Read Pretty Faces and Dark Places for Free Online Page B

milk carton grabbed my attention and I had to stop mid-chew. It wasn’t Sophie’s photo this time – hers had been removed long ago when her family decided that enough time had passed searching for her and that there was no hope. This one was a photo of a face I knew so well. I knew him. I’d talked to him. I’d shaken his hand and felt its coldness. I knew him. And I also knew that I’d seen this very photo long before last year’s Halloween.
    Matthew Harrison.
    A loud gasp left my mouth when my doubt was confirmed by the first name underneath the photo.
    “You look oddly familiar.”
    “I hear that a lot,” he said. “Actually, my eyes are not my own; I borrowed them and I need to give them back before sunlight.”
    I covered my mouth with my hands – how could it be? How could it be him? What did it even mean? He’d asked me if it was my first time at that party. He’d told me it was his third time there. Did that mean that … God! Oh, God!
    The thoughts in my head were enough to make my head dizzy. Matthew has been missing for longer than a year, but he’d seemed okay when I saw him. Meaning, he hadn’t been kidnapped or anything like that, so why wasn’t he home? He couldn’t be just a runaway boy; he was still in town, and if he was, why would he stay here? Why did his family have his photo put on milk cartons all the time? If they loved him so much, why couldn’t he love them back? Because if he loved them just as much, he would’ve at least told them he was alive … Or maybe he wasn’t? 
    I was going insane!
    Without a second thought, I grabbed the keys that were on the small table in the foyer and hopped into my grandmother’s car, going to where I’d always wanted to go but never had the heart to. I drove myself to the woods.
     

     
    Hours passed without finding the right way; it was as if the police officers were right, that the road I was talking about simply didn’t exist. Still, I kept searching, driving all around the forest, wherever the car would fit, leaving with empty hands each time I circled it.
    I felt as if there were eyes on me, watching me closely, my every move, even while still in the car. It was creepy and I got that tingling feeling in my fingertips and my toes which I hated with everything in me.
    I shrugged those thoughts away. They were not helping, only holding me back and scaring me, and it was something I seriously didn’t want today. I wanted answers, and I was determined that I’d get them.
    After a long, powerful fight with myself, I hopped out of the car and decided to walk, hoping that my legs would have a better memory than my mind and would lead me to the right path on their own.
    It was still daylight, and I could see clearly, but the quietness was enough to send chills all over my body and cause my stomach to turn and twist into knots. I walked, walked, walked. Came up with nothing. Everything looked the same; everywhere I looked there were trees, leaves, and dried grass. Nothing looked familiar enough. Nothing gave me a clue of where to go to even find the cottage. Nothing.
    Tears started to stream down my face and I started dry heaving when I noticed that the darkness had started to take over. I was in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t even know how to get back to my car; I’d never kept track of where I was walking. I was just searching, looking for something, anything to get me an answer as to where Sophie was or what had happened to her. I also wanted to find him . I couldn’t help the need to find him. I didn’t have my cellphone or anything to tell anyone where I was or even to find my way through the darkness.
    I hugged my arms to myself and kept turning in circles, not knowing what to do. I felt numbness in my legs and a heaviness in my body that made it so hard to walk, it was almost impossible. My legs were simply glued to the ground beneath me.
    Minutes or hours passed, I don’t even know how long I stayed there in that state –