Part 1
disclaimer: this chapter is a double chapter so I'd advise you guys to get comfortable or wait until you're comfortable before you start reading.
I hadn't slept, I couldn't sleep knowing that Artura was gone and that Naomi had her, Danny and I had went to the police and told them about what we'd found but there was nothing suspicious about Naomi to them. They didn't even take her in for questioning.
By now Artura had been gone for five days, everyone was looking for her but it was like she'd just disappeared off the face of the Earth.
Thursday night, my dad had come home. I called because we needed his help, he had a bunch of guys on payroll and his team was big enough to search in at least three counties and they were on the payroll, so they didn't have a choice.
" Are you sure that Naomi, or Isabella, a 17 year old girl is fully capable of kidnapping another 17 year old girl?" My dad asked.
He was looking through the folder that Maurice had given me, I put it in his hand as soon as he'd walked through the door.
"Given the circumstances I think she's more than capable and if not then someone had to help her." I said.
" You think this has anything to do with you?" He asked.
I looked at my dad like he'd lost his mind.
"No." I said.
"Both of these girls are girls that you loved and since you did break up with Naomi to pursue Artura, this could've pissed her off." He said.
"This couldn't have anything to do with me, everything is there in the files she's obviously pissed that her parents left her." I said.
"And then you left her." He added.
"What are you trying to say?" I asked getting irritated.
My dad stood from his chair and sat on the edge of his desk in front of me.
"I'm saying that you could have a bigger part in this than you think." He said.
There was a knock on the door and Danny peeped his head in, my dad ushered for him to come inside and he sat beside me, my dad continued.
"Even if this girl came here looking for some type of revenge against Artura, she found you, whether it was on accident or on purpose. Let me ask you this, when you guys met how did you feel about Artura?" He asked me.
"I hated her, because she left me, but I never told her that, I made sure I never talked about Artura around her." I said.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Danny drop his head, I turned to look at him.
"What?" I asked.
"I told her." He said.
"Before you guys started dating she asked me if you had any exes that she should worry about and I told about Artura, I told her everything. I'm sorry." He said.
"It's alright, you didn't know she was gonna do this. Just wish you would've told me sooner, now I know why she acted the way she did when I tried dumping her." I said.
"And there's the problem, she liked you out of a mutual hate for Artura, she thought that you'd hated her as much as she did and when you flipped it, she snapped-" My dad said.
"And took Artura." I finished.
"Is she going to kill her." Danny asked looking between my dad and I.
My dad didn't answer he just stood and walked back to his chair, we both knew what this meant. He abruptly changed the topic.
"You guys missed school today, but you're going tomorrow." He said picking the files back up.
Danny stood telling my dad goodnight and walked out of the office.
"Dad, there's nothing at that school that will help me find Artura." I said as Danny closed the door.
" I know you want to find her, but you still need to bring up that grade in pre-calculus. I don't know where graduation is on your priorities list but it doesn't seem too close to the top." He said.
"But-"
"No but's Marco, you're going to school and if I get any calls saying otherwise, I'll kick your ass. Goodnight." My dad said taking his phone signaling that he was done talking to me.
I caught the hint and left the office going back up to my room, Danny bad been waiting by his door and when he saw me he was right on my ass.
"We can't go to school tomorrow, we gotta find, Artura." He said.
"Yeah you can do that, but dad already threatened to kick my ass if I skipped. Not taking the chance." I said.
" Well, how about if me and Nate just go looking for her, I'll ride to school with you, but I'm gonna leave with Nate and we'll be back around 6th period." He said.
"Oh yeah, and what are you gonna say when dad gets the call that you aren't at school?" I asked.
"Easy, he's not gonna get a call because I changed the number on my files, so whenever the school makes a call it comes straight to my phone." He said smiling.
He told me the rest of his plan and said goodnight heading back to his own room.
----
The next morning went without a hitch, Danny had left school with Nate heading to Isabella's, to see if they could find anything, while I sat in school.
There were missing person fliers for Artura all around the school, that were put up after school yesterday by some other students who stayed after for extra curriculum.
It seemed like people's first response when they saw the fliers, we're on come directly to me and ask me how I was handling it. All. Day. Long.
After third period,I had gone to my locker just to grab my pre-calculus book before lunch when this mouthy girl, Sierra, walked up to me.
"It must suck, huh?" She said.
"It mean yeah it does, we're gonna get her back though." I said closing my locker and facing her.
"What? Oh, you think I'm talking Artura, no. Naomi." She said.
"What about about Naomi?" I asked.
"Damn, man. I know it's hard losing Artura but, you at least had to know that your girlfriend withdrew out of school, like an hour ago." She said locking up at the clock.
" Where is she moving to?" I asked completely ignoring the statement about Artura.
"I don't know, somewhere out of the state." She shrugged.
"Alright, thanks." I said rushing past her.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and started texting Danny. I walked into the cafeteria, without Danny and Nate, it felt empty. I didn't even get any lunch, I just sat at the table and I started to double text Danny because it was taking him too long to text back.
Lunch only lasted about 30 minutes, and after 10, I started texting Nate's phone, but still no answer. I was starting to worry because I knew where they were and the last time anyone saw Isabella was about an hour ago, so I'm pretty sure she was back home already.
As I unlocked my phone, someone took took a seat in the chair right in front of me.
"Marco, right?" He asked.
"Uh, yeah. And before you ask, yes I am fine, no I did not think that something like this was going to happen, and no I do not know who could've taken Artura." I said before he could ask.
"Actually I know who took her." He said.
"What did you say your name was?" I asked.
"Jared." He answered.
Out of all of the times that I'd heard of Jared I had actually never seen him. He honestly didn't look like he'd be anywhere near Danny's type.
"Ok, Jared. What do you know about who took Artura?" I asked.
"Well, I know it was Isabella." He said.
"Wait, you know-"
"That's she's not who she says she is? Yes." He said.
"Before she came here, she was in Georgia at my school, but she didn't go by Naomi, she went by Candice, but she didn't look the way she does now, like her hair was lighter and she was taller, her eyes were hazel not brown. She didn't look like Artura, basically" He said.
"This isn't telling me how she's connected to Artura." I said.
"She used me to get to Alex." He said.
I'd known who Alex was, after watching Artura cry herself to sleep over her best friend's death and then, I remembered who Jared was.
"You're the reason Alex killed himself." I said.
Jared looked at me, confused.
"What?" He asked.
"You humiliated him in front of the whole school, beat him in the boys locker room and ditched him in some unknown county. That's why he killed himself." I said, repeating everything that Artura had told me.
" Those are all lies. I've never humiliated Alex, never even thought of putting my hands on him, I love Alex." He said.
Jared was acting like this was his first time hearing this story, he was teary eyed and he looked pissed at the accusations. But I noticed one other thing.
"You said love." I pointed out.
"What?"
"You said love, like in the present tense." I repeated.
"Marco, you have to listen to me and you probably won't believe me because of these lies that Isabella spun, but Alex isn't dead. Alex never killed himself and I was never ashamed of Alex.
A while after Artura left, I dumped Isabella and I came out of the closet at this pep rally that was had for the football players. Some of them didn't take to well to it, but everyone else did. Alex and I went public as a couple.
After some time she started going after Alex threatening him and she tried to run him over once, and this was around the time that I'm guessing he told Artura that I'd humiliated him, but it was the only way, to keep him safe.
Isabella was planning to kill Alex so the only thing left to do was for him and his mom to leave, but he couldn't tell Artura because Isabella told him that if he did she'd kill him, Alex's life depended on him lying to Artura.
She wanted to break her down as far as she could before she got here so that taking her would be easier and the only way to Artura's heart was through Alex."
He said.
"That's insane." I replied shaking my head.
"You have to believe me." He said.
There was no doubt that I didn't believe Jared because look at the lengths she'd gone just to take Artura, but making her believe that the one person she had left was gone, was low.
"Everytime someone gets hot on her tail, she just ups and disappears to a new state." Jared added.
"How do you know all of this?" I asked.
He grabbed a bag from under the table and pulled out a folder stuffed with papers.
"My dad is a police officer down in Atlanta, it's not hard getting what I want." He said.
"So how did you convince your family to pack up and move here to New York?" I asked.
"I didn't, the track team is here until next Friday for a competition, our chaperones don't care where we go during the day as long as we're back by curfew and your school needs to beef up its security." He said.
"So what- do you go to classes?" I asked confused.
He shrugged and shook his head.
"I don't, I wait until I see you guys transitioning and come either out of the restroom or into the building and hope that I bump into one of you. " He said.
"But we're getting off topic. Isabella will kill Artura if we don't find her and I know exactly where to look." He said.
"Where?" I asked.
"When they moved here they bought a house that sits on top of some underground lab, I'm willing to bet that that's where she's keeping her." He said pulling up Isabella's address on his phone.
"I've been to her house, she's never told me about a lab, built under it." I said reading the article on the abandoned lab.
I looked up at Jared an he was giving me this look, that practically screamed, "are you kidding me".
"What?" I asked handing him back his phone.
"Of course she wouldn't tell you that there was a lab, where she was going to keep her twin sister in to torture once she kidnapped her." He said.
Duh.
"Ok, so what do we do?" I ask.
"We gotta to her house, now." He said standing just as the lunch bell rang.
"I can't." I said grabbing my books from the table.
"What? Why not? We have to go get her, now. If we wait any later she's gonna be gone, Isabella has already withdrawn from the school, she's probably packing up her house now if she already hasn't." He said stuffing everything back into his backpack.
"I can't miss pre-calculus." I simply stated walking out of the cafeteria.
"Fuck pre-calculus. Artura's life is on the line and all you're worried about is math? Do you even care about her?" He asked.
I stopped and turned facing him, I had been tired of being asked how much I cared about her and about people being suspicious of ME taking her.
"I care about Artura, no one cares about her more than I do. I just can't disobey my dad, to go play damsel in distress, right now." I replied.
"Do you hear you, contradicting yourself? "Oh, I love her, but I just can't go save her life right now."" He mocked.
"I don't think that your dad is gonna care much about you skipping math, when we find her now let's go." He said walking towards the exit.
"Jared I-" I started and then I thought about it.
Artura needed me, no one knew where she was and sending the police to search Isabella's house was useless. So, I threw my back pack on my shoulder and followed Jared outside.
"I parked over here." I said.
Just as we got in, my phone buzzed. I looked to see if it was either Danny or Nate, it was Danny texting me.
I don't know how you're gonna do it, but you need to get here now!
---
"So do you know where Alex is?" I asked Jared.
"Not a clue, I mean everyone in a while I'll get a letter but there was never a return address." He said thumbing through the file.
" It doesn't piss you off that he just left and you don't know where he is?" I asked.
He stopped hat he was doing and then looked ahead of him, he sighed and then looked at me.
"Honestly, when it first started happening I thought that Alex was being paranoid and that he was just scared because of this new spotlight on our relationship and when he told me about Candice or Isabela trying to kill him, I still didn't think it was real thing, because she wasn't that bad. so of course when he just up and disappeared hadn't contacted me and he never answered my phone calls, I was pissed, I hated him." He said regretfully.
"Then after about a month I got the first letter and he explained everything and he apologized. All the anger that I'd had for him was gone and I just wanted him back. I mean yeah, the last few months have been hard but I know he's doing what's right and I would rather him be in Georgia or at least here with us lookin for Artura than wherever he is. But it's better for me to not know where he is and know that he is safe than me knowing that he's dead." he said.
I stopped at a red light just as phone started ringing, I picked it up and the caller Id showed that it was my dad, I turned the ringer off and threw my phone into the cup holder.
"I'm pretty sure that if Artura did something like that, you'd be as understanding." he said as the light turned green.
I didn't respond because I had actions speak louder than words and even when Artura explained why she left I still had a grudge against her and Jared had just forgiven Alex without a clue of where he could've been.
About 10 minutes later we had turned onto Isabella's street, Nate had parked two houses down and he and Danny were sitting in his car, Jared and I had got out of my car and I knocked on the window.
"What's he doing here?" Nate asked as Jared and I climbed into the backset.
"He's here to help." I replied.
'We don't need his help and I'm pretty sure Artura wouldn't want him here either." Danny said without turning around.
" I just need both of you guys to trust me right now and after we get Artura he can explain everything." I stated.
They looked at each other and then Danny shrugged, Nate turned full body in his seat to face the both of us, me more than Jared.
"So, Isabella's family just packed up and left, like everything in their house was paced into two truck and they left, her mom, dad and her. But before they let he kept going around the back like every 10 minutes, so I'm guessing that's where she'd keeping Artura." He said.
"it's probably where the lab entrance is." Jared said to me.
"Lab?" Danny and Nate asked simultaneously.
"This house was built on top of a lab like ten years ago.' I replied.
"Are you kidding me? You've got to be kidding me." Nate said.
"So you want me to believe that there is a lab under Isabella's house? That's the stupidest thin I've heard all day." he continued.
"Well sitting here trying to figure out if it's there or not is only going to waste our time." Jared said.
"But we have no way of getting inside the house." Danny said.
" And why don't we?" I asked.
"Because we don't have a key?" Nate replied.
"How long have they been gone?" I asked.
"About 20 minutes." Danny said.
That would give me enough time, because according to Sierra the were moving to a different state. Without another word, I opened the door and got out, making my way to the back of Isabella's home, everyone else caught the memo and followed me. Once we were around back, we found a cellar door that had a padlock on it, we all looked around fro something to break the lock with until Danny kicked over a pot and there was a key there.
If Isabella packed up all of her things and he was constantly coming back here then why would she leave the key? I took the key from Danny and tried the padlock, then my question was answered, we all went down into the cellar and that's that it was, a cellar, there was some wine stored there and old furniture, so this meant that her family would be back.
"Where is this super secret science lab?" Nate asked Jared.
" It has to be inside." He said.
Nate looked at Danny and Danny looked at me and I looked at Jared.
"Are you sure about this?" I asked.
"It's obviously the only way." Jared replied.
We all climbed out of the cellar, I put the padlock back on the door and the key back where I found it, before we all approached the back door. Everyone was waiting for a key to fall out of the sky. I moved towards the door and pulled my credit card out and used it to pick the lock.
I opened the door and led everyone into the kitchen.
"Marco, you've been here more than any of us so, where is the basement." Jared asked.
"What makes you think that it'd be in the basement?" Danny asked snarkly.
This was the moment when everyone gave Danny the look, the "seriously?" look that made him just stop talking at once.
"Yeah the basement is this way." I said leading them through the kitchen.
We walked through the dinning room where the table still stood and down into the den where the basement door was, when we got to the door Jared went ahead of me and went downstairs with his phone in his hand.
"Ok so this is definitely where it should be." He said.
We were standing in the middle of their basement and there was nothing but bookshelves, I was about to ask him what he was talking about until I saw that one of the bookshelves had been moved. While Jared was trying to figure out why the schematic was wrong I walked over to the bookshelf and I saw a hinge.
"Hey, I found something, come help me move this." I said to Jared.
He stuffed his phone back into his pocket and rushed over to help me move the bookshelf out of the way. When we moved the bookshelf lo and behold there was a door, but now we were facing the same problem that we'd had with the cellar, the door was padlocked. I turned and looked at Danny and Nate who had instantly picked up the hint , they went upstairs and came back few moments later with a brick.
I took it and hit the padlock with t a couple of times until Nate stopped me by grabbing my arm.
"Are you sure you want to open it this way? I mean what if they come back and see the broken lock and run away." He said.
"They're already running away." I said snatching my arm out of Nate's hand.
I hit the lock again and it broke, throwing the brick down I pulled the door open and looked back at everyone else before walking into the hallway, I didn't ask if they were gonna follow they came here for the same reason that I did, to find Artura, so of course they were going to follow.
Walking down the hall this didn't seem like a science lab, It just seemed like some type of dungeon, there were 4 doors and another hallway.
"We have to split up." I said.
"Ahaha, no thanks. I've seen enough slasher movies to know that we don't split up. Just because we're white, excluding Jared, it doesn't mean that we have to split up." Nate spoke.
Danny walked up to him and rubbed his arm to calm down and grabbed his hand.
"Calm down, its the best and fastest way to find Artura. If it helps, we can just split up into teams of two it wont be as efficient and maybe Isabella and her family will be back before we're done because I mean it's pretty dumb. But whatever works for you?" Danny told him.
Nate looked between all of us and then back to Danny and sighed, Danny was the only person who could sarcastically get through to him. I don't know what it was but it worked.
We all split up and went into different rooms, the room I went into was dark, I felt around the wall for a light switch and flicked it upwards. The light came on and there was just a chair sitting in the middle of the floor.
"Guys, you might want to come in here." Danny said.
We all rushed out of the rooms we were in and Danny was standing in the hallway in front of the room he walked into. I walked up to him first and looked into the room, same as the other room, there was a chair in the middle of the floor, but there was someone strapped down to it. I walked up closer to the chair to see the person's face.
"Cole?" I said.
He was groggy, practically incoherent but it didn't look like he was injured, just tied to the chair
"Cole, how did you get down here?" I asked.
He looked up at me and then stared panicking.
"You gotta help me outta here before she gets back!" He yelled.
"I will just tell me where Artura is." I said going for the straps at his feet.
" She's on the next hallway, but you gotta hurry, Naomi bandaged her up but I don't think that'll be enough." He said.
I looked up at Jared,Nate and Danny , they all ran to my side and began unstrapping Cole from the chair. I stood up and ran but before I got out of the room Cole said something.
"Tell her that I'm sorry."
I didn't know what he was talking about but I ran onto the next hall pushing every door open until I ran into another dark room, I felt around the wall for a light switch and flicked it upward.
There she was, her head was slumped and there was blood, everywhere, I couldn't have ran to her fast enough, there were bandages on her thighs, her calf and both of her feet. I unstrapped her as fast as I could and got her out of the chair.
"Artura, can you hear me?" I asked feeling my eyes get cloudy.
I put my ear up against her chest to listen for a her heart but I couldn't catch a beat, now I couldn't stop the tears, I panicked and tried to remember CPR.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" I cried.
"Ok, ok. Um." I reassured my self starting to remember.
I put the bottom of my hand on her chest and started pumping trying to get her to breathe.
"1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10" I counted.
I wiped the tears out of my eyes and put my ears back up to her chest. I stil didn't hear anything.
"Come on, Artura please! Please!" I said doing another set of chest pumps.
After doing three more sets, I checked her heart beat again. And still there was nothing. I pulled her head into my lap.
"You cant leave me." I said hugging her close to me, crying.
"I know you're s-stronger than this look at all t-this shit you've survived, your mom, Alex, all t-that shit put you through. I'm so s-sorry for all of it. I mean it." I cried.
" I wanted to s-see your face when I told you that Alex wasn't dead." I said wiping my face with my forearm.
"Marco, Cole has a stab wound we called- Oh God." Danny said as he stood in the threshold..
"I couldn't get her to breathe." I said.
"Move!" he yelled.
I looked up at him and he rushed towards me sitting beside me.
" Marco, I need you to move!" He said again louder pulling up his sleeves.
Got up and moved to the side while Danny sat near Artura's head and put his head near her chest.
"The paramedics are on the way." he said.
He tilted her chin forward and pinched her nose, giving her mouth to mouth and pumping her chest, he did this repeatedly. Then he put his head back onto her chest as the paramedics came in with a stretcher. Danny and I moved back as they got he strapped down and followed them to the ambulance.
"There's a heartbeat, but it's faint." The paramedic stated hooking her up to a heart monitor.
"Thank you." I said to Danny grabbing him into a hug.
Part 2
4 months later
I stood in line behind, Lindsey Graham, I looked out and saw Nate messing with his robe again, probably still angry about the coffee that'd he'd spilled on the white fabric. We were all, almost late because it took a certain someone 10 extra minutes to get ready.
"Mr.Marco Giovanni." Principal Wilkerson called.
People cheered as I walked up onto the stage ad received my diploma, shaking the principal hand along with a line of school board members. I walked off the stage and stood to the side where I took my picture and I went back to my seat.
Everyone else as taking too long so by the time they'd gotten to her name I was halfway asleep, but Lindsey nudged me and I sat up just in time.
"Ms.Artura Valentina." Principal Wilkerson announced.
Everyone cheered and stood as her dad and grandmother walked onto the stage to receive Artura's diploma and a picture of her was shown on the jumbo Tron. The claps were still going on even after they had left the stage.
Finally the end of graduation was upon us and we'd thrown our hats into the air, after we left the field in an orderly fashion we all scrambled to find our families.
Almost immediately I spotted my dad and Tony, I hadn't bothered to look for Danny because I knew that he'd probably be looking for Nate.
"Hey, congrats big bro!" Tony hugged me as I made it to them.
"Thanks." I said laughing as he tried to bear hug me.
"Aw man, you really wanna do this?" I asked returning a much stronger hug.
"Ok, uncle. Uncle!" Tony screamed.
I let him go and hugged my dad who had been standing there laughing at us.
"Congratulations, son." He said handing me an envelope.
"Thanks dad."
I hadn't opened the envelope because I knew what as inside of it, cash, instead I told my dad and Tony that I'd meet them at the house later and wen to find Danny and Nate, when I did they had just found each other were about as ready to go as I was.
"So where are we headed to first?" Danny asked as I turned out of the parking lot.
"We gotta get flowers, and the right kind this time." Nate said giving me a look.
"What?! I didn't know she didn't like roses, I thought all girls liked roses. Isn't that like the first tattoo they get?" I asked.
"Well Artura likes sunflowers, had you paid attention to HER tattoos you would've known that." He replied.
We got to the flower shop and ordered a dozen sunflowers and stopped by the convenience store to pick up some of her favorite foods, some plastic cups, bowls, and spoons and her favorite ice cream.
I had been sure to make a Spotify playlist full of all of our favorites for a graduation celebration playlist for today I made sure my phone had full battery so that we wouldn't have to stop celebrating just because I didn't have my charger.
Alt-j's Intro, Artura's favorite song played as Danny and Nate grabbed the rest of the thing out of the trunk. I grabbed her sunflowers from the backseat and walked over to her, while Danny was spreading the blanket and Nate was setting up the food, I sat the sunflowers on Artura's headstone.
And we celebrated.