"I can't believe we're doing this," I mutter as we turn off the highway and onto a side road. Awsten and I about three minutes from Samuel's house now and I'm still not sure what we're going to do when we get there.

"Why? He should have just answered our questions, then we wouldn't have to come out here." It was about 4 pm, and we just had to hope he was home at this time.

"Yeah, I guess. Are we taking this too far?" Luke and Sammi's words are getting to me now. I'm starting to doubt this is a good idea. Maybe I am a bit crazy.

"No way, Ash, come on. You know as well as I do that we're the only ones who are going to be able to find her. You said the police aren't doing shit, and without us Vi will stay kidnapped and probably die."

I close my eyes, trying to stop myself from imagining that. He's right, I just have to be more confident.

My phone chimes and I look down, seeing it's a message from my therapist.

"Fuck, I totally forgot I had a therapy appointment today," I say, but I ignore the text. It's not a big deal, I'll talk to him tomorrow when I get back into town.

Unfortunately, he calls me and I feel bad ignoring that, so I pick up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Ashton, is everything all right?" Dr Lanthorn's concerned voice says from the phone.

"Yeah, uh,"

"It's 4:15, you're never late to your appointments. What's going on?"

"I just, forgot I had a session today and my friend and I went on a road trip."

"Hm," Is all he says.

"I'm really sorry," I apologize. I am, truly. I feel bad wasting his time and causing him worry, but Vi is more important.

He sighs.

"I understand you've got a lot going on, but I want you to know how important you are, Ashton. You need to take care of yourself before you can care for others."

"I know, I know. It really just slipped my mind. Awsten suggested it as a spur of the moment thing, and we kinda just got in the car. I'm so sorry to have wasted your time,"

"Don't worry about that, Ashton, what I care about is that you're okay. How are you feeling right now?" He asks, but I don't have time to do a therapy call right now. I don't want to focus on me, I need to get answers about Vi. We pull up in front of a huge mansion and I try not to sigh too loudly.

"I'm really happy right now, Awsten and I are doing great. We're just driving and chilling out, it's a lot of fun." Awsten gives me a look and I shrug helpless. I can't just hang up, he'll know something is up. I don't want him to know I'm still chasing after Vi, he agrees with my friends and the police that it isn't good for me.

"I'm happy for you, Ashton. Where are you guys going?"

"Uhm," I grab a piece of paper and pen and write Awsten a note telling him to make up some excuse for me to get off the phone. He nods. "We don't have a destination in mind, we're just driving." I say.

"Shit, we're almost out of gas. Ash, can you get directions to the nearest gas station?" Awsten asks loudly.

"Oh, I'm really sorry, sir, I have to help navigate, otherwise we're going to be stranded on the side of the road."

The therapist chuckles.

"All right, I'll let you go. Remember to have fun, don't let yourself be plagued by the guilt you so often feel. It isn't your fault, and you have the right to enjoy yourself once in a while."

"I will, thank you Dr Lanthorn."

"Goodbye, Ashton. Call me tomorrow, you'll be back by then?"

"Yes sir. I will, sounds good."

I hang up the phone quickly, letting out a relieved sigh.

"I thought he'd never stop talking," Awsten pouts.

"I know, I'm sorry I forgot it was Tuesday," I say. I have appointments on Tuesday and Friday, which seems like a lot, but only because there's so much going on, he felt like it was necessary to meet twice a week. After things calm down (AKA after we find her) he said we can talk about dropping down to once a week.

"All right, here's Samuel's 'house'." He actually does the air quotes and I understand why when I look up at the massive structure.

The mansion is made of white and grey stones and tan roof, the lawn is perfectly well kept, and I can count at least three balconies held up by stone pillars. There's a small pond in the middle of the deep green grass with a fountain surrounded by bright yellow flowers and a fish statue in the middle spitting water into the marble pool. There's more windows than my mom's house in Michigan has rooms, and it looks classy and elegant.

I can't believe someone like Samuel lives here. Why does he go to some random liberal arts college if it looks like he could afford to have tuition at Harvard bought for him?

"Okay, what's the plan?" I ask as we approach the house, walking up the black cement driveway and to the front door. "Are we just going to ask again and hope he's more receptive now that we're here?"

"Yes." Awsten nods, smirking. "We'll...ask."

"Why don't I believe you?"

He shrugs, ringing the door bell since the entire door is glass. It sounds like a bell tower chime. I'm almost a little disappointed it doesn't have one of those brass knockers like in the old movies.

"I'm going to do whatever it takes." He says simply. I don't have time to ask what that means because a man in a full suit opens the door.

"Good evening, sirs," He says in a posh accent similar to Samuel's. He's got short brown hair cut in military style and keeps his hands clasped behind his back. He's rather tall too, and I'm almost 6 feet. "Master Samuel is upstairs, he's waiting for you."

I look at Awsten who gives me a look, telling me to play it cool.

"Thanks, mate. Can you direct us there?"

"Very good, sir." He nods, sniffing a bit at Awsten who's wearing a ratty old band shirt and cargo shorts, but he leads us inside, shutting the door behind us. "This way."

He leads us up a marble staircase, white walls holding picture frames with beach-scapes as we ascend. It's truly a beautiful house.

"Master Samuel is in the game room, shall I direct you?"

"We've got it from here, uhm..." Awsten trails off.

"You may call me Chauncey, if you need anything else, sir."

"Thank you, Chauncey. We can find our way."

"Very well." He nods at us before going back down the stairs, leaving us to find our way on our own.

"Why did you send him away? We don't know where we're going."

"I didn't want Samuel to have him send us away when we showed up."

I nod, following behind him as we make our way down the long hallway. That makes sense.

There's white doors with glass doorknobs lining the hall, but we find one room with an open door and see Samuel sitting on a couch, back facing us, playing a video game.

"Hey, Samuel," Awsten calls, walking into the room. He looks back at us, a confused frown on his face.

"What the hell are you two doing here? I'm waiting for my friends to show up, you can't be here. How did you get in?" Even though he's just at home, he's wearing dress slacks and a light blue button up shirt underneath a grey sports coat. What kind of life requires someone to look that fancy to stay at home and play video games?

"Your butler let us in, he's very nice. You should give him a raise, he's a most helpful guy." Awsten smiles, but I can see the menace in his eyes. Samuel can too, because his eyes dart around the room, landing on the red call button mounted into the wall. He bolts towards it, but Awsten cuts him off, holding his arms out to block him from getting to call for help.

"No way pal, we're not leaving until you answer our questions."

Samuel sighs, eyeing Awsten and realizing there's no way he can beat him.

"I'll listen to you, but no promises I'm going to answer you." He says cockily, but one quick glare from Awsten has him cowering.

He's not very confident, we might be able to use that to our advantage.

"So, shall we sit?" I ask, motioning towards the couches and leather arm chairs on the other side of the room. Samuel nods, defeated as he trudges over to a chair.

There's a huge plasma screen TV hanging on the wall, it almost takes up the entire wall, and there's couches and chairs facing it. I see at least four gaming consoles on a wooden entertainment center and a huge cabinet of games. Behind the couches theres a pool table, ping pong table, air hockey table, and wall darts. This room has everything, I think when Samuel bends down and grabs a water bottle from a mini-fridge disguised as an end table.

"What did you want?" He asks coolly, having regained some confidence in the distance between us and him. I sat on a chair close by him, but Awsten chose to stay near the call button, just in case things went south. He leans against a leather couch.

"Like we said on the phone before, we're looking into Vi's kidnapping. We were checking out the addresses on the list of people who signed up for the lawn mowing service you offered."

Samuel begins to tap his little finger against the chair he's sitting in, then quickly moves his hand under his leg. He keeps his face blank, not offering any other reaction.

"And exactly what does that have to do with me?"

"Well, we followed the address that was given for Flora, the woman who Vi was assigned," Awsten fills him in. "And we were surprised to find out it was Chelsea's grandparents house, not Flora's house like it should have been." He still doesn't react. "Which is strange, because there's been some discrepancy there with that entire situation regarding this woman."

"Very strange." Samuel's tone is bored, but I see his foot tapping against the floor. As someone who's been diagnosed with anxiety, I can recognize the signs of someone who's anxious or nervous. "But again, what does that have to do with me?"

"Chelsea told us that she didn't write that in there. The cool thing about Google Sheets is it tracks all the changes that have been made since the document was created, and we traced the IP address that the changes came from." I told him, my tone light, but there was an underlying threat. Samuel pales and shifts in his seat, still sitting on his hands.

"The computer that made the change was registered to you, Samuel Hughes. I did a quick search and found out everything I need to know about you," Awsten sits forward on the edge of the couch. "So we want to know why? What would possess you to do something like that?"

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," A bead of sweat forms on his brow and rolls down his face, dripping onto his jacket.

"See, I don't believe that, do you Ashton?"

"No, Awsten, I don't. The back corners of the internet doesn't lie," I smirk, watching him gulp visibly.

"Now listen, gentlemen, I'm sure we can reach some sort of agreement," he tries to bargain, but Awsten is having none of it. He slaps the leather couch, causing a loud snapping sound and Samuel flinches.

"None of that shit." He gets up, stalking over to the boy cowering on the chair. I think Awsten realized the only way to get him to talk would be to intimidate him, but I don't want him to go too far. Samuel's still a person, even if he's a horrible little brat. "We want to know why you did it."

"I don't know what you're talking about, I n-never changed any document!" his voice squeaks, going up an octave as he shrinks into the back of the chair. Awsten puts both his hands on the armrest, pressing his face into Samuel's space and glaring.

"I don't think you understand what's at stake here, you little shit. We know it was you, I can tell you're lying." His voice is low and deep, and he sounds like some sort of Bond villain, he'd look it too if he wasn't wearing such casual clothes.

I'm about to stop Awsten when Samuel cries out.

"Okay, fine, it w-was me!"

"Tell me--"

"J-just get away from me an-and I'll explain." Awsten looks to me and I nod, telling him to back off.

He steps back two feet, crossing his arms and standing over the crying Brit.

"Get to it."

Samuel wipes tears from his face, sniffling before sitting up straight. What a baby.

"Some r-random guy came up to me at the mall last week and offered me a bunch of money to get into the volunteer club files and change an address. It seemed harmless, so I said why not?"

"What could you possibly need money for? A second pool table? A third Xbox?" Awsten scoffed, looking around.

"This is all my dads stuff, he bought it all. He doesn't let me do anything I want. With my own money, I'd be able to get away from him and do what I want."

This is the part of the story where we'd ask him what it is he wants, why it's so bad living how he is, but to be honest, I don't care about him. I just want to know why Vi was taken and where she is.

"Okay, whatever. So you got the money, and changed the address. That's it?"

"Yeah, it's all he wanted. He didn't say who he was, but he was wearing a hood, so I couldn't even see who he was. I didn't want to, his voice was horrifying." Samuel shudders, recalling the event.

"Can't we go back and like, control Z the shit out of the document and get the real address?" I asked Awsten, since Google keeps track of all the changes you make, the real address should be there.

"No, you can't." Samuel says sadly as Awsten begins to nod. Awsten tries to cut in, but Samuel speaks over him. "He was very explicit in his instructions. I was to copy and paste all the information into a new document with the address already changed and delete the old address. Then I was told to delete that old document and dump it from trash. It's gone gone."

I growl. This kid was an idiot.

"Well, I hope the money is worth it for you, because you probably lost our only chance at finding my girlfriend!" I explode, trying to reign my anger in.

"I d-didn't even get the money yet," He admits in a small voice.

I start laughing. Great, he really is just an idiot then.

"Well, good luck then, I hope whatever problems you have sort themselves out."

I nod to Awsten, telling him we should leave. We still have a long ride home and I don't want to be around this fuckwit anymore than I have to be.

We let ourselves out the way we came in, avoiding the butler as we walk out the door.

We're silent as we get in the car, and Awsten slumps down in the drivers seat, not moving for a moment. I stare ahead at the dashboard before punching it.

"God fucking damn it!" I screech. "We were so close,"

"Hey, hey, it's all right." He puts his hand on my arm and I relax, leaning back so my head rests against the back of the seat. "We made it this far, you're right, but there's got to be another avenue we can take. This isn't the end, mate, we're still determined and we're going to find her."

"You're right." I take a deep breath. I start drawing patterns on my knee with my fingers and take long breaths. "We'll go back to the files and figure something out."

"That's right." He starts up the car, pulling away from the side of the road. "Now, as my co-pilot, I demand you find somewhere for us to eat. I'm starving."

I roll my eyes playfully, but listen to his "demand" and search restaurants nearby.

***

Soooo we're getting closer. Did anyone expect Samuel to actually know anything? Nah. Me neither.

Anyway, I'm excited to announce that I'm starting a new book as soon as this one is finished. It's called Break the Bank and I'll be uploading a little overview and a book cover as soon as I publish this. (I spent a lot of time on the cover and edited all the outfits and everything on the cover, I hope you're all proud of me. Lol jk it's actually a mess but I love it.) So if you're interested in a gang/cop book, then go check that out! I'd love to know your impressions of it rn. :D

Have a great rest of your day <3

~ashtonfortherwin