Long long long A/N at the end of the chapter! Pls read because it's v important😛😛😛
Updated cuz ya girl loves you 💖
Happy Reading xx
t.m.
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One month later...
J A D E ➰
"You mean a support group," Harry stated in an obvious tone, as I rolled my eyes, nodding nevertheless.
"Something like that," I replied, scooping up chicken soup with my spoon and popping it into my mouth. Harry simply shook his head silently, gathering up pasta with his fork and shoveling it into his mouth.
After the talk Harry, Damien and I had, Harry had gotten better. He was making an effort in trying to move on. He tried to spend more of his time with either me, or Damien, sometimes even visiting Liam down in the labs. He told me the recurring dream of Scarlett had now lessened and so have the taunting voices and hallucination, which was a relief.
He also began coming on missions with us again. Right after Scarlett's death, Valkyrie had been working hard on taking Black Arrow down completely. Ford only wanted us to take down Cruz and the other important members of the organization. So with Harry finally back on our side again, we were able to do that again successfully. Black Arrow was now out of the picture, and we- The Organization- remained at the top.
"Will the others even come if I come?" he asked, knocking me out of my thoughts.
"Of course they will! Don't be ridiculous," I scoffed playfully, shaking my head.
"I'm serious, Jade. Louis and Spencer despise me for her death," he whispered, his eyes nervously glancing at Louis and Spencer themselves sitting in the distance chatting amongst themselves quietly. I glanced at them briefly over my shoulder before looking back at Harry.
"They won't hate you forever. This support group will just help them understand that it's not your fault and you're grieving as well. This is just to help everyone realize that they're not alone and we are all going through the same thing, it's just harder for some of us that's all," I explained, making Harry nod solemnly.
"I really appreciate what you're doing Jade," he told me quietly, a tiny smile dipping into his lips. "Thank you."
I simply smiled back in return, watching him look back down at his plate of pasta. I furrowed my brows curiously when he just stared down instead of go for another intake of pasta. My lips formed a sympathetic pout when I spotted his gaze that was directed to the 'S' tattoo he had gotten on the corner of his wrist.
My heart hurt for Harry and all I wanted was to take away his pain away. No one should ever go through the pain of losing a loved one; the pain is agonizing. It just devours you inside out, leaving nothing but that raw emptiness that still feels like a hungry rat nibbling your insides. All this could easily lead to depression. Depression is that unseen, unheard silent killer. It's the pain that's too much to cope with, too hard to deal with, and so misunderstood. It's hard to escape it, without help.
Harry, in my eyes, was still depressed. I can tell. Whenever we're in a group, he never contributes to the conversation. Normally, he'd always have an opinion to share, even when it's not needed. Now he just stands in the corner, his face holding a desolate expression, as he'd just listen in. There are times I can hear him crying from next door, screaming even. It took a lot in me to not go barging in, knowing that he'd at least want me to let him cry alone.
He was only going on missions and spending time with other people because of me, only because I was trying to get him to move on, and he doesn't want to disappoint me. He was still snappy and irritable to everyone, except Damien and I.
Damien and I were only successful in getting him to move on with his life, as in moving on with completing missions and training newbies. Not move on as in, reduce the crying and control the flashbacks.
But I was determined to help. Determined to help him see that he doesn't need Scarlett to live his life, also to help him see that he can be happy again, even if it's without Scarlett.
~-~
H A R R Y 🔫
"Harry," Liam greeted me with a soft and sympathetic smile. I was caught off-guard when he immediately pulled me into a warm embrace, which I reluctantly accepted, swinging my arms around him loosely.
"Li," I sighed sadly, leaning my chin on his shoulder for a few seconds before we broke the hug.
"How're you holding up, mate?" He asked me, hands clasping my shoulders.
"Not so great," I told him honestly. There was no point in lying to Liam. He gazed at me with the look everyone gave me. Pity. I hated it.
"Don't give me that look," I couldn't help but snap all of a sudden, causing him to drop his hands in surprise.
"S-Sorry," he stuttered, talking a step back. I cursed under my breath, looking away.
"Ugh, fuck, I'm sorry Liam. I-It's just been hard," I exhaled heavily, staring down at my feet as I spoke.
"It's okay," he told me, patting my arm before grabbing his clipboard. "I have to check up on the squirrel monkeys to see if they're ready for testing, wanna come?" he offered a small smile, which I nodded to, following him out of the room.
"Liam, can I ask you something?" I questioned, while gazing at all the sad little monkeys staring at me curiously while we walked down the hall of cages.
"Sure," he answered, while ticking things off his clipboard.
"That thing you put in Scarlett's body, Adamantium. X-02," I spoke quietly and hesitantly, causing Liam to stop in his tracks, before turning around to look at me.
"Yeah, what about that?"
"Could Scarlett have survived with that in her? Like isn't it supposed to be invincible or something," I asked with curiosity. This was something that had been on my mind lately, but I was too occupied with myself to actually go to Liam and ask him about it.
"I wish I could tell you that she survived with X-O2 in her bones, but truth is I really don't think so," he told me with a sympathetic frown, causing my heart to fall.
"Why not? You told me it was indestructible," I demanded, anger boiling inside of me like lava.
"Hey, I'm sorry Harry. But when we injected Scarlett with X-02, it was newly discovered. We didn't know much about it. X-02 was something I worked on in my past time so I never paid much attention to it. I didn't get to do more research on it, or test it out on animals and then humans. Nothing. All I knew was that it had healing abilities and was highly durable. I never got the time to check whether it was really indestructible."
"A month after Scarlett's recovery, Ford asked me to create more Adamantium and different forms of it. During this process, I realized what I had injected with Scarlett was Adamantium Earth-1610. It was the first form of Adamantium I created. Unlike its other forms such as Proto-Adamantium and Adamantium Beta, the Earth-1610 one isn't indestructible. Meaning it can break," he told me, causing my heart to fall even further.
"So what you're saying is, she was never indestructible? She was strong but not indestructible. She's dead basically," I gave Liam a stony look, who simply sighed deeply.
"But when you first injected it into her, it healed her. Can't the healing abilities from Adamantium Earth whatever heal her after the fall?" I questioned curiously.
"That's two different situations Harry. When she fell from that building, her bones broke and she had internal bleeding, which was both healed by the Adamantium. But when she fell from the cliff, I'm assuming the fall has to be powerful enough to break everything at such a high speed and immense impact. I'm afraid there probably wasn't enough time for Adamantium to heal all that. That's another problem with this form of Adamantium, it doesn't heal quickly; it heals gradually."
"Well that fucking sucks," I scowled, shaking my head with a cross look as Liam gazed at me with remorse.
"I'm sorry Harry. If only I had created one of the indestructible forms first, she could've been alive," he whispered regretfully.
"It's not your fault, Liam," I told him, all hope vanishing inside of me. I cleared my thoughts as I suggested moving on from this touchy subject. "So um, how's Sofia?" I asked, hoping this was a good enough topic to change the subject to.
"Sofia and I broke up Harry," Liam told me with a sad smile, causing my lips to part in surprise.
"Shit man, I'm sorry," I apologized sincerely, causing him to shake his head.
"No need for that. I'm fine."
"Do you mind if I ask why?" I arched a brow at him, making him shake his head at me. "What happened?"
"I proposed to her and she said yes. I felt like the happiest man in the world, Harry, seriously. I loved her so much. But the problem was, I didn't ask for permission from her father. I didn't even know I had to. So when we told her family we were gonna get married, they went ballistic. They never liked me from the start, but I didn't think they actually hated me! I never even did anything to them!" Liam explained.
"They're a bag of dicks, Liam. I'm sorry," I told him sympathetically.
"It's okay. Sophia was outraged by their reaction as much as I was. She told them she was gonna marry me, and her father just wouldn't let it happen. Said he'd disown her. Family meant the world to Sophia, so she ended up listening to her dad. She broke up with me for God knows why," Liam finished explaining with a huff.
"Man, that sucks," I commented, grasping his shoulder and squeezing it gently.
"It does. I really loved her," he said sadly.
"Do you still love her?"
"I feel like my love for her is dissipating as each day passes by," he told me briefly, making me nod.
"This probably won't make you feel any better, but I would've been honored to be your best man, Li" I told him honestly, making him smile warmly at me.
"Thanks mate, I really appreciate it. Oh hey! Remember when-" he began excitedly with a big smile, before he stopped himself shortly, his smile disappearing and his cheerful expression dying quickly.
'When what?" I questioned in confusion, before it slightly dawned upon me as I remembered the conversation Liam and I had about love ages ago.
"Liam, you know I hate weddings," I gave him a serious look.
"Who knows? Maybe you'll get married one day," Liam retorted, while I focused my blank gaze on him, then I burst out laughing.
"The day I get married, pigs will fly. No, scratch that. The day I fall in love, is the day it snows in summer," I snorted, shaking my head at the ridiculous idea of falling in love with someone.
"I remember," I nodded to myself, my eyes flickering to him. "Ironic. About the falling in love part, not the getting married one though."
Liam simply gazed at me silently with his big brown eyes, a look of sympathy plastered on his face. I looked away down at my feet, feeling the awkward tension rise in the room before somebody barged into Liam's office.
"Harry!" It was Seth. His brown eyes were wide with anxiousness, as he took a few steps towards me and parted his lips to speak. "It's about Scarlett's body. Vlad received news on it."
The emotions I felt as Seth and I marched to the conference room, were hard to describe. They weren't really happy, relieved I guess as to the fact that they finally found her body so now she can have a proper burial. But just by looking at how anxious Seth was right now, I had a feeling the news about Scarlett's body wasn't exactly good news.
"Harry? What are you doing here?" Vlad said in surprise, moving away from the hologram of Ford's ally from Norway who was apparently on some sort of Skype call with Vlad.
"What's the news on Scarlett's body?" I questioned immediately, my face hardening as Vlad shot Seth a glare, which had me confused. "Were you not going to tell me?" I demanded.
"Of course we were, Harry. It's just that the news isn't really pleasant, so we were trying to figure out how to tell you," Absalon, Ford's ally spoke in his thick Norwegian accent.
"Well, what is it?" I inquired sharply, eyes darting back and forth between Absalon and Vlad expectantly.
"We found her body...in pieces," Absalon said in an impassive tone.
"What?" I whispered. "H-How?"
"We searched the river again a few days ago and found body parts. The way we identified the body parts belonged to Scarlett was that there was a detached arm with a tattoo of the symbol of The Organization on it," Absalon explained placidly.
"But how could her body just be separated into different parts like that? A fall from a cliff can't dismember body parts!" I questioned, throwing my hands up in exasperation.
"We performed an examination on the body to find out the cause of its dismemberment, and we found bite marks. It seemed like the body was almost ripped apart-"
"By what? Take your time, really, it's not like I have work to do," I snapped sarcastically, causing Vlad to whack the back of my head.
"Harry! Pay some respect to the man! He found her body after all," Vlad scolded, as I rolled my eyes.
"Yeah, parts of it."
"Only because she was attacked by bull sharks. That river down by the cliff has a community of bull sharks living there. We found out that the body parts have been buried underneath a layer of sand," Absalon continued, ignoring my sudden urge to be rude and sarcastic.
"How could your men have not found these body parts before?" I asked with an arch of a brow.
"For that, I have no excuse. I made sure my best men went looking around in the river. They must've not checked certain areas under the cliff. I apologize for that, Harry. But don't you feel more at rest now that you know for sure?" Absalon asked me, his pale blue eyes gazing at me attentively.
"Yeah, totally I feel so much better now, knowing that she fell off a big-ass cliff and got ripped apart by fucking sharks!" I exclaimed, sarcasm dripping from my voice as I glared at the man angrily.
"Son, must you always be so sarcastic?" he sighed sadly, gazing at me with pitiful eyes.
"I apologize for his rude behavior, he's still grieving for her," Vlad spoke humbly to Absalon, who nodded curtly at him.
"I understand. Would you like the body parts to be cremated and sent over to you, Harry?" he asked me. I simply nodded, looking away now.
"Wait,' I spoke up again, swallowing thickly as I locked gazes with Absalon. "Did you find her head?" He sighed sadly, and nodded.
"We did, but the flesh has been ripped off so the face was unidentifiable. But some of the hair remained, long brown hair," he told me, and I nodded solemnly, his words basically confirming her death for me.
"Thank you," I murmured lowly before turning around and walking away.
"Okay, well then take care, both of you," he began to say goodbye, just as I began to leave the room. "And Harry?" he continued, making me stop in my tracks.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
I scoffed lightly under my breath, still not looking back at the pale man with the thick Norwegian accent.
"Jeg også, Absalon"
Me too, Absalon
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-hope that Norwegian there is correct otherwise this is EMBARRASSING 😭😂
💀Okay so, many people have been asking questions about Scarlett during the last chapter and I apologize if this chapter hasn't really answered your question or has left you kind of confused. All I ask is for you guys to be patient and really wait and see how the story will unfold. Please don't ask me about when Scarlett will come back and etc because I don't want to answer that. I wanna surprise y'all, you know me with my cliffhangers and plot twists😝
💀What happened in this chapter may make it seem like Scarlett is really dead but just remember what I said during Kill & Run after the last chapter ;)))) everything will be revealed at some point so just be patient y'all🙏🏽
💀I'm sorry all these chapters have been really sad and emotional, and not much has been happening. I just really wanted to emphasize the impact of Scarlett's death on Harry and the other characters. This will continue to go on for six or seven more chapters so hold on! Once Jade's support group idea starts, there will be different povs that will hopefully make things a bit more interesting.
💀But yeah after six or seven more chapters Valkyrie will encounter the new secret organization trying to overthrow them, and everything will get WAY more interesting from then on.
💖 I love you all to death, you guys were patient when it came to waiting for the sequel so I hope you'll be patient waiting for all the plot twists and secrets to be revealed in this book😉😉🙃🙃😛😛
Until we meet again...
t.m.