‘I’ll be back,’ I told Jack when it was past lunch. ‘Alright,’ He replies smiling before turning back to Daniel and finishing their conversation; it was good to see them getting on so well.
I went to knock on the door of Nick’s office but it swung open before I could knock it once. ‘Oh. Zach.’ I take a step away from the door to let him through.
‘What do you want?’ he asks narrowing his eyes at me still standing in the middle of the door. ‘Can you please get Billy for me? I need to speak to him,’ I look down at my feet awkwardly and before I knew it the door was slammed shut, only inches away from my face.
I wait there unsure what to do and wondered whether or not Zach was really gonna get Billy.
The door opens and Billy comes out squeezing straight past me and shutting the door fast as if I were going to try and run into the bottom floor: Nick’s giant office.
‘Yeah, what's up?’ I turn around and look behind me before looking back at Billy. ‘Uh, let’s go out the back I need to talk to you.’
We sit on the porch dangling our legs over the edge waiting for one of us to say something.
My voice turns to a whisper, ‘You know how I said I wanted him gone?’ I ask knowing he knew what I meant. ‘Yeah,’ he turns a bit so he could face me but I didn’t move an inch, still looking into the forest.
‘I change my mind. Just let him stay. I don’t care what happens anymore, like I do, but he knows what he’s gonna go through.’ I say finally turning to face him.
‘I realised he means too much me. I can’t do it,’ I add a little while later. For a second I thought I saw solid envy in his eyes but changed back fast as if I just dreamt it.
He stays quiet for a bit. ‘So you want him to stay now, right?’ he asks looking away from me. ‘Yeah, I do.’
‘Alright.’ He says getting up and walking off leaving me alone on the porch.
I look at the sky and stared at the different blues. I watched the way the clouds formed and deformed as the wind changed it little by little. A bird flies past and I realise the sun was starting to go down a bit, the rays now glaring right in front of me, I lay down closing my eyes thinking.
‘Remy?’ I look up and find Jack standing above me looking down as if I were an interesting rock that he couldn’t take he's eyes off. ‘What are you doing?’ he chuckles, showing his perfect smile. ‘It’s starting to get cold, you should come inside.’
I don’t move and even though he says I should go inside he sits down next to me looking deep into the forest as I have been doing for the last couple of hours. I sit up and only just notice how cold it was. I shiver and watch a group of birds fly past, disappearing for a second from the glare of the sun and being seen once again on the other side of the sun.
For a moment I forget Jack was there as a thoughtful and intimate silence falls between us. A couple of more shivers go through my body until Jack puts his cosy, strong arm around me pulling me softly toward his warm and relaxed body. I wrap my arms around him and look up into his face resting my chin on his chest, his bright blue eyes sparkling.
I wanted to say something but I wasn’t exactly sure what, so instead I smiled. He smiles back but it lacked the usual enthusiasm before he caresses his lips against mine and in that moment I felt like I could fly just like the birds that flew past, the only thing holding me down was Jacks’ firm hold around me. I grin and rest my head against his chest as we watched the sun go down slowly.
I look up again hoping he would kiss me just once more so I could have that feeling again but he was already gazing somewhere else. My eyes started to feel heavy and I wanted to sleep.
‘Jack,’ I whisper closing my eyes. ‘Yeah?’ he says resting his chin on the top of my head slightly. ‘I love you,’ I finally whisper looking up at him again. He smiles too and a slight tingle grows within, I give him a kiss on the cheek and his grip tightens around my shoulders making me feel like I was in the safest place in the world.
Oh how I wanted this moment to last forever.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Jack asks quietly into my ears, I nod and move away a bit so he could get up and go to the kitchen.
When he was gone I suddenly felt the loneliness grow around me and could feel the coldness of the night wash through my body.
A while later I hear a loud bang ring through my ears it makes me jump but I told myself that Jack just probably dropped something, so I sat and wait.
I wake up realising I fell asleep waiting for Jack – he’s still not here. I get up stiffly and walked toward the kitchen. No one was there. I couldn’t help but shiver as the cold night settled into my bones.
‘Jack?’ I call out standing there feeling lost. I see something red on the floor of the kitchen but was too busy to assess it looking for Jack. No one answers and I call out his name again before walking around the house. ‘Jack? Where are you?’ I walk into my room but no one was there, so I started to search through every room that was opened.
They couldn’t have locked him up again, I thought. But where could he be?
‘Jack!’ I soon started to yell in case he might’ve gone outside. I walk to the back but it was already dark and no one was there.
‘Jack!’ I yell once more. Still no one answered so I go to Nick’s office and start knocking. Nobody opens it so I start to pound on it hard and it shook with every hit, my knuckles starting to sting. The door swings open as I was about to knock on it again and I ended up punching someone on the chest with my knuckles.
‘Ah, geez!’ Billy exclaims shutting the door behind him. ‘Um… err… s-sorry!’ I say.
He stands there rubbing his chest and staring down at me. ‘What do you want?’ he asks casually putting his hand back to his sides. ‘Where’s Jack?’ I ask trying to hold his gaze.
He looks away and turns hesitant shuffling around in his spot. ‘Well?’ I say impatiently, he finally holds my gaze but soon drops it. ‘I don’t know,’ he mutters looking at anything but me.
‘Billy, what do you mean you “don’t know”? Of course you do.’ He holds my gaze but only for a moment before dropping it again, ‘I said I don’t know okay!’ his voice starts to rise and a wave of panic hung in his voice.
I change my tone, this time softer, ‘Billy, where is he? There’s something you’re not telling me, and I know you aren’t.’
He takes control of his voice again, ‘you won’t like it,’ he says calmly holding my gaze now. I search his face for answers but it’s like his wearing a mask. ‘Please, Billy. Just tell me. I need to know.’
He hesitates again but his face remained the same, ‘he’s gone,’ he says slowly, voice almost a whisper. My stomach flips even though I didn’t know what he meant, but did I want to?
‘W-what do you mean?’ I ask the fear clearly in my voice. ‘He’s gone,’ he says again this time his face changing, more careful and gentle.
I stand there for a moment; scared and confused. Finally I understood what he meant and I wanted to throw up, I blink back tears and forced my stomach to stay strong.
How could he have just left me like this? He couldn’t have just left.
I search Billy’s calm face once again to see if he was lying, but his motionless mask was back on.
‘He was hurt. Badly. And Zach and Tony were ordered to drive him back into town to get help as fast as they could.’
‘No.’ I whisper. ‘No Billy, his not gone! You just locked him up somewhere. He’s here and I know it!’
His face stays the same and I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. My stomach churned and flipped. ‘Billy, please! Tell me where he is. You can’t do this to me! His not gone! He’s not.’
‘He was hurt Remiah.’ He says low and calm once again.
‘Billy! It’s not true!’ I screamed pleading him to tell me it wasn’t, finally the tears filled my eyes and rolled down my cheeks unstoppably.
He watches me with that same calm look on his face and I started to pound on his chest with the sides of my fists.
‘I hate you! I hate you!’ I said over and over. When he had enough he grabs onto my wrists before I could pull away and held me close to his body, only our arms separating us.
‘I’m sorry.’ He says, I look up at him holding his gaze and could feel his breath on me, I wanted to punch him in the face but I felt like I didn’t have enough strength anymore.
He watches me for a moment and it looked like he wanted to cry too, either that or my eyes were so watery everything just happened to look that way. ‘Don’t cry,’ he finally whispers still standing there like a statue.
I shudder and fall to my knees in front of him and covered my face in my hands trying to choke back the sobs as much as I could.
Where was I? How could I have not noticed or heard anything?
‘Remiah,’ I hear Daniel say behind me, I didn’t even hear him come. How long was he standing there for?
‘Remy,’ Daniel says coming closer and standing beside me. I try to control myself as much as I could and finally looked up at him, my breathing laboured eyes still teary.
‘C’mon,’ he says helping me off the floor and giving me a tissue. I wipe away the tears and blow my nose with trembling hands. ‘He’ll be fine,’ he says decisively.
I finally look into Daniel's soft grey-green eyes and shook my head, ‘Daniel, please tell me what happened.’ I hear myself say thinking how this could’ve happened.
I search his face but he didn’t give anything away. I look at my feet and watch the tears drip from my eyes and down my nose before falling off and landing on the floor. ‘Please Daniel,’ I say again but a whisper to myself. Daniel shakes his head as if to say sorry and I still didn’t want to believe him. I started to shake and felt my legs start to give way so I cling onto Daniel for support grabbing onto the sides of his suit jacket.
‘Daniel, please tell me. Please,’ I beg holding onto his shirt instead and pulling him close to me. I choke back a sob and put my head on his chest, dreading the answer but wanting to know so badly.
‘Someone stabbed him… h-he lost a lot of blood,’ Daniel says softly rubbing my back as if he could stop the pain.
My body felt numb and it was as if I was no longer in control of my body. I look away and wished it would all go away – the pain, the hurt, the fury, the dread.
Suddenly I felt angry and wanted to scream.
‘Who did this?!’ I suddenly shouted letting him go and moving away finding myself bumping into Billy, I move away from them both and stand there waiting. Neither of them answers.
‘Daniel, who did it?’ I demand but looking at Billy. Both of them drop their gaze and Billy soon whispers it to me carefully.
Nick?!
I felt so sick I wanted to throw up and my stomach soon gave way. I didn’t want to throw up on the floor and especially in front of Daniel and Billy so I started to gag. My throat burned, my stomach throbbed and my heart felt ripped out.
I was so confused I couldn’t understand anything anymore. Why would my own father do that to someone I loved – the only person who ever cared enough to stay with me, no matter what the consequences were. My legs quit on me and I felt myself fall to the ground, Daniel rushed forward to see if I was okay and soon Billy was right next to him.
‘Remy, I am so sorry.’ Daniel says crouching next to me and rubbing my back. ‘Don’t talk to me!’ I scream finally, ignoring the pain in his eyes. ‘I hate you! I hate you all! You. Nick. Billy. The Warden. You’re all the same!’
Billy still has that calm, plain face of his again and it was like he didn’t even care. But he did – I could see it.
They both start to say something to me but I ignore them and sat there curled up into a ball, I close my eyes and started to rock back and forth wishing it was all a dream and that when I wake up I’ll be in my warm bed right next to Jack. But of course it wasn’t.