The pact

Vic’s POV
I hate hospitals. I hate them. I guess I’m not the only one, but still. People always go to hospitals for bad news. Whether they are the victim or they now someone who is diseased or wounded. I guess the only reason to be happy to be in the hospital is if you’re expecting a baby. And not even those people were always happy to be there.
But despite my hate for hospitals I was still walking the white halls which were decorated with paintings and plants. They weren’t of much use. The horrible ambiance of dying and sick people couldn’t be erased by ‘decorating’ the halls.
When we were walking, we were quiet. No one said anything. Every single one of us knew that the incident on school was never supposed to happen. They won with this one. I think deep inside we felt guilty of starting this and going on with it, deflecting so much pain on others.
Especially me. I was so consumed by my hatred towards that guy, that I didn’t see what he was up to. Or maybe I did, but I just didn’t care at that moment. I just wanted my revenge. I wanted to feel better by giving the person that gave me this pain what he deserved.
But it didn’t make me feel better, because in the end, I still didn’t have her back. The girl I had fallen head over heels for. One of the people on earth I loved the most. And I have never been able to tell her. Now, I regret not telling her I loved her before, because I might never see her again.
I start to feel tears come up, but luckily for me, we just arrived at the room we needed to be. I saw Mike, who was walking in front, take a breath and knock on the door.
“Come in!” Jaime’s voice sounded from the other side of the door. I was preparing myself for how he might look. Seeing Mike, Leah, Tony and Casey with bruises and scratches all over was bad enough. I was expecting Jaime to look worse, because he ended up in the hospital. We had no clue of what had happened to him. After the fights at school I had picked up Mike from the police station with my mom and Casey. After that my mom hadn’t allowed us to go see Jaime or anyone else for that matter. Not that it was visiting hour anyway, but still. Now it was the day after and I actually didn’t really wanted to know how he was doing, just in case it would be bad. He could be having those weird tubes in his nose or his face could be unrecognisable. Well, at least the fact that he was talking told us that he was conscious.
Mike opened the door and we all walked in, a little bit afraid to look. Jaime was laying on the bed, smiling at us with his familiar goofy smile. He looked bad, but not as bad as I expected him to look like. He had a small, but deep cut in his lip which was kept together by stitches, under his hospital gown several bruises were visible and he had a black eye. The worst thing was his left arm, which was covered in a white casket that reached until his upper arm.
“Hey Jaime, how are you?” Leah asked as she walked over to stand next to his bed. It seemed like a stupid question. Of course he wasn’t alright, but I knew someone had to ask, because that was how social manners work in this society.
“I’m hanging in there.” Jaime said. “Do you get it? I’m ‘hanging’ in there?” he raised his casket which was hanging on to his neck by a sling.
Everybody laughed, despite the situation we were in. Which felt unnatural, but not bad.
“Have you stayed here tonight?” Tony asked and we all started to gather around the bed.
“Yeah. They had to put these silver pins into my arm and when that operation was over they said it would be better for me to stay here. It was very late already.” Jaime explained.
“Jeez Himes.” Mike said, crashing down on the only chair next to the bed.
“How did you even end up with a broken arm?” I asked. I hadn’t seen him the whole fight, so he must’ve been fighting somewhere else in the school.
I flash of fear rushed through his eyes as he spoke. “I was pushed off the stairs on the first floor by that Ricardo guy. You know that senior that dated a lot of freshmen?”
“Ricardophile?” Mike asked, although it was more of a statement than a question. Everyone knew this guy, he always flirted with freshman girls and tried to take their virginity and shit. So everyone called him Ricardophile. You know, Ricardo and Paedophile combined?
“Yeah that one.” Jaime said. “It could’ve been worse, though. The doctors said that if I had fallen any different I could’ve broken my back or even my neck.”
“You could’ve died.” Casey stated, her eyes going big. A flash of pain went through her face as she did that, because there were still deep cuts in her eyebrows.
Jaime looked up to her. “But I’m alive and that’s what matters.” He said smiling and Casey smiled back at him.
“So how are you guys doing?” he asked to break the short silence that followed.
“We’re hanging in there.” Tony joked and rolled his eyes.
“Hey! That’s my joke!” Jaime said fake angry.
“We’re alright, Jaime. Don’t worry about us.” Leah said laughing.
“Okay, but I do have a question. When I was taken into the ambulance, I saw that there were also police cars.” Jaime said, speaking to all of us. “Who was arrested?”
Everyone slowly turned their heads towards Mike, who looked grumpy as hell. Jaime looked to all of our faces and busted out in laughter, the cut in his lips slightly stretching. “No fucking way.” he said, still laughing. And that stretched on for another for a long while. Every time we thought he was able to stop laughing he looked back at Mike and busted out in laughing again. It was hilarious so the others soon couldn’t hold their laugh either, while Mike was just looking grumpy with his arms crossed. Although, I saw the corners of his lips shake a few times, I guess he was trying to hold his laughter too.
After a while Jaime had finally been able to stop laughing and wiped a tear away from his cheek with his right arm. “oh wow, what the fuck did you do this time?” he asked, still a little giggly.
Mike uncrossed his arms and said up a little straighter in his chair. “I slammed Max’ head against the lockers.” He said, his voice mixed with both pride and fear.
“damn.” Jaime said. We all knew it wasn’t a thing to be proud of, but it seemed easier to just pretend it was. Although, a lot of these bastards did deserve it. I take it back, they kidnapped my girlfriend, the deserved to have their head smashed against the lockers. I hoped he had a concussion.
“And anyone else?” Jaime asked curious. “who else was arrested?”
“Who do you think?” Tony said, his voice sounding both sad and angry. He looked to his feet with an intense look. “All people that were arrested were of our group. No one of Ryan’s group was arrested. They all got special treatments by sheriff Harris.”
Jaime sighed and stared away in space. This had made me very angry too, but it was to be expected. It was how it has always been. The popular kids could do to the less popular kids whatever they wanted to, inside and outside school, because Ryan’s dad did everything Ryan wanted to. Talking about spoiled kids. Maybe that was why he had turned out this way.
After a small silence, Jaime broke it. “Has she already been found?” He spoke softly, but his words still stabbed like knifes. I had got distracted from missing her for a while, but that was the hard part. Every time you forget about your pain, it blows up in your face whenever it slips into your mind again.
No one moved, except for Leah who slowly shook her head. “No. They just showed the picture, but no one has any idea where they could be holding her.”
I saw every face in the room turn incredibly pale after her words, including mine. No one wanted to say it out loud, but I knew that we were all thinking the same. If they were able to do such things as the incidents at school, they would definitely be capable of doing horrible things to her. I got a little sick inside.
Tony, who was standing next to me, had noticed. He patted my back. “Are you okay, Vic?” he asked his eyes filled with worry. I had to try really hard not to crash down.
I shook my head, pressing my lips on each other, knowing that if I’d say anything, I’d break down. I had the feeling I had to stay strong for her. Because no matter how bad I felt, she surely felt worse.
“It’s going to be okay, Vic.” Mike said from his chair on the other side of the bed. “We’ll let these asshole pay and we will find you girlfriend.”
“HOLD THE FUCK UP!” Casey suddenly yelled out and the rest of us jumped scared. We all looked at her with a confused look.
She didn’t even seemed to be embarrassed. “You guys are actually together?!” Casey shouted out, both confused and excited. At first I thought it would obvious for her to know, but then I realized that Casey and Luna must’ve stopped talking to each other before we got together.
I nodded my head and felt a bit better because of Casey’s confusion and enthusiasm, which was hilarious. Her mouth fell open and she just stared at me like that.
“You didn’t know that?” Mike asked, his tone still confused.
Casey looked over to him with a stone cold look. “Before Vic called, I hadn’t had a call from anyone out of America for a very long time.” She said and I couldn’t help but think that there was a double meaning to her statement. I wasn’t the only one, because I saw Jaime and tony exchange looks and a flash of hurt was visible in Mike’s eyes.
At first I thought he was going to say something about it, by the way he opened his mouth, but then he closed it. “Well, they got together a few days after Luna’s birthday.” Leah said eventually when it was obvious Mike wasn’t going to say anything.
The enthusiasm returned to Casey’s face as a wide grin covered her face. “How the fuck did you do that?” she asked me.
I raised an eyebrow. “Well, I asked her…” I said softly, not entirely knowing what she meant.
She rolled her eyes. “obviously. But I mean how did you get her to say yes” She said. “You got yourself a relationship with a girl with the worst commitment issues I have ever seen.”
I thought about the day we got together. I never realized how lucky I was to have her. She even asked me to ask her. I was so lucky to be able to love someone who loved me back.
But maybe that would be taken away soon…
“Yeah, I know.” I said, trying to hide the pain in my voice as much as possible. “I’m very lucky. Well, until she was kidnapped…”
Casey smiled a reassuring smile and started walking towards me. She put her hands on my shoulders and looked me deep in the eyes. “If you want to find her, you can.” She said.
I nodded, hoping that she wouldn’t hug me, because I would definitely cry if she’d did that. Why was it that people always cried when they felt sad and got a hug. Maybe out of relieve? I guess it was the feeling of finally having someone being there for you when you’ve been holding in things that long.
“You really love her, don’t you?” She asked and she let go of my shoulders.
I nodded again. “Yeah. She used to be everything I had. And now she just means everything to me.” I said softly. I don’t even know why I had said that out loud. It was something about Casey’s aura that was soothing and comfortable. Something that made me trust her.
“Well that’s not weird.” She said. “You know Spanish, right? What does Luna mean in Spanish?”
I didn’t really understand where she was going to, but I played along. “Moon. It means moon.”
Casey nodded. “Exactly. You needed a light in the darkness. And then the moon arrived in San Diego. And she gave you stars.” She said and she gestured towards all of my friends surrounding the bed. For some reason these words made me feel determined to find her again. I didn’t know how Casey did these kind of things, but she was good at it.
“Well, let’s go find this moon then.” Jaime suddenly said. “Huge, white, shining balls are normally not that hard to find.”
I sighed. “You can’t go, Jaime.”
“Oh, I will be released in a few hours.” He said. “the doctor told me.” A huge grin visible on his face.
I chuckled. “Okay, let’s find this moon then.” I said.

Leah’s POV
After we had left the hospital we had started searching immediately. I searched together with Tony, Vic with Casey and Jaime with Mike. Again, we didn’t really knew where to start searching. We had spoken about where she could be in the hospital, but no one really seemed to have a clue. So we just started to wander the city again.
I felt like I was missing something. There was something I was overlooking. I had no idea if the rest had this feeling to, but I felt like the clues were literally in front of me, but I just looked right through them.
Ever since Luna had disappeared I had been trying so hard to think of it. I really just wanted to know where she was. I just wanted to find her.
This group had made me feel like I finally belonged somewhere, and I didn’t want to lose any member of it. Before I had met Luna I didn’t have real friends, I had actually hopped between groups, not really belonging anywhere.
But after Luna’s birthday everything had changed for me. I finally had a click with people. They made me feel like I belonged with them and I had never experienced that. I had never told them, but they took away the lonely feeling I had had since the beginning of high school. Although I didn’t know them for long, they meant a lot to me.
Of course the searching had been for nothing. When it had become midnight, Vic had suggested we should all go home. He said something about his parents shouting at him for being home late all these nights. To be honest, my dad didn’t really like it either. But I tried to text him as much as possible, so he would know I was safe and because of that he didn’t mind me coming home late. I knew he was worried about me, definitely after my mom’s death last year, but he was letting me go anyway and I was grateful for that.
That made it worse for me too, by the way. The fact that I had lost my mother made Luna’s disappearance more painful for me. I just couldn’t lose someone else. I just couldn’t cope with that.
I looked at the glow in the dark stars I had glued on my ceiling when I was eight. I was laying with the covers over my body, but I didn’t really attempt to sleep. The fact that I almost knew where to search for Luna was still torturing me and I wasn’t going to give up before I had it. I had been having really little sleep lately anyways. It didn’t matter anymore.
“Think, Leah. Think.” I said, clenching my eyes closed like I always used to do as a child when I needed to remember something. But nothing came. I sighed, threw away the covers from my body and sat down at the edge of my bed. What the hell was I missing?
I dragged my fingers through my hair, pulling them a little. I knew I wouldn’t think of it soon, but I also couldn’t go back to sleep like this. My mind was simply too busy right now.
I stood up from the bed, walked over to my closet and inspected the books. I didn’t really feel like I would be able to read something heavy now, so I took out last year’s yearbook. There was something incredibly relaxing and funny about looking at the horrible pictures of my fellow students. Every year I had blacked out my own picture with a marker. It seemed like they were getting worse every year. I just wasn’t good on camera I guess. In school I was known for the girl with the ugly school pictures. I didn’t mind though. It was kind of hilarious.
I sat down at my bed and turned on the lights. I flipped through the pages, but I couldn’t even fully focus on something as simple as a yearbook. I looked at the pictures and little text’s, but I wasn’t not really paying attention to them until I reached the page of the chess club.
Suddenly it hit me. I looked at the picture of the acne covered members, focusing on one of them. Suzy White. Her red hair and black glasses made me suddenly realize what clue I was missing.
Because I had changed groups a lot, I actually talked to everyone at school. Suzy was a girl who belonged with the nerds. She had been new here this year, but when you enter the school with glasses, acne and grandma sweaters, you’d be doomed to be put in the nerd group. She wasn’t really a person who stood out in our school. Nobody outside her own group talked about her, she was overlooked, but the only thing she was known for was for breaking the pact. At the beginning of the school year she had been talking to Vic, not knowing there even was a pact. Jessie caught her and told it to Ryan. At least, that’s what I had heard.
No one really knew what Ryan and his friends did to her, but it was well known that she hadn’t been the same since. She was seeing the school counsellor a lot and her arms were covered in bruises. They had beaten her up, maybe even worse.
She wouldn’t be the first, lots of people were beaten up outside school grounds. Simply because the teachers couldn’t do anything about it from there. It would be logical if Ryan and co had a place they usually went to beat up those people. Somewhere no one would find them. They had to have a place like that. It would be difficult to take them somewhere else every time.
And the only people who knew where it was, except for Ryan and his friends, were the people who were beaten up. Why hadn’t anyone seen this before? Damn it!
I had to visit Suzy! Now! I stood up from my bed and threw the yearbook in a corner of my room. I didn’t even think about changing into decent clothes as I put on my sneakers underneath my pyjama pants. I was about to leave my room when I looked at the clock above my bed. It’s only five in the morning. She wouldn’t be awake yet. Was it wise to go there now?
Oh well fuck it. I needed to find my friend before she would get killed. Time was irrelevant at the moment. I walked outside my room, not even trying to be quiet for my dad. I ran down the stairs and raced to the front door.
“Leah, Why are you going to?” I heard my dad say from behind me. He still sounded a little tired.
I refused to look at his face as I was still walking towards the door. I knew that if I did, I would give in and stay with him here. I didn’t want him to worry about me, I was all he had, but sometimes exceptions needed to be made.
“No time to explain, dad. I need to go. I’ll be back before you know it.” I yelled back at him, without looking behind. I went outside and closed the door behind me.
As I was running over the streets, I heard my dad scream after me. “Leah! Come back!” There was pain hearable in his voice and it hurt me, but I didn’t slow down.
After a few minutes of running I had reached the bus stop. I panted out my breaths, leaning against a street light. I knew I shouldn’t have done this, but I hoped I would stop regretting it. I needed Suzy to tell me where Luna was, or this would have all been for nothing.
I took the bus to the eastern part of San Diego, where Suzy lived. I had been at her home one time, we had made homework together. Nothing special and definitely not Worthing repeating.
I stepped out of the bus and realized her house was only a few streets away. I started running, although my lunges were still burning from the running from earlier. I was so lost in the running that I had ran past her house, not noticing. When I realised I stopped so abruptly that I tripped over a trashcan. If this wouldn’t have been such a serious occasion, I would’ve laughed at myself.
Instead, I stood up and walked back to the Suzy’s house. I didn’t hesitate for a moment when I hit the doorbell. Only when I was waiting for someone to open up the door I realized my hands were shaking like hell. Maybe it was the adrenaline?
After a while a sleepy Suzy appeared in the doorstep. She wore a yellow bathrobe and she was even uglier when she had just woke up. I didn’t blame her. It wasn’t like I looked like a model right now. I was wearing pyjama pants with unicorns on them.
“Leah?” Suzy said and she started rubbing her eyes. “What are you doing here? It’s only six in the morning. Why are you wearing unicorn pants?” she looked confused down at my legs.
I waved away her question. “Because they are awesome, but I have something important to ask you.”
She didn’t look impressed. She looked like she just wanted to go back to bed. “Can’t you come back on a later hour?”
I furiously shook my head. “No! This is important! It’s a matter of life or death.”
Suzy looked at me like I had gone crazy, but eventually she sighed. “Alright. Ask away.”
I bit my lip, trying to find the right words to explain this to her. “I need you to tell me where Ryan beat you up.” I eventually decided to say. I know, I’m so good with words.
Suzy’s face went pale and she started to look angry at me. “Goodbye Leah.” She said and she moved to close the door. I was luckily still able to hold the door with my hands. “No wait! You don’t understand! My friend is missing! It might be where she is!” I yelled.
She slowly opened the door again. I would be here until she told me where it was. I didn’t care for her feelings right now. This was actually where Luna could be right now and I was determined to know where it was. I knew when Suzy looked in my eyes, she saw that too.
A mix of fear and shock washed over her face. “Do you think Luna is there?” She asked.
I nodded. “I do think she is there. I suspect Ryan to take all of his victim’s to the same place.”
Then realization hit her face. Suzy wasn’t a dumb girl, she know realized that I was right. She closed her mouth and licked her dry lips.
“Please, Suzy.” I begged when she didn’t say anything.
Still nothing.
“I beg you. You can save her life with this.” I tried.
“But I would risk mine.” She mumbled, more to herself then to me. She just looked at a spot behind me with an empty stare.
“We will protect you, Suzy!” I tried desperately. “We will make sure nothing happens to you.”
“Like you made sure nothing happened to Luna?” She snapped at me, looking me in the eyes. I saw the fear burning in them and I was sure she saw the same in mine.
“Please Suzy.” I tried again, a tear rolling down my cheek. This wasn’t fair. I was so close to finding my friend again. One of my best friends.
The thought of losing her suddenly filled up my mind and I couldn’t stop the sobs that were coming. So I stood there, exhausted, in my pyjama’s, sobbing on the doorstep of a girl I hardly knew. And it would even be for nothing.
“Alright.” She finally said, making hand gestures to calm me down. “I’ll tell you, just please stop crying.”
I wiped away my tears with the hem of my shirt and shot her a smile. “Thank you.” And god, I was thankful.
And then she told me where she had been beaten up. The shed. She told me about the horrible shed. And she told me where it was. I thanked her again and I started running. We couldn’t waste my time. I knew it wasn’t smart to go there on my own, but I needed to. It was like the weak version of myself was replaced by a hero, someone who was capable of saving people.

Notes

heyyy guys!!!

ohhhh! So what do you guys think will happen? and finally a part of the story from Leah's Point of view. What do you guys think of her?

omg, Casey is definitely one of my favourite characters of this story. In the sequal, I will definitely let her move to America. Just so I can write more chapters with her in it XD

I love you guys! thanks for all the sweet comments <3

xxxx

Nicky