DERANGED

Twenty Four: Paranoid

Lexi's POV

Luke and I had gone out for a drive late last night, and we came back to Sam and I's dorm broken into, and Luke and Jc's as well. Jc was in their dorm room at the time and apparently the guys were looking for me. Michael called me shortly after and told us who they were. Apparently it was Kian's friends from wherever his hometown is, and they weren't happy that he's behind bars and came looking for me, since I was the one who got him locked up. He also told us that Theo's brother is looking for Sam. 

Now, it's almost 1 pm the next day and Luke and I are heading to the Diamond Hotel downtown. Sam, Noah and Michael will be staying there, where Theo's brother won't look for Sam, and she thought it'd be safe if Luke and I stayed there too. I haven't had a lot of time to process all this, as Luke and I ended up staying the night in my friend Paul's dorm room. I felt bad that I couldn't explain the whole story to Paul and why we couldn't stay in our own rooms but he was understanding about it. When we woke up, we quickly packed a few bags from my room and Luke's room and left campus. 

"Are you doing okay?" Luke asked me. We hadn't talked much the whole ride. 

"I don't know... I'm scared." I shook my head. 

"I'm gonna protect you at all costs, baby. None of those guys are gonna lay a finger on you." He reassured me. I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. 

"Thank you." I said quietly. I looked out the window and saw that we were in a crowded city, with buildings so close to each other that there seemed to be only a couple feet in between them. 

"I think it's going to be pretty hard to find someone here." Luke said, and I understood now why Michael had chosen a hotel in this location. 

"What if they find out we're here though? I mean we're only like 20 minutes from school." I asked, suddenly getting paranoid, thinking about what could happen.

"I don't know, baby. But we'll have each other no matter what." He said.

"Yeah... I'm glad I have you. Like I don't know how I could do all this without you." I told him. 

"I'm gonna be with you always, Lexi... for now, forever." He smiled a little. 

"I love you." I smiled. 

"I love you more." He responded, as he turned into the parking lot of the hotel. We grabbed all of our bags and walked into the lobby. The lady at the front desk was about to help us when Sam walked into the lobby from the stairs. 

"Hey. We have your room key already." She said. We followed her to an elevator and she pressed the third floor button. 

"Are the rooms close to each other?" I asked her as the elevator slowly climbed its cable. 

"Yeah, they're connected with a door in between them. They didn't have a single room that was big enough for five people so we had to get two rooms." She explained. "And we can do the guys in one room, and us two in the other or you guys can just stay in the room together." 

"Lexi and I can stay together, if that's fine with everyone." Luke said. Sam nodded. She seemed upset, and I didn't blame her. This was a scary situation. After Luke and I dropped our bags off in our room, we met with the others in the bigger room. 

"So do we know the names of Kian's guys who came to look for you?" Michael asked me. 

"Um, yeah, Jc was in the room when they broke in, and he knew a few of them. I put them down in my phone." I said, grabbing my phone out of my sweatshirt pocket, and going to my notes app before speaking again. 

"Elliot Porter, Tristan Bridges, Alec Rios, and then another guy that he didn't know." I read the names off. 

"We need to update the police now that we know their names. And we know that they were the ones who broke in." Noah said. 

"Theo's brother is gonna be a bit harder to take care of. He hasn't technically done anything so we can't call the police on him." Michael said. 

"For now we just need to lay low." Sammy said quietly. 

"That doesn't mean we need to be all tense and wait around. Why don't we order some food or get room service and just relax for awhile?" Luke said. Sam gave him a weird look. 

"Relax?" She asked. 

"Luke's right." I spoke up. "Sitting around stressing and being paranoid isn't gonna help anything. There's nothing we can do after we file the report on Kian's friends, might as well just chill." 

"Alright." Noah nodded. 

That Evening... 

We were all sitting around watching Grown Ups on the tv that was in the hotel room. We ordered Chinese food earlier for lunch, and we'd probably just be eating the leftovers from that in an hour or so for dinner. The guys wanna go down to the bar that's in the restaurant on the main floor since Luke recently turned 21, and the rest of us are 19 and 20. I don't think we'd get in that much trouble if Luke was buying drinks for us. 

"If you guys wanna go, you can. I'm just gonna stay here." Michael said to Luke and Noah. 

"Okay... babe, are you coming?" Luke asked me. 

"Sure." I nodded, putting my Vans on. The three of us walked to the elevator and it took us down to the lobby. The restaurant was busier than I expected, and there was classic rock n' roll music playing in the background. We sat down at the bar and each had a few drinks, and I was having a good time when I got a sudden feeling that I was being watched. I scanned the room with my eyes until they landed on a guy in the corner of the restaurant, staring me down and he looked familiar. 

"Babe..." I said, putting my hand on Luke's arm and looking away for a second.

"Hm?" He asked. 

"That guy looks like Theo's brother." I whispered as quietly as I could, but when I looked back to the corner of the restaurant, there was no one there.

"I swear he was just right there..." I said, a feeling of paranoia washing over me.