Crazed Minds | ✔️

forty three

"There's a battle ahead."
-Don't Dream It's Over, Crowded House
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Alec

"I can't hear her anymore."

Seth stops when I do and looks around. The corridor we are standing in is completely empty. I don't know what time it is- sometime late at night- but it feels like we've been searching for hours.

I don't want to believe that Liv and Jasper are together. Just thinking about it makes my hands tense with anger. I guess I thought Liv chose me over him.

Maybe I'd thought wrong.

Seth looks exhausted and frustrated at the same time, which doesn't seem right on his face made to have a childish smile on it. He sighs heavily, shoulders slumping a little.

"Dude, I hate to break it to you, but maybe she's not lost," Seth says. "Maybe you just don't want to admit she's with-"

"She's not with Jasper!" I interrupt in a loud voice.

He puts his hands up in surrender and replies calmly, "Okay, this freak-out you're having right now is not a good colour on you."

I sigh and I'm about to respond when Rosa walks down the corridor, eyes frantically scanning her surroundings.

When she sees us, she stops abruptly and grins a fixed grin. "Boys, what are you doing up?" It must be after curfew, but she doesn't seem too concerned about scolding us.

Seth puts on his best grin and greets, "Hey, Miss Rosa. We're looking for our friend, she seems to have gone missing."

Rosa looks away quickly, brushing her pitch black hair out of her eyes. When she meets our gaze again after a split second, she replies in a forced-calm voice, "And your friend's name?"

"Liv. Well, Olivia," Seth responds in his light, charming voice that makes a lot of the girls here swoon.

She freezes for a split second but it's enough. Rosa knows something. "Sorry, boys, I can't help you. I think you should be heading off to bed now."

I share a look with Seth, who shrugs passively, and then I turn back to Rosa. "Goodnight then."

She smiles briefly and nods, before scooting past us and speed-walking down the corridor.

"Okay, I'll catch you at breakfast-"

"We need to follow her," I interrupt Seth, who had begun to walk up the stairs to his dorm. I watch Rosa's disappearing form.

Seth makes a face, standing beside me again. "For the love of-"

I grab his arm and pull him along. "Come on."

We tiptoe behind her but she seems too focused on wherever she's going to realise she's being followed. She makes it outside and rounds the school on the opposite side to where we normally walk to get to the gardens. The storm is stronger than earlier, rain crashing on the ground and the night is unclear, not a star in sight. My mum used to tell me that starless nights aren't good. Alec, the night sky should be full of stars, when they're not, it's a sign that something is wrong.