The night and following morning had been stressful for Anna, if you wanted to be casual about it. She hadn't slept for more than an hour, the nightmares being too much for her to deal with. There hadn't been one that was the same as the other; one was on the bus, where Professor Topp hadn't been able to protect her; another was in the transportation building; another right in her bedroom, both before and after Eva left. All of them ended with a new death. She stopped trying to get to sleep when she woke up at five o'clock.
Someone was bound to notice that something was wrong, what with the bags under her eyes and the faint tear streaks down her face. Her pink-haired roommate, Opal, was a little tentative to ask, but she eventually did. Once she did, the waterworks started all again. Opal pulled her roommate into a hug, letting her sob out the story until she physically couldn't cry anymore. When it was all over, Opal told her to just stay in the room. "No," Anna mumbled. "I'm really hungry. I'll come to breakfast." In reality, Anna didn't want to be alone in the room. She knew that, realistically, there was no way a hunter would have been able to get her. But...it still felt way better to stick around others.
Opal offered Anna some sort of potion that erased the signs that she'd just been sobbing her heart out. When their suitemates woke up and were ready, they all headed down to the cafeteria. The rest of their rather large group was already there, speaking in hushed tones as they usually did. As Anna got closer, she heard a few snippets from their conversation.
"...duelling club..." "...Zach...killed..." "...hunters..." "...don't mention it..."
Anna stopped in her tracks, while her suitemates and roommate kept on walking. She couldn't face them. If anyone said anything, she'd start crying. She gripped her tray tightly, looking around the room for an escape. She just caught sight of the bright red cloak rushing out of the cafeteria. She'd never been so thankful for the fire sorcerer's quirks. She sped-walked after him, leaving her friends to talk about whatever the hell they wanted to.
She rushed to where he was sitting, putting on a smile. "Hiya, Heinrich," she said quickly. Hopefully, he wouldn't be too angry about her not coming to the forest. "How've you been?"
Maxine wasn't back in the dorm when Mia returned that night. Louise had apparently already told a professor, and she said that he'd already been and gone to go speak to the rest of the faculty. When Mia woke up in the morning, she half expected to find Max in her bed, having pulled some ridiculous prank. She'd get detention for a few weeks, for wasting staff time or something else, but she'd brush it all off, and bake brownies to apologise. But when Mia's eyes fell on the bed it was just as it had been the previous day, all messy and disordered.
The previous day, she had tried to be the level headed one. The one to take a step back and know just what to do. But it had been a full day, and every second she didn't know where Maxine was chipped away at her.
To just...disappear was unusual of Maxine. Sure, she liked to joke around, but she had never played a successful prank. She would always get caught out in some way, by leaving a massive bit of evidence right in plain sight or something like that. Maybe, maybe they'd missed something. So, Mia skipped breakfast, and sent a freshmen to deliver a message to Professor Bell that she wouldn't be coming to research, just for today. Together, she, Louise and Sarah clawed through their room, searching for that piece of evidence.
They found it. But it didn't elude to what they'd hoped.
Sarah was the one who found it. She shrieked when she read it, crying out, "Mia, Lou, look at this!"
Mia snatched it from her hand, desperate. She read it over, and her breath hitched in her throat. "Where'd you find it?" She asked breathlessly.
"Under her pillow," Sarah said, gesturing to the bed that they'd stripped in hopes of finding proof.
Louise grabbed Mia's wrist and pulled it towards her, eyes skimming quickly over the letter. "Eric? Eric, like her boyfriend, Eric?" Louise tittered. "He'd never hurt her! He gave her that ring and everything!"
Mia sat on her bed, reading the letter again and again. The date Max disappeared was mentioned, saying that 'I'll be there.' 'I hope everything is okay.' Something about 'the usual spot'. 'I love you.'
Silence hung around the room, grim implications crawling under Mia's skin. "Eric wouldn't hurt her," Louise reiterated, but neither Mia nor Sarah spoke.
Mia suddenly stood up, still holding the letter. She nearly sprinted to her desk and snatched a picture frame off the surface. A photo of her and Maxine from when they'd met up that summer. They'd taken enough selfies that Mia's phone had ran out of memory. She'd gotten the best one printed out and framed; the two of them, tightly pushed together, smiling big genuine smiles and holding up two ice creams, thankfully in a way that didn't cover up any of Maxine's face. She slipped the picture out the frame. She pulled out her wand, and drew a square around Maxine's part of the picture, duplicating just that part. She scrambled for paper and glue and a black sharpie, and put herself to work.
MISSING
Maxine Dawson
Last seen Friday night, 6th October
Age: 17
Height: 5'10" Weight: 140lbs
Hair: Dark brown Eyes: Brown
If seen, please tell a professor,
Mia Al-Hashim, Louise Pattison
or Sarah Talley
She stepped back from the desk, the picture of her best friend glued right in the middle. Someone had to know something. Mia held the poster up to her suitemates. "Help me duplicate these. We'll go around, and we'll stick them up all over." She sniffled just a little. "Somebody has to know something." Her voice cracked, but she wouldn't let herself cry. Together, the three suitemates copied the missing poster over and over until they had enough, for now. If they ran out, they could just make more.
Under other circumstances, Mia would establish a plan of what parts of the school the group would take. But she just wanted to get the posters up. "I'm going to give the Headmistress this letter," she said, holding Eric's response tightly enough that it creased. "You two will be okay to hand them out?"
Sarah nodded. "Yes, we'll be fine." She glanced at the letter, opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again. On trips into the town, she had seen Eric playfully lift Maxine up a few times, totally effortless. If Eric had wanted to hurt Maxine...it wouldn't have been difficult for him.
"I'll see you later. I'll come around to help once I'm done." With that, Mia turned on her heel and rushed towards the headmistresses office.
Once she arrived, she knocked primly on the door. Trying to keep it together. If she walked in blubbering, what were the chances the headmistress would take her seriously?