Chapter 36: 36

Lee stared at the grey dot on the map. She resisted the urge to click on it to make it refresh, knowing that Lexi would receive a notification every time she did so, but it was too tempting and she clicked on it, waited for the spinning disk to finish and sighed as it remained the same. (Last updated eight hours ago.) By now it was dark, and the others had settled down to watch some TV, still believing that Lexi was just goofing off with Scarlet wherever they were.

Lee knew better at this point.

“Hey, guys,” she started. Christian and Sierra looked up but Elias was nursing a mixed drink that was ‘regretfully virgin’ in his words. “I think we should go find Lexi,” she explained to them. She knew that even though there was no audible worry in her voice, they’d know. This group had been together for so long now that they knew if Lee was anything other than charging in head-first, that something was wrong. They also knew Lee and Lexi had basically grown up as sisters, just a few houses down and basically seeing each other every day.

“Where does the location sharing say she is?” Christian asked.

“The asylum.”

A grim silence followed as they all had the same question on their mind. Why?

Not only was the asylum a place of pain for Lexi, considering she’d reported witnessing a murder there. There was nothing there to begin with.

Lee was the only one that maybe had an inkling of why Lexi might be there but it was too insane for her to even voice it. After all, Scarlet was just a normal teenage girl. Sure she looked like she hadn’t been outside in a decade, was allergic to sunlight, and mysteriously appeared out of nowhere shortly after Lexi described a monster eating somebody in the basement. But that was completely preposterous it's not like she—

A loud tapping noise on the window startled her and everybody else out of their thoughts.

It took Lee a moment to realize it was her duty, as local resident of this house, to figure out who. For a moment she felt a wave of relief that Lexi had finally gotten back to them. And then she remembered that it would be very out of character for Lexi to tap on the window. She usually just slunk in very quietly and tried not to disturb so much as the flies on the wall.

Two cat eyes that were a strange color stared at her through the glass. They were a very appealing magenta-ish–pinkish–reddish cherise that Lee felt was a bit familiar.

She went over, and found Scarlet’s pale hand there, tapping loudly on the pane.

With a heave, she forced the window open (it hadn’t been open for as long as she could remember) and Scarlet made a bee-line to get inside as quickly as possible. 

The group stared as the girl stood up from the floor and started to tremble.

“Scar,” Lee said and put a hand out to gently pat her shoulder, a gesture she thought the young girl (who Lee was realizing had dried blood and mud on her clothes) would appreciate but instead the girl simply vanished for a moment and her hand fell through empty air.

It was a disarming moment.

Lee swallowed. An uncomfortable realization was starting to creep over her.

“Where’s Lexi?” she asked. She held back wanting to shake the girl down just to know what had happened in the past eight hours. It couldn’t’ve been good. Lexi frequently stepped back from obligations but she never ghosted. Not like this. Not since her father had done the same to her.

Scarlet stayed away from the group, obviously scared of them

“I can’t–” she stated. It came out desperate. “She— they—”

“Is she okay?” Lee asked.

Scarlet hesitated, but nodded. “They– they took her. Because of me. I think— I don’t know.”

With a frustrated scowl Scarlet kicked one of the shelving units and the entire thing buckled with the force.

Lee had to calm her heart down before she asked. “Is she still in the asylum?”

Scarlet stared at the floor. Her expression remained one of grimness and fear. But she nodded.

“Alright,” Lee clapped her hands together, startling the others. “Get your phones. We’re going up there and finding her.”

Scarlet went to say something but stopped and went quiet. There was little she could do on her own.

The asylum was dark but the group could see a dim light in the same window they’d taken their first album photos in. Sierra gave them a signal to get down. They’d opted to avoid using their phone lights for the sake of stealth. Scarlet had stayed with them the entire trek up but it was very shocking because on numerous occasions, Lee could’ve sworn she was gone just to glance over and discover she just moved that quietly through the dead leaves.

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Their breaths curled in foggy smoke.

Nobody was sure about their next move.

“Is she in danger?” Lee whispered to Scarlet.

“Not yet,” Scarlet replied. The girl was listening intently to what was happening inside the asylum. “I don-t— I want—”

Lee put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “It’s not your fault,” she reassured. “Lexi isn’t dumb.”

Scarlet went quiet. “There’s three,” she whispered finally. 

“Three… men?”

“Two men and a woman,” Scarlet explained. “Three hunters.”

“Hunters?” Christian said a bit too loudly. “Do they have guns?”

Scarlet glanced back. “What is a gun?” she asked.

Elias gaped. “What do you mean, ‘what’s a gun?’”

“I don’t… know…” Scarlet trailed off and turned back to the asylum. “They have weapons, yes, but I don’t think…”

There was another silence. The group was struggling to figure out what Scarlet’s relationship to the situation was.

“Alright,” Lee decided. “We’re gonna go in there and get Lexi out,” she whispered to the group.

They drew into a huddle. “We know the rough layout of the building, and it looks like she’s in one of the same rooms we’ve been in. So we’re gonna go in through the front door.”

“Check for traps and things,” Sierra put in. “The noisemaking kind, tripwires connected to aluminum cans and windchimes and things.”

Lee nodded. “Yeah, and if there’s only three of them, theres five of us and if Lexi is okay, that’ll make six. Unless they have guns, we should be okay.”

“And if they have guns?” Ellias asked.

“Then we’ll have to reconsider,” Lee said. “We retreat, get out of there, get the police, I know they’re a pain in the ass, but this is Lexi we’re talking about. We have to do something.”

The others nodded, grim but determined.

“Does anyone want to go home?” Lee asked.

Nobody responded.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

Their huddle broke. There was a solemn knowing between all of them, somebody could get seriously hurt. But then again Lexi could get seriously hurt or killed at any moment.

Lee looked at Scarlet. “Do you know her exact location?” she asked.

Scarlet nodded. “I’ll show,” she said and turned toward the asylum.

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