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❝wake up soon❞
"Is she gonna be okay?" Brad is the first to ask Joe as he walks into the dining room. The three boys were all sat at the table, surrounded by a cloud of awkward silence.
"She'll be fine," Joe assures the boys. "I don't know what's happened to her, but I've managed to warm her up and I've set her up on the machines so it doesn't happen again. I don't know when she'll wake up."
Brad looks down at his hands, his fingers fiddling with the mug in front of him. He was worried for his Cassie and he hated that he was so scared for her despite being friends for only a few mere days.
"What about the extraction? Is that nearly done?" Tristan asks Joe.
"No, I'll have to put it on hold until Cassandra wakes up. My aim to make sure she's fine and she's awake," Joe explains, causing the boys to nod in agreement.
"What do we do whilst we wait for her to wake up?" Connor asks, his voice small as he speaks, looking down at the table.
"How about we get our shit together?" Tristan suggests. "Because at the moment we aren't being friends like we promised we would be, and now we have time to talk between us, say what we want without starting a fight."
"I'll start, then," Connor says, causing Brad to roll his eyes as prepares himself for what Connor has to say. "Brad, you're a fucking dickhead. I don't know what's gotten into you recently but you've been nothing but a complete wanker for the past few weeks. You were rude to Cassandra, then you strangled her and then you set her room on fire, and let's not even start on the fact you told her that I liked her."
"Because you do like her."
"I told you all of that stuff but that it is the only thing you got out of it?" Connor scoffs and Brad simply nods. "You're so difficult—!"
"Am I meant to apologise?" Brad asks, and Connor gives him a duh look. "I'm meant to apologise to you for being off with someoneelse that I didn't know, for burning someoneelse's room, for strangling someone else? Quite frankly, I don't need to apologise to you. Both Cassie and I have spoke and we've moved on from it, so why don't you do that, too?"
Connor purses his lips, he couldn't argue with Brad because his points were valid. Tristan couldn't have said anything better, since both him and Brad had spoken beforehand and sorted their problems out.
"But I will apologise for being an arse to you," Brad continues after a moment. "And to Tristan. You didn't deserve that from me and I shouldn't have done it, either. But you have to understand that you were trying to force me to be friends with someone, at the time, I didn't want to be friends with. You were knowingly pushing me out of my comfort zone and it got me angry."
"So I apologise for making you do something you didn't want to do, and for fighting you and for being immature," Connor apologises equally. "We both were shit to each other."
Brad smiles slightly over at the boy opposite him. He was glad they could make up so easily, because now he had his best friend back.
+
Cassandra felt like she was trapped inside of a sealed box and she couldn't get out. She was suffocating slowly, losing oxygen as she grew colder and colder inside this box.
She couldn't move, she laid there frozen as she stared up at the top of the box. She couldn't see anything, hear anything, she was just consumed with darkness.
She could try and scream but nothing would come out and it didn't help her at all. She tried using her flame to create some sort of light so she could see where she was but she couldn't find the energy to move.
She closed her eyes and imagined the night sky above her. The stars would be shining so brightly next to the moon as her hair rests by her shoulders as she lays on the grass.
She wanted to cry because she felt so lonely but she couldn't cry. She couldn't do anything but lay there in silence and stay up at the darkness she felt trapped in.
"I don't know if you can hear me," a faint voice says in the background, she recognised it as Tristan. She had no concept of time as she laid there in silence. "But I hope you're okay and that you wake up soon. Connor misses having someone to laugh with about everything. I miss you, too, and I know Brad does even though he won't admit it. When you first moved here, he'd shout at me for eating the cookies from the cookie jar and I know it was you who ate them before but I always told him I'd stop so he didn't go off at you but I think he realised it was you because he frowns at the fact there's still the same amount of cookies everyday, and that they're not going down."
She wanted to smile.
"We decorated your new room, too," Tristan continues, holding on to her hand but she couldn't feel anything. "It's just plain walls and stuff but we bought you some butterfly bedsheets since you love those glowing butterflies. It was Brad's idea, actually."
He hums quietly to himself, resting his head besides hers as he looks at her face. He wondered what she was thinking about, what was running through her mind but in all honesty, she couldn't think about anything.
Tristan fell asleep next to her, holding on to her hand and when Brad was trying to find him, it was the first place he looked. Brad gently woke Tristan up and helped him to bed before going back up to check on Cassandra.
He didn't say anything, he just let her aura cool him down and keep him at a normal temperature. He sat at a chair a meter away from her and just looked at her.
He never noticed how beautiful she was because he was too busy hating her or training her that he never actually got a good look at her properly. Her hair was long and dark and she had a prominent jawline. He knew that she had the most icy blue eyes he had ever seen because whenever she looked at him it was the only thing he was drawn into at first. They were so piercing and distracting that he felt himself sucked into a hole and maybe that's what started his hate for her.
He lets out a small sigh, glancing at the clock and deciding he should try and get to sleep. He stands up off of his chair and presses a faint kiss to her forehead, pushing some hair behind her ear.
He felt guilty for how he treated Cassie when they first met and for the three weeks after. Ever since he made an effort with her, he noticed how innocent and beautiful and kind and funny she is.
