Chapter Four: Gear Up

January 20th, 2015: Yesterday was insane, super insane. I couldn't sleep at all, I was worried I'd have another nightmare or something. I sigh and get out of bed, finding some clothes and taking a quick shower.

After the shower I'd walk to school, the usual. Again, it took about fifteen minutes to get there. Nothing really too interesting happened, then I realized I never got to finish hanging up the posters yesterday. Right, I needed to do that. The bell rang and I went to my first class of the day.

Yet again, fast forward to lunch and I'm in the hallway again, except this time I noticed something, some idiots had ripped the posters off. Jerks. I spent about the whole lunch period putting up those posters. I got about seven up before I was caught by the faculty.

Mrs. Rose: "Hey, I find it sweet that you care about her so much, but could you please get some lunch? Here, I'll put them back up for you."

Mrs. Rose was honestly one of the kindest teachers ever, note that I may have had a little crush on her. How could I not? She was really pretty, and really nice to everyone. She was honestly just amazing. She had a husband though, and was too old for me anyways. Aside from that, when I nodded at her I just suddenly knew that Megan was there.

Me: "Right, thank you Mrs. Ro-"

Megan: "Come on loverboy, let's go. I need to talk to you."

My facial expression suddenly went from calm to embarrassed. She really had a big mouth didn't she? I nodded towards Megan and walked past Mrs. Rose, embarrassed of myself. The teacher didn't even know where to begin, she didn't say a word. Thanks, Megan.

Me: "Right, so what do you want to talk about Megan?"

She could see that I was still blushing from what had happened from before not too long ago. She simply just laughed it off and patted me on the back.

Megan: "Aw, did I embarrass you? Come on, she'll get over it!"

Me: "I guess so, but if you ever do that again I'll be sure to spill anything I know about you."

Megan: "Chill, she probably thinks I'm joking, everyone knows I like to joke a lot."

Me: "Hopefully so, so what is it you want to talk about?"

Megan: "So later today, we need to gear up."

Me: "What exactly do you mean by "gear up?"

She wouldn't have time to tell me, the bell had rung already. We needed to get to our classes.

Megan: "Alright, I'll see you later, partner."

Me: "Yeah, see you later Megan."


As I was walking to my fifth class, I was shoved by someone I didn't really recognize, but when I looked up I knew who it was instantly. Of course it was the "toughest" guy at the school, Tye Andrews. Standing at six feet five with a slim, fit figure, green eyes, white hair and pale skin. He had seen me with Megan, which I assume he thought was my girlfriend.

Tye: "Listen, you dating one of the smartest girls in school makes no sense. Back off, she's mine, buddy.

I wasn't really intimidated at all, I just stared at him with a blank expression. It seemed to tick him off because next thing you know, I'm against a locker.

Tye: "Stay away, you hear me?"

Me: "Yeah, sure dude."

He smirked before letting me drop on my bum, which hurt a little, but I was fine. I brush off my clothes and gather all of my stuff again to get to class.

The bell for the final class rang, and I started walking over towards my house. As soon as I got outside however, Megan was there in her car, waiting for me. I really needed one of my own.

Megan: "Come on, we got some work to do."

Me: "Yeah, tons of it."

I get into the red station wagon and we drive off towards my house. Megan once again taps me on the shoulder to tell me something. What I didn't notice was that Tye was watching me drive off with her.

Megan: "Alright so first, you know that we can't tell anyone about this right? We have to do this in secret, only people we can tell are Maxine's parents, and we already told them."

Me: "Yeah, I know."

I nod to confirm that I had already known that.

Megan: "Cool, so that's why we need a disguise. You know, for our detective work and stuff."

Me: "Yeah, that makes sense. So where are we going?"

Megan: "First, we'll probably ask for some money-"

Me: "No it's fine, I have some at the house we can use, I've been saving up."

Megan: "Well that was convenient, alright, guess we'll make a pitstop at your house then."

She accelerates towards the destination of my house, what was it with her and going so fast on the road?

Me: "Hey uh, can you slow down please?"

Megan: "Oh, right, forgot you had a weak stomach."

Me: "No that wasn't it-"

Megan: "I know, just joking."

Me: "Wow, you'd be a great comedian then."

That comment got me a punch directed at my arm. I rubbed it and chuckled a bit, she got a good laugh out of it too.

We're here now, my house. We both get out of the car and I pull out my keys. Just as I was about to open my door though, I heard a yell not too far from here. I look over to see who it was, it was of course Tye, the school bully. How'd he even get here? Right, forgot he somehow had a car as well.

Tye: "Hey kid, think you look tough in front of your girlfriend? I'll show you who's the toughest around here."

I sigh, I ignore him and put the key in the lock anyway.

Megan: "Who is that? How did he even get here?"

Me: "I don't know, but it's clear he's looking for a fight."

Tye didn't like the fact that I ignored him, because he ran up from behind and grabbed me, proceeding to shove me onto the ground. Now that wasn't too bad of a hit, I recovered quite quickly.

Tye: "You've got no choice, you'll have to fight your way out of this one, buddy."

Me: "So I conclude on the fact that you have been watching me, correct?"

Tye simply growls and takes a swing towards my left, now I wasn't much of a fighter, but I was fast on my feet. I quickly move towards the right, where I then proceed to shove him. Now I wasn't too bad myself. Six foot one, slim figure, brown eyes and brown skin. I got hit by one of his punches, which connected with my nose.

The hit sent me back, that's for sure. Before I had time to recover though, I got hit by another one towards the chin. After that, I got a little ticked myself, I managed to tackle him to the ground. We started to twist and turn around before I managed to get him on his back, I then landed one good punch right on the eye before I got up and managed to rush into the house with Megan, who was still waiting by the doorstep by the way.

Megan: "Jeez that was wild, you alright Colson?"

I nod. A little blood was nothing to worry about.

Me: "Yeah, I'll be fine, let's just find the money and get back to the car quickly."

Megan: "Right, got it."

I opened my drawer and collected the money, I then got up and told Megan to follow me.

Me: "I got the money, let's go. Tye should still be on the ground."

I was wrong, Tye was long gone, probably embarrassed that he didn't really do anything to me. I shrug it off and let Megan open the door to the car before we drove off towards a store.

Me: "Which store are we going to?"

Megan: "You know, the one that sells clothes."

Me: "Very specific, I like it."

Megan: "Oh shut up."

After talking about pretty much nothing for five minutes, we arrived at the store. The lights were lit green as it flashed:

"WELCOME TO ALLEN'S GOODS! ENJOY YOUR SHOPPING!"

Me: "Alright, what will we find here?"

Megan: "What we need, now let's go."

I sighed and got out of the car, once we were in the store, Megan and I went up to the cashier. She asked me for money and I gave it to her, it was about $300 worth of cash, alright, that wasn't all I was saving up either. It was just enough to get us some clothes here.

I looked around to see tons of outfits, none didn't really look too detective-y, well, a black trench coat with a brown Homburg hat and black cowboy boots looked good. That's what I thought at least.

Detective (Colson): Black trench coat w/o buttons and a Homburg hat. (Black and brown) with black sweatpants.


Megan: "Hey, looking good Colson!"

Me: "You think? Yeah, thanks. Now it's time to find your disguise."

Megan: "Right, let's see here.."

Detective (Megan): Cotton light brown trench coat w/o buttons and dark sunglasses with her hair tied back in a ponytail and khaki pants

Me: "What are you going to do about your long hair?"

I really should have given a description of her appearance, Megan was about five foot seven with long brown hair, pale skin, and black eyes. She simply tied her hair back as a response to my question.

Me: "If that somehow works-"

Megan: "It will, trust me, I'm a master of disguise."

I sighed heavily and rolled my eyes, we thanked the cashier on our way out and got back into the car before driving off towards my house. It was time to start this thing, for real.

Once we got there we knew it was time to get onto the case of my best friend, Maxine. We tried the laptop, but it didn't really work. All of the sites we tried using needed credit card info, and I didn't really trust that. I closed the laptop and started pacing around the room, Megan saw this and looked at me with great concern in her eyes.

Megan: "Hey, we didn't get this far to just quit. We need to keep trying."

Me: "This isn't for us Megan, we can't try and solve something we don't know how to solve."

Megan: "I'm sure we'll find something, now stop giving up and let's do this."

Me: "Alright, I'll try again, I need my friend back."

Megan: "Good, now come over here and let's keep looking."

I nodded and sat down beside her, we looked on site after site. Nothing, would this be the end? We had gone through at least twenty sites by now, still nothing. It was about five hours in that we found something. It looked like a shady website, but when we clicked on the link, it led us to some sort of video. It showed a guy who looked to be in his early thirties sitting in front of a webcam. We stared at each other as we watched the video play.

Man: "Welcome to my site, now that you have clicked on it, you can't get out. You'll have to let me help you, Colson Matthews and Megan Pryler."

We backed away from the screen as we watched in pure terror, this guy knew our names? How was that even possible? He started laughing, probably at how scared we were. He continued to speak.

Man: "Don't worry, I don't plan on hurting you, I want to help you. I know how you two are playing detective and are trying to find someone."

Me & Megan: "But how?"

Man: "Your clothing makes it quite obvious, meet me at 45940 Xavier Street, I'll be waiting to give the address to you."

He left with a laugh of pure craziness, this guy was totally a nutjob. Me and Megan look at each other once more. What did we just get ourselves into? I sigh and pull down my hat.

Me: "You think we can trust him?"

Megan: "Definitely not, that's why we need something for self defense."

Me: "What do you mean?"

Megan: "Let's go."

She grabs onto my arm and pulls me out of my own house, next thing you know we're at a gun store that is just simply called

PISTOLS AND RIFLES

Me: "What exactly are we doing here, Megan?"

Megan: "What do you think? Come on."

We both go into the store, still in our detective disguises. I look around at all of the handguns, rifles, and all different types of guns we could buy here.

Me: "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

I whisper, she whispers back.

Megan: "Stop being a wuss, you're of age to buy a handgun."

Me: "Right."

A few minutes later, I have a Beretta 92, and Megan has a SIG Sauer P220. We were ready in case this was a trick of some sort.

Megan: "Better put that in one of your pockets, Colson."

Me: "Yeah, I know, you best put yours in there too."

Megan: "Mhm."


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