Justin jolted awake as his bedroom door banged open. Groaning he found his brother standing in the door frame, his not so broad shoulders filling the narrow space.

"Wake up! We're getting late." he says.
"I said I'll leave you at your friend's house by 11 and it's only eight in the morning. We're not getting late. Now go back to your room and stop getting so excited." Justin replies half asleep

"Fine!" he says while banging the door.
Justin flopped back on to his bed. For a minute he mentally urged himself to wake up but made no progress other than shifting slightly. He looked out of the window. It was a sharp December morning, and the steam was dazzling white in the early sun. The sudden  sharp sound of beeping burned away the last of his grogginess.

Sitting up he tried to find the source of the annoying sound. Books, clothes and blankets flew around the room as he tried to search his phone.

The never-ending search finally led him to the drawer of his study table. He removed it and saw a name flashing on the screen.

Amy

"Hello?" he answered.

"Hi. Were you sleeping? I'm sorry I didn't know."

"Nah. It's fine, what'd you call for?"

"I just wanted to confirm about today. We're still meeting at your place right?"
"Yeah."

"Ok. Thanks. Bye."

"Bye. See ya."

                                  ***

Katherine walked out of her house, leaving to go to Justin's wearing some grungy clothes in a rebellious way. Her midnight Black hair was styled into a tight ponytail paired with some typical black sneakers.

She just wanted to get this all over with and start her normal life again, one where she went to school like a normal girl.

But little did she know that what she was thinking was utterly impossible and that this was her new normal.

She reached Chris's house and rang the doorbell. He had called her last night asking to go with him to Justin's house.
"Hi." Chris answered the door.

"Let's go shall we?"

"After you."

Both of them started walking mindlessly towards Justin's house.

"So, why exactly did you want to go with me?"

"Nothing, I was just bored and I was in no mood to walk by myself alone to his house. Plus Sally and her friends have been irritating me a bit too much."

Katherine laughs and continues walking.
"Wait, what's there to laugh about?"

"Nothing. I'm just surprised that you didn't know that that's what Sally does."

"I understand that she can be a little too much sometimes but she's not bad."

"I never said she is bad. I just always think of her like one of those girls who can't complete a text message without using an abbreviation or an emoji."

"Whoa. That's some intense observation." Chris laughs.

Kat and Chris enter Justin's house laughing and discussing topics that made no sense to the other people in the room.

"Earth to kat and Chris!" Amy speaks in a sharp yet laughing manner.

"Sorry. So where were we on the whole thing?" Kat asks, sitting down on the beanbag in Justin's room.

"I asked my uncle about the private collector. According to him, he lives downtown. He gave me his business card."

"Okay. Maybe one of us can go and check in with him and try to find out something." Amy speaks.

"I'll go. Anyone wanna join?" Noah speaks.

"I'll come with you." Chris speaks.

"We also need a little more inside knowledge about the creepy building, like what all goes on inside the building." Kat speaks.

"On it. I'm trying to find some information on the staff working there. They all look like normal people working in an office. Nothing suspicious." Chris speaks.

"Okay. Let us know if you find out something." Amy speaks, taking out a pastel coloured notebook from her bag.
"What's that?" Noah asks, pointing towards the notebook.

"I'm just taking notes of everything that we've found out till now so that we won't have any difficulty ahead." Amy speaks, writing down points of today's discussion.

"Are you sure no one will open that?"
"Gee yes. I'm sure."

"Found it!" Chris screams in excitement.
"What did you find?" Justin looks at Chris with curiosity.

"Well everywhere I search about the building this man comes up, Martin Alonso. He's basically the one who controls the inside of the building."
"And?" Noah asks.

"That's all I got." Chris speaks.
"Hold on, give it to me." Noah speaks, grabbing the laptop from Chris. "Give me some time, I'll try to find out all that I can."

Noah mindlessly clicks the keys on the keyboard, opening hundreds of tabs. Everyone looks at him in awe.
"Looks like someone's a bit too good at stalking." Kat tries to tease Noah.
"Haha. Not funny, you can do it if you'd like." Noah replies.

After fifteen whole minutes, which seemed like a lifetime, Noah speaks.
"I found some stuff. You can check it." Noah shows everyone the 5 page word document he'd created of Martin Alonso.
"Oh my god. You literally found out the name of his elementary school." Amy speaks looking at the laptop screen.
"He's been working at the building for the last 25 years so he basically started the whole museum thing. He's a pretty big deal around town. And from that he definitely has multiple contacts all around the country, he lives in the town besides ours and visits the building every Friday and Saturday." Noah speaks.

"We can't talk to him or something because he already has a team of bodyguards and stuff and talking to some random teenage kids is not even the last thing on his to do list." Justin speaks.

"Exactly. So for now, he's off limits."
"Me and Noah will visit the collector tomorrow and keep you guys posted if we find anything." Chris speaks.
"Also, I can't meet you guys for the next two weeks as I'm going to my aunt's for Christmas." Amy speaks.

"No problem. Let's just take a break from this and we'll resume after new year." Justin suggests.

"Sounds good." Chris replies.