Powerless

Chapter 5

"Hey, Jessie you never texted my back last night," Sadie complained the next morning at school while the juniors were gathering in the gym, "Where were you?" Kids chirped back and forth in excitement, eager to take a vacation with their friends along side them.

"Oh, I was trying to get my homework and packing done so I didn't look at my phone." I half lied and adjusted the position of the pillow in my hand. It felt wrong to lie so much.

"It's okay," Sadie said, but in a way that told me that she knew I was lying. "I just asked if you had gotten all of your packing done, which of course you did or you would be freaking out right now." She finished with a small smile.

I shrugged. My eyes drooped, I was still tired from last night. Even though I had a good nine hours of sleep under my belt, I continued to feel drained.

While the teachers that were chaperoning were giving instructions. We found Max and Matt and slinked through the crowd to them before setting our stuff down next to them. The principal tapped the microphone to get everyone's attention again. He started to explain the basic rules for the bus trip and hotels, you know, the normal behavior stuff. Next, he called out the names of the people in each bus before dismissing us.

I sat next to Max on the bus ride to the hotel we would stay our first night. The bus started out loud with voices, discussing what they were looking forward to on the trip. But within a couple hours the voices died down and people began to sleep or mess around on their phones. I fell asleep soon after and was shaken awake by Max when we stopped for lunch. We all got off the bus around twelve o'clock at a rest stop. The chaperones handed out the lunches that were packed for us. The line for the bathroom already long when I got in it with Sadie. We were both tired so we didn't really talk. I leaned against the wall and slouched, being surrounded by people was something that I never really liked. Most times I liked to be invisible when thrown into a big group of people. I tapped my right hand fingers against the back of my left hand as I waited. Then I remembered to text my mom, and I pulled out my phone.

"Just stopped for lunch at a rest stop. I slept on the way and I'm feeling fine." I texted quickly, making sure to answer all of the questions that she would've asked me.

Now that everyone was awake, the bus was full of yells and laughs. My ears started to buzz like crazy. Max looked at me worriedly and asked, "Are you okay? You're really quiet,"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just tired," I yawned. He still looked worried so I snuggled up against him and went back to sleep. I woke only a couple times after that because of either the end of a sleep cycle or some kid was making a ruckus. But as a result from all of my sleeping on the bus, I didn't sleep well when we stopped at the hotel in Chicago that we had to spend in for the first night. I slipped out of bed quietly, not to wake up Sadie or the other girls in the other double bed across the room. I walked onto the balcony and stared up at the stairs and I let my mind wander. From Max to Sadie and Matt, to my family, and finally to the necklace I was wearing. I brushed my fingers across the scar on my neck. I grimaced, it must have gone deeper than I thought. I tangled the necklace in my fingers again and thought about what happened with my clocks in my room. Am I going insane? What is with the buzzing that always seem to be in my ears?

I gripped the railing and looked toward the city skyline. The sun was about to come up and the skyline was starting to glow. It was really pretty, as the sun rose out of the ground and light up the sky in an array of colors. I looked back at my necklace, again, there was nothing I could do to get it off, so I turned to go back into the hotel room. But something caught my eye on the balcony a couple rooms over. I leaned over my railing and squinted to make out the figure walking on the other balcony. After a moment, they stepped onto the railing, perched like a cat about to pounce. By looking at their body shape I could tell it was a young woman with wavy brown hair tied into a tail in the back, and her black clothes were tight to perfectly fit the curves of her body. Her head turned and saw me before she jumped off the rail. I gasped and leaned over my own rail to see where she fell. I expected to see a body on the ground but was surprised when I saw her land gracefully on the balcony below. She jumped from one balcony to another, getting lower and lower before finally landing in the alley way, as quiet as a mouse.