“Okay,” Aleah sighed, pacing back and forth in front of the couch. Beside me I distinctly heard the sound of Kari flipping through her book, probably ignoring the world around her, as usual. “I hate to actually be productive today, but we need to find Audrey. We have…forty seven hours to get it done, so we need to think. What do we know about Audrey?”

“Oh, her favorite show is Power Rangers,” Leina interrupted. “She absolutely loves it. When we were kids playing pretend she would be the pink ranger.”

“And that didn’t raise any suspicion?” I stared at her.

“Well no, she said she just liked her ‘can do’ attitude. She’s right, that bitch is fire.”

“That’s true, I’d do her,” Aleah nodded.

“Well that’s neither here nor there,” I rolled my eyes. “Everyone would ‘do’ Amy Jo Johnson.”

“I wouldn’t,” Courtney shrugged. “She’s not really my type.”

“Show of hands,” Aleah announced. “Who would do Amy Jo Johnson?”

“We’re off track,” I said, standing from the couch. “Let’s think more about where she’d be likely to go – did anyone check her GPS?”

“You have a tracking device on my sister?” Leina asked, narrowing her eyes.

“She gets lost easily,” I shrugged. “Plus she has an eating disorder so we like to see where she’s been getting food. Surprisingly when she DOES eat she goes to fast food places.”

“…have you considered encouraging her to buy real food?” Leina sighed. “She knows how to cook.”

“Her dorm room is the size of a shoebox, I’m afraid she’ll start a fire,” I explained offhandedly.

“Back to the topic at hand,” Aleah said, bringing our attention back. “I DID check her GPS and it’s been disabled. She’s not answering her phone, and to quote Mason: ‘I haven’t seen him you sordid bitch, why don’t you know go yourself’. Mason is always very agreeable where it comes to Audrey.”

“Leina,” I said, turning toward her. “You know your sister best, where do you think she would go?”

“She likes the theater,” Leina said. “She has that play coming up.”

“Theater’s closed right now,” Courtney chimed in. “She likes video games, what about the arcade?”

“What year is this?” I snorted. “We’re in 2019, people don’t go to arcades anymore, they go to uh…well no, they stay home.”

“Well in the end,” Courtney said, stepping around the couch and leaning over onto the armrest. “Our best bet is to go talk to Mason, in person. Think about it like this. Audrey doesn’t really have anywhere that she goes. She’s ridden with anxiety, she doesn’t have many friends outside of Mason, and us, and she’s just…really timid. On a normal day I’d say she’s just cooped up in her dorm room and that may be EXACTLY where she is.”

“I already checked with Mason,” Aleah reminded us. “He said-“

“He probably lied to you,” I said. “He doesn’t like us.”

“Why doesn’t Mason like you?” Leana turned to us suspiciously. “Mason is the nicest guy ever.”

“Because as soon as Audrey started hanging out with us, she hung out with him less, and no one can tell him why. You already know what happened with Chastity, we don’t want to do the same thing with Mason.”

“You know,” Leina said, pressing her palms against the fabric of the couch to push herself into a standing position. “I have to say I’m surprised you care this much, this isn’t at all what I pictured.”

“Well we’re bitches,” I shrugged. “But we’re not going to intentionally ruin her life. In the beginning we had the opportunity to blackmail her, she gave us enough material, we could have done anything we wanted, but we didn’t. Yeah, you can characterize us as the ‘mean girls’, and it’s accurate but for better, or worse, Audrey is one of us now.”

We all contemplated that for a moment. I watched Kari switch from her book to a magazine that had been sitting on the coffee table. A cosmetics magazine of some kind. As it fell open in her hands, the centerfold spilled out revealing an ad spelled out in huge letters. ‘Miratran’. She hummed happily and quietly as she flipped through the magazine, looking at the pictures I think.

“Well,” Aleah said finally. “What we need to do is spread out, check every place she usually goes and maybe ask some people. I’ll start by asking Mason again, and Courtney can go check the library. We’ll talk to Melissa, see if she’s found some new friends in the theater group to hang out with. The campus is pretty big, not going to lie, but if we ask enough people we’re bound to find her. Okay, so when you’re out there looking for her, I want to remind everyone to call her by her male name, which is Todd, in case anyone’s forgotten. Um…Tiffany, you can go talk to Melissa and see if she’s seen anything. Leina, you probably know her better than anyone else here, so pick your own search locations. If anyone finds her, at all, even if you find her damn shoe, text the group chat.”

“Oh we could start by asking the clerk at Gamestop!” Kari chimed in, smiling as she laid her magazine down. Everyone in the room turned to look at her. I bit my lip.

“Um…did she go to Gamestop?” I asked.

“Well yeah,” Kari nodded. “We spend the entire evening together, it was great.”

“Kari,” Aleah said, desperate tones dancing on her breath as she stepped forward ever so slowly and carefully. “This is very, very important, okay? What did you do with Audrey last night?”

“Huh?” Kari asked, confused as her eyes darted from left to right. “With who?”

“Oh dear god,” Aleah said. “Okay, um…Kari, what did you do last night?”

“I just drove around,” Kari shrugged.

“And when you were driving around, did you have anyone with you?”

“Of course I did!” Kari said, rolling her eyes and displaying a goofy grin as if we were supposed to know. “I was with Audrey!”

“Okay, you were with Audrey,” I confirmed. At this point, everyone in the living room was leaning in, as if being closer to her would help us to solve the mystery any faster. “Why don’t you tell us the first place you guys went?”

“We went to Gamestop first,” She smiled. “Just before it closed. She bought a game. For her XBOX 360. It was um…the Hannah Montana Movie Game. She said she liked the dress up part.”

“Holy shit that’s cringe,” I shuddered.

“Okay, then where did you go next?” Aleah leaned closer. Kari looked up at her again, her stare blank once again.

“What? When?” Kari shook her head. “I’ve been sitting right here.”

“Everyone get to the van!” Aleah said sharply, standing up. “Load Kari up, we’re going to Gamestop.”