Jake Addams May 16th,20XX

It had been a week since I’d last seen hide nor hair of either Sparrow or Finn and I couldn’t seem to get into contact with either of them. From Will’s frantic calls, I knew Finn wasn’t on any sort of work-related field trip and I also knew that Sparrow wasn’t away on any official business either. Both of them were as unreliable as ever so it hadn’t been much of a worry for the first three or so days, but this was getting ridiculous.

I drove across town towards Finn’s apartment, half fearful but also half hopeful that the guy had just collapsed in his room from exhaustion or something. It wasn’t that I was hoping he was in such a dangerous predicament but at least then I would know where he was.

The quality of the buildings I drove by slowly improved in both quality and height the closer I got to his ridiculously high-class apartment but I didn’t have the luxury to slow down and admire them as I usually did. In my haste, I even completely ignored the apartment complex I’d mentally bookmarked for after graduating university and went straight for the flashy building that my unreliable friend supposedly lived in.

Will would take care of looking for his younger sister so I chose to focus on finding Finn since I was the best person for the job.

I parked at the front of the building and tossed my keys to the valet, refusing to acknowledge how natural the action came to me. The employees in the lobby greeted me casually as I walked past them and I nodded in response, once again choosing to ignore how overly familiar the process was.

The lobby manager walked out from behind his desk and sped up to meet me at the entrance and walk me to the elevator.

“Mr. Addams, a pleasure as always.”

“Yeah... uh likewise. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Finn around anytime recently?”

He started at the question and a quick look at his expression showed me that he’d been planning to ask me the same question.

“I'm afraid not Mr. Addams.”

I disliked being called Mr. Addams since it constantly reminded me of how prematurely I’d had to take on the burden of being the only ‘Mr. Addams’ in my family but I chose not to make a fuss. He looked like he wanted to follow up by asking me a question but by then the elevator had arrived and as far as I knew he wasn’t allowed to leave the lobby while he worked.

I faked an apologetic expression as I boarded the empty elevator and released a small sigh of relief. He was a good enough guy but was very enthusiastic when it came to his job. It was nice in small doses but impossible to deal with for an extended amount of time.

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About midway up a cleaning staff boarded the elevator and struggled to get the heavy cart over the speed bump that had rather illogically been placed at the entrance of the elevator. Well, I knew it was to prevent situations like this and to encourage the staff to use the industrial elevators instead but I couldn’t blame the guy for trying. The industrial elevators were tucked away from the apartments that the staff had to clean and added up to a lot of travel time over the working day.

There was also the possibility that the guy was new

“hey, I know these are closer but if you use the industrial elevators it’d be a lot easier to move that equipment around.”

The guy startled at my sudden advice and turned around to face me.

The first thing I noticed was how young the guy looked. Much too young to be working here in the middle of a school day. Piercing grey eyes connected with my eyes for a second and his frustrated frown deepened into a heavy frown as he waited for something to happen. He visibly began to panic.

“Hello?”

I tried to get his attention again, feeling uncomfortable with how intensely he was staring at me. I knew it wasn’t because I was that handsome, and even if I’d done a couple of ads here and there I was nowhere near the level of having any stalker-like fans, or even fans at all. Not to mention that even if he was a fan of mine there was no reason why he would have gotten a job here at one of my friend’s houses.

He frowned deeply again but this time in disgust rather than panic and looked down towards the floor, hiding his face with the brim of the uniforms cap.

“Sorry for the inconvenience sir, it's still my first day on the job.”

Before he could manage to run away with the heavy cart of cleaning supplies I caught a glimpse of his name tag and yelled after him when I saw him taking a wrong turn.

“Archer! It’s on your left, at the end of the hallway!”

I dismissed the narcissistic thoughts from my mind and realized he was probably panicked because he was an underaged worker. It wasn’t exactly against the law to hire underage citizens, after all, everyone had different circumstances, but they couldn’t give them shifts during school hours and had to keep their hours under 40 hours a week. The kid was probably worried that I would report him. And as for the intense stare, maybe he just recognized me from somewhere.

I got off the elevator and let myself into Finn’s apartment then wandered from room to room but to my relief and partial disappointment, I didn’t find my friend passed out on the floor or half-dead in his bedroom. I finished my loop of the large apartment in the living room where a bunch of papers were haphazardly scattered about between the table and the couch behind it. The first reason I went to check them out was to organize them into a moderately decent state but I also wondered if there would be anything that could help me figure out where he'd gone.

Feeling more and more like a detective I took a seat and began to look through the files but only grew more and more confused.

“Household management, Fluttermoth budget, research on witches, ideas on implementing an educational system, possible incentives for- what?”

Even as I said the names of each file out loud they made less sense to me than his sudden disappearance.

Was he writing a book? Or were these code for something?

I took a few pictures of each and made over to the company to meet with Will, thinking that he may have some idea on what they were about. I would usually have left them alone and forgotten about them as soon as I looked away but I got a strange feeling that they had something to do with Finn’s and possibly Sparrow’s disappearances.