SOTD: FLAWLESS BY THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Despite the fact that we had now 'kind of' teamed up with Morovitz, things went back to normal on Monday morning.

"Penn may be in jail but we aren't; we've gotta keep working" Mark muttered taking a bite out of an apple.

"That was a horrible way of putting it" London grumbled rolling her eyes and pulling her purse higher on her shoulder. Her black jeans and black long sleeve made her look like she was in mourning but London had always been a little over dramatic with things.

It seemed like lately all of our internal alarm clocks were in sync as we all got up at 6am sharp; but I had gotten little to no sleep what with London constantly going,

"You believe he's innocent right?"

"Yes, I do" I would sigh each and every time she asked this and turn over in my bed. By the time she went to bed for real I started mulling over possible scenarios to make sense of all of this.

Was it possible that Adam was making the whole thing up?

It was also very possible for Penn to have accumulated a steady stream of enemies especially given his line of business. For now, I pushed all of this away and tuned back into what was going on in the kitchen.

I had just gotten out of the shower, throwing on a pair of cotton joggers and a simple white vneck, and ran down the stairs.

"Let's get going if we don't wanna be late for school" Nate yelled running down the stairs and giving me a look, "I've got perfect attendance so far and I won't let either of you ruin it. STEPHEN!"

I grimaced as he screamed Stephen's name and Stephen came practically tumbling down, "Is me putting deodorant on, really going to ruin your stupid attendance?"

Mark had a slight grin on his face as we all began yelling at Nate to shut up and leave us all alone. I heard London throw in a couple remarks about his ensemble, a red plaid shirt with a pair of tan corduroy pants, and laughed despite myself.

"It's like nothing changed" Des remarked stirring her coffee and sitting at the table in her black sweatpants. She had dark circles under her eyes and I realized she was definitely going to need that cup of coffee if she expected to function properly.

"I can think of one person who should change... you look like a slob mother" Nate snapped taking in her messy black hair and oversized shirt which I was sure was Mark's.

"Go to ~"

"School. Go to school, that's what she was going to say" Mark quickly jumped in and gave Des a meaningful look. Des shrugged and shooed us off.

The moment the front door closed behind us Stephen threw his backpack off and stowed it behind the huge bush off to the side of the house.

"What are you doing?" I wondered puling my black cardigan around myself as Nate followed suit.

"We aren't going to school, feel free to follow our lead" Nate muttered tossing Stephen the keys as they quickly got into the car.

London and I exchanged confused glances but quickly followed after them into the car.

Nate hadn't said a word besides telling Stephen which turns to take and I glanced over at London. She looked just as confused as I did and I groaned.

"You're going to have to tell us what's going on if we're expected to play along"

Nate turned to look at me from the passenger seat and let out a loud sigh, "When we get there"

London sat forward with an incredulous look, "It's pretty obvious Stephen knows the big secret"

Nate looked at Stephen, who kept a studious gaze on the road, "Stephen is allowed to know"

"Know what?!" I shrieked wanting to rip the collars of his stupid plaid shirt, off.

"We'll let you know when Miranda confirms it" Nate gave me a small smirk, "Consider this brothers being brothers"

I dropped my jaw as I realized this was payback for not having told them about the evidence I had withheld about Penn, "You're so petty"

Stephen grinned at this, "Says the girl who flushed the toilet just so London would get out of the shower"

"THAT WAS YOU?!" London shrieked giving me a glare. I shrugged sheepishly before setting my sights back on the boys,

"This better be a bomb secret"

If only I had known just how true my words were, then.

~

The moment Stephen pulled to a park in front of the large building, my breath caught.

"It looks so..." I fished for the correct word and London looked over at me,

"Looming?"

"I'm not sure it really makes sense in that context but...yeah" A part of me didn't even want to get out of car but the annoyed harrumphs of Nate and Stephen had me jumping out.

As a group, we walked up the familiar walkway and entered the building as if we had been here a million times before. Nate made sure to keep his face impassive, as if he were just another super smart scientist like the rest of them. We all tried to follow suit and, in the end, we made it up to Miranda's without so much as a suspicious look from anyone.

In my silent happy dance, I didn't notice the man who kept a steady gaze on us the entire time

~

"You again" Miranda didn't even turn around to look at us as we entered her lab.

I rolled my eyes as she beckoned us forward and I then realized that she had been expecting us.

"You called her?" London asked as we made our way to the back of her lab.

"It would seem so" Nate shrugged London's accusatory tone off and briskly pushed past her asking Miranda questions in hushed tones.

"I'm three seconds from punching him in the face" London hissed in my ear and I gave her a nod,

"You and me both, sister"

"Lock the door" Miranda murmured as we all entered her office. I furrowed my eyebrows at her urgent tone but did as told and turned the lock until I heard a satisfying click. Her desk was absolutely disastrous with papers everywhere and manila files stacked on every available surface. I tried to not internally wince as I noticed the rings of coffee on some of the papers, I mean wasn't that what coasters were for?

"Alright, so the moment you guys left here the other day, I got to thinking about the tocopherols and metabolites that were found inside the moonshine" Miranda anxiously ran a hand through her hair and looked up at us.

I looked over at Nate and realized he looked just as confused as London and I did, "I swore you knew the big secret...It looks like your confused, to me"

"Fine, the cats out of the bag; there was no secret...I called Miranda to follow up after we left the other day and she said she found something strange and told us to come down. That's it"

"Makes sense, Stephen's never in the know" London scoffed giving Stephen a condescending smirk.

"Do you guys mind if I finish my sentence?" Miranda hissed giving an annoyed look. We all nodded stupidly and she rolled her eyes.

"Anyways, as I started doing more research on these metabolites, I realized that they cost a lot of money to buy overseas where it would seem a large population of the resources to make these things, exist. So what's better than that? Making it yourself...from scratch"

I still didn't understand where she was going with all of this and listened intently,

"Unless your a next level genius, you cannot make those kind of compounds in your garage" Miranda stared up at us with a glint in her eye as if she had explained everything and we were to start jumping in excitement.

"It's all right in front of you" Miranda hissed. I stared at her as she swallowed deeply and only, just then, did I notice how haggered she looked. Her collarbones were more prominent than I remembered them being and her eyes were looking around frantically.

"Is it me or does she seem fidgety?" I whispered imperceptibly to London who gave me a mute nod.

"I've always known there was something off about all of this and I finally pieced it together" was Miranda even taking about what we were talking about, anymore?

"Miranda, calm down" Nate murmured looking at her oddly as she began pacing her desk with rage etched in her features

"You idiots! How aren't you seeing this?" she shrieked glaring at us all.

"You look exhausted, Miranda" I said gently, "Maybe you should get some rest"

Miranda let out a dry laugh at this and fixed her dark eyes on me, "Thanks to your incompetence, I'll be resting soon"

I stared at her in absolute confusion as she walked over to the door in a frantic run and pulled it open, "Get out"

"What? You said there was something important you needed me to understand" Nate murmured as she practically pushed him out of the door.

"Miranda, your digging into my skin" Nate hissed trying to yank his arm from her grip.

"You guys need to leave now. Please" there was something in her tone that scared the living daylights out of me and we quickly began to scurry out.

"Andrea" she called my name lightly and I turned back as Nate opened the door to the front room, "it's all right in front of you"

There was so much anguish in her voice as she said this and in that moment a subconscious part of me knew...

~

"Let's get the hell out of here" Stephen grumbled hitting the gas the moment we all put our seat belts on and peeling out of the parking lot.

None of us said a word as the previous events rolled around in the air.

"Guys...Miranda was trying to tell us something" I murmured as Stephen stopped at the first red light and looked at me in the rear view mirror. I could still see the building through the same mirror and grimaced as he spoke next,

"No shit"

"You don't get it...she wasn't trying to tell us as kids, she was telling us as cops. Somehow, some way Miranda knew"

The car lurched forward at this and Stephen swore under his breath, "What? That's impossible"

I let out a deep breath as Stephen quickly pulled over onto the side of the road and turned to look at me.

"Guys, the way she kept on saying all of that stuff...she was willing us to figure it out; there's something so incredibly wrong about all of this" I stared at each of them in turn and Nate pursed his lips.

"What if she was just talking crap? She didn't really look like someone we could take seriously in that moment" Nate noted. While he was right, there was still something unsettling about the look in her eyes.

I opened my mouth to agree with him and to tell Stephen to continue driving when a deafening BOOM sounded in the air.

"What the hell was that?" London shrieked cowering. Instinctively, both Nate and Stephen's hands came back to shield the two of us in the back. I was about to joke about the acts of protection when my mouth suddenly went dry.

"Are you okay?" Nate asked turning to look at me but I wasn't even registering what he was saying. I was focused on one thing and that was the rearview mirror.

The world stood still in that moment as Nate looked past me and his face morphed into a mask of horror.

Fire.