The Quietus

Chapter Eleven

No one had died since Jayden did. Nova had gone back with Damien to help Jordan bring what was left of her brother to the garage and then forced her to take a shower. Afterwards the sister had stormed around the house screaming she'd find out who did this and kill them.

After that she started exploring the house, as if it had all the answers. About a week ago she had stopped looking around the house, stopped looking for killer and overall just stopped doing anything really.

Nova was sitting next to Jordan who held her brother's teddy bear and sobbed. Drawings were no covering the  walls, pencil sketches of her brother, paintings of their life before being brought here.

Nova looked up when that door to their room opened. "Are you guys hungry?" Hope asks, tilting her head slightly. The girls face had a pretty nasty bruise that was only now fading. "Damian made everyone lunch."

Jordan shook her head, not even looking up. Nova smiled as the insane girl. "We're fine, tell Damian we said thank you."

Hope nodded and ran off. "Jordan, you have to eat something sometime."

"I'll eat later, I promise Nova. You should go though, I'll be fine." Nova looked skeptical when Jordan said so. "In getting you a granola bar and you're going to eat it."

Downstairs, Nova was greeted by Damian, Hope, Jade, Preston and Jax. "Where's River and Tristan?"

"They're in their room. I think they're still asleep."

"I'm guessing that means they haven't unlocked their door for the morning."

"Nope. It nearly noon, they need to get up soon."

"Locked up in their room they're safe though. They trust each other not to be the murderer."

"No one else seems to have the faith in anyone." Nova grabbed some food. "Jordan's in a lot of pain still, whoever did this is heartless." She says, before walking upstairs.

"No one has died in a couple weeks. Do you think they're planning the next one?" Preston asks.

"It's highly likely, it's setting everyone on edge that no one is dead yet." Jade shrugs.

There was a scream and everyone stood there for a second. That was Nova.

   Hanging from the ceiling fan, in the ill-lighted death room— as they called it. Was Jordan, dead. "No! NO! NO!" Nova sobbed, continuously repeating the word, "NO!"

  Damien came from behind holding her tightly, as she tried to rush towards the dead girl, "HOW COULD I LEAVE HER ALONE! I-I KNEW SHE'D DO IT! I KNEW SHE WOULD!" The room already had a stench of blood, and Jordan's death was adding to the terrible smell, "I COULD'VE DONE SOMETHING DAMIEN! I SHOULD'VE!"

  "She didn't have her brother Nova," Damien closed his eyes tightly, gulping. He might've been tough, and carefree. But all of these deaths were starting to impact him, "Jayden was apart of her. She deserves to be with him."

  Nova cried, loud and hard. Falling onto her knees and rolling in a ball, "I CAN'T BE HERE ANYMORE! GET ME OUT! GET ME OUT!"

"Nova!" Jax knelt down beside the sobbing girl and Damian held her. "It's alright. It's okay. At least she's not suffering anymore. You were trying to help her. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I shouldn't have left her alone."

"You were trying to get her to eat."

Tristan stood in the entryway of the room. "Stay outside River." He stated and the smaller boy nodded his head. Tristan grabbed something and cut the rope down, catching Jordan as she fell. "I'm taking her to the room. Nova, quit blaming yourself you didn't do anything wrong." He says and he walks out the room.

River entered and grabbed one of the best drawings off the wall and the teddy bear that had belonged to Jayden. "What are you doing?" Nova sniffles.

"I think she'd like to have these." River offered a small smile and Nova smiled back slightly.

"Yeah, I guess." Tears were still streaming down her face and she hugged Damian as River went to follow Tristan.

"I don't want to spend another second in here. We have to find a way out."

"We will, maybe there's something in here we can use to break the locks." Damian stood up and pulled Nova to her feet.

"Or we'll find the murderer. Thy can get away with what they've done after this." Nova states. "You'll help me find out who it is, right?"

"Of course. Come on." The two left the room and Jax stood up, looking around. They should really block off this room. The carpet was stained with blood know and a rope hung from the fan but aside from that it was such a basic room. Everything was neatly placed, Lindsey's stuff was placed exactly as it was when she died, Liberty's stuff was gone. There were drawings of Jayden everywhere but along with that a drawing of everyone, including Lindsey was on a bed. Surrounding that was two drawings of each of them- one of the drawings of Lindsey, one of Jayden and one of Jordan was crossed out with a giant X.

He grabbed the papers and walked downstairs. "Hey everyone! Come downstairs for a second!" He yelled. Everyone gathered in the room. They all looked down and really tired after the events of today.

"I found these in the room. I think Jordan drew them and started drawing X's on everyone that's died so far."

"What if she killed them?" Hope asks.

"Or she was upset and she draws when she's upset." Nova defends her friend.

"Or maybe she was so upset because she hurt her brother and she felt bad. Maybe someone was forcing her to kill people and she wanted to stop." Jade says.

"But-"

"No, it kind of makes sense. And the only person she was with when Lindsey died was Jayden. He might have known and that's why she had to kill him next. He didn't kill anyone because he thought we'd hurt her." Damian replies.

"But if the killer is dead why are we still stuck here?" Nova had to find someway to make her friend seem innocent but everyone seemed to have their minds set on this.

"Maybe we have to find something that she hid. Like a key to get out." Liberty guesses.

"Alright, let's all look for a key then." Nova sighs.

Most of the group went to search the house. Tristan and River seemed skeptical and kept to themselves in their room. Preston and Liberty searched for a while but sense the killer was dead they didn't feel any reason to try and get out faster. Jade spent some time smoking in her room much to Hope's disappointment. The only ones seriously looking were Nova and Damian.

Tristan and River sat on their beds in their room, River playing with his cats well Tristan feed Cate. In was silent for a while until River spoke. "I'm glad everyone seems to finally feel safe now, but I think Jordan's innocent."

"I'll have to agree with you on that."