Skylar's POV

There were bouquets of roses and lilies and peonies outside the Marshall's Flower Patch, resting against the concrete wall just beside the closed shop doors.

I stood across the street, staring as people passed by and glanced at the glass doors. At the tiny framed picture of Mrs. Marshall that sat near those same bouquets. Condolences. So many of them.

I stuffed my hands inside the pockets of Caden's hoodie that I was wearing and hunched up my shoulders against the cool breeze.

They were having a memorial service for Mrs. Marshall tomorrow--or at least that's what I'd heard two random passersby saying as they'd looked at the closed shop doors with sympathetic gazes. I wondered for the fifth time if maybe I should've asked Caden for his phone and called Alex by now. My parents too. It was nearly afternoon and I still didn't know how the whole situation with the police was going.

"You're staring, Anderson." I heard a voice beside me and I turned almost instantly, feeling the stiff tension dissolving from my shoulders.

"I wasn't, Caden," I said and gently nudged my arm against his. "There's just a...a lot of flowers, you see."

An arm slid around my waist and I was grateful for the warmth that came along with his touch. "I brought you something." He said right as tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear.

It was exactly at that moment that I felt something rub against my unlaced boots and I would've yelped if I hadn't noticed the familiar brown cat.

"Chicken!" I exclaimed and scooped her up in my arms, grinning as I hugged her, and then turned towards Caden. "You brought me Chicken!"

A lady passing by gave me a quizzical look over her shoulder.

"Well, yes." A tiny furrow formed in between his brows before he slid his hand inside his pocket and took out an object. "But I meant this when I said I brought you something."

Refusing to let Chicken go from my arms (and the feeling seemed mutual since she was purring loudly against my hoodie now) I stepped near him and raised my brows at the phone in his hand. My phone.

"Is it dead?" I asked him, grimacing when I remembered what had happened to it just last night. "And why didn't you tell me you were going to my apartment?"

"Not to your apartment." He said. "I had to meet up with Adrian to hand him over the USB drive you gave me, and Alex was there too. With your cat."

My jaw went slack in surprise as I stared.

"Come on." Caden grabbed my elbow and steered me in the direction that led past the street. "Let's keep walking."

"What?" I widened my eyes. "What do you mean Alex was--Why was Alex there with Adrian? Wait a second. Was he mad that I forgot to phone him?"

"I didn't stay long enough to hear out his life story, Sky."

I opened my mouth to say something but Chicken decided to hop out of my arms right that very second and I got way too preoccupied to make sure she was walking alongside me before I managed to look at Caden again.

"Yes, but you must know what Alex was doing there." I pressed, shrugging his hold off only to link my arm through his. "I don't understand. He isn't friends with Adrian."

Caden stuffed his hands in his pockets and it only managed to pull me a little more against him.

"They are." He said.

I stopped and Caden did too since I had a grip on his arm. Chicken trotted a little further before realizing I had stopped and walked back towards me. "Look," I held up my free hand. "I have questions. A lot of them. Firstly, I want you to elaborate on those two words because I'm kind of worried now. Alex isn't getting himself involved with the whole gang thing again, is he? Also, what's up with that USB drive? Alexis gave it to me to hand it over to you and I don't think she would've encrypted it on purpose. Not when she wants Blake back."

And it was. Securely locked, I mean. I'd shown him the USB drive earlier a few hours ago--the one Alexis had given me the other day--and Caden had tried opening it on his laptop, only to find out that it had some encryption secured on it. I didn't understand why when Alexis had seemed rather adamant that I convince Caden to let Blake go. Because there was a bigger matter to think about--Rena.

He raised a brow at me. "Breathe."

I did take a deep breath in. "Do you think she did that so if the USB drive were to get in the hands of someone apart from us, they wouldn't be able to access what's inside it?" I frowned a little then. "Wait, but why--"

"Sky, you can shut up now."

"My phone." I didn't shut up but held my free hand out for him to give me the damaged remains of it--ones that he'd kept back inside his pocket when I hadn't taken them from him earlier. "Do you think it can be saved?"

Caden took out my phone and I did see him briefly shrugging. "I don't think it's saved, but I got it to work a little. It won't be holding on for too long."

I took it from him and stared down at the grotesque state of it. The screen was smashed to literal smithereens. Just because I'd made the mistake of taking those pictures at the Costa Bridge.

I switched it on and that did seem to work. As much as a smashed phone could work. The picture gallery, however, wouldn't open alongside a few other apps. But my texts and phone calls were working pretty fine since I almost immediately noticed the thousand missed calls from Alex, a few from Nova, and my mother.

"Whose house was it?" I glanced up from my phone and at him. And my breath, for some reason, hitched because he was already staring rather intently at me. "The bedroom I woke up in today. The whole house had looked...strangely renovated. Or newly built. Is it yours? You never told me you were looking for a house here."

Caden pulled away from me and, once again, steered me in a specific direction, by grabbing both of my shoulders from behind this time. I, unsurprisingly, let him manhandle me. "See that?" He pointed towards a series of trees in the distance. "The goal is to head over there without asking any more questions. Think your brain can handle that much, Anderson?"

My eyes rounded in surprise and maybe even a little bit of sudden excitement. "Are we going over to that park over there? Are we having a picnic?"

He sighed. "We should've stayed at home." I think he meant to say those words to himself, but I heard them nonetheless. And my heart nearly stopped right then. Or I think it did. It must have, because everything around me just fell...well, silent.

I turned around to face him again and he must've seen something on my face since I saw his eyes widening, and it wasn't fair that the sunlight seemed to make them appear greener. It was distracting and beautiful and not really fair because my thoughts kept diverting.

"Let's walk." He said first, breaking the sudden, tense silence between us, and grabbed my hand.

"You mean, your home, right?" I asked him as I blindly let him drag me along. Chicken seemed beyond content to walk on his other side. "Because the last time I checked, I lived in a tiny, compact apartment with a surly roommate." Which, I realized, wasn't the right thing to say (fuck my rambling) because Caden only passed me a frown from over his shoulder.

"What?" I questioned, somewhat concerned now. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Shut up, Anderson." He grumbled.

I raised my brows. "All right. I can shut up." He glared at me this time. "Shutting up. I promise."

I did keep my mouth shut, but only until we neared the bunch of trees surrounding the small park, and only until Chicken meowed loudly before running off under a wooden bench.

"Is it a family house?" I asked him, and then I almost grimaced when he let go of my hand. "I think I've pissed you off, but I just don't understand how."

"It's not a family house." Caden turned towards me and he was still frowning in a way that, right then, was starting to make me worry. "I mean...it is."

I watched as a little girl with two blonde pigtails ran by and came to an abrupt halt near the wooden bench that Chicken was currently making her home under. She stared up at me and gave me a look. I looked down at myself, at my unlaced boots, and realized that perhaps I did seem like a right weirdo to her. Especially when I was dressed in a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants that were way too big on me, and had a noticeable, ugly bruise near my jaw. God only knew what that look had meant.

"It was my father's," Caden added, and now he was raking his hands through his hair in frustration. "One of his."

"Oh," I said.

He scrunched up his nose in a way that I really shouldn't have found adorable, at least not right then. "That's not. Fuck, Sky, you really don't get it, do you?"

"Get wha--whoops!" I took a step towards him, only to stumble on one of my opened shoelaces (which I knew I should've thought of before), and only managed to not fall since Caden grabbed me.

"Why are your shoelaces open?"

I gave him a questioning look. "Get what?"

He ignored my question in return and let go of my arm before kneeling on the grass, head hung low as he busied himself with tying my fucking shoelaces. I was suddenly aware of him avoiding a topic that I think I should've known, but instead, I had no clue about it.

"Caden." I whisper-hissed and dropped down on my knees as well. Right in front of him. "Get what? What don't I get?"

He didn't meet my gaze, not once, and I could see that he was purposefully trying not to look at me.

"Is this like--"

He sighed and finally looked up from my shoes and at me. "For us. A home where it's warm. Where we both can have a normal life. Where we both can live together."

I stared at him. I think I only stared at him for the next few seconds.

He finished tying my shoelaces and I could practically feel the tension rolling off of him in invisible waves, hitting me square in the chest, and making my heart race. He sighed again and stood up before holding his hand out for me.

"I did want you to shut up, but that was back there, Sky." He pointed towards the street we'd just come from with a slight tilt of his head.

I took his hand in a daze and let him pull me up. "Um--"

"Look," he cut me off, sounding strangely worn out now. "Let's pretend I didn't say anything. I know it was sudden and I really was hoping to not say it right now, okay? So drop it."

My eyes widened in alarm. "Yes!"

Caden glanced away before looking back at me. "Yes?"

I opened my mouth, ready to blurt out something, anything before he asked me to shut up for good this time, but an intrusion in the form of a little girl with blonde pigtails showed up right before us, and she didn't let me say anything because she had my cat in her tiny little arms.

"Is this your kitten?" She asked me loudly, making me snap my gaze away from Caden's confused one.

I stared at her and at Chicken--who seemed to be giving me a somewhat save-me look--before finally remembering that I shouldn't just stare and say something.

"Uh, yeah," I said, frowned, and then nodded. "That's my cat."

Chicken seemed to have a sudden change of heart and purred before giving the girl a sniff and a lick. She shrieked in what I assumed was joy. "She's adorable! Can I play with her, please?"

The please got me so I told her yes, even though I should've been a bit hesitant. Instead, I was occupied with what Caden had just said and it all came rushing back. The words. His words.

For us, he'd said just minutes ago. "Caden." I turned around towards him, my heart racing. "I--" And then I trailed off when I saw him looking down at his phone, frowning. "What's wrong?"

His gaze snapped up to mine and he gave a rather weary shrug in response. I neared him and peeked at his phone screen when he turned it towards me. It was Adrian's contact number, I noticed, and a text that read, Blake is gone.

"You let him go?"

"No." He shook his head. "He escaped."

"Ah," I mumbled, furrowing my brows. "Well, that complicates things. We were supposed to show him that video of Rena first. How did he manage to escape anyway?"

"I don't know." He exhaled heavily before pocketing back his phone and dragging his hands up his face. "I should go. I...need to get that USB drive working anyway. Sorry, I can't--"

"That's all right." I smiled, but it must've come out a little strained. "We can do this some other time." Having a picnic out on a nice, cool afternoon with him had seemed too good to happen anyway. We never did those, I thought and then I told myself to stop thinking.

Caden stared at me. He stared at me in a way that made me think he wasn't really looking at me but lost somewhere in his head.

"Hey," I murmured and stepped near him. "Caden, about what you said earlier, I--"

His phone rang and I had to stop myself from gritting my teeth. He blinked and took it back out, not really answering the call, but registering it just the same. He declined it and looked up at me. "I'll drop you at your apartment?"

My own phone buzzed inside my pocket and I was left momentarily surprised that it was capable enough to do just that.

"I'll be fine." I shook my head. "Chicken has just made a friend and I don't think she'll be letting go anytime soon."

He frowned. "I don't think I should leave you alone here." And he sounded unsure. Fairly uncertain.

I smiled and shrugged. "I'll be fine. Don't worry about it. Just...um, let me know how the thing with the USB drive goes." And Blake.

"And you'll call me when you reach back home?"

Home, I thought. "Yeah." I nodded.

It was when he'd left the park and I'd watched his back disappearing past the corner of the empty street, that I remembered to take out my phone and see what that buzz had been about.

Chicken appeared near my feet and was followed by the little girl.

"What's her name?" She asked me rather excitedly before sitting down on the grass and patting Chicken on the head approximately seven times. "Mommy said I can't name her because she's not mine."

I squinted over to the only woman in the distance, by the swings and see-saws, who seemed to be talking on her phone.

"Your mommy's probably right." I smiled at her. "Her name is Chicken by the way."

The little girl's eyes widened in an almost awestruck way. "I've got a toad and I named him Cow."

A laugh escaped my lips and I sat down beside her on the grass.

"My sister came to visit us from California, because she's got her college there," she continued, "and she told me that's an awful name."

I switched on my phone and shrugged. "Hey, that is an awful name," I said. "But Chicken is kind of an awful name too, so..." And I ended it with a sheepish shrug.

She grinned and I noticed a chipped front tooth. "But that's what makes them special!" And then she was back at smothering Chicken with ear scratches and belly rubs. Someone, I realized, was going to get spoiled in just these handful of minutes.

I didn't stop her, though. Not when a) I was glad of some company altogether, and b) I noticed the notification on my phone's screen.

It was a text with a picture attachment, and when I pressed on it, I was left baffled when I realized that I was looking at the inside of an apartment. A familiar apartment. My apartment.

It was a picture taken from right past the front door, I noticed, because I could see the stand where Nova liked hanging her coats. It was a picture from inside my own fucking apartment.

Inhaling sharply, I backed out of it and read the text below.

Unknown: Cosy little apartment you have there, Skylar. And I just stole the spare key. Think you're ready to hear out my secret?

•••••

There was an address written under that text as well--directions that led to a cemetery. I tried blocking the number but I couldn't. It seemed near fucking impossible to do just that with my broken phone screen.

And I felt sick. Nauseous. Paranoid. Because I couldn't go back to my apartment. Not when a stranger--my fucking stalker--had a spare key to my apartment, and not when my mind was coming up with horrifying scenarios which always somehow ended with someone close to me getting killed. Just like Mrs. Marshall.

I thought of calling Caden but something kept glitching and my phone didn't let me. I wanted him back. I needed him back here, and I wished he'd stayed. Hadn't everything been so fine when he was here? This, all of this, had seemed a million miles away when it had just been him and I in this small, empty park. Away from all that.

An hour rolled by and I watched as the little girl's mother asked her to say goodbye to me and my cat and I watched them walking away. I watched and I watched and I stayed sitting there on the grass, fidgeting with my phone until I couldn't just sit there anymore.

I walked to a payphone and called Alex. It rang thrice before he picked up.

"Alex, hey, it's me. Sky." I swallowed and looked outside the payphone booth.

"Hey." He answered. "Sky, whose number is this? I don't think I..." His voice went muffled, before appearing again, "...this number."

I anxiously gnawed on my lower lip. "Alex, I can't really hear you. Where are you?"

"Wait." He said. And that was it. There was a beep and he hung up on me.

I pulled the receiver away from my ear and stared down at it in bewilderment. What the hell was going on with him? I thought.

I'd only just placed the receiver back on the hook when it rang.

"Hey, I'm sorry...I'm somewhere...bad signals...are you..." His voice still seemed to be cracking in between, words disappearing into thin air. I sighed and waited until he finally said something that I could understand. "Are you there?"

"Yeah," I replied. "Still here. Where are you? Can you meet me--"

"Sky, I can't. Someone's coming. I've got to go."

I frowned. "What is that supposed to mean? Alex, where the hell are you?"

"I've got a lead to the person who dropped that parcel on your doorstep." He was whispering in a rush now. "I really have to go."

"Alex!" I exclaimed, glad that no one was standing past the closed door. "What lead? You can't just go there alone, you have to--"

"Give me an hour. I promise I'll call you."

And then he hung up on me again.

I swore and put the receiver back, and I was almost vibrating with dread right then. How had Alex even found a lead? Was this what he'd been meaning to tell me when he'd called me earlier?

The next time it will be someone much closer to you, I remembered reading those words. I remembered the threat.

"Fuck," I whispered to myself, running my hands up my face. And just the memory of getting punched in the face made me stiffen in fear. Fuck, indeed.

•••••

The cemetery was empty.

All except for me and the graves--which I noticed almost instantly because, well, the entire place was as creepy as a cemetery could get.

I'd gone back to my apartment, and paced across every room as I'd tried to figure out if someone had broken in and taken anything. Left anything. And Chicken had stared at me from the couch all the while as if she thought I'd gone crazy.

It had nearly started to drive me insane--for real--until Nova had shown up. She had, surprisingly, handled it well when I showed her the empty spot where we kept our spare key--just beneath one of the cactus plants outside our front door.

She refused to call the police and I wasn't really complaining. I didn't want them to have my name on almost every complaint filed these days.

Nova had promised to lock the doors and the windows--securely--and had told me she'd take care of herself and Chicken as I'd changed into my own clothes and left my apartment once again.

And now I was here, standing in a cemetery devoid of any living human, and wishing for this day to have gone a bit normally. If only it had gone a bit normally, I wouldn't be here. I'd be in that park with Caden and we'd be there watching the sunset.

Pulling my sweater sleeves over my fists, I contemplated for a few seconds before taking out my phone from my back pocket. I opened the last text message I'd received and stared down at the address written on it.

The address had led to this cemetery, right in the middle of it, as graves and tombstones surrounded me.

A bird croaked on one of the trees behind me before flying away, ruffling and creaking the old branches.

I started walking alongside the graves, eyes darting from one unfamiliar name to another. A secret, I recalled, that was going to be one of these graves. What else could that text have meant when it had led me to a cemetery?

The secret must be a dead person. If the unknown ID that I'd received the text from belonged to that same man who'd punched and threatened me in that back alley, then I wasn't so sure whose grave I would be finding here.

Couldn't be Mrs. Marshall, I thought. Did he want me to find Ana's grave? And who was that girl to him anyway?

I was almost about to walk past the first row of graves, conscious of the cemetery sexton's office at some distance, and I stopped--nearly froze--when I saw it.

One of the gravestones and the name engraved on it.

A name that I realized was so so familiar.

Aletta Marie Campbell.

I stared and I felt the seconds coming to an abrupt halt. I felt everything else going numb, except for my pounding heart.

And then I heard a sudden rustle behind me before a voice spoke up,

"I knew I'd find you here."