Chapter 8

"When is he going to get here? I thought he said he had a ride." The two teens waited near the forest sewer pipelines, the last known place of the fugitives that they were after. James had started getting impatient because they didn't find anything useful so it was sort of uneventful.

"Easy, James, he'll be here. I just wonder how he's getting here. Logan said he already had a ride but I wonder what it is and where he got it," Kendall sighed, kicking his legs a little right beside a riverbank and lake they found. The water source was natural, not used from the sewer, thankfully.

"Yeah, whatever," he rolled his eyes. A devious smirk formed on his lips when he came up with an idea. Sneaking behind the dirty blonde, James suddenly pushed the unsuspecting teen into the water, who sputtered when popping back out.

"Dude!" He glared, throwing his hands up a little. James just laughed as a response. Kendall, rolling his eyes, just sighed. "Whatever, the water feels nice anyway. I'm going to see what's down here." With that, he dove down into the murky water.

"I'll join you," James decided, taking off his jacket and putting it on a rock nearby. He took off his shoes, socks, then he dove into the water, thankful that it was shallow. As the two teens swam deeper into the water, they used their hands to feel their way around the floor, to find anything interesting and coming up every few seconds for air. As the minutes passed, a car pulled up a ways away, the sound of a door opening and closing echoed throughout the area.

"Kendall? James?" A semi-loud voice called. "Anyone?" When he didn't receive an answer, Logan continued walking further into the forest until he found the same area the two teens were moments before. He looked over and saw his friend's shoes and jacket on a rock so he automatically assumed that they were in the lake. 'Good thing they didn't get their phones wet' he thought, looking at the two scattered phones. Seeing that they weren't there, he sat down on a rock and pulled out his phone, then dialed a number. I rang a few times before it picked up.

"Wha' is it 'ogan," Carlos slurred.

"Sorry for waking you up Carlitos," the brunette chuckled, then turned serious. "Hey, I have some… pretty shocking news about Mrs. Devon."

"Yeah?" The other asked, now wide awake.

"Um… she was found dead in her kitchen. She shot herself in the head," he put slowly. There was a beat of silence.

"...Wha- how- why?" Carlos ended up saying.

"Officers claimed that she was under a lot of stress, with the death of her youngest son and the other two being hunted. She turned to drinking, became an alcoholic as we know. So, what she did last was drink down a bottle of liquor and played Russian Roulette. had her luck cut short," Logan explained.

"Damn it," the Latino muttered under his breath. The future doctor heard it though, so he had to bite back a gasp at the newfound cursing that youngest picked up. "Why is it always alcohol when people go crazy?"

"Well, not everyone is like that Carlos. You have a point though, when overdosing, it can cause some serious damage to the drinker," Logan explained. Before he could stop himself he asked the teen, "Hey, why are you so against alcohol anyways?"

"...," the silence lasted for a while. Logan almost thought that the teen hung upon him. "Reasons," he finally answered blankly.

"Uh-huh," he nodded slowly. "Seriously Carlos, you're going to have to keep talking to us if we're going to help you. You can't shut us out."

"Listen, I… think you guys should keep up the good work and find out more things. Check back later," he said oddly cheerfully. "See ya, Logie!" he hung up. Logan pulled the phone away from his ear and raised an eyebrow. What was Carlos going to say before he changed it?

"Hey, Logan!" Kendall popped up from the water, James coming up behind him. "Who was that?"

"Carlos. I called him and told him about the incident involving Mrs. Devon," he answered, putting his phone away. "Hey, um, has he ever cursed before? Like, say any bad words."

"No, he never has, never will," the taller boy sternly said. "Why?"

"No reason," he lied. "What are you two doing? You're supposed to find any clues to find Louis and Rich, not swim around."

"Well, we were looking for things but SOMEONE," Kendall hinted, glaring at the teen next to him, who smiled, "pushed me in. Luckily, we found a clue, if you want to call it that."

James held up a rather familiar gun, the one Carlos had in the beginning. As Logan grabbed and inspected the weapon, the other two dried themselves off as much as they could. The gun was covered in some moss and rust, including the heavy amount of water damage. Logan checked the bullet casing and saw that there weren't any left.

"They must have thrown the gun in there so it wouldn't track back to them if there were any fingerprints left," he concluded. He used his jacket to enroll the delicate weapon. "I didn't find anything at the station, so what should we do now?"

"Well, the only thing we can do," Kendall frowned. "We regroup with Carlos and Katie then start packing up. We leave back to LA tomorrow since our vacation is up."

"It is? I didn't even notice," James remarked.

"That's what happens when you spend your time helping a police investigation." The three gathered their things and moved up to the cars that awaited them. Unknown to the teens, a figure overheard them and their plan, making them run off to report to their leader. Kendall and James widened their eyes when they saw Logan hopping inside the police cruiser he arrived in. "I didn't know you had this!"

"The police station let me borrow it. I'm going to take it back now so don't get any ideas," the genius playfully rolled his eyes. The other two hopped into the other car. They started their engines simultaneously and sped off in different directions.

Carlos was pretty mad when he received the rusted gun that belonged to his father. How could they do that? What would his Papi think of him for ruining his prized possession? It would probably kill him. The teen was already stressed with the still missing fugitives, the suicidal mother, lying to his dad about his bump on the head, the murder of Mr. Preps, and now the rusted gun. Although they didn't find Rich and Louis, as well as the other two unknown boys, he was slightly relieved that they were going back home. Currently, he was sitting on the couch, duffle bag packed and to the side, and clearing all the rusty off the weapon, hoping he could still salvage the piece. He looked upon the internet on certain steps to repair the thing but it was a little too complicated for him to understand, so he was just using a more basic guide.

"Why. Won't. You. Work," he grumbled, finishing the whole weapon. It was clean, had minor scrapes, but looked sort-of new. He deconstructed the entire gun but when he put it back together, it didn't work how he wanted. Carlos was getting really frustrated because of it. He put the weapon on the coffee table, surrounded by rust shavings and other used things, and took out his phone, pulling up a step-by-step tutorial on reconstructing a pistol.

"Are you still trying to fix that thing?" Katie popped into the room, her suitcase rolling behind her. Carlos glanced at her then continued his search.

"Yeah, I don't want my dad to be upset when he sees his prized possession ruined," he replied, clearly distracted with the video playing in front of him. The teen took apart the pistol and watched the video carefully to see what to do. Seeing that Carlos won't pay attention when she talked, Katie walked out of the room and to her bedroom, to play on her phone. Not even five minutes later, three very nosy guys walked into the living room.

"Hey, Carlos!" They all greeted, making the teen roll his eyes in annoyance. Couldn't he a moment's peace?

"Are you ready to go? Our flight is in four hours," James reminded, sitting next to the teen, who nodded, being completely occupied with the object in front of him.

"Doing things like that is really complex. Even I can't do those so easily," Logan commented, sitting on the other side, watching the boy put the pieces together.

"Yeah, nice work, Carlos," Kendall agreed, taking a seat on a different couch. The teen didn't respond, rather kept his eyes switching between the video from his phone and the half-finished pistol. The other quietly watched him until he was done. After half an hour, the Latino let out a heavy sigh and smiled at his work, pulled back the slide, and aimed at what's in front of him, obviously not going to shoot. He even had the safety on.

"Jeez, that took way too long," he said, putting the gun down.

"You did great. I suggest you hand it back to your dad," Kendall advised. Carlos winced. "What is it?"

"I didn't exactly tell him that I took it in the first place," he squeaked. "So, I'll need to sneak it back to its case and where I found it."

They groaned. "Seriously Carlos? What if they catch you? What will you do then?"

"I need a lookout," he decided. Slowly, as a devious grin formed on his face, he turned to the boy who started asking the questions - James.

"No way," he shook his head then crossed his arms. "I don't want to get into trouble with your dad. He's a cop, for crying out loud!"

"Oh come on! It'll be fun! It'll be like, um, breaking… into a house?" He chuckled at his bad analogy. Nonetheless, James ultimately sighed and nodded, which Carlos whooped in excitement. Without anymore more words to pass, he ran out the door and to his previous house with another set of footsteps following behind him. As they reached the house, Carlos saw that no one was home since only his father's car was in the driveway but he was at the hospital. "Okay, looks like no one is home. Can you get that spare key under that rock over there?"

To where he pointed, James walked over, lifted up the rock, and discovered a small hole in the ground where a set of keys were. Then, he handed it to the shorter teen, who unlocked and opened the door. "I'll stay as a lookout," the taller teen decided, positioning by the door.

Carlos nodded and went ahead. He quickly found the black suitcase where he found the gun and ammunition earlier, so he quickly packed it away and put it back where he found it. Looking around as he stood up, the teen nodded when he saw everything in place and nothing out of the ordinary, then walked out the door, locked it, and put the key back. "See. Was that so hard?"

"Whatever," James muttered, running ahead and back to the house. "I'll race ya home!" He called behind him.

"That's not fair! You had a headstart!" Carlos laughed, catching up behind the teen. It was him and Logan are the fastest of the quartet, for their small size, but sometimes the long legs of the others passed them. Not two minutes later, Carlos beat James at the front door, which they busted open by accident.

"Woah! Careful, we wouldn't want to break any more things here," Logan scolded, but the two heavy panting teens just grinned. "Come on, we have to head to the airport right now if we ever think about getting back to LA."

"Finally! I love Minnesota but jeez, I don't want repeat these last tree weeks again," Carlos sighed. The other two nodded. Soon enough, everyone was ready to head back home. As they reached the airport, the four boys were stopped by some fans of BTR, so they signed autographs. Eventually, they made it onto the plane and flew back home.

To be continued...