With Fear or Without

15- Back to Life

Cleo dreamt of Hope.

Ironically, she didn't dream of Hope's counterpart, the one whose demons haunted dreams. She had forced herself to think only of the positive- as positive as there was. She dreamt of shapeshifters, of valiant warriors saving people from their worst fears. She found herself wishing Cassian had been in her dream, if only to convince herself that he what he said was real.

She woke a couple times during the night, just aware enough to hear Andy and Charlie talking in low voices over the phone. None of them wanted to sleep alone that night, but they agreed that a sleepover on a school night would definitely push their luck with their parents. They settled for an all-night facetime call. It seemed that Cleo had gotten considerably more sleep than the others.

When morning finally came, Cleo was the first up. She had woken her friends and told them in hushed whispers about the new note sitting on her bedside table. The same handwriting spelled out a new location, as well as a short list of directions and a time. Five o'clock.

It was a good thing it was Friday. Cleo was glad to go to school, to have something to take her mind off the previous evening. Halfway through the day, Cleo had slipped out of the school's play rehearsal to check her phone. She was nervous about the possibility that her friends couldn't join her today. She couldn't imagine the possibility of going to Cassian's second mystery address alone.

"You're lucky I don't rat you out, Ms. stage manager."

Cleo slipped her phone into her back pocket, the voice having interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to see a smirking face that made her groan subconsciously. A boy with a scrawny frame stood slightly taller than her (which was annoying by itself), his dirty blonde pretty-boy windswept hair and constant smirk that never failed to make her roll her eyes.

"Jasper, aren't you supposed to be doing something?" she asked in a bored and exasperated voice. After a moment she glanced down to the mic pack on her hip, just to make sure her headset was muted.

"Nah," he said dismissively. "Who're you texting, your boyfriend?"

Cleo didn't even try to conceal her annoyance. Wiping a face over her face, she said, "No, not that it's any of your business."

Her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She pulled it out and lit up the screen, seeing a text from Andy that read, "i'm good for today!! really pushing my luck tho..." 

Cleo let out a sigh of relief. Andy's parents were always the ones they were worried about, and Cleo expected they were at the end of her parents' goodwill. They never really liked Cleo or Charlie to begin with. Before she started to text back, she remembered she had company.

"Do you need something?"

Jasper shrugged, his hands shoved into his pockets and the sleeves of his jacket pushed up. "Could be asking you that. Usually I'm the one sneaking out of rehearsals."

"Yeah, I'm aware," Cleo muttered. He just chuckled at that. Before he could make a comeback, a head stuck out from the doorway behind him, a dark ponytail dangling behind it.

"Cleo, Ms. Lambert's looking for you."

"Thanks Maddie," Cleo called, starting to make her way across the room. As she passed, Jasper gave her an overly exaggerated salute.

"Can't believe Andy dated that guy," Cleo muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes.

The rest of that Friday could not have been less eventful. Fewer people were asking questions about her locker, which cheered Cleo up slightly. The day's rehearsal finished smoothly, complete with the stage crew performing the usual amount of eyerolls and snorts at the theater kids, taking pride in their ability to boss them around when needed. At the end of the day, though, each class respected the other, knowing that one would be useless without the other. For the most part.