Rumour Has It {Book 2}

Chapter 10: I Wish for Simplier Times

*Mack*

"It can't be my father! I won't accept it!" Jerica threw her hands in the air.
"Well-"
"What motive does he even have?" She cut Alex off.
"Lots." I muttered. "He has seventeen years of motive." The words just seemed to fall out of my mouth.
"What was that, Mack?" Rafe asked.
"Nothing." I tried to brush it off. "Just thinking out loud."
Alex shook his head, but chose to drop the subject. "Well whether your dad did it or not, I just want to see the annoying brunette again." He headed toward the door.
"Where are you going?" I followed after him.
"To Ellie's house," He paused glancing back at the rest of us. "Ya coming?"

......

"Should we really be going through her things?" Jerica questioned, dropping to her knees beside us.
Rafe and Jack had found a backpack and a box labeled Eleanor, and were currently digging through it.
"It'll be fine. I'm sure she has nothing to hide." I answered sarcastically. Ellie had plenty to hide from everyone.
Jack pulled out an old photo album with the words Friends written in big bulky letters.
"I remember this." He chuckled. "We kept everything in this book."
"Every photo ever taken." I agreed, reaching into the backpack.
I pulled out a phone and flipped it over, turning it on. A picture of Jack, Ellie, CJ, and Phillip appeared. I gasped. "This is the video phone."
"The video phone? Don't all phones take videos?" Alex leaned over my shoulder. "Cute picture." He added.
"Yes all phones take videos, but this phone was our camera." I typed in the password, and went to the gallery where multiple pictures and videos were.
"Then that should let us see her." Magnus observed. He'd joined us five minutes ago or so.
"Yeah it should but I'm not sure what's on the films." Jack replied. "It was Ellie's personal phone as well."
"Well one way to find out." Alex tapped a random video, and we all waited.
Ellie came on the screen, she was laughing, and it started.

Giggling, Ellie ran as fast as she could.
"You're not faster than me, Princess." Phillip chased after her. It was pretty obvious that he didn't know he was recording this interaction.
"You'll the slowest person I know, babe." She remarked, skidding around the corner and crashing into something.
"El?" Phillip's pace quickened as he made it to her.
Eleanor and Madison laid in a pile, laughing.
"Did you have to chase her around a corner, Lip?" Madison asked sarcastically.
"Hey," Phillip raised his hands in surrender. "She's the one who went around the corner. I didn't make her."
"Sure, and I'm not British." Madison got up and extending a hand to her brunette friend.
Ellie smiled and took her hand. "Why do you have my phone?" She questioned.
"Um, I'm not entirely sure actually." Phillip paused then cussed loudly. "It's recording."
"Then stop it, dummy, you can't erase it." Madison stated dully.
The video stopped and the gallery appeared once again. I smiled at the video. To the others it may have been weird or dumb, but to me it everything. It was my childhood.
I glanced at my friends to see most of them smiling.
"Are there more videos?" Jerica, Magnus, and Alex asked together.
"Lots." Jack said with a grin. "Like Mads said you couldn't delete videos from this phone."
"And we filmed almost nonstop." I added, scrolling through the films.
"That one." Jack stopped me. "I remember this day."
I nodded, made it bigger, and hit play.

"Why are you so mean?" Madison flopped down on the couch, pouting.
"Because I like to be, doll." Phillip replied with a evil laugh.
"Yeah, well this is why you have no friends." She sighed.
"Oh come on, Mads," He moved onto the camera and sat beside her. "You know we're friends." He pulled her closer to him.
The shorter brunette tried not to allow him to move her, but she failed and fell against him. "Fine I guess we're friends."
"That better be all you are." A fourteen year ago me stated coming down the stairs. "I'd hate to tell my best friend that my brother, her boyfriend, is cheating with one of our dearest friends."

"Is that you?" Magnus asked. I nodded and shushed him

Lip smirked up at me. "Like that'd happen. She'd move-than-likely cheat on me with some curly haired British kid before I cheated on her with Madison."
Madison rolled her eyes. "The queen cheat on her king? Never."
"Seriously." Jack had just come home. "Is this really the conversation you guys are having?" He laughed.
"I agree." Ellie and CJ came from the kitchen.
"I got in idea." CJ sat down on the floor, motioning for Ellie to do the same.
She, with a smile, did as told. "And what's that, CJ?" She inquired, resting her head on her hands.
"Everyone on the floor." He ordered. "Let's play a game."

"Let's not." I reached for the phone that was in the middle of the floor, pausing it.
"Why?" Rafe questioned.
"Because we weren't the best kids and our games normal didn't go well."
"True I didn't think about that." Jack agreed. "She's right and this particular game went a little too far. Especially with Eleanor, but she didn't care."
I hit his shoulder. "Ow, what was that for? I didn't tell them what happened."
"Anyway." I exited the video and scrolled on. Stopping at one I knew everyone would remember.

"Is it on?" Jerica's voice could be heard.
"Yeah it should be." Ellie backed away from the phone, propping it on something as she did.
She ran over to join the rest of us.
"So why are we filming this?" I was sixteen now. This video was from a month before she left.
"Because after we are all long gone, and no one remembers us as the kids who terrorized London. This video will be there to remind them that we did indeed exist." She explained. "What good to die and have never left a mark on anything."
"I know what we can leave a mark on." Magnus said, pulling a can of spray paint out of his backpack.
"And whatcha gunna do with that thing, Mag." Ellie mused.
"Leave a mark." He turned around and set his finger tip on the nosel of the can. He began to write his name.
"Good idea." Jerica smiled.
He handed the can to her and she mimicked his previous actions.
"My turn." Ellie grabbed the spray paint can and wrote her name neatly.
I went next, then Rafe, Jack, and Alex went.
"We need to call it something." Alex said.
"I know." Rafe took the can again and wrote You're worst nightmares above our names.
"Now we'll all to remembered in our favorite place." Magnus stated.
Jack got up and stopped the recording.

Not a person in the room wasn't smiling.
"Can you believe that was just a month before all this started?" Jerica sighed. "I wish we could go back to simplier times."
We all silently agreed with her on that.
Something about Ellie's words wouldn't leave my mind. 'What good to die and have never left a mark on anything.' Those words were on a constant loop in my brain. They reminded me of when Ali tells the girls 'die young and leave a pretty corpse' then she 'died' right after. Maybe Ellie knew this was going to happen. I mean non of us know why she walked away that day.
We all sat there in comfortable silence, until Jerica's mom, Jane, burst through the door. "Good you're all here. Come with me." She turned and left.
We followed after her and out to her car.
"Get in." She said.
"Why?" Jerica questioned her mother.
"Because, okay, Jerica, get in the car."
"But what about Janna if she comes home and no one is here."
"Janna is-" Jane cursed cutting herself off. "Just get in the car, Jerica." Her daughter seemed to not notice her mom's red puffy eyes or the tears falling down her cheeks, but the rest of us did.
Jerica reluctantly got in the passengers side.

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This was a complete filler guys I'm sorry, but I couldn't go from find out about Jackson to the next scene. It'd just be cruel.
Little Mack, Ellie, Phillip and everyone else <3. - Izzy