_______________________________
"I feel colder, colder
My heart is still open."
Vultures - Collard, MTMBO
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XXX.
\\ MRMT //
Arden wasn't exactly sure how she imagined her morning starting out...but standing in the middle of a playground, staring down at a shallow hole where something was once buried wasn't at all what she had expected.
And that something that was buried...was Jake's gun.
Arden had been woken up early that morning by Elisia calling her in a panic, breathlessly telling her that she had gotten a message from KingCobra telling her that if she didn't bury a brown paper bag in the park, that Tessa would be killed. She even got a live video taken in Tessa's room while she was sleeping, threatening her life unless Elisia did what she was told.
When Elisia got to the park, she looked inside the bag and found Jake's gun inside. The one that had been missing since the night Ash was shot. She was terrified but she knew she had no choice but to bury it. She couldn't risk Tessa's life.
Now, Arden stood next to Rowan and Elisia, the three of them looking down the spot where it was buried, and there was now nothing to be found.
"Jake's gun is gone." Elisia swallowed, "This is bad."
Rowan shook her head slowly, "I can't believe someone was in Tessa's room."
"Well she tweeted this morning so, she's still alive." Elisia said.
"But why Tessa?" Arden frowned.
"Probably because she's so damn nosey," Elisia said, "I mean, she wont stop asking about Nicki. And she's suspicious about this one girl named Jai Mathis. She stole Jai's phone and Jai had a photo of me at the grotto the night Ash got shot. The night I was supposed to be dead."
"So Jai is a zoo member," Arden pieced it together, "She must have sent that photo of you to King Cobra. That's how he found out you were alive."
"Maybe she knows who shot Ash." Elisia said sadly, "Maybe she shot Ash."
Arden's stomach lurched a little, wondering if Jai could have been then one to almost kill Ash. But if that were true, why would Jai have wanted to shoot him?
Rowan looked at them, "Was Zoe even King Cobra?"
"Maybe the real King Cobra killed Zoe," Elisia said.
Arden thought back to what Brandon told her the night after they'd found out he'd sent the first text. There was something he said that stuck out to her. About it getting out of control.
Arden sighed, "It's spreading..."
Rowan frowned, "What?"
"The night Brandon was arrested, he came to my house," Arden looked up at them, "He said he couldn't get it to stop. That he started it and no matter what he did, he couldn't stop it."
Rowan looked over at her, seeing a shift in Arden's eyes. Arden was thinking about that night, the tears in Brandon's eyes reflecting the tears in her own. How hurt she felt finding out the truth...and the pain of hearing him apologizing and begging her to understand he never meant for anyone to get hurt.
The sound of a phone chiming pulled Arden away from those memories, and she looked over to see Elisia pull her phone out of her pocket.
"It's...it's Mr. Empty." Elisia looked up at them fearfully.
She showed them her screen, which had a video attached to the message with a threatening message:
you talk to anyone, the cops will cuff you first
Then Elisia played the video and Arden's stomach hallowed when she watched it, seeing Elisia taking the gun out of the bag and then burying it in the sand where they were standing over. It looked completely incriminating to Elisia.
"As always, we can't tell anyone." Rowan sighed.
"We're trapped." Elisia started panicking, "Jake's gun has my fingerprints on it and King Cobra has a video of me burying it right here. What if King Cobra used Jake's gun to shoot Ash? I was at the Grotto that night—"
"Yeah but so was I," Arden reminded her, "We were together when he was shot so they can't say you did it."
But Elisia shook her head, "Not unless King Cobra finds a way to incriminate you too!"
"Maybe," Arden said, "But for now, we protect each other. And we find out who is behind this."
Arden spoke calmly, trying to calm Elisia down. Maybe she was right and King Cobra might come after her to incriminate her as well, but for now, Arden was Elisia's alibi. And she would make sure Elisia was okay. Rowan nodded in agreement, knowing their best chance was to stick together.
Suddenly Arden's phone chimed, and she looked down at it to see a message on the screen. It was from Trevor and he was telling her that he needed her to get home ASAP. It seemed urgent, causing Arden looked up at Rowan and Elisia.
"I gotta go." She told them, "I'll catch up with you guys later."
They both nodded, and Arden rushed out of the playground, heading in the direction of home.
@ @ @
On the way home, Arden texted Trevor back, asking if everything was alright, and when he didn't text her back, that only made her rush even more, worried about him. It took her about ten minutes to get home from the park, and when she reached the doorway, she quickly made her way inside.
"Trevor?" She called out as she dropped her coat on the table next to the door.
"In here." He answered back.
She followed his voice around the corner, but as soon as she walked through the doorway of the living room, she halted in her steps when she saw Brandon sitting on the couch next to Trevor, playing some sort of video game.
No, no, no, no.
Her lips parted as she looked at Trevor, "What is he doing here?"
Arden knew that she was going to have to face Brandon again at some point...she just wasn't ready to do it right in that moment.
"Come on, Arden. Chill." Trevor said, "I invited him."
She looked between Trevor and Brandon, realizing that as long as they were friends, she would be seeing Brandon around whether she liked it or not. She couldn't even escape him in her own house now.
"Is she my birthday present?" Brandon looked at Trevor with a grin, "Trev, I told you not to get me anything."
Arden rolled her eyes and started to walk away, "I'm leaving."
"No, stay," Trevor called after her, "Stay, please."
Rolling her eyes again, she turned back around to see him jumping over the couch and making his way over to her.
"Look, I knew you wouldn't come if I told you he was going to be here." Trevor explained.
Arden crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him, "Yeah, you assumed correctly."
"Stay with us, Arden." Brandon said in a gruff voice, holding up his stuffed frog with a smirk.
The frog that had been sitting on the night stand in her room. Brandon then threw it at Arden and she caught it angrily.
"You were in my room?" She growled at Brandon.
Brandon just smirked, "Calm down sweetheart, it's not like I haven't been in your room before."
Her eyes widened.
"Shut up," She snapped at him then turned to Trevor, "And what the hell, Trevor? You made it sound like something was wrong in your text!"
At that moment, Brandon got off the couch and walked over to them, standing beside Trevor.
"There is!" Trevor exclaimed, "Look, having my best friend and my newly acquired step sister fight is the worst. And you guys are trying to figure out the same thing so, help each other."
"Sorry, not happening." Arden said throwing Fishy back at Brandon and turning on her heel.
"Wait!" Trevor called after her, "Brandon knows how to find King Cobra."
This stopped Arden in her tracks. She closed her eyes and let out a sigh in frustration...she couldn't walk away from this.
So, she turned around, willing to at least hear them out.
Brandon looked at her softly, "Trevor told me Zoe's dead."
Arden nodded slowly, confirming it. She still couldn't get those crime scene pictures of her dead body out of her head.
"We've been getting messages from King Cobra since then." She told them, "Hasn't stopped."
Something flashed across Brandon's eyes...maybe concern or dread that she was still in danger, that she was still wrapped up on the mess he created.
"I know Zoe's boyfriend's name." Brandon said, then corrected himself, "Well, his first name."
Arden's eyes brightened in interest, "What is it?"
But he just smirked, "Oh, I thought we weren't working together."
Then Arden remembered about Rowan finding the book at the library last night with L. Broadly written on the check out card.
"Does it start with an L?" She asked him.
Brandon looked at her in confusion, "How did you know that?"
She smiled victoriously, "Then I know his last name."
Brandon stepped towards her, telling her the name he'd discovered, "Lance."
"Broadly." Arden finished.
"And voila." Trevor smiled, then walked towards the living room, "I'm going to see what we can find on his name."
As Trevor sat down on the couch and opened his laptop, Brandon leaned against the doorway, his eyes lingering over Arden. She shifted her weight on her feet, wishing he'd stop looking at her the way he was looking at her...it made her heart pick up pace in her chest and her stomach flip.
Then Brandon asked her curiously, "How'd you find his last name?"
"Ash gave us a piece of paper that was sent to Zoe with a quote on it. Rowan found the book that the quote was from and sent Elisia and I a picture of the check-out card." Arden told them, pulling up the picture on her phone, "L. Broadly was the last person to check out the book."
"So, Lance checks out a book from the library, a book Zoe has read before. He tears out a specific line and he sends it to her." Brandon said, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion, "Why?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out." Arden told him, "That, and what this means. It was written on the next page."
She swiped to the next image in her phone of the next page of the book where Rowan found something jotted down in the margin in pencil:
MrMT 1080x5139
"Let me see it." Trevor called from the couch.
Nodding, she walked into the living room, Brandon trailing behind her, and she handed her phone to him to let him look at the picture of the pages Rowan sent. Trevor's eyebrows furrowed slightly as he looked down at the picture and then took out his own phone.
"Maybe if we find out who Lance Broadly is, we can get answers about Zoe." Brandon offered, "Maybe he's King Cobra."
Trevor looked up at them, "It's a phone number."
Brandon and Arden looked at Trevor's phone screen and saw that he had multiplied the two numbers in the calculator, and sure enough...it was a phone number.
"Let's call it." Brandon said, taking out his phone and beginning to dial the number.
"Wait." Arden told him, "What's your plan?"
But Brandon hit call, putting it on speaker and she heard the dial tone ringing. She rolled her eyes, wishing he would have waited for a minute so they could have at least come up with how they wanted to approach the call.
"Hello?"
A girl's voice stopped the ringing, and Arden's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. It wasn't a voice she recognized.
"Hey, I got a new phone." Brandon said, "Who is this?"
"It's Alison. Who are you?"
There was a pause, and Arden's heart raced as she saw Brandon panic about what to say for a moment.
"It's...Lance." Brandon stammered a bit, "Lance Broadly."
Immediately, the line clicked as the girl Alison ended the call. Arden closed her eyes, sighing in frustration at Brandon's impulsiveness.
"Idiot."
He looked back at her, frowning, "What was I supposed to do?"
"I don't know," She exasperated, "Maybe if you would have come up with a plan like I suggested, maybe that would have turned out differently."
Brandon sighed, "Look, we'll—"
"Ash was shot, Hailey is gone, and Nicki is dead." Arden reminded him, "We can't afford to lose any leads by being careless, so...why don't you just leave it, okay? We can figure this out ourselves."
She turned and walked away, heading towards her room.
Brandon sighed behind her, "Arden..."
But she kept walking while she had the strength to keep going.
@ @ @
After the failed phone call with Brandon, Arden texted Rowan, filling her in on what Lance Broadly's full name was and how Trevor figured out that the numbers in the book was actually a phone number.
As night fell, Arden got a text from Elisia telling her to come by her place so that they all could talk. When Rowan got there, she told Elisia and Arden all about how she called the Mr. Empty number and spoke with a girl named Alison. They met at Padre's diner and Alison told her that she was an "empty", which meant she did things for Mr. Empty, like digging dirt up on people or taking pictures of them. Rowan also said that Alison was terrified, unable to sit still or stop looking over her shoulder.
And unfortunately, Alison didn't know who Lance Broadly or Mr. Empty was. Had never met in person, only got texts and calls telling her what to do. All Alison told her before running out of the dinner was "missed connections on Flash".
Just as Rowan was finished explaining everything that had happened, there was a knock at Elisia's door.
"Who's that?" Arden frowned.
Elisia frowned as she stood up, and Rowan and Arden followed her over. And when Elisia opened the door and standing there was Tessa, soaked from head to toe.
"Tessa?" Elisia's lips parted, "What happened to you?"
"Elisia, somebody is after me, okay?" Tessa cried, "And I know that you know something. Will you please help me?"
Rowan looked at her in concern, "Tessa, are you okay?"
She shook her head, tears threatening to escape the brims of her eyes. She looked absolutely terrified as she stood there, and Arden recognized that look. It was unfortunately, way to familiar.
"It's happening to her too." Arden looked at Elisia and Rowan.
They both looked back at her, seeming to realize this as well. There was no longer protecting Tessa from the truth when it was obvious she was already in too deep.
"Here, come in." Elisia gestured to her.
Tessa stepped inside, and Elisia guided her over to the couch, where they both sat down. Tessa told them about how she went to Jai's house to question her, and she ended up being hit over the head and falling into the pool. When she woke up, she had been pulled out of the water and there was a figure walking away.
It was clear she had been attacked by one of the Zoo members, and the three of them knew that they had to tell Tessa the truth...to keep her safe.
Arden sat down across from them, and together the three of them started at the beginning, telling Tessa everything that happened to them and everything that was still happening. They told her everything. Including the dangers of the world they were trapped living in.
Arden listened mostly, every once in a while talking about something that happened...but as she sat there, listening as everything they had been through was laid out for Tessa. It was eerily haunting to hear and almost impossible to believe that they had been through all of it.
"We haven't told very many people." Rowan told Tessa, "If someone knows too much, they become a target."
"I just can't believe someone was in my house recording me and I didn't even know it," Tessa swallowed, "Aren't you guys scared, like, all the time?"
"Pretty much," Arden sighed, "Yeah."
This had been going on for so long that Arden couldn't remember the last time she hadn't felt scared. She was always looking over her shoulder, always dreading her phone chiming...always scared of being alone.
"But what about Hawk?" Tessa asked them, "What do we know about him?"
"He picked up Alison from the diner so, they know each other." Rowan said.
Arden sighed, still not believing Hawk could be apart of this. But as Elisia pointed out the other day...it was almost impossible to know for sure.
"She works for Mr. Empty." Rowan told them, "She told me we could find him by using missed connections of Flash."
"Wait, I think I got a message from Mr. Empty," Tessa said, going through her bag.
She handed them her phone, and they all read the message she had pulled up.
what happened to nicki? ask the cheerleaders, one of them knows the truth.
xoxo, MrMT
"XOXO...Zoe does that." Elisia pointed out.
"I got the message on Tuesday." Tessa said, "When did Zoe die?"
Arden's stomach hallowed, "Wednesday."
This only made Arden question even more the identity of Mr. Empty. The message sounded eerily like Zoe...but Zoe was dead and they were still getting messages from Mr. Empty. Could she have known who he was? Was it Lance?
"I, uh...I saw a video on Jai's computer." Tessa looked at Elisia, "It was a video that Nicki made, setting a house on fire. She was wearing a mask. Was she part of the Zoo?"
"No, Nicki was blackmailed by Monkeyman to make that video for the Zoo." Rowan told her, then frowned, "Why did Jai have that on her computer?"
"I don't know." Tessa shook her head, "I mean, she told me she was going to tell me if I met her at her house and then the next thing I knew I was spitting up water beside Jai's pool, and her computer was gone."
"I've seen Jai before. She was at Nicki's house the night Nicki died."
Arden nodded. "Oh yeah, right as we were leaving...we saw her."
She had almost forgotten that they had seen Jai at Nicki's that night. Elisia and her were getting back into her car and when they were pulling away, they both caught a glimpse of Jai walking up to Nicki's house. She had never really thought about it until now.
Tessa frowned, "Why were you two at Nicki's house that night?"
Arden stiffened a little, and Elisia glanced over at her wearily, unsure of how Tessa would take this truth. But she let Elisia tell it in whatever way she wanted it.
"Tessa...my, um..." Elisia swallowed, "My parents were in the house that Nicki burnt down, and um...they died."
"Oh my God," Tessa cried, placing her hand on Elisia's arm, "Oh my God, Elisia...I'm so sorry. Your parents, I mean—...Nicki would have never done that if she had known..."
Elisia swallowed, "I was sent that video and then I was blackout full of rage, and I got a gun and I went to her house—"
Her lips parted, "You did what?"
"No, no, no...I didn't do anything. I didn't even go inside." Elisia said, "I was standing in the front yard, and Arden showed up, she talked me down and she drove us home. We saw Jai going up to Nicki's door when we were leaving."
Arden looked up at Tessa, "Are you okay?"
She sniffled, another tear sliding down her cheek, "I don't know why Nicki didn't tell me that."
Arden could understand why. What Nicki did...there had to be an overwhelming amount of guilt that came with that. That kind of guilt you couldn't admit to anyone.
"Elisia, you didn't have to bury that gun. But you saw a live video of someone in my house. I mean, I barely know you." Tessa's voice cracked, "Why would you help me?"
"Um...for some reason, I trust you." Elisia admitted, "I know I shouldn't, but I do."
Rowan smiled a little, "That's a lot coming from her."
Arden nodded as well, and then her mind latched onto Elisia's words. She thought about Brandon...and everything that had happened between them. How he stood in front of her earlier, with those vibrant blue eyes, looking at her with all his regret.
She knew she had a million reasons why she shouldn't trust him...but all she could really think about in that moment, is the one reason why she wanted to.
_________________________________
"Patience
Bare with me,
I'm suffering for you."