Broken

chapter thirteen

Ezra POV:

I spot Alison and Nicole in the Brew's café, sipping coffee and looking through magazines with each other; smiling, laughing, completely careless to the pain they've inflicted.

"Can I help you, Ezra?" Nicole says without tearing her eyes from the pages.

"Yes. You can help by telling me where the hell she is."

"Ezra, stop. We don't know where she is," Alison says.

"And why should I believe you? They should have arrested you when they first questioned you."

"You're the one who slept with a student," Nicole retorts. "What is she? Barely sixteen. And you were sleeping with her. I bet she loved the attention, didn't she? Did you finally make her feel wanted for once in her life?" She raises an eyebrow and smirks at me.

I suddenly feel sick. "God damn it! Where is she?!" I slam my hand on the table, alarming a few customers.

"Ezra." Caleb, Hanna's boyfriend, lays a hand on my shoulder. "Come on, let's go upstairs."

I follow him without a glance back; as much as I feel they deserve my anger, I don't want to rile them further. If they are responsible for Aria's disappearance, I don't want to add more fuel to their fire, it'd be unfair on Aria.

"I've been tracking Alison's and Nicole's phones and GPS and I think we should check this place out. They've been here a lot, and I mean way too much." He points to a remote location on the paper map he's holding. "Unless, they like to drive this far to take walks in the woods every day then this is our best chance of finding her."

"I can't go. I can't. You go with Spencer. I'll stay here."

"What?" He looks at me confused.

"What if something bad has happened to her? I mean really bad. I can't."

"If that was the case, they wouldn't still be going out there, would they?" he reassures, but I'm not sure it does the trick.

I nod half-heartedly. "Okay. We'll go."

"I didn't see Alison or Nicole downstairs," Emily says. She arrived an hour after Caleb and I called her.

"They were here. Trust me," Caleb replies.

"I don't even want to think about where they've gone." I pace up and down the length of my apartment.

"They might have just gone home," Emily suggests.

"Or to the woods," I reply.

"They could already be there, depending on what time they left. I mean-"

"Caleb!" Emily interrupts.

"Sorry."

I think back to the times I defended Nicole in the past; to my friends, my family, and even to Aria. Why? It got me nowhere, except here in fear of losing the one person that matters the most to me.

"Why did they hand themselves in?" Emily asks, a little sceptical.

"They didn't. Caleb's been tracking their phones for a week now."

"I hope we aren't risking everything we've done."

"Done? Emily, what have we done? We've been no closer to finding Aria than when we lost her, until now. We have to do this."