Page 3

Escaping Sage

" H ow could she betray me like this?" Hans paced back and forth across his living room floor, gripping the note and locket in his hands so tightly that his knuckles started to turn ghostly pale.

He wasn't even sure how Sage had managed to beat him back to his apartment let alone how she got inside.

Who was he kidding? It was Sage he was talking about...

No, not Sage… Gretta .

What had happened to his best friend? This couldn’t be the same person he once knew.

Hans continued to ponder what his next move would be. Where would she go?

D espite the fucked up shit that Hans had been through over the past few weeks, that she had caused, he still had a twinge of feelings for her radiating from his core. Hans wanted - no, needed - to help her get through this. To get Gretta back.

My Gretta. Hans smiled at that thought.

Hans remembered the first time that he and Gretta were captured by the witch in Brighton Forest. He had missed school that day because of a dentist appointment, but was going to meet up with Gretta after.

He never imagined that she would have attempted to go through the forest alone.

Not until screams came echoing through the trees.

He had followed the sounds, reaching her right after Charles had run into the same pocket knife Hans had given her.

Gretta’s eyes were wide open, the look of innocence was gone, now almost feral.

Her hands shook as the knife fell to the ground, blood splattered across the front of her clothes, and her skin stained with crimson.

"What happened?" Hans inquired as Gretta came running to him, burying her face into his chest while trying to conceal her sobs, tears rolling down her face.

"I messed up, Hans." He pulled away from her and looked her in the eye.

"I need you to tell me what happened." This was probably the moment that Hans should have known he was destined to become a detective.

"Everyone is going to hate me!" Gretta looked away from him, her cheeks flushed bright red as embarrassment began to take over.

Hans desperately wanted to protect Gretta, but between their ages and the fact that Charles was the Mayor’s son he knew the reality was that no one would ever believe them. Especially with the past that Gretta had created for herself.

Gretta looked deep in thought and in that moment, Hans knew he was going to marry that girl one day. She was the only person who got him, and he was the only one who understood her fuckery.

Gretta took off.

"Gretta, wait!" Hans had no idea where she was going, but he chased her deeper and deeper into the forest, his gut telling him that he needed to do his best to stay close.

When they finally came to a clearing, there was a beautiful cottage a few hundred feet ahead of them.

From a distance, it looked just like a gingerbread house, the aromas radiating from it luring them in.

"Hello, children." An older woman appeared. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and she wore a long, flowing floral dress. "You look exhausted. Would you like to come in?"

"I don't think-" Hans started to say before Gretta interrupted him.

"Yes, I would love a glass of water!"

"I made a fresh apple pie, too!" The old lady seemed innocent enough. Gretta cheered as she ran inside. "Hans, apple pie is your favorite!" Hans couldn’t place his finger on why, but despite the stranger’s apparent friendliness, something about the entire situation still felt off.

"It's fine, you can wait out here if you'd like." The old lady winked at Hans while turning around to head back inside her cottage after Gretta.

"No, I'm coming, too" Hans caught up to Gretta, and he wrapped his arm around her as the door slammed shut behind them.

A knock at the door pulled Hans out of his daydream. Except, it wasn't really a daydream, it was real life. The beginning of the end of Hans' relationship with Gretta; when she was still Gretta .

Hans peered out the peephole, there stood Officer Billings, cocky as usual.

Regardless of how Hans was feeling, there was no doubt in his mind that he needed to make the call to file a report.

Too much had happened. Normally, he would have been able to make a report over the phone, but considering the circumstances, the police department insisted on sending an officer out to make sure that it really was him, which was fine.

"Is anything missing?" Officer Billings inquired.

"I don't think so, but I also haven't taken the time to do much investigating myself.

" Hans made his way around the apartment to see if he could find anything that notably stood out.

He walked over to where the note and locket had been found and noticed that the drawer hadn't been closed all the way.

He opened the drawer, instantly realizing that the pocket knife he had kept in there for opening packages was missing.

"Well, my pocketknife is missing and I know I never take it from the drawer, so I can only assume that it is in her possession."

The officer was taking notes when Hans realized he had written the words armed and dangerous.

"You really think Sage is armed and dangerous with a little pocket knife?" Hans tried to stick up for her before he remembered who he was talking to.

Officer Billings was Officer Charles Billings. The same skumbag Gretta had stabbed back in the day and he had a vendetta against her ever since.

"She tried to kill me when we were kids, why would she have changed? Hell, look what she did to you!" Charles justified his report with ease.

"Maybe if you weren't trying to rape her in the forest, she wouldn't have felt it necessary to try and protect herself.

" Hans loathed this guy. Why, out of the entire precinct, was he the one who had been dispatched to Hans’ apartment to handle this call?

They had both been searching for Sage, err, Gretta for all these years with two separate missions in mind.

Charles let out a guttural sigh, "You know damn well that isn't what happened.

She wanted it and didn't want to have to feel guilty for betraying you.

I don't know why you are still so far up her ass after all these years.

Especially after all she put you and Marco through. You're just as sick as she is."

Hans refrained from punching Charles between the eyes. Barely. "Maybe." He shrugged. "The best of us are." Hans winked at Charles watching him to see how far in the back of his head he could roll his eyes.

"This isn't fucking Wonderland, freak." Charles' aggressiveness was starting to show.

"I think you have all the information you need for tonight, why don't I call you if there's anything else?" They were walking toward the door when Charles paused with an inquisitive look on his face.

This is gonna be good , Hans thought.

"What about Marco?" Charles hesitated.

Hans let out a sigh, "He didn't make it man," he paused, watching the look on Officer Billings' face go from annoyed to amused.

"So she killed him, huh?"

"You'd like that to be the case, I'm sure." Hans couldn't understand why he continued to defend Sage, for all he knew she had killed him and then lied to him about it. All Hans could think about was sleeping in his comfy bed.

"Then what happened?" Charles reached up, pulling his glasses from the top of his head, and placed them on his face. Hans found it interesting that Charles hadn't used his glasses for any of the other notes which told him that he really wanted to make sure he didn't miss a single detail this time.

"Marco had a medical emergency. Sage rushed him to a hospital but he passed away before he was able to be seen." Hans paused to read Charles' reaction.

Charles squinted at Hans while stroking his chin. "What kind of medical emergency?"

Hans couldn't help himself. "Erectile dysfunction." Charles let Hans' stupid remark go right over his head.

"Okay, so," Charles paused, "he went into a diabetic coma and you two idiots couldn't call anyone because you didn't have your...phones? Is that what actually happened?"

"If you knew he was a diabetic, then why did you-"

"Cut the crap Hans, I don't believe for one minute that is how or why he died."

“ You can look, but I don’t think you’re going to find anything.” Hans was exhausted over the back and forth and just wanted to relax a bit before going to bed. “It’s getting late, I think you’ve gotten everything you came for?”

“ Fine, whatever.” Charles sauntered back toward the door.

"I'm going to find out the truth about what happened and that little slut of yours is going to pay.

" He slammed the door behind him. Hans looked out the window and watched Charles rushing down the stairs in a hurry to get into his car and drive off.

Hans bellowed a loud growl. “Why the fuck do I care so much?”

She wasn’t Gretta.

It was all starting to click and Hans was finally getting closer to being able to mourn the loss of his best friend.

Gretta was gone and her body had been sacrificed to the devil herself.

She needed to be stopped.