Five

At 8 o'clock sharp, Scott pulls into the parking lot, his headlights visible from around the gym building. I wait until I hear the slight shuffle of his feet on the grass before I come around the corner.

"You ready to do this?" I ask.

He pulls something out of his back pocket and flashes a grin at me. "As ready as I'll ever be," he says, showing me the small case, he brought filled with tiny tools perfect for picking locks.

"Where the hell did you get this?"

He snickers. "I made it, just stole this little case from my mom that she used for tweezers and crap, then gathered these tools over time. There you have it, your very own lock picking kit," he says and holds it proudly.

"Brilliant Scott, now put it to good use," I say and gesture to the back gym door.

"Why are we breaking in here?" he asks, turning towards the door.

"Because, there's only two camera's in the gym; one pointing towards the front door, and one pointing towards the supply closet. There isn't anything pointing towards the change rooms, which connect the gym to the main hall," I explain, urging him to talk and work.

"So, then what?"

"Then, the door from the girl's change room leads right out into the hall where the office is, and there's a rotating camera that turns ever 10 seconds; 5 seconds one way, then 5 seconds to go around back the other way."

Scott gives me a wide-eyed look. "Did you search this shit up?"

"This isn't my first time breaking into the school," I mutter. I broke into the gym when I was 14 to try and get my remote-control helicopter back, which was taken away from me at recess when I was 'misusing it'.

I call bullshit to this day.

At the time, I lived next door to a guy named Phil, who was known to breaking in to many places and stealing stuff, so I asked him to help me get it back. He had gone to Ohio Valley since the beginning, and broken in many times, so he knew the place like the back of his hand, and how all the camera's operated.

I know for a fact; they haven't updated the system since.

"We have 5 seconds, where you will see the red light in the camera turn the other way, that means it's facing away from us. When that happens, we shimmy along the wall until we get under the camera, then cross over and run down the hall. There is another camera at the end, but it's angled down a little too much, so it only sees half the hallway, thankfully just after the office doors," I explain once Scott has the door unlocked.

"Alright, we run straight through the middle here, towards that door," I say, pointing towards the door with the female 'washroom' sign on it, though it isn't close to a washroom, I doubt there is a sink.

If so, that's stupid because we don't have one.

Scott and I book it across the gym floor and crash through the door, slamming it shut behind us. I picked 8 o'clock, because the sun is down and the janitor leaves at 6 o'clock, and locks the doors behind him, so for sure, no one else is in the building.

We catch our breath and peek out the door leading into the hall. I peer at the camera, seeing the red light facing towards us, and count to five in my head.

"Okay, go!" I whisper-shout to Scott and run along the wall, stopping just at the corner, in case the camera facing the gym doors, doesn't see through the windows on the doors. We rush over to the other side and continue down the hall until we reach the office doors.

I stop him just before we reach the windows, the door just a couple feet away. "There is a camera in the office, same as the ones in the hall, it rotates. This one is slower, it stops for 3 seconds at every turn, before it starts turning again. 5 second turn, 3 second wait."

Scott nods his head to tell me he got it. "It will turn to face the principal's office, and won't be facing the main doors anymore, we then have about 4 seconds before the camera catches us, to make it behind the desk. We can sneak around to the other side, and the file cabinet should be right at the end. I'll watch to see how far the camera goes around, and we might be able to reach the cabinet without being seen."

"Isn't there any other camera's in the office?" Scott asks.

I shake my head. "Only in the individual rooms, but they won't see us in there, just that one."

"Wow, our camera system sucks," he mutters. I just nod in agreement, though I would never tell the school that.

That meant they would upgrade them, and this whole adventure, and the ones I had in the past, would have never happened.

On cue, we run behind the desk and duck down, waddling around to the other side. I poke my head out and watch the camera, waiting for it to turn my way. I prepare myself to jump back if it continues swiveling, but it seems to stop just a little after the secretary's chair – but right before where we need to go.

"Yes, we're good!" I cheer silently, giving him the okay to pick the lock. Already knowing her last name, we start with the third drawer down out of the six and quickly go through until we find her file.

We he finds it, we pull it out on top and I type down the address into my phone and save it, before tucking everything back and trying our best to sneak back out just as efficiently and ninja-like as we did before.

Once we break out back on the side of the building, we both let out a big breath of relief, almost chuckling to each other.

"Man, that was a rush," Scott says, leaning over on his knees.

"That's all the excitement I need for this week," I add.

Scott laughs. "Don't forget Tammy's Halloween party this weekend, going to be plenty of excitement there."

"Why do you say that?" I ask.

He grins. "Because she said she isn't going to give it up, until Avery says she is going, and you know how persistent Tammy can be."

I groan as he walks away.

I probably don't even have time to warn Avery.

***

Keeping what I had done from Avery all week was torture. Every time I looked at her, I felt guilty. I know I invaded her privacy, but I'm desperate. In the last week, she has gone from getting better to worse than she was before.

Before, she started taking her hood off a bit more than before, showing her face and smiling more. But now, she's gone right back to wearing it all the time, she's skipping gym and disappearing at lunch, but she isn't in the practice rooms.

Not that I checked.

Every time I try and ask her about it, she closes herself off and denies that there is anything wrong. I've thought about showing up at her house and seeing for myself what goes on, but I think about how much she would freak out, and it scares me that she might tell me to get lost.

"Hello? Earth to Aiden?" Tammy waves a hand in front of my face, then snaps her fingers.

"What?" I ask, slightly dazed.

She rolls her eyes at me. "I was asking you about this weekend. Are you coming?"

"What's this weekend?"

Tammy groans and throws her hands up. "You're useless, Aiden Noel! The Halloween party, that I've been talking about for the last, like 2 weeks."

"Oh, yeah. I don't think I'm gonna go this time," I mutter.

Tammy instantly goes red in the face and her mouth pops open.

"Are you serious? Part of this party was your idea! You said you wanted Avery to go to her first party," she cries, glaring at me.

"Well, she doesn't want to go, and I'm not really in the party mood."

She continues to go off, but I tune her out, my eyes scanning the cafeteria for any sign of Avery. This is the third lunch in a row she has missed.

I slump my head on the table and remain like this for the rest of lunch, continuing to go about the day in a cloud of misery. For some reason, whenever Avery isn't around, I feel like a bag of crap. I have no motivation or energy to do anything, besides mope and wonder where she is.

What is wrong with me?

Maybe going to Tammy's party is just what I need, I haven't gotten laid in a very long time, it's a bit over due at this point. I send her a quick text, telling her I will go. She responds with a bunch of happy emoji's, and other weird ones I don't bother paying attention to.

Even when I go home after school, still not seeing Avery in gym or in the hall, I can't help but feel completely against going, wanting nothing more than to flop back on my bed and lie there until Monday, when I can see her again.

Stop it! What are you thinking?

I don't need a girl to function. I'm perfectly capable of going to a party, and drinking my ass off, and hopefully any thought of Avery for the night.

Regardless of that pact, I'm still checking my phone every five minutes, hoping to see a text from her, or a missed call.

When I finally get to Tammy's place, I shove my phone in my back pocket, where I tend to forget it's there, and run straight for her large kitchen and equally large variety of alcohol.

I take shots of whatever type of liquor I can find, until Scott comes bustling in, waving his hands around.

"Whoa, champ, slow down there. The night is still young," he says, taking the shot out of my hand and sliding the bottle of tequila over. "You feeling alright, man?"

"I'll be fine once I'm hammered, give me the drink," I say and stumble forward, the effects already hitting me; hard.

He pulls it further away. "Seriously, Aiden, you just got here and you're already downing shots. What the hell is going on with you? You're acting like–"

I shove him, spilling the shot all over the both of us.

"Like what? Like a different person?" I cry, the anger flaring in me. "Maybe because I am a different person! Everyone has expected me to be the same person I was before – before I was locked up for trying to be a fucking hero!"

Even though the music is still playing, the room goes silent; all eyes on me.

I just blew my secret, to probably the entire school.

Without thinking, I shove Scott out of the way again and run for the door, ignoring his calls behind me. I keep running down the street, until I can no longer hear the pounding bass or Scott's voice.

I take my phone out and go to my notes, my brain functioning on its own. I pull up the address and start walking, not caring to stop at a bus stop. I'm going to need to wear off this massive buzz some way.

Before I know it, I'm standing outside the shabby looking house, with the falling apart porch and rusted door. I check the time; almost 8 o'clock, I can maybe manage to talk to her for a few minutes.

With heavy steps, I climb the porch and knock on the door. I hear her call from inside that she'll get it, before the door opens a crack.

"Avery?" I ask, just in case I'm still a little drunk.

Her startling eyes widen and she rushes out the door and closes it.

"Aiden, what the hell are you doing here? How did you find out where I live?" she cries, whispering at the same time.

"I expected you to get mad," I say, my voice coming out a little slurred.

"Are you drunk?" she asks.

"Not really, just a little tipsy. I managed to find your place, didn't it?"

She glares at me, and for the first time, I feel a little intimidated.

"How did you find my house?" she asks, her jaw clenched.

"That's a secret, but I did. So, now you have no choice but to let me come over–" I'm cut off when the door is swung open, banging against the wall. A large, burly looking man comes out, dressed in a filthy muscle shirt and faded blue jogging pants.

"Avery, what the fuck is going on? Get back inside!" he shouts, not seeing me standing behind the post. He stumbles down the steps, then spots me, but he only seems to get angrier.

"Who the hell is this? You brought someone over here? What did I say about guests–" he starts walking towards her slowly.

Avery throws her hands up, but doesn't back away. "He was just stopping by to give me something I left at school, he isn't staying."

The man glares at me and grits his teeth, turning around and stumbling back inside, slamming the door so hard I swear I hear the wood split a little.

"Is that your dad?" I ask, feeling the anger bubble in my stomach, thinking she lives with that thing.

"Aiden, please go home, you shouldn't have come here," she says and starts pushing me back down the path.

"Avery, are you serious? After seeing that, I'm not leaving. That guys looks like a major dick."

"Well, that major dick is my dad, so please you need to leave. He isn't going to do anything to me, I promise."

I try and push against her, push she is surprisingly strong.

"Will I see you at school tomorrow?" I ask, hating how desperate my voice sounds. She doesn't answer until I'm at the end of the driveway.

"Yes, I'll see you tomorrow," she says and runs back inside. I hear the heavy lock, even from where I'm standing, and my heart sinks with its fall.

There is definitely not something right here.

***

I anxiously wait for Avery to show up in the morning, keeping my eyes glued down the hall towards the front door, where I know she will eventually turn around. I constantly check my watch, ignoring the odd stares everyone was giving me.

I know I look like a train wreck. I barely got any sleep, texting and calling Avery all night to make sure she was okay, but her phone was off. After that, I just laid in bed, wide awake. I just wanted morning to come, so I could see her.

But as the minutes ticked by, the crowd of students grew thinner, and there is still so sign of her.

Is she not showing up?

That just makes me worry more.

I make it to lunch without seeing her in the first period, or anywhere in the hall. Our English teacher tells us we will be starting a partner project tomorrow, and had everyone pair off, but I stayed still, looking at Avery's empty seat.

She was the one only who didn't show up, and therefore the only one left without a partner. I rushed to the teacher and asked if she could be my partner, saying I have her number and home address, I could bring her the information if she isn't here tomorrow.

The teacher agreed without an issue, since she was going to need a partner either way, and I was the only one left, even Scott paired off with Angela, a girl he's had his eyes on for a while now.

At lunch, I'm even more of a mess than this morning. Tammy notices right away, pestering me with questions the entire time. I stay slumped there, staring at the empty seat next to me, where Avery usually sits.

"It's just one day," Tammy says, giving me a sympathetic frown.

"What are you talking about?" Scott pipes up, lifting his head from his phone for the first time. I have a feeling he scored Angela's number, judging by the goofy grin that keeps appearing on his face.

Tammy scoffs and rolls her eyes. "You're oblivious."

Scott frowns and takes a look around, finally noticing our group is missing a person. "Oh, where's Avery?"

I just grumble and walk off, not in the mood for small talk or anymore pestering questions from Tammy and now possibly Scott. I hear them calling after me, Scott asking Tammy what's wrong, before the doors slam.

I walk the halls aimlessly for the rest of lunch, finding myself walking by the practice rooms. I know she isn't here, but my feet for some reason took me here. I pause and look into the room briefly before continuing on, deciding it was probably best to just skip the rest of the day.

If my father asked why I was home early, I could just blame it on the adjusting problem he claimed I had last week. He pulled me aside after I had mentioned Avery to him, and tried starting the conversation off casually; asking me how I'm doing, how school is going.

I told him everything was fine, that I'm still good friends with Scott and Tammy, and that Avery has been added to our group as well. When I said that, I saw the frown flash across his lips, as much as he had tried to hide it.

He told me he thought I wasn't adjusting well, and that I don't seem like myself. Which to that I told him, I'm not myself. I don't know how many times I had to explain that to everyone.

After my outburst with Scott, which has yet to be discussed, no one has looked at me the same. All the girls who flaunted after me before, don't even follow me on Instagram or Facebook anymore, not that I cared anyway. They went to that lengths, to make a point that is loud and clear at this point.

I'm a piranha in the hall. The only people who don't look at me like I'm an alien, or I might stab them, are Scott, Tammy – and Avery. But she still doesn't know, she thankfully wasn't there.

But something in me knows she wouldn't look at me like that if she did know. Maybe it's just hope; a false hope. Because the voice in the back of my head is telling me she would look at me like that. She would be disgusted and scared of me like everyone else.

A pain tears at my chest when I think of that. I can take the school thinking that about me, hell I could probably handle the entire town giving me looks of terror and disgust – but I don't think I could handle if Avery ever thought that.

She is the fresh start I was hoping for when I came back. She doesn't know who I am, or who I was. I don't have to pretend like I'm okay, or revert to the way I was before.

I'm perfectly fine the way I am. She has never made me feel different.

Even my own father doesn't feel that way, or my friends.

They want me to be the same, cheerful, carefree kid that didn't know what it felt like to sit alone in complete dark and silence, with nothing but the nagging, creeping thoughts to keep you company.

No one knows how eventually, those thoughts become real, and they take on real forms in the shadows of both your eyes and mind. They take over your conscious, planting seeds of negative thoughts that you carry with you long after the light has banished them – for the time being.

The bus jolts to a stop and shakes off my thoughts. I peer at my house as I approach it, thanking god that my father's car isn't in the driveway yet. I run inside and quickly change into something more comfortable and charge my phone a bit. I grab a pair of headphones and my running shoes, and decide to go for a run until my father gets back, and pretend I jogged home.

In reality, school isn't that far, but it is a decent walk. A jog or run, maybe not, and my father doesn't know how athletic I have become since juvie.

I start off in a light job, having no actual destination yet, just jogging along the path choosing a song. Once I find the perfect work-out playlist on Spotify, I jam my headphones and quicken my pace a little.

Half-way through my run, my mind completely clear, I realize I'm running in the direction of Avery's house, the route imprinted into my mind. I stop and shake my head, deciding to turn and cross the street.

But it's no use. Now my mind is covered in thoughts of her.

Where is she? Is she okay? Is she safe? Is that ass-hat really not going to hurt her?

I want to believe her, that if she really was in danger, that she would tell me or someone. But something in me just knows that I'm wrong, I shouldn't ignore this. I can't ignore this. Since the day I saw her, I saw something different. I still don't know what it is, but now I can tell it might now be something good.

It might explain why she changed when she moved here, why she became so quiet and reserved.

I start running harder, as if I'm trying to out run my thoughts. The harder I push, the farther the thoughts become. I keep going until I'm back on my street, pausing at the corner to catch my breath, now drenched in sweat.

I can vaguely see my father's car in the driveway now, meaning I had to have been running for at least two hours. My father is in the living room, coat draped over the arm of the couch and his shoes kicked off at the door.

"Hey, dad."

He smiles warmly at me. "Hey, Aiden, how was your Halloween?" he asks, his eyes flickering back to the football game on the TV.

"It was good, Tammy threw a party," I said, walking into the kitchen to down a bottle of water. I hear my father hum from the couch, knowing he isn't even looking in my direction.

I let the conversation drop and head to my room, collapsing on my bed as soon as I shut the door. My eyes start to close without any effort, and I don't have the strength to fight the exhaustion that overcomes me.

I pray the next morning that Avery shows up to school. I try texting her a couple more times in the morning, but still no response. I didn't bother calling – her voicemail is full.

As soon as I enter the school, I rush straight for her locker, and a huge weight is lifted off my chest when I see her familiar hooded head, hunched over her locker, looking smaller than before if possible.

I approach her carefully, trying to peek at her face before she notices me, but she is covering it more than usual.

"Avery?" I quietly call out, but it still seems to startle her. She jumps back and briefly looks up at me, her hair shielding the right side of her face.

She quickly turns back to her locker, mumbling a 'hello'.

"Avery, are you okay?"

She nods her head.

"Why aren't you looking at me then?" I ask, moving my hand towards her hood. She pulls away, but she's too slow, and I grab the top of her hood to pull it down – revealing the hand size bruise covering her cheek and temple.

Rage flares in me, and I move to grab her face gently in mine. She flinches away from me, tearing at my heart even more, but I don't move away. I won't allow her to pull away from me this time, not after seeing that.

"What the hell happened?" I growl through clenched teeth. "You said he wouldn't hurt you."

"He didn't, I did this to myself. We're renovating our stairs; my shoe caught a nail and I tripped going up and hit my face off the wooden step. Honestly, it's not as bad as it looks," she says, trying to smile through glazed eyes.

"Not as bad as it looks?" I practically shriek. "Avery, are you kidding me? There are no way stairs did that to you."

"Aiden, I'm fine, I promise. Please, don't make a big deal out of it, it will heal before the end of the week." She closes her locker and starts walking down the hall.

She is shutting herself down again. It's painfully obvious that something isn't right; why can't she just tell me? I can't expect her to trust me that well, maybe that's the reason why.

I haven't given her any reason to trust me.

Hell, we've barely hung out besides school, and the couple times we were able to go out when we first met. Ever since then, she has never agreed to go anywhere with me after school, always claiming she is needed at home.

Is that really the case? And if so, what could they possibly need her there for every night? Who are the parents in that household? Them, or her?

Regardless, no matter how much she pushes me to let this go, it isn't happening this time. I'm going to keep pushing, until I find out what she is trying so hard to hide from me and everyone else.

Even if I lose her in the end.