Chereads / Turncoat / Chapter 7 - lost in sorrow

Chapter 7 - lost in sorrow

We stayed at that same building for a year. Building a family, meeting new people and overall forming our own community in the desolate village. My relationship with Kieran and Lucas remained the same, strange. Yet it was Kieran and Cara who seemed incredibly close. Not even a battle could tear them apart, and the insanity that they believed that nobody had seen the looks they exchanged.

It seemed Cara had given up on her quest to have Luke.

Lucas became my best friend, and even started to give me more freedom. He seemed proud of the person I'd become, the person that could hold herself and the person that didn't need him to hold my wrist and guide me through the darkness anymore, and yet the insanity that we believed that nobody had seen the looks we exchanged.

We'd had run ins. Thinking we'd seen people wandering through the nearby meadow and panicking but they'd never even come close.

Our group had grown, too. Consisting of not only the four of us but now two twins, Noah and Bryony and then their younger brother Hunter. Who were just as tormented as the rest of us, yet somehow three of the most amazing people I'd ever met?

Everything was fine, in fine everything was great. Up until one freezing cold Saturday on November 21st when it wasn't so great anymore.

I woke up that day with Lucas's frantic shouts, shaking me furiously and grabbing my hand to pull me to my feet before I had any kind of say in the matter.

"Elle, they found you."

It was the most terrifying, painful and anxious moment of my life. A moment of scrambling around the ground trying to throw anything worth of value into a bundle and throwing it over my shoulder. No time to change, make myself hygienic or say goodbye to the people I never thought I'd have to leave again. It was too late for them.

Lucas and I were in the first car we could see, my hands trembling as we attempted to override the system and thankfully were successful. The engine sprung to life, "Stairway to heaven" staring to play, a single tear slipping down my face as I watched Kieran and Noah being thrown to the ground. Kieran making eye contact with me and doing the one thing he knew would destroy me.

He saluted. And I lost it. Immediately reminiscing the multiple times he'd done that to me before. One of those being the time he saved my life. I bawled my eyes out, feeling Lucas's hand enclose around my wrist. Him using the other one to steer the car and to get us out.

It hurt. God it hurt. It was worse than my brother, worse than the pain of being alone, worse than any pain I'd ever felt before. Because I knew it was my fault. It wasn't Kieran they were after; it was me. My friends just happened to be the ones caught in the awful crossfire. Agony coursed through my body, and for the first time in months that pit of dread in my stomach seemed to return. I'm so sorry, I thought.

It was only when we were back on a straight road and Lucas had reached over to turn down the music that I realised.

"Luke, where was Cara?"

He shook his head, focusing his gaze on the road. "I don't know. I didn't see her get restrained."

My eyebrows furrowed. "Me neither."

***

I think we drove for around four hours. I passed out halfway through from exhaustion, waking up in Lucas's arms as he carried me out and into a motel. I guess some reassurance was that I wasn't alone this time.

It was strange, not having the sound of laughing around me at all times. Seeing only two people in the mirror.

That night, I wandered down the halls at around 4am. I already struggled to sleep and it didn't help that now every part of me was wondering whether my friends were alive.

I sat round the back of the motel, finding a small cliff on a car park that overlooked the entire city, picking at the dead skin on my fingers and fishing around in my bundle for the last thing I had from Kieran. A small metal pipe he'd found and curved into a ring for me. I burst into tears again then and vowed I'd never let go of it.

Luke found me, of course. Because at that point there was nobody that knew me better. He sat down next to me and didn't say a word. Looking out at the lights.

It was him that spoke first.

"In another life, losers."

I screwed my eyes shut, letting the overwhelming feeling of despair run through my body. Not resisting it this time. I had Lucas. And I could've never dreamed someone like him into existence because I didn't know how much I really needed him.

Luke turned to look at me, staring into my eyes, "Tell me this, Elodie. Which would be worse, to die right now alongside them or to keep going with our lives knowing we only have each other?" I said nothing, but instead did the one thing I thought was right in that moment. The one thing I'd been stopping myself from doing for months.

I kissed him. I put one hand on his face and pressed my lips against his. He immediately kissed me back.

It wasn't an aggressive kiss. It was gentle, but also felt desperate like both of us had been waiting to do it for so long and finally all of that had been worth it. I couldn't help but think back to the first moment I saw him, stepping out of the motel doors and being faced with his emerald eyes staring back at mine.

We stayed on the cliff until the next morning. He fell asleep next to me, my head tucked into him.

It reminded me of somebody I used to know that once did the same thing.

So, I repeated what Luke had said after he was fast asleep. Staring off into the darkness and whispering.

"In another life, Kieran."