"Are you okay?" Natalie asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I was still allowed to show up to our Wednesday meetings for the school paper. Dad allowed it since I was still with a group of people.

I went back to Natalie's question. The truth was that I was feeling annoyed, tense, and restless. But I put on my best smile for Natalie and said, "Yeah, I'm fine."

It was hard to be fine when I've been processing the biggest piece of information that I wasn't allowed to do anything with, all while Lillian was going on and on about something completely fucking useless. Or maybe it had something to with Cyrus, I don't know, I had been tuning her out.

Natalie sensed something was wrong, looking straight through my fake smile.

"You didn't need to show up today Row, I would have handled your part for you."

I let my shoulders sag. "No, I really want to be here. It's better than staying at home doing absolutely nothing." I didn't hide the frustration from my tone.

Dad had no update for me. I knew he was working really hard though, which was the most upsetting thing of all. He's tiring himself out and had nothing useful to show for it.

At first I thought, why doesn't he just knock on their door, have a conversation with them and see if he can see something from the doorway, that would be a probable cause to enter.

But he says there's no guarantee of finding anything that way, and if they found out he knew where they were staying, they would leave town for sure.

If this was stressing me out this much, I could only imagine what dad had been going through. Then, I got angry all over again just thinking about it.

"But then I was like oh my god that wouldn't make sense, and how embarrassing would that be? Ya know?" Lillian's voice cut me from my thoughts once again. I was getting really tired of her damn voice.

"Oh and then that reminds me of Friday's game. Don't you think he did so well? That winning goal was just AMAZING. Like I didn't even-"

"Oh my god, Lillian just shut up. Jesus, you have been talking nonstop since we got here," I burst out.

"I-" She was at a loss for words for the first time today. "I don't understand what your problem is."

"My problem is that I think you are very fucking annoying. Maybe people would actually find you interesting if you had a personality outside of obsessing over Cyrus. Find a hobby Lillian, seriously."

"Row," Natalie whispered. I looked over and she shook her head at me, signaling for me to knock it off.

The others were staring at me. "What?" I asked in defense. "You were all thinking it."

I don't why I said it. I really do not know why I even opened my mouth. I had always known to handle my emotions maturely and I really don't know what the hell made me tell her off like that.

I should have stopped right there and apologized, but I couldn't. They were staring at me and I was still feeling on edge. I felt that if I tried to talk again, I would just make it worse. So instead, I grabbed my stuff and walked out.

Yeah, real fucking mature Rowena.

And I was still on a roll of making bad decisions. Because I was ready and wanting to do something about the information that I had.

I walked out of the school and into the parking lot, snuck past Uncle Lio who was deep in conversation with his new crush, and made it to my car.

I had just rotated the keys in the ignition when my passenger door opened and Adam threw himself in.

"Where are we going?" He asked immediately.

"Damn it, Adam," I exclaimed, composing myself like he didn't just scare the crap out of me. "What are you doing here?"

"Well Coach shunned me to the bench again, so I saw you sneaking over here. I thought we weren't supposed to leave you alone, so here I am. Where are we going?" He asked again and flashed me a big ole smile.

"Um-" I cringed. "I have.. an errand to run. A very girl errand to run. It includes lots of tampons and other very girl things. You don't have to come along Adam, I got this."

"You can't scare me with that, I grew up with an older sister."

I cursed and then covered my curse with a cough. I was going to tell him to leave again but then I looked into my rearview mirror. Uncle Lio looked like he was ending his conversation. I had to get out of here before he noticed I was gone.

------------------

I wasn't planning on doing anything stupid, okay? Especially not when Adam was with me. I just wanted to drive around and see the place.

Until I parked.

"This isn't the grocery store," Adam said. We were parked in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. I didn't want to leave my car close to where they could potentially see. We were on the other side of a line of trees. It was the perfect place to spy.

"So listen. I have to do something and I need you to stay in the car. Can you do that for me?"

"Sure," He replied with a smile. But then he opened the door with me and got out of the car himself.

"Adam!" I whisper yelled at him when I met him outside.

"What? What is this place anyway? What are we doing here?" He was already waking away from me.

I walked over to grab his arm and guide him behind some cover.

"Okay, first of all we have to speak low. We can't be too loud because we're spying. You see that shabby-looking place over there?" I pointed in the direction of the dark and worn-down house-type building.

"Mhm," He replied, following my finger with his gaze.

"That's where they are," I said, turning to him to scope his reaction.

He blinked at it. "That's where they are..." He repeated slowly. "Uh-huh."

Then he gets up quickly, startling me with the sudden movement. He crouches over, wraps his arms around my legs, and throws me over his back. I was getting very tired of how often this situation has happened to me.

"Adam wait- please don't. Put me down, I only want to spy for a while."

"No, Rowena," he said. "I don't care what you want to do, if you get hurt on my watch, I'd never forgive myself. And then Declan, and Cyrus, and your dad, and your Uncle Lio are all going to take turns skinning me alive."

"You know I'd never let them do that to you, Adam. I'm not going to get myself hurt." I gave a huff of annoyance when he didn't stop walking and I kept watching the ground move from under me. "Can you put me down so I can talk to you?"

The pleading in my voice made him slow down. He stopped by the car and put me down, crossing his arms and waiting for my explanation in silence. I had never seen him so attentive.

"Adam, my dad is working his ass off to put these guys in jail for what they've done. He had to hear them threaten me through an illegal recording, he has next to nothing to work with, and he has to wait at least another three days for a judge who may or may not help him. This is killing him. I just want to see if there's anything that I can do to help him."

"But he wouldn't want you helping him, would he?" Of course the one time Adam was being smart, it would be in a situation as convenient as this.

"Not at first. But if we can find something that helps this case he'll get over it." It wasn't really a lie. I'm sure he would.

He took a second to process my words, breathing in and out while I waited for him to say something. Then he narrowed his eyes to me. "You'll stay behind the trees the whole time?"

"The whole time," I agreed. "and I have my dad on speed dial."

He didn't loosen the narrow in his gaze as he stepped closer and then past me, walking back in the direction of the trees we were crouching behind.

"What are we looking for anyway?" He asked without looking back.

"I don't know, I didn't even have a chance to see anything," I mumbled. We made it back to the trees and looked onward towards the building.

And then fuck, fuck, fuck.

I saw a truck and I saw a blonde head, the one called Marcel. He was moving stuff into the truck, looking very much like he was packing things into their vehicle. Which could only mean one thing; they were leaving town.

So, suddenly, whatever my goal for being here in the first place, I had to figure it out very very fast.

A/N: Don't worry, I won't leave you guys on a cliffhanger for too long :)

Adam and Rowena, the underrated duo tbh. We need more Declan and Cyrus scenes too, I'm on it people (eventually).

Thanks for reading! ❤️