The Good-For-Nothing Society | Completed

Chapter Eleven

"What are you doing here?" I hiss at her.

We're as far into the alley as we can possibly be, the darkest part of this tiny town. Mum looks worn, her eyes rimmed with black bags. Her skin pale, her small frame frail. She's like a shadow of herself.

"You listen to me," She says, "You're not to trust anyone."

"What is going on?" I demand.

She places her hands on my shoulders, peering deeply in my eyes. "Your dad had enemies. Many enemies. Imagine James Bond without the glitz and glamour."

I step back from her as if she hit me, "Dad wouldn't have murdered anyone."

"Oh, don't be so naive," Mums snaps, "We both work in espionage."

"Worked." I snap back. "Dads dead, or have you forgotten?"

"Of course I haven't forgotten, it's why I am here." She takes a deep breath. "They're catching up with me, it won't be long before they get me. Those boys out there, the ones with the backpack? They're part of them."

I blink at her, she's deluded. She's having a breakdown, dads death tipped her over the edge. There is no other explanation. None of what she's saying makes sense.

"I know this is scary," She says, "That none of this makes any sense to you."

"No, it doesn't. My whole life has been a lie."

"It hasn't. Your dad loved you very much, and from the moment you were born he swore he would give you the tools you needed to survive. He just made it fun, instead of boring and regimented."

"You both could have told me."

"Your dad wanted you to have the best childhood you could of had. He wanted you to keep your innocence."

I scoff at her, "Throwing me into spy school at the age of sixteen, without telling me what it was; is insane."

Mum ignores me and hands me a necklace, it's got a four leaf clover on and is made out of gold. "This is important, when the time is right, you'll know what it's for."

"Don't talk to me in riddles!" I tell her. "I deserve more, mum. I need the truth."

"You do," She says, she's earnest with it too. More earnest then mum has ever been.

She opens her mouth to tell me, but her eyes go wide at something behind me, in the entrance of the alley.

"You," She says.

There's a sudden flash and a loud bang. I feel something whizz past my head, and my face gets splattered with a warm liquid, causing me to stagger away from mum. I wipe at the blinding liquid with my sleeve, utterly confused as to what is going on.

When I can finally see, I can't take in the scene before me. As if from nowhere, mums forehead has a gaping hole in it. Shaped like a bullet. There's blood gushing down her face. She stands for a second, staring at me, eyes unblinking. Making no noise, then she crumples to the ground, a pool of blood forming around her.

I spin to face the attacker, but all I catch is a glimpse of a yellow backpack darting away. I turn back to mum, but I already know she's gone. Her eyes are glazed over, her hair is saturated in blood, she's gone a weird pale colour. I can't think. I don't understand. What has just happened? I sink to the floor, ignoring the blood that's started soaking through my clothes.

Statistically speaking, only 5% of people survive gunshot wounds to the head. I don't know why that's all I can't think about, but it is. yeah That, and the horrible realisation that I'm an orphan. I have no one.

I look down at my trembling hands. I'm rooted to the spot I'm squatting in. My mums lifeless body not three centimetres away from me.

I'm an orphan.

I open my mouth, then close it again; there's no noise I can make that will help. There's no sound that could rip from me that would numb me. Calling for help, would do what? Alert everyone to where I am. Alert civilians there's a dead body here. How would I explain I had nothing to do with it? How do I say that's my mum, lying there; dead. Just like my dad.

My stomach heaves, and I turn away from mum to throw up. The logical part of me; the trained part of me, tells me I'm in shock. My sense of security has been shattered in every sense. My entire being vibrates, asking the world; why? Why us?

"Amelia," Elijah's face floats in front of me, but he's glowing and doesn't look real. "Amelia, you have to get up."

"She's dead." I croak. "They shot her."

"I can see," Elijah says, picking me up and placing me on my feet. "We need to leave."

Both his eyes are starting to turn purple and black from where my mum hit him, not long ago. "She was a spy."

"I can tell." He says. He's looking at me with all the care in the world.

"Can you walk?" Stan Jones asks.

I look at him, and he looks more serious then I've ever seen. "She's dead?"

"Yes." He says, analysing me. "Who is she?"

"That's my mum." I tell him, looking down at her corpse once more.

Then I suddenly feel very faint, and my knees weak. They buckle underneath me.

"Woah," Elijah says, catching me. "She's passing out."

"She's in shock," Stan says. "We need to get her back to school. Right now."