(18+) RED (Complete)

Ch. 44: Dickhead

"Did you find him?" Ruby asked with worry laced in her words, when the guys stomped into our house. Auntie Dorothy had been busy in an important meeting across the city when Ruby called her, but was now on her way home. In the meantime, Ruby and Frida made sure I wasn't alone, and somehow helped me stay calm and keep my pending panic attack at bay. Right now I was everything else but that, and I was definitely not alone. In fact, the house actually felt crowded with the four angry men in here as well.

"He's a motherfucking coward!"

"What did you do to him?" Frida snapped, trying to cut through all the testosterone and adrenaline that filled the living room.

"Nothing! The fucking shithead left town," Tim said, and André added quite a few colorful profanities.

"He's probably at their beach house in Point Loma," Rowan suggested, and got Tim's immediate attention.

"And where's that? I swear to God, I'm gonna..."

"San Diego," Rowan said at the same time as Frida yelled out.

"You are not doing anything to him! He's not worth it. It's enough that Benjamin is in trouble because of this. We don't need your asses in jail too, just because you decided to give him a second concussion."

"Concussion? We would do way more than that," Tim growled. Only Benjamin was silent, and Rowan patted his back to cheer him up. It didn't work very well. His eyes were so filled with smothering, conflicting emotions that I lost my breath when he finally looked at me. Then he turned away, and didn't look back.

"See? This is exactly what he wants. Setting y'all up against each other. He's been nothing but trouble ever since you started hanging out with him, Tim."

"Me? It was Yak who introduced him to our group, and I still don't understand why, because they've barely spoken since then. We're not even in the same school."

"Does it really matter?" Ruby cut in. "What's done is done, and neither of the barbaric ideas you guys have are helping."

"She's right," Frida said. "Think with your brains for once."

"We are!"

"No, you're not. Real men are too smart to walk around beating people's faces into the unrecognizable, every time they get mad."

Rowan was thinking hard, before it looked like he got an idea.

"Did you guys see the video?"

There was some nodding and humming, but Rory gasped in shock at how rude the question was.

"Ro! Mia's sitting right here!"

"I know!"

He cast me an apologetic glance, before he continued.

"What I meant was; could any of you see Ryan's face in it?"

"Why's that important? Everybody can see what's going on anyway," Frida huffed and came over to stroke my back.

"I don't think we could see their faces at all," André said.

"Not even Mia's?"

He shook his head and I instantly felt a glimpse of hope.

"But her braids are easy to recognize, though."

Fuck.

"But she can change her hair style. That way only people who knows her will..."

"It's too late, Tim. The whole school knows already," Rowan said and threw him a sour look. "But if we can see that it's Ryan... I mean, he literally recorded his own crime."