Sorry to make you guys wait. I had major writer's block, but it's all good now (:

"I'm worried about Allison."

I automatically stopped dead in my tracks and whipped my head around to face the bartender I hired, Mike, as he wiped down the counter and gave me a serious look. My adrenaline was running like crazy and I really didn't feel like a conversation, especially about Sonny. I tried to stop myself from snapping at him. After all, it was important for me to save that anger for Hayden.

Quick Recap: I, Chad Dylan Cooper, a rich and famous twenty-one year old guy, just spent the last two hours of his own party in his library, alone. Inside, I could hear the muffled and soft beat of the music vibrating from the walls. I felt socially drained, but now I am recharged. My monster headache is now down to a more relaxed state, and I no longer feel like I'm going bald.

In the library, I found myself thinking about how this wasn't supposed to happen for another nine years. I mean, is it even possible to age faster due to heartbreak? If you can even call what I'm feeling heartbreak. That sounds wimpy. I'm CDC: the opposite of a wimp. I guess you could say I'm immensely disappointed, and maybe I feel a little alone. But so what? I'm human, although I'm the most highest breed of the species. And humans, no matter how amazing, come across low points in their lives. And I guess you could say that this is a huge one for me.

Even though I feel better now since I'm on a mission (which I have dubbed HNTD - Hayden Needs To Die), my skin still feels prickly and cold. My eyes are stinging infuriatingly, and the back of my neck keeps itching (something that only occurs when I'm upset.)

And, worst of all, I've got this little impossible to ignore indentation pricking my chest.

All because of her.

All because of Sonny.

Honestly, words can't describe the betrayal I've felt.

I was doing a better job of not clinging to the past, but the whole Sonny-Hayden thing that happened earlier brought back old wounds. And this pain isn't even an eighth of what I felt that night when I found out Sonny was cheating on me.

What a lot of girls don't realize is, when a girl cheats on a guy with another guy, and the guy was crazy about her, it's like the world ended. I wasn't supposed to care about her, but I really, really did.

It'd like she said, "I don't care about you anymore whatsoever and he's better than you could ever be. You're just not good enough for me. I never liked you."

And it doesn't help that it wasn't the first time I had been cheated on.

And Sonny didn't even try to soften the blow. She came right out with it, at my freaking party.

And besides the gigantic blow to the guy's ego, it does a lot of emotional damage as well; even if no guy wants to admit it. That damage stays until they find a new girlfriend who they care about just as much.

Which I have yet to accomplish.

All I remember doing in there was sighing pathetically and grabbing a book, attempting to force myself to get lost in a world completely different from mine. Yup, I was reading while a party was going on directly outside of where I was.

Soon, the muffled noise from the party turned into echoing silence as I drifted off into slight unconsciousness. Next thing I knew, Tawni was shaking me urgently and demanded that I get up. Apparently, the party ended early due to a few fights that got out of hand, but the event was still legendary. About fifteen people decided to make themselves at home and loiter around, and I was the only one that could rightfully kick them out. Tawni said that some dude made up his mind that it would be a great idea to sneak weed in, which left several high guests who have overstayed their welcome, fawning over my new plasma. Also, Hayden stayed too, with about eight or so of his groupies hanging onto his every word.

If the news that under-the-influence people were playing with my precious flat screen didn't give me enough initiative to throw them all the hell out, just the mere mention of Hayden and his groupies more than pushed me over the edge.

The air was still, but it had some remaining tension lingering. That was to be expected after any party, but something felt wrong. Very, very wrong.

Thankfully, it only took fifteen minutes to boot out the D-List losers. For some reason, my attention was barely there as I did it, but at least the deed was done. Tawni called cabs for all of them, which arrived in the perfect amount of time.

I'm a little too excited to remove Hayden and his followers from my property. What makes him think that he has the right to stay late anyway, after what he did? That fake needs to be taken down a few thousand notches. I never liked him, even when he was an intern at Condor Studios; way back when I was just developing a crush on Sonny. Way back when he kissed her at that basketball game. When I think about it that way, I guess Sonny cheating on me is my fault. If I never gave her those tickets, she would have never kissed him. And maybe if they never kissed, she wouldn't have ever thought of him as anything more than the guy her friend likes.

Regardless of what might have been the cause that led to the painful effect, the fact remained that Hayden stayed way past his welcome.

The funny thing is, besides a little spat between us when he wanted to guest star on Mackenzie Falls, after Sonny left, he totally ignored me. I'm not sure if it was because he was under the ridiculous impression that he was better than me, or if he was afraid that I would murder him if he so much as said hello to me. Either way, he's a loser.

Which is why I am so incredibly excited to march over to the living room and release my anger. I have a feeling I'm going to do a little more than forcefully ask him to leave. In fact, I'm pretty sure my hostility from the whole Sonny and him thing will come out too. But that will have to wait, because once again, Sonny's in the way. Really, can't she leave me alone when I'm trying to take my anger that she caused out on Hayden and any innocent bystanders?

"She's not worth the worry, dude." I answered Mike, hoping to brush it off and move on.

"This is serious. I really think something bad happened." he said. I internally groaned and shifted my weight so that I was half facing him. I gave him an expression that silently ordered, humor me.

"She was drinking. A lot."

"Not my problem." I said. I mean come on, everyone at this party probably drank a lot.

"I gave her a few waters to help her sober up, but she was still pretty wasted by the time a guy asked her to dance. I watched them, not in the creepy way, but just to make sure there were no shenanigans. I turned my back for one second to put a bottle away, and when I looked back, they were both gone. I looked out for them the entire time, but even when everyone started to leave and I had a clearer view, I still didn't see either of them."

With a brief shiver, I felt myself tense. My protective instincts were kicking in; a bad thing. A sign of caring. I can't even pretend for five minutes that she's not a big part of my life, can I?

What if someone took her? What if someone was holding her for ransom? Or what if that guy she was dancing with, or someone else, took advantage of her?

Or what if she would want it regardless of if she was sober or not?

Or…what if she really did leave?

Crap. I knew I shouldn't have even joked about her packing her bags and going back to Wisconsin. But really, I don't know why I want her to stay. Perhaps I want to do some sort of hero job and "fix" her or something.

"Wait," I stopped my incredibly bewildering thoughts. "What did he look like?"

"Dark brown hair, light brown eyes. Really that's all I remember. I couldn't even tell what the guy was wearing because it was so dark." he reported. Seriously? That's it? I've got nothing.

"Chill, Chad, she's probably in her room. Want me to check?" Tawni suggested. All I could do was give her a brief head nod in response, since my head was approaching explosion.

"And you know, she wasn't doing anything with that Hayden guy earlier. The reason she was drinking so much was because she was hurt that you didn't believe her." Mike said.

Yeah, right.

"Dude, listen. Sonny is a liar. She bends stories so she seems like the innocent victim. Trust me, I know her."

"Do you? Do you really?"

I cut Mike with my eyes. That's my line. Everyone knows that. He has no right to use it. And he's definitely not doing a good job of winning Sonny's case by stealing from me. He shrugged. "I don't know, Sonny kept saying it. It was catchy." he explained defensively. I didn't bother to tell him that Sonny got it from me. There were more important things that needed to be said.

"Whatever. The fact remains that I do know Sonny better than you do, and she's probably fine. She just hooked up with some guy or something." I had to force the words out of my mouth. They seemed strangely foreign to our conversation.

"Look, I know you've got security cameras. Instead of us going back and forth on this, how about you prove me wrong?" he challenged.

Oh, it's on.

"Follow me." was all I said in response. Hayden will have to wait. I've got a point to prove. The more people who know the truth about Sonny, the better.

It didn't take long for us to finally arrive in the small room where two computer monitors were resting. There were only two rooms in my house that didn't have a hidden camera. This one, and the one I told James he could use whenever he was at a party at my house and wanted to hook up with some chick.

I pushed my hand onto the mouse and swiveled it quickly. Within seconds, the black screen morphed into a time selector. I chose the time that I remember Sonny dropping her platter of food, and went from there. I sat back in my chair, excited that someone else would be proved wrong.

"See? Here's Sonny falling down, there's me picking it up, there's us talking, there's her going outside…" I narrated.

"Wait, who is that guy?" Mike asked, seeming alarmed. I leaned in closer to the screen, seeing my friend James approach her.

"What is he doing to her?" I asked.

"It looks like he's got her in some sort of headlock?" Mike guessed. I couldn't help but snicker when Sonny smashed his foot.

"Wait, what is he doing with her arm?" I was the alarmed one now. On the colored screen, I had to witness Sonny struggling against James, trying to break away.

"Ouch, that looks like it's gonna leave some bruises." Mike commented. I winced in pain at the thought of Sonny in pain. I hate when I do that. But I can't believe James would act like that with her. I mean, I knew he didn't like her, but that was just...wrong. A guy should never handle a girl like that.

"Look, there's Hayden!" I exclaimed, just when I thought James was going to do something bad to her. I'm gonna have to have a long talk with him about this. I can't have him doing that again, because then I'll feel sorry for her. And that…that just doesn't work out for me.

"See, I told you I was right!" I shouted.

"Are you blind? They're just talking! And talking, and talking…and now they're inside."

What?

They didn't…they didn't do anything.

"Maybe James meant to tell me that they were doing something inside." I said, half-hoping that I was right, just for the sake of being right, and half-hoping that James wasn't right and Sonny was telling the truth. If it was the latter, then I must have seemed like a huge jerk to Sonny tonight, and then if she was in trouble, that would be my fault too.

I banged my head on the desk when I decided that Mike was right. Inside of the party, all Sonny and Hayden did was talk. In the corner of the screen, I could see James talking to me, feeding me lies.

I had to stop the video when it got the part where I walk over to Sonny to snatch her away from Hayden.

I'm such an idiot.

I turned my head to Mike, prepared to hear him gloat about his victory, but all he did was stare at the paused screen for an unknown reason, as if trying to connect the dots in some sort of internal puzzle.

"Chad, Chad!" Tawni shouted as she ran. Okay, she wasn't running, but she was walking pretty fast. She never liked running. She always said that pretty people shouldn't have to run for anything or anyone. Still, her heels were clicking purposefully as she walked at a relatively fast speed to the security room.

"Sonny's not in her room." she informed, out of breath, as she leaned on the frame of the door. "Her stuff is still there though, and her suitcase is empty. I looked in all of the other main rooms: the bathrooms, kitchen, living room, but she's not in any of them."

"That's him!" Mike blurted.

"Who? What?" Tawni asked.

"The guy who asked Allison to dance. I knew he looked familiar. That's him. James."

"I'm confused. Don't tell me we have to go after her." Tawni pleaded, most likely wondering why I cared that she was missing. After all, I had just told her less than two hours ago that I wouldn't care if she dropped off the face of the earth.

I lied.

Okay. So this is my fault. My problem. I need to make things right. Sonny might have cheated on me three years ago, but her and Hayden weren't carrying on old times. In this rare case, she was innocent. It's time for me to take control.

"Tawni, I'll catch you up in a second. Mike, you sure that was him?"

"Positive. Should we follow them with the camera to see where they went?"

I took a deep breath, trying to clear my thoughts, and pushing my Hayden mission to the side. If James was violent with her, then Sonny would have enough sense not to accept a dance with him normally. And she definitely wouldn't hook up with him if she knew it was him, too. Mike said she was wasted, after all. If she wasn't in any of the main rooms, and James's car was still here, then…

"Don't bother with the video. I know what room she's in."