Lydia’s P.O.V
I watched Lyric’s face harden immediately as George told Avery’s name. I felt an unexpected pang in my chest at the look of concern on his face. Whoever this Avery was, she was special to both these men.
“Please help me!” George begged, falling back on his hands and knees. “I don’t know what to do! I don’t know where to find her!”
“You need to calm down first, George.” Lyric’s voice was sharp and stern but it was very much necessary. “If you continue to keep on panicking, we won’t get anywhere. So calm the fuck down before you pass out.”
Crouching down beside George, I placed my hand on his shoulder to try and calm him with the physical touch. “Lyric’s right, George. Take a deep breath and calm down first. And then tell us what happened.”
George did as I said and took a few deep breaths, placing his hands on the ground as Lyric too hunkered down on his other side and placed a hand on his other shoulder. The first few breaths were shaky but he somewhat got his breathing under control as sweat dripped from his brows.
“Avery hasn’t come home yet.” George told us after he had finally gotten his panic under control after a couple minutes of deep breathing. “She should’ve been home four hours ago but she hasn’t come home yet and none of her friends know where she is. And she’s purposely left her cell phone at home so we can’t call her.” Another shaky breath before George looked at Lyric with pleading eyes. “She’s not like that, Lyric! She’s in middle school for God’s sake! Where could she have gone?”
Middle school? It didn’t take me long to understand that the person George was talking about was his little sister. Only the disappearance of a little sister would leave a brother this paranoid. I’ve had that experience firsthand.
“Did she have a fight with anyone?” I asked George the most obvious reason for a child’s disappearance. “Parents, schoolmates or even you?”
“No, we don’t fight.” George looked at me a little confused, as if seeing me for the first time. And in fact he was seeing me for the first time, having been too focused on Lyric to notice me up till now. “She’s a really good girl. She’s never done anything wrong and she’s always obedient and she’s never late from school!”
“Did you inform the cops?” Lyric asked, frowning.
George nodded. “They said it’s only been four hours so they can’t register a complain yet.”
“Something tempting!” The thought suddenly clicked in my mind.
“What?” Lyric and George spoke at the same time.
“If it’s not something that got her upset then it has to be something that had her intrigued.” I explained to the boys. “Did you tell her something that was tempting enough for a middle schooler to venture into? Something that was thrilling enough that she might risk getting into trouble for?”
Lyric gave me a wide eyed look from over George’s head while George appeared to be thinking hard about what he might have said as-
“Connor’s party!” George’s voice shot out in the silence of the night. “I was telling her just this morning about how I had gotten an invitation to Connor’s party tonight!”
“Connor as in the guy from Bio major?” Lyric asked just to be sure.
“Yes!” George nodded vehemently, his eyes huge. “I never get invites to such parties so I was very excited. I told her everything about to happen at the party, even gave her an address without even thinking about it. I almost failed to notice how she had gotten excited about it too! She’d even asked me if I could come but I told her no because she’s a minor!”
“So she decided to take matters into her own hands.” Lyric lifted off the ground and pulled George up with him before extending his hand towards me. “We can’t be one hundred percent certain but it’s a start. We need to check out that party.”
Grabbing Lyric’s hand and ignoring the electricity that shot through my arm, I got to my feet and reached for my bicycle.
“Leave it here and get a ride with George.” Lyric said at once. “I’ll get your bike later but right now we have to find Avery before she gets into trouble.”
“Okay,” I agreed at once because a little girl’s safety might be compromised and then we were off to Connor’s house, me hitching a ride with George while Lyric followed us in his bike.
“I’ll need a picture of Avery,” I told George as we parked in front of Connor’s house and got off the car.
We parked a couple of houses away from the party since the roads ahead were lined with cars and bikes. George got off the car first and Lyric parked across from us before turning off his bike and jogging over to us and opening my passenger side door. He extended his hand once again but I refused the offer and hopped off the car on my own.
“Here,” George came around the car to join us and handed us his cell phone with Avery’s picture on it. I was a little surprised when Lyric also took the phone from me to study the picture of the girl, sitting on a swing in a blue floral sundress, her shoulder length curly, light brown hair shot with blonde highlights and bright green eyes looking out of a small heart shaped face as she smiled at the camera.
“Thanks,” Lyric handed the phone back to George before the three of us started walking towards the house.
The music was so loud it could be heard from a block away and it only got louder with each step we took towards the house. It was a large two story mansion with high fences but there were cars all over the street and balloons were tied to different areas along the fences. We could see people dancing from the open door to the entrance and everyone had a red cup in their hands.
“Let’s split up once we get in.” Lyric spoke louder to be heard over the music. “It’ll cover more ground. And if any of us finds her first, we get her out before going to search for the others. We aren’t the priority, Avery is.”
Even as Lyric said that, his hand was on my lower back as we crossed the gate and walked towards the entrance. George gave us and curt nod and went ahead inside the house, motioning us with his hands that he’d get a head start. Lyric stayed with me until we entered the house and then he had to part to search for Avery. But not before he gave me a look that said, “Don’t get in trouble.”
I gave the room a once over. The decoration was the same like any party I had attended during high school, which was pretty much no decoration at all other than a few balloons stuck to the roof and a few strings of fairy lights. Everyone here was more interested in getting drunk, getting high and getting laid, in no particular order. After I’d taken in my surroundings, I began to take in the faces. I instantly noticed some of my college classmates amid the sweats dancing bodies. The entire place smelled of booze and cigars as well as the pungent mix of sweat and deodorants. Everyone was either dancing or grinding or kissing in dark corners and those who weren’t were searching for partners to join in on the shenanigans.
Avoiding a few flying arms, drops of alcohol as someone’s cup went flying and strands of sweat drenched hair, I went further into the house in search of Avery. I saw George running around with his cell phone in his hand, asking people if they had seen his sister. I even spotted Lyric amid the crowd with a bunch of people who gave him backslapping half hugs. They were all burly men in black outfits, inking visible on their bodies as they pointed Lyric to the first floor of the house. Lyric nodded and headed upstairs soon after.
I wanted to follow him up but George was still downstairs and I hadn’t found any signs of Avery ye-
I paused. Stared.
The girl who was being led upstairs by the six feet something blonde haired man looked nothing like the girl I had seen in the picture. What made her stand out were the bouncy shoulder-length curls shot with natural blonde highlights amid the rich brown. Otherwise, the innocent little girl was dressed as a high schooler or might even pass as an adult with ease. Her eyes were smoky and her lips stained red, the little smudges at the sides told me she had been kissing. Her dress was short and sparkly, in the same vibrant red as her lips and it reached a few inches above her knees and hugged her body like a glove. Avery had gone overboard with her look and I was guessing she might have had help from her friends. However, even as she was willingly following the blonde man in a black shirt and jeans, her smile was shy…almost hesitant, while the man was all but undressing her with his eyes, his smile crude and his eyes glinting in a way that spelled nothing good.
Avery had no idea what she was getting into, which was normal considering she was a mere thirteen year old. And from the gasp she let out as the man pulled her harshly into his body once they reached the top of the stairs, his hands instantly going to her hips to grope, Avery just had a rude awakening. But it was already too late; the man was now dragging her further inside and out of my view even as Avery shook her head desperately.
Pushing away the swaying bodies in front of me harshly, I ran after the couple, taking two steps at a time as I hit the stairs. The music was too loud so I couldn’t even scream to warn her but thankfully, even though the light was dim in this corridor, I could see a door being slammed shut as Avery was probably dragged into it.
Since I didn’t see anyone other than Lyric come up here before the couple, I took a risk and ran to the door. Thankfully, it wasn’t locked when I twisted the knob. But what I saw inside made bile rise in my throat.
From what I could see from the lights coming in through the windows beside the bed, the man had Avery pinned to the bed while he straddled her. He had her hands held above her head with one of his as Avery struggled to get free, his other hand groping her breast. Avery looked terrified as she looked up at the man, her eyes wide in fear and her mouth open in a wordless scream.