Jellyfish

13. The Morning After

Miles didn't stop calling me until I turned my phone off. I tucked myself away while I waited for Oliver and kept a careful watch for any one of them. It took a bit, but the car finally pulled up with a confused Oliver and my concerned older brother in the passenger seat. Winter watched me carefully as I got in, already seeing something wrong with that keen sense of his. I'd texted him the night before that I'd be staying with Miles, so it wasn't like he was completely in the dark, but so much had happened between then and now that it felt like a life time ago. I didn't know what to say when we first pulled away, the droning radio was the only thing keeping us from an awkwardly tense silence. They wanted to know, but neither wanted to ask, and I wanted to tell them, I just didn't know where to start. In the end, I settled for just letting the words come as they'd come.

"Oliver, how well do you know Cain?"

He startled a bit, confusedly asking, "Not that well, why?"

"I'm going to hurt him," I answered honestly watching as both pairs of eyes widened and rounded on me. "I'm going to hurt him and I want to make sure I'm not hurting you in the process."

"What happened, August?" Winter turned almost completely around in his chair, too worried to obey simple traffic laws.

It was a momentary debate. Did I tell them what I knew, or did I keep it to myself?

"Please," Winter tacked on. "You're not an aggressive person, you know I'll only worry more if you don't. Don't keep me in the dark."

Nodding, I conceded. "Cain is the reason Diego's in jail. He admitted it to me this morning."

The elders exchanged a look, something I couldn't read, but knew was laced with disbelief. Oliver hesitated in speaking, "Not that I'm calling you a liar, babe, but Cain has worked with me for a long time and I don't really get how he would do that. Diego stole. That's it."

Shaking my head, I explained a lowly detailed version of all that had occurred since Frankie picked me up from work yesterday. I left out the fact that I actually really liked being around my friends, and that for a brief, alcohol infused second, I'd wondered what it would be like to be with one of them. I left out the kiss and the hazy memory of talking with Isaac, something that scared me because I couldn't remember just what I'd told him. Instead, I told them about Owen and Mae worming their way into Diego's head, and Miles using me for information. I told them about Cain mocking me and how he'd done it. By the time I was done, we were pretty much home, and both my companions had a sort of grave look on their face. Oliver's temper was no doubt spiked by the tale, his hands clenching the wheel a bit tighter than before. His eyes flit up to the mirror to meet with mine and I could tell he wouldn't put up a fight anymore.

"What are you planning?" He asked, suddenly eager to assist. Oliver probably took this as a personal insult considering they were supposed to be his friends.

My plan wasn't quite solid yet, I needed information first, so I told him, "Nothing's one hundred percent yet. I need to do a little research first and then I'll go from there."

"I know a lot about him if you need anything," Oliver offered.

"Great," I was genuinely happy he offered just in case, "I have a friend looking into it already."

"What friend?" Winter asked, suspicious again. He had every right to worry, because any friend of mine he didn't know was probably not a friend.

My connection wasn't exactly a bad person. He was definitely my mother's informant, but he liked me enough that anything I asked he would probably do. For me, that made us friends, but I wasn't sure my brother would agree. Still, knowing that my hesitation was bound to set him off, I quietly answered, "Zig."