ʀᴀɪꜱɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴛᴀᴋᴇꜱ ➸ Jacob Barber

𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒽𝑜𝓊𝓈𝑒

Y/N huffed shortly as she left the house, stomping off down the street, determined to find Jacob and drag him back home by his ear- if she had to, she would. There was no way in heaven nor hell that he was going to ruin their free day together. She just simply wouldn't allow it.

Her eyes flickered between her phone screen and her view in front of her. According to snap-maps, he was just a couple of blocks away from her but, she knew from experience, that snap-maps wasn't always correct. Deciding to make sure she knew where he was, she decided to cross-reference his location with find-my-friends, just to be safe. 

In case anyone might wonder- yes, she'd done this before. And, yes, she was proud of it.

Jacob's icon flashed up on her screen again, in the same place that Snapchat said he was too. "Great," She thought to herself, a smile spreading across her face, "Got him." If it all went to plan, they'd both be home in less than twenty-minutes, snuggled under a blanket and watching a movie. 

According to her stalking apps, Jacob was near a house on Main Street. Probably sat on a bench and scribbling away at some math problem, no doubt. Despite how weird he could be at times, she couldn't help but smile at the thought of him sat on a bench, cross-legged, and writing stuff down into his textbook. 

After walking through the streets for a good few minutes, dousing herself in the sunshine and narrowly missing getting hit by a car a few times, she finally arrived at the location Jacob was meant to be.

She stood on a street, right in front of a tall red-bricked house. The street looked normal enough, a few bushes here and there, polite neighbours waving to each other on morning walks. But there were no benches insight and no Jacob insight, either. 

Y/N sighed softly and looked around at her surroundings a moment longer before opening up her apps again, hitting the screen frantically to see if it'd made a mistake. But there was no mistake, Jacob's icon was only a mere couple of millimetres away from Y/N's. Just behind her icon, meaning that he was...

Y/N turned around and stared at the house behind her. There was no way he could be in there, surely? Jacob didn't have any friends. Unless he'd made some without telling her? But he'd obviously tell Y/N if he'd made friends! He'd tell her unless it was a girlfriend? She shook her head but couldn't shake off the thought.

Whether she was brave or stupid, she walked up the porch steps to the house in front of her, drawing closer to Jacob's icon. She raised her hand to the wooden-door and knocked three times before stepping back. Looking to her left and leaning over the side of the porch, she looked through the window. The room was dark, no lights were on. Was anybody even there?

She opened up her apps again and took another look, assuming that her location was just not working. But the apps were certain that Jacob was in the house. There was no way he was in there. 

Y/N took a step back from the door, abandoning the idea and just opened up her contacts and clicked on his contact.

The phone began to ring next to her ear, she sighed. "Come on, Jake. I swear when I get my hands on you I'll-"

She paused and moved her phone away from her ear, it still ringing out. She turned back to look at the house. Faintly, ever so faintly, she could hear a cheery-tune. Like Jacob's ring-tone.

Y/N went to the side of the porch and leaned over, looking through the window again. 

There it was, buzzing and ringing out from a coffee-table, it's blue screen casting a dim light over the sitting room, was Jacob's phone. So he was in there. Or at least, his phone was. 

After a few moments of debating what to do, Y/N headed to the front door and took a deep breath before trying the door handle. It opened easily, it wasn't locked. She walked into the house cautiously, trying not to make too much noise.

She shut the door behind her, looking around at the dark, damp-smelling room. Opening up her phone, she turned on her flashlight, being able to see better. 

The room looked as though it hadn't been renovated since the 1940's. Old patterned furniture formed a square shape around a television on the far side of the room, the only remotely-new thing in there. "Maybe this is Jacob's girlfriends house." Y/N thought to herself, looking around at the vintage room, "Or maybe it's her grandma's, who's gone for the weekend so they decided to use it for-"

A creak. Y/N froze, her heart racing in her chest. It sounded like it came from a door near her left, just slightly past a chest of drawers. She waited for a sound to follow it up, but no sound came.

She kept moving towards the door, keeping herself looking around at her surroundings. There were many framed pictures on the wall. Framed pictures of a boy, a baby boy. And there weren't any pictures of the baby grown up. Whoever lived here had a baby. Maybe it was Jake's girlfriends little brother or...

Y/N looked closer at the framed picture near the door, there was a small date scratched to the bottom of it. 12/08/2003. 

Was that the date the photo of the baby was taken? If so... that was a long time ago. No doubt that baby was all grown up and wasn't a baby anymore.

So why weren't there any other photos in the room? 

Y/N exhaled quietly, just hoping she could find Jacob and interrogate him about that weird house and his, most likely, weird girlfriend.  She placed her hand on the handle of the door she'd heard a creak come from moments before.

Why was she doing his? She didn't know. Perhaps she would have turned around if the whole girlfriend thought hadn't occurred to her. Maybe it was jealousy fuelling her foolishness. Maybe she would have gone back home already. Maybe she should have. Because she'd wish she had.

As she opened the door, she discovered a staircase heading down into a basement. Rustling came from the bottom of the stairs.

Y/N forced herself to take a deep breath before heading down into the basement. 

And there he was. Her heart soared for a moment out of sheer relief. She'd found Jacob. And then she looked closer at what he was doing...

Stuffing bloody clothes and towels into a bag.