|Doppelgänger| Five Hargreeves

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕𝟗

 My family and I had arrived at the street where the Dry Cleaners were once again. The car ride was much worse than the first one, since we were all feeling extremely sick and Ben hadn't really gotten better after he puked either. It was just unpleasant overall.

I got out of the van, and followed the others so we could get inside the building and get answers from that guy, but when we got inside, led by Diego, we weren't expecting to see the place completely empty. No clothes, no people, no nothing. Just the permanent structure of the shop.

_"Just...Just let me do the-"-Diego started speaking to us, until he realized it as well and was too stunned to continue.

We all got inside, looking around to see if anything was left at all. It was hard to believe everything was gone in just one night. My eyes noticed something dangling on where the clients' clothes used to hang. An envelope and what looked like a map. I approached it, Five doing the same as he had also seen it.

_"Well, looks like Sy flew the coop."-Allison spoke, looking around like the others did. I grabbed the envelope hanging, and Five grabbed the map. There was nothing really relevant in the paper in my hand, it looked like it was actually just an eviction notice. The map, however, was more interesting.

_"Or somebody got to him."-The boy added. That was a real possibility. We didn't know yet how dangerous or insane those Keepers were.

_"He did say he was in danger."-Diego added, joining us by our side.

_"Look at this. New Grumpson, Maine."-Five pointed at the map. A specific point, the one he mentioned, circled with red marker.

_"The hell's in New Grumpson?"-Diego asked, grabbing the map from his hand.

_"Maybe Sy's daughter, Jennifer."-That could be the case, too.

_"But in both cases, why would whoever took them want us to find them? We have no attachments to these people."-I asked, looking at Five. He furrowed his brows. It was hard to deduce.

_"Maybe that's where our dry cleaner scampered off to."-Allison added, seeming very tired to be dealing with all of that.

_"Yeah, or maybe this is all just one big setup."-Viktor said. He also looked stressed. Made sense, after the fight earlier.

_"Well, there's only one way to find out."-Five concluded. Of course, he wanted to go to that address.

_"Hell yeah. Road trip."-Diego said, grabbing his van keys from his pocket.

We walked out of the Dry Cleaners again, Diego going in front of us. Viktor and Lila held onto each other, feeling way too sick to even support themselves, Luther looked like he was struggling too, Ben and Allison also locked arms, Klaus was obviously doing great and Five was attentively looking at me to see if I would puke any time soon. I wouldn't. I think.

_"Really? Are we really doing this?"-Viktor asked, his voice was now more tired than angry.

_"Hell yeah, we're doing this."-Diego said, not even caring much about the state of all of us.

_"You do realize we have three small children, yeah?"-Lila reminded him, making the man turn back and approach her to talk. The rest of us didn't stop to wait, we just kept going back to the van.

Once we got there, I leaned on the side of the vehicle, a bit further away from the others, closing my eyes for a second just to try and calm my stomach and headache down. I felt a hand touching my forehead.

_"You have a fever."-Five said to me, sighing right after. I opened one eye to stare at him. My hand reached for his forehead too.

_"So do you. Do you really want to be in a van for 15 plus hours just to end up in a very possible trap?"-I honestly asked. Knowing him, the answer could vary a lot depending on the day, but he seemed so fixated with this case, that this time, the answer would probably be "Yes".