The Marked

Chapter Nine

[THURSDAY]

The next morning Lily is woken up by Cathy calling up to them, "Ry! Lily! You need to get up now if you wanna be on time for school."

Lily wipes her eyes and once she feels a pain in her neck she realises that she fell asleep at Ryder's desk while reading her book.

She looks over at Ryder to see him laying on the bed comfortably and she scowls at him. Coming up with an idea she walks over to Ryder's bed and removes all his school stuff off the bed then begins to lift up the cover, Ryder in a sleepy haze starts rolling off of it when suddenly.

THUD

Ryder falls off the bed and onto his floor, Lily walks around to the bed where Ryder is lay on the floor, "Get up, we gotta get to school. I'll be getting ready in your mom's room." Lily tells him and then grabs her bag and walks out.

Ryder slowly gets up off the floor stretching out all his limbs, what's up with her? He wonders before looking over at the desk to see the chair pulled out. Oh, she must of fell asleep at the desk reading that book.

Last night he left her to her reading, while he caught up on some school work, asking for her help when he needed it. It was nice to have her here as he felt calmer when she was around, mainly because he knew if he started freaking out she'd snap him out of it.

He gets ready then makes sure to check his phone at his bedside for any messages from Maisy, there was one so he unlocks his phone to read it.

'I'm sorry RyRy, I do get it, I promise. I love you.'

He smiles at his phone before replying, 'I know, I was also in the wrong yesterday just had a lot going on, hope you can forgive me :) Love you.'

After sending it he gathers his school stuff and leaves his room, he puts his stuff in his bag before going into the kitchen.

Mom's been making him breakfast every morning since Dad left, and it gets to him more and more each time she does it, as if breakfast is gonna make up for the fact that she's hiding something.

He takes a seat and doesn't say anything, a few minutes later Lily walks into the room ready for school, "hey Cathy, you making breakfast again?" Lily asks looking at Ryder with a confused look.

"Yeah, I like making sure that Ryder is up and fed for school, especially with it being your last year." Cathy answers.

Lily smiles at Cathy, accepting the answer but not believing it. Lily takes a seat next to Ryder and Cathy serves their food.

Everything is silent. Neither Ryder nor his Mom are trying to make conversation, Lily notices that neither are looking at each other either, and she goes to break the silence but a phone rings.

"That's me," Cathy says as she turns around and picks her phone up, "hello? Yeah, I'll be there soon, I'll get in earlier so I can see what I can find before you get there. Okay, see you soon." Cathy hangs up the phone, "I gotta get going, you two gonna be okay?"

Ryder doesn't respond, just keeps his head down and continues to eat.

"We'll be fine, everything okay at work?" Lily asks mentally glaring at Ryder but actually smiling at Cathy.

"Yeah, they just wanted to know when I was due in as something's come up, it's only half hour early so I'll go now, have a good day at school both of you." Cathy says to Lily leaving out the part that it was her brother. She glances at Ryder who continues to ignore her before leaving the kitchen.

Lily waits a good five minutes after hearing the front door before kicking Ryder under the table.

"Ouch! What are you doing!" Ryder complains.

"We need to talk about what's going on with your Mom, ignoring her isn't going to solve anything." Lily tells him.

"Nothing to talk about, I'll keep ignoring her until she tells me what she's hiding." Ryder shrugs.

"As genius as that plan is, you need another one because all your doing is making your Mom feel like she can't talk to you at all." Lily tells him sarcastically.

"I don't wanna talk about this right now." Ryder replies.

After they ate breakfast Ryder got up and placed his plate in the sink before leaving the room.

Lily does the same picking up her plate and placing it in the sink, she leaves as well and notices that Ryder is already out the front door. She picks up her overnight bag and school bag following Ryder outside.

"Ry, I'm gonna go drop this off at home." Lily tells Ryder and begins walking to her house.

Moments later Ryder gets a text, he takes his phone out of his pocket and sees it's from Maisy.

'All is forgiven, maybe we could spend lunch together just the two of us.'

He smiles down at his phone again before replying, 'It's a date, come find me in the cafeteria after class :)'

"Patching things over with Maisy?" Lily says making Ryder jump.

"Don't do that!" Ryder shouts at her, Lily laughs and climbs into the car.

Ryder puts his phone away and gets in himself then they drive to school.

***

At the hospital Cathy is looking over a file when she suddenly looks up to see Jack, she hasn't seen him since he confronted her and abandoned her and Ryder.

"What are you doing here Jack? I'm at work." Cathy asks disinterested and continues to look over the file.

"We need to talk about the kid. Have you told him yet?" Jack answers.

Cathy wonders down the hall with the file looking for the room where the body is, Jack follows behind her so when she finds the room she stops at the door before going in.

"If I go in there will you follow me? Because I have a new body to investigate and you don't have authorised access, so this..." Cathy gestures between herself and Jack, "can wait."

"I wonder if your work mates would like to hear how you cheated on me. After everything I did to help you, that's how you treat me." Jack says baiting her.

"I never cheated. He was just before I got with you, so it had nothing to do with you then and it still doesn't now." She replies pointing at Jack in frustration.

"He needs to know. I won't have him think I'm the one who did him wrong." Jack says.

"You left him as soon as you knew, what's that gonna tell him when he finds out." Cathy spits at him.

"You lied to him. And to me." Jack spits back.

"Look, are you almost done because I really do have a tight schedule." Cathy says losing interest again.

"Fine, do what you like. It's not like he's my son anyway." Jack responds coldly before storming away from her. Cathy quickly composes herself before entering the room, she goes over to the metal table and lifts up the cover.

Underneath lies the dead body of Poppy Michaels.