"We're being held against our will..."
I frowned at the lady on the podium at the front of the church. Her mouth was moving, likely talking about the students we'd lost four months prior, but it wasn't her voice I heard. Sitting between Jess and Emma on a pew in the July heat, surrounded by Waterbridge students and their families, it was Eddie's voice that reached my ears.
I was used to hearing that haunting voice in my nightmares, not when I was awake. But at a memorial for him and the handful of others who'd passed during our ordeal, all of them within the walls of the academy, I supposed it made sense. It was the last thing of him I had to hold on to; his pleading call to the FBI that had been played over and over on the news reports following our rescue.
"There are 260 of us. I don't know if we're all still alive. We've been separated. They've been drugging us." Gunshots interrupted Eddie's words, the sounds echoing loudly. Eddie rushed out a bunch of random numbers before his last words were followed by a sickening squelching thump. "Ah! Fuck! Help them―"
Those numbers were the I.P. number of his laptop, which he'd somehow managed to hook up to the last remaining internet connection at the academy, Tannen's. The same laptop which was running the program for the little trackers he'd insisted that several of us wear. The FBI had used the I.P. to hack his computer and were trying to figure out the meaning of what they'd found when Jess called, exhausted and worn out, wailing about the whole school being taken hostage.
As tears leaked out my eyes, I crushed Jess' hand in mine. I thought I was over the anger that thinking of Eddie brought up. Anger at Tannen and his men for killing him. Anger at myself for not getting him out of there. Anger at him for his brave but insanely stupid actions.
When the long and uncomfortable memorial service ended, I found myself being dragged after Emma toward Robert, pushing Mark in his wheelchair to greet Eddie's family.
Poor Mark, paralyzed by a bullet that had torn through his side and lodged in his spine. I watched Rebecca separate herself from her parents and sit on Mark's lap, glad they were managing to hold onto each other through all the loss and struggles. It made my heart ache a little.
Emma and I hugged them all as if we were one person, until she dropped my hand in favor of Robert's. We'd grown closer since leaving Waterbridge; it had been easy since we lived in the same place and shared the same therapist. Emma was great, but she wasn't Jess, who I missed with the same intensity I'd miss half my body, if it were cut off and taken to the opposite side of the country.
Jess, with Ashley's hand clutched tightly in hers, caught up to us and as if reading my mind, she nudged my side. "You could come and visit, you know."
I was glad Emma was too occupied with Robert to contradict my lie. My therapist, Susanna, had already cleared me to travel on my own, but I'd told Jess I couldn't go; she and Jackson practically lived next door to Kellen. I was scared that I wouldn't be able to handle seeing him after I'd effectively sheared our ship in half before it had even hit the water.
Still, as we slowly made our way out of the church, I couldn't help searching for him in the crowd.
When I didn't see him, I looked for Katia; Jess told me that Katia and Kellen were on better terms. I found Katia flanked, as always, by Hadley and Vivienne. She caught my eye, frowning like she knew why my gaze had landed on her. Excusing herself from the group, she approached me, shrugging awkwardly.
"You really broke his heart, Nic."
Some greeting. I nodded. It's nothing I didn't know. I'd broken mine too. "How's he doing otherwise?"
"Good. He took Jackson with him to look for apartments in Philadelphia this weekend. We're going to U Penn together."
"The same college, the same apartment?" I raised my eyebrows. "Try not to kill each other, ok?"
-.-
My phone sat on the nightstand between my bed and Emma's, and I chewed my lip as I contemplated picking it up.
My short conversation with Katia and seeing everyone together today had made me question my resolve.
I'd managed to keep in touch with everyone, even though it hurt—Jess, Ashley, Jackson, all the Aces. Admittedly, I was jealous of the ones who had someone else to lean on, while I was wishing I hadn't drawn a line between Kellen and me.
The issue was so black and white the day we were rescued. A long-distance relationship between two broken kids would never have worked. We'd only have gotten more hurt, especially if our feelings were only a result of all the drama. I thought we would never be able to heal if we were holding on to each other. It seemed stupid now, considering the relationships my friends had forged during our last months at the academy were going strong, and how much I still missed him after four months.
I yanked my phone off the table, and before I could change my mind, I found his name and clicked on it. Stepping out onto the small balcony so I wouldn't wake Emma, I caught sight of the clock on the nightstand; 11 p.m. After a quick calculation, I realized it was 2 a.m. where he was. Shit.
"Hello?"
I hadn't expected him to answer. Surprised, I blinked away the tears his voice brought up. What was I supposed to say?
"Cole?"
"Hi Kels," I breathed out, hating the way it choked out of my mouth.
"Dammit, Hero! You couldn't call me after the service like a normal person? You had to wait till the middle of the night?"
I bit my lip, smiling. "Think of it as payback for all the times you had me run missions for you at this time."
-.-
A year had passed since the day we'd been taken away from Waterbridge, and I was spending the anniversary in New York with the Kidas. Jess and Jackson were a part of my life I got to enjoy since I'd started talking to Kellen again. If I wasn't in New York with them, they were in L.A. with me for short weekend trips in between our busy school schedules. It was nice to be able to touch and hold them every once in a while and have them be more than faces on screens.
The Kida's couch was a bundle of limbs and blankets all tangled together after our stupidly childish tickle battle in the middle of our movie marathon, and I loved it. The next afternoon, we'd commemorate the day of our rescue in Manhattan at lunch with any other students that lived in the area. By night, I'd be gone—travelling again—and I wanted to cherish the last night and day I had with them.
"You watching the movie, Nic?" Jess teased with a grin.
"Shh! I'm trying to hear." I reprimanded though she was right, and I'd been watching the time display, anticipation building in my gut and threatening to spill over like a middle school science project on volcanos.
"Mmmhmm... What time is it?"
"10:15," I blurted to fast.
Jackson shushed us loudly, smacking a pillow onto my head.
Giggling, Jess poked my side. "Kellen should be here soon."
Kellen. Here. We'd seen each other briefly in August before school had started and we talked all the time.
All. The. Time.
Unlike Jess and Jackson, however, Kellen had pretty much remained a face on a screen propped up beside my pillow almost nightly.
"Kind of sucks that you only get to see him for one day before you have to leave..." she mused, a suggestive lilt to her voice.
"Jess!" I sighed and separated myself from the blankets so we could talk elsewhere.
She followed me to the kitchen where we jumped up onto the counter—Mrs. Kida would lose her mind if she saw us. "I wonder," Jess hummed. "If he'll come here first, or if we'll see him tomorrow. Bet that he's coming straight here for you."
"Jess, he is not."
"You want him to, though," she sang and jumped off the counter to dig around the pantry for a snack.
I pursed my lips at her, refusing to give her and answer either way.
"Come on, Nic! You're meant to be more than friends. I can't understand why you two don't just take it to the next level. I know you've talked about it."
"We have," I confirmed, nodding. "But, next level when we don't see each other is just a title..."
"That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Everyone knows you two are a couple, why not just call yourselves that? Ash and I don't see each other anymore since her parents sent her to school in London, we're still—" She gasped as the front door opened and ran to see who it was, pulling me with her.
At the end of the long teal and champagne hallway, in the foyer, Jackson was hugging Kellen. Jess elbowed me in the side before she went to greet him, whispering, "Told you!"
He'd come here instead of going home first. For me, she said. She was probably right. Kellen's eye caught mine over the top of Jess' head and my stomach did a somersault. I slowly approached them, giving myself a moment to reel in the part of me that wanted to mash my face to his. Jess was right; we'd talked about it, but we weren't there yet.
"Hi Kels." I grinned, waving as I got close enough to touch him.
"Really, we haven't seen each other in six months and you're waving?" He laughed, grabbing my hand and pulling me into a hug. "Come here, Cole!"