The Hijinks War

54. One Year

"We're being held against our will..."

I frowned at the lady on the podium at the front of the church. Her mouth was moving, likely talking about the students we'd lost four months prior, but it wasn't her voice I heard. Sitting between Jess and Emma on a pew in the July heat, surrounded by Waterbridge students and their families, it was Eddie's voice that reached my ears. 

I was used to hearing that haunting voice in my nightmares, not when I was awake. But at a memorial for him and the handful of others who'd passed during our ordeal, all of them within the walls of the academy, I supposed it made sense. It was the last thing of him I had to hold on to; his pleading call to the FBI that had been played over and over on the news reports following our rescue.

"There are 260 of us. I don't know if we're all still alive. We've been separated. They've been drugging us." Gunshots interrupted Eddie's words, the sounds echoing loudly. Eddie rushed out a bunch of random numbers before his last words were followed by a sickening squelching thump. "Ah! Fuck! Help them―"

Those numbers were the I.P. number of his laptop, which he'd somehow managed to hook up to the last remaining internet connection at the academy, Tannen's. The same laptop which was running the program for the little trackers he'd insisted that several of us wear. The FBI had used the I.P. to hack his computer and were trying to figure out the meaning of what they'd found when Jess called, exhausted and worn out, wailing about the whole school being taken hostage.

As tears leaked out my eyes, I crushed Jess' hand in mine. I thought I was over the anger that thinking of Eddie brought up. Anger at Tannen and his men for killing him. Anger at myself for not getting him out of there. Anger at him for his brave but insanely stupid actions.

When the long and uncomfortable memorial service ended, I found myself being dragged after Emma toward Robert, pushing Mark in his wheelchair to greet Eddie's family.

Poor Mark, paralyzed by a bullet that had torn through his side and lodged in his spine. I watched Rebecca separate herself from her parents and sit on Mark's lap, glad they were managing to hold onto each other through all the loss and struggles. It made my heart ache a little.

Emma and I hugged them all as if we were one person, until she dropped my hand in favor of Robert's. We'd grown closer since leaving Waterbridge; it had been easy since we lived in the same place and shared the same therapist. Emma was great, but she wasn't Jess, who I missed with the same intensity I'd miss half my body, if it were cut off and taken to the opposite side of the country. 

Jess, with Ashley's hand clutched tightly in hers, caught up to us and as if reading my mind, she nudged my side. "You could come and visit, you know."

I was glad Emma was too occupied with Robert to contradict my lie. My therapist, Susanna, had already cleared me to travel on my own, but I'd told Jess I couldn't go; she and Jackson practically lived next door to Kellen. I was scared that I wouldn't be able to handle seeing him after I'd effectively sheared our ship in half before it had even hit the water.

Still, as we slowly made our way out of the church, I couldn't help searching for him in the crowd.

When I didn't see him, I looked for Katia; Jess told me that Katia and Kellen were on better terms. I found Katia flanked, as always, by Hadley and Vivienne. She caught my eye, frowning like she knew why my gaze had landed on her. Excusing herself from the group, she approached me, shrugging awkwardly.

"You really broke his heart, Nic." 

Some greeting. I nodded. It's nothing I didn't know. I'd broken mine too. "How's he doing otherwise?"