August's school had almost cleared out by the time I parked my car haphazardly along one of the teacher parking spots and rushed inside past the open gates. The guard eyed me but I didn't hear him stop me as I ran inside, barely being able to notice the otherwise empty parking lot over the sense of impending doom.

This was bad. If I don't find anyone in there, I thought, then maybe I wouldn't find where August was--and that, that was a thought that I couldn't even truly comprehend right then.

"Who are we so angry at?" Blake drawled right behind me, although his gait was a polar opposite of mine; nonchalant where I wasn't. "The principal? I'm rather fond of holding knives over authority figures."

I didn't bother giving him a response to that. He was right behind me now and I could feel him walking too close. He--his mere presence was grating on my nerves. The whole ride here, feeling him sitting on the passenger seat right beside me, where he'd only been a big distraction, was a torture of its own. I wasn't in my right mind right now. I couldn't handle him.

"Not killing the principal," I gritted out anyway. Blake let out a delighted huff behind me, almost as if he'd seen me struggling to ignore him--avoid him, get rid of him--and had ended up responding to him anyway.

It had been that way for as long as I could remember. Maybe he remembers that too, a stupid, pathetic voice that sounded so godawfully hopeful resounded in my head. And maybe he did remember, but did any of it matter when he always forgot it all the moment it came for him to run?

Shaking my head out of it, I rounded the familiar school hallway and entered the reception area just a little before the doors to the principal's and the counselor's office--both of which were closed shut. Ava Greenley was here though--the assistant receptionist.

"Not a clue, dear." She told me when I asked her if August had contacted her, or if she'd seen August anywhere (I knew she made rounds around the school property most of the time). "He did show up for the counselor's office, but that was yesterday."

"And what was young Mr. Montgomery seeing the counselor for?" It was Blake putting his nose into business that didn't fucking concern him. Again.

The receptionist didn't seem fazed in the slightest, not because she was used to strange boys intruding on her conversations, but probably because--and I didn't like noticing it--she seemed to like what Blake was. A tall, muscled blond. A fucking eye candy, wasn't he?

"Oh." She giggled--she giggled when Blake flashed her a charming grin. My stupid heart seemed to give a pang at the sight of it, because I knew that smile wasn't real, I knew it wasn't, and wasn't he just made up of layers and layers of intricately woven facades?

"I think he'd been missing out on homework for more than a few days now," she continued. "Is something the matter at home, Alexis dear? Maybe that's why August isn't able to concentrate on his studies?"

"No." I stated out flatly, then I took a final glance around the office. "Thank you for your time."

It was momentary, but an intense rush of numbness still. A deep hollowed-out numbness that overtook me, from the deep confines of my heart to the tips of my fingers. It was a shock of alarming reality.

August wasn't here.

Where was I if he wasn't here?

"Hey." Blake gave a sharp tug on my hair, because he was right behind me, like he'd been since the past fucking hour, and I whirled around in rage. He frowned, letting my hair spill from between his fingers. "Trying a new hairdo?"

He was staring at the unruly hair I'd chopped off just last night in a frenzied haze, in a moment of panic. But it fairly didn't concern him, especially not him, and I was mad furious at that point. It was like he'd clicked that final trigger inside me.

He let go the moment I shoved him back, into one of the lockers, and punched him in the face. He, not surprisingly, took it very fucking graciously.

A sharp thud rang out in the empty corridor as the back of his head connected with the metal framing behind him. "Ow?"

I pulled back, but only an inch, breathing harshly at the familiar sting on my knuckles. Jabbing a finger into his shoulder, I sneered, "Do not fucking touch me again. Not a single finger on me."

He didn't pull away from the locker, only leaned against it more languidly now, slowly rubbing the side of his jaw. The dangerous blue of his eyes glinted. He was enjoying this--taking pleasure in getting punched in the face or taking pleasure in the horrifying situation I was in right now, I didn't know.

"Fist's getting weak, Lexi." He admonished me, because he wanted to get punched in the face again. What was worse was that I knew he'd killed plenty in seconds, mere seconds, if they tried so much as nearing him with a threatening glare. But he'd always taken what I'd thrown at him. And what did that make me? "Wanna try again?"

I stepped closer to him, felt the heat of his body press into mine, saw the darkness in his gaze flare to life, and gritted out, "I will end you, Blake  Moretti, if you so much as touch a single strand of my hair again."

It wasn't really the threat, but rather me saying that name that snuffed out all the sparkle in his whole self--exactly like I'd known and hoped. Because as much as he knew me, I think he sometimes forgot how much I knew him too.

I pulled away from him, watched him giving me a scathing, narrow-eyed look, and something wild within me settled.

"You're sitting at the back." I told him. "Passenger seat's off limits."

•••••

Blake didn't so much as say a word against my final statement after I walked away from him and out of that empty school corridor. All he did was follow me out, contemplate for a stupid hot second, and then get back in the backseat of my car.

Without a single complain.

That should've been my first clue that he wasn't here, right here, for any of the right reasons. Blake had never, not once in the whole time I'd known him, complied to a threat of all things so easily. Instead, I was so busy racking my brain for clues, shying away from thoughts that led to dangerous territories, and wondered how I was going to fix this mess I'd gotten August into.

First step, I told myself, was to track August's location. He must still have the burner phone he'd left me the voicemail with. Tracking the location wouldn't be so easy, but I knew someone who could do it.

The utter silence in the car with Blake's stare boring into the back of my skull, an unnerving, calculated stare--because he was a petty asshole, made me bristle.

"What," I snapped, glaring in the rearview mirror.

He slouched over the backseat. "I'm just trying to wonder why I never knew you had a brother all this time."

"You weren't supposed to know."

"Just like, apparently, I'm not supposed to," he made a whole show of shuddering horrendously, "touch you now?"

I gripped the steering wheel. "You are never supposed to touch me."

Blake looked affronted, but he must've seen something in my expression through the rearview, or maybe he really wasn't so stupid and had remembered my threat right to his face just moments ago, since he let it go. Not entirely, unfortunately.

"Little brothers." He mused. "Don't I know what a work they are."

"Don't act like you've had a single normal relationship with your siblings."

He smirked. I looked away and ahead at the road. "Normal is overrated, Lexi."

But it isn't. It really wasn't, I remembered, because I also remembered how Rena--his own sister--had looked the moment she'd found out that Blake had left. Without seeing her. And that he wasn't coming back. Broken, is what she'd looked in those first few moments of heartbreaking realization. And I had felt it in my heart.

"Did you even once thought of contacting your sister?"

"Should I have?"

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel but didn't say anything else. What else had I expected anyway?

"It's weird." He stated a few moments later. "I can feel the thick tension in the air. What's the fucking matter with you?"

Exhaling sharply, I parked the car right in front of the old pub a few blocks away from my apartment, and got out, slamming the door shut behind me. I didn't bother waiting for Blake as I headed inside.

The pub was mostly deserted, thankfully. Maybe because it wasn't nighttime yet, or maybe it was just this town's fucked up timings. Either way, the one person I'd come here to search for was manning the chipped clean bar, wiping off stains that I knew didn't exist, so I didn't bother giving the strange emptiness a second glance. Even when it made me stiffen in alarm.

"Little Alyosha." She looked up from the washcloth, bleached green hair pulled up in a complicatedly neat bun, and smiled. "Oh God, haven't you grown so prettily."

Wendy owned this ancient small pub, had owned it for as long as I could remember, and she remembered me from days when Uncle Misha used to bring me here. Those were the only times I saw her, because the other times I'd visited her were either the ones where I just wanted to get wasted on her own brand tequila, or the times where she'd show up at my apartment and I'd refuse to let her in.

"Who's the hotshot?" She asked, unabashedly leering at the very obvious thorn in my side.

"The hotshot will speak once you bribe him with drinks." Blake said, held out his hand expectantly, and just like that, Wendy was handing him a bottle of beer. "Well, aren't you a sweetheart."

I turned away from him, splayed my hands on the clean counter and stared at Wendy. "I need you to track a location for me."

"That's code for we need to get high as a fucking kite." Blake spoke, grinning around the mouth of the beer bottle when I glared at him.

"Zip it, Blake."

"Blake." Wendy's eyes widened almost comically. "You're Blake. The Blake."

I flinched at her tone. She gave me a knowing look.

"Heard things about me, have you?" Blake spoke in a sultry voice, letting his eyes rake over her.

"It's a burner phone." I interrupted before she could've said anything to him any further, and not about this--about whatever that she'd been about to say to him. "I need you to track it for me."

Wendy's shrewd eyes fell back on me. "What's going on?"

"I can't tell you." I don't trust you. I don't trust anyone.

"You can." Her eyes seemed to dull at that. "Is it about Misha?"

"Uncle Misha." Blake noted almost to himself. I remembered telling him about Uncle Misha once upon a time, so him knowing the name wasn't alarming in the least.

"No. It's about August. Can you do it or not? And how fast?"

She pulled out her phone from a back pocket, typing in something for a few seconds before she looked back up at me. "I can get it to you by morning. You need to give me all the details."

I felt a knot, the heaviest of them, loosening in my chest. Just a single knot unraveled made a whole difference. I could breathe a little easy.

"I...Okay." I said, licked my lips and got out my phone. "Give me a minute."

I left her with Blake by the counter and neared the doors, dialing Coco's landline and waiting for anyone their on shift to pick up my call. Kleo picked up. She had a few choice words to throw at me for calling the cafe landline instead of her personal phone number, but seemed to understand when I told her I would probably need her to cover my morning shift.

I could see Wendy and Blake engrossed in a sorts of conversation and it raised all kinds of alarms within me, but there wasn't much I could've done about it.

"What's up with your hair?" Wendy asked me when I made my way back to her, sliding my burner phone across the counter towards her. "If you wanted to chop them off so badly, should've done all of them, no?"

I stared back at her.

Blake turned sideways along the bar counter and nudged my leg with his boot, raising a brow with all of smug satisfaction on his stupid face. "Yes, Lexi, why did you cut your hair?"

I fisted my hands on the counter when I realized they both were staring. "The number." I snapped at them both.

Wendy sighed and switched on the burner phone, pressing on the call log and turning the screen towards me. I pointed at the phone number I'd made numerous calls to in the past hour. August's burner phone.

"Morning." She tapped the burner on the counter and stared at me. Waiting. Waiting for me to tell her more. To speak.

Instead, I shook my head minutely, and pulled away from the counter. "Thanks." I said, hesitated because she hadn't asked for a payment like all those times before. Then I glanced at Blake. "Come on."

If I hadn't been staring, if I hadn't been so aware of all the littlest of reactions that made him, I would've missed it like anyone else--lile everyone else--the shortest moment where he pulled away from the counter, nearly grimaced after he chugged down the rest of the beer, and rubbed his side where, I remembered, I'd seen that horrid scar embedded in his skin. One that looked fresh. One that was new.

He pulled out a wad of cash from his pocket, threw it on the counter, and tipped his head where Wendy had gone back to manning the countless rows of liquor bottles. "Pleasure doing business with you, hotshot."

He was on the run.

"Would you look at that," he muttered under his breath, fished out a half empty pack of cigarettes and pulled one between his lips. I stopped alongside him, staring up at the late evening sky. "Another new night."

He offered me a cigarette. I took the whole box like I'd always done every time before, closed it shut, and stuffed it into my own pocket.

Blake smirked around his cigarette as he flicked open the lighter, cupping his hand around it to light it up.

"You're hurt," I said after we'd stayed there for a while, standing just outside the pub entrance and still staring at the unremarkable sky.

It was only a moment of time, I reminded myself. He can't stay.

"Aren't we all, Alexis." He spared me a glance, holding out the half-burnt cigarette from the burning end. "Aren't we all."

I clenched my jaw. Then let it go. Stepping closer, I met his gaze right there. He stared back, eyes twitching when I snatched the cigarette from his fingers and tossed it to the ground, crushing it beneath my shoe.

Blake sighed, forlorn. "Here we go again."