JADE SULKED AS SHE PULLED THE BLANKET OVER HER HEAD, whining. The girl still didn't give in, snatching away the blanket along with the warmth it was providing. "Wake up, wake up, we have to go!"

Jade groaned, burying her face into the pillow to muffle her best friend's shouts. There was a final tug at the blanket, and it flew away from Jade's hands. Shay shook her vigorously, to make sure she won't fall asleep again. "Wake up, the sun has risen!"

"What do you want me to do if the sun has risen? Photosynthesis? Converting carbon dioxide into oxygen has been a hard task, and you want me to do Photosynthesis?" Jade grumbled as she snatched the blanket back from Shay's hands, trying to make herself comfortable again.

"Alright then, sleep." Shay sighed and there was a shuffling sound, stomping out of the room. Just when Jade reached over to close the curtains Shay had opened, something heavy had flung itself onto her knees.

"Ahh, get off, Leo!" Jade shouted half-heartedly at him, but it just prompted him to lick her more intensely.

She sighed again, sat upright and patted Leo's head. There was a chuckle and Jade looked up to glare at Shay, who was the mastermind armed with a wicked idea. The idea which had been implemented, and it did work. Shay leaned against the doorway and smiled at Jade, getting a scowl in return. She knew that Jade wouldn't push Leo away, so she brought him in.

"Where are we going, anyway?" Jade asked Shay groggily, rubbing her eyes. "To visit Kara, it's been a while since we met her. So, I guess we will go to the café." Shay called out as she exited the room, giving Jade some time. As Shay opened the door, Jade could hear some noises from upstairs. The boys were fighting for the bathroom again as they do every day, banging on the door like madmen.

Leo grunted happily. Kara loved him, plus she fed him treats from the café. Jade smiled, not seeming so irritated as she had been a minute ago. She had only a few people whom she could call her best friends, and Kara was one of them along with the idiots she was living with. Jade loved them though.

It had been a while since they met Kara, all of them had been looking into the mysterious happenings at Blackwood, trying to make sense of them. Jade washed her face with cold water, which effectively cleared away the remaining traces of sleep.

She wiped her face, still thinking about her friend. They had texted each other and talked to each other on phone regularly, but Jade was excited to meet her. Kara was a year elder than all of them, one of the major reasons all of them understood the concepts they were taught the previous year in their school.

As a sign of gratitude, they had gifted a bracelet which Kara wore every day without fail. Unable to tame her wild hair, Jade ran out of the room with a comb in her hands, handing it to Rose. After Rose was done braiding, Jade stood up and smiled at her friend. Her smiles came more easily when she was with her best friends, but no one surprised the laughs out of her the way Theo did.

As if on cue, Theo jumped downstairs. His dark brown hair bounced as he jumped, brown eyes full of warmth and love behind his spectacles rested on her. They were the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, honey brown with flecks of gold in them. Jade smiled at him and kissed his cheek, who gently cupped the back of her head. Just when she was leaning in, there was a chorus of sarcastic applause from beside them.

Jade drew back and shook her head at her best friends. Not wanting to give them the satisfaction, she quickly kissed Theo and grabbed his hand, dragging him into the kitchen, so she could eat her breakfast.

Jade knew he didn't eat his breakfast, wanting to eat it along with her. Theo was someone who was very caring and one of the best persons she had ever met. She felt she didn't deserve someone so good, someone who loves people with his whole heart. He always managed to keep her happy, to make her forget her dark past which always made her way into the present.

After putting the food into her plate, she felt lazy and decided to eat there itself. She settled herself on the granite countertop, Theo sat beside her not questioning the sudden laziness.

That was when Shay came into the kitchen with her phone against her ear, because of the commotion in the living room. "Yep. 'Kay. Yess. I will. Mhm. I know. I won't. Yeah. Yup. Sure. Yeah. Ok. BYE, MOM!" Shay shouted into the phone as she chuckled, shaking her head at the phone screen, smiling.

"What was that about?" Theo asked as paused his eating.

"Nothing much, mom was reminding me to pour water to plants, feed Leo, and the list then went to insignificant things such as 'Don't forget to say good morning to your neighbours' and 'Smile if you see someone you know' and all that," Shay replied, waving her hand dismissively.

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They walked back from the café disappointed that Kara wasn't in there. She was usually on time and never took leaves on work, and the owner too had told them that never happened. After waiting for an hour, waiting for Kara to respond back to their calls or to arrive at the café, they left.

Jade inhaled the aroma of fresh coffee one last time before closing the door and setting out into the chilly weather. They decided to visit Kara's home once, she lived there alone. She came to Blackwood for her studies, she goes back to her aunt's at Isle Aquarin whenever she could.

"Guys," Will called out and Jade looked back at him, curious. He was shaking his head at the phone screen, stopped walking. Before any of them could ask what was wrong, he flipped his screen so that they could see it.

"I was looking if Kara replied to any of our texts, then remembered that we didn't check those files in the drive. I found an article, which will be published tomorrow," he said, squinting at his phone before placing it on Rose's outstretched hands.

"The report says that a body was washed up on the west coast of Blackwood. They sent it for identification, and it turns out that it was Bennett Garcia. He hadn't returned home when he went out to visit his friend, and you guys can take a guess who the 'friend' is." Jade shivered, imagining how bad it might be for the person who discovered the body. Just the thought of strolling along the coastline to find peace but ending up finding something that would mess with your mind for years sent chills down her spine.

Rose sighed, "Is it Samuel?"

Will nodded, "The police checked the camera footage when his family reported that he was missing. He returned from Sam's house, was walking back home. He had passed through a narrow alleyway where there were no cameras. A blind spot. When he was seen on a camera again, his behaviour was 'peculiar' according to them. He had been pacing and clutching at his hair, hitting his head against the walls and screaming. Finally, he threw himself down a bridge and the current carried him away..."

"However it was, they knew the positioning of the cameras in our city. So, they must be inside the circle of police or are friends with people who are cops because cameras are very hidden in Blackwood. Very. It wasn't a coincidence that the injection plunging happened in the site where there are no cameras. A blind spot as Will said. And blind spots are way too rare in Blackwood. Oh, damn." Shay exhaled.

Jade turned around, shaking her head. Theo voiced out her thoughts, "Okay, this is ridiculous. Can't people see the connection! How Royale Pharma might be involved in this mess? Even if it isn't involved, isn't it strange that people with the highest positions in that company are mysteriously dying? We were able to connect the dots, and we are eighteen. It's clear that people behind all of this are careful. They might be paying people so that they would keep their mouth shut, or they have some people with big positions in government to steer the topic away. I still don't understand why we aren't involving other investigative departments from other Isles or countries to help us."

"Maybe because Blackwood had always had a spotless record, and they don't want others to know things aren't in their control at all. I mean, not only people in Royale Pharma but common people are dying too. Kids, adults, old people, everyone! If this was the reason, our government sucks." Kai said, kicking a stone.

"There might be other reasons, who knows?" Will said. Jade stared at the ground, which was wet and sticky. They were surrounded by canopies of multiple trees, birds chirping around them. They were on their way to Kara's house, and they preferred this shortcut which was peaceful.

Jade saw muddy imprints of three pairs of shoes, one of them in front of the other two. A short distance separated the first footprints from the second and third. But one pair of footsteps suddenly disappeared, but the other two followed. It looked as though two people were chasing after a person. Theo, seeing that Jade was walking away briskly, caught up with her.

Jade gasped when she saw all the footsteps disappear, car tire tracks replacing them. "Wait," Theo said as he bent and retrieved something from the ground, looking pale. It was a shiny object reflecting some light, on closer inspection Jade recognized it as a bracelet.

The same bracelet they gifted to Kara. From her peripheral vision, Jade saw her friends stand beside her, figuring out why she had been staring at the ground and walking quickly. The bracelet was way too similar to the one they gifted to her. It had been a handmade one all of them made, so it was pretty clear that it was Kara's.

Theo broke the everlasting silence, "Oh my god."

Jade's heart sank when she looked at the disappearing pair of footsteps and back at the bracelet again. The worst possibilities of what could've happened to Kara rotated in her head, the list was never-ending.

"Oh my god," Theo repeated, grabbing Jade's hand for comfort. She squeezed it almost immediately, glad for the warmth of his fingers. "Oh my go-" Theo started again but was cut off by Kai. "Goddamit, can you please stop that Theo?" he says, frustrated.

"Guys, calm down," Will said in a strained voice. "She might've dropped it by mistake when hurrying back home. It had been raining last night, and you know Kara hates rain. The other footsteps might've been recorded, whatever, after some time or before it."

Jade took a long breath, repeating it over and over again in her head.

Maybe she sat under a tree until the rain passed and then went back to her home, or maybe she didn't take the shortcut itself. Maybe her friend offered to drop her back home in her car as it was raining. Maybe the footprints were not Kara's but someone else's. But why was the bracelet there? Maybe she dropped it another day.

Why did the footsteps end abruptly? Jade questioned herself, desperate for the answer.

T  H  E    P  R  E  V  I  O  U  S    N  I  G  H  T . . .

"I hate rain," Kara muttered as she walked towards the small forest praying to god that the rain stops soon. She walked quickly as she planned on catching a bus back to her home town early in the morning.

The ground was wet and slippery, and the mud seemed to stick to her boots.

She entered the forest and was trying to avoid stepping into puddles, but she froze in her tracks when she heard someone scream. She headed towards the direction of the scream and saw two men, draped in black clothes holding a struggling figure, trying to get out of the grasp of the black-clothed men.

One of the black-clothed men spotted Kara seeing them and came running towards her. Kara broke into a run but the two men managed to catch her.

Kara tried to scream, but someone covered her mouth. She struggled against the man's grasp, she tried to kick them, also tried biting his fingers, as she tried to break free, her bracelet fell down. The bracelet which she loved dearly, her best friends gifted her that bracelet.

She was surprised that she had been thinking about the bracelet when there had been a direct threat to her life.

The man holding her injected something into her arm using a syringe, and Kara's world suddenly turned black.

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