(a/n)
Juneau Roux^^
This chapter has been finalized. Thank you for your patience and please enjoy~
All eyes drew to the tardy Juneau. Her hair was a luxurious jungle; a wild tangled collection of brown ribbons. Her ceramic like face was much paler than usual.
"Juneau!" Adaleine squeaked.
"Where...."
"Why is she...?"
"Juneau, did you find your umbrella?" Cassandra suddenly asked casually.
It did surprise her as she came to the realization that she did not have her umbrella.
"No..." Juneau replied without sureness.
Then the past events of the day recollected themselves and performed a quick relapse of the horrors they had had to offer.
"No..." Juneau repeated once more. She met Cassandra's gaze with fierce eyes. "I didn't."
~~~
"Why didn't you come immediately back to class!?" Cassandra shouted with rage. It was a rhetorical statement.
"I had to see where the guy had taken Quinn, ok," Juneau replied anyway.
"This is a serious issue! You didn't find that girl Quinn! We have to make sure she's alright."
Adaleine looked frantically between the two. What to do, what to do? With desperation she squeaked.
Cassandra and Juneau peered curiously at the now-red-Adaleine.
"We can't just quarrel,"Adaleine said softly now, hands now fists and face now down. "I think we should just find Quinn and make sure she's alright."
Juneau looked to the always-stressed Cassandra. An embarrassed yet soft smile made its way to her lips.
"We're being silly. We have something we need to do," she said.
"We do." Cassandra smiled goofily in return.
And together they ventured onto school grounds.
The bell signaling the end of the school day had just rung and Juneau had already went through the short hassle of explaining -- with lies-- her mysterious absence to the utterly bedazzled teacher.
~~~
They exited and stood awed at the now nearly dry concrete ground.
"Juneau!" Adaleine squeaked cheerfully. "Hurry!"
Juneau followed the small Adaleine unknowingly.
They past this building, that building, practically every building.
They soon entered the old campus grounds; the grounds which were walked upon during the time of no men.
Cassandra and Adeleine paused before a fenced off opening.
"This is where you found yourself, correct?"
"Yes, it is."
"I know that we have to find Quinn and all, but I'm pretty sure that there's something useful we could find around here," Adaleine piped. "Cassandra and I investigated earlier while you were occupied with the teacher... gosh, this place looks so old. I didn't even know it existed!"
Adaleine's footsteps changed from rocks on wood to paper on grass as she then stepped onto the ancient and sodden, overgrown lawn.
The once polished white fence had been dirtied by past storms -- including that day's -- and many other events of longtime past stories.
Wild flowers dominated the scene and thorns towered haphazardly. The three friends carefully made their way through.
Walking and kicking aside rubbish, nothing peculiar could be found.
"We should have a cleanup and beautification event here sometime soon." Adaleine stood before a nicely stacked pyramid of stained cans. A hole had been created to hold a handful of fairly sized stones.
"Juneau..." Cassandra seemed to be mesmerized by the utter nothingness of the vastness of space.
"Yes?"
Cassandra looked through the clouded shed window. UV lamination paper peeled back from the glass.
"What did you find?" Adaleine asked curiously.
"Do you know him?" Cassandra remained still.
Peering through the non laminated portion of the window, a tall boy could be seen.
....
....
"Maybe it's one of the guys who leave messes here all of the time! Let's lecture him," Adaleine began. "It's time we settle this."
"Adaleine, this problem has just popped up. And it's not a pending issue, just so you realize," Cassandra said irritatedly. "But who is he?"
The doors of the rusted old shed were shut tight with a classic lock.
"Isn't this used as a storage room?" Juneau observed.
"Perhaps for extremely useless things..."
"Hey, he's coming!" Adaleine hissed and ducked -- right into a baby thorn bush.
Her face red and lips pursed, one wouldn't be surprised to see gnaw marks emerging from the interior of her cheeks as she kept a firm bite.
"Adaleine!" Cassandra quietly cried. "Juneau, lets go. We're not going to find anything here and we need to get Adaleine to the nursery."
Just then, the lock abandoned its guard and the boy exited. How had he unlocked it from the inside?
Daniel and Juneau met eyes.
"Your umbrella," he spoke as though he'd been expecting them.
And the earth rumbled for the steepness of his voice was that great.
In his hand was Juneau's umbrella.
"Oh, my umbrella! Thank you,"Juneau breathed.
"What are you doing there? Did you fall onto the thorn bush...?" Daniel's eyes lingered on Adaleine before pulling her up with amazing strength.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, thank you," Adaleine said sternly with a frown. A frown and saying of thanks; how ironic.
Daniel then excused himself and passed the three.
"Hold on there, bro!" Adaleine squeaked. She turned with a look of redemption. "Where's Quinn?"
Daniel turned to her with a faraway look.
"Hello?"Adaleine emphasized.
Daniel looked past the three girls and into the orange evening sky straight ahead.
"Excuse me, but my friend is asking you something," Cassandra tried politely.
Time passed.
Daniel seemed to be in a separate world.
A different place.
A different time.
"Daniel."
Juneau Roux
Tigers eyed eyes
Brown ribbons for hair
Ceramic ware skin
Juneau Roux.
Daniel looked straight at her.
"Where did you take Quinn?" Juneau now asked silently.
Daniel's face remained
neutral
as he then
simply stated:
"Who is Quinn?"