Life Goes On

Ch. 12 Claire

Ch. 12

Claire

 I glared at Jack, fury raging through me. The girl he was kissing turned around. I knew her, but I didn’t know how I knew her, but I knew her. Her long, black curly hair was messed up and her jade green eyes burned into mine. I could see that she knew me, too.

 “Hello, Angel,” The girl said to me. “You don’t remember me, do you?” She walked over to me, and grabbed my hand. That was when the two points connected. This was my best friend, Claire, who went missing about a year ago.

 “Where the hell have you been?” I yelled at her, and she didn’t even flinch at the harshness of my words.

 “And you!” I turned to Jack, “Where have you been? You just run away from us?” I was as red as a tomato and my fists were clenched tightly by my side.

 “No one asked you to come and follow me. You don’t need be the hero that saves me. You came because you were worried about me, weren’t you? You just can’t have one guy. That isn’t enough for you.” I caught Claire giving him a warning look, because she knew what I was about to do. I walked up close to Jack and slapped him. He held his face, because he instantly had a red handprint.

 “I wouldn’t ever come to save you. You mean nothing to me!” I was now screaming. I turned to walk away, but Claire grabbed my arm.

 “Come with me,” Claire said a hint of sympathy in her voice. Reluctantly, I followed her. We walked down so many different hallways that I got lost in thought.

 The night I woke up from flashing lights down the street. The police cars had gathered in front of a house down the street. Claire lived down the street. I shrugged it off though, thinking nothing of it, and went to bed.

 The next day at school though, everyone kept asking me how I was doing. I just gave them a blank stare, not knowing exactly what they were talking about.

 It was then that I walked over to my locker, and saw that Claire wasn’t there. It then clicked in my head that the police cars down the street were at Claire’s house. What happened to Claire?

 I ran out of the school and down the street until I got to the convenience store and bought a paper. Plastered on the front cover was a picture of Claire, one that I took her no more than a week ago. My hands were shaking so much that I completely dropped the newspaper on the floor, and I felt light-headed. On the front cover above her picture read: MISSING, bolded and in all caps. I muffled a sob, and stood there in shock.

 “Are you ok miss?” The cashier asked me, giving me a skeptical look. He grabbed the phone off the counter, ready to call the ambulance.

 “I’m fine,” I said, turning around to smile at him, but my knees gave out and I passed out on the floor.

 I awoke lying in my bed, a cool cloth on my head, and Ty watching over me. “Where...?” I asked as my eyes fluttered open and I tried to sit up.

 “Lie down. You passed out when you saw…” Ty’s voice faded out, not wanting to bring himself to say the reality.

 “The newspaper,” I said, finishing his thought. “She’s gone, isn’t she?” Claire was my other half. She was the sister that I never got to have. Tears filled my eyes and crept down my cheeks. I cried on Ty’s shoulder for hours.

 “In here,” Claire said, gesturing for me to go first. I was hesitant, my instincts taking over. “You can trust me,” Claire added, and it was right then that I lost my trust for her.

 Claire sighed, hurt slightly, and walked through the door first. “See no one in here! I promise you that it is safe. I guess I should have expected you to lose your trust in me.”

“You were expecting me?” I asked, surprised that I believe anything different. “Where have you been? You don’t even bother to tell your best friend that you were alive?”

 “I was your best friend, but I’m working for the government, giving them information about you. When I couldn’t report anything abnormal they took me inn and I helped them get your parents.” She said this with a smile, like this was normal and wasn’t wrong in the slightest.

 “You bitch!” I screamed at her.

 She gave me a look of disapproval. “You wouldn’t want me to call the guards in and have them take you away.”

 “Rot in hell.” I said, spitting at her feet.

 “Sorry, but you have left me no other choice…GUARDS!” Claire screamed, an evil smile on her face. I knew that she would have called the guards whether or not I actually listened to her or not. It was inevitable.

It was within seconds that the guards came in. They came at me, and I closed my eyes, concentrating on trying to contact Stella. “The guards are taking me!” I said to her. I then felt big, burly hands grabbing my arms.

“And it’s a shame too. With you out of the way, now I can have Jack all to myself. I bet Ty would even warm up to me too.” I was now enraged. We all know that when I get this way, there is little that can stop me. I kicked both of the guards, and was just out of the reach of Claire when they grabbed ahold of me again.

“I would have told you where you precious little parents were. They will pay for your mistake.” She said it flatly, as if it didn’t bother her in the slightest. I knew she wouldn’t have told me anyways. Why would she have? She left me, not bothering to say good bye. And all of those years that my parents took care of her! She just had an evil grin that remained plastered on her face as they took me away.

I was dragged down the hallways by my arms, the guards no longer even trying to hold me up. I was thrown into a black room, very similar to the one that I had been in before.”

“Now tell me,” The guard behind the glass said, “Where are the other two?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly.

“Are you sure about that?” He put his hands over the buttons, and I panicked. I had no clue where they were, and I knew that the punishment for lying to him would be worse. I just had to accept the fact that he wasn’t going to believe me.

“I don’t know,” I said trying my best to hide my defeated tone. “I left them when I went with Claire.” It didn’t seem to matter, though, because he pushed down on the buttons. “Help!” I screamed in my mind, hoping that Stella could hear me.

The pain spread all over, but especially in my head. It was that insistent ringing sound. I fell to my knees, trying to hide my face from the guard.

 The guard burst through the door, a butcher knife in his hand. He walked closer to me, and I couldn’t move away from him. He put the knife to my throat. “Are you sure you don’t know?” He asked me. I opened my mouth to speak, but the only thing that came out was a scream.

How come this guard was not affected by the ringing and the pain? And then it clicked. This was a room only for people with abilities like Ty, Stella, and me.

I hadn’t realized that the guard had removed the knife from my throat, but he plunged it into my side, aiming for my heart but missing. I released a scream of bloody murder, and fell from my knees to my back, gasping for air.