A/N: Sorry for the long wait you guys. I had to write this chapter like 3 times because I didn't like what I had. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! Read and Review. I'd like to know what you all think! LOL I also hope that it makes sense in the end. I kind of rushed it because I was getting kind of tired and I really wanted to post up a chapter before a year passed by. Haha.

Annie.

25.
My little decoy
Don't look so blue, you should've seen right through
I'm using you, my little decoy

"Where is this Smith house that Deb was talking about?" Matthew questioned as he squinted to see through the dark woods. Brooke was sitting on the passenger seat, grasping tightly to the holder on the door.

"I don't know, but this place is creeping me out," Brooke stated, trying hard not to look out the window. They just finished talking to Deb at Nathan's house. It was only for a little while, but she said a few comforting words about how Nathan isn't the same person he used to be now that Haley was around. She said he's totally changed. Brooke wasn't surprised because she knew . Matthew on the other hand wasn't overly impressed. He just sat there ignoring any childhood stories about Nathan and zoned back into the conversation when Nathan's hang outs were mentioned.

"Brooke, just look out on that side to make sure we didn't pass up the address," Matt ordered, now slowing the car as he drove down a dim neighborhood.

"Excuse me! I'm not taking your orders!" she snapped, still avoiding the windows.

"Stop being such a baby and look out the window," he replied, leaning over to see the address of the house on his left. "You do want to find Haley ,right?"

"Yeah," she answered.

"Then look for the fucking Smith house!"

"Sheesh. If I knew you were going to be a little bitch about this, I would've said no!" Brooke replied, rolling her eyes and finally finding the courage to look out of her window.

Matthew sighed deeply, shaking his head and continued to drive fifteen miles per hour.

"Nathan's mom seemed nice," Brooke commented as she squinted her eyes to look at the numbers of the houses.
It was too hard to read because no one around this neighborhood had their porch lights on.

"Who cares," he mumbled.

Brooke turned away from the house address she was trying to look at and quickly hit him on the shoulder.

"OW!"

"OW!" Brooke mocked. "You need to be nicer. She's a sweet woman."

"She's Nathan's mother. She obviously didn't raise him right," he stated. He leaned over his steering wheel to find a house hidden between a few trees.

Brooke rolled her eyes, "You have no idea who Nathan is and how he was raised. I don't even know and I'm not judging him."

Matthew turned the corner and started driving on a rocky pathway. "You're not judging him because he's dat- he's with Haley." The pathway was pretty bumpy that it made the car started rock up and down.

"Where are we going?" Brooke asked, concerned.

"I noticed that house right there," he pointed to a dark house behind a group of trees on his left. "She did say that it was some abandoned house."

Brooke leaned over the dashboard to find the house peeking through the trees and she all of sudden felt herself shiver. "That doesn't look . . . safe," she gulped.

"But it might be it," he stated as he drove closer and closer to the house. Once they were finally near what seemed to be the driveway, Matthew looked at the address that was missing a few numbers.

"1723 Franklin Ave. isn't that what she said?" Brooke asked. "That says 1_23."

"It's probably missing the 7. We're on Franklin Ave. and the house before this is 1721. This has to be the house."

"I better hope you're right. I don't want to get raped or murdered here," Brooke exclaimed. Then she thought for a second and turned to Matthew. "Do you think she tricked us and brought us here to get murdered!?"

"Stop that!" he snapped. "You're creeping me out."

"I can't help it! We're in a freaky neighborhood. Nobody has their porch lights on. We're in front of an abandoned house that we're not even sure is the right on. And I'm stuck here with YOU!" Brooke started to panic and began pulling at the roots of her hair.

"What's so bad about being stuck here with me?" he asked.

"Are you serious? You think you're this mister big shot foot ball star, but I have this slightest feeling that you aren't the type who protects the damsel in distress. You'll probably flee the scene to save your own life," Brooke answered.

Matthew glanced at her for a second, and then started to play with the zipper on his jacket. "You're probably right. I'd probably run."

Brooke scoffed, and groaned loudly.

------

"The doctor said that she has to stay here for the rest of the week," Nathan informed us as me and David stayed in the waiting room. We were here for a couple of hours waiting patiently for news about Lena.

"What does that mean? Are we going to stay here?" David asked. I sat there in silence watching Nathan think.

"We can't stay here for the rest of the week," he answered. He started walking over to me and held out his hand. "Haley and I have to leave." I grabbed his hand and stood up from the chair.

"So we're just going to leave her here?" David questioned, standing up as well.

"No. You're going to call her mom and tell her where she is. I don't want her to worry." Nathan ordered as he started walking out the waiting room. I just followed, leaving David behind us.

"Wait a second, Nate!" We both stopped and noticed David quickly pacing towards us. "You're leaving all of this on me?"

Nathan nodded, "Yeah." His face was serious and stone cold. "You got her here. You might as well tell her mother what happened so you can get her out."

"I can't do that, Nate."

"And why not? Afraid?"

David glanced at me quickly and then back at Nathan, "Yeah. I'm afraid. I can't tell her mother that I –," he paused and looked around to see if anyone was listening then he lowered his voice. "I can't tell her that I gave her the drugs. She will never forgive me."

"Well, it goes with the consequences," Nathan replied. Then he stepped forward and held out his hand. "Give me the keys to your truck."

David went from scared to very confused. "What?"

"Give me your keys, David. I need something to drive. You're the only one with a car."

David pulled out his keys from his pocket and hesitantly put it in Nathan's hand. "What am I going to drive?"

"Get a cab."

"We don't have cabs here in West Grove," David replied. So that's where we were. West Grove. That was 30 minutes out of Tree Hill. We weren't that far and I'm surprised they still haven't found us. I wondered if they quit.

"Then you'll have to catch a ride with Lena's mom or something. I'm not bringing you home. I want you to stay here with Lena," Nathan stated. He put the keys in his pocket and stepped back.

"Nate!"

"No, I want you to stay here. Take care of her. Fix yourself, David. I'm trying to help you." Nathan answered.

"How is this helping me? You're torturing me,"

"Just trust me," Nathan said and we both headed towards the exit. I looked back once to see David's face. I was distraught and sad. The way he stood there, confused and lost, made my heart ache. I noticed him look around him like he was trying to search for someone he knew but failed. Then I noticed him look at us. It was like looking at a puppy that we decided to abandon. Then Nathan and I eventually disappeared out of the door.

----

Brooke sat in the passenger seat as she picked on her nail polish when she felt Matt push her on the shoulder.

"Look, someone's coming," he stated. They both looked back and watched a red truck parked close to the house.

Brooke and Matt slowly slid into their seats to make sure that the headlights of their truck didn't reflect onto his car. The light went off and two dark images climbed out of the truck and started walking slowly to the house. But then Brooke and Matt noticed them slowing down and turning their head towards their car.

"Oh my gosh, are they looking at us?" Brooke whispered.

"I don't know," Matt replied.

Soon enough the images were walking closer to their car. The moonlight appeared through the trees and reflected on the first person that they saw. It was Nathan. Right behind him was Haley who quickly grabbed Nathan's hand. Brooke blew out a breath, relieved to know it was them. Matt, on the other hand, cringed at the sight of them holding hands under the moonlight.

"Who are you?" Nathan yelled out. "What do you want?"

Matt climbed out of the car, Brooke following and started towards the couple on the rocky pathway.

"Brooke?" Haley asked, trying to clear out the image of her best friend from the dark. Then she saw her face appearing in the limited light that was available. Matt appeared as well and Haley's heart dropped. "Matt?"

----

I noticed the two familiar faces walking towards us. I was surprised that they both were here together. Matthew was the last person that Brooke would ever be with at this time.

"Well, well. Look who we have here," Matthew greeted with a grin.

"What are you doing here, Matt?" I asked.

"Oh you know, just driving through the neighborhood," he looked around him and noticed the dark trees blowing softly against the cool wind.

"You and Brooke drove around this neighborhood?" Nathan asked, not convinced at all.

"Well, he actually dragged me here with him," Brooke answered. She had her arms crossed and stood a few feet away from Matthew. She was clearly annoyed by him. If I was her, I would be too.

"So you both came here to get me, right?" I asked.

Matthew was about to speak, but Brooke butted in, "Yeah. We were worried about you, Hales." She stepped closer. Her eyes were full of worry and hope. She was one of the reasons why I felt homesick these past couple of days. I had left my best friend at home. I even left my parents too.

"Yeah, we really were," Matt announced. And he was one of the reasons why I didn't want to go back. Him and all the people like him were the people that I didn't want to see at all.

"Did you just expect me to climb into that car with you and go back? I don't think so," I replied and turned around to go inside the Smith house. Nathan looked back at Matthew once then followed me inside.

"Haley!" I heard Brooke call out as I walked inside the living. I sat on the couch that I had slept in the other night.

Nathan leaned against the wall across from me as Brooke slowly crept in through the front door. I watched her slowly peek inside. She first examined the chipped wood on the frame of the door then she looked at the peeling wall paper. She made a face at that and I laughed a little inside. Then she walked all the way inside and heard the creek of the wooden floor boards.

"Is this where you guys stayed these past few days?" she asked, disgusted. Matthew appeared at the door and did the same exact things that she did. Even though Matthew was this buff football player, he was a bit of a scaredy cat.

"Yeah," I nodded.

"It's nice," she replied sarcastically as she started walking over to sit beside me.

Matthew walked around and poked the burnt out light bulb in the middle of the room. Nathan was watching intently, still threatened by him. Then I felt Brooke grab my hand.

"I missed you best friend," she stated. I looked at her and smiled.

"I missed you too," I replied.

"How come you never answered any of my calls or called me?" I remembered looking at my phone and noticing all the missing phone calls and all the text messages from her. I was tempted to call back a few times, but I just couldn't. For some reason, I felt that if I called her I would want to go back home in a heart beat. And I didn't want to go back home, I wanted to be wherever Nathan was. So I just avoided everyone. But I wasn't going to tell her that.

"I'm sorry," was all I said.

She looked over at Matthew and rolled her eyes. "He dragged me here, you know that," she whispered.

I nodded and glanced over at Nathan. I wanted to see if he knew that I wanted him and Matthew out of the room for this conversation. So gave him a look and he nodded.

"Hey Matt, let's talk," Nathan stated, patting Matt on the back and guiding him outside on the porch.

I smiled and watched as they both disappeared.

"I figured he would've," I stated turning back to Brooke.

"I'm his decoy. He only wanted me to come because he knew that if I did, you'd come with us," she confessed. "I knew it wasn't going to work because you're not the same Haley that I knew before." What was that suppose to mean? She noticed that I was thinking and read my mind. "I mean that in a good way, Hales. You're not going to just give in especially since Nathan's become a very big part of your life. I know you're not going to leave him to go back with us."

I saw the cheerless expression on her face. I did change, but I was never going to drop my friendship with Brooke because I was Nathan. I would never in God's world do that to her. "Brooke, I'm not leaving you behind."

"I know you won't," she nodded.

"I just can't go back there, Brooke. Did you know what I did?" I asked her. My parents and everyone at town weren't the only reasons why I didn't want to go back. I did bail out a prisoner from the police station and ran away with him. If that doesn't scream trouble I don't know what does.

"Yeah it's all over the news. They made another head line this morning on the newspaper about you." Just great! This was different from my last big adventure with Nathan. It was bigger because this time I broke the rules.

"I can't go back in town and think that everything will be okay because it won't be," I stated. I just thought about Nathan. What will happen to him if I go back home? Will he go back to jail and serve a longer time in there? How long will I be in there? Or will I even go to jail since my dad's the sheriff?

"Things probably won't be fine, but your parents are worried about you Hales."

"That doesn't make any of the things I did yesterday right. Nathan and I might go to jail!" I exclaimed as I started to panic.

"Stop it! You're not going to jail, okay," Brooke held my hand tighter. I never thought about the consequences about all of this until now. I started to understand how David felt when Nathan told him that he had to tell the truth to Lena's mom. I felt like that abandoned puppy.

And to make matters worse, I heard the sirens. Our eyes widened.

"NO!" I cried out. We both looked out the window and noticed the blue and red lights flashing down the street. The sirens were getting louder. Brooke and I both ran out to the porch to see if Nathan and Matthew were still there. Before we could walk out, Nathan shoved us both back inside and pulled us towards the back of the house.

"They're at the back!" It was Matthew's voice that I heard guiding the policemen to us. Why? I just knew this was all too good to be true. Nathan held my hand tightly just like I held onto Brooke's as he tried to guide us out the back door to escape.

"Come on!" He demanded as Brooke and I struggled over the steps as we tried to run as fast as we could from the cops. I could hear their feet coming closer and closer to us.

"How did they get here so fast?" I called out.

"I don't know, but I think Matthew had something to do with this," Nathan stated between his breaths.

"I'm so sorry you guys," Brooke blurted out.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" They shouted. Before we could take another step, we were surrounded by cops with their flashlights in our faces. I looked at both of my sides. I had my best friend to my left, my wonderful best friend. She looked frightened, and confused. She held onto my hand tightly and looked down at her feet. Everything was starting to get complicated for her. Then to my right, I had the love of my life. He looked afraid as well, but he looked back at me with these comforting eyes. Then he moved his lips and he whispered, "I'm sorry."

Then I looked ahead of me and I saw him. I saw my own father and not only did he look angry, he looked very disappointed. And that was the worse expression I had seen all night.