Page 43 of Hellhound AU

Luckily, most of the names were in the same dorm, although they weren’t on the same floor. We made our way to each friend, giving them the same story and asking questions. It turned out that Betsy had not, in fact, been in class yesterday. According to her friends, no one had heard from her since the day before that.

“Man, I just figured she went home. She does that sometimes to work on a project she’s trying to get done,” her friend Matt said.

Most of them didn’t know anything, until we got to Sarah on the tenth floor. “Oh, yeah, she was getting some creepy emails. She told me about them. She was freaked out but trying not to be, you know? She said it was probably just one of our friends, but I told her none of them would do that.”

“Did she have any idea who it could be?” Milo asked.

Sarah shrugged. “She figured it had to be someone in the art department, because they were constantly talking about her art pieces. I think that’s what freaked her out the most. She was really private when she was working on a piece, and she didn’t tend to show unfinished work to anyone. I said maybe it was herone professor—he’s always been kind of flirty with the students—but Betsy totally blew me off and said there was no way.”

“What’s the professor’s name?” I asked.

“Stopher, pronounced like the food brand. He’s in the art building most of the time—you guys can probably find him there.”

It was pretty late, but Milo insisted we try anyway, so off we went to the art building. As we walked across campus, the sun was setting, and the sky was a beautiful riot of pinks, purples, and blues. I had the urge to grab Milo’s hand in mine, but I wasn’t sure it was appropriate considering we were looking for a missing woman. I looked over at Milo and smiled at him, and he took the decision out of my hands, literally, by grabbing onto my hand and holding it, almost like he could read my mind. So we held hands and made our way to the art building to continue our search.

I knew I shouldn’t have been so happy—Betsy was still missing—but Milo did that for me. He made me happy.

Almost like my phone was tapped, it rang at that moment.

Great. It was my family.

18

Author’s Note:

So this chapter has been done for awhile, but I sort of forgot to post it. There was this whole saga with the police, who apparently don’t like it when you’re kidnapped and you don’t tell them, even if the kidnappers have mysteriously disappeared. They wouldn’t have even known about it if someone else hadn’t snitched on the kidnappers.I guess it was a good deed for them, but it made my life difficult. And despite all the trouble, I didn’t even get arrested, so I can’t even write about that with real life accuracy. What a waste of a few days.

MILO

Rowan’s phone rang. It wasn’t Riley’s ring tone, but it was someone he didn’t seem excited to hear from.

“You can take it, boo,” I told him.

“After the professor,” he murmured. “It’s family, and they’ll have three million questions.”

We made our way to the art building, which was surprisingly busy for the later hours. Although maybe that was normal for a building where the students used the workshop space. We didn’t find Professor Stopher, but someone did direct us to his teacher’s assistant.

“If you’re looking for Stopher, his TA might know where he is. The guy’s name is Sky, although I think he chose that just to seem artsy,” one student told us.

She didn’t say anything bad about Sky, but her disdain was evident in her tone. We ran into a few other students on our search, and the dislike of Sky seemed pretty universal. I was guessing he was a sketchy guy for so many people to be turned off by him.

“I thought art students would be more accepting of their peers,” Rowan commented after the last student grimaced over Sky’s name.

“Eh, I’d think they are. Sometimes people just aren’t friendly or don’t get along with others, and this Sky seems to be one of those people.” I shrugged.

I hated to make a judgement without meeting someone, but everyone was acting weird about Sky. The whole thing made me suspicious. After all, wouldn’t a TA also have access to all of Betsy’s work? And if he was pinging people’s radars, maybe he gave off stalker vibes.

We eventually found Sky in one of the art labs, sitting in the front while a few students worked at various tables with different materials. I looked at Rowan, who gave a subtle sniff and shook his head. Okay, so the guy wasn’t hellbound. Still didn’t convince me he wasn’t involved, though.

We made our way up to the guy. He had dark, spiky hair and wore a concert tee and ripped jeans. He was slim and tall, and he was pretty average looking overall.

“There’s a free table in the back if you guys have art to work on. The pottery wheels are all taken, but there’s a sign up sheet if you want to wait,” he said as soon as we got to him. He sounded vaguely bored, had a slight sneer on his face, and went back to what he was doing after he’d spoken, effectively dismissing our presence.

I understood why people got a bad vibe from him—he seemed a little snotty, like we were wasting his time. It wasn’t friendly, and it wasn’t shyness, either.

“Actually, we’re here to ask you some questions,” Rowan supplied.

That caught Sky’s attention, and he looked around shiftily, like he was seeing who could hear.