𝐈𝐧𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝

Chapter Forty-One: Ice Cream and Stories

I placed my fleece into my bag and swiveled around to see Sebastian with his hands in his pockets and his classic smirk.

"Hey," he gave me a close-lipped smile.

I quickly turned back around to zip up my bag. "Hey," I replied. Once it was zipped, I stood up and brushed imaginary dust off of my pants.

"Wanna walk?" he shrugged.

I smiled and nodded. Sebastian grinned and we started walking.

"So how did all of this happen anyway? I know you've explained it before, but you've never really told me the whole story," Sebastian looked at me curiously.

"Are you sure you want to know the whole story?" I replied sarcastically, widening my eyes and pretending to be mysterious.

"Well, I already know you got shot, what could be worse?" he joked, gesturing towards the light pink scar on my arm.

Oh, don't even start. Getting shot was probably one of the least worst things to happen to me over the course of a few weeks.

"Well, it actually started at tennis practice, believe it or not, when the asteroid hit," I began to explain, tilting my head to the side as I dug into my memory. "Then we were taken hostage - sort of - by this guy from Monarch named Hendrix. That's when I met Dylan, but he didn't tell me his name yet. The first time I met him I started calling him Three because his agent number was 303," I continued.

Sebastian listened intently while he looked around the mall, his eyes landing on a Baskin Robins. "Ice cream?"

I smiled and nodded my head to which Sebastian grinned and ran over to the store, pulling me along excitedly. I forgot how much he loved ice cream. Once we got there, he slipped behind the counter and stood over the row of ice cream.

"What flavor?" Sebastian asked.

I eyed the ice cream flavors that were displayed in the plastic case.

"But don't tell anyone, there's a limited supply of this stuff and I'm not willing to share," he warned, smirking and gesturing towards the ice cream.

I thought for a second, weighing my options before pointing to chocolate.

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "Seriously? Chocolate?" He shot me a disappointed look.

"What? What's wrong with chocolate?" I asked.

"You gotta be more adventurous, no more picking basic ice cream flavors," he explained, giving me a light smirk as he pulled back the plastic case of the ice cream display.

"It's not basic! It's classic, trustworthy, and delicious. Three necessary things," I countered defensively, "and I think breaking my friends out of a highly guarded organization is pretty damn adventurous, don't you?" I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the counter.

Sebastian gave me a look that said 'seriously' and turned back to the ice cream.

"No cones?" I asked as Sebastian began scooping chocolate ice cream into a cup.

"We ran out after a while, the mall didn't really get a chance to restock after the asteroid hit," he explained, handing me the cup along with a spoon.

"How much ice cream did you eat?" I mumbled as Sebastian scooped himself some Rocky Road and took a spoon. He walked out from behind the counter and led me to the front of the ice cream store once again.

"Well, I needed to get through this apocalypse somehow. Alcohol helped, but ice cream sealed the deal," he said sarcastically and we began walking again. "Now that we have the necessary requirements for chatting, let's continue."