The Shatters: The Silence Chronicles

Chapter Fourteen: It's Me.

Hours later, the team sits in a room in headquarters with a long, sturdy, polished table behind closed oak doors. Of course, not being part of the team, I'm not allowed to participate, so I sit outside the room in a navy blue armchair, my ankles crossed and my gaze drifting anywhere but the hologram kid, pretending to notice all these new beautiful details in the room.

"Will you stop that?!" He finally demands. "Gosh, I'm not a ghost! Stop pretending like I'm not here!"

"You're not supposed to be here," I respond coolly. "If I'm being honest, I'm not pretending like you're not here. I'm trying to deal with the fact that you are here. You're not supposed to be solid and you were created to be part of a simulation yet somehow I managed to bring you to life. So I'm dealing with that right now, so I'm sorry, but I'd really appreciate it if I could just think about this for a while in silence."

"Okay," he murmurs, and for a few moments he's quiet. Not too long after he asks, "This is a weird request, but can you please stop looking so stressed if you're going to 'think about it?' Can you at least smile or something?"

"What do you mean? Why?" I ask with a raised eyebrow.

"Just smile, okay?" He says more crossly, so I shrug and smile at him for a second. He thanks me quietly, then starts nervously tapping his fingers on the arm of his armchair. His is brown leather and more comfy-looking, but mine has a nicer colour of navy blue.

Finally after what seems like years, the team comes from the room and stops in front of us. Chuck grumbles, "Come with us," to me, and when the kid gets up too, he adds, "Not you, Shorty."

"I'm not that short!" He protests.

"You are until you get your teenage growth-spurt," Seamus quickly adds in, and yanks my hand their way as they walk in a clump towards the room with the long table and the oak doors. Quickly everyone settles themselves in what I assume is their designated meeting seats, and I uncomfortably shuffle into a spot in between November and Matéo.

"First of all, congratulations, I guess," Chuck drawls. "I would have given you a six had you not found out about the boy, and you would've gotten an eight from Hunter and Matéo, a seven point five from Ronnie, and a nine point seventy five from everyone else 'cause they're biased. But finding and rescuing the boy brings you automatically into the group. Welcome, or whatever cheesy, cliché shit these people say when you join a new group."

"Really feeling the love," I remark back, and fold my arms angrily. Who is he to push me around? I'm not a four year old, and I want to show him that. Everyone slowly swivels their heads towards me in shock, especially Chuck. From what I've heard from Matéo, Seamus, and the twins, no one has ever really fully stood up to Chuck since he's the founder and leader of the team. Sure, they tease him every once in a while, but no one would dare step out of line.

But Chuck starts to laugh. Not meanly or anything, just a genuine laugh that scares everyone more. Then he leans over the table and says, "Finally someone on the team has some guts."

From then, Chuck was in a very sort of teacher-student way, even though he's only four years older than me, my friend.

****

"You know you've got to take the blood oath now," Hunter says to me as we all walk down the hallway together, with Seamus and Ronnie in the back and the twins and Chuck in the front. "It's pretty painful, but we live by it now." He lifts his right hand and motions for everyone else to and I see a thin scar along the palms of their right hands.

"But I thought Shatter and super scars heal really easily," I mention. "Why do you have such thin scars on your hands?"

"Blood oath scars are the only scars that heal the way a human's scar would heal," Ronnie explains. "So, to always remind us of the oath, we have permanent scars on our hands. The oath is important to us, especially Chuck."