- Friday, December 1st -

I really should get out of bed, but I can't seem to find the energy to do so. I've skipped school the entire week and I've had a fight about that with both Nathan and Oliver.

Both would like to see me go on with my normal life, like it's not a big deal Finnley got sold and disappeared into a dark world.

He really could be anywhere right now.

Then there's also the fact Emma gave a lot of information about Jeff when they questioned her; like the fact Jeff never targeted anyone specific. He wants to retaliate on all of us for ruining his profitable business as a pimp.

We all had a hand in dismantling his network of trustworthy helpers, so we'd all have to pay for it. Finnley is simply his first victim.

It also caused the police to hand out panic buttons to both Stan and Nathan, since Emma stated they would eventually become Jeff's targets too, for helping us.

There's a door slamming shut, along with footsteps on the stairs. Since Nathan already left home, I'm scared shitless, scrambling out of bed to get myself a weapon to defend myself in case I need to. In this case, the baseball bat I keep close during sleep.

There's a knock on my bedroom door and I do realize that no sane attacker would announce his entry with a simple knock on the door, but you can never be too sure.

I hold up the baseball bat, ready to swing it into action. In case of emergency. That's when Oliver pushes the door open.

"Put that down before someone gets hurt." He keeps his sweet distance, although he does come across as amused. "But good to know you're cautious and careful these days."

"What are you doing here!? You scared the living shit out of me."

"Do I look like a person who cares about your living shit?"

And here I was, thinking we'd become friends. "Don't ever scare me like that again!"

"Or else? You gonna kill me with a cute attempt of being a bad boy?"

"Your never-ending sarcasm is a blast."

"Took years of practice. Now get dressed." He turned around, already leaving the room to give me some privacy.

"Where are we going?" Since I have a feeling Oliver has another brilliant plan to find Finnley, I'm already partially dressed when he answers.

"School, off course."

"What? That's why you're here?"

"Yup." He walks back into my bedroom, holding my backpack in one hand, my keys to the house in his other.

"I'm not getting out of bed for school," I deadpan, sending him a cold glare full of annoyance.

"Well, but you're already out of bed and almost completely dressed," – his eyes roam over my naked upper body shortly – "so you might as well join me. Hurry, because Sam is waiting outside and I don't think he's a patient person."

"I know for a fact you aren't."

"Hmm, true. Maybe that's why Sam and I get along just fine. He isn't slow like you are."

"Can I at least shower first? I've been in bed for days..."

"Can? You must." He scrunches his nose with a disgusted look on his face. "You reek like a pathetic cry-baby."

"Remind me again why I tolerate you?"

"Don't get me started, I won't be done with giving you reasons to like me before the day ends."

"So full of yourself..." I grumble while I pass him on my way to the bathroom. "I said tolerate, by the way, not like."

"Oh, but you like me already." He followed me to the bathroom, sounding amused. "I'm way to likeable to not like me."

"Why do I get a feeling you're saying that, without believing so yourself?" I stare at him, about to close the door, when he pulls a face that made me realize that my remark might have been one step to far.

Maybe I should close the door now.

We're only just friends, or acquaintances for that matter. I don't think he'd like to hang out with me if it wouldn't be for Finnley gone missing again. I don't know if I could deal with his huge amount of sarcasm every day either. But I found out one thing right now; Oliver gave away a hint of disliking some parts about himself. That face he pulled was all too familiar. Finnley pulls that face whenever I call him cute or hot and he disagrees... I should not be thinking about Finnley right now. I might break down crying again.

* * * * *

"Come on." Sam pulls my arm, dragging me towards the entrance of the school building. "Class is about to start again and we have shit to do."

"I don't even have a project group..." I whine, trying to get him to let go of me. "And I already went to two classes. Which is more than I attended in weeks..."

"Off course you have a project group." Sam chuckles, slamming the button to call the elevator as soon as we're in front of it. "You're in my group."

"I am?"

"Yes, you didn't think I'd drop you, did you?"

"Kinda..."

He squints his eyes while staring at me. "You know me better, Cris," he deadpans. "You're my best friend in school, okay? Seriously, besides Alex, you are my best friend."

"Now that you mention him, how's Alex doing?"

"Not that good, to be honest." Sam's whole cheery act drops like a brick. "He's hard to deal with these days. Won't leave the house... Won't even leave his room unless absolutely necessary."

"Because he's scared he's next?"

"Juha, but aren't they all scared to be next? Aren't you?"

"He nearly drowned me," I deadpan, to remind him of the fact I already came eye to eye with Jeff – twice, for that matter – and he didn't take me. Instead of abducting me, he tried to drown me.

"Oh, right." Sam takes in a deep breath, stepping inside the elevator. "Well, ever since that idiot took Fi..." He swallows his words. "My point is, Alex thinks he might be next."

"And you disagree?"

"I agree he should be careful, but he can't simply lock himself away for the rest of his life. Or at least until they catch Jeff. And Alex doesn't have an Oliver in his life that simply kicks his ass out of bed."

"Why don't you? You helped Oliver to get me to come to school."

"But it's Oliver who got you to get out of bed, and in the shower, andin his car."

"Then take Oliver with you to get Alex out of his room."

"Not that simple, Alex doesn't really like Oliver. I bet he won't listen to him."

"He knows Oliver well enough to not like him?" Then again, Oliver isn't really likeable when you first get to know him. I hated his guts until recently.

Maybe I still every so often hate his guts, or at least his sarcasm.

Point is, Alex might be right to not like Oliver that much.

"It's mostly jealousy."

"Jealousy over what?"

"Finn's attention. Before Finn started trusting Oliver, hanging out with him every other day, he and Alex had been thick as thieves while they were still missing." Sam shortly looks at me, before leaving the elevator. "And then Finn started hanging out with Oliver every possible moment of every possible day and Alex simply felt... abandoned."

"And he's blaming Oliver."

"He understands, but when there's only one person you have contact with that you actually seem to connect with, and he or she is stolen from you by someone else, you'll end up feeling even lonelier then when you at least had one person to confine in. Finn was that person to Alex."

"I thought Jason and Finn had been best buddies..."

"Finn is everybody's buddy when he puts in some effort to be his cheerful self."

He's just telling me something I already know, right? Finn can be anyone's friend if he wants to. I just never knew him and Alex had been "thick as thieves" for a while.

* * * * *

"So, did you find out anything useful?" I watch as Oliver is behind his computer, searching for useful things to help us find Finnley. All that he finds, he sends straight to the police. But the dark web isn't used by criminals without a good reason. It's an anonymous way to surf the web, leaving practically no traces behind whatsoever. So, other than the information the advertising about Finnley gave us, he didn't really manage to find anything the last time I was with him to search.

"No." He sounds pretty annoyed already and I bet we'll be having a fight within no time if he won't have any success – small or big – very soon.

But so far, his skills aren't that impressive, other than the fact he showed me a very sinister part of the internet. All that he does right now, I can do too – if I had the right programs on my computer.

The thing is, Oliver wants to hack into Jeff's computer, but without any physical contact with that computer, or any virtual contact, he won't be able to do anything.

So, for the past hour, I've been lounging around in his way to luxurious home while he is trying to find any trace of Jeff on the web that is recent.

He has a Facebook account, but it hasn't been updated in nearly two years. Same goes for any of his other social media accounts; although he doesn't have many.

Oliver dug up some old articles about Jeff while they were still searching actively for him after I went missing and soon after we got saved. He also dug up older posts on Facebook from multiple visits to the same place in Spain, but that's not helping us any further either, since it's all been years ago.

I did get to know Jeff on a different level though, since his Social activity online shows a social and somewhat fun side of Jeff.

The cruel thing? Oliver found old pictures of Finnley and Jeff together, smiling, laughing, just hanging out as friends.

It's one of the reason he became a bit grumpy.

There's an old address, but looking into it, it turned out to be the house his parents used to live in, but sold a while ago. There's no real contact information known and he's wanted for multiple criminal charges too; not just the abduction of multiple persons, or prostituting said persons. For instance, he's wanted for tax evasions too. Not that that's important to us.

But that's about as much information as Oliver could find so far.

"I'm telling you, dad is not gonna like it if he finds out you've been hacking shit again." The strange voice causes me to turn around the desk chair I'm currently seated on.

"I'm not hacking anything." Oliver turned around too, staring at a guy who looks a lot like him.

"New friend?" The guy frowns shortly. "The last one seemed to be your type more..."

"He's just a friend." Oliver grumbles, turning back around. "Cris, meet my idiot of a brother; Noah. Noah, meet Cris."

"Hi." I awkwardly wave at Noah, who grins like he's onto something. "Just friends, really."

"Uhu." He nods, but he doesn't sound like he believes either of us. "Oliver never takes home "just friends"."

"I do too."

"No, you don't." Noah walked around the desks – there are four shoved against each other, all with their own computers – and sits down on another chair. "The last time you took home someone you had been "just friends" with was... like... Oh, right, never."

"You're just never there to witness the fact I take home friends." Oliver slams his head onto the desk pretty hard, making me wince at the pain it must have caused. "Noah, could you please fuck off? What are you doing here anyway?"

"Lost my key, Danielle won't be home until late tonight." He shrugs. "So, Cris, how long have you and Oliver been secretly dating? Did you meet to folks already?"

"We're just friends." Oliver and I tell him in unison.

"Noah, Cris is Finn's boyfriend. I told you Finn was dating someone, right? Besides, you've seen them kiss before."

He did?

"Oooh!" Noah's eyes widen. "You're the guy that pissed off Finn after you kissed him." He nods enthusiastically, before the smile leaves his face, sadness taking it over. He stares at Oliver for a while, visibly contemplating his next words. "That's what you're doing, right? You're trying to find out who bought Finn."

Well, gotta admit he knows his brother well.

"Did you succeed in finding anything so far?"

"No." Oliver snaps at him, staring at him in anger. "Can you both just leave me the fuck alone for a second?"

I already want to get up to leave the office, but Noah, however, doesn't seem like he's planning on leaving anytime soon. On the contrary; he turns on the computer across from Oliver.

"Tell me what you got so far."

"Nothing, I told you..."

"We had an advertisement that was used to sell Finn." I cut Oliver short, staring at Noah curiously. "Are you gonna help?"

"Yeah, I really like Finn. He doesn't deserve any of this."

"Nobody does." Oliver rolls his eyes. "I can deal with this myself."

"If he wants to help, that's great, isn't it?" I feel a bit confused. "Do you know that weird shit too." I nod towards Oliver's computer, telling him I'm talking about the hacking and surfing the dark web.

"Who do you think thought little Oli how to do all that stuff?"

"Noah is an IT nerd." Oliver takes in a deep breath. "We're basically trying to find any trace of Jeff. But there's only old shit, or useless shit to be found."

"Well, have you set up a profile already?"

"There isn't much to put in a profile." Oliver whines, lolling his head backwards. "Like I said, we didn't find anything useful so far."

"Oli, I taught you better than this. All information is useful in some way."

"How is an old address helpful? Or the fact he went on vacation in Spain when he was younger?" I frown, wondering how that could help us, at all.

"Because, it shows us what he likes and what he doesn't like. If he went to Spain each year, he might still do that, just without leaving any virtual traces." Noah gestures for me to come over, which I do. I'm bored and if he has something I can do to help, I'm eager to do it. Anything would be better than sitting around.

"You're going to collect all that we find and put it in one file. Any information is useful, okay? So, you'll put everything in there." He hands me a laptop. "There's some sort of format on there that you can use to collect his basic information. You'll be the one that tells us what it is you need. Whenever we think we have something, we can look into it further. But we'll get to that once we have a decent profile."

"How do you know all this shit?" I frown. "Did you guys used to stalk people?"

"This is how we found Adam, to be honest." Oliver sighs, slumping down in his seat. "This is how I found out what was going on with Finn when I first met him. He never told me he was a missing person, but it didn't take long to find out what was going on."

"But still, how do you know what you need...?"

"I'm aiming to become a profiler." Noah smiles. "This is all that I learned in school so far."

"That's pretty cool."

"Yeah, but the way Oliver does things is a tad bit illegal and I'm starting to have my doubts about doing any of this. The police are doing exactly the same and they probably already have tons of information about Jeff. If they can't find him, we won't either."

"At least we don't feel useless." Oliver snaps again, staring at his computer screen like he's about to kill it. "Stop playing the goody-two-shoe that you aren't."

"You need to get laid, Oliver. You're getting moody again." Noah cheerfully tells him, not looking up from his own computer screen.

"I'm fine, thank you very much." Oliver rolls his eyes again. "And sorry I'm a tad bit moody, but my best friend is missing and he got sold to shady shitty people. I am moody, and not because I haven't had sex in a while."

"Amen." Noah mutters, smiling as if he got the victory to a none-existing battle. "Oli didn't have sex in a while and now Oli is grumpy..."

"I swear to god Noah..."

"...Oh dear, he's swearing to god, that's never good." Noah smirks and I can't help but chuckle a bit over the teasing of Oliver. It's nice to have someone that is capable of bugging Oliver a bit. Karma is a bitch, right?

"I will hit you, Noah!" Oliver snaps in anger, slamming his hand on the desk.

"Jeez, Oliver!" Noah stares at him confused. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Not too long ago you would have silenced me with your witty and sarcastic remarks. Even mom is worried about you right now, and she hatesyour sarcastic remarks."

"I'm fine, get the fuck off my back."

"Isn't that how you like it..."

The stapler that Oliver threw in Noah's direction is only barely missing his head, slamming into the wall behind Noah and me. We both stare at Oliver in shock, who got up from his seat and barges out of the room without another word.