Amalie hadn’t come to school on Tuesday.

Or Wednesday.

When Thursday rolled around Kaya began to become really worried, Mia didn’t seem to care one way or the other, and from the looks of things, was now being excluded by the other kids, even when she would get mad, they’d just ignore her. Word spread fast of how Amalie fought almost Mia’s whole group and came out almost unscathed. Some of the older kids joked that Amalie was secretly a superhero given how, Mia, Jill, Nancy and the boys were hurt.

Kaya did what she could to stay away from them as well as regretted even sticking with them after all the horrible things they said to her thinking it would stop. One boy, Lukas, told Kaya that Mia was going through a lot and while he didn’t know what, it was why she lashed out. It didn’t excuse her behaviour, but it made it understandable.

There was a rumour that Mai’s parents hurt her, physical abuse as they called it, but she would never confirm it, she would tell the others who asked to shut up and fight them into silence. It was something Mia didn’t want to talk to anyone about.

But Kaya didn’t care about that, she hated Mia, hated her for dragging Kaya into this whole thing, hated how she left Amalie alone, hated how a part of her just let it all happen. She wanted to just talk to Amalie, tell her that she didn’t mean to laugh. To apologize.

She even said she wanted to try and find Lauren to make up for it. Even though Lauren was missing as Elain told her the previous day, a person just couldn’t vanish. There had to be clues. There had to be!

Kaya puffed her cheeks in annoyance, why couldn’t she be like that genius boy detective in Detective Conan or Batman!? If she was smart like them then maybe she could solve it!

By Saturday, Kaya felt like her frustration was going to hit the roof.

She felt like banging her head on her desk, but just propped her chin on top of her arms while staring out the window in frustration, she could hear the distant sounds of kids playing, probably from the nearby park where she went with her sister and met Amalie.

She felt her heart tighten with regret; she should have been better. She always talked the talk of standing up for others, but when it came down to it, she was nothing more than a stinky coward. And she hated that about herself.

As she mulled over what she could do, she saw Mr. Hilmarsson putting something into the back of his car, then looked to his garden, for a second it felt like he was glancing at her. But that couldn’t be the case since he was wearing glasses. And normally meant that people with glasses had poor eyesight.

As quickly as she could, Kaya left her room, snuck downstairs and as quietly as she could, opened the front door and rushed outside. Since she was still grounded, she couldn’t go outside or leave her room to eat or use the bathroom because her parents grounded her for what would feel like an eternity. But this was also an emergency.

And as scary as Amalie’s Daddy could be, this was important.

“U-um, ex-excuse me… Mr. Hilmarsson?”

He paused when reaching the door to the house and turned to face her. Kaya kept her distance, remaining on the sidewalk. As much as she did want to talk to Amalie, she was still wary of the girl’s dad.

“H-hi… um… is-is Amalie… is Amalie home, sir?”

Alastor looked at her with a faint smile. “No, she’s currently not. Why? Do you wish to speak with my daughter? Don’t you think enough damage was done?”

He wasn’t wrong. Just standing by and doing nothing was just as bad as taking part in the actual bullying.

“I know I shouldn’t have…” she said as she gripped her pink sweater. “I should have done something to help or stop it.”

“Yes, but that’s not what I’m referring to.” Kaya looked at the man, puzzled. What else could it have been that she had done wrong by Amalie?

It was then that he spoke after a moment of silence grew between them.

“Why did you laugh when Amalie was being tormented by those children?”

Kaya suddenly felt cold. As though a snowstorm had struck her in the back.

He was referring to when before the fighting took place. When Jill, Nancy, Mia and the boys, and so many others decided to gang up on her before Jill spoke about Lauren, the girl who disappeared, Amalie snapped in response.

Never in Kaya’s life had she felt more scared, but what made it worse was that Kaya might have been in part, a trigger for the chaos that took place.

Alastor let out a sigh as he turned to head back inside. “Kaya you should go home, you shouldn’t let your parents worry. And, I think it would be best if you left my daughter alone.”

“But I… I didn’t mean to laugh! I don’t even know why I did!” Kaya said before he closed the door, which brought him to pause and open it again. “I know I shouldn’t have, but I did. I didn’t want to but I couldn’t stop even when I covered my mouth with my hands… I don’t know why I did it…”

“Involuntary laughter,” Alastor told her as he opened the door fully. “Things like that can happen when you’re scared. It’s an auto-response from the body when a person is placed in a great amount of fear. But you didn’t stand up for her, you just let it happen. Don’t you think it’s just as bad as those who bully and harm others?”

Amalie’s Dad was right again, it was just as bad. And she just let it happen even though Kaya was always against such things. It was an excuse, Kaya knew that but she was afraid, scared that Mia would say those horrible things again, and she didn’t want to deal with that. She had no friends here, no one she could trust.

She had Amalie but then backstabbed her in the worst way possible. Still, she needed to fix this somehow, she just needed to talk with Amalie first, then try and go from there.

Meaning she had no choice but to wait till school started to even attempt such a thing.

* * *

When Monday came, Kaya waited like she had ants in her shoes, Amalie didn’t come in the morning and wondered if she was going to come at all, but then, after lunch, Amalie was seen in the classroom, putting an assignment on a teacher’s desk. Dressed like she always did, in a long skirt and blouse and flats. With it getting colder the colours became darker, with a long brown skirt, black stockings and matching flats, a dark blue blouse with a red ribbon, her long hair partly pulled back and held in place with a dark red French-Berret.

The injuries that she had were still visible, but healing well, if anything it made her seem almost more intense with her silver-grey eyes. The other kids who saw her all took three steps back when she looked at them.

She said nothing to them as she walked past and headed to the library.

Amalie seemed alright now, yet now, there seemed to be a coldness to her. Like she didn’t want anyone to be near her. Distant and calm, but underneath that calm, there was anger, underlined with something Kaya wasn’t sure of. When she came to school, she seemed to be looking for something. Or someone.

Kaya even noticed how Amalie was trying to speak with Jill but didn’t seem to go far as Jill just began to cry and a teacher, Mr. McCrea brought her inside to calm down.

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Jill had been like that recently, ever since after the big fight, when Jill came the next day, something changed. Kaya wasn’t sure what happened, but it was like all the joy that girl had was just gone and in its place was fear and worry. Like she was scared something was going to get her. She used to love gym class but now didn’t even want to go and would hide in the library.

Something that she never used to do.

A bunch of the other kids thought that it was because Jill was afraid she would be made fun of since Amalie took on five kids at once and won. Mia would tell the kids who’d laugh to shut up but it never went further than that.

Yet Amalie would try and try again to talk with Jill.

Then, during one recess on Wednesday, Kaya took the plunge and approached Amalie in the hallway. She was wearing a black turtleneck and dark forest green dress with embordered leaves while Kaya was wearing a long white sleeved shirt and dark pink overalls.

“Um… Amalie? Can I… talk with you?”

Amalie was silent for a moment, something about her was different, cold, distant. Kaya didn’t like it. “If your mom told you to apologize, don’t bother,” Amalie said softly as her grey eyes cast a glance. “You don’t care, or mean it, so I won’t accept it. Do what you want with the others. Just stay away from me.”

“I’m not going to stop till you talk you me!” Kaya yelled from across the hall, but the little girl refused to look back and merely kept going. Kaya stomped her foot in annoyance, this was really important, and yeah, Kaya was a jerk, a big stinky jerk, but Amalie needed to hear her out. What Amalie was doing was weird, yeah, but there was a reason behind it. And that nagged at her. She wanted to help Amalie, as a way to make up for being such a brat. But there wasn’t anything Kaya could do unless Amalie was willing.

Then, she recalled the teachers, maybe someone, anyone, would be willing to hear her out! She rushed off to try and talk to any teachers that might know what was going on.

* * *

It was a disaster.

A complete and utter failure.

None of the teachers Kaya spoke to knew anything. Or at least were willing to share.

Meanies.

This was important and not a single one seemed willing.

All the teachers were acting like nothing was wrong, well, not all of them, the history teacher, French teacher and homeroom teacher Ms. Miller seemed to be worried about something but weren’t willing to share because they were a bunch of kids.

Kids weren’t dumb though… well… some of them. Some kids could be pretty dumb, especially the boys, but Kaya felt that it was done on purpose. Dorks.

But that didn’t matter right now!

She needed to find someone she could talk to about Amalie, about all of this and how to get the girl to hear her out but also give a sincere apology.

And she was so immersed in thinking this, that she was suddenly yanked out of her deep thoughts when a bellowing voice called out. “Whoa, Kaya! Watch where you’re going!”

She stopped and looked down; she almost fell down the small number of stairs in the school. Kaya looked behind herself to see Nick Green, grasping her tiny shoulders so she wouldn’t barrel down the stairs.

“Mr. Green, thank you.” She said when he let her go.

The gym teacher smiled. “Hey it’s no problem, you looked deep in thought there. For a second, I was worried you might seriously hurt yourself.”

Kaya had never interacted with this teacher much. But a lot of kids liked him, Mia didn’t but she would never say why. Still, Mr. Green seemed to know a lot about the other kids, so maybe, he might be able to know how to talk with Amalie?

“Um, Mr. Green? can I ask you something? It’s about Amalie?”

“Amalie?” then Kaya noticed a shift in his tone when he said Amalie’s name. yet when she looked at him the man was smiling at her as he had before. “Sure, what is it that you want to know?”

“Well…” Kaya began only to stop when other kids began to walk by as well as two older teachers talking gossip. “A-actually, is there we can talk so no one can hear us? It’s… I don’t want others to know.”

“Sure,” he said. “There’s a place that I go when I don’t want others to find me. Think of it as my own secret base.”

A secret base?! And it’s in school!! “Really, where is it?” Kaya’s eyes shined with interest; she had no idea something like that existed within the school. It sounded so cool!

“You want to see it?” Nick asked.

“Sure!” Kaya then followed after Mr. Green, completely unaware that Amalie was watching them from a distance.

“Here it is,” Nick said when he opened the door to the school’s basement. This was where his secret base was? It didn’t look all that special. Seeing it she remembered Ms. Miller instructing the kids that under no circumstances were any of the kids allowed to go down to the basement. This was told recently. Last week Ms. Miller seemed to have changed, it was small but the kids noticed and since Ms. Miller was spending more time with Mia, and even talking to Amalie since she got back but didn’t get much since the girl avoided her, all the kids in her class listened and avoided the basement at all costs.

Kaya didn’t know why, but the way Ms. Miller said it, made it sound like there was a monster hiding in the basement that would eat kids.

“Mr. Green, I’m not allowed to go down there,” Kaya told him. “The other teachers said it’s a place kids shouldn’t go.”

“Did Ms. Miller tell you that?”

The way he sounded caused Kaya to look at him. He sounded almost angry.

When Kaya didn’t answer Nick gave an exasperated sigh. Like he was expecting it.

“Kaya, you really shouldn’t listen to what that old woman has to say.”

Ms. Miller’s not that old though… Kaya thought thinking of her parents, they were just a bit older than Ms. Miller, or at least, looked it. She’d never ask a Lady her age though, it was rude. At least that’s what her Mama always told her.

“Besides, you were so excited a minute ago, weren’t you? Don’t you like secret places? I heard you talk about it with other kids when you play pretend like you’re an adventurer finding a new place to explore.” He then walked into the basement, stopping five steps down and holding out his hand for Kaya to take. “I’ll show you that there’s nothing to fear down here. I promise you’ll be safe with me.”

Something about him now seemed weird. Kaya wasn’t sure why, but everything inside herself screamed not to follow him.

Nick looked back with that same smile that somehow looked different now. Creepy. “What’s wrong, Kaya? Come on,” he continued to hold out his hand for her to take. “You wanted a place to talk where no one would listen in, didn’t you?”

She hesitated, yet as her hand went to reach for his, only to pull away out of surprise when hearing the sound of the fire alarm going off. During her confusion as a few of the kids who stayed inside during recess and teachers rushed to get out of the building in an orderly fashion, another hand grabbed Kaya’s, pulling her away from the man. The girl was stunned to see who it was that pulled her away. “Amalie?!”

Without a word, Amalie continued to pull Kaya down the hall, past the other kids and outside school and away from all the other kids playing to go around the corner near the red brick wall where they stopped. Both were trying to catch their breath from running so much.

“Why did you…” Kaya didn’t manage to get the rest out when the other girl snapped.

“What were you thinking?” Amalie demanded. “You shouldn’t follow people like him!”

Kaya’s shoulders squared off. “I was going to ask him about you! You don’t wanna talk, and he seemed to know all the kids, so…” the rest of her words fell short when Amalie grabbed Kaya’s shoulder’s tightly and nearly squeezed so hard that her nails could have drawn blood.

“Never follow him down to the basement!” she almost screamed. Her eyes were holding a look of pure desperation, fear and anger. “Never!”

Confusion and shock filled Kaya’s face when seeing how desperate Amalie looked at that moment. But that brought a question to mind. “What did he do?”

Amalie moved away, her back facing Kaya. “A lot of bad things, bad things that I’m not even sure of. I just know… I know that any kid who goes down into that basement doesn’t come back the same. Unless another teacher is waiting or with them.” When Kaya didn’t respond, Amalie added. “You know the girl that used to be in your group? Jill? Haven’t you wondered why she’s suddenly alone at recess or lunch?”

She did. Jill was one of the girls who made fun of Amalie but now just went off to be by herself. But she had seen Amalie talk with her, how she would just keep trying with Jill again and again.

Yet if that was true, why not speak up? “Then… if it’s that bad, and you know, why not tell someone?”

Amalie turned to look at her. “You think I haven’t?” her words were heavy. “I’ve tried. I talked with teachers, even the principal. And nothing changes. They don’t believe me. And before you ask, that man has told those kids to keep quiet, or he would do worse to them. They won’t talk. Even Jill, but I haven’t stopped trying with her. No one deserves what happened to her. Even if she did take part in bullying me.” Her silver-grey eyes glanced to the ground, seeing a wildflower struggling to remain alive with the coming fall as they could hear the sound of the school’s fire alarm, as all the other students came out with teachers shouting, trying to get the kids in order. “You can try Kaya, but until then, just stay away from him. For your own safety, please. I don’t want what happened to Jill to happen to you too, whatever it may be.”

She then walked away to join her class before Kaya had the chance to speak up, to ask why she never told her dad. He would have believed her, right? He would do something about this, wouldn’t he?

But the question was, would he even listen to her after what she did to his kid?

“Tell someone,” Amalie’s voice echoed inside Kaya’s head. “Even if they don’t believe you, someone has to eventually, even if you have to scream it.”

Kaya shook her head. No, he would have to, given what just happened, he had to believe her! With that thought in mind, she knew what she needed to do next.

While the teachers were preoccupied with the students’ Kaya rushed back inside and went right to their classroom and to Amalie’s desk, where she kept her phone, found Amalie’s Dad’s number, and saved it in her phone before putting it back where she found it.

“Kaya?” she jumped when hearing Ms. Miller’s voice looking rather confused and slightly worried. “What are you doing? There’s a fire alarm. We have to be outside, come on.”

“C-coming…” Kaya said as she kept her phone close to her chest. She took a picture of Alastor’s number and would try calling later, hoping, sincerely hoping, that he would at least be willing to hear her out.