All That's Forgotten {RIARKLE}

Chapter 18

Silence.

No more gunshots or screams. No running feet or doors slamming. No glass crunching or metal clanging.

Just blissful, slightly creepy, silence.

I look at Isadora to see what our next move is. She doesn't move a muscle for what seems like forever. Then she whispers super softly, "We need to try and get out now."

"And go where?" I ask.

She thinks for a second. I can tell that she's trying to be extra careful of what her plan is to be. One wrong move and we could be seriously hurt or even killed.

"We'll circle back to see where Farkle and Zay are and if the rest are with them. If we find them we'll get the heck out of this creepy place, and if we can't find them we still try and get out of here," Smakle finally decides.

I think on it and then say, "Okay. I think you should lead. I mean you did see where Farkle and Zay were last."

"Fine," she says.

We pick up our weapons and stand fixing ourselves. We make sure that we're both ready to kick ass if necessary. I know I am and Smakle definitely looks it.

We're about to start moving the empty bins out of the way, when the door is shoved a bit. It doesn't open, but someone is obviously trying to open it.

I grip my scissors and look at Smakle. She's holding her hammer so tight that her knuckles are changing color. I see that she's motioning to keep moving the bins out of the way. My brain is screaming that she's crazy, but my gut says to trust her. And I do.

Together we move the bins aside. Right when I'm about to open the door the knob turns from the other side.

I stay frozen in place. If it's the killer this the end. We don't stand a chance.

Smakle grabs my hand and pulls me behind the door. She doesn't say a word. All she does is slowly open the door and then jump in front of the small opening with me paralyzed behind the door.

She reveals her hammer and is about to hit whoever is there with it when a hand shoots out and stops her. I immediately go over with my scissors ready to hurt the perpetrator.

I stand by Smakle and see who's there.

Zay and Farkle.

Farkle is the one who stopped Smakle from imploding their heads from blunt force. He says, "We couldn't find you guys. We got worried."

I stare at them and see that Zay looks a bit dazed but that's it. "Where's Maya and the other two boys?" I ask looking behind them.

Farkle pushes the door open so that we can follow him. "After the gunshots stopped I heard someone running out of the building. I was going to follow, but Zay was still unconscious and I couldn't leave him. So I waited with him. We were hiding in the hallway behind a reception desk just so you know. A bit passed the silence I heard footsteps running towards us and peaked over the desk. It was Maya and Lucas. They said that they were fine, but can't find Charlie."

"Convenient of him to just disappear," Smakle grumbles.

"I know. He has to be in on it," Zay agrees instantly.

We're near the room we were in before when Maya and Lucas come running from the other side of the hallway. They stop in front of us and both begin to talk at once.

"Stop!" Farkle shouts. "We can't understand with you guys talking over each other."

They shut their flaps and Maya says, "You guys should see this."

She turns and her and Lucas rush down the hallway they came from. We follow and the open one of the first doors we come to on the left hand side. Lucas puts his hand on the handle and ties to us saying, "Brace yourselves."

He opens it and lets us all in first. We walk in and I feel like my world just stops turning.

The walls are filled from top to bottom with pictures of all of us. Mainly me. Pictures of us since we were little to now. A lot of them I don't remember in all honest because, just in case you forgot, I have memory loss. Events start to come back to me and I fall over.

In a rush everything comes back to me. From how I met Lucas and Zay to the day I found out I was going to have a little brother. My world falls back into place completely.

Well almost.

My brain is still blocking out my relationship with Farkle and what happened from the accident.

Farkle runs over to me because I apparently fell to the ground. He kneels in front of me and gently puts his hand on my shoulders. "It's going to be okay," he tells me. "We'll find the sicko who's doing this."

"It's not that. I remembered everything except..."

I stop because I don't want to disappoint him. Not just with not knowing the killer, but also not remembering my relationship with him.

He strokes my hair and pulls me toward him to calm me down. "Except what Riles?"

I take a breath and spit it out, "Except the accident and, um, my relationship with you."

I feel him stiffen against me and then hear him take a deep breath. Then he pulls away and Zay comes over to me making sure I'm alright. I just nod.

I feel like I'm stuck in a fog and all I can hear is my friends talking in the background. Farkle is telling everyone not to touch anything and to take pictures for proof. They start doing it until Smakle makes everyone stop. She's saying something about Charlie. Lucas and her start bickering making me look up.

Something makes me get up and look closely at the wall. It's a picture of Charlie and I going on our date after Farkle realized I liked Lucas. We're walking down the street away from Topanga's. That's when it hits me.

"It's wasn't Charlie and he wasn't helping that person," I say turning to everyone.

"How do you know?" they all say in different ways.

I point to the picture and they all come over and debate. After a lot of arguing they agree that it most likely isn't him.

I turn to all of them with different eyes since I now remember who they are to me and what they've done.

The first thing I do is step up to Smakle and growl, "By the way, it's really bitchy to kick someone while they're down. What kind of jerk says the things you did to someone crying in the restroom."

Her eyes go wide and she tries to apologize to me. She looks so sorry but I can't hear it right now. I just can't.

I push past them and put my scissors in the backpack which is on the floor. Next I walk out the door so that I can get out of here.

"Where are you going?" Maya asks coming after me along with everyone else.

"The police station. A crazy person is after us and Charlie is missing. We need help," I call over my shoulder.

They don't argue with me. They just follow.