"Should we go up to the door?"

"No, we have to wait and see if anyone's going in and out."

"But what if-"

"Awsten, do you know what a stake-out is? We can't just go blow our cover."

Awsten sighs, lifting the binoculars to his eyes. We'd picked them up from the store before parking across the street from the house we were watching.

The address lead us to a middle class suburban neighborhood; the perfect place to keep someone captive. It's not in a sketchy area that's too obvious, but not in a more upscale neighborhood where there'd be security cameras to catch their devious acts.

The house was cute, it was a white, two storey with the plastic siding and light blue shutters that matched the front door. There was a decently well kept garden along the edge of the driveway, spotted with flowers that lead to a one stall garage. There were small windows about ¾ of the way up, which Awsten decided we should check out later, to make sure she's not being kept there.

When we stopped at Meijer, we also picked up some rescue equipment we thought was necessary; rope, some first aid supplies, and as a defense, I grabbed a pocket knife. We have no idea what kind of situation we're going to be up against, and I'd rather be safe than sorry.

We also got some snacks, because what stake-out is complete without chips and soda?

Awsten dug his hand into the bag of Cheez Doodles, keeping his eyes on the house while he brought the orange puff to his lips. There wasn't much happening, but we were taking turns keeping vigilant watch so we didn't tire ourselves out. We were planning to stay here all night if we needed; I was getting my Vi back, no matter what lengths I needed to go through.

"Got anything?" I asked, pulling away from the files I was looking at. I knew every word on these pages like the back of my hand, but I kept hoping there was something I was missing, some dot I hadn't yet connected that reading through it for a 1,000th time would tell me.

"No, it's still quiet. I haven't seen--" He stops, sitting forward, knocking the binoculars against the window in an attempt to get closer. "I just saw someone in the window."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it looks like a girl!"

My heart starts thumping in my chest. Is it her? Is it Vi?

"Here," He tosses me the binoculars and I press them to my eyes, studying the bay window with the sheer curtains pulled to the side.

Someone walks across the room, hair pulled back in a pony-tail. It's the only feature I can make out since I can't exactly see inside the house.

"Let's go," Awsten says, shoving the bag of Cheez Doodles onto the floor and brushing crumbs off of his shirt. He opens the door, getting out and I quickly follow behind, ditching the files and binoculars, patting my pockets to make sure I have my phone and the knife.

I quickly sent out my location to Awsten's phone, that way if something happened and they had to search for us, the police would know where to start. They clearly needed more solid clues to find someone, so I decided to help them out. I wasn't planning on anything going south, but I wasn't planning for Vi to get kidnapped during the showcase, and look where we are now?

Awsten jogs up the stone pathway and stands on the front steps, pounding on the door.

"That's your plan?" I hiss, shoving my phone away and glaring at him. "Knock on the door and ask if they've kidnapped anyone lately?"

"No, but if they aren't expecting us, we can maybe throw them off course, get them spooked. We're gathering information anyway."

No one responds, so he jabs the doorbell, ringing it a bunch of times.

"Dude," We need a better plan than this.

The door is whipped open and an angry girl appears.

"Ashton?"

"Chelsea?"

We stare at each other for a moment and Awsten frowns, confused.

"You know her?"

"Yeah, this is the president of the volunteer club, Chelsea."

"What are you doing here, Ashton? Why are you following me?"

"I'm not following you, I'm following the investigation."

Chelsea's face pinches together in anger.

"This is my grandparents house, how did you get here?"

I start to reply to her, then stop once I actually hear the words she said.

"Y-your grandparents?"

She rolls her eyes, leaning against the door frame.

"Yes, Ashton, I visit my grandparents sometimes. This is where they live. Now that we've cleared up why I'm here, why don't you idiots tell me why you're here?"

"That can't be, this is the address on the form. The one you gave me with Flora's contact information."

"What? That can't be." I pull out my phone and pull up the chart with all the information. I show her the address.

"Well, it is. Care to explain?" She's been messing up the investigation this whole time, and I'm going to get some answers from her.

"Oh my god," she gasps, her face instantly going pale, then turning green. "Oh no, this can't be happening."

"What's happening?"

"I didn't put this address here, this wasn't the address I wrote on the file, I would have recognized it..." she's looking out past my shoulder, eyes unfocused as she realizes something. I have no idea what she's talking about, though, and I need answers.

"Listen here, you little bitch. I want to know everything you know. I know you have answers," I push my face close to hers and her eyes snap to me, startled that I got so close. "What's really going on?"

"N-nothing, I m-must have put the wrong address in. It was a simple mistake." She shrugs.

I sigh exasperatedly at Awsten who just shrugs. He's just as confused as me.

"You're not going to tell me anything?" I say, resigned that this won't give me any more answers.

"I don't know anything, Ashton. I'm sorry I can't help, I really am. It's best if you just forget about it and stay away." A haunted look crosses her face before she backs up, slowly closing the door. "Trust me, don't get involved. It's better that way." She smiles sadly before shutting and locking the door in our faces.

"Well." I turn back, walking down the steps and making my way to Awsten's car. "That was a waste of time."

"Are you kidding?" Awsten scoffs, shutting the door after he sat down. "That girl knows something. You were totally right."

"Yeah, but she's weird. It won't help if she won't tell us."

"She got all nervous when you brought up the address, did you notice that?"

"Yeah, what about it? She probably just doesn't want her grandparents address out there or something."

"Ashton, you simple, simple fool." He puts the keys in the ignition and starts up the car, pulling away and driving down the road.

"Hey,"

"Someone changed the address. She said it wasn't like that last time she checked."

"Okay, but that's crazy? Who would change it? And how?"

He stops at a red light, turning to me with a smirk.

"That's what we need to find out. This investigation just got interesting."

***

"Did you find anything?" I ask Awsten, sitting up from where I'd been taking a nap on the couch.

Last night when we went to Chelsea's grandparents house and figured out someone had been switching information around, so we decided to look into it more.

Awsten had been studying computer science, and he was pretty into computers. He had looked up some things on YouTube and got into hacking, so he knew a bit about some of the more illegal things to do with computers as well. He thought he might be able to track down the IP address of the computer or phone that changed things, and then we'd be one step closer to finding her.

"I got it!" he exclaims. He only went to work about an hour ago, and I wasn't expecting him to have anything, but I guess he was pretty good.

"Really?"

"Yeah," he swivels his chair around to face me before waving me over. "It was super easy. This guy only had basic firewall installed, it was so simple to infiltrate."

"Well that's lucky, I guess." I was wondering if this was too easy. Maybe they knew we were after them and they set this up as a trap, but I shut that thought train down. We would follow up with this person and see where that got us. "Who is it?"

"Some guy named Hughes. I'm trying to find a profile or something on him, but..." He trails off, doing some more digging. "Oh, Hughes is his last name. It's some guy named Samuel." Awsten pulls up a Facebook profile, and I stare at the picture. "Hey, isn't that..."

"Yes. It's Chelsea and the PR guy from the volunteer club. What the fuck?"

"This volunteer club is some weird cult shit, what kind of organization did Vi get involved in?"

I'm starting to wonder that too, what's going on?

"Can you get an address for--"

"Already on it, buddy." He starts clicking around, typing some code that I don't understand onto a black screen, so I sit back on the couch.

Was everyone on the e-board for volunteer club in on the kidnapping? What if Chelsea is involved somehow and she's been screwing with me because she didn't want me to find Vi? She always did hate her...

"Okay, he lives like two hours away." Awsten announces. I frown. Is it worth it to go all the way to his house?

"Think we should go?"

"What if we try calling him? I've got his phone number."

"Yeah, let's do that first. If he doesn't answer, then we'll pay him a visit."

"He probably won't answer me, he hates me." I tell Awsten, giving a brief overview of what happened when we tried to have that group meeting.

Awsten reads me the number and I type it into my phone, pressing call and putting it on speaker on the desk. It rings and Awsten grins at me.

"You're having fun with this, aren't you?" I shake my head at him.

"I know it's for a completely serious and awful reason, but you've got to admit this spy shit is kind of cool."

I roll my eyes.

"Maybe once we've found her I'll be able to appreciate it. Right now, I'm only concerned with finding her." He starts to reply, but stops when we hear a voice.

"This is Samuel Hughes, may I ask with whom I'm speaking?"

"Hi, Samuel? It's Ashton."

"Ugh." He groans. "What do you want?"

"Bitch." Awsten mumbles. I hush him before replying.

"Uh, well I'm looking into Vi's kidnapping and I was wondering if--"

"Oh, so you fancy yourself as the bobby then?" He scoffs.

Awsten makes a confused face.

"He's British," I scoff, covering the phone to explain Samuel's frilly words.

"Prick." Awsten sneers.

I nod, but uncover the receiver.

"Well, I'm sort of helping the police out, I guess."

"Right," he sneers. "Like they'd ask someone like you for help,"

"Listen here you pompous windbag, I'll--"

"What my friend means," I slap my hand over Awsten's mouth. "Is we really need your help with something and I was hoping you'd be willing to cooperate with us and just answer a question or two." I whine when he licks my palm and I wipe it on his shirt and he just smirks.

"I don't have to do anything for you, you're not real detectives." Samuel taunts.

"I know you don't have to, mate, but I'm asking nicely if you'd consider helping me out." I sigh, I hate begging this fuckwit for anything, but I'm willing to go to extreme lengths to have Vi back. "I just have a couple questions, please?"

He's silent for a moment.

"As nice as it is to hear you beg, I don't think so. Have a great day, twat."

"Wait--" But he's already hung up by now.

Awsten sighs.

"That dude is awful." He stands up. "How do you feel about a road trip?" 

***

Hello friends! Hope everyone's doing well :D Sorry it's taking me so long to update now, I'm super busy with my cousins that I don't always have a lot of time to write :/ but I'm trying and this book is wrapping up soon and I'm super excited to finish this up! I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am. 

Have a great day <3

~ashtonfortherwin