***Chapter 28***

**Aria's POV**

"I mean, somebody must have seen something right? A must have been trailing us the whole time, and we were the only ones here." I explained, trying to rationalize to Emily about why I was so adamant about coming back to the junkyard to look for clues. "There's a guy that runs this place, but I don't see him"

We had managed to walk into the junkyard without seeing the guy who ran this place, even though we went through the office like I had yesterday. Still though, I didn't want to wait around for him to take a look around the place. I glanced over at Emily, who was busy texting on her phone. I rolled my eyes at how unhelpful she was being. Why had she agreed to come with me if all she was going to do was fiddle with her phone the whole time?

"Uh, Em. It's kinda hard to hunt for clues and pick emojis at the same time." I said to her, causing her to look at me and away from whoever she was texting.

"Sorry, just checking in on Sarah. I wanted to see how her first day was going." She explained looking up at me apologetically.

"You two seem to have gotten pretty close."

Maybe I had been really out of the loop with the girls, given the fact that I didn't know that Emily was that close to Sarah. I knew that the girl had shown up at her house when she ran away again, but other than an update that Sarah now had a job working for Caleb, I hadn't really heard anything about the girl.

"Yeah, well, she's staying with me."

"For how long?"

"I told you guys, she has a bad home life." She said, as though that explained everything.

I get not wanting to spend time at home, I think we have all been at that point in the past couple of years. There were a few days when I just wanted to run away from everything, but I hadn't ever moved in with any of my friends for more than a night or two. Then again, that wouldn't have been far enough to outrun my problems.

"We all had things to come back to. People who love us. I just wonder what she was thinking about down there, alone in the dark. What got her through it all."

I heard some movement behind Emily and looked over her shoulder where there was movement. I couldn't help my shock at the fact that Clark was here, at the same time as me. It was weird that he was here once more.

"Clark?" I asked, wanting to know why he was back here. "Hi, what are you doing here?"

He stopped what he was doing, lowering the camera from its poised position and looked over at me. He looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see him but he quickly smiled and walked over to where Emily and I were standing.

"Just came back to take some more pictures. Somebody stole mine this morning." He teased as he came up to us.

"Oh, Em, this is Clark, the photographer I met at Hollis." I introduced, realizing that they hadn't met before. The past few days had been a bit of a mess with everything that was happening and it was hard to keep all the information straight.

"Nice to meet you." Clark said, shaking Em's hand. "So, what are you doing back here?"

"Oh, when I got home yesterday I realized that I had lost my tripod, and I thought maybe I had left it here."

"Well, let me help you look." Clark offered, which made me feel more guilty. I had already taken his photos from yesterday and now he was willing to put aside what he had actually come here to do in order to help me out.

"That's alright. Emily offered to help me look around."

"Hey, so, a friend of mine is looking for me at the Brew." Emily interrupted, making me look over at her.

"What friend?"

"Nicole, from my habitat trip. I didn't even know she was in the same hemisphere."

"Oh, well, do we need to leave right now?" I really wanted to look around, but I did need her help with that, she knew the kinds of things we were looking for.

"If you want to stay and look around, I can give you a ride back home." Clark suggested.

"Yeah, sure. How could I say no?" I smiled at Clark.

Emily seemed more than happy to take off and just leave me here. I mean, I know that she hadn't seen Nicole in a few years, but still we were supposed to be looking for clues to finding A. I was just annoyed at the fact that she wasn't focusing on what was important and was getting distracted instead. It was bad enough that she was being super strict on whether we could tell anyone what was going on, since she was so protective of Sarah. But now she wasn't even really helping when we were looking.

Clark and I went through the junkyard, trying to find the area that we had been photographing the day before. There were so many shelving units though that it was kind of tricky to find the same thing twice.

"So have you incinerated those negatives yet?" Clark asked, probably hoping that I would change my mind and give them back to him. "I wouldn't blame you if you did. I mean it must feel like you're under a microscope. With everyone watching you, the police, your parents, reporters."

"Yeah, it's been pretty hard. But hopefully it will all be over with soon."

"Why do you say that? Did they catch the guy?"

I realized that I was very close to saying that we had been investigating who had taken us, and if I did that then A would take it out on Sarah. I couldn't risk that, not until A was safely behind bars.

"No, but they're getting pretty close."

"How do you know?" he asked, making me turn back to look at him. "Sorry, I don't mean to pry."

"Maybe we should just go, I can always come back and look later." I tried to dismiss this whole thing, not wanting to talk about it anymore.

Clark seemed to realize that I didn't want to talk about it because he fell silent. He looked around for a moment before realizing something. "Hold on, this is where we were yesterday. I'll check over there, you check back there."

Before I could respond he had moved over in the direction he had indicated in search of my tripod, which he would never find no matter how hard he looked. I shook my head at his enthusiasm before heading into the direction that he had pointed for me to check out. Thankfully, it was where I had been the previous day. As I was walking through the shelves, I spotted a doll placed on a shelf, where I had been shooting before but that doll wasn't where I had left it. Since I had left it lying down, but now it was standing leaning against an old birdcage. I walked over to the shelf, picking up the blonde doll. There was something peeking out from the bottom of the dress, so I flipped the doll over. I gasped when I lowered the skirt of the dress away from the doll, revealing what could only be a doll of me with a knife stuck through the eye and blood streaked down the plastic face. My stomach turned over at the sight and I bent over, retching against the side of the shelving unit. I definitely wouldn't be coming back here, I thought as I stood back up and wiped at my mouth, they would probably never want me back here anyway.

Once I had managed to calm my stomach and nerves, I looked around checking to see if there was anyone around. Clark was far enough away that he hadn't noticed my getting sick. I couldn't stand to look at the doll anymore, so I shoved it into my purse not wanting it to lie around the junkyard for someone to find. I still felt pretty shaky as I continued to look around the junkyard, only half-heartedly looking. Finally, after about fifteen minutes, I met back up with Clark.

"I didn't have any luck, you?" he asked when he saw me again.

"No, maybe I left it at my dad's office."

"Aria, are you okay? You look kinda pale." He said as he looked at me, apparently I wasn't doing a great job at hiding how sick I felt.

"Actually, I'm feeling kinda sick. You okay with leaving now?"

"Yeah, definitely. You gonna be alright on the drive back?"

"I think so."

Clark drove carefully the whole way back, making sure not to upset my stomach, which I thought was incredibly thoughtful. But could also just be that he didn't want me to puke in his car. The junkyard was kind of far out, so it was fairly traffic-free for the most part, and despite the chill it sent down my spine, riding with the window down and fresh air on my face helped reduce the queasiness I was feeling.

He had been so accommodating the last few days, helping me to leave my comfort zone and go out to do some photography at the junkyard, not to mention giving up the massive collection of photos he'd taken the previous day. And now he was again putting me first and doing his best to keep me comfortable. It was a little unsettling and I tried to push the indebted feeling away. Maybe it was paranoid of me, but I wanted to minimize that gnawing feeling all the same.

"I was thinking, I'm not really comfortable with you taking the pictures of me, but the others, I could give those back to you so that your trip to the junkyard wasn't a total waste."

"Aria, you don't have to. If you're not comfortable with it, I understand." He was totally genuine and it was kind of incredible since he was a total stranger. Again that suspicion rose up in me, too many years of knowing Ali meant never taking anything at face value.

"Why are you so nice?"

He thought for a moment before looking over at me. "Maybe I just think you're cool and I want to be your friend. Did you think about that?"

"Well, thank you. For being a friend… and for the ride." I said as we pulled up to my house.

"Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Or if you decide you want to go for that bagel."

"Will do."

***End Chapter***