GUESS WHAT PEASNAPS?! I JUST COMPLETED THE NEXT FOUR CHAPTERS OF THE BOOK WHICH JUST SO HAPPENED TO BE AMAZINGLY EASY TO WRITE:DDDDDDD This new development may be because I planned out the next 20+ chapters so:P I would just like to let you know, but things get very dark, very quick *cue evil, bone-chilling laug-"MWAHAHAHAHA"* By the way peasnaps, thank you to all of you who have dedicated your time to reading this book, it means a lot to me, and this is just me giving you a very heartfelt thank you on my part, you guys got this book to #333 this week just to let you know:) NOW ONTO THE CHAPTER MY FELLOW PEAS:D

Lyla was investigating Evans when she felt the thump. The rooms were soundproof; the only way she would be able to tell that something was going on was by feeling the vibrations that passed through the house.

And she heard a pretty fucking loud one.

She went to go unlock the door, but it was tightly shut.

Lyla couldn't breathe.

She didn't know if it was truly physical because of her asthma or because she couldn't think. But it didn't matter because only one word was continuously flashing through her head:

DIVYA.

She continued to fight with the door, pushing and pulling until she realized that the door wouldn't give. Lyla looked towards her window and decided that the only route that would cause minimal damage would be to go through the window of her bedroom. She slid her window up, cut through the black mesh, and climbed up onto the edge of the window. Lyla grabbed onto the ledge below her and slid herself out. She stood on a pipe that ran just under her window, one that creaked dangerously under her weight. She knew the pipe wouldn't be able to hold her weight for long.

So she jumped and grabbed onto the branch of a nearby tree.

The branch snapped.

She fell through a couple of the branches, accumulating scrapes and bruises on her skin until she finally managed to catch onto a branch without it breaking. She pulled herself up and looked up at her sister's window that loomed ominously above her. She began to climb the tree, her hands leaving handprints of blood along the tree trunk and the base of some of the branches. The higher she climbed, the longer it took for her to test whether or not the branch would hold under her weight.

When one branch finally snapped, she continued to hold onto the tree trunk, while she stood on another branch, one that was a little lower than the one that had just snapped. She calculated an approximate distance between herself and her sister's window ledge, which she estimated to be about five feet. If she had a running jump off the branch she was on, she had a chance of making it successfully through her sister's window, which was hanging wide open, a dead giveaway that something was wrong.

She inhaled a large volume of air and ran across the branch that was creaking dangerously under her weight. She bounced at the very end of the branch, but right before it could snap under the added pressure, she leaped onto the ledge, barely hanging onto the outcrop of brick beneath her sister's window. The crevices of the brick dug into her palms that were streaming with blood. She blew out a breath, trying to blow the hair away from her face, although some of it just ended up sticking onto her face which was slick with sweat. Too weak to hold on to the ledge for long, she tried to find a niche on the wall. When she finally did, she precariously dug her toes into the gaps between each layer of brick.

Lya's toes were by no means thin enough to fit into the shallow gaps of the wall, so when she tried to climb up, she found that her feet fell straight back down, but because of the sudden loss of grip, her left arm wasn't ready to take on her weight again, so her left hand slipped. Once again, she found herself in a perilous predicament. She took her left hand, brushed it through the thick, jet-black locks that clung to her sticky face, and she imagined a set of monkey bars. Slowly, but surely, she miraculously pulled herself up, with her arms trembling under her.

When she finally felt the wall scrap against her bare hipbone, she pulled one leg after another onto the tiny ledge and slid herself through the window. She fell to the ground in a heap, but she immediately recovered. The room was deserted. There was no trace of struggle.

Nothing.

The room was just like Lyla had remembered from previous excursions in her sister's quarters. Lyla walked steadily towards the door.

It didn't budge.

Not one bit.

She closed her eyes, and leaned her head against the door, and proceeded to assess the situation that had transpired within the past hour. The door to her room was tightly shut, and half the branches near her and Divya's bedrooms were missing. Red handprints gleamed brightly under her sister's window. Her sister was officially missing. And her sister's bedroom was tightly shut as well. Neither of their bedrooms was locked, however. Whoever did this had either glued it or taped it shut, both of which were time-consuming, especially the gluing option, unless it was a special kind of glue she wasn't aware of.

She finally decided that her first course of action was to check if the rest of her family was kidnapped. She pulled out her JAO phone, which flashed a treacherous red notification light, warning her of low battery. She groaned and clenched the phone held in her right fist that was now covered in her slippery wet blood. She wasn't going to call anyone at the JAO, she decided. It was too risky with everything that was going on. Lyla still didn't know who the kidnapper was, and with the information required to pull off a heist like this on a well-trained assassin, the people(or person) behind the crime could very well be a fellow colleague(s) of hers at the JAO.

She decided to phone her mother.

Instead of someone picking up on the other end, the ringing was stopped by the traitorous vibration the phone gave when it shut down. Lyla couldn't help herself; she punched the wall she was sitting against. A hole in the wall formed around where her fist punched through. She peered through the hole, and she saw the main staircase from where she sat.

She got up, inhaled deeply, and started to continuously punch through the wall. Drywall and plaster fell around her. Dust rose from the area of the wall Lyla was punching through, and she started to cough. Her eyes were teeming with tears. She shut her eyes tight, and after about five minutes of knocking the wall down, she heard a large crashing noise and felt a large puff of dust blow onto her face.

Most of the wall had fallen down.

She brushed her dirty hands on the back of her shirt. She looked at them once again to check her hands, coated in crusty red and white wall plaster and other wall shavings. There was a small part of her mind that cringed at the sight of her bruised hands and torn and dirty clothes. She shifted her aching feet under large piles of the wall, and she then proceeded to step over the damage she had created. Immediately, she checked her and her sister's door. Both of them were tightly shut with an opaque, hard material lodged firmly between both the door and their respective frames.

She winced.

Her entire body felt like it was throbbing without ceasing. She could feel a migraine starting to form. It was evident that the kidnapper hadn't taken just Divya; she or he had taken her father too. The whole neighborhood must have heard her punching through the walls; she wasn't even trying to be subtle. She limped to her bathroom and cleaned herself with painstaking determination, wiping at every cut, even the deep ones that were clearly made by the snagging of a branch. She pulled all kinds of shit out of her hair, including bugs and other miscellaneous objects the outside world seemed to carry. She pulled splinters out from under the skin on calves and forearms. She dug the plaster that was hiding deep in her nails. The water of her shower flowed a bright pink around her feet.

After a while of soaking in both the stinging pain and the pleasurable flow of the water, she pondered the quick turn of events that had happened. She sighed while clenching her fingers and pursing her lips. Her sister was gone. She was actually gone. So was her father, and probably her mother as well. Tears threatened to spill from the ducts at the corner of her eyes.

She bit her lips and quickly toweled the water off her body. She wrapped gauze around her fingers and feet. She just wanted to sleep. Sleep and eat. Two things that she would hopefully accomplish sometime in the near future.

She was still in her towel when the doorbell rang.

She rushed to her room and threw on her dirty bra and shorts (no underwear) from the previous day that was still on her bed. The loud DING of the doorbell rang through the house one more time while she slid down the banister that bordered her staircase. Out of breath and wincing painfully, Lyla opened the door and standing in front of her, with his eyebrows shooting sky high and hands shoved deep into his pockets, was the infamous Grant fucking Blackwell.

Lyla was in no mood for the irony of the situation. Her face soured, and she slammed the door shut. Except it didn't shut. Grant had lodged his foot in between the door and its frame, and Grant pushed the door wide open in Lyla's direction. She looked at him harshly and said, "Now isn't a very good fucking time for this conversation Grant."

He looked at what Lyla was wearing with raised eyebrows.

She put her index finger under his shapely jaw and jerked her arm upwards.

"If you need to say something, you can say it to my face, not my ass," she stated threateningly.

He gave a sheepish smile and placed his hands back in the pockets of his black jeans.

"Look, I know I low-key kicked you out of my house the other day, and I didn't act as civil as I should have been as one of your cross country captains, but this is me trying to make things right, okay? I was having a shitty day the day you came over, and you were just...I guess the trigger for the rest of my inner dominoes to collapse."

It was now that Lyla smelled his breath. "Do you smoke weed?"

"Do I stink?"

"Do you smoke the shit or not?" Lyla crossly asked.

"On occasion, whenever I need my fucking shoulders to relax."

"Hmm." Lyla continued to look at him, his fingers fidgeting at his sides while shifting his weight from one foot to another.

"Apology accepted."

He looked past Lyla.

"So, can I come in?"

"Ummm, now isn't really a good time, sorry about that."

"Yeah, no I get it, it's fine," he said as he was scratching the back of his neck.

The tangible awkwardness hung thick in the air, evident by their nervous mannerisms.

"So...I guess this is goodbye?" he said, scratching the back of his neck with gauche.

Lyla didn't quite want him to leave, she just didn't want him to see the mess that her house was in. She unconsciously shook her head.

"Wait, so you want me to stay?"

"Ummm..." the gears in her brain started to gyrate.

"Yes, yes, I do want you to stay. Actually, could you do me a favor?"

The right corner of his lips quirked up to form a half smile.

"Sure."

"I know it's a school night, but can you help me clean my house?"

Picture: Amara Jaheem

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