By your window

35.

Chapter Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIvgU1NsKJE

Not seeing Five arrive at her window as promised left Marben confused and even a little disheartened, especially after sharing with him a moment so intimate that simply thinking about it still made her blush. Nevertheless, the girl did not worry. It wasn't the first time her boyfriend missed a date.
That evening, she excused Five's absence thinking that he had ended up in detention for having being late for breakfast or having been caught going back home early in the morning, and went to bed, a little saddened but otherwise serene.

The next day, however, Sir Hargreeves did not show up at rehearsal as was his custom, and although that would normally have made the Girls rejoice, it appeared too strange for them not to get worried (the four of them were so accustomed to entering with downcast eyes, taking his presence for granted, that only halfway through the lesson they'd noticed the old man wasn't there, and nudging each other they had exchanged a few perplexed glances). Marben, in particular, interpreted the totally empty stalls as a sign that something might be wrong.

For the next twelve hours, so, the blonde girl had puzzled over how to reach the Academy and get in touch with Five without attracting the attention of her teachers or Arsegreeves, being however forced to give up after some time. By mid-afternoon she was so worried that she had become impatient, so she pretended not to feel well and retired to her dorm, without even stepping outside to go to the canteen at dinner time.
The unfortunate confirmation of her nagging suspicions came around ten, when the sky had been dark for a while and she was beginning to loose hope that Five would eventually have come to disprove all of them. It wore Klaus' pale face.

Klaus had wanted to tell her before the news came out in the newspapers, and so he had come to her, looking terrible, tormented and oppressed like someone who is about to say horrible things. There and then Marben had wanted to believe he looked that way just because he was drunk and high, but an annoying little voice in her head, refusing to give her rest, had immediately started screaming that she had never seen Klaus like that, neither high nor sober.
So she had opened the window, giving the newcomer a questioning look, and the river of words form Klaus had swept her up, monochord and expressionless like only someone long accustomed to dulling their feelings could have spoken about a mishap with such carelessness.

"He...he's gone, Marben, disappeared into thin air. I know little more than you do, I think that through yesterday's training session he and Dad had an argument, which was taken up again at dinner: Five had no intention of letting Dad have the last word and so he stormed out of the house...and hasn't been back since. The others and I are not allowed to talk about it, but...we fear he's had enough, and left for good. Our Father will go to the police, tomorrow, to report the disappearance".

Right then and there Marben had felt her knees suddenly become so weak she had had to hold on to the windowsill not to fall. Although she knew that Klaus was certainly not one to get scandalized, the girl had thought that, shocked and breathless as she was, she really had to be a pitiful sight.
Everything boiled down to the dull, throbbing pain in the center of her chest, her breath getting shorter and shorter, and her mind going completely blank.

Marben heard her voice contesting what Klaus was saying while her mind refused to wrap itself around the idea that Five was nowhere to be found, then come up with hypotheses on a possible escape toward some hiding place just to prove a point or on a kidnapping perpetrated by someone who might be holding a grudge against the Hargreeves family, as the terror began to kick in; both times Klaus was reasonable, albeit cautious, in his responses.

"It would be a lot like him...to be honest, I hoped I would have found him holed up in here".
"How many ordinary kidnappers, pedophiles or organ traffickers could stand a chance against us? And besides, you know Five: you really think he would allow someone to hurt him?".