"Wait, what?"
Reece grips my wrist and yanks me up, pulling me away by force.
I turn around and look at all the people as I'm being pulled away.
The ones before me.
I watch as Dani grabs onto a few people and runs towards a door.
I watch as the blonde girl who was eating a donut covers her mouth and attempts to hide in the bathrooms.
People running all around. All running away from one little spot.
So I look to that little spot.
And I see him.
Zac.
Fear builds in my stomach for some reason. He looks around, laughing as he pulls something out of his jeans.
Zac's eyes don't crinkle. They look dead almost. Glazed over.
Then I see what he pulled out of his jeans.
A gun.
A sob catches in my throat and as if he can hear me, his head snaps my way.
A sneer forms on his face as he raises the gun. Not towards me.
I look at where he's pointing the gun. A guy with black hair is staring in shock.
I can tell he's shaking from here.
I want to yell at him to run, to get out of there.
He doesn't break eye contact with me. Not once.
He doesn't break eye contact even as he pulls the trigger.
Bang.
The guy falls to the floor.
New target.
A brunette with glasses that look similar to mine.
Bang.
She falls to the ground.
New target.
Me.
The gun is pointing at me.
Tears stream down my face as he laughs. He laughs and laughs.
Then I fall through the wall and onto the sidewalk.
I cover my mouth as I look at the warehouse.
The warehouse wall stands before me and I slowly stand up, pressing my hand against the wall.
The people in there.
Do they have weapons?
Can't they hurt him?
Can they defend themselves?
Hannah is bending over in the grass, gagging. I think she's throwing up.
I can hear her from here.
Reece is behind me.
I stand up and start walking. I don't know where I'm going. I just have to get out of here.
"Athena, where are you going?" Reece calls after me but I don't look at him.
I can hear Hannah sobbing in the background.
I can hear Reece running after me.
A hand grips my arm and I scream, yanking my arm away from him.
"Stay away from me!" I shout, the tears flowing down my face.
Reece is pale as a sheet. "Athena-"
"They...I watched him. I watched him kill them. Are you like him? Are you special like him?" I spit at him.
"I am nothing like him." Reece says, as he balls his hands into fists.
"Yeah, and I'm supposed to trust you? I barely know you." I say, disgusted.
"Who else are you going to trust then, Athena. I understand what you're-"
I laugh bitterly. "Oh, don't even act like you know what I'm going through. You have no idea-"
"Shut up!" He shouts. "I know exactly what you're going through! I was in the exact same place as you three years ago!"
I close my mouth, staring at him with wide eyes.
Reece rubs his hands over his face. "I know exactly what you're going through." He mutters.
I stare at him, rendered speechless.
"I know how hard it is, Athena. I've seen him do that so many times. And I've tried doing things to stop him. Nothing works. He has too much power. I'm sorry but I had to take you there. And it may seem sick and twisted but you needed to see that. You need to know that this isn't some game." He rubs his hands over his face again.
"You never get used to it. You never will. Hannah's been seeing that way longer than I have and every single time, she sits there and throws up."
I inhale shakily, my hands curled into fists.
"Then why aren't you throwing up? Why aren't you crying?" I ask, bitter once again. "Those people...are they dead?"
I know what the answers going to be.
"No. Yes. Sort of. They..." He trails off and shakes his head. "I think you need some time to digest this-"
"If you don't explain." I say, my voice cracking. "I will do the thing you do at the end of this story every single time because you're miserable. And I'm miserable right now and you need to tell me or I'll do it."
Reece's eyes widen and he shakes his head. "They use them. They use their bodies. They make them into students in the background. And if they need them...they make them into protagonists."
I freeze. "What kind of protagonists?"
"The ones who change." He says.
"How?" I ask. "They're not God, Reece. They can't just make people."
He tugs at his hair. "I don't know how they do it."
"And you? You were..."
"I was 17. It was a stupid book. It was at a highschool. They had protagonists and antagonists just like they do here. I got suspicious. Hannah told me everything. We both payed the price." Reece says, vaguely.
"What do you mean by price?" I ask.
"Three years later, we're both here. Hannah was supposed to end it. The whole changing thing. Her mom was going to fix her. But after her mom heard Hannah told me, she made it longer." He says.
"Made what longer?" I ask, my head starting to seriously hurt.
"How long we have to stay here." Reece says.
"There's a way to get out?" I ask hopefully.
He turns around and sees Hannah sitting on the grass with her head on her knees.
"No. I know there isn't. They won't let us leave. But she believes they will." He says, looking back at me.
"Zac?" I ask slowly, fear slowly creeping into me again.
"He twisted the system. He was before me and I don't know how he did it but he made the authors basically let him do whatever he wants. Being here made him crazy. Insane. Mental."
"And you. How are you like him?" I ask.
"I know too much. They can't control me. They can only control the people that only know a little or none at all."
"So how do they control Hannah then?" I ask.
"They don't. They made Hannah change into Harper when she was much younger. After a while, Harper was a part of her. The authors don't control Hannah. Harper does." He says.
"So, Harper chooses when she comes out?" I ask.
"Yes. And Harper chooses when she goes back in. They have a twisted system."
"And all those people in there?" I ask.
"They got stuck."
I breathe in deeply and rub my dry lips together.
"So, you're telling me that I'm stuck." I say.
Reece stays silent as he looks at the grass.
"I'm stuck in a cliché love story."
°•°•°•°
Hannah's curled in the backseat of Reece's car, asleep.
"She likes Logan." I murmur.
Reece stiffens. "I know. I don't know, I feel sort of like I'm supposed to protect her. And she can never be with Logan. She'll just hurt herself more." Reece says.
"I can't imagine. She wants to be with him so bad. But a girl that doesn't even like him is standing in the way. That must feel..."
I look over at Reece and see that he's staring intensely at the steering wheel again.
"Terrible." He finishes for me.
"Can you tell me about the brainwashed protagonists?" I ask.
Reece shifts in his seat. "They take them from the real world. Basically kidnap them. Then they brainwash them and make them believe that they're character after character. It's the same for the one's who change except it's worse." He says.
"Are you going to get in trouble?" I ask.
"Athena, Athena. Don't you know you've already gotten me in lots of trouble?"
I scoff. "How?"
"Anytime I interact with you, I get in trouble." He says.
"Then why do you keep interacting with me?" I ask, my hopes rising a little bit.
He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. "Sometimes when I'm around you, I forget about how much I want to die."
Damn.
That was like a punch to the gut. A good punch to the gut in a way.
If I just hang out with him more, maybe I can convince him not to kill himself.
He pulls over and I internally groan when I realize we're back at my fake house.
"Who is she?" I ask.
"Who is who?"
"My FM."
He snorts at the fact that I call her FM. "She's just like this world. Fake. She's not a real person."
"What about your family?" I ask, looking over at him as a dark mood falls over the car.
"I haven't seen my family in three years."
I gulp. And I think it's bad not being with my mom for...
How long has it even been?
"How long has it been since I got here?" I ask.
"Two weeks." He says.
My eyes widen. "It's literally felt like four or five days."
He shrugs. "Time flies here. When you think it's going fast, it's going slow. When you think it's going slow, it's actually going fast."
"Why? What's the point of that?" I ask.
He shrugs. "How many times in books have they jumped a couple of days."
"Good point." I say.
Silence settles over the car. It's hard to wrap my brain around all of it. The whole...everything. Everything.
Let's just say, I have a lot of notes to write tonight.
I'm not sure what makes me want to break the silence but I open my mouth just as he does.
"Are you going to get out?"
"Why can't you kiss me?"
Both questions are asked at the same time which makes it even more awkward.
He's silent as he turns his body to look at me and taps a finger on his head.
The awkwardness only intensifies. He's looking at me with that look. That look where...I can't even explain it.
He looks angry but he also just looks like he's thinking.
"Because you're not supposed to kiss the creepy antagonist." Reece finally says.
I almost laugh thinking about that. It feels so long ago. But then I remember this is a semi serious topic.
"But...you're not creepy and you're not the antagonist." I protest.
"But I'm supposed to be."
"But you're not to me."
"That doesn't matter."
"Yes it does."
"No. It doesn't. You don't get a choice in all this, Athena. You can't kiss-"
I don't know why I did it.
It's probably because he told me I couldn't.
°•°•°•°
A/N
°•°•°•°
SO MUCH HAPPENED IN THIS CHAPTER OH MY LORD
Em Tayah