A Home Among the Stars (EDITING NEW VERSION TO BE POSTED)

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

My heart began racing in my chest. My sweet little Katie was gone? How could she be gone?! What happened?! Where was she and who took…

My thought dropped off in my head. My confusion and panic was replaced by bubbling anger. I uttered one word at Zach, spitting it like a curse.

“Erik.”

Zach visibly paled when he realized what happened. I leaped off my bed and ran downstairs, Zach following close behind me. Soon Robyn, Chris, Zach and I were piling in the car, along with a couple other people. We raced to the building I never wanted to see again.

It was the warehouse that he was killed in.

Seeing the gray façade of it, my heart rate sped up and I started breathing funny. Zach placed a steadying hand on my shoulder. I shook my head, clearing it. This was most defiantly not the time to be focused on that night. I took a deep breath and got out of the car with everyone else, grabbing the guns we had put in the back.

This was a war.

War requires guns.

I know, it seems a little odd, crazy even, that a bunch of teenagers would be fighting a war with guns. Against other teenagers. In the U.S. You might expect something like this to happen in some African country, or maybe the Middle East. But in the United States?

I suppose this isn’t the best way to spend my time, fighting, but what choice do I really have? My parents died and I was going to be bounced around in the foster care system. I didn’t want that, and this was my other option. Did Darrel tell me it was going to be like this.

Not a chance.

He made me believe that this was a large orphanage that wasn’t going to adopt me out. I would have food, shelter, friends. He never told me it was and army fighting a gang war.

Now here I was, fighting for the life of a 7 year old.

Shots filled the air, and I heard various shouts and cries of pain.

It had begun.  I grabbed my gun made a mad dash to the warehouse. Sneaking around corners inside, I looked for Katie. Of course my search ended in the very same room I wanted to avoid. The gray walls greeted me as I rounded the corner.

And there she was, kneeling on her knees, hands tied behind her back.

“Katie,” I whispered, taking in the rest of the room.

Erik was standing in front of Katie, whispering something to another guy that I didn’t recognize. Before I knew what was happening, Erik pulled out a gun and pulled the trigger.

Katie cried out and slumped to the ground. I screamed and found myself cradling her head.

“No, no, Katie, don’t go to sleep honey. You’re gonna be okay. Just don’t go to sleep,” I sobbed, brushing her soft brown hair out of her face.

“Vally,” she whispered, closing her beautiful eyes. I sobbed more, feeling her heartbeat stop under my fingers.

“How nice of you to join us, Valerie. But if you’ll excuse me, I have to go,” Erik said, not a hint of regret in his voice. I closed my eyes and tried to calm my growing anger.

First Brian and now Katie too?

I heard a door click and I realized I was alone with the dead body that had once been my sweet, innocent, little Katie. My anger fled just as quickly as it had bubbled up. More tears fell from my swollen eyes. I heard a loud explosion outside and shook myself out of my trance.

Zach and Robyn were still out there.

I kissed Katie’s forehead, silently promising that I would come back.

I heard shots and ducked, clutching my gun in one hand. My eyes scanned the parking lot and the lifeless bodies scattered on it. My eyes caught on a dark brown mass of hair.

Zach.

My throat closed off and I couldn’t breathe. Zach was dead too. My heart broke again, as if it weren’t already broken beyond repair. I shook my head. This was not the time to focus on that. Robyn was still out there and she could need me.

I raced through the parking lot as fast as I could, making my way towards the car. I saw it had taken its fair share of bullets too.

“Robyn!” I called out. A faint reply came from the other side of the car. I went around it, finding her slumped against it, breathing heavily. Blood was polling out from a wound in her stomach.

“Oh, God, Robyn.” I knelt down next to her.

“Did you find Katie?” she asked. I didn’t answer. She looked up. I was sure my misty eyes gave her the only answer she needed. She choked as her own tears cascaded down from her faces. I sat down and cried with her. Somewhere in our crying, I told her about Zach.

It only made the tears worse.

Eventually we ran out of tears and I realized just how badly Robyn was hurt. I hurried her to the hospital. She passed out on the way and I felt fear bubble up inside me. Just like when I found out Katie had been kidnapped. What was this world coming to? I, an otherwise normal 17 year old was fearing for her friend’s life, just after two other had been killed in a gang fight. How was that right in any way?

It wasn’t.

Soon enough, Robyn was in surgery. The time blurred, taking shifts in my crying and staring off into space. I shouldn’t have been given this much time to think. There was too much pain in thoughts now. My mine kept drifting back towards Zach. And Katie. And Brian. And my heart was having trouble dealing with it. No one should ever have to deal with this much pain at one time. It is unbearable.

“Valerie Hart?” I sat up and looked at the doctor, hope coursing through me.

The look on his face quickly crushed it.

I stopped breathing.

“No… no… no,” I choked out, trying to breathe again.

Not Robyn too.

I ran out of the hospital and didn’t stop until the sun peaked over the horizon, marking the beginning of a new day.

A day I would have to spend without Robyn, Zach, Katie, Brian, my parents, Darrel, everybody I ever cared about. I collapsed near the lake that Brian saved my life in. It was beautiful this time of day, with bright colors dancing on its reflective surface. It looked warm and peaceful, so unlike the world I had come to know.

Sitting there by the lake, I cursed the world out, cried my heart out, screamed my lungs out. There was nothing worse than the feeling I was having. Everything, everything, I had ever cared about was gone. Really truly and utterly gone. I was never going to get it back and it was all because…

It was, it was all Erik’s fault. He was the one who had to take things too far. He was the one who pulled the trigger and killed Brian and Katie. He started the fight that killed Zach and Robyn. The only thing he didn’t do was set my house on fire and kill my parents.

More anger than I had ever felt built up in my chest. And it threatened to burst. The time for crying was over.

Now, it was time for revenge. The revenge I had promised Erik the night everything fell apart.

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So heres another upload!!!! only one more chapter after this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!