Chapter 7
"There is going to be a riot," an officer leans in the doorway, talking to Hope and Erik. "Are you alright?"
Erik pulls himself off the ground, not answering the man. Though his heart flutters in his chest, he tries to keep his cool. He runs a hand through his thin blonde hair, only messing it up further. From her spot on the windowsill, Hope imagines that every novelist who writes about bad boys pictures him. A teen with tousled hair, a scowl, but uncertainty in his steps.
"Can you bring Miss Thomas home?" The officer asks.
Erik finally nods to the man.
The man escapes the room.
While Hope begins to bundle up, she tries to imagine herself as the sweet and shy girl who falls in love with Erik. She would wrap her hands around his tight leather jacket while he rips down the street on a loud motorcycle. They would lie in the grass together in a park while she reads him Wuthering Heights. It may be picture-perfect, but it is wrong, for reasons she hates to try and justify.
For the same reason that, at first, she thought the butterflies in her stomach came from seeing the girl with the dog, and not from a supernatural presence.
Erik taps his foot while he waits for Hope to be ready to go. When she puts on her scarf, he finally recognizes her. He can't decide if she is a weirdo who remembers him but hasn't mentioned it, or she doesn't recognize him because the scarf interfered with her vision that night.
Hope casts one last look out the window. Next to Thea's sister, she sees Eden.
~~~
Eden spots Cara in the crowd. As the people around him begin to shout at the mayor, asking inaudible questions which certainly no answers have, Eden struggles his way over to her. He casts a glance behind him at Keisha, who stands yelling at the bureaucrats on the city steps.
He can't hear what Cara is saying to the other three who accompanied her here last night. Though Cara doesn't like to raise her voice, in fact she struggles to do so often, she talks loudly so the others can hear her over the crowd.
"I want to hear what the mayor says next," Cara tells the others. "I'm not coming. Besides, if Thea's missing, I'm keeping my head down."
June nods at her. Before Wesley or Jamie can object, she begins to corral them away. After ducking through the crowd, the three unsuccessfully escape. June wonders if her brother felt relaxed in large groups, where at any second, people could begin rioting. He seemed stronger than she could ever hope to be.
"What's our plan?" Jamie asks, looking around. He would suggest the group goes back to his apartment but instead decides that he doesn't want to be in a space where Kyle should be but isn't. He gets nervous when June studies his face for a second. Though he knows he could use a few friends that aren't his brother and Kyle, Jamie can't help the tension building in his shoulders.
Wes, June, and Jamie all look at each other.
"Do you think anything has opened yet?" Wesley asks the group, trying to figure out where to go.
Eventually, Jamie stops. He turns through an alleyway, and the others follow after him.
"Where are you going?" Wesley thinks he has had enough surprises for a lifetime. Whatever Jamie is hiding, Wesley does not want to see. Well, he can barely see anyway. You know, now he is regretting leaving his contacts at home.
Jamie takes out his ring of keys, unlocking the door into the back of his café. In the doorway, he flicks on the lights. "I was supposed to work the opening shift today. My boss is lazy but nice. I doubt he'll come to check up on us."
"And if he does?" Wes moves in the room, scanning it. The back area is a storage area. It's nothing special; he is used to a kitchen from the diner. He and June follow Jamie into the kitchen, and then into the front of the café. The pair pick a by the drawn blinds.
The place is soft and quaint, and June wishes she were the kind of person who could blend in here. All the furniture is warm brown. The menu is written above the counter on the back wall on chalk signs. The mugs are very wide and incredibly deep, and they are stacked on top of a glass display of muffins waiting to be heated. Everything here is calm, and her bright red hair sticks out like a sore thumb.
Wes is oblivious to his surroundings because he can't stop staring at the way the light hits Jamie's face. Each golden line, parallel to one another, splices his warm skin. Wes wishes it wasn't such a fuzzy mess. Although, the world is beautiful out of focus. Now, he only has to pick up on the idea of things, rather than their harsh reality.
"I saw Hope in the city hall," June tells the others.
"She's probably some pig's daughter. It would explain why she is so sheltered," Wes jokes, though he doesn't smile.
Jamie gulps. "Do you think she'll say anything to her Dad?" He isn't the biggest fan of Wes's harsh tone, but the idea brings his panic. Although, what exactly does he have to worry about? They should have just gone to the police last night. If Jamie hadn't been so sick, he would have spoken up.
"Or Mom," June corrects. She only offers Jamie a shrug.
"I doubt she'd say anything," Wes offers, trying to reassure Jamie. He has never been good at being kind, but he tries anyway. "She probably didn't have permission to be out so late. I doubt she is even 20."
"I'm 18," June crosses her arm, gently kicking Wes under the bench. She tries to analysis his reaction, tries to guess his age.
"That's not important," Jamie cuts her off. Wes wonders how old the boy next to him is. After all, Wes only just turned 22, and he is still living with his parents. Jamie is out alone in the world. "A girl is missing, and we didn't do anything to help her."
June sighs, slowly. After her brother died, it was a technique she learned from a therapist. She counts to ten, before slowly speaking. "What could we have done?"
~~~
Eden finally reaches Cara. People are bustling about, some charging the stairs at the mayor, while others are trying to escape the mass of angry townspeople. As she is about to slip away, Eden grabs Cara's arm. She turns around, shock spread across her face at the mere sight of a stranger she thought might be lost forever.
Eden pulls away, casting a glance around him. He doubts anyone is paying attention to him, but he worries in the back of his mind that one of his football buddies is somewhere in this mess, instead of hungover at a frat house.
"You didn't find her?" Cara asks, hushing her voice. Now, she lets herself begin to worry. Apparently, Thea did not go home to find her sister, as she had expected. Hopefully, she isn't lying in some ditch along with Kyle.
Eden shakes his head back and forth. "I combed the park, all the way to the swamp."
That's where she is, Cara decides. Obviously, the force from the blast was stronger closer to the centre. It must have been strong enough to blow her into the water. The joy of the explanation quickly fades, when Cara realizes its ramifications.
Thea's body must have been in the bottom of a swamp. Her sister, just a few feet away, has no idea. Cara's heartstrings tug when she imagines her brother trapped in the bottom of a pond with no way to ever find him.
"We should tell her," Cara gestures to Keisha over Eden's shoulder. "I would want to know."
Eden nods slowly. He knows Keisha. He knows her explosive temper and her tight fists and her loud voice echoing through the small apartment the two sisters live in. Despite all their fights, Eden is sure that Thea mattered to Keisha, the same way he knows that his siblings matter to him. "Yeah, we should."
Neither of them moves. Cara can't bear the idea of approaching the stranger. Not only because she doesn't know how to tell a woman that her sister's body has sunk into murky waters, but because she can't explain how she knows nor how it happened. Thea was walking home drunk and fell in? How could you fall into a swamp? It would be like drowning on the shore of an ocean or falling to your death off your bed.
"I'll do it," Eden tries to save Cara, but he presses his lips together afterwards. He is lying through his teeth, and he hopes she doesn't notice. "I knew Thea, before yesterday anyway. I'll explain that I was with her last night or something."
Cara nods, trying to focus on the conversation. However, she becomes distracted when she sees Percy darting through the crowd.
~~~
Having had enough of this morning, the girl has decided to go back home. Now that the power is back on, her only grievance has been solved. She's sure it will be the buzz of town tomorrow exactly what IT guy touched which breaker to bring the electricity back, so she doesn't bother sticking around to find out. Her dog must be going nuts back home, and she is starving.
With the townspeople a decent distance behind her, Percy begins her walk. Though she feels like she is in a hurry, she decides to calm down before getting home. Hades does not need any more stress in his life.
So, she goes the long way to the apartment complex, through the park.
"What are you doing here?" Percy hears a girl ask. She turns around, unhappy to find Lee a few steps behind her.
"Can't I just walk home?" Percy rolls her eyes.
Lee raises her hands in defence. If she had known Percy would be so snappy, she might not have ditched her brother in the crowd. Alas, he had found Sam. "Who shat in your cereal this morning?"
Percy ignores Lee. She would ask the girl to stop following her if she didn't get the feeling she too was walking home. Percy wishes that she had known Lee would come this way because she would have just raced home. Arguing with a stranger isn't exactly going to help her calm down, is it?
Though she considers asking Percy her name, Lee ultimately decides that that would be a bad idea. The girl seems pissy enough already without stoking the fire.
"How do you think the power came back?" Lee asks, leaning in closer to Percy.
The other girl shrugs. "Some computer nerd flipped the right switch? Why are you asking me like I know?"
Lee pulls her phone out of her pocket, flipping it in the air once before it lands in her hand. Percy isn't surprised she is so reckless; the phone looks older than Hades. Lee presses the power button on the side, and the screen lights up.
"Flipping a switch doesn't fix batteries," Lee offers, regurgitating the words her brother had said before she escaped.
Percy just shrugs. Her eyes are unblinking when she stops on the path to stare at Lee. She makes sure no one is coming behind them when she speaks. "What do you want me to say? Magic?"
Lee doesn't respond. Maybe she does want Percy to proclaim it is the supernatural. At this point, she can't imagine anything that would be a better explanation. However, Lee bets that Percy does not want to contend with the unknown. Instead, she keeps walking, deciding now to cut through the forest as she normally does.
Reluctantly, Percy follows her. Her calming walk has already been ruined, and Percy is just itching for an excuse to explode. Eventually, she makes herself speak. "It was probably some meteorological phenomenon that has been aggravated by global warming."
"Then what made everything work again?" Lee demands.
Percy feels herself tightening her fists at her sides. Why does this girl have to be so contrarian? Percy chooses to ignore the fact that the sole way to discover something is to ask. "Well, what do you think it is then?"
"It could be a weapon," Lee suggests, finally happy that Cassian's crazy conspiracy theories are actually paying off. "The US government might be doing some tests."
"Please," Percy rolls her eyes. She steps carefully over a root on the ground. The outdoors has never bothered her exactly, but she has never enjoyed plants. "They would've done it on some black town or something, where nobody would've noticed."
Lee shrugs, deciding that it is probably not her place to chime in on the treatment of people of colour in her country. Although, Percy does have a point. Lee doesn't mention it could be a foreign plot, simply because that sounds too crazy. The past twenty-four hours have been too much, and she is so tired. At least they are almost out of the woods and in the park.
Percy feels something drip on her head. She stops, wiping it off and looking up above her. Her heart begins pounding, and she leans her back into a tree as she stares up, eyes wide.
Lee follows her gaze. Stuck in the branches of the tree above them, maybe twenty feet in the air, is Thea. Her body is bleeding, the blood dripping down where Percy stood.
"Oh my God," Percy finally manages to speak. Her mouth is dry.
Lee feels dizzy. She fumbles with her phone, trying to call the police. It falls on to the ground, hidden beneath the overgrown grass.
"What happened after I left?" Percy asks, looking over at Lee.
"I don't..." Lee trails off, trying to remember if she had seen Thea after the blast. Everything is fuzzy. She bends over to grab her phone, her muscles spasming as she leans.
Even though it seems crazy, Percy decides the blast must have sent Thea flying in the air. No one could have put her there, she doubts. Maybe the group did, but why? Was anyone else seriously injured last night? From down here, she can't tell if the stranger above her is alive. She tries to see if she is breathing, but it feels impossible. Even if she can't tear her eyes away, she can only make out Thea's blood and her greyish skin.
Lee finally grabs the phone, pulling it up to her ear. Percy doesn't notice until she hears Lee's voice shake.
"We've found a body."