The Good-For-Nothing Society | Completed

Chapter Thirty-One

A week later and I wake before anyone's alarm goes off. I creep out of my dorm, leaving a sleeping Grace and Tessa. The halls are empty, the sun already in the sky, temperatures already rising. The world is quiet and beautiful and utterly at peace as I make my way towards The San, where Elijah still lays. Much to his dismay.

In four days the school breaks up for the summer holidays, unlike the rest of the UK with their six week break, this school only awards three. Somehow, it's almost been a year since I arrived here, and I feel more confused and lost then I ever have before. When the break comes, everyone will go home; but I don't have one to go to. I don't have a family, I have nowhere to go and no one to go to.

I enter The San at exactly seven a.m, greet Nurse Murphy, and take my seat next to Elijah's bed. This is my routine now. It's amazing how easy change can be sometimes.

"I've been thinking," Elijah says, almost immediately.

"Never a good thing," Stan mutters, still in his bed opposite.

"Weren't you discharged?" Elijah snaps.

"Yeah, home. To mum and dads. I'll take my chances here, annoying you."

Elijah glares at his brother before looking at me, "We should stay in the house in the woods for the summer. It's a safe house and we can try and find more answers."

I chew my lip, I don't really have a counter argument nor a reasonable answer of where I will be staying for the three weeks. But me, alone, in a house, with a boy who looks like that and raging teen hormones? I don't know, the last thing we need is a teen pregnancy or something!

Still, with all that in mind I say, "Yeah, we could do."

"Or," Stan says, "We ask Miss Gateshead to set up a safe house where we can all go, until she's set up the meeting with Ethan Kade."

I nod at Stan, "I like that idea better."

Elijah doesn't hide his disappointment. "What if Ethan Kade never sees you?"

I shrug, "I have no idea. I've hidden the hard drive and burnt the blue prints."

"You've burnt them?" Stan is outraged. "What the bloody hell did you do that for?"

I point at my head, "What do we need them
for if they're in my brain? Besides, if we get rid of them then the problem is solved, no?"

"I dunno," Elijah looks wary. "If it was that simple, then why wouldn't your dad have disposed of them?"

I shrug, "Maybe he didn't think it was that simple. Maybe he was emotionally attached to them." Elijah and Stan stare at me like I've grown a third head. "Stranger things have happened."

We lapse into silence until Elijah says, "So, that's the plan then? We ask Miss G for a safe house and wait out the storm?"

"Of course that's our plan," Stan says, before I can. "You've got one arm, I've got one leg, and she's decided to make herself into a hard drive. They've shown us how dangerous they can be, now we do things properly."

I stare at Elijah. He's inches away. We don't touch. A charge coursing between us, a small fire, a spark. But Stan is there like he always is, and there's nothing we can do about it. I owe him my life, I'll do anything he asks of me, but what Stan says makes sense.

"I need to meet Ethan Kade." I say. "That's my mission. Once I do, then this will be over."

"What about your memories?" Elijah asks, softly.

"I want to know what happened to me, of course I do. But maybe I never will and that's something we're going to have to get used to."

Elijah shifts uncomfortably, "And what about this Vince guy?"

I shrug, "I dream of him, most nights," Elijah clamps his mouth shut, jealousy ripples through his face, but I can't lie to him. I won't. "I see his face and hear his voice, but it's hard to tell if they're real. It's not like I know anything about C.O.A. I can't just break down their doors and rescue a boy I know nothing about."

We look at each other, I reach out and touch his hand, stroking my thumb against his palm. I hate that he's jealous of someone I don't remember. I hate that I can't remember anything, not when this idea of this boy is so upsetting to the one that matters most.

When I speak, my voice is soft, "Tell me about the night you found me."

He looks down at our hands for a long time before he speaks, "You'd left the tracking device in the lockbox and we thought that was it, we finally had you. But it would turn on and off intermittently, and every time it came back on, you would be in a new location. We spent six weeks turning up to the newest place the tracker flagged, only to find we just missed you."

I know it's hard for him, to think of all that time where I was being beaten and abused. But I can't remember it, so it doesn't feel like it happened to me. I know I came back with cuts and bruises and no memory, but I honestly think it's for the best. Now, I can hear about it and not be affected by it; it doesn't hurt me to think of what they were doing to me whilst Elijah searched, I'm on the other side of it. I know how it pans out.

Doesn't mean it doesn't suck that I have frequent dreams about a boy I probably wouldn't point out in a crowded room. A boy who might have also saved me, one I've left for dead. If I could remember Elijah so quickly, why can't I remember him?

"Then, one day," Elijah continues, he's staring into space, reliving it. It's worse for him then it is me. "The tracker turned on and it stayed on for hours. It had never done that before. It was in Germany, in some abandoned hospital, about forty miles from the last place you were. Immediately we drew up a plan, got maps and setup tactical. Miss Gateshead was on board and we were on our way to you in the helicopter. I remember landing, the tracker still blinking; and I was begging for that to be it."

"And there you were," Stan says, "Bloodied and beaten with no idea who we were."

It doesn't feel real when they tell me. I know I was there, I know I remember waking in the abandoned hospital - pain, confused, terrified. I remember seeing Elijah and feeling safe, even if I didn't remember him right then.

I don't know how this Vince guy could have factored into it, but I know the same with Elijah and Stan, it took him six months to get me out; if what Daniel even said was true. Six months of being beaten, shot at and god knows what else. Things so bad my brain draws a complete blank.

"Yet you trusted us anyway," Elijah mutters.

"You," I tell him, looking into his eyes. "I trusted you." Elijah gives me a small smile and raises my hand to his lips, giving it a kiss.

"Eurgh," Stan groans. "You two seriously don't miss any opportunity to get mushy, do you?"

Just like that, the dark thoughts, the dark feeling. The energy between all of us as we remember my bruised and battered body, disappears and the world feels lighter again.

"Weren't you discharged?" I hiss, mockingly glaring at him. He's totally ruining the moment.

Stan feigns offence, "I took a bullet for you and this is how you treat me?"

"You barely took a bullet!" Elijah snorts, "It nipped your ankle! Mine tore an entire hole through me and I don't complain half as much as you do!"

"Pain is subjective," Stan grumbles, looking away from us in outrage and I laugh. "Mock away," He says, "I'll remember this."

"No ones mocking you, Stan." I say, earnestly. "I'm very thankful for you and your grazed ankle."

"A whole bullet!" He shouts. "Grazed my ass."

"Now that's another story," Elijah says.

We all fall about laughing. You'd think we wouldn't be able to, you'd think we would be serious talks and future plans, but sometimes, when your life was inches from being taken from you, a bit of laugher is what you need. I can see why Forensic Scientists and the like need a dark sense of humour; it's trauma, it makes the world funnier.