Chapter 13- Highschool Sweethearts

As Iris entered the house and said her greetings, Syra's parents didn't seem to take notice of her ruffled appearance. After so long, Iris had long realized what Syra's parents thought. Similar to how they had decided to selectively forget Iris's bloody knuckles they had discovered a while back, they chose not to see how she occasionally came home with some nicks and bruises. They would rather believe her words at face value than spend energy worrying. 

In that time period when they were worrying about Iris every waking moment, they were exhausted. Doing it this way was much easier. And regardless of whether they were doing it subconsciously or not, it was convenient for Iris, so she didn't care. 

Iris cleaned up and got ready for bed while she thought about today's events. According to Lily and Finn, they had worked together in hopes of having enough money to retaliate against Iris. They wanted to find someone to teach her a lesson and beat her up, maybe break a few bones. They had both been bested by Iris physically so they hoped to humble her in that aspect. However, even after they gathered every penny they owned and sold some things, they still didn't have enough money. 

This is the part of the story that Iris felt a bit disbelieving about. When they had struck a dead end, Lily and Finn went to their parents. The two parents were told some excuse about why they needed the money and quickly gave it. Now with two much larger sums of money, the students somehow found a group they could hire.

When Iris first heard the story she felt a lot of doubt, and now as she kept thinking about it, it was certainly strange. Why would Lily and Finn's parents be so willing to give such large amounts of money? Hiring a group like that wasn't cheap, it cost much more than any reasonable parent is willing to give their child. And from the information given to her by Lily and Finn, their excuses when asking for the money weren't amazing. 

That was strange on its own, however, there was something else bizarre as well. How was it that Lily and Finn were able to contact that shady group so easily? It wasn't something that could be easily accomplished, yet they had done it very quickly.

All of this was very abnormal, as if there was someone else interfering. 

-

Iris decided to visit Finn's house first. She observed the house for a short while, before nearing what looked like the window of a teenage boy's room. 

She silently unlocked, opened, and climbed through the bedroom window. She saw that Finn was sleeping, it was in the middle of the night after all. She approached his side and clasped her hand over his mouth, waking him up. His eyes instantly snapped open and he started frantically struggling. He was completely panicking, trying to grasp what was going on. 

When he saw who was apprehending him, he instantly stopped moving and started whimpering. He looked at her pleadingly, as if she was here to take his life.

"Don't talk." Iris instructed him. Finn started nodding frantically.

Iris released his mouth and backed up a bit. Finn instantly sat up and retreated against the wall, looking at her fearfully.

"Why are you here? I already told you everything I know! There's nothing else I can do-" He started saying

"You're a fool if you think you've paid for what you did." She said, stifling the words in Finn's throat. Iris had been the one who had begun this confrontation with Finn, it was one of the first things she had done once she had arrived in this world. But she didn't really care. She had to complete her task. She wasn't going to give mercy to a made-up character in a book.

"Then what else do you want!" Finn squealed. 

"Just a couple of small things. Do what I want and I'll leave quickly."

"Fine…What do you need?"

"Let me see your laptop."

Finn averted his eyes.

"What do you need from it? My parents have one that I can get if you want." He said, trying to deter Iris. Before he could finish, Iris had walked over to his laptop, opened it, and gestured for Finn to unlock it. Finn trudged over, resigned to his fate.

Iris looked over his laptop trying to find if there was anything suspicious on it. When she questioned them earlier, Finn had told her they used this laptop to find the group they hired. Apart from some messy folders that made Finn blush whenever her cursor went near them, there wasn't much. She didn't find any sort of strange thing downloaded on it, so she gestured to Finn.

"Go to the site from earlier" Finn looked at her blankly before suddenly realizing what she was talking about. He walked over and input an address in the search bar.

"It's not here. It doesn't exist anymore." He frowned, confused.

Iris peered over his shoulder and saw he wasn't lying. He could be purposefully putting in an incorrect address, but Iris didn't think that was the case. She stared at the computer, thinking.

After a minute or two, she shut the laptop and looked at Finn with narrowed eyes.

"There's one other thing I need for you to do." He wouldn't be useful anymore for looking into the group they hired, so she went onto her next suspicion. She retrieved something from her back pocket and handed it to Finn. It was a tiny camera. He looked at her with confusion.

"What do I do with this?"He asked.

"Put it on." She gestured to his shirt pocket.

He looked at her doubtfully, but still clipped it on obediently.

"What now?"

Iris gestured to the door.

"There are some questions I want you to ask your parents."

"But it's in the middle of the night!" He objected.

"So? Wake them up." She looked at him, perplexed. She didn't see what the issue was.