I Found Petals

NINE

I catch up with Grace in the hallway, and give her a hug.

"Thanks." She whispers.

I smile, and pull out a bag of pretzels out of my bag. "Pretzels?"

She grabs a handful and stuffs it into her face, "What do you keep in there?!"

I shrug, "stuff for special occasions."

She nods, grabbing another handful.

"So um... what happened to Izzy? You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to."

She sighs, "if it helps with her case, then I guess I'll tell you; Okay so, on Tuesday I woke up and texted Izzy to meet in the library, like I always do. She usually responds but that morning she didn't. I didn't really think much of it then, so I did all the usual morning stuff and then went to the library."

"What time was it when you went?" I ask, grabbing my note-pad and pencil.

"Um, I think it was around 7:12."

I raise an eyebrow, "Don't they open at 8?"

"Yeah, um, we kinda duplicated the key?" She quickly says.

I nod and start writing, "carry on."

"I unlocked the library with the key, and the first thing I saw was well, blood. It was a trial of blood, and I followed it. It lead me to the teen section, and-" Grace sobs, "I-I saw Izzy there, but s-she wasn't m-moving."

I pat her arm, "Was there anything unusual there?"

"Um, there were d-dark red petals by her b-body. And h-her left hand was g-gone."

I stop writing, "There were red petals and her hand was gone?"

Grace nods, "yeah."

I slowly nod and close my eyes. When I open my eyes again, Grace is staring at me, "Are you okay?"

I sigh "yeah, I'm okay. It's just there's a lot going on, you know?"

Grace raises her eyebrows a bit. "Yeah. Is there something you're not telling me?"

I quickly shake my head, "no. I have to get to class, I'll see you around."

I feel Grace's eyes on my as I turn my back on her and walk away to my dorm. I quickly send a message to Alice and Kayla telling them to meet at my dorm. Alice and Kayla reply that they're on their way.

 While I wait for them, I clean the dorm. I put my books on my desk, open the curtains and start to rearrange the rug when I see a little latch on the wood floor, curiously, I move the rug to have a better look. There is a small chest, but rammed inside the floor. I take the latch and pull on it opening the chest. In the chest is pictures of people, in one photo there is a little girl who's holding a males and a females hand, all smiling. The girl is blonde with green eyes, the man has brown hair and brown eyes, and the woman has red hair and green eyes. Another photo there is the same man and woman, except the man is in a tuxedo and the woman is in a big white dress, her arm looped under the mans arm and a giant grin on her face. Then in the final photo, the same little girl is holding a cupcake and a balloon saying 'happy birthday'. I pick up the little girls photo, and realize it's Alice when she was little. I put it back in the chest and take the photo of the female and the male. It's a wedding photo. In the corner there is writing, Peter Taylor and Dawn Taylor on their wedding. I start to put them back in, when Alice and Kayla barge in.

"What's going on-" Alice says, then she see's the pictures I'm holding.

"This isn't what it looks like! I was cleaning and I-"

"What the hell are you doing?" She storms over to me and snatches the pictures, tears streaming down her face. "This is privacy stuff!" Alice shouts, taking the chest and stomping out of the room.

"I didn't mean to find them!" I call after her. I look at Kayla, who's shocked. "I was cleaning and I found them under the rug, I was curious." I quietly say.

Kayla comes over and sits next to me, her head on my shoulder, "I know you didn't mean to." She whispers.