I told you I was going to update more often...so this means I'll get more reviews from my readers...you won't just read and pass me by...right? Right?

Oh well, here's chapter 10 for you guys to enjoy.

Chapter 10 – Cruel

With a quick thud, Leo shut the trunk of the car, all the supplies and left over food packed neatly within. "You guys got all your stuff?" He glanced around, his friends nodded. "Good, cause' I'm not coming back till next year." He swirled his keys around his thumb. "Lets go." Piling back into the car, like they did on Friday, the teens headed back toward the city.

Ed stretched, as best he could in the back seat, and yawned loudly. "We'll have to do that again sometime…maybe when the weather gets warmer." Originally they intended to use tents, but after the camp manager said that there was a cabin free for the taking, they just couldn't resist, the weather was a little chill for camping, it was Autumn after all.

"Definitely." Paninya agreed. "We could swim the river too."

Aria laughed. "Again."

"Again?" Ed followed up. "You've done it before?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Me and Bunny got really bored last summer and swam across the river with pool noodles."

Russell added in. "We dropped them off on one side, took the car over the bridge and met them on the other side. Took them nearly 40 minutes, but they did it." The river that lined the campsite was quite wide, not a fast flowing river, but still, a challenging swim.

"Sounds like fun." Ed smiled.

"Nilla, I'm back." Aria beamed as she entered her backyard, via the back porch; to her surprise, she saw Jean putting up a brand new shed. "You got a new one? I just wanted you to fix the hold in the other one." The small shed in the centre of the yard had a hole in the back from old age and someone moving building materials carelessly around the back of the little hut. Resulting in a hole.

"I know, but Winter's coming and I found a shed with insulation." He smiled at his step-daughter. "Your mom doesn't like the little critter in the house, so this it the next best thing. I'm also going to wire in a little heater for the night time. It'll be solar powered so we don't need to worry about it running up the power bill. It'll charge during the day and keep Nilla warm all night."

Aria's eyes were wide with surprise. "Wow…thank you…"

"No worries, I got a buddy who's all into the electronics, he gave me a really good deal on it."

"Awesome. I really appreciate it Jean." Aria stepped her way down to the bottom stair.

"Also." Jean left his post and approached Aria. "I want to show you something." Pulling a ring box from his pocket, he passed it to her.

She popped the little crushed velvet box open and revealed a gold ring, perfectly fitted with a rather large diamond. "Oh Jean, it's lovely. But don't you think I'm a little young for you?" She joked.

"It's for your mom, you spaz." He smiled warmly as he stood next to Aria. "Do you think she'll like it? It's only an engagement ring, but still…"

Aria kept up a strong front and did not sway her expression. "She'll love it." Knowing her mom all too well, she really didn't want to get too attached to Jean. "Here." She placed the ring, concealed in it's blue box, back in Jean's hand. "Don't do it in a public place, mom doesn't like the attention." Really, all Aria was doing was protecting him from a suspected refusal in a large crowd of people. Though, if she did say yes, all the better.

"I'll keep that in mind." Jean nodded as he shoved the ring box back into his pocket.

"And none of that 'down on one knee' stuff, she'll just laugh." Aria wagged a finger. "Mom hates cliché's."

"Really? I'll have to remember that too." He gave her a pat on the shoulder and was about to say something else when he got sidetracked. "Uh, did you open the sliding door?"

Aria looked behind her to see that the sliding door was indeed still open. "No, it was open when I cam back here, why?"

"It's just…" He stared off into the backyard. "I lost sight of Nilla…come to think of it, I haven't seen her at all." He made eye contact with Aria once again, who was now on the verge of panic. "I think she got loose in the house."

"Oh no, don't tell me that." She started up the stairs. "Nilla…Nilla bunny, come'ere."

"I'm really sorry about this." He ran his fingers through his short blond hair. "I didn't think she could get up the stairs."

Aria may have been worried, se wasn't mad. "It's ok, just help me look for her." She landed on the top stair. "Tear the backyard apart, not literally, and see if she's hiding somewhere."

"Right." With that said, they parted ways.

Aria headed into the kitchen and began checking around the vegetable bin. "Nilla." She said, followed up by the classic clicking noise associated with making animals come to oneself. "Here Nilla-Nilla-Nilla." She chanted in hopes that her floppy eared friend would hear her.

"Aria!" Jean's voice resonated from the backyard.

With a bounce in her step, Aria skid, in her sock feet, in front of the sliding backdoor. "Did you find her?" She looked at Jean standing behind some of the bushes; her heart sank. "Ooooh…if she's dead, hide the body and tell me she ran away."

He flagged her to approach. "She's not here, but come look at this." Jean referenced the soil behind one of the bushes in the back yard. Aria, with her newly acquired sandals, went over to what Jean was talking about. "It kind of looks like someone came into the backyard and took her." He pointed at the various footprints in the soft soil. "See these footprints, They're too small to be mine, and way to big to be yours or your mother's. So, some young boy, judging from the shoe name brand…" 'Adidas' was clearly marked in the ground. "…popular amoung kids your age, jumped from the top of the fence to kidnap the bunny." Jean pointed to the scratch marks beneath the bush. "See, it looks like Nilla tried to get away."

Aria was astounded. She looked at the ground, up to Jean and then back down to the ground again. "I guess it paid off letting you watch all those cop dramas."

"Satellite is a wonderful thing." He smiled but quickly faded back to seriousness. "But who was it?"

The young red head was saddened. "Who would even want to do that to me?" She began getting teary eyed.

"Come on, don't cry." He pulled her in close and gave her a reassuring hug. "I'll try and see if I can find out who took her, ok, cheer up."

"Ok…" She wiped the tears from beneath her eyes. "I'll check around school, most of the time, people suck at lying."

"I'll ask around the neighbourhood, see if anyone saw anything." He looked around the yard. "She was here yesterday, I fed her, so it must have happened last night."

Ed waved briefly as Leo backed out of the driveway. He dropped his bookbag off, after entering his house, by the front door. "I'm home!" He announced as he peered around the hall. Making out the faint sound of music coming from the basement. "Oh, they're practicing." Glancing at the clock in the kitchen, he saw that it was shortly after ten. "Al should be up."

Being away from electronics all weekend, or a decent signal for his cell phone. He needed to check his e-mail, to see if anything was sent to him in his absence. At that moment, Ed was kicking himself for buying a PS2 rather than a desktop PC. He was a sucker for Star Wars games, and since the computer controls were too weird for him to et use to, the Playstation was just too tempting.

He stood in front of Al's door for a second, he heard some small noises of shuffling in the room, but no typing. Giving a relatively loud knock, he waited for an answer.

With a swift jerk, Al opened the door, only enough to pop his head and one shoulder out. "What? I'm not dressed yet."

Ed rolled his eyes. "Well, put pants on, I want to use your computer."

"It's scanning." He gave an excuse.

"I'll pause it." Ed pushed the door.

"For spyware." Al held firm and gave yet another excuse.

"Are you running AdAware?" He questioned.

"Oh course." He nodded. "And AVG."

"Fine, I'll go on when it's done…" He paused. "How did you get spyware?" He knew Al was notorious for going to places on the internet that were far from secure.

Al broke eye contact. "Brazilian site."

Ed sighed as he began walking down the hall to his own room. "I guess everyone's gotta' have a hobby." Ed spoke over his shoulder. "Just wipe off the keyboard this time."

Al's eye twitched. "I told you! I spilled pop on it!"

"Sure Al." Ed entered his own room and closed the door.

Alphonse sighed and closed his door and well; he leaned up against the frame and glanced at the powered down computer and scowled. "…it was pop…you ass." Walking over to his bed, tightening the drawstring on his sweatpants along the was, he sighed and then flopped down, face fist, into his blankets.

"Morning everyo—wow, you look bummed." Ed cut his greeting short at the sight of Aria; her cheeks a little red and a depressed expression on her face.

"Someone stole Nilla." Paninya spoke up, doing her best to comfort Aria.

"Stole? Are you sure she didn't just run away?" Ed knelt down next to Aria.

"Yeah, whoever it was trampled mom's flowers too. There were footprints leading from the back fence to the gate." She buried her face between her knees.

Beep. The intercom came on in the hallway, grabbing the attention of the small group. "Attention." The principal's voice echoed in the semi crowded halls. "There will be a mandatory meeting in the gym for all student and teacher personal."

The rest of the short time they had together before first period passed slowly. They tried their best to think of who might have taken Nilla away. There was no 100 percent either way as to what happened, but taking all the footprints into consideration, it really did look like someone took her.

After the bell rang, they all filed into the gym, and it was a huge room; complete with the stage, situated at the end. It had to be an enormous room to house the entire student body and staff. Their little group always sat off to the side, near the corner of the bleachers. Ed glanced around the room and saw him sitting on the edge of the stage with the rest of his team and the 'plastic squad' close behind them.

"No flags, no military speakers? Maybe it's not the R-day ceremony…wonder what it's for then." Russell questioned as he leaned against the wall while sitting on the bottom rung in the bleachers.

"Thank you everyone, as a representative of the board of education, I feel it necessary to express my concern towards a very overlooked issue that has been brought to my attention over the weekend." Mr. Lang announced to the school. "Now, in the past several years, this has not even been so much as mentioned in passing. So allow me to explain."

The principal swung his arms discretely behind himself and folded his hands at the lower portion of his back. "It seems that animal cruelty is on the rise. I was informed of a horrendous even, no names will be mentioned, of an act of violence towards a pet of one of our students. A small rabbit was abused and then killed in a brutal manner, the likes of which I've never heard before. I fear I will not go into the details. I'm not positive of the validity of said report, but it has however inspired me to bring in a few guest speakers, and good friends of mine at that, regarding the laws adhering to animal cruelty."

Aria sat up against the wall of the gym, mouth ajar and a horrified look on her face.

"They're totally not talking about Nilla." Edward shook his head in disbelief.

"I should hope so." Tears were building up in Aria's eyes as she spoke.

Leo rubbed Aria's shoulder closest to him. "Someone just took Nilla, I'm sure of it. No one I know is that psychotic." He said in a calm tone, glazing the situation.

"Maybe…" She stared off at the floor.

Fixing her black streaked, red hair behind her ears, she sighed. The only people she told were her friends, there was not way a crazy rumour could have spread in such a short amount of time. On her way back to her second class, she was a little late due to her bathroom trip, she still couldn't stop crying over the loss of Nilla, she glanced out the many windows on he way up the stairs; taking quick note of the gym class running laps around the track. Clause was among the group running.

"Wait." She spoke to herself. Though she did not like the girl in question even a little, it didn't stop her from knowing where she lived. Jean said he had went asking around to see if anyone saw anything; he must have went to her house, explained what happened and then she twisted it around and got her mother to call the school about it. Which explained how all this got set up within a day.

"Aria." Winry's voice came from behind her.

"Oh…hi." She said with dis-amusement.

"Listen! I know you have everything against my friends, understandable, but don't lump my behaviour in with theirs. I've never wronged you." She quickly went on the defensive.

Aria was shocked, nodded just the same. "Sorry, I guess I'm not in the greatest mood…did you want something?" Aria said, defeated.

"It's about your bunny." Winry began. "Clause told me something SO far from what the truth probably is, I needed to ask you what really happened." She gestured her hands in front of her as if to say 'what the hell?'.

"Well…" Aria sighed. "When I came back from the camping trip I checked the backyard for Nilla. Jean said that it looked like someone came into the yard and took her. Mom's plants were trampled and there were foot prints leading from the back fence to the gate in the front."

Winry took in the information. "Ok…what does Nilla look like? If one of my friends took her, I can return her to you…Nilla's a girl right? 'Nilla' sounds very girly."

Aria smiled and felt a lot of tension lift from her shoulders. "Yeah, Nilla's a girl. She's all brown, light brown, except for the tips of each of her ears, they look like they were dipped in vanilla frosting. Hence her name, Nilla."

The taller, fair haired girl nodded. "That's so cute… Alright, I'll keep an eye out for her; but you keep the little tid-bit of me helping you to yourself, ok?"

"Sure." Aria nodded. "Thank you."

Woot! Trust! I won't say too much else, but just request a guess on who stole the bunny. 1 person...or mabe more...hehe.

You won't know till next update.

Reviews now? Please?