2.
Holly flew up to the manor's front door.
To be completely blunt, she hardly remembered getting there. The normally long journey didn't seem to take any time at all. She dazedly remembered somehow lying her way through security to get a shuttle to the surface and arriving topside. It was storming in Ireland when she arrived, but she hardly noticed as she got out and flew up high, floating among the storm clouds. She was soaked in minutes, but she hardly noticed. All she felt was a sort of…. numb detachment. Even the cold hardly bothered her.
She hovered a few feet above the steps so she could reach the bell. She didn't bother to shield, not caring, and probably not able to anyway, cold as she was. She was almost vibrating already.
Holly pressed the bell.
Nothing happened. She didn't even hear the distant sound of the doorbell ringing inside the manor. Frowning, she waited a handful of minutes and pressed it again.
This time, it was only a few minutes before the door opened from the inside. Butler stared grimly down at her soaked form. "Holly," he greeted, but his tone wasn't as welcoming as it had always been. If anything, he sounded more somber than usual.
Holly shivered and looked up at him. "H-hi. W-where's A-Artemis?" She hadn't noticed until she tried to speak that her teeth were chattering.
Butler looked down at her for a long minute before sighing and shaking his head slowly. He stepped away from the door, holding it open enough for her to slip through. A blast of warm air hit her, and she shuddered. "You'd better come in," he said at last. "You're going to freeze to death out there."
Confused, but not protesting, Holly stepped inside, watching Butler as he pulled the door shut behind her. "S-so w-where is he?" she asked again.
Butler turned and looked down at her again. Finally, after another minute, he turned away again. "He's not here," he said simply, starting to walk towards the kitchen.
Holly followed him, uncomprehending. "W-what? But...w-where is he then?"
He didn't stop, didn't even glance back at her. "He's not here, Holly. We don't know where he went. He just left."
"Left?" Holly repeated. The warm air had finally warmed her up enough her teeth stopped chattering together. "When? Why? That doesn't make any sense. I mean...you're his bodyguard. Why would he go anywhere without you?"
"You ask me like I know. I just told you I don't. And as for why, the only thing that makes sense is it has something to do with you."
"Me?" Holly stopped in the doorway of the kitchen. Butler continued in without looking at her. "What does him picking up and leaving have to do with me?"
"Well, I imagine it has something to do with whatever you two fought about yesterday," Butler told her as he returned to the stove, stirring something that was in a pot atop it, "Considering he took off shortly after you did."
Holly frowned. That...didn't sound like good news at all to her. Where could he possibly have gone? How was she supposed to chase him down to talk to him now? Especially if he didn't want to be found...well, it was a safe bet that she wouldn't find him.
Feeling more guilty with each second that passed, Holly looked at Butler again. "You really don't have any idea where he went? At all?"
"He didn't exactly check with me before leaving, Holly," Butler snapped, sounding irritated.
"Yeah, but...you're his bodyguard, Butler. Don't you have some way you can track him or something?"
Butler stopped stirring and turned to look at her. "Holly, I've told you everything I know. Trust me, if I knew where he went, I'd tell you. He looked pretty miserable before he left, and more than slightly ticked off. I usually tracked him from his phone or some technology, in the rare case I ever left his side, but he didn't take any of it with him. He's not stupid. Most of his clothes are still here, and nearly all his possessions, including the phone and even his laptop. Alright?"
It most certainly wouldn't have been alright, but suddenly Holly had an idea. "So you can't track him...but maybe I could.. if he still had his communicator ring."
Butler sighed and turned back to the stove. "I don't know, Holly," he said, suddenly sounding tired. "I have no idea if he still had it on or not. I didn't see it when I searched his room, though."
Holly nodded. She didn't have much hope of it, but even if he wasn't wearing it, perhaps he still had it with him. Assuming, of course, that the reason Butler couldn't find it wasn't because he had smashed it to smithereens, whether out of anger or desire not to be caught at wherever he went off to.
She was starting to feel as tired as what Butler had just sounded. She sighed and shook her head. "Alright. Well, I'll give it a shot. I'll let you know if I find anything for it."
Butler nodded. "You're welcome to check his study and his room over again to see if you can find anything I may have missed before you go. Maybe you'll have better luck than I did."
Holly nodded. "I think I'll take you up on that. Just to be safe." She smiled wearily at him and walked out of the room.
Heading upstairs, she checked his bedroom first. It was exceptionally neat, as always - maybe even a little more so now, as if the human had taken the time to clean up before leaving. Frowning to herself, she started checking the room over. She found nothing. Then she moved on to his bathroom, since it was adjoined, and finally to his study.
All of them came up absolutely clean...literally. All of them were cleaned to perfection, pristine, and most importantly (and disappointingly), nothing was out of place. Everything was there, and she found nothing, no hint at all of where the human had taken off to. Her only consolation was that there actually was one thing missing, one very important thing.
Artemis's communicator ring. It was still gone, nowhere to be found. More than likely, this meant that he had either destroyed it, hidden it extremely well, or taken it with him.
There was only one way to find out, and that was to try to track it. If it was destroyed, it would be unlocatable. If it were hidden, then it was more than likely here at the manor, so it was a dead end. And if it came up somewhere else…
Holly activated her communicator and, holding her breath, pressed down the tracking button.