom and towards the door, with Marc lumbering behind. Christie lifted the door up for him and waited for Winnie to climb off her ex-counsellor and run to the door. Once all three of them were out Christie slammed the door shut and reassembled the padlock, locking Alex inside.
They ran across the road and climbed into the car, Christie in the front, Marc and Winnie in the back.
"Just go!" Christie cried.
Tegan started the car and promptly forgot to take the handbrake off. She sighed before taking it off and flawing it, almost destroying the first gear.
"Good to have you guys back with us, by the way there was a car that pulled up opposite us," Tegan said.
Christie stuck her arm out and took a photo, her flash going off in the night. Tegan took a sharp left almost causing Christie to lose grip on her phone.
"Alright we're all good," she said, exhaling. "Marc you alright?"
"I'm alright, I'm so sorry, it was so stupid of me to think I could..." Marc said quickly before trailing off.
Delilah pulled him close to her, putting his head on her shoulder.
"It's not your fault. If I had never displayed interest you wouldn't have looked into it," Christie said,
"It was my fault I helped you get onto the document," Delilah said, rubbing a hand over her face.
"It's everyone's fault. You were all incredibly stupid trying to solve a murder and infiltrating a gang like some guy in a movie," Winnie said.
"You kicked the crap out of my ex-counsellor like some vigilante," Christie said.
By then Winnie was beyond the point of caring, she had her head between her legs, breathing in and out, going extremely pale in the process.
"I take four martial arts classes a week trying to cope with my mental shit if I want to hurt a guy who deserves to be beaten, I will," Winnie said, looking up.
"What would you know about mental shit?" Christie said.
"More than you would like to know," Winnie said, tossing her head back.
"One question did you actually say you were Marguerite Blakeney?"
"Yes, I was reading the Scarlet Pimpernel and it was the first name that came to mind," Winnie said.
"I think Christie's met her match," Tegan said, pulling into the left lane, letting the late night traffic go by.
Twenty minutes later they realised a car was following them. The car Christie had taken a photo of.
"The red Camry is following us," Marc said, his leg jiggling up and down.
"I know don't worry I can throw them off," Tegan said.
"Go towards Brigg's Creek that should throw them off."
Tegan took a sharp left hand turn without indicating and turned her lights off. She sped up again, barely breaking when she had to take another corner.
"You're going 80 in a fifty zone!" Winnie said.
"Don't be such a goody-two-shoes Win."
"Thank you for embodying all of my friends at once, Teg."
The five of them jerked forward and then back when they came to a set of traffic lights and the beeping of the GPS went off alerting them they were coming to a speed camera. Christie drummed on the dashboard, causing everyone else in the car to scratch, fidget and run their hands up and down the seats, trying to wipe the stress sweat off their hands.
Driving at the speed of light all the way to Astwright, losing the red Camry, Tegan went all the backstreets in order to get to the Cavener's. Stopping the car, Marc climbed out.
"See you tomorrow," Christie said.
"Last day of school, how could I forget? Thanks Christie," Marc said.
"Get some sleep," she said.
He smiled softly and left, running through his garden and climbing into his window. He'd deal with the aftermath tomorrow. His insomnia wouldn't stop him tonight. It was a nice naïve thought.
The girls drove on leaving Marc behind, taking even more backstreets until they dropped Delilah off, after she'd fallen asleep on Winnie's shoulder, causing her to be awoken by Winnie shaking her.
Winnie and Tegan dropped Christie off at the kerb and she repeated Marc's actions of running through the garden and climbing through her window. As she turned to lock it, the red Camry appeared around the corner. She ducked down as it drove past. At the t-intersection they turned left whereas Tegan went right. Please be alright, she thought.
She peeled off her sweaty clothes and threw them into the cupboard and crawled under her sheets, tugging them over her head for safety. As she dropped off to sleep the front door closed, rather loudly. High heels clacked against the floor, it had to be Brielle, what she was doing was another mystery.
Yet some mysteries needed to be viewed in the clarity of morning.
A/N: A lot of this is unedited so if there are any mistakes let me know (hopefully I got lucky this update). Thoughts on Winnie? Thoughts on the chapter? Song of the chapter is Move, Shake and Hide by the Marmozets
Hope you enjoyed. The picture up the top was found by a Wattpad user whose username escapes me but if you see this let me know who you are. It reminds me of Christie if she lived in the 1950's and was a bit older.
Please vote and comment. Thanks for reading :)