I stared at the rose on my desk. I didn't bother to place it in a vase, because why should I preserve something that reminded me my Best Friend was in danger? I sigh and turn towards the clock beside my bed. It was almost past 3 in the morning and I wasn't even close to sleepy.

My mind made sure of that.

No matter how hard I tried to find the reason behind the rose I could not think of anything. Did the rose mean anything? I tried to google it and rose meant affection, didn't it? Was there another meaning I didn't know about?

I tried to focus on finding a reason for the rose, but my mind had other plans. It always came back to the scene on the beach. Just Jasper and Me. The crashing waves. His eyes. I shake the thoughts away and groan inwardly. I would smack myself right now if I could. Jasmine would have. I cover my face with a pillow and curse myself inwardly. I should not feed whatever I was feeling for Jasper.

That is just wrong. I turned to face the ceiling. Was I mistaking my affections for him as something romantic other than something less? What if I just feel really attached to him because of what we share? And what do we share exactly? A horrible past? A girl who we loved and is missing? Besides, if we ever found Jasmine, I'm pretty sure they would make a great couple. I quench the unwanted feelings inside me and sit up from my bed.

Jasper had left after a few minutes of trying to convince him to go home after we found the rose by the door. I didn't want to take any chances of whatever was happening by the beach. Or maybe it was all in my head and Jasper was just concerned about me. I bury my face in my hands feeling horrible about myself and look up at the rose again.

Roses.

The last thing Jasmine had gotten before she disappeared. This time, I do smack myself in the head before grabbing my phone by the table and opening the chat I had with Jasper. I still myself and look at the time. Was it really a good time for me to be texting him and telling me to come here? I shake my head. Of course, it was. We were looking for Jasmine. I type in the message and just as I am about to send it, I hear someone tapping on my window. I stare at it, trying to make sense of what was happening when the tapping grew louder.

I walk towards it and pull open the blinds only to hold back a scream as I see Jasper holding on to it and practically glaring at me to open it. I unlatch the lock and open it and let him stumble inside. I check outside to see if anyone saw him before closing it and turning to face him.

"I think the message is in the dying bouquet of roses. Do you think her grandma threw it away?"

Something inside me ignites as I realize he had just thought of what I had. I smile and think I could kiss him right now- wait, no. No, Pat. I turn away from him and stare at the rose.

"It'd be rude to go knocking on Mrs. Bradshaw's house right now," I tell him, and he nods, and I am suddenly aware how crazy this all seemed. He went here...climb to my window, to tell me that? I can't look at him without feeling the tension, so I walk towards the rose instead and pick it up. When I turn to him, something in his expression has changed.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come here like this... I just-," he starts but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.

"It's okay, I was having a hard time sleeping anyway. Want to brainstorm possible motives and suspects?" I ask, feeling the tension slipping away.

He smiles at this. That lopsided smile and I feel relief wash over me just having him there.

"Sure, let's get that possible serial killer brain of yours to work," he jokes as he sits on the floor, crossed legged. I sat in front of him with a notebook and a pen and he grabs my laptop. I notice he was wearing a sleeveless shirt and shorts and looked like someone who was literally in bed minutes ago. Suddenly, I am aware of my own clothing and pull down my shorts consciously. I scratch my bare shoulders and notice his eyes following my movements.

I clear my throat.

"So...can I ask you a personal question?"

He raises an eyebrow. "It depends on how personal it is."

I purse my lips and click on my pen.

"It's about your...uhm..." I couldn't find myself to continue but he seemed to understand my question just fine as he lets out a heavy breath in front of me.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," I immediately add to which he laughs at. A quiet laugh. Not really making it to his eyes.

"Rosemary," he started. "Like all of the other girls, she was named after a flower."

"So, red heads named after flowers," I say as I write it down.

"They always had someone blonde with them," he continued, and I had just suddenly realized it as well. This killer was specific. But when I try to remember, Jasper had been the only male blond with the red headed girls. I try to sneak a look at him as he typed something on my laptop.

"If you're just going to stare at me the whole night you can just say so," he says, as he glances up at me. "I'd be happy to oblige."

I roll my eyes, feeling my cheeks heat up as I scribble more notes on my notebook.

"Did your sister have a boyfriend?" I ask. He shakes his head no.

"Did she get an anonymous letter from someone to meet her like Jasmine had?"

Again, he shakes his head no.

"What are you doing?" I finally ask, wanting to know what has got him so engrossed in my laptop.

He turns the laptop towards me and I see different tabs open. Each one about a missing girl from cities nearby. I feel something cold run down my spine. There were 8 now. Jasmine is the 9th. I swallow, hard before he lets me read through the articles. I bet he had already done this before. At three in the morning, reading about articles about missing girls. I can't imagine what he was going through. And all alone for that matter.

I look at the photos of the missing girls. Red heads and had a clear school record. What sick monster would target such innocent girls? And what was this monster doing to them? I stare at the picture of Jasper's sister. She had a smile like Jasmine's. Warm enough to make you last an eternal winter. I look up at Jasper again as he doodled on my notebook.

"What happened...to her? When her body was found?" I ask, tentatively. Both wanting and dreading to know the answer. Because this was being done to my best friend right now and I didn't know if I had the stomach to know about it.

"Half of her hair had been chopped off," he starts, staring at the notebook in his hands as he continued doodling. "She had cut marks on her arms and legs. Nothing significant. The one who examined her said she died of poisoning. She smelled so much of rosemary the doctors had found it hard to figure out what kind of poison it was."

"Do you think she died...peacefully?" I ask, and he shakes his head, setting the fear inside me to churn. "The doctors said...she did it herself."

"What?!" I ask, almost flipping my laptop off me.

"The theory was she was tortured enough to make her want to do it," he says, and I shake my head.

"But how is that even possible? She had no marks on her she-"

"There are many ways to torture someone without inflicting a mark, Blondie," he says and for a moment I am drowned in my own thoughts and think of all the possible ways and almost throw up at the thought of it.

"She was tortured for almost two years...and she had been thinking someone was actually looking for her," he explains. "Someone who actually had power, not some 13-year-old boy who could do nothing but wait for flower deliveries."

"Hey, shhh," I start, crawling towards him and putting a hand over his shoulder. "You did everything you could, Jasper."

He leaned against me and I am surprised by how warm and light he felt against me. I venture to run my hand against his hair. He lets me, and we sit there for a while like that when he starts speaking again.

"I was so close," he says, quietly, almost like he was whispering. "At least I think I was. I was the closest person to Rosemary. We had our differences, but I bonded with no one else. Even my past girlfriends were jealous of her. My own sister."

"She always came first...until that one stupid night," he says. And I sigh against him and feel him relax against me.

We stay silent for a while before he jolts in my arms, like he had just figured something out.

"What is it? Did you remember something?" I ask, and he turns to face me, our faces an inch apart. I almost jump back at the sudden closeness and he is momentarily frozen before he seems to shake his thoughts together and types something in the laptop.

"The killer, he always placed the body in a field of whatever the girl was named for," he starts, and I move closer to him to see what he was typing. I felt something fall heavy on my stomach. He was searching for a field near us where Jasmines bloomed. It was a couple of hours away and the best time for it was spring. Which means I had limited time to find Jasmine.

"I have a gut feeling the killer would be hiding her somewhere near here," he says.

"Why would you think that? He could have moved the bodies around with a truck," I tell him.

"Or she could care less and want to just get it over with," he explains, and I roll my eyes at him.

"We could at least check it out?" he says, and I give him a soft nod. Anything to find her.

After a few more notes and searches. Even one about a penguin hatching from an Egg because somehow penguins hatching is something he watches when he feels nervous, we found ourselves with nothing to do but sleep.

He makes a move towards the window when I stop him.

"You can sleep here, if you like," I ask, feeling a bit awkward. He looks at my bed, then at me before he looks away.

"Are you sure about that?"

I feel myself flush before pulling out the thick covers of my bed and placing them on the floor.

"You can have the floor," I say before climbing up the bed and wrapping myself with a thin blanket.

I hear him chuckle but felt comfort as I hear him shuffling under the covers just beside my bed. I wait until I hear him snoring softly before feeling secure enough to let sleep take me. The next morning, I wake up and scream, making Jasper jolt up from his sleep.

My window was open, as wind blew past. Bringing with it tons of Rhododendron. A flower I knew the meaning to because Jasmine had told me about them.

Beware.