"I listened to those recordings last night and I think I might have a lead."
"Really? I thought they were all pretty useless."
"They were. Mostly." Hazel shrugged, slipping down in her chair at the table in the cafe as she tried to idly put her notebook back together after all of the unattached slips of paper had fallen. It was a good reminder to keep on top of sticking things in.
"There was one, Amelia Karr. She mentioned that Jason said he was going home to pick something up, so that could help to narrow the timeframe of when he went missing."
The day was dark. It was the typical type of dark of late autumn weather when the sun only started to rise at 8 am. And while the pair sat in the cafe at 7 am, seeing each other properly for the first time since Archie left the previous day to speak to Roderick, they used the time to discuss crime in the silence of the cafe.
Stewart was in the kitchen, the door open to hear for any customers but unexpectant due to the early hour.
The place was silent and bare of life as things moved slowly.
"Really? I didn't notice that recording..." Archie said, continuing on with the discussion of their new case. "Did it say anything else? Mention anyone of interest?"
"No. I wrote it all down if you want to read it. But for the most part, it was just about who he was. Popular guy, well-liked, lots of friends... I can't see why he would run away. So, at this point, I'm going to scratch that out as a possibility."
"Seems odd though, doesn't it?" Archie asked, slumping back in his chair. "If he was so popular, why would that Ryan kid drop him like he did?"
"And he's pushing Amelia away, Jason's girlfriend," Hazel recalled. "But, I don't want to jump to conclusions. We don't have enough evidence to consider suspects yet... If I could get my hands on more information, I might consider it."
"I'll go to the station again and see if any of the guys who were on the case have any reports saved on their computer somewhere."
"Please," she nodded as Stewart stepped out of the kitchen with a tray of cookies.
"I'll go in a bit," Archie decided, "Roderick should get to the station at eight, so I'll go then."
"For now, I'll look over what we have again."
"Are you two going to be alright?" Stewart asked, popping his head up for a moment while he kept busy putting cookies on display. "You both seem exhausted. When did you get proper rest?"
Hazel, who had already begun to get to work reading through files and glancing to the door every so often, didn't even acknowledge the question. She was a girl with a distant mind and once she started something, it was unlikely that she would stop. So Archie was left to answer, his eyes turning from her own dark ones heavy with bags, towards Stewart's.
"Rest?" Archie repeated almost with a laugh. "It's been a while. Too long. We haven't slept properly since this started and even before then, we were busy on another case that lasted a few months. Hardly slept then either... We should probably be more worried for Hazel though."
"What? Why?"
"During our last case, she was thrown down the stairs. She was in a bit of a bad state after that, but she never got the rest she needed to recover from it since she picked this case up on the same night."
They turned wordlessly. She seemed normal, there wasn't anything different about her. But, that was because she was in a constant state of exhaustion. If she turned up when she didn't look exhausted, people would think she was an entirely different person. She didn't shift at the sound of her name, but, she furrowed her eyebrows as she read a sentence and then, after a pause, she read it again.
"I just noticed something."
"What?" Archie turned, his eyebrows raised to Hazel's sudden voice which was particularly breathy in her realisation.
She stopped, sat up and turned around to face the two men with her notebook in hand.
"This Interview," She said, showing them the interview with Amelia Karr, "The date was the 4th of June, two days after Jason Burr was reported missing. Towards the end of the interview, she says, 'I've been calling him nonstop but since this morning, my calls stopped going through, now I only go to voicemail.'"
She turned again, searching through the file before bringing out a familiar photo. A cracked screen on a black broken phone. Now that she was looking at it, it seemed like a pretty low cost phone, likely a hand-me-down of an earlier make. Definitely not a recent phone of 2018. And, if Jason Barber was as well off as he was, it was unlikely he wouldn't have the newest phone, or close to at least. This was out of date by at least three years.
"The back of this photo has the date it was found. The 2nd of June, the day they started searching. She couldn't have been calling nonstop, the phone was found broken on the 2nd and she claims her calls were still going through on the 4th."
She scrunched her nose, taking a moment to think while Archie stood up and rounded the table to get a better look at the picture.
"You think she could be lying?" Archie said, leaning over her shoulder and holding the photo under his hand, squinting at it hard with a frown on his lips.
"She could be. Maybe that's not his phone, maybe he had two phones, maybe she lied. But either way, there's something dodgy there and I don't trust it. While you're at the police station, check and see if there's anything about Amelia Karr."
"Alright," he agreed without question. He took her pen, using it for only a moment to write down everything he needed to and then placed it back down on her file while he stepped back, glanced to the clock then to the door. "I'll go now, I have something to do on the way, but I'll call you as soon as I get anything."
"Okay dokay," she nodded in agreement. "Don't die!"
"I'm not you," he scoffed, knowing that nobody but Hazel White would find themselves in so much danger that a warning like that felt needed. It was a known fact that trouble attracted trouble, and she lived to prove that. "Seriously though, be careful. I'll see you in a bit."
"Buh bye!"
And he was gone, lifting his things while Hazel dropped the file into her bag and packed up her work, deciding to keep her notebook on hand for any notes she might need to take.
"That felt alarmingly genuine," Stewart faltered as the door shut. "Should I be worried about you spontaneously dying?"
"Maybe," she said while moving to help him put food on display at the counter, "I've died once before. I wouldn't be surprised if it happens again- actually, I'm certain I will die, just hopefully not soon."
"You died-" He cut himself short as something clicked. "The lake incident?"
"You know about it?"
"Roderick told me a while back." He widened his eyes, "what happened?"
"Ah, y'know," she sunk a little, barely noticing the approaching figures in the door. "It was actually- I- y'know..."
She stopped, shaking her head. She couldn't get her words out.
"It was-"
The door opened.
They stopped, watching as the group of five walked in, all wide awake and ready to skip another day of school. It seemed that after the previous day, Ryan had decided to wrap his ankle. He still limped when he walked but he was better than he was.
They watched as Stewart turned to them, unable to completely wash the shock from his face after speaking to Hazel and they sent waves and nods of their heads to him, seeing that the man was still thinking about what to say to the girl beside him and wasn't about to send them his welcome quite yet.
"Robin," he said her other name, "I don't know what happened, I don't expect you to tell me, but please, be careful."
His words faded in the shock of seeing her go through what looked to be genuine grief as her eyes latched to her feet and she swallowed hard. He could piece together what happened that night through what he heard from Roderick. An experience Hazel refused to think about but was still affecting her to this day.
"I know," she sighed, "that won't ever happen again. I won't go near water."
"I think that's for the best."
She nodded. It really wasn't an argument, not with her, at least. To some, they would say that it is best to face fears. But this wasn't something she was quite ready to face yet. She doubted she would be ready for a long time.
"Hey, Robin," Joel beamed as he approached her at the counter.
The morning crowd had passed and it seemed it was going to be another quiet day in the cafe. Stewart worked in the kitchen, preparing food for lunch and decided to put his trust in Hazel to serve people like she had done yesterday.
"Hey, Joel."
"So, I was wondering," he started, resting against his arms while watching her tilt her head, "how come you got an apprenticeship here?"
"Hm? Why wouldn't I?"
"I mean," he paused, thinking his words over to correct himself, "you're smart and stuff, right? So, why wouldn't you stay in school and go to uni and whatever? Or, why didn't you get an apprenticeship at a place like... uh, a hospital? a maths place? I don't know, somewhere more-"
He stopped, unsure of what the word he was searching for was.
"Academic?" she finished for him, watching him nod quickly. "I don't know. I've just always preferred things that are less academic. It's a nice cafe, I like coffee and I like cafes in general. It just seemed better than anything else I could have been doing."
"...Oh," Joel hummed. "Okay. I guess that makes sense."
His gaze dropped for a moment, glancing over her notebook again before his smile grew and a new topic came to mind.
"Are you writing in your diary again?"
"...It's not a diary..."
"Then can I read it?"
"No."
"Awh c'mon-"
"Hey, Robin," Stewart stepped out of the kitchen with flour handprints on his apron, his eyes glanced towards the clock every so often and his movements were quickened in a panicked rush, "I have to head out quickly and grab something from the shops. Would you be alright keeping an eye on the cafe while I'm out? It's just the boys, I doubt anyone else will be in for a while."
She nodded quickly, watching him smile thankfully and move towards the door, darting out faster than she could ever move.
The cafe fell to silence for a moment, the table of boys watching after him before shrugging and going back to their conversation without a care.
"How come you skip so much school?" Hazel finally asked, deciding to bite the bullet and take her chance to ask Joel the question she had been curious about for a while. He paused, then he shrugged.
"Our school is shitty," he said, "there's no point in going, so we don't."
"But... isn't there legal stuff, like fines?"
"Only if the teachers mark you as absent, but they never do because they never even do the registers."
She tilted her head, still concerned over everything they were missing in school. As hypocritical as it was, she felt as though they should have been in school. She knew better than anyone that there's a lot in school that you don't learn outside of it. Hell, she barely knew how to use a comma because she didn't go to school long enough to learn, yet she somehow remembered learning Latin.
"We still do work though," Joel continued, acknowledging the worry which had painted itself on her face, "sometimes we have to go to school, so we do the homework, just in case."
"Ah, that makes sense," she nodded.
The school she went to wasn't even in the city. She thought that anything she mentioned about the school she went to would be less convincing because compared to the private school in the North, her own was ten times stricter. It was prestigious and far too luxurious for her liking, it was a place she could never imagine being in this city.
"I bet you would never be able to skip school. Your school is so posh and intense," he sighed, "like, everyone is so posh over there. That's how I can tell you go there, everyone in the North is super posh."
"...I'm posh?"
"You sound it," he pointed out, listening to the way she articulated her words. Though, that came from her family and the people she surrounded herself with. "You sound way more posh than most people over there."
"Probably because I read dictionaries as a kid."
"Really?"
"No."
"You totally got me there," he laughed, "I did. Y'know, when I was bored. I thought it'd make me smarter."
She let a smile slip, unexpectedly enjoying a conversation with who she thought could be a suspect or somebody to at least learn more information from. But she turned away, making sure there was nothing that needed her immediate attention. All she found, however, was a few curious eyes from boys who listened to her speak to their friend with ease.
Stewart wasn't kidding when he said that the gloomier days were quiet in the cafe. It seemed nobody wanted to leave the warmth of their homes or the school building on days like this, so nobody stumbled upon the cafe. Though, she wasn't complaining.
"Joel, are you paying today?" The purple-haired boy named Oscar yelled out, forcing Joel to turn and nod. "Get me hot chocolate!"
"Robin?" Joel turned back to her, but she was already moving.
"Yup," she nodded, getting started on the new job as she turned in search of a mug and began to switch on the machines and prepare the drink like she was taught.
She worked silently, moving around swiftly up until she heard a subtle sound from behind her and stopped in her movements, letting the drink sit for a moment while she furrowed her eyebrows, deciding whether or not the sound of something sliding against the wood of the counter was in her head. Though thinking about it, there was nothing else sitting on the counter other than her book to have been lifted and she would prefer to be safe than sorry.
"Put it down," she sighed, turning quickly to find Joel stood wide-eyed, her notebook in his hands as he had lifted it from the counter and was only seconds from turning the page.
"How'd you know?" He gawked, not putting the book down.
"I heard you," she continued to watch the book instead of him, hoping to see if he would lower it at any point. But it seemed that as she approached, he only lifted it higher into the air. "Seriously, why do you want to read it so badly?"
"Because you made me curious by not telling me what it is," he smiled innocently and behind him, a few eyes turned away, pretending not to see and move on, uncaring of the situation she was in. "What is it?"
"It's just school work," she stopped opposite him, looking up at the book which was high in the air and definitely out of her short reach.
"Then why can't I look?"
"Because I don't want you to."
"Please?"
"No."
"Pretty please with a cherry on top?"
"No. Give it back."
"If you can reach."
She pouted, then she hopped, then she pouted again. Obviously, she wasn't going to get it back easily.
He smiled, enjoying himself as he teased her and her lack of height. With his friends, he was the shortest, so finding somebody who was shorter than he was felt like a miracle and he was taking every opportunity to get back at the world.
She jumped again, reaching for the book as he dangled it just out of her reach. Yet, to his dismay, she somehow managed to catch the corner of it and forced him to gasp and let a laugh escape him. But, as he tugged, hoping to tease her just a little longer, her own tugging fingers caught him by surprise and he pulled harder. Soon enough, they were both pulling at the book, playing a game of tug of war.
In truth, Hazel wasn't as annoyed as she thought she would be. Instead, she was entertained. The humoured smile he wore was infectious and replicated on her face as she realised that he was just trying to fill the boring day and by doing so, he ended up washing her own boredom away. If she said so sternly enough, he would probably leave her alone, if he got it, he would just give it back to her. Even when he tugged at the book, he didn't tug hard enough to actually care about getting a solid hold of it. He only held it for long enough to keep their odd game going.
Yet, neither got to feel the satisfaction of winning as her fingers slipped, releasing the book and unexpectedly, his arms flew up as the sudden pull was removed and his own strength was fighting nothing but air. His hand met his face, forcing his fingers to release the book out of surprise and the book slipped from his own grasp, flying over his head and past them both.
They stopped, their eyes widened in horror as-
"Shit!"
A sharp breath escaped gasping lips as the sound of the book hitting neither the wood of the table or the floor emitted and instead they realised that it was the sound of a cup being hit with a clang. Then, scraping chair legs and running liquid dripping to the ground.
They turned, eyes widened in horror to see Ryan with sharp eyes and a brown patch of burning coffee cover his white school shirt and made it stick to his abdomen. Coffee ran to the floor from the table and around her book, staining the white pages as she brought her hands to her lips, horrified by the sight.
"...Oh my god, I'm so sorry-"
She rushed over, grabbing napkins as she went and immediately panicked, throwing her book onto another table as she attempted to clean the mess that was caused by her book hitting Ryan's mug. Everyone watched, but she took no notice of them and instead tried her best not to focus on Ryan's cold, harsh eyes that burned into her with nothing but hatred and frustration.
"I'm so sorry-" she said again, unable to gain the confidence she needed to say it as loudly as she wanted to. But, he just mumbled, cursing under his breath before shoving his chair back further and standing up, towering high over her as she crouched at the height of the table to wipe it clean. He turned, not even acknowledging her as he faced the oddly calm looking boy, Fox.
"I need a fucking shirt," Ryan groaned, unable to contain the sharply spoken cuss, "d'you have one?"
The tall boy nodded before leaning to his side, his eyes still on Hazel as he unzipped his bag and pulled out a blue baseball shirt and threw it towards the silver-haired boy who caught it in his grasp before leaving, tugging at his own shirt to prevent the liquid from touching his skin.
Meanwhile, Hazel continued to clean, her movements rushed and frantic. She took less than a few minutes to clean both the table and the floor before going back to the counter to make a new coffee, working faster than she ever had in an attempt to make up for her mess.
"...Sorry..." Joel spoke quietly to her as she passed, realising she was taking the blame for what had happened.
"It's alright," she hummed back, placing both the hot chocolate and the new coffee onto a tray. But, before she could lift it, she heard the bathroom door open and turned.
She turned around just in time to see a flash of white and as if on instinct, she ducked down, narrowly missing a shirt to the face as Ryan crossed the cafe. He grumbled, approaching her with a face of thunder, barely recognising the fact that she avoided the shirt.
"Raven," Ryan said.
"...Uh... Robin..." she corrected with a small voice only to have him scoff.
"Birdy, Tweetie, whatever." He shook his head, uncaring. "You fuckin' owe me."
"I know," she rubbed her eyes, her body tense and anxious as she shrunk under his stern gaze of sharp green eyes, "I'm really sorry. Did the coffee burn you-"
"You're gonna wash my shirt and bring it back to me tomorrow," He clicked his tongue, ignored her and moved to the counter beside Joel.
"Also," Ryan continued as he leaned forward against the counter. "You owe me £5."
"Huh?"
"For the coffee." He rolled his eyes. Though, the coffee wasn't even that much to begin with... and he was getting a new free one.
She, as the brave girl she was, was not going to stand up for herself. Obviously. The guy was frightening and she wanted to keep her life mostly intact if she could help it.
"But... I don't have any money..." She glanced around, realising Archie had left a long time ago with her purse which he kept safe to hide her identification which hid inside... and to stop her from wasting her money on useless things like she tended to do.
"Who doesn't bring money with them...?" He asked but stopped immediately as Joel opened his mouth, ready to yell.
"You didn't! I paid for your coffee!"
"Shut up!" Ryan retorted, witty as ever, as he darted his head around to glare at his friend before turning back to Hazel. Though thinking about it, she didn't actually owe Ryan anything related to money, she owed Joel who had paid for his coffee. But, given the sharpness of his eyes and the intensity of his glare, she wasn't going to mention that. "You're gonna have to pay me back another way then, huh?"
"Uhm... how...?"
"I just so happen to have a nice stack of homework that needs doing." He announced, a sly grin making its way onto his lips. It grew with every word he said and it became evident that he thought about it while he was changing his shirt. Even if she did give him money, he probably would have made her his servant for the day, not that she wasn't already, seeing as she was working there and had to do what the customer said.
"I-" she stopped, her lips forming a small pout as she glanced away, unable to hold eye contact in her apologetic state, "okay."
"You can start by doing my homework for tomorrow," he said, crossing his arms over the comfortable looking shirt he now wore. She nodded, but stopped for just a moment, her eyes stopping on the notebook that had been stained brown. Again. The thing probably held as much coffee as she did at this point.
"Can I just check on my stuff first...?"
He sighed but nodded, giving her a moment to lift the tray of new drinks for him to take while she approached the table where she had thrown her book. Quickly, she opened it, feeling soggy pages but noticing that the ink had barely run, thankfully. There were a few pages that seemed worse than others, but, they were from other crimes she didn't need to look at anymore.
She let a short breath escape her before taking the book into the kitchen to dry. Quickly, brushing a stray brown hair that had escaped the already messy bun on top of her head, she took in a long, exhausted breath before she left to work.
The situation as a whole felt ridiculous. Her day felt ridiculous. It was never-ending and it only dragged on. She still had so much left to do and doing some guys homework wasn't high on her list of priorities. Yet, she was going to do it. The guilt washed over her, knowing that she had probably ruined Ryan's whole day.
"-dude, I need the book."
"Don't you have your own?"
"No, I lost it-"
The conversation between Ryan and the purple-haired boy, Oscar, was cut as she approached, her head at a tilt while they argued over a textbook. A biology book by the looks of things.
"Oi, Tweetie," Ryan said what she assumed was a rendition of her name. Robins were birds, and birds tweeted. At least, that's where she hoped the name came from. Maybe he thought her voice sounded like a bird. His own voice was snappy but somewhat nice to listen to, despite the snappiness of it. Naturally, it was quite a mellow, it wasn't too low and not too high, it was just appealing. "You're gonna have to share a book with Oscar. We only have one."
"...Okay," she nodded, not entirely sure of what she was doing. But, as he shuffled his two chairs across, keeping his foot lifted on the second that he sat beside, he nodded his head to a chair at a table beside their own and quickly, she got the message. With hurried steps, she pulled it to their table and took a seat.
She felt her stomach twist under their eyes as she adjusted in her chair between Ryan's foot and Oscar who continued to glance over her with obvious hesitance. Meanwhile, she timidly awaited instructions from Ryan, hopeful that he would tell her what the hell she was doing.
She knew she could handle full-grown adults, even the aggressive ones, but she couldn't handle the eyes of teenagers. It was a feeling she couldn't quite explain. She was one herself, but being around others was more intimidating than she could handle. Was there science behind this fear? God, she hoped there was.
"Answer all the questions on the page," Ryan gestured to the book, reaching over and stealing a sheet of paper from Leo along with his pen. He didn't argue and instead shrugged his shoulders and watched her move.
She nodded, leaned over to the book and parted her lips in surprise.
Conveniently, it was about human bioenergetics. A topic she knew fairly well after a discussion she had with the forensic pathologist at the station Roderick worked at. If she recalled, the conversation was started after she admitted to the woman that she had no idea what photosynthesis was. This started a whole discussion, or, a lesson, really, in how bioenergetics work in a human as well as what photosynthesis was. Thankfully, she assumed Hazel just needed to know for homework.
Quickly, Hazel got to work. She sat silently, scribbling answers to the questions she only looked at once before taking them to memory and recounted what she was told and what she decided to learn herself after the discussion. She didn't speak up, nor did she even lift her gaze to join into any conversations that started, instead, she wrote and listened.
They went back and forth, questioning whether they wanted to go into school the next day or not. Hazel, admittedly, wanted them to. Not because she was cruel, but because she was doing Ryan's homework and didn't want it to go to waste.
"Hey, Robin," Joel spoke up, catching her attention as she stopped writing and turned to him, "you have to go to school tomorrow, right?"
She paused, thinking her answer through. As much as she would have liked to take the easy route out of the conversation and give a simple yes or no, she had to be considerate. She knew what her plans were, and they didn't involve much staying at home. If she was investigating this area, she might be seen.
"Not tomorrow," she said, "I have this week off. I have to start going back to school next week though."
"Oh good, I thought you might have had your own homework to do."
She allowed a smile to slip towards him. He was a considerate boy, it was difficult to imagine him causing any trouble at all.
"...How are you already so far ahead of me...?" Oscar breathed out from beside her, moving her attention away from Joel and towards him instead as he furrowed his eyebrows and gawked at her sheet of paper. Meanwhile, on his own, he had the questions written out and half a sentence.
"That's because you haven't been doing it," Leo shook his head, "you've just been tapping your pen for the last half hour."
"Can I copy this afterwards?" Oscar pointed to her paper yet looked towards Ryan, waiting for an answer. But, Ryan turned, glancing at Leo to see whether or not he agreed first before giving a definite answer.
Hesitantly, the ashy brown-haired boy nodded and quickly, Ryan copied after.
"Get Leo to check first though," Ryan noted, glancing over Hazel's writing, "she might have written bullshit for all I know."
As she stayed silent in response, she glanced to her right, noticing Oscar's own writing as he shifted, no longer feeling the need to work and instead, he began to doodle.
Before she could become distracted by it, the door opened, revealing two figures walking together as they all turned and remembered her job there.
Instantly, she was met by smiling faces, one covered in flour, the other in exhaustion as she realised they weren't customers but were actually just Stewart and Archie returning together from the rushes they were in earlier.
"Robin," Stewart smiled, noticing exactly where she was sat, "making friends are we?"
"Paying off debts, actually," she said sheepishly to the man.
"Well, come into the kitchen for just a second," he said, glancing at the boys who seemed a little colder than they usually would be. Though, after knowing them for so long, he could figure out why.
She turned, glancing towards Ryan for his approval before he nodded and she pushed herself to her feet and shuffled to Stewart's side, passing Archie who gave her his own smile. Quickly, they went into the kitchen, leaving the sight of the boys and escaping their earshot so they could talk about something.
"Archie needed to give you this," Stewart explained, pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket, "he can't do it himself without getting their attention."
"Ah, okay, thank you."
She took the paper from him, unfolding it as he passed her and gave her a moment to read through it carefully while he left the kitchen.
It was a printout of what looked to be what once was a document, likely found on the computer of a police officer who had previously looked at Jason Barber's missing case. Just a photo and a note beside it. Though... strange. It was of Ryan James, smirking at the camera and looking a little younger. His hair was dark brown, almost black and his face free of the scar that lived on his chin. It looked like he was at a park somewhere, out on a street.
She took all of it to memory, every detail. From the trees in the background, the park bench beside him, the shade of his un-dyed hair, the lack of scar on his face, everything.
The note beside it read, 'deleted photo from Ryan James' Instagram account. Posted 1st June, 10:23 pm. Deleted 3rd June 7:12 am.'
It immediately put far more suspicion onto Ryan. Why would he have deleted this photo? Was he out on the night Jason went missing? By the looks of things, he might not have had the clearest of alibi's, not if they couldn't pinpoint when exactly that night Jason went missing. But this was a clear indication that Ryan could have been out on that particular night.
She let a heavy breath escape her before she shoved the paper into her pocket and left the kitchen, keeping in mind that she would have to speak to Archie about it later.
"About time," Ryan said as he heard the kitchen door open and turned to see her usual tired eyes, "forget you have to finish my work?"
"Sorry," she sighed, approaching with shuffling steps from a lack of energy and definitely not enough to be able to hold herself up properly. She stopped, dropping herself in her seat before glancing over the work and felt a new question come to mind. "Why don't you just google this stuff if you're not going to do it yourself?"
"'cause," he shrugged, leaning back while he glared into his phone which he held too close for her to see, but he didn't seem to be scrolling, he was just reading and swiping the screen every so often. She wondered if there were any clues on it. "You need to pay off your debt and I can't be bothered googling shit."
"That's fair," she said, continuing on with the work and ignoring the nag in her mind which was telling her that it definitely wasn't fair.
A moment of silence passed again as they watched her pause every so often, recalling information from her memory before scribbling.
"Hey," another, calmer voice said to her. She lifted her gaze, noticing Leo lean across the table to see her work, "you spelled 'processes' wrong."
"...Oh," she paused, glancing over the word for a moment. Though, she had no idea how to actually spell it. Was there a 'c'? Was there a double 's'? she had no clue. Archie was usually the one to write their reports and evidence and even when he didn't, he read her work and corrected it after, so she didn't need to know. Like she didn't really need to know how to use commas for that same reason. When else was she going to use them? Now? Probably.
"It's got a 'c'," Leo continued, seeing how she was yet to correct her mistake.
Immediately, she let a quick 'oh' escape before correcting herself and nodding happily. She sent him a thankful smile. He politely returned the gesture.
"How do you go to that posh school but not know how to spell shit?"
She turned, a small pout on her lips as Ryan spoke harshly. His words would probably have hurt a little more if she actually went to 'that posh school', but she didn't, so she didn't feel any obligation to spell correctly. All she needed to know was how to connect evidence, how to see a liar and how not to die while confronting dangerous people.
"If you're so bothered by it, why don't you do this?" She turned to him, her confidence a little better now that Stewart was around to make sure she didn't somehow annoy the boy so much that he ended up throwing her out of the window.
"Whatever," he tutted after a moment of subtle surprise, avoiding eye contact with her as he went back to his phone, "just get on with it."