A/N: I know I'm whipping these out rather fast but if I don't I'll second guess myself again, so I do hope you enjoy!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I hadn't dreamt of Josh since they found his body. School had been canceled for the week to give the students the proper time to mourn. I had holed myself up in my room. Only coming down to get me new bowls of cereal. My parents had tried to make me other food but I didn't eat any of it. I was perfectly content sitting in my room eating my Lucky Charms and drawing. I really did love drawing, it was very calming. I never showed anyone my picture though. Once when I was eleven my mom had found my secret stash under my mattress and told me they were the most amazing thing she'd ever seen. I ignored her complement and re-hid them. As of now, I was trying to draw my birth parents, or at least who I thought my birth parents were. I always drew the things from my dreams, hoping that they would give something away about my past but I had had no such luck in that department.

I scooped up another bite of cereal and examined what I had so far. I had their faces down, I'd probably drawn them a hundred times. The clothes were where I was getting stuck. I wanted to put them in what I always dreamt them in but those clothes were weird, to say the least. It felt like something you would see in a science fiction movie, not on your parents. Creasing my eyebrows, started sketching out what I remembered from my dreams. It was almost an ancient robe but the way it was worn made it feel more futuristic. Suddenly, there was a knock on my door. I closed my sketchbook and told him to come in.

"Hey sweetie," said my mom as she walked in. "You're dad and I were thinking that maybe we should order pizza to the house?"

"That's a good idea," I replied, fiddling with my hair. "You should order pepperoni it's Dad's favorite."

"I was thinking that we order cheese," she said, sitting on the edge of my bed.

"You guys don't even like cheese- oh."

"What do you think. You, me, your dad, and your favorite type of pizza. We could sit in the living room and watch a movie too. Your dad went out and bought a movie on Blu ray."

"I don't know mom, I don't want to ruin your night," I replied, turning to look out the window. I didn't want to see her reaction to my moody statement.

"Well that's too bad," she said smugly, "because I already ordered the pizza and if you don't come down and watch that movie with us you're grounded."

"Seriously?" I asked, staring at her, surprised. She never did things like this.

"Yes, Kara. You've been up in this room for days eating only cereal and I'm sick of it! You're going back to school soon and I'm not letting you stay in this little depression!" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Look, Kara, I know that this has been really hard for you. You knew this boy and now he's gone, but you can't let it consume you like this. People die, usually not under such horrible circumstances, but they do. But you're still alive, Kara. You, Hadley, Gavin, your father, me. We are all still alive and it hurts us to see you like this. You can't lose yourself because of this, Kara. You can't."

She was sitting there, clutching my hand, tears brimming her eyes. I pulled her into a hug. "I'm so sorry mom. I'm so sorry."

She pulled away and held my face in her hands. "I know sweetie, I know."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The next day I was sitting in my living room eating mac and cheese and watching Wheel of Fortune when Hadley and Gavin burst into my living room.

"Hello, darling!" called Hadley, plopping down on the couch next to me. "I heard that you left your room and I just had to see for myself!"

"And we missed you," added Gavin, sitting in the armchair.

"Yes, and we missed you," agreed Hadley. "What're we watching?"

"Wheel of Fortune," I replied, stuffing more mac and cheese into my mouth.

"God, Kara, sometimes I swear that you're actually a 40-year-old woman, why can't you watch normal shows?"

"Wheel of Fortune is normal!" I protested. "Gavin back me up!"

"Sorry Kara, I gotta agree with Hadley here." I scoffed at his response, acting more offended than I really was. "Besides," he said, "we didn't come to watch TV. Hadley?"

I turned to the redhead, raising my eyebrows. "Well," she started, "they released Josh's autopsy results to the public yesterday."

"Really? That's why you guys came? To talk about Josh?" I stood up. God, did my friends not actually care about me anymore?

"Well yes and no!" said Gavin, trying to recover. "We were worried about you but we thought you should know something! Everything that that paper said lined up with what happened in your dreams! The needles, the shock pads, everything that you said, Kara. That's a little weird isn't it?"

I sat back down in shock. Hadley had been right about the whole premonition thing. But that also meant that everything I saw really happened to him. All that pain. Before I could dwell on it too much, Gavin was kneeling in front of me and taking my hands. "Look, Kara. I know that you really took this hard but we know something the cops don't know and probably won't believe anyway. We can use this. We can find the person that did this to him. Don't you want to do that?"

I nodded, biting my lip. I wanted to do a lot more than finding them but finding them was a good start. "Okay," I agreed, "where do we begin?"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I watched the houses pass as we drove down the street. We were in town on the way to AJ Samuels' house. AJ and Josh were- had been best friends and he had agreed to talk to us. Well, he had agreed to talk to Hadley and me, Gavin was just our ride down there. Hadley had told him she was doing a piece on Josh for the school paper and wanted to ask him a few questions. It wasn't a complete lie, she really was doing a piece on him for the paper. AJ just didn't need to know about our ulterior motives to the interview.

"This is it," said Hadley from the front seat. Gavin pulled over and we got out of the car, walking up to the door. Hadley knocked, seemingly unafraid. We waited for a moment before the door was opened and we were greeted by AJ's sister Alani. She invited us inside and pointed us downstairs to where AJ was waiting for us.

We came down the stairs to see him playing some game on his PlayStation. When he saw us he quickly paused it and stood to greet us. "Hi, you guys must be Hadley and Kara?"

"That's us," replied Hadley, shaking his hand. I did the same and he invited us to sit. "You have a beautiful home."

"Yeah my sister just redecorated everything," he looked around nervously. "So is this when we start the interview? I've never really done anything like this before."

"Don't worry AJ, you're in good hands." Hadley motioned for me to get out my pen and paper. My job was to write down everything that was said so Hadley could focus on the questions. "So, how long were you and Josh friends?"

"We've been best friends since 2nd grade. Our parents set us up on playdates for a while before that but we didn't like each other until Josh told off a guy that was picking on me on the playground."

"How heroic of him," said Hadley. "Do you have a favorite memory of him?"

"Um, lemme think for a moment," he said, creasing his eyebrows in thought. His eyebrows were really thick and dark (mostly due to his Samoan heritage). His dark eyes light up with an idea. "Sophomore year, right after his six months were up on his license, we drove upstate and stayed in this log cabin for a week. It was beautiful up there. We went fishing on the lake and stayed up late stargazing. It was one of the best weeks of my life."

Hadley turned towards me, checking to make sure I got all of that. I nodded and she turned back to AJ. "That sounds amazing AJ. So, tell me, off the record," I moved the pencil away from the page, " Were you and Josh romantically involved? The way you talk about him is just so endearing-"

He laughed warmly and shook his head. "No Josh was straight as a nail. I did have a crush on him in middle school but I knew that it wasn't going to work out so I moved on."

I was surprised, to say the least. I hadn't known that AJ was into guys. Well, you learn something new every day. "That's really sweet AJ, thank you for sharing that."

"Yeah, no problem, I really don't want to lie anymore."

"What do you mean by that?" questioned Hadley.

"Nothing!" he quickly replied. Too quickly.

"Hey," I said, putting down the notebook and pencil. "Don't be afraid. Hiding stuff isn't going to help people remember Josh. What did you mean about lying?"

"Well, I- uh, when the cops asked me that question I couldn't tell them the truth. It's just- I didn't want to become a suspect in my best friend's murder, ya know?" His voice broke a little bit as he spoke. I placed my hand on his shoulder and rubbed circles with my thumb.

"It's okay, we won't tell anyone AJ. I promise."

"Thanks," he said, rubbing his face with his hands. He brought his smile back. "Is there anything else?"

Hadley started to open her mouth but I cut her off. "No, I think we're good. Thank you so much, AJ."

I stood up to shake his hand but he pulled me into a hug. I was initially too surprised to react but quickly recovered and returned the gesture. He let go and hugged Hadley too. I smiled and we all said our goodbyes. We were on our way back to the car when Hadley turned to me.

"You didn't have to end the interview, you bleeding heart," she joked, lightly punching me.

"What can I say I'm-"

"Kara! Hadley! Wait!"

We turned around to see AJ running towards us, waving his arm to catch our attention. We stopped, letting him catch up to us. "There's something else I want you to know."

"For the article?" asked Hadley, giving me a look that clearly read 'now this is interesting'.

"No, for the investigation." Hadley and I looked at him in shock. "What? It's pretty obvious. No one gets this interested in articles for the school newspaper being that no one reads it."

"Why did you agree to talk to us then?" I asked, utterly confused.

"I was interested I how serious you guys were. And I needed to get something off of my chest."

"The gay thing?"

"Hadley!"

"What?"

"No, not that. It's something about the night he went missing. Something I saw."

"You guys were together on the night that he-"

"Why didn't you tell the police?' I asked interrupting Hadley.

"Because we were drunk! I didn't think they would take well to a gay best friend gets drunk and murders his friend after he was rejected."

"Shit, yeah, that makes sense," said Hadley.

"No, it doesn't!"

"Kara!" she said, raising her voice. "If you're going to be this way you can wait in the car!"

I crossed my arms and huffed at her. She acted like a real mom sometimes. It was not appreciated. Then she continued, "What did you see the night he went missing?"

"I can't remember a lot, we were pretty far gone. We were at the bar, you know the one that if you give the bouncer 20 bucks he'll let you in?" he paused waiting for an answer. We both nodded and he went on. "Well, this woman was really chatting him up at the counter at the counter all night. I think they left with each other."

"Oh my god," I whispered under my breath.

"Do you remember anything about her?" asked Hadley with wide eyes. "could you describe her to Kara? She's a great artist."

"No, I can only remember that she had blonde hair. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she assured. "Thank you so much, AJ."

"You won't tell the police right?"

"We won"t." She grabbed my shoulder and dragged me back to the car. We got in and Gavin asked us if we found anything out. I didn't say anything. I was still processing it. How could he not tell the cops when he was questioned? It had to be killing him to know that that information might have actually saved Josh. I could never live with something like that.

I half listened as Hadley recounted everything to Gavin. I opted to stare out the window instead. We drove past Josh's house. There was a little shrine with his picture, candles, and flowers. What were they feeling? How hard were the Butler's taking it?

"Wait, what?" exclaimed Gavin, pulling me away from my thoughts. "He might have actually seen Josh's murderer and didn't care to tell the police? And now we know? And we also aren't telling the police?"

"Gavin, calm down-" tried Hadley.

"Calm down?" he pulled the car over. "What the hell were you thinking? Kara! You went along with this?"

"Yes, Gavin. She did. If he told the cops now they would find a way to blame him. Have you met the people in this town? They don't exactly like people who are different!" She was right. This town didn't like different. I'd been hiding for years because of it. If people knew about me . . .

"Can you believe her Kara?"

"Don't keep bringing her into this-"

"Stop it!" I yelled. They looked back at me. "A kid is dead and you two are sitting here arguing! I can't believe you guys can be so insensitive! Gavin, we aren't telling the police, we promised AJ we wouldn't and we aren't going back on that. So you need to decide if you want to keep helping us or not. We are going to find Josh's killer and we are going to turn her over to the proper authorities when we do, okay?"

They didn't respond, still shocked from my outburst. I sighed.

"I'm just gonna walk home, see you guys later." I climbed out of the car and started jogging towards my house. I could hear them calling behind me. Probably to stop r come back but I wasn't in the mood to listen to them anymore. I picked up the pace, not caring if I would be sore tomorrow. I needed a break.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A/N: Well there's chapter three, hope y'all liked it!