One entire week later and Jordan had finally managed to see Mauve at school, she was admittedly not a hundred percent herself, but she was better and that was all that mattered to him. Yet he could see a new glimmer in her eyes, he thought Mauve would be too distressed or even too sad to be walking around like that or to converse with others with animation like she used to, but to his amazement, Mauve was trying to do all that stuff and in some, she was succeeding properly.
Jordan could not, however, truly grasp what was that thing that was sparkling underneath the waters, but he knew that whatever it was, it was turning Mauve into someone better and he could not be mad at that. As a matter of fact, he was actually a bit happy about it, he saw the traces of courage here and there and was relieved that his friend was not being a slave to her own fears anymore. And as he also was a whole lot better at recognizing and dealing with his own emotions, the thought that she was also evolving alongside him was heartwarming.
Even though Jordan was not aware of what made Mauve strive to do better, Karen and Skye were. After an extensive talk through the phone, Mauve and Karen had decided to tell Skye what was happening and announce that Mauve would be helping Sky with the finding of Jonathan's old victims and the whole convincing to talk; and the three of them decided to split the tasks and update Jordan about it later. In a resume, Skye and Mauve would try and find the other girls that had been victimized by Jonathan and his despicable desires, and Karen and Jordan would keep an eye out for Jonathan himself, they would try and narrow down what were the types of girls that he preyed upon and try to get new evidence to reinforce the testimonies of those that had been attacked before, with real hopes of catching him while he was courting his next prey and alerting her to the dangers of Jonathan Whales.
Luckily now being in the possession of a cellphone, Jordan could be informed of their decisions way quicker than before, and by lunchtime, they were all studying what better course of action should be taken. And here is where this author will separate the stories, and unfortunately, some characters will disperse as mist in the winds to come back later, with renewed solidity.
After that particular day, Jordan and his little group of friends began to spend less and less time together, and while it may have looked to others like a falling apart, it was instead part of their plans. Having now the information that Jonathan was friends with Mauve, they had decided that to better hide their intentions, they should split and pretend not to enjoy each other's company anymore. In that way, the fact that Skye was walking with them would not be the reason for his suspicion, and they could all communicate through their cellphones successfully, leaving no real trace of their friendship still being intact and, as a matter of fact, being stronger than ever before. Coordinating such actions, Jordan and Karen began to be seen together at all times, there was not a commonplace where they would go that they would not seek the company of each other and that fact began to spread the rumor that Karen had managed to conquer the coldest heart in entire D.C. High School grounds.
Nothing was done to kill the gossip and soon, the whole school looked at them as a couple, no matter how far or close to the truth that assumption was.
However happy both were to spend so much time together, they, in those moments, were studying Jonathan Whales from afar, and both had decided that they could take advantage of that rumor, which was why they had refrained from either denying or confirming it. Fortunately or not the first pattern they discerned of Jonathan's habits was that he had a hiatus of two to three months between each victim, and the second was that he would keep one very attentive eye on the girl he planned on raping. It made it easier on them to discover who the next girl would be once they realized that small detail, following that they had informed about it to those two little birds that kept on trying to more evidence of his past actions, and believe it or not, knowing that Jonathan studied those girls made it easier for them to think up a pattern and go searching from there.
As Jordan and Karen were sitting outside of the cafeteria, talking about many different things and observing Jonathan keenly, they saw something for the first time, Jonathan who was observing a girl a few meters away, reached for something inside his jacket, pulling out a small notepad, he scribbled something in it and proceeded to guard it inside that hidden inner pocket. Both remained calm but inside they were exploding with excitement and anxiety, but as both had their heads in their proper places, they both decided to observe some more before making or accepting the assumption that popped up inside their heads. But the possibility that Jonathan kept the info he caught on his victims inside those little notepads was real enough to put their moods so high they almost touched the sky.
Immediately after they informed the interested parties about that possibility and, later that day, discussed that the person who was most likely to gain access to those notepads would be Mauve herself given her present quality of being friends with the subject of their investigation. There was a moment of silent tension but Mauve, although shakily, stepped up and agreed to search for the definite proofs that they needed so much.
"You shouldn't do that alone, it's dangerous."
"It's not like there is someone that can do it with me. I'm the only person that can get inside his house without him being suspicious."
Karen shook her head.
"There is someone else."
"Who?" Asked Jordan and Skye.
"The girl he's been watching. We have to talk to her."