A R I A

"What are you drawing?" Lizzy asks, peering over my right shoulder while Zoe is on my left.

When I ignore them, Zoe takes it upon herself to snatch my sketchbook away, knocking my spare pencil off my ear in the process. She swoops it up from the floor and shoots me an innocent smile when I give her a nasty look.

"Well, this guy you're drawing looks a little familiar," Zoe taps her chin as she pretends to think for a minute before coming to her conclusion. "Oh, no wonder! He's Miles! Look, Lizzy, look!"

Lizzy grins. "Aww, our little Aria's finally in love," she gushes, pinching my cheeks as if I were some small child. "Look, she's blushing!"

I glare at her. "I'm not blushing. You just pinched my cheeks so hard! What are you, a crab?"

Zoe scoffs, waving my sketchbook in the air. I grab it and stuff it back into my bag, swinging it over my shoulder. "And stop it with this lovey-dovey stuff. I don't have time to get my heart broken. I have other things to do, like help find Hailey and dodge a murderer."

"Now who's the crabby one?" Liz mutters, smirking slightly.

I roll my eyes at her. "Haha, very funny."

"Why were you drawing him, then?" Zoe asks, digging her fingers into a bowl of candy.

I sigh and sink into one of the chairs by the chief's office. "I don't know."

With a snort, Zoe simply says, "Right."

When the chief's door is swung open, all three of us jump from our seats and bombard him with one million questions.

"So, Chief? Is there anything new?"

"Have the DNA results come in, yet?"

"Did you find out why Hailey's dad was there?"

"Do you know anything about Hailey, right now?"

The chief taps his foot, waiting for us to finish throwing our questions at him. We finally fall silent, quietly apologizing.

"We discovered that the hair tie you found, Aria, does in fact belong to Hailey," he pauses, letting his words sink in. "Do you remember where you found it?"

"No, Chief." A lie.

As he's nodding with his lips pressed together, Miles and Hunter burst into the station. While they walk over to us, I notice the plastic container Miles carries. It's full of cupcakes.

"Hello, ladies. Chief," He greets, opening the container. "Anyone want cupcakes?"

"Cupcakes? Why did you bring cupcakes to a police station?" Zoe narrows her eyes at him.

"Mom was craving them, but she made a few extra and told me to share them with you guys." He shrugs, grinning. I almost snort but I take one anyway since everyone else does, including the Chief.

"Where's Joyce? And Lydia? Weren't they supposed to be here?" Hunter scans the room.

"They're in another room, answering a few questions about Ethan," Chief says.

"Ethan? Who's that?" Hunt's face twists in confusion as he stuffs another cupcake into his mouth.

"He was Hailey's dad," I answer, watching his eyes widen in realization.

"Anyway, back to the topic . . ." Liz says.

"Actually, Liz, my dad just texted me. He's here to pick us up." Zoe looks over to the window, where her dad's car is parked. "Hunt, you're coming with us, right? And Ryan's already meeting us there."

"Where's 'there'?" I ask her, confused. What is she going on about?

She shrugs. "Give me a call after you leave. I'll pick you up."

"What about me?" Miles pouts.

"I'll come get you, too."

Um, what?

"Excuse me, kids," Chief interrupts, clearing his throat. "but I do believe we had more important things to chat about."

We apologize yet again before Zoe, Liz, and Hunter rush out of the stations leaving Miles and I with the Chief. He ushers us into his office, gesturing for us to sit down.

"So, Miles, I just asked Aria the same question, but she doesn't seem to know the answer." Chief pauses, adjusting his belt. "Do you remember where you found Hailey's hair tie?"

Miles nods.

Oh, crap.

"Uh, I think so." He says.

We're so screwed.

"Well?" Chief presses, retrieving a pen and notepad.

He's definitely going to blow it.

"I'm pretty sure it was beside a tree."

Oh my gosh, his stupidity paid off for once.

"It was a really tall tree," Miles continues. "and it wasn't far from the crime scene, I think."

Shut up, shut up, shut up.

Chief has his brows furrowed as he doesn't even bother to write anything down. Instead, he sits back in his chair and gives Miles an amused look.

"You know what? Let's just go back there to see if you remember where it was." Chief stands up.

"Wait, there was an officer who came over to us when we found the scrunchy. Maybe he remembers where it is." Miles suggests, stuffing another cupcake into his mouth.

Chief shakes his head. "He made the careless mistake of not marking where the hair tie was found. And that definitely wasn't the first time."

He doesn't need to elaborate, so he stops talking and leads us out of the station.

"Wait, Chief, can I bring the cupcakes?" Miles gives him the puppy eyes. I bite back a laugh and shake my head at his childishness.

Chief unlocks his car. He grunts, frowning at Miles. "Just get in the car."

●●●

"Maybe it was this tree . . . no, no, wait! It was this tree! Well, actually, it could have been that one, too." Miles has his hands rested on his hips as he looks around the forest.

I huff, stealing a cupcake from his grasp. He gapes at me, like I just snatched his most valuable item away from him.

"My cupcake . . ." He trails off, squinting at me.

". . . Is in my tummy now. Thanks, dude." An innocent smile plays at my lips.

While he continues to glare at me, Chief's walkie talkie starts to blare. The loud, unexpected sound makes me jump and bump into Miles, knocking the open container that holds the last three cupcakes out of his hands. When I look up from the fallen cupcakes and meet Miles' gaze, I gulp. If the Chief weren't here, I would be running for the hills right about now.

"Hey, Shortcake?" Miles tilts his head, giving me a creepy smile.

"Y-Yeah?"

"I'm going to kill you."

"I know," I state, backing away.

Thankfully, he doesn't get to, because Chief walks up from behind us and steps in between the two of us, blocking our view of each other.

"Alright, kids, change of plans. Duty calls, and it's an emergency. Think you can get home safe? It's not a long walk, right?"

Miles answers for the both of us. "Don't worry about us, Chief. We'll be fine. Won't we, Shortcake?"

Uh oh.

I can't help but blurt, "Yeah, it's not like there are any murderers lurking around or something."

"Or soon to be ones," Miles adds,

Chief gives us a funny look but shrugs nonetheless. "Okay, then. See you around, kids." He tips his hat at us before running to his car, sirens echoing throughout the whole area.

Tearing my gaze away from the car that is no longer in sight, my eyes widen when I notice Miles' creepy smile has transformed into a devilish smirk as he makes his way towards me.

I'm going to die because I dropped cupcakes. Yay.

With that thought in mind, I spin around and sprint deeper into the forest, cursing the weight of my backpack that slows me down. I don't stop until a minute later, when there's no sound of Miles' footsteps chasing me. Huh. Did he get lost?

Shrugging, I take this time to catch my breath. Miles is nowhere in sight. Is he okay? My first thought is I should go look for him, but then I realize he might just be hiding and waiting for the perfect moment to jump out and scare the hell out of me, so I wait a little longer, sitting on the shrivelled up leaves. Though sitting down was useless, because nearly a second later my heart is pounding again while I shift onto my feet in a crouching position. A gush of wind hits my body and goosebumps scatter across my skin.

But it's not just the chilly weather that makes me shiver. It's the small droplets of blood that stand out on the decomposing plants beneath my feet, each droplet getting larger and larger as I follow the trail. The sound of leaves crunching in the distance makes me forget about the blood. I scan my surroundings, hearing the footsteps getting closer and closer. But I know it's not Miles who's chasing me this time.

A figure not too far away from me is dressed in all black, from head to toe. The person's face is covered with a mask, so I can't even identify them. Even if they weren't wearing a mask, I probably wouldn't remember anything about the person's appearance because I drop my bag and bolt through the forest once again.

Only this time, I'm really running for my life.

●●●

Haii! It's me!! You're favourite stupid person(besides Miles) evah!!!

I am so sorry for the late update! Ugh, it took forever to write this chapter. I'll be honest with ya, I hate the first half of it, but I love the second half XD

So, who do you think is chasing Aria? Maybe it's a character you've already met, or maybe it isn't ;) Where did Miles go? That dude just vanished. I bet he's mourning over the loss of his precious cupcakes. Also, for those of you who are wondering, I definitely did not forget about his cleats that are full of cream cheese 😂

On another note, I will be away from Wattpad for a couple of days because I'm going on a vacation(yay!)and I'll be busy for a while, but I'll try updating my books again sometime before that.

I also wanted to thank you all so much for almost 20k reads!!! Ahhhh!!! I still can't believe this story even made it past 10k. I love you guys so much, honestly. Each and every one of you are amazing, and you guys always manage to make me smile or laugh with your comments even when I feel like my whole world is crumbling down.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention one little thing: GO WATCH STRANGER THINGS IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY, BECAUSE IT'S SO FREAKING AWESOME AND OMG I LOVED SEASON 3 ABWKWKFUIENXUQK

Donut excuse my fangirling or else I shall kill you with a really fluffy pillow.

Okay, that was a really long author's note lol, but yeah, I wuv you 3000 tons!

Chloe ❤