❝ Will you stay? ❞
❝ Always. ❞
Cassandra Holmes is empty. Hollowed from the inside out when the last of her was destroyed. She is lost; drifting in and out of reality with no real grasp on her sanity. When reading is presented to her as a form of th...
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sixteen
I THINK I see regret in his hazel eyes, but I can't be sure. Even though the hatred is gone, there are still traces of hurt in them, his hands balled into fists so tight they were shaking—though it could be my own shaking that caused the world to look like it's vibrating on its axis.
The police doesn't take long to arrive. In fact, they arrive the moment the words leave the principal's mouth, the unmistakable sounds of sirens wailing just right outside.
Everything is happening too fast. Only fragments remain.
I see the uniformed men marching in, the sounds of their boots resonating around the silent hallway.
One cop roughly grabs me and does a quick pat-down that makes me feel worse than I had before.
Another cop spitting the Miranda rights in my face.
I am being escorted out of the school with my hands cuffed behind me with two cops beside me, each of them digging their nails into my shoulders and forcing me to walk along to their pace.
I'm shoved into the back of a car with the same cops squeezed beside me, their face void of any emotions.
Then I force myself to forget about everything else but my own breathing.
A deep breath in.
A deep breath out.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
[ • • ]
I wake up in the detaining cell.
With Elliot sitting a few feet away from me.
What?
"Elliot?"
He had been staring at his hands and his head snaps up at my voice. Under the bright light, his eyes shine like the shimmering waters of the ocean, so pretty and calming that it makes me momentarily forget everything that's happened. Until he clears his throat and tears me away from his eyes.
"What are you doing here?"
"I followed you here," he says, his voice steady and clear. "Right after you were brought out, I sneaked after you without anyone noticing and came here." Then he glances at the door that only has a small square of glass that offered any form of communication with the outside. "I told the officers I'm a co-conspirator."
