Hide and Secret (Wattys2015)

(20) Jill's POV

It felt so good to be free.

Now that everything was back in order in my life, I was doing great. I was content. Satisfied.

Free.

I had grown to love that word. Though I hadn't known what it meant at the time. Well, I mean, I did. But knowing what a word means because of a dictionary is not the same as knowing what a word means because you've gone without it for so long.

Before, I thought freedom was simply something that I got by nature. Now, I knew that I had to earn it. And keep it.

I was walking with Kai and Emory to lunch when a hand was placed over my mouth and I was dragged away from them. They didn't even notice. Nobody did.

Meanwhile, paranoid thoughts invaded my mind. Was it the stalker, trying to kidnap me again? No, it couldn't be. Zach was the stalker. He was in jail. Unless he broke out.

I squirmed, starting to try and fight this person even though I couldn't see who... or what... I was up against here. The person dragged me all the way to the girl's bathroom before I got some sense. Why was I wasting time struggling when I had my resources right with me?

I bit down, hard, on the hand that smothered me.

I could hear a loud yelp as the person removed their hand. I turned around, staring into the eyes of...

Serena. She was wincing, holding her hand in pain. "God, what are you? A vampire looking for your next reserve?" she hissed.

"Excuse me if I thought I was being assaulted," I replied pointedly, shooting daggers at her with my eyes. Serena shrugged, staring back despite the intensity of my gaze.

Suddenly, a stall door swished open, and I tensed in fear. Had somebody heard me talking to Serena? Everyone knew about our stalking incident with Zach, but people would ask questions if I was still talking to her now. After all, we were kind of supposed to hate each other.

Luckily for us, it was only Taylor. She gave Serena a glare. "Serena, when I said to get Jill in here, I didn't mean to do it by making her think she was getting kidnapped again."

I snorted, rolling my eyes. "Thank you! Somebody understands." Then, a thought struck me. "Wait... Why are we talking? Because, it's not that I don't like you guys. It's just... isn't everything supposed to go back to normal now?"

"Normal?" Serena asked, an edge to her voice. I saw Taylor flinch.

Yet I still stumbled on. "Yeah. Normal. As in, we don't hang out. Because we're from different crowds. And now, there's really no reason to hang out with each other. Zach's in jail, our stalker's gone. And in the end, that was truly all that linked us."

"But Jill..." Taylor hesitated. "Our stalker's not gone."

I gave a small laugh, disbelieving. "He's in jail, Taylor. Wake up. We were the ones who put him in there." If this was their idea of a joke, it wasn't funny.

Taylor, meanwhile, shook her head vigorously. "He was framed."

Serena nodded in agreement. I slowly looked from Taylor to her, and then back again. I couldn't be sure... but I thought that they were serious. Serena and Taylor were both staring straight at me, waiting to see what my response to this would be. I breathed in deeply, before exhaling. "You're not kidding?" I asked quietly.

"No," Serena replied, looking upset. She clearly felt bad for me, which I was surprised about. I mean, I didn't expect her to laugh in my face while my world pretty much came crashing down, but I also didn't expect for her to genuinely care about my wellbeing after this bomb. "I wish I was."