The Hollows In Our Freedom | 'Hollows' Book Ⅲ

Chapter Forty-One

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T h e H o l l o w s I n 
O U R F R E E D O M
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I yawned, watching Jameson walk past, and also watch him ignore me.

"A film night?" I repeated wearily. Sky nodded enthusiastically.

"We can watch anything. I mean, Elle's got a pretty decent cinema room." She said excitedly.

I raised an eyebrow, "it's a room with a big television."

"Exactly." She quipped in response. I rolled my eyes and looked away. "Oh, come on, Lexi, it'll be fun!"

I turned back to pull a questioning look. "Are you trying to cheer me up?" I asked.

Admittedly, since the fight between Jace and Jameson two days ago, I hadn't really been in the best of moods. Naturally, I'm about 60% realist, 20% optimistic and 20% pessimistic—which actually means absolutely nothing in correlation to my bad mood. I'm just in a bad mood, and sometimes I try to justify that—it hardly works.

Both Jameson and Jace have been ignoring me. Jameson has been ignoring me because I apparently almost got his girlfriend killed, and Jace is ignoring me because I started ignoring him first.

I'm also now on Richard's bad side, who also doesn't believe me that I was in much more danger than Sky ever was in that situation. Elle remained silent, just listening.

"Okay, so who will be coming to this 'film night'?" I asked Sky, rubbing at my eyes. I had been getting up terribly early lately to train as my wound slowly, but surely, healed. I needed to get back on track. I also had a few late nights. I found it hard to get to sleep when ideas whirled around my head—ideas about the Academy, ideas about how to leave this place, ideas about who tried to kill Jameson and Sky back at the Academy at the New Years Ball.

Sky shrugged, "anyone that wants to come." I pondered it for a few seconds before shrugging.

"I guess I could drop by." With that, I had Sky satisfied, and she left me to continue to draw circles into the side of my mug. I sighed and downed the last of my hot chocolate, which was no longer remotely hot.

I slipped off my seat and placed the mug in the dishwasher, before stretching out my limbs, and turning to leave the kitchen. Faint clouds of smoke from outside the kitchen door, however, caught my attention. The door led out into the garden, and so I pulled it across and stepped outside. I hadn't brought a coat and so trembled slightly, crossing my arms over my chest and relishing in the heat I could find.

I turned to my right to see both Sapphire and Jonah smoking. I could barely believe that Jonah had gotten Sapphire into smoking, until I saw her scrunch up her face and hold her cigarette out to Jonah as she coughed. I strode over to them and snatched the cigarette from her hand and placed it between my lips.

Sapphire raised an eyebrow at me, looking barely annoyed that I had stolen her cigarette. Sapphire soon realised I wasn't budging, and so began to make conversation with her boyfriend.

After a few moments, the two silenced, and Sapphire turned to watch me for a second, before she said, "hey, Alexi?"

I turned my head to peer at her. "I think that's my name, yeah."