Obsessive ~ Noah Foster [1]

Chapter Fourteen// Mr. Branson

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"Welcome home, Girl, Interrupted!"

--Jake Fitzgerald

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"So, we're playing Dr. Phil for Audrey and Will?" I asked Noah, as he pulled me towards their desks, where Audrey gave Will a death glare, as she pushed the end of her pen up and down, making a CLICK sound., while Will stared at her scared. "Yep." Noah said. "Also, we're working with them." Noah added. "Wait, what?" I asked. Before I could protest, Noah skidded to a stop in front of both of them. "Okay... so..." Noah started, looking at the two of them."Four person scene." He chuckled. "Or... maybe Audrey should start us off with an apology for that "sweep the leg" assault you pulled on Will?" Noah nudged Audrey. "Unlikely." Audrey looked up at Noah with a glower. "No, it's okay. I had that one coming." Will said suddenly. "You totally did." I said, looking down at him. Noah's grip tightened on me, and I winced, kneeing him in the leg. "Ow!" Noah bent down, and then looked at me with a glare. I raised my eyebrows, and shrugged. Will did have it coming. He cheated on Emma, that I know. From when Nina told me she fucked him. He recorded him and Emma doing it... well, I didn't exactly know if he did that or not, but-- whatever. "But." Audrey said in a loud voice, huffing. "It was sort of a dick move on my part." Audrey apologized. "Aw!" Noah cooed, earning a glare from me. "I think this is the beginning to a beautiful mutual tolerance." Noah smiled at them. We both pulled up two desks, and sat beside them.

"I still say we do Psycho." Noah said. I looked at him in annoyance. "No." I said. "Aw, why not?!" He whined. "There are four of us." Audrey shook her head at him. "So? I play Norman, you play Marion, Audrey plays Lila, and Will plays Sam." Noah clapped his hands together. "Are you dumb? They don't all have a scene together..." I sighed. "Oh, well, I guess you're right." We all sat there in silence, with Audrey clicking her pen. I grabbed the pamphlet that was on Audrey's desk, and started flipping through it, before something caught my eye. "Ooh! Breakfast club!" I nearly shouted. "Awesome!" Noah put two hands in the air, and I did the same as we high-fived. "We already know who the basket case is." Noah nodded his head at Audrey, and I snickered. "Oh, that's funny? Forty-nine-year-old Molly Ringwald?" Audrey teased. I rolled my eyes. "We all know you're going to play the "princess." Audrey chuckled. "Noah will obviously be the Brian the brain." I said, still glowering at Audrey, who smiled. "Will, Andy or John?" I asked Will, who was leaning back in his seat, watching us. "Uh, I'm gonna go with Judd Nelson. He's pretty cool." Will nodded. "Cool, cool."

"Shall we start?" Noah clapped his hands together. "Yes. Uh--" Suddenly the door to Mr. Branson's room opened, and two official looking people walked in. "Mr. Branson?" The man with the deep voice. "Can I help you?" Mr. Branson asked, trying to keep his voice low. "Yes, sir, you can." The man said. "We have some questions for one of your students. "Audrey Jensen." The man called, looking straight past me to Audrey. I looked at my friend in fear for what the man wanted. "We're gonna need you to come with us." The man said. The students in our class began to murmur, as Audrey grabbed her backpack, and stood up. Noah looked at me, and I shrunk in size.

After class, I immediately grabbed Emma's arm. She gasped, as I pulled her into the hallway, and into the nearest classroom, which happened to be an empty music class. "Arielle!" Behind me was Noah, who pushed us gently in, and closed the door behind him. "Okay, what the hell could the cops want with Audrey?" Noah panicked. "Maybe they just wanna ask her some questions about Rachel...?" Emma said, though it sounded more like a question. "That's a phone call, that's not a perp walk out of class!" Noah pointed out. I paced back and forth beside them, and then stopped. "Mr. Branson." I said. "What?" Emma asked. Noah sighed. "We found out the webcam malware came from his homework server and he's using a fake name." Noah explained to Emma. I went right back to pacing. "Wait. Mr. Branson brings his soup to school in a Thermos." Emma protested. I stopped pacing once more. "Doesn't mean he's not a complete psychopath!" I yelled, then continued to pace. "She's right. Villians eat too. Kingpin eats. The Joker eats. Bane probably doesn't eat because of his mask, but it's probably some sort of, like, nutrient milkshake--"

"Noah!" I yelled, throwing my hands in the air. I was beyond worried about Audrey being taken into Police custody. "Can we focus for one second." I told him. "Yeah, sorry." Noah looked down, and blushed.

"Well, Mr. B may have seen us on his laptop. If he thought we could expose him, maybe he found a way to implicate Audrey as payback--" Suddenly the door to the music room opened. "Mr. Branson!" Noah nearly shouted. Emma grabbed my arm, stopping me from continuing on with my pacing. "Hey! Hi!" I said, waving. Subtle, Arielle... real subtle. "Um..." Noah cleared his throat. Mr. Branson had a look on his face. A... scary, murderous look, as he walked closer to us. "Hi." Emma smiled brightly. "We were just talking scenes." Noah lied. "Well, that's actually what I wanted to discuss. And considering your propensity for speeches, I'm thinkin' monolouge." Mr. Branson nodded. "I don't know... I'm already with Arielle, and I'm kinda shy." Noah laughed nervously. "Mhmm." Mr. Branson scratched his stubble, and then put his hand on Noah's back. "Lemme show you some options." He said, guiding him towards the door. "Oh, uh..." Noah tried. "Sure..." He turned his head with a wide-eyed look to me and Emma.

Emma and I both inhaled sharply. "Bye." We said in unison. When Mr. Branson closed the door behind him, Emma turned to me. "We gotta do something."

"Well, yeah... but what?" I asked. Emma facepalmed.

xxx

Emma and I waited beside Branson's door, until Noah came out. "Do you think he's threatening him?" I asked, panicked. "Of course not, Arielle. Noah could easily go to the principal with that... If Mr. Branson is somehow... what you guys say--then he wouldn't give himself up so easily." Emma assured. The door to Mr. Branson's room popped open, and I sighed in relief. Noah came out. All alone. "Noah, what happened?" Emma asked, turning to him. "Henry V or Napoleon Dynamite." Noah answered, shutting Mr. Branson's door. "I gotta admit, Mr. Branson so gets my deep-seated hero conflict." Noah explained. "Cool. I was ready to call 911." I told him truthfully. "Sorry, partner... you're stuck with Audrey and Will." Noah patted my shoulder. "Wow, that should be fun." I said sarcastically. "I think maybe Audrey was right about Branson being innocent. Maybe he's not a psychopath. If Tyler loaded the malware for Nina while he was the student aide, Mr. B could just be this innocent pawn." Noah explained. It did make sense... but part of me still felt weird about Branson. The way he was too flirty with Brooke... or the way he'd give me those sexual glances during class... or was I just reading too much into that...? "What about his fake name?" I blurted. "Yeah, that." Emma pointed at me. "Oh, yeah, well... I actually got that covered. I asked Mr. B to input his number into my phone, in case I wanted to rap about monologues. I programmed this app to record his fingerprints." Noah pulled his phone out, and unlocked it, showing us the the app, with a magnifying glass going over a fingerprint. "If we can trace the past, we can find out if our beloved Mr. White is actually Heisenberg."

I raised my hand a little. "I actually don't get that metaphor..." I trailed off. "Breaking Bad. Walter White--"

"Not now." Emma raised a hand in front of Noah. In her hands, Emma's phone began to ring. From where I stood beside her, it said UNKNOWN CALLER. My heart thudded, and Emma looked at me. "Don't answer." Noah said. "That has proven not to be an option." Emma bit her lip, and rounded the corner to answer the phone. Noah and I followed close behind. "Hello?" Emma waited a second. "Audrey, are you okay?" Emma immediately looked at us, and put her phone on speaker. "Listen, I need a favor so huge." Audrey said. "Of course. What?" Emma asked. Noah and I looked at each other in confusion, and then back to the phone. "Go to my house, get the SD card from September 30th... and destroy it." Audrey took a deep breath. "And Emma... please... don't watch it." With that, Audrey hung up the phone.