THE THIRTEENTH DAY - BOOK 1

A friendly warning

The next day started out quite nicely; the sun was out, and it generously shared its warmth with Freetown. The rest of the week was quite nice as well, the days passed quickly and soon it was Saturday, a day everyone loved, but this particular Saturday was especially special because it was the day of Caleb's much anticipated party.

"So guys what kind of food do you think we should get?" Phoebe asked, holding a pen and notepad in her hand. Cassie and her friends were helping Caleb with his party.

"Nothing too serious," Tyler shrugged, he squinted from the blinding sun.

"Yeah," Cassie chipped in "Some light snacks, most important thing is booze" she laughed and rested her elbow on the hood of her car.

"Yeah, like what did you think we'll need? Chinese?" Matt teased, as usual and then he was the sole person to laugh at his joke.

"I actually hate you," Phoebe rolled her eyes and playfully scowled at him before getting into the passenger side of Cassie's car. Cassie got into the driver's side and shut her door.

All the guys but Danny were riding in Tucker's jeep. They were driving to a nearby store while the girl's were going the distance. "Okay, let's go get ourselves some drinks!" Tucker cheered while holding up his fake ID. The guys caused a commotion in the car by drumming on the dashboard and chanting as Tucker powered his car and sped off. 

"Idiots," Cassie laughed. 

Phoebe turned on the radio and some loud heavy metal song came on and almost burst their eardrums. Cassie sent Phoebe an evil glare and turned down the volume. "Girl, we're not doing your crazy music today, I can't"

"It's not like I called the radio station and asked them to play this," she rolled her eyes. "do you have any of your boring music on standby?" Phoebe asked, and put her sunglasses over her eyes. Cassie pulled out a CD that she made for her car and slid it into the car CD player. 

Phoebe laughed "I swear you're an old lady?" 

Pop song after pop song played and they sang along to each one with their screechy voices, people driving on either side of them sent them odd looks which they completely ignored.

After twenty-five minutes of butchering each song, they arrived at the grocery store which was situated just outside Freetown. They stepped out of the car and made their way to the entrance, Cassie was about to pull open the front door but the person inside beat her to it and pushed it open. She recognized the girl as one of Caleb's plethora of girlfriends. 

"Hey," she smiled 

"Sydney right?" Phoebe asked, also instantly recognizing the girl.

"Yeah," she said and smiled at the both of them, revealing a perfect white teeth that had a piece of spinach stuck between them. "You're Cassie? Caleb's baby sister ," she asked, pointing her index finger at Cassie. 

"Unfortunately" Cassie rolled her eyes. "This is my bestie Phoebe," Cassie said gesturing her hands towards Phoebe who was standing to her right, impatiently waiting for their discussion to be over. Sydney smiled toward Phoebe and returned her attention to Cassie.

"You're coming to Caleb's party tonight right?" Cassie asked, trying to make small talk, although she knew that her obvious answer would be yes.

"Not if I want to get killed," Sydney rushed out the answer, with a mixture of fear and sadness in her eyes, as she shook her head vigorously. Cassie stared at her, she furrowed her eyebrows and her mouth was agape. "There's a killer out there claiming people's lives," Sydney stressed. "I don't want to be a victim, most of these murders take place at parties. I was at the party where Ruby Brown's body was discovered, she was my friend," her voice croaked a bit "We weren't close but we were still friends and I can't bear to experience that again," she said. "And don't even get me started with the police interrogations," she slapped her hands on her things. "Those assholes kept asking me questions for two weeks like I was the bloody murderer," she spat out, irritation evident in her tone.